Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1954 (11 page)

 
          
At
Memphis
again, late in October, Barry met Bob
Louden in Keaton’s boat shop. Louden looked pale and thin.

 
          
“I
got away,” he told Barry in a sick, weary voice, “but it was only luck. I’ll
have to rest before I even move from here.”

 
          
“How
did you manage?” Barry asked him. “Weren’t you in Gratiot Street Prison with
Captain Grimes? What do you know about him?”

 
          
“Grimes!”
repeated Louden, and his eyes lighted up for a moment. “It was Ab who fixed it
for me to escape. We weren’t together, of course. I was in a cell and he was
flat on his back in the hospital with that wounded leg. But there was a
political prisoner named Preston Westerman, who was a hospital orderly, and he
told Ab that he and I were being transferred to the prison at
Alton
. Ab managed to steal a file from another
man in the hospital, who was making rings out of bone. He smuggled that to
Westerman, and while we were on the steamer going to
Alton
we filed off the handcuffs. I slipped over
the rail, dived into the water, and came ashore. Finally I made my way back
here.”

 
          
“Lucky
for you!” cried Barry.

 
          
“But
not so lucky for Westerman. They caught him, and I hear they kept him in a
dungeon, questioning him about the escape, until he came down with jail fever.
Then they let him go so it wouldn’t spread through the prison. The last I heard
of him, he was still sick at
Springfield
.”

 
          
“
Springfield
,
Missouri
?” asked Barry.

 
          
“No,
Springfield
,
Illinois
.
Abe Lincoln’s home town.
Why?”

 
          
“Where
can he be found there?” Barry persisted.

 
          
“Why,”
said Louden, frowning in concentration, “I hear he’s at the American House, the
big hotel there. What are you up to?”

 
          
“I’m
going up there to find your friend Westerman” he announced. “He was an orderly
in the hospital with Captain Grimes—he may know how I could get in there and
bring him out. Now, you help me figure a way to get from here to
Springfield
.”

 
          
The train
slowed and groaned to a halt
in the cool, cloudy morning. Barry left his hard wooden bench and followed two
Union soldiers and a white-browed civilian out of the car to the broad wooden
platform.

 
          
November
6, 1864
. It was a
year, to the very day, since Absalom Grimes had been arrested in
Memphis
. Barry put down his carpetbag and watched a
man in a blanket coat come out of the wide-eaved depot.

 
          
“Excuse
me,” ventured Barry.
“Which way to the American House?”

 
          
“The hotel?
Well, go west here, on
Monroe Street
.” The man jerked his head to show the way
he meant. “Four blocks, and you’re at Sixth. Then turn right. The American
House is right next to
Capital Square
.” Barry thanked him, picked up his bag, and
walked off along
Monroe Street
.

 
          
So
this was
Springfield
, Abe Lincoln’s town. The town where the
Union
’s president had made a name for himself as
a lawyer, had challenged the political power of Stephen A. Douglas, had said
goodbye to his neighbors as he left for Washington and a war to fight.
Springfield
seemed big and busy and confident. There
were no marks of war’s heavy hand here, as in the fought-over southern towns
Barry had seen.

 
          
He
followed his directions faithfully, and at last found himself gazing at a great
blocklike structure of white-painted boards, the American House. He walked in,
and a clerk glanced up idly from the big desk.

 
          
“I’m
looking for a Mr. Westerman,” said Barry.

 
          
“Westerman?”
the clerk repeated ill-humoredly.
“Mr. Preston Westerman.
Might you be the friend he says is coming to pay his room rent for him?”

 
          
“Maybe,”
said Barry on impulse. “How much does he owe?”

 
          
“Three
weeks. Six dollars a week is eighteen dollars.” The clerk drew his lips tight.
“It’s about time he made good. Every week he says he’ll get money, but—”

 
          
Barry
drew bills from his pocket and counted out eighteen dollars on the desk. “Give
me a receipt for that.”

 
          
“Glad
to,” growled the clerk, scribbling. “Now, you want a room?”

           
“No, just let me leave my bag here.
Is Mr. Westerman here?”

 
          
“He
sure is.
Third floor, Room 38.”

 
          
Barry
mounted the steps, and tapped on the door marked 38.

 
          
“Come
in,” wheezed somebody inside.

 
          
Barry
opened the door. A brass-mounted bed stood next to the window, and upon it,
under rumpled quilts,
lay
a thin, ashy-pale man with
grizzled stubble on his wasted cheeks and pointed chin.

 
          
“Mr.
Westerman?” asked Barry.

 
          
“Yes.
Do I know you?”

 
          
“I
brought you something.” Barry walked to the bed and held out the receipt for
the room rent.

 
          
Westerman
took it in his thin, trembling hand,
then
put it on a
side table. “Who paid it?” he asked faintly.

 
          
“I
paid it, Mr. Westerman. You can call it a present from—Absalom Grimes.”

 
          
“Boy,
close that door behind you!” commanded Westerman, his voice suddenly strong.

 
          
Barry
did so, and came back beside the sick man.

 
          
“What
are you up to?” Westerman asked him. “What do you know about Absalom Grimes?”

           
“I’m his partner,” said Barry. “My
name’s Barry Mills. Maybe Captain Grimes told you about me, when you were in
Gratiot Street Prison together.”

 
          
“So
you’re interested in what he might have told me?”
Westerman’s
eyes, big in his thin face, turned crafty.
“How do I know you’re really
Barry Mills?”

 
          
“Try
me,” urged Barry. “I’ll prove it by answering any questions you want to ask.”

 
          
“Let’s
see.” Westerman lay back and thought a moment. “Who’s the young lady Ab Grimes
wants to marry?”

 
          
“Miss
Lucy Glascock,” Barry replied at once.

 
          
“A
Yankee spy could find that out,” Westerman objected. “If you’re Barry Mills,
what name did you go by when you were last with Ab Grimes in
Memphis
?”

 
          
“George
Jones.”

 
          
“And
who’s your best
Memphis
contact?”

 
          
“Colonel
Selby.”

 
          
Westerman
smiled weakly. “Right,” he said. “There’s something the Federals never did find
out. If you know that, you must be all right.” He tried to sit up, but relaxed
and closed his eyes. “If I felt a little better—”

           
“Just wait,” said Barry, and hurried
out and down the stairs.

 
          
He
came back, followed by a waiter from the dining room
who
bore a tray with a pot of coffee, a bowl of beef soup, and a plate piled high
with toast.

 
          
“Try
to eat some of this, Mr. Westerman,” said Barry. “It will give you strength. I
need your help. I came all this way to get it.”

 
          
While
Westerman ate, Barry told of his mail-running adventures with Grimes and the
interview with Louden. Westerman swallowed the last morsel and looked at Barry
as though revived.

 
          
“Maybe
you think I’m in a bad shape,” he said, “but when I left Grimes, he looked
worse than I do.” “Dying?” Barry dared to ask.

 
          
Westerman
shook his head on the pillow. “No. Not quite. Ab Grimes is plumb stubborn about
dying. But it might happen—winter’s coming on, and it’ll be powerful cold in
that prison. When I left, poor Ab was lying on his cot, barely able to move. He
could go just a few steps on his crutches, and for a while he couldn’t even do
that.”

 
          
“How
badly was he wounded?”

 
          
“The
bullet that hit him went through his leg—his lower leg, between the bones. He
was so badly crippled that he couldn’t stand up and go to the gallows; that was
how he was saved until the word came that he wasn’t to die. So you can bet he’s
still in the hospital there. His cot’s about seventy feet from the door of the
ward. He might be able to hobble that far, with help—”

 
          
“Where
is that hospital ward?” Barry pleaded. “How do I get to it?”

 
          
“It’s
on the top floor,” Westerman said weakly, exhausted again. “My head’s spinning;
I can’t think clearly after all that fever. But go to
Saint Louis
— see Sergeant Mike—Mike Welsh—”

 
          
“Sergeant
Mike Welsh,” said Barry after him. “Who is he?”

 
          
“Yankee sergeant,” breathed Westerman, “but one of the best men who
ever lived.
Friend of Ab’s. When Grimes was shot down in the prison
yard, Mike Welsh flung his body across Grimes and yelled for the guards to hold
their fire.
Risked his life to save him.”

 
          
“He
sounds like a real friend,” ventured Barry. “But he’s a Union soldier. If I
told him I wanted to rescue a Confederate prisoner—”

           
“He’s your one chance. I know Mike
Welsh. If he’ll help you, you’re all right. If he won’t, there’s no chance.”

 
          
Barry
stood up, head bowed, thinking.

 
          
“Go
on!” Westerman gasped at him feverishly. “Go find Sergeant Mike Welsh. He’s
quartered somewhere near the prison. Tell him who you are. Say you talked to
me. Say you want to save Ab Grimes’ life. Maybe he’ll help you.”

 
          
Barry
put some greenbacks on the table and left. By sundown he was on a train headed
for
Saint
Louis
.