by B. B. Oak
“Badger also murdered Peck,” I said after a moment.
Henry turned back at me. “Are you certain of this?”
“As certain as I can be without actual proof.”
“No way of thinking can be trusted without proof,” he gently chided me. “And it is hard to credit that Badger would murder his long-standing friend and benefactor.”
“Well, mark this,” I said. “There was recently a severe breach in their friendship. I learned of it when I had occasion to visit Peck the morning before he died. According to him, Badger left Plumford in a rage. I think he returned to kill Peck and scalped him to cast suspicions on Trump.”
Henry looked doubtful. “How would Badger know enough to incriminate Trump if he was not around to witness his run-in with Peck? He was in Boston, drinking the night away, was he not?”
“So he testified at any rate. I am going to Shark’s Tavern to find out the truth of the matter.”
“When?”
I pulled out my watch. “Within the hour. This cannot wait. I must interview denizens of Shark’s before they forget whether he was there or not there last Saturday night.”
“I doubt any of them will be disposed to talk to you, Adam.”
“Oh, I can be quite insistent when the need arises, I assure you.”
“Even so, I wager you will be dealing with some very rough characters if they are associates of Badger.”
“It is not very likely they are refined teetotalers,” I allowed.
“Then perhaps I should accompany you there.”
“Do you think we would stand a better chance of getting information if we walked into Shark’s together?”
Henry nodded. “And a better chance of walking out unscathed,” he added. He gave his crystalline pond a longing glance and turned back to me. “Let us go catch the cars to Boston, my friend.”
I did not protest. In fact, I welcomed Henry’s company and even paid for his ticket, for he had not a penny on his person. After we boarded the train and took our seats, I described to Henry the miserable conditions of Trump’s imprisonment in the Powder House. I then told him about Badger’s trying to stir up a lynch mob in the Sun Tavern last night.
“I am not surprised he failed,” Henry said. “For all their small-minded prejudices, the men of Plumford seem a nonviolent lot.”
“But what if Badger finds men of a more bellicose nature elsewhere? Such as acquaintances from his army days or ruffians he mixes with in Boston.”
“Yes, there are more than enough men ready to do outrage to their proper natures and lend themselves to perform brutal acts,” Henry said. “And even the crudest of men can command those who do not command themselves.”
“Then you share my apprehension that Badger is a danger to Trump?”
“I do, indeed, Adam. I also fear that Trump could be a danger to himself.”
Henry proceeded to tell me about a muskrat that a Concord trapper once caught in his trap. This muskrat had evidently been caught twice before, gnawing off a leg each time to escape. Upon this, his third capture, he gnawed off his third leg, and the trapper found him lying dead by the trap, for he could not run off on just one leg.
“Now if an animal would go to such extreme measures to be free, imagine what a human being might do. Especially a young, spirited Indian like Trump,” Henry said. “He might do grave harm to himself trying to escape the wretched trap they have put him in. How much better off he would be in the jail we have in Concord. I speak from experience when I say it is both clean and secure.”
“I proposed exactly that to Justice Phyfe earlier this morning,” I said. “But I utterly failed to convince him.”
“Perhaps he will listen to Concord’s most illustrious man of letters,” Henry said. “I am not referring to myself, of course, but to my friend Ralph Waldo Emerson. I am also acquainted with eminent men in the law profession, namely Judge Hoar and his lawyer sons. I will attempt to recruit their aid as soon I return from Boston today. Trump must be removed from the Powder House without delay.”
I was greatly relieved that Henry not only appreciated the urgency of the situation, but had come up with a possible solution. I leaned back in my seat, grateful for an hour of enforced repose till we reached Boston. I had slept but little the night before, so disturbed was I by Trump’s story of his family’s massacre. As we swayed along Henry pointed to a pair of shepherds on a road that ran parallel to the railway tracks. They were driving sheep with their crooks toward Boston.
“Their pastoral way of life will be gone soon enough, whirled away by the churning engines that will transport animals and goods far and wide,” he said. “The railroad is not only changing the countryside but the very essence of the people who populate it. We do not ride the railroad, Adam. It rides upon us.”
And off he went on an extemporaneous discourse concerning the locomotive, referring to it as a mighty iron horse that breathed fire and smoke from its nostrils as it lurched through town and country, destroying both nature and livelihoods. As Henry railed against the rails my heavy eyelids closed, and I soon found myself lying in a clover pasture. Julia was lying beside me, as she had done many times when we were children. In those days we would stare up at the clouds, pointing out the fanciful images we saw in their billowy formations, but in my dream we were as we are now, fully grown and caressing most fervently. Henry’s voice suddenly intruded upon our pleasure, and I tore my lips from Julia’s to shout, “Go away, Henry!”
My own voice awakened me, and I opened my eyes. Henry was smiling at me. “I would be most happy to oblige you, Adam,” he said, “but we are traveling far too fast for me to leap from the car.”
“Pay me no mind. I was having a dream.”
“Apparently I was aggravating you mightily in it.”
“The dream had little to do with you, Henry, and much to do with Julia. She fills my mind both night and day,” I blurted out, still under the persuasive power of my reverie. “Yet as much as I long to be in her company, apparently she no longer wishes to be in mine.”
“Really? You seem to me to be a most compatible pair.”
“We used to be. We never clashed as children. We were as like as two peas in a pod in those days, a world unto ourselves. We planned a life of adventure together, intending to travel up the Missouri and across the Rockies just as Lewis and Clark had done twenty-five years before. We had read all about it in a book by Patrick Gass, who was a sergeant in the expedition.”
“Ah, yes. I know of that book,” Thoreau said. “I would like to peruse it myself, but copies are rather rare.”
“My grandfather has one,” I said. “When I was a boy he would not permit me to take it out of his study, and it is no doubt still there, on the very same shelf. I have not had the heart to look at it since . . .” I shrugged. “Well, since I grew up. As a boy, I was captivated by it though. Perhaps reading about such an adventure was a way for me to escape the pain of losing my mother. Then Julia came to Plumford. Her company was most pleasant, and she shared my enthusiasm for the book as none of my male friends had. We bonded over it, I suppose. We began writing our own expedition adventures, and she would draw illustrations more fantastical and vivid than the ones in Gass’s book. She was a skillful artist even then, when she was no more than eight or nine.”
Henry nodded. “We all dream of going off on adventures when we are young. But so few of us do.”
“Well, Julia and I did. Her own mother died a few years after mine, and when we heard that her father intended to take her off to Europe, we took off for California instead.”
“Or so you imagined,” Henry said.
“No. We truly did. We lit out and got as far west as Worcester in just five days. I was but twelve and Julia eleven. That is pretty fair time for two youngsters to make, is it not? Especially since most of our walking was done at night to avoid being seen.”
I saw a rare expression upon Henry’s countenance. He looked impressed. “What made you turn back?”
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“Nothing would have made us turn back. But Gran and Grandpa Tuttle tracked us down, carted us back to Plumford, and before we could even catch our breath we were abruptly separated.”
“As though torn asunder by some jealous god?” Henry must have noted my blank look, for he went on to explain. “According to Aristophanes, we humans originally had four arms and legs and were so fleet and strong that Zeus became jealous and split us in half. Hence we cannot feel complete unless we find our other half again.”
“It is a most compelling fancy,” I said, recalling how Julia’s little girl body twined into mine when we slept in haylofts or under the stars. Recalling too how her womanly body had melded so perfectly to mine when I pulled her into my lap and kissed her.
“It is more than a mere fancy,” Henry said in a low, confidential tone. “I know because I have indeed found my other half. She is of me and I of her. Verily, there is such harmony when her sphere meets mine that I cannot tell where I leave off and she begins.”
This surprised me, for Henry has always struck me as a man most content in his own company. I know little of his personal life, however. “Have you made plans to wed?” I made bold to ask him.
“We cannot be together as man and wife in this life,” Henry replied with sad resignation. “But I hope we will meet again in a future life and both be free.”
This surprised me even more. “Surely you do not think that possible, Henry. How can you give credence to such an arcane concept as Reincarnation when you value truth based on observation?”
“Did I not observe myself as an Indian who lived over two hundred years ago?”
“Your brief experience under hypnosis convinces you that we are immortals who return to this earth time and again?” I shook my head. “Oh, Henry, I should need far more proof than that.”
He did not seem the least perturbed by my declared mistrust of his conviction. “When I see Walden come back to life in the spring,” he replied most calmly, “and when I see the river valley and the woods bathed in so pure and bright a light as would wake the dead, I need no stronger proof of immortality. Methinks my own soul must be a bright invisible green.”
I could not help but smile. “I have never observed such a thing as a green soul during an autopsy. Nor one of any hue whatsoever.”
“Some truths cannot be observed, only experienced, Adam.”
“Well, I am a man of science, not metaphysics, and therefore rely on facts.”
“The facts of science may dust the mind by their dryness, Doctor. Knowledge comes to us in flashes of light from heaven, and men are probably nearer the essential truth in their superstitions than in their science. There is inherent truth in most fables too.”
“In some anyway,” I allowed. “Such as the Aristophanes fable you just related to me. I too have found my other half, Henry. And like you, I cannot marry her.”
“You refer to Julia?”
“Of course. She is the only woman I have ever loved.”
“Then I do not understand.You and she are both free to wed, are you not?’
“We are neither of us married. But we are first cousins, and in our family such unions have resulted in hideously deformed offspring. As a physician I am acquainted with techniques that can hinder conception, of course, but none are infallible. To be certain we do not reproduce such a horror, Julia and I would have to forgo sexual congress entirely, and I am not sure I could endure that. Does my frankness embarrass you, Henry?”
“Not at all. I do not respect men who make the mystery of sex the subject of coarse jest, but I am always willing to speak earnestly and seriously on the subject,” Henry said. “Several years ago I became acquainted with a young lady I found immensely attractive, and my yearning to have physical congress with her prompted me to propose marriage. She turned me down, however. She also turned down my brother before me, but that is neither here nor there. The point I am trying to make is this, Adam. I know what it is like to desire a woman. Yet I can assure you that it is possible to find great joy in a woman’s companionship without carnal indulgence, if she is indeed your soul mate.”
I nodded, as if in agreement, all the time recalling the pleasure of the kiss I had shared with Julia. Frankly, I do not think I have Henry’s strength of character. Despite my high principles, my lowly desires persist. Even as I write this, I am imagining the way Julia’s eyes closed and her lips parted as I drew her face to mine. But why do I continue to fan the fires of Eros with that remembrance? I must try and block it from my mind.
Back to today’s events. When Henry and I arrived in Boston, we asked a goodly number of gentlemen passing through the Causeway Street Terminal if they knew where Shark’s Tavern was located. One finally told us it was somewhere in the infamous Black Sea district.
We walked there directly and found ourselves in a confusion of carts, wagons, and drays rattling to and from the waterfront warehouses. Laborers, hostlers, and boisterous gangs of sailors jammed the thoroughfare. Grog shops abounded. At last we found Shark’s Tavern in a side alley off Ann Street. A garish sign by the door depicted a shark with a screaming, bare-chested man caught in its bloody maw.
Inside we were assailed by the stench of stale beer, tobacco, tar, and sweat. The few early afternoon customers greeted us with scowls, and when one of them abruptly left his chair and headed toward us I became uncomfortably aware that neither Henry nor I carried a weapon of defense, not even a cane.
But the glowering galoot only yelled at us to name our poison as he went right past us and took his place behind the bar. I ordered a mug of beer to give us reason to linger, but it was abstemious Henry who eventually won the truculent barkeep over with his direct, relaxed manner. Once he got the man talking, he told us all we needed to know and more. He remembered that Badger had been there last Saturday night all right. The roughneck had gotten so drunk he had fallen backwards and shattered a stout table at which several men were enjoying plates of pigs’ feet and sausages. That brought on a bit of a brawl till Badger paid for his graceful faux pas with ready and new paper notes, then lurched off.
“Do you recall what time Sergeant Badger left your establishment ?” Henry asked.
“In fact I do,” the barkeep said. “He often stays all night, getting uglier and drunker by the hour, but on Sadday last he left around ten.”
“There we have it,” I told Henry. “If Badger left here at ten, he could have easily made it back to Plumford before sunrise. It is less than a four-hour ride from Boston on horseback.”
The barkeep laughed. “Oh, Sergeant Badger didn’t leave here to ride no horse, sir. He left for a far more pleasurable ride at Mrs. Scudder’s. Her bawdy house is right around the corner. The brick house with the red door.”
“Ah, yes,” Henry said. “I know it.”
Astounded, I gave him a sidelong look. Henry David Thoreau had never struck me as the sort of man who would patronize brothels. Yet upon leaving the tavern he suggested that we go to Mrs. Scudder’s forthwith.
“I do not wish to sound disapproving, Henry,” I replied, “but as a doctor I must caution you that a short time with Venus too often results in a lifetime with Mercury.”
He looked puzzled for a moment and then nodded. “I believe I understand your meaning. Mercury is the treatment for venereal disease, is it not?”
“Indeed it is. And a most unpleasant one.”
“But I do not intend to become intimate with any Venus employed at Mrs. Scudder’s, Adam. I merely want to ascertain what time Badger left there. Surely you do not take me for a whoremonger.”
“Of course not, Henry,” I said brusquely, sidestepping a sluggish sow that was rooting about in the gutter. “However, you did claim to the barkeep that you were familiar with Mrs. Scudder’s brothel.”
“And so I am. Do you not remember Trump mentioning the place? He told us that he went to Mrs. Scudder’s to talk to a girl named Effie. She was the one who sent his friend Caleb to Plumford. And of all the brothels in Bost
on, this is the one Badger chooses to go to. It cannot be mere chance.”
“No, it cannot,” I agreed. “Badger and Caleb are somehow connected. I warrant Badger murdered him as well as Peck. All we need do is find out why and then prove it.”
“Is that all?” Henry gave me a wry look.
We went around the corner and came upon a brick row house with a red door. Henry knocked without hesitation, and the door was opened by a girl of no more than ten years, with sallow skin and sunken eyes. She wore no pantalettes beneath her knee-length sack dress, and I noted purple spots and sores of various sizes upon her bare, skinny legs. She ushered us inside without a word, her movements slow and her attitude despondent.
By contrast, a large and lively woman bustled down the narrow hall to greet us with an effusion of energy. She introduced herself as Mrs. Scudder but did not inquire of our names. “Come into my parlor, good sirs!” she exclaimed, pulling me by the arm and giving Henry an encouraging nudge on the shoulder. We entered a small room that was crowded with stuffed seats, long wall mirrors, and three scantily attired young women.
“Look at who has come to call on you so bright and early, my dears!” our fulsome hostess told them. “A fine young gentleman”—she jerked her wigged head in my direction—“and his eager country cousin.” She patted Henry’s back.
Admittedly Henry did look the rustic in his dull green homespun suit and wide-brimmed hat as it had not occurred to him to change his everyday attire to go to the city. He did not look eager, however. But neither did he look ill at ease. He simply looked as he always did, soberly attentive yet quietly amused. If the sight of trollops wearing little more than tight corsets, lacy chemises, and black stockings made him uncomfortable, he gave no sign of it. His bright, translucent eyes scanned over them and every fixture in the room, as though recording them all to memory for future reference, as he would a phenomenon in nature.
“Being our first callers of the day, gentlemen, you will find my girls fresh as daisies,” Mrs. Scudder assured us.