by Brian Hodge
The cycle seemed endless. They would come through the opening on the east wall, where the horse-powered Hereford wheel lazily turned, squeaking on its rusty fulcrum, lifting pigs off the mud floor of the holding pen. Still shivering in their death throes, convulsing and keening like clarions, they were washed, skinned, and prepped by the two other men who lurked in the sputtering shadows. At that point O’Haloran would slit their necks and coax the guts out of them into foaming troughs at his feet, before moving on to the next one, and the next, and the next. The process continued unabated, from dawn until midnight, six days a week, transforming hogs into cutlets, tallow, bacon, lantern fuel, chops, sweet meats, head cheese, and all manner of household soaps. Like the owner, Old Man Ashland, used to say through his crooked, brown teeth, “When we’re done with ’em, boys, there’s nothin’ left but the squeal!”
But on that night, as the big blood-stained Regulator clock over the door ticked toward the bewitching hour, and the killing wheel finally creaked to a stop, the butcher found himself alone in the packing house once again. As usual he was the last one out, the designated clean-up man, and that’s exactly what he was doing when he heard the noise again. He was mopping the blood down the chute when he heard the distant, garbled cries coming from outside, somewhere in the darkness. He paused. Over the trickling and dripping, as well as the ringing of his ears, he heard the faint echo of a scream. Not a pig’s scream. Lower and strangled with phlegm and terror.
A decidedly human scream.
At first O’Haloran looked around for Casey or Old Boxhead Bryant or Lockjaw Eddie, somebody to talk to, but the place was deserted — nothing looking back at him but the shadows and the spirits of a million dead hogs. Somewhere in the night, the hideous scream rang out again, weaker this time, dwindling. This was followed by a long eldritch howling noise.
A wolf.
O’Haloran ran out the east doorway at a full clip with his butcher knife still gripped in his blood-slimy hand. Had there been an eye witness at that point, the testimony would have been something to behold. This massive-boned Irishman, clad in a blood-soaked apron, clutching a twelve-inch pig sticker, hurling across an empty mud pen toward a pitch black stand of elms, from which the ghostly sounds of howling were now emanating… it was a scene worthy of a Penny Dreadful.
In previous months there had been wee-hour attacks in these woods, many of them involving packing house men on their way to and from work. Wolves. Coyotes. Wild dogs. One man from the Drover Stockyards got his fool leg bit off, but there didn’t seem to be much of an answer. Chicago officials were calling for calm. They were chalking it all up to the typical ‘growing pangs’ of a healthy young frontier town.
Chicago was nearly 20,000 souls now, and the new plank roads were stretching as far west as the Des Plaines River. The Galena-Chicago railroad was being laid, and the new canal connecting the Mississippi with the Great Lakes was pretty near ready to open its locks for business. On top of all this, there was a Great Famine going on in Ireland, as well as a war raging in Mexico, all of it sending scores of displaced immigrants per day into this promising new township. With this kind of growth chewing its way through the surrounding swamps and forests, it was no wonder there was disease and filth and crime and poverty and graft and misery… not to mention the occasional wolf attack.
But on that fateful evening, as Big Sean O’Haloran plunged into the woods along Western Road, his apron steaming in the chill of the night, his heavy breath puffing in plumes of vapor, the big Irishman was thinking only of that horrible gurgling screaming sound being swallowed by that howl. He raised his knife as the darkness swallowed him. His skin crawled as he fought his way through the brambles, then began to ascend a gentle slope. He could barely see his blood-stained hand before his face.
He reached a clearing and paused there, breathing hard, standing in six inches of muck.
What happened next — what the butcher saw — was beyond the average person’s comprehension.
O’Haloran’s description of what lay off in the bosom of that rock-strewn valley before him, barely visible in the gloom of night, was oft repeated in official transcripts. It was doubted by skeptics, and found its way into sensational accounts as far west as Philadelphia and New York.
The profusion of blood alone would turn a stout stomach, and O’Haloran had to put his hand to his mouth as he gaped down at the carnage. He began to shake. Nothing in his experience as a meat packer had prepared him for the grisly sight which lay in that lonely moraine of stone and weeds. At last, with very little warning, the big Irishman — manipulator of entrails, sticker of pigs — turned away and wretched up a stomach full of pork stew, now hours old and vaporous in the cruel chill.
2.
“A HIGHLY IRREGULAR PROPOSAL”
8 March – 8:51 PM
A lone figure appeared out of the darkness, and stepped into the flickering pool of gaslight that illuminated the Rice Theater’s Randolph Street entrance. Over the last few days, Chicago’s weather had turned exceedingly raw, even for March, and this particular evening, thus far, had been no exception. A chill mist swirled around the figure as he paused and reached inside his woolen county-issue coat for proper identification. Within the folds of his raised collar, his face remained obscured in shadow as he rooted out his Cook County deputy star.
He entered the theater’s narrow vestibule, stomping his muddy boots to bring some feeling back into his feet. The air was warm and fetid in the lobby, and a muffled voice could be heard behind the inner doors. The voice sounded oddly androgynous — neither male nor female — and also frail and defeated, as though it were giving a eulogy.
“Evenin’, Lassie,” the figure said in a hushed burr, nodding at the young lady behind the brass bars of the box office window, holding his tin star in plain view. The Scot was a stocky young man in his late twenties with a bullish head, thick neck and bushy beard. With each movement he seemed to lean forward slightly like a staunch redwood that had grown that way over years of gale winds. “Official business,” he informed the lady. “County sheriff’s department.”
“Oh dear,” exclaimed the mousy woman behind the window. She wore a plain, navy blue skirt and a blouse with leg-o-mutton sleeves — very little trim, a plain high neck with a single ruffled collar — all of which set off the homely cast of her pale face and beady eyes.
“No reason to be alarmed, Lass,” he whispered. “Ye hardly’ll know I’m here.”
“Of course, sir, of course… please,” she said, motioning to the inner doors. It was somewhat of a rarity, in this young town, to see a young woman in a hoop skirt working the window in an establishment such as this. Women were more commonly seen employed as seamstresses or line workers down at the new McCormick Reaper Works on North Water. But this theater was new to the mores of Chicago, and the young lady was the niece of the owner, John B. Rice.
Formerly of Buffalo, New York, the Rice family had opened their little sanctuary of culture here only eighteen months earlier, with a comedy called The Four Sisters, in which famed thespian Louisa Lane Drew, matriarch of the Barrymore acting dynasty, played all the title roles. The play had transfixed the denizens of this hardscrabble prairie town, and the theater had immediately thrived. Over subsequent weeks Mr. Rice diversified his offerings, bringing in an eclectic cross section of celebrated performers, artists and thinkers to regale the public. General Sam Houston, P.T. Barnum, Charles Dickens, and Louis Pasteur all trod the boards at the Rice. Johannes Brahms played his lullabies here for a full week. Christian Doppler discussed his famous effect. Mary Shelley recited tales of manmade monsters. J.M.W. Turner revealed inner landscapes. Robert Bunsen introduced fascinating new laboratory apparatus, and Ralph Waldo Emerson made audiences weep. But it was not until tonight — and its featured speaker — that any single attraction caught the attention of the Scotsman.
The burly little man slipped inside the auditorium. He was instantly engulfed in the oily odors of paraffin and kerosene from the stage
lights. He stood there for a moment in the darkness at the rear, letting his eyes adjust.
The theater was nearly full, the backs of five hundred groomed, dandified heads silhouetted by the footlights, held rapt by the solitary gentleman on stage, his curious sing-song drifting out over the gallery: “Ah broken is the golden bowl, the spirit flown forever! Let the bell toll! — a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river… “
And on it went like a dark current flowing through the still air.
The stage consisted of an austere pedestal table and little else. The speaker, a diminutive man dressed in a threadbare black suit, dull linen shirt and bow tie, leaned against the pedestal as though wounded. His hair was as black as crow feathers, and unruly above his ears as though caught in a gale. His complexion had a deathly pallor to it. He looked ill. Only his deep-set, penetrating eyes reflected any kind of life energy — albeit one of madness.
The performance lasted another forty minutes, at which time the pale, black-haired imp nodded stiffly to the applauding throng and walked off stage.
The Scotsman made his way against the flow of the departing foot traffic toward the stage. He climbed the wooden stairs, and flashed his star at the manager. With a nod, the skinny gray codger indicated an unmarked door across the wings. The Scotsman went over and knocked briskly.
“One moment, if you please,” came a muffled voice in a hoarse, unmistakable Virginia drawl.
The Scotsman waited, and waited, and waited as the theater cleared, the ensuing silence making the burly man uncomfortable. At last he knocked again. This time there was no reply save for a faint exhalation of air.
“Sir?”
No response.
“Sir, are ye decent?” The Scotsman knocked a third time, then tried the brass knob, found it unlocked, and pushed the door open.
“Oh my,” the poet murmured, looking up from the corner of the room where he was slumped in a bentwood rocker. His jacket was off, his sleeves unbuttoned and pushed up on his slender, feminine arms. A small glassine flask of a narcotic preparation, its rubber stopper loosened, sat on the table next to him. He made a futile effort to cover the bottle with an issue of the Daily Democrat that lay on the table but it was of no use. “Oh my, my, my,” he muttered apologetically while unfurling his sleeves with trembling fingers.
In a moment of modesty, perhaps even deference, the Scotsman turned away.
It was not a grand gesture or in any way meant to bestow unwarranted courtesy to the poet. It was simply innate to the Scotsman’s personality. A recent immigrant from the slums of Glasgow, liberal in temperament and politics, he was a gentle soul wrapped in a protective armor of brawn and cunning. He’d been a cooper in the village of Dundee, Illinois, before joining the Chicago constabulary, and his hands and shoulders were still callused and rough from making barrels. He wore a beard to give his youthful, pug-nosed face a bit more gravity, and he was quick to smile. But also quick to defend the weak. And perhaps this was why he made no effort to embarrass the poet, even though he recognized at once the behavior being displayed before him.
The bottle more than likely contained laudanum, an opiate derivative. Over the years, the Scotsman had witnessed all manner of unfortunates — prostitutes, derelicts, prisoners — using the infernal stuff to ease the pain of their hellish existence. The effect was quite sad — a theft of life force, a numbing of the senses. A century ago it had been legal, even fashionable among the aristocracy. But now the substance was being outlawed in more and more territories each year.
“Good Lord you’ve come to incarcerate me,” the voice croaked from across the room. The poet had obviously seen the tin star attached to the burly man’s lapel, and now the pale man slumped even further into his rocker.
The Scotsman bowed his head. “Not at all, Sir. On the contrary I’ve come to solicit a consultation.”
By this point the poet had gotten himself back in order, his sleeve clasped and his jacket back on. Now he rose and stood facing his visitor. “I beg your pardon?”
“Name’s Pinkerton,” the Scotsman said, finally making eye contact and extending his large hand in greeting. “Allan Pinkerton, Cook County Sheriff’s department.”
The poet stared. Thunderstruck. Speechless. “I — I am dreadfully sorry but I do not —”
“I enjoy yer work immensely, Sir, it is indeed an honor to make yer acquaintance.” Pinkerton kept his hand extended, his expression completely free of guile.
At last the poet reached over and shook the deputy’s hand. “A consultation you say,” he said somewhat tentatively.
“That is correct, Sir.”
The poet frowned. “With all respect, Mr. Pinkerton, since when does the sheriff’s department have a need for poetry seminars?”
Pinkerton’s grin widened. “Naw, I shouldn’t think old Sheriff Bradley and his minions would have much time for poems nowadays.” The grin faltered then. “In fact, I would ask that ye treat our discourse with the utmost discretion from this point on.”
The poet shrugged. “As you wish.”
The law man looked almost sad then, his voice softening. “Especially since it involves an act of diabolism worthy of the netherworld. If you follow my meaning.”
The poet looked at him. “I must admit, Sir, I am not certain that I do… follow your meaning, that is.”
Pinkerton rubbed his whiskers, measuring his words. “There has been a rash of killin’s in this township of late that have the sheriff and his lads vexed. Since I am only the lowliest of deputies I am acting in a somewhat unofficial capacity this evening by seeking yer counsel.”
The poet stared at him. “My counsel in regard to what?”
“Finding the party or parties responsible.”
Another frown from the poet. “I must confess, Mr. Pinkerton, that I am as vexed by your inquiry as your sheriff must be by these crimes.”
“Sir, I implore ye —”
“But what in heaven’s name could have given you the notion that I would have anything whatsoever to contribute to matters such as these?”
A long pause. Pinkerton’s grin returned. “Oh, Mr. Poe… I’ve read all yer tales.”
3.
“THE UNTRIMMED FINGERNAILS OF THE DEAD”
8 March - 11:21 PM
The human remains of the 39th Street victim had been kept, according to Pinkerton’s confidential orders, under lock and key in a deserted, remote stable five miles west of the stockyards. It was a highly irregular request, and it raised more than a few eyebrows among city officials. Victims of murderous crimes — usually gun fights, barroom brawls, things of that nature — were traditionally surrendered to the next of kin as quickly as possible, and very little consideration was given to their sorry state. But Pinkerton saw the Ashland Packing House victim as evidence (of what, he had no idea), and hence the need to keep it preserved for the purposes of further regard and study. Fortunately Sheriff Bradley was out of town at the moment, and his second-in-command, A. L. Fricke, was so overwhelmed with the requisite paperwork that he honored Pinkerton’s strange request simply out of expediency. For the time being, the corpse could stay on ice… at least long enough for the mysterious visitor from Richmond to have a look.
“Merciful God,” Edgar Allan Poe muttered as he gazed down at the ragged form engulfed in mist. Nestled in a swaddling of gore-soaked linen, the corpse lay upon a monolith of river ice, cut with a cross-saw from the north canal, an object which now oozed the most infernal gray vapor. A frozen snake, the long speckled tendril of a water moccasin, was visible within the ice, suspended in the milky medium. Unable to tear his gaze away, Poe shivered convulsively in his black frock coat, keeping one gloved hand clutched at his shopworn ascot as though he might fall apart at any moment.
Edgar Poe had seen quite enough death in his day — far more than one man should have to endure. In 1811, at the age of two, he lost his beloved mother, an actress, to tuberculosis. This primal memory of loss and abandonment — of seeing the woman’s r
emains laid out, not unlike this poor soul, across a mortician’s granite — haunted the poet to this very day. Abandoned by his actor father, Poe was subsequently sent to live with a foster family in Richmond. The matriarch, Francis Allan, was a kind-hearted women to whom young Edgar became very attached. Unfortunately death came calling again in 1829 and took the gentle Mrs. Allan to her great reward. The boy was devastated, his spirits trampled. The tragedies turned him inward, and prompted a burgeoning alcohol habit.
Eventually Poe moved in with distant relatives in Baltimore — a widowed aunt, Maria Clem, and her lovely daughter, Virginia. The vulnerable young man of letters immediately fell for his angelic cousin. They were married in 1836; Poe was 29, his beloved Virginia only 13.
The final slash of the Grim Reaper’s scythe came one day in 1841. Virginia was singing an aria for Poe in their Baltimore home when she coughed. A tiny droplet of blood appeared on her lip. Poe stared and stared, his heart sinking, mortified at the first telltale sign of tuberculosis. Virginia’s subsequent spiral into illness — and, ultimately, death — was the final blow to Edgar Allan Poe’s tender spirit and volatile imagination. Hounded by sorrow, he plunged into a severe opium addiction, not to mention the waxing and waning of terrible melancholia. It is no wonder that his subsequent work would become so dark, so disturbingly personal… and yet so universal. ‘The Raven’ was published only two years after Virginia’s death, and by the time Poe had reached his 39th year — only months ago, in fact — he had amassed a blood-chilling body of yarns and lyrics, including ‘The Telltale Heart,’ ‘A Dream Within a Dream,’ ‘Lenore,’ and ‘The Pit and the Pendulum.’
It was none of those gloomy fantasias, however, that had compelled the sheriff’s deputy to call on the poet. It was a more obscure tale which Poe had composed seven years earlier, in 1841, with little fanfare in Graham’s Magazine, that had captured Pinkerton’s imagination… a subject the Scotsman was about to broach.
