by DL Fowler
I hang my head.
“When I was there two days ago, she handed me a letter from McNamar. He will be returning in just a few weeks.”
I look up. “What are you going to do?”
“Haven’t decided. It seems I’m stuck now with the choice between two fools.”
“Annie, I’m sorry.”
“Do you know what this means? What if he still loves me and finds that I have not been faithful? That I threw his love away on a man who was merely trifling with me.”
“Annie, if there is anything I can do to redeem myself, please tell me what it is.”
She strains at lifting the overfilled bucket; water sloshes out onto her shoes. I rush over to lend a hand, but she backs away, spilling even more.
She sneers. “When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”
“May I call on you?”
As she begins walking toward her father’s house she glances back over her shoulder and says, “Considering how consumed you are with work and studies, I doubt you’ll find the time.”
“I’ll make the time.”
She pauses at the edge of the clearing and turns to face me, wearing a frown. “I’m afraid I’m terribly busy with all the sickness going around.”
“I’ll help.”
“Help or hover?” she asks.
“Help.”
“Do you realize there are only twelve doctors to care for hundreds of sick people? And folks are dying. There’ll be over a thousand ailing if the fever keeps spreading.”
“I ….”
“I suggest you call on Dr. Allen. He probably can use your help.”
She turns and walks away.
After watching her disappear through the trees, I race back to Uncle Jimmy’s, throw my saddle bags over my horse, and gallop to town. Dr. Allen is just climbing into his buggy as I ride up.
“Dr. Allen, Annie tells me you might need a hand tending to all the sick.”
He lifts his hat to scratch his head. “See my nurse inside. We’ve set up an infirmary in there. We’re doing one over at the tavern, as well.”
“I’ll do anything you need.”
“Thank you.” He straightens his hat. “Need to be on my way.”
I see only shadows as I walk through the door into Dr. Allen’s cabin. The windows are draped with blankets; only a few shards of sunlight trace the edges of the shades. When my eyes adjust to the darkness, I recoil at seeing sick neighbors lying on cots—a few are delirious with fever, muttering nonsense as they pick at imaginary insects crawling over their bedclothes. At my feet lies a gaunt little girl, blood leaking from her nose, her face so drawn and hollow its unrecognizable. A nurse rushes past me with a chamber pot.
A man lies listless a few feet away, his mouth hanging open, perspiration covering his brow. He stares blankly at the rafters. His frame and stature remind me of Father. I can’t make out who he is.
A shriek resounds from across the room. A woman is being attended to by a nurse. The poor soul’s face is drawn in agony. She’s squatting over a chamber pot clutching her stomach—either her abdomen is terribly distended or she’s pregnant. After a loud groan, she drops her head and begins to pant. Mother’s image looms in my mind.
A baby whimpers in another corner of the room, reminding me of my little brother Tommy’s plaintive cries during the few days he visited this earth.
The nurse pulls the chamber pot from under the woman and carries it toward me. When she stops and thrusts it into my hands, it’s filled with a pea-green stew of waste. I gag from the stench as it combines with the odor of human sweat and the bitter tang of urine.
“Empty it,” she says. “There’s an open pit around back.”
I hold my breath and rush outside, careful not to slosh any of the contents on my hands.
The sickness doesn’t relent during all of July and continues to lay siege on New Salem in the early days of August. On my return to Uncle Jimmy’s one evening after surveying a plat near Petersburg, his usual cheerful countenance is grim. I presume he’s frustrated over the clutter building up around him. Annie hasn’t been available for housekeeping for a couple of weeks. Caring for our sick neighbors has become a full-time affair.
I set my saddle bags on a chair and take a deep breath.
“Abe,” Uncle Jimmy says, “One of the Rutledge boys stopped by a bit ago. Seems that Annie is down with the fever.”
The distress on his face sends a sharp pain through my chest. “She’s going to come through it, isn’t she?”
He avoids my eyes. “I’m sure she’ll be fine in no time.”
“I should go see her.”
“Her brother David says it’s best if we stay away right now.”
“But I must.”
“She needs her rest. That’s the best help we can be.”
I hang my head, holding back tears. “My curse.”
As the days crawl by, every task is drudgery. I sight in on a stake and moments later forget where it is. Measurements have to be done and redone as my memory constantly fails me. I end my work early and hurry back to Uncle Jimmy’s, hoping for word of Annie’s recovery, but fearing I’ll hear the worst. It’s always the same; he knows nothing new about her condition.
Often, I retire without eating, burying myself in books—geometry, Euclid’s Elements, treatises on the law, Volney, Voltaire, Paine, Shakespeare, Burns, anything. Nothing dulls the pain of impending tragedy. I even resort to prayer, even though it’s absurd to believe praying will do any good. If God truly exists, His purposes were set when time began, fixed in universal law, and prayer will not change His mind.
On a sweltering afternoon late in August, David Rutledge appears at Uncle Jimmy’s door, holding his hat at his waist. I follow Uncle Jimmy toward the door, but hold back after only a few steps. After they whisper to each other for a moment, David looks past Uncle Jimmy at me. “Abe,” he says, “you best get over there. She’s asking for you.”
Nausea washes over me, leaving me lightheaded.
“Abe,” David repeats.
I look past him, through the doorway, transfixed on the path to the Rutledge farm. Nausea surrenders to panic. I bolt for the door, nearly bowling over both of them as I explode out of the house. Minutes later on arriving at the Rutledges’ porch, I stop and press my forehead against the doorpost, catching my breath. My sides ache.
David walks up behind me and drapes his arm over my shoulders. “Let’s go in,” he says, opening the door with his free hand and nudging me ahead.
I choke back tears.
He leads me to Annie’s room where we find her sleeping as she has for the better part of the past few weeks since taking ill. Her face is pale. Her breath is shallow and slow. I tiptoe up next to her bedside and take her hand. Her eyes flutter.
“It’s Abraham,” I say softly.
Her eyes open wider, the blue now milky, almost gray. “Abraham,” she whispers.
I lean down, choking back tears. “My dear Annie.”
“I ….” Her lips quiver.
I caress her face. “Don’t say anything. Just rest.”
She pants. “I’ve missed you … love you.”
My words hang up in my throat, trapped there with my breath. “I love you, too, and always have.”
I sit with Annie for nearly an hour. Talking is difficult for both of us. Her voice is little more than a whisper. Mine is strained from salty tears draining into my throat, rendering it raw. What little we say in words is overshadowed by the volumes we fill tenderly gazing into each other’s eyes.
She squeezes my hand. Her eyes flitter and close. I continue to sit and watch as she sleeps, her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths as her mouth forms a faint, blissful smile.
During the next week as Annie languishes, Betsy Abell takes me in hoping she can restore my appetite. Everything about Betsy—her stout frame, kind eyes, dark, curly hair, soft voice—remind me of my sister Sal
ly, but nothing consoles me. My desire for food is as sparse as foliage in the dead of winter. I have not slept more than a few nods in days.
On the twenty-fifth day of August, Annie’s brother David finds me hunched in front of the Abell’s fireplace, wrapped in quilts as if it’s a cold December night. His words overwhelm me with the kind of chill that only accompanies our winters of deepest snows. His voice is shaky and pitched. “She’s gone, Abe.”
I nod, signaling that I’ve heard his bitter news. He comes next to me and lays his hand on my shoulder. I bring my hand up to rest on his. Our tears flow and our bodies quiver with grief. After a long time, David pats my shoulder then turns away and treads to the door. His short, measured steps are barely audible.
After a few moments, I rise and lay the quilts aside.
“Can I get you something?” Betsy asks.
I wave her off and trudge outside.
“Abe,” she calls after me.
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Just need to walk.”
Indeed I walk. How far or where, I can’t recall.
The next day after we bury Annie, my eyelids are too heavy to prop open. For the first time in days, the idea of sleep comes to mind, and now it comes with an irresistible force. My hope is, that once slumber overtakes me, Providence will never allow me to be stirred awake again.
The next morning my eyes open. I close them again and draw the quilt up around me, my shoulders curled toward my chest as if it were possible to somehow disappear into myself.
Hours later, acknowledging the truth that, for now, sleep will have nothing more to do with me, I dress and set out for the woods, aware only of my grief. Color does not exist for me, nor taste, nor smell—nothing. As the trail bends toward the Rutledge farm, I fall to my knees, whimpering, “No … don’t ….” I stare, unseeing, into blackness. My body trembles. Pulse throbs. A sound like the wind rushes through my ears. My eyes shut. Silence.
I snap my head around, no idea how long I’ve been kneeling alone in the woods. My heart races. Rain cascades onto my shoulders, spilling from the brim of my hat. Must get to Annie’s grave.
I leap to my feet and run. The driving rain stings my eyes, and seeps through my teeth. My lungs burn. Finally at the cemetery, I throw myself like a blanket onto the fresh sod where she’s buried and lie face down in the mud, sobbing, until the torrent ends.
After returning to the Abell’s place, Betsy draws a hot bath and takes my shirt and trousers out to the trough to wash them. When I’m done bathing she gives me a quilt to cover myself while my clothes dry by the fire and hands me a sweet cake and cup of hot tea. She strokes my hair. “You miss her terribly.”
I stare into my tea. “Annie would have been the woman my angel mother never had the chance to become. When Mother died I was nine and thought my life was over, but I survived. Even cheated death on my own account on a few occasions. Then Sally died, and I was overcome by bitterness and resolved to make them both proud. Now, having lost all three women whom I’ve loved with all my heart, life has no purpose.”
Betsy cradles my head against her chest. “You’re hurting right now, but life will go on and it will be glorious.”
“My heart is buried with that dear girl, and I can’t bear the thought of rain falling on her grave.”
In the ensuing days, my despondency increases. Judge Green takes me under his care, and I’m not allowed to wander off alone. My knife is taken away, out of fear I’ll do myself harm. My idleness gives me time to refine the personal gospel I began before Annie’s death.
The muggy days of August soon give way to crisp September mornings, which are supplanted by October’s chilly nights. Sam Hill, who’s equal in size to about half of me, takes his turn as my guardian, and I tag along when he heads down to his store to tally up the day’s sales. Our breath hangs in a mist in front of our faces, a reminder that winter is close at hand.
After checking the storage bins in the back room, I toss Sam a small log to stoke the fire. Flames lick the freshly split wood as I repeat for Sam what I’d already told Betsy. “I can’t stand the thought of rain or snow beating down on Annie’s grave.”
“Thought you were finally coming out of your melancholy,” he says. “You’re not backsliding, are you?”
“As long as I’m busy, I can keep my spirits up. Reckon I’ll be fine.”
Sam rubs the back of his neck. “Does McNamar know about you and Annie?”
“We haven’t talked since he got back. Annie told him in a letter she wanted to be released from their engagement.”
He pokes at the fire. “It must have been hard on him. He brought his mother and sister and their furniture all the way out here from New York. Just like he promised her.”
I sit on the floor. “It would have hurt him more if Annie had lived to tell him we were to become engaged.”
“Suppose you’re right.” Sam sits next to me. “You know there’s been no love lost between me and McNamar since Ann chose him over me back before you came to town.”
Neither of us speaks for a minute or two.
Sam breaks the silence. “Got any plans for the legislative session coming up? You know, folks didn’t send you down there just to sit on your hands and watch.”
“Was just getting my bearings last winter. Learned a lot with Stuart’s help. Have some big bills planned for this session, though. They’re a bit radical, but might get them passed just the same. About time I did something folks will remember me by.”
“Don’t go too far out on a limb. People don’t need big ideas. You’re big enough as it is. Billy Greene tells me the college boys down in Jacksonville still talk about the first time they ever saw you.”
I take off my hat and pull out the paper on religion I’ve been carrying around.
“What’s this?” he asks as he unfolds it.
“It might give those boys down at the college in Jacksonville some fodder for a lively confab.” I watch his face. At first his eyes are bright and eager. As he reads further his lips pucker. “What is this?” he demands.
I puff out my chest. “A pamphlet explaining my ideas on religion. I’m going to publish it.”
“You’ve run off track.” He waves the pages in my face. “No special creation … the Bible is not God’s revelation … miracles are just evolutions under natural laws … prayers have no effect … Jesus is not Christ … not the Son of God! If folks see this, insanity is what you’ll be remembered for.”
“It’s the truth.”
“It may be the truth, but it’ll get you tarred and feathered and probably ridden out of town on one of your own fence rails. Hell, it may even get you shot.” He springs to his feet and opens the stove.
“What are you doing?”
He turns to me waving the pages. “Burning the damn thing. What do you think I’m doing?”
I lunge at him, landing on my knees, and reach for the paper. “No! Don’t….”
With a sweep of his arm, Sam tosses the pages into the fire.
I crawl toward the stove, pushing him aside with one arm and reaching toward the flames with the other.
He bounds up off the floor and climbs on to my back, wrapping his bony arms around my neck and yanking me backward.
I buck him off, like an unbroken mule throwing a first-time rider.
Struggling to his feet, he grabs hold of my suspenders and pulls with all his might. Unable to deter me, he succeeds in slowing me down. Before I can reach into the fire and retrieve the papers, a bright orange flame laps up the last of my pen strokes. My body goes limp and I prostrate myself on the wood plank floor.
Sam crawls next to me and pats my shoulder. “Abe Lincoln,” he says, “you need to get laid. It’ll do you a world of good.”
I turn over, propping myself on my elbows, and squint. “Just because I’m an infidel doesn’t mean I have no morals.”
He laughs. “Just trying to cheer you up.”
I force a
smile.
“That’s better,” he says grinning.
In the ensuing days my caretakers are pacified by my feigned contentedness. When pretend smiles fail me, I recite an old joke or tell one of the stories that always help brighten my gloom. Shortly before I head to Vandalia for the legislative session which commences in early December, my friends are satisfied with my mental state and allow me to wander about. I take advantage of my new freedom and trek into Beardstown where rumors are that men can purchase services of women who are skilled at soothing their troubled spirits.
On my previous visits to Beardstown, I’ve not spent much time exploring its amenities. Twice I spent a night at the public house called the City Hotel, located at the corner of Main and State Streets, a short block from the riverfront. It’s the most prominent structure travelers see when steamboats nestle up onto the sandy river bank, and it’s operated by the town’s founder, Thomas Beard. He’s six feet tall with a straight, muscular build and says I’m one of the few fellows he has to look up to.
Tonight, as I stand in front of him at the lobby desk with my rain drenched hat in hand, my shoulders soaked and hunched, he must regard me as a pitiful sight. “Can you spare a room for a weary traveler?”
“That’ll be fifteen cents,” he says.
“Is that the sharing rate, or …?”
“Twenty-five if you’re looking for some privacy,” he says, assessing me with his calculating blue eyes.
“I’ll take the twenty-five.” My resources are all but depleted, not having worked for several weeks. The balance of my three dollars will go to buying a night’s worth of companionship.
I lay my coins on the desk, and Beard hands me the room key. “Anything else?” he asks.
I look down. On my previous stops at his establishment, I’ve heard it whispered that Beard is not sufficiently prudent in the matters of husbanding to keep a wife. The women I’ve seen wandering in and out of this place are proof enough of his weakness toward temptations of the flesh.
“I was hoping ….”
His smile broadens into a grin. “Hoping to get a little?”
I glance away then back at him, and try to read his face. “How much? Just have a little more than two dollars.”