Blood Gold Read Free Page B

by the humidity. When I did, I stood there surrounded by wood smoke, even though my eyes smarted—the smoke discouraged the needling attacks of the mosquitoes.
    I must have had what my late father used to call “a special inkling” what was going to happen that night, because I kept well away from Mr. Gill and his expensive gun. When he came around the camp full of sleeping men, his footsteps shuffling the sodden underbrush, I circled away from him, even though it meant that the blood-starved insects could find me again. They stung hard and often, with tiny, keening voices.
    I heard the distant, distinctive double-click not long afterward. Even at this distance, through the thick air and the sound of snoring, there was no mistaking the sound, the double hammers of Gill’s Bond Street gun being cocked.
    I wanted to call out, What is it?
    It would be just like a gang of bandits to rush us while nearly all of us were stretched out on the ground like this.
    Before I could make a sound both barrels fired.
    The thud of the smoothbore and the crack of the rifled barrel sounded like the reports of two entirely different weapons. The rush of wings and startled bird cries echoed off through the dark jungle, animals frightened by the noise.
    Humans stirred; frightened voices joined with the snorts of startled mules.
    Colonel Legrand called out, “Mr. Gill, what’s wrong?”
    There was no answer.

CHAPTER 4
    I rushed through the dark, not bothering to cock my gun, knowing that with the darkness, the hubbub of voices, and the venerable age of my weapon, I would have better luck with the cold steel of the bayonet.
    â€œMr. Gill, what do you see?” Colonel Legrand was demanding, lanterns sputtering to life. The colonel hurried through the camp carrying a coiled whip.
    He called for everyone to stand back and calm down. People did just what he said, fading back toward the ebbing campfire, falling quiet.
    Dr. Merrill was huddled over someone at the jungle’s edge in quaking lantern light, the lamps held high by apprehensive, unsteady hands.
    Aaron Sweetland sprawled, gasping for breath, blood bubbling. In the shivering pool of light his head gleamed, half scarlet, and gore welled from his shirtfront.
    Men turned angrily, seizing Mr. Gill, the expensive gun snatched away and passed high, hand to hand, until the colonel took it.
    â€œWhip him!” said several voices, the loudest of them David Cowden, an office clerk from Williamsport.
    â€œPut him in irons!” said Albert Kerr, a former neighbor of Mr. Gill’s. Heavy fists began to fall on Mr. Gill in the surging light of the campfire, where wet wood was dumped on the embers, raising a flume of illuminated smoke.
    I pushed my way through the crowd of sweaty, angry men, and stood before Mr. Gill, the musket level in my hands.
    Firelight gleamed along the bayonet, and men fell silent at the sight.
    â€œIt was an accident,” I said.
    â€œIf he dies, it’s murder,” rasped Mr. Kerr, a lens grinder by trade. He wore oval, silver-rimmed spectacles, the lenses glittering in the lamplight.
    â€œManslaughter,” corrected Mr. Cowden, a dimpled, soft-looking man who had once studied law. Soon the anger was spent in a bickering debate over which legal term would apply. But there was relief in the men’s voices, seizing upon legal argument instead of further punishing Mr. Gill, who was on his knees.
    â€œThank you, Willie!” said Mr. Gill, clutching at my trouser leg.
    I felt an instant of revulsion at his gratitude, and wanted to step well away from him, to separate from his grasp. It wasn’t that I particularly disliked the man—I didn’t want any of his bad luck.
    But then Colonel Legrand said, “Well done, Dwindle,” and clapped me on the arm. He helped Mr. Gill to his feet, and half forced him through the already dissipating tangle of men.
    â€œThe sentry mistook an intruder,” called out the