Alexander C. Irvine (17 page)

March had come
in like a lion all right, Archie thought as he paged through the day’s
Herald.
Nothing but rain and sleet for the past week, driving all but the hardiest vendors under overhangs and into empty storefronts. Belinda’s Bright had been full nearly to bursting with grouchy day-laborers, faces red from the stinging ice and hands raw from the cold, when Archie stopped in the night before to thank Belinda for her kindness and let her know he’d found better circumstances.

Better financial circumstances, at least; his mental situation, on the other hand, had deteriorated. With the rain had come the dreams, seemingly refreshed after their three-week absence; each night since the beginning of the month Archie had awakened with his head full of the fluting sounds of the chacmool’s language and his hands locked tightly around the hilt of his knife. Had he experienced a week like that before visiting Barnum, Archie was sure, New York’s literate citizens would have been glancing at his obituary some weeks past.

The information Barnum had provided him had quite literally saved Archie’s life. He was still terrified, but it was peculiar how a little knowledge enabled one to face demons and summon up a certain resolution. All the different elements—the chacmool, Riley Steen, the feathered medallion, Barnum himself—fit together, forming one vast frightening pattern whose edges Archie could not yet discern.

Aaron Burr, as it turned out, had been the first to piece it all together. A Tammany man since youth, he had uncovered in the Society’s archives information that nearly made real his dream of forging an empire that would have stretched from the Appalachian Mountains to the western frontier and down into the jungles of Mexico. Archie had been born in the year 1806, when Burr was just beginning to set his plans in motion, with financial backing from the Tammany Society and an Irish businessman named Har-man Blennerhassett. He’d read of the Burr Conspiracy in school, where it had been presented as the treasonous, delusional fantasy of a cowardly egomaniac. An aspiring Napoleon, one of Archie’s teachers had called Burr. But Phineas Barnum saw things a bit differently.

The American Museum’s collection, Barnum told Archie, had been accreting gradually since 1791, when it was first established by none other than the Society of St. Tammany. Like most of the Society’s endeavors, the collection was assembled for an ostensible civic purpose that disguised more nefarious aims, and its library, according to Barnum, contained many “extremely interesting and equally scandalous” items. The Society, demonstrating its short attention span, left the collection to molder in a storeroom and eventually sold it to a John Scudder, who included some of the more attention-grabbing pieces in the original American Museum, which he built in 1831. Barnum himself finagled the purchase of the museum building and its collection in 1841, despite shadowy opposition from a group of comperitors which, he said, he later determined to have included Riley Steen.

While cataloguing his new assets, Barnum had discovered several books of “arcane scholarship,” one of which was an English Translation of the
Wallam Olum,
the Red Record of the Lenni Lenape, or Delaware Indians. This tale, of considerable anthropological importance in its own right, was accompanied by an explication written by none other than Aaron Burr.

Archie had held up a hand at this point in Barnum’s narrative, meaning to ask what all of this had to do with the chacmool and Barnum’s murdered watchman, but Barnum shushed him as he might have a too-boisterous child in the museum.

“Connections in all of this will become clear, Mr. Prescott,” he said. “But you have to think as well as listen.”

“Think about what?” Archie had replied.

“The
Wallam Olum
records the migration of the Lenape people from somewhere far to the northwest—Burr believed it to be Asia, but I’m sure you’ll agree that’s preposterous—to their present location in the Delaware Valley. Along the way, Mr. Prescott, the
Wallam Olum
narrates a series of battles between the Lenape and an enemy tribe called only the Snake, who were eventually driven down inro ‘the land of swamps.’ “

Barnum patted his pockets, then found matches in one of the desk drawers and lit a lamp. Outside, the sun was dropping behind St. Paul’s Chapel across Broadway, and the small library had gotten dim. “I don’t have all the answers for you, Prescott, but I will tell you this: Burr spent much of his time in Kentucky during the months leading up to the collapse of his plan, and I have it on good authority that he visited the Mammoth Cave there at least once. The mummy, or more properly the chacmool, came from that cave to Philadelphia, where I purchased it from Steen. And Tamanend, the Lenape chief who appears both in the
Wallam Olum
and in the memoirs of William Penn, is the same saintly figure from whom the Tammany Society took its name. Too many connections exist for me to believe them all coincidental.”

With that, Barnum had gone to a shelf and removed a slim volume bound in cracked leather. “I have a notion,” he said, “that those connections will become considerably clearer once you have had a chance to peruse this.”

Archie had spent the last three weeks muddling through Burr’s translation of the
Wallam Olum.
Much of the exegesis, scrawled in margins and on facing pages, was beyond him; convoluted mathematics stood side by side with references to wildly deranged Mexican cult rituals and vituperative rants directed at Thomas Jefferson.

The overall shape of things began to come clear, though, as Archie worked his way through the text. The chacmool was one figure in a war that had gone on since the time of the pharaohs, when the Lenni Lenape had first encountered the Snake in—where? Oregon? The Dakota Territories? And now Archie found himself bound up in these events, swept along as they roared toward a critical moment that would come sometime in April.
The Death of the Fifth Sun,
Burr had called it, and dated it April 3, 1807. Seeking to harness the chacmool’s power, he had worn ruts in the roads of Kentucky during the years 1805 and 1806 in his efforts to ferret out the avatar’s hiding place.

So Riley Steen is following in Burr’s footsteps, trying to bring the chacmool to heel, Archie thought, sipping coffee and hearing a shutter somewhere bang in the blustery wind. But what does he expect from it? Why does he think he needs it? He must think it’s going to happen this April.

April 3, 1843. Four, three, forty-three.
Dear God,
Archie thought,
what would old apocalyptic William Miller make of that?
And Jane’s birthday had been April third. Lately it seemed as if some cruel fate was forcing Archie to be constantly reminded of her, as if every event conspired to thrust her before him.

But despite all of the information he’d gathered, Archie’s understanding of the situation came up short against a featureless wall of uncertainty. What was the Fifth Sun, other than a measure of time? And how did its death, or ending, bear on Burr’s plans for a western empire?

More important, why had he failed?

What was clear was that Archie had to somehow confront this chacmool, whatever it was, and break the hold it had over him. But Christ in Heaven, if it had fled to Kentucky, how would he ever find it?

Too many questions, and answers would be gained only by acting. Like getting back on a horse after being thrown, Archie thought, only the horse isn’t usually trying to kill you. The chacmool had turned down a chance to kill him once, had even stepped back in a posture that Archie could only describe as deferential— but Archie wasn’t at all certain that it would be so respectful now.

The thing to do now was find it, and Archie had tested his newfound resolve to its utmost by enlisting the help of the mad little guttersnipe who thought she was his daughter. The network of urchins and street arabs was keeping a collective sharp eye out for a Negro dressed in green feathers. He hadn’t mentioned the canoe full of gutted children found on Christmas Day—or the horror he’d felt when he realized what he must have been mimicking when, in his three-week fugue in the Old Brewery, he’d tried to row himself across a privy trench.

Archie hoped that one of the children would see the beast near its lair—if it hadn’t already fled New York—and he was absolutely praying that none of them would be hurt because of his request. But he was getting desperate, and, if Burr was to be believed, for good reason. Burr had flatly stated that the “New Sun” would be ushered in by some sort of ceremony to take place in Kentucky. If the chacmool slipped past the army of children before Archie could locate it, he would have to search an entire western state during the next three and a half weeks. If he wasn’t successful, the chacmool would probably disappear into the Mexican jungle after its New Sun was established, and Archie would be left with hallucinatory nightmares for the rest of his life.

Seeing his reflection in the restaurant’s front window, Archie considered that despite his persistent confusion, some good had come of meeting Barnum. His hair had sprouted some more gray, and he was still thin, with a crooked nose and a missing ear; but Barnum’s thousand-dollar reward had bought him a new suit of clothes, a haircut, and a hotel room with a feather mattress. Most of it, seven hundred dollars, sat in the form of a cashier’s check in Archie’s breast pocket. The rest he had in bills and gold, jingling pleasantly when he walked.

And Belinda’s Bright was a memory now, not entirely unpleasant but certainly nothing to provoke nostalgia. I won’t go back there, either, Archie thought. Not even if I spend every dollar of Barnum’s reward chasing a murderous half-human priest of some forgotten Mexican god all the way to Kentucky.

Through his reflection and the droplets of water on the window Archie saw a small boy slink through the crowd and peer in the window. Archie waved to him and he beckoned Archie to come outside, holding his hat against the rising wind.

Probably been run out of the place before for being a nuisance, Archie thought. He dropped a coin on the table and went out to meet the boy.

They hunched together under the hotel’s front awning. “I’m Lucas,” the boy said. “You Jane’s dad?”

No,
Archie started to say, but he caught himself. Best not to complicate matters. “You have news?” he asked, putting on his hat and turning up his collar against the driven rain.

“Sure do,” Lucas said, his eyes dancing with pride and excitement. “Found the nigger myself, on Cherry Street. He’s gone from there, though. We’re following him.”

“It—he’s active right now?”

“Oh, I guess he is. I think he’s gone to Battery Park. You’re supposed to meet Jane there.”

“Fine work, Lucas.” Archie gave the boy a dollar and told him to buy a scarf. Then he strode into the street, braving the freezing rain to hail a cab.

Royce waited until
Archie had gone, then collared the boy. “So this is where you’ve got to, Allie!” he shouted in the startled boy’s face. “Wait’ll Mum gets hold of your worthless skin!”

He cuffed the boy on the ear hard enough to cross his eyes, then dragged him into an alley between Prescott’s hotel and the cobbler next door. Pedestrians on Broadway didn’t so much as glance up, concentrating instead on protecting their faces from the raw late-winter wind.

Once well into the narrow cutaround, Royce shoved the boy against a wall and flicked his cap off with the point of a short knife. “No monkeyshines, now,” he warned. “I’d hate to cut a sprite such as yourself, but just now I’m a desperate man. Where’s our man Archie heading?”

“Wh—who’s Archie?” the boy stammered, wriggling in Royce’s grasp.

Royce flicked his wrist, and an inch-long cut opened on the boy’s chin. The boy cried out and Royce clamped a hand over his mouth.

“Hush, now—I warned you,” he remarked. “Now what’s your name?”

The boy mumbled into his hand. “Lucas,” he said when Royce took a step back and dropped the knife to his side.

“All right, Lucas, tell quickly; me knife hand has the shakes.”

“Battery Park,” the boy blubbered, pressing the heel of one hand against the blood dripping from the point of his chin. “Please, mister, I didn’t know his name was Archie—”

“Shut it, sprite. Move along now and spend your dollar.” The boy ran for his life back out onto Broadway, swallowed by the crush of traffic and the slashing rain.

Battery Park it was, then. Royce was upset, but not terribly; even though it irked him when men he killed wouldn’t stay dead, the second time was always the charm. He slipped his knife back up his sleeve and gave his collar a jaunty turn as he walked briskly to the corner of Fulton, where Charlie waited with a stolen hack.

Jane
anxious
ly
sc
anned
the crowd from her perch atop the statue of Patrick Henry that stood at the southeastern edge of Battery Park, near where the passenger-ferry docks began sprouting from the base of Whitehall Street. The wind and rain had nearly frozen her into a sculpted gremlin on Mr. Henry’s shoulders, and she’d lost her hat some time ago to a swirling breeze that had whirled it away toward Buttermilk Channel. Now her hair was stuck in wet strings to her face, and her bare face and scalp stung with every fresh gust of sleet.

Despite the weather, the Battery and the docks just east of it were crowded with people waiting to take ship.
Wish I could go somewhere,
Jane thought.
I’ll bet it’s lovely and warm in New Orleans or St. Louis today.

Her attention was drawn from the crowds by the sight of a policeman making his way toward her. He had just reached the hedgerow that set off the park from the cobblestoned streets around it, but Jane knew she had a minute at most before she would be run out of the park.

“Come on Da. Damn,” she muttered, her lips moving slowly because of the cold. The black man she’d seen outside her burrow had boarded a steamer just fifteen minutes before. He was dressed normally now, in a heavy sweater and cap, but he carried a bag that, Jane was sure, had his strange feather cloak stuffed into it. His boat had been bound for Philadelphia, and Da would have to hurry to get another that would catch him.

She hadn’t told Da she’d seen the black man—only she knew he was an Indian—before, and as a daughter she felt guilty about it. It wasn’t right to hide things from your Da. But the itching in her scars wasn’t something Jane wanted to explain just yet; she had a feeling that she was growing in some way, that something wonderful was happening to her. After whatever it was happened, Da would be able to understand.

Not that it seemed wonderful all the time. Her scars itched constantly, and it always got worse just before sunrise and right around noon. Why, she didn’t know.

When she looked at her fingers Jane saw that pieces of flesh had come loose and stuck to her nails. Still the itching continued, but she forced herself to ignore it. If she scratched too much, one of the bloody spots might fester.

There was Da, paying a cab and squinting in the rain. Even wet and disheveled from the storm, he looked better than he had in months. He wore new clothes and his face had lost some of the sickly pallor that had frightened her so when she’d spoken with him a month or so ago.

Jane jumped down from Patrick Henry’s shoulders and darted across the lawn toward him, just as the policeman drew near enough to shout out “You, boy, off of there!” Dodging through the hedge, she circled through the crowd before sneaking up behind Da, who was still craning his neck at the crowd.

“You’ve come. Lucas found you, then?” she said, taking his gloved hand.

He started, nearly pulling his hand free, but caught himself. Jane could see, though, that his face bore the same expression it always did when he looked at her. Disgust and fear; why did he have to react that way?

Well, he wouldn’t always. Everything was going to change soon, she could feel it.

“Come on, we’ve got to hurry,” she said, pushing away her resentment one more time.

“Hurry for what? Is it here?” He was looking through the crowd, trying to spot the black man, she was sure. But why had he said
it?

She stopped and took his hand in both of hers. “He’s gone to Philadelphia. You have to follow him, don’t you? There’s another boat in twenty minutes, over here.” She pulled on him, but he held his ground.

“Philadelphia?” Da looked puzzled. He cocked his head as if he was listening to the wind, or voices from the crowd.

“You’ve got to follow him, don’t you?” Jane repeated. “Hurry—the boat’s this way.”

He pulled his hand from hers and rummaged in his pockets, taking out a scrap of paper and a pencil. He wrote quickly and folded the paper before handing it to Jane. “You must take this to the
Herald
and give it to Mr. Bennett,” he said. “It’s absolutely crucial.”

“Are you going?” Jane asked, taking the note. Her voice grew small and shy as she continued. “Have I done well?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m going to follow it, and you’ve done very well. Give that to Bennett, Jane, he has to see it today.”

He left her then, running through the throng toward the dock Jane had pointed out, but she didn’t see him go. The sound of his voice speaking her name rang in her head, bringing hot tears to her frozen cheeks. He had called her by
name. Jane,
he had said.

“Oh, Da,” she whispered, the wind stealing the words from her mouth. “Da, you
know.
You know, don’t you?”

She caught herself before she could burst out sobbing in the middle of this crowd of strangers. The policeman would catch her if she wasn’t sharp. Where was Walter? He was supposed to be keeping lookout. She’d give the message to him and follow her Da. A daughter could do no less.