These Honored Dead (4 page)

A few minutes later, the five of us were back in Francis’s carriage. As we bounced along the rough track through the rolling prairie, Prickett said, “Don’t print this, Francis, but she’s guilty. I’m certain of it. We’ll find the proof, one way or another.”

T
he prosecutor’s words echoed in my mind as I lay in bed that night unable to find sleep. Rebecca’s answers had sounded evasive, to be sure, but she was obviously suffering from strain and shock. She was the one who’d taken her relations in out of the kindness of her heart. How could Prickett possibly believe she’d had something to do with her own niece’s murder?

“What?” said Lincoln from next to me in our bed.

“Sorry, did I say something aloud?” I said. I looked over and saw through the dim refracted light of the moon that he was lying on his stomach, his head turned toward me on his pillow.

“You’ve been muttering for a few moments now,” he replied. “About the terrible scene in the barn, I think. And the widow.”

“I’m awfully sorry if I’ve woken you,” I said, whispering so as to avoid disturbing Hurst and Herndon sleeping in the next bed over. I shifted my frame under our bedsheet, and my foot grazed against Lincoln’s bare ankle before finding a new place of repose. “It was terrible, wasn’t it? And I can’t figure out why Prickett’s convinced the Widow Harriman was responsible for the girl’s murder.”

“She didn’t exactly help her own cause by the way she answered their questions,” Lincoln said. “Or didn’t answer them.”

“I know she didn’t. But it’s obvious she’s innocent. Though I can’t imagine who could have done such a horrible deed.”

“Nor can I,” said Lincoln. “There are several mysteries about this afternoon.” He blinked his eyes and said with a yawn, “Though one should be easy enough for you to clear up.”

I glanced over at him in surprise. “What’s that?”

“The basis for your unusual interest in the Widow Harriman.”

I looked away and up to the ceiling, determinedly avoiding his gaze for fear that mine would give away the truth. “I don’t think it’s unusual at all. A fellow storekeeper has suffered a grave loss. Trying to do what I can for her is a simple matter of trade courtesy. Besides . . . that girl . . . she was about the same age as my younger sister Martha.”

Suddenly I sat bolt upright in bed and shouted out, “Good God—Martha!”

“What is it?” asked Lincoln, looking alarmed. In the other bed, Hurst sat up, looked over through blank eyes, and collapsed back onto his pillow.

Once I collected myself, I explained quietly to Lincoln. My father had written at the outset of the summer to say he had finally given permission for Martha to visit Springfield. Martha had been clamoring for such a trip for years to see not only me but also her close friend Molly, who had emigrated from Louisville to Springfield as well and had recently married Sheriff Hutchason. But the Springfield area now appeared to harbor a rapacious murderer, a mortal peril to young women. I had to prevent Martha’s visit. Apologizing again to Lincoln for waking him, I struck a candle and hurried down the stairs to my storeroom.

It was still to be many years before the railroad or the telegraph reached Springfield. Thus there was no faster means of discourse with my parents in Louisville than the stagecoaches of the Post Office Department. A letter entrusted to the Department in one place could reach the other in ten days, if Fortune was on your side, or as long as three weeks, if she was not.

I spent the night hunched over the counter, composing a suitable letter to my father by candlelight. I did not want to
alarm him or my mother, who I knew would search every word of my letter for hidden clues about my well-being. So I decided to keep the letter short and nondescript. It was a busy time at my store, I wrote, and I feared I could not give Martha the necessary attention. Perhaps the following spring would be a propitious time for a visit, but they should delay sending her until then.

When morning came, I was at the doors to the Department’s offices the moment Clark opened. While the recipient would, of course, pay for the postage due, I pressed a silver quarter dollar into Clark’s palm as I handed over the letter. In turn, he assured me it would be aboard the Terre Haute stage when it departed within the hour. I prayed Fortune would travel with it.

The new edition of the
Sangamo Journal
was resting on my counter when I returned to the store. Simeon’s lurid report of Lilly’s murder filled the right-hand columns at the top of the front page and spared no detail about the awful condition of the dead girl’s body.

In the days that followed, the townspeople coming into my store could talk about little else. Rumors flew wildly with different theories to explain the shocking event. Many citizens sought to blame a member of one of the immigrant groups that had lately been flooding into Illinois, either the Irish drawn to the canal work up north by Lake Michigan or the mysterious “Mormon” people who had recently established a colony along the Mississippi. Others speculated it was the result of a dangerous religious fervor and that Lilly had somehow brought on her own murder.

Simeon reported on these rumors and fanned their flames in his sheet the following week. While I disliked the constant stream of gossip about Rebecca’s niece, it was undeniably good for business. I sold more guns and fighting knives in those two weeks than I had in the prior six months combined. And I sold more patent medicines too. Several anxious mothers came in asking for Hooper’s Female Pills, a compound said to be able to break the hold of even the most tenacious bout of religious
zealotry among young women. Though I harbored my own doubts about its efficacy, I gladly sold out my entire lot.

On Friday afternoon, Simeon Francis himself tramped into the store.

“I imagine your sales figures are up as well,” I said.

“I take no pleasure in that, I assure you,” he said. When he saw my skeptical look he added, “You sell your goods, I sell the news. When the news is in demand, I sell more of it. You can hardly blame me for the laws of the market.”

“I do applaud your discretion in keeping Jesse out of your story,” I said. “As well as in refraining from any support for Prickett’s wild notion that the Widow Harriman was involved in some way.”

Simeon looked around to make sure we were alone. “There’s no discretion involved, Speed. Only calculation. I think it likely that those details will emerge over time. After all, I have papers to sell next week, and the week after that as well.”

“But the notion she killed her own niece—it’s preposterous,” I said, feeling the color rise in my face.

The newspaperman contemplated me and rubbed his unshaven chin. “If that’s true, help me prove it,” he said. “You said you’re familiar with the Widow Harriman through the trade. I imagine you’re familiar with the other merchants in Menard as well. I’m riding up tomorrow morning hoping to talk to some of them. Come with me and let’s see what we find out together.”

After breakfast the next morning, I climbed astride Hickory while Francis perched his immense frame awkwardly atop a sturdy black nag, who seemed used to the burden.

We set off in companionable silence through the ripe prairie vibrant with summer wildflowers. About an hour into the journey, the quiet was pierced by an approaching high-pitched whine. The horses surmounted a hillock and we looked down on an enormous flock of prairie chickens, partridges, and blackbirds, all screaming into the morning breeze. There was a sudden fluttering and a vast black-brown carpet flecked with white
took off in flight, obscuring the sun as it flew over our heads. And then, mercifully, it was silent again.

When we reached the Menard commons, I rode past Harriman & Co. at once and was relieved to see it shuttered and unoccupied. Rebecca must be off at another market fair. I had come up with a number of things to say to her to explain our presence, but I feared none would have been satisfactory.

At Simeon’s suggestion, we started on the far left of the semicircle of businesses and other houses flanking the commons. “Morning, ma’am,” he began, addressing an elderly lady in a nondescript housedress who opened the door of a modest home on the literal edge of town. “I’m Francis, publisher of the
Journal
, and I wanted to ask you about what happened over at the Widow—”

The door slammed shut, narrowly missing crushing Simeon’s hand, which he pulled back from the doorframe at the last moment.

At the next building, a public house, Simeon got through even less of his introductory sentence before the proprietor pulled a long-barreled pistol from inside his dusty frockcoat.

“You’re the one who’s writing the filth about the dead girl that’s got everyone up in arms?” rasped the man, who had droopy eyes and an enormous, veined nose.

“I report the news, good and bad,” replied Simeon, holding his ground.

The man waved his pistol in the air and spat at Simeon’s boots. “Unless you want to report on your own death, you’ll leave my property in the next ten seconds.”

“In that case,” said Simeon, “I thank you for your subscription and I wish you a good day.” I stifled a laugh as we headed toward the blacksmithy next door.

“Is he actually a subscriber?”

“I know the Department delivers a dozen copies to Menard each week,” Simeon said with a casual flick of his hand. “I don’t know specifically who takes them. But I always say, a newspaperman who doesn’t have more enemies than readers is doing
something wrong.” He raised his hand to knock but paused and said, “Why don’t you try this one, Speed? You’re the one who claims to have relations with all these people.”

“I used to have good relations with them, before I began associating with you. You go ahead.”

We got no further at the smithy nor at the two private houses next in the line. No one wanted to talk about Lilly, especially not to Simeon. The entrance to the stables was a few places along, and I had seen a stable boy moving about, caring for his charges. “Let’s try there next,” I said, indicating the building. “I wager we’re better off finding someone who’s not a regular reader of your sheet.”

The boy emerged from the stable gates atop a light gray horse. He rode the animal bareback, expertly charting a wide loop around the commons, circling slowly at first but then picking up speed on the last few go-rounds. A half-dozen cows grazed the commons; none of them so much as looked up as horse and boy flew by. We took up a position next to the entrance gates and watched. When they trotted back toward us, the horse glistening with a fine coat of sheen under the midday sun, I called out a greeting.

“Decided you need help with your horses after all, did you?” said the boy. He jumped down and, holding the gray horse’s lead, started toward the public post where Simeon and I had tied up our rides when we’d first arrived.

“Water them both, if you please,” I said. “Are you the usual boy here?”

“Have been the past few months.”

“I’ve just learned distressing news. A girl I was acquainted with, who lived somewhere about these parts, has turned up dead. Her name was Lilly Walker. Have you heard of her?”

“A little,” the boy said without looking up from untying our two horses.

“What have you heard?”

He shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Well, did you know her yourself?”

“Only times I ever talked to her was when she’d come collect her brother. Jesse. That little fellow likes to pretend to help me out.” I smiled. The stable boy himself was barely larger than the “little fellow” Jesse.

I followed after the stable boy as he led the three horses back into the yard. Simeon trailed behind me.

“Do you know anyone who was angry with Lilly?” I asked. “Anyone who might have wanted to do her harm?”

The boy got to his loose pen and let his horse inside. Then he led Hickory and Simeon’s nag over to an open stall with a water trough and small pile of hay. The boy squinted up at me and asked, “Other than the Widow Harriman, you mean?”

My heart raced. Before I could say anything, Simeon stepped in front of me and asked, “What’s your meaning, son?”

“I heard Lilly and her arguing all the time. The whole village has. Plenty of days I could hear ’em all the way back here in the yard when they was out on the commons, they was yelling so loud.”

“What were they arguing about?” demanded Simeon.

“It ain’t my concern,” the boy said. “I think this girl Lilly didn’t take too kindly to being told how to act by some strange old woman.”

“She was no stranger,” I protested. “She was her blood, her aunt. She’d saved her from the poorhouse.”

“If you say so,” the boy said with a shrug. “As I said, it ain’t my concern. Now do you want me to keep charge of your horses for the afternoon?”

“That’ll be fine,” Simeon said. “Come, Speed, let’s let the boy get back to his chores. We appreciate your time, young man.” He gave the stable hand a half-dime, and the boy touched his own forehead in gratitude.

Another hour of canvassing the settlement yielded no one else who would talk to us. “Why don’t we eat before hitting the
trail for Springfield?” I said. “We could do worse than that public house over there next to Harriman & Co.”

By habit, when we entered Johnson’s public room I led us to the small table in the corner where Rebecca and I used to sit. When I realized what I’d done, I turned around to find another, but Simeon was already lowering himself into the small chair, and I figured trying to get him to move would prove more trouble than it was worth.

“It looks like Prickett’s suspicions about the Widow Harriman might be on target after all,” Simeon said.

“You mean what the stable boy said?” I replied with a dismissive wave. I knew the newspaperman was trying to provoke me. “I don’t put stock in that, and I’m sure you don’t either. Young people are always thinking the adults around them are bossing them without reason. I know I used to.”

“It sounded a good deal more serious,” said Simeon.

Johnson came over, nodded with familiarity at me, and promised to return with two ales.

“But it’s nothing you could print,” I said after he’d left. “That a young woman argued with her guardian—it must happen fifty times a day in Springfield. A hundred. That’s not news.”

“When the young woman turns up with a knife through her neck it is.”

“But surely Lilly Walker—
yeow
!”