Perish from the Earth

by Jonathan F. Putnam

  I thought back to the hostility between Nanny Mae and Daumier that had been so evident aboard the War Eagle. “The avocat was in quite some form this morning, wasn’t he?” I said.

  “The man’s a toad.”

  “As long as the jury sees it as well, we’ll be fine.”

  “I’m not sure what this jury will or won’t see. Lincoln’s method of selecting them certainly was peculiar.”

  “I don’t think the jury is Lincoln’s only audience today,” I said, then instantly regretted revealing even this much to the old woman. I stared at her but she appeared unmoved by my statement; perhaps a few of the wrinkles branching and rejoining like a spider’s web over the broad expanse of her cheeks tightened slightly.

  “Where’s your sister?” she asked.

  “She had, er, other plans for the morning.”

  Nanny Mae looked at me suspiciously. “What other plans?”

  “I’m not sure. An errand to run, I think. She’s supposed to be here this afternoon. I’m certain she’d like to visit with—”

  “A young woman wandering Alton alone can easily find trouble, Mr. Speed,” Nanny Mae said, jabbing her knitting needles close to my face.

  It sounded uncomfortably like a threat, but I didn’t think our cause would be helped by confronting the old woman. Instead, I laughed and said, “Martha seems to find trouble pretty much wherever she goes. I thank you for your concern. I’ll make sure to send her your way as soon as I spot her.”

  “You do that,” Nanny Mae replied with no trace of good humor. She turned and, leaning on a walking stick, shuffled down the hill toward Ryder’s offices.

  “What was that about?” asked Lincoln when I returned to his side.

  “I’m not sure. Your method of jury selection certainly grabbed her attention.”

  “Good. I hope it grabbed someone else too. Someone in the courtroom has a good deal to lose—as much as Bingham does, in a way—and we need him to understand it.”

  “Need him to understand what, Mr. Lincoln?” asked Tessie. She and Bingham had rejoined our conversation.

  “The stakes of the trial.”

  “George’s life is at stake,” she said. “Surely nothing could be more important.”

  “I agree, of course,” said Lincoln, “and in my opening statement, I tried to show the jury what kind of man he is: ‘a dreamer who sees the world differently.’”

  “I thought your imagination was pretty fair—for a lawyer,” said Bingham with a smile. “Although you’re wrong about the captain’s buttons. They’ve got nothing to do with suns rising on a distant planet. They’re the lanterns of skiffs bobbing at night in a vast blue sea.”

  “I stand corrected.” Lincoln’s eyes twinkled.

  “Miss Roman,” I began, “do you recall, at the final supper we all had at Roman Hall, that you made a remark about your brother’s exactitude causing bondsmen from your father’s plantation to run off?”

  She nodded. “I’m certain it’s the case. We lost five or seven boys over the course of this summer, one just last month.” Lincoln looked up with interest.

  “What do you think happened to them?” I was thinking of the fugitives I’d seen hiding out in the cypress swamp.

  “I imagine they—” Tessie had been facing toward the river, and suddenly her mouth dropped open. She swallowed and murmured, “Dear God!”

  I swung around and followed her gaze. Striding up the hill toward us, his face set with determination and his fists clenched, was Telesphore Roman.

  CHAPTER 33

  As he got closer, I saw Telesphore was wearing a formal black frockcoat and high traveling boots. His face was red with exertion. The wind blew a drop of sweat off the underside of his rounded beard. He reached our position with two final giant strides.

  “Come with me, Contessa,” Telesphore said, grabbing his sister’s arm roughly. “We’re going home.”

  “Let go of me!” cried Tessie.

  “Let go of her!” shouted Bingham, coming to his lover’s aid.

  Telesphore looked at Bingham and immediately noticed his bound hands. He allowed himself a brief smile. Then he reared back and threw a blistering punch at Bingham’s jaw. The artist dropped to the ground like he’d been shot.

  Tessie screamed. All around, men rushed toward us.

  The prison guard Runkin was the first to arrive. He threw himself to the ground and grabbed Bingham around the neck as if Telesphore’s attack might have been a prelude to an escape attempt. “Leave my prisoner alone,” Runkin snarled. “Only I can abuse him.”

  Telesphore glared down at Bingham and spat. “You’re lucky you provoked me so,” he sneered. “If I’d been thinking, I’d have used my pistol instead of my hand.”

  A number of other spectators had reached us, and they crowded around Telesphore and demanded to know what his provocation had been. Several offered to finish off Bingham for him, but Runkin waved his stick and told them to stay clear.

  I caught Telesphore’s eye. “I know you like hitting people who can’t fight back,” I said, “but what’s it to you whom your sister chooses to love?”

  “You’re another son of a bitch who deserves a good punch in the face,” he shot back. I clenched my fists. But several men stood between us now, and Telesphore made only a halfhearted attempt to reach me.

  Prickett strode up and demanded, “What’s all this?”

  “I’m Telesphore Roman, her brother,” the man said, gesturing toward Tessie, who was kneeling beside Bingham. “Who are you? Who’s in charge here?”

  “State’s Attorney David Prickett, sir. You could say I am in charge.” He winked at Lincoln, who looked on with dismay.

  “I demand you order my sister to accompany me back home, where she belongs. I demand it and my father, Jacques Telesphore Roman of Roman Hall, demands it as well.”

  “Is Miss Roman of majority?” Prickett asked Telesphore.

  “I can speak for myself, and yes, I’m nearly twenty,” said Tessie from the side of her lover. She was using a lace handkerchief to dab Bingham’s bruised cheek.

  “And you are not married?” said Prickett.

  “Not at present. George and I will marry, just as soon as these ridiculous charges are dismissed.”

  “Then I’m afraid there’s no one who can order her to leave with you,” Prickett said to Telesphore. A gleam arose in the prosecutor’s eye. “You’re her brother, you say. Are you familiar with Bingham’s visit to Roman Hall?”

  “Of course. I was present when he was there with this man’s cousin,” Telesphore said, gesturing toward me.

  Prickett looked at me with confusion, then waved his hand and said to Telesphore, “Perhaps I can aid your cause after all. Come walk with me, young man. Let me tell you about the criminal trial that’s underway.”

  With the main combatant drawn away, the crowd began to disperse, grumbling with disappointment that the law—in the persons of Runkin and Prickett—had intervened to spoil a perfectly good fight. Soon we were alone again. Runkin and I pulled Bingham to his feet.

  “Are you all right?” asked Lincoln.

  “Thanks to you, I am,” replied Bingham, rubbing his jaw gingerly.

  “Me? But to my shame I did nothing to prevent the attack, a lapse for which I apologize most sincerely.”

  Bingham smiled. “You’re wrong,” he said. “It’s thanks to your argument this morning that I’ve realized it wasn’t a punch at all. It was the fiery hand of Hades trying to drag Persephone down to the underworld.”

  Everyone laughed, even Runkin. But by the time court resumed a half hour later, we were still shaken. Tessie was shivering as she walked beside Bingham back to his seat at the front of the courtroom.

  As we passed through Ryder’s reception room, I saw Daumier and Telesphore huddled together in close consultation. I guessed that the avocat, having performed his role as lead witness for the prosecution, was now helping Prickett prepare the subsequent witnesses for their testimony.

&nb
sp; Prickett’s first witness of the afternoon was Hector. The giant Spaniard, clad in his navy peacoat and white trousers, looked supremely out of place. The small witness chair disappeared beneath his massive frame. As he listened to Prickett’s questions, he ran his hands through his dark, slick hair.

  “You are a mate aboard the War Eagle?” Prickett began.

  “Sí. Yes.”

  “What are your responsibilities when the ship’s under steam?”

  “Whatever the captain tell me to do,” he replied, gesturing with a large, calloused hand toward Pound. “Wooding, sometimes. Serving the table, sometimes. Breaking up fights, sometimes.” Hector turned toward the jury and said, “Because no one want to fight me.”

  “I don’t imagine so,” said Prickett to much laughter around the courtroom.

  Prickett led the crewman through the fateful voyage involving Jones and Bingham. Hector described four separate occasions on which he had seen the two men arguing violently with each other, including one in which they had very nearly come to blows before he managed to separate them.

  “Over what were they arguing?” asked Prickett. “Or whom?”

  “Señorita,” said Hector, giving a polite nod toward Tessie, who was sitting not more than five feet from him in the crowded room. Her ears turned pink.

  “Did it appear to you Bingham and Jones resolved their dispute at any point?”

  Hector shook his massive head. “They argued all through voyage, including the last day.”

  “On the final night,” continued Prickett, “what happened?”

  “Mr. Jones lose a lot of money at the tables. He seek sympathy from a bottle and come back with a gun to shoot the gambler. But the captain, he has seen this before, and he tricks Jones to give up his gun. So I carry Jones back to his cabin to sleep away his sorrows.”

  “And the last time you saw Jones alive is when you deposited him back in his cabin at the end of that night?”

  “Sí. Correct.”

  “Did you see anyone in the hallway as you left his cabin?”

  Hector nodded gravely. “That man,” he said, pointing at Bingham, “the artist, he is coming toward Jones’s cabin as I am leaving it.”

  “Your witness, Mr. Lincoln,” said Prickett, taking his seat with a satisfied expression on his face as an excited murmur filled the room.

  “How long have you served as a crew member on the War Eagle?” began Lincoln as he rose.

  “Two seasons,” the Spaniard replied. “Ever since the captain took the command.”

  “And before that, were you also in service of your captain in his prior posting?”

  “Sí.”

  “And that’s true of other members of the crew of the War Eagle as well, isn’t it, that they’ve been with Captain Pound—and each other—for quite some time?”

  “Yes, is true.”

  “Some of them are in the courtroom with us today, correct?” said Lincoln, gesturing to the wall where they sat.

  “Yes.”

  “One of the others, one who’s not here today, is a gambler named Devol. Is that right?”

  “A gambler?” asked Hector innocently. “I am familiar with a man of business by that name who rides with us on occasion, but a gambler?” He shook his massive head. “Certainly not.”

  A few men in the audience, wise to the game, sniggered. Lincoln had a better chance of getting Hector to swear the Almighty did not exist than to have him acknowledge the existence of a gambler on the ship. Judge Thomas pulled on his cigar with particular vigor, no doubt remembering his own encounter with Devol and the crooked deck.

  “And does the businessman, Mr. Devol, have an associate he travels with? Perhaps a man by the name of Willie?”

  “I don’t think so.” Hector looked back with wide eyes, as if wishing he could be more helpful.

  Frowning, Lincoln continued, “In any event, is it fair to say the crew of the War Eagle is particularly loyal to one another?”

  “More loyal than my last crew,” said Hector. “They leave me on the New Orleans levee and sail home to Cádiz. Can’t be worse than that.”

  “I agree with you, sir,” said Lincoln over the chuckling crowd. “But even by more normal standards, would you agree the crew of the War Eagle is a loyal one?”

  “Certainly. Yes.”

  “Why is that, do you think?”

  Hector swung around and pointed at Captain Pound. “Because of him. Captain save each of us, from one thing or another. Captain give us each a second chance. A third, we know, may not be coming.”

  There was a pause. Lincoln appeared lost in thought, staring out the window above Pound’s head at the hillside. The silence went on so long that a few people in the crowd began to titter nervously. Eventually, Judge Thomas spit out his cigar and said, “Lincoln? Have you any further questions?”

  “I do,” he said, shaking his head rapidly as if to rouse himself. “My apologies.” He turned back to Hector.

  “When you took Jones from the salon, after the captain had tricked him out of his gun, did Jones go quietly?”

  “No, he was shouting. Loudly. He was very, very angry.”

  “And am I correct that he was carrying on to the effect of he ‘knew the truth’ and ‘someone would pay’ for what had taken place?”

  Hector thought for a moment. “Something like that.”

  The man-mountain stole a quick glance in my direction. Immediately I was reminded of what he had said while we’d been digging beside each other on the sandbar. When he had urged me to accept the judgment of the river. You may learn something you wish not to know.

  “What did Jones know, Hector?” asked Lincoln.

  The Spaniard paused. “I have no information.”

  “About whom had he learned a secret?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Who had reason to fear him?”

  Hector shrugged helplessly.

  Lincoln resumed his seat with the questions hanging in the courtroom air.

  CHAPTER 34

  There was a short halt in the proceedings as one of Ryder’s assistant clerks added more wood to the fires. Ryder’s offices were heated in the winter months by small stoves positioned in the center of each room, which looked like potbellied dwarfs rooted to cast-iron bases. A thick black cylindrical pipe ran from the top of each stove to the exterior wall to vent the smoke.

  The clerk knelt before each stove in turn and shoved in new kindling followed by four or five thick logs. He blew to fan the flames, and soon we could hear the fires catch. As the fresh wood crackled and snapped, Prickett resumed the People’s case.

  The barkeep Gentry was the next witness. His direct examination by Prickett was a close copy of Hector’s: Gentry testified to witnessing several loud arguments between Jones and Bingham during the course of the upriver voyage. Gentry also related the circumstance of one evening when a drunken Jones had complained to him that Bingham had ruined his life.

  As Lincoln rose for his cross-examination, I pulled out my pocket watch. It was nearing three o’clock. Martha had agreed, whatever she did or did not discover, that she would come to Ryder’s building to join us no later than two. I had made light to Nanny Mae of Martha’s penchant for finding trouble, but I knew there could be real consequences, especially under the present circumstances. The problem was, I had no idea where Martha might be at this hour.

  I looked about the courtroom to see if Martha had slipped into a back row, but she was nowhere to be seen. As my eyes swept the room, they locked with Nanny Mae’s. The old woman had been watching me, and I sensed at once she had been reading my thoughts. She gave no sign of acknowledgement, however, but rather continued with her work, the knitting needles clacking away quietly beneath the testimony.

  Fighting the impulse to go in search of Martha, I turned back to Lincoln’s questioning.

  “. . . like Hector, you too have been with Captain Pound for quite some time?” Lincoln was saying.

  “That’s correct,”
said Gentry, stroking his neatly trimmed beard.

  “And you would agree with Hector that Captain Pound’s crew is unusually loyal to one another?”

  “I would agree, yes.”

  “Is there a member of the crew who goes by the name Willie?”

  “No.”

  “A frequent traveler by that name?”

  Gentry paused, as if in thought, and said, “Don’t think so.”

  “Are you certain?”

  Gentry nodded with assurance.

  Lincoln walked over to me and whispered, frustration evident in his voice, “Are you sure that’s the name of your fool? I can’t very well paint him to the jury as the real killer if no one’s even going to acknowledge his existence.”

  “‘Willie’ is the only name I ever got,” I replied, cupping my hand around his ear so no one else could hear. “I can easily imagine it’s a false one. He was wearing an old battered straw hat the night Jones was killed. Ask him about that.”

  Turning back to Gentry, Lincoln said, “You were working at your post in the salon on the night Mr. Jones died?”

  “I was.”

  “And I understand Jones lost a good deal of money at the tables that evening, is that correct?”

  Gentry played with the top button of his brown vest. “I couldn’t see exactly from my stand. But it did appear so.”

  “Was there a man, a shabby sort, in a battered straw hat, who played a role in facilitating Jones’s folly?”

  “Not that I recall,” said Gentry.

  He’s lying, I thought. They all are. But how can Lincoln make the jury see it?

  “There was no man with a battered straw hat in the salon that night—is that what you’re telling the jury?” Lincoln’s voice rose with frustration, and several members of the jury noticed it and stared at him.

  “That’s a different question,” said Gentry evenly. “There were plenty of men with straw hats. Battered? It depends on your definition.” He removed the straw hat from his own head. “Would you consider this hat battered, Mr. Lincoln?”

  The two combatants went back and forth for another thirty minutes. Lincoln scored a few minor points, but I thought Gentry scored more. And if the gentlemen of the jury were not keeping score closely, I feared their tally would be even more unfavorable, because the barkeep’s calm demeanor made him appear the decisive victor over the increasingly frustrated Lincoln.