“There’s no shot from down below,” I reported as I reached her position.
“He was taller than me,” murmured Martha, chewing on the end of her pencil and lost in thought.
“But not enough to make a difference,” I said. “I tried jumping up when I was down there, but I couldn’t ever see you. The slope prevented it.”
“Which means,” said Martha, “he had to have been facing the other direction, back toward the house, at the moment he was shot.” She paused. “What would have made Mr. Early turn away from what was likely the first fireworks exhibition he’d ever seen in his life?”
It was a very good question.
CHAPTER 15
On the way back to town we detoured by the offices of the Journal, where I told Simeon that Lincoln planned to argue at trial that someone involved in questionable dealings with the land office had been Early’s actual killer. The newspaperman readily agreed to run it as the lead story in his next edition, and we left satisfied that the press coverage of the impending trial would finally change for Truett’s benefit.
After I’d finished with Simeon, I went next door to the Democrat. “Nothing new from S.G.?” I asked Weber when he looked up from his composing table. Lincoln’s anonymous antagonist had seemingly gone quiet.
“You sound disappointed,” the publisher sneered. “I thought the Speed family position on his letters was outrage. I wish you’d make up your minds.”
“Why don’t you let me know directly the next time you hear from him,” I said. “I’ll pass along to Lincoln whatever it is he has to say. That way you can save the column inches and printer’s ink.”
Weber smiled at this and said, “No wonder you’re a damned Whig, Speed. You’ve got no sense of fun.”
The next day was Friday, and that evening my roommates Hurst and Herndon and I decided it was time for a good drunk. There was only one place in Springfield where such lofty aspirations were guaranteed to meet with success: Torrey’s Temperance Hotel. So, as darkness fell, we headed to Torrey’s.
Torrey’s was the shabbiest public accommodation in town. The sign above the door featured a golden eagle, badly faded, and the name of the establishment. Long ago some wag had defaced the final two words such that the sign appeared to read “Torrey’s Temper Hot.” It was an accurate enough description of the sour, moon-faced proprietor of the place that no one bothered to restore the sign to its original condition.
We pushed our way into the seething public room and Hurst set off to obtain supplies from the open barrel of busthead whiskey, which sat on the bar beside the scowling Torrey. Herndon and I located a comparatively empty corner in which to set up shop. Hurst returned with three brimming glasses and we threw them down, wincing from the harshness of the liquor. There was no question but that it would do the trick, and sooner rather than later, too.
Several draughts later we heard a great roar of laughter coming from the other side of the tavern. I thought I detected a familiar hoarse voice amid the shouting. I stood, teetered, and headed toward the noise, and soon I spied Thomas Lincoln, his face glowing red, surrounded by a half dozen townsmen.
At once I realized the group comprised men who were not friends of Abraham, either Democratic office-seekers or local malcontents always happy to take a successful man down a peg. I forswore my original plans for the evening and attempted to shake off the effects of the liquor I’d already drunk.
Before I could reach this boisterous, dangerous group, however, I felt my arm being grabbed.
“Why, ain’t it Speed?” said John Johnston. He was carrying himself carefully in the manner of a man struggling to hold his drink. “I saw you over there with your fellows—I was wondering whether you’d be coming to pay your respects.”
“I trust you and your stepfather are still enjoying our precincts,” I said, wondering if it could be a coincidence that they had surfaced again after Lincoln himself had left town.
“It’s as good a town as any, I suppose,” he replied, “though our plans ain’t come to pass yet. Soon, we can only hope.”
We both looked over at Thomas Lincoln, who’d just been handed a fresh glass of ale by one of his companions. “Perhaps your stepfather would do well to slow down,” I said.
“Ain’t doing him no harm,” replied Johnston. “Besides, what’s it to you?”
“Abraham’s gone for a few days, but he asked me to keep an eye out for his father—and you, too, of course. I know those men he’s drinking with. They don’t have Abraham’s interests at heart. Especially not at this season.”
“What season is that?”
“I mean with the election coming up. Every one of those men would like nothing better than to spoil your brother’s chances with the voters.”
“Abe has no idea how easy he’s got it,” said Johnston, the color rising in his cheeks. “He ran through our parents’ door so fast after he reached majority it’s a wonder it weren’t knocked clear off its hinges. He ran out and left me behind with him.” He jerked his head toward his stepfather, who was holding a nearly empty glass in one hand while gesturing wildly to his audience with the other.
Another shout of laughter erupted from the men congregated around Thomas Lincoln, and I pushed past Johnston toward the group. As I got within range, I heard one man call out, “Tell us another one, Father Lincoln.”
“You really want to know about Abe?” asked Lincoln. The heads of his listeners bobbed eagerly.
“The truth is—and maybe this’ll surprise you—the truth is Abe was a goddamn lazy boy. I doubt there was any lazier than him. I’ll tell you a story from when he was a youngster that proves it.” He drained the dregs of his glass.
“Shall I fetch you another slug?” asked one of his listeners.
“Don’t mind if you do,” said Thomas, succeeding on his second try at handing his empty glass to the man. “Thank you kindly. You tell the barkeep to keep putting them on the ‘Lincoln’ account. I’m sure Abe’ll be most happy to pay it, eh?”
The men laughed appreciatively. One of them patted Thomas Lincoln on the back and the old man fell into a coughing fit, violently retching, his fist held up to his mouth as he tried to stop the convulsions. Eventually he caught his breath and looked around, waiting for someone to say something.
“You were about to tell us a story,” prompted one of the men. “About when Abraham was a boy.”
“That’s right,” said Lincoln. He cleared his throat with difficulty. “When we was living in Pigeon Creek, there was this fella named Baldwin who lived nearby, a rich fella, and he had a big field in need of tilling. This fella Baldwin had seen Abe ’round the area, of course, and he knew what a big, strapping fella he’d become. This must of been when Abe was of fifteen or sixteen years, and he was already six foot and some inches tall if he was a foot. So Baldwin asked me if Abe would be willing to plow his fields for one dollar a day. I said he sure would. He sure would. Cuz the money’s going straight into my pocket, right? At sixteen those broad shoulders of Abe’s was still mine to hire out as I pleased. Ain’t they, fellas?”
Thomas Lincoln winked broadly and his audience chuckled. Someone handed Thomas a new glass, filled to the rim, and he drank half of it down before continuing.
“Anyway, the next morning, right as the sun’s coming up, I go up to the loft where Abe’s sleeping and I shake his shoulder and I tell him it’s time to get up and start turning over Baldwin’s fields. And he just rolls over and falls back asleep. So I do it again and he does it again. Finally, ’bout the fourth time, I get him up out of bed—I nearly have to drag him down the ladder—and I get him out to those fields and I strap the harness for the plow around his shoulders and I tell him to start walking. ‘Get going, boy!’”
As I listened to Thomas Lincoln talk about his son, my temper rising, I thought back to one of the last conversations I’d had with my own father at Farmington, shortly after Ann’s funeral.
“I suppose you’re making a tolerable go of it with your
little store,” Judge Speed had said as we sat together in his library, a fire cackling in the fireplace against the nighttime chill. He was paging through one of his account books, as he always did during our talks, though I doubted he could make out the figures anymore.
“It’s one of the finest establishments in Springfield,” I’d shot back, “and I’ve managed to grow our sales every year, even during the depression. Through hard work and determination.”
“Hard work and determination are the keys to success in life, my son. Have I ever told you that?”
My anger broke and I laughed out loud. “Only about a hundred times.” A thousand was more like it; it had been his constant refrain for as long as I could remember.
“Hard work and determination,” he repeated. “Hard work and determination. You’ve got that, you say? That’s … that’s…” He drifted off, stared into the fire, and did not continue. A minute later he was snoring.
I felt, in that moment, an acute sense of loss. Because I realized Judge Speed would never be able to comprehend just how well I had learned his lessons. Just how well I’d followed his example.
“Now, about an hour later I comes back,” Thomas Lincoln was saying, “and what do I find? Abe ain’t plowing. Abe’s sitting against one of them stonewalls marking out Baldwin’s fields and he’s reading a book. Reading! I ain’t never do such a thing. And neither did my father, nor his father before him. I tell you, my son is meant to be working, not reading for … for what? Amusement? Pleasure? Ain’t never been a Lincoln in all the generations, I tell you, who’s so lazy as to be readin’ when he should be workin’.
“So I grabbed my rod and I walked up to him and I slashed that book right out of his hands. And then I slashed him over the head for good measure. And I held my stick over him and I told him I was going to keep on slashing him till he put that yoke back on and got back to work. Back to work like a man!”
Thomas Lincoln took in the startled faces of his listeners. He nodded with satisfaction. “I’m telling you, fellas, that’s exactly the way it happened. And if you ain’t believe me, you can ask Johnnie and he’ll tell you it was so. He’ll tell you what a lazy tramp Abe was.”
This was more than I could take. I waded into the group and called out, as if I had just recognized him, “Hello, Mr. Lincoln!”
Thomas squinted at me for a few seconds and said, “Oh, it’s Mr. Fry Speed. Hello, yourself. Did you see Johnnie, too? He’s around here somewhere.”
“I’m right here, Papa,” said Johnston from beside me.
“There you are, Johnnie. Care to join us, Mr. Fry Speed?”
“No, thank you. I was going to see—”
“Cuz I was just about to tell these boys,” continued Thomas, as if he hadn’t heard me, “’bout the scheme we’re fixing to run down at the camp with that crazy preacher.”
“What scheme’s that?” asked one of the Democrats surrounding him.
“We was down there cuz they give out free food and drink to anyone who’ll come. Anyone who listens to the nonsense of that preacher, telling folks God’ll show ’em the path to heaven on the day of judgment if they agree to do this and thus. ‘Do this, do thus, and the gates of heaven will be open to you.’ It ain’t nothing but hogwash, but some folks are too fool to know it. So we figure, if they got their heads caught up in the next world, they’ll forget to pay attention to the earthly one. And maybe they’ll be willing to part with their earthly goods for a price to our liking. Cuz it’s the earthly world we’re concerned with, ain’t it, Johnnie?”
“Yes, Papa.”
“It’s a pretty fair scheme, I’d say. We’ll see if we can make a go of it, but I wager we can.”
There was a general shaking and nodding of heads. How Thomas Lincoln’s scheme was supposed to work was anybody’s guess. Finally, the group recalled the business at hand. “Got any more stories about Abraham, Father Lincoln?” one of the men asked.
I reached over and touched Thomas on the shoulder. “Me and some of Abraham’s friends have an extra chair on the other side of the room. Will you take a social glass with us?”
“These fellas here are making things nice and comfortable for me, Mr. Fry Speed. Ain’t you, boys?”
The men who had been hanging on the elder Lincoln’s every word grunted in agreement. “Leave him alone, Speed,” growled one of them, a longtime Democratic functionary with a particularly nasty disposition.
I took Thomas Lincoln by the elbow. “I really think you’d be more comfortable sitting down over with us, Mr. Lincoln.” But the old man resisted. Suddenly, John Johnston grabbed a fistful of my coat and pushed me several steps away from his stepfather.
“Papa said he’s comfortable,” growled Johnston. His back to the group, so they couldn’t see what he was doing, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small knife. The blade shone in the candlelight of the dim taproom. “The old man’s got few enough pleasures in life. Leave him be.”
I gazed at Johnston’s knife with interest, not fear. Lincoln had said he thought his stepbrother capable of nearly anything. Did that include murder? I wondered.
I shook loose of Johnston’s grip. “You and I aren’t enemies,” I said. “At least, we don’t have to be. I want what’s best for your stepfather. And for Lincoln.”
“You leave my stepfather alone,” he growled, his knife still clenched in his right hand. “He ain’t none of your concern. And as for Abe, next time you see him, you give him a message from me.”
“What’s that?”
“You tell Abe he’s getting what’s coming. Nothing more, and nothing less.”
CHAPTER 16
I described my encounter with Thomas Lincoln and John Johnston to my sister the following day. When I came to the part about Johnston drawing his knife, Martha’s eyes grew wide.
“Do you think he really intended to hurt you?” she asked.
“More of a warning, I think, to stay away.”
“Away from what?”
“I’ve been trying to figure that out.” I paused, then continued, “Thomas mentioned that the two of them have visited the camp meeting. Have you seen them there?”
Martha frowned. “They weren’t there last weekend, which was my first time in camp. I’m going again tonight. Why don’t you come along?”
When I hesitated, Martha added, “Oh good! I knew you’d keep an open mind. I’ll send word to Miss Butler. She’ll be happy to see you there.”
The camp meeting was a novelty in Springfield that summer, a phenomenon that had seemingly come from nowhere and quickly affected many people in the community—though whether for good or ill was a matter hotly debated. Since I’d moved to Springfield several years ago, life in the frontier town had been oriented around three nearly universal public institutions: Politics, Commerce, and Liquor. The camp meeting had unexpectedly added a fourth—the Revival—and the people of the town were still adjusting to its presence in their midst.
So it was that after taking our supper that evening, we saddled up my horse, Hickory, and a rented mare for Martha in the stables behind the Globe Tavern.
It was a warm, cloudless night. We rode through the streets until they petered away and were replaced by a single carriage track cutting through the nearby farms and then out into the open prairie. A glittering vault of stars illuminated our path. The field insects were in full throat, a concert of crickets, katydids, and grasshoppers whose competing and overlapping cries called to mind a chaotic woodwind ensemble of oboes, clarinets, and bassoons jousting for the principal chair.
The first hint we were nearing the camp was the glow of fires that gradually emerged, flickering, from beyond the trees. As we came closer, we saw dozens of persons moving to and fro in the forest, many holding candles or torches. It was a sea of human beings, agitated into perpetual motion as if by a storm. We dismounted a few yards away from the edge of the encampment and tied our horses to a pine tree.
Several dozen white, triangular tents had been staked
out beneath the tree canopy. Inside the open flaps of the tents I could see bedclothes and cooking supplies and a sleeping small child or two. Beyond, the tents melted away into the woods, where fireflies flitted about in the gloaming.
In a clearing beside the tents, a two-story speakers’ platform had been erected. Several men stood on the upper story now, exhorting the crowd to gather around for the coming evening sermon. In front of the platform were ten rows of simple wooden benches. These were full of men and women and older children in formal, churchgoing attire. Many in the crowd were singing hymns. I noted that the women in the audience far outnumbered the men. I looked over the crowd but did not see either Thomas Lincoln or John Johnston.
“Over here,” shouted a voice. Sarah Butler waved and pointed to several empty spots next to her at the end of a bench. We approached, and Martha and she shared a warm embrace and sisterly kisses.
“I was pleased to get Miss Speed’s note,” Miss Butler said when she turned to me. “I don’t think you’ll be disappointed you came.”
“I decided it was as good a time as any to see what it was about. How long have you been coming for?”
“I discovered the meeting two months ago, shortly after the camp was first pitched, and I’ve attended every weekend since. The more I listen to Preacher Crews, the more the true path reveals itself to my soul.”
A look of doubt must have crossed my face because she added, in an earnest tone, “You’ll see for yourself. The preacher knows the way.”
Before we could converse further, a hush fell over the assemblage. A new man, tall and striking, mounted the platform. All eyes were riveted upon him. Cries of “Teach us, Preacher!” and “How wonderful God’s word!” rang out. Miss Butler beamed up at the preacher, her face radiant. And then all were expectant and silent.
Preacher Crews looked as if he had stepped from the pages of the Old Testament. He had a long face with a narrow nose, arched eyebrows, and a fiery mouth. His forehead was very high and very pale. His hair had retreated just past the crown of his head but he kept it long in back, dangling on his shoulders, and though having no mustache he wore a magnificent, fierce brown beard, coarse and bristling, that extended several inches from his jawline.
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