In time, Mr. Nuckolls arrived in a wagon with a young Negro man, whom he later addressed as Shack, driving the horses. In true pioneer spirit, the pair had been down at a sawmill buying a load of lumber to begin reconstruction.
“Can I help you?” Mr. Nuckolls asked as he approached. His voice cracked slightly, like a cat who doesn’t know whether to meow or purr. Perhaps he thought we had sifted his ashes and transferred some of his porcelain to our buggy.
“I think you might,” said Cameron.
“Yes,” I joined in, “I was hoping to know if you had the effects of Mr. George Lincoln in your possession, but, looking at your warehouse, I doubt that’s the case.”
“Funny thing is,” said Mr. Nuckolls as Shack unloaded lumber, “the contents of that tin box of Lincoln’s is about all I have left. You see I hadn’t yet put it into the warehouse, so it’s in the cabin. Give me a moment and I’ll let you have a peek.”
While Shack finished emptying his wagon, Mr. Nuckolls disappeared and reappeared from the cabin in a near instant, presenting me with a tin. Opening it revealed a man’s pocket watch laying upon a cloth that covered a neckless, playing cards, an empty leather pouch, and dice. “The watch keeps time real well,” said Mr. Nuckolls. “And it’s got real gold in it, that’s what makes it shimmer yellow.”
Cameron lifted it out of the box and studied it.
I picked up the cloth. It was a piece of embroidery, something you do as a young girl to show you’ve mastered the art. The embroidery featured floral artwork around the edges and a square two-story house with a gable in the middle. Underneath the artist had embroidered the following: Greta Weber, 1826, Aged 10.
“What’s this?” I asked.
Mr. Nuckolls took it up in his hand. “According to the sheriff, Mr. Lincoln said this belonged to an aunt of his, but he also said that of the watch.”
“I’ll buy it,” I said.
“Now that’s mighty fine cloth, Miss.”
“No it’s not, and I’ll give you a nickel for it because I’m of a generous nature and you’ve obviously fallen on hard times.” We closed the deal on the sampler.
For his part, Cameron concluded he didn’t want to know what time it was, so he returned the watch.
I asked about the fire and Mr. Nuckolls said his new warehouse burst into flames of a sudden. He was in his bed, not quite asleep, when he saw a light flash up in the window. He ran outside and swore he heard someone riding off into the night. He tried beating down the flames with a blanket but they just kept climbing the walls and into the rafters until the whole edifice was ablaze.
“Where did it start exactly?” I asked.
He took me to the far corner of the debris, the corner farthest away from his cabin.
Cameron looked at the ground around where the fire had started and then walked slowly out into the trees. “Do you ever cut through the timber with your horse to get to the road?” he asked.
“No, but there is a deer trail through there as you can see.”
Mr. Nuckolls said he had to leave us as his two-year old boy had a fever and dysentery. He and his wife, Lucinda, would be taking the child up to a doctor in Nebraska City. Indeed, Mrs. Nuckolls, attended by a Negro maid, came forth carrying a limp little angel and got up into the wagon with him.
I wished them well, and said I’d pray for their precious child, and the four of them trundled off leaving Shack to continue rescuing what could be saved from the ashes.
After they disappeared from sight, I stepped away from the warehouse to work my way through the shrubs within twenty feet of the corner, zig-zagging to cover every square inch of ground. Finally, I discovered a whiskey bottle, and putting it to my nose, I recognized the odor of turpentine.
Shack came up beside me and scratched his head. “It ain’t mine, nor do it belong to anybody abouts here.” I pondered the bottle for a bit while Shack went to the cabin for I don’t know what purpose.
I saw Cameron following the narrow trail deeper into the timber that logically led to a junction with the path to Brownville. He paused when forty or so paces out and got down on his knees. I made my way over to him and showed him my bottle. He pointed to some soft ground with his index to show me the perfect imprint of a hoofmark. “I’ll have to double check, but I think I’ve seen that hoof-print before.”
CHAPTER 16
Cameron wouldn’t divulge the name of our horse. He said he didn’t want to tell me because he might be wrong and he didn’t want me jumping to conclusions and pounding some innocent man over the head with a parasol.
Seems everyone had heard of the parasol incident. Amazing how trifling happenings of no importance or interest should travel as quickly as a wire from the telegraph. I did have to ask if the horseman was a phrenologist and Cameron assured me it was not. This narrowed the list down, but when I made another attempt by suggesting Mr. Whitt, Cameron caught on to my stratagem and became abruptly silent, though smiling and eyeing me all the while.
Our ride back into town took less time than our leisurely trip out, but mainly because our hack sensed it was headed home and was anxious to get out of the traces. However, the bumpy trail didn’t prevent us from discussing our respective findings. I wondered who might sell turpentine and I remembered reading in the Advertiser that John Maun’s drugstore sold “chalk, paint brushes, tooth brushes, soap, almonds, and turpentine: cash exclusively.”
It seemed hard to imagine that a happily married man with a darling little one-year old daughter that he dotes on would slaughter a family, infant included.
“Do you think,” I asked Cameron, “that Mr. Whitt might be the culprit?”
“Well, I do think he holds a flame for your good friend Miss Straightlace, but that hardly qualifies him as an incendiary.”
“You’ve got a point; a criminal would hardly want to tie the knot with someone who’s going to be looking over his shoulder every minute to make sure he never walks astray.”
“You’re awfully optimistic about Mr. Whitt’s intentions, but I hope for the best as well.”
“You know, you’re right,” I said, reconsidering. “He does seem to be a slippery one.” Then an idea popped up in my brain, eliciting a smile of satisfaction.
Noticing the transformation of my countenance, Cameron nodded knowingly. “But none too slippery for you I see.”
After leaving the buggy with Coleman’s hostler, Cameron and I went our separate ways.
I ventured downtown, where I found a crowd listening to Colonel B.P. Rankin, candidate for Nebraska’s delegate to the City of Washington, haranguing one and all about squatters’ rights. “Let the farmers have the land! Not the speculators! Give us two more years before payment, when the price of grain will have surpassed the greed of the bankers and land sharks. And as for moving our territorial capital out of Omaha or not, let that be decided by Nebraskans and not the U.S. Congress. Let Congress preoccupy itself with national and interstate matters, let the Washington government grant lands to the railroads south of the Platte River so that we can receive and ship goods hither and thither amongst our sister states, or at least build a road from the mouth of the Platte through our counties and on down through Kansas and then east into Missouri. And while they’ve got their shovels, axes, and hammers in hand, they can bridge the Platte River into Omaha and thereby link that city and us to Saint Jo.”
The politicking went late into the night and my tired eyes and ears forced me to retire before the good Colonel ever got to the subject dear to my heart. Our impending land settlement with the Pawnee.
Teddy accompanied me home and I discussed the fires with him and the problems I was dealing with in unraveling the mystery of the Friend murders. It was a healthy discussion, as such heart to hearts are with siblings, who know you best and always have your interests foremost.
* * *
The morning of July eighth, a Wednesday, was auspicious, with the sun illuminating the rooftops and warming the timbered knolls that were astir with wildlif
e. The carpenters, pounding with their hammers, competed with the raucous chirping of the insect and the cheerful song of the bird. Walking down Water Street, viewing Nature’s brush strokes in its painted sky and verdant flowing landscapes, broken only by newborn homes and businesses, I saw a beautiful future for my little city as it stretched its arms into the countryside. Workers were even then afoot, cutting a road through the hills in the direction of Fort Kearny. To receive our visitors from afar, those coming to reside among us as well as those passing through toward either the rising or setting suns, Messieurs Clark and Chastain promised to put down the stone and lay the brick for a hotel worthy of our promise. The woodworking and painting fell to our talented and farsighted architect Cyrus Wheeler. But what of material gifts, if the town have not purity of soul? The town fathers were not to neglect my call to arms, for as a gift to the gentler sex, they now considered laws to mend morals and secure domestic tranquility.
The one flaw in this bright morning that otherwise inspired my hopes was my encounter with a Mr. Paris Prouts, Esquire and editor of the Saint Joseph Gazette, and his companion, whose name happily remains unremembered by me. Cameron warned me of the editor’s arrival and enlisted me as a spy to keep him informed as to the intruders’ continual whereabouts. For some reason, my beau felt it his duty to remain unseen by either of the two. “Bad for business,” he told me rather cryptically.
Mr. Prouts, Esquire, was, as I found out in my brief conversation with him, a sterling democrat immune to the suffering of the Negro. According to his associate, the only qualification to consider when comparing candidates for office, whether in Nebraska or Missouri or anywhere else for that matter, was the number of slaves the man owned. The more he owned, the more qualified he would be to represent us. Of course I let him know that such a man would not be representing me.
I did have my parasol in hand, but Mr. Martin’s untimely arrival obstructed my good intentions, as the phrenologist guided the unfortunate editor, and his second, into less interesting conversations with other Brownvillians.
What made the morning still joyful was the idea brewing in my head, the idea only Teddy was privy to in any detail. It was in discussing my grand scheme the night before, and a problem accompanying it, that Teddy gave me a key to solving the problem.
I couldn’t wait for nightfall, because that’s when I could execute my plan and solve the mystery of the arsonist.
* * *
I waited an eternity...all day, that is, until the hills grew silent, except for the buzz of insects and the occasional yelping of the coyote, when a solemn greyness, reflecting the full moon, fell upon the town like a fog, before I issued forth in my black mourning dress to slip among the buildings, holding ever so closely to their walls. In such a manner I stole my way to Mr. Whitt’s drugstore.
I don’t know if you, as a child, ever snuck downstairs and into the kitchen to partake of a fortifying midnight snack consisting principally of cookies. You know the type: ginger cookies flavored with molasses. The kind mothers intend to donate to a church potluck, where they’ll be wasted on overfed neighbors who have brought rye bread in exchange. You have that elation, that nervous hope that you shall succeed, and yet you remember your last such venture, when you discovered a note, in the otherwise vacant tin, reading, “Sorry Addy, better luck next time, Love, Mother.”
This time, however, there was no question of Mother intervening, and pure excitement fed my pounding heart as I produced from my purse the key Teddy had given me, entrusted to him by the druggist, so that Teddy might work on his shelves when the shop was closed.
I still wasn’t totally sure Teddy hadn’t given me the key to Mr. Whitt’s house instead of the shop, as he had a key to each, so I held my breath while inserting the key, then I pursed my lips just right before turning, and the door opened.
I looked over the shelves for a bottle resembling the two of whiskey I had found. Then it hit me, and I don’t know why I didn’t think about this earlier, but the two bottles, the one at the Post Office and the one at Mount Vernon, they both resembled another...the one lone whiskey bottle seen near the ashes of the Friend house! Whoever started these latest fires had also seen to the scorching of the Friend house, had also engineered the murder of seven people. The mastermind of murder and conflagration was definitely among us, and he was after me.
The darkness made it impossible to read labels, but I could see and feel the shapes of the bottles, and nothing matched what I was looking for. I moved behind the counter and searched in the shadows underneath the till. My hand fell upon an oddly shaped object, and by force of curiosity I held it up to the moonlight. A pistol. I felt of its barrel and fit my index finger into it. After studying it from every angle, I put it back in its place as nearly as I could guess. And then it happened, the back of my forearm brushed against a bottle.
I went to my knees and carefully lifted up the bottle. The exact shape. Its cork stood tall, as if it had been opened and then recorked. Filled with turpentine no doubt. Who next would be the victim?
I stood up and grasped the cork firmly in hand and twisted.
The front door swung open and in the frame of it appeared the silhouette of a man, motionless. I don’t know what makes stillness eerie in the night, but I rather think it has something to do with death and the indiscernible, the dark unknown. Whoever heard of a ghost ringing the door-bell at high noon to pay you a visit. I can see no purpose to it, I doubt a man of flesh and bone would even flinch at a daylight apparition. The phantom might extract a “Oh, my, what are you doing here at this hour?” but that’s hardly satisfactory for any self-respecting spook. With the specter at hand in the doorway of Mr. Whitt’s shop at midnight, the spirit got the full package. I let out a scream so forceful in nature that it moved both me and the apparition a full step backwards.
A crack of a match illuminated the intruder’s face, and as he raised it high to get a picture of me, his brow cast a foreboding shadow across his eyes. He then lowered the flame ever so slowly to light a candle. Calmly blowing out the match, he took two paces toward me.
There I stood, a whiskey bottle in one hand and its cork in the other and Mr. Whitt facing me.
“Lookie what we have here,” he said, with an ominous amusement bound up in his rather monotone voice.
As he cleared the doorway, another figure emerged, Miss Straightlace. “Whatever are you doing, Addy?”
Sniffing the bottle, I was disappointed. I had enough experience to know that Jerome would have gladly consumed its contents. It definitely was not turpentine.
I looked up at Miss Straightlace and said, “You can’t guess? O, innocent, naive, and helpless Prudence. Have you no conscience to consort with such a villain? There are four gallons of liquor to every man, woman, and child in the country, and you, Mr. Whitt,” I said in turning to the druggist, “are the source!”
I then took the bottle by the neck and shattered it on the counter, asperging with whiskey everything within a three-foot radius, including my mourning clothes. “Shall I destroy the rest?” I threatened. “No, I shall leave them to your conscience Mr. Whitt. And as for you Prudence, how is it that you walk the streets at night in the company of such a man and enter into this room to fulfill who knows what evil intentions he might have toward you?”
“Addy!” she protested. “You’ve very much the wrong impression. I have a fretful nervous condition and Jonathan took me to rouse Mr. Whitt from bed to attend to me. Isn’t that right Jonathan?” she asked.
Jonathan immediately came through the entrance. “Yes, yes,” he confirmed. “Lucky there was a full moon, otherwise I don’t know if we would have found his house in this darkness. Should we have been in Baltimore we would have had street lamps lighting our way. They’ve had public illumination for decades now. This is supposed to be 1857 anno domini, but here it’s like you’re living in 1857 B.C..”
“If it were 1857 B.C. my dear Jonathan, you’d be telling us how much better it is in the wilderness w
here people have Moses and a pillar of light to guide them. In any case, Prudence, I wouldn’t tolerate a man who holds a bottle of whiskey under his counter. And when you get home with your medicinal elixir that he is sure to concoct with some admixture of rum, remember to lock the door.”
Having said this, I pushed my way through the threesome.
Mr. Whitt, though, let fly a parting remark. “Miss Furlough, you think you’re so holy, I suppose you walk on water.”
“Indeed, come January,” I told him, “and on skates.”
CHAPTER 17
The next day, Thursday, I found Prudence to be rather cool toward me. I tried to explain to her that Mr. Whitt could not be trusted.
She got defensive. “He’s a bona fide druggist and a conscientious citizen.”
“Did you know he kept whiskey and a gun under his desk?”
“I asked him about it. He showed me where he kept it, and I did see the pistol too. He explained to me the whiskey was for medicinal purposes only. And as for the pistol, he keeps it in his store unless he’s traveling, in case of robbers. If there’s anyone to be concerned about, it would be the man you frequent. I would keep him at arm’s length, I’m sure.”
“And well you should!”
Needless to say, Prudence did not accompany me into town.
Later in the day, Cameron stopped by the office of the Brownville Beacon to let me know he had business up at Nebraska City and then down in Saint Jo. I told him of my adventure the night previous, and about the three whiskey bottles.
“You know,” he observed, “I’d hate to become a widower before I get married.”
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