In three days.
Adair put down the pastry and her fork clattered.
Three days!
I will come for you, Adair, he said. When the war is over. But I must go where I am sent. I have to. Otherwise I would be a deserter, and they have taken to shooting deserters. He watched her. Not to speak of the disgrace.
You could have got my release any time you wanted, she said. She said it loudly, and the drunk man and his companion at the next table looked over at them. But I didn’t tell you where to catch my brother so you’re off to the battlefield. And I can just run through the city like a rat.
I asked to be transferred months before you came, he said. I told you but you didn’t hear me. You hear what you want.
As far as I know you could have somebody else waiting in a dog-house at the edge of the city. She began to cry and then bit her lip. You could be married. With twin babies and a mother-in-law.
If you think that then give me my gold pieces back.
Not on your life!
I am not married, nor do I have some mistress languishing in a love nest in the stews of St. Louis. I meant everything I have said to you.
Adair thought she saw hurt in the lines of his face and was glad.
Oh. And think how you’re going to miss all your ladies. Adair’s eyes sparkled with tears and malice. Maybe you’ll be transferred to some women’s prison down in N’Orleans, same thing different city. Go on. I’m glad.
And it’s quite possible that you have a beau as well, he said. That you are promised to another. What do we really know of each other.
He’s dead, said Adair. They’re all dead. Cal and the Parmalee boys and Speece Newnan and all of them.
He almost said I’m glad but he stopped himself. He said, Don’t think about those things. Think about starting all over again.
You’re a stick, she said. The only thing that means anything to you is paper. If I were some kind of a legal brief you’d be running off with me to California right now.
He held on to her hand. Listen to me, make sense. When I am discharged I want to go to the West. I want you to come with me. California, Texas, whatever. You wrote of your home, opened your heart, it was very brave. He kept a death grip on her hand. It hurt. She tried to pull away but he would not let her go. Even if you glossed over.
It was all lies, she said. I made it all up. We live in a cave and Mama makes whiskey and Daddy balls the jack.
Don’t use that language. No matter how hurt you are.
Adair blinked. What does balling the jack mean? She got her hand away from him.
I don’t know, he said. He leaned to her across the table as if across a widening chasm between them. She was on the far side and farther away every minute. He reached for her. He opened up his heart and the secret places he had held in reserve. Adair, be my companion. You are the woman I want. Be my companion. Away from both sides. Where men haven’t killed one another in the thousands. No political slogans or women in prisons. I want a place up a valley somewhere. A person could build their own house anew. Their house and their life.
I’d rather go back to my filthy cell now, she said. They are loading the shit barrels and I don’t want to miss it. I hope you get run over by a caisson. Maybe your boat will blow up.
She stood up.
Stop, he said.
I hope you get squashed.
Adair. Listen.
But she had turned and was walking toward the door of the restaurant, back to the prison cell, and he could do no more than follow.
15
June 9—Yesterday four citizens were brought in from Callaway County; three were physicians and one a lawyer—Jeff Jones—they are suspicioned of being connected with the Knights of the Golden Circle.
—GRIFFIN FROST, Camp and Prison Journal
Interrogation of Mary Vaughn, [whose son was a member of Quantrill’s gang] and her daughter-in-law Nancy Jane Vaughn, and her daughter Susan, which took place in the Gratiot Street Prison in St. Louis, spring of 1865:
“I never willingly furnished the rebels anything last year except my own sons and son-in-law who belonged to Price’s army, whom I willingly fed when at my house. . . . I have tried hard to act as a loyal woman. I have reported my son and two others to Union authorities, and have often seen guerillas eating at the home of my daughter-in-law Nancy Jane Vaughn.”
In turn, before her death of cholera in prison, Nancy Jane Vaughn turned on her neighbors, naming nine young men of her neighborhood who had become bushwhackers, and stating that two neighbor women were “bad rebels.”
Susan Vaughn then turned on Nancy Jane and reported that bushwhackers had been visiting Nancy Jane’s house.
—QUOTED IN Inside War
March 12, 1865: One of the lady prisoners, Mrs. Reynolds, is very sick—has been insensible for three days; her friends, especially her cousin Miss Maggie Oliver, seems greatly distressed about her.
March 19: about five o’clock this evening Capt. Gibbs came in and announced the death of Mrs. Reynolds.
—GRIFFIN FROST, Camp and Prison Journal
THE MAJOR STOOD before the commission in the operations room at headquarters in the Ogley House. It was a commission of inquiry. The day was warm for late February and the windows stood open.
It was a panel of seven officers. The flags of the United States and the state of Missouri stood each to one side, the national flag on the right. The long windows looked out on the graceful trimmed shrubbery of the Ogley House. Whose owners were in jail in Alton for disloyalty. The staff officers of headquarters for the provost marshal had scarred the polished floors with their boot heels, and used the library shelves for piles of papers and forms and tins of tobacco and lost articles, single gauntlets and a lonely dress spur without its mate.
Major, said the chairman. He was a colonel. He did not want to be there. Major, we have spoken and taken depositions from a great number of people here, and there seems to be quite a few accusations made as to the conduct of the personnel of the prison, mainly Mrs. Buckley. She has attacked prisoners, stolen prisoners’ parcels, stopped letters. This, for instance, is an exhibit. It would have probably done the prisoner some good to have read it. She could have contemplated the rigors of war.
He indicated a stained torn letter. The seal had been hastily ripped open so that the bottom half of the letter was torn nearly across. It was water stained and illegible. It was addressed to Adair Randolph Colley, from Savannah Colley, Sugar Tree Creek, Tennessee.
In addition, said the colonel, this Buckley woman has been accused of arranging improper and licentious meetings for some of the officers acting as lawyers for these women.
The major bent his head slightly.
He said, I understand, sir. The breeze came through the open window and surrounded him and went on. He heard faintly the great iron bell of St. Louis Cathedral ringing the hour of two. Had I known it I would have stopped it, but I was told these things were not my responsibility. Mrs. Buckley goes to her patron in the political sphere.
We know about that. The judge advocate general’s department moves rather slowly. And you know that there has already been Captain Wentworth’s court-martial on that matter. With a young woman from Danville. Rhoda Cobb. And you know he has been dishonorably discharged.
Yes, sir, I know.
The colonel lifted his eyebrows and peered down at the papers without lowering his head; he was trying to see the print without putting on his spectacles.
Mrs. Buckley has a powerful supporter in Frank Blair, however. He blew out air through his mustaches. She is a political appointee.
Yes sir, Major Neumann said. It seems to be prevalent.
The colonel turned to the panel ranged beside him. Lieutenant Brawley?
Well, sir, the major has done this report on the inadvisability of continuing to arrest disloyal women. Brawley grinned in a loopy way as if all reports on disloyal women were hilarious.
The colonel turned back to Neumann. We ap
preciate your report. It is true that it is a thing that can lead to corruption, and we can see that it has. I don’t care for it either but here we are and we must do our duty. I will forward the report. At last he reached for his glasses and put them on, drawing the wire earpieces carefully over each ear. Now, this information about a secret conspiracy from this Miss Colley is scarcely credible.
The colonel picked up a page with Adair’s handwriting on it. He held it by the corner, between two fingers.
I thought it actually might be true, sir.
I think not. Knights of the Golden Whiskey Jug, wasn’t it?
The other officers on the panel laughed. Lieutenant Brawley nearly choked. He rolled up his eyes. He bit the end of his pen. He said, Sir, it is unlikely that it is anything but stoneware.
And you have applied for a transfer to a fighting unit. That was four months ago. Which has finally been granted. I understand the pressures and unpleasantries this assignment has brought on you. It cannot have been easy.
No, sir.
Very well. And Lieutenant Brawley has also been reassigned.
Brawley ducked into his collar as if there were incoming shells even now.
The two of you are both going to Mobile.
Neumann bowed slightly.
Thank you, sir.
ADAIR FELT SO hurt that she seemed to be damaged inside. She hated herself for writing all those things, it was all sentimental and gushing. She had left out the women’s miscarriages and the animals born deformed, the drunks and floods and the crawling mold overtaking the dried fruit in an expanding gray mush. She had left out Sam Billingslea’s legs sticking out from under a hundred-foot white oak that had jumped the butt and crushed him, his face blank as the earl of hell. Her brother shooting a man for a pair of shoes. She stared at the floor of her cell for a long time. The floor was dirty with trodden straw and so she left it that way. All the stupid things she had written would come back to shame her like nasty, boisterous clowns.
She put the paper and pen and ink bottle outside her cell bars in the hallway floor, and soon one of the women trustees came and took it away and the table too.
Adair got up and took the pass from her sleeve. She put it in the pocket of the green camisette and sewed the pocket shut.
She lay down again and felt the fever beating like a hot engine in her face. She could not stop coughing and coughed until her ribs felt broken.
Adair woke up in the middle of the night, and found she was being shouted at by other women in the cells down the hall.
Sometime after that the matron came and brought to her a tin pitcher of water and a tin cup and Adair sat up and drank almost all of the water in the pitcher. It was muddy Mississippi River water. They kept trying to keep the blankets up around her. Then there were several people in her cell talking and she wished they would go away. She saw Kisia wrapping her waist purse by its strings around her wrist. Then she found herself being stuffed into some kind of a wrapper over her chemise and wavering down the hallway. Two people were helping her down the stairs, into another room.
Kisia was saying, You all are going to just let her die.
I am not unkind! shouted the matron. I am not unmindful of those who are unwell!
Then she was in the sickroom. Adair sat up in bed and said, Don’t let the matron get my Log Cabin quilt.
I’ll look after it, Miss Adair, said Kisia.
Adair said, Promise me you will not let them take me to the city hospital.
Then she turned on one side before Kisia could say anything and lay looking at the wallpaper. What time of day is it? she asked. Her teeth chattered of their own accord.
Adair, it is the latest watch of the night, said Kisia. Better eat this.
Adair lifted the tin spoon to her lips but that was as far as she got. Without warning she seemed to be blooming into a very large red flower that was made of blown glass. She dropped the spoon. She felt she was being annealed in a glass furnace. Her hair slid and pooled on her shoulders. She felt no need of either food or sleep. Now the heavy blankets were a trouble to her. It was like being flattened in a cotton press. She shoved them down and away.
I want some water, please, she said. Adair took the cup of brownish water that was handed to her and drank it off and then another and another. She lay back and drifted.
Another time came when the major opened the door. Before him stalked Mrs. Buckley, who pulled the blankets and sheet up to Adair’s shoulders and went to stand picket at the open doorway.
She has been given the very best of medicines! cried the matron. She has not been unattended!
The major took up a chair and sat it beside the bed. He wavered in and out of focus, but there was no mistaking the touch of his hand and the glint of his hair in the lamplight which gave it reddish tones. His round hazel eyes and his intense gaze.
I love you, she said. But I am in such terrible trouble.
Major William Neumann took her hand in both of his.
Your hands are hot.
I have to get home.
He sat and said nothing and seemed to be waiting for her to continue. She closed her eyes. The major said, Adair?
That’s me, she said. I think. What do you think?
Have you seen a doctor? He reached out, felt of her forehead and her cheeks with his other hand. You have an excessive temperature.
And also, I dreamed the fire tongs came walking up the stairs. To us girls’ room. They were coming for me.
Mrs. Buckley said from the doorway, That must have been when she was screaming. I asked that watch be kept on her day and night!
Where? said the major. He held on to Adair’s hand and turned to look at the matron. When was she screaming?
In her cell, said Mrs. Buckley. It took her a while to get this sick. We can’t just run people down here whenever they have a little sniffle!
Call Dr. Stilman, he said.
When our boys are dying in Mobile without doctors or hospitals, said Mrs. Buckley. I’m to run get the best for this little secessionist gal.
The major stood up and Adair saw him smile at the matron. He said, Mrs. Buckley, we have a sick girl on our hands. Let’s you and I try to forget our differences and get along for once.
Well, Major, glad to see you can accommodate a little. Mrs. Buckley nodded and took a comb out of her thick hair and combed back a side wave and stuck the comb in again. Time you learned to be more accommodating.
Shake on it? Major Neumann held out his hand, and his broad-brimmed hat was in the other. Mrs. Buckley’s smile was thin, but she held out her hand, and Major Neumann took it. He crushed down with all his strength and the tall woman cried out and tried to pull loose but she could not. Neumann took a long step backward, and with a strong jerk threw her to the floor.
Mrs. Buckley shouted and struck the stone floor with the heels of her hands. She struggled to get up in a welter of plaid skirts, caught her skirt hem under her knee and ripped loose some of it from the bodice. The glass and pitcher on the nightstand chimed and spouted drops.
Major Neumann dropped his hat and bent down and lifted Mrs. Buckley by the collar of her dress.
I will hurt you very badly if she’s not taken care of. He pressed two thumbs into her neck. I will draw my revolver and blow you through.
I am going for the doctor, said the matron. To protect me. If that’s how you’re going to do a person. Let go of me.
Neumann didn’t say anything but turned her and shoved her toward the door. She went out the door and shut it quickly behind her.
He stood for a moment watching the door to see that she was well gone and then came and sat down beside Adair again. Adair’s throat was aflame and she needed to swallow and then could not. She began to choke. The major poured a cup of beige water from the pitcher, and sat on the bed. He put his hand behind her head and lifted her upright, held her against his chest. She took the tin cup in both hands and drank all of it down. Strands of her hair caught on his sleeve buttons and he g
ently drew them loose. He held her in the crook of his arm.
You look like a mezzotint, he said. He held her burning hand.
I’ll have nothing to do with those foreigners, she whispered.
That mezzotint The Lady of Shalott.
The one where she’s wallowing around in that tiny boat?
The very one. He stroked her hair away from her face. Get well. Get over the wall. Then show the guard one of those twenty-five-
dollar gold pieces in your hand, and then say there is something down the street that needs his attention. She could smell the freshness of his snowy coat and the good strong male smell of his skin. Drops sparkled on his shoulder bars. He kissed her lightly on the cheek and then eased her down onto the bed again. He sat back. That would get me a court-martial. He regarded her. You’ve worn me down. Just go home. I’ll find you.
She fell asleep suddenly, into a profound and quenching sleep. When she woke up again he was there, and another man as well. A man in a long black coat. The doctor asked the major to leave. With the matron standing by, the doctor began to thump on her narrow breastbone. He lifted her lids and looked into her eyes. He made her sit up and listened with his instrument and its chill, coin-size head, to her breathing.
I have no idea, he said. Maybe consumption. I hear rales.
Adair saw them evaporate out the door into the square of light. The major stood beside her once again. He held her hand and shook it slightly to get her attention.
I want a promise, he said.
What?
That you won’t run off and marry some hillbilly until after you see me again. Then if I am missing a leg or something you can marry any hillbilly you want.
I don’t know, she said. I might die. My mother died of a fever too.
That is all I am asking. Promise.
All right.
She focused on his face. He took the signet ring from his left ring finger and held it between his thumb and forefinger.
Enemy Women Page 14
