The Tarleton Murders

by Breck England

  “You know it was not a dream, Marta.”

  She stopped me and went quiet. “I knows, but my mamma so skeered I can’t tell her it weren’t no dream, and I was so sick ‘n all… .”

  “I understand.”

  She changed the subject at once. “They’s beauties, ain’t they?” nattering again about the horses. “You want one to use? I can ask missus if you can borrow one.”

  Tired of walking the streets of Atlanta, I took up the suggestion and received permission from the family, who were loyal Catholics. I chose a lovely chestnut mare. Bathed and refreshed, I felt a vibration of contentment cantering through the streets in the clear cold and was reminded of gallops in the lake country when I was a schoolboy.

  At the telegraph office, I followed Holmes’s instruction and sent off a wire to my former Latin tutor, a model of erudition who was now a curate at Oxford: “Please advise origin of Latin phrase ‘flectere nequeo’. Very urgently required.” I knew how to translate the words—the only ones I could recall from Beauchamp’s incantation of the previous night—but without the right context they were meaningless: I cannot divert or deflect. Divert or deflect what? I put it out of my mind until I could get a response from Oxford.

  I bought a pot of mild soup and returned with it to Holmes’s bedsit to see how James was coming along. Holmes was exactly where I had left him, sitting hunched over James and watching him sleep. He seemed to be better now—his breathing was more even and his bruises more dull in color. Gently I woke him for a swallow of soup.

  Thankfully, James ate until he was satisfied and appeared somewhat invigorated. Then with terror in his eyes, he saw Holmes and sat up in the bed.

  “It’s all right,” I soothed him. “This is a friend, Sherlock Holmes. You might recall he helped you out of the jail this morning.”

  James nodded and relaxed a bit. “Thank you,” he mumbled, “I b’lieved I would never leave that jail.”

  “It was for your protection at first, but then it became necessary to bring you out.” I rehearsed for him the events of the night and morning, which were all a fog to him.

  “Why?” he asked hoarsely. “Why they come for me? I ain’t never done nothin’ to the Talton boys. I worked for ‘em. They uz no good, but I never laid a hand on ‘em nor never answered back.”

  “That is precisely what we want to know,” Holmes said with precision, his hands in the attitude of prayer. “Why would they come for you? What can you tell us? What happened to the Tarletons at Gettysburg?”

  “Holmes,” I admonished. “He’s still very weak. Perhaps later… .”

  But James had sunk back into the bed, his voice almost calm as he told the story. “It was a big battle. A big battle. I dragged the luggage for days over them Maryland hills and then we wuz in Pennsylvania. The boys astride them horses in front of me, never looked back at me, never gave a fig for me.”

  He coughed. I gave him a drink of water and he continued.

  “Night before the battle I got up some sheet-iron crackers and some acorn coffee and they cussed at me cuz it was so bad, but there weren’t nothin’ else to eat. And I was ireful myself, and hungry, too; but I said nothin’. I didn’ know the nex’ day they’d all be dead, did I? All three of ‘em? Just like that. Last I ever saw of ‘em. They wuz gone before mornin’.”

  He paused again to cough and get his breath back.

  “They wuz always annoyed with me, but that night extra annoyed, I guess cuz they afraid of what was comin’. And then there was that aggravatin’ little bounty jumper, a-wantin’ some food.”

  Holmes twitched and sat up. “Bounty jumper? Who?”

  Just then Harris knocked on the door and joined us. His wife had baked us a pie, which I eyed with greed and Holmes with contempt.

  “Sit down and be quiet!” he commanded Harris, who looked bewildered at him. “James, you were speaking of a bounty jumper. What is that?”

  But James had dropped off again. The effort to speak was tiring him out.

  “A b … bounty …” Harris tried to answer the question. “A bounty j… jun …jum … .”

  Holmes turned to him. “Speak up, man. What’s the matter with you?”

  “He has difficulty,” I said. “He stammers when he is disturbed.”

  “Perhaps he is just stupid,” Holmes growled.

  I thoroughly lost my temper and leapt to my feet. “Holmes, you cross a line. Harris is an intelligent man, a decent man who has put himself in danger for the sake of another. You, on the other hand, put yourself in danger for the sake of your obsessions—you care nothing for your fellow man. You care nothing for justice, as long as you have a diverting puzzle to solve.” I mocked his voice: “’It is the mystery that matters.’ Nothing else.”

  Holmes was quiet. Slowly he narrowed his gaze on Harris, who looked embarrassed by my outburst. “Well, then,” Holmes finally said in the calmest of tones, “mea culpa, Padre. Mea culpa. Mr. Harris, kindly forgive me and please go on with your explanations.”

  Harris gradually found his voice. “During the war … both sides paid a b-bounty for recruits. Thirty doll … thirty dollars, I believe. Anyone who joined the army could get … get the money. A bounty jum … jumper would collect his money and then … desert and do it all over again. Hundreds of dollars some people collected this way.” Racing his breath to get this far, Harris sighed.

  But Holmes was already talking to himself. “Petty treason. What some men will sell their souls for.” He extracted a flask from his carpetbag and held it to James’s lips: abruptly, our patient sat up breathing fire.

  “What the tarnation?!” He choked and wheezed and was wide awake. “What is that stuff?”

  “Just a stiffener,” Holmes smiled. “A bit of London gin. Never had it before?”

  “Miz Bea don’t hold with much liquor, so what we do get is mighty watered down.”

  “Well,” Holmes reminded him, “you were telling us about a bounty jumper.” James took up where he left off as if he had never gone to sleep. Harris began taking notes.

  “Taltons wouldn’t give this bounty jumper no food, so he cussed at ‘em pretty sore.”

  “What was he like?”

  “Little man—shabby, shabby. Tunic all yellow, boots all played out. He tells ‘em he’s gonna kill ‘em, so Master Brent aims his pepperbox at the little creature and he skedaddles like a rabbit down a hole.”

  Holmes was intrigued. “Did you see this man again?”

  “Nope. Went to sleep and never seen him nor Taltons alive never again.”

  “Do you think the bounty jumper killed the Tarletons?”

  “Well, suh, I don’t know. He might-a laid for ‘em. But later I hears they died in the battle, like everybody say. I don’t know nothin’ diff’ent. Oh, it was a time, I tell you. The fightin’ went on and on and they was dead everywhere. When my masters didn’ come back and didn’ come back, I swear I didn’ know what to do. By and by I calculate to go home, and that’s what I did. Soldiers took all the supplies, and I was most famished when I gets home.”

  James had finished his narrative, and Holmes sat back to contemplate it.

  “Yes, suh, I sure was famished.” I realized James’s eye was on the pie—a very good sign!—so I vaulted up to get him a piece. It was sumptuous and buttery, rich with pecans, and James gobbled it down heartily. I had more than my share, as Holmes refused to touch it.

  “And what have you done since the war, James?” Holmes asked, taking only a sip of tea.

  “We wuz about destitute after ol’ Sherman march through. Not a chicken or a chicken egg lef’ behind. If it warn’t Billy Yank it wuz Johnny Reb a-stealin’ everything in sight. The day they took them horses, I thought Miz Bea would just lie down and die. But she never did, never… .

  “Me and Miz Bea kep’ things together, I guess—there warn’t nobody else. I wuz a hou
se worker before, but there’s no call for that now—I learn how to grow hay and cotton and I got my own house and fambly, and by and by we wuz raisin’ horses again. But it ain’ like before.” He shook his head.

  “But now you’re free,” I said.

  “Free. Yes, suh. I spoze so.” He started worrying a tar blister in his hair, so I dipped a cloth in cool water from the washbowl and helped him clean it.

  “You have suffered a great many troubles,” Holmes said with a sudden catch of breath and gave him another swallow of gin.

  James smiled painfully as I rubbed at the bloody wax welded to his temples. “My ol’ uncle used to say troubles are seasoning,” he reflected. “A persimmon’s no good till it’s frost-bit.”

  “A final question, James, and then I shall leave you in peace. Did the Tarletons have any dealings with Colonel or General Beaufort during the war?”

  “No suh, far as I know. I didn’ see Beaufort brothers for a long time after, when they come ‘round to look at the horses.” James was alert now and suddenly suspicious. “And now, Mister, mebbe you could answer me a question. Who the devil are you anyways?”

  Holmes laughed gently. “My name is Sherlock Holmes. I am a consulting detective.”

  “A policeman!”

  “No, no. I am merely trying to solve the problem of who shot the Tarleton brothers in the back—and why. I am rather persuaded it wasn’t you, but it would obviously be to your benefit if I could determine who actually did the deed.”

  “It warn’t me!” James sat up straight, and I nearly pulled his ear off trying to remove the tar.

  “As I said, I am rather persuaded it wasn’t you, but certainty is rarely a luxury I can permit myself at this stage of an investigation.”

  “If you so persuaded I didn’ do it, then I asks it again—why is everybody comin’ down on me for it?”

  “I can think of two possibilities.” Holmes spoke in his laboratory voice. “First: the true culprit suspects you saw or heard something that might lead to him; therefore, it would be in his interest to shut down any further inquiry by accusing and silencing you. The second possibility is more abstruse: he has a deep psychological need for a scapegoat, someone to blame and to expiate his guilt for him. It would likely be a Southerner with a profound sense of personal honor, a man who is deeply devoted to the pitiful mythology of the ‘Lost Cause’ and the depravity imputed to the Negro race.”

  I remonstrated with Holmes, “You might speak in a way that James would understand.”

  “Now who is evincing a lack of respect?” Holmes turned halfway to me. “I speak to all men in the same way, as all men are mathematically and logically equal to me.”

  “I never thought to hear you admit that anyone was your equal,” I muttered.

  “A third … a third possibility,” Harris said, looking up from his writing, “is the little b-bounty jumper. Maybe he was … just mad enough to shoot ‘em up.”

  “Of course that is a possible explanation for the original crime, but how could it enter into the accusations against James?” He stopped abruptly and swung round to face Harris. “Unless … .”

  “Unless what?” I asked.

  “I can’t say as yet. It is a capital error …”

  “… to theorize before the facts,” I interrupted him. “Yes, I know.”

  “Precisely.” Holmes was up and putting on his greatcoat and bowler. “And in the service of the facts, I must go to the telegraph office without delay, and from there to consult the railroad timetables.”

  “He do come and go,” James said, as Harris and I laughed. Harris excused himself to go back to work, while I continued to strip the raw tar off of poor James. Eventually, however, we both fell asleep until evening, when I was awakened by Holmes’s return.

  He came in, lit a low lamp, and raised his finger to his lips. “Let the poor fellow rest,” he said, gesturing at James. “’Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care.’”

  “Macbeth, Holmes?” I whispered.

  “I have done a bit of reading since my benighted school days. Yes, Macbeth. The greatest mystery of all, Tuck—the perverseness of the human heart. We saw it working last night at the witching hour in the pine grove.” He sat down heavily in the precarious old chair.

  “It was an unruly night, with ‘lamentings heard in the air and strange screams of death,’” I added. “Holmes, I have been thinking over your observations about the character of the murderer. The need for a scapegoat driven by guilt and shame and defeat, a profoundly offended sense of honor—there are many such men of the South. But from what we have seen, such a description exactly fits one man in particular: Tom Beaufort.”

  Holmes quietly agreed. “The hood and robes could not conceal him. His malice against James, his evident determination to make the poor man a scapegoat does add up to a strong presumption of guilt. At present I cannot see a motivation for killing the Tarletons, but then we simply don’t know enough. That is why I have sent a volley of wires off to various places, including the American War Department. We must understand the story of the brothers Beaufort.”

  Chapter 24

  When I returned to Holmes’s hotel the next morning, I was stunned to find him stretched out alone on the bed in his voluminous dressing gown. “Where is James?”

  “Gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “I do not know, nor do I want to know.”

  “He left of his own will? Was he well enough? What did he say?”

  “He thanked me for saving him from ‘the vultures,’ as he put it, and told me he must be on his way. I understood his point of view—it would be only a matter of time before he is traced here. This city is not so large that our comings and goings are not marked.”

  “When did he leave?”

  “In the night. I expressed some concern about his safety, but he answered me rather obliquely. He said, ‘The black snake knows the way to the hidden nest.’ Charming how his people cloak their meanings—must be the result of centuries of fearing the slave master. I gather he has found a secure place of concealment.”

  “I pray so. And I have news. I have been to the telegraph office this morning, where I collected an answer to my wire from our old Latin tutor.”

  “Excellent.” Holmes gestured to a pot of fresh tea and invited me to sit down and read the wire.

  “To Reverend S. P. Grosjean, S. J., Church of the Immaculate Conception, Atlanta, etc. Dear Tuck (oh, I wish you hadn’t hung that sobriquet on me, Holmes), Delighted to hear from you. No doubt reference cited is to Aeneid Book VII: FLECTERE SI NEQUEO SUPEROS ACHERONTA MOVEBO. Spoken by Juno in protest of Trojan invasion of Italy, which Jupiter had destined should happen. Translation: ‘If I cannot turn aside the decree of Heaven, I will move Acheron.’ Praying this finds you well, Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins, M.A., S.J. St. Aloysius, Oxford, etc.”

  Holmes took the telegram from me. “You Jesuits are men of many initials. I remember Hopkins from Stonyhurst. Dreamy, poetic, not my sort of chap.” He tapped the document to his chin, mumbling to himself. “Acheron … Acheron… .”

  I explained. “In antique mythology, Acheron is the river surrounding hell. After receiving this wire, I went to the Young Men’s Library and copied some of the text from the Aeneid. In this passage, the goddess Juno complains that if she can’t move heaven, she will move Acheron to block the accord between Aeneas and the king of Latium… .”

  “Yes, yes, I’m sure,” Holmes cut in. “The River Acheron appears in your poison-pen poem, does it not?”

  I stopped short. There were so many arcane references in that document, I hadn’t remembered that one.

  Holmes drew the rumpled paper from his bag. “Here it is.”

  Even Thy Goddess in the depths of Acheron shall fall!

  He repeated the phrase several times between sips of tea. “What did you make of
this?”

  “I considered it a Protestant calumny. Many of them accuse Catholics of worshipping the Virgin Mother as if she were a goddess, and I assume they anticipate toppling her and ourselves into hell together.”

  “Yes, very likely,” Holmes said. “I really should study more religion. At any rate, the river Acheron stands for hell. It goes on to say …

  Revenge! Thou shalt drink the shame of it Sweet!

  Shadowed Brotherhood! If we Heaven’s will cannot avert, Hell

  Let us move… .

  “It seems to be an appeal to the ‘shadowed brotherhood’ to rise up and take revenge.”

  “The shadowed brotherhood? Dead rebel soldiers?” I guessed.

  “More likely a reference to the Klan. The most telling sentence is the next one: ‘If we heaven’s will cannot avert, hell let us move,’ which is clearly a paraphrase of the verse from the Aeneid. Perhaps they have taken it as a motto—a conquered army battling against destiny, invoking the powers of hell to help them throw off their conquerors.”

  “The Lost Cause resurrected,” I shook my head. “I can still hear that voice shrieking those words in the night—If we can’t move heaven, we shall move hell! Holmes, I begin to see why you believe this case is about more than a fifteen-year-old murder.”

  “I have believed that from the moment I saw this paper in your hand. Still, I am baffled by the lack of connection between that fifteen-year-old murder and this movement to renew the great rebellion—a movement of which we can see only shadows.”

  “Thomas Beaufort connects them. You said yesterday that his scapegoating of James pointed to his own guilt, and now we find Virgil’s very words both in his mouth and in the hand of whoever wrote this letter.”

  “Yes, there is a possible connection, unless the verse from the Aeneid is a general motto within the Klan; if so, Klansmen might use it in many contexts. Recall also that the motivating force for the murders seems to be revenge for ‘Bloody’ Ban’s massacre at the Waxhaws. How would the Beauforts enter into that picture, if at all?”