The Ironclad Alibi

by Michael Kilian

  “Tomorrow sunrise. On the Kanawha Canal the other side of Hollywood Cemetery.” He finished the whiskey. “Who will be your second?”

  There was a question that more than begged an answer. Harry’s two best friends in his current life were both behind the gates of Libby Prison.

  “He really means to go through with this?”

  “He does,” said Broward.

  “I’ll find someone.”

  “Please do,” said Broward, pulling on his gloves again. “You be there—for the sake of your family’s name. If you skedaddle, it’ll be a shame you’ll bear forever. You won’t ever dare come back to Richmond again.”

  When his unwelcome guest departed, Harry set about washing, shaving, thoroughly cleaning his teeth, and putting on fresh clothes, hoping to look as respectable as possible. With so much time elapsed, it was clear the general would not or could not help. He would have to go to Davis himself.

  Celerity was essential. He’d have to risk the equine press gangs and use his horse.

  He was leading it, saddled and bridled, from the stable when the Confederate officer came cantering to the boardinghouse’s picket fence. He saw Harry and dismounted, to Harry’s surprise, coming to attention and saluting.

  It was the major, Lee’s principal aide. Harry was astonished that the general would allow him so far from his office duties.

  “General Lee’s compliments, Mr. Raines,” the major said. “He regrets to inform you that we are too late.”

  “Too late?”

  “Yes, sir. The slave Caesar Augustus is dead. His Excellency, the president, has asked that the matter of Mrs. Mills’s untimely death be officially closed.”

  Chapter 17

  “Dead?” said Harry, holding on tightly to his horse’s reins as a sudden dizziness struck him. “When? How?”

  “I do not know, sir,” said the major. “The general suggests that you inquire further at Libby Prison.”

  The man returned to his own mount, pulling himself swiftly into the saddle.

  “The general has sent word to the Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk to expect you, Mr. Raines. I believe he said within the week, if that’s convenient.”

  With that he dashed away, as though a courier in time of battle with urgent orders.

  The day was warming, and the dirt of the streets had softened. In places, there was mud. Disregarding the hazard and his horse’s ill-footed gait, Harry galloped downhill toward the prison, scattering pigs and the occasional pedestrian in his path.

  Startling the loiterers around Libby’s gated entrance, Harry kept up his reckless pace nearly all the way, pulling up violently at the last instant. It must have seemed he was about to charge the door. Two soldiers stepped before him with muskets forward and bayonets fixed. Two others joined them, along with a lieutenant. “What in hell do you want?” he said.

  “I want to know what happened to my slave! Caesar Augustus. He was held in the cellars here.”

  The lieutenant, a gaunt and sallow-faced man who seemed near middle age, became obdurate. “Don’t know what you’re talking about—or who you are. Get away from here, or I’ll have you locked up.”

  Harry once again pulled out his arsenal of official papers, including those he’d acquired from General Lee that morning. The lieutenant, unimpressed, ignored them. Instead, he took hold of the reins of Harry’s horse, gesturing to one of his men to seize Harry himself.

  Harry kicked at the man, then pulled the reins from the lieutenant’s hands. He turned his horse around in a quick, full circle, its hindquarters clearing his adversaries from proximity. Angry now, the lieutenant pulled out a long-barreled dragoon’s pistol.

  “Damn you! Hold!”

  The booming voice came from behind. A full colonel emerged from the building’s entrance, Nestor Maccubbin beside him.

  The colonel appeared to be the commandant of the prison. He didn’t give his name.

  “You Harrison Raines?” he said, stepping to the side of Harry’s horse.

  “Yes, sir. I’ve come about my slave—Caesar Augustus—you were holding him in …”

  “He’s dead.”

  Harry waved his papers with vigor. “How can this be so? I was promised by President Davis and General Lee that nothing would happen to him for a week. You were given orders to that effect.”

  “We had nothing to do with it, Raines,” said Maccubbin, who’d been joined by two of his Plug Uglies. “Much as we wished. It was the Yankees. He was killed by one of the prisoners, a Union officer.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Couple dozen of ’em saw it happen. A big fellow, he was. Stabbed the Negro right through the heart as we were taking him out.”

  “I’d like to talk to him.”

  “No.”

  “Have you charged him with murder?”

  Both the colonel and Maccubbin stared at him strangely.

  “What the hell for?” Maccubbin asked.

  Harry’s horse now turned about without being bidden to do so. With tight rein, he reasserted his control. “Damn it! He belonged to me!”

  “Take it up with the War Department.”

  Union prisoners were looking out the windows.

  “Where are the remains?” Harry asked.

  Maccubbin shrugged. “Crazy Bet took the body. She and that pork peddler Lipscomb. He’s got the buryin’ contract on the Yankee dead. He usually takes ’em out to Oakwood Cemetery. Don’t think he’d plant a Negro there, but it’d serve ’em all right if he did.”

  “Why did this officer kill my slave?” Harry asked.

  Maccubbin shrugged. “News is out about how your man confessed to killing Mrs. Mills—how he strung her up naked like that. It’s in all the Richmond papers. Some-thin’ like that’ll rile a Yankee as much as it does a true Southerner. Right kind of Yankee. Somethin’ like that’ll get to any man.”

  “You know he didn’t do that, Nestor,” Harry said.

  “All I know is what’s in the papers,” said Maccubbin. “And they say he’s the murderer.” He smiled amiably and stepped back, thinking Harry would now leave.

  “What about his personal effects?” Harry said.

  “How do slaves have personal effects?” Maccubbin asked.

  “Whatever he left, it belongs to me.”

  “I’ll let you take a look,” the colonel said. “Then I want you out of here.”

  Harry stayed close behind as the commandant led the group into the prison. Taking up a lantern, the colonel moved easily through the pack of prisoners to the stairs that led to the dank place below.

  The smell was worse than before, perhaps to be blamed on the warming weather. Prisoners and guards made way.

  “Where’d it happen?” Harry asked.

  The colonel hesitated, then pointed to the stone floor, holding the lantern above dark stains.

  “Right there,” he said. “The Yankee came at him in a rush, soon as we had him out the cell door.”

  “Where were you taking him?”

  “Out back. We were about to hang him.”

  They lowered heads to enter the small, dark chamber.

  “Over there,” Maccubbin said.

  The colonel, holding his nose, raised the lantern. Maccubbin fetched a burlap cloth bag up from the far corner.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said. “That darkie had four dollars.”

  “I’ll take that,” said the colonel. “Help pay for his upkeep. You can have the rest.”

  He handed Harry the bag. There was nothing in it but the small, carved wooden figure Harry had found in the room at the Exchange Hotel and returned to Caesar Augustus.

  Along with another small figure just like it.

  His stumbling horse was not enthusiastic going up the hill, but Harry somehow managed to keep him at a trot. He went up Twenty-Third Street, pulling up by Miss Van Lew’s front gate.

  There’d be no suspicions about his visiting now. The lady had made off with the body of his slave.

  Ma
ry Elizabeth Bowser opened the door, quickly allowing him to enter.

  “I was wonderin’ if you were ever goin’ to come, Mister Raines. I got to leave soon for the Gray House.”

  “You were expecting me?”

  “Miss Van Lew said you’d be coming.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s gone to her farm. She’s scared they may come for her and not just her horse this time.”

  “What about Caesar Augustus?”

  “He’s in good hands, Mister Raines.” She looked to the windowpane beside the door. “Wait here. She left you something.” She darted into the front parlor.”

  He heard voices. In a moment, Miss Bowser appeared with Estelle, who seemed weary and frightened. Perhaps that had become her natural condition.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I’se tolerable, Mister Raines.” Estelle wiped at her eye.

  “Miss Van Lew left you a letter,” Miss Bowser said. She produced it from a pocket in her dress.

  There was neither salutation or signature, lest these prove compromising. The message was brief:

  You will be content when you discover where he rests. I wish you well in the swift completion of your journey.

  The first sentence confused him. The second was an instruction to leave Richmond as soon as possible. Indeed, there was no reason to stay, but one—the ridiculous duel.

  “That’s all?”

  “You have enough money?”

  He nodded. Impoverishment was not a familiar complaint.

  “Wait again.” She went down the main hall this time, turning into a room at the end. This time she returned with two revolvers. One a small, short-barreled, four-shot Sharps pocket pistol; the other a long-barreled Remington Navy revolver of .44 caliber. Both were loaded. These were excellent weapons, but he already had a Derringer and a Navy Colt.

  “Why does she think I’ll need these?” he asked.

  “She wanted to give you them as presents. And if the Plug Uglies come through the house, they’d just take them.”

  As he was carrying his Colt in his belt, he stuck the Remington and the Sharps in the side pockets of his coat. The weight of iron he was carrying now was mighty noticeable.

  “When does she return?”

  “When things are quiet. After you’re gone, Mister Raines.”

  He was being asked to leave.

  “Did she say where I was to go?”

  “Fortress Monroe is as near as the Union Army has got to. You know the way?”

  “I certainly do.”

  “She hopes you get there quick.”

  “I’ll have to pass through Confederate lines.”

  “Miss Van Lew, she wishes you luck.”

  “Thank her for me,” Harry said.

  “President Davis, he’s powerful irritated with you over Caesar Augustus. This is a bad time for him to be that.”

  “I understand. Thank you.”

  “You goin’ to go now?”

  “Yes.”

  She pushed Estelle forward. “Safe journey.”

  He recalled the road to Oakwood Cemetery, though he’d never visited the place. When he reached the burying ground, it was deserted. There were fresh wagon tracks and several fresh graves, all unmarked. If one now contained Caesar Augustus, there was no way of telling which one it was.

  Dismounting, he walked among the mounds of turned earth, to no useful end. Finally, he sat down on the ground and took out his flask. Its contents were providing the only available answer to his nagging questions.

  “They bury him here?” said Estelle, seating herself near him.

  “That’s what I was told.”

  “Black man in dis cemetery?”

  “It apparently was Miss Van Lew’s wish.”

  “But you don’ know where?”

  Harry said nothing. He sank back upon the grass, supporting himself on one elbow and drank until the flask was empty. Then he rolled over to lie fully on his back, staring up at the pale blue sky visible in the rifts between clouds. He could not imagine anyone making a greater wreck of his affairs.

  “What we goin’ to do, Mister Raines?”

  “Leave Richmond,” Harry said, closing his eyes. “Tomorrow.”

  “We goin’ north?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Both Estelle and his horse were still there when he awoke. The woman sat as Indian women did in paintings Harry had seen and admired of the West, cross-legged, her back perfectly straight, her gaze on the distant horizon.

  “Are you sad, Estelle?”

  She didn’t speak, or move.

  “About Caesar Augustus,” he said.

  “I’se sad about all of us.”

  He heard voices. Raising himself, he saw a small group on the opposite side of the cemetery, a few gray uniforms visible near a four-wheeled cart. It was a burial party, as ubiquitous these days as trash collectors or peddlers.

  Harry got stiffly to his feet, then slowly walked over to them, asking a corporal who seemed to be in charge whether they knew anything of another burial there earlier in the day.

  “We been buryin’ here since sunup. They had a bad night at Chimborazo.”

  “You’d remember this one. A Negro man from Libby Prison.”

  “A Negro? Here?”

  “Have to be a crazy person, try to put one of them in here,” said another soldier.

  The burial party included two black grave diggers. All of them looked at Harry now as if he might be such a crazy person—or possibly something more dangerous.

  “Sorry,” he said, smiling. “Must have made a mistake. That darky has something of mine. Just trying to find him.”

  “Well, sir, you sure ain’t goin’ to find him in this dirt.”

  Harry walked slowly away, though he felt like running. “Estelle,” he said. “We’re leaving.”

  Her head turned slowly. “Goin’ North?”

  “Back to Richmond.”

  “Why?”

  “Unfinished business.”

  “I’se hungry.”

  “I’ll attend to it.”

  They stopped at a country grocery and bar, where Harry refilled his flask and had a drink on the side. Despite the National Day of Fasting, he was able to buy some pork and cornbread and a sweet potato. The bill was outrageous. Soon they’d be having Days of Fasting every day.

  Coming to a patch of woods near a meandering creek, he divided the food and served Estelle her share. She devoured everything quickly. He ate a small amount himself, but soon had lost his hunger. He gave his ample remains to her, and then found his flask again.

  “We never goin’ to get anywhere we keep stoppin’, Mister Raines.”

  He took another drink. “Be quiet, Estelle.”

  Harry stopped his unhappy horse behind the Exchange, letting Estelle down to the ground.

  “What you want me to do, Mister Raines?”

  “Find a small boy named Jimmy and bring him out here to me. They might be more cooperative with you.”

  “Kitchen boy?”

  “Yes.”

  She moved slowly toward the door. Once she was inside, he began to wonder if she might seize the opportunity to go out the front door and run off once again.

  But she apparently had tired of that.

  “He ain’t in there,” she said, returning. “Ain’t there no more.”

  “No more?”

  “That’s what they say. He’s dead. He was braggin’ he had a silver dollar, and somebody killed him for it.”

  Harry felt so very weary. “Very well. Let’s go.”

  He left her at his boarding house, instructing the landlord to feed her if she got hungry. The man was much less hospitable and demanded extra money, saying he feared he might get arrested if caught doing such a thing. Harry gave him the sum without protest and added a little more.

  He went to the Swan Tavern on Broad Street, ordering a beer with an egg in it as his own sustenance. There were copies of both the
Richmond Whig and the Enquirer. The news was glum from the Southern point of view. General Sterling Price was retreating through Southwest Missouri toward Arkansas. Union troops were moving on Charleston, in the western mountains of Virginia.

  How long would Davis tolerate so free a press? How soon would retreats be ordered transformed into victories?

  Harry looked about in search of a poker game, but there was none. The other patrons seemed as gloomy as the newspapers. It was as though conviviality had been suspended by act of the Confederate Congress as well.

  He’d been given an extraordinary opportunity to serve the Union here, and squandered it. He might as well have not come.

  Turning a page of the newspaper, he wished he had not come. There was a story in the Whig about the execution of a spy over at Monroe Square at the west end of the city.

  A pleasanter prospect occurred to him. There was a chance Louise had returned to her residence—or her theater. Neither was far, and the night had not yet turned cold.

  Still, he wondered how much he could trust her. He had sorely displeased the president of this rump nation and numerous others in authority. She might find advantage in that for her designs and purposes, whatever in the hell they were.

  He would keep his appointment on the morrow and then go, as everyone—friend and foe—seemed to wish.

  In the meantime, he would drink. He drained his beer, set the glass aside, and ordered whiskey.

  He recalled having several drinks at the Swan, and buying many for others. Eventually, though, the bonhomie faded. Everything faded. The bartender settled his bill without his asking and then strongly suggested he take his custom over to the Powhatan House.

  Harry did so, glad for the fresh air. The Swan had had few customers, but the streets were full of people. He smiled at them, bumping into a few who did not smile back. He tripped once, his knees striking the dirt of the street hard, but he managed to stand erect and keep on.

  He had forgotten that the Powhatan, located just across the street from the Capitol, was a hostelry beholden to the temperance principle. Finding this vastly amusing, he stumbled back outside and went forth to find an establishment less principled.