“How’s the campaign?” I asked Douglas. “I hear Stuart’s going to trounce you.”
“Don’t be rude, Joshua,” said Martha.
Douglas allowed himself a brief smile at my sister’s intercession on his behalf. Then he said, “I’ve found in politics that a surplus of confidence is invariably correlated with a deficit of votes. I’m glad to hear confirmation my opponent has the former.”
Two loud, argumentative voices rose above the noise of the crowded parlor. Turning, we saw Truett and Early, face to face, in animated discussion. Fortunately, neither appeared to be armed.
“Not these two again,” said Douglas.
“I witnessed their brawl at Spotswood’s the other day,” I said.
“So I heard.” He blew out his breath. “Let me see if I can take care of this.” Douglas bowed very formally to Martha, gave me a curt handshake, and strode toward the two antagonists. My sister sighed audibly in his wake.
“Are you trying to provoke me?” I asked.
“What do you have against Mr. Douglas?”
“He’s our political opponent, for one. Against Stuart this time, and perhaps against Lincoln next. And I don’t trust him. It’s obvious he’s out for himself and no one else. He’s highly unsuitable for you to speak with, even in public like this.”
“Don’t be silly. He’s a charming man. Very handsome, too.”
“I don’t see it.”
“I think there’re a good number of things you don’t see,” said Martha. She tossed her head and marched away. I caught sight of Douglas’s haughty silhouette likeness, still looming on the wall above me. Looking around to make sure no one was watching, I took a pencil from my pocket and added two horns to Douglas’s head.
There was dancing, accompanied by a pianoforte, and I made good on my promise to take Miss Butler around. It was a pleasant turn, during which the subject of eternal salvation mercifully did not arise. The lady’s coal-black eyes, I realized as I had ample opportunity to gaze into them, harbored quite a sparkle.
Meanwhile, the party bubbled all around us, fueled by three dozen bottles of champagne lined on a sideboard. All these were soon consumed, and Mrs. Edwards called for their boy to bring up another dozen from the cellar. The table was piled with eatables, including huge mounds of almonds and raisins, trays of oysters that seemed to replenish themselves, and bushels full of apples.
Late in the evening there was a tinkling of glass and we looked around to see Ninian Edwards standing on a chair in the middle of the room. “If I can have your attention, ladies and gentlemen,” he called out. “Ladies and gentlemen!” The roar of conversation gradually faded.
“It has been the Edwards duty since the days of my late father to welcome the distinguished residents of this state on occasions of great import. Mrs. Edwards and I thank you, one and all, for joining us for this celebration of the glorious birthday of American independence as well as of our town’s rebirth as the new state capital.”
“Hear! Hear!” went up a cheer that was accompanied by much clinking of glass.
“My original conception,” continued Edwards, “was to let each of the politicians present say a word of their own greeting. But Mrs. Edwards advised that as we’ve got so many in attendance, and as our species has been known to have a great fondness for the sound of its own voice, the sun would be rising and we wouldn’t be through with the speechmaking.” The crowd chuckled good-naturedly.
“So, instead of making speeches, we propose to make … fireworks.”
A great cheer went up. The practice of lighting off fireworks at Independence Day celebrations had been much discussed in the New York papers in recent years, but to my knowledge they had never been seen this far West. Certainly they were a novelty in Springfield.
“Please process out onto the hillside,” continued Edwards. “They’re being sent off from below, so everyone should have a good view. Only I warn you—don’t stand too near the cannons.”
I joined the crush of people filing out of the drawing room toward the front of the house. The Edwardses’ servants had blanketed the whale-oil torches, and as the crowd left the house they put out the candles inside, too. The lawns were pitch black. The vista looking out toward town was completely dark as well, save for the faint glow of a few hearth fires smoldering in houses below us. The crowd chattered with excitement; I looked around for my sister or Miss Butler but could find neither woman. Finally I spotted Lincoln’s distinctive silhouette and went up to him.
“How’s your evening been?” I asked.
“I’ve managed to keep my father and John away from Miss Owens and she from them,” he replied. “Judged on those grounds—and those grounds alone—it’s been a success. Her brother took her home an hour ago, so I’m in the clear for tonight. Tomorrow?” He grimaced.
Another figure walked toward the little knoll on which we were standing, and when he’d gotten within a foot or two I recognized him as Jacob Early. We greeted each other.
“I was hoping to find a moment with you, Lincoln,” said Early. “Perhaps Speed told you—there’s a matter concerning the land office I need to bring to your attention.”
In the darkness I could just make out the strained expression on Lincoln’s face. “Speed did mention it, but I’ve been busy with the campaign,” said Lincoln, glancing swiftly at me and back at Early. The campaign and his relations, I thought to myself. “I’m sorry for the delay. I’ll stop by the land office in the morning.”
“Very well,” said Early. “I’ve discovered something irregular in the books.”
“Irregular?”
“I was looking over the office records, and I noticed a few things that didn’t make sense. So then I started to make some inquiries, and I think I’ve discovered—”
Whoosh! Early’s words were negated by the air-sucking sound of a rocket taking flight. There was a large explosion and white drops of fire fell from the sky. A great cheer went up from the assembled guests. Early started up again, but again his words were drowned out by the explosive launch of a rocket, and he had no choice but to close his mouth and watch in amazement with the rest of us.
One after another, heaven-defying messengers flew into the black vault of the night sky, the furious scream of the deadly shell mounting higher and higher like a soaring eagle until it burst with a terrific explosion that spilled out a profusion of bright stars of the most intense brilliancy. The burning stars lingered and slowly started to fall back toward the earth, fading and flickering in wavering scintillations, beautiful to the very last dying spark.
It was apparent Edwards had spared no expense for his pyrotechnic display. Whoosh, bang! Whoosh, bang! Whoosh, bang! It was everything I had read about and more. There were serpents and wheels, table rockets, cherry trees, and sunflowers. Orange and white flashes lit up a huge arc of the night sky.
“The grandest is coming!” shouted Edwards above the noise of the blasts and the screams of the delighted crowd.
The rockets were shot up with greater and greater frequency, so that the explosions eventually knit together in one long stream of noise, smoke, and flashing lights. In their midst—boom! boom!—came the deep concussive sound of both cannons being discharged. The noise and smoke were absolute and all-encompassing.
Suddenly, I heard and then felt a whistling noise hurtling toward me. I dove to the ground. I lay there for a moment, breathing deeply, but there was only silence. Everything was obscured by a great haze of smoke. I’d been frightened by the final volley of shells, I thought as I picked myself up. Smiling ruefully, I hoped no one else had witnessed my lack of courage.
The smoke started to clear. Men and women all around were cheering and shouting out their approval at the remarkable display.
“Bravo!” I called, clapping my hands.
“Spectacular!” came Lincoln’s voice in agreement, although I could hardly make out his figure through the haze.
I looked around to see Early’s reaction. He was oddly tacit
urn, and as the smoke continued to drift away, I gradually perceived that he was lying on the ground, having likewise flung himself out of the way of the hurtling shadows.
“I see they got you, too, Early,” I shouted. “No shame in that, I warrant. Not when it’s the first display of fireworks we’ve ever seen. Here, I’ll help you up.”
I reached out my arm, but Early did not grasp it. In fact, he did not reply at all.
“Early?” I tried again. And then, more insistently, “Early!”
I knelt beside his prone figure, now fully visible, and, a second later, I swore loudly. Early’s arms and legs were splayed out and his eyes and mouth were open wide in wonder—or perhaps horror. There was a round hole directly in the center of his forehead. Other than a thin trickle of blood oozing from the wound, Early was motionless.
CHAPTER 7
Lincoln stooped beside the fallen man. “Go find a doctor!” he shouted at me, his face stricken. He added quietly, more to himself, “Though I fear there’s no hope.”
I pressed through the crowd, frantically scanning faces in search of a doctor. Everyone was in high spirits from the excitement of the fireworks, and few persons noticed me as I passed. After several moments, I ran headlong into Martha.
“Wasn’t that … what’s wrong?” she said, seeing the expression on my face.
I told her what had happened and she put her hand to her mouth in horror. At that instant, I glimpsed the long face and flowing gray beard of Weymouth Warren, one of the senior physics in town. I grabbed his arm, explained the circumstances, and pointed him in the direction of the hillock on which we’d been standing. The Edwardses’ servants were relighting the whale-oil torches, and a crowd of people was starting to cluster around Early’s body.
“We should go help,” said Martha, taking my arm.
“Right at the end of the fireworks,” I said, “I felt something whizz close by. It seemed like part of the display, or perhaps a blank from the cannons, but now I wonder if it was the bullet that struck Early.”
Martha gaped at me, her face stricken again. “Perhaps it was.” She gave me a tight embrace. “You’re lucky it missed you, Joshua.”
“So is Lincoln that it missed him.”
The crowd surrounding the fallen man had grown large, and we had to push our way toward the center. Lincoln and Doctor Warren were conversing in low tones. Early lay motionless at their feet. Someone had folded his arms across his body and closed his mouth. Warren bent down to lower his eyelids, but they were stuck open and refused to move. After a few attempts Warren gave up. Even in death, Early was intent on running contrary to prevailing wishes.
I looked again at where Early had fallen, which was not more than five feet from where Lincoln and I had been standing. We had been lucky the fatal bullet hadn’t hit us instead.
The jostling crowd was alive with fervid speculation about who or what had caused Early’s death. A number of men conjectured that the “devil’s fire” had proven fatal, perhaps as a result of a misdirected rocket shell. Several hurried off in search of Edwards to demand an explanation of the wizardry that had produced the spectacular display.
The greater part of the crowd ringing Early’s body, however, quickly concluded that his rival Henry Truett was to blame. A group of men deputized themselves and headed off in search of the man. Three minutes later they returned, dragging their quarry along the grass like a squealing hog being led to slaughter.
“I didn’t do it!” Truett proclaimed shrilly as he was dumped in a heap next to Early’s body. Truett took a look at the dead man, shivered, and scrambled to his feet, but the mob grabbed hold of his arms and legs before he could go anywhere.
There was the sound of approaching hoofbeats and Sheriff Hutchason rode up and dismounted. He was a large, stocky man with broad shoulders and close-cropped hair.
“I came as soon as I heard,” he said to no one in particular. “Ah, Lincoln. You’re here. What happened?”
Lincoln drew Hutchason aside and talked into his ear. Meanwhile, a tug-of-war was developing among the men holding Truett. It seemed that one faction wanted to string him up from a tree at once, while the other sought to march him off to jail. The suspect himself, being simultaneously pulled in two opposite directions, began calling piteously to attract the sheriff’s attention.
Hutchason waded into the mob and seized Truett by the scruff of his neck. “I’m taking you to jail,” he said. “For your own protection if nothing else.”
Hutchason tied Truett’s hands behind his back, hoisted him up onto his horse, and without further ceremony set off down the hill for town. Soon afterward, Higgins the cabinetmaker drove up in his cart. Higgins also served as the town’s undertaker, and he infallibly arrived on the scene of any death shortly after Death himself had departed with his grim harvest, almost as if he and the reaper were connected by some direct, though unseen, means of communication.
I helped lift Early’s body into the back of Higgins’s box cart—it took four men to hoist the large corpse—and Higgins covered the body with a blanket. Higgins resumed the driver’s seat and gave a shake of his reins, and slowly they bounced away down Quality Hill.
The sheriff and the cabinetmaker left a trail of men in their wake, all grumbling about an anticlimactic ending to a spectacular evening. The only thing that could have topped the fireworks, several noted with disappointment, would have been a hanging right there on the spot.
Soon Lincoln, Martha, and I were alone on the hillside.
“You’re shaking,” I said, looking over at Lincoln.
“He was a good man and a loyal supporter,” said Lincoln, his face creased with sorrow. “And I can’t stop thinking about our last conversation, right before the display started.”
“What conversation?” asked Martha.
As Lincoln related it, Martha’s eyes grew wider. “What irregularity do you suppose he’d found in the land office?” she asked.
“I doubt we’ll ever know now,” I said.
“Unless Truett’s defense lawyer unearths it,” said Lincoln. “After all, it stands to reason it’s one possible motive for whoever did this, if something seriously wrong was going on and Early had found out about it.”
“But isn’t it obvious Truett’s guilty?” said Martha. We’d begun to walk down the hill toward town. “Everyone knows about their feud. And their fight the other night.”
“That’ll be up to the courts to sort out in due time,” said Lincoln. “Not that it will bring back Early.” He looked down, and I saw that his pants were stained with grass and dirt from kneeling beside the dead man.
“Perhaps Mr. Truett will hire you,” said Martha.
“I’ve no time for a murder case, not right before the election,” said Lincoln. “Besides, as a Democrat accused of killing a Whig, he’ll want a Democratic lawyer representing him. There’re plenty in town, plenty who would be happy for the assignment. One politician accused of killing another—the trial will be on everybody’s lips.”
“Maybe you could suggest Douglas,” I said. “I doubt he could help himself but to take on such a high-profile trial. And it would occupy his time right before the election.”
Lincoln grinned in the darkness while Martha started to protest. “Settle down,” I said, linking arms with her. “I’m joking. I’m sure your Stephen won’t do anything to impair his precious political future.”
CHAPTER 8
An hour later, Lincoln and I were in our bedroom, stripping off our clothes and preparing for bed. The room contained space only for the two double beds and a rickety dressing table. A single candle flickered on the table now. Since Lincoln’s arrival in Springfield last year, he and I had shared one of the beds. Hurst and Herndon shared the other, although, as both were intemperate men, there were many evenings when neither had materialized before we turned in.
“I feel responsible in some way for Early’s death,” said Lincoln, his face still tinged with sadness.
“You? Why?�
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“If only I’d gone to see him earlier. Heard what it was he’d discovered. Perhaps this fate would have been avoided.”
“There’s no reason to think that.”
Lincoln sighed. He was wearing his linen nightshirt, a faded, striped affair that would have reached to the ankles of a normal-sized man. On Lincoln, it did not even cover his knobby, hairy knees. I was in my nightshirt as well. From opposite sides of the bed we clambered in, then tugged the summer blanket back and forth until it covered us more or less equally.
“Did Early have any family nearby?” I asked.
“Only his sister, Lilliana. She’s the one Prickett just married.”
“That’s right.” David Prickett was the state’s attorney, in charge of prosecuting all criminal cases in Sangamon County. He had lost his wife in childbirth the prior year but had married anew a few months ago.
Lincoln wrestled his pillow into a more comfortable position. “I saw you taking a turn with Miss Butler this evening,” he said. “An extended turn. The two of you looked a natural pairing.”
“Maybe.” I thought again about Miss Butler’s newfound interest in pursuing the Word and then about her sparkling eyes. “And I enjoyed meeting Miss Owens formally as well.”
“She lacks Ann’s spirit,” said my friend. “That was obvious from the first moment I spoke with her. Still, I’m certain I’ll never meet another woman who has that.”
As I’d gotten to know Lincoln over the past year, I’d come to understand that the loss of Ann Rutledge still weighed heavily on him—even more heavily than the deaths of his brother in infancy, of his mother from the milk sickness when he’d been nine, and of his elder sister Sarah, who had been like a mother to him after their angel mother passed and who died in childbirth a few days short of her twenty-first birthday. Ann was the great love of Lincoln’s life. Lincoln had, in his own telling, never been the same since she died of brain fever before they could solemnize their relationship.
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