Yankee in Atlanta

by Jocelyn Green

  As they drew near to his home, she finally spoke. “Who is she?”

  “Papa!” The door on his white, black-shuttered plantation plain home slammed shut behind Analiese. She flew out onto the columned porch, braids streaming out behind her. Rascal, his coonhound, loped in her wake, his tail wagging his rear end. “You’re home!”

  Noah slowed the carriage to a halt in the boxwood-lined drive, and when Ana came close enough, he swung her up onto his lap before reaching down to scratch Rascal behind the ears. Ana’s forget-me-not-blue eyes sparkled as she wiggled down between him and Caitlin on the bench.

  “Yes, Dear Heart, and I’ve brought a friend. Analiese, this is Miss Caitlin McKae. Miss McKae, this is Analiese. My daughter.”

  Caitlin’s gaze flashed over his bare ring finger, but mercifully, she did not ask for an explanation.

  “Pleased to meet you. I am seven years old and I am missing two things. Can you guess what they are?” Ana grinned broadly.

  “Let me see now.” Caitlin tapped her finger to her chin.

  “I’ll give you a hint. It rhymes with ‘beeth’!”

  “Oh!” Caitlin threw her hands in the air. “Then it must be … a wreath!”

  “No …” Ana shook her head.

  “No? How about a sheath?”

  Ana giggled.

  “Not a sheath, then. Hmmm. What else rhymes with beeth … Meeth? Seeth? Leeth? Why, do you know, Analiese, that I am missing all of those things myself? I have no idea what they even are!”

  Laughter bubbled out of Ana as she rocked back against Noah. “Teeth! Teeth! See?”

  Caitlin’s eyes widened as she studied the gap-toothed smile. “I do see! One smile minus two teeth. Now if only you were missing an eye as well, you could wear a patch and look just like a pirate.”

  Ana squeezed one eye shut and grimaced. “Like the pirates in Robinson Crusoe? Like this?”

  Caitlin’s eyebrows lifted. She raised her eyes to meet Noah’s gaze and said: “Yes.” Her smile hitched in his throat. She had given him her answer.

  He planted a kiss on Ana’s pecan-colored hair and without turning to face him, she patted his knee while chattering on to Caitlin. She smelled of sunshine and magnolia petals and innocence. She was the best part of his life.

  And he was leaving her.

  New York City

  Monday, July 13, 1863

  The city seemed far away as Aiden pointed happily at the fluffy sheep grazing in Central Park. Ruby smiled and let him stumble ahead of her. Green grass was far more merciful to a wee lad’s knees than were the cobblestones and sidewalks in their own neighborhood. And not a lamppost in sight. For if there were, Aiden would certainly careen right into it.

  She watched him for a signal that he had run off enough energy to justify going home. The sun had licked the dew from the ground already, and Aiden’s curls were beginning to cling to the nape of his neck.

  Her mind wandered to the work awaiting her at the brownstone. She needed to iron the apple-green promenade gown she’d just finished sewing for Mrs. Kurtz before she arrived later today to pick it up. And with four flounces on the skirt, it will take some doing. Ruby had to make sure the gown was absolutely perfect. Mrs. Kurtz had four daughters, all of whom appreciated well-made clothing. If she could please Mrs. Kurtz, more business was sure to follow.

  Before becoming a domestic, Ruby had been a needlewoman who sewed shirtsleeves for Davis & Company. Since working for Caroline Waverly, however, she had tried her hand at sewing complete custom gowns when her domestic duties were complete. Her first gown, created for Caroline, had been a remarkable imitation of a fashion plate in Godey’s Lady’s Book, which quickly generated orders from several of Caroline’s friends. This week, with her employer gone to Gettysburg, perhaps Ruby could finish at least two of them. The more she could store up for Aiden’s education, the better. He would be the first in her family to have any, cost her what it may. She was no stranger to sacrifice.

  “Almost time to go, Aiden. Can you say goodbye to the sheep? What does a sheep say?”

  “Moo!”

  “Close.”

  Ruby turned her head toward the voice and smiled to see Edward driving his horse and buggy toward them, his hair at odds with the breeze that riffled through it.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here!” Ruby bent to hold Aiden’s hand as Edward climbed down from the buggy. And she certainly never expected to see him in public without his hat. “Is something the matter?”

  He shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand and scanned the park. “Not that I can see.”

  Ruby’s lips quirked up. “Tell that to your neck.” Dark pink blotches had bloomed on his fair skin.

  Edward’s hand flew to his throat for a moment, then dropped in apparent resignation. “It is not my most fetching characteristic, granted.” He shook his head. “How much better would it be if, occasionally, I grew large biceps instead of large splotches the very color of peonies?” Edward curled a fist over his shoulder and frowned.

  Ruby hid her laughter behind her hand, but the gleam in his eyes told her it was exactly the response he wanted. Though he was a learned man, and far above her social class, he always set her at ease.

  “Up, up!” Aiden pulled on her skirts.

  Edward knelt down beside him, plucked a white-blossomed wildflower from the grass, and placed it in the boy’s chubby hand. “Now, give that to your mother,” he whispered, and scooped Aiden up, propping him on his hip. Aiden held out the tiny flower, and Ruby took it.

  “Thank you.” Ruby smiled, knowing full well the poor thing would be wilted beyond redemption by the time they arrived home.

  “His idea. Headed home?”

  “Aye.”

  “Good. Keep the omnibus fare, I’ll take you myself.”

  “But you just arrived! Didn’t you?”

  “I’ve seen enough. Come, there is room on the bench for all of us. But I’ll need this one to help me drive.” Edward bounced Aiden on his hip and the baby gurgled with delight.

  Once seated on the plush leather bench with Aiden settled on Edward’s lap, Ruby drank in the scent of freshly mown grass. Birdsong flitted through the air as the buggy wound its way through the Green and the Playground, around the Pond and along the wooded Promontory until exiting through the southeast Scholar’s Gate. It was not a leisurely pace.

  “Thank you, Aiden. Now, back to your mama.” Ruby guided Aiden’s chubby legs over to her own lap and noticed Edward’s smile was tight. He drove Justus a little faster than usual, and his gaze constantly roved the periphery.

  “Are you worried about your father being home alone?” she tried.

  “Hm? Oh. No, Schaefer is capable.” Ah yes. Ruby had forgotten Edward shared the nursing duties with his father’s manservant.

  Suddenly, his jaw set as he stared straight ahead. Then she heard it, too.

  “Fighting? On Fifth Avenue?” Ruby looked around, bewildered. She’d grown used to these scenes along the Bowery and in Five Points. But in midtown Manhattan? She clutched Aiden closer. “What’s happening?”

  “I was afraid of this. Hang on.” He snapped the reins above Justus, and the buggy lurched over a broken cobblestone. “I think it’s coming from a few blocks east of here, at the provost marshal’s office. Just need to get past it and get you home.”

  “What? Please tell me, what’s going on?”

  Edward flattened his lips. “Lincoln’s draft. They’ve drawn names, you see, to force men to refill the Union’s dwindling ranks. They were in the papers over the weekend. Many of those selected come from working-class families. Many of them are Irish. They can’t afford to pay the three hundred dollars it would take to buy their way out.”

  “Oh no.”

  Edward nodded. “That’s what they thought. But that’s not the end of it.” He sighed. “Black men are exempt.” He glanced at her. “They can volunteer in colored regiments, but they won’t be drafted.”

  Dread knotted in Ru
by’s chest. The tensions between her people and the free blacks had been simmering for years. Free blacks complained that Irish immigrants were replacing them in the service trades—domestic servants, dock and railroad laborers, and more. The Irish felt themselves to be considered lower in the social strata than former slaves and clamored to climb over them. If blacks were exempt from the military draft and Irishmen were sent away, the jobs would go to the black community.

  “They will want blood for this.” Aiden squirmed in her lap but she held him firm. Pushing down the rising swell of fear, however, proved to be far more difficult.

  “I pray not. But I fear it’s likely.”

  Edward strained to see what was happening up ahead. Lord, help us. Protect them. Show me the way. Wasn’t that always his recurring prayer? War had taught him that God didn’t always show him the way around trials. Sometimes, He showed him the way through them.

  Justus whinnied and twitched his mane as the phaeton approached a crowded intersection. Too crowded. “All right, boy, let’s find another way.” But just as Edward began to wheel the buggy around, a tide of men came rushing up from the cross street behind them. They were the men who kept the city going. Brawny men, corded with muscles and streaked with grime. They had poured their sweat into the railroads, machine shops, shipyards, and iron foundries. Their women had come with them, tattered and taut with tension, with crowbars and glass bottles for hands. The Black Joke Fire Engine Company No. 33 was here too, in full regalia, blistering, no doubt, that their traditional exemption had been revoked, as well.

  Years of anger and frustration that had been banked up against the privileged class now blazed forth. A sooty-faced man broke a cobblestone from the road and hurled it over Edward’s carriage and into a blurry group of policeman. Justus skittered sideways. Another cobblestone sailed overhead, and another, each one drawing shouts and screams from both sides.

  Without a sound, Ruby shoved Aiden to the floor between her feet and trapped him beneath her knees. Lunging forward and clutching the dash rail with a knuckle-white grip, she covered her son’s body with her own.

  “Steady,” Edward said. But the horse was not steady. He was young. And frightened out of his wits. Backward, forward, sideways Justus stepped. Rioters and police seethed and clashed. Crowbars, clubs, fence posts, paving stones all sought their prey with primal rage. God! All is madness! This is not a battlefield, it is Fifth Avenue, New York City! Justus reared and the carriage teetered on its left wheels before staggering back into place.

  “Whoa, Justus!” Edward pulled hard on the reins, but Justus was beyond calming. Eyes wild, he reared again and pawed at the air, twisted frantically in his harness.

  “Jump, Ruby!” She straightened, and Edward snatched Aiden from the floorboard. He grabbed Ruby’s elbow and jerked her to her feet. “Now!” With Aiden digging his fingers into Edward’s throat, Edward boosted her out of the phaeton and leapt to the ground after her, right as Justus came crashing down to the pavement on his side.

  Aiden’s cheeks were wet on Edward’s neck. “Get back! Steer clear of the horse!” He handed the baby to Ruby, and in the next instant, Edward was on the ground, unhitching the buggy’s harness from the stunned horse. If Justus rioted like the rabid crowd around him, the phaeton would be a dangerous weapon, capable of injuring both Justus and anyone in his path.

  “Steady, boy, steady.” Edward stroked the horse’s neck and grabbed the reins below his bridle.

  “There’s a three-hundred-dollar man!” The voice sounded far away, until a strap of leather tore across his flesh. “Down with rich men! Can’t buy yer way out o’ this!”

  Stunned, Edward stumbled before whirling around to face his attacker. A soft answer turneth away wrath. “Friend, you have reason to be upset, yet I have no quarrel with you. I would never buy a substitute, I serve myself as—”

  “How does it feel to be beaten down, laddie?” The belt sliced through the air again and raked through his side, stealing the air from his lungs as fire spiked through his core. “Never mind, don’t tell me. I already know.”

  Justus jerked the reins out of Edward’s hands and bolted.

  Another man sneered, a club clenched in his fist. All around them, people were shouting, screaming, kicking, pulling, shoving, punching. The jagged edge of a broken cobblestone came down on the back of Edward’s head. He dropped to his knees, waited for the world to stop spinning and for his breakfast to settle back down in his stomach.

  “Edward!” Ruby screamed from the edge of his vision. He pushed himself back up and turned to her. Strands of red hair whipped about her flashing green eyes. Her dress was striped with axle grease.

  “Got yerself a little wench, too, I see. Only she looks a mite better fed than mine, that’s what.”

  Ruby flinched as the slur landed upon her like a handful of dung. But it put steel in Edward’s spine. He thrust himself between her and Aiden and the angry men.

  “Leave them alone now, gentlemen.” Surprising, how steady one’s voice could be when one was in such pain.

  They howled with whiskey-scented laughter. “‘Gentlemen!’ How do ye like that? Well, kind sir, I’ll tell ye what. It makes no difference to me who’s under my belt so long as I get a sound thrashing in. Ye’ll take her share, then, will ye?”

  “Gladly.” If the Shepherd King David could slay lions and bears for the sake of his sheep, surely Edward Goodrich should be able to stand a leather belt for two in his keeping. After all, it was only last September he’d taken a bullet meant for his friend Dr. Caleb Lansing, his lingering limp a daily reminder. It seemed he had quite a knack for getting in the way.

  “Edward!” Ruby shouted again and stepped closer, holding Aiden tight. “Patrick, Seamus, Kevin!” Edward feared she had gone mad. “Aye, I know you lads, and more’s the pity! Shame on you! You are threatening an innocent man, a chaplain with the army! He has served his time and still serves the wounded right here in New York’s hospitals!” Her voice strengthened with every syllable, and her Irish accent sharpened, puncturing through the din of men grumbling into their beards. “I’m one of you, I am, we come from the same land! And I have scratched out a living with my belly clawing for food, same as anyone here, that’s what. I’m sorry about the draft, lads, really I am, but if you beat this man for the wrongs of another, then—then God have mercy on your souls, for the law won’t, that’s what!”

  A crowbar clattered to the ground, and Ruby turned to face a bright-cheeked woman in a threadbare purple gown, holding her hands out to Ruby, palms up, as though begging for alms.

  “Ruby?”

  Ruby squinted toward the voice.

  “Bedad! It’s Ruby Shannon O’Flannery!” Black hair falling into her eyes, she turned to the men. “Get out of here, you’re fightin’ your own, you are! It’s Ruby, don’t you remember? Shoo!” The woman swung her broken bottle in a wide arc around her. “Her Matthew fought with Sean and the lads in the 69th straight off! Died in Virginia, he did! You’ll do as she says! Ruby, darlin’, you’re home at last! I thought I’d never see you again, that’s what. Look at you now! My, how time has been kind to you.” Tears glazed wobbly paths down her cheeks and gathered beneath her trembling chin.

  Ruby gasped, and Edward strained his ears to hear her whisper, “Emma!” She shifted Aiden’s weight to her other hip and patted his back as his little shoulders heaved with sobs.

  “Oh!” Emma clapped her hands over her heart. “Such a bonnie wee lad, Ruby!”

  Emma reached for Ruby, and with but a moment’s hesitation, she took Emma’s grimy hand. The women embraced, Aiden sandwiched between them, until at length, Ruby pulled back.

  Edward cleared his throat. “And to whom do I owe my surprising rescue?” The ache in his back and ribs intensified as the crowd ebbed away, and he struggled to keep it from showing in his face.

  Emma snorted. “Go on, now. ’Twas Ruby making the lads think twice with her own speech first.”

  “Well. I am Edward Goo
drich.” He reached out and shook her hand, noting with some alarm that her nails were painted even brighter than her face.

  “This is Emma Connors,” Ruby offered. “My neighbor.”

  New York City

  Wednesday, July 15, 1863

  “How bad is it?” Ruby swung wide the door and let Edward push through it, his shoulders sagging with the knowledge of good and evil.

  “Apocalyptic.” Shadows clung beneath his red-rimmed eyes. “Very, very bad.”

  “Come sit down. Eat.”

  Edward followed her into the dining room and eased himself into a chair. Ruby tossed a colander to Aiden, who happily practiced sitting in it and getting out again while she scurried into the kitchen to scoop biscuits and stew into a bowl for her chaplain friend.

  “Eat first, then tell me.” She set the steaming dish in front of him, fully aware they were steaming just fine without it. All windows and doors had been locked shut ever since Monday.

  He bowed his head in silence, then began his dinner. When he closed his eyes and sighed with the first forkful of roast beef, she realized he probably had not eaten a decent meal since their harrowing escape on Monday morning. A policeman had caught Justus by the reins before he had left the block, and once the crowds had dispersed, they were able to take him and the carriage home after all. Emma begged to see Ruby again, and Ruby had agreed. Later, they had agreed, as Emma picked up her crowbar.

  Mrs. Kurtz had not come on Monday for her gown, nor did she come yesterday or today. The rioters had broadened their targets to include not just policemen and draft officers, but Republicans, the wealthy, and blacks. People had died. Perhaps they were dying still.

  Ruby sat quietly as Edward ate. His eyelids drooping, he sipped his black coffee before leaning on his elbows and looking her square in the eyes. Ruby detected no warmth in them now, only the darkness he had seen here, in their own city. “I don’t know where to begin.”