Thoreau at Devil's Perch

by B. B. Oak

  He stepped back toward the stairs to study his handiwork, and I saw he was full of joy, his smile now wide across his face. “How I do so like to hit a man,” he needlessly declared. “But we’s just started.Yes, we have.”

  He proceeded to extract his bowie knife from his boot, and fear raced through me like an inferno, igniting every cell in my body. He saw the panic in my eyes and snickered. I told myself that I must not be afraid or it would go worse for me. All shall be well in the end.

  At that moment I saw an apparition descend from above and silently inch its way down the stairs. But this was not my mother’s spirit returning. This was the figure of a man. Was I hallucinating? Or was I actually staring at Trump the Indian? How could that be? Trump was locked up in the Powder House back in Plumford. Or had he died and become a specter? Gaunt, shrouded in torn, filthy raiment, his dirt-caked face a rigid mask, he did indeed look as though he had just risen from a fresh grave. His eyes gleamed coal-red with hate as he stared at Badger’s broad back. Midway down the stairs, he suddenly leapt off them with a powerful push and landed on Badger’s shoulders.

  I knew then that he was no apparition, for his flesh and blood weight slammed Badger off balance, and he crashed to the floor. Staying atop him, Trump wrapped his arms around Badger’s head and twisted it with enough force to break a normal man’s neck. But not Badger’s. He violently threw Trump off his back and rose up like a mountain, bowie knife still in hand. Trump, armed with nothing but rage, cast about for a weapon of his own. For want of anything better, he picked up the three-legged stool beside my chair. Badger snorted in derision and went at him. Trump held the stool in front of him as Badger slashed away at its legs, sending slivers of wood in every direction, and it looked like he would just whittle it down to nothing and have his man. It took but one careless thrust, however, for Trump to entangle Badger’s forearm between the legs of the stool and thereby force the blade from Badger’s grasp. Badger howled in surprise and pulled his arm back, yanking the stool from Trump.

  Trump reached down for the knife on the floor, but before he could get hold of it, Badger threw the stool at him with such force Trump was knocked off his feet. Badger lurched at him and tried to kick him in the head, but Trump rolled away under the table and came up on the other side. Badger retrieved his knife and headed round the table to get at Trump. Trump vaulted over the top of it, and then feinted as if to run toward the stairs. When Badger rushed after him, Trump suddenly wheeled and kicked his boot up into the bigger man’s face. His heel met Badger’s nose with a crack so clear and loud I knew the cartilage was crushed flat. Badger’s nostrils burst gouts of blood, and he staggered back. Trump kicked again, this time aiming at the hand gripping the knife, but Badger, despite the stunning kick to his face, reacted quickly enough to grab Trump’s ankle with his other hand and yank him off balance. As Trump went down, Badger slashed at him. Trump twisted away, just eluding the blade before it sliced into his chest. He sprang to his feet again, clutching a piece of rope he’d found on the floor. He wrapped one end of it around his hand and whipped the other end at Badger’s face, cutting open his cheek and forehead but missing his eyes. Demonstrating the same dexterity he had shown when he captured the mouse, Badger captured the whistling end of the rope in his grip and began pulling Trump to him. Trump, unable to free his hand from the taut rope wrapped around it, pulled back in the opposite direction. But he was no match in size for Badger, and he struggled like a fish caught at the end of a line as Badger stepped back with one leg and yanked with all his might to bring Trump to his waiting knife.

  It was when Badger took that step back in my direction that I saw my opportunity. Flung myself sideways in my chair with all the force I could call forth, and despite being constrained in a crouch by my bonds, managed to pitch myself against the back of Badger’s knees. This caused him to fall backwards and tumble on top of me as my chair tipped over and crashed to the floor. He landed on his back, with his legs tangled over my lower half, our torsos side by side. He twisted to face me, his small eyes red with rage, and raised his knife to thrust it into my chest. Trump jumped forward, kicked the knife from Badger’s fist, and bent down to get it. Just as he got hold of the knife, Badger reached up and grabbed him by the throat. His enormous hand near encircling the Indian’s neck, Badger began to choke the life out of him. As he gasped for air, Trump slashed the knife deep into the muscles of Badger’s arm, and his grip gave way. Trump then plunged the knife into Badger’s opposite shoulder, making his other arm useless too.

  My face was close enough to Badger’s so that I could smell his fetid expulsion of breath and see fear creep into his eyes. He knew he was done for now, flat on his back with both arms useless. I looked up at Trump and saw no mercy in his countenance. I had not expected to. But neither had I expected the savagery that followed.

  Trump straddled Badger’s chest, grabbed hold of his thick, greasy hair, and yanked back his head to expose his neck. His eyes never leaving Badger’s, he placed the cruelly curved tip of the bowie knife below his enemy’s left ear, sank it in deep, and very slowly sliced his way toward the other ear. I could feel Badger’s legs, still draped over mine, kick out in a death dance. I could smell the blood spewing out of his mouth and pouring from his neck. And I could see Trump watching with the rapt attention of a hawk as the light dimmed from his prey’s eyes.

  When Badger gurgled out his last breath, however, Trump was not done with him. Still grasping the dead man’s hair in one hand and his knife in the other, Trump stood and yanked the half-decapitated head upright. As he made a deep incision in the forehead, I guessed what was going to follow and bellowed a protest through my gag. Trump paid me no mind. All that existed for him at that moment was his vanquished enemy. Perchance the ghosts of his murdered family and his ancestors were also present as he chanted softly and cut round Badger’s head. Knife work completed, he dropped the bowie and got a good hold of Badger’s hair with both hands. He wrenched upward, and the scalp came off with a sucking sound as a viscous slither of blood and tissue flowed forth. He held it up, regarded it for a moment, then wiped it on the dead man’s shirt and tucked it inside his own shirt.

  He then pulled me from under the bloody corpse’s legs and set my chair upright. When he untied my gag I said nothing, for what I’d just witnessed left me speechless. Trump did not speak either. We just stared at each other. I saw no remorse in his eyes. No gladness either. Only exhaustion and relief. And he could not have seen censure in my own eyes, for all I felt was gratitude. Trump had saved my life, after all, and if he believed that it had been his right, his duty, and his destiny to avenge the deaths of his family members, then so too did I.

  He reached over Badger’s body, reclaimed the bowie knife, and started to cut through the ropes that bound me to the chair. But before he could free me we heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Had Vail sent another henchman? Trump leaped behind the stairway and crouched in the shadows, knife raised.

  “Adam?” a man called out as he descended.

  “It’s Henry Thoreau!” I told Trump.

  He lowered the knife just as Henry’s torso came within striking distance. Henry did not even notice him lurking in the gloom.

  “Yes, it is I, Adam,” he replied. “And I am glad I have found you. But why are you sitting all alone down here?” He smiled, not yet discerning that I was tied to the chair rather than taking my ease in it. Then his lips twisted into an expression of revulsion, and I knew he had espied the mutilated corpse behind me.

  “That is Rufus Badger,” I told him.“He came here to kill me.”

  Trump stepped into the light. “And I came here to kill Rufus Badger,” he said.

  If Henry was shaken by the sight of Trump holding a bloody knife, he did not show it. “Did you scalp him alive or dead?” he inquired most calmly.

  “Dead of course.” Trump slid the knife into his boot. “To kill his spirit.”

  Henry nodded. His theory had been confirmed. He walked
to the corpse and studied it, then turned back to Trump. “You must flee before a police officer arrives. Julia has gone to fetch one.”

  “Julia?” I cried, glaring at Henry. “Why did you involve her?”

  “She was the one who involved me. She came to—”

  “Police! Is there anyone below?” a booming voice interrupted from the top of the stairs.

  Trump desperately looked around for an avenue of escape, but there was no way out but the stairs.

  “Up there!” Henry told him, pointing to the rafters.

  Trump vaulted onto the table, took hold of a ceiling joist, and pulled himself up. He folded himself between two thick beams, straining to keep his balance. I knew he could not remain in that precarious position long before his muscles gave out and he tumbled down.

  “Is there anyone below?” the policeman inquired again.

  “Blindfold me, Henry,” I said in a hushed tone.

  He did not question my odd request but quickly plucked up my neck cloth from the floor and covered my eyes with it. He then called out to the policeman. I heard his footsteps descend and an eruption of high-pitched expletives when he saw the body.

  “I just now came upon that horrible sight myself, officer,” Henry said. “Found Dr. Walker here bound and blindfolded.”

  “Remove the cloth from his eyes,” the policeman ordered.

  Henry complied, and I saw a young man with a badge pinned to his top hat standing before me. There was a billy club in his hand and panic in his eyes. “Is the murderer still about?” he asked me in a quavering voice.

  “I heard him depart a good time ago,” I assured him.

  The officer looked much relieved. “What did he look like?”

  “As you observed, I was blindfolded,” I replied.

  Before he could interrogate me further, Julia rushed down the stairs, calling out my name. The officer ordered her to turn back, but not even the sight of a mutilated corpse could make her do that. She wavered for only an instant before continuing to my side. Tears streamed down her face as she caressed my face with trembling fingers. I assured her that I was all right.

  “Thank God!” she said, turning her eyes heavenward. They widened. She had espied Trump in the rafters.

  “He saved my life,” I told her softly.

  “What did you say?” the officer demanded, turning his attention from the grisly body to me.

  “I said that I prayed for my life.”

  “And the Good Lord must have heard you,” the officer said, peering into the dark recesses of the cellar, as if trying to steel himself to go forth and investigate. Before he could muster the courage to do so, Julia pitched herself forward, and he caught her in his arms. “Do you feel faint, miss?”

  “Yes! Please take me away from this gruesome place, officer.”

  He accepted this new duty with alacrity. “I will help the young lady upstairs,” he told Henry and me, “and then go to the police office to report this heinous crime. I have never dealt with a murder before and require assistance.”

  “Yes, go straightaway,” Henry urged him. “I will untie Dr. Walker.”

  The policeman guided Julia up the stairs, and just as his boots disappeared from sight, Trump slipped down from his precarious perch and landed in a heap beside Henry and me.

  Henry helped him stand up. “Can you manage to walk away from here?”

  “I’d sooner ride away,” Trump said. “Left a horse untethered out back but don’t know if it’s still there.”

  “I observed two saddled horses in the alleyway,” Henry informed him. “Yours and Badger’s, I surmise.”

  “Stole mine from Peck’s place,” Trump said. “Went there after I dug myself out of the Powder House, hoping to find Badger. He was there all right, holed up with his cronies. Couldn’t take them all on at once, so I waited around for better odds. When I saw Badger ride out alone, I took a horse from the barn and trailed him here. I had good reason to kill him.”

  “I know,” Henry said. “Adam told me he murdered your family.” He went back to the corpse for another look. “And it appears that he murdered your friend Caleb too. The cuts on the heel of his right boot match prints Adam and I found on the top of Devil’s Perch, proving it was Badger who tossed the body down from there.”

  Trump pulled out the bowie knife and stepped toward the body. “I vowed to carve Caleb’s name in the chest of his murderer.”

  “You have no time for that.” Henry put a restraining hand on his arm.

  Trump shrugged it off and bent over the corpse he had defaced, determined to deface it further.

  “Forget about Badger!” I shouted. “Just go!”

  He ignored me and cut open Badger’s shirt.

  “Please stop, Trump!” Julia called from the foot of the stairs.

  This time he paid attention. He turned and regarded her.

  “You have done what you set out to do, and now it is over,” she told him. “Further vengeance is needless. It will only get you caught. Is it worth it?”

  As he considered this, all anger seemed to drain from him, and an expression of peacefulness suffused his countenance. In the next moment he brushed past Julia, bounded up the stairs and out the back door. We heard the faint sound of horse hooves on the cobblestones as he rode away.

  Henry untied me, and a short time later the police officer returned with his sergeant and two additional officers. All three were impressed at the sight of Badger’s mutilated corpse. Julia, Henry, and I were escorted to police headquarters, and the initial officer on the scene testified that I had been found bound and blindfolded, therefore unable to identify Badger’s murderer.

  That a no-account scoundrel such as Badger had been slain did not much concern the newly appointed City Marshal, Francis Tukey. What peaked his interest were my allegations against the banker and a jeweler. Proclaiming intolerance for swindlers in his fine city, he assured me he would investigate the matter thoroughly.

  Unfortunately, this investigation has not amounted to much so far. By the time Marshal Tukey sent officers to Vail’s boardinghouse, the banker and his wife were long gone, with nary a counterfeit note left behind as evidence. As for LaFarge, he never returned to his shop, and he too still remains at large. I cannot help but wonder why they had taken the trouble to have me murdered if they intended to make a run for it.

  So far Trump has evaded capture as well. Even though he has not been implicated in Badger’s death, he will remain a fugitive for the rest of his life unless Peck’s true murderer is discovered.

  My face is still swollen, my abdomen still sore, my wrists still raw, but I have come away from this horrendous experience relatively unscathed. Not unchanged, however, for what I came to realize when I was so close to death is that life, no matter how precious, will be incomplete for me without Julia.

  JULIA’S NOTEBOOK

  Sunday, 23 August

  Oh, his poor, dear, battered face! I cannot bear to think of the torment he must have endured in that tomb of a cellar. He will not speak of it to me. Not yet anyway.

  How grateful I am to Henry Thoreau for helping me find Adam in Boston. ’Tis doubtful he would have allowed me to accompany him there if I had not caught him at a most awkward moment. I was far too worried about Adam to find the situation amusing at the time, but recalling it now makes me smile. What surprise and distress upon Henry’s countenance when he saw me walking toward Walden Pond in the wan morning light whilst he was bathing. Plunging neck-deep in the water to hide his nakedness, he demanded to know why I had come to visit him so early in the day. When I told him of my concerns regarding Adam, he immediately volunteered to go look for him. Alone, he insisted most adamantly. I, just as adamant, did not budge from the shore until he agreed to let me come with him. Only then did I turn my back so that he could emerge from his pond unobserved by female eyes and go back to his hut to dress.

  As we walked to the Concord station I informed Henry of Trump’s escape. He looked greatly relieved.<
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  “May that young Indian remain free for the rest of his life. He has suffered enough,” he said. “For Trump to have set eyes upon the men who murdered his family after all these years must have pained him greatly. And although Peck met with a terrible death, his henchman still thrives. That Badger shall never pay for his monstrous crime must rankle the depths of Trump’s being.”

  I stopped in my tracks. “Peck and Badger murdered Trump’s family?”

  “Yes. In Georgia during the Cherokee removal. Adam did not tell you this, Julia?”

  “He tells me nothing!”

  “Then I will say no more about it. Best you get the whole story from Adam, who heard it directly from Trump’s lips.”

  We left it at that, but I needed no further details to have complete compassion for poor Trump. I was more glad than ever that he had escaped.

  Upon arriving in Boston, we went directly to the house on Chestnut Street where Adam boards. No one responded to our knocks, and the house appeared empty of inhabitants. All doors were locked. I recalled a trick a concierge in Paris, weary of Papa forever losing the key to his studio, once taught me and pulled out a hairpin. When I poked it into the back door lock hole and began probing and twisting, Henry was most impressed by my ingenuity. Alas, the lock was too sophisticated to succumb to my amateurish efforts.

  We espied an open window on the third floor but could find no ladder to get to it. Henry turned his attention to an ivy plant climbing up the building’s brick façade alongside a copper downspout. He examined the thick stem at the plant’s base and pulled at the tendrils fastened to the brick. I knew of his great interest in florae but did not think this an appropriate time to indulge in it.