Saved by the Bullet

by Preston Shires

  A little winded but still full of energy, I told Cameron I needed to see Mr. Muir about the letter and he led me directly to him.

  Mr. Muir did not look festive at all. He was in conversation with Stewart and the two of them seemed anxious to get homeward bound.

  “Good evening,” I said, extending a friendly hand.

  He returned the greeting and asked me if I’d seen a leather pass book.

  “Not at all.”

  “Blast it,” he said. “I had it as I left town, but I’ve lost it along the way. I need to find it.”

  “Someone will find it, and they’ll turn it over I’m sure, but perhaps without the money in it.”

  “I didn’t have any money in it. Most of what’s in it is valuable only to myself. I just wanted to show you that letter, Stewart.”

  That last sentence gave me a jolt. “What letter?”

  “Mention of a land warrant found in Mr. George Lincoln’s affairs,” explained Stewart.

  “Darnedest thing, if you’ll forgive the expression,” said Mr. Muir. “Mr. Winslow here rode by on that spirited old hack he rented from Coleman, so I giddied up mine to get up aside him with the buggy to tell him I’d like to show him a letter. Took quite a crack of the whip to catch up with him, but when I did we both stopped to talk, and that’s when I discovered my pass book was no longer on the seat. It could have slipped off and onto the trail, but we retraced the wheel marks, and either the durn thing was covered up by dust or someone picked it up.”

  “Now,” said Stewart as a thought occurred to him, “that letter might be valuable to someone. Of course, they’d have to do some digging to find out who the letter was addressed to and who’s got the bounty now, if I understood you correctly.”

  “You’re right, the bounty would be of interest if it could be had on the cheap,” said Mr. Muir. “Saint Jo was the letter’s origin, so I imagine the warrant might well be in the possession of Mr. Lincoln’s mother. She might let it go for a fraction of its worth. You dangle five dollars in front of an old woman and she’ll snatch it. When I’ve got other business in that city, I’ll just have to call on her.”

  Cameron pulled me aside and said, “Do you think he’s right? Do you think the letter was addressed to Mrs. Lincoln?”

  “It would surprise me if she, at her age, still had a father roaming the earth.”

  “True enough, but in twenty years, I may not have a father roaming about the earth either. The letter may have been old.”

  “You have a father?”

  “Does that surprise you?”

  “Well, I figured you just appeared. You know, from a special creation right after an ice age, like Professor Agassiz suggests.”

  “Well, then be prepared for another shock. I have a mother too, but probably from another ice age; she’s quite a bit younger than my father.”

  “Isn’t he lucky to have the latest model? But I see your point about the letter.”

  I approached Mr. Muir again and asked him if the letter were dated, and he said no, other than something scribbled in the upper right hand corner such as “Thursday, afternoon,” or maybe it was “Tuesday, morning.”

  “So,” I suggested, “it could have been ten years old or twenty years old.”

  “Could have been,” he said, “but it was in good condition. Then again, if it had been in that tin the sheriff pulled it out of, it would have been fresh. What are you driving at, Miss?”

  “Maybe,” said Cameron, “she’ll find that warrant before you do.”

  On the way back, Cameron joined us in the buggy as Jonathan decided to follow along behind with the pedestrians. He had a much greater and shifting audience that way, and I could hear his voice a quarter-mile distant, comparing the thin tree lines of our new homeland to the majestic groves and forests of Ohio.

  * * *

  We, the majority of the pilgrims, made it back to town before dark. Prudence, troubled by frivolity had by others at the dance, didn’t utter a word the whole trip; but I ignored her judgmental pouting, and, in Brownville, I managed to revive our fiddler and resurrect the dance. We may have had half the enthusiasts we enjoyed at Nemaha City, but I think we had twice the enjoyment, as we danced late into the night.

  I do love the long summer nights with the moon filling in for the sun. The shadows remain and yet allow for a luminescence that guides the foot, and even the hoof, as I could still hear, when the music paused, horses neighing in the distance to one another as the stragglers finished their trot along the trail.

  As we sat out a dance to regain our breath, I saw my partner saunter off in the glimmering moonlight. He later appeared to be talking to Mr. Whitt and nodding in my general direction. At first, I couldn’t fathom what discourse they undertook, but then I noticed their heads rotate, following someone with their gaze. I searched out the object and spotted a yellow dress fitted to a young lady with downcast eyes and moving in sorrowful solitude around the square of festive dancers. Mr. Whitt then stepped in her direction, as if propulsed by a kindly hand. Mr. Davenport had a warm-hearted but mischievous streak.

  Between us a few men piled sticks to light a fire to brighten the street. I kept my eye on Prudence. She talked with Mr. Whitt briefly before withdrawing from the night’s festivities.

  It was well past the hour of midnight when Teddy, Mary, Cameron, and I walked leisurely to my house, to see me home, before the men escorted Mary to hers. As we said our au revoirs, I noticed a glow about Cameron’s head. I’m afraid my countenance betrayed my wonder.

  “Are you all right, Sis?” asked Teddy.

  “Yes, yes, it’s just strange. You’re wearing a halo, Cameron.”

  “How can I not be, given the company I have?”

  He moved forward to gallantly kiss my hand good night and I observed that the radiance left him. Teddy stepping into his spot now wore the halo.

  “Just a minute,” I said. “I know that can’t be right, step aside Teddy.”

  As Teddy did, I notice the growing brightness emanated from beyond the opposite hilltop. “What in heaven’s name?” I asked.

  The others followed my gaze and witnessed the apparition as well. It stood there, as did we, for a long time increasing in brightness, before finally and slowly subsiding. Our sensitive noses even caught a brief whiff of smoke. Apparently, someone, somewhere, lit a distant bonfire to celebrate our nation’s birth. We couldn’t think who might have created such a patriotic display.

  * * *

  On Sunday, church attendance slipped. Prudence went for a walk, explaining that she needed time alone this Sabbath. Very odd for Miss Straightlace to not attend services, but I did not question her. Stewart and Mary, on the other hand, attended, and Cameron arrived before the concluding hymn.

  “I suppose,” I told Cameron as we exited, “one cannot accuse you of neglecting church altogether.”

  “Oh, no, my good lady, I heard every last word.”

  “So what were you up to whilst I listened to every word first to last?”

  “I had breakfast, because one cannot sit through church on an empty stomach. Now mind you, if the Lord’s Supper were veritably what it must have been back in the day, a full spread, I suppose one could come on half a stomach, but unfortunately they’ve reduced it to a nibble, literally but a memory of what it once was. Anyway, after I prepared myself for meeting, I directed my steps in this general direction by way of Coleman’s livery, a longish route but one that affords greater reflections for this Sabbath Day.”

  “And by way of Nemaha City too, given the time it took?”

  “I wasn’t quite as pious as all that, but I did have a vision.”

  “Was it an apparition in a yellow dress?”

  “No, but something equally illuminating.”

  “Illuminating? Do you mean it had something to do with the glow we saw last night?”

  “Yes I do. I struck up a conversation with Coleman’s hostler who was brushing down the horses. He said something spooked them in the
night and the estray had worked itself up into a lather. He thought it must have been from the flames of that fire. Maybe they smelled the smoke of it. And therein lies the explanation of my brief nocturnal sainthood.”

  “You mean you didn’t actually have a halo last night?”

  “Nor any horns I would like to point out.”

  “Do you think the Devil has any horns? I mean, it’s hard to imagine a snake with horns.”

  “True, that would impede slithering through holes in the ground and the like. But all the same,” Cameron pointed out, “a fire, that does indeed seem to be linked.”

  “To the devil?”

  “Yes, given the description of hell, but even more importantly, to what you’re investigating.”

  “How so? No, let me guess.” I put my brain to work. Fire, I thought. How could a fire up north in 1857 be linked to the Friend murders of 1856?

  I looked up at Cameron. “I request one clue.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Was the fire at Mount Vernon? Was it Stephen Nuckolls’s warehouse?”

  “That’s almost two clues, but I see you are as wise as the serpent, which is peculiar in itself when you think about it. I mean the Lord telling us to be as wise as...”

  “Cameron,” I said excitedly, albeit impolitely breaking off his train of thought, “you’re on to something! If someone set fire to Nuckoll’s warehouse, he may have done it to destroy Mr. Lincoln’s effects.”

  “That’s half the story, my dear, because if someone burned down Nuckolls’s warehouse, which is exactly what happened, with fifteen hundred dollars in losses, then what does that make you think of the post office fire?”

  “They were hoping to burn down the Post Office and destroy Mrs. Lincoln’s letter. They just failed, that’s all. But how can we know for sure?”

  * * *

  Monday was the wedding day of George Duby and Catharine Prevencher. They are friends of Monsieur Carr as they shared a mutual tongue, though Carr being thoroughly French. Monsieur Duby is from Canada, and Catharine is of mixed heritage, her mother being of solid Indian stock. The wedding, with a Reverend Wells presiding, took place in the home of Mr. and Mrs. William Rossell, citizens of means. I feel that my present reading of the adventures of Hope Leslie, whose sister marries into the local Indian tribe, becoming a reality on the frontier. Soon there will be nothing separating humanity into competing races. We shall all be one happy family, though it may take much time to burst and cast away the bonds of slavery before this become reality.

  On our way back from the ceremony, Cameron reflected that when this nasty business of slavery would be eradicated from our Christian nation, he would hope for a family of his own and a farm on the frontier.

  I drew attention to the fact that the slaveholders were a hardy lot and it wouldn’t surprise me if the present generation of slavers didn’t reach the century mark without letting go of their so-called chattel. And unless he were as gifted as Abraham and his version of Sarah, his family would consist of but two elderly abolitionists. In the meantime, the proslavery folk would be populating the South aplenty, and by sheer number tipping the scale in their favor in terms of the vote.

  “I can’t see this affair being settled by a vote,” he remarked.

  “Are you talking of marriage or slavery?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “Not in terms of being bound to another,” I observed, “except one is voluntary and the other is not.”

  “So, the one can be settled by a vote, and one cannot.”

  “Yes, and I’m not one to abstain either way, I propose a vote in favor of marriage and of abolition.”

  “Aren’t I,” said Cameron, “the one to be proposing?”

  “Are you?”

  “Not being Pawnee, and considering the literature you read for lessons in marital bliss, I don’t think I ought.” Cameron then fell silent for a moment. I looked for that slight smile that sometimes makes it way up his right cheek when he’s thinking of something more to say, but I couldn’t find it. Finally, he said flatly, “Times are uncertain and life has become cheap for both white and black.”

  “And don’t forget my relations.”

  “Yes, white, black, red. The risk is great. I wouldn’t want the one I hold dear to become a widow, certainly not a widow with children.”

  “I don’t think we hold the future in our hands either way, whether we take risks or not. Besides, a father made saint might be a better influence than a worldly patriarch. I’m not one to judge, or rather, I ought not be one to judge, but since I can’t help it, I would say that Thomas Cranmer, martyred for the faith, left a greater inspiration to his children than would Fred to his.”

  “Did Cranmer have children?”

  “That’s not the point, the point is that he would have been a greater inspiration to godliness for any child he would have had than would be Fred to his.”

  “Does Fred have children?”

  “I have no idea, and I doubt he does either. In any case, you cannot use the uncertain future as a guide for the present, which is certain.”

  “I thought the Apostle said it better not to marry, given the times he lived in.”

  “He also said Peter traipsed about the Holy Land with his wife in tow, and Peter is to Paul as gold is to silver, you can use either as currency.”

  “Well, you’re right, there is certainty in the present, and I know what it is.”

  “Do explain.”

  “The certainty is that you got your money’s worth for your lessons in rhetoric and debate at Oberlin College. And it won’t be lost on the gentleman approaching us down the street.”

  I looked down Main Street and saw the unmistakable skull of Mr. Martin progressing toward us bobbing up and down like an apple dropped in a bucket of water. He spotted me from afar, hailed me, and presented himself.

  “Miss Furlough,” he said after greetings, “I must let you know, in spite of our differences, that I admire your pluck and the words to the wise you pronounced at the festivities on the Fourth. Good fodder for the education of our future generation, and as I was just talking to Mr. Whitt about the idea, we communally agreed that a medical school would not be out of place on the frontier, where maladies and injuries plague our populations more so than those in civilized parts. May I shake your hand again?”

  “I don’t see why not; it’s apparently not given to anyone else at the moment.”

  “You do understand my proposal, don’t you?”

  “Better than any other. Or am I mistaken, Mr. Davenport?”

  “Oh, if you prefer a proposal from Mr. Martin, I would understand. He’s got a good head on his shoulders, just ask him.”

  Mr. Martin looked at Cameron with eyes half asquint. “Are you interested, Mr. Davenport, in a teaching position?”

  “I’m afraid not,” my Cameron demurred.

  “He’s afraid of commitment,” I suggested.

  “Rather, I’m a much better student than teacher,” he objected. “On the other hand, Miss Furlough is excellent in getting a point across. You should hear her opinion on matrimony, as we’ve been recently inspired to speak of it on account of attending the Duby and Prevencher nuptials.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Martin. “I do think Miss Furlough well spoken, but it is hard to countenance such a thing, tying a knot between a Christian and a half-breed. Although, I admit from a professional point of view, it would be of interest to see the generational progression of the demeanor and intellect in the children.”

  I suddenly felt very naked without my parasol. I think he read my face well, as any phrenologist worth his salt ought to be able to do, and he backed up half a pace. “I mean no disrespect,” he said. “It’s just that Indians, you know, are hardly to be trusted under every circumstance.”

  “Mr. Martin,” I pointed out, “they can be as trusted as any other. I doubt Miss Prevencher is the one who lit the fire at the Post Office, or the one at Mount Vernon. And seeing that th
ere are but palefaces roaming about, I wouldn’t be surprised to find it were some of your fine white skulls that got it into their heads to put the buildings to the torch.”

  “Oh, yes, there are men about town who would be good candidates as incendiaries. You know I have helped in crime solving back east, and if the sheriff would but let me examine a few heads, I would let him know which ones capable and how; but first, I would take a close look at the fire itself.”

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “Well, you must first understand the fires and how they began. This will tell you two things. For one it will reveal whether you’re dealing with one or two incendiaries. If both fires were started in the same way, you’re most likely dealing with one incendiary. Second, the sophistication used in starting the fire will tell you what type of brain is behind the arson, and that’s when phrenology becomes most useful, as it can narrow down the list of suspects through precise skull measurements.”

  I stood there for a moment reflecting. He may have been mad with his obsession about skulls and measurements, but otherwise he did seem to possess a modicum of common sense.

  “I propose...” said Cameron.

  “Yes?” I answered.

  “I propose to pick you up, Miss Furlough, with a Coleman buggy, tomorrow morning, for a leisurely drive to Mount Vernon.”

  “Cameron must have the exact same measurements as I,” I told Mr. Martin, “because we share the same idea.”

  And with that said, Cameron held out his arm, which I took, and we set off down the street.

  * * *

  We were able to get on the Mount Vernon trail early the next morning. Prudence did give me a sermonette about the dangers of traveling alone in the wilderness with a man, and explained she would come along to chaperon except that she suffered from headache and needed to visit the druggist. Perhaps Kitty or Mary would oblige, she suggested, just to prevent scandalous gossip if nothing else. Kitty and Mary, however, had work to do, so I took the risk and traveled alone with my beau. It was lovely.

  The warehouse at Mount Vernon, which had once stood by the humble cabin serving as Mr. Nuckoll’s residence while away from Nebraska City, was reduced to rubble, with the furniture turned into charred sticks of wood or ashes. Tin ware, porcelain, and iron lay about in piles according to specie. Sizeable blackened timbers, fallen from the roof, lay upon the whole mess in ranks. A number of plates and saucers that survived the flames had been salvaged and stacked on a table outside the perimeter of the disaster. Cameron and I walked about the whole methodically, not quite sure what we were looking for.