These Honored Dead

by Jonathan F. Putnam

  “There you are!” called a voice from above us. Gratefully, I felt a familiar large hand rest on my shoulder.

  “We got the horses out of the loose room,” Martha called up to Lincoln. “But we need to go back for the work horses. Joshua isn’t letting me go.”

  “He’s right not to, Miss Speed,” Lincoln said. “But you can rest easy. I’ve been around back of the stables, looking for you two. A couple other fellows were back there already. They’d untied the work horses and led them through the back door. They’re all out, I think.”

  “What were they doing back there?” I asked. “For that matter, where’d everyone come from?” I gestured around the bustling yard and up toward the roof, where the bucket brigade continued to work with surprising efficiency.

  “I wager the search for Jesse saved the Globe, and the horses, too,” said Lincoln. “There were so many men already out and about on the streets looking for him. As soon as I ran out to warn Saunders and spread the word, we had dozens of volunteers to fight the fire.”

  “Has the boy been found yet?”

  “I don’t think so.” Lincoln gave a glance toward the ruined stables.

  Saunders bustled up at that moment. His face was ashen. “I warned you to be careful with those lanterns,” he said, his voice quaking, more with fright than anger.

  “It wasn’t us,” I exclaimed.

  “It wasn’t,” echoed Lincoln. “The flames broke out in front of us. We hadn’t even set foot in the stables when they began to fire.”

  As Saunders wandered off, mumbling to himself in a daze, Patterson, Jane, and Rebecca all materialized out of the crowd, seemingly from three different directions. Patterson looked at Martha and me, still huddled next to each other on the ground, with a professional gaze. “What happened to the two of you?” he asked.

  I explained. Looking over at Rebecca, I saw her face remained troubled. “Any sign of Jesse yet, Widow Harriman?” I asked.

  “None.”

  “Then he’s run off somewhere by himself,” I said. “With how many men joined in the search”—I gestured around—“if he was lying about somewhere . . . incapacitated . . . he would have been found.”

  “Perhaps he was in there,” said Rebecca, pointing with a trembling hand toward the barn. Most of the flames had been extinguished by now, though one or two ravenous licks of orange still leapt about and great quantities of gray-black smoke poured out of the ruins. Half of the stables’ roof was missing.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied. “When Martha and I were in there helping the horses out, we didn’t see him, did we?” Martha shook her head. “He’ll turn up at daybreak, I’m certain of it.”

  A gust of wind blew through the courtyard. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a streak of light, like a shooting star.

  “What will Saunders do with the—”

  An urgent call cut through Jane’s question: “Fire! The carriage shed has caught!”

  I scrambled to my feet and looked around. The thatched roof of the shed, some fifty feet distant from the stable building, was smoking violently. If the shed collapsed, it would fall on the two carriages parked in front of it. I saw my father’s driver, Genser, in his underclothes moving about frantically next to his carriage. Hickory was lingering nearby. With Lincoln by my side, I raced over to them.

  “Let’s pull the carriage out of the way at once,” I shouted. “Hickory will do. Hitch her up and I’ll drive.”

  Genser nodded and got to work expertly, fastening a harness around Hickory and coaxing her back toward the carriage so he could run its shafts through the loops of the saddle.

  Meanwhile, Lincoln set about organizing a new line of water buckets to be passed toward the carriage shed. With his unsurpassed height, he positioned himself at the end of the line, ready to fling the water up onto the roof of the shed.

  I climbed the mounting step and jumped into the body of my father’s carriage on my way to the driver’s box. The worn leather bench held a familiar smell, and at once I was struck by a vivid memory of my younger self sitting on the very same seat as we bounced along the rutted road toward Smith’s schoolhouse, bound for an examination in mathematics for which I was ill-prepared as usual. I shook off the memory, hurled back to the present by the urgent task at hand.

  Atop the box, I called down to Genser: “Ready when you are.”

  “What about that one?” he said as he finished setting the shaft. He gestured toward the other carriage near the shed. The roof of the shed continued to smolder, although Lincoln’s human chain was working quickly, passing a line of buckets to my friend, who hurled their contents toward the roof one after the other. The fire fought back, crackling and hissing.

  “Do you know who its owner is?” I called down. Genser shook his head. It seemed odd in the extreme the other owner hadn’t come to check on his grand carriage in the midst of the inferno.

  Genser quickly walked around Hickory, making sure all the buckles were sound. He took her by the bridle and, whispering encouragingly into her ear, began leading her away from the shed. The horse strained against the weight of the carriage, usually pulled by two horses, and at first we did not budge. But eventually Hickory found purchase and the wheels began turning slowly. We clattered through the courtyard. For good measure, we drove the carriage completely out of the yard and onto the street, crowded with men and women gawking at the blaze.

  I jumped down as Genser began unfastening Hickory from her load.

  “Let’s move the other one as well,” I said.

  Returning to the yard, I glanced up nervously at the roof of the carriage shed, which was simultaneously smoking and dripping from all the water that had been flung upon it. Judging I was safe enough, I climbed onto the upholstered driver’s seat. The ornate calèche carriage, ruby red with black trim and gold-painted wheels, was of the style the legendary French general Lafayette had made famous during his triumphal tour of all twenty-four states the previous decade. It had no roof but four side panels to keep out the dust and dirt of the trail.

  What was taking Genser so long? I turned impatiently and looked over the compartment of the carriage to try to locate our man in the crowded courtyard. Then, sickeningly, I realized what I had just seen. I stood on the driver’s seat and looked down into the compartment itself.

  A limp figure lay on the carpeted floor of the carriage, hidden from any angle of view but mine. Jesse’s face was frozen, his mouth half-open as if he had been trying to say something. His skull had been caved in above his left temple, and blood and gore covered his face and smock. Blades of straw stuck out at grotesque angles from each of the sticky surfaces. A paving stone, glistening a bright, sickly red, lay on the floor not far from his ruined head.

  I shouted in horror and looked away, trying to fight a wave of nausea. Eventually my eyes fell on the corpse again. This time I saw that Jesse’s little fist was clenched impotently by his side. Clutched between his tiny, rigid fingers was a single ebony domino.

  CHAPTER 15

  It was said more people attended Jesse’s funeral at the Episcopalian Church on Monroe Street than had ever attended any religious gathering in the two-decade history of Springfield. One hundred and fifty people jammed the small, rickety benches of the church, while several hundred more clamored for a view from the churchyard outside. The Rev. Batchelder, sensing the chance to increase his small flock of high church communicants, ordered that the doors and windows of the church remain open during the service such that the persons outside as well could hear his fine words of joy, sorrow, and holy contemplation.

  Of course, virtually none of the mourners knew the dead boy or even had laid eyes on him during his brief life. Yet the frantic search for Jesse on the night of his murder had enlisted many in his cause, and others were doubtless drawn by the spectacle of a brother and sister, orphans already, who had been—there was no other conclusion to draw—struck down one after the other by the same murderous hand.

  Death was everywh
ere on the frontier. Every man and woman knew it might make its awful approach at any time and for any reason or for no reason at all. Children were disproportionately its victims. And yet even grown men who had seen more than their share of death were moved by the double tragedy that had befallen this broken family.

  Rebecca Harriman sat alone in the front pew of the church during the funeral service. I did not think it my place to join her. She remained motionless during the Rev. Batchelder’s fine words. And if she heard any of the many uncharitable remarks about her that the other mourners whispered back and forth, she gave no indication of such.

  After the Rev. Batchelder had pronounced his benediction on Jesse’s soul, the small casket was loaded onto an open carriage to be driven up to Menard so he could be laid to eternal rest next to his sister. Lincoln, Martha, and I stood together in the town square and watched as the carriage, Jesse’s casket and Rebecca its only passengers, drove out of town.

  “Has the sheriff questioned the owner of the calèche carriage where Jesse was found?” I asked Lincoln.

  “Extensively,” said Lincoln. “He claims he’s completely innocent, as shocked as the rest of us. No idea how the body got there.”

  “But does he have any way to prove he wasn’t the one who murdered the innocent little boy?” asked Martha. Her eyes were still rimmed with red from all the weeping she’d done since Jesse had been found.

  “The sheriff told me the fellow said he went into the public room as soon as he arrived at the Globe that afternoon and he never once left, not even during the fire,” Lincoln said. He paused as several of the persons filtering away from the funeral service walked close by us. “Saunders supports the story, at least part of it. Saunders says the fellow was so drunk he couldn’t get him to move when all the other guests evacuated. The blasted fellow would have burned down with the tavern if the fire hadn’t been put out in time.”

  “Surely he could have been feigning intoxication,” I said. “The whole thing sounds suspicious.”

  “Sheriff Hutchason asked him to remain in town while he investigates and the man’s agreed. If the alibi’s actually a lie, I’m sure the sheriff will sniff it out.”

  “What about the fire?” asked Martha. “Does anyone know how it started?”

  “Or why?” I added.

  “No one’s come forward to confess,” said Lincoln. “As you know, there were dozens of men about that night, many of them with torches, all looking for Jesse. There was such chaos and confusion. I imagine someone touched it off by accident, but I doubt Hutchason could possibly recreate who was where and when, not at any point during the evening.”

  “Maybe it was set by the killer to cover his tracks,” I said. “To try to destroy the evidence, the body.”

  “But if that was the plan,” said Martha, “why move the body to the carriage in the first place? Why not keep it in the stables, where the killing took place, and then set the fire?”

  None of us had a good answer. But it was true the only thing that appeared certain about the night of the murder was Jesse had been attacked in the stables and not in the coach itself. There seemed no other way to explain the presence of straw about his person.

  Lincoln departed for Hoffman’s Row. Martha and I walked back to my store alone. The square had cleared, the spectacle of the funeral giving way to another prosaic, sweltering summer’s day. For a change, the sun was obscured by a thick layer of cloud.

  “How is the widow bearing up?” asked my sister.

  “She’s distraught,” I said. I had spent thirty minutes trying without success to comfort Rebecca on the night we discovered Jesse’s body. “All her life she’s been childless, to her great sorrow. Then two children come into her home and, just as suddenly, now they’re both gone.”

  Martha sighed and wiped a tear from her eye.

  If Rebecca had managed to avoid overhearing the malicious gossip passed about during the funeral service, I had not. More than a few of the would-be mourners were convinced the deaths were explained by the arrogance of the childless widow who, to make matters worse, held herself out as an independent woman of business. Others whispered she could not account for her whereabouts at the time of either murder.

  I worried growing suspicion would focus on Rebecca. And I feared even more that the actual killer would turn his murderous intentions to her. It was no longer possible to suppose Lilly had been killed by a frustrated suitor. Some monster, it seemed, was intent on killing the members of this accursed family, of which Rebecca was now the sole survivor. Both to ensure Rebecca’s freedom and to safeguard her life, it was imperative that I help Prickett and the sheriff identify the killer.

  I was working out a concrete plan to accomplish this as Martha and I took inventory inside the store an hour later. Suddenly there was a scream from outside, followed immediately by the sounds of a terrifying crash. Several men started shouting all at once and a horse began shrieking. I took Martha’s arm and rushed through the door.

  A tangle of men, beasts, and carriage parts littered the street in front of the store. An injured man was sprawled on the street in a muddy, bloody heap, pinned beneath the tongue of a large open carriage, which lay on its side in ruins. A horse still tethered to the overturned carriage pranced around wildly, while another horse, untethered, ran about the street and village green in wild circles. Meanwhile, a feral hog was trapped under a dislodged carriage wheel and several overturned trunks. The hog was squealing and wriggling fiercely for its freedom. Spectators converged on the fantastical scene from all directions.

  My friend Hurst, who ran a dry goods store two doors down from mine, waved me over. “Quickly,” he said. “We’ve got to get him out from underneath the carriage before he’s crushed to death.”

  The trapped man, blood trickling down his face, was crying miserably for help. I turned to Martha and said, “He’s going to need a doctor. Run and fetch Patterson.” As she hurried off, I joined Hurst and several other men beside the wagon tongue.

  “You four lift on the count of ‘three’ and I’ll pull him out,” I suggested. With a coordinated heave, they managed to raise the carriage remains up a few inches. I grabbed the injured man under his armpits and dragged him away from the wreck. He screamed as I moved him, and I saw his right leg was bent unnaturally below the knee.

  “It’s all right, friend,” I said, pulling out my kerchief and trying to stem the flow of blood from his brow. “A doctor’s on his way.” I scrutinized the man’s face, but he was a stranger to me. His clothing, though covered now with Springfield’s black loam, was well-stitched and fashionable.

  Hurst squatted beside us. “What happened?” I asked.

  “That hog must have ran out from an alleyway and spooked the horses,” said Hurst. “One of them broke free from his tether and in the process threw this fellow out and tipped the carriage over on him.”

  Now that the horses had been calmed, the infernal squealing of the trapped animal came to the fore. “Will you please quiet that beast,” Hurst shouted over his shoulder. A moment later a shot rang out. “Someone will eat well this week,” he said.

  I nodded. “What’s your name, friend,” I asked the injured man.

  “Frederick . . . Julius . . . Gustorf,” he managed through labored breaths. “I . . . come from . . . Westphalia.”

  “Is that near Peoria?” asked Hurst.

  The man started to rise up to answer, but I urged him back to the ground. Turning to Hurst, I said, “It’s one of the old Napoleonic Kingdoms, you fool. In Europe. It’s now part of Prussia.”

  I looked again at the man’s ruined carriage, strewn about the street. In a jolt, I realized it was the Lafayette-calèche carriage, the very one in which I had found Jesse’s body. Far from staying put at the Globe, as he had assured the sheriff, the owner of this grand conveyance had been hurrying out of town immediately after Jesse’s funeral.

  “Where are you going, friend?” I asked the prone man.

  The stranger swa
llowed and drew in and exhaled a deep breath. “I’ve been . . . inspecting . . . your country,” he said. His English was excellent, with only a hint of the characteristic harsh German accent. “I’m heading . . . to Alton . . . next destination. I have . . . a steamboat . . . to catch.”

  “It looks like your stay in Springfield has been extended instead,” I said, gesturing toward his leg. “Here’s the doctor now. He’ll put you back together.”

  Dr. Patterson had arrived, with Martha and Jane close at his heels. Patterson took a quick look at the injured man and announced, “We need to get him to my parlor at once. Speed, organize a litter. I think one of those dislodged running boards from the carriage should serve the purpose.” Without waiting for a response, Patterson strode back toward his home, the tails of his surgical coat flying out grandly behind him.

  Thirty minutes later, the other fellows and I had managed to convey Herr Gustorf to the Pattersons’ front parlor, which doubled as the doctor’s surgery. It was a long, narrow room with tall windows looking out onto the street. We lay Gustorf on the couch that ran along one wall. Against the opposite wall stood a wooden bureau splattered with wax drippings. A dozen squat red candles burned brightly on the bureau, even in the midday light; this was Patterson’s attempt to burn away any disease-causing miasma.

  The doctor handed Gustorf a deep purple-colored bottle. “Have a few good swigs of this,” he said. “It will help with the pain.” Gustorf leaned forward and swallowed several long pulls. Then he lay back gingerly.

  “Sew up that cut on his head, Jane,” the doctor ordered, “while I have a look at his leg.”

  “Yes, Father.” Jane reached under the couch and pulled out a leathern pouch. She took off her silk gloves, loosened the drawstrings of the pouch, and withdrew several needles and a spindle of silk.