Speakers of the Dead

by J. Aaron Sanders

  Back in the college, Elizabeth Blackwell and Miss Zacky are still in the classroom. Azariah is not.

  “Where is Mr. Smith?” Whitman says.

  “He slipped out right after you left,” Miss Zacky says. “I tried to stop him.”

  “We both tried,” Elizabeth says. “He kept saying how sorry he was. What does he mean?”

  “Well,” Whitman starts, “that’s an interesting story.” He sits again, and stares at the anatomical drawings on the wall. He looks at them long enough to forget what they are, and instead focuses on patterns and colors. It’s when he’s looking at a drawing of the circulatory system, full of purples and reds, that he remembers the sore on Frankie Clement’s cheek. “So what is the matter with her?”

  “Syphilis.”

  “And what will happen to her?”

  “She’ll continue to pass the disease on to others, possibly go sterile herself, and the infection might kill her. All this will be made worse if she goes through unaided withdrawals from laudanum.”

  “So you offer her a position as student?”

  “Call me an optimist. It is treatable.” She sighs. “I think I can treat it, anyway.”

  “Maybe she’ll come back, then,” Walt says. “I thought we had her.”

  Elizabeth takes his hand. “You can’t go tonight. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Go?” Miss Zacky says. “Go where?”

  Walt takes Elizabeth’s other hand. “I think you know I have to go.”

  “So much death already,” Miss Blackwell says. “We can’t absorb any more. I need you. The students need you. You can’t go.”

  “Go where?” Miss Zacky repeats.

  “But Henry needs me too,” Walt says. “I have to go.”

  Chapter 24

  James “Snuffy” Warren is sleeping when the guard opens the cell door. He sits up and wipes his eyes. “You came back,” he says.

  On this day for Walt Whitman, seeing one of the men who tried to kill him is like seeing an old friend. If anyone can tell him how to approach his meeting with Samuel Clement, it is he.

  Snuffy continues. “Frankie told you something?”

  Walt nods, puts his finger to his lips.

  Whitman sits down. “I’m afraid the situation has gotten much worse,” he says, once the guard has left them. Walt recounts recent events, the news article, Henry Saunders’s abduction, and Frankie Clement’s strange visit to the college.

  “He’ll kill you.” Warren runs his fingers through his hair.

  “If I don’t go, he’ll kill Mr. Saunders.” Whitman pauses.

  Snuffy shakes his head. “With all due respect, sir, if you show up, you and your friend will both be dead.”

  Walt says, “If I don’t go, you’ll be dead too.”

  At this, Snuffy falls silent.

  “That’s why I’m here,” Whitman says. “You know the workings of his mind better than anyone. You can help me surprise him.”

  Snuffy swings his legs onto the stone floor. The skin on his face and hands is splotchy from the cold.

  “The way someone like Samuel stays alive is to do what normal folks won’t,” Snuffy says. “He knows you’ll show up because you still imagine a world in which good people find justice and bad people get what they deserve. You want to catch him off guard? Shoot him in the head before he says a word, and then use his sister to find your friend. You’ll get one chance.”

  “Shoot him?”

  “Samuel Clement’s strategy is based on the notion that you don’t have the stomach to pull the trigger.”

  “But I don’t even own a gun.”

  “Then buy one.”

  “Where?”

  “Jesus Christ.” Snuffy shakes his head. “It’s a wonder you’re still alive.”

  Whitman shrugs.

  “Find the little shop on Catherine Street that sells tobacco, newspapers, that sort of thing. Use my name, and the man there will sell you a gun.”

  “Thank you.” Whitman writes down Catherine Street, then looks up. The cell is freezing, and apart from the small blanket wrapped around Snuffy’s waist, he has nothing. “How are they treating you here?”

  “How do you think?” Snuffy says. “They pay me little attention except to throw a piece of bread my way now and then, or to tell me how the gallows are coming along in Washington Square.” He stops, gathers himself. “Do you still have the letter to my mother?”

  Walt pats his coat pocket. “She’ll get it.”

  “Remember, one shot is all you’ll get. If you don’t kill him, he will kill you.”

  The thought of killing someone seems abstract even as Snuffy explains how. The thought of Henry, conversely, is concrete, and a rage Walt has never known before has taken root deep in his gut, and it is spreading—

  Can he kill Samuel Clement to save Henry Saunders?

  Yes, Whitman thinks. He can do anything.

  Catherine Street is only a few blocks away, but to get there, Walt has to pass through three different neighborhoods, the residents of which all speak different languages. German, Italian, and another he doesn’t recognize. Even in winter, laundry hangs on lines strung from one side of the building to the other. Carts and wagons and carriages speed in both directions, and Walt darts in and out of them. He has almost crossed the street when he gets stuck between a carriage and a cart.

  “Out of the way,” someone yells.

  He turns and faces an oncoming freight wagon, and it barrels down on him until someone grabs him by the coat and pulls him out of the way. He tumbles to the ground. A watchman reaches down for him. “Jesus, son, watch where you’re going.”

  Whitman gathers himself. “Thank you.”

  The man hesitates. “Aren’t you that reporter?”

  “No, no, no, but thank you!” Walt skips away.

  Two blocks down, he finds it. A small, one-story building sandwiched between two three-story tenements. The door squeaks as it opens, releasing a musty tobacco smell. Inside, stacks of newspapers lie against one wall, and opposite that stands a short man with rail-thin arms and a black mustache. “Can I help you, mister?”

  “I want to buy a gun.”

  “Well, then, I’m sorry to tell you that I don’t sell ’em here.”

  “That’s not what I’ve heard.”

  “You heard incorrectly.”

  Whitman pauses before he says, “James Warren said to use his name, and you would sell me one.”

  He hears the click of a gun from behind the counter. “Put your hands where I can see them.”

  Walt does.

  “Move.” The man comes around the counter and pushes him. “Into the back.”

  They go through the back door past stacks of newspapers and books to another, smaller room. “Stand against that wall and start talking. What the hell do you have to do with James Warren?”

  “He’s in prison.”

  “I know he’s locked up,” he says, “but you haven’t answered the question. How do you know my son?”

  “I’m sorry,” Whitman says. “Your son?”

  “Are you deaf, mister?”

  “I met with him today and that’s when he said you’d sell me a gun.”

  The man’s face changes. The hard edges turn soft and his eyes wide. “Is he okay? How does he look?”

  “He’s doing fine, given all that’s happened to him.”

  “You know I haven’t seen him for three years? Had a big fight.” The man pauses. “I don’t know, mister. I tried to be a good father. I work hard; that’s what he don’t get, how hard I worked for him and the rest of ’em. Then I hear about his name in the newspaper for murder and I figure I’ll probably never see him again. Next thing I know, he sends you along looking for a gun. Don’t know what to make of it. No, sir, don’t make a lick of sense. What’
s happened to my boy?”

  Walt steps closer.

  “Not so fast, mister. Stay right there.”

  “Look, your son didn’t kill anyone, and I’m trying to prove it. But first I need a gun.”

  “The newspapers say he’ll hang for sure.”

  Whitman remains still.

  “Goddammit, say something.”

  “The man your son worked for, the man who turned on James, also kidnapped my friend. If I’m going to help either of them, I need a gun.”

  The man considers what he’s said. He sets his gun down, then pulls a suitcase from behind the counter. He struggles to get the latches open, but when he does, he slides the case toward Walt. Inside, Whitman sees at least ten pistols of various makes and sizes.

  “What’s your pleasure?”

  Walt scans the guns, but one looks just as good as another. “I have five dollars. What do you recommend?”

  “Hmmm.” The man turns over the pistols and pulls out a smaller model. “This is a Colt pocket pistol. Here, see how it feels.”

  “Is it loaded?”

  The man shakes his head.

  Whitman holds the gun out in front of him by its handle. “How do you load it?”

  The man takes the gun from him, folds the barrel back, and shows Walt the empty chambers. “Slide ’em in here,” he says. “Lock it into place. Nothing to it.”

  When Walt puts the gun in his pocket, his fingers brush the letter he has written for Warren’s mother. It would be nice for his father to read it. He thinks of how his own parents would feel if he were in jail awaiting execution.

  Whitman holds the letter out for the man to see.

  “What’s this?” The man’s face lights up when he understands. He holds it in his hands like a vase, or statue, as if it might break with the slightest bit of carelessness.

  “It’s from James.”

  “My boy wrote me a letter?” He unfolds it.

  But like his son, the man can’t read. So Walt takes it from him and reads it as if James Warren wrote it to his father. He reads it word for word, substituting father for mother until the end when he adds something:

  I’m sorry we haven’t been closer and I hope, God willing, that we should have the chance to put the past behind us.

  “Oh, my son.” Whitman gives the man the letter. “Do you have a father?” he asks, staring at the handwriting.

  Walt nods. He pictures Walter Senior, his white hair sticking up, his eyes red from being out all night, and he can hear his straggly voice, hoarse from yelling—

  “I hope you appreciate him.” The man turns emotional but doesn’t cry. “Help me get my boy back, mister. Please.”

  Chapter 25

  At St. Peter’s Church, Walt Whitman disturbs a funeral in progress when the sound of his boots echoes through the spacious hall. In the center of the nave, a coffin rests before rows and rows of pews, where a congregation of thirty mourns. A priest, whom Walt recognizes as the antidissectionist Father Allen, stands next to the coffin, his head bowed in prayer, his face hidden from view.

  More quietly now, Walt makes his way to the sacristy at the front of the cathedral where he finds himself alone. Standing where he can see the church entrance, he checks his pocket watch. 7:25.

  While Walt waits, Father Allen continues with the funeral sermon: “And Mary said to Peter and John: ‘They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.’” He raises his voice. “Mary had gone to treat the Lord’s body with spices and found the stone rolled away from the tomb. She went inside and the body was not there.”

  Father Allen hesitates.

  “She worries that they had taken the Lord’s body to humiliate him. For as yet she knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. Imagine that: She assumed his body had been snatched from the grave. So what does Mary do? She seeks out Peter and John.

  “So they ran both together: and John did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went not in. Peter and John didn’t know what to do, so they went home and left Mary at the grave.

  “And then the miracle happens. A man approaches Mary and asks why she is crying. ‘Sir,’ she says—she thinks this man knows something about the body—‘if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.’ Brothers and sisters, that man was Jesus! And Jesus called her by name, and she knew it was him. He was resurrected and so shall we all be resurrected if we believe in him we call Christ the Lord.”

  The door to the cathedral opens, and Samuel Clement appears in his overcoat and leghorn hat. Alone. At least, Whitman can’t see Henry Saunders or anyone else. Perhaps Henry is outside with one of Clement’s men. Maybe he is hidden somewhere in the church. Or—

  He grips the gun in his pocket.

  Clement sits in the last pew and surveys the room.

  Father Allen ends the funeral a few minutes before eight. As the parishioners exit, Whitman makes his move. He tiptoes to the side of the chapel, amidst the commotion, and ducks behind a pew. Clement hasn’t seen Walt yet.

  Now, as he walks, he pulls the pistol from his pocket and holds it pointed downward at his side. He feels like a character in an Ainsworth novel.

  When Samuel Clement sees Walt Whitman, he stands to greet him. “You are the author of Franklin Evans. Imagine my surprise.”

  “Where’s Mr. Saunders?”

  “After I read your novel, I abstained from alcohol,” Clement says. “Your portrayal of the evils of alcohol moved me to improve my own life.”

  “You said to meet you here. I did. Now what about Henry?”

  “I’m trying to pay you a compliment, Mr. Whitman. Your story did what years of sermons could not: It changed me. And now, a few months later, business is thriving, my relationship with Frankie is on the mend—she’s so good to help out and she refuses to give me up to persuadable folks such as yourself—and I am seeing matters more clearly than I can ever remember.”

  “Your sister is ill for the laudanum you give her.”

  “Nonsense.” Clement pauses. “I’ve done all I can to get her off the stuff.”

  Walt clutches the pistol. His hands are sweaty.

  Clement says, “You don’t seem sufficiently impressed by your own work, Mr. Whitman.”

  Walt shifts his grip on the pistol. “Tell me where Henry is.”

  “Your work has incited the sheriff and his men.”

  “They hanged an innocent person.”

  “And city hall? I met with the mayor today, and your name surfaced more than once.”

  Whitman surveys the church.

  “Oh, the watchmen aren’t inside yet,” he says. “But, clearly, you have no idea what you’ve done.”

  Walt raises his arm.

  “Mr. Whitman.” Clement shakes his head. “The way you hold that pistol—you’ve probably never shot a gun in your life.”

  He has. Once. And he missed. “Tell me where Henry Saunders is.”

  “Hand me the gun.”

  Walt’s hand trembles as he aims it at Clement, who takes another step toward him.

  Walt wraps his index finger around the trigger.

  “Either you kill me.” Clement takes another step. “Or I’ll kill you.”

  Whitman aims his gun at Clement’s head just as Snuffy told him to do, but he doesn’t know if he can pull the trigger.

  Clement is only a step away now.

  Walt squeezes the trigger halfway before he lets go, and then, before he can react, Clement knocks him to the floor, takes the gun, and straddles Whitman, holding the gun to his head.

  But instead of a gunshot, he hears the voice of the priest. “Get out.” Father Allen points a rifle at Samuel Clement. “And I have shot a gun before. M
any times.”

  Clement’s green eyes bore into Walt. The look on his face suggests he would rather kill Whitman than save himself by obeying the priest.

  Father Allen’s voice rings out again. “Out.”

  Clement takes his time, the gun still pointed at Walt’s head. “As you wish, Father,” he says. Then he steps over Walt and lowers the gun.

  Whitman breathes a sigh of relief.

  But then Clement turns and kicks Walt in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. He rolls over, gasping—

  “Out,” repeats the priest.

  Clement sets the gun down on the cathedral floor, looks at Walt again, then the priest, and backs away into the shadows.

  The priest extends his hand to Whitman. “Come with me.”

  “No,” Walt says as he is pulled off the floor by the priest. “I have to follow him. He has my friend.”

  Father Allen grabs him by the arm. “Trust me.”

  “If I don’t go now, I’ll lose him.”

  “You have no idea, do you?” Father Allen says. “You’ve been set up. A dozen men, including the sheriff, are waiting to arrest you.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’m guessing it has something to do with this.” The priest holds out today’s copy of the Herald featuring a front-page story about Walt’s break-in at the Aurora and his slanderous articles about New York City law enforcement. Samuel Clement was right.

  Whitman stares at the article for a moment, then turns to the priest.

  “Trust me,” Father Allen says.

  The priest leads him through a door at the back of the nave—a heavy door with three locks—that leads to his living quarters. Inside, the sitting room is warm, heated by a large fireplace. Several paintings hang on the walls, most of them of Catholic saints or popes, Walt guesses, but the one above the fireplace is of Christ himself, floating in the air above his disciples, back from the dead.