These Honored Dead

by Jonathan F. Putnam

  I gaped, my heart pounding, as the prosecutor moved forward and took his position in the well of the courtroom.

  CHAPTER 10

  To my great frustration, I couldn’t figure out what to do next. Any number of possible explanations for the presence of the second knife occurred to me—perhaps the killer had brought two with him and had stowed the second one after committing his horrible deed—but I couldn’t see how to prove or disprove any of them. Given Rebecca’s insistence that I leave her alone, a return trip to Menard to search around her house, or perhaps to confront her and get her explanation for this new evidence, seemed out of the question.

  In the meantime, I felt powerless to help Rebecca avoid the onrushing jeopardy. I hesitated to trouble Lincoln further, at least until I had learned more and could offer him something beyond bald assurances of Rebecca’s innocence. For the first time since my bout with near-fatal illness, I found myself wishing I’d read law after all. Perhaps then I would have known how to deflect Prickett’s unfounded suspicions.

  I was still lost amidst these unproductive ruminations a few days later when my store door was thrown open and a blur of a small child shot inside. As Jesse started spinning around in a circle in the reception area, humming with his arms outstretched, Rebecca hurried in behind him.

  I strode forward and took her hands, and I flushed as I felt her warm skin against mine and breathed in her intoxicating scent.

  There was the briefest flicker of warmth in her eyes, but then she released my hands and her face hardened. “I’m glad we found you, Joshua,” she said. “Can I ask a favor?”

  “Of course. Anything.”

  “We’ve come from the doctor’s. There’s a bunion on Jesse’s foot I wanted him to look at. But now I have some business to conduct in town. Can you keep an eye on Jesse for an hour or so? He’s always running off and I’m losing track of him.”

  “Certainly,” I said. “Has he brought his McGuffey Readers with him?”

  She looked at me warily and said, “I left those at home, I’m afraid.” She added soundlessly, mouthing the words for my benefit, He doesn’t read. Aloud, she continued: “He’s brought his jacks and a set of dominoes. And he likes little cakes, if you have any, when he’s hungry. He’ll keep his own company and out of your way, don’t worry.”

  I reached out to give Jesse a friendly pat on his head, but he skittered away, scrambled up and over my counter, and started pawing through the goods on my lower shelves.

  “How old is he?” I asked as we watched him play. “He doesn’t look eight years yet.”

  “Just turned ten, actually,” she said. I cried out in surprise. “The three of us”—her voice faltered—“celebrated his birthday last month. He’s very small for his age, it’s true. I don’t think he’s ever had enough to eat, not in his whole entire life. In fact, his age is what brought them to my door.”

  “How so?”

  “Once Jesse reached ten, the master at the poorhouse would have been able to send him off to the lowest bidder, just like their father. Lilly didn’t want him to suffer the same fate. That’s why she contacted me when she did and why I felt I couldn’t refuse her.”

  On the other side of the counter, Jesse was trying on a pair of adult pantaloons. There was a distinctive ripping sound as he tried to extricate his leg. He lost his balance, toppled over with a soft thud, then popped up again and, with the pantaloons still twisted around his body, started pulling on a jersey.

  Rebecca winced and said, “I’ll pay for the damage. He’s a good-natured boy, but his whole world’s disappeared with his sister gone.”

  “It’s nothing a needle and thread can’t fix,” I said as another ripping sound erupted from the muddled mass of boy and clothing. “We’ll be fine.” Loudly, for Jesse’s benefit, I added: “Did you say the young man plays dominoes? Have you told Master Jesse I was the Oriental Dominoes youth champion at the state fair of Kentucky for two years running? You leave Jesse in my hands and let me see what kind of skill he’s got with the tiles.”

  Jesse had finally managed to shed the clothing, and he scampered back through the opening in the counter and into Rebecca’s arms.

  “That’s a good lad,” Rebecca said, holding the boy tightly to her bosom and stroking his straight, dark hair.

  “I had one other question I wanted to raise with you privately,” I said, thinking this was my chance to explore Prickett’s new allegations.

  “Can it wait until I come back to collect Jesse? I’m late as it is.”

  I nodded. “Go about your business. We’ll be here when you return.”

  Jesse spread out his set of worn, wooden tiles on the shop floor and we played several rounds wordlessly. Then Jesse’s attention started to wander. He made a few careless plays.

  “Let me show you something,” I said. I fetched a small leather bag from underneath my counter and handed it to the boy. He dumped out the contents and his eyes widened. It was a polished set of tiles made from ebony-wood with ivory pips that my brother James had given me for my sixteenth birthday. Jesse picked up a few of the tiles to admire them in turn.

  “Shall we play a game with them?” I said, feeling pleased with myself that I was managing to entertain the young boy.

  “When’s my Auntie gonna be back, Mister?” he said.

  “Don’t you want to play with my fancy tiles?”

  “When’s my Auntie gonna be back?”

  “Any minute now,” I said. I glanced at my pocket watch: fifty minutes remained until Rebecca’s promised return. My self-confidence in my caretaking abilities began to ebb. Then I had another idea. “Jesse,” I said, “would you like to see my horse Hickory?”

  His little head shot around and his face lit up with something approaching pleasure. He nodded once, decisively.

  “Come with me,” I said. I scribbled out a note to Rebecca, which I propped up in the store’s front window, and I took Jesse by the arm and led him around the corner toward the stables behind the Globe. As we walked, the afternoon sun high and hot, I asked, “Do you like your new home with your Aunt, Jesse?”

  “It’s lonely,” he said quietly, without turning to look at me.

  “I suppose it is,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll find a new playfellow up in Menard before long.”

  He trudged ahead as if he had not heard me.

  At the entrance to the stables, I nodded at a stable lad about Jesse’s age who was perched on two bales of hay by the gate and awaiting the next stage arrival. Then we proceeded past the carriage shed to the stable building itself, a cavernous wooden structure appended to the back of the tavern.

  But on the threshold of the stables, Jesse abruptly stopped, his face contorted. He mumbled something unintelligible.

  I got to one knee and put my hand on his shoulder. “What did you say, son?” I asked quietly.

  “Don’t go into the barn.”

  “Why not? We’re allowed to enter. See, the stable boy back there says we can go in to visit Hickory.”

  “Don’t go into the barn,” he insisted.

  “It’s all right. Truly.”

  “Don’t go into the barn,” he said again. He seemed near tears. I searched for a response, when suddenly I realized the problem. “Is that what your Auntie told you, after your sister fell asleep?”

  He gave a tight nod. “Don’t go into the barn. That’s what she said.”

  “But this is a different barn, son. This is where my horse lives. There’s nothing scary in here. Won’t you come have a look? We’ll go in together.” I rose to my feet and extended my hand and the boy took it. Hesitantly, he followed me across the threshold.

  On the left of the Globe’s stable, there was a row of open stalls, each with a shiny tying-up ring, for the working horses—stage and hire and post horses—enjoying a short respite between tasks. On the right, there was a loose room for the dozen or so horses who boarded there, including Hickory. In between, there was a feed table and a large round haystack, reach
ing well above my head, the lads used for changing the bedding.

  I grabbed a fistful of carrots from the feed table and handed them to Jesse. Hickory came trotting over when she saw me, snorting and prancing, and I opened the gate to the loose room a crack to let Jesse in. I was about to admonish him to watch out for flying hooves, but from the lithe way he moved around the pen it was clear he had spent time in stables before. He reached up and stroked Hickory’s muzzle and let her nibble on the carrots. It was nice to see something holding the wretched boy’s attention.

  “Joshua!?”

  I swung around. There was a young woman standing behind me in the doorway to the entrance yard, her hands on her hips, her face burst in a wild grin.

  “It is you, Joshua!” My sister Martha gave a high-pitched squeal as she ran forward and flung her arms around my neck. She giggled into my ear, and at once I was transported back to Farmington and the hours we had spent rolling down the lawns together in gay laughter.

  Only, the woman who embraced me did not look anything like Martha. When I had left Farmington, Martha had been a fourteen-year-old girl, precocious in thought but painfully awkward in appearance. A beautiful young woman now stood before me, light brown hair resting on her shoulders, a full, womanly figure blossoming below. But for the familiar voice and the unquenchable enthusiasm, I surely would not have recognized her.

  “Did our father actually send you here after I’d warned him not to?” I asked.

  “Of course not, silly,” Martha said, breaking into a broad smile. “I wasn’t about to let him—or you—spoil my adventure.”

  “But I wrote to him,” I persevered, “and told him—”

  “—that you were too busy to take care of me. Which is no problem at all, Joshua. I am fully able to care for myself. I won’t bother you one bit.”

  “But why did the Judge ever agree—”

  Martha burst into giggles again. “I never gave him the chance,” she said. “Your letter arrived the very day I was packing for my journey. I recognized your handwriting on the envelope at once, of course. I was the first one to read it, and I made sure I was the only one to read it. I asked my Lettie to burn it, and that’s exactly what she did.”

  Before I could respond, Martha looked over my shoulder and shouted, “Hickory!” She raced over to the fence surrounding the loose room and greeted the animal. She scratched the narrow, jagged white stripe running down Hickory’s face from her forehead to the top of her nostrils. The horse whinnied and nuzzled her like an old friend. Jesse watched her with wide eyes.

  “Who’s this young man?” my sister asked.

  “A friend of mine named Jesse,” I replied.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Master Jesse,” Martha said with a proper curtsy. Then she turned back to me and said, “Let’s be off.” She linked her arm with mine and began steering me toward the carriage shed, where I saw two of the stable lads struggling to unload several wooden traveling trunks from the back of our father’s lacquered carriage.

  “I have half a mind to send you back home at once,” I said. “More than half a mind, in fact.”

  “That’s impossible—Molly Hutchason needs me,” Martha said. She folded her arms and thrust forward her chin. “This month especially, in her condition. She’s written to say her time is near.”

  Against my will, I nodded. Sheriff Hutchason had not said a word about his wife’s circumstance, as it would have been impolite to mention, even in unmixed company. But no one in town could have failed to notice that the sheriff’s household would expand by one before long.

  “Very well,” I said, accepting defeat. “You can stay for a little while. I am delighted to see you, though you shouldn’t have come without Father’s permission.”

  “He gave me permission. He just didn’t know all the facts. What is it lawyers say? Caveat emptor.”

  I stopped and said, “That’s not the right phrase. That one means—”

  “Seriously, Joshua. The things you find interesting.” The expression on her face teetered between amusement and contempt. “We can discuss it another time if you truly insist. Right now, we’ve got to get my belongings over to Molly’s house and get Phillis settled, too.”

  We had come to a stop next to the mounting stack of Martha’s trunks. I perceived for the first time a Negro woman with a heavily lined face and long, gray hair who was lingering uncertainly nearby. I vaguely recognized her as one of my father’s slaves, though I doubted I had said five words to her in my whole lifetime.

  “What’s she doing here?”

  “She’s a midwife,” Martha replied, jabbing me in the ribs, “as you’d know if you’d ever paid attention to anything that actually went on at Farmington. The best midwife in Jefferson County, Momma always said. Momma said I could borrow her, to help out with Molly, of course.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Absolutely so,” Martha replied gaily. “No one asked your opinion, Joshua, and it’s a good thing we didn’t. Now which direction should these boys here carry my trunks?”

  I told the stable lads Martha would be lodging with the sheriff and made arrangements with the innkeeper Saunders, who was hovering nearby, for my father’s carriage driver to spend the night at the tavern before commencing his return journey to Louisville. I took my sister’s arm when Saunders said, with a sharp nod over my shoulder toward the stable, “What about him?”

  Jesse was straddling the gate to the loose room, with one leg thrown over either side. I trotted over and said, “Can you stay and keep a watch over Hickory until your Auntie comes to fetch you? I’m sure it won’t be long now.”

  The boy did not protest. Strangers have been telling him what to do for as long as he can remember, I thought. I handed Saunders a few silver coins for his trouble, and Martha and I traversed the four blocks to the Hutchason house.

  All the while, Martha talked without pause about the goings-on in Louisville society and how her friend Mary Churchill had walked with old one-legged Joseph Bush at the Spring Ball at Galt House but now Aaron Corwine had a fancy for Mary and of course Mary never would have walked with that old cripple Bush if she’d known Aaron Corwine of all dashing young men might have a flame for her. The midwife trailed along silently behind us, about five paces back, not looking around at her new surroundings.

  When we reached the Hutchason house, a modest one-story dwelling on the west side of town, Molly was standing on the front stoop, her condition concealed as much as was possible by a billowing housedress. The two childhood friends shared a long embrace and many tears of happiness while the stable lads finished lugging Martha’s trunks into the house.

  “I’ll return at sunset to take you to dinner,” I told Martha before she went inside.

  “When do I get to meet this Mr. Lincoln you’ve written me about?” she asked. “He sounds most interesting.”

  “This very evening, I suppose,” I returned. “He’ll be cross if I don’t introduce you to him straight away. We can stop by his offices, and then I thought we’d dine at the American House.”

  My sister shook her head decisively. “I told Jane we’d join her for dinner tonight.”

  “Who’s Jane?”

  “Jane Patterson? The doctor’s daughter? Really, Joshua, sometimes I think you’re completely hopeless.”

  “How do you know Jane Patterson?” I asked, dumbfounded. “I don’t even know her, not well anyway.”

  “Well, that’s exactly the point, isn’t it,” said Martha cheerfully. “When we got to town this afternoon, we weren’t sure of where the stables were and I spied this most beautiful young woman walking along the streets. I got out of the carriage and went up and admired her, and she admired me, and I said I was your sister and asked her to kindly direct us to the stables. And after she pointed us in the correct direction, we started visiting and we realized we already knew of each other, through Molly, of course. And after we’d talked for a while, she said why didn’t I come over for dinner this evening and I coul
d bring you as well if I wanted, which I did want to, naturally.” Martha paused and squinted at me, before adding: “You’ll want to look in the glass before we do, I think.

  “Come along, Phillis.” And with that, my sister ushered the old Negro slave into the Hutchason house and shut the door firmly in my face.

  CHAPTER 11

  When I returned to the Globe, Jesse was nowhere to be found. One of the lads assured me an older woman fitting Rebecca’s description had been by for him. In his place there was a great hubbub in the stable yard, as a fashionable four-wheeled “Lafayette calèche” carriage with a partially enclosed compartment, pulled by two majestic thoroughbreds, had just arrived and was in need of much attending. I spent a moment trying to identify the owner of this grand conveyance, but when no obvious candidates declared themselves, I headed back to my store so that a whole afternoon’s receipts would not be lost.

  Several hours later, I sent word to Lincoln, warning him that Martha and I would be by shortly, and then dressed for dinner. Against my better judgment I did, indeed, linger for an extra moment in front of the looking glass before going out to collect my sister.

  Lincoln’s office was on the upper floor of one of the series of stout, two-story red-brick buildings the landlord Hoffman had recently built a block north of A. Y. Ellis & Co. I led Martha through the door of the second building in the row and up the rickety wooden staircase to the upper floor, where we encountered a closed door announcing, in white-painted lettering, “Stuart and Lincoln, Attorneys and Counselors at Law.” I knocked once, loudly.

  “At your own peril,” called Lincoln’s voice from inside.

  Pushing open the door, we encountered my friend just as he was rising from his chair by the window and casting off the buffalo-skin cloak he habitually wore around his shoulders. He came forward with a warm smile and took Martha’s hands in his. “Miss Speed, it’s a pleasure,” he said, giving a slightly ungainly bow. “Though I had understood your visit was to be delayed.”

  “Nobody and nothing can get in my sister’s way when she sets her mind to something,” I said.