Enemy Women

by Paulette Jiles

  Neumann went over all that had happened to him since daylight, his horse shot from under him and Smith’s Gorillas, who had put him neatly in his place, baggage wagon jammed up and then the shelling, his hand half torn away. The day came back in a series of detailed images with himself moving through them. He had done his duty, he had not run nor cowered, there was a stronghold within him that would not give way. For this he felt a profound relief, a sense of gratitude. He watched the coals of the fire for a while and then finally fell asleep.

  On April 8, very early in the morning, Neumann rode up to the First Indiana Heavy Artillery, where its line of cannon was being brought up to the east of Spanish Fort. Twenty-two Parrott rifled guns were being brought into line with their caissons and limber chests, drawn by teams of heavy bay horses. The mouths of the cannon looked backward from the caissons and as the teams drew up their equipage they swung in a circle so that the cannons faced the fort. Then a crewmember pulled the pin to release the team from the caisson. As soon as they heard the pin clatter loose the horses charged forward of their own accord without waiting for the driver’s signal and galloped away in the jangling music of their harnesses, out of range of Confederate fire.

  Neumann found the nearest battery captain standing beside his gun and crew.

  Where may I find Colonel Hayes? he said. I have orders to report to him. Neumann stepped down from his horse with his bandaged hand close to his chest.

  Up ahead, said the captain. Welcome to the First. But stay and watch, sir. Watch me take out the head-log on that embrasure yonder.

  All the cannon were in line now and the battery captains called out their orders. Load! they shouted. Rammer! Ready! Gun number one fire! And almost simultaneously the shouts Fire! Fire! Fire! went all down the line.

  All twenty-two guns cut loose. Neumann and the captain stood in the obscuring smoke, their hands over their ears. And the tubes of the cannons shouted for joy in a flattening roar and the earth jumped beneath their feet. Neumann’s horse tore the reins from his right hand and galloped back to the artillery horses and stood trembling.

  Spanish Fort burnt under the cloudless sky, and the men who served the guns fed them on gunpowder and iron. Standing columns of smoke poured upward. Sprays of debris rose in the air, he saw timbers turning end over end and with them pieces of stone and human bodies and barrels and wagon spokes. Lord God, he said. The detonations shook the ground beneath his feet and fewer and fewer of the Confederate pieces replied.

  Neumann found Colonel Hayes at his headquarters in a Sibley tent, standing with a sheaf of papers in his hand, watching the bombardment, and his face had a deep lustrous glow as the cannons spoke again and again.

  Sir, said Neumann. Major Neumann reporting, sir. Here are my orders.

  Very well, Major, very well. Organize some kind of an escort to get the rest of our ammunition up here as fast as possible. Is it unloaded? Ha ha! The colonel laughed. There, there, that was Captain Shaw’s piece, he could take out a bird on the wing.

  By nighttime Spanish Fort’s defenses were knocked in, the head-logs over the Confederate batteries blown out and most of their guns silenced. The gun bays were spilled outward in avalanches of red brick, and inside the shattered interior the remaining Confederate troops hunkered behind any cover they could find. Across the bay Neumann could see the lights of Mobile, and there was a dim glow to the north of the city where the Confederate troops were burning the stores of cotton. A thin moon came up over the glowing rubble, and the Gulf of Mexico shifted its planes like gelatin under the glittering fields of stars.

  Neumann lay beside his campfire and his nerves seemed to sing along the lines of his body, from the noise of the guns and the artillery duels between the two forces that had gone on for nearly a week. They sang a pleasing music. His hand was throbbing in the exact rhythm of his heartbeat. He wadded his saddle blanket under his head and reflected that if he lived he could get to like it. Especially when his side was winning. Brawley tore apart a paper package on the other side of the fire. It was a package of red peppers labeled hot devil monkey.

  Where do they get these names? asked Brawley.

  Damned if I know, said Neumann. He looked at his hand. The stumps were still leaking blood through the bandages and it hurt very much.

  Are you still going to be able to play piano? Brawley dropped a pepper into their kettle with a great show of caution.

  No, said Neumann. I couldn’t have before, either. He thought, if he had not given Adair the signet ring it would have been blown off and lost in the flour somewhere. This had some good meaning. The smoke lay low on the ground and in the distance Neumann heard some men singing, Hail Columbia, happy land, If I don’t burn you I’ll be damned.

  Overhead a fireball shot up from one of the Confederate Coehorn mortars, a fireball made of wadded raw cotton and turpentine. It arched sparkling through the nighttime air. It lit up the Federal entrenchments, and then the shallow crack of Enfield rifles came from the burning defenses of Spanish Fort. The Confederate sharpshooters were determined to keep them awake all night.

  From another campfire in the distance, Neumann heard a long singsong cry, Oh Major, the corporal’s eeeetin’ again!

  Neumann laughed. He might as well eat while he could. He heard the noise of the batteries starting up again, this time against Fort Alexandria and after that it would be the city. The men smashing into the dramshops.

  He listened to the incessant thundering. It sounded good. He felt a long burning up his left arm.

  20

  John Smith T was born John Smith in 1770 in Essex County, Virginia, to a family richer in Revolutionary War heroes than it was in land and slaves. . . . Although he briefly went to William and Mary College . . . John soon [went] west, where he immersed himself in a variety of money-making schemes. . . . It was during this period that he added the ‘T’ to his name. . . . Along with his new name, Smith T gained a reputation as a dead shot: a man with a hair trigger and a temper to match. . . . He began to buy up many arpents of land in the lead and iron-mining district of southeastern Missouri in 1806.

  —FROM Gateway Heritage, VOL. 14, NO. 2, 1993

  UNION CORRESPONDENCE

  Headquarters District of Southeastern Missouri

  Pilot Knob, Mo., October 25, 1863

  Capt. W. T. Leeper, Patterson:

  On Tues. evening, the 27th instant, 150 well-appointed troops will arrive at Greenville from Cape Girardeau. You will join them with all the men you can spare from post duty and during their stay in that region, give old Tim [Reeves] and his rascally gang such a hunt and extermination as they never yet had.

  You will summon all the wives of the bushwhackers you can reach to come to Doniphan, and give them plainly to understand that either their husbands must come in and surrender themselves voluntarily and stop their villainous conduct, or their houses, stock, and &c. will be given to the flames, and the families all sent down the Mississippi River to be imprisoned at Napoleon, Ark. . . . be firm, but discreet. I shall look for some good work in the lower counties during the next twenty days.

  Clinton B. Fisk, Brigadier-General

  —OR, CH. XXXIV, P. 678

  Dave Maberry had come home from the Rebel army and stayed at home and round about home. He was standing in his yard when the Federals came. They arrested him and took him with them. They dashed on and caught Akins. They went on down the valley and crossing the river at House’s ford, they saw Frank Wheeler . . . he ran across the field going north and had reached the top of the field when they caught him. He had two pistols with him but a bullet from the enemy had shattered his right wrist so he could not use the weapons. He cursed them until they shot him in the mouth with his own pistol. Next the leader signaled some of his men to shoot Akins. Mr. Akins, divining their intentions, ran into some woods and got about two hundred yards when they shot and disabled him. They placed him on his feet and tied him fast to a tree and tortured him by shooting him sixteen times, making slight woun
ds in his flesh. Bud House, then about fifteen years old, stood in his yard nearly a mile away and heard him scream many times.

  —J. J. CHILTON, FROM THE Current Local, FEBRUARY 3, 1932, REPRINTED IN The Civil War in Carter and Shannon Counties

  ADAIR RODE IN a wagon to the town of valles mines. she got out and had to sit down for a long time on a bench beside the town well. Then she began to walk again. On the single street of this town was a sign over the door of a frame house: steam doctor.

  Adair gathered her skirts in her hands to go up the steps and opened the door. A small bell jingled. Inside a gray-haired man in a black coat glanced up. He had been reading in a heavy leather-bound book. When he saw her he took off his delicate spectacles and stood.

  Good morning, Madame, he said. Or Miss.

  Adair laid down her burdens. She drew the collar of the bright red Zouave jacket up around her neck and took off her hat because it was bothering her.

  Miss, she said. Miss Adair Colley.

  The office smelled of medicines and soap. Perhaps up there on the shelves, in one of those bottles, was something that could help her. On the wall was an engraving of the St. Louis waterfront seen from the Illinois shore, and a man whose muscles and organs were all exposed. All his parts were numbered. Leaf shadows played on the plaster wall and there was the sound of somebody clipping a lawn outside.

  Well, said Adair. I would like to consult with you concerning my cough.

  The doctor nodded. He regarded her. Her cheeks blossomed with the roses of fever and she was very thin. She was pretty, but consumption would take whoever it could get, the pretty and the plain, the old and the young.

  He put out a chair for her. Sit down, he said.

  Adair sat down facing him and he turned his chair away from his desk and bent forward and looked at her.

  How much do you cough? he asked.

  Well, it is getting better. Adair said this in a positive tone and nodded to him.

  Whenever you exert yourself, said the doctor.

  Yes. And when people make me mad. Ordering me around. Then I have bad dreams and I cough.

  Are you coughing blood?

  Adair looked at her hands. They were dirty and the nails were worn.

  Once or twice a spot as big as the ball of your thumb.

  Lying won’t do you any good, my dear. He leaned back in his chair.

  Well, a little more, said Adair. Every morning.

  He nodded. There is no need for me to examine you. Except. He reached out and laid his hand on her forehead. His hand was cool and dry and it felt good to Adair. As if someone cared for her. You are running a small fever all the time.

  Yes sir, she said. It never seems to really go away.

  Is there any person who can care for you? Relieve you of work?

  Adair said, I am going home and I expect my sisters will soon be home. We are all scattered because of the war.

  Yes, yes. He tapped his spectacles against his teeth. So many are. He crossed his hands in his lap. Well, some people have survived consumption.

  He had said the word. Adair put her left hand to her mouth and then back in her lap again.

  I’m listening to you, she said.

  Some people have survived it and in a manner of speaking come to an agreement with it. Let us say a standoff. Lived to a moderately old age with it.

  He could plainly see the young woman’s ardent wish to be one of those persons, for she looked up to him with an anxious hope and her eyes were round and black as jet. Her hair was still healthy and it shone like rock oil. She was thin but the physician could see in her a certain vitality and a will to go on.

  How do they survive it? she asked. Her hands were hidden in the red sleeves of the jacket and only her fingertips appeared beyond the cuffs.

  The doctor said, Good food and rest and maintaining a calm mind. Nervousness draws a person down. It consumes your vital energy. This disease of consumption, if it were to have a mind, thinks of human beings as food. It is a predator. You must have nothing else drawing on your strength, and allow the inner electricity of the body to rearrange itself for this interior affray. You must maintain temperate habits of mind and body. You don’t use tobacco do you?

  No, sir.

  Not in any form?

  No, I don’t.

  Well. He turned and looked through his desk drawers. Let’s see. He brought out a small round tin. Are you sleeping well at night?

  Very well.

  Traveling and all. We generally don’t sleep well unless we are in our own beds, but with this war a-raging here as it is sometimes even our own beds are not sufficient. The guerilla Hildebrand has been shooting people in their own beds so there you are. He opened the tin and looked in it, and then shut it again.

  I sleep just fine, said Adair. She took the tin from him.

  Now, I am what they call a botanical steam doctor, the elderly man said. In that I refuse to use all the old drugs. Like blue mass and calomel and sugar of lead. I do not practice bleeding, which the old-style doctors do, much to the detriment of the patient. They use harsh and violent purgatives and other compounds. You will hear much disparagement of steam doctors. He leaned forward. But the only manner of surviving this is to husband your strength.

  What’s in this tin? asked Adair.

  Stop talking and listen. He caught his thumbs in a pair of striped braces under his coat. I can see you are alone in your traveling. As are many women these days. Fathers and brothers gone to war or killed or imprisoned. Widowed ladies. Where are your menfolk?

  Well, said Adair. She took a breath to speak and she heard the rattling of thick rales in her chest. She lifted a palm to begin a new story as to where all her menfolk were but he said, Never mind it. It does not do to ask. But I will draw up a dietary regimen for you, and in that tin is a powder made from infusions of the red willow bark, of the genus Salix, which has been given the chemical name of salicylic acid. This makes it more acceptable to the patient, where in reality it is merely an old Indian recipe.

  Then I could make my own when this runs out, said Adair.

  He put on his delicate spectacles and took up a pen. Don’t talk so much, young woman. Your task in the next year or so is to get better. I am describing here a dietary regimen for you. He wrote. Beef broth frequently. Avoid cooked vegetables but take them fresh. Sassafras tea is very good for the blood. Liver. Avoid beef itself for it demands too much of the digestive system. A great deal of liver. Preferably that of young venison or neats but take whatever you can get.

  Adair nodded. She had no idea how she would get liver.

  Two or three eggs a day, raw, beaten up in a glass of milk. Buy fresh eggs as you travel and cover each egg with a thin film of butter and they will keep indefinitely, even in the hottest weather.

  I never heard of that, said Adair.

  That is why people consult steam doctors. He blew on the ink and then handed her the sheet of paper. Take a pinch of that powder in a glass of water for your fever. Now you have plenty of fresh air. But on another matter, somewhat delicate. He cleared his throat. Take the sun as much as you can on the greatest part of your person that you feel comfortable with.

  Take the sun?

  Remove as much clothing as you feel comfortable with, he said. And take the sun.

  Adair folded the paper and nodded.

  Cold baths.

  All right.

  Avoid all excitement. Keep a Christian outlook on daily events. Do not become exercised about anything, but command your feelings.

  All right.

  He looked at her in a long pause. Then he said, And if you find yourself getting weaker, and more blood appearing, I would make sure you turn your thoughts to your Eternal Home.

  My Eternal Home, said Adair.

  Yes. With a delicate gesture he pinched up the cloth of his trousers at the knee and then crossed his legs. I would have the important things in order.

  All right, said Adair, and looked at the floor. Then she re
ached for her carpet sack.

  That will be a dollar, said the doctor.

  She bought eggs and butter from a farmhouse on down the Military Road. The woman tried to sell her duck eggs and then offered the heavy and freckled guinea eggs, but at last Adair left with ten chicken eggs. She stopped to cover them with butter and put them in a wad of grass inside the steel saucepan, and the pan inside the carpet sack, and then walked on. She felt better. She was doing something to save herself.

  Lord! Lord! she called out as she walked. Look on me and I’ll tell you a story! She then told God a story about a horse called Whiskey with his shoes turned backward against trackers, a horse who appeared head and shoulders and all in a pan of water when he was called by candlelight, his black eyes looking with keen intent out of the black fan of his forelock and she stepped into the plane of water and the golden dun horse took her directly to her father. Or maybe it wasn’t God, maybe the major was the image in her mind.

  People who passed her on the Military Road gazed with interest and some pity on the good-looking young woman walking southward, loaded down with her carpet sack and bundle. Her red coat that was too big for her with its black military cuffs covering her hands. Two women pulled up in a light gig. They had a full-grown hog on the floor between them. They wanted to know where she was bound to. It looked as if it were about to rain.

  Adair said, I have the consumption and the steam doctor in Valles Mines says I must eat eggs and get a lot of fresh air and rest. I can’t rest until I am home.

  Where’s that?

  Near Doniphan, in Ripley County.

  Well, I understand that, said the young woman driving. I hope you last till you get there.