A Stranger Here Below

by Charles Fergus

  David woke and began to burble. Gideon and True looked at each other, rose, and dressed. Gideon ate some leftovers and put an apple in his pocket. He hugged True, kissed their son, and left.

  ***

  At the jail he found Alonzo at the desk, rolling a rifle ball back and forth across its surface.

  “Nothing has happened here for two whole days,” Alonzo said, a note of complaint in his voice. “The town is too quiet.”

  “In our business, it’s good to have quiet.” Gideon yawned. “In fact, I could do with quiet most all of the time.”

  “Take a look at this.” Alonzo laid a newspaper clipping on the desk.

  Gideon picked it up. The article described a new pistol that had been designed in Paterson, New Jersey, by a man named Samuel Colt. It employed the percussion-cap system of ignition and was a repeating firearm with a revolving cylinder.

  “Not in production yet,” Alonzo said, “but the time is coming. This new gun will be much better than those antiques we’re still using. Less chance of a hangfire. And five shots! And you can carry along an extra cylinder, fully loaded.”

  “The commissioners have already refused us the money to have our guns changed to percussion locks,” Gideon said. “Why would they buy us new firearms?”

  “Well, let me tell you something: a merry day it will be, when the outlaws all have percussion and we’re still shooting those horrid old flintlocks.”

  At the moment, it seemed to Gideon that modernizing the armory was one of the smaller problems he faced.

  “Speaking of guns,” Alonzo said, “a man from the bank came by. The judge’s estate passed probate. You need to go sign some papers, then you can take possession of all them things the judge willed over to you. Lucky feller. Though I guess you already took care of the horse and dog.” Alonzo cast the rifle ball across the desk again. It made a droning sound. “I suppose they’ll be auctioning off the rest of Hiram’s stuff. Did he own any rifles? I am always on the lookout for a good tack-driving squirrel gun.”

  “The judge favored shotguns.”

  “He didn’t shoot squirrels?”

  Gideon shook his head. “He would only shoot flying game. More sportsmanlike, or so he said.”

  Alonzo scoffed. “Well, I bet he never et squirrel backstrap. Nor fried brains, neither.” He shot the lead ball across the desk again, trapping it in his hand. Then grunted and dropped the ball into his vest pocket.

  ***

  Gideon made his way along Franklin Street to Judge Biddle’s house. It felt strange to knock and then be let inside by the judge’s housekeeper while knowing that Hiram Biddle was no longer there to welcome him.

  Mrs. Leathers had been cleaning. She held a polishing rag in her hand.

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions,” he said. “Can we go in to the kitchen?”

  She nodded, went into the room, and sat down on the edge of a chair. Gideon pulled up a chair opposite her.

  “Mrs. Leathers, how long had you worked for Judge Biddle?”

  “Let’s see. Going on twenty-two years.”

  Her answer disappointed him. He had hoped she’d been employed by the judge in 1805, the year the Reverend McEwan had been tried and executed, and could fill in a few more details about the incident. She certainly looked old enough for that, although her perpetually dour expression made it hard to guess her exact age.

  “Did he ever talk to you about the past?” he asked.

  Mrs. Leathers looked at the rag in her hands. “We didn’t speak of such things. He was the judge. I was just his housekeeper.”

  “I realize you were not working for him in 1805, but do you recall a trial that year in which the judge sentenced a preacher to hang?”

  “Heard of it. Don’t remember much about it.”

  He tried a different tack. “Was there anything new in the judge’s life lately? New acquaintances, new friends?”

  “You’re the only one he had much to do with, these last few years. Now and then he would invite the headmaster, Mr. Foote, for a meal and drinks. And sometimes Mr. Foote would send a note, and Judge Biddle would go over to the academy of an evening.”

  “Anything different or odd happen in the days leading up to the judge’s death?”

  “Well, not too odd, I guess.” She changed her position in the chair. “A window got broke, there in the kitchen. A hawk chased a mountain pheasant into the glass.” Gideon knew that “mountain pheasant” was what some locals called a grouse. Mrs. Leathers continued, “I was outside beatin’ on a rug and seen it happen. The pheasant was killed outright. Broke its neck. I shooed the hawk away. The judge told me to hang the bird down cellar, save it to cook later.” She shook her head at this daft bit of instruction. “It’s still down there, I expect. Probably rotted by now. Oh, and a tramp stopped by a night or so before the judge … before he passed away.”

  Tramps occasionally visited the better homes in Adamant to ask for food or small sums of money. Complaints arose if they were too persistent. “Can you tell me anything about the tramp?” Gideon asked.

  “Older man.” Mrs. Leathers wiped her polishing rag along the arm of the chair.

  “Did you recognize him?”

  She shook her head.

  “What took place?”

  “I gave him some food, and he left.” She balled up the rag, shook it out again. “I ought to get back to work, Sheriff. The bank wants this place neat and tidy so they can sell it.” She looked down. “After that, I have to find a new job.”

  “If I hear of anything, I’ll let you know. And if you remember anything else that you think might shed light on why the judge committed suicide, would you tell me?”

  He went in to the study, found the floor scrubbed and freshly waxed. The chair in which the judge had died had been cleaned and placed back under the desk. Gideon drew it out: a good walnut chair with a gentle curve to accommodate the back. No damage to it, the charge of shot having apparently spent itself in Judge Biddle’s chest. He sat down in the chair and looked around the room. It appeared as if nothing tragic or violent had happened here. He regretted not coming back immediately after the judge’s death and just sitting in the room and thinking, before Mrs. Leathers had a chance to clean up and put things back in order. Maybe something would have come to him then.

  On the walls were framed lithographs of dogs on point, still lifes of dead partridges and pheasants, a luminous scene of men in a sneak boat on a river beneath a full moon with the sheen of old ivory, the men kneeling low and holding their shotguns expectantly as the boat drifted toward a raft of sleeping waterfowl.

  Beneath the prints stood a bookcase. Gideon took out one of the books: Instructions to Young Sportsmen, with Directions for the Choice, Care, and Management of Guns. The judge had loaned this book to him, after Gideon had, for the first time, quickly accepted Hiram Biddle’s offer to go grouse hunting. He put the volume back and got out another, Pteryplegia: Or, the Art of Shooting-Flying. That one he hadn’t read yet. Gideon loved to read; his reading had helped him pick up English quickly when he was younger. First he had read his uncle’s books, mostly about natural history, then those of a neighbor—until his father forbade it, declaring that reading was a waste of time better spent mending harness or sharpening tools or fixing fences.

  He thought he might bid on some of the judge’s books when the estate went to auction; maybe he could get the whole lot for cheap. The title page of Pteryplegia stated that the book had been printed for J. Lever, Bookseller, Little Moorgate, London. Date of publication, 1767; price, one shilling. The book had come from England, like the judge’s shotgun. Had Hiram Biddle crossed the ocean and traveled there at some point? If so, he had never mentioned it.

  As Gideon returned Pteryplegia to the shelf, his eye fell on four identical volumes, leather-bound, and without titles embossed on their spines. He picked out the first of the books and blew dust off its top edge. Its binding crackled as he opened it.

  On the first page was inke
d: YEAR OF OUR LORD 1802. Gideon opened the book at random. In the judge’s familiar script he read:

  April 7. Enjoyed a morning on the banks of Panther Creek, & conclude that love is no exclusively human affliction. Thro’ my glass watched 2 male grackles attempting to impress a half-interested female. Both males perched near her, with heads upraised & bills pointed skyward. The sun’s brilliance painted their breasts with green & purple iridescence. One & then the other of these gaudy suitors drew in his head, fluffed out his feathers, & “sang” in the most discordant voice imaginable.

  This was the judge’s journal. Gideon paged ahead. He read entries recording the weather, outings, social events, philosophical thoughts.

  July 9. I like to walk among the tombs, it is a melancholy pleasure yet I enjoy it. Reminds me that I am mortal. I ask myself: Is there a hereafter? Truly, there must be; it cannot be that we are to end when this tenement of clay becomes no longer inhabited. If so, what motive could have caused our existence?

  August 12. How thick the shafts of death fly about us! High places, & riches, & good health seem to offer no shield or panoply against the Great Destroyer. John Cutler dead today after a week of the bloody flux; others in his family ill. “Prepare to meet thy God”—these words are too lightly said & too lightly thought of.

  Sept. 27. Taking my leisure in the hills, I stopped in a birch grove at dusk. The trees’ yellow leaves, strewn on the ground, made it appear that a patch of sunlight still bathed the earth, tho’ the sun had dipped below the horizon. Standing in the half-light, I felt low & wretched. How sad, to be alone in the world. Would that I had a wife. Must I be solitary all my days?

  The words of a callow young man, not the mature, seasoned jurist Gideon had known. He recalled the date of birth, 1773, to be incised on the judge’s gravestone. In 1802, Hiram Biddle would have been almost thirty years old. Unmarried at that age, it was understandable that he felt frustrated and insecure.

  Gideon wondered if it was proper for him to be peering at the judge’s personal thoughts. He closed the journal and put it back on its shelf. Before killing himself, Hiram Biddle had used a book to hold down the written copy of his will on the desk. Gideon didn’t recall anything about the book, other than that it had been put away, no doubt by Mrs. Leathers, between the time when he left to go tell the state’s attorney about the judge’s suicide and when he and the coroner, Dr. Beecham, returned for the judge’s body.

  He got out the next journal and skimmed through it. He read more vignettes describing the changing seasons and life in Adamant more than thirty years in the past. In autumn the judge wrote of hunting, compiling the numbers of woodcock and grouse he bagged. There were entries about marriageable women met at dinners, parties, church functions. This young lady was “too finicking, too much concerned with an appearance of propriety,” while that one was “mercenary” and “would be a shrewd housewife but no doubt a demanding one.” Another, with the weird given name of Birdelia, was jolly but hardly attractive, “mannish,” the judge wrote, “& it seemed as if, in her construction, her legs had been turned upside down, such that the thickest part occurred just above the foot, which itself was not dainty.”

  With a smile, Gideon closed the volume on the poor thick-ankled Birdelia.

  The journal for 1804 carried on in much the same vein. He paged through it until a name jumped out at him.

  July 10. Adonijah Thompson, the ironmaster, cuts a striking figure, having an aristocratic bearing, and projects great energy & firmness of purpose. About my age. Quite forward in his manner, given to boasting about his achievements, grand plans & aspirations. Said to be litigious. Met him whilst taking the noon meal with companions at the White Deer Inn.

  Gideon had never heard of the White Deer Inn. Had it burned in the fire that destroyed the old courthouse?

  Mr. Thompson took a chair at our table & joined in our conversation, which concerned the county’s settlement. He told of an occasion, soon after he arrived in this place, when he was inhabiting a cabin upon the site of his future ironworks. Engaged in chopping wood, he heard a turkey calling. He said “I could tell it was not a real turkey,” & gave the “cut-cut-cut” call of a young turkey separated from the flock, which caused the other patrons to pause their forks & peer toward our table. Thompson stated that the longer he listened, the more certain he became that the calls did not come from a turkey but rather were being made by an Indian, no doubt for the purpose of enticing him in to an ambush. He therefore took up his rifle, went round behind the cabin, & moving quietly, circled thro’ the woods. Hearing the calling again, he spied an Indian crouched behind a log, painted for war & coated with rancid bear grease.

  The ironmaster explained, with undue relish, how he sighted his rifle on his foe & “dealt him the death he would have given me.” Certainly he was justified in protecting his life & property, but the cruel delight he took in relating how he slew the red-skin left a taste of ashes in my mouth. He said he turned the savage over with his boot & found he was “not much more than a boy.” He smiled and stated fervently “If you kill ’em young, you needn’t deal with ’em later on.”

  On July 11 the judge wrote of men scything grass in the fine summer weather, building the sweet-smelling hay into ricks and filling their barns with it. Then on July 12, the ironmaster’s name appeared again.

  Ad. Thompson here today on a fine grey gelding. The ironmaster sat the horse beautifully, & I was struck with the grand picture he and his steed made. He said he wishes to sell the horse, which he purchased down state, & served up a compliment by denominating me “one of the few men in these parts who would appreciate such an animal.” He asked $50—a not inconsiderable sum, but I had heard of this horse, & knew for a certainty that the ironmaster had given $100 for him.

  His offer caused in me a feeling of unease. Why should he wish to sell the horse so cheaply? I admit I was tempted, for cannot a man buy & sell at any price he chooses? But perhaps I will soon be seeing the ironmaster in court. Not wishing to compromise myself, I thanked him & explained that I was not in a position to purchase the horse. “What,” the ironmaster replied, “you do not wish to own this fine piece of horseflesh?” When I demurred again, he wheeled the gelding about, & it walked away like a catamount stalking its prey. And the man seated upon him—nay, the man who was one with him in all his movements—had a bearing that was equally regal &, one might almost say, equally predatory in aspect.

  Within Thy circling pow’r I stand,

  On ev’ry side I find Thy hand

  Twelve

  The light in the study had begun to fade. Mrs. Leathers brought in a taper and lit a cut-glass lamp.

  Gideon thanked her.

  “Mrs. Leathers, on the morning when I found the judge, after he killed himself, there was a book holding down the judge’s will. When I came back with the coroner a little later, the book wasn’t on the table anymore. Did you put it away?”

  “Well, I did come back in here.” She colored. “I … I wanted to see if he was really dead.” She looked off to one side. “Foolish notion. I suppose I did put a book away. It looked like the one you’ve got there.”

  Gideon nodded. He saw that Mrs. Leathers had begun to look askance at him, perhaps having realized that he was prying into the judge’s affairs. He waited until she left the room, then resumed reading. He figured that the fourth and last of the leather-bound volumes, still on the shelf, contained entries for 1805—the fateful year when the Reverend Thomas McEwan would murder Nathaniel Thompson and the judge would sentence him to death.

  Had the judge been reading that diary on the night he killed himself?

  Gideon decided to finish sampling the 1804 book before getting out that final volume. He scanned entries on summer storms and “the peltings of the pitiless rain,” a magnificently antlered elk that the judge had seen while bird hunting, the marble fireplace of some acquaintance “beautifully & elaborately chizzled in relief, with flowers & leaves.” Then the name Thompson caught his
eye again.

  Dec. 11. It becomes crystal clear why Ad. Thompson on July 12 last offered me his fine grey gelding, purchased at $100 according to general report, for the favorable price of $50. Today court convened to hear a lawsuit bro’t by Robert Wheeler vs. Adonijah Thompson, Robt. being the eldest son of Hugh, widower, who d. intestate this past March. At his death Hugh Wheeler owned a productive farm of 290 acres. This spring Wheeler’s heirs asked the county to commission an inquest so that they might fairly partition the farm. The Court named Sheriff Bathgate & six jurors to convene a board of inquiry, which in due time fixed the worth of the estate at $16/ac, for a total of $4,640. The jurors, men of standing, & possessed of sound business acumen, concluded that dividing the farm would lessen its overall value. They proposed that the property be sold in its entirety, & the returns divided amongst Wheeler’s heirs. The Court so approved.

  Subsequently, Mr. Thompson purchased the farm at auction, paying $7.60/ac, or $2,204, less than half the price the board of inquiry had estimated the property should bring. Now Robt. Wheeler complains that Thompson influenced the jurors to value the land high, thus encouraging the heirs to sell, knowing that he could then in all likelihood acquire the farm at a significantly reduced price. One juror testified that the ironmaster approached him with an implied offer of a reward—the word “bribe” was never mentioned—but, being a man of high moral fortitude, the juror refused to violate his oath & overvalue the farm. Nevertheless, the majority of the jurors fixed the value at $16/ac, with Sheriff Bathgate testifying that, to his knowledge, nothing untoward had taken place.

  Clearly the land is worth more than the $2,204 that Thompson paid for it. Robt. Wheeler appealed to the Court to let the purchase price be returned to the ironmaster, & allow the family to work out a division of the acreage amongst themselves such that those who wish to continue farming can do so, & pay the others their fair share.