Thoreau at Devil's Perch

by B. B. Oak

  “I don’t need a ladder,” he finally announced.

  And with that he reached over his head, gripped the ivy by the stem, and hoisted himself upward. He next grabbed the spout with his other hand, and pulled himself up a foot more. In this manner he slowly ascended the side of the house, displaying the agility of an acrobat. The old spout shook and rattled from his weight, and at times the ivy tendrils adhering to the brick broke free. When that happened he swayed out from the building, and I sent up fervent prayers that he would not plummet down onto the flagstones below. At last he attained the level of the open window, but it was a good three feet away. He let go the downspout, hung his full weight on the ivy for a terrifying moment, then kicked out against the building and swung himself toward the window ledge. His maneuver was more than the ivy plant could bear, and all the vines ripped loose from the façade and tumbled down to the ground like frayed rope. I swallowed a scream, expecting Henry to tumble too. But he had succeeded in getting hold of the window ledge with one hand and hung off it for a terrifying moment before getting hold with the other hand too and pulling himself up and through the window.

  He let me in by the back door, and we proceeded to search the house until we found chambers containing Adam’s belongings. Upon a desk lay an open journal. Henry refused to read it for he regards a person’s private writings as sacred. I overcame my own reluctance to invade Adam’s privacy and read enough of the last few pages to ascertain that he was going to investigate a counterfeiting operation taking place at a jeweler’s shop on Province Street. Such a solo undertaking seemed most imprudent, and Henry and I hurried forth to the shop.

  We found it shuttered up and went around to the alleyway, where we discovered two saddled horses and the back door to the shop ajar. Henry directed me to go fetch a police officer whilst he kept watch. Off I fled and found a young officer stationed at a crossing a few streets away. When I brought him to the alleyway, Henry was nowhere to be seen. I should have known he would throw caution to the wind and go inside the shop before I returned with help. The officer ordered me to wait outside, but I followed after him anyway, and when I heard Adam’s voice below nothing could stop me from descending the cellar stairs.

  A descent into hell! As much as I wish I could forget what I witnessed in that cellar, I am sure I shall be able to draw every detail of it for as long as I live. But I do not wish to write about it. May God forgive Trump for what he did. I suppose Adam, Henry, and I should ask God’s forgiveness too, for we have allowed a murderer to go free.Yet as I write this I feel no regret. As brutal as the murder was, the victim was a brute himself, and by killing him Trump saved Adam’s life.

  ADAM’S JOURNAL

  Monday, August 24th

  I try to remain tolerant and charitable toward all my patients, both living and dead, but I must make an exception regarding Capt. Gideon Peck. My loathing for him increases with each revelation concerning his conduct here on earth. Today Julia informed me of his relationship with Molly Munger, her subsequent pregnancy and miscarriage, and the resulting sorrow and apprehension brought upon the entire Munger family.

  Went forthwith to examine Molly at her home, and to my great relief found no signs whatever of Peck’s disease upon her body, nor did she have any symptoms. Molly told me she and Peck had performed the act of coition three times only, when he still looked to be in good health. My belief is that the sickness in him had been somnolent during those times with Molly and then come on with such speed it reduced his desire, sparing Molly further exposure. She expressed her relief with such a Niagara of tears I had to blink away a few of my own.

  When I came out of the Munger house, I saw swirls of dense smoke issuing from Ira’s butchery next door and hurried to it, expecting to help quench a fire. The sharp stench of burning hair and singed flesh assaulted me through the open door. Through the semidarkness I made out the carcass of a monster hog, hair singed clean off, hanging by its back legs from a rafter. Wondered why it was slaughtered in August, when blowflies can quickly corrupt the flesh with maggots.

  “Come in, Adam, if you be inclined to,” Ira said, glancing around the pig at me. “A hog butchering in the summer heat is no place for them that has a delicate nose.”

  “I have smelled far worse in the dissecting rooms at medical school,” I assured him, coming forward for a closer look.

  The mature pig was of enormous weight, no less than four hundred pounds, and it was clearly evident that the poor beast had been stomped, battered, and stabbed to death in a most grisly fashion.

  Ira, holding a heavy cleaver, came around the carcass, his eyes red-rimmed from the smoke. His countenance was a mask of worry. “You just come from examining our Molly?”

  Aware that he had been informed of the danger his daughter had encountered with her liaison with Peck, I spoke frankly. “She did not become infected with that man’s disease.”

  Overcome with relief, he leaned against the burnt flank of the dead hog and muttered a prayer of thanks. Then he straightened to his full great height, cursed Peck to damnation, and swung the cleaver into the flank of the dead hog with such force it plunged into the side of the animal and disappeared from sight. His face was so contorted with rage that he was hardly recognizable as the man I had long known.

  I took a step back from his anger. “Peck is dead and gone from Molly’s life, Ira. That is all that matters now.”

  “No, what matters is that he suffered greatly before he died. This alone comforts me, for we cannot be sure there really is a hell.”

  That said, Ira’s fury subsided as quickly as it had erupted. He sliced off the hog’s ears that had been crisped right through with the burning off of the hair and offered me one. The thin, clean flesh, with a bit of smoke for spice, was most delicious, and we chewed in silence for a moment.

  “How did the hog come to such a gory end?” I eventually asked Ira.

  “Killed by the same bull that attacked your Indian,” he said.

  “Farmer Herd is still letting that mad bull of his roam free?”

  “Oh, Sultan never left his pen. ’Twas the fool hog that got in it. The greedy porker smelled the grain in the bull’s feed tray, rooted his way under and threw up the boards to get at it. As you can see from the evidence, the bull was not inclined to share his victuals. Gored his uninvited dinner guest full of holes like an old pincushion. Then the ornery cuss picked the fool pig up with his horns, slammed it against the walls of the pen, and stomped it on the stone floor. All that at least bled the beast out for me pretty fairly, which in this heat was good fortune. Herd wanted to save what he could of the pork and so sledded it over an hour ago. I’m keeping the smoke up in here to keep out the pestiferous flies.”

  “That bull’s more trouble than he’s worth.”

  “No, no, he’s a fine breeder,” Ira said. “Herd makes a tidy sum mounting Sultan atop cows all around the county.”

  Not one for too much conversation, he went back to work. He yanked the cleaver out of the hog’s flank and cut deep across the back of its neck, continuing around to slice through the gullet and sever the spine. The head dropped to the brick floor. My training in surgery gave me an appreciation of his skill in butchery. And his training, I suddenly realized, would give him the wherewithal to butcher a man with the same ease as he would a hog.

  If anyone had an unadulterated motive to kill Peck, it was surely Ira Munger. According to Julia, he had learned of Molly’s liaison with the captain when he returned from playing town ball the very evening the man was murdered. He’d been so upset that he’d spent the night brooding in his butchery, so neither his wife nor anyone else could verify his whereabouts at the time of Peck’s murder. I watched Ira toss the pig’s head into a vat and then slice off its pizzle.Yes, he was fully capable of butchering the man who had defiled and perhaps diseased his daughter. But had he?

  I was almost certain of it. Not only could he have scalped Peck with ease, but he had been on the Green when Trump had threatened to
do just that to Peck. Ira could have easily overheard Trump. My only reservation was that I knew Ira to be an honest man. Would he frame another for his crime?

  “I was astonished when I heard the Indian had escaped the Powder House,” I said, hoping to ascertain Ira’s attitude regarding Trump.

  “Everyone in town was,” Ira said. “And a few were mightily pleased to hear it. Me being one.”

  “So you do not think he deserved to be hanged?”

  “No, I do not.” Ira reached deep into the carcass and split the pelvic girdle with a resounding snap. “No one should be hanged for killing a low animal such as Peck.”

  “But it is almost certain that Trump would have been executed for Peck’s murder,” I said.

  Ira took a firm grip on the viscera, rolled the mass out toward him, and dropped the entire, dripping innards into the vat. Then he looked at me. “Maybe, if he’d been brought to trial, he would have been found innocent.”

  “Not very likely, Ira.” I looked intently back at him. “All the evidence, especially the scalping, pointed to him as Peck’s killer.”

  “But if he didn’t do the deed,” Ira said, “the real killer might have come forth and confessed in time to spare the Injun’s life.”

  Is that what Ira had intended to do? Or had he just deluded himself into thinking he would? As I stared at him, I could not fathom his thoughts, much less what lay deep in his heart. He held my gaze without blinking, big arms crossed over a leather apron caked with gore. Had he worn that apron when he slaughtered Peck? Was he waiting for me to accuse him?

  I did not. It is unlikely he would have confessed to me if I had. And in truth I did not want him to, for I might then have felt obligated to notify the authorities. I feel no such obligation now, for as certain as I am that Ira killed Peck, I have no way of proving it. All I have are suppositions that would not stand up in court, and the only thing I would accomplish would be the ruin of the Munger family’s reputation. Peck’s time on earth was quickly nearing an end, with or without Ira’s intervention, and it is up to God, not me, to judge both men.

  JULIA’S NOTEBOOK

  Monday, 24 August

  It seems I have managed to offend two men this afternoon. I am sorry for that, but if either of them had truly listened to me, none of us would be so distressed now.

  And to think it all started with such good news from Adam. He found me in the garden and told me that he had examined Molly and found her to be free of Peck’s dreadful affliction.

  “Now she can get on with her life as before,” I said.“Unless, that is, her father holds her unfortunate indiscretion against her, as men are wont to do. Molly might have behaved with naïve imprudence, but it was Peck’s behavior that was deplorable beyond measure. Mr. Munger should blame him alone.”

  “I believe he does,” Adam said.

  “Did he tell you so?”

  “Not in so many words.” He turned his gaze from mine.

  “Are you keeping something from me, Adam?”

  “Why would you think it?” he said, still avoiding my eyes.

  “Because you are always keeping things from me.”

  “Only to shield you from the unsavory side of life. Other than that, I am most open with you.”

  “You are not,” I insisted. “You shield your deepest feelings from me too.”

  “How can you say that? Did you not receive my letter from Boston?”

  “Oh, yes. And I have read it so many times that I can recite it verbatim.Yet I still do not understand why you wrote to me in such a manner.”

  “I suppose I did not understand myself at the time. But now I do.” Adam hesitated. “Will you allow me to speak frankly to you, Julia?”

  “It is what I most wish you to do!”

  He took my hand and led me to the little stone bench behind the tall phlox. There we sat in silence for a while, breathing in the scent of mint and lavender wafting in the light breeze, until he spoke again.

  “Here is what I now know to be true, Julia. You are absolutely necessary to my happiness, and a separate existence from you would not be worth living. I realized this as I awaited my death in the cellar.”

  “Do not remind me how close I came to losing you!” I said as tears sprang to my eyes.

  Adam took me in his arms to comfort me. I relaxed in his embrace, and he began to kiss my cheeks and temples and throat. I soaked up his kisses like a thirsty flower and could not make myself tell him to stop. But he suddenly released me and rose from the bench.

  “You should have announced your presence, sir,” he said.

  I looked over my shoulder and saw Lyman Upson standing behind the row of swaying phlox, ashen-faced as he stared at us. “I could not announce my presence,” he replied, “for I was struck speechless by such blatant impropriety.”

  “Leave immediately,” Adam commanded. “You have no business here.”

  “I was under the assumption I had an appointment with Miss Bell today,” Lyman said without looking at me. “But now I will gladly leave her to you, sir.” And with that he abruptly turned his back to us and marched rigidly to the gate. The latch caught when he tried to open it so he kicked the gate open instead, leaving it swinging forlornly on a broken hinge in the wake of his departure.

  Adam started to go after him, but I quickly rose from the bench and took hold of his arm to stop him. “Let the poor man go,” I said. “He has reason to be upset. I forgot he was coming today for my answer.”

  Adam frowned at me most ferociously. “Your answer to what?”

  “His marriage proposal. Of course I had no intention of accepting his offer, but—”

  “Upson proposed marriage to you? When and where?”

  “Wednesday last on Devil’s Perch. He seems to have a great affinity for that place. I refused him right off, but he insisted that I take some time to reconsider and—”

  Adam interrupted me again. “And you obliged him.”

  “Well, yes. That is, no. I mean, I did not reconsider his offer for even a moment, but I did consent to allow him to make it one final time for the sake of his pride.”

  “Hah! So much for his pride. What could be more mortifying than to find the woman he hoped to marry being kissed by another man?”

  “You are not another man, Adam. You are the only one in my life. I have always loved you.”

  “Yet you have been considering marriage to another.”

  “I have not considered it! How many times must I tell you?”

  “Once would have been sufficient,” he replied coldly. “But you had no intention of ever telling me of Upson’s proposal, did you?”

  “In truth I did not.”

  “I cannot help but wonder what other secrets you have held back from me, Julia.”

  “Are you implying that I have been deceitful?” I asked him in horror.

  Without answering me, he left the garden and strode off down the road. It is now suppertime, and he has not yet returned. Most likely he went to the Tuttle farm to be fed and fawned over by Granny and little Harriet.

  I imagine the cozy trio round the big kitchen table heaped high with food, Granny and Harriet beaming with delight at Adam. And then I imagine one, two, three little beings more round the table, all with Adam’s dear blue eyes and Harriet’s curly hair. Such a wholesome family. Such a happy picture.

  I blink it away. I want Adam to be mine, not Harriet’s. Even during all those years apart, he filled my heart so completely that there was no room left in it for another. Yet the image of Adam I carried with me for the last ten years was that of a boy, not a man. It is only now that I know him full-grown that I want him most carnally and selfishly. Oh, Julia, you poor miserable creature! Do not impose your wanton desires upon that pretty picture of domestic bliss in Granny’s kitchen. It is all for the best that Adam has gone off in a sulk. March away from me, my beloved cousin. And do not look back.

  ADAM’S JOURNAL

  Tuesday, August 25th

  Sultan has st
ruck again. Young Hiram discovered the battered body when he went out to the barn at sunrise to milk the cows. He immediately rode to town to notify me and went on to alert Constable Beers.

  Drove to the Herd farm, went straight to the barn, and found the peddler Pilgrim’s body lying outside the bull pen. The elder Herd was standing over it.

  “He was dead when Hiram and me dragged him out,” Herd informed me.

  “Was his skin cold to the touch?”

  “Didn’t want to touch him, doctor. Just pulled him by his boots.”

  “Were his limbs stiff as you dragged him?”

  “Can’t say I noticed. Could barely look at him, being he was so bloodied and stomped.”

  “Was the blood dry on him? I am trying to ascertain time of death.”

  “Dry. And Sultan was calm as a millpond over in his favorite corner by the window. So it weren’t like he just done it. When he gets riled up he rolls his eyes, shakes that big head of his, and drools.” Herd shook his own big head in bewilderment. “Why in tarnation did Pilgrim go into Sultan’s pen? Never would have tolerated him sleeping in my barn iffen I’d known he was that crazy.”

  I crouched over the mangled corpse, which gave off a strong smell of whiskey. The head was severely smashed up. The jaw, hands, and arms had begun to show signs of rigor mortis. So death had occurred late last night. Had difficulty removing the clothes. A dead body often seems quite reluctant to surrender its modesty. Observed the neck vertebrae had been fractured in two places. The right arm was wrenched from its socket, three ribs broken on the left and two on the right side, the pelvis shattered, and the left femur had suffered two separate fractures. Noted multiple and deep puncture wounds to the chest and abdomen similar to those the pig had endured. Attributed these to the bull’s horns.

  “Be it pig or man, Sultan don’t like company,” Herd remarked unnecessarily.

  I looked over at the beast standing by his water trough, nose dripping, eyes glaring balefully at us. “That animal is a killer, Mr. Herd.”