Tull Wexford's Letter

Tull Wexford's Letter

       by King of the Jube Jubes

                        i loped into town

                        for to have a go round

                        and there saw my jane

                        with that huckleb'ry clown

           

                        i drove them down

                        kissed her lily crown

                        now i'm san quentin bound

                        for another go round

The Ides of April, 1858

Not far from Nachos, two miles east and three and a half north, in a cemetery lined with lime trees and cicada shrub green like kale, lie the remains of the great General James A. Walingsford who, seconded to the Confederates, died in the war at Getterferd. I visited there many, many years ago when I was a young man unaccustomed to myself. Now, lying here in melancholy, comfortable but indisposed, I write you this letter with the story of his famous daughter as it was told to me so long ago in a chance encounter with a stranger at his graveside. Ah, my old friend, you would not so readily wish for glory at the hands of fey or elf if you knew what I know, I say with some greater understanding than you have achieved of military matters, as I am sure you will grant me

       The stranger related thus to me. "I had come to see my uncle Lansford, the grandson of a respected Confederate officer, recipient of the America Cross for bravery and daring at Getterferd. He had requested my visit on 'some important business,' as he put it to me in a telegram, without specifying its nature. As I hoped for some recognition in his will and knowing him to be infirm and likely on his deathbed, I forthwith booked passage on a coach and sped to his side.

       "He no sooner saw me but fell to weeping and, reaching his hand toward me, indicated that I come to embrace him. He whispered to me to reach under the bed and fetch forth a box. The room being dark in the extreme, I had difficulty seeing at all. Must and mold assaulted my nostrils and dust made me sneeze. I extracted the container and passed it to him. He asked, almost inaudibly, for me to open it and this procedure I managed with a key from his neck. Inside lay a letter and another key. These he passed to me with trembling hands and every indication of perturbation, nay, fear, for he cast his eyes continuously back and forth about the room as if expecting an interruption. Then he fell asleep with such suddenness that for a moment I guessed he had given up his spirits altogether.

       "He had a daughter, a lithesome thing who spent many hours on field and in wood. I had not seen her since I wore knee-highs in boyhood. Even then I adored her. Now, petite as she was at sixteen and given to fun and frolicsome behavior, she again charmed all my senses. I sat down with a glass of tea and read the letter. In it I saw to my immediate horror an announcement of love and a request for a rendezvous with Jane from someone with the salubrious surname of Suggs to be made in a cemetery no great distance from the spot that my poor uncle now inhabits. The letter was signed, 'I, Suggs, am affectionately yours, for all time, for all occasions, for every moment.' I noted the time and date of the anticipated tryst and determined that I would be there that night to intercept them and prevent their congruence. I do not recall what madness compelled me to engage so precipitously in another's business, but I now guess, lying here as I pen this sad confession to you, that my own foolish youthfulness did so.

       "On the appointed evening, never thinking to carry a weapon, I arrived at the cemetery and placed myself in the shrubbery. Precisely at midnight, as per the letter, a figure dressed all in white and shimmering in the moonlight approached on lightsome foot.  A moment later, out of the woods to her left with terrible suddenness leapt a swarthy personage of terrible visage dressed all in black. He held a great stick and rapidly made his way toward whom I could only surmise was my cousin Jane. He came, he stood before her, and lo, he raised his stick in anger and brought it down with ferocious power upon her head. At the last moment she threw up her arm in defense and it took upon itself the savageness of a blow that otherwise would surely have ended her life on earth.

       "The murderer raised his weapon for the second time to finish what he had begun. With a terrible roar that diverted him from his intention, I rose and crossed the distance between us in less time than it takes a duck to pluck up a caper. I had in rising grasped a large stone from the ground. Now, in a trice, I flung the miscreant bodily to the ground, (being myself of no mean size and strength). He stabbed upwards yat me with his cudgel and would yet have prevented my success. But, in an instant I brought my stone down on his skull with such great force that he, thanks be to our creator, breathed no more and would not till the moment when a better judge than I will bring him before the all-seeing in eternity.

       "Ah, the vistigicies of human kind. Oh, the misfortunes of love. Fright and melancholy deprived me of my senses then. When I awoke I found myself in an infirmary in the house of the very woman I knew I loved and the man who had summoned me there with such lucky coincidence. To make short a long story, I recovered, Jane became my bride, we kept all hush-hush, the police failed to discover the perpetrator of the crime (he, however, being well-known to them), we removed back here to Bradsford, North Dakota, and we two lived happily together there till death and old age took my lovely one from me."

       More will follow my good old friend. Just now a sudden faintness overwhelms me. I shall rest and regain what fortitude our Savior will grant me.  I long for your company and shall certainly ride out to see you when I am once again able. Sincerely, and with trust in your discretion, I am as always, yours,

Tull Wexford,

Macolm County, N.D.