These Honored Dead (A Lincoln and Speed Mystery #1) - Jonathan F. Putnam Page 0,20

her bare skin had been like putting my hand over a flaming candle—unbearably hot yet irresistible. But I knew there was no way to resume our prior relationship. Inexorably, the cold-hearted machinery of time only moves forward, never backward.

I felt her starting to stir.

“Rebecca . . . ,” I began.

“You’re not going to ask me to marry again, are you?” she said, smiling.

I shook my head. “I’m worried about your safety out here, alone. Someone killed Lilly. Who’s to say they’re not coming for Jesse next? Or you, for that matter.”

“If anything happens, I’m prepared,” she said. “If it was anyone but you in the barn this afternoon, I would have gladly pulled the trigger. But there’s not going to be a next time. Whoever came for Lilly came specifically for her. They don’t pose a threat to me or Jesse.”

“How can you be sure?”

“She was my niece.” Rebecca’s eyes flashed in anger. “You never knew her. In truth, I saw a lot of me in her. Just two weeks before she was killed, the three of us had ridden into Springfield for supplies. I kept Jesse with me while Lilly wandered around. Springfield was the largest city she’d ever seen. She asked me afterward about this business and that. She was trying to figure out the aspects of the town’s economy and resources for herself.”

“You must have had to pay off all their remaining debts to redeem them from the poorhouse,” I said. “How did you manage, especially these days?”

“I managed,” Rebecca said simply. “My ledger’s remained decently firm. Fewer and fewer people are paying in cash, of course, but the private drafts I’ve had to take have held up in value pretty well.

“Lilly was very aware of my situation,” she added. “I imagine she was afraid of ending up back in the poorhouse. When we came home from Springfield that day, she assured me she’d earn enough money to pay her and Jesse’s expenses. I don’t think she had the first idea how, but surely she wished it’d be so.”

Thinking back to the village fair the previous summer, I felt confident Lilly would have been skilled in contributing financially to Rebecca’s household had she lived.

“Let me help you,” I said. “Send some customers your way, perhaps, or give you some goods to sell on consignment. I know you must be low on capital.”

“I’ll manage on my own, Joshua,” she said. “Always have.”

“But—”

She put her finger over my lips and let me kiss it without protest. But when I moved to embrace her more fully, she pulled away and started adjusting her petticoat and fixing its laces. I had a final, fleeting glimpse of the softness of her breasts before they disappeared beneath the many folds of her garment. And without further congress, we parted.

CHAPTER 9

The following Monday morning, I sat opposite Lincoln at the heavily scarred common table in the dim public room of the Globe Tavern, waiting for the innkeeper Saunders to bring us our breakfast. The Globe was a ramshackle two-story building that stood around the corner from our lodgings. There were a number of finer places to eat in Springfield, but none was more convenient.

Lincoln held the back page of the Sangamo Journal close to his nose as he scanned the small-type columns of legal notices—estates being probated, land sales, tax rolls, debtors’ auctions.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

“Employment,” he said, his head still buried in the paper. “All these people need lawyers. A few might even be able to pay for one. I’d be overjoyed to collect a debt for a three-dollar hog.”

“I suppose this hasn’t been the most favorable time to commence law practice.”

Lincoln gave a short laugh and put down the paper. “No, indeed,” he said, a lopsided smile creasing his face. “Logan might have warned me, when he was extolling the virtues of Springfield, that a financial panic was coming. Reminds me of a farmer I knew up in New Salem. He’d go on and on about how juicy his peaches were. The man would not shut up about his peaches. Ah, here we go.”

Saunders had finally arrived with breakfast. He set down on the table between us a battered metal plate containing several rashers of ham, sausages, boiled potatoes, bread and butter, and two large mugs of coffee. Lincoln and I took up our knives and dug in.

“Of course,” Lincoln said after he’d wolfed down a few bites, “that farmer in New Salem? He forgot to mention he’d cut