Stewart walked across the room and said, “Jed, is it?”
The man looked at Stewart narrowly. I sensed a certain hostility. “Jeremiah’s the name,” he said, slowly scrutinizing Stewart.
“Yes, yes, so it is. You’re not here for more drug purchases, are you?”
The man looked uncomfortable and glanced about the room. His eyes fell on me. “Maybe, maybe not.”
“Hmph,” said Stewart before returning to me. He took me into his confidence and said, “There might be another story to look into. It’s complicated, but I suspect he drugs other people’s horses to make them ill.”
“Why would he do such a thing?”
“Like I said, it’s complicated. When someone sees his horse is sick, he sells it quick for fear it’s caught something chronic. Jeremiah there buys the horse on the cheap and suddenly the animal is as right as rain.”
“Where does he get the drugs?”
“Right here in town.”
Stewart paid his bill and bid me good-day.
I sat there for a moment, looking at Jeremiah. He didn’t really seem to have anything to do at the desk, and he finally exited the hotel. I discreetly left as well and found him at the corner of the building, lighting his pipe. I followed him at a distance until I saw him turn into Mr. Whitt’s drugstore.
CHAPTER 11
I waited for a moment to see if the hostler reemerged quickly or if he lingered as if buying. As I had other things to do, I decided he was making purchases and then proceeded to my office in time to catch Teddy unawares.
“Teddy,” I said upon entering, “I’m leaving for Saint Joseph tomorrow, and I expect to kill two birds with one stone.”
“Who are they?”
“I’ll be trying to get information on the Friend murders from Mrs. Lincoln in Saint Joseph while you’ll be typesetting and printing the Brownville Beacon, A Lady’s Gazette.”
“I’ve got some carpentry to do.”
“Do you think Jesus worried about that while doing his ministry for three years? I think you can leave carpentry aside for three days.”
“Does this Mrs. Lincoln even know you’re coming?”
“No, I don’t want to give her the opportunity to decline my visit. And elderly folk don’t go out much so I don’t think I’m risking anything. But you never mind about her,” I continued as I tapped on my papers piled up in my box, “you just concern yourself with putting these articles of mine into print. We won’t make much off the first edition. We don’t have enough advertisements and the ones I do have are free for the first go-around, but once the town reads my stories, I’m confident the advertisements will flow in.”
* * *
Teddy and I spent the better part of the day getting things set up for printing. I went home that evening exhausted; and finding Prudence had packed everything imaginable into my carpet-bag, I skipped my supper and went straight to bed with Hope Leslie.
In the morning, Friday, June twenty-sixth, Prudence and I made our way down to the Nebraska House where we met up with Jonathan. He kept an eye on the hotel registry, noting where everyone came from and where they were headed. Listening to him tell emigrants about the wonders of Brownville and the better wonders of the places he had visited, which I’m sure never matched the provenance of any of the travelers, one would have mistaken him for not only a father of Brownville but a Founding Father of the country as well. “We’ve got two wells dug in Brownville,” he informed some folks from Indiana, but back in Ohio I’ve seen ‘em twice as deep, and I’ve been to the bottom of one of ‘em.”
“And nobody filled it in?” I asked.
“My, my, you haven’t seen the depth. There’s no way someone could fill one of them.”
“I might have given it a try.”
“Hmph,” he said looking down on me. “I doubt you could even lift a shovel, let alone one filled with dirt, but as a female, you might get someone to do it for ya.”
“Jonathan,” Prudence said. “You’re ever so thoughtful of the weaker sex. Now you and Miss Furlough come along, the Silver Heels is due at the wharf and we don’t want to be at the back of the pack and be left standing at the railing for the entirety of the trip.”
We passed through the door in her wake and took up positions at the wharf, carpet-bags in hand.
Kitty came out as well, after a spell, and brought in her train Stewart and Mr. Whitt who were on horseback.
“Oh,” said Prudence as they approached within earshot. “Don’t they look gallant.” To her they were knights in armor preparing to defend their ladies’ honor with shield and sword.
“They’re just going to the Big Blue and back,” I informed her. “I imagine they’ll see Judge Kinney out there. He and his daughter Beatrice will be there for the Fourth of July. He’s an investor, but she’s the one delivering the speech.”
“I’m not going that far. I’ll be back tonight.” said Mr. Whitt, and I detected he said this for Miss Withers’s benefit. “I’m merely going down to Nemaha City where I have a client.”
“Yes,” said Stewart. “As Nemaha City is in the direction of the Deroin Trail to the Big Blue, we thought we might share the road and deter the highwaymen. Strength in numbers you know, just as the Good Book says, ‘where two or three are gathered, there am I.’”
After they bid us an aurevoir and trotted off, we awaited at the wharf, listening to Jonathan. “Shouldn’t be long,” he said, “the Min-ne-ha-ha just left, but the Silver Heels is usually following close behind. One hundred and thirty steamers thus far this year.” Then he went on to describe the steamers of the Mississippi. How much more spacious and luxurious than any seen on the Missouri, it being an inferior river in every way.
By late afternoon, the Withers and I boarded the Silver Heels, while the stevedores loaded a winter’s worth of firewood to fuel the ship’s engine. As this was a downriver boat, which gathers fewer passengers than when laboring upriver, we easily situated ourselves. Prudence began to discuss the behavior of the men and women she’d observed in Brownville. This gossip soon took to wing and reached the level of a sermon. She then unearthed from her carpet-bag a book on manners and handed it to me.
“No, no,” I protested. “I wouldn’t want to leave you with nothing to read.”
It’s not that I don’t appreciate such literature, it serves an important purpose in protecting members of society from one another. No, rather, I knew that if I took it, she would want to discuss it with me, and there’s little story to a book of manners, and one can only talk of where to place a fork on a table for so long.
“It’s no problem at all,” she assured me. “Take it. I’ll get another book in Saint Joseph.”
“I know a perfectly full and fine bookshop there,” Jonathan chimed in, as a preface to a modest oration on the virtues of the great bookstores of Saint Louis and beyond, and how they overshadowed the one he knew of in Saint Jo. This discussion of theirs faded into the background as I rather rudely dug out Hope Leslie from my own carpet-bag. I much preferred Sedgwick’s conversation.
Nevertheless, something about Prudence and Jonathan’s conversation echoed in the recesses of my mind and provoked in me a queer uneasiness. I contemplated this sentiment, and wondered if Prudence didn’t match Esther in Hope Leslie. A perfect young lady, always following the letter of the law, and yet ever repressed in her feelings. And then there was Jonathan, who represented him? My uneasiness increased. He couldn’t be the dashing hero, Everell Fletcher. That wouldn’t do. Then he could only be Philip Gardiner, the phony Puritan, who dissimulated his carnal appetites and set a trap for the heroine. And who was I, if not Hope Leslie!
* * *
We arrived in Saint Joseph on June 27th, a Saturday, and, as evening descended upon us, we proceeded to a hotel located not far from J.B. Jennings’s store, where is sold everything from kanawha salt from the Appalachians to window glass.
On Sunday, we attended church. Following Prudence’s lead, I put on a very simple and
somber dress. I didn’t want to look the part of the wealthy daughter in Saint Joseph. The minister invited us to an afternoon picnic, which suited Prudence well because it justified her changing back into her yellow dress. Afterwards, the three of us strolled through Saint Jo. It felt odd being in a real town after the few months I’d been on the frontier. The streets were filled with immigrants from Germany and Ireland taking their Sunday stroll. Stores being closed on the Sabbath, we moved from window to window with the crowd, looking at advertised wares.
I thought I might make a Sunday call on Mrs. Lincoln, but I needed to be alone; unfortunately, I failed to separate myself from my steadfast companions. The first time I feigned to wander off slowly, absentmindedly. In my second attempt, I scampered off, rabbit like, through a forest of people, but Miss Straightlace tracked me down. “Goodness, Addy,” she said, “you really have to pay attention to your surroundings. Jonathan and I had no notion you’d moved on to another storefront.”
We looked about us and failed to locate Jonathan.
Much time was wasted trying to discover the whereabouts of this unwanted chaperon.
“I’m sure he’s fine, Prudence. We’ll meet back up with him at the hotel.”
“No, we need to keep searching. I need to keep him...” she hesitated, then said, “in my sight.”
She truly looked distraught, working up worried wrinkles on her forehead as she scanned the Sunday crowd. I couldn’t help but notice a dew drop forming in the corner of her eye. She brought a handkerchief from her reticule and held it in her clasped hands at her bosom. “You...you do think him good, do you not, dear Addy? He’s such a lamb.”
“I can’t say I have seen him do anything evil.”
“Oh, but Addy, you are so wonderful for him, even if you have trials of your own. But don’t we all. It’s such a struggle inside.”
I really had no idea where she was going with all these exclamations, but I didn’t like the tone. The result was that I too was in earnest to find the lost sheep.
We found him in front of tobacco store. Though the business was closed, the door was open and Jonathan, as was his custom, was delivering some sort of oration to the shopkeeper. When we approached, Prudence called out Jonathan’s name as if she hadn’t had any news from him since he left for the Crimean War four years ago.
This drew a fraternal glance, and the shopkeeper took the opportunity to efface himself and close the door with a turn of the key. Either he didn’t want to be seen with Jonathan, or he had other affairs to attend to.
Jonathan, carrying a wrapped packet tied with string, came toward us.
“Whatever have you purchased?” asked Prudence.
He looked a little surprised until he realized Prudence eyed his package. “Well,” he said holding it up to view, “a box of cigars.”
I did make one more attempt to escape, but Prudence did not lose track of me. I asked her if she had any Pawnee blood in her veins. She didn’t think she did, but knew she had some great-grandparents of Mohawk-Dutch descent. Obviously, it didn’t take much Indian blood to be gifted in the hunt.
* * *
I regrouped in the evening and held council with myself. Tomorrow afternoon, I concluded after considering several stratagems, I’d feign to be indisposed in a womanly way and tell Prudence I planned on taking it easy until evening. If I felt better, I would call on Mrs. Lincoln then. In the meantime, if Prudence would be so kind as to buy me a novel.
I thought that would occupy her long enough for me to make my way over to Mrs. Lincoln’s alone. Just to be certain, I asked for her to make sure the novel was in French.
I executed the plan on Monday after lunch, and it went smoothly. As soon as I heard the Withers’s combined footsteps disappear down the staircase of the hotel, I jumped out of bed as if the last trumpet had sounded, grabbed a paper from my reticule and jotted down, as if dictating to a telegraph operator: “Feeling better. Went out. Back in evening. Addy.”
Upon escaping my chamber, I grabbed Hope Leslie and stuffed her into my reticule. She made a tight fit, but I could imagine myself on Mrs. Lincoln’s doorstep with nothing to do while awaiting her return from shopping. Besides, we’d reached the dénouement of the story, and if I had any chance at all to satisfy my curiosity, it simply had to be done.
As I pushed my way down the boardwalk, I felt a tug at my reticule and turned around in time to see a little scamp dodge away from me and back into the crowd. I felt my anger rise to my cheeks, and this little incident made me nervous. I kept my reticule under my elbow and continued at a quickened pace.
When I reached the alleyway where Mrs. Lincoln lived, I opened my reticule to get the precise address. I was shocked to discover that my note, with her address written upon it, was nowhere to be found. I now walked slowly down the shady alley, studying each door and number, and humming “Oft in the Stilly Night”--whose last verse Cameron had imperfectly recited to me on our promenade along the bank of the Missouri--to mask the odd sounds, perhaps generated by rodents, that give unpleasant life to narrow lonely streets. The words of the tune soon presented themselves to my mind: When I remember all the friends, so link’d together, I’ve seen around me fall, like leaves in wintry weather; I feel like one who treads alone. Without Cameron’s amendment, I found something disturbingly prophetic in their meter.
Finally, I took courage and knocked at a door. An elderly man with a scraggly beard no more than a week old answered. He smelled of tobacco, grease, perspiration, and wine. It was hard to guess which element smelt the worst. He started off by telling me Mrs. Lincoln didn’t live far down the alley, but then distracted himself by recalling how she reminded him of his poor departed. I learned quite a bit about the Leonard family, the three sons, their wives and children, three of whom died of dysentery last year. And once we’d reached the death of his missus, we had done full circle and come back to Mrs. Lincoln who lived two doors down.
The building she lived in occupied a corner lot. I doubted she owned it, but then I wondered how she paid the rent if she had no husband. Perhaps she was a charwoman or seamstress or something along those lines. Standing at her door, I was rather proud of myself, having finally eluded my companions. I couldn’t have Jonathan with me for the interview. He’d dominate it and tell the impoverished woman how much better apartments for paupers were in Saint Louis or Paris or wherever it was he decided he’d just returned from. As for Prudence, she would faint if she heard me claim to have been George Lincoln’s beloved. Which is what I had to do to reach my objective: Getting the journal into my possession. I was convinced it would include the names of his accomplices and probably the name of the man who engineered the murders from afar. No, I couldn’t have Jonathan rubbing the old woman the wrong way and Prudence fainting, and then running to my father to tell him I had been the mistress of a murderer. That wouldn’t do. So, I looked over my plain dress with satisfaction before knocking timidly upon the door.
It opened only a fraction, and I could see two dark eyes staring down on me. “Whatcha need, Miss?”
“Are you Mrs. Martha Lincoln?” I said meekly.
“Could be.”
“I’m so sorry I hadn’t come sooner, but my heart was so oppressed and it seemed no one would understand.”
Neither the door nor the eyes moved. There was a stillness. “Whatcha talkin’ about?”
“I’m Genevieve, Mrs. Lincoln.” I said this as if she should recognize the name.
“Genevieve?”
“Yes, Ma’am. Your son and I were very close.”
“You a prostitute?”
“What?” I exclaimed, and I believe my normal voice had taken over at this point. “No, I was George’s beloved. We planned to marry.”
“News to me.”
“It would have been good news if he hadn’t been taken in by that foul, smug man who thought he knew it all.”
“His father’s been dead since he was thirteen.”
If I’d been Prudence, I would have rem
arked that thirteen was very young to be a father. “Yes,” I said. “I think George missed his guidance.”
“I think he followed in his footsteps pretty close. Neither one was good for much, but one were a murderer and the other weren’t.”
“Oh, my, Mrs. Lincoln, there was a side to George you didn’t know.”
She stared at me for a full minute, then opened up the door. “You’ve got my curiosity up. Don’t know what you want to see me about, but come on in nonetheless. But I’ll tell you right now, I ain’t got no money, and George didn’t leave any behind either.”
The front room was tiny, not much better than that of a squatter’s cabin. We sat down on two wooden chairs facing each other with a low table between us.
“I haven’t come for money,” I explained. “Money means little to me now. George was so adamant about having enough, so that we might marry, and yet I’m afraid that’s what led him to listen to that smug man. You know the man he spoke of, don’t you?”
“Can’t say I do or did.”
“Yes, well, it’s of little account now; but, I thought after George died, a year of mourning would salve the heart, but I fear it hasn’t. And I haven’t a letter left of his to remember him by; they took everything. I was wondering if you might not have our correspondence, or if not, do you have some memento of his, anything written of his that your heart might spare and that I might cherish?”
“You’re awfully well spoken to be his sweetheart, but then again, he had the gift of gab and could fool anyone except his mother.”
“Not as a child, I’m sure.”
She shook her head slowly and for the first time I saw the trace of a smile uplift her wrinkled cheeks. “They’s angels, children. Probably best that most of ‘em die before they reach adulthood.” Having said this, she looked up from where she sat at the mantel piece. “He was the only grandson on either side. Neither his Pa nor I had any brothers or sisters, at least none as made it past the five-year mark. But he was a curse.”
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