Fitzgerald handed Nolan his second pistol. The code did undeniably call for two passes should either principal demand it.
“Colonel Bell, prepare to receive Lieutenant Nolan’s second volley.”
Bell considered the situation. Though Nolan looked like he might use his pistol instantly, the colonel did not consider Fitzgerald and a raving, wounded maniac a match for six of his friends. Bell’s expression changed when he surveyed the men standing by his carriage. They were solemn and unanimous in their opinion that the affair was not finished.
“Colonel Bell,” Fitzgerald barked, “arm yourself.”
“You are not serious,” Bell sputtered. “This matter is concluded. I am satisfied.”
“I am not,” wheezed Nolan. Blood dripped from his shirt and blotted his trousers.
“Judge Macon, do something.”
“Two passes are stipulated, Colonel,” Macon said firmly. “It is what honor requires.”
Fitzgerald said, “We are in earnest, sir. Return to the field.”
Bell took a step backward, and Fitzgerald lifted his saber. “Stand your ground, sir, or by God I will strike you down.”
“Fitzgerald, for Christ’s sake, stop this farce,” Bell stammered. “Goddamn it, Nolan. Our affair is settled.”
“It is not, you sack of shit,” Nolan rasped. Using both hands, he managed to pull back the hammer of his pistol.
Macon came slowly forward and pressed a second pistol into Bell’s hand.
“Ready your weapon, Colonel Bell,” Fitzgerald intoned. He used his sword point to lift the handkerchief from the grass, and Bell hurriedly snapped back the hammer of his weapon.
“This is insane,” Bell spit. “It is simple murder.”
“Gentlemen, to your places,” said Fitzgerald.
At the other end of the field Macon whispered something to Bell, then walked slowly back toward the carriage, obviously taking his time. Bell narrowed his eyes at his adversary; Nolan presented an unsteady, perhaps even defenseless target—he had yet to raise his pistol. Bell turned smoothly sideways, placed his feet with deliberation, lifted his weapon, and aimed exactly at the livid stain on Nolan’s shirt.
Panting, unsteady on his feet, Nolan’s world had become a constricting circle of agony. He could see Bell only through a wavering blur of pain.
“Colonel Bell, are you ready?”
“I am.”
There was a banshee’s howl in Nolan’s ears.
“Lieutenant Nolan, are you ready?”
Struggling to lift his pistol, Nolan did not answer.
“Mister Nolan?” Fitzgerald repeated.
“Yes, goddamn it,” he grunted. “Finish it.”
Fitzgerald lifted the kerchief. “Présent.”
Nolan saw Fitzgerald’s lips move, and in a strange elongation of time he watched the handkerchief flutter toward the ground. He never heard the command to fire. There were simultaneous flashes of orange light, and gun smoke roiled across the meadow. Bell’s shot trilled past Nolan’s ear and went away through the trees, cracking at twigs and bark. Nolan’s ball traveled flat and straight, struck Bell above his right eye, and blew off the top of his head.
Nolan staggered backward, and the pistol dropped from his hand. Folded by heaving agony, he toppled onto the seat of his pants. As pain closed its fists around him, blood pooled under Nolan’s tongue in thick, salty mouthfuls. Arms crossed and legs drawn up, Nolan rolled onto his side and a low groan rumbled in his throat.
Fitzgerald knelt and bundled him into his arms. Light was coming over the trees now, and it seemed suddenly and unbearably bright. Across the meadow, one of Bell’s men placed a cape over the colonel’s shattered, lopsided face. Oddly, his spectacles were still perched on the end of his nose.
Nolan coughed and felt his body going strangely numb. Fitzgerald held his friend, horrified to see blood pooling in the dirt beneath them.
Nolan whispered, “Hold me, Fitz. Hold me. Now I am surely killed.”
COLONEL BELL’S CORPSE WAS HURRIED BACK TO RICHMOND IN HIS FINE coach and four, though the reason for such dispatch was not obvious. News of the duel reached Doctor Rikard Kosinski in the breakfast room of the Union Hotel, and he mounted and rode south. He met Wendell Fitzgerald leading Nolan’s horse and a hay wagon near the Chimborazo Hill. Kosinski found Nolan sprawled on a carpet of filthy straw and at first judged him mortally wounded. Fitzgerald asked a tavern owner if Nolan might be taken to a bed. For various reasons the proprietor found this not convenient, and Nolan was trundled another several miles through cobbled streets to his room at the St. Charles. That Nolan survived this journey, and eventually his wound, was to be the last bit of luck that would ever attend him.
After some difficulty Doctor Kosinski managed to draw the ball from Nolan’s chest; in a long career as a surgeon, he had never known a man to survive such a wound, but kept this prognosis to himself. Weeping, Lorina was allowed to sit at Nolan’s bedside, but he did not open his eyes. While Nolan hovered near death, Fitzgerald and Judge Macon composed a joint statement for the newspapers, as was part of their duties. It was not surprising that they did not see eye to eye on the particulars.
When their letter appeared the next day in the Richmond Intelligencer, an attached, anonymous commentary skewed the events in Bell’s favor. The colonel’s lapsed marksmanship gave rise to a myth that he had attempted to spare Nolan’s life—though every man on the field that morning saw Bell aim and fire precisely. A separate obituary mentioned Bell’s “arduous and dangerous” service during the Revolutionary War. Forgotten utterly was Bell’s shared disgrace with the coward General Gates and his loitering attachment for the rest of the war to Thomas Jefferson’s staff in Charlottesville.
Bell’s funeral took place on a Friday, and many of the businesses in the city were obliged to close their doors. There were muffled drums, and a pair of house slaves dressed in white turbans and green pantaloons sat atop the hearse. A groom in a powdered wig led his master’s horse with boots reversed in the stirrups. Some found it particularly affecting that a young mulatto girl carried the colonel’s spectacles on a satin pillow. The cortege included many of Richmond’s persons of quality, but the route to Trinity Church was not thronged with onlookers. Colonel Bell’s firmness as a businessman and punctuality as a landlord were well established among the working class. Some of Richmond’s citizens could not appreciate Colonel Bell’s qualities with the same esteem as the moneylenders and plantation owners who were his relations and friends.
Nolan lay two days in a coma, tended around the clock by Doctor Kosinski, Alden Fitzgerald, and Lorina Rutledge. He woke in the middle part of the third morning, almost cheerful but in great pain. The windows were thrown open and the room was made airy, a particular tenet of Kosinski’s unique ideas of the practice of physic. Nolan was prevailed upon to take some barley water and a salted egg. After taking them he showed every sign of improvement, and during the day Lorina read aloud and Alden spoke quietly to him. Nolan lay listening, and sometimes he would smile and look at Lorina with his eyes half closed. Occasionally he answered with a word or two and sometimes a sigh. On the fourth night, the pain overwhelmed him; Nolan slipped again into unconsciousness, and his fever reached a new and dangerous peak.
In delirium Nolan poured out the secrets of his soul. Some of what he said was meaningless fever talk, but some of it was the