Smoke appeared from beneath the hammer and from the barrel of his six-inch pocket pistol and two seconds later, there was a neat, round hole over Chopback’s left eyebrow. Dead on his feet, the frog-eyed little man dropped the axe behind him, falling backwards and on top of it.
The four horses in the stable-like all horses of that time-were not trained to accept gunfire. These horses whinnied, shied, kicked against the stalls and one pulled his bridle free and backed out in a panic; his movements increased the fear and uncertainty among the other three and all crashed against their stall. It was the first one, a black with a shiny coat and white, thunder-boltlike streak running from eyes to nose, who backed out of his stall and into the ladder Figg stood on, sending the boxer flying, causing him to drop both pistols.
Poe’s heart sank as Figg hit the ground, but the boxer leaped to his feet-empty handed-and sidestepped the frightened horse.
All of the horses now backed out of their stalls and milled around the center of the stable where Poe, his would-be killers and would-be rescuer were. To avoid being trampled to death, Poe ducked into an empty stall. There was no back door to the stable and between Poe and the front door were three dangerous men and four terrified horses. It was necessary to absent himself from this precarious ground but how? On his knees, he peeked out of a stall and saw Hamlet Sproul snatch up his bowie knife, then leap backwards to avoid a galloping horse. He saw Isaac Bard pull the axe from under the dead Chopback and he saw the two of them direct their full attentions to Poe’s deliverer, the man with the bulldog’s face.
Isaac Bard was a gray, squat fifty-year-old who was trying to hang on in the dangerous underworld of Five Points and the Bowery, an underworld controlled by the tough, young Irish. Bard was a member of “The Dead Rabbits,” the most vicious Irish gang in Five Points, a gang that wore a red stripe down the side of their pants and carried a dead rabbit into battle stuck on a pike. Isaac Bard hired himself out as often as he could; for a dollar he had agreed to be Hamlet Sproul’s man for as long as it took to deal with Master E. A. Poe. Bard could neither read nor write, so the fact that Master Poe was a man of letters was lost on him. The scribbler was only a day’s work; that work meant taking his life.
Poe’s throat was tight with fear. His rescuer was trapped between a panicked, whinnying horse and two armed men, each holding cold steel. The bulldog had only empty hands, not enough to keep both him and Poe alive.
Poe saw the bulldog quickly crouch, pick up the ladder he’d just fallen from and, gripping it tightly in both hands, charge Sproul and Bard, hitting both men simultaneously, driving them back, back. Both men went down and Figg dropped the ladder on top of them.
Poe watched the violence with total concentration, fascinated by it, attaching himself to it completely and losing himself in it so that he became one with all three men. Violence had always lured him and now he succumbed to it, on his feet so that he could better view the life and death drama being played solely for him.
He watched Isaac Bard die.
Bard, flat on his back, kept his grip on the axe but he was slower than Figg, whose life had been a study of combat. Isaac Bard rolled to his left side, one hand gripping the axe, the other against the ground to push himself to his feet.
His head was waist high when Figg, standing in front of him, placed both hands behind Bard’s head and pulled it down hard into his raised knee. Poe heard Bard sigh as though drifting into sleep. Bard, his nose crushed, panicked at the horrible hurt exploding in his face; he panicked because he could no longer breathe. Poe saw the axe fall, but he also saw that Figg didn’t let go of Bard’s head.
With his left hand on the top of the gray-haired man’s head, Figg cupped the man’s chin with his right hand and savagely twisted the head as though turning a wheel. Figg snapped Isaac Bard’s neck, killing him. To Poe, what he had just seen had the beauty and grace of dance. He watched with fascination as Figg dropped Bard’s limp body and Poe wondered what it would be like to lay your bare hands on a man and kill him with such arrogant ease.
Poe cringed, recoiling as Sproul, keeping the bowie knife low, inched towards Figg.
A horse reared up on its hind legs. Poe’s eyes went to it, to the closed stable door. To get out of the stable he had to pass Hamlet Sproul and the bulldog, who no longer wore his tall black hat. Bulldog’s head, crudely shorn of whatever hair nature had seen fit to bless it with, was visible and of no beauty worth mentioning. His face was enough to scare the whole of purgatory. But he did not back up as Sproul slithered towards him like some stalking lizard. Bulldog had courage. Grant him that before he died.
The stable door slid open and sunlight entered suddenly, forcing Poe to close his eyes. When he opened them, the horses had fled out onto Fifth Avenue where they kicked up snow as they ran. There was a silhouette in the doorway and Poe narrowed his eyes and focused on it.
“Mr. Figg! Mr. Figg, are you safe, sir! I heard a shot and there was an awful noise from the horses throwing themselves against the door.” In the doorway, Titus Bootham shaded his eyes and looked into the stable.
Hamlet Sproul stopped, both hands on the bowie knife, arms extended in front of him. His voice broke with fear. “Jonathan sent you.”
Figg shook his head.
Sproul shrieked, “You lie! You are here to kill me!” He began backing away from Figg. “You will not burn my heart or nothin’ else that is inside of me. You will not burn-”
He turned and ran.
Poe watched him flee through the wide open stable door, not pausing to even glance at the short man who stood there in steel-rimmed spectacles and a black bear fur coat.
Poe closed his eyes and his body shook. He was cold with fear, suddenly aware of a massive evil in his life, of being caught in a quicksand of events over which he had no control.
Without knowing why, Poe sensed that Jonathan was very much a danger and could destroy him. The darkness that Jonathan carried with him was not that unleashed by Poe on the printed page. It was something real and never too far away and all of this Poe sensed in the seconds he stood in the stable with closed eyes.
When he opened his eyes, the bulldog and his short friend in the bear coat stood before him.
Poe’s eyes met Figg’s. The writer said softly, “Are you from Jonathan?”
Figg said, “I come to kill him.”
Poe nodded. He was not surprised.
He watched Figg slip the two pistols into the outside pockets of his long black coat.
There was no need for Poe to remain here any longer. “I thank you for saving my life. I wish there was something further I could do-”
“There is.”
“I am in your debt, Mr.-”
“Figg. Pierce James Figg. I seek your aid in finding Jonathan. I have here in my possession, a letter of introduction from-”
Poe closed his eyes and shook his head. “I fear you mistake me for someone else.”
“You are Edgar Allan Poe and I have here in my possession, a letter-”
Fear brought on Poe’s anger. “I have some small curiosity, Mr. Figg, as to how you made my acquaintance without my having made yours.”
“We ain’t been introduced if that is where you are placin’ your words.”
Titus Bootham plucked at Figg’s sleeve. “May I suggest we continue this conversation elsewhere, as I am afraid we may soon draw servants seeking an explanation regarding the disappearance of four excellent horses. Oh, Mr. Figg, dare I ask. Are those two men-” he pointed to Isaac Bard and Chopback, “are they-”
Figg kept staring at Poe. “They are. Mr. Poe-”
Poe feared the unseen Jonathan and he wanted nothing to do with this Figg who hunted him. “I have no interest in your letter of introduction even were it signed by Aristotle and witnessed by Shakespeare and the
