Becomings

by Matthew Lee Adams

  Katharine nodded, her eyes drawn still to the sink as the last of the water circled in ever-faster and tightening spirals, flowing down into the darkness.

  * * * *

  “WHAT HAPPENED to the nice man who made my horse?”

  Grace’s sudden question took Katharine away from her thoughts on the play they had just seen together, a performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at McVicker’s Theater.

  “I don’t really know, Grace. He went on to the prisoner compound. I only see the ones who need my help, with whom I can try to make a difference.”

  Grace nodded, and turned to watch the other people streaming out of the theater, many of them women with children at hand. She fingered the long ribbons trailing from her bonnet.

  “Let me tie that,” Katharine said. She knelt in front of her daughter and took the ends of ribbon, securing them into a bow that held the bonnet securely on her head. She snugged Grace’s wool cape around her before rising and taking her hand. “Did you enjoy the play?”

  Grace beamed up at her. “Are there really fairies in the forests?”

  Katharine smiled back at her and began to lead her outside into the street. “Perhaps. You never know what you might encounter. Remember that fairies can be very playful and mischievous.”

  “Have you ever seen one, Mama?”

  Katharine pretended to consider that for a moment. She glanced back down at Grace. “I don’t think they ever let you see them. They can see you, though.”

  Grace’s face dimpled in a small frown of disappointment. “Because they only come out at night?”

  “Perhaps.” Katharine guided her daughter through the small knots of people who were also leaving the matinee show. Her hand tightened just slightly at the sight of a trio of rough characters whose sense of purpose seemed to indicate plans at one of the nearby brothels on State or Wells.

  A brisk and chilly wind hurried them along, a prelude to winter and a reminder that even early November gave no promises that couldn’t change.

  She felt Grace cling more closely to her as a loose procession of blue-coated soldiers ambled down the street, rifles held at a casual shoulder arms, heads bobbing left and right.

  “Are they after someone, Mama?”

  “They’re our people,” Katharine reassured her. “They’re probably looking for some of the prisoners who escaped last week.”

  She nodded to the sergeant who appeared to be in charge of the detail, but he paid her no attention. His eyes kept roaming to the sides of the street in a slow and bored manner, feet beating a punctuated time out of step with his companions.

  Grace’s head turned to follow them, even as Katharine held her hand to shepherd her away.

  “Why do people fight, Mama?”

  “I’m afraid that’s a hard one to answer, Grace.” She steered them around a loose group of men gathered beside a windowed storefront, engaged in a raucous conversation.

  “Do good people fight?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Grace pondered that for a moment. “Would my Papa have fought?”

  Katharine glanced at her, reading the serious expression on her daughter’s face. “Only if he had to. But not everyone is like that.”

  Grace nodded, her head lowering in thought. “Uncle Thomas doesn’t fight.”

  “Your Uncle Thomas has an important job. He doesn’t have to fight. That’s why we can live with him and your Aunt Emma.”

  “I wish people didn’t fight. I wish they could be like you and Papa.”

  Katharine looked down at her with affection, and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I wish that as well.”

  * * * *

  KATHARINE WAS WALKING through Garrison Square, her mind on Lincoln’s proclamation for the new national Thanksgiving holiday, when something caught her eye.

  She stopped, her attention drawn toward the flagpole. Her jaw set in a hard line and she turned and strode toward the site, where a few guards lolled around casually.

  She ignored them and approached a prisoner who had been hung by both thumbs from the railing, with only the tips of his toes touching the ground. Raw-boned and skinny like most of the prisoners, his cotton shirt did little to shield him from the wind which rippled the flag above him in jerky spasms of washed out color.

  A guard’s voice barked out. “Away from the prisoner!”

  Katharine turned, fixing the guard with a hard stare. “I’m a nurse. I’m going to examine this man.”

  The guard spat on the ground beside him. “Already been checked by the post surgeon. But go ahead. He’s not ready to come down just yet.”

  Her mouth tightened. She circled around the prisoner, and then drew up in surprise as he raised his eyes to look at her. “Jacob?”

  He bobbed his head, his body swaying with the slight movement as his toes skipped over the muddy ground trying to find traction.

  Her mouth started to form a question, then she turned to the guard she had already spoken with. “What did this man do? And why is he hung up like this?”

  “Colonel’s orders," the guard said. “Found another tunnel under the barracks. The colonel is tired of escape attempts.”

  Jake gave a small shake of his head and spoke in a low voice. “Wasn’t me.”

  “He’s staying there awhile yet,” the guard advised.

  She stepped closer to Jake, noting the way both his thumbs had become swollen and darkened, the ropes already deeply set into the skin. He was shivering in his thin clothes as he moved his feet, trying to keep his balance and weight off his thumbs.

  “Where’s your coat?” she asked.

  “I don’t think they wanted me to have it anymore.”

  She began to shrug out of her cloak, but his voice stopped her.

  “You give that to me, and they’re gonna take it, too.”

  She turned toward the guards, noting the watchful way they were appraising her. She looked back at Jake. “Tell them whatever they want to hear, Jacob. They’ll cut your down.”

  He shook his head again. The motion sent his feet skipping over the ground before his toes managed to dig into a ridge of mud once more. “Can’t tell what I don’t know. And it wouldn't matter anyway. They're having their fun.”

  She glanced at the guards in frustration and back to Jake. “This isn’t right. I don’t care what the reasoning is behind it.”

  “No beast is more savage than a man with power answerable to his rage.” Jake managed a bitter smile. “Plutarch knew a lot about a person’s nature.”

  The wind whipped around the platform, catching his shirt and sending his feet skittering across the mud. He grimaced as his weight set the ropes deeper into his thumbs, while the guards chuckled nearby.

  * * * *

  KATHARINE WAS SOMBER while she sat beside Grace, brushing her hair as part of a bedtime ritual they had begun together in another time, when their family had been whole, and when there had been no war laying a bitter pall over their lives.

  Grace glanced up at her, noting the cast of her face in the dim light of the oil lamp. “Mama, are you still making a difference, helping people?”

  Katharine’s eyes misted as she ran the brush gently through her daughter’s hair. Her eyes wandered to the bedside table where a carved horse reared proudly, its mane and tail flying wild behind it. She looked away.

  “I don’t know anymore.”

  * * * *

  KATHARINE MOVED between the beds, trying to offer what comfort she could, even when all that could be afforded were conversation and company. With the onset of winter and an early December snowstorm, most of these men suffered with ragged coughs drawn from deep inside their bodies, an ailment that needed no doctor to diagnose.

  She supposed she didn’t feel surprise at one occupant who sat hunched on a corner of his cot, huddled beneath a thin blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

  “They never returned your coat to you, did they, Jacob?”

  He looked up at her, his eyes feveri
sh. He grinned. “Not after I hit the one who strung me up, right after they cut me down.” He flexed the fingers of one hand, testing the thumb. “Spent the past two weeks in White Oak Dungeon. Missed that big escape a few nights ago.”

  Katharine nodded. More than a hundred determined men had fled through a tunnel beneath the fence the night before the snow had hit. Union soldiers were still in the process of trying to round up any they could find, and the police in Chicago were on alert.

  “Not much point in trying to go back anyway,” he mused.

  She took a seat, gathering her skirts together. “What do you think is going to happen? With the war?”

  “Well, one side is gonna win. Probably the Union.”

  “If you think that's the outcome, why were you even fighting?”

  He considered that for a moment. “I guess because I never walked away from a fight, and I was in LaGrange when they were signing up volunteers.” He drew his blanket tighter about himself as his body was wracked by a long shiver. “A man named Colonel Terry was forming his Ranger regiment. He died in our first battle. We lost Colonel Lubbock a month later.”

  “Did you join intending to cover yourself in glory?” she asked, curious.

  He smiled. “We got covered in a lot of things. Most of ‘em not very glorious.” A wave of coughs struck him. He squeezed his eyes shut as he beat a closed fist against his chest.

  Katharine started to stand up. “I shouldn’t have you talking in this state.”

  “Been through this before.” He drew a ragged breath and coughed. “We lost maybe eighty men that first winter in Kentucky before we ever fired a shot. Maybe I’ll make it through this again.”

  She rested a hand on his arm. “Jacob,” she said, waiting for him to look at her. The arm beneath the blanket felt very hot to her touch. “Get some rest. I’ll get you another blanket. But all you can do at this point is rest.”

  He nodded. His head lowered as another shiver rippled through his body.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said.

  * * * *

  KATHARINE SAT beside the dead prisoner. Barely more than a youth, his hair’s remaining dark luster belied the pallid and wan color already draining out of his face. His eyelids were half-raised as though he lay trapped forever somewhere between slumber and waking. His lips were parted still on his final breath.

  She released his hand slowly, and laid it across his chest, then folded his other hand over it. She looked up and nodded to one of the prisoners who served as nurses. She rose, her knees unsteady after sitting for so long, and walked away. She kept her back turned as two male nurses came to take the body to the dead house, to be collected later by the undertaker for interment in City Cemetery among a growing and silent population.

  She busied herself among the other patients in the crowded ward. At least as many others who should have been here lay in the reeking prisoners’ barracks due to lack of space, although now one more bed had been made available. Each day seemed to worsen in the bitterness of the cold and the futility of her work, where few returned healthy to the barracks and too many were never treated, even with the rudimentary care they could provide.

  She paused briefly beside each bed, to touch a fevered brow or clasp a warm hand, anything that would give a sign of hope that she didn’t really feel inside her heart. She did what she could because she was aware that the conditions of the barracks were far worse for those who lay sick or dying. She was spared at least the regular sight of prisoners carrying out companions who had died in the night or during the short grey hours of daylight.

  She stopped at the last bed, studying him for signs of improvement she knew by now from experience would never come. She sat down and touched his hand.

  “Jacob,” she whispered.

  He stirred at the touch and the sound of her voice, and his eyes opened. They could still focus sharply on her, which surprised her. She felt the strength in his hand as he returned her grip with a brief clasp of acknowledgement.

  “Heading home?” he asked.

  She nodded. “It’s late and I need to go.”

  His eyes closed. “Take care of your little girl.”

  “I will,” she said. “And Jacob . . .”

  His eyes opened again. His chest rose and fell with labored breaths, but his face showed a calm resoluteness. “I’m dyin’, ain’t I?”

  She nodded again, unable to answer.

  His lips formed a smile. “Maybe. I’ll be here tomorrow when you come back. Count on it.”

  “All right.” She squeezed his hand once more. “Keep your promise.”

  “I always do.” He closed his eyes again.

  She tucked the blanket closer around him, then got up and walked out.

  * * * *

  KATHARINE WAS WALKING in the cold, dimly aware of the way it seeped around the edges of her layered skirts beneath her cloak, swirling around her ankles like icy water. Her head bent low against the wind. Her thoughts lay elsewhere, drawn to the ever-present sense of death that lay behind her that was balanced by the promise of life that lay in wait at home. Her face brightened with a warm smile as she picked up her pace, anxious to reach home to spend time with her daughter before bed.

  Still captured by her thoughts, she only gradually became aware of a sound that had been repeating for some time, masked before by the steady beat of her own footsteps. But now the other pace had quickened, no longer matching her own, and was overtaking her from behind. She fumbled in her bag and withdrew her derringer. Holding it within the folds of her skirt, she stopped and turned, and heard the following footsteps halt as well.

  A man stood thirty feet behind her, formless in the dark. She couldn’t discern his face, but saw a glint of eyes reflecting eerily from the scattered gaslights.

  “I want you to stop following me, whoever you are,” she said, her voice even.

  “I can’t do that.” He began to walk toward her at a leisurely pace that nevertheless began to close the distance between them far too quickly.

  Her hand clenched around the gun and she brought it up. He closed the remaining distance in a sudden rush. Her thumb eared back the hammer and her finger tightened in a spasm. The gun exploded with a flash and a loud report, with an answering grunt as the bullet impacted his midsection. Then he was in front of her. One hand swept the gun from her hand with a sharp blow that numbed her wrist. Her eyes widened as he loomed close. The blur of his fist was the last thing she remembered.

  * * * *

  “WAKE UP.”

  The voice was accompanied by a slap. Katharine stirred.

  “Wake up,” the voice repeated.

  A harder slap this time.

  Katharine came gradually awake. Her head was pounding, a dull pain that emanated from her temple. She tried to reach up and touch it, and discovered her hand was immobilized. Her eyes opened slowly and she turned her head, looking first to one side, then the other. She had been bound by her wrists and ankles to the four posts of a bed.

  The man who had struck her stepped into sight and she instinctively flinched back.

  He studied her. “I’m Preston.”

  She took a breath, finding her voice. “I don’t care who you are. You had better untie me now.”

  As she spoke, her ears turned to the building around her, trying to discern any indication of others nearby. The room she was in was in a decrepit state, with no recent signs of occupation. The thin blanket of the bed she was lying on failed to mask a pervasive scent of dusky mold that permeated the compacted mattress underneath. A lone window had been boarded tightly shut. The high-pitched whistle of wind through the narrow spaces between the slats and the general silence all around told her this building had likely been abandoned.

  A single candle flickered unsteadily in the air currents that seeped between the boards covering the glassless window. Katharine gave slight tugs on each of the ropes, enough to determine she had been bound very securely.

  The man shrugged out of his top
coat, draping it across the foot of the bed. He was tall, and broad-shouldered, with a well-mannered appearance to his soft features that seemed to barely disguise a hint of deceit. She watched him warily, noting a holstered revolver at his side, along with a sheathed knife.

  He pulled up a chair beside the bed and settled onto it. He ran a hand through dark locks of hair and managed a smile. “And your name is . . .” he prompted.

  His expression hardened when she didn’t answer.

  “Katharine,” she said flatly. She strained to hear any sounds from the street outside beyond the incessant whine of the wind.

  “That’s a very nice name.” He folded his hands together loosely in his lap. “I have chosen you, Katharine.”

  “I don’t know what that means, and you had better let me go.”

  “I can’t do that,” he said. He retrieved a large handkerchief from his breast pocket and began to twirl it tightly.

  She watched his hands move in their methodical manner, the center of the cloth growing thicker as he pulled the ends taut. He leaned close to her and she pulled her head away quickly, already trying to scream as a hand clamped over her mouth, muffling the sound so only a thin whistle of air passed between his fingers.

  “It’s not what you think,” he assured her.

  He held her head securely while he wrapped the coiled handkerchief around it, the thick knot of cloth filling her mouth and stifling her breathing. She heaved against his grip as he grasped her chin, turning her head away.

  “You’ll come to understand,” he said.

  She felt a warmth emanating from his body that cut through the chill air as he pressed closer, and she struggled harder, tugging ineffectually at her bonds. She felt his lips slip along her throat while his mouth opened. And then the room lost all focus as she slid into a dream, a dark place where she walked alone in the center of an empty street that stretched before and about her without an end, the steady beat of her feet the only sound above the lonely call of a winter wind.

  It seemed after a while, a time whose measure could not be judged, that her feet sped up of their own accord, with neither thought nor will guiding them. Her breathing became ragged and labored, drawing air in and out while a warm rain began to fall into her upturned face as she searched far into the night for any answer of where she was, or why she was so alone. Her throat caught in a sudden choked expiration, and she jerked as a spasm began deep inside, emanating outward rapidly and bring her with a jolt to full awareness.