Thorne Chapter 10

A southern gothic fairytale

While the water had subsumed significantly into the black clay that following morning, the mosquitoes still hung thickly about in murky clouds. The grey sky had begun to clear, and the sun glared with its white heat upon the sodden timber and slick clay, eliciting a series of creaks and groans from every house and shop like a collective sigh. Towers of black smoke billowed to the sky amidst clouds of bloated blowflies. Dozens of carts were wobbling their way through the thoroughfare, bearing the bloated corpses of dead livestock. Denizens diverted their course like ants around its wake or buried their faces in rags and handkerchiefs as it cluttered past. The stench of death and burning flesh polluted the air, and the whole town seemed to fester. Men worked together to clean out cisterns, housewives and shopkeepers swept out mud or dried bedding on lines, and soaked furniture was removed. The dull ringing and thudding of axes echoed through the town as fallen trees were chopped up and dragged away. At the ferry office, Gabriel Blackwood was doing everything he could to manage the interruption to river traffic and handle the swarms of orders coming in for timber, food, clothing, and medicine.

At the Blackwood residence, three slaves dragged back the stone slab of a cistern beneath a rear corner of the house. Alice Blackwood observed the operation and covered her mouth to stifle a gag at the rank green water overflowing like pus, packed with leaves, and swarmed with flies. At a quick wave of her hand, the slaves began drawing water out with buckets and emptying the vile, coagulated sludge onto the ground. She turned at a call from the house and saw Rachel jogging towards her, staggering somewhat in the mud. For a moment, her heart skipped a beat as her thoughts turned to Ada alone in her bed, bundled and shivering.

“Miss Alice! Miss Alice, you got a caller!” called out Rachel.

Alice relaxed, motioned for the slaves to continue, and ordered her hired hand, Joseph, to pitch in. She hiked her skirt and jogged up to Rachel, who led her in through the back door. She was surprised to find August Banway waiting by the window.

August turned and bowed, his fingers clasping a broad-brimmed felt hat to his chest. He was clad in black trousers, a woolen work shirt, and a long brown coat, unlike his commonly colorful accouterments.

“August! This is unexpected. How are you?” greeted Alice cordially. She motioned to a chair by the window. “Would you like to sit? Rachel can take your coat and hat—”

“No, no. I—No,” August waved a hand and rubbed his mouth with a nervous look. “Thank you, Alice, but I…” His lips struggled to make words, and he shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another.

Alice approached and stood before him with her head cocked in a look of concern. “Is something wrong, August? Gabriel won’t be back for another hour or so, but you’re welcome to—”

“Oh, no. I won’t trouble him. I just wanted to ask…Has Ada been…well?”

“Oh, she’s a bit under the weather, naturally, but she’s been coming along fine. Her fever is down considerably, and so is the swelling in her foot.” She saw August bite his lip and rub the back of his neck and felt confused.

“Then she hasn’t…shown any signs of, well, illness or the like?” queried August.

“Why, no. Thank God. None apart from the fever.” She narrowed her eyes with a look of concern. “Why?”

August plopped into a chair and leaned over, twiddling his thumbs between his knees. “Cora…well…She’s been very weak lately.”

“Weak?”

“She has had to…well…relieve herself quite frequently. To put it delicately…And last night, she…she was vomiting.”

“Vomiting?” Alice plopped into the chair beside him. Her look of concern now fiercely attentive.

“I’ve been trying to give her more water, to keep her strength up, but she hardly keeps anything down, and of course, so much of the water is tainted, we must boil it carefully.” His voice began to tremble.

“My God! The poor dear!” Alice put a hand to her mouth. “Has she seen the doctor?”

“Immediately. He’s not sure right now, but…It must have something to do with the water or this…miasma that seems to hang about. We’re keeping her bundled up, as dry as possible, but…God!” He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and shuddered. “That’s part of why I came to check. I’m sorry, Alice, but things as they are, I don’t want to cause a panic. People are more stressed than ever, what with the storm, then the murder, and now the alcalde’s investigation—”

“I understand.” Alice put a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you for telling me. Have you contacted Malinda? I understand she was under the weather too before she went to San Antonio de Bexar to stay with relatives.”

August blinked at her a moment as if he hadn’t quite heard the question. Then, he smacked his forehead with a palm. “Ah! Of course. Yes. I’m sending a man today, assuming a courier will be available. God, but I hope she doesn’t choose now to come back.” He stood up abruptly. “I’m sorry, but I really must get back to Cora. I don’t like leaving her alone.” He walked with Alice to the door and took his cane back from Rachel. “Please give Ada my love. My prayers are with you all.”

“And you are in our prayers, of course.” Alice was somewhat taken aback at his sudden haste but reasoned that everyone’s nerves were on edge now, after all.

“Anything I can offer, any aid, labor, money. It is good to keep friends close in such times.” He jerked his head back at the threshold to add, “Do tell Gabriel I said so, and give him my well wishes.” He had flown down the steps and was taking the reins of his horse from a slave before Alice could even respond.

“Indeed, it has put us all on edge,” murmured Alice wonderingly as she watched him leave from the doorway.

August rode away at a brisk pace to try to diminish the swarms of mosquitoes. Before long, he had vanished beneath the drooping willows and pecans and arched his course back through Washington proper. He tried to keep his mount near the east side of the thoroughfare, keeping his gaze there or straight ahead in a dogged attempt to avoid glancing at the fires. He buried his mouth and nose in a handkerchief to strangle the stench of smoke and putrid, burning flesh.

Around the edges of town, towering bonfires beclouded the air with smoke amidst the symphony of bloated blowflies. The air was thick with the reek of burning flesh as dead cattle and horses were piled high in bloated, grisly pyres and set ablaze. The smoke coalesced into a vast, black nimbus and carved its way across the sky like God’s pillar of cloud. Its long finger stretched across the bedraggled buildings to scrape at the edge of the forest as if picking at a scab.

Deep into the interior, Israel Norman led the small expedition through the brackish puddles and thick brush, hacking away with a long, iron hooked brush knife, for which his fellows gave him a wide berth. Behind him, five volunteers, along with Charles Allcorn, John Davies, the alcalde and his two aides, kept pace with muskets slung over their shoulders. While far enough away from the stench of burning cattle, the party still had to choke back gags at the reek of gator grease which some of their number had smeared on their necks to ward off mosquitoes.

Israel leaned to hack away some palmettos before righting himself and calling out, “Hold!” The party drew to a halt, and Israel motioned for the two witnesses to come forward. When they had circled around the train and met him on either side, he indicated an area of low bushes between well-spaced live oaks. “Hereabouts, you’d say?”

“Yessir! Right there, exactly,” affirmed Charles with an enthusiastic nod. “See that pecan that’s all split off on the side there?” He indicated, and sure enough, there was a tall pecan split in twain at an angle to about the middle of the trunk. Its rather sizable half lay mashed into the mud and crumpled palmettos.

“That’s where ya found him?”

“Yessir. He was all tangled up in the branches.”

Israel trudged around the scene, inspecting it. He looked under the splintered trunk and moved around to squint into the trees behind it. “Well, he wasn’t done in here. I’d say he was washed down from…” He sent a slow glance around and dragged a finger through the air like a timepiece before settling somewhere further northeast through a copse of stalwart water oaks stripped nearly columnar of branches. “…thereabouts. Maybe some two or three miles. I’d need to talk to Doc Baird—get a better estimate on time of death, marks on the body…”

“Do so,” replied Hadley firmly. “In fact, I shall accompany you. My aides, Mister Camp and Mister King, shall oversee the search in our place for the time being. In the meantime, I have questions for the good doctor as well as the tavern keeper, Mister...”

***

“Baylor, is it?” Hadley sat across from the hefty, middle-aged tavern keeper with salt-and-pepper hair and a walrus mustache.

“Ernst Baylor,” replied the tavern keeper, rubbing his beefy left arm restlessly. He had a habit of rocking back and forth in his seat and sniffing compulsively. A nervous tic by all appearances.

“You are the owner and proprietor of the Royal Oak Tavern?”

“Yes sir. Lock, stock and key.”

“You brought the original business from Missouri, correct?”

“St. Louis. Yes. I purchased the business from the wife of my late employer, David Boone. I joined Austin’s three hundred in 1823 and arrived here two years later.”

“Yes, your employer, David Boone, who I understand died in 1818. A stroke, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Mr. Boone sadly died in his sleep. He was eighty-one years old, so I cannot say it was surprising, but no less devastating.”

“You were close with Mr. Boone?”

“Yes. I apprenticed under him when I was sixteen, and his wife woke me to confirm he was dead. I was nineteen at the time.”

“What of his wife? She gave you the business and simply…moved off?”

“Sold me the business. I have the bill of sale if you’d like to see it. She had no further connection with me afterwards and decided to go live with family in St. Genevieve. I understand she has a son-in-law who owns a lumber business out there.”

“Rather quick, wasn’t it? Newly come into ownership of your own business, readily established with regular clientele and reputation, and you decided to gamble immediately on a new colony in a place you have never been without friends or family?”

Baylor shrugged. “Didn’t we all gamble on opportunity coming here?”

“You had no family? No other connections within the colony?”

“My father died when I was fourteen, and I regularly send money to my mother, who lives with my uncle in Tennessee. The colony is sort of a new beginning for me, as it were.”

“Yes, as it was for many,” murmured Hadley. “Of course, new opportunity was the rallying cry of many a squatter. I understand it was in the name of opportunity that one James Britton Bailey leveled his musket in the face of our beloved empresario.”

“Yes sir. But unlike Brit Bailey, I have proof of my approval for a land grant from the Mexican government. I have a deed for my business and a copy of the bill of sale from Mrs. Boone.”

Hadley stooped over his desk and scrawled away with his quill. “You understand, Mr. Baylor, that it is not my intention to call into question your integrity nor to challenge your legal right to claim or business. Yet, it is possible that the murderer of Willem Van Buren might be a transient or someone with a tenuous history with the colony—a late comer, you might say—or most pressingly, a man dodging some legal or personal trouble by seeking a clean slate in a new territory. Bailey did as much when his antics made him an eyesore to the Kentucky legislature and his prospects in Tennessee turned out no better. Such men became a canker upon the community, believing that while the world was his oyster, so was his neighbor’s oyster his oyster. One need only consider the forgery scandal that led to his departure from Kentucky in the first place.”

“I don’t think I take your meaning, sir.”

Hadley leaned forward on his elbows, steepling his fingers on his chin. “I only say that in a murder investigation, one of the top priorities is motive. If a clear motive cannot readily be established, then investigations must tend towards uncovering people of dubious reputation or standing. A man might need be merely a scoundrel rather than a conspirator, and such a man is most likely to have done in the Van Buren boy, for I cannot but suspect that no reason of conspiracy could be contrived against a sixteen-year-old boy.”

“What about an accident?”

“I am more than open to such a possibility. After all, the newly returned Miss Ada Blackwood was nearly the victim of such an accident. Yet until I have cast significant doubt upon the notion of foul play or provided an appropriate perpetrator, I cannot put the minds of this community at ease. Nor can I put at ease the minds of the Texas legislature or the Mexican government.” He looked up at Baylor. “You may go, Mister Baylor. Though I must insist you suspend for now any plans of leaving Washington until this mess is cleared up. Mister Norman! Do be so kind as to see the gentleman out and bring in Doctor Baird.”

Baylor stood and bowed to the alcalde before trudging out the door past two militiamen. Before his footsteps could fade into the distance, Israel announced Doctor Thomas Baird.

Baird strode in—a broad-shouldered giant of a man, clad in a white shirt and black frock coat buttoned over his barrel-like chest. He removed his black bowler hat as he entered and took a seat at the behest of the alcalde.

“Doctor Baird, I am pleased to make your acquaintance. Your medical expertise is of course vital to the success of this investigation, as I’m sure you understand. Perhaps you might shed some light on this tragedy.”

“I will help wherever I can, sir,” declared Baird confidently. He lifted his medical bag onto his lap. “I have, sir, the autopsy report on Willem Van Buren conducted after a viewing of the body by our local justice of the peace and handpicked members of the coroner’s jury. Mister…Norman, himself was party to this inquest.”

Israel found it difficult to meet the doctor’s gaze, only shifting on his feet and compressing his lips before giving a curt nod.

Baird fished a leather-bound ledger from his bag, slipped a small stack of parchment from within, lay it atop the ledger, and handed them both to the alcalde. “You will find the report signed by all members of the inquest, including myself and Mister Norman. If you should choose to follow up with those other members, I shall be more than happy to help facilitate.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Hadley nodded graciously and began flipping silently through the pages of the report. He scrutinized in silence for some ten minutes, never looking up or making a sound until he abruptly closed the ledger and slipped it into a drawer. “According to your report, the wound indicates an attack from long range.”

“Yes sir. About twenty feet judging by the clean hole it made in the boy’s head and the lack of a burn mark or powder stain. Judging by the angle, either he stood off some four feet to the right where he angled, or where he fired from was a slightly elevated range, possibly a hillock of some sort, angled down at the Van Buren boy. Some traces of wadding, possibly flax hemp, could be found in the wound, but nothing like special fabric or a piece of newspaper that could clue us into something like a specific ammunition pouch.”

“What about the bullet itself?”

“We managed to extract it. It was lodged just above the bridge of his nose and showed no signs of warping or flattening, meaning it was a clear shot. No ricochet. Frankly, sir, a ricochet landing that directly is a one in a million chance. We measured the weight and diameter of the ball and concluded it had been fired from a smoothbore military musket—a .75 inch caliber, to be exact, suggesting a Brown Bess. By the angle and position required, the boy probably suspected nothing before it was too late. Of course, since his body had certainly been washed away by the flood, it’s difficult to ascertain where exactly the shooting took place.”

“Do we have an estimated time of death? Were there any other markings on the body?”

“Only scratches caused by branches and such, but nothing serious. The fallen branches of that tree kept the body in place, and I doubt any animals have had much time to get to it in that position. By the time the body was recovered, the hands and feet were marked by deep maceration. What the locals call ‘washerwoman’s hands’. The pallor of the skin following liver mortis was a light red hue rather than deep purple, probably due to the chill of the floodwaters. After periods of submersion, rigor mortis was not as pronounced, either. All in all, my best estimate for time of death would be…oh…twelve hours before he was recovered.”

“The body has since been buried?”

“Oh, yes sir! Steeping in such awful conditions, not to mention the heat! Well, a high point was found some two hundred yards west of the Van Buren homestead after the floodwaters receded somewhat, and there he lies.”

“Very good. No need to tempt pestilence…Anyway, a body is no use to us now.” He caught their fleeting glances and straightened. “Do not mistake me, gentlemen. I am not callous nor cold towards the weight of this awful tragedy. Yet, if I am to provide any measure of peace and justice to this beleaguered town, I must act quickly and decisively. For now, the kinder emotions must give way to the rigor of investigation.” He rose from his chair to cast his stern gaze around the room. “If I do not cut out the cancer infecting this town, this wound will only fester and rot e’er winter rears its waxen countenance. If I am not decisive, then this town will never heal.” He raised a hand, and his voice carried with the high and resonant timbre of a fiery preacher, “God as my witness, I shall not rest nor give leave of this town until I see the murderer of Willem Van Buren swing from the highest oak! And from his final breath, may Washington itself steal a sigh of peace!”

The reverend, with the congregation, said amen, and so the hounds were set to work to dredge up the murderer of Willem Van Buren, even if the trail stretched to Houston or the beaches of the Gulf. From there, Israel Norman was commissioned to go forth and gather up a posse for Hadley, who would lead the charge with all the fervor of a colonel rallying his garrison to glory or death.

Beyond the grey windows of the inn, where rays of yellow sun began to pierce the dense grey curtain of smoke and clouds, a most unusual sight presented itself along the Brazos. Emerging from the distance on the brush-strewn river, an object like a white whale drifted swiftly along the brackish, bloated waters, puffing plumes of black smoke like spume from its back. No deliveries had been anticipated that day, being only three days since the storm, and much of the former influx of travelers had since moved on for greener pastures. The behemoth gradually drew near, growing and swelling until its multifarious black eyes could be seen as the spiderlike arrangement of windows across a double-decker prow. This was not the humble ferry of John W. Hall, but a gaudy, whitewashed sarcophagus whispering its way into port. An eerie bell chime sounded its arrival as it lilted easily into port.

From the ferry office, Andrew Hall was tracking shipments and schedules when he saw the new arrival was not a cargo but a passenger ferry. Naturally, this gave him some pause, given he thought no ferry would have been charted for Washington at that time. After all, the great wave of travelers and tradesmen that had come through days prior did so in anticipation of the tempestuous season, striving to beat its course and move on swiftly.

At the dock, freight workers gathered around the speculate on the unexpected visit. They watched as the gangplank was lowered and awaited the call to receive cargo. Instead, what they received was not cargo, but men. They watched bewildered at the sight of some fifty to a hundred men, both whites and Tejanos, pouring down the gangplank in droves.

Standing to meet them, who should be waiting but Crispin Bauer, accompanied by Cy Hoxey. Cy was as neat as he had ever been, wearing a threadbare cream coat over his typical shirt and suspenders accouterments. They watched as each man filed off the boat and congregated on the dock. The first wave was of a rougher sort, bearing some weapon or tool for farming or repair.

At their head was a rather large, imposing figure with chiseled, darkly pallid features and dull brown eyes. His broad form seemed hardly contained by the grey suit and slacks, and a long scar carved from his jawline to just between his ear and temple in a jagged, white line. This man took in the gathering of workers milling about and bellowed at them with a bearish roar. In seconds, the newcomers filed in, sorted and solemn as foot soldiers. The man shifted his gaze to Hoxey and Bauer, betraying only a kind of stony passivity. Even his eyes were almost fishlike as he approached and stretched a hand to Hoxey.

“Cy, I’d like you to meet Mister Van Dorn’s foreman, Mister Joshua Koepe,” introduced Bauer smoothly as if presenting a great lord.

“Ah, yes. A pleasure to meet you, Mister Koepe.” Cy offered a hand, which Koepe took mechanically. Cy could feel a chill in his bones at the sensation of that giant hand, as if a slight depression of two muscles would crumple his bones like paper.

Koepe gave a curt nod and blinked slowly. “A pleasure, Mister Hoxey.” He lifted his eyes to stare into the town as if mapping every brick and knot in every building on the surface of his brain.

“Ah, I, um, understand that Mister Van Dorn was to be arriving today, and, well, I was uncertain if it be by land or sea as it were,” Cy chuckled nervously. “So that I may welcome him, of course!”

“Indeed. Mister Van Dorn does usually accompany the workmen and cargo into port. A habit of his thorough nature. He wishes to ensure all things arrive smoothly and are organized to the letter,” Bauer’s thin voice stuck like a needle in the brain, though his face betrayed nothing but mild curiosity.

“Mister Van Dorn’s business in East Columbia took somewhat longer than expected,” replied Koepe mechanically. “He shall arrive by stagecoach sometime before this evening. It is my duty, of course, to ensure you have arranged quarters for him in the meantime.”

“But of course!” Bauer’s voice was suddenly blithe. “I have reserved an exemplary room for Mister Van Dorn at the Washington Inn. He shall neighbor the alcalde himself.”

Koeppe’s brow raised almost imperceptibly. “The alcalde is here? Mister Van Dorn would be pleased to call upon his friend.”

“I shall let Mr. Hadley know in swift course.” Bauer waved a hand. “Now, if you would follow me, Mister Hoxey and I would be pleased to direct your fellow foremen and any of the surveyors to the Washington Inn. We have a reserved lot adjacent to Mister Hoxey’s store where the crews may set up camp and your overseers may find room at the Hall and Lott Tavern across from Doc Baird’s office.

“Ah-h, y-yes. My…store.” Cy murmured deflated.

“Well!” Bauer clapped his hands together with a grin of satisfaction. “Let us gather the laborers to the field, for the Lord of Harvest is near.” With that, Bauer led Koeppe to the tavern whilst Cy oversaw the unloading of goods and packing them into wagons.

Civilians began congregating around the dock, watching and murmuring amongst themselves as the new workers divided into groups like worker ants, dispersing to different corners of town or unloading cargo. Then, at the fringes, Sheriff Munson arrived with four deputies in-tow.

Munson prowled around the fringes, hitching his thumbs into his suspenders and cocking his chin at the newcomers. He scanned the faces of the crowd as they poured down the gangplank and gathered in teams at the brusque command of Mister Koepp. His eyes were for every cramped corner, every lone sidewalk, and every dark alleyway, looking for the first errant twitch, the first sideways glance. He watched the heave of long crates on groaning pulleys and glanced at the corner of a warped and rickety freight shed. He felt a kind of static tingle at the base of his neck. For a moment, he could not explain it, like an afterimage on the back of his brain. His feet were moving, drifting around and through the milling throng. His eyes were fixed on the dark corner of the shed, the shadows warping and bending in the glare of the sun off the rippling river. In the rippling glare, there was a flash at the corner of the shed and a glimpse of dark eyes. His blood ran cold, and his hand instinctively jerked to his pistol. Did he not catch a shape in the glare? The waxen hue of a face like a theater mask, formless and smooth? His feet were jogging now, and he shouldered his way through crowds of onlookers and jostled past workers bearing crates and timber. Somewhere in the stream of the thoroughfare, he caught the back of a figure in a short brown jacket, a red bandana and broad, whitish felt hat, hunched and worming through the traffic of passing carts and pedestrians.

Through the busy streets, he could see the lean form hunched and weaseling through the street to the narrow corduroy road along the storefronts. He quickened his pace, straining to snatch a glimpse of that face again, to imprint on his memory as he had with everyone before. From twenty yards off, he caught fleeting glimpses through the traffic—the lean form, the threadbare jacket, and the mess of dark hair spilling from beneath the hat like seaweed. He gripped the pistol at his side, stroking the hammer with his thumb, but not cocking it. Catching the flutter of the coat as the target pivoted down an alley, he quickened his long strides to a sprint, hunching his shoulders and gripping the pistol until his knuckles whitened. Ducking between the two shops, he wound around in a kind of zigzag around the back and out front of a cabin in the vicinity where the market district thinned and spread out into private homes and offices.

He swung around through back lots and around penned goats and dogs. His heart sank for a moment before he glimpsed that pale hat slipping beneath clotheslines of white sheets fanning in the breeze. His breath grew heavier, and the blood started to pulse in his ears as he rushed forward. A pain shot up his side, and he half-spun as he felt the corner of a hitching post clip his hip. A horse snorted and jerked aside, nearly bowling him over with its flank, and he barely staggered aside to avoid it, catching himself on a picket fence. There, he glimpsed the figure ahead, swinging around a cabin to the northwest of him. He was caught between the impulse to remain quiet or call out for his quarry to halt, and the noise that came out was a kind of breathy hiss and snarl. His feet staggered in the slick grass and mud, and he let the momentum carry him forward in a run. The sudden silence of the private buildings was deafening above the drum of blood in his ears, and his darting eyes strained to maintain sight of the target. Sights and sounds around him, even smells served to distract his racing mind, throwing off his concentration—the scent of burnt tallow and smoking meat, the hiss of mingled voices through shuttered windows flying by, a dog barking somewhere, or was it two dogs? Sometimes it felt miles away, and others like it could snap out at his side any moment. Images and shadows flashed before him as he ran of blurred colors and shapes of leaf and wood and beast, crashing waves on a sea of scrambled emotions and thundering blood that threatened to smother the darting blot of a man ahead of him. Then the blot seemed to slip when they rounded a corner into a winding path between buildings. There was the momentary lean of the figure like a mast in a storm and the flash of a scrawny arm to brace itself. The sheriff’s pace quickened as the murky form slipped and seemed to topple sidelong through a patch of grass, and the split second was enough to close in. He stumbled to a halt around a building backed by nothing but a picket fence, tall grass, and a smattering of trees that gathered interminably onwards ever constricting and leaning further and further in upon one another until they twined and bent into a knotted wall of the encroaching forest. Thereon was no glimpse, no sound, not even the slightest rustle of life. Only the black glare of the wild copse that seemed to mock haughtily his burning limbs and stiff joints.