His warm, reedy voice, so familiar. It was almost as if I could hear it now.
CHAPTER 5
“Speed? Speed? Is that you?”
I was in the twilight stage between wake and sleep, only this time it was between life and death. And just as there comes a moment, each night, when one must let go of the day and surrender to the inevitability of sleep, I had reached the moment of inevitable surrender to death. I let go and felt myself drifting toward the void.
“Speed! We’ve come for you!”
I was drifting, drifting … and then I was being yanked, ungently, by the legs. Or at least I surmised it was by my legs, as I had no feeling below my waist. Either way, suddenly darkness was replaced by light, by the bright light of a brilliant sun. I stared in disbelief.
“There’s another poor soul next to him,” I heard Lincoln’s voice say. “Dunno who, but let’s take him, too.”
“Is Speed even alive?” asked a second voice, doubtfully. After a moment, I realized it belonged to my friend James Conkling, a young lawyer who had arrived in Springfield from the East within the past year. “He’s not—we’re too late.”
I tried shouting, but no sound emerged. Then I tried moving my arms or legs, only to find they were frozen in place. Finally, I tried blinking as rapidly and demonstratively as I could. Neither man seemed to notice. I was entombed inside my own body.
“I wager he’s alive,” Lincoln said. “Just barely, though, and not for much longer. We’ve got to get him warmed up. They didn’t teach you anything at Princeton about making fire in the middle of an ice field, did they, Conkling?”
“I—well—not exactly, but—”
“Of course they didn’t.” Lincoln barked with laughter. “I know full well you didn’t learn anything remotely practical at your famous university. But no time for that now. We’ve got to get Speed and this other fellow thawed out as quickly as possible. What was that double log cabin we passed on the way out? Zachariah Hillman’s, wasn’t it? Fetch our horses, Conkling. We’ll tie one of them to each of our mounts. Make haste!”
I felt myself being thrown over the back of a horse and felt myself being secured in place by several loops of rope. I occasionally glimpsed Lincoln or Conkling coming into my field of view as they worked.
“Can you hear me, Speed?” Lincoln called out. “As soon as the storm moved out of Springfield, we came searching for you. I guessed you might be on the trail today, based on your letter, and when I heard Hickory had wandered into the stables alone in the midst of the storm, I knew you must be out here. Some advice, though. Next time, stay on top of your horse. It’s easier that way!” Lincoln chortled at his own joke.
I tried to form the sound m with my lips. M-M-Martha? But it was useless. I couldn’t make a squeak.
“Don’t worry about Martha,” Lincoln said, looking down at my numbed face with kindly eyes. “She was inside the Hutchason house when it hit. Sitting beside a warm fire the whole time, just like you’re about to be.”
“It’s no use,” said Conkling. “He’s frozen to death. Ah, well.”
“I don’t think so,” Lincoln said. “There’s hope if we can get them to Hillman’s hearth. Shouldn’t take us more than thirty minutes, I don’t think.”
The sky above me started to move. It was improbably blue and clear, like a snow-melt stream just after dawn. I caught sight of the sun and tried to will all of its rays to warm my body.
“Say, Lincoln,” I heard Conkling remark. “This other fellow? I think I recognize him. Isn’t he that carpenter who’s always asking for piecework? ‘Tailor’ or something?”
“Archibald Trailor!” exclaimed Lincoln. “Now that you say it, I do recognize him. I wonder how Speed and he chanced to meet up in the prairie.”
Sometime later, we came to a halt. I heard a pounding in the middle distance, and Lincoln’s voice shouted, “Throw more logs on the fire, Hillman. All you’ve got! These two men have nearly frozen.”
I felt myself being untied and roughly slung over Lincoln’s shoulder like a sack of grain. I bounced up and down helplessly as Lincoln ran toward the house, then ducked through a doorway. Suddenly I was flung down onto a rug not six inches away from a blazing hearth. From my prone position, the raging, towering flames seemed to be licking the rafters of the farmhouse. I felt a tiny flicker of warmth start to penetrate my frozen body. Then, without warning, I got very sleepy.
When I opened my eyes again, the room was dark. I turned my head and saw I was still next to the fire, now reduced to embers that glowed warmly.
“Lincoln?” I called out tentatively. “Conkling?” I heard a rustling noise approaching. “Lincoln, is that you?”
A kindly, moon-shaped face loomed above me. It took me a moment to place it. Hillman’s wife. She served Dr. Randall as a midwife on occasion.
“They’ve gone back to town, dear,” Mrs. Hillman said. She rested her hand on my forehead, and her tender touch sent waves of comfort through my body. “Once they saw you were breathing normally, they went to see if they could find anyone else who’d been caught out in the storm. Hillman went with them. Such a terrible day! I cannot bear to think how many lives must have been lost.
“Sit up a second, if you can. A draught of this will do you good.” She handed me a flask, and I drank it down eagerly. Stiff brandy. A shot of warmth flooded through me.
“The man I was brought in with. Archibald Trailor. Is he alive?” I started to get up to look around, but Mrs. Hillman gently restrained me.
“He’s going to be fine, too,” she said, and I let out a breath of relief. “He’s still sleeping, just round the other side of the fire.”
“That man saved my life,” I declared with a force that startled even me. I suddenly felt the urge to proclaim this truth loudly. “I was thrown from my horse and hurt my leg. I was all alone in the middle of the storm. If Archibald hadn’t come back to find me, hadn’t helped me shelter beside his horse, I would have frozen to death. All alone on the prairie.” I felt again the desolateness of the instant before Archibald had reappeared from the storm, and I started to shake uncontrollably.
Mrs. Hillman put her hand on my cheek and held it there until I regained my composure.
“You get your rest,” she said soothingly. “Your Mr. Lincoln said he’d send Dr. Randall around in the morning, but I know a thing or two about healing. The both of you will be just fine, once you rest up for a few days.”
I relaxed into the warmth of the embers and the compassion of her touch. Once more, I felt myself letting go.
CHAPTER 6
The next morning, Archibald and I shared a meal around the Hillmans’ table. We were, we agreed, exceedingly lucky to be alive.
“In my case, it wasn’t just luck,” I added, patting the carpenter on the arm. “It was your bravery and friendship, first and foremost.”
“You’d have done the same for me,” he replied confidently.
I hoped so. That afternoon Archibald headed back to Springfield, on foot, as his horse was still recuperating from its own near-death experience. We shook hands and agreed to gather for a draught sometime. And then he vanished from my life as suddenly as he’d entered it.
Two days later, I felt well enough to return home myself. I told Lincoln and his colleagues about the bank cashier’s treachery and showed them the proof. The sheriff was dispatched to Chicago to arrest Brown, but word got out before the sheriff’s arrival and the man ended up running for his life one step ahead of an enraged Irish mob, which formed up as soon as they understood that the corrupt banker was a source of their misery.
Meanwhile, back in Springfield, the state made arrangements to replace both the banker and the lost gold. Since there was little hard money left anywhere in the state—or the entire nation, for that matter—the latter task proved especially difficult.
Eventually, Lincoln hit upon the plan for the state to secure a massive loan from foreign bankers. But like a candle flame on a moonless night, the prospect of s
uch concentrated riches in impoverished times quickly attracted insects. Lots of them.
So it was that, several months after my narrow escape from the Sudden Change (as the singular weather event had come to be known), I found myself in the midst of a dazzling throng of persons pressed together in the grand ballroom of the American House.
The businessman Elijah Iles had opened the American House last year in anticipation of the arrival of the state government, now completing its long-awaited move to Springfield from Vandalia. The hotel was the largest in the entire state, with a prime location near the Springfield headquarters of the State Bank and directly across from the new capitol building. With the legislature now in the final stretch of its inaugural session in Springfield, the hotel was jammed with a hundred guests, each happy to pay a steep price to lodge in such close proximity to power.
At the moment, however, all my thoughts were focused on the form of a captivating girl with vivid blue eyes and rose-red lips. I watched while, across the room, Lincoln tried to make her laugh. He stood high above her, his shoulders stooped even more than usual, and he bent down to whisper into her ear. She leaned toward him, brow knitted in concentration to block out the roar of the crowd. Finally, my friend finished his story, a broad smile crinkling across his face, and his companion stepped back and gazed up at him skeptically.
“Oh, Abraham,” I thought I could make out her saying. “How can you possibly think that funny?”
Moments later he was back at my side. “How’d it go?” I asked in all innocence.
“Not well at all,” Lincoln replied mournfully.
“But it looked for all the world as if the fair Mary was in your thrall.”
He shook his head. “Miss Todd always seems to take my stories the wrong way. It’s as if I’m speaking a foreign tongue to her.”
“Perhaps Matilda is better suited for you,” I said, nodding toward a pretty girl with cascading ringlets of brown hair who was standing across the room. At her side was her uncle, Ninian Edwards, one of Springfield’s leading citizens.
In truth, we’d been having this same conversation for several months. Mary Todd, the younger sister of Ninian’s wife Elizabeth, and her cousin Matilda Edwards were two of the most eligible young women in Springfield. Having recently turned thirty-one, Lincoln was among the oldest bachelors in town, and I thought it long past time for him to have settled upon a wife. I had vowed at the outset of the season that I would help him with this task. However, he had proved an uncertain suitor. To make matters more complicated, I had quickly found myself beguiled by Miss Todd’s considerable charms.
Meanwhile, it was apparent we weren’t the only unmarried men in town with such designs.
“What’s Douglas doing?” Lincoln asked sharply.
I saw Stephen Douglas touch Mary’s arm and strike up an animated conversation. The peculiar-looking statesman’s massive head bobbed back and forth as he gazed up at her. Mary smiled and put a porcelain hand to her lips, as if to stifle a giggle.
“What’s his game?” said Lincoln irritably. “Surely she cannot find him attractive.”
“Who knows what moves these women?” I sighed. “Let’s see if we can’t throw Douglas onto another scent.”
Lincoln and I waded into the boisterous crowd, all the talent, wit, and beauty Springfield could muster mingling together in high glee. Diamonds and jewelry dazzled the eye. Gay revelers tripped happily through intricate mazes of dance to the soft wooing of the lute and harp. But there was a decided imbalance of the sexes tonight: three or four hundred men against not more than fifty ladies, and half of these were married or engaged.
As I followed Lincoln through the crowd, I noticed he was wearing rough Conestoga boots. One of his socks sticking out of them was black and the other a dingy gray. His swallowtail coat was too short and his shabby trousers bore several off-color patches. I walked with a slight limp. My injured leg was better, much better than it had been, but it still gave me trouble on these cold, damp evenings. By the time I caught up with Lincoln, he was already in conversation with Douglas.
“Do you still contend the internal improvements aren’t worthwhile, Stephen?” Lincoln was saying. “Why, the canal alone would transform the state, if it’s ever finished. Our farmers would have uninterrupted water carriage to ship their yield and animals to the eastern markets. That’s why I’ve resolved to seek this loan. We must restore the State Bank to firm footing as soon as possible. It seems natural that you and your fellow Democrats in the legislature should support the scheme.”
Douglas shook his broad face back and forth and snorted. “The improvements may have been a tolerable endeavor back in ’37,” he said, his deep voice carrying around the room, such that several of the men around us interrupted their own conversations to turn and stare. “But we can hardly afford them now, not in the midst of this depression. You know well, Lincoln, there’s no hard currency about in the entire state. And if private capital is absent, we can hardly expect the government to fund the canal. The state should not intrude into the affairs of the people.”
I was standing next to Mary, who had been following the discussion between Lincoln and Douglas with a look of frustration spread across her face. Up close I thought her exceptionally beautiful. She had clear blue eyes, long lashes, brown hair with a glint of bronze, and a lovely complexion. She had a strand of pink roses woven into her hair that perfectly matched the pink fan she held in her delicate hands.
“They’re talking politics again, Miss Todd?” I said. “Lincoln and Douglas can both be dreadful bores on that topic. It’s as if they think of nothing else. I wonder, what are your impressions of the latest novel by Mr. Cooper? Out of character for him, wouldn’t you agree?”
Mary’s eyes flashed with anger. “It’s not that they’re boring, Mr. Speed. It’s that they’re wrong. Neither of them understands the true rationale for the canal. It’s necessary to avoid the railroad monopoly. Obviously.” And she strode off in the direction of her cousin, Miss Edwards. Lincoln and Douglas continued jabbering at each other, seemingly oblivious to Miss Todd’s departure.
“There you are, Joshua,” came a familiar voice from behind me. “I’ve been looking for you.”
My sister Martha and I exchanged a hug, and I stepped back to gaze at her. Martha had moved to Springfield three years ago to escape the strictures of our parents’ home, and she had been my constant companion and coconspirator since her arrival. She was almost of twenty years now, with a fresh face and honey-brown hair resting on the shoulders of her handsome silk-and-satin gown. The light-blue dress had a low neck, and it had been everything I could manage at the start of the evening not to insist she cover it with a shawl.
“Did you see Miss Todd unhand Lincoln and Douglas?” I asked.
Martha’s eyes twinkled. She and Mary had already become close confidantes since the latter’s arrival in Springfield last fall. “If I wasn’t related to you,” my sister said, “I might have thought you were the one unhanded.”
“But—”
“Shhh. I’m only teasing. But let me ask you this. Do you plan on running for high office someday?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Miss Todd would aspire to be president herself if she could. She can’t, of course, so there’s only one path for her to the executive mansion in Washington.”
“Put in a good word for me, will you?”
“Have you considered Miss Edwards?”
“I was just saying the same thing to Lincoln.”
Martha smiled. The young lawyer Conkling materialized at our side. “Did you see Lincoln out on the dance floor earlier?” he asked with a grin. I shook my head.
“It was quite a sight. He looked like old Father Jupiter, bending down from the clouds to see what’s going on.”
Martha and I laughed heartily. “Will you permit me, Miss Speed?” Conkling said, taking Martha’s hand. She allowed him to steer her toward the dance floor. I felt a large hand fall upon my shoulder,
and I swung around.
“Simeon!” I shouted.
The newspaper publisher Simeon Francis was breathing heavily, as if he had just completed some sort of race. His untucked shirt strained to cover his bulging stomach, and he rubbed his unshaven chin with a ruddy, freckled hand.
“I don’t normally associate you with such fine surroundings,” I said, gesturing around the room. Iles had spared no effort in decorating his new palace with expensive furniture, carpeting, and wallpaper, all modeled on the splendor of a Turkish sultanate.
“A fine place for those troubled by a superabundance of silver in their possession, I suppose,” allowed Simeon with a frown. “Not my taste, though.” He gestured to the man standing next to him. “Have you met Belmont? He’s the man who’s going to give the state of Illinois the gold it needs to get out of this mess.”
“The man whose bank is going to loan the state gold, if terms can be agreed with the legislature,” said Belmont, with a trace of an accent I couldn’t immediately place. He was not much older than me, with a jovial appearance, precise mustache, sharp nose, and shiny black top hat. He twirled a silver-handled walking stick at his side.
“How does your bank have any gold left,” I asked Belmont, eyeing him with interest, “when no other bank seems to?”
“The Rothschilds always have money,” said Simeon.
“You’re a Rothschild?” The fame and power of the legendary European banking family was such that mere mention of the name was enough to stop all other conversation.
“A distant relation,” said Belmont. “Now I’m afraid I must run. There’s another legislator I need to corral. Herding wolves would be simpler.” With that, he headed off through the crowd.
A House Divided Page 4
