Alias Dragonfly

by Jane Singer

  Mr. Webster looked around to make sure we were alone. He opened a travel bag and pulled out a long, brown shawl. “It has a pocket, here, where it would drape over your arm,” he said.

  He pressed a small pistol into my hand.

  “I have my own, sir.”

  “You amaze me, Miss,” he said. “Keep yours hidden in case of trouble. Use the one I’m giving you now.”

  I put the weapon in the shawl pocket, my hand just over it.

  “It’s loaded,” he said.

  Thirteen

  We had walked a few long blocks into a part of the city I’d never seen before. I smelled wood smoke, horse dung, and heavy, cheap perfume. Some women were draped in doorways wearing nothing more than a chemise and petticoats. Others were beckoning from windows, with curtains half drawn. A few scantily dressed, boldly painted women with bright red lips and rouged cheeks clustered about some soldiers, laughing and pocketing money. Others looked gaunt and hungry, with ragged children at their skirts. Most watched us as we passed.

  “Keep your hand on the weapon,” Mr. Webster said, walking close beside me. “This place is known as Swampoodle. It is dangerous, always.” He guided me through a maze of narrow walkways past Negro shanties, old men puffing corncob pipes and women with brightly colored bandanas wringing out wash. A group of corralled cattle—their calves nearly buried beneath them—were packed tight, mooing and lowing.

  “They’re on their way to the slaughterhouse,” Mr. Webster said, as one of the cows with long lashes and soft, sad eyes stared at me. “It is a hungry army, hungry to kill and hungry for food.”

  I reached through the slats of wood that held the animals and stroked the soft, black nose of a little calf.

  “No time for sentiment, Miss Bradford,” Mr. Webster said. “Watch where we are going.”

  We wound through those foul-smelling streets at least five times, never stopping. Was Mr. Webster trying to confuse me? I was a bit nervous, but mostly I was wrapped up in storing what I was seeing in my head. Perhaps Mr. Webster wanted me to remember every turn, every shabby door front, every face I’d seen. That, as you know, was easy for me.

  We walked further, at least another mile. At last, we came to a street. It was clean, almost serene, with a small park and a grove of leafy oak trees.

  A few children played, spinning tops, pitching horseshoes. Their mothers or governesses sat knitting or chattering close by.

  “I’ll leave you now,” Mr. Webster said.

  “Why?”

  Would he leave me alone? Here, in the middle of a strange city that crackled and smelled, and hummed and unnerved me?

  “Stay right here on this bench. Someone will contact you very shortly. You’ll be addressed by the name of Fiona. Remember that. Wait for that.” He looked at the children and sighed deeply. “That little tyke with the brown hair and gap-toothed smile,” he said softly. “My only son . . . there is, was, a resemblance. I’ve missed out, you see. He’s a man now, and has no idea what I do.” I saw a mist of tears forming in his eyes. But not for long. He blinked and drew up straight, alert like a hunting dog waiting for a quail to fly out of a bush. “Remember to stay right here, Miss Bradford.”

  As Mr. Webster was leaving, he stopped to pick a bunch of buttercups. He held them to his nose, then disappeared into the grove of trees.

  I too watched the children, their faces like flowers as they darted about, singing, tussling in the sunlight. I was never that carefree, I thought. Never.

  What would happen next?

  An elderly woman carrying a cloth bag lowered herself with some difficulty onto the bench next to me. She had sparse, silver hair that peeked from a wide-brimmed straw hat.

  “I’ve none of my own,” she said. “Little ones, that is. I could watch them all day.” She rummaged in her bag, her hands stiff and gnarled.

  “My knitting needles, might you help me get them out, dear? I’m making a sweater for one of those girl-children, any one of the bunch. I’ve named them all Amy after my dear sister who left this earth sixty-seven years ago. Or was it last week?”

  She looked at me with milky, clouded-over blue eyes.

  “Amy, is that you?”

  I found her needles and put them in her hands. “No, ma’am. I’m not Amy.” Was this the woman who would call me Fiona?

  “Yes, you are Amy!” she shouted, holding her hands over her ears.

  Just then, a rubber ball hit me square on my arm. I caught it, looking for the child who might have thrown it.

  He was next to me in a wink: A tiny boy wearing a black slouch cap pulled down to his nose grabbed the ball from me.

  “You’ll get a spanking surely for that, Mikey!” a woman called out, coming straight toward us. She was red haired, slender, and small, not young or old, wearing a blue bonnet and a simple gray dress. “You scared me silly. Come along, now, Fiona, Mikey, the both of you!”

  Fiona! The name Webster told me someone would use. Fiona.

  The boy trotted obediently to the woman’s side. “Sorry, Mama,” he piped in a high squeaky voice.

  “You foolish girl.” She pointed at me. “You were supposed to be watching over him!” she snapped. “Come with me, Fiona.” I hesitated. “Now!” she said. I got up to follow her.

  When we were just outside the park, she reached into her pocket and pulled out several coins. She dropped them into the boy’s hand. He picked one up and bit down hard on it. “They’re beauties!” he said, smiling broadly, showing a set of uneven, stained teeth. He pulled up his pant leg and shoved the coins into his sock. Only then did I see he was not a true boy at all. He was a young man, no more than three feet tall, with hairy legs and tiny, and calloused hands. “Thanks, Mike,” the woman said. He doffed his hat to her.

  “You got distracted, rummaging into that old woman’s bag,” she said sharply to me. “She was no threat, but you didn’t know that. Listen well, girl. You will never, never know if someone is a true danger. You must be alert and on guard at all times. Expect the unexpected. This is a battlefield. Do you understand?” Her tone was harsh.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, berating myself silently. I never thought that anyone, anytime, anywhere might be an enemy. “I’ll learn, I swear it.” I would.

  “I’ll report that to my . . . superior,” she reached out to shake my hand. I took it. Her grip was so tight my hand was growing numb. “I could have thrown you to the ground,” she said. “Don’t ever shake the outstretched hand of a stranger.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Good. At least you stood your ground.” She let me go.

  “Take us back to Swampoodle, Miss Fiona,” Mikey ordered.

  Swampoodle. I retraced our steps back, back into my mind. Try to remember the way.

  I made a sharp turn, my head rattling with the right directions. I wound around the foul streets; tracking backwards just the way Mr. Webster had taken me. Mikey and the woman watched me closely as I moved with growing assurance.

  Finally, a Union soldier with flabby cheeks and a dead-set, grim face moved in front of us so we could not take another step. Mikey extended two fingers of his hand, keeping the other close to his side. With a flutter of his eyes, the soldier acknowledged him and led us to a storefront with heavy wooden doors. The sign in the window read,

  Dr. Josiah Swain’s Oils and Nostrums: Cures for the Feeble and the Loveless.

  By Appointment Only.

  Inside we passed by three more guards, down a short, empty hallway to a room so thick with cigar smoke that at first, no one was visible inside.

  A telegraph machine whirred in the corner. Next to it was a man’s form shrouded in smoke and darkness. A single oil lamp, lit low, sat on a desk heaped with papers.

  The man padded across the room with heavy slippers that flapped and flopped with each step. He was brown bearded, with a slice of gray at the top and a full bottom lip peeking out from just under his face hair. A lit cigar sat in a ready cleft in the corner of his mouth where it wagged
like a tail. As he neared, I saw his vest was covered with white ash.

  “Let us have illumination!” he said in a loud voice.

  “Yes, sir,” Mikey answered. Lamplight flooded the room. I could see then that the man had the eyes of a hawk—gold and brown with spots of black near the irises.

  The woman who’d accompanied me sat down in a chair, next to someone else who remained in shadow, still, like a bird on its perch.

  “This is the wee bairn you bring me, eh, Mike?” The man spoke with a thick, Scottish burr.

  “Yes, sir. This is the kid,” Mike replied. I bristled at being called a kid, especially by someone who was at least a foot shorter than I was.

  “Mr. Pinkerton, she is indeed remarkable,” Mr. Webster said, stepping from the corner of the room. He spoke in the same proper accent he’d used before with me, minus any trace of a Southern drawl. I knew surely then it was his true voice, as he was obviously among his own kind.

  Mr. Pinkerton! I was actually standing before the great detective himself! I was thrilled, and nervous. I swallowed, trying to summon words. My hands, wet with perspiration, clutched at my skirts.

  “Describe the painting you saw in the Smithsonian, lass,” Pinkerton ordered. “Every detail. Now.”

  I breathed in and out. Okay, you can do this, I told myself. And then it came to me. Be someone else. Remember when I told you about how I’d do that kind of pretending after my accident? I did it then. I imagined myself like this: elegant, graceful, smiling, a perfect Southern lady.

  I relaxed my body. My hands that normally hung by my sides with little grace in their movements shaped and arranged to flow and curve, moving lightly as I spoke—in a refined Southern accent, just like Mr. Webster had when we first met.

  “Well,” I said, fluttering my eyes, “in the painting, there were three Indian warriors. The one in the lead was called Black Knife. On his head he wore a white feather tipped in black, sticking out from the top of a brown headdress that fell over his ears.”

  I paused, but barely, wiping at my eyes, as the cigar smoke wound over my face.

  “Black Knife’s eyes, as I faced the painting, looked to the right, the same hand rested on his thigh held a thin, wooden spear. His mount looked to the left, a glorious steed with brown coloring from the hoof to the knee, and a black mane, tail and legs.”

  I paused, lowering my head, arranging my newly graceful hands in my lap, a position I’d never assumed before.

  Mr. Pinkerton shifted his cigar to the other corner of his mouth; a pile of ashes fell to the floor. Without taking his eyes from my face, he rubbed at them with his foot.

  “Continue,” he said.

  “The sky in the painting, sir, was cloudy, muddled, fire smoke, perhaps, except for a burst of light in the background, like there was an inferno behind them. There was a jagged tree bottom just to the left of Black Knife. Behind him were two other Indian braves. One had his right hand just above his eyes, peering in that same direction. About one yard or so, just at his rear, came the last man, both hands on his reins. They approached a split in a rocky ridge. There you have it, sirs.” A last flutter of my eyes, as the Southern belle I’d become disappeared in the cigar smoke.

  Mike whistled and hollered, “Whoeee! That was fine!”

  I stood tall, speaking in my normal voice. “I am Madeline Eve Bradford from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the daughter of Private Summoner Bradford of the Second New Hampshire Infantry, as you know, one of the first regiments to answer the call.”

  “I’m well aware of who you are, lass,” Pinkerton said.

  My words were spilling out now. “And I want to work for you, sir. I think I know how the Rebels got their intelligence before the battle of Bull Run.” I was running low on breath.

  “Really, and I suppose the sun is green, then?” Mr. Pinkerton said, with no smile at all.

  I faced him full on. As I mentioned, I’m a bit taller than average.

  There was a long pause as he slowly folded a bright plaid hanky over a large stain on the collar of his shirt.

  “What was the Rebel courier’s name?”

  “Her name was Betty Duvall. I saw her three times. In the alley she called the man who took the packet Colonel

  Jordan—”

  “You heard the name clearly?” Mr. Pinkerton asked. “Are you certain?” His raptor eyes held mine.

  “Oh, yes, sir. I hid behind a woodpile. They were both armed. He removed an object from her loosened hair in an alley behind the house at 1625 K Street.”

  “Who lives in the house?” Pinkerton demanded.

  “Mrs. Rose Greenhow, and she’s a Rebel too, but you well know that, sir.”

  Mr. Pinkerton puffed harder on his cigar. I was a bit nauseated from the fumes, but kept talking.

  “Betty went straight to that house and was loudly addressed by Mrs. Greenhow as Amanda,” I said. “I believe Betty is her real name.”

  I paused. Images rushed through my head, and tumbled from my mouth.

  “When the door opened, there was a little girl holding a rag doll next to Mrs. Greenhow. The doll’s petticoat was red. Moments later someone placed it in the window. The petticoat color had changed to blue. I don’t know if that is important, or—”

  “Did ye hear all that, Mrs. Warn?” Pinkerton asked.

  “How do we know that this, this child didn’t just imagine these things?” the silent woman answered. Mrs. Warn, he called her.

  “I was right there, ma’am. And I’m going on sixteen, hardly a child.”

  “I believe her, Mrs. Warn,” Mr. Webster said.

  “As do I. And there’s an end on it, madam.” Mr. Pinkerton took her by the arm into a corner of the room and whispered something in her ear.

  “There’s more,” I said. “I dressed as a man and made my way to my father’s camp just before his regiment moved to Centreville. I, we, followed them.”

  “We?”

  “A boarder at my aunt’s house. Actually he followed me.”

  “His name?” Mr. Pinkerton asked—demanded, really.

  Would this bring Jake trouble? I stopped short of telling them. “When we were heading toward a ridge overlooking Manassas, we saw part of the battle. Betty Duvall rode past us, back toward Washington City. She was galloping hard, sir.”

  “Who is the we you speak of?” Pinkerton’s voice boomed.

  I hesitated.

  “Who?” He shouted louder.

  “I believe his name is Jake,” I said, hoping that would end it.

  “His last name!”

  I looked to Webster for help. “Whitestone,” he said. “I know the young man, I board in the same house. He is a reporter for the New York Tribune.”

  I caught my breath. They knew about Jake. Did everyone? The next time I saw him, I would tell him off, I would—I . . . I didn’t know what I would do . . . if I saw him again.

  “Good! That paper is a friend to the Union, as in all probability is the young reporter. Keep me apprised,” said Mr. Pinkerton. “And you, Miss Bradford, did you pass easily as a man?”

  “Oh, yes, sir,” I answered, trying to clear my mind, rid it of Jake Whitestone’s face, and eyes—

  “How well do you shoot?” Pinkerton asked.

  Without waiting for an answer, I slid the revolver from the shawl pocket. At that moment, Mike threw a tobacco tin up in the air.

  “Mind the cat!” Pinkerton snapped. I did not flinch. I fired. The bullet struck the tin. It tumbled through the air and landed on the floor.

  I lowered the weapon.

  “I hope the cat is all right, sir,” I said. “I like cats.”

  “Well done, indeed,” said Pinkerton, a hint of a smile on his face. Of course, there never was a cat.

  “Spot on!” shouted Mike.

  Mr. Pinkerton touched the scar on my forehead. “An unusual mark, rather like a comet, eh? How did that happen?”

  “I was six years old, sir,” I said quickly. “I fell out of a tree.”

/>   Nancy called to me, so I teased a limb with my weight, and when I fell I felt a rush of wind and a freedom, like I was flying. But when I landed, Nancy wasn’t there. Just me, broken; my head smashed on a river rock.

  “Once I made myself a pair of wood and paper wings,” Mr. Pinkerton said. “Fell straightway into a neighbor’s barn, smack down on a cow. She lived. But oh, how I did soar, briefly.”

  He smiled at me. “By the by, did you know that the name Fiona means lovely?”

  “No, sir, I did not.”

  “Scottish name, of course. Coined by the poet James McPherson, and chosen by Mr. Webster, even though he is English born.” Mr. Pinkerton smiled fondly at Mr. Webster.

  “It suits you, Miss Bradford,” Webster said, “as will other aliases, should you measure up.”

  “We’ll just see about that,” Mrs. Warn snapped.

  “You are heard, madam!” Mr. Pinkerton glared at her. He took me by the shoulders. “Miss Bradford, if you pass muster”—he glanced back at Mrs. Warn—“with all of us, it will be one assignment at a time, nothing permanent. And you can tell no one, not even your father what you are doing. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You are very young, and while you have remarkable abilities, this work of ours is deadly serious. If we’re caught, any laws of war do not protect us. The penalty for spying is imprisonment or hanging. Do you hear me?”

  Did I? As much as I could, standing there excited beyond measure in that cigar-choked room with my head buzzing and my heart atilt. But did I want to be a part of them? Do something really worthwhile? Yes!

  “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  “Give her a clerkship,” Mrs. Warn said, and strode from the room.

  Mr. Pinkerton traced the scar on my forehead with his finger. “We may need to paint that over . . . on occasion,” he said.

  Fourteen

  Mr. Webster escorted me back to the boardinghouse. On the way, I asked if we might stop at the paper seller to buy, you guessed it, the New York Tribune. As we walked, I read “Pan’s” latest dispatch. If I muttered angrily, Mr. Webster seemed not to notice. And surely, even the great spy that he was, he couldn’t hear the fluttering of my heart as I thought of Jake: his eyes, his hair, his, well, everything.