A House Divided

by Jonathan F. Putnam

  “I reckon he doesn’t,” said Lincoln, smiling. “Did they look like one another? Like they could be brothers?”

  The boy shrugged. “I s’pose.” He considered. “Two of them, definitely, could have been brothers. I don’t know about the other one, though.”

  “William, Henry, and Archibald Trailor,” said my sister with conviction. “With Archibald being much younger, so he doesn’t look as much like his older brothers. It has to be them. And the fact they were pretending to fight in the clearing at dusk means they never intended to hurt Fisher. It was all going to be some sort of joke.”

  “The one who didn’t look like the other two,” said Lincoln, turning back to Bill, “was he younger than them?”

  Bill screwed up his face with concentration. “Dunno. Maybe. He was kinda funny-looking.”

  “Funny-looking how?”

  “Just … funny-looking.”

  “Flynn Fisher!” said my sister. “Fisher, with his head leaning to the side. It was William and Henry and Fisher. Out by the millpond. Archibald had nothing to do with it. I told you it proved his innocence.”

  “It could mean a hundred other things,” I said. “Besides, how would Lincoln prove it, even if it’s what you say? Surely our friend here is too young to testify from the witness chair.”

  Martha started to speak in Bill’s defense, but Lincoln, still kneeling in front of the boy, held up his hand. “Do you think, Bill,” said Lincoln, “you could tell me your story again in a couple of days? There’d be a few more people listening, but all you’d have to do is tell me the same story, like you have just now.”

  The boy considered this at some length and asked, “Where? Here?”

  “Downstairs. Come with me and we’ll take a look.”

  Lincoln stood up, leaned over far sideways, and took the boy by the hand. We could hear them conversing amiably as they walked down the stairs to the temporary courtroom on the first floor beneath us.

  “How did you find him?” I asked Martha.

  “It took a lot of effort,” she said, smiling with pride. “Lincoln said we needed to find a witness who saw what happened the night of the murder. So I walked the route from Ransdell’s out to the millpond, to see what the Trailor brothers would have seen on the way out and, more to the point, who might have seen them. I passed by a few farms and I inquired at each one, but I couldn’t find anyone who had seen anything that night. Finally, late in the afternoon, I spotted Bill on his horse, wrangling his herd, just like he described. He’s quite amazing at it for such a young boy.

  “Anyway, I waved at him, but he was so intent on his task that he wouldn’t stop to talk. I followed him, keeping up as best I could, and when he got his drove to his family’s paddock, I helped him swing the gate shut after them. Only then would he answer my questions.” She smiled at the memory.

  Lincoln and Bill were coming down the hallway back to the office. “We’ve decided,” said Lincoln, “that Bill is willing to tell me his story again, even if there’re a few more people around to hear it. Isn’t that right, son?”

  Bill nodded seriously.

  “Let’s shake on it.” Lincoln bent down and took Bill’s right hand in his own, and they shook hands vigorously.

  Lincoln straightened up and glanced at Martha. “Very well done, Miss Speed. Can I ask you to take Bill back home before his ma starts to worry? And see if you can’t convince Mr. Davidson to spare his son for a few hours on Tuesday. You tell him I haven’t forgotten the service I did him a few years back, when he had a calf that got itself crippled. Tell him we’ll be square if he lets me borrow his chief herdsman.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Before I had even left my bedroom on Monday morning, I could tell from the noise rising from the street that the crowds for the first day of trial would be immense. Perched on the edge of the frontier with its 2,500 residents, Springfield harbored none of the diversions that larger, more established cities featured. There were no museums, no theater halls, no traveling circuses. There were, to be sure, a wide variety of taverns and groceries, happy to dispense harsh alcohol to anyone with a few pennies in his pocket. But citizens hoping to find entertainment that did not arrive in a bottle or cask were destined to be disappointed. Except when the circuit court was in session to adjudicate the county’s legal disputes. Then, the entire human condition, comedy and tragedy alike, was on display and free for all to watch.

  Lincoln had departed before the crack of dawn, so I dressed alone in our bedroom and headed down the back stairs. Fifth Street was thronged with people as I pushed my way toward Hoffman’s Row. Several enterprising tavernkeepers had already put out their stalls, selling food and liquid refreshment from pull carts, and they were doing a brisk business. Between transactions, the competing sellers hawked their wares at the tops of their voices, their call-and-response shouts mingling with the excited chattering of the ordinary citizens streaming toward the courtroom to produce a great swell of noise and excitement.

  I walked past several of the vagrants who had taken part in the search for Flynn Fisher when he’d first been reported missing. The subsequent events had turned these men into something approaching legends, at least in their own minds, and I heard two or three declaiming on their heroic quests with a grandiosity that would have made the poet Homer proud.

  As I walked through the carnival-like atmosphere, I realized the fact that Fisher had been a virtual unknown before his murder made the trial of his accused killers an especially satisfying entertainment. Fisher had no weeping relatives on whom one had to expend pity. No one needed to pretend to be sorry for Fisher’s demise. Instead, it was possible to revel in the excitement of the trial, to speculate on the motives of the Trailor brothers for turning on one another, without misgiving. Fisher’s sorry life and untimely death amounted to nothing more than the handful of couplets comprising the Prologue in Romeo and Juliet, to be pronounced by the Chorus as the audience settled into position. It was mere prelude to the actual drama everyone had come to watch.

  Sheriff Hutchason stood at the door to the courtroom, and he nodded as I approached. “How early did you arrive?” I asked.

  “Stoke of seven. There must have been fifty people gathered already to get one of the seats. When I told them there was space only for thirty inside, I thought fistfights were going to break out. One actually did. Lincoln asked me to save a few seats. Go on in. There’s room for you in the back.”

  Once I squeezed past Hutchason’s bulky frame, I saw Martha waving me over from the last row of the gallery. Walking toward her, I passed Mary Todd and Matilda Edwards, sitting next to each other on the other side of the room. Miss Todd and I shared a warm exchange, and I found myself pleased with our newfound ease.

  A few steps further along, I squeezed past Big Red May. When he saw me, he grabbed my arm. “I told you the people were eager to see justice done.”

  “Too eager.”

  Big Red shook his head vigorously. “The Trailor brothers are getting their day in court.” He gestured around the crowded room, alive with excited conversation. “It’s all they’re due. And the people know they have a mayor working hard to protect them. Again, what they’re due.”

  He smiled sanctimoniously, and I shook free of him and went to join my sister.

  “How’s Lincoln feeling about Archibald’s case?” Martha asked as I settled in beside her.

  “Anxious. The little boy you found will help, and Lincoln has a few other lead balls to shoot. But Henry’s confession and accusation against his brothers is damning. It’s hard to get around, if the jury believes him. So the cross-examination of Henry is going to be crucial. That’s what Lincoln spent most of the weekend preparing for.”

  The court clerk Matheny shouted for order as Judge Treat ascended the low platform serving as his bench in the temporary courtroom. To his left was a jumble of six chairs, currently empty, on which the twelve gentlemen of the jury would squeeze, two to a chair. Pulling coolly on his pipe, the judge gazed o
ut at the packed courtroom and the jostling crowd on the street, which was waiting impatiently to observe the proceedings through the wide-open windows.

  Archibald and William Trailor were led into the courtroom by Sheriff Hutchason. Each brother’s hands were bound in front of him, but the similarity of appearance ended there. William had cleaned up for trial. He’d exchanged the dirty work shirt and jeans I’d last seen him in for his usual shiny frockcoat and trousers. His face was newly shaven, his hands washed, and his hair was combed back slickly from his high-peaked forehead. Archibald, meanwhile, looked like the lanky, scruffy carpenter he’d been before Fisher’s disappearance had thrust him unwillingly into the center of the stage. His smock was dirty and his face fringed by untamed whiskers.

  Henry Trailor was absent. As a witness, he was not permitted to attend the proceedings until his time to testify.

  Archibald looked around the gallery as he walked to the front of the courtroom, and when he spied Martha and me, he gave a little wave, which both of us returned. I remembered the sight of his face when he’d ridden back to find me, crippled, in the midst of the Sudden Change, and a renewed feeling of gratitude flooded my body. I could only hope Lincoln’s efforts on his behalf would help repay the debt I owed him.

  A hush fell over the crowd as the defendants took their seats and the judge commanded counsel to stand. Lincoln, Conkling, and Lamborn all rose. In the close quarters of the crowded courtroom, they made for an odd trio, the towering Lincoln sandwiched between the slight Conkling and the thick-chested Lamborn.

  “The case is the People against Trailor and Trailor,” announced the judge. “Each defendant is charged with murder with malice aforethought. Does counsel have any remarks before we select the jury?”

  To my surprise, it was Conkling who spoke in his boyish squeak. “On behalf of the defendant William Trailor, Your Honor, we have a few preliminary motions.”

  “Will you be presenting the motions in Latin or English, Mr. Conkling?” asked the judge, sucking on his pipe with a cruel sneer. Those members of the audience who had witnessed Conkling’s misadventures during the bail hearing laughed knowingly.

  Conkling colored. “Your Honor, I—”

  “There’s no need to reply, Conkling. Get on with it.”

  Conkling proceeded to raise a series of objections to various pieces of evidence he expected the prosecution to use. The objections quickly came to follow a common path: Conkling stood and laid out the objection, gesticulating wildly with his arms to punctuate his argument; Lamborn rose and forcefully refuted the objection; and then the judge denied the objection with a few terse remarks. But there was always another one on the tip of Conkling’s tongue. The gallery began to rustle impatiently.

  “What’s Conkling doing?” Martha whispered to me as the Princeton-educated lawyer rose to present his fifth argument, seemingly undaunted by the summary denial of his first four. “It’s as if he’s trying to stall. Maybe he didn’t have time to finish his preparation.”

  “He’s had several weeks.” I peered through the crowd to glimpse the expression on William Trailor’s face. William was watching his lawyer with a scowl and hardened eyes. But I thought I detected a note of satisfaction behind his mask. “I wager he’s doing it to convince William he’s going to be aggressive in pleading his case. And it may be working, at least as far as his client is concerned.”

  A fundamental change had come over Conkling. The hesitant, prim schoolboy had disappeared and he’d been replaced, if not by a silver-tongued advocate, then at least by a lean, wiry grappler willing to go down flailing.

  Finally, after a half-dozen rejected motions, Conkling sensed he had exhausted the judge’s patience, and he desisted from further argument. William Trailor patted his shoulder as he returned to his side.

  The judge turned to Lincoln. “Do you have any motions for the Court’s consideration, Mr. Lincoln, before we dig into the jury box?”

  “I don’t think there’s any left after Brother Conkling’s performance,” replied Lincoln from his seat. “We can all agree his Professor Cicero would be proud.” The judge put down his pipe and burst out laughing.

  A large wooden box containing the names of eligible jurors was perched on the edge of the judge’s table. The clerk Matheny drew the names of the veniremen one by one, and each was located by a series of shouts that spread through the thronging crowd. The three lawyers followed the pattern they had previously adopted: Conkling was spirited and long-winded in questioning the potential jurors for bias; Lamborn was curt and forceful; and Lincoln was good-humored, almost casual.

  “Don’t you think Mr. Lincoln should be more active in querying the jurors?” Martha asked after Lincoln, leaning back in his chair, had acquiesced to the seating of a juror with a casual wave of his hand, saying merely, “I reckon he’ll do just fine.”

  “I’m not sure how much more there is to ask, not with the way Conkling is going after each of them,” I replied.

  Martha frowned. While she often lent a hand with Lincoln’s more puzzling cases, she seemed particularly invested in Archibald’s cause. I scrutinized her face but could not divine her thoughts.

  At length the jury was seated, and Lamborn called the prosecution’s first witness. Sheriff Hutchason lumbered to the witness chair.

  “You are the sheriff of Sangamon County?” began Lamborn.

  “I am.”

  “And it was your somber duty to recover the remains of the deceased?”

  “It was.”

  “Tell the gentlemen what you found.”

  Hutchason turned to the jury and began his narration. He kept it short and to the point, leaving out the many false starts that had characterized the search for Flynn Fisher, including the wild pillaging of every cellar and outbuilding instigated by Big Red, as well as the mob’s frenzied search near Hickox’s millpond and the destruction of Justice Smith’s precious dam. Instead, Hutchason picked up his story on the rainy morning I had accompanied him on horseback to the other side of the millpond.

  Hutchason inventoried his finds that day for the jury: a tattered half-coat with a military insignia, a pair of weathered military boots, a dirty fur hat, the mourning ring, and assorted bones. Hutchason opened a case and drew out the clothing and ring for inspection by the jury. Several men in the gallery rose partway to their feet to try to inspect the relics; in turn, angry voices from the street outside shouted for them to sit down so as not to obstruct the view.

  The court called for order. Eventually it was restored, and Hutchason testified that the innkeeper Ransdell and three other persons had identified the clothing as that worn by Fisher when he’d last been seen. The sheriff explained that he had reburied the physical remains as a mark of decency.

  With that, Lamborn thanked the witness and sat. The judge called for cross-examination. Lincoln and Conkling rose simultaneously and then looked askance at each other.

  “You forgot to agree on an order of examination?” said the judge, his eyebrows raised. “That’s an inauspicious start for the defense.” Martha squirmed beside me. “Perhaps the clerk can supply lots to draw.”

  “There’s no need,” said Conkling. “Brother Lincoln can have the first go at the sheriff. I’ll take the initial turn next time.”

  “Good morning, Sheriff,” began Lincoln, his angular figure topped by his stovepipe hat towering over the hushed courtroom like a church steeple against a flat plain.

  “Morning.”

  “You have identified the deceased in this case as a Mr. Flynn Fisher, is that right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Did you ever encounter Fisher during the course of his life?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “And the remains you found amounted to some scattered bones and several articles of clothing?”

  “That’s right. I reckon the wolves ate the rest. It was a harsh winter for them, between the Sudden Change and the long frost.”

  Several of the farmers on the jury n
odded at this. There had been more reports than usual over the past winter of livestock falling victim to the fearsome predators. The legislature had, at its most recent session, approved an increase of the bounty payment for hunters turning in wolf scalps, but the animals had largely outwitted their human pursuers. No one had any real idea how many wolves still prowled the prairies surrounding Springfield; estimates ranged from dozens to tens of thousands.

  “I need to ask about the bones you found,” Lincoln was continuing. “Which bones were they? Did you find the skull?”

  “I did not.”

  “Legs? Arms? Ribs?” A few of the ladies present in the courtroom stifled gasps at Lincoln’s indelicate questioning.

  “None of those—not intact, anyway. I think perhaps one or two were ribs, and there was part of a leg bone; lower leg, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Well, what was the largest bone you found?”

  “It was” —the sheriff cast his mind back—“not larger than a foot, I’d say. Maybe not longer than nine inches. A fragment.”

  “Was it actually a foot? I mean, that part of the body, not the unit of measure?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then what part of the body did it belong to?”

  “One of the legs would be my best guess. The wolves had greatly ravaged the remains, I’m afraid.”

  “So for all you know, the bones you found could have been those of a horse or cow, or even a large feral hog, rather than human bones?”

  “I’ve never seen a horse wearing these,” replied the sheriff, holding up Fisher’s boots. “Have you?”

  Lincoln joined in the laughter sweeping through the room.

  When it had died away, the sheriff added, “No, I’m quite certain the bones I found were human.” Having seen them myself that gloomy morning, so was I. Lincoln was doing his job by trying to sow doubt with the jury, but I was skeptical the argument that Fisher hadn’t been killed would, in the end, prove to be a winning one.