Poe must die

“Why?”

Sproul’s answer was to spit tobacco juice into his eyes, blinding him, and even as Poe dug his fingertips into the corners of his eyes to stop the burning, he felt pain explode in his left temple from Sproul’s fist. Poe fell to his right, hands still over his eyes but he was staring into the red eye of the sun. His brain was on fire.

Sproul’s voice came to him from far away. “We agreed, you and I, that there would be no treachery on your part. I dealt with you, sir, as one Christian gentleman to another and you repay me with death.”

Poe stared up at Sproul. “Death?”

“Sylvester Pier is dead. Tom Lowery is dead. Someone hired you to deal with us for the corpus of Justin Coltman, but you had no intention of being honorable. Not you Mr. Poe. You were the stalking horse, the pathfinder, the lighthouse that lit the way. He used you to find us and when he found us, he slaughtered my treasured companions.”

“Who hired me? I do not understand.”

“I could pull out your lyin’ tongue and eat it meself.”

“Who?”

“Very well, then. I shall play your little game for a while longer. Not that much longer, poet. Jonathan hired you to find us. He followed you and when he learned our whereabouts he struck.”

Sproul frowned, tongue nervously licking his lips. Jonathan was no human agency, no normal man. But Sproul would triumph over both him and his snot of a servant, E. A. Poe.

Poe said, “I know of no Jonathan.”

“You lie. And do not leave your knees. Stay exactly as you now are. Any attempts at gettin’ to your feet will bring punishment down on you all the sooner. Master Chopback, that gentleman with the axe, he is here to assist and would welcome the chance to apply that instrument in removin’ most of your spine. His name comes from lovingly usin’ his axe on the backs of his enemies. Include yourself as an enemy, Mr. Poe. Chopback and Sylvester Pier were cousins of a sort. Both were lads in County Cork, chasin’ virgins and anxious to avoid dyin’ of starvation, so they come here and now Sylvester no longer has to concern hisself with virgins or a full belly, thanks to you. Chopback is anxious to get his own back, Mr. Poe and that means you are a man facin’ difficulty.”

Hamlet Sproul’s eyes were as hard as buttons, and as empty of feeling. The lunacy in the bearded grave robber was about to manifest itself and the result would be poe’s death. Poe did not want to die.

He said, “I tell you I know of no Jonathan.”

“Your story smells rather tall.” Sproul’s fingers stroked the sheathed bowie knife.

“Tell me why I am to die.”

“You expect me to believe you don’t know. Yes, it is written all over your bloodless face. Very well, poet. We talk, then I shall have your life and laugh about it as a hyena laughs over a dead nigger. Sylvester Pier was topped. Hung until he died but that was not all. His heart was cut out and so was his liver and they was both set fire to. Made a neat little pile of ashes and burned flesh beside his bleedin’ body. Your card was found in the room.”

“My card?”

“None other. The same happened to Tom Lowery, with a difference or two. Poisoned whiskey helped it along, but his heart and liver was removed and burned as well. Throat cut ear to ear and your card was found in his pocket. Your card!”

Sproul’s shout filled the stable. “There never was any hope of us collectin’ ransom, was there? You and Jonathan weaved your little web and you lets us stroll into it. He follows you to us and we die. Well, poet, today you die. We shall pay your respects to your lady friend, that one you was on your way to see.”

Poe pleaded. “I swear to you I had no hand in the death of your two friends. I am not capable of such deeds.”

“I leave it to you” Sproul said, “to make your apologies when you join them in the next world. Yours may not have been the hand on the knife what done ‘em, but yours was the callin’ card found near their mortal remains. And let it be noted that Sylvester Pier and Tom Lowery was breathin’ ’til comin’ upon you. I allow that the actual blood lettin’ is Jonathan’s handiwork for I know only too well that he had his little ways about him.

Sproul pointed a forefinger at Poe who was still on his knees. “But I charge you with leadin’ Jonathan to the killin’ ground and now our talk is done.” He drew the bowie knife from its worn, leather sheath and stepped towards Poe.

Poe leaned back, eyes on the foot long blade. And the fever called living is conquered at last. But he didn’t want to die. He had found Rachel again and he didn’t want to die. To love a beautiful woman was to be alive and Poe loved this beautiful woman.

He saw everything around him in precise detail: the tarnished buttons on Sproul’s coat, a glint of sunlight on the bowie knife’s blade, a pitchfork leaning against a horse’s stall, a saddle resting on a bale of hay and he thought that eternity, which he had so often both longed for and dreaded, should not be as ugly as it now appeared to him. Death should not be this ugly.

Sproul, eyes wide, began to feel sick from fear of Jonathan and somewhere in his mind he wished that he had not attempted to cheat him by stealing Justin Coltman’s body, but the die had been cast, the arrow shot and there was no turning back. Kill Poe. Then run to ground again and pray that Jonathan would not find him as he had found the others.

“Stand! Everybody as you are, if you please! First man what moves a bleedin’ hair gets a ball for his trouble!”

Figg crouched at the top of a ladder leading from the hayloft down to the ground floor, two pocket pistols pointed at Sproul, Chopback and the third man, Isaac Bard.

Poe’s eyes quickly went to his deliverer. He saw a small mountain of a man in black top hat, long black coat and boots, with the face of a monstrous and surly bulldog. The face belonged to someone who ate raw meat with the run still in it. But this specimen of prehistoric man had just pulled Poe back from that greatest of unknowns and Poe accepted his deliverance from death gladly.

He stood up and watched Figg start down the ladder, moving carefully, eyes on the men below him. Figg had never seen a knife like Sproul’s before; the blade was large enough to be melted down for cannon if a man had a mind to. The one called Chopback had his axe and the third man showed no weapon, which was not a reason for Figg to play him cheap. The boxer knew that staying alive in the world meant treating all men as capable of removing you from it.

Poe used the sleeve of his greatcoat to wipe the remainder of the tobacco juice from his face. He’d never seen Bulldog Face before and insofar as he could remember had never done him a good turn. So why was he racing to Poe’s rescue?

Sproul continued to chew his tobacco, never taking his eyes from Figg as the boxer slowly made his way down the ladder. “You ain’t the stable boy, I’m thinkin’.”

“Ain’t your Aunt Nelly neither. You would be doin’ yourself a favor if you were to drop that cuttin’ tool you are holdin’. Must be a most heavy burden for such a slight fella as yourself.”

“Does what I tell it.”

“Tell it to lie on the ground. I will not be askin’ you agin.”

Sproul opened his fingers, dropping the huge knife to the ground.

Stopping his descent, Figg said, “Mr. Poe, there is a stable door in front of you direct. Use it, if you please. Outside you will find a worried lookin’ gentleman in a carriage pulled by a rather sad lookin’ bay horse. Introduce yourself and be tellin’ him I sent you.”

Poe bent over to pick up his hat and stick. Removing himself from this society of homicidal imbeciles would be his pleasure; let them all devour one another. Let them bathe in each other’s blood.

Chopback made his move. No one was going to cheat him out of what he’d come here for. He was a small, black-bearded man with the widely spaced, pop eyes of a frog and using his axe on those he hated made him feel as tall as anyone walking the earth. Chopback, who had swung the blade of his axe into the backs of a tidy number of men, thought of his dead cousin Sylvester Pier and the ugly death that had been his thanks to Mr. Poe and Chopback lifted his short-handled axe high over his head.

Figg extended one arm and fired.