Final Resting Place

by Jonathan F. Putnam

  A little while later I saw Thomas Lincoln and John Johnston creeping tentatively along the edge of the green like ants arriving late at a picnic. They approached the Democratic barbecue, and I could read from the hand gestures each made that the man turning three suckling pigs on the spit indicated they needed to vote first before partaking in the feast. Johnston and Lincoln huddled together and evidently decided that expressing a civic opinion was too high a price to pay for a solid meal, and they slunk away, unvoted and unfed.

  As I looked around the field, now littered with men in various stages of exhaustion and intoxication, I wondered if he was out there. Salem’s Ghost. Was he, even at this very minute, staring at me, marking me as his next victim? I reached, involuntarily, for my pocket to check that my pistol was still close at hand. Was he haunting the front of A.Y. Ellis & Co., or perhaps Hoffman’s Row, waiting for Lincoln to make his next public appearance, so that he could bring down the biggest target of all? Where was he? Who was he? I had no answers, and the questions swirled around inside my head with such a frenzy that I began to feel dizzy.

  Around seven o’clock in the evening I checked the tallies being maintained by the Whig and Democratic vote counters at the foot of the stage. Their numbers were in close agreement, and Lincoln’s reelection seemed assured. The contest in Springfield between Douglas and Stuart was just as close as predicted. And since the Third District stretched all the way up to Chicago and was being conducted at several dozen polling stations in that vast territory, it would be several days until the final tally in that contest was known.

  I had not seen Lincoln all day. I found him at Hoffman’s Row, dressed in his court clothes, reading over some legal papers. It was the first time since Miss Owens’s death he had done either.

  “Well?” he asked when I entered.

  “It’s been quite a battle.”

  “I’ve heard as much through the windows.”

  “You’re doing well. Stuart and Douglas are neck and neck.”

  Lincoln nodded but continued reading his papers.

  After a few moments of silence, I asked, “What are you doing?”

  “Getting ready for Truett’s trial.”

  “Good. I wasn’t sure…”

  Lincoln looked up. On his face I saw a clear manifestation of the pain he’d held within his breast over the past week.

  “I made a commitment to Truett,” he said, “which I’m obliged to keep.” He seemed as if he were going to say more, about Miss Owens perhaps, but instead he shut his mouth and looked down again.

  “If you’re going to vote, now’s probably a good time.”

  Lincoln got to the end of a page and put his papers down. He rose and settled his stovepipe hat atop his head. As we left Hoffman’s Row and headed for the election platform, I tried to stick closely to his left side, in order that he not glance across at the quiet apothecary on the other side of the square. But his eyes remained straight ahead and focused on the poll.

  The town green was quieter now than it had been this morning, in the midst of the pitched battle, but the parties’ banners still flew and their bands still played. All at once people started to notice Lincoln’s distinctive presence striding across the green, and they fell silent. Several took off their hats as we walked by. By the time we reached the platform, an eerie quiet had descended upon the entire scene.

  Several dozen men still waited their turn at the bottom of the steps, but to a man they stood aside as Lincoln approached. He touched the brim of his hat in silent thanks.

  “Next!” cried Jones hoarsely from atop the stage.

  “Abraham Lincoln,” said Lincoln as he ascended.

  Jones showed no reaction but rather carefully scrawled Lincoln’s name in his book. “Your vote for the Third Congressional District? The candidates are Mr. Douglas and Mr. Stuart.”

  “Stuart,” said Lincoln in a loud, clear voice. Earlier in the day this would have unleashed a great swell of cheers, but in the suddenly subdued crowd it produced only a small ripple of scattered applause.

  “Your vote for representative to the Illinois Legislature from Sangamon County? The candidates are—”

  “I believe I know the candidates,” said Lincoln. A faint smile played on his lips. “I vote for the man of great height and low intellect. I reckon he’s worth returning for another term. Lincoln.”

  CHAPTER 29

  The next morning Lincoln reached across and stopped me as I was rolling out of our bed. “How did Margaret die?” he asked.

  I looked at him with surprise. “You don’t know?”

  “I asked the sheriff that day, right after he’d given me the awful news, and he said it was too soon to know anything. Just that she was gone forever. After that … well, after that I fell into an abyss.”

  “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “Tell me.”

  I explained the sheriff’s conclusion that Miss Owens had swallowed a fatal dose of strychnine in the restorative concoction Owens had prepared for her. Lincoln looked very grave, and for a moment I thought he was going to fall back into his abyss. But then he gathered himself.

  “Someone ingesting strychnine,” he said, “would suffer seizures before they died, wouldn’t they?”

  “The sheriff said they would, yes.” I hoped mightily Lincoln wouldn’t ask about the condition of Miss Owens’s body in death; the horrible image of her arched, frozen body was burned into my memory, and I was afraid of what it would do to his.

  Lincoln was out of bed now, and he shook his head sorrowfully. “The same thing happened to Ann Rutledge,” he said quietly.

  “I don’t understand—I thought it was brain fever that killed her.”

  “It was, but she also suffered seizures. Caused by the fever. She had a particularly violent one the last time I visited her bedside. It was terrible to see—her body writhing on top of her bedclothes, without any control. And it was exhausting for her as well. Death almost came as a relief, after how she suffered.”

  Lincoln reached into the pocket of his coat, still lying on the floor from last night, and pulled out a slender volume. “And then there’s this.”

  I took the book from his hands and saw that it was a book of poetry by Robert Burns. “It was on my table at Hoffman’s Row when I returned for the first time, yesterday,” he explained.

  “What was it doing there?”

  Lincoln’s eyes were hooded and his face was drawn. “All I know is that I didn’t leave it there. He’s my favorite poet, but I don’t own this particular volume. So someone had broken into my office again.”

  “Was anything else disturbed?”

  “Not that I could find.”

  “Why would someone break into your office and leave that book?”

  Lincoln shook his head, wordlessly. But an explanation immediately occurred to me. It was a message of some sort.

  I thought some more. “Didn’t you once tell me that Miss Rutledge enjoyed Burns as well?”

  Lincoln nodded.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “What can I do? Prepare for Truett’s trial, as best I can. Nothing’s going to bring back Miss Owens—or Miss Rutledge.” He sighed. “If you want to be of help, will you talk to Truett at the jail cell? I’m going to be busy at Hoffman’s Row all day, writing out my opening speech and preparing my witness examinations.”

  “Certainly. About what?”

  “Ask him about Miss Owens. Whether they knew each other well, or had any other connection—beyond both knowing me, that is. It stands to reason that Early’s death and Miss Owens’s may be connected in some way. Also, see if Truett has any explanation for his gun being found by the sheriff on Quality Hill. I’ve never gotten a straight answer from him on that.”

  We agreed to meet at Hoffman’s Row later in the day. While I dressed, Lincoln dug through his clothes chest. At the bottom he found an old frockcoat. He ripped out the black silk lining and tore it into several strips. Finally he got the s
ize he wanted and carefully tied it around his right forearm. Then he nodded somberly and, without a word to me, walked from the room.

  When I got out to the square a half hour later, I was confronted with the sorry remains of election day. The town green was littered with whiskey bottles, torn campaign placards, and discarded hats. A workman had just shown up to hammer apart Jones’s polling platform. Several men had been too intoxicated to make it home at the end of the long, hot day of electioneering and drinking (not necessarily in that order) and their sleeping forms were scattered about the green, their clothes covered with dirt and grime.

  One misbegotten Democrat—his straw hat gave away his affiliation—was sitting with his back leaned against the low capitol walls. He had a whiskey bottle in one hand, which was held not far from his partially opened mouth, and he was snoring loudly. Evidently he had fallen asleep mid-drink.

  I passed few conscious men on my way over to the jail. The town was quiet, subdued, still recovering from the turmoil of election day. But when I let myself through the gate into Hutchason’s backyard, I found two men in intense discussion. Truett was standing inside his cell by the door, his hands clinging to the bars, talking with animation to Doctor Warren, who stood outside the jail in a defiant posture.

  “What’s all this?” I asked as I approached.

  “We’re trying to fix the terms of my insurance policy,” said Truett. His physical appearance was, if anything, even worse than the last time I’d seen him. His face, hands, and clothes were streaked with dirt, and I sensed at once an unpleasant odor that got stronger as I approached the cell.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s because your life isn’t in jeopardy this week,” he retorted. “I know you’ll say I can trust Lincoln to save it by proving my innocence, but you’ll pardon me if I’m not prepared to rest on your assurance. Hence Doctor Warren.” He gestured toward the medical man.

  “You have legal skills as well, Doctor?” I asked.

  Warren gave me a sour expression and tugged on his long white beard. “No. Medical ones, of course.”

  “And how will those help you,” I said, turning back to the prisoner, “in the event, however unlikely, you’re convicted and sentenced to death?”

  It was Warren who answered. “Because I intend to cut him down from the gallows and bring him back to life. If he agrees to my price, that is.”

  I started to laugh until, looking back and forth between the two men, I realized both were deadly serious.

  “How ever?” I asked.

  Warren glanced at the Hutchason house, which still appeared to be slumbering. “If I tell you,” he said, in a quieter voice, “will you promise most profoundly not to tell the sheriff or the judge or anyone?”

  My curiosity won the battle with my common sense. “I suppose.”

  “I have been experimenting, these past few months, with the effects of galvanic batteries. With the amazing effects of such batteries, I should say. These batteries harness the electrical force, including the force of life operating inside your body to move your limbs, power your thoughts, and so on. Through my study and experimentation, I’ve discovered galvanic batteries possess the power to give life where another has taken it away.”

  “Impossible!”

  “I have been lately experimenting with my batteries on several dogs,” continued Warren, his face glowing with excitement as he rose to his subject. “When I began each experiment, the dogs were, I assure you, very much dead. But when I attached two electrical leads to the dog’s body and connected the other end of the leads to my battery, the bodies started moving around. They became reanimated. Once, a dog even started getting back on its feet.” He spread out his arms with a flourish. “As I said, I have harnessed the electrical force that powers life.”

  Listening to Warren, I thought back to Sheriff Hutchason’s discussion of the doctor’s eagerness to conduct his strychnine experiments on the town’s stray dogs. Evidently Warren had been trying to mimic the role of the Almighty in both directions on the unfortunate strays—taking life and trying to restore it.

  Turning to Truett, I said, “And you actually believe this might work?”

  “Right now I believe in anything having the potential to prolong my life,” he said. “You and Lincoln tell me Lincoln’s words in the courtroom will do the trick. Doctor Warren here says his scientific knowledge will do so.” Truett shrugged. “I don’t know which of you is correct. When you’re in my position, you want to pick as many tickets as you can.” He turned back to Warren. “I’ll give you seventy-five dollars in hard currency to perform your procedure, if the need arises.”

  “Five hundred,” replied Warren.

  “Five hundred? Outrageous! One hundred dollars. That’s my best offer.”

  “You don’t think your own life is worth five hundred dollars, Truett? If you don’t think yourself that valuable, I’m not going to waste my skills on you. Four-fifty.”

  The men haggled back and forth for another few minutes before coming to a bargain at 275 dollars in gold coins, payable by Truett after his resuscitation by Warren. “But remember,” said Warren, “when the hangman slips the noose around your neck and prepares to open the trapdoor, lean forward. This is very important. Lean forward, so your neck is not broken when you fall. My battery can restore life, but I’m afraid it can do nothing for a broken neck.”

  “What happens,” I asked, “if your effort at resuscitation fails?”

  “Impossible,” said Warren. “It will not fail.”

  “So you take nothing if you don’t bring him back from the dead?”

  “That seems fair,” said Truett.

  “Certainly not.” Warren pulled on his beard. “But I do agree I shouldn’t receive my full fee in the unlikely event of failure. If it fails, you shall pay me one hundred dollars in gold coins.”

  Truett beat me to it. “If it fails, I shall be in no condition to pay you any amount,” he said, a perverse grin lighting up his dirt-encrusted face.

  “Ah.” The doctor paused. “I suppose you are correct. Then these shall be the terms. If, despite my earnest efforts, I fail to bring you back to life, I shall have your permission to dissect your body. Such opportunities are, these days, all too rare.” He looked at me with a glint of hunger in his eyes and then quickly away, and I recalled his enthusiasm for spending time with Early’s corpse at the burying ground, even after he had extracted the fatal ball.

  “We have an agreed bargain,” said Truett, sticking his hand through the bars. Warren shook it enthusiastically before taking his leave.

  “Probably best if you don’t breathe a word of our arrangement to Lincoln,” Truett said as we watched Warren walk away through Hutchason’s gate. “I don’t want him to slacken his efforts, even though my long life is now guaranteed one way or the other.”

  I assured Truett that, notwithstanding his agreement with Warren, I was confident Lincoln would work tirelessly for his acquittal. “That’s why I’ve come this morning. Have you heard about Miss Owens’s death in town last week?”

  Truett nodded. “Mrs. Hutchason mentioned it when bringing me my supper on the day her body was discovered. Further proof of my innocence—make sure Lincoln realizes that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Two mysterious deaths in town must be connected. The same killer. But, obviously, not me.” He rattled the bars of his cell. “I was locked up in here when she was killed.”

  “Did you know Miss Owens?”

  “Only from a distance. I never trusted the apothecary. Too clever by half. And underhanded in his business dealings. I don’t doubt he might have been the killer all along.”

  “Can you think of any person you and she had in common?” I asked. “A common acquaintance—or a common enemy, perhaps? Or any connection between her and Early, for that matter?”

  “It seems to me the only commonality,” said Truett, “is that both of them were killed in a public fashion. Early in the mi
dst of a grand celebration, and Miss Owens in her bedroom, to be sure, but on the town square in the middle of the day. The killer must be someone who’s well known to the townspeople, someone who can come and go without attracting attention.”

  It was, I thought, a good observation. “I’ll pass it along to Lincoln, see if it gets us anywhere. One more question: what was your gun doing under the bushes on Quality Hill after the shooting? The sheriff found it there.”

  Truett’s countenance, which had brightened during the discussion of galvanic batteries with the doctor, fell again. He swallowed and said, “Hutchason asked me the same question.”

  “Well? What’s the answer?”

  “I brought it with me that night, but I never used it. I swear I didn’t. When the mob came to find me, I chucked it away. I was going to go back and retrieve it, but I’ve been in custody ever since.”

  This hardly seemed credible. My expression must have revealed my skepticism because he added, plaintively, “You tell Lincoln I’ve known him a long time. I’m depending on him to do his best for me.”

  “He knows that. I’m sure he will.”

  I turned to leave, but Truett called out, “What about the election—did Douglas prevail?”

  “It was close here in town. I don’t think the results have come in yet from the rest of the district.”

  “Do me a favor and send a messenger as soon as you learn the final tallies,” said Truett. “I need to know whether I have the registrar’s job in hand when Lincoln gets me out. Or when the doctor brings me back to life.”

  I assured him I would and headed for the square. It was only after I’d gone several blocks that I realized I’d failed to ask Doctor Warren an obvious question: if he truly had the power to bring the dead back to life, why hadn’t he used it on Miss Owens?

  I found myself in front of the offices of the Sangamo Journal on Chicken Row. “Who won, Simeon?” I asked the newspaperman as I pushed through the door.