The Widow's War

Just before dawn. A faint paling of the eastern horizon, the rustle of small animals moving through the grass toward their burrows. Carrie and William get up, yawn, stretch, and trade morning kisses. They light a lantern, and while Carrie nurses Teddy, William stokes up the fire in the stove and makes breakfast. Fried ham, eggs, leftover cornbread from last night, a little reheated oatmeal for Teddy, a pot of coffee.

William eats rapidly. When he has drained the last sip of coffee from his cup, he grabs his rifle, slaps on his hat, kisses Teddy and Carrie good-bye, and hurries into town to relieve the men who are guarding the Free State Hotel. A little while later, half a dozen early risers stroll down Massachusetts Street to unlock their stores. When they reach the Free State, they stop to learn the latest news.

The bad news is that the pro-slaver legislature over in Lecompton has issued treason indictments against us, and we hear their boy, Sheriff Jones, plans to show up sometime this morning with a posse. He intends to disarm us, arrest us, and shoot any man who resists.

The store owners walk on. Over Lawrence, Mount Oread looms like a great, black-pelted beast. At last the sun rises, hot and orange and so huge it looks like the mouth of a fiery tunnel. As the light strikes the slopes of Mount Oread, it reveals a mob of pro-slavers poised to descend on Lawrence. Armed with cannons, pistols, rifles, knives, swords, and hangmen’s nooses, they still bear the banners that read KANSAS THE OUTPOST! SOUTHERN RIGHTS! and SUPREMECY OF THE WHITE RACE!, but there is a new banner on Mount Oread this morning, one more terrible than all the rest. It is the banner of Henry Clark’s Raiders: an oblong of white cotton cut out of a bed sheet and dipped in blood.

There is no motto on Clark’s flag, only the blood, dried to reddish black. It comes from a pig slaughtered at Beau Rivage, the Missouri plantation of Clark’s cousin, Jedediah Clark, but whenever someone asks, Henry Clark claims it’s the blood of an abolitionist.

“Kill ’em all!” Clark yells, slapping Deacon Presgrove on the back. Deacon flinches and turns pale as around him Clark’s men cheer and discharge their pistols into the air.

Down below, Carrie hears the sound of gunfire. Abandoning the breakfast dishes, she walks to the window and sees the army of pro-slavers gathered on Mount Oread. More gunfire. The sound of men cheering, but no movement yet. Their flags whip in the wind. Sunlight glints off the barrels of their cannons.

Suddenly, she feels sick with fear. She’s never witnessed a battle and never wants to. She imagines walls coming down, roofs blown off, the ugly hole in Ni’s arm that a single bullet made. The pro-slavers have promised to spare women and children, but she wouldn’t put it past them to use her house for target practice.

More gunfire. She starts and puts her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. Why can’t they leave us alone? Why can’t they let us live in peace? We don’t want this war! Turning, she hurries to Teddy, scoops him up in her arms, and holds him close. The second he catches sight of her face, he begins to howl.

“Don’t cry, sweetheart,” she pleads, but he can feel her fear, and he knows with that blind, perfect instinct of very young children that something is going on worth crying about.

Up on Mount Oread, Clark pulls out a spyglass and peers down at Lawrence. Lowering the glass, he turns to Deacon with a look of disgust. “The craven milksops are still negotiating.”

By “craven milksops” Deacon presumes Clark means Sheriff Jones and the Eldridge brothers who own the Free State Hotel. If this is true, it’s good news. The attack still might be called off. Deacon doesn’t relish the prospect of walking into a wall of abolitionist gunfire or being shot in the back by one of Clark’s drunken henchmen.

“I intend to shoot the Eldridge brothers. Quiet, please. It’s hard to tell those damn abolitionists apart at this distance. They’re all wearing black suits. If the Eldridges would just wear some kind of uniform, this would be infinitely easier. Peaked hats, perhaps. Dunces’ caps. Ah-ha!” Clark locks on his target.

It takes Deacon less than a tenth of a second to figure out that if Clark pulls the trigger there will be hell to pay. Lunging forward, he grabs the rifle barrel and shoves it to one side just as Clark shoots. The rifle goes off with a deafening bang, and he feels the recoil sting his hand. Shaken, he looks up to see Clark smiling at him.

“You’re welcome.” Deacon stutters. He is shaking so hard he can hardly keep his teeth from chattering. Whatever possessed him to foil Clark’s shot? Crossing the man is like taunting a mad dog.

Clark slings his rifle over his back and retrieves his spyglass. “She’s down there,” he says, using the glass as a pointer. “Last house on the right by the river.”

“Your wife. Mrs. Deacon Presgrove. Down there, living in sin with your own brother. Mangas Coloradas wouldn’t have tolerated it. If you like, we can ride down and pay her a visit while the rest of the army is otherwise occupied.”

“Suit yourself.” There is a moment of silence, and then Clark speaks again. “She has pretty hair. Blonde and curly. Rather like mine.” Clark runs his fingers through his hair and looks up at his flag. He’s clearly thinking about something. Whatever it is, Deacon hopes he keeps it to himself.

At noon, the men guarding the Free State are served roast beef sandwiches, slices of pie, and hot coffee. Up on Mount Oread, the only thing being served is whiskey, and even that is running low. Around one o’clock, a carriage rolls up the dirt track that leads to the crest. In it sits David Rice Atchison, the former Senator from Missouri. Due to a bureaucratic technicality, Atchison was once President of the United States for a single day. Ever since, he has been looking for a country to lead, and in Kansas he believes he has found it.

Atchison has previously called on pro-slavery Missourians to kill every abolitionist in the territory. Now, too portly to mount a horse, he stands in his specially re-enforced carriage and gives a speech that makes Deacon shudder.

“Kansas will be ours!” Atchison thunders. “We’ll teach those damned abolitionists a lesson they’ll remember until the day they die! Remember: if a woman picks up a rifle, she’s no longer a woman. Trample her under your feet as you would a snake! Blow her to hell with a chunk of cold lead!”

Below, Carrie sits in a straight-backed chair with Teddy on her lap and a Sharps rifle across her knees. She hears gunshots, a confusion of voices. Ten minutes pass. Fifteen. Suddenly there is a knock on the door.

“It’s Donald Lane, madam. Please let me in. I bring you news of Doctor Saylor.” The voice is unfamiliar, clipped vowels, British accent. If Carrie had ever seen a one-act farce entitled Mr. Buckstone’s Ascent of Mount Parnassus, she might have recognized it as the voice of the hero, Mr. Buckstone.

Getting up, she walks over to the bed, puts Teddy down, and pulls the quilt over him. “Stay there and be quiet,” she whispers. Returning to the door, she tries to look through the cracks and is rewarded with the sight of a bit of red that could be part of a flannel shirt.

“Wounded!” Drawing back the bar, Carrie opens the door and finds herself face-to-face with Deacon. Uttering a cry of surprise, she tries to slam it shut, but before she can close it, she’s thrown off balance by an explosion so violent it rattles the windowpanes.

Down on Massachusetts Street, the Free State Hotel disappears in a geyser of black smoke and fire. Bits of plaster and concrete rain down, coating everything with a layer of fine white dust. As the pieces of the hotel fall on Clark, he throws back his head, opens his mouth, and licks at them as if they were bits of honeycomb.

The bushwhacker who is holding William at gunpoint gives a yip of triumph. Lowering his pistol, he turns and begins to run toward the dry goods store. Before he can reach the other side of Massachusetts Street, a man on horseback rides him down.

The bushwhacker screams and writhes in pain. For a few seconds, William watches him curse and claw at the dust. It’s supposed to be enjoyable to see someone who has threatened to kill you suffer, but it isn’t. He hurries to the injured man.

“You haven’t been shot. You’re not making sense. You were ridden down by a horse and may have suffered a concussion.” But the injured man won’t listen. Standing up, he staggers forward and throws himself on William. His fingers close around William’s throat.

William sees red spots, long swirls of black, and flames that dance and flicker in front of his eyes. As he struggles to pry the madman’s hands from his throat, he realizes the flames are real. He can feel the heat of them scorching the back of his jacket.

There is another explosion and a crash of breaking glass. More gunfire. The bushwhackers are destroying The Kansas Free State and The Herald of Freedom, smashing the presses, throwing the type out the windows. Others are looting stores and private homes. They parade the sidewalks of Lawrence wrapped in silk curtains and stolen hats, dump canned goods into their saddle bags, seize hams and sausages, break dishes, bash in the sides of flour barrels for sport. Most search for whiskey, but Henry Clark and his men go looking for guns.