Psycho Magnet
“Passengers, it looks like we’ll have to make an emergency landing. This is gonna be…” Captain Winchell searched for a word that balanced truthfulness with reassurance. Not finding it, he clicked off.
Herve, milky sweat dripping from his eyebrow, looked at Brinke, seeking more comfort. She patted his hand, trying to remember the words of a Tibetan spell that would stabilize his condition, hoping he was generally healthy enough to survive the stress of the attack on his heart.
Lightning pulsed, thunder cracked and the plane shook like an alarm bell, drawing panicked yelps from all around.
Herve gritted his teeth and clenched his eyelids shut. His breath came in abrupt rasps.
* * * *
Settlement era
“You were right to come only to me,” praised Conal with a grin that was indistinguishable from his more common grimace. “This could shake our settlement to its soul.”
Schroeder covered his nose against the stench, marveling that O’Herlihy seemed untroubled by it. He felt more relieved than sad that Hezekiah’s corpse, worse for wear under the autumn sun and the pecking of crows, was at least still here.
“Who could be responsible?” he asked the Irishman.
“I gamble we’ll soon know,” Conal answered. “But that’s not important now.”
“It’s not?”
O’Herlihy held out his ruddy hand. “Give me your knife.”
Schroeder drew the bone knife from its sheath and handed it over without hesitation. Conal immediately set about stabbing Hezekiah’s body several times, distributing more scent of decay.
“What are you doing!?”
O’Herlihy wrapped the knife in a handkerchief and stuffed it in his waistband, penetrating Schroeder with his fiery stare. “I need to know I can trust you.”
“Well…of course, you can. But…”
“This is God-sent,” whispered the big Celt, “our chance to do away with that blasphemous robber baron!”
Schroeder still did not understand why O’Herlihy had jabbed the corpse with his knife, but he was beginning to. As for the “robber baron,” Schroeder had no doubts just who Conal meant.
“Now help me with this.” O’Herlihy took a large oilcloth from his horse, and together the Dutchman and the Celt wrapped Hezekiah up. No words of mourning were spoken for him, only an oath of loyalty to Conal.
* * * *
“It appears we have a killer in our midst,” Bennington said, examining the wounded guest. “Or someone who would be.”
Once he and maidservant Chloris got the unconscious stranger into the guest-room bed, Bennington watched over him while Chloris fetched calming tea and an herb poultice. Once these took effect on the peculiar man and he began to doze, Bennington decided to remove the burlap hood.
Underneath was the strange face of a young man with unruly black hair matted around pale, gaunt features. Despite Everett Geelens’s present placid state, Bennington and his maidservant remained ill at ease—there was something about him.
“He can be no more than twenty,” said Chloris. “Where could he have come from?”
“Perhaps there’s another settlement nearby,” Bennington answered. “But there is still the matter of his dress.”
“Taken from Schroeder’s effigy, you say.”
“The boy could have found the figure and taken the clothes. But then…the wound.”
“Wild animal? Cherokee?” wondered Chloris, patting Everett’s face with a handkerchief.
“It’s too clean and deep a wound for bear or wildcat.” Bennington leaned close to peer at the gash between the shirtless guest’s rib. “And it’s unlike the Cherokee to leave a foe alive.”
“When he’s better, perhaps he’ll be more lucid.”
“Yes, delirium seems likely. Yet there’s something else about him. Something very odd.”
“He should sleep for many hours, and the medicines will rejuvenate him. Then we could query him?”
“I hope.” Bennington pulled the quilt up to Everett’s chin. “Don’t speak of this to anyone else, Chloris. Not yet.”