They are going to kill her.
Walt Whitman, reporter for the New York Aurora, is standing in the courtyard of the Tombs, with several hundred New Yorkers who have crushed past his cold, aching body for a glimpse of the execution.
The sun is at the halfway point on its short cycle through the winter sky, and its low angle casts long shadows from west to east, shadows that cover all but the east wall of the prison. It is on this wall that Lena’s large and lonely shadow is cast as if by stage light.
The noose dances in the harsh winter wind, and below the gallows, a layer of frost blankets the dirt. Walt pushes his way to the front of the crowd, the ice crystals crunching beneath his boots. They are all waiting for Sheriff Jack Harris to return from his meeting with Mayor Morris about whether or not to grant Mrs. Stowe a stay on her execution because of her pregnancy. Walt worries that the decision to deny the stay is a fait accompli, which is why he brought with him a sheaf of testimonials from Lena’s medical students in which they argue that the fetus has quickened, a legal problem for the city, because if the fetus has begun to move, New York would be executing two of its citizens instead of one.
The sheriff’s coach, a new yellow phaeton, rumbles through the prison gates, around the crowd, and skids to a stop. Jack Harris’s silver hair is stuffed under a top hat, his bearded face deceptively slight compared to his stout body. By reputation, he is a man who sometimes puts instinct before protocol.
Whitman calls out to the sheriff, and when he tries to follow the lawman, two guards block his way. He scurries back around to the front of the gallows for a better view. The arrest and trial were rushed affairs, rigged against her from the beginning, it seemed, and her defense never gained real traction with anyone but those closest to her. The students know Lena and Abraham. They spent time with them every day for months, and they saw what Walt saw: a couple who, despite their problems, had become closer. None of them even considered Lena as a suspect until Sheriff Harris arrested her.
At the sheriff’s appearance atop the gallows, the crowd quiets.
The silence presses down on Walt, and he fights back feelings of despair. The woman who treated him like a son is beautiful and haggard, still wearing the medical school–issued black dress and white apron stained with her husband’s blood, having refused to change since her arrest. Her long black hair ribbons stream in the wind, and her dark eyes are red and swollen. His heart aches to see her suffer like this.
The sheriff approaches the condemned woman, her body quivering, and he whispers in her ear.
There is a moment of nothingness—
—and then she reels backward, emitting a preternatural scream that convulses Walt’s soul.
Lena flails until the wiry priest powerfully grips her shoulder. “And God hath both raised up the Lord,” he calls out in his baritone voice, “and will also raise you up by his own power.”
“But the baby!”
Whitman rushes the stairway but is again blocked by the two guards. He shuffles backward, stands on his tiptoes. Behind him, the bloodthirsty crowd stirs.
Harris pauses for a moment, then nods to the jailer, Little Joe, who holds Lena fast while the sheriff ties her hands behind her back.
Walt’s heart races.
This time Whitman charges, using his large frame to knock one guard to the side, the other to the ground, before ascending the staircase, two steps at a time.
On the hanging platform, half a dozen coppers line the back end. There’s the priest, wide-eyed and hunched over. There’s Little Joe, twice as big as any other man in the city, and there’s Sheriff Harris. Walt holds up the leather-bound sheaf. “These medical testimonies demonstrate that Mrs. Stowe is quick with child.”
The sheriff shakes his head. “Mr. Whitman, our medical expert reached a different conclusion.”
A few feet away, Lena’s sobs are muted by the wind.
Walt takes a step toward the sheriff, and two policemen meet him. “Mrs. Stowe’s colleagues disagree.”
“Those women are not doctors.”
The sheriff turns away, but Whitman catches him on his shoulder. “You’re a good man. I saw how you restored order after the cigar girl was murdered.”
“The law is the law.”
Whitman pushes a little harder. “This city does not need another controversy.”
At the delay the crowd jitters, the kind of tottering that precedes a mob action.
The sheriff briefly looks Walt in the eye, then gestures to two of his men, and they promptly take Walt into custody.
“Her death will be on your watch,” Whitman shouts.
Knowing that Walt has failed, Lena resumes her struggle to get free. She rolls toward the edge of the platform and nearly goes over—
But Little Joe grabs her from behind and lifts her to her feet.
During the commotion, Walt wrestles away, but a third man kicks him in the stomach, and the other two retake him. The pain is searing. He rolls to the side. The watchmen have the platform covered, and there are more of them on the ground for crowd control and even more at the gate. He is surrounded.
The sheriff slips the black hood over Lena’s head and reaches for the noose, and that’s when the men holding Whitman loosen their grip just enough—
He wiggles free, dodges Harris, and scoops up Lena, black hood and all. She is heavy in his arms, but the adrenaline drives him to brave the blockade of six men, their Colt pistols drawn, their faces blank. He charges through them, and miraculously sees daylight between him and the stairway. If he can only make it down—
—and then the space closes, and the men are upon him. Walt clings to Lena with all his might until she whispers, her voice strong and deliberate from beneath the hood, “It’s over, Walt. You did your best.”
He holds back his tears. “But you’re innocent.”
“Keep the college going so our deaths are not in vain.”
He holds her tighter.
It takes four men to hold Whitman, and two more to pry Lena away from him. The men push him to the ground and cuff him, the metal cutting into his wrists. Walt screams, curses, thrashes about, mad with rage over what is about to happen.
He watches as the sheriff slips the noose over Lena’s head, positions her over the trapdoor, and addresses those who condemned her to this fate: “For the murder of Abraham Stowe,” he bellows, “you have been sentenced to death by hanging, after which your body will be dissected at the Women’s Medical College of Manhattan.”
The crowd roars.
Walt breathes in.
The sheriff claps three times, the lever is pulled, and the floor falls away—
Lena’s body drops.
—her neck breaks.
—and Walt Whitman collapses on the platform, sobbing now, and waits for his friend and her unborn child to die.