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MaTTHEW&039;S EYES OPENED with a start The light had dwindled toburned itself to a shrunken stub Beside hi noisily,It took Matthew a few seconds to realize that there was a wetness on his left cheek Then another drop of rainwater fell fro onto his face and he abruptly sat up with a curse clenched behind his teeth

The sudden e one, fro of claws back into its nest in the wall The noise of rain falling fro onto the floor was a veritable tenpence sy an ark was close at hand Perhaps abner was right about it being the end of the world; the year 1700 ht never be marked on a calendar

Be that as it e and a bit ht of his bowels Dao out in that weather and squat down like a beast Might try to hold it, but sos could not be constrained He would relieve himself in the woods behind the barn like a civilized man while the rats did their business on the floor beside the bed Next trip - God forbid - he would reot out of the torture apparatus that passed as a bed The tavern was quiet; it was a slim hour, to be sure Distant thunder ru over the Carolina colony like a black-winged vulture Mattheorked his feet into his shoes He didn&039;t have a heavy coat of his own, so over his flannel nightshirt he donned the ht, which was still daistrate&039;s boots, standing beside the bed, were clotted with &039;s bristle brush to clean Matthew didn&039;t want to take the single candle, as the weather would quickly extinguish it and the wall-dwellers ht become emboldened by the dark He would carry a covered lantern froh illumination to avoid what Woodward had told hiht check on the horses, too, while he was so near the barn

He placed his hand on the door latch and started to lift it when he heard theat the man, he saw Woodward&039;s face wince and contort under the freckled do in the diht Woodward&039;s istrate whispered, very clearly His voice, though a whisper, racked hat Matthew could only describe as a pure and terrible agony "Ohhhhh," Woodward spoke, in his cage of night ann" He drew a pained breath "Hurting he&039;s hurting oh God annhurting " He said soled with another loful htshirt, his head pressed back into the straw His ht have been the memory of a cry, and then slowly his body relaxed and the snoring swelled up once again

This was not soistrate walked in a dark field of pain, but what its source was he refused to talk about Matthew had asked hio, what the trouble had been, and Woodward&039;s response had been a rebuke that Matthew&039;s task was learning the trade of judicial clerking, and if he did not care to learn that trade, he could always find a hoe - delivered with uncharacteristic vinegar - had been clear: whatever haunted the ht was not to be touched upon

It had so to do with his wife in London, Matthew believed ann h Woodward neverhours and never volunteered any inforh Matthew had been in the co fifteen years old, he knew very little about the land This much he did know: Woodward had been a lawyer of some fame and had found success in the financial field as well, but what had caused his reversal of fortune and why he had left London for the rough-hewn colonies res and froreat city; he&039;d never set foot there, or in England either, for he&039;d been born aboard a ship on the atlantic nineteen days out of Portsmouth

Matthew quietly lifted the latch and left the roonawed at black bits of wood in the hearth, though the largest of the coals had been banked for the night Bitter s from hooks next to the fireplace were two lanterns, both made of hammered tin with sht to pass through One of the lanterns had a burnt candle stuck on its inner spike, so that was the illu on the floor, touched it alight in the remains of the fire, and transferred the flame to the candle&039;s wick

"What are you abouti Ehi"

The voice, cutting the silence as it did, almost lifted Matthew out of his shoes He twisted around and the lantern&039;s ht fell upon Will Shawco at one of the tables with a tankard before him and a black-scorched clay pipe clenched in his teeth

"You up prowlin&039;, boyi" Shawcombe&039;s eyes were deep sunken and the skin of his face was daubed dirty yellow in the candlelight a curl of so out," Matthew replied, still unnerved

Shawcos, then awful sloppy out there"

Matthew nodded He started to turn toward the door, but Shawcoain: "Your master wouldn&039;t want to part with that fine waistc&039;t, would hei"

"No, he wouldn&039;t" Though he knecoo past "Mr Woodward is not my master"

"He ain&039;t, huhi Well then, how come he tells you what you can do and what you cain&039;ti Seems to me he&039;s the master and you&039;re the slave"

"Mr Woodward looks out for my interest"

"Uh huh" Shawcombe tilted his head back and fired a dart of se, then he won&039;t even let you dip your wicki all that shit about wolves and how you ought to be guarded and you a twenty-year-old man! I&039;ll bet he makes you scrape the mud off his boots, don&039;t hei"

"I&039;m his clerk," Matthew said pointedly "Not his valet"

"Does he clean his own boots, or do youi"

Matthew paused The truth was that he did clean the istrate&039;s boots, but it was a task he did without co the judicial paperwork, keeping their living quarters in order, darning the clothes, packing the trunks, and arranging sundry other small affairs - had fallen to Matthew si care of details

"I knew you did it," Shawcoot blue blood in his veins He don&039;t want to get them hands too dirty, does hei Yeah, like I said, he&039;s the master and you&039;re the slave"

"You can believe what you like"

"I believe what I see," Shawcombe said "Come over here, lemme show you soht ant to have a look" Before Matthew could decline and go on his way, Shawcoht fist and opened it "Here&039;s somethin&039; you ain&039;t never seen before and ain&039;t like to see again"

The lantern&039;s light sparked off the surface of a gold coin "Here!" Shawcombe offered it to Matthew "I&039;ll even let you hold it"

against his better judg on his bladder - Matthew approached the man and took the coin froraving It was a orn piece,rubbed off, but at its center was a cross that separated the figures of two lions and two castles Matthew could make out the faint letters Charles II and Dei Grat around the coin&039;s rim

"Knohat that isi" Shawco of Spain," Matthew said "So this ht Spanish You knohat that means, don&039;t youi"

"It ot this from a dead redskin&039;s pouch Nohat&039;s a redskin doin&039; with a Spanish gold piecei" He didn&039;t wait for Matthew to venture a guess "Means there&039;s a damn Spanish spy &039;round here somewhere Stirrin&039; up some trouble with the Indians, most like You know them Spaniards are sittin&039; down there in the Florida country, not seventy leagues froot spies all in the colonies, spreadin&039; the word that any black croho flies froets to the Florida country can be a free i The to criminals, murderers, every like of John Bad-seed"

He swiped the coin from Matthew&039;s hand "If you was to run to Florida and your master was to want you back, theh at him Saet to Florida, them Spaniards would protect him I tell you, once them blackaettin&039; turned into free onna roast in Hell&039;s fires" Shawcombe dropped the coin into the tankard, which still had liquid in it, judging fro his pipe with his ar nod, "a Spanish spy&039;s out there, payin&039; the redskins to get up to soht even be livin&039; in Fount Royal, an Englishman turned black-coat!"

"Possibly" Matthew&039;s need for relief was now undeniable "Excuse o"

"Go on, then Like I say, watch where you step" Shawcoet to the door and then said, "Hey, clerk! You sure he wouldn&039;t part with that waistc&039;ti"

"absolutely sure"

Shawcorunted, his head wreathed with blue pipe smoke "I didn&039;t think so," he said in a quiet voice

Matthew unlatched the door and went out The stor now asflashed through the clouds The mud clasped hold of Matthew&039;s shoes a half-dozen steps through the htshirt and urinate where he stood Decorum, however, dictated that he relieve his bowels in the woods behind the barn, for there were no leaves or pine needles nearby hich to clean hilow past the barn, his shoes sinking up to the ankles in a veritable swaathered a handful of wet leaves and then crouched down to attend to his business The lightning danced overhead, he was soaked, muddy, and s, however, could not be rushed no matter how fervently one tried

after what see which Matthew cursed Shawcoain to pack a chamberpot on their next journey, the deed was cohtened up and held the lantern out to find his path back to the so-called tavern Once round opened and closed around his shoes, his knee joints fairly popping as he worked his legs loose fromire He intended to check on the horses before he returned to the so-called bed, where he could look forward to theof rats, and rainwater dripping on his - He fell

It was so fast he hardly kneas happening His initial thought was that the earth had sucked his legs out froht, which he barely had an eye-blink of tiuished So even as he fell on his belly and the istrate&039;s fearnaught coat, he was able to lift his arht He spat er, and said, "Damn it to Hell!" Then he tried to sit up, ht most blinded He found this task harder than it should have been His legs, he realized, had been seized by the earth The very ground had collapsed under his shoes, and now his feet were entangled in so that felt like a bramble bush down in the swaht foot loose but whatever held his left foot would not yield Lightning flared again and the rain started falling harder He was able to get his right leg under him, and then he braced hi up and out of thewas free

But as he shone the lantern down upon his leg, Matthew realized he&039;d stepped into so his ankle

at first he didn&039;t knohat it was His foot had gone right through what looked like a e of soes, one of which had scraped a bleeding gouge in his leg

The rain was sloashing htning helped aid his recognition of what held hi hand

Matthew&039;s anatomy studies did not have to be recollected to tell hih a hue a section of spinal cord was still attached, and on it clung bits of grayish-brown led cry and began frantically kicking at the thing with his other shoe The bones cracked, broke, and fell away, and when the last of the rib cage and vertebrae had been kicked loose Mattheled away from it as fast as the mud would allow Then he sat up aainst a tree trunk, the breath rasping in his lungs and his eyes wide and shocked

He thought, nu to be over the fearnaught coat Such coats were not easy to coe Hu Damn this rain and mud, damn this wild land, and damn Shawcoe, Matthew thought Rain was running down his face now It was cold, and the chill helped hiht&039;ve belonged to an anihtn&039;t iti

The lantern wasHe stood up and made his way over to the broken bones There he knelt down and shone the light upon theht&039;ve co sound soled the lantern toward it and in a few seconds saw that a gaping hole soround; the slithering sound was ht have been what had collapsed under his feet and caused hiainst this incessant downpour He stood up, eased to the edge of the hole, and directed the lantern&039;s light down into it

at first he sahat looked like a pile of sticks lying in the hole Everything was er he stared, however, the more clear came the picture

Yes Horribly clear

He could ht&039;ve been a half-decayed, naked torso a gray knee joint jutted up froers shriveled to the bones, grasping upward as if in a begging gesture for help and there was a head, too; mostly a mud-covered skull, but some of the flesh remained Matthew, his , could see how the top of the skull had been crushed inward by a savage blow

a hammer could&039;ve delivered such a death, he realized a ha mallet

Perhaps there were more corpses than one in that burial pit Perhaps there were four or five, thrown in and entangled together It was hard to tell how reat number of bones None of the bodies see

Hey, clerk! You sure he wouldn&039;t part with that waistc&039;ti

Matthew felt the earth shift and slide around his feet There was a noise like a dozen serpents hissing and, as the ground began to collapse around hi pushed up to the surface like the muddy spars of ships wrecked on vicious shoals Dazed as if locked in a night earth as evidence of murders revealed themselves under his shoes Only when he was about to be sucked under into an e his feet up and struggling toward the barn

He fought his way through the rain in the direction of the tavern The iht to his heels He slipped and fell once again before he reached the door, and this time the lantern splashed into a puddle and the candle went out Red h the door, he saw that Shawcoh the tankard was still in its sa pipe se to shout a warning to the ot into the room and latched the door behind him Woodas still stretched out and soundly asleep

Matthew shook the man&039;s shoulders "Wake up! Do you hear h to pierce the veil of the an to rouse hi to focus "We have to get out!" Matthew urged "Right now! We&039;ve got to - "

"Good God in Heaven!" Woodward croaked He sat upright "What happened to youi"

"Just listen!" Matthew said "I found bodies out there! Skeletons, buried behind the barn! I think Shawcombe&039;s a murderer!"