Coyote Ugly

by Pati Nagle

  It was, as he had assumed, the hospital. As he approached the wall of dirt-smeared canvas he began to hear moanings, and murmuring voices, and now and then a sob.

  These were the men whose anxious families would hang upon the words he was about to write. Mr. Parker squared up his shoulders, reminding himself to be a faithful observer, to seek the qualities above all that would move his readers.

  He paused in the open doorway, gazing around the tent, filling his mind with detail which he would later transfer to paper: a bowl of bloody rags set aside and steaming in the chill spring air; an empty bed still bearing the impression of the body that had lain in it; hollow-eyed boys looking up at him as if seeking some explanation of their sudden grief. A good correspondent noted such things without letting them cut to his heart. He’d been accused of coldness by some. It troubled him not a whit.

  A number of people were tending the wounded, but he saw no woman among them. A steward came up to him, dull eyes inquiring his business.

  “I’m Ethan Parker, of the Times,” said Mr. Parker. “I’ve come to request an interview with Miss Tamer. Is she here?”

  The steward shook his head. “She don’t give interviews.”

  “I’ve come quite a distance. If you don’t mind, I’ll ask her myself.”

  The steward shrugged. “She ain’t here now. She worked all last night.”

  “Is the night shift her usual duty?”

  A grudging nod was enough. “Thank you,” said Mr. Parker. “I’ll return this evening.”

  “Won’t do you no good,” said the steward. “The others—”

  “I am not like the others.”

  Mr. Parker’s gaze challenged the steward, who shrugged and turned away. Mr. Parker noticed a man staring at him from his bed, eyes deep in hollow sockets, full of fear and loneliness, almost pleading. It occurred to him that this man might be able to tell him a little of Miss Tamer.

  The dark eyes tracked his approach. He bowed slightly. “Good morning.”

  The soldier nodded back, brightening the smallest bit.

  “I wonder if I might ask you a question or two? I’m a journalist, and I’ve come to write about Miss Tamer.”

  “The Dark Angel,” said the man thickly. “I know her, aye. She’ll not come for the likes of me.”

  Mr. Parker glanced about and found a stool, which he drew up to the bed whose blankets draped limbs wasted by illness. Taking out his notebook, he met the bright gaze of the sunken eyes. “How often have you seen her?”

  “Took sick on Wednesday. Seen her that night, and last night. But I’ve seen her before, too. At Chancellorsville a mate of mine was hit, and I come to sit with him after, and she were there. She come for him, at the end. I heard the next morning when I come in. Glad for him, I was.”

  “What does she look like?” Mr. Parker asked.

  The question seemed to confuse the man, for he frowned, and stared into unseen distance. “Oh ... dark,” he said at last.

  Mr. Parker concealed his impatience. The fellow was no genius. A common soldier, and whatever wits he had were evidently affected by the progress of his disease.

  “Is she a young lady?”

  “She’s not old. Well—don’t look old.”

  “Have you ever spoken with her?”

  “Oh, every night. She sits with me a while. She’s good that way—sits and talks with each of us as can hear. She comforts us all, not only the ones that are chosen.”

  “What do you mean, ‘chosen’?”

  “Them whose time’s come.” The dark eyes wandered restlessly. “Them what’s wounded, and bound for their maker. She comes special for them. She knows when it’s time.”

  Perplexed, Mr. Parker gazed silently at the man for a moment. Perhaps he was too far gone in delirium to be of any use. Yet his words had an echo of something—some deep feeling—that might yet be captured.

  The soldier’s eyes burned deep in their sockets. “I wish she’d come for me,” he muttered.

  “Perhaps she will,” said Mr. Parker.

  The man shook his head, his lank brown hair clinging to his brow. “Not the sick. Never the sick. She’s kind to us, but she only comes to them as won their death in battle.”

  Mr. Parker sighed, and scribbled a word or two. Not much sense to be got from this fellow.

  “She even comes to them on the field.” The man’s voice began to rasp, and his fingers fluttered restlessly at his sides. “She finds them. Seen her walking the ground before the fight’s over, I have.”

  We have crossed into nonsense, thought Mr. Parker. Closing his notebook, he stood up and nodded to the soldier.

  “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful. I won’t disturb your rest any further.”

  A shade of hurt entered the restless eyes. Mr. Parker turned away. There were others whose job was to comfort the dying. He had a different task at hand.

  He tried questioning a few of the hospital staff but found them reticent, so he determined to wait for his chance with the “Dark Angel” herself. A few inquiries led him to a small A-tent which had been erected for Miss Tamer’s use.

  It was not far from the hospital, set apart in the shelter of a blasted tree. Mr. Parker dared once to call her name softly, but got no answer.

  Setting his case down, he made himself comfortable against the tree trunk, and contented himself with sketching the tent and its environs. The sound of battle rumbled like distant thunder. A raven—possibly the only wild creature within miles—came to pose on the peak of Miss Tamer’s tent, and Mr. Parker dutifully sketched his portrait.

  When hunger awoke he pulled half a loaf of bread and a stale end of cheese from his case. Conscious of the nobility of the act, he offered a crumb to the bird. The raven peered at it, turning his head this way and that, then uttered a disparaging squawk and departed with a huffle of black feathers. Mr. Parker shrugged and finished his meal.

  Perhaps he should go down to the fighting, but he couldn’t conjure any enthusiasm for it. He’d been on too many battlefields, written too many vivid accounts of terror and glory, to be susceptible any longer to their thrills. He wanted a new view of the weary war, and after months of searching he thought he’d found it in Miss Tamer.

  Rumors were unreliable, of course, and he had too much self-respect to perpetuate war-born myths. Wild tales of bad luck haunting other journalists who’d sought out Miss Tamer he dismissed out of hand. It was war, and bad luck came to many. A journalist, if he was any good at his job, took risks as great as or greater than those of a line soldier. Some died. That was the way of things.

  Mr. Parker gazed at the little white tent, pondering the little he knew of its occupant. Miss Tamer, while hard to find, seemed determined to be otherwise dull and ordinary despite the wisps of lore that followed like mist in her wake. No great family claimed her, no noble statesman was her patron. She was thought to be of humble means, and some said she had taken to nursing for the meager support offered by the army.

  Everywhere she’d been in the past year, the same tale followed again and again. Miss Tamer was an angel come to Earth. Miss Tamer’s touch soothed away all cares.

  What was it she did or said that was so magical? She gave comfort, was all he had learned so far. That seemed too simple a thing to spawn the reverence with which soldiers spoke of her. Others sat with the sick and dying, watched through the long lonely nights. Why did Miss Tamer’s name above others lift the hearts of soldiers to a state of awe?

  ~

  The rumbling shuffle of many footfalls awoke him. Sitting up, Mr. Parker heard more than saw the shifting dark mass of soldiers on and around the road. Now and then a glint shone off a rifle barrel or a bayonet. Griffin’s division was returning to their breastworks.

  Fires flickered among the midnight trees beyond. The tent before him was dark. As he sat up and glanced toward the hospital, a skirted figure appeared silhouetted by the glowing canvas, paused at the door, then went in.

  A sharp breeze made him sh
iver. He picked up the notebook and pencil which had slipped from his lap, and regarded Miss Tamer’s tent.

  “Miss Tamer?”

  But it was she he had seen entering the hospital, he was certain. A little flush of exhilaration ran through him as he did what he should not do; two steps brought him to Miss Tamer’s tent, and he pulled the flap aside.

  A bare cot, a single trunk, clothed in shadows. No light, no pictures, no possessions. Mr. Parker glanced behind him, saw no one watching, and stepped inside, letting the canvas fall.

  In the dimness he edged forward to the trunk. His heart jumped as his boot scraped against it, and he bent to grope for the clasp. Locked, of course. Probably nothing but a spare dress or two anyway. Disappointed but not surprised, he slipped out of the tent, retrieved his case, and started down the slope to the hospital.

  The place was busy now with comings and goings, new wounded being brought in, and the muffled horror of the surgeons’ tables hidden by a breastwork of screens. Mr. Parker stood to one side of the door and gazed down the long rows of wounded. The bed of the man he’d questioned earlier was now occupied by an amputee—scarce seventeen, he judged—moaning softly to himself.

  Farther down the tent Mr. Parker spied a head of glossy dark hair bending over one of the beds. He stepped into the busy aisle and edged his way toward her.

  “Miss Tamer?”

  She made no reply. Her hands, long-fingered and pale, continued to spoon soup into the mouth of her patient from a rough wooden bowl.

  “My name is Parker, Miss Tamer. I’m a journalist.”

  “I believe you were told I do not speak to journalists,” said the woman, her voice unexpectedly deep, and with an odd lilt. European? he wondered.

  Mr. Parker stepped ‘round the bed, the better to see her across it. The weak light of a lantern overhead cast stark shadows on the planes of her face. Not precisely young, but certainly not old. Not a beauty, though there was something compelling about her—a sense of hidden strength, perhaps.

  Her movements were smooth and unhurried, her dress and countenance unremarkable. Eyes, which she kept on the boy she was feeding, were dark and rather large.

  “I’m here to bring your story to the thousands who will take hope from it,” Mr. Parker said, setting down his case.

  “I have no story worth telling. I am merely a nurse.”

  “I have heard you compared to Miss Barton.”

  A scowl crossed Miss Tamer’s face, replaced at once by a stillness almost unnatural. Her gaze followed her spoon from bowl to the wounded boy’s lips and back again.

  “Miss Barton is a genius of organization,” she said. “Her efforts have comforted thousands. It is her story you should write.”

  “Miss Barton’s story is well known,” said Mr. Parker. “I am looking for something different.”

  “Different? What could be different? It is the same everywhere, Mr. Parker. War is always the same.”

  “I intend to bring my readers a story of hope, ma’am,” he said. “I want to tell the story of a woman whose kindness has made her beloved.”

  “Then tell it,” said Miss Tamer. “You must surely have the talent to create such a tale. Journalists are always making up pretty lies.”

  “But I want the truth.”

  “The truth is not pretty,” she said, meeting his gaze at last. “The truth is not the story you want!”

  Her eyes, glinting anger, remained locked with his for a moment. Mr. Parker felt something stirring within, and found himself strangely moved to smile. Then she looked away, dispelling the moment’s intensity.

  “The truth,” she said quietly as she offered her patient another spoonful of broth, “is that many of these soldiers will die of their wounds, and many more will die of sickness, and it will not stop while the war continues.”

  Mr. Parker glanced at the soldier—a rosy-cheeked farm boy, like hundreds he’d seen swallowed by the war—wondering how he liked this blunt evaluation of his chances. The boy seemed not to care. His attention was fixed on his nurse.

  That was it, Mr. Parker realized. It was this woman’s personality, her air of carefully controlled feeling—passion, a better word perhaps—that made her so memorable, all the more so to men who were hurt, frightened, in pain. They would naturally turn to a figure of such strength. Who better to support them at the hour of death?

  A prickle of excitement crossed the back of his neck. His fingers itched to be at his pencil and paper, but instinct warned him Miss Tamer would not tolerate them. Instead he watched her quietly, his story evolving in his mind.

  It would not be the platitudinous fluff he’d expected to write. A portrait of words, rather—a sketch of this fascinating woman, who preferred stark truth to frills and embellishments, whose uncompromising spirit drew hopeless men like moths to a flame—Miss Tamer rose abruptly, the empty bowl in her hand, and left without a word. The soldier gazed after her in seeming content.

  Mr. Parker watched her pass along the crowded aisle and slip behind a screen, then turned curious eyes to her patient. The blanket, he noticed, was wet with blood. The boy’s face was pale, and his eyes very bright.

  “Did you know she is called ‘the Dark Angel’?” asked Mr. Parker.

  The soldier’s eyes flickered. “She’ll come back,” he whispered. “She’ll come back for me.”

  A sudden, fierce jealousy swept through Mr. Parker at the words, uttered in absolute surety. Leaving the sufferer, he plunged into the aisle once more, earning a curse from a steward, and hurried after Miss Tamer.

  The screen behind which she had passed concealed a small workspace in one corner of the huge tent. Jars and bottles lined makeshift shelves of graying wood, and papers littered a small camp desk. No one was there.

  She had slipped out. With a muttered curse, Mr. Parker left the hospital, glad to leave its stench and noise behind.

  The night was cool, but the darkness was broken by the restless army. Fires flickered in the Wilderness, and rifle fire stabbed and crackled through the dense growth like lighting in a nearby storm.

  Climbing the slope away from the trouble, Mr. Parker saw a dark, skirted figure approaching a tent near the farmhouse. He quickened his steps.

  An officer joined her, to whom she stood talking until she noticed Mr. Parker’s approach. The officer’s head turned as well.

  “Miss Tamer,” began Mr. Parker as he reached them.

  “This is the fellow that’s annoying you?” said the officer. “Shall I have him escorted to the rear?”

  “That would only increase his curiosity,” said Miss Tamer. “Better to ignore him. You will see to my request?”

  “At once,” said the officer. A major, Mr. Parker thought, if he’d seen the oak leaves aright in this dark.

  Miss Tamer walked away, and as Mr. Parker tried to follow the major’s hand against his chest stayed him.

  “I’ll honor her wishes,” he said before Mr. Parker could protest, “but you’d do yourself a favor by leaving. This is no place for civilians.”

  “I see plenty of civilians here—”

  “Just a word of caution,” said the major.

  “A threat, you mean,” said Mr. Parker. “You have a personal interest?”

  The major did not answer at once, and Mr. Parker knew he’d struck a chord. A lover, perhaps? Lucky man.

  “My interest is in the welfare of this division,” said the major at last, a thread of anger in his voice. “Miss Tamer is good for morale. She is supported for that reason—”

  “Oh, supported is it?”

  “—by the entire staff. Including, I may add, General Griffin, who will not appreciate hearing that she’s been chased off again by another damned journalist.”

  “She’s leaving?”

  Mr. Parker was struck with sudden dread. The major reached for his arm as he turned away, but Mr. Parker shook him off and ran down the dark hillside to the tree whose bare limbs scratched at the night.

  “Miss Tamer?” he
called again at the tent. Still no light inside. He listened, trying to stay his breath, then flung the canvas open.

  The trunk was still there, the blanketless cot still erect. It gave him no comfort. She’d slipped through his fingers, and unless he found her before dawn she’d be gone, aided by that cursed major to seek refuge in some other corner of the vast Army of the Potomac, where it might take him days to find her again.

  The pounding of his heart at this thought was so intense it surprised him. It was not, he realized, merely the desire to pursue this story. It was the desire to win over her suspicions, to prove himself more than the hackneyed sensationalists who had given her a disgust of journalism, to convince her that his intellect and principles were on a level with her own. He glanced up at the smoldering woods.

  “She even comes to them on the field.”

  Mr. Parker set his bag behind the tree and started toward the breastworks. It would be the last place one would ordinarily think to seek her, and he knew deep in his soul that she had the courage to take this risk.

  A part of his mind chittered in worry: ridiculous to think a woman would go toward the fighting—at night, no less—and how could he think he knew what she’d do when he’d scarcely met her? But he’d learned long ago to trust his instincts, and the feeling was too strong, as if there were an invisible connection drawing him to the field.

  Mr. Parker prowled the breastworks for a quarter mile to the north, where they ended in a dense stand of trees, and as far again along the south. Ignoring surly glances from the field officers, he peered at what little he could see of the woods beyond the works. Had he glimpsed the dark bell of a skirt he would not have hesitated to venture past the lines, but he saw only trees, heard only men’s voices.

  Hooves pounded up from behind. Soldiers’ heads turned, and before long sharp orders rang out and the men left their shelter to form up again on the road. Mr. Parker stood at the works and watched them march down toward the enemy, feeling as weary and hopeless as they. His instinct had failed him. He felt a fool, and he disliked feeling so.