Enemy Women

by Paulette Jiles

  —FROM Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, BY KENNETH C. DAVIS, WILLIAM MORROW, NEW YORK, 1995

  MAJOR WILLIAM NEUMANN entered the colonel’s quarters at seven in the morning. He held his bandaged left hand against his chest to keep it from bumping into anything. The colonel of the First Indiana Heavy Artillery had taken up his quarters in one of Mobile’s old Creole homes on De Tonti Square. The early light was brilliant on the whitewashed walls. They were the color of salt. It was the time of day for the adjutant to read the morning reports, for orders of the day to be issued. The tall windows, which reached from the floor nearly to the ceiling, filled themselves with a soft sea-light.

  Well, Major, did I not ask you to report to the surgeon?

  Yes, sir, you did, said Neumann. And I haven’t gone.

  Well? Colonel Hayes looked up. Well?

  It was healing up and then apparently there was a piece of spherical case still in it.

  And?

  I’m afraid he’ll say it’s gangrenous, sir.

  And he’ll take it off. Well, it’s going to have to go off, Major Neumann, if that’s what he says and this time I am ordering you to the surgeon’s. That’s an order.

  William Neumann leaned on his stick. Sir, would you write out my furlough then? If you’d write it out now. I don’t know if I will be walking back here to get it from you afterward. Nursing my bloody stump.

  Yes, I certainly will. Colonel Hayes pulled out a form and dipped his steel pen in an inkwell. I know this is hard but you’re alive.

  Yes, sir. It is hard.

  And the surgeon has ether. It has just come in. He is there in the cotton warehouse on Water Street. It’s like a regular hospital.

  He walked slowly from the Creole house on Tensaw Street toward the bay. The streets of Mobile were filled with the soldiers of the Union Army. With men of the Eighth Iowa and they saluted him as he went past them. They had stopped yelling Major the corporal’s eeeetin agaiiiin! He was sorry they had.

  At the bay tall iron cranes stood silent, their hooks for lifting cotton bales dangling in the blue middle air. Egrets stalked through the shallow water at the slant of the brick levee. Men sat on boxes in the sun in front of the cotton warehouse being used for a hospital, their stumps wrapped in white cloths. Hair sticking up like spiky furniture dusters. They had been utterly changed in their demeanor and outlook, from one side of the bone saw to the other.

  Neumann found himself stripped of his uniform jacket and lying on a long wooden table. He was in what used to be the office of the cotton warehouse. His arm was as round and hot as a stovepipe. The stubs of the missing fingers were healing well but somewhere in his hand a fragment of shrapnel radiated infection and rot. An attendant leaned against the wall and slowly picked dried blood out of his fingernails. The attendant wore an apron that was stiff with blood.

  He’ll be here in a minute, the attendant said. I know it’s hard.

  There were shelves of accounting books and a sentimental engraving of a plantation scene. The Big House, the happy white children in pantalettes and velvet bows. The blithe colored cook cheerfully offering a plate of dainties. And out in the cotton fields, the merry Negroes laughing under the lash. Neumann could smell the ether.

  On another table, the bone saws and things for pulling bullets out of flesh, and probes, and the clamps for shutting off spurting arteries. His arm throbbed, and every red streak that shot down from the imbedded metal fragment in his hand was a line of fire. His thoughts were not thoughts but a series of pictures, colored engravings. Of trying to drive a wagon into the west with one arm. Of greeting Adair once more and her eyes going to the pinned-up sleeve. Of trying to handle a team with a wooden arm. Of getting in bed with Adair without his clothes.

  The surgeon was outside arguing with someone. The argument was about the disposal of remains. You can’t go throwing legs and arms in the bay, the surgeon said.

  Just a minute, said the attendant. I got to go help Dr. Wheatly.

  Sounds like he needs it, said Neumann. I’ll just lay here and suffer.

  When the attendant was gone out the door and Neumann could hear that the argument was well in progress, and the soldiers sent to dispose of remains were stoutly defending themselves, Neumann got up.

  He pulled on his blue wool uniform jacket and pulling on the left sleeve was a matter of enduring pain so intense he nearly blacked out. All from a tiny sliver of spherical case. He took up his signed furlough papers in his right hand and put on his forage cap. He turned and walked out the door into an alleyway. His entire right arm was a column of pain.

  He kept on. He did not hurry. Down Water Street, under the scattering flocks of gulls, and then on to where the Eighth Iowa was bivouacked in a place where they made pottery. A potter’s field. He found his and Brawley’s tent in a stand of pines, and pulled out his haversack and his Spencer rifle and his blankets with one hand. The railroad was not practical; the Mobile and Ohio had no rolling stock left and Wilson’s raids had torn up hundreds of miles of track.

  It would have to be on a steamer carrying wounded to New Orleans or St. Louis. The colonel had signed the furlough and there was no one to stop him, and so he turned with his haversack over one shoulder and the rifle over the other and started toward the bay. He walked very slowly. He passed the Cotton Exchange where the Stars and Stripes cracked in the sea wind from its flagpole. He walked into the files of wounded both on their own feet and being carried on litters, onto the steamer Alabama Star. As he walked up the gangplank, he saw a man’s leg floating in the water with the shoe still on it.

  When are we leaving? he asked one of the attendants.

  In an hour, sir, the man said. If you are able, go and help them get the litters into the passenger compartments. Sir.

  I’m able, said Neumann. And we’re docking in New Orleans?

  Well, I guess we are. The attendant was chewing tobacco and leaned over the rail to spit. You’re on the right boat, all right.

  I didn’t want to end up in Pensacola.

  Neither do people from Pensacola, sir.

  By sunset the steamer was beyond Mobile Bay and into the Gulf itself. They cleared Point aux Chenes and were churning slowly past Pascagoula, the low-lying sandy coast marked here and there by faint lights.

  Put that hand in cold water, said the attendant.

  Neumann was sitting on deck in a canvas chair with his left arm laid across his stomach. He was sweating.

  How am I going to do that? said Neumann. I am open to ideas.

  They’s a hose and a stop-cock they use to clean the decks, the man said. Come on down, sir, and I’ll have it on and pumping and you run that cold salt water over it for as many hours as you can stand.

  So former Major Neumann sat with his left arm hanging over the gunwale on the starboard side of the Alabama Star, and drank whiskey, and poured cold salt water over it for twelve hours straight.

  23

  Saw several pretty women, secesh, bewitching. Good circumstances, no men.

  —DIARY OF CORPORAL SETH KELLEY, IN NORTHERN ARKANSAS, “THE DIARY OF SETH KELLEY,” KANSAS HISTORY, QUOTED IN Inside War

  One of the unexploded shells at Pilot Knob on Iron Mountain, Missouri, a few days ago, came into the possession of a party of four children, one of whom attempted to extract the fuze by driving it out with a hammer. He exploded the shell in his efforts, killing himself and two of his playmates instantly and mortally wounding the other.

  —St. Louis Republican, OCTOBER 25, 1864

  Johnny Payne, Daniel Payne, Geo. Young, Newt Baker and William Panel camped in a canebrake in Rapeeds Bottom a few miles above Doniphan in Ripley County and, unfortunately, slept until after daylight. A band under local leadership (i.e., a Union scouting party led by a local person of Federal sympathies) slipped up and shot four of them as they lay asleep. Johnny Payne was shot seven times in the top of his head, possibly by a charge of heavy shot discharged from a shotgun. Daniel Payne was also shot in the top of his
head. Young and Baker were laying dead close to where the Payne boys were lying, so if they waked, they had no chance to get away. William Panel was killed on a low bluff a short distance from camp, indicating he had attempted to escape when disabled by the enemy’s fire. So far as the writer knows, there were no charges against the boys except that they were keeping out of the way of the enemy to avoid being killed or sent to prison.

  “Nigger” Ol, a colored man quite old, who had been arrested several times or rather imposed upon, harassed, made to furnish meals and food for horses and do other things for both parties, and was reported by both parties to both parties by enemies on both sides, was also a victim of the same gang that killed the five reported above.

  —J. J. CHILTON, IN THE Current Local, DECEMBER 24, 1931, REPRINTED IN The Civil War in Carter and Shannon Counties

  ADAIR PAUSED BEFORE a looking glass whose backing was disintegrating, and combed her hair and then took it up and braided it. She looked out the window but she could not see Lila or her daughter. Whiskey was grazing in the pasture beneath the mountain, and although he was thin and ribby, his long tail lashed in a beautiful black slurry of hair. He searched with great determination for every edible blade of grass. Some of the other horses seemed to have given up and stood with lowered necks as if their heads had become an insupportable weight, staring dully at the dusty ground, but Whiskey ranged the pasture and chewed up whatever he came to. Adair knew this was dangerous. In his hunger he could graze on datura or jimsonweed.

  She went out and saw that they had rigged a brass bell over the gatepost, with a string that led to the drawbar. When she started to draw the bar, the bell clanged. She left it alone. She gathered her skirts and stepped up over the gate. Then Adair held out her hand to the horse and he lifted his head with a jerk, his eyes fixed on her. He tossed his head so that his black mane flew, and then came toward her directly in a quick, sure step. He pushed his head against her and made sounds deep in his throat. He smelled of her hair, blowing his hot breath all over the top of her head like warm water. Adair searched the horse all over for cuts, stood a long time with him, wiped his sticky eyes, pulled tangles from his mane, leaned against him, cried until her nose began to run snot and then stopped herself. They would come back and find her bawling over a horse they thought was theirs to steal and sell. She went back in.

  At the window she pressed her fingertips to her lips in a worried gesture, leaned her nose against the cold glass and watched the horse wandering in his grazing. Whiskey had clearly become the boss horse of the pasture, for if he saw another horse had found something to eat, he walked over directly and took it away from him. Whiskey was strong, he was beloved, and he was on her side. He would be her companion. That was what the major had said. Be my companion. Adair had never been in love before, and the love she felt for Will Neumann flew like a flag, stainless and new. She could almost reach out and hold his hand. Send the clean sheets flying out from between her own hands for him to catch across the distance between them, wherever he might be on the other side.

  She saw Lila Spencer had come in to make up the fire in the kitchen fireplace.

  Field, said Rosalie. She chucked the pieces of wood into the fireplace. I suppose I could do with a slant rhyme. But then, there is annealed. Or wield. There! Wield! She dusted off her hands and hurried from the room.

  When are you leaving? asked Lila Spencer. She looked at Adair with narrowed eyes.

  In a couple of days, said Adair. As soon as my spirit guide tells me.

  Rosalie rushed back in, the playbill in her hand. She said, When on Thee I think, lain in some cruel field, whose pale hand once the sword did wield, and myself alone in trembling weakness drooped, recalling how once past my house you trooped!

  Ain’t that pretty? Lila said, Now, we are going to walk up to Will Walker’s place. A mile up the road. We’re going to get him to come mark out a garden. The older woman beat ashes from her hands and jammed shavings under the wood and lit it with a Lucifer match. Since Adair ain’t going to be any help.

  Be sure to put in some of that old shoepeg corn, said Adair. That’s the best kind.

  You can stay till it’s ripe, said Rosalie. And help shuck it.

  I never shucked an ear of corn in my life, said Adair.

  Will Walker can be trusted, said Lila. We can’t have just anybody around this place since my husband is known to have gone with Van Dorn.

  I thought you said he was with Hildebrand, said Adair.

  I never said that! Lila flashed a furious look at Adair. Them horses out there are legal come by, if that’s what you’re thinking. The Federals get them all wore out and then sell them, and we buy them and get them fat and rested and sell them again, that’s what they’re out there for.

  Well, I wouldn’t know, said Adair. I’m scared of horses. They’re just so big.

  And you’re supposed to be a country gal. They both put on their bonnets and went out.

  Adair watched them leave.

  Lord! Lord! she said. She kicked the door several times. Give me walking power! Give me stealing power! She danced on the kitchen floor and sang “Gypsy Davey” when she was sure they were out of earshot and then took all the cornbread and meal she could find out to the gate for Whiskey. He ate everything she held in her hands. He would need his strength. He stood chewing for a while and then tossed his head and trotted back to the other horses.

  Then she went back in. Her footsteps clattered in the empty house. Adair walked around looking for whatever she could take with her. She felt very lighthearted, and she took this happenstance of coming upon Whiskey as an omen that maybe her life would take a turn for the better now. She would take the down quilt and its cover. She found slotted spoons of silver and lacquered caskets of buttons, women’s purses of gold thread, quilts of flowered appliqué. The articles were in baskets or wooden ammunition boxes or just lying on the floor. This is what it looked like when people came home with stolen loot. So Adair took what she wanted of it.

  She took a silver fork and spoon and a small silver dish that appeared to be meant for candy. Both articles had the engraved initials WB on them. Behind a door she saw a man’s coat hanging on a hook. She held it to her nose. It still smelled strongly of woodsmoke. It could not have been hanging there long. It had not been but a few days since a man had been standing by a campfire in this coat, with his two hands clasped in front of him, and once in a while moving to get out of the smoke, and talking in a low voice to other men warming themselves at the same campfire, where they made up their ammunition and plans and drew diagrams in the dirt with sticks.

  Over the mantelpiece in the drawing room were books, good ones with leather bindings. Books of poetry with other people’s names written in them. Delilah Forister, Shiela Dunleavy, A. C. Pearson. She flipped through the pages; it was very emotional poetry so she didn’t take any of the books.

  Adair found a new pair of women’s shoes in saddle-colored leather. They were the newest kind that had a right and left foot. They nearly fit. Adair smiled and admired them. They laced up on the inside of the ankle so that the foot seemed smooth and elegant. She hid them under the drawing room couch where she slept. She found in the pantry several yards of folded canvas ducking and shoved that under the couch too, feeling pleased and excited over her riches.

  Adair walked out to the stone washhouse. She took two large bars of fine soap that had chamomile pressed into it when it was set. It smelled very good.

  She walked around behind the washhouse to look for the best way out to the road when she left with Whiskey. Grapevines tangled over the path. They had grown up here in such profusion because of the wash water thrown out over the years, and their new, tiny leaves made a speckled light on the path.

  The path passed under a heavy arm of grapevine. There she saw a sunken area as large as a grave. The rain last night had consolidated what had been loose soil and now it was sunken in the middle.

  A human hand was sticking up out of the sunken
dirt.

  Adair cried, What? She halted in midstep and her stomach turned. She stood as still as if she had been suddenly fired in pottery.

  She stared at it. To see if it were not a doll’s hand or an old leather glove left out in the rain. It held itself still.

  She saw the rags of the sleeve cuff of a Federal uniform. The hand was gray and wrinkled and it was crawling with flies. Adair stood fixed, she could not seem to stop looking at it. It was reaching up out of its unquiet grave. Toward the air.

  Down the road she heard a woman’s voice calling Pelagie? Pelagie?

  The flies fought with one another and sparkled with their green backs over the fingers and the knuckles. Adair backed away and then turned quickly and ran back to the house. Her hair crept up her neck.

  She stopped in the kitchen. She looked back out the window toward the washhouse again, as if the dead would arise and come shambling in the sunlight toward the kitchen door. She turned and ran to the drawing room. She stumbled and nearly fell. She wiped her palms on her skirt. It was some Federal soldier who didn’t want to give up his horse and look where it got him.

  Rosalie and her mother came down the road talking together. The gate clattered. Adair tried to think if she had left tracks behind the washhouse. It was too late to go back again and see.

  Lila began supper, stirring up the fire and setting on a kettle. Lila smiled at Adair with a deadly and intense smile. It was a smile made of nettles and spines. Her eyes stayed open and glassy when she smiled.