He cranked the bucket up. He could look to the northeast and see—beyond several more houses and wooden fences—fishing boats and canoes pulled up upon a swampy shore. The River Solstice flowed past Jubilee, merging into the Cooper only two hundred yards to the southeast. It was notable in that it was a third as wide as its larger brethren, which was nearly a mile across in places, but seemed in what he’d seen of it so far through the trees and underbrush to be a nervous river, full of twists and turns in contrast to the Cooper’s stately progress. Indeed, the North Road—a weatherbeaten trail, at its best description—had led him alongside the Cooper for a time before hiding it behind dense forest, and then had revealed it again near the point where the two waters converged.
Though the sun shimmered on the surface of the River of Souls in bright coinage, Matthew thought the water in its vault looked dark. Darker than the Cooper, it appeared. More gray in its belly, and fringed with the black of swamp mud where it agitated the earth. Across the river was naught but further wilderness, a whole country of it.
Matthew took his tricorn off and used his hand to scoop up some water. He drank first, then wet his face, hair and the back of his neck. The cloud of biting insects that had been swirling around him and darting into his eyes for the better part of the last hour retreated, but they would soon be back with—Matthew was sure—reinforcements. In this swampland, such a battle went on incessantly.
He saw that a large cornfield stood northward, and along with it a grainfield of some variety of wheat. Jubilee thus maintained itself as a farming community, but it appeared that visitors here were few and far between. And just as Matthew thought that and was taking another slurp of water from his palm, a wagon being drawn by four horses came trundling down the same narrow track he’d followed from the North Road, where the word Jubilee was painted on the trunk of a huge mossy willow. The wagon’s wheels stirred up another floating curtain of yellow dust, people stepped aside to get out of the way for it seemed the wagon’s driver had no qualms about running anyone over, and in another moment the wagon passed Matthew and the well and pulled up in front of the general store.
The rawboned man with the raven’s feather in his hatband stood up in greeting, at the same time as four young black males—slaves, without a doubt—who’d been riding in the back of the wagon got out and stood obviously waiting for a command. They were dressed not in rags but in regular and clean clothing of white shirtings, black trousers, white stockings and boots. The driver was a white man, thick-shouldered and dark-haired, also wearing simple clothes. A second white man, who’d been sitting alongside the driver, climbed carefully down from the plank seat and he was the one to whom Sir Raven’s Feather spoke. This individual was older, wore a gray shirt and a pair of dark green trousers with stockings the same hue, and had some difficulty with his right leg, for he limped and it seemed to pain him. After a quick conference with Sir Feather he motioned the slaves to go into the store. They obeyed, and a moment later were engaged in the labor of bringing out barrels and grainsacks to load onto the wagon.
Supplies for the Green Sea Plantation, is what Matthew surmised. The wagon’s driver did not offer to help the loading process; he was content to light a pipe from his tinderbox, sit back and watch the slaves earn their keep. The distance between Matthew and the driver was not too far for Matthew to note on the man’s right forearm a medical compress fixed in place by a wrapping of cloth bandages, as his sleeves were rolled up. So there was the overseer who’d suffered the horse bite, Matthew thought. And from Matthew’s knowledge of medicine Dr. Stevenson’s compress, to soothe the wound and draw out infection, would be a soft mixture of meal, clay and certain herbs wrapped up in cheesecloth, heated and applied to the wound. Matthew assumed that the doctor had left more of the mixture at the plantation and instructions on how to change the compress, for within a short time the application would be dried out and unworthy.
Some of the citizens came to watch the wagon being loaded, as the slaves worked quickly at their task. Dogs barked and scampered around, enjoying the activity. Other citizens edged closer to Matthew, still curious about his presence. And suddenly Sir Feather pointed toward Matthew, and with a puff of pipesmoke the overseer took Matthew in and the older gentleman in gray and green also turned his head to view the visitor.
Matthew nodded, as he was suddenly the center of attention. The older gentleman spoke to Sir Feather once more and then came limping toward the well. His right leg seemed to resist bending at the knee.
“Good day, sir,” said Matthew as the man neared.
“Good day to you,” the man rumbled. He was tall and slender but powerful-looking in spite of the recalcitrant leg. He was perhaps in his mid-forties, with dark brown hair brushed back from the dome of his forehead and just touched with gray at the temples. His was the face of a fighter, all sharp angles and ridges and the beak of a broken nose. His brown beard had been allowed to grow long down his chest and was also streaked with gray like the zigzagging of lightning bolts. A pair of deep-set, penetrating hazel eyes made Matthew think of a hawk sitting above him in a tree, regarding him with avian intensity to figure out what he might be made of: animal, mineral or vegetable? Or, rather, if he were worth the trouble of figuring out such, for this man carried with him a certain attitude like a hard push to the chest. One wrong word or motion here, Matthew thought, and this man would fly in his face like, indeed, the hawk in the tree.
He decided to announce himself. “My name is Matthew Corbett. I’ve come from Charles Town.”
“Well,” answered the other, “of course you have.” This was said with nary a slip of a smile; the eyes were still measuring him, taking him apart here and there, examining, coming to some conclusion. “I am Donovant Kincannon, the master of Green Sea Plantation.” No hand was offered. “From Green Sea Plantation,” he added.
“I’ve heard of it,” said Matthew. “I was speaking to Dr. Stevenson just this morning.”
“Oh? You’re a doctor?”
“No, not that.”
“A lawyer,” said Kincannon. His thick brown eyebrows went up. “I thought I could smell the odor of law books.”
“No,” said Matthew, now presenting a slight smile in spite of this jab, “though I do enjoy reading. I’m a problem-solver, from New York.”
“A what?”
“I am hired to solve people’s problems for money,” Matthew explained.
Kincannon grunted, his eyes still hard at work darting here and there, putting the pieces of this young man together like a puzzle. “I’d heard people were insane in New York. I fear this proves it.”
“I am good at my work, sir.”
“And you’ve been hired to solve a problem here? In Jubilee?”
“No, sir. I am just passing through. I’m in search of the house of Magnus Muldoon.”
“Hired by Muldoon? What’s the problem?” Kincannon removed his attention for a few seconds to watch the slaves filling up the wagon with the barrels and sacks, while the horse-bit overseer continued to sit and puff on his pipe.