by Len Levinson
Sometimes the former Gertie missed the old days, because there was nothing quite like lifting a drunkard's wallet, after first bopping him on the head. Crime had required skill, cunning, and careful planning, whereas now she had nothing to do, no one to play with, and spent nearly all her time with the morose Nathanial Barrington, who had yet to say no to the offer of an alcoholic beverage.
She turned from the scenery and looked at her benefactor, who carried a cigar in one hand and a book in his lap, reading avidly. That he was unhappy there could be no doubt, and he'd told her his last wife had thrown him out. Yet she sensed he was a good man, and he tried to teach her proper manners, plus the niceties of the English language. With her new clothes and diction, she hoped no one would guess the vile acts she'd committed.
She poked her sharp elbow into his stomach. “What're you reading?”
He blinked his eyes, as if awakened from a dream. Then he turned to her. “You wouldn't understand.”
“I ain't as dumb as you think,” she replied, her sensitive feelings scratched.
“I'm not as dumb as you think,” he said. “Gloria, you must stop using the word ain‘t.”
“I keep forgettin’.”
“Then you must try harder. And please stop leaving the letter g off words. It's forgetting.”
She pronounced the word properly, to please him, and he smiled in recognition. “That's a good girl,” he said, kissing her forehead. “You keep it up, you can be as dignified and proper as I.”
“But yer a drunk,” protested Gloria.
“But my English is impeccable, and that's all that counts. If you want to know what I'm reading, it's a book that's very popular these days, called The Impending Crisis by William Helper Morris.”
“What's it about?” she asked.
“Slavery.”
“If slavery's so bad, why don't the niggers fight back?”
“The word is Negro, because only the lowest people say nigger.”
“Well, why don't the Negroes fight back?”
Nathanial was amazed by how quickly she cut to the core of an issue. She had no pretense, her mind unclouded by theories and ideologies, but probably not for long. “They have fought back a number of times,” he explained, “such as a rebellion led by the Negro Nat Turner in 1831. But every time slaves revolted, they were defeated and killed. It's not easy to wage war if you don't have anything to fight with. However, the Negroes of Haiti, which is an island off the coast of Florida, revolted in 1794 and won their freedom. But they've been fighting among themselves ever since, and the argument has been that Negroes really can't govern themselves.”
“I used to know a Negro in Five Points,” she replied. “He played the banjo real well and was an excellent thief.”
Excellent was a new word that she'd learned, which she dropped into conversations whether it applied or not, although this time it was on the mark. Nathanial frowned. “I don't want you admiring thieves. You should admire great people, like Zachary Taylor.”
“What did he do?” she asked skeptically.
“He practically won the Mexican War on his own, and then became president of the United States. It may interest you to know that I served under the gentleman and knew him rather well. Theft may be a time-honored profession in colorful Five Points, but not nearly as honorable as becoming president of the United States.”
“If you're so smart, why ain't . . . aren't you president of the United States?”
“Because I have led an extremely erratic life, and if you don't know what erratic means, it's sort of like your former existence, but with money.”
She smiled delightedly, because there was something funny about him, perhaps his professorial manner of expressing himself, or his low opinion of past deeds, justifiable though that might be. “You can't be so bad,” she said. “I never saw you kill nobody, or nothing like that.”
“That's because this area of America is fairly civilized, but when we cross the Mississippi, perhaps I'll give you a personal demonstration.”
He interrupted his explication on mayhem to lecture on grammatical rules concerning triple negatives in the same sentence, for he constantly worked on her young mind, molding, teaching, and attempting to elevate her above Five Points values. She had become his pretty little toy and his traveling companion whom he was manufacturing into a debutante, so he wouldn't have to worry, while returning home drunk some night, about a lead pipe cracking his cranium.
Or perhaps he simply loved her feisty street urchin nature, or her rapid mind. After ten more years of intensive instruction, she might become a useful citizen, he hoped.
Clarissa departed on her concert tour without finding time to see her lawyer, so legally she still was married to Nathanial Barrington. She barely thought of her husband, she was so busy, and suspected he may have filed papers against her.
Following three successful much-publicized performances in Philadelphia, her next stop was Baltimore, where she was met at the train station by the theater manager, who escorted her, Thorndyke, and Thorndyke's secretary, a young woman named Saddlebrook, to the City Hotel.
Thanks to advance publicity that trumpeted her as the new Jenny Lind, a parade of local dignitaries passed through her suite of rooms, including members of the city council, local artists, fools, and pretenders, not to mention the gentlemen of the press.
Clarissa accepted their praise and good wishes with a mechanical smile. Whereas compliments once flattered her, now they seemed false, vapid, and pointless, she had become so accustomed to them, recognizing that her well-wishers barely knew her and had been hoodwinked by the press. She dined with Thorndyke and his secretary, with whom he shared the same bedroom, but Clarissa tried to keep an open mind, now that she was part of the theatrical world.
She expected more outstanding reviews in Baltimore, for Thorndyke was skilled at negotiating with the fourth estate. Sometimes it was cash on the barrel-head, a case of whiskey, a dozen free tickets, a woman, or a man, depending on the taste of the journalist in question. Clarissa never had seen humbug at close range, and it sickened her, but she tried to focus on the music.
Thorndyke had said that several wealthy gentlemen had followed her from New York to Philadelphia and now to Baltimore, and Clarissa thought that curious and even frightening. Achievement in art interested her most, and therefore she was especially respectful, when in the dining room of her hotel she was introduced to William Gilmore Simms, Charleston's leading poet, visiting friends in Baltimore. He was fifty-one years old, wearing an odd diamond-shaped beard minus mustache, a solid-looking, jovial fellow with a boyish air.
Simms sat in the audience when she performed at the Front Street Theater the next night, and his very presence inspired her to bang the chords with special verve, because she wanted to demonstrate that she was not just the creation of Thorndyke. Her program included selections from Brahms, Beethoven, and Mozart, and then she sang a selection of minstrel songs, which evoked peals of laughter and flurries of applause.
Certain phrases always produced the identical result, no matter where she performed, and she had become calculating in the pursuit of audience reaction, but it removed spontaneity from her work, so she felt no special thrill when she took her bows at the end of the performance. Simms led the applause from the front row, his face glowing with satisfaction. On an impulse Clarissa lifted a bright red rose from the stage, kissed its soft petals, and tossed it into Simms's lap. Then she bowed to him, the audience roaring its approval.
She encountered the usual confusion when she returned to her dressing room, compliments rang in her ear, her hand was shaken, her cheek kissed, and finally Simms arrived with his entourage.
“I understand you plan to visit Charleston,” he said.
“Yes—after Richmond.”
“You must let me take you on a tour of my city.”
“It would be an honor,” she replied, flattered by the great man's invitation. “I look forward to Charleston.”
Following the guests’ departure, Clarissa sat before her mirror, removing cosmetics and listening to Thorndyke rave about her performance, for hyperbole was the foundation of his career. Finally, he said, “It was marvelous the way you handled William Gilmore Simms. He may be past his prime, but his taste still is influential in Charleston. If he likes you, which appears to be the case, he'll fill up the concert hall. You're learning this business very quickly, my dear. I'm proud of you.”
In Cairo, Illinois, Nathanial and Gloria booked passage on the Queen of the West, a paddle wheeler headed for New Orleans. Nathanial was gloomy during the voyage because it reminded him of his trip west with Clarissa, and he expected a letter from her lawyer at Fort Thorn, with notification of divorce proceedings.
Nathanial's difficulties worsened at night because he was accustomed to sleeping with his little wife. Her enthusiasm, curiosity, and experimental perversity never failed to beguile him, and he hadn't grown tired of her after three years of marriage. He paced the floor with a bottle in his hand, mumbling to himself, and Gloria pretended to sleep as she watched him go back and forth.
They arrived in New Orleans, checked into the Belleclaire Hotel, and Nathanial investigated stagecoaches headed for New Mexico Territory. He couldn't leave a nine-year-old girl alone, especially one with a proclivity to find objects before they were reported stolen, so she accompanied him, studying crowded stagecoach offices, banks, and general stores, learning the ways of the world, nothing escaping her sharp little eyes.
One day Nathanial purchased a tiny pearl-handled Colt pocket-pistol with a three-inch barrel, chambered for the .36 caliber cartridge. Outside the shop he retreated into an alley, took her doll, and inserted the Colt into the special back pocket. “You'll receive your first lesson when we're on the frontier,” he told her.
He couldn't take a child to taverns, so he drank in restaurants where she consumed immense meals, her dresses becoming tighter. Hand in hand they explored the French Quarter, her mind ingesting astonishing new information, images, concepts.
One afternoon they visited New Orleans's dockside slave market, where Negroes were made to show their teeth, for healthy teeth added to the price, as with horses. They also were ordered to flex muscles or stand erect according to taps of the auctioneer's staff against the slave's body. Coffled slaves were marched to and from the market, with armed white men in attendance. A beautiful, light-skinned mulatto woman was bid for by a mass of shouting men, and Gloria detected terror in her eyes. I sure am glad I'm not a Negro, reflected Gloria.
Nathanial sat upon a crate of cargo, took a swig from his silver hip flask, and said, “This nation may well go to war over what's in front of your eyes, Gloria. Now you know what people mean when they talk about slavery.”
“Why don't somebody stop it?” she replied.
“The proper word is doesn't, and the answer is there's too much money to be made.”
She nodded solemnly, for she'd cracked a few skulls for the sake of money, but buying and selling people seemed beneath even her low standards. “The Negroes are like us,” she said, shaking her head in disapproval.
“Sure, but would you give your life to free them?”
She reflected upon his question. “No.”
“There's the rub, my darling. Many good people are opposed to slavery, but nobody's ready to die for Negroes, yet. In the meantime, how about some ice cream?”
She fluttered her little eyelashes and replied with a Southern drawl, “Why, you know I love ice cream, Uncle Nathanial.”
Hand in hand, they strolled away from the auction, leaving slaves in manacles and chains, the autumn wind whistling through their rags, heads hanging in defeat.
7
* * *
Jocita sat in front of her wickiup, fashioning new arrows. She had decided to return to the warrior way because the People needed every fighter they could muster for the assault on Janos. The Mimbrenos were incensed against the Nakai-yes, all tender feelings submerged, replaced by strategies for revenge. Soon the People would sweep into Mexico, utterly demolishing the accursed town.
Jocita knew that she could be killed on the expedition, but refused to acknowledge fear. She didn't especially love war and as a mother found killing repugnant, but that didn't mean she wouldn't punish transgressors or protect her family to the death. The People were oppressed everywhere, and old enemies like the Moquis, Yaquis, Pimas, and Papagos were teaming with the Nakai-yes and Pin-dah-lickoyee. Her anger fueled by righteous passion, she was deadly accurate with bow and arrow. At the end of Ghost Face, Jocita would kill again.
The People believed wars were won not by numbers, weapons, or tactics, but by the holiness of warriors. And so the People prayed and purified themselves as they prepared for the destruction of Janos.
Apache boys had few chores beyond gathering firewood and were free to hunt, play, or run wild, provided they didn't disturb warriors and wives. Boys from prosperous Apache families had been given horses, and one of these was Jocita's son, Fast Rider.
He rode his brown-and-white pinto mare across the desert, a long club in his hand, searching for wayward rabbits. The creatures would add to his family's food supply, and hunting on horseback was considered perfect training for would-be warriors.
Fast Rider was alone, his bow strung diagonally across his chest, a little boy on a big horse, and both constantly scanned for danger as they hunted the elusive rabbit. Bending to the side, he poked his club into a sagebrush thicket, hoping to dislodge one of the furry fellows, but none could be found.
Impatiently, he worked hedges in the vicinity, recalling elders speaking of diminished game due to invasion by White Eyes and the Mexicanos. Although only a boy, he felt a terrible anxiety about the future, as if a cataclysm was coming, and only he could stop it. He didn't know what these premonitions signified, but they surfaced occasionally in the midst of other activity.
He rustled chaparral, provoking the strike of a rattlesnake against the club like a hard punch. The pinto mare stepped backward, afraid of the rattler, so Fast Rider steered into another direction, toward a clump of palo verde bushes, which he disturbed, hoping to scare something, anything, into the open.
A rabbit leapt forth and ran zigzaggedly across the desert floor. Fast Rider prodded his horse, who leapt forward, loving the thrill of the chase. The rabbit darted toward a hedge of marigold bushes, but Fast Rider was gaining. The son of Jocita drew back his club and swung with all his strength.
Splat.
Midway up a mountain, seated in a cave, Juh was on the lookout for enemies. The chief of the Nednai could see substantial distances, hawks floating on the updrafts, storm clouds scudding across the horizon. Juh tended to view existence as a military problem, reducible to tactics, maneuvers, and weapons, so he didn't have to think about domestic turmoil.
In moments of reverie he wondered if he should live by himself and escape the cold, unrelenting warfare of both his wives, each of whom felt he had wronged her. But he was a man who needed women and thus was forced into disgraceful compromises.
He barely spoke with Jocita at all, for her hatred was more than he could bear. Ish-keh was more pliable, for the daughter of Chief Mahlko wanted to avoid scandal, but beneath the surface he could feel her bitter resentment. And worst of all was Fast Rider, the living, breathing reminder of Jocita's unfaithfulness.
In the desert below he could see the white-and-brown markings of Fast Rider's horse as the boy hunted rabbits. Juh often wondered how the son of a White Eyes could take so readily to the holy Lifeway. How strange that I love this child, although he is a reproach to my honor, and I further love his mother, although she has betrayed me. Juh couldn't wait for the snow to melt, so he could relieve his frustration in battle. When we finish with evil Janos, nothing will be left except wreckage, blood, and bones.
Captain Beauregard Hargreaves and his special detachment arrived in Janos in October, 1857. The dragoons were bearded, half-frozen, smelly, and saddle sore, but no Apaches
had disturbed their contemplation of the scenery. At the edge of town they were stopped by a young officer who spoke English. “I am Lieutenant Mendoza. What do you want?”
“I have been sent by General Garland of my country,” replied Beau, “and I have a message for Colonel Garcia.”
“You may give it to me.” The lieutenant held out his white gloved hand.
“I must deliver the message in person.”
The lieutenant thought a few moments, then said, “This way.”
Beau and his dragoons followed Lieutenant Mendoza into Janos, a settlement of adobe huts, with a few larger homes for more prosperous residents. They arrived at the Army barracks, where they dismounted.
Lieutenant Mendoza said, “Your soldiers can rest here, and you will come with me. Your arrival was unscheduled, so do not expect the colonel to see you immediately.”
“I can wait.”
Beau tossed his saddlebags over his shoulder, then Lieutenant Mendoza led him inside to a small waiting room, with one wall displaying a mezzotint portrait of Benito Juarez, President of Mexico, next to the Mexican flag. Beau sat, hoping Colonel Garcia would be reasonable. If I bring this off, thought Beau, maybe I'll make major one of these years.
To pass time, he opened a saddlebag and withdrew his dog-eared copy of Cannibals All or Slaves Without Masters by George Fitzhugh.
A recently published unabashed defense of slavery, written by a middle-aged Virginia attorney, it had become widely read and quoted in the press. Beau continually searched for cogent arguments in favor of the “peculiar institution,” perhaps hoping to convince himself, because he had grown up with slavery, and it hadn't appeared very efficient.
Beau read that Fitzhugh apparently agreed with his observation, because Fitzhugh admitted slavery was a far from perfect institution, but insisted that southerners could solve their problems if the abolitionists stopped stirring trouble. Fitzhugh then counterattacked by claiming that the white slave trade was far cruder than the black slave trade, because black slaves were fed, clothed, and sheltered by their masters, while poor, white Irish immigrants starved in northern cities. Fitzhugh claimed it was necessary for the strong to enslave the weak in order to protect and care for them, but Beau had graduated from West Point, seen something of the world, and guessed the weak might not agree with the proposition.
