Down: Pinhole (7 page)

“I will hurt you if you don’t start answering my questions. You said I was another one. Another what?”

Dirk wiped at his snotty nose with the back of his hand. “Another live ’un.”

“And you’re not?” John asked sarcastically.

Dirk snorted. “Me? You must be joking! I’ve been dead for over two hundred years.”

John stared at him mutely.

“Better come inside,” Dirk said. “If the sweepers come through they’ll lace you up and ’ave you in irons.”

John cautiously followed him into his house.

With the door closed the small room was dark save for the glow of a modest fire in the hearth. When his eyes adjusted John made out a primitive table with a couple of stools, two cot-like beds, and some cook pots by the fire. The gapped floorboards were caked with mud. It was a rough little place but at least it didn’t smell as bad indoors.

John opened the rear shutter for a quick peek. There was a small plot of tilled land and beyond it a river about a half-mile away.

“’Ungry?”

John shook his head. He’d had breakfast earlier somewhere far away.

Dirk ladled some greasy stew into a wooden bowl and had at it with a wooden spoon.

“Sorry ’bout the dark. Got to keep the shutters closed or the sweepers’ll see in. Got a few candles but they’re dear. Beer?”

“I could use a drink.”

Dirk got up. There was a keg in a black corner.

“You talk funny,” Dirk said. “Know that?”

“I’m from America.”

“’Eard of it.”

“Yeah?”

“Tobacco comes from there, I ’ear. Got any?”

“Sorry. I quit.”

“Why?”

“It can kill you.”

Dirk put two wooden mugs of beer down on the table.

“Not one of me worries. Let’s get to the brass monkeys. Where’s Duck? Do you know where ’e is?”

John tasted the beer, a tiny sip at first. It was sweet, like a barley wine, and strong.

“Not bad,” he said.

“Not bad? It’s the best around. Make it myself, I do.”

John had some more. One of his teeth tingled and when he probed it with his tongue he noticed the filling was missing. He set his tongue roving and found more gaps but ignored the problem for now. “Answer my questions first. Then I’ll tell you what I know about your brother.”

“Fair ’nough. Ask away.”

“What is this place?”

“You don’t know?”

“Son, I have no idea.”

Calling him son seemed to have a good effect. His face softened and his lips began to quiver.

“It’s ’ell. That’s what it is.”

John shook his head. “First impressions: it does seems like a shithole, but you’re not answering my question. Where are we?”

“I told you, didn’t I? It’s ’ell.”

John felt his anger rising. He wanted to reach across the table and grab the kid by his neck but he held back.

“I’m giving you one more chance and then I’m going to start breaking your fingers.”

Dirk shrugged off the threat. “It’s a common reaction—you got a name?”

“John. John Camp.”

“I’m Dirk. It’s a common ’nough reaction, John Camp. Fowks get ’ere, they say it can’t be true. They’re alive one instant and then they’re dead and then they’re ’ere. They’re lookin’ about for the angels and the pearly gates and the like but there’s none of that. You do bad ’nough things and ’ere’s where you end up. ’Ell, ’ades, there’s different names I s’pose. Me and Duck, lots of others, we call it Down.”

“Why?”

“It’s in the Bible, in’it? In the bit what Luke wrote. Our mum used to read it to us, not that it did any good. Luke says to some bastard that ’e’s not going to ’eaven, ’e’s going to be cast down. Well that’s where we are. ’Bout as far down as you can get.”

“Okay, Dirk. You say you’re dead. When did you die?”

“1790. Month of June. Last thing I seen was a meadow full of poppies near the gallows. ’Twas a lovely sunny day, worse kind of day to leave. Would’ve rather ’twere raining.”

“You’re saying you were hanged?”

“I was. Duck too, standing right next to me in the gallows. The waiting for it was ’ard but the ’anging part weren’t so bad. I’m falling through the air then I’m ’ere. No pain I can recall at all. Just like that it was.”

“All right, I’ll humor you. Why were you hanged?”

“Me and Duck drubbed the baker. Didn’t mean to kill ’im, just take ’is purse, but I reckon we crashed ’is skull a mite hard. They took us to dumbo and ’anged us the very next day.”

“You don’t look like someone whose neck was snapped or a guy who’s over two hundred years old.”

“That’s the thing. Only good bit ’bout Down, I s’pose. You come ’ere whole. If you was all broked up when you died you’re not broke up when you arrive. Mind you, you can get plenty smashed up when you’re ’ere, I can tell you that. And you don’t age none. You stay the way you came. Forever like.”

John always prided himself in telling truth from lies. He’d done plenty of prisoner interrogations in Afghanistan and he’d been good at reading people even through the veil of cultural differences. Men were men. He could usually tell by their eyes if they were lying. Dirk looked straight enough. But before he could ask the next question he heard a rumbling outside. Horses were approaching, clopping fast through the mud. They suddenly pulled up outside Dirk’s house, neighing and snorting.

A man shouted, “Any new ones? Come on, bring ’em out. I’ve got a nice full purse.”

“Quiet,” Dirk whispered to John. “Not a peep.”

“You in there Dirk? Duck? You wouldn’t have another special one, would you?”

“Tell me why I shouldn’t sell them your arse,” Dirk whispered.

“Did you sell them a woman named Emily?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Silver’s ’ard to come by.”

John rose up, towering over him, his fists balled in rage.

“I’ll call out to ’em,” Dirk said, pushing his chair back.

“If you do that you’re never going to see your brother again. Is that what you want?”

Dirk shook his head. “’Es all I got.”

“Then listen to me. I know where he is. I’m the only one who can bring him back. You help me and I’ll help you.”

There was a heavy pounding on the door.

“Get yourself under the bed,” Dirk whispered. “Quick like or you’re done for.” Dirk raised his voice and called through the door. “’Ang on. Be right there.”

As John squeezed himself under one of the beds he whispered, “Is he the one you sold her to?”

“Yes, ’urry it.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“No.”

“Ask him. Find out.”

Dirk swung the door open. A robust, bearded soldier with a sword on his belt scowled at the young man.

“What took you so long?”

“I was wankin’ off.”

“Can’t get a woman?”

“Not many in these parts, are there, captain?”

“Surprised you’re not having it off with your brother then. Or a goat.”

The soldier roughly pushed Dirk aside and entered, squinting into the dark recesses.

“Where’s your brother, then?”

“Not ’ere. Speaking of women, ’ow’d you get on with the special one?”

“You got paid. It’s none of your affair beyond that.” The soldier picked up one of the mugs. “Anyone else here?”

“That’s Duck’s.”

“Left without finishing his beer?”

“We had a fight. I gave ’im a good ’un and ’e stormed off.”

“That so?”

“It’s wot ’appened.”

The soldier began looking around suspiciously. From under the bed John could see dirty knee-high boots thudding on creaking boards. The boots stopped moving beside the bed and John heard sniffing.

“What’s that?” the soldier asked.

Dirk replied, “I don’t smell nothing.”

“I do.”

Suddenly the bed was lifted all the way onto its side and John was staring up at a heavy-set man in a belted, leather tunic.

The soldier furiously drew his sword and shouted, “You! Get up!”

John slowly got to his feet. He seemed to surprise the soldier with his height. The man sniffed again.

“Another live one! I’ve been here for nigh on five hundred years and never saw a single one. Now I’ve seen two. What’s your name?”

“John Camp. What’s yours?”

“You can bloody well call me your lord and master.”

He menaced John with his sword. “Come along.”

“Will you take me to the same place you took the woman?” John asked.

“Different buyer, I expect, for the likes of you.”

“Tell me where she is.”

“Rules here are simple. You do as you’re told and you don’t get to ask questions.”

“Then it looks like I’m not going with you.”

“’E’ll run you through,” Dirk warned.

John confused the soldier with a broad smile then lunged with astonishing speed, swatting the man’s sword hand away with his forearm and simultaneously landing a hard, sharp punch to the man’s flat nose. The blow produced a spray of blood and the soldier instinctively raised his free hand to his face. John grabbed his thick wrist, bent it back and wrested the sword away. Once he had the weapon he planted himself and delivered a wheelhouse kick to the chin. The soldier was staggered but he was a tough one, still able to draw a dagger from his belt. With eyes raging he got close enough for John to smell his putrid breath. But John had a good purchase on the sword and the man suddenly groaned and went limp, impaled navel-high on the sharp blade.

The other soldiers, hearing the commotion through the thin walls, were already piling into the house. Though there were four of them they were disadvantaged by the darkness. John had only a second to test the weight of the sword in his right hand. He’d never wielded one in combat but he’d been trained to the hilt in knife fighting. The sword was short, broad, and heavy with a sharp point and a double edge. With a battle yell he launched himself at the first soldier to pass through the door and heard the clang of sword on sword. His escape blocked, Dirk yelped and slithered under the second bed. Accustomed to the darkness, John’s more accurate thrusts forced the advancing soldier back against his comrades. Pinned against his own men, John was able to tie up the soldier’s sword arm and kick him high in the chest. He toppled backwards taking down the man behind him but his place was immediately taken by another who seemed quicker with his weapon.

The clanging of steel rang in John’s ears until one of his own thrusts felt different from the others. The point of the blade crunched through the man’s sternum, collapsing him to his knees where he clutched his chest. Two other soldiers took up the engagement, cursing and slashing. When one of them deflected John’s sword, the other used his pommel to strike John in the forehead. The sharp thud sent him reeling back a few steps. He tried to shake off the pain and dizziness but he had little time. The two soldiers advanced as one, raising their swords high to deliver killing blows. In desperation, John gripped his sword with two hands and swept it in a great arc, catching both their throats with the same strike, releasing geysers of hot blood.

Boom!

It was the unmistakable sound of a large-caliber round going off and for an instant the room was incandescently bright.

The last soldier was standing at the door behind the four men John had felled, a smoking pistol in his hand. John felt a searing pain in his left arm. The soldier was a young man, not much older than Dirk and he looked scared. His next bullet, fired unobstructed from only three feet away, would be center mass. John would die in this place and Emily would be trapped.

He waited a long second. Then two.

Then he was hit, not by a bullet but by a revelation. There wasn’t going to be a second shot, not from this gun.

It was a flintlock pistol, something out of a museum.

The soldier dropped the gun and started drawing his sword but John sprang forward and caught him in the belly, hard enough to ram his blade clean through.

John pulled the sword out and when the young man crumpled, John rested his hands on his knees in exhaustion, his chest heaving. He’d killed men before, but not like this. This was brutal and primitive, unlike his usual surgical kills at a distance through a scope.

The muddy floorboards were slicked with blood. Dirk emerged from under the bed and let out a low whistle.

“Never seen sword play so nice. Good on you. You a soldier then, John?”

Through panting breaths he answered, “Used to be.”

“It’ll come in right ’andy ’ere.”

Dirk gingerly stepped over the bodies and peeked out the door. There were no more soldiers, only riderless horses hitched to a post.

“That’s the lot of ’em.”

Dirk lit one of his scarce candles from a glowing log as John laid his sword on the table and peeled off his jacket and shirt to inspect his arm. There was a shallow, bloody crease in his deltoid muscle that he washed with beer. Cutting off the sleeve of his shirt with the sword blade, he tightly wrapped his arm and tied it off, then quickly donned his jacket over his undershirt.

He reached for the flintlock pistol then frisked the gunman and found two pouches, one with a full horn of powder and one with lead balls and wadding. He knew how to handle the weapon. There wasn’t a firearm John hadn’t mastered and that included black-powder guns.

“I had a gun. It didn’t make it through,” John said as he poured powder down the barrel, dropped in a lead ball and wadding and pressed hard with the tamping rod. He finished the job by inspecting the flint and priming the pan.

“Metal don’t come over,” Dirk said, “Just flesh and bone and cloth. Come on. We’ll take their best ’orses. I’ll take you to a man who can ’elp you find your lady friend. Then you’ll ’elp me find Duck, right?”

“I keep my promises.”

John took the candle from Dirk to search the other soldiers for anything that might prove useful.

He started to squat beside the pile of bodies but suddenly caught himself and jerked his body straight.

“Christ Almighty!”

All of the men were still showing signs of life despite unsurvivable blood loss. The men with chest and abdominal wounds were slowly writhing. The men with slashed throats were opening and closing their mouths, their lips smacking impotently.

“They should be dead. These were all fatal wounds,” John said, his voice cracking.