Mister Slaughter (42 page)

Beyond the ravine, the land sloped sharply downward. Matthew tore through low-hanging pine branches and flinched as vines whipped his face. His eyes darted back and forth. He jumped a mass of tangled roots, landed off-balance and felt a twinge of pain along his right ankle, but it didn't slow him a stride. He kept going, and then through the next group of trees he saw Slaughter running on the decline below him, bursting his way through the foliage like any wounded wild beast might.

Slaughter ran without a backwards glance. Matthew saw him fumbling with the haversack as he fled. Trying to load the pistol while moving? He didn't think even a killer of Slaughter's experience could do that; more likely he was getting everything he needed to hand, and looking for a secure place to stop, pour the powder and ram the ball.

Matthew had to get to him first.

Pine needles slid under his feet. One slip here and he would be on his face. Ahead of him, Slaughter's foot caught on something and he staggered, nearly falling before he crashed off a birch tree and righted himself. Still they ran downhill, Matthew steadily closing the distance, and then Matthew heard above his own harsh breathing the noise of water rushing over stones.

Ahead, down at the bottom of this hill where the trees stood thick and colored vivid scarlet, Matthew saw a fast-moving stream. It ran to the left, between rocky banks, and turned the wheel of a watermill, a vine-covered wooden structure with a brown peaked roof. Through the trees Matthew caught the quick glimpse of a village maybe a quarter-mile distant and further below: small houses, white church, smoking chimneys. One of the villages on the outskirts of Philadelphia.

Slaughter made for the watermill. This time he dared a glance to judge Matthew's progress, and with a bound he was up the mill's three stone steps. He whirled around, facing his pursuer. Matthew saw the powderhorn come out of the bag. Saw Slaughter's arm moving in a blur to seat the patch and ball. Saw the gleam of the ramrod as it slid from the socket.

Matthew felt vines grab at his ankles. He tore free, and was racing toward the steps when he saw the ramrod go down into the barrel.

Ramrod out. Powder in the flashpan. Flashpan snapped shut.

I'm not going to get there
, he thought.

Gun swivelling toward him. Thumb on striker.

Striker going back.

Firing position.

The gun was in Matthew's face, and he saw the striker fall as he was jumping forward up the steps, pushing with every ounce of strength in his legs, the knife in his hand already streaking out.

He heard the click of the flint and the hiss of the sparks. Smoke enveloped him, but before the gun fired and the ball came out the pistol was deflected, because Matthew had chopped an arm into Slaughter's wrist and stabbed at his ribs. But just that fast Slaughter had already sideslipped; he caught Matthew's arm to prevent the knife from biting, and their backward momentum took them crashing through the door.

They tumbled together amid the mill's inner workings. The rotation of the pit wheel, the wallower and the great spur wheel made a noise like muffled thunder. Matthew and Slaughter fell across a planked floor thick with yellow dust and the decay of thousands of dead leaves blown in through the glassless windows. Matthew had not let go of the knife, and as he rolled away from Slaughter he took it with him. Slaughter got up fast, his face pallid with dust and his eyes full of murder. Matthew saw him swell up and become monstrous, huge of shoulders and chest. The arrow's shaft had snapped off at the midpoint in their collision, but the way the man moved he seemed to be suffering no sensation of pain.

Slaughter flung the pistol end-over-end at Matthew, who dodged aside in time to save his teeth. Slaughter then reached into his haversack. He brought out a wicked-looking knife with a horn handle. Matthew thought it was likely the blade he'd used to sever the rope bridge. A dark brown stain below its handle testified to other work as well.

Without hesitation Slaughter rushed Matthew, whipping the knife back and forth. Matthew retreated, striking here and there with the blade but finding only empty air where a body had been. Even wounded, the man possessed a fearsome speed and agility.

"Just lie down, lie down," Slaughter breathed, as he circled. "Lie down, let me kill you, just lie down."

Matthew had no intention of lying down. But he was still backing away, his own knife ready to stab into Slaughter's guts if he had to. Slaughter followed, like a man who smells a particularly juicy cut of steak.

Slaughter feinted and drew back. He moved to the right, the knife carving slow circles in the air. Slaughter's eyes never left Matthew's. There came another feint followed by a fast strike toward Matthew's chest, which he recognized and dodged almost a second too late. He struck out with his own knife, intending to get under Slaughter's guard arm as the man righted himself, but then realized with sickening certainty that he was far too slow, for Slaughter's free hand clamped hard on his wrist. The horn-handled knife rose up. Matthew grasped the arm before it fell. They struggled, slamming back against the wall. A set of shelves collapsed, and with them a box of wooden tools and three or four oak buckets that rolled about the room.

As they fought, straining against each other, Slaughter's dust-streaked face came in toward Matthew's. Closer, and closer still, until Matthew feared the man would try to bite his nose off. Then Slaughter began to laugh, deeply and slowly, as the increasing pressure from his grip numbed Matthew's fingers. The ragged fingernails dug into his wrist. Matthew felt the knife began to slip.

"Just a little more, now," Slaughter whispered, right up in his face. "Starting to break, isn't it? Listen for the bones to snap!"

And then Slaughter twisted Matthew's wrist so fiercely searing pain coursed along the tortured arm through his neck and paralyzed him. He cried out, equally in panic as well as pain, as the knife fell from his frozen hand to the floor. Slaughter released Matthew's wrist to jab at his eyes with the fingernails, an effort Matthew was able to deflect even as he clung desperately to Slaughter's knife arm. Slaughter then grasped the front of Matthew's buckskin jacket, and with a display of awesome one-handed strength whirled around and flung him across the chamber to crash heavily into the base of the opposite wall.

Matthew got up on his knees. He tasted blood. The room swam about him.

Slaughter came toward him almost leisurely, the knife at his side. He was hardly breathing heavily. "Dear Matthew! Don't you know by now? It would take two of you to polish me off. Alas, there is only—"

One of the wooden buckets was within Matthew's reach. He picked it up and hurled it at the man's head.

Slaughter dodged, snake-quick, but not quick enough that the bucket didn't glance off his wounded scalp. Its passage tore the bandage away, brought a hiss from between Slaughter's teeth and caused blood to stream anew from the hideous, raw red furrow above his ear. "Damn it!" he shouted, staggering back and clasping a hand to the injury.
How dare you
, was his tone of voice. He blinked rapidly; blood was in his eye. "Damn—"

He never finished the second oath, because Matthew had gotten to his feet and now he hit the man in the mouth as hard as he could. Even falling, Slaughter swung out with the knife; it slashed across Matthew's chest, carving through buckskin, waistcoat cloth and shirt linen as cleanly as it had cut through the burnt crust of a ham.

Slaughter went down on his back, making the planks squeal and tremble. Matthew had no time to worry about a slashed chest. He stomped on the knife hand; once, twice, again . . . did the man have a grip of iron? Slaughter was trying to grab Matthew's leg, and then he reached up and caught the jacket, but the fingers of his other hand had sprung their knuckles and the knife was loose. Matthew bent down to get it but again Slaughter's nails came at his face. He kicked at the knife, if only to remove it from the killer's immediate choices, and the weapon of murderous destruction slid up under one of the revolving wheels.

Slaughter was on his knees. The arrow wound was running crimson through his hair. Matthew hit him in the mouth again, but Slaughter just grinned with bloody teeth. A fist struck Matthew in the chest and made his lungs hitch for air, another blow smashed him on the right cheekbone and a third hit his jaw and rocked his head back, and then the killer was up and driving him across the floor toward the mechanisms, where a set of pyramid-shaped teeth in one of the groaning gearwheels could very well scrape a face from a skull.

That was Slaughter's intent. He bent Matthew's face toward the teeth, put a hand on the back of his head and pushed. Matthew resisted, the cords and muscles of his neck straining. He thrashed to escape, frantically throwing both elbows, but the man's grip was just too strong. Matthew knew that in another few seconds his fast-dwindling strength would be history, and so too would he be when Slaughter polished him off. Still he fought, and still he knew he was losing. He heard Slaughter grunt when an elbow crashed against his chest, but it was only a matter of time.

Matthew felt himself going. Felt himself giving up, whether he wanted to or not.
Try
? He had tried. Tried all he could. It was not to be. And all those deaths . . . all for nothing . . .

Slaughter released one hand to pound him across the back of the head, which made red comets shoot through his brain. And from the gloom that was closing in on him Matthew imagined that Slaughter leaned forward, as Matthew's face hung inches over the revolving teeth, and whispered something in his ear that was strangely familiar:

"
With a shove and a shriek I pass through the town, and what fast horse might ride me down
?"

Very soon, now. Very soon.

Try.
I'm sorry, he thought. I am all tried out.

Something hit the wheel.

Not his face. Something that sounded like pebbles. Someone had just thrown a handful of pebbles into the room, is what it sounded like. Matthew heard them—four or five, it might have been—hit the wheel and bounce off; one struck the side of his neck and gave him a sting.

All at once Slaughter cast him aside like dirty laundry. Matthew fell to his knees. He stared down at the floor where his own blood was dripping. He was used up, nothing left. He thought he was going to pass out in another few seconds, and lie here like a lamb for the . . . well, yes.

"Who's
there
?" he heard Slaughter roar. The man stalked to the nearest window, which looked toward the woods. "Who's
there
, please?" The diplomat at work. "This is a
private
matter!"

Matthew saw something roll past his face. His eyes followed it.

It was a marble.

Green, it appeared to be. No, not altogether green. It had within it a swirl of blue.

Matthew was dazed. He had seen that before. Hadn't he? Somewhere.

"Show yourself!" Slaughter shouted. He reached into his haversack again—his bottomless bag of horrors, it seemed—and this time brought out the razor, which had an evil glint about it that Matthew had never noted in his own shaving-glass.

"Somebody's spying on us," he heard the man mutter. "I'll fix 'em, just you wait there. I'll fix 'em." And then, louder, "Come on in! Where are you?"

Matthew didn't wish to stay for the cutting party. He looked over his shoulder. At one of the windows on the opposite side of the mill.

If he was going, it was time to get.

Matthew hauled himself up.

With the desperate urgency of someone fleeing Satan Incarnate he ran or hobbled or somehow got to the window. As he heard Slaughter bellow and start after him, he flung himself through the frame.

For a few seconds he was actually riding on top of the watermill's wheel, for he had come out amid the blades. Then he was on the downward slope, he banged the right side of his head on a slat, and suddenly he was in cold water that rushed him away from the mill. How deep the stream was he didn't know, but if his feet dragged the bottom he wasn't aware of it. The chill of the water had given him a start, but now everything was darkening once more, getting hazy around the edges. He went past several half-submerged rocks that he tried to grasp, but the stream was fast and his reflexes seemed to be several seconds behind his intentions. The stream curved to the right, spun him around in white water eddies and picked up more speed.

If Greathouse could see him now, he thought. It was to laugh at, really. To laugh at until one wept. He had the strength of a wet feather. His vision was fading; everything was giving out on him, he had blood in his mouth and a knot on his head and maybe, he thought, this was the end of it. Because his face kept going down into the water, and he couldn't seem to keep his head up.

His chance to get Slaughter was gone. That was to laugh at, as well. Had he ever possessed a chance to "get" Slaughter? He doubted it. The man was unstoppable.

He was very, very tired. His feet found no bottom. The stream was speeding him along, and now Matthew heard a roaring noise that at any other time might have secured his full attention but that now only made him think his life was numbered in minutes and there was not much to be done about that.

There was a waterfall ahead.

He let his neck relax, and his face slipped into the water. He felt like a floating bruise. He felt like an utter failure. There was not much to be done about that, either.

Oh, but he could
try
, couldn't he?

No, there would be no more trying. Not today. He just wanted to drift, to some land where there was neither pain of mind nor body.

He lifted his face up. The water hissed, rushing past boulders with mossy beards. On either side of the stream was thick forest. He could see a fog ahead; a mist, it was. The waterfall's spume. He felt a rocky bottom under his feet, which then fell away again. The sound of falling water was louder, and he wondered how steep the drop would be. He might tumble into a deep, swirling pool, or he might come down on more boulders and drown with shattered bones. He hoped it would be quick.