Chapter 27

As Walt is trying to formulate his next move, a thunderous explosion rips through the air. The sky lights up several blocks over in the direction of the Women’s Medical College, and then a chorus of voices shouts its approval. Worried about the students, Walt hastens across Centre Street and up to Delancey, where a crowd has formed. Thousands stand shoulder to shoulder from one end of the street to the other, and when one person moves, they all move. Some hold torches, which illuminate the faces of those around them like demons.

A young watchman, who looks barely old enough to shave, struggles to keep control of his horse.

“What’s going on?” Walt calls to the young man.

“It’s that medical college for women. You know, the one where they done all that killin’.”

“What’s happened?” says Whitman.

“Don’t know myself,” the man says. “I was at home with my wife when the messenger arrived.”

“Why aren’t you doing anything?”

“Orders are to stay here,” he says.

Whitman starts toward the commotion.

“Sorry,” the watchman says. “Can’t let anyone through. Gathering can’t grow any bigger than it already is.”

The man steers his horse to block Whitman from moving. Without hesitating, Walt grabs hold of the reins and directs the horse to the side of the road.

“You can’t do that,” the man calls after him. “Stop.”

Walt ignores him, quickly wrapping the reins around the lamppost. He runs toward the mob, an overwhelming sense of dread filling him.

The clang of fire engines reverberates several blocks out.

Whitman advances until the crowd is at a standstill. To better see what is going on, he climbs a nearby streetlamp and hangs on to the pole, his feet resting on the metal ledge a few feet off the ground. The mass of people extends all the way up the street to the women’s college, which has gone up in flames. A sick feeling takes hold. Did the students get out?

The crowd begins to dissipate, allowing him to navigate his way north toward the college. Several hundred feet away from the burning college, he runs into another crowd of people. Firemen are trying to get to the building, but they are blocked by what remains of the mob, which has formed a wall between the college and the firemen. The sheriff and his men scramble to organize a militia. In all the commotion, Whitman sees no sign of Elizabeth Blackwell and the other students. His heart races as he tries to figure out how to reach them.

Elizabeth Blackwell takes two steps at a time to get to the dormitory, and she bursts inside, yelling for the students, “Get up!”

The young women open their eyes. A few of them groan and one sits up.

“Now!”

The students rub their faces.

Elizabeth runs to the window, pulls the curtains, and steps back. Down below, the torches spread out in front of the building like fireflies as far as she can see.

“Are they here for us?” Miss Emsbury asks.

Before Elizabeth can answer, a rock crashes through the window. Through the broken window the mob is louder, their voices blending into one another until they stream one loud buzz.

The students follow Miss Blackwell down the stairwell only to find the mob already inside the college, surrounded by flames. One man, standing closest to the door, sees the students and charges. She slams the door and pushes the lock into place just as the man’s body bangs into the other side.

Elizabeth attempts to exit out the back door to the alley, but the mob is there too. She latches that door and returns with the students upstairs. None of them speak. They sit on their beds and hope.

Knowing he cannot fight against the crowd, Walt weaves down several alleyways to reach the college’s back door, only to find it locked.

A man at the end of the alleyway sees him. “Did you get the door open?”

Whitman turns to face the man. He is probably in his fifties, clean-cut except for a strip of thin facial hair that wraps around his chin.

“What’s wrong?” the man says. “I asked if you got the door open.”

Walt shakes his head and slinks away to the side, but the man follows. “You’re with them, aren’t you? You work with those women doctors.”

Whitman darts the other way, away from the man, but straight into the mob, which has filled the alley.

The man calls out behind Walt: “Grab him; he’s one of them.”

Their hands are upon Whitman, from his feet to his arms, to his neck and back, and suddenly he is above them all, being passed from one end of the crowd to another.

“But I’m not one of them,” he yells without thinking. “I’m just like you.”

The farther they pass him, the more people he sees—they fill every open spot on the street in front of the college except a tiny bit of space where the alley meets the street, and it is this space that saves his life. They drop him, and he hits the ground hard.

He pushes himself to his feet and races to the front of the building, where the militia fires their bayonets into the air. The back end of the mob turns around and throws rocks. One rock strikes Sheriff Petty in the cheek, underneath his left eye. Blood appears on his face and drips into his mustache. This time, the militia fires on the mob and drops fifteen men and six women. People scream, scramble for cover.

Whitman rushes over to Sheriff Petty. “The students are trapped upstairs.”

“You’re sure?”

“That’s where they sleep,” Walt says. “There’s nowhere else for them to go.”

The sheriff and ten of his men follow Walt to the back alley where they break down the back door. The flames have spread from the dissection room to the stairway. “Up those stairs,” Walt says. “We have to hurry.”

Minutes later, the men reappear out of the smoke, dragging the students behind them.

All of them scurry away from the building, reaching a safe spot across the street just in time to watch the college crumple in on itself.

The people shout their approval and march toward their homes. As they march, they pray to God for the souls of the dissected. May you find it in your heart, O Lord, to raise the dissected, they chant. May the dissected find some peace in your kingdom.

Whitman shakes his head. These people should be ashamed of themselves. He watches them as they go, noticing some of them stopping a block away. They are forming a circle around something, and chanting, but Walt can’t make out what they are saying above the commotion.

“Excuse me, please.”

Walt pushes his way through the crowd. The farther into the chaos he goes, the clearer it is what they are saying. These people, who just burned down the women’s college, and with it everything he and the students own, are praying. Receive his soul, O Lord, they chant. He breaks through the throng, and that’s when he sees Henry Saunders’s body on the sidewalk. His chest is sliced open down the middle, exposing his gray lungs.

Stricken, Walt drops to his knees—

—he can’t breathe—

—and the world around him crashes down.

He puts his ear over Henry’s mouth, brushes his cheek and his nose—

—his face is puffy and bruised; dried blood and sludge stick to his cheek, chin, and left ear.

This cannot be happening.

His skin, a ghastly hue, is cold to the touch.

Walt cleans Henry’s face with his handkerchief. The sludge comes off with a little work, but the blood stays.

They are praying again, and all he can think is that Henry Saunders is not a goddamn Barnum exhibit. He is yelling at them now, but the din around him is so loud he can’t hear himself. The people stand wide-eyed and wide-mouthed, leaning and swaying while a light snow begins to fall.

Behind Walt, a hand touches his shoulder. He whips around and shouts for the sheriff to leave him alone.

“I need you to come with me, Mr. Whitman,” Petty says.

“You’re here to arrest me for slander, aren’t you?”

The crowd closes in, engulfing him, and a rage unlike any he’s experienced worms its way inside.

Petty, aware of the onlookers, pleads with Walt. “Let’s not make a scene.”

“Too late for that.” Walt feels like he’s teetering between sanity and madness.

He lays Henry’s head on the sidewalk, reaches for the large rock on the ground next to him—

“Please, Mr. Whitman.” The sheriff tries one more time.

But Walt hurls the rock through the shop window behind him. The horde scatters and the glass shatters, crashes to the ground, but is not louder than Walt Whitman’s own screams, which ricochet between the alleys and buildings as he leaps up and runs through the streets, the crowd sealing off the sheriff behind him.

Henry Saunders’s apartment sounds dead. That’s the best way Walt can describe it. The usual sounds swirl around him: men and women talking and yelling, animals snorting and grunting, the clomping of hooves on stone, but a dead pitch hangs over it all and inflects everything.

He hasn’t been able to cry yet. All the emotion is deep in his chest—he feels it when he breathes—but it won’t come out. He sits down on Henry’s bed, wraps himself up in the blanket, and lies down.

Walt’s mother used to make tea with honey whenever he felt sad. She would put her arms around him and rub his back, and somehow she made everything seem better. He pretends that his mother is there with him now. She wears her black housedress and has already let her hair down for the night. It has always surprised him how long her hair is—what is a tight bundle during the day almost touches the floor at night.

“You’ve had quite a day,” she says.

Growing up, Walt experienced nightmares and would often wake up in the middle of the night, screaming. Louisa Whitman would rush into his room and, after making sure the other children were still sleeping, would lie in bed with him until he fell asleep.

As she did then, she massages his back and his neck. She whistles “Rock of Ages” and tells her son all will be well again.

“Jesus,” she says, “died that all may live again, and that includes Henry Saunders.” She kisses his cheek. “Oh yes, Henry is in a better place now. A place without fear or hunger. Without violence or war, where people treat each other with dignity and respect. A place where there is no such thing as poverty. Henry has been greeted by family members who have died too. They have welcomed him home, Walt. That’s what you should believe. Henry has gone home.”

Walt pulls the blanket tight under his chin and closes his eyes. The other voice in his head tells him to get out of the apartment, that to stay here is dangerous. But he doesn’t listen to that voice right now. He listens to his mother.

“You will see Henry Saunders again,” she says. “When the Lord God claps his hands three times, the dead shall rise, and then you will dance together forever in the clouds while the angels sing hymns.”