Thoreau at Devil's Perch (27 page)

“Adam?” a man called out as he descended.

“It's Henry Thoreau!” I told Trump.

He lowered the knife just as Henry's torso came within striking distance. Henry did not even notice him lurking in the gloom.

“Yes, it is I, Adam,” he replied. “And I am glad I have found you. But why are you sitting all alone down here?” He smiled, not yet discerning that I was tied to the chair rather than taking my ease in it. Then his lips twisted into an expression of revulsion, and I knew he had espied the mutilated corpse behind me.

“That is Rufus Badger,” I told him.“He came here to kill me.”

Trump stepped into the light. “And I came here to kill Rufus Badger,” he said.

If Henry was shaken by the sight of Trump holding a bloody knife, he did not show it. “Did you scalp him alive or dead?” he inquired most calmly.

“Dead of course.” Trump slid the knife into his boot. “To kill his spirit.”

Henry nodded. His theory had been confirmed. He walked to the corpse and studied it, then turned back to Trump. “You must flee before a police officer arrives. Julia has gone to fetch one.”

“Julia?” I cried, glaring at Henry. “Why did you involve her?”

“She was the one who involved me. She came to—”

“Police! Is there anyone below?” a booming voice interrupted from the top of the stairs.

Trump desperately looked around for an avenue of escape, but there was no way out but the stairs.

“Up there!” Henry told him, pointing to the rafters.

Trump vaulted onto the table, took hold of a ceiling joist, and pulled himself up. He folded himself between two thick beams, straining to keep his balance. I knew he could not remain in that precarious position long before his muscles gave out and he tumbled down.

“Is there anyone below?” the policeman inquired again.

“Blindfold me, Henry,” I said in a hushed tone.

He did not question my odd request but quickly plucked up my neck cloth from the floor and covered my eyes with it. He then called out to the policeman. I heard his footsteps descend and an eruption of high-pitched expletives when he saw the body.

“I just now came upon that horrible sight myself, officer,” Henry said. “Found Dr. Walker here bound and blindfolded.”

“Remove the cloth from his eyes,” the policeman ordered.

Henry complied, and I saw a young man with a badge pinned to his top hat standing before me. There was a billy club in his hand and panic in his eyes. “Is the murderer still about?” he asked me in a quavering voice.

“I heard him depart a good time ago,” I assured him.

The officer looked much relieved. “What did he look like?”

“As you observed, I was blindfolded,” I replied.

Before he could interrogate me further, Julia rushed down the stairs, calling out my name. The officer ordered her to turn back, but not even the sight of a mutilated corpse could make her do that. She wavered for only an instant before continuing to my side. Tears streamed down her face as she caressed my face with trembling fingers. I assured her that I was all right.

“Thank God!” she said, turning her eyes heavenward. They widened. She had espied Trump in the rafters.

“He saved my life,” I told her softly.

“What did you say?” the officer demanded, turning his attention from the grisly body to me.

“I said that I prayed for my life.”

“And the Good Lord must have heard you,” the officer said, peering into the dark recesses of the cellar, as if trying to steel himself to go forth and investigate. Before he could muster the courage to do so, Julia pitched herself forward, and he caught her in his arms. “Do you feel faint, miss?”

“Yes! Please take me away from this gruesome place, officer.”

He accepted this new duty with alacrity. “I will help the young lady upstairs,” he told Henry and me, “and then go to the police office to report this heinous crime. I have never dealt with a murder before and require assistance.”

“Yes, go straightaway,” Henry urged him. “I will untie Dr. Walker.”

The policeman guided Julia up the stairs, and just as his boots disappeared from sight, Trump slipped down from his precarious perch and landed in a heap beside Henry and me.

Henry helped him stand up. “Can you manage to walk away from here?”

“I'd sooner ride away,” Trump said. “Left a horse untethered out back but don't know if it's still there.”

“I observed two saddled horses in the alleyway,” Henry informed him. “Yours and Badger's, I surmise.”

“Stole mine from Peck's place,” Trump said. “Went there after I dug myself out of the Powder House, hoping to find Badger. He was there all right, holed up with his cronies. Couldn't take them all on at once, so I waited around for better odds. When I saw Badger ride out alone, I took a horse from the barn and trailed him here. I had good reason to kill him.”

“I know,” Henry said. “Adam told me he murdered your family.” He went back to the corpse for another look. “And it appears that he murdered your friend Caleb too. The cuts on the heel of his right boot match prints Adam and I found on the top of Devil's Perch, proving it was Badger who tossed the body down from there.”

Trump pulled out the bowie knife and stepped toward the body. “I vowed to carve Caleb's name in the chest of his murderer.”

“You have no time for that.” Henry put a restraining hand on his arm.

Trump shrugged it off and bent over the corpse he had defaced, determined to deface it further.

“Forget about Badger!” I shouted. “Just go!”

He ignored me and cut open Badger's shirt.

“Please stop, Trump!” Julia called from the foot of the stairs.

This time he paid attention. He turned and regarded her.

“You have done what you set out to do, and now it is over,” she told him. “Further vengeance is needless. It will only get you caught. Is it worth it?”

As he considered this, all anger seemed to drain from him, and an expression of peacefulness suffused his countenance. In the next moment he brushed past Julia, bounded up the stairs and out the back door. We heard the faint sound of horse hooves on the cobblestones as he rode away.

Henry untied me, and a short time later the police officer returned with his sergeant and two additional officers. All three were impressed at the sight of Badger's mutilated corpse. Julia, Henry, and I were escorted to police headquarters, and the initial officer on the scene testified that I had been found bound and blindfolded, therefore unable to identify Badger's murderer.

That a no-account scoundrel such as Badger had been slain did not much concern the newly appointed City Marshal, Francis Tukey. What peaked his interest were my allegations against the banker and a jeweler. Proclaiming intolerance for swindlers in his fine city, he assured me he would investigate the matter thoroughly.

Unfortunately, this investigation has not amounted to much so far. By the time Marshal Tukey sent officers to Vail's boardinghouse, the banker and his wife were long gone, with nary a counterfeit note left behind as evidence. As for LaFarge, he never returned to his shop, and he too still remains at large. I cannot help but wonder why they had taken the trouble to have me murdered if they intended to make a run for it.

So far Trump has evaded capture as well. Even though he has not been implicated in Badger's death, he will remain a fugitive for the rest of his life unless Peck's true murderer is discovered.

My face is still swollen, my abdomen still sore, my wrists still raw, but I have come away from this horrendous experience relatively unscathed. Not unchanged, however, for what I came to realize when I was so close to death is that life, no matter how precious, will be incomplete for me without Julia.

 

O
h, his poor, dear, battered face! I cannot bear to think of the torment he must have endured in that tomb of a cellar. He will not speak of it to me. Not yet anyway.

How grateful I am to Henry Thoreau for helping me find Adam in Boston. 'Tis doubtful he would have allowed me to accompany him there if I had not caught him at a most awkward moment. I was far too worried about Adam to find the situation amusing at the time, but recalling it now makes me smile. What surprise and distress upon Henry's countenance when he saw me walking toward Walden Pond in the wan morning light whilst he was bathing. Plunging neck-deep in the water to hide his nakedness, he demanded to know why I had come to visit him so early in the day. When I told him of my concerns regarding Adam, he immediately volunteered to go look for him. Alone, he insisted most adamantly. I, just as adamant, did not budge from the shore until he agreed to let me come with him. Only then did I turn my back so that he could emerge from his pond unobserved by female eyes and go back to his hut to dress.

As we walked to the Concord station I informed Henry of Trump's escape. He looked greatly relieved.

“May that young Indian remain free for the rest of his life. He has suffered enough,” he said. “For Trump to have set eyes upon the men who murdered his family after all these years must have pained him greatly. And although Peck met with a terrible death, his henchman still thrives. That Badger shall never pay for his monstrous crime must rankle the depths of Trump's being.”

I stopped in my tracks. “Peck and Badger murdered Trump's family?”

“Yes. In Georgia during the Cherokee removal. Adam did not tell you this, Julia?”

“He tells me nothing!”

“Then I will say no more about it. Best you get the whole story from Adam, who heard it directly from Trump's lips.”

We left it at that, but I needed no further details to have complete compassion for poor Trump. I was more glad than ever that he had escaped.

Upon arriving in Boston, we went directly to the house on Chestnut Street where Adam boards. No one responded to our knocks, and the house appeared empty of inhabitants. All doors were locked. I recalled a trick a concierge in Paris, weary of Papa forever losing the key to his studio, once taught me and pulled out a hairpin. When I poked it into the back door lock hole and began probing and twisting, Henry was most impressed by my ingenuity. Alas, the lock was too sophisticated to succumb to my amateurish efforts.

We espied an open window on the third floor but could find no ladder to get to it. Henry turned his attention to an ivy plant climbing up the building's brick façade alongside a copper downspout. He examined the thick stem at the plant's base and pulled at the tendrils fastened to the brick. I knew of his great interest in florae but did not think this an appropriate time to indulge in it.

“I don't need a ladder,” he finally announced.

And with that he reached over his head, gripped the ivy by the stem, and hoisted himself upward. He next grabbed the spout with his other hand, and pulled himself up a foot more. In this manner he slowly ascended the side of the house, displaying the agility of an acrobat. The old spout shook and rattled from his weight, and at times the ivy tendrils adhering to the brick broke free. When that happened he swayed out from the building, and I sent up fervent prayers that he would not plummet down onto the flagstones below. At last he attained the level of the open window, but it was a good three feet away. He let go the downspout, hung his full weight on the ivy for a terrifying moment, then kicked out against the building and swung himself toward the window ledge. His maneuver was more than the ivy plant could bear, and all the vines ripped loose from the façade and tumbled down to the ground like frayed rope. I swallowed a scream, expecting Henry to tumble too. But he had succeeded in getting hold of the window ledge with one hand and hung off it for a terrifying moment before getting hold with the other hand too and pulling himself up and through the window.

He let me in by the back door, and we proceeded to search the house until we found chambers containing Adam's belongings. Upon a desk lay an open journal. Henry refused to read it for he regards a person's private writings as sacred. I overcame my own reluctance to invade Adam's privacy and read enough of the last few pages to ascertain that he was going to investigate a counterfeiting operation taking place at a jeweler's shop on Province Street. Such a solo undertaking seemed most imprudent, and Henry and I hurried forth to the shop.

We found it shuttered up and went around to the alleyway, where we discovered two saddled horses and the back door to the shop ajar. Henry directed me to go fetch a police officer whilst he kept watch. Off I fled and found a young officer stationed at a crossing a few streets away. When I brought him to the alleyway, Henry was nowhere to be seen. I should have known he would throw caution to the wind and go inside the shop before I returned with help. The officer ordered me to wait outside, but I followed after him anyway, and when I heard Adam's voice below nothing could stop me from descending the cellar stairs.

A descent into hell! As much as I wish I could forget what I witnessed in that cellar, I am sure I shall be able to draw every detail of it for as long as I live. But I do not wish to write about it. May God forgive Trump for what he did. I suppose Adam, Henry, and I should ask God's forgiveness too, for we have allowed a murderer to go free.Yet as I write this I feel no regret. As brutal as the murder was, the victim was a brute himself, and by killing him Trump saved Adam's life.

Monday, August 24th

 

I
try to remain tolerant and charitable toward all my patients, both living and dead, but I must make an exception regarding Capt. Gideon Peck. My loathing for him increases with each revelation concerning his conduct here on earth. Today Julia informed me of his relationship with Molly Munger, her subsequent pregnancy and miscarriage, and the resulting sorrow and apprehension brought upon the entire Munger family.

Went forthwith to examine Molly at her home, and to my great relief found no signs whatever of Peck's disease upon her body, nor did she have any symptoms. Molly told me she and Peck had performed the act of coition three times only, when he still looked to be in good health. My belief is that the sickness in him had been somnolent during those times with Molly and then come on with such speed it reduced his desire, sparing Molly further exposure. She expressed her relief with such a Niagara of tears I had to blink away a few of my own.

When I came out of the Munger house, I saw swirls of dense smoke issuing from Ira's butchery next door and hurried to it, expecting to help quench a fire. The sharp stench of burning hair and singed flesh assaulted me through the open door. Through the semidarkness I made out the carcass of a monster hog, hair singed clean off, hanging by its back legs from a rafter. Wondered why it was slaughtered in August, when blowflies can quickly corrupt the flesh with maggots.

“Come in, Adam, if you be inclined to,” Ira said, glancing around the pig at me. “A hog butchering in the summer heat is no place for them that has a delicate nose.”

“I have smelled far worse in the dissecting rooms at medical school,” I assured him, coming forward for a closer look.

The mature pig was of enormous weight, no less than four hundred pounds, and it was clearly evident that the poor beast had been stomped, battered, and stabbed to death in a most grisly fashion.

Ira, holding a heavy cleaver, came around the carcass, his eyes red-rimmed from the smoke. His countenance was a mask of worry. “You just come from examining our Molly?”

Aware that he had been informed of the danger his daughter had encountered with her liaison with Peck, I spoke frankly. “She did not become infected with that man's disease.”

Overcome with relief, he leaned against the burnt flank of the dead hog and muttered a prayer of thanks. Then he straightened to his full great height, cursed Peck to damnation, and swung the cleaver into the flank of the dead hog with such force it plunged into the side of the animal and disappeared from sight. His face was so contorted with rage that he was hardly recognizable as the man I had long known.

I took a step back from his anger. “Peck is dead and gone from Molly's life, Ira. That is all that matters now.”

“No, what matters is that he suffered greatly before he died. This alone comforts me, for we cannot be sure there really is a hell.”

That said, Ira's fury subsided as quickly as it had erupted. He sliced off the hog's ears that had been crisped right through with the burning off of the hair and offered me one. The thin, clean flesh, with a bit of smoke for spice, was most delicious, and we chewed in silence for a moment.

“How did the hog come to such a gory end?” I eventually asked Ira.

“Killed by the same bull that attacked your Indian,” he said.

“Farmer Herd is still letting that mad bull of his roam free?”

“Oh, Sultan never left his pen. 'Twas the fool hog that got
in
it. The greedy porker smelled the grain in the bull's feed tray, rooted his way under and threw up the boards to get at it. As you can see from the evidence, the bull was not inclined to share his victuals. Gored his uninvited dinner guest full of holes like an old pincushion. Then the ornery cuss picked the fool pig up with his horns, slammed it against the walls of the pen, and stomped it on the stone floor. All that at least bled the beast out for me pretty fairly, which in this heat was good fortune. Herd wanted to save what he could of the pork and so sledded it over an hour ago. I'm keeping the smoke up in here to keep out the pestiferous flies.”

“That bull's more trouble than he's worth.”

“No, no, he's a fine breeder,” Ira said. “Herd makes a tidy sum mounting Sultan atop cows all around the county.”

Not one for too much conversation, he went back to work. He yanked the cleaver out of the hog's flank and cut deep across the back of its neck, continuing around to slice through the gullet and sever the spine. The head dropped to the brick floor. My training in surgery gave me an appreciation of his skill in butchery. And
his
training, I suddenly realized, would give him the wherewithal to butcher a man with the same ease as he would a hog.

If anyone had an unadulterated motive to kill Peck, it was surely Ira Munger. According to Julia, he had learned of Molly's liaison with the captain when he returned from playing town ball the very evening the man was murdered. He'd been so upset that he'd spent the night brooding in his butchery, so neither his wife nor anyone else could verify his whereabouts at the time of Peck's murder. I watched Ira toss the pig's head into a vat and then slice off its pizzle.Yes, he was fully capable of butchering the man who had defiled and perhaps diseased his daughter. But had he?

I was almost certain of it. Not only could he have scalped Peck with ease, but he had been on the Green when Trump had threatened to do just that to Peck. Ira could have easily overheard Trump. My only reservation was that I knew Ira to be an honest man. Would he frame another for his crime?

“I was astonished when I heard the Indian had escaped the Powder House,” I said, hoping to ascertain Ira's attitude regarding Trump.

“Everyone in town was,” Ira said. “And a few were mightily pleased to hear it. Me being one.”

“So you do not think he deserved to be hanged?”

“No, I do not.” Ira reached deep into the carcass and split the pelvic girdle with a resounding snap. “No one should be hanged for killing a low animal such as Peck.”

“But it is almost certain that Trump would have been executed for Peck's murder,” I said.

Ira took a firm grip on the viscera, rolled the mass out toward him, and dropped the entire, dripping innards into the vat. Then he looked at me. “Maybe, if he'd been brought to trial, he would have been found innocent.”

“Not very likely, Ira.” I looked intently back at him. “All the evidence, especially the scalping, pointed to him as Peck's killer.”

“But if he didn't do the deed,” Ira said, “the real killer might have come forth and confessed in time to spare the Injun's life.”

Is that what Ira had intended to do? Or had he just deluded himself into thinking he would? As I stared at him, I could not fathom his thoughts, much less what lay deep in his heart. He held my gaze without blinking, big arms crossed over a leather apron caked with gore. Had he worn that apron when he slaughtered Peck? Was he waiting for me to accuse him?

I did not. It is unlikely he would have confessed to me if I had. And in truth I did not want him to, for I might then have felt obligated to notify the authorities. I feel no such obligation now, for as certain as I am that Ira killed Peck, I have no way of proving it. All I have are suppositions that would not stand up in court, and the only thing I would accomplish would be the ruin of the Munger family's reputation. Peck's time on earth was quickly nearing an end, with or without Ira's intervention, and it is up to God, not me, to judge both men.