Bad Night in Salisbury
An Art Cavanagh tale about a treasure hunt gone wrong in a quiet English city
I have only been to Salisbury once, but it was by far one of my favorite places I have visited in Great Britain. Writing this story has made me want to explore it in person even more—if at least to clear up whatever inaccuracies this yarn might have.
This is another Art Cavanagh story, a classic pulp adventurer in the vein of Indiana Jones but whose expeditions center around the Celtic world. In this month’s story, Art gets tangled up with a group of ne'er-do-wells that don’t want the guts of ancient secrets spilled, but who’ll spill the guts of those who try to unearth them! He’s appeared on Senchas Claideb before in “The Phantom Hill” which you can read at the link below if you haven’t already!
The Phantom Hill
For the past couple weeks, I’ve been reading the Del Rey edition of Robert E. Howard’s El Borak stories and they inspired me to think up some classic historical pulp adventure tales. Of course, I felt compelled to tie it into Celticism and, sticking with Howardian tradition, came up with an Irish-American adventurer whose curiosity leads him to the Emer…
The frigid water of the River Avon frothed around Art Cavanagh as he crashed into it. The chill speared through each corner of his skull and knocked the breath out of his lungs; columns of bubbles erupted from his mouth and nose. He struggled against the ropes tied around his wrists, weighed down by a sack of rocks sinking to the dark, scummy floor.
The bright halfmoon shone through the rippling water’s surface. Its silvery blue glow backlit a pair of shrouded figures—the scoundrels who bound and left Art to drown—leaning over the canal for a few moments before receding into darkness. A large bubble escaped Art’s lips as he instinctively spat a curse at them.
Save your breath, he thought, wincing at the tightness closing on his lungs. He let himself sink to the bottom, then groped the dirt for a rock or piece of glass to saw through the bindings. He only gathered up clouds of silt, obscuring the scant shards of moonlight streaking into the water. Finding no purchase, Art attempted brute force once more. The muscles in his chest and neck tightened; his whole body screamed for new air as the old stuff pounded against its prison. He tried to use the pain as motivation to rip free of the binds. His wrists burned as he twisted and tugged, feeling as though the bones would pop from their sockets at the ends of his arms.
The last few bubbles of air forced their way out of Art’s mouth and nose. Convulsing, he struggled towards the surface, but the load tied to his wrists kept him mere inches away from fresh air. Art’s sight grew hazy as darkness crawled in front of the moon.
This is it, he thought. Even the voice in his head was without breath.
***
“By Jove!” exclaimed bootlegger Ollie Portman as he leaned over the boat, widening his already big eyes. Ollie was a scrawny, short man whose clothes always seemed too loose on.
His partner, “Griff” Robins scowled and seized both sides, steadying the little vessel. “Careful, and keep your gob shut,” he growled. “What is it?”
“There’s a man beneath us!”
Griff’s face went pallid. “Leave ‘im! Probably the business of those ‘stone-gawker’ types. I don’t want to get wound up in all that.”
“We can’t just leave the bloke.” Ollie doffed his jacket, scarf, and cap.
“Ollie, you damned—”
Ollie slid into the water, sputtering. “Cripes!” he gasped. “What a plunge! Give me your knife, Griff, he’s tied up on something.”
Griff handed off his pocket knife to Ollie who dove under after taking hold of it. Moments later, a broad-backed body clad in a light tan shirt floated to the surface. Sandy locks floated by its head. Ollie followed shortly and shoved the head upward, revealing the strong-jawed face of a man not yet in his thirties. His eyelids fluttered and his mouth hung open.
Ollie swam behind the stranger. “Give us a hand, Griff. He’s built like a sack of bricks!”
Grumbling, Griff shimmied to the side and reached in. He could not move the man from the water and Ollie’s attempts to push up his hard bulk proved futile as well.
“Sod it,” mumbled Griff. “Bring him to the edge.”
Slowly, awkwardly, Ollie and Griff pushed the man and the boat over to the edge of the river. Ollie scampered onto land and assisted his companion with lifting the stranger out. Griff thumped the man’s broad, hard chest several times and he jerked upright, spewing water out of his mouth and nose.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” he swore, wiping his face.
“A bleeding American,” breathed Ollie. “Who are you and what dropped you all the way here in Salisbury?”
The man smoothed his hair over his scalp. “Art Cavanagh. I was looking for a shrine that had been taken from Old Sarum when some creeps in black coats tried to give me a Sicilian burial.”
“Ah so it was the stone-gawkers.”
Art shrugged. “Whoever they are, they’ve got something coming to them.” He patted himself down, frowning at an empty holster on his belt. Suddenly, he reached down the neck of his shirt, then sighed, withdrawing a flint arrowhead tied upon a leather cord. He kissed it and replaced it under his soaked shirt.
“We ought to get you into something warmer,” said Griff, offering Art a hand. “You’ll catch your death running around like that.”
***
Art sat beside Ollie’s hearth wearing some borrowed clothes. Although they were large for Ollie himself, Art’s muscles, built from years of labor in Ireland’s fields, constricted them; the buttons strained against his chest and forearms. He sipped a mug of brandy, warming his bones and stomach.
“So what about this altar brings American all the way over here?” asked Ollie, taking a drink from his own brandy mug.
Art set his cup beside his feet, his thirst slaked. “Apparently it’s not just an altar, but a casket.”
Ollie gulped his drink. “Like a coffin?”
“Well, who’s in it?” Griff inquired.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. The records I’ve read told that the church in Old Sarum used it in their communions but a Roman scout reported seeing it back during the Empire’s occupation of Britain. He claimed the Celts’ druids had used it in their ceremonies.”
“Deviltry.” Griff waved a hand. “No man in his right mind would want anything to do with that. Then again, you are a colonial.”
Art laughed. “Still sore over that? Come on now, I think those ‘stone-gawker’ cretins are worse than I. What do you two know about them?”
“We just see ‘em out by Avebury from time to time,” said Griff. “No one’s gotten a good look at their faces, but they’ll just stare at those big stones for what must be hours. It doesn’t sit right with anyone and by the time someone’s told the constables about ‘em, they’re gone.”
Art rested his blocky chin on his fist. “I’d gone out there to look at the stones myself. I got the feeling I’d been watched; I saw some guys in long black coats some ways away from me, but they always seemed to vanish when I tried to confront them.”
“Those were the stone-gawkers, all right. Not sure what they want but so long as they stay out of our business that’s fine by me. You ought to stay out of it too, Mr. Cavanagh.”
Art frowned. “Sorry, pal, but that just won’t do. I’m not letting sleeping dogs lie when I almost got drowned.”
“Right-o!” Ollie pumped his fist in the air. “Let’s bag the blackguards and this coffin of yours. The night is still young and you have fresh clothes on your back again. Tallyho!”
“Thanks, but I wouldn’t want to get you lads in any mess. I think I’ll head out alone.”
“Nonsense.” Ollie waved a hand. “We know the town and the lay of the land. Let’s just retrace your steps. Ah! this already feels like we’re in a Sherlock story, eh Griff?”
Griff grumbled. “Well, let me get my coat.”
***
“I was walking down this road and next thing I knew, a bag went over my head and a bunch of hands were pulling me to the ground.” Art paused beside an alleyway on Coldharbour Lane. “They dragged me to the canal and took off the bag but made me face the water while they tied that sack of bricks to my wrists.”
Griff looked about, bouncing on his feet impatiently but Ollie, still wide-eyed and attentive, asked, “Then what happened?”
“This guy says in a really raspy voice, ‘Your enquires end here, boy. The folk of this town do well to keep to themselves and not meddle in the arts they have long forgotten. Avon’s embrace will be cold but you will nonetheless take comfort with her, ‘t is where the secrets you sought out in your unworthy life lay.’”
“What’s with them calling the Avon a ‘her’?” asked Griff. “It’s a river.”
“Yes,” said Art, “but the Celts often saw rivers as manifestations of their goddesses or gateways into their afterlife.
“But does the guy who tossed me in there sound like anyone from around here? Maybe someone real smug and pompous-like?”
“Not many,” admitted Ollie. “We keep things rather modest here.”
“Well,” said Griff. “I’ve always felt Mr. Beaufort was rather big for his britches. He’s got a bit of a raspy voice as well.”
Ollie waved a hand. “He spends lots of time ‘round his books is all.”
“Who’s this Beaufort fellow, now?” Art stepped between his companions.
“He owns Beaufort’s Books just at the corner of Rosemary Lane and North Walk near the cathedral,” explained Ollie. “Lives right above it, he does.”
Art furrowed his brow, rolling up his already tight sleeves. “Right, let’s pay Mr. Beaufort a late night visit, then. Lead on.”
Ollie shot off, beckoning Art to follow, who did so with long, lumbering strides, clenching his fists. Griff followed, pulling his cap down and keeping several paces behind his companions. He kept watch for any constables patrolling at the late hour.
The trio came to the corner of Rosemary and North Walk where the Salisbury cathedral. Its spires and tall windows gave it an air of disapproval as it looked down upon the three men. Griff’s eyes locked with the vacant windows, glistening an icy white from the moonbeams. He breathed heavily, sweat pooling under his coat as the weight of his past wrongdoings in public and in secret crept over his heart. Bootlegging liquor is one thing, he thought, but shall I stand by while this madman harasses an old man?
“This is his shop.” Ollie halted at a red door with a glass window on the corner of a squat, brick building. Gold lettering, gleaming in the light of a gas streetlamp, read Beaufort’s Books. Art looked from the shop entrance upward, scowling at the orange light in a window on the second level. The silhouette profile of a man leaning forward over a desk dominated the center of the glass. He took one long stride up the stoop and rapped hard on the window.
“Mr. Beaufort!” he bellowed, tilting his head upward. “Come on down! You dropped something in the river!”
Griff pulled Ollie aside and whispered sharply, “We ought to get this boy to the constabulary.”
Ollie frowned. “What are the coppers going to do about it? They aren’t prepared for attempted murders in this town.”
Art grit his teeth and knocked again. Shaking with rage, he seized the door handle and shook it, but stepped back as it unlatched and swung inward to the dark, cramped interior of the bookstore.
“Wait!” Griff lunged forward but Art stepped inside, swiftly engulfed by the shadows of the shop. He and Ollie rushed up to the stoop, peering inside. Art’s broad, sun-browned arm and thick, calloused hand swept before them, barring their way; the American stood beside the threshold, head tilted upward.
“I heard footsteps upstairs,” he said in a low voice. “Three pair, it sounded like.”
Ollie and Griff turned their eyes upward. Several moments passed before the floorboards overhead creaked, paired with the dull tramp of several pairs of feet.
“Does Beaufort live with anyone?” asked Art.
“He’s a widower,” replied Ollie. “Been alone for ten years now.”
Art crept further into the store, silently navigating the path to a door on the wall opposite the entrance, slightly ajar. Muted yellow light filled the open spaces around it. Ollie and Griff crept a few paces behind, stopping once Art slowly pushed the door open the rest of the way, revealing a narrow set of stairs leading up. A figure in a long dark coat with a wide-brimmed black hat looked down at the American. Art bared his teeth in a silent snarl before storming up the steps. The figure dashed around a railing on the second floor landing, vanishing from Ollie and Griff’s sight.
“Wait!” Griff shouted, stumbling through the door with Ollie. The pair followed Art up the stairs and onto the landing, which led to another door swung inward on a small room—a cramped study—where a big struggle took place.
Two large men in dark coats and hats concealing their faces held Art in place against a wall while a third, smaller, slighter stranger approached him, a long knife pointed towards his belly. The edges of it were wet with blood, glistening in the low lamplight.
“Let him go!” shouted Ollie, his voice cracking. The knife-wielder looked over at him and Griff before plunging the blade into the victim. Art kicked his would-be killer’s wrist, sending the knife upward and sticking in the ceiling. He followed it up with a second kick square in the center of the attacker’s chest. A feminine cry went up as the figure flew backwards, crashing into a bookshelf.
Griff rushed up to the figure grappling Art’s left arm and jabbed him in the jaw with his thick, calloused fist. A soft crack sounded under Griff’s knuckles and the big man went down. Art lifted his freed arm and pummeled his other captor in the face and gut, knocking off his hat to reveal a square-faced man with a blond moustache, already stained with blood from his nose.
Art pulled his other arm free, seized the man by the lapels of his coat, and rammed him into the wall beside the study’s sole window. His eyes rolled upwards and he slumped onto his seat, limbs limp.
“Holy man!” breathed Ollie as he stepped over the thug Griff knocked out. He pointed to the desk beside the window. The body of an elderly man leaned back in a black-painted, wooden chair. Blood soaked his clothes and spattered over the papers and open books on his desk, streaming from a shallow wound on his neck.
Griff removed his cap, placing it over his breast. “Beaufort! By Jove, what a wretched way to go.”
The intruder Art kicked into the bookshelf moaned and started dragging herself across the floor. Art balled his fists, stormed over to her, tearing off her hat to reveal a head of scarlet curls, and seizing her jacket. He lifted her slight form to her feet and stared hard at her sharp, milk-white face.
“I didn’t hit you too hard, did I, miss?” Art’s inquiry was devoid of courtesy or concern.
She stared back at him with ice blue eyes pursing her lips.
“Good,” Art spat gruffly, “seems like you’re all there. Now, you and your goons are going around, cutting off some loose ends. Don’t try and hide it because the way those two boneheads grabbed me felt awfully familiar.”
The woman gave a cruel smile. “Fine, you’ve found us out.” In contrast to her beauty, her accent was harsh and heavy on the ears—one of the rude countryside. “There are more of us, however.”
“Right, more of your stone-gawkers? What’s your deal with Avebury? What’s so important about the altar that you’d kill for it?”
“The treasure of the ancients is our charge, no outsider should even lay eyes upon it. Beaufort’s days have been numbered for some time now, but ever since you came to Salisbury it seemed the secret would have been revealed.”
Art bared his teeth. “Where is it?”
“Plunderer! What makes you think I’d say?”
“Maybe I’ll—”
Griff seized Art’s arm. “Easy, lad, you’re a right tough man but I don’t think hurting a woman’s in you.”
“I don’t fear pain or death.” The woman glowered at Art. “Do what you will, I’ll never say.”
Art squeezed his fists again but let go of the woman, then pointed to the door. “Fine. Crawl back into whatever hole you and your mooks came out of and I’ll skip this town, you’ll never have to see me again. Unless…” He pointed at Griff and Ollie. “I’ll be keeping an eye on the papers, and if I hear either of these gents so much as catches the sniffles, I will come back here and by God I won’t be so restrained.”
The woman looked to the door, then Art. “You—”
“Go!” Art’s bellow shook the room.
The woman scurried around the landing then down the stairs. As her footsteps hammered through the shop below, Art ambled over to the window and looked outside.
“Griff,” he said without looking away, “report what’s happened to the police. Ollie, you stay with me, we’re going to follow Miss Gawker here, but not right now.”
Griff replaced his cap on his head, nodding and heading for the stairs.
Art waved Ollie over to the window and pointed into the street. The woman dashed across North Walk, her dark form heading towards the lawn before the cathedral. Art moved away from the window, beckoning Ollie to follow him through the door.
The pair raced out of the shop and across the street as the woman slipped into the cathedral’s entrance. Art and Ollie followed the same path up to the huge double doors, one of them left slightly ajar. Without pause, Art rushed forward and burst into the ancient, holy place only to be attacked by a cloaked figure brandishing a gilt sickle. The American backstepped before the curved blade could slice him. He retaliated with a strike to the attacker’s hooded head, sending him sprawling to the marble floor; the sickle spun out of his hand and down the central aisle.
The woman stood with three other strangers clad in black upon the main altar, all four lifting a heavy wooden trapdoor. Looking up and flashing a smile at Art, the woman leap into the secret entrance with one of the goons. The two other men descended the altar, drawing their own sickles.
Art rushed forward, grabbing a hymnal from the back of one of the pews. He hurled it at the attacker’s hooded face, staggering him. Art followed with two hard blows to the man’s gut, knocking him to his knees, then finished with an uppercut to his chin. The other sickle-bearer waited at the altar steps. Art sighed, raising his fists like a boxer before advancing.
“Let him pass!” shouted Ollie behind Art.
The remaining sickle-bearer suddenly crouched, dropping his weapon.
Art glanced over his shoulder and started as he glimpsed the dull gleam of a revolver in Ollie’s shaking hand. “Now you bring that out?” he said incredulously.
Ollie gulped. “Didn’t think it was necessary ‘til now.”
Art grunted and jogged towards the steps, kicking the sickle away before he ascended. He looked into the trapdoor to find a rough stone tunnel beneath running northward. He glanced at Ollie over his shoulder. The bootlegger shook as he pointed his pistol at the cloaked man, but his aim did not falter.
“Keep him there,” Art said. “Scare him if you need to.”
Ollie gulped and nodded.
Art leapt into the tunnel, landing in a crouch on hard-packed earth. The temperature plummeted almost at once in the sunless passage, but the previous mêlées and rush of the chase warmed Art’s blood. His heart pounded harder as he glimpsed, some yards down the tunnel, a pair of shadows, outlined by the yellowish glow of flashlight beams, dashed into the distance, their footsteps receding by the second.
Art grit his teeth, finding his second wind following the mad rush of the whole night. He ducked his head as he ran, the ceiling of the tunnel scraping his head and broad shoulders. The footsteps of the figures ahead grew louder, more frantic as Art pursued. He did not break pace, even as the tunnel twisted, turned, and even sloped upward, but the head start his quarry had on him kept them about twenty yards ahead of him.
The mysterious woman and her ally paused at the top of the slope. Their flashlights shone on the rungs of a wooden ladder for a moment before they ascended. Art pushed himself up the slope, froth drying at the corners of his mouth. His targets had vanished into the ceiling by the time he reached the ladder. The hole it ran down from led up to the open night sky, the stars’ brightness told Art he was far from the lights of Salisbury. Art gripped the ladder rungs with shaking arms and continued his pursuit. As he pulled himself onto soft grass, a shadow loomed over him. A curved blade flashed in the starlight over its head. Art rolled away, down a short hill, but felt a sudden, burning pain in his back as he landed in a crouch. He touched his back, winced, and pulled his hand away to reveal blood.
“Give it up now, American,” the mysterious woman said from the top of the hill. She stood beside her cloaked companion, pointing a gilt sickle dripping with blood at Art.
Art glanced about, recognizing the low stone ruins that encircled where he, the woman, and the other goon stood. He recognized the place as Old Sarum, which he had stood in merely hours before his swim in the Avon.
He sighed. “Just, show me the altar. With how this night has gone, one glimpse would be fine by me; you’d never have to see me again.”
The woman laughed shrilly. “If only you would look at the world around you rather than for only the treasures you desire.”
Art scowled. “Look, lady, it’s well past the time I usually hit the hay so you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not in the mood to palaver about your proverbs here.”
“Mayhap you ought to contemplate—mediate even. Sanctuary is just back the way you came.” The woman pointed to the hole beside her feet. As she spoke, Art swayed, his head growing dizzy. Despite this, Art took a step up the hill. The woman’s lackey cracked his knuckles and descended.
“Mayhap you need a lie-down,” she said as the mook loomed over Art. He and the big goon lunged at each other, locking into a grapple. They tumbled back down the hill. Art’s wound stung like the devil but he used it as motivation to keep his attacker from gaining the upper hand. He pummeled the man’s ribs and middle, forcing heavy gasps and grunts out of him. The mook kicked Art off himself, sending him rolling towards a cluster of stones down another slope. Art’s back struck stone, forcing more pain through his body and the wind from his lungs.
Struggling to his feet, Art looked up with a watry gaze as the goon barreled towards him. Art slipped to the side moments before his attacker collided with him, redirecting the man’s course with a shove against his ribs towards the stone cluster. The man slammed into the ancient rubble with a crack that echoed across Old Sarum. He collapsed before a now-broken slab, his twitching fingers the only movement from him.
Art heaved a sigh and slumped to his knees as his eyes cleared, he noticed something amidst the cracked stone. With ailing strength, he hauled the mook’s body out of the way and pushed the slab pieces aside. A squat stone casket lay inside the stone cluster. Art broke into hoarse, painful laughter as he beheld it—the artefact was just as his sources had described it, albeit worn down after so many years. He reached for it, longing to trace the weathered spiral carvings upon it. Suddenly, a sharp blow cracked against the back of his head and it was lights out.
***
“Art! Art! Are you still with us, lad?” Ollie’s voice pounded against the black walls of unconsciousness in Art’s mind. He awoke, lying face-up, beside the stone cluster where the casket had been hidden. Ollie leaned over him, his face dark in the nascent dawn.
Art shot upright, causing Ollie to stagger backwards. He looked inside the compartment and swore as he found it empty. There was no sign of the man he tousled with either.
“They took it!” Art snarled, his breath still had not quite returned to his lungs.
“What?” Ollie placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’re bleeding, man!”
“The casket!” Art struggled to his feet, aided by Ollie. “Where’d that woman go? We need to—”
“You need a doctor, Art, there’s no need to be chasing old stones right now.”
Art opened his mouth to protest but felt all the aches and pains riddling his body. He nodded, then walked with Ollie back towards Salisbury.
“Say, Ollie,” Art said as they shambled down the hill. “What happened to the last guy in the church?”
Ollie snickered. “Him? I’m afraid I scared him off.” He pulled out his revolver and flicked open the barrel, revealing it to be entirely empty.
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“Bad Night in Salisbury” © Ethan Sabatella 2024 – Current Year, All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or replication of this work in its entirety in any form (written, audiovisual, etc.) without express permission of the author is prohibited. Excerpts may be used for review or promotional purposes with credit and acknowledgement of the author. This piece cannot be used for training of Artificial Intelligence programs.
An absolute joy to read!
So many mysteries in Old Sarum and Avebury. I have no doubt this could be a regular occurrence there, especially back in Art’s day. This story is an inspiration to return England and walk the land - town and country. Well done.