From the darkness he came to, groggily, with a boot prodding him in the ribs.
“Matthew! Wake up!” Magnus was standing over him, holding a lantern in which the stubs of two candles burned.
“Whazzit?” Matthew managed to say, just barely.
“Listen! Hear that?”
With an effort, Matthew sat up. His stomach lurched. For a few seconds he feared he was going to spew an awful mess of fried squirrels and fiery liquor everywhere. His head pounded as if being beaten by an insane drummer. The room was still spinning, slower now but enough to make him wish to lie back and enter again into the silent land of drunken sleepers.
And then he heard what Magnus was hearing, because Magnus had opened the door to let the sound in: the tolling of an iron bell in the distance, both mournful and frantic.
“Alarm bell’s bein’ rung from the Green Sea!” Magnus said, his voice husky with tension.
“Alarm bell? What? Why?”
“Callin’ for help from Jubilee! Last time that happened there was a fire broke out over there!”
“A fire? On the plantation?” Matthew still couldn’t get the liquor-sodden gears meshing in his brain.
“Sayin’ that was last time I heard the bell ring! They’re needin’ some help! Come on, haul yourself up and I’ll get the horses ready!” Magnus left the room, his boots making the floorboards whine.
Matthew had no idea what time it might be. Full dark had fallen, but how long the potent brew had laid him low was a question mark. In any case, his head was killing him. He tried to stand, staggered and fell back on his rear. Then he sat there for awhile trying to make the room further slow its spinning. What a laugh Hudson would be having at this moment, if the Great One could see him fighting gravity and heavy drink. One cup had become two, then three and four and that had likely been when he’d found the floor. Now it seemed the alarm bell was being rung with more force and frenzy, and though Magnus was revealing himself to be a good neighbor to the Green Sea’s call for help, in truth Matthew wanted only to sit here until morning light.
But that was not to be, for Magnus had brought Dolly and his own black horse around to the front, and he called out, “Matthew! Come on, man, no time to waste!”
Matthew was able to get to his feet on the next try. Where were his coat and his tricorn? He found the hat, half-crushed where he must’ve landed on it when he slid to the floor, but his blurred vision couldn’t find the coat in the gloom of the low firelight. He put the tricorn on as best he could, staggered out of the room to the porch and under the canopy of stars pulled himself up onto Dolly. The horse must’ve feared for her life with such a rider, for she rumbled and tried to sidle away from him, but he got situated and firmly took hold of the reins.
Magnus set off at a fast clip, Matthew following at a slower pace. He had to trust that Dolly would not break a leg between here and the Green Sea. The bell was still ringing, but there was no glow of a fire in the sky. The night was warm and humid, the forest alive with the whirrs and chitters and crick-cracks of a legion of insects. Now that he was directed somewhere, Matthew’s head was clearing a little bit. The pounding had become an erratic drumbeat. He picked up Dolly’s pace to stay closer behind Magnus. It occurred to him that Magnus’ haste to get to the aid of the Green Sea Plantation might have more to do with Sarah Kincannon, and that turning his eyes away from the Lady Prisskitt had focused them on Miss Sarah. Whatever, Magnus was a man on a mission.
The bearded mountain and the young problem-solver wearing a half-crushed and lopsided tricorn turned their horses onto the road that entered the Green Sea. The dust of other hoofbeats hung in the air. The bell had been silenced, yet a feeling of chaos—or danger—lingered. Soon Matthew caught sight of many lights through the willows, and then rounding a bend he and Magnus came upon the plantation house and what appeared to be a mob of thirty or more men brandishing torches and lanterns. It appeared that some of the men had arrived on horses, in wagons and some on foot. Rising from the trampled grass like small flickering candles were dozens of fireflies, lured by the illuminations.
The plantation house was two-storied, fashioned of red bricks with four white columns standing out in front. Lights showed in most of the windows. The mob was milling about the house as if waiting for someone to emerge.
Magnus reined his horse in and swung himself off, and Matthew did the same though much less gracefully, for upon hitting the ground his knees crumpled and he nearly fell flat. He was composed enough to hear the response when Magnus clapped his hand on a man’s shoulder and asked, “What’s the commotion?”
“Sarah Kincannon,” the man answered, as he held his torch aloft and sparks swirled above them. “She’s been murdered.”
Seven
Before either Matthew or Magnus could utter another word, the plantation house’s front door opened and out came the stocky overseer Griffin Royce, who lifted a lantern and shouted to the uneasy crowd, “Silence and bend an ear! I’m speakin’ on behalf of Mr. Kincannon, who right now is in no shape to speak for himself!” He gazed across the mob until he got the silence he demanded. “As you may already know,” he went on, “there’s been a terrible tragedy! Miss Sarah has been murdered tonight, stabbed to death by the young buck slave called Abram! About forty minutes ago Abram, his father Mars, and Abram’s brother Tobey stole a boat. They were last seen by Joel Gunn headed upriver. I’m offerin’ ten pounds to the men who bring Abram, Mars and Tobey back…dead or alive. If the father and brother want to protect a killer, they’ll have to pay too. I’ll be joinin’ the hunt soon as I can. I don’t know how far up the Solstice they’ve gotten or where they’re plannin’ on pullin’ out and headin’ cross-country, but I—and Mr. and Mrs. Kincannon—want those black skins to pay for this crime, with their lives if they won’t give up easy. Any questions?”
“Griff?” a husky brown-bearded man called. “That ten pounds for each skin, or ten pounds in all?”
“Make it ten pounds for each,” Royce replied. “Ten pounds for a set of ears, a scalp, a dead body or a breathin’ one in any condition.”
“They got weapons?” someone else across the crowd asked.
“Don’t know,” said Royce. “Could have knives, maybe.”
“Knives can’t stop musket balls!” another voice nearer Matthew and Magnus called. “Shoot ’em where they stand with my Betsy!” That brought a rumble of nervous and eager laughter, and Matthew thought many in this mob would delight at a slave-hunt, particularly for ten pounds apiece. He had the feeling that most of the men were itching to go, thinking it would be quick and easy work.
“Griff!” called a sallow red-haired man who stood just a few feet away from Magnus. He had a hooked nose and a forehead marked with a deep scar over the left eye. “You say they went upriver? Joel Gunn seen ’em?” He waited for Royce to nod. “Then to the Devil with ’em!” he said, with a spit to the ground. “Let ’em rot up there! I heard the stories and I’m bettin’ most of us have. I don’t know if I’m needin’ to go up that river and leave my wife and boys, no matter how much money Kincannon’s offerin’!”