by B. B. Oak
“You base your evidence on a mere bonnet?”
“No, on the fly!”
“A fly then. Do you not realize how flimsy your evidence is?”
Tears of frustration flooded my eyes. “Why is your mind so closed to what I am telling you, Adam?”
“Because I know more than you do.”
“Hah!”
“I truly do, Julia. I know more about Peck’s murder than you do, and I cannot accept your absurd supposition. Your emotions have gotten the better of your good sense.”
“My emotions?”
“Obviously your meeting with Upson has caused you great agitation. That he can disturb your sensibilities in such a manner makes me wonder if you have a deeper regard for him than you are willing to admit to me.”
“And you accuse me of making an absurd supposition! You are way off the mark, Adam.”
“Am I? Why would Upson ask you to marry him if he had not seen at least a glimmer of tenderness in your gaze? And why would you keep his proposal a secret unless you had an inclination to accept it?”
“Oh, Adam, you have hurt me most painfully with such accusations.” I sank to the garden bench and buried my face in my hands.
After a long moment of silence he finally said, “Perhaps I have spoken too rashly.”
Perhaps? That word alone kept me from accepting his apology, if indeed that is what it was. I remained with my face in my hands until I heard him walk away.
I did not join him at the breakfast table, nor have I seen him since. He will never believe me, I fear, unless I produce Peck’s scalp as evidence.
Of course that is impossible. Lord only knows where Lyman has buried it. Or has he buried it? He asserted that he could make many more of his horrific, hooked creations, so that must mean he has preserved not only his poor wife’s bonnet but also the captain’s scalp. Now where would he keep handy such a nasty thing as that? Same place he keeps all his other skins and pelts, I reckon.
ADAM’S JOURNAL
Wednesday, August 26th
Looked all about the house and garden for Julia as soon as I returned from patient calls yesterday. Wanted to beg her pardon. Not for discounting her wild speculation that Upson scalped Peck, but for spouting wild speculations of my own concerning her relationship with him. Jealousy truly is the green-eyed monster and the great exaggerator. Did not find Julia at home, and Grandfather could not account for her whereabouts. Went and looked for her on the Green, where she often strolls at sunset, but no sign of her there either. Returned to the house to find Henry in the parlor chewing the rag with Grandfather. He had brought a box of Thoreau pencils for Julia. Told him she should be along shortly. We heard a wagon come barreling down the road, and I looked out the window to see Granny pull up at the gate. Went out and helped her get down from the buckboard. She looked mighty worried.
“I come to see Julia,” she said.
That rather surprised me. They had never been very budge. “Julia isn’t here right now. She could be at the store.”
“It’s past six. Store’s closed.”
“Well then, she’s out walking somewhere.”
“You know where?”
“No. What’s wrong, Gran?”
“Well, Pilgrim is dead for one thing.”
“Ah, so you know. I intended to come by later to tell you.”
“I just heard about it from one of the farmhands.” Gran pulled a letter from her apron pocket. “And I just read this letter Pilgrim gave me last I saw him. Now you read it, Adam.” She thrust the letter into my hand.
I hesitated before unfolding it for upon the address fold, written in a most elegant hand, was this caveat: To be entrusted to and held in strictest confidence by Mistress Elizabeth Tuttle of Tuttle Farm and opened only upon the death of the peddler known as Pilgrim.
“Go on. Open it,” Granny urged me impatiently.
“But it is marked private.”
“If you care a whit about Julia you will read the dang letter now, Adam!”
And so I did. I copied its contents before turning it over to the authorities.
My Dear Madame -
If you have opened this letter then I am dead. Only that certainty permits me to share my fears with another. I have chosen to share them with you because you are close to the one I believe to be in most danger at present. Pray ignore what you have oftentimes seen of my overindulgence in spirits to the detriment of mind and body and take to heart the facts and grave warning contained herein.
You know me as Pilgrim, but my true Christian name is Nathan and surname Upson, born in Bennington, Vermont, now three score and two years past. I am the natural father, unbeknownst to him all these years, of the Reverend Lyman Upson. My sad history is this.
I was a law student with great promise when my sweetheart and I found ourselves in necessity to wed. We did so, and I soon had a baby boy to provide for. Without the means to support a family whilst continuing my studies, I abandoned them with great regret and found work in a wire mill. Such labor did not suit me and most regrettably I took to the bottle. My otherwise mild temperament had always been subject to bouts of uncontrollable temper, which became even more severe under the influence of drink. May God forgive me, but I began to frequently beat my wife. This was followed by a state of near insufferable regret and then yet more indulgence in the bottle. One night I took to her hard with my bare knuckles. Little Lyman screamed so at her piteous sobbing that I turned and kicked his cradle with an inhuman impatience and cruelty, knocking it over and throwing him out and into the fireplace. I staggered to him and yanked him out within a few seconds, but the poor babe had fallen directly upon the bars of the red-hot andirons. His bare little chest was seared by two deep burns—lasting marks of his own father’s Sinfulness.
That day I acknowledged I could neither abstain from drink nor control my insensible rages. To spare their very lives I abandoned my wife and son and took to peddling as an undemanding path by which to earn what I needed to continue to indulge my weakness for liquor. The rages have faded away these past years, but liquor will hold me tight in a devil’s embrace until I breathe no more.
Despite my decision to foreswear my family, I always kept myself, at a discreet distance, abreast of my son’s progress in life, following him through his schooling, then his choice of a severe Calvinist ministry, which eventually led him to Plumford. That was the reason I commenced to include the town in my round of summer peddling twelve years ago, arriving here each year at the time of my son’s birthday. Over this time I have had the temerity to attend several of his fiery sermons and even appear at his back door, secure he could not recognize me, to offer my humble wares to his wife and observe him, if he happened to grace me with his presence, for at least a few precious moments. On such rare occasions he regarded me always with the unconcealed scorn he showed to his lessers; by that I mean those he perceived to be not preordained by God to stand at his side for Eternity in the Hereafter.
Last summer I tramped into town with a fellow wanderer and imbiber you know, or did know, as Roamer. He was a fine fellow of meek temperament who supported himself by most cleverly repairing clocks and small mechanical devices of any and all sort. We worked house to house about town and then moved on to more secluded abodes beyond the Green. We came to the Upson back door, as I had planned, on the date of my son’s birth. We found the door wide open, for it was a day of sulfurous heat. I was about to call out when we were assailed by an outburst of rage directed by my son at his wife. We both stood in silent shock and mortified embarrassment as Lyman chastised her, in the most vicious tone, as an immoral female of the lowest order—an unfaithful wife—and repeatedly demanded that she name her lover, which she refused to do. I motioned my friend to come away from there, anxious not to be found listening. Later Roamer told me that, as I ran ahead of him round the corner of the house, he paused to look back and glimpsed the preacher glaring after him from the doorway, clutching a bonnet as deep a pink as his angry face.
<
br /> We departed Plumford, and having earned enough to meet our modest needs, we retreated upriver to a farmhouse deserted by a family gone westering, where we drank and dawdled, fishing in the heat.
Roamer and I parted ways three days later, he never leaving my presence until then, and I set my feet south toward Connecticut to continue my yearly round. You can imagine my astonishment when I returned again to Plumford this year and was informed by you that Roamer had been hanged for the murder of Mrs. Upson. He must have gone back to Plumford after parting with me, but I could not for an instant believe him capable of perpetrating such a deed. Then to my utter shock I learned the murder had taken place on Lyman’s birthday, the very day of our visit the year before! Being with me then and several days after, Roamer could not have done it. Upon reading the transcripts of the murder trial at the Concord courthouse, I learned my son had testified he had seen Roamer running from the house as he returned home from a walk and then found his beloved wife dead in the kitchen, her neck snapped. This testimony alone sent Roamer to the gallows. I can only conclude that my son killed his wife in a jealous rage and then caused poor Roamer to hang for it.
I do not ever intend to inform the authorities of this most horrible injustice. Roamer is dead, and I will not be the instrument in my own son’s destruction. Yet I fear that Lyman, after so easily escaping punishment for murdering his wife, might be capable of killing again.
I have seen him courting Julia Bell. I have even seen him lay angry hands on her. And I am certain that if she were to marry him, she would be in grave danger. My attempt to warn her about Lyman was a sorry failure, for I could not tell her what I knew. I shall have to tell Lyman himself. I intend to seek him out this very day and entreat him to confess his crime to save his soul or at the very least leave off his pursuit of Julia Bell. I cannot tell him I am his father, for I am ashamed of my tawdry existence and know such a revelation would revolt him. I am even more ashamed that I have passed on to him such a vile, uncontrollable temper.
Bad blood! Bad blood! I was not fit to sire a child. Look what has come of it. My son is a Wife Murderer.
I pray my death was swift and with my maker I now find a peace unknown to me here on this earth.
The Wastrel known as Pilgrim, born
Nathan Upson
After reading the letter I tucked it in my waistcoat pocket. “I will go to Upson’s house directly,” I told Gran, “and see if Julia is with him.”
“Yes, go!” she urged. “But pray take care.”
“Better yet, I will take Henry Thoreau.”
Stuck my head inside the door and called him. When he came out I told him that Julia might be in dangerous company, keeping my voice low so that Grandfather would not overhear. Leaving it to Gran to make our excuses inside, Henry and I took off down the road. On our way to Upson’s house I quickly repeated the contents of Pilgrim’s letter. Then I told Henry about Julia’s speculation that Upson had scalped and murdered Peck. It did not seem so outlandish anymore. If Upson had managed to get a tramp blamed for his wife’s murder, why would he not try to get an Indian blamed for the murder of his wife’s lover?
“And the peddler is dead now too?” Henry said.
“Yes, I examined his body just this morning. Sometime last night he was accidentally trampled to death by a vicious bull, the same one that gored Trump.” I suddenly recalled the pocketknife in Sultan’s pen—the kind of knife an avid fisherman, more than a destitute vagabond, would own. “No!”
“No to what?” Henry said.
“To the assumption that he was trampled to death accidentally. I submit that Upson dragged Pilgrim into the bull pen already dead, or at least unconscious.”
“If Upson is the cold-blooded killer you believe him to be, we must make haste!” Henry said.
Knowing that Gran’s old nag pulling a wagon could not match us in speed, we ran as fast as we could through the Green and up the road to Upson’s house. I pounded against the locked front door, but no one answered. We went around the house, found the back door unlatched, and went inside. A kettle lay on its side in the middle of the kitchen floor, but other than that nothing looked amiss. The parlor too looked in good order. The study, however, was in disarray, with hooks and feathers and bits of animal pelts scattered upon the carpet. To my horror the largest pelt looked to be of black and white human hair, and on closer inspection I determined that it was most likely Peck’s scalp. Even more horrifying was the discovery of a lady’s gray kid slipper by the threshold. Recognizing it as Julia’s, I picked it up, pressed it to my chest, and cried out her name. No response. After searching the rest of the house in vain we went to the barn and saw that Upson’s horse and carriage were gone.
“We must conclude,” Henry said, “that he has taken Julia away against her will.”
“But where?” I choked out, fear contracting my throat.
Henry pointed to the tracks the carriage wheels had left in the ground. “We will follow his trail.”
We trotted along the dusty road, heading upriver, until the tracks left by Upson’s gig became hopelessly confused with a multitude of other wagon and buggy wheel marks.
“He could have taken her up to Devil’s Perch,” I said.“Julia told me he proposed to her there and is much attracted to the spot.” My heart clenched. “He would be safe from prying eyes to do with her as he wishes there.”
We ran another half mile or so and proceeded up a steep path that cut directly through the woods to Devil’s Perch, a much shorter route than the cart path. When the slope leveled out, we regained sight of the carriage tracks not a hundred yards from the cliff.
“To better our chances,” Henry said, “we should approach from different directions. I know the cliff face from when we found Caleb and will come up from that side. Upson will not expect it.”
With that he slipped away through the bushes and began to work his way round to where the slope sharply steepened and became a rocky precipice.
I continued forward and soon saw Upson’s horse and chaise through the trees. Just beyond was the clearing by the cliff where Julia and Henry had made their plaster casts. As I came closer I saw Julia’s lithe figure silhouetted against the dusky sky. Upson was pointing his fowling piece at her. My only hope was to creep close enough to surprise him before he had a chance to do her harm. As fast and as silently as I could manage I stalked through the undergrowth toward them.
As I neared I heard Upson tell Julia to kneel before him. She complied. He then told her to beg forgiveness.
“God forgive me,” she sang out in a clear, brave voice.
“Not His forgiveness! Do you think God listens to harlots? He did not listen to my wanton wife when she begged Him to save her, did He? He allowed me to keep shaking Urena until her neck snapped. How frail your sex is. How polluted your souls. Beg my forgiveness, Julia Bell. I am God’s Avenging Angel and you have offended me most grievously with your whorish ways.”
She did not respond. He drew closer to her and put the barrel of his gun to her breast. A twitch of his finger would bring her instant death! I could wait no longer and silently sprinted from cover. Above my head a crow, no doubt affrighted by my sudden charge, cawed a raucous alarm. Upson looked over his shoulder at the sound and saw me. He spun around and pointed his gun at me, and I noticed numerous small cuts on his face.
“Stop or you die!” he shouted.
Continued to charge forward with all the speed my legs could deliver. His firearm held only enough buckshot for one shot, and I wanted him to fire it at me instead of Julia. Hoped to drop to the ground before I was hit. But then he swung the muzzle away from me and back at Julia.
“Stop or she dies!”
That made me skid to a halt not ten feet from them. Knowing how many he had killed already, not for an instant did I think him incapable of acting on his threat.
Upson ordered Julia to stand up, and then he motioned me to come stand beside her. He backed away twenty feet, and from that range his bar
rel of buckshot could well kill us both.
“I was going to throw Julia over the cliff,” he told me. “But God intervened by sending you here. He has a far better plan.”
“That’s right,” I said, speaking to him in the soothing tone I use with distraught patients. “God does not want you to harm Julia. He sent me here to take her away.”
Upson shook his head. “No, God sent you here to die with her.You are both foul sinners. Did I not witness your lascivious embrace in the garden? God wants you and your paramour to leap to your death together and plummet to hell.”
Julia and I stared at him, aghast.
“Go forth,” he urged us, waving his gun barrel in the direction of the cliff edge. “And when I give the command, you must jump.”
“We won’t do it,” I said.
“Then I will shoot you instead. Either way you will die.”
“But if you shoot us, it won’t look like suicide,” I said, still hoping I could get him to see reason. “You cannot get away with murdering us outright, Upson.”
“God will provide me a scapegoat. He always has.”
“You are using God as your scapegoat,” I told him, “when you kill in His name.”
His madness had no tolerance for the truth. He pointed his gun directly at me, and a murderous expression contorted his face. Sure he was going to pull the trigger, my only thought was that I would now take the brunt of the buckshot and Julia might manage to run away.
But she fell to her knees again and cried, “Have mercy on us, Angel Lyman!”
Addressing him in that manner seemed to appease him somewhat. Leastways he did not shoot me. He lowered the gun slightly as he seemed to consider the possibility of granting Julia’s plea for mercy. But then he sighed and said, “No. I cannot spare your lives.You know too much.” He frowned and looked confused. “But that is not the reason I must kill you. I must kill you because it is God’s will that I do. I am His instrument of justice here on earth.”