Saved by the Bullet

by Preston Shires

  I couldn’t think what she might be doing but Cameron came to the rescue by stating that she was in the bedroom at the moment working on his costume, sewing patches on trousers.

  Mr. Brown seemed mollified by this explanation but asked, “What kind of music do you do?”

  “Only the best,” affirmed Cameron.

  “Well, then, let us hear a tune.”

  Before I could put a stop to it, Cameron struck up a snappy tune, and about half way through it I thought I heard a humming accompaniment coming from the bottom half of my hutch. Though the melody was predictable, if not familiar, the words were new to me.

  “I be a plantin’ massa’s corn,” sang Cameron with his white teeth glistening against the backdrop of his blackened face, “ever since the day he be born. Taint no fun pickin’ his ol corn. And de day-long hours makes me frown. ‘Cause he be ol Massa Brown.”

  “Now that’s a dandy,” cried Massa Brown, slapping a thigh. “You’ve got them folks down pat.”

  Meanwhile, I could see behind my minstrel, a Frenchman advancing through the kitchen door, looking suspiciously under the table upon which I observed a pile of linen.

  * * *

  As Mr. Brown left, I directed my minstrel into the parlor to practice his act and then redirected Monsieur Carr back to our gouter. Having just sat down, I heard the front door open. I thought Cameron was effecting an escape, but then I heard a familiar voice calling for me.

  I excused myself and went into the parlor to find Prudence. “Jonathan is busy at the moment entertaining a host of emigrants down at the hotel,” she said.

  “I’m sure they appreciate helpful frontier information from a man of experience.”

  “Yes, he’s so attentive to the needs of others. Anyway, I’ve come to collect my handbag from the bedroom as we plan on doing a little shopping. I think we need to hang a picture in the parlor and I hope to find one at McPherson’s.”

  I surveyed my small parlor and saw no evidence of my minstrel. I hadn’t seen him in the dining room when I passed through, so he must have escaped into the bedroom. “Why don’t I go retrieve your hand bag for you.”

  “No need, I’ll get it.”

  “You are going into the bedroom?” I asked in a very loud and dramatic tone, as if I were on stage as a minstrel.

  Prudence paused and stared at me. “Whatever is the matter with you Addy?”

  I didn’t have a reply and she opened the bedroom door, grabbed her handbag and exited, looking down at the palm of her hand as she did. It was black as shoe polish.

  “Here,” I said, offering my handkerchief. “I had some shoe polish on my hand earlier. Didn’t realize it had migrated.”

  “Goodness,” she said as she wiped her hand clean.

  I eagerly opened the front door for her, but before she stepped through it, she asked, “Do you know anything of a minstrel?”

  “A minstrel?” I returned the question with a look of surprise.

  “Yes, I saw Mr. Brown on the way up and he said he thought I was with the minstrel.”

  “Oh, that minstrel. Yes, yes. That was my Cameron. He was showing me and old Monsieur Carr a routine he does. And I’m afraid I shook his hand when he left, which explains how I got the shoe polish on the bedroom door.”

  The explanation satisfied Prudence, especially if Monsieur Carr, completely harmless, even though French, were at the house. She hurried off to rejoin her brother whilst I finished the gouter with Monsieur Carr, who, when rising to return to the garden, arched his eyebrows while putting his index finger alongside his nose. I think this is French sign language for “I know you’re up to something, but I’ll say nothing.”

  No sooner had I closed the back door than I detected yet another rapping at the front door. My patience had worn thin and I imagined a peddler, probably selling pencils and ledger sheets, which could only be of interest to accountants, and I, having always been at war with numbers, was in no mood to be imposed upon. I opened the door with a jerk and saw two hands holding ledger.

  “Not interested, sir,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  Then I looked up from the hands to the face and recognized Mr. Kennedy, Cameron’s old friend and fellow abolitionist. His wagon stood out in the street.

  “I’ve been told I could pick up my order here, and I’ve brought the proof of purchase with me.” He said “proof of purchase” sarcastically, which told me it was a counterfeit document. A prop for the play, so to speak.

  “Yes, do come in, Mr. Kennedy.”

  I turned around and gave a “Come out, come out, wherever you are” call and heard the lower doors on the hutch open and someone scrambling to get out from underneath a bed. The two appeared in the parlor in short order and I noted that Cameron had wiped most of the polish off of his face. Solomon was squeezed back into his trunk, which was hoisted onto the wagon that Mr. Kennedy, with Cameron at his side, drove back to the Kennedy farmstead.

  Rejoining Monsieur Carr in the backyard, I told him I would transform my basket of cherries into three pies tonight, one for the office, one for the home, and one for him.

  He invited me into the garden so that I might have a visual understanding of what he had already explained in some detail during his previous visits. So, bonnet set, I followed my help out of doors, and as I did, an idea, totally unrelated to gardening or pies or minstrels, popped into my head. I suppose this is how geniuses, like Ben Franklin, come up with new ideas. Perhaps the inventor cast hook, line, and sinker into a river, snagged a lively trout, and for some reason perceived in the event a string, a kite, and electricity.

  Considering my unique idea, I resolved to visit Mr. Brown on the morrow, first thing.

  Meanwhile, Monsieur Carr gave me his horticultural lesson on tomatoes. The lecture lasted some time, and he does believe repetition helps the memory, because I think I had previously heard several excerpts of his oration. He had reached the point about pinching off budding stems when a darkness spread over us. We looked up to the sky and noted the heavy clouds rolling across it, their greenish hue, and the blustery breeze arising.

  Jonathan and Prudence, who had earlier noticed the ominous sky, had abandoned their shopping and reached home port, probably during the lecture on squash, and observing us a little later in the backyard, joined us in the garden. Jonathan came equipped with an umbrella. How thoughtful, I presumed, as soon the storm broke. Monsieur Carr, not yet accustomed to the thunderous heavens of the frontier and the torrential downpours, herded us, with outstretched arms, toward the house, and all the while warning us not to take a chill. Considering the thermometer couldn’t make it down below ninety degrees, I had a hard time sharing his concern.

  When large raindrops began to fall, Jonathan popped up his umbrella, aiming it into the wind, and walked confidently under its canopy, neglecting to share any of his ambulating roof. He was preoccupied with telling me about how important it was for a young lady to be seen in public with gentlemen of a certain class, and that I might see tonight as an opportunity to make a satisfactory appearance at a political event.

  As I stepped up onto the back porch, he did pause to stare at my revealed ankle, which peeved me. Then under the communal shelter of the porch, he folded his umbrella and judged it smart to pull my wet bonnet back off my head, extracting more than one hairpin. I’m sure he thought this some sort of service to me, but again, he only managed to irritate me further as my hair came loose and strands of it fell onto my shoulders in disarray.

  “Why my dear Adeline,” he said. “Don’t you look presentable all aglow under your red hair. I know you’ll appreciate attending General Bowen’s speech tonight with a gentleman.”

  “Certainly, if you can find me one.” I snatched my bonnet back and stormed inside, leaving him on the porch to discuss tomatoes with Monsieur Carr.

  Prudence followed me in. “Oh Addy, don’t you see your chance? My brother is educated and successful. He is more than a provider.”

  “Listen, Pr
udence. I know you adore your brother, but what do you really know of him? How did he know where the Friend house exactly was?”

  “Whatever do you mean, Addy? You led him to the claim, we had no idea where it was. I suppose Jonathan figured out where the house site had been because he’s just so clever.”

  Clever, I thought. Perhaps Jonathan is much cleverer than I imagined. Perhaps his blustery and braggart manners distract us from a calculating and cunning mind.

  Needless to say, I did not meet General Bowen that evening, though I could hear, late into the night, cheers and fanfare rising up from the town square. Gunshy and I preferred to snuggle up together and read ourselves to sleep.

  * * *

  The next morning, Wednesday, I woke up finding Gunshy in a ball snuggled up against my head. I gave her some leftovers for breakfast before going into town in search of Mr. Brown down at the ferry. The streets were muddy and the Brownvillians could only talk of the storm. One piece of hail, it was said, was five inches in circumference. So bad, it destroyed gardens, broke windows, and killed chickens. The consensus was that the weather had been determined by that mischievous comet.

  I thought of poor Monsieur Carr and all those recipes he looked forward to. I hoped for his sake that my garden had been spared.

  When I found Mr. Brown, I related to him the contents of my father’s letter, and I even betrayed the topic of my storyteller: The Virtues of the Riverman. Having gained his friendship, I inquired about the letter the sheriff had received.

  “I think it good, don’t you, Mr. Brown,” I said as I pursued my idea for finding out about the mysterious letter, “that Mrs. Lincoln confided in the sheriff?”

  “She has the marks of a decent woman, that Mrs. Lincoln.”

  “What, do you think, was the most important part of her letter?”

  “Well, I think it speaks highly of her to declare she wanted none of her son’s effects, shamed as she was to be the mother of such a villain.”

  “So sad, a mother who wants nothing of her departed offspring. Nothing to remember him by.”

  “She does have George Lincoln’s journal, though,” observed Mr. Brown. “She said as much in her letter. And, if I quote her aright, she said, ‘and I thanks the Lord I was never taught to read or write, so I don’t have to read it.’ And I think she was speaking the truth about being illiterate, because she signed her letter with a big ‘X’.”

  I believe I stuttered in asking him to affirm that it was George Lincoln’s journal she held in her possession. “And what of his other effects? The things he had on him when he was arrested.”

  “There’s not much if memory serves. But since Mother Lincoln doesn’t want them, it leaves the sheriff with the responsibility of dispensing with them, at public auction.”

  Hearing this, I politely abandoned Mr. Brown and rushed up First Street to my office, hoping to find Teddy in situ. I doubted he would be going to work until the mud dried. Opening the door, I saw him spread beneath his blanket, and I thanked the comet.

  “Teddy!” I called out. “Wake up. It’s Wednesday and the sheriff’s wife and kids go to town.”

  I heard a feeble “Whaa?” emanate from the blanket.

  “Yes, so get yourself dressed and ready.”

  He responded with the same zeal he exhibited back home on the farm, when mother handed him the milk pail, opened the door for him, and then pointed him in the direction of the barn half hidden by a raging blizzard.

  “Come on,” I said encouragingly. “You don’t want to get accustomed to sleeping in!”

  He muttered a few things. Included in the verbiage were words like “sheriff?”, “wife?”, “kids?”. Then something more structured like, “You’re up to something aren’t you?”

  “I just need you to report a theft.”

  “What’s stolen?” he asked. He was now on all fours, but his forehead was still against the floor. With his bushy hair I imagined a buffalo grazing out on the plains, and this brought to mind the Pawnee, then my aunt, but I had no time for such thoughts, so I chased them away by ordering Teddy onto his feet.

  Once on his hind legs, he stumbled about feeling for his jeans on the printing press. I informed him that by widening his eyelids he would find them on the table. I was proved right.

  “Teddy,” I asked, imitating our mother’s voice. “May I inquire as to what you were doing last night?”

  “Somebody made a toast to General Bowen. Then somebody else did. Then somebody else. I believe I may have toasted him too. So, the general must be in glowing good health by now.”

  “You took to drink?” I still employed my mother’s voice, but with a stronger spirit of indignation, shock, and horror.

  He faced me with his mouth agape, suddenly realizing who stood opposite him. “I...I...I...I...”

  Seeing that he would not reach the second word of his sentence, I interrupted by saying, “I think the ‘ayes’ have it; and so have you. How could you do such a thing? You’ll lose your income. People don’t want to hire a drunken carpenter, unless they’re building a house on a slope.”

  “Well,” he babbled. “There are many such slopes in Brownville...”

  “And when you marry, are you going to carry on like this? Your wife and seven children, what will become of them?”

  “Seven? Why seven?”

  “Because that’s a good number, it’s the divine number if I’m not mistaken. Never mind, don’t get off subject. They’ll be starving after you lose your situation, and then your wife will righteously upbraid you, but you’ll have none of it. You’ll strike her, you brute. What’s she to do?”

  “Is she going to be big and, you know, muscular?”

  “I’m thinking of Mary, you two-timer. She deserves better. Why, when she gets wind of this, I won’t be surprised if she doesn’t knock you against the side of the head with a parasol and warns you off. Of course, you’ll be unconscious, so it won’t do much good at the moment, but I hope you’ll learn your lesson.”

  “I’m sorry Sis, it’s just with Fred Travis there, and all. It just felt like the thing to do. And General Bowen, I’m sure he appreciated the benefit of our toasts.”

  “Hmphf. Did you see Jonathan there?” I wanted to know the identity of the poor woman Prudence’s brother would have convinced to attend with him. Not that I would have been jealous.

  “No, didn’t see Jonathan.”

  “I thought he would be in attendance at the speech.”

  “Oh, at the speech? He could have been there. Fred and I never made it that far. In fact...”

  “Teddy, have you no shame?”

  “Well,” he answered, rubbing his temples. “I sure am sorry.”

  “Good. Now you can make amends by dressing yourself properly and paying a visit to the sheriff and reporting the theft.”

  “What theft?”

  “That doesn’t matter, the less you know, the better. Just go tell him you’re on your way to see Mr. Kennedy, but that I would like to see him about a theft up here at my office.”

  “Mr. Kennedy? That would take the better part of my day, and in the mud?”

  “You’re not actually going to see Mr. Kennedy, you’re only going to pretend like you’re going to see him.”

  “Okay.” I could see Teddy blinking repeatedly, which indicated he was overcoming his morning stupor.

  “Yes, now listen carefully. You tell Sheriff Coleman that I want to see him immediately about a theft. Mrs. Coleman and their kids should be in town. If they’re not, they will probably leave sometime soon. When they do, you sneak into their house. I need the address of Mrs. Lincoln, the mother of the gang leader who killed the Friend family. You should be able to find either the envelope, or, more than likely, a book he’ll keep to record his official correspondence. You get the address and bring it to me.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Teddy told me later that he found the sheriff in his kitchen sipping on a cup of morning coffee, and it looked like he had planned on
squatting there for the remainder of the day. My brother attempted to instill in the mind of our levelheaded lawman a sense of urgency by informing him that “Addy’s dreadfully worked up about a theft and requests your presence immediately; she has no confidence in the marshal.”

  Apparently, Sheriff Coleman had better things to do, because upon hearing of my plight and panic, he just picked up the newspaper from the table and began perusing the front cover, the portion reciting congressional bills ad nauseam.

  Teddy then tried another angle. He tried to flatter the sheriff by mentioning how much I admired him and needed him. This seemed to have a little effect because he saw the sheriff’s left eye look up at him, but, on the other hand, he was pretty sure the right eye was still committed to reading about the twenty-thousand dollars of the federal budget allocated to purchasing stationary.

  Then, thankfully, Mrs. Coleman came down from the loft. She was dressed for town and sent the little Colemans out to play in the mud. Well, it doesn’t seem she meant for them to play in the mud, but rather to wait for her like sentinels while she grabbed a basket; however, children can’t be expected to keep clean when the path is unpaved.

  In any case, Mrs. Coleman, upon learning about my request, fairly scolded our chief law enforcer, saying, “Now, you go on up there and tend to her. Nothin’ worse than being a young, single woman in a frontier town. So vulnerable.”

  Teddy said the sheriff answered his wife by asking, “Have you met Miss Furlough?” And then without so much as politely waiting for a ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ he continued on by saying, “She doesn’t need anyone defending her honor, she just needs someone to keep her out of trouble. And if you ask me, her sending her brother down here to tell me of a theft up there sounds mighty suspicious. If it were a theft, she’d be down here knocking on our bedroom window at three in the morning to let me know I’d better round up a posse before she gets agitated!”

  “Oh, no,” Teddy objected in my defense. “Addy’s afraid somethin’ else might go missing if she leaves the shop. And you’re the only one she’s got confidence in.”