Marc Olden - Poe must die

Bruenhausen’s rocking was slow and deliberate. Menacing. “My rod and my staff, Englishman.” Bruenhausen reached for his own neck with a hairy hand.

“Look at them,” he said. “Abandoned urchins who know no loyalty save that which I have placed in their hearts and minds. No one dares challenge me so long as the little ones are around. Some are as young as five, none over fifteen and I own them, Englishman. Own them body and soul and it is for fear and love of me that they will deal with you. You will not be the first to feel their wrath. When I clap my hands together-”

He stopped rocking, hands poised in front of his chest and only inches apart. “Twice. That is the signal. And afterwards, we shall see if you are carrying anything of value. Dearborn?”

“Yes, Mr. Bruenhausen?”

“You shall watch your friends be chastised.”

“Yes, Mr. Bruenhausen.” Dearborn always did as she was told.

The Dutchman adjusted the tiny black spectacles which hid his sightless eyes. “I owe you, Mr. Edgar Allan meddlin’ Poe, and a debt should always be paid. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and so it is written. As for your English friend, I do not enjoy his manners.”

The Dutchman’s smile was cruel as he lifted hands from his lap and his hands were again in front of his chest and inches apart when Figg pulled the trigger on the flintlock, firing through his coat pocket, briefly setting fire to the cloth and sending a ball through both of the Dutchman’s hands.

Bruenhausen screamed, jerking backwards in the rocking chair, sending it over and down to the floor. Now he was in the straw and dirt, arms crossed in front of his chest, blood pouring down the back and front of both hands.

“JesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesus, oh dear JesusJesusJesus!” His tiny black spectacles dangled from one ear as he twitched with pain.

The advantage was Figg’s and he used it.

Spinning quickly around to face the children, Figg removed the other flintlock from his pocket. His coat still smoked from the first shot. “Only one ball. Well, ’oo wants it? Come on you murderin’ little buggers, ’oo wants to die!”

The boxer’s bulldog face was terrifying. Poe had never seen him look this frightening and it was easy to imagine the forces that had gone to create a Pierce James Figg over the years. There was a fierceness in the man that belonged to a trapped animal determined to kill or be killed. The boxer appeared to have accepted death and therefore no longer feared it.

His bold action had snatched away any initiative the children might have had. And Wade Bruenhausen lay in agony on the floor, unable to command or threaten.

Figg said, “You, Dearborn. Step over ‘ere and mind you do it carefully. Killin’s a man’s job and if anyone of you wants to try me, I will prove to you that this is so. I will kill one of you immediately and after that I will use a knife and me fists on the rest. More than one of you will die before I will and that is a fact.”

The children hesitated. Dearborn stepped over to Poe who put an arm around her, his eyes darting from Figg to the children and back again. Violence hung around the boxer like mist around a high mountain peak. Poe held his breath. The children were capable of anything; children like these had killed before.

But they had never seen Pierce James Figg before.

He said, “Get the bleedin’ ’ell outta here, all of you. Go on, hop it!”

He took a step forward and they turned and ran.

Bruenhausen lay in front of the fireplace, trembling with the incredible pain and continually repeating the name of Jesus.

Figg walked over to him. “Do not come for the child, Dutchman. If you do, I will ‘ave your life. You got me word on that. It is Pierce James Figg who tells you he will do for you if you seek the lass.”

Bruenhausen spoke through clenched teeth. “Jesus will strike you down. Jesus will come for you.”

“Best you not be with ‘im when he shows.”

Figg lifted his foot to stomp Bruenhausen and that’s when Poe shouted, “Mr. Figg!”

Figg gently put his foot down to the floor, eyes on a frightened Bruenhausen.

The boxer dropped a gold sovereign on the procurer’s bloody shirt front. “Use it fer a gravestone, for if I see you again, that is what you’ll be needin’.”

Hugh Larney ordered Thor to follow the doctor who had treated Sarah Clannon’s wound back to New York and kill him. Kill him in New York, not here.

Larney, with Thor standing behind him like some huge, dark shadow, forced himself to smile through the front window of the small country house at the doctor, who placed his black bag on the seat of his carriage before climbing up himself. Once seated, the doctor leaned out of the carriage, waving to Larney who waved back.

Thor’s brown eyes, spaced far apart, watched the two carriage horses lean forward in knee high snow, lifting their hooves to their chests, large nostrils snorting steam in the winter cold.

“Why do you not kill the doctor here? I think it save time.”

Larney let the green lace curtain fall back into place. He was angry at Edgar Allan Poe, for it was Poe who had made it necessary to have the doctor murdered. Damn Poe’s eyes!

“You heard the doctor’s words. He is treating Rachel Coltman who is in delicate health as a result of her misadventure with Hamlet Sproul. She does not sleep well; she dreams of unending horror, we are told. And who sits mooning at her bedside like a lamb bleating for its mother? Poe.”

Larney began pacing back and forth. “Did not the healing physician confess that he has talked with Poe this very day and how worried our literary friend is about his lady fair. Dear doctor expects to be asked once again to look in upon widow Coltman and when that happens, he will surely find Poe clutching her hand. A casual conversation may ensue and dear doctor may mention that he has paid a visit to my small country home to treat a woman for a pistol wound. This talk may transpire and it may not, but I cannot afford to sit idly by and have it occur. I am faced with cleaning up after Jonathan, for it was he who sent Sarah Clannon to Poe cottage where she received a ball in her side.”

“And so dear Thor, of the hammer fists, you will prevent dear doctor from having words with that little scum E. A. Poe. You will prevent said scum from tracing Sarah Clannon here to me. I wish to confront Poe and his lumpish friend on my terms and when I choose. The two of them have probably called at my Fifth Avenue home; it is unlikely that they will seek me at the abandoned farm.”

“Which leaves this country retreat, a welcomed part of my secret land holdings. Let the doctor be disposed of in Manhattan, where one more crime statistic will go unnoticed in a city rampant with such numbers.”

Thor nodded, rubbing his right fist. He understood. “They find the doctor not come back to New York, they come here. He die in New York, nobody come here.” He grinned, thick purple lips spreading across his wide, black face.

“You are not obliged to think,” said Larney, “But it is gratifying that on those rare occasions when you do so, it is constructive. Yes, dear Thor, that is why dear doctor dies on familiar ground. Let the matter be pursued there rather than here. He will be mourned. I shall be among the mourners.”

Thor looked at the window. “I go now. He be far enough in front of me and soon it will be dark.”

Larney stopped pacing. He looked down at his trembling hands. Sarah Clannon. Barely alive. Jonathan had charged him with seeing she did not die.

Poe. An omnipresent fungus. Well, Poe had held his last casual conversation with dear doctor. Sarah Clannon. Poe. Jonathan. So much to worry about. So much to fear.