Where the Dead Talk (22 page)

"Major?"

It was Carolyn, holding another lantern.

"Have you found anything?" she said.

"We won’t go thirsty," he said.

She came closer, her eyes taking in the casks.

"Anything that can help us get out of here?" she said.

"I’m afraid this ale – while heavenly – only seems to get one into trouble, not out of it."

He pointed at the casks.

"This is why I’m here."

"What do you mean?"

"The ale."

"What about it?"

He shifted his weight, leaning on MacGuire’s boy.

"It does take a certain kind of genius – a flare for mucking things up. I suppose I have that, at least."

"Major, what are you talking about?" she said.

He pointed again.

"I led my men from the city garrison to find this," he said, "and here it finally is. Told them it was a secret powder-hunt, when it was in fact nothing more than my own personal ale-hunt. I simply can't let the moment pass unremarked."

He turned away from the casks.

"I really have carved out a special sort of unimpressive niche for myself, you see. So utterly inept an officer that even my dear old father Lord Pomeroy decided to cut his losses. Mind you, I’m a fourth son and not the heir to the estate – which, of course, opened up the military to me as a path to Pomeroy glory. As that was clearly not forthcoming in spite of the many commissions he’s bought for me; well, he actually sent a letter to me – the first letter I’d ever gotten from him – that informed me that even should all three of my older brothers die I would never, ever inherit the Pomeroy lands, titles, and wealth."

He picked up a pewter mug from a shelf next to the ale. Hefted it twice, then put it back, carefully.

"So why not? Why not leave the Regiment, take liberty of the finest ale in the colony, and say goodbye to the King's Own for good. A nice little black-eye for Lord Pomeroy, in the process. Seemed a stroke of brilliance, at the time," he said. He snorted, a bitter laugh. Pomeroy brushed the top of one of the barrels of ale.

"Of course," he said, "I couldn’t even desert without turning it into a giant cock-up, now could I? Perhaps father and the other officers were right after all."

"We need to get up those stairs," she said.

"You do remember what was up there, don’t you?" he said.

"Do you mean the others? Or is it my family you’re referring to? Or perhaps you’re thinking that we should stay down here so that you can wax melancholy over a few barrel of ale?"

"Hardly."

"Oh, I see," she said.

"See what?"

"You’re craven."

"Pardon me?"

"Might it be that you don’t want to face what you yourself helped to cause?"

"What are you –"

"You just said yourself why you came here with your men in the first place, so perhaps you don’t want to deal with the mess you –"

"Oh, I don’t want to deal with the mess, do I?" he said. "Is that why I used the butt of a musket to bash in the head of one of them – one of my men – that was attacking you, because I didn’t want to deal with the mess?"

She turned away. Pomeroy urged MacGuire’s boy onward, leaning on him and hopping on his good leg.

"And as far as causing things," he said, raising his voice, "you might want to rethink that. I merely had the bad luck to be here when this insanity started. I hardly caused the local militias to erupt into rebellion, and I certainly had nothing to do with people dying with blackened tongues and then marching around this nothing village as shining-eyed corpses. It’s been nothing but one bit of bad luck after another for me, and I’ve only managed to avoid even worse luck through sheer wit."

"Fine," she said, "then use some of that sheer wit to get us up the stairs so we can find the others, Major."

Morrill leaned down from the stairs, his face smudged with dust and sweat.

"Major, sir," he said, "think I found a spot."

The boy squirmed out from underneath his arm, hurrying up the stairs. Pomeroy put his hands out for balance.

"Damn it, boy, I can’t –"

Carolyn stepped over and steadied his arm, then moved next to him. He looked at her then put an arm across her shoulders.

"Thank –"

"Don’t," she said. "Just make sure we get out of here."

He nodded.

Two minutes later, Pomeroy was back on the stairs. They had a crowbar and two axe-handles. The lanterns hissed on the stairs below them, shining through the dust that was thick in the air.

"Right," Morrill said. He was working the bar in next to the beam, each wiggle letting fall a tumble of plaster dust.

"It needs to go higher," Pomeroy said.

His leg throbbed with each beat of his heart, but he was able to rest his weight on his other leg, folded underneath him. They’d given up on trying to move the beam. Morrill had found a narrow triangle of space filled with debris – that’s what they were trying to leverage out.

"Andrew," Morrill said, "tap it with the axe handle."

He leaned back, making room for the older boy to swing the axe handle. One, two, three taps, each one causing rivers of fallen plaster to tumble down onto the stairs in a cloud of dust. Pomeroy looked the other way, squinting his eyes.

"Good," Morrill said, "that’s good enough."

"Is there room for a good yank?" Pomeroy said.

"We’ll make room," Morrill said.

Morrill scooted off to the side. Pomeroy went up another step, high enough to get his hands around the rod.

"Ready?" he said.

They nodded.

"Right then. Pull."

They all pulled down as hard as they could. The debris moved, then hung immobile. The bar began to bend in the middle.

"Harder," Pomeroy said.

It shifted, then began to come down. Bits of wall dropped with a tumbling rattle on the stairs. Suddenly, a large piece loosed a whole cascade of debris. The pieces poured down the stairs.

"Careful," Morrill said.

They moved aside. The stairwell filled with plaster dust. Larger pieces came through, thudding on the wooden stairs. The light from the lanterns was shrouded. Pomeroy coughed and wiped at his eyes. Light came down from above. Daylight.

"Good Christ," he said.

The air began to clear a bit. Pomeroy moved up below the beam. The hole upwards was a triangle, with debris hanging out over the sides. Over the edges, he saw the sharp blue of early morning.

"What is it, Major?" Morrill said.

"Do you remember the kitchen?" Pomeroy said.

"Yes."

"Do you remember seeing right through the ceiling to the sky?"

"No, sir."

"Neither do I," he said.

Morrill mumbled something, but Pomeroy wasn’t paying much attention. He was trying to wedge himself up through the hole. He had to reach up and wrench a few boards out of the way. He could almost get his head and shoulders through. It was awkward. He pulled back down, into the darkened stairs.

"Brace me," he said.

Morrill shouldered his legs and lower back as Pomeroy poked his head through the opening once more. As he went up, he had to squint his eyes against the sudden light. He got his head and shoulder through.

"Alright, shove me up, boys," he called out.

They pressed him upwards. He clamped his jaw down against the scream that wanted to peal out of him when one of them bumped his lower leg. He stretched both arms out and grabbed another wide beam, pulling until he could get his good leg up and onto the surface. Wriggling like a fish, he got himself all the way out without knocking his bad leg. He lay on his back for a moment, gulping in the cool morning air. The sun was rising through the trees. A handful of chickadees swirled overhead, then darted off. He got up and knocked some of the plaster dust from his breeches.

The tavern was destroyed, utterly. All about was broken wreckage, a chaotic pile of beams, bricks, stone, and cracked walls. Nothing reminded him in any way of the building that had stood here before.

"Major?"

The face of the older boy rose up through the hole he’d just climbed through. The boy extended a hand.

"Of course," Pomeroy said. He reached down and wrapped his hand around the boy’s wrist, pulling. The boy wriggled through much more easily than he had, getting quickly to his feet. Once up, the boy looked around with wide eyes, shining through the plaster dust that covered his face.

"How –" was all he could seem to get out, turning and looking over the damage and up at the trees and field beyond the stable.

"In a way that we’re lucky not to have seen any more closely, that’s how," Pomeroy said. "Help the others up."

The boy turned and began helping his brother up. Pomeroy looked around and spotted a musket, nearly buried underneath stone rubble. He yanked it free as he put his weight down very gingerly on his bad leg. The barrel was bent, right at the end. It wasn’t loaded.

"This will do," he said.

He tucked the musket butt underneath his right arm and used it as a crutch. Choosing his path carefully, he worked his way across a wide piece of fallen slat wall, feeling it crack further beneath his weight. Across the way, he could see the town green and the fallen chestnut in the center. Beyond that, the church shone bright in the morning sun. It couldn’t yet have been seven o’clock.

Where were the others?

Surveying the debris, his hope that they’d somehow found a way out of the building evaporated. No one could have survived the fall of the building. As to what had happened afterwards – the terrifying presence that had passed over them – well, perhaps they were better off having perished when the walls and second story fell in on them. He stepped carefully on over the wreckage of the inn, leaning on the bent musket. It was difficult to even tell where he was in relation to how the inn had stood. The kitchen, or the common room – he couldn’t get any bearings other than the hole that Morrill was now coming out of being the stairs at the end of the kitchen. Parts of the building were still high up, where parts of the second story had come nearly straight down.

Then he saw the boots. They poked out from beneath a section of ceiling. He hobbled down over the debris, and slid at the very bottom. There was a space created by the fallen ceiling as several angular pieces of it rested on some crushed cabinets and the large table that had lost its legs. It was the tavernkeep, on his stomach. Pomeroy came to a rest next to his shoulder. The bottoms of his boots crunched on the broken plaster.

"Brewster," he said. He reached out and tapped the tavernkeep’s cheek, which was white with a dusting of plaster powder.

"Don’t you be dead," Pomeroy said. The cheeks were cold. He shook the shoulder. "Come on now, don’t do this."

The tavernkeep stiffened, then started with a sharp inhale.

"There we are, man," Pomeroy said. "You’re alive."

The tavernkeep coughed and groaned. His eyes opened, then blinked several times.

"What –" he said. His voice was thick.

"Rise and shine, Brewster," Pomeroy said.

The tavernkeep coughed and spat, blinking his eyes.

"Major Pomeroy?" he said.

"No. George the bloody Third."

The tavernkeep wriggled, then turned his head to look up at him. Fear pinched his eyes.

"Where’s Elizabeth?" he said.

"We're looking," Pomeroy said. "Are you hurt?"

"Shoulder," he said.

"Can you get out?" Pomeroy said.

"Something on my back."

"That would be your tavern," Pomeroy said. "Let’s see what we can do about this."

He started back up the debris.

"Wait here," he said.

Back over the pile, Carolyn was just climbing from the cellar. She and the others were dusted in white, looking quite like actors made up to play the part of ghosts.

"Morrill, boys," Pomeroy called to them, "this way. Let’s get the tavernkeep out, shall we?"

It took them nearly half an hour to pull off bits of roof and wall and ceiling, then get at the beams that were crisscrossed over the tavernkeep, pinning him down. If it hadn’t been for the cabinet that had fallen across the table, the beams would have broken him in half. They were able to pull the last beam off of him, everyone lifting one end, straining while the tavernkeep wriggled out. He got to his knees, then his feet. He held his left shoulder.

"How bad is it, Jude?" Morrill said.

"Busted up pretty good."

He did look a bit pale, and it wasn’t just the dust. His left arm hung down at an odd angle. Just looking at it made Pomeroy’s own shoulder hurt. There was a tearing sound. Carolyn ripped off a strip of cloth from the hem of her dress, a circle all the way around the bottom. When it was free, she stepped over to the tavernkeep.

"Hold your arm close," she said.

With a grimace, he pulled his arm in close to his chest, bent at the elbow. Carolyn wrapped the cloth around him, a crude sling to keep his arm from moving.

"Is that alright?" she said. He nodded.

"I have to find Elizabeth," he said.

Pomeroy turned and surveyed the rest of the wreckage.

"How close were the others when it came down, Brewster?" he said.

The tavernkeep shook his head.

"Not sure. I know they were behind me. After the crash, I heard screams just before–"

He didn’t finish the thought. In a way, he didn’t have to. The look on his face was enough, and even remembering how it felt from down in the sealed basement was enough to send an icy touch up Pomeroy’s spine. It had to have been worse up here. Much worse. Pomeroy turned back to him.

"What was it?" he said.

The tavernkeep locked his dark eyes on him.

"The Devil, Major," he finally said, "only worse."

They searched the debris, working their way carefully through the fallen timbers and stone, trying to cover all of the area between where they’d come up from the basement and where the common room had been in hope of finding MacGuire and Elizabeth.

"They just bloody disappeared then?" Pomeroy said. He limped around the bricks from the chimney.

"Come on, you’ve got to be somewhere," he said.

One of MacGuire’s boys called out. The older one peeked over one of the higher piles of stone.