Bell Weather (25 page)

Tom and Benjamin started slowly, entering the woods as if entering a tomb. They listened hard for hoofbeats or voices in the depths. Bones was sensitive to every faint crackle, snap, and smell. He swiveled his ears and flared his nostrils but was otherwise calm, and he avoided tree limbs and pitfalls without Tom’s guidance as they quickened to a trot with Benjamin behind. The quicker they went, the sooner they would catch her on the road, but Tom was worried they would pass her; she was liable to hide from riders. Worse, she might be trampled if they came upon her suddenly.

Devil’s shroud was everywhere tonight as Nabby had warned, blinding them at intervals and frightening the horses. Benjamin had a long-abiding passion for the mists—some theories he had tested, others he had not—but he made no mention of them now. On they rode.

Bones raised his head and slowed the pace unbidden. The horses stopped together, side by side, and blocked the road. They heard a rider coming fast, dead ahead and not yet visible in the dark. Fifty yards away, Tom guessed, maybe closer. He aimed his rifle up the road and Benjamin cocked his pistol. Bones splayed his forelegs and braced for what was coming.

“Stop!” Tom yelled.

His rifle barrel shook. He hadn’t shot a man in years—three to be exact—and took a long, deep breath before he tightened on the trigger. When the rider didn’t slow, he aimed for the shoulder.

“Wait!” Benjamin said, lowering his gun.

The horse stopped fast, the rider’s hair fluffed forward.

“Help!” Molly said.

Tom was off Bones the second he saw the figure clinging to the horse, or rather dangling by his arm. The man staggered up, badly tangled in his cloak and wearing a mask that had slipped halfway down his face. It covered his mouth instead of his eyes, and he was too dazed and furious to notice Tom and Benjamin. He lunged at Molly’s leg and Molly kicked him off. Tom bopped him on the head with the rifle and he turned, groaning when the muzzle touched him on the chest.

When Molly climbed down, the Maimer’s arm jerked toward her. Tom backed up and almost pulled the trigger.

“We’re tied together,” Molly said.

Benjamin went to her side, used a knife to free her wrists, and pulled her into a hug. Tom gathered up the rope still fastened to the Maimer, ordered him to turn, and bound his arms behind his back. One of the arms was limp: a shoulder out of joint. Tom tied it extra tight.

Molly managed to appear both vulnerable and strong, wary of the Maimer—and possibly of Tom—but upright and facing them and seemingly unharmed. She crossed her arms with confidence, or hugged herself with fear.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“We came for you,” Tom said. He frowned in agitation, not only because of the Maimer and the mystery of his capture, but also because of the flustering relief he wanted to hide—relief that Molly was safe, after his fear of having lost her.

Tom pulled the Maimer to Bones and tethered him to the saddle. He pulled the mask fully off and scrutinized the face, unfamiliar with its narrow eyes and long crooked nose.

“Try to run,” Tom said, “I’ll shoot your leg and drag you.”

“There were two,” Molly said, surprising Tom anew. “The other one’s a long way back without a horse.”

He considered going after the man, and yet as impressive as it was that Molly alone had bested two, there were usually four or five. They couldn’t risk being ambushed.

“We’re leaving,” he decided, climbing onto Bones.

Molly sat on the Maimer’s horse and Benjamin rode beside her. The Maimer limped along under Tom’s pointed rifle. Their pace was nerve-rackingly slow, especially in the devil’s shroud where anyone could jump them. Tom frequently interrupted Molly’s tale of the attack—amazing as it was—to listen for pursuers.

When they finally emerged from the woods, Ichabod charged them with the pole as if to lance them. He recognized his friends and lowered the weapon with a smile. Then he saw the Maimer, raised the pole again, and froze; Nabby had filled his head with tales and superstitions, and she had convinced Ichabod, along with others in the town, that the Maimers weren’t men but demons from beyond. Even Tom kept reminding himself the man was only a thief, not the vaporizing terror he had known by reputation.

Ichabod retreated and busied himself at the dock. He tied Benjamin’s and Molly’s horses to the anchor-line support and led Bones onto the ferry, feeding him an apple. Tom secured the Maimer to the side rail of the raft, waited for Benjamin to take over guarding him, and guided Molly off the dock. The chivalry was needless—she had, after all, taken the raft alone—but served as an apology for driving her away.

She clung to Tom’s arm when they started across to Root, seeming smaller than before despite her unexpected coup. She relaxed him, which was risky when he needed to be watchful, and concerned him, which was foolish since he had her safe and sound. She smelled of candlefruit but also like a child who’d been crying. A group of townspeople stood on the opposite bank of the river, talking amongst themselves and holding lanterns in the dark. He would never hear the end of it—the two of them
again
.

The Maimer looked at Molly with a curious expression. Hostile, yes, but loaded with an undercover meaning, not quite intimate but close enough to question it. Tom turned his face down, pretending not to watch her. She was staring at the Maimer with the same mysterious glow. Molly noticed Tom’s attention, blinked, and turned away, but not before he sensed the link between them: recognition.

They reached the crowded dock. Twenty-odd citizens, presumably roused by Abigail, had come to the river with guns and lights, ready to assist. They’d probably gone to the tavern, learned that Tom and Benjamin had already left, and stood at the bank debating how to proceed without the ferry.

Sheriff Pitt stepped forward. “What in hell’s going on?”

Tom addressed the crowd. “Molly caught a Maimer. Broke a second Maimer’s nose.”

Greater shock would not have been felt if Tom had popped his head off, held it up alive, and sung a verse of “Green Leaves.” Everybody hushed. They looked from Molly to the Maimer with open mouths, squinty eyes, or stupefied mixtures of the two, and only Pitt recovered his wits quickly enough to board the ferry, pistol in hand, and point it at the prisoner’s chest as Tom led him off. Once the lanterns showed the villain was an ordinary man, the crowd found its courage and began to swarm around, following them to the Orange with Pitt at the head, Molly and Benjamin arm in arm, and the Maimer being scrutinized and pushed along the way.

Ichabod returned with one of the men to get the horses they had left on the opposite bank, while another of the group guided Bones to the stables. Tom looked at Molly and considered her escape again. Why had she been bound instead of maimed like the others? Why had the Maimer failed to shoot her when she stole the horse and fled? He watched her so long, dwelling on her shifting eyes and marvelous tousled hair, that he allowed Sheriff Pitt to enter the tavern as if he owned it.

“Bring him into the taproom,” he called back to Tom.

Bess had opened the door and promptly stepped aside, and she seemed more surprised by Tom following orders than she was about the horde surging inward with a prisoner. When Molly passed by, Bess pulled her to her side. The Orange’s guests had stayed awake and looked rewarded by the spectacle. They stood and sloshed their drinks, tipsy but engaged, while some of the townspeople strong-armed the Maimer into a chair.

The taproom could easily accommodate the crowd but they clustered up tight and made it claustrophobic. Tom and Pitt shouldered through and backed them all away. Benjamin and Bess seated Molly near the bar. They gave her a cup of cider, which she drank two-handed, emptying the tankard with a long, hearty draft. Tom tied the Maimer to the chair. He turned to the group and raised his hand, silencing the chatter. Then he told them what had happened, just as Molly had recounted. By the time he finished talking, every eye was on her.

“She’s a pistol!”

“Give her a medal.”

“Well done, you plucky girl.”

“Call her Miss, you fucking boor.”

“We ought to make her sheriff,” someone shouted from the back.

The last, cutting through, slashed Pitt’s fa
ç
ade. Tom focused on the Maimer, so as not to crack a smile. Baiting Pitt wouldn’t help tonight—he knew the greater danger.

Pitt was baited all the same. He told Molly, “It was a ripe piece of luck. They might have cut you into ribbons. You were foolish to run off, risking other people’s lives.”

Molly didn’t answer, didn’t duck or look abashed. The crowd was on her side and, after everything she’d suffered, being lectured by the sheriff was a small thing to bear.

“Leave her be,” Bess said, and everyone agreed.

Pitt flushed and turned his furious attention to the Maimer, asking questions that the whole bristling crowd wanted answers to. What was his name? Who were his companions? Where were the others hiding? The Maimer stared ahead without a ripple of acknowledgment. The crowd grew impatient and began pressing in, and Tom and Pitt were shoved together, touching boots with the prisoner.

“You took a man’s tongue and even
he
said more” came a voice from the back.

“We should start trimming pieces till he talks,” said another.

That
caused a ripple. The Maimer had been lulled by the bland interrogation; now he looked at Tom and Pitt with wide, veiny eyes, seeking reassurance from the safety of the law. There was a tumult in the crowd as someone raised a knife, which was passed hand to hand until it came to Tom’s side, jabbing forward so dramatically the Maimer flinched away.

“Chop a finger!”

“Take an ear!”

“He wouldn’t hear the questions.”

“’Course he would, you dolt. He’d still have the hole.”

Tom and Pitt reached together for the outthrust knife. Pitt got it first and Tom grabbed his wrist. They traded urgent looks and Tom let him have it.

“Back up,” they said together, surprising the crowd with unity. The people did as they were told and cleared a wider space, softening the crush and leaving Tom, Pitt, and the Maimer in a spotlit gap.

“He’s a butcher and a rogue!” someone said.

“He’s got it coming!”

Reasons came forth—frightened children, ruined travel, body parts and property the bastard had to pay for—and when the circle tightened up again and words would not suffice, Tom unslung his rifle and said, “No one’s cutting him up.”

A farmer at the front, named Hooker, grabbed the gun. They stood together, face-to-face, hands upon the rifle. Tom saw the fury and the fear in Hooker’s eyes and so he head-butted him, knocking a bit of sense—or stupefaction—into the farmer’s big skull. He took the gun back and stiffened, daring anyone else to try. Hooker rubbed his head, angry but embarrassed.

“Tavern’s closed,” Tom said. “Everybody out. We’ll lock him upstairs and do it lawful come morning.”

Tom’s fearless reputation from the war, coupled with his temper, gave the order more power than the crowd’s indignation. They respected him and dreaded being banished from the tavern, and when Pitt backed him up and said, “You heard him, off you go,” the disappointed crowd grumbled to the door.

Even the travelers stood to go, carrying their drinks.

“Not you,” Tom said.

They sat and looked chastened.

Once the townspeople left, Tom locked the door and returned to the taproom, where he walked around Pitt without acknowledging their teamwork. He felt profoundly self-conscious after countering the mob, as if by opening his mouth he’d opened himself to judgment.

Molly and Bess sat in the corner holding hands, warm and sisterly. The Maimer slumped forward in the chair, not blinking. His face was moist and grimy, he was trembling at the knees, and his dislocated shoulder sagged pitiably low.

Tom said to Benjamin, “You need to check his wounds?”

“Breaks and bruises,” Benjamin said. “He’ll survive until the morning.”

It was a cross-grained answer from a doctor sworn to heal, betraying his resentment of a man who lived to injure.

“Get up,” Tom said to the Maimer.

He made the prisoner stand without untying him from the chair, forcing him to stoop with the angle of the seat back. They crossed the taproom and started up the stairs with Pitt behind them. Criminals were commonly held in the tavern, and the Orange had a room well suited to the purpose: small and unfurnished, holding nothing but a corncob mattress, with window bars and a heavy, lockable door. They led the Maimer into the room and kept him fastened to the chair.

After Tom had shut the door and left him in the dark, Pitt said, “You’re sure that lock is strong enough?”

“My knots are,” Tom said.

He had misgivings about the prisoner altogether, truth be told, and when Ichabod returned from ferrying the horses, Tom sent him upstairs to guard the room. Back downstairs, he told the travelers, “Go to bed,” and they immediately complied. Nabby emerged from the kitchen, having spent the whole time spinning out flax, and started dousing lights until the shadows spread to dimness. The hearth light pulsed, a minor flame with ticking embers. Benjamin, Pitt, and Bess stood at the bar and grew obscure. Molly alone faced the fire and was soft gold-orange.

Tom stepped beside her and she seemed to hold her breath. “I’m sorry I treated you hard this morning. You’re welcome to stay the night if Benjamin agrees,” he said, ostensibly to free her from the wiry hooks of Abigail, primarily to keep her under his own watchful eye.

“It might be for the best,” Benjamin decided.

“Thank you,” Molly said and subtly clasped her hands, showing fear as much as gratitude. She seemed to feel Tom’s doubts.

Bess crossed the room and hugged Tom around the arms. “I love you, coz,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek, and there were suddenly too many skirts and too much snug affection, given the hardness of the problems he had welcomed into his home.

“Be back at dawn,” he said to Pitt, “before the town comes to get him. Bring as many trusty men as you can find to keep the peace.”