“Lucy, look, we’ve got to come back here and have the gals harvest more yarrow. This field is brimming and ready to be picked,” I said as Lucy’s carriage bumped along the road towards home. It was one of those rare days when she delivered the medicines to the hospital herself. From my carriage seat I could see yarrow stalks drying in the autumn sun side by side with the last herbs and wildflowers of summer.
“Honestly, Annie, you’ve told me before, I know, but what do you use the yarrow for? I don’t know how you keep all these herbs and flowers straight in your mind,” questioned Lucy.
“I’ve started writing it down for Dr. Linaman but you can see it too. There is a lot to remember and if the plants are used improperly, perhaps the wrong part, or even at the wrong time of year, some of them could be poisonous.” I reached for my satchel on the seat beside me and dug through it until I pulled out a thick wedge of papers.
“You see Lucy, I grew up with this stuff. It’s listed somewhere on the first or second page. Yes, here it is: Yarrow —the leaves are good for healing cuts, and for wounds, stopping bleeding. God knows we see enough of those in a week; I also use St. John’s Wort for that.
My mother made a chest rub to relieve coughing. She combined it with peppermint, thyme, yes and some hyssop —the aerial parts can be used in tea for fevers too. I put that down somewhere in the notes. I think there are six or eight pages in all so far.”
Looking at me and then out to the fields we passed by, Lucy said, “You are amazing. This is all in your head?” Looking over the scrawled notes Lucy added, “Have anything here to make a husband more amorous?”
She caught me off guard. Her unexpected quips were a comforting aspect of our friendship. We looked at each other and laughed out loud from Lucy’s comment.
“You’d be surprised what the fields around here offer, Lucy. Perhaps we will even find time to make you a magic potion for Samuel. But now we’ve got to get the last leaves and berries of summer. Remember how that fresh comfrey made a poultice that healed that boy’s deep leg wounds —what was his name?”
“Robert, his name was Robert, Annie. Yes I do remember him. He had such a handsome face, and refused to ever believe that his leg couldn’t be saved. In one fever sweat, he was certain that I was his mother. Poor dear. It seemed nothing would work on him except those herbs you fixed.”
“Berries, Lucy. Remind me. We have to get the gals to help us pick more Hawthorne berries. It cures soldier’s disease, the runs, and now is the only time of the year those berries can come in from the fields and still be any good to us.” And, we need more jars, clean cloths and…” but I didn’t finish. My phrase moved in the wind like a line of wash hanging to dry.
Outside the carriage, our driver was yelling out to the horses and the clatter of another carriage approaching us was heard.
“Whoa, whoa now. I said Whoa, you two,” yelled out the driver. The carriage lurched to a stop. Then he called quite loudly so as to be heard, “Yes, what is it? What can I do for you, Officer?”
“We need to inspect your passengers,” a deep drawn out voice replied. The next quarter minute seemed like an hour. Lucy looked at me, blankly. I swallowed hard. She had no idea, no inkling of my clandestine work. My first thought was ‘Should I be the one to tell her…now?’ And, ‘Would she ever forgive me for my evasiveness, my convictions, and my deceptions?’ I looked deeply into her eyes, admiring the light on her porcelain skin, the dew at her temple where her hat met her hairline, and then the carriage door opened. I couldn’t say a word to her. Things were simply moving too fast for any explanation.
“Ladies, please step down from the carriage,” came a voice from a middle-aged lieutenant dressed in gray. He had been riding hard and was sweating through his jacket. As an officer of the Confederate army he also had the authority of military police. As we stepped down, we saw behind him another carriage, old and black, like a cage on wheels. Its driver sat atop it like a raven, waiting for his catch.
Lucy seemed angry and bewildered. “What is the meaning of this intrusion, Sir?” she demanded. How dare you stop my driver and for whatever reason why?”
“Which one of you is Miss Ann Cunningham?” the Officer demanded.
Straightening my back, lengthening my neck I spoke to him on my first out breath. Softly, yet very clearly, “I am Ann Cunningham,” I said turning to look at him dead on.
The Officer cleared his throat. Then, looking down at his paper he began, “Miss Ann Cunningham, I am authorized by the Confederate States and President Jefferson Davis to…” then he looked up at me and returned my eye contact… “hereby arrest you for spying for the Federal government of the United States of America.”
Lucy dropped a hand on my shoulder and gasped in disbelief, covering her mouth with her hand as if to keep from screaming. I said nothing, and I couldn’t bring myself to find her face with my gaze. I continued to hold my head atop my neck as if it might pop off at any second. I was hoping no one would cut the string that seemed to be pulling me up from the crown of my head like a marionette, or I knew that I would collapse into a spineless heap.
With Lucy clinging to my shoulder, beginning to sob, I couldn’t embrace her though I wanted to do that more than anything. The Officer’s man quickly secured my hands in front of me and gruffly walked me to the dusty carriage. Its canopy was worn and tattered and its bent frame showed no dignity in its girth. Just before I mounted the steps, I paused and turned to look at Lucy. It was a deep sigh of a look between friends that transcended all boundaries, stretching beyond the years of war. Perhaps she would mistakenly think that I had used her in my spying efforts. Maybe she would hate me for the rest of her days and dislike every one she’d ever meet with the name Anne or Annie solely because the name reminded her of me. But deep down I thought that she knew my real thoughts. I hoped then that they spoke loudly to her as I remained silent. Don’t hate me, Lucy. I will miss you.
Then turning, carefully, as not to lose my balance without the use of my hands, I mounted the narrow steps as best as I could, unaided, rocked once just slightly, and then found a seat as a sole captive in the buggy. Soon enough the carriage lurched forward and then it was off. I was taken away in that suet colored cart. In an instant everything had turned ashen all around me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Each Other Page 35
