Thoreau at Devil's Perch

by B. B. Oak

  “Did you not say you say kept depictions of a wilder nature in another room?” I drawled, doing my best to sound like a jaded rake.

  He wagged his finger at me. “You are not as naïf as you look. Très bien. I will show you images that will please your nature sauvage.”

  Just as I had hoped, he took a key from the deep pocket of his work smock and unlocked the door I had just tried. Unfortunately, he did not invite me to enter the room with him. All I got was a brief glimpse of a printing press when he swung open the door, then promptly closed it behind him. He reemerged a moment later with a leather case and took care to lock the door after him. After returning the key to his pocket, he shooed Mademoiselle Souris off the worktable and placed the portfolio upon it. He rubbed his palms together and smiled at me.

  “Are you prepared to be scandalized, mon ami?”

  Gritted my teeth and nodded. Just then the bell above the shop door tinkled, and we both looked toward the front room. Two very proper ladies entered. Heaving a sigh, LaFarge shrugged out of his smock, hung it on a wall hook, and got into his frock coat.

  “I will attend to them,” he told me softly, “and leave you to attend to your goût dépravé alone. Perhaps you prefer it that way, eh?” He winked, patted the supple leather portfolio, and departed, drawing a curtain across the doorway to insure my privacy.

  It was the locked door, not the portfolio, I wanted to open, and I dug into the pocket of LaFarge’s work smock for the key. A moment later I was inside a small room with long windows. A printing press took up most of the space. Beside it stood a table draped with a piece of sailcloth. Lifted up the cloth and uncovered stacks of Provident Bank notes tied in neat bundles. They were in ten, twenty, and fifty-dollar denominations. Stowed a packet of each amount into my pockets, intending to make my excuses to LaFarge and hurry off to the bank to alert officials there. Considered my investigation a grand success.

  But I had reached that conclusion too hastily, for in the next moment I was hit over the head so hard I crumpled to the floor. Looked up to see LaFarge hovering over me, a wine bottle in his hand. Attempted to get to my feet, and he clubbed me with the bottle once again, stunning me to near oblivion. Remained conscious enough to realize he was dragging me toward the open trapdoor. As I struggled most feebly in protest, he easily managed to pull me down a steep, narrow flight of stairs, and my poor, battered pate hit each and every one of them during my long descent. By the time I reached the bottom I was insensible.

  Awoke bound to a chair in a deep-dug, cluttered cellar that looked to have been excavated at the time of the initial settlement of the city. The foundation stones were enormous, rough-hewn boulders, and the ceiling beams were huge, half trunks of trees. It was silent as a tomb down there, not a sound from the streets penetrating the stones and ancient timbers. LaFarge had lit a hanging lamp and was sitting on a three-legged stool beside me, patting the blood dripping from my head with a rag. Saw that he had emptied my pockets. Displayed upon the large, rough table under the lamp were my wallet, the pendant I had acquired for Julia, and the counterfeit money I had taken.

  “You are nothing but a common thief,” LaFarge said. “And I thought you were a gentleman.” He seemed genuinely offended and disappointed.

  “I have fallen on hard times,” I told him in the saddest tone I could manage. “When I saw the notes I could not help myself. Please forgive me.”

  LaFarge looked inclined to do just that. “I know how it is, mon jeune ami. I too have gone through hard times in this heartless country of yours. I never would have stooped to counterfeiting if I had not. I am an artist, not a criminal.”

  “I will never say a word if you let me go.”

  “I would like to. But I cannot. It is not up to me to decide what to do with you.”

  “Who is it up to?”

  Before he could reply a man’s voice rang out from the room above. “LaFarge! Where the dickens are you?”

  LaFarge rose from the stool and went to the stairway. “Down here,” he called up. “Come quickly.”

  Two short legs in striped trousers appeared as the man descended, followed by a small, round torso clothed in a black frock coat, white shirt, and carefully tied gray cravat. Next appeared a jowly face beneath a very high black silk hat. The banker Vail.

  “Why did you summon me here?” he demanded of LaFarge. “What is the emergency?” When he saw me his eyes stuck out like a lobster’s, and his face got as red. “Dr. Walker!” he screeched.

  “You are acquainted with this young man?” LaFarge sounded most surprised.

  “I know him well enough to wish I didn’t,” Vail said. “Dr. Walker has been investigating Peck’s murder.”

  LaFarge shrugged. “We had nothing to do with that sorry business.”

  “Even so,” Peck said, “he is still a danger to us if he knows our business. Does he, LaFarge?”

  “I caught him in the press room stuffing banknotes in his pockets.”

  “How the hell did he get in there?”

  LaFarge hung his large head. “He somehow got hold of my key.”

  “You careless cheese-eater,” Vail muttered.

  “Buy my silence, gentlemen,” I said, hoping yet to talk my way free. “It will come cheap, I assure you. I am not a greedy man, just a needy one.”

  “I am for it,” LaFarge told Vail. “What is the cost to us but paper and ink?”

  “No, he cannot be bought off. He is hoaxing us.”

  “Tout le monde can be bought off,” the jeweler insisted.

  “Not everyone,” Vail said. “Some men are too damn honorable. But even if Dr. Walker were the dishonorable sort, it would be just as ruinous to us. A man whose silence can be bought cannot be trusted to keep it for long without another payment. And another and another. There would never be an end to it until he was silenced for good.”

  As LaFarge considered this, I saw his thoughts move across his expressive face like cloud shadows. The glint in his eyes dimmed, and his mobile mouth stiffened when he reached the unavoidable conclusion. “There is only one way to silence a man for good.”

  “You do it,” Vail told him.

  LaFarge looked aghast. “Moi?”

  “Who else?”

  “Why not you?”

  Vail put up his clean, plump hands in protest. “Don’t be ridiculous, LaFarge. I have never killed anyone.”

  “Moi non plus! I don’t even own a weapon.”

  “Use whatever you thwacked him with.”

  “I cannot very well cudgel him to death with a bottle of vin Bourgogne! That would be atroce!”

  Vail thought a moment and came up with a better suggestion. “Choke him to death,” he said, pointing to a length of rope on the floor.

  “You would have to remove my corpse up the stairs,” I hurriedly pointed out. “And then dispose of it. Murder is a nasty, complicated business, gentlemen. And since neither of you have experience in it, you will never get away with it.”

  “He is right! Mon Dieu, we will hang for it!” LaFarge said.

  “Yes. Dr. Walker is indeed right,” Vail conceded. Relief coursed through me, for I assumed that now that they had seen reason, they would just leave me tied up and abscond. But that frail hope shriveled as Vail continued speaking. “We do not have experience in murder and need the services of someone who does.” He then he uttered a name that filled me with dread. “Rufus Badger.”

  “Badger?” LaFarge’s tone expressed dread too.

  “Of course. He will be most happy to accommodate us, I am sure.”

  “Peck told us never to trust him again after he left those bank plates at a bordel.”

  “Well, Peck is dead, and I am the one making decisions now,” Vail said. “Badger may be an idiot, but he excels at one thing. Killing.”

  LaFarge clutched his hands in dismay. “But he is so brutal. So dérangé. This young man does not deserve such a destin horrible as that.”

  “Dr. Walker has sealed his own fate,” Vail declar
ed, glaring at me with pure hate in his bulging eyes. I sensed that he wanted me dead for two reasons. Not only had I discovered his counterfeiting operation. I had also discovered that his wife had been unfaithful to him, and for that I was to be punished most cruelly. “I will summon Badger straightaway.”

  “Tant pis, mon jeune ami,” LaFarge said, his expression resigned as he regarded me. “If I had more courage I would kill you myself, but I do not want to live with such a deed on my conscience.”

  His fine moral sense left me desolate.

  My fate decided, the two men went on to discuss matters relating to it. LaFarge said he would close up shop and clear out until Badger had accomplished his task and disposed of the evidence. Vail declared that it would be most improvident to leave stacks of counterfeit banknotes in the press room. Badger would have little trouble breaking down the locked door to get at them. He directed LaFarge to pack up the notes in a crate whilst he brought around a conveyance to transfer them to his place for safekeeping. He also directed LaFarge to gag me before they left the cellar.

  “Pourquoi? No one can hear him shout for help from down here.”

  “How can you be so sure, LaFarge? Gag him, I say!”

  Demonstrating his regret with a deep sigh, the Frenchman shoved the rag he had used to mop blood off my brow against my mouth and bound it in place with my neck cloth. That done, he plucked Julia’s pendant from the table and slipped it into his pocket, along with my wallet and the counterfeit notes I had taken, then followed Vail up the stairs without so much as a glance back at me.

  But a short time later, LaFarge returned to the cellar alone, and my heart rose with the hope that he had come to save me. Alas, he had just come to save precious whale oil. After lighting a candle to illumine his way out, he reached up to extinguish the overhead lantern. “You can just as well wait for Badger in the dark, eh?”

  I yowled in protest.

  And he relented. “D’accord, mon jeune ami. If the light gives you comfort, I will not snuff it out.”

  As if such munificence absolved him of any guilt whatsoever regarding my fate, he gave me a fond farewell pat on the back and once more departed without looking back. When he reached the top of the stairs, he dropped the trapdoor with a bang of finality, and I heard something heavy being pulled over it to further ensure my imprisonment.

  Looked up at the lantern and estimated I had little more than a few hours of light before the oil burned out. Strained and worked my wrists bloody against the ropes, but it did me no good. As dark thoughts of my impending doom began to creep into my mind, who should creep into my sight but Mademoiselle Souris as she made her way across the tabletop. When she spotted me she stopped in her tracks, right under the lamp, and regarded me with her bright black eyes. Grateful for the distraction, I looked back at her with an unexpected degree of affection. Despite the deformity of a missing tail, she was a pretty little thing as mice go, with a healthy brown pelt tinged pink around her delicate feet and inside her petal-shaped ears. No more than three inches long, she emanated such a great degree of energy that her long, silvery whiskers seemed to vibrate with it. What life there was in her! Indeed, upon closer examination I observed that her belly was beginning to bulge with pups. So it was Madame Souris, not Mademoiselle.

  She began squeaking, no doubt expecting to be rewarded with food, and when she was not, she started to scurry away. I clicked my tongue as LaFarge had done to call her back, but the sound was so stifled by my gag that I doubted she could hear it. When she jumped off the tabletop, I was sure I would never see her again, but in the next moment I felt her scampering up my pant leg. She perched on my knee as I continued to make a clicking sound, tilting her head from side to side as though to get the measure of me. I must have passed muster, for she proceeded to tiptoe up my torso and perch on the ledge of my shoulder. She took in the view from there for a time, then curled herself up against my neck. There she stayed. I assume she fell asleep.

  Giving peace and comfort to another creature made me feel less helpless. Told myself that I would somehow find a way out of my woeful predicament, being far too young and hearty to die. Such optimism dimmed considerably when I recalled the Negro called Caleb lying at the base of Devil’s Perch. He too had been young and robust, yet his life had been snuffed out prematurely by the same brute who was now coming to murder me. How it galled me that a man I so scorned would end my existence.

  Could not allow that ugly notion to take hold of my mind. To blot it out, I conjured up the most lovely images I could—the Tuttle apple orchard in bloom, a trout’s stippled flank, swallows dipping over waving hay. Then I saw before my eyes the most lovely image of all—Julia Bell. Recalled every detail I could of her face and form, from the sweep of her lashes to the graceful movements of her limbs. Reviewed every expression I had observed upon her mobile countenance these last few weeks, especially the upward tilt of her mouth when I made her smile.

  Next I began to envision what I had never seen of Julia—her unclothed body. Reveries of conjugal intimacy between us followed. Could not control such imaginings. Nor did I want to. Their compelling vividness made me consider the possibility that we had experienced such intimacies many times before, in a hundred or a thousand lives we had shared going as far back as the Egyptians and even farther, to a time when we twined together under thick mastodon robes by a fire in a cave. These were just fancies, not actual remembrances, and I did not come to believe in Reincarnation during my long wait in the cellar. But I did arrive at a greater certainty of conviction that Julia and I were meant to spend this present life on earth together. Pledged there and then to marry my cousin, despite the Walker curse, if I survived this ordeal.

  Began to twist against my bonds with renewed energy. The only result my strenuous efforts produced was pain as the rope cut ever deeper into my flesh. Even more painful was the dawning realization that I would never see Julia again, much less have her as my wife. My poor soaring heart came crashing down. The mouse, disturbed by my futile gyrations, skittered off my shoulder, down my body, and into the darkness beyond the small pool of lamplight. All I had left was the light.

  And then I didn’t. It seemed I merely blinked, but I must have dozed, for the next time I opened my eyes all was darkness. It covered me like a suffocating shroud, and my breaths came short and shallow. Because my limbs were bound so tightly, my entire body had grown numb, and the only sound I heard was the pounding of my own heart. As time passed sensory deprivation caused me to lose all sense of my own selfhood, and I felt that my very soul had been cast into oblivion. Despair overwhelmed me. I hung my head and gave myself up to it. Never had I experienced such an anguished state. To lose hope is to lose everything.

  But suddenly I felt a presence penetrate the blackness. As it came toward me, a sweet, familiar scent infused the musty cellar atmosphere. ’Twas the scent of honey. The gentle touch of a hand on my cheek convinced me that this unseen yet deeply felt presence was my dear, departed mother.

  “All shall be well,” she communed to me.

  “But how can that be so, Mother?” I silently responded. “I am going to die soon!”

  “All shall be well,” she again communed.

  From whence had she come to deliver this simple message to me? From heaven, from another time and place, from my own imaginings? It did not matter. What mattered was that I believed what she told me. All would be well in the end, even if I should die most miserably, for my soul could never be hurt or destroyed. The moment I acknowledged this everlasting truth, I felt my mother’s spirit depart and my own spirit return full force. I no longer despaired. I merely waited.

  Did not know if it was night or day when I heard the object over the trapdoor being slid aside. A square of light appeared when the door was raised, and I could not help but welcome the sight of it even though I knew my death could soon follow. Heard heavy boots descending. Then saw a swaying lantern. Before I saw the man who carried it, I knew for sure it was Badger. I could smell him
.

  He ignored me at first and went about the cellar lighting lamps, a little smile on his bristly, rough-hewn countenance. “There. Ain’t that better?” he said, finally turning his full attention to me. “Got to see what I’m doing, don’t I?” His gravelly voice expressed a devilish glee. “If I’m not careful with my sport I just might knock out your brains too quick. Got to show some restraint. That’s the word the captain used to caution me more than once. Restraint. Well, never did get the hang of that, but I do intend to try. Why cut short my fun?”

  But before he could begin his fun, the tail-less mouse distracted him. Scampering onto the table again, she began squeaking at this new visitor to her domain, expecting a treat, no doubt. Poor, trusting creature. Badger snaked out his thick hand, grabbed her in his fist, and laughing with delight over his own speed and nimbleness, he yanked off her head. He threw it at me, and as it bounced off my cheek I felt a trickle of warm blood slide down my cheek like a teardrop. Then Badger slapped my face so hard he near wrenched my jaw off its sockets.

  “That’s for making me look a fool at town ball,” he said. His next slap was even harder. “And that’s for stopping my fun with that little trick of a farm girl.” He struck again, an open hand to my ear that almost split my eardrum. “That’s pay back for the lucky clout you gave me in the sugar shed.” He then hammered a fist into my stomach so deep it felt like his knuckles drove clear back to my spine. “That’s for keeping me from killing the Injun.” He paused as if reviewing his list of grievances against me. “And here’s for calling me a liar at the tavern.” He punched my stomach again. Bile rose up my throat, and I prayed I would not choke on it. Even knowing more pain lay ahead for me, I did not want to die quite yet.