In Captain Richardson’s first-floor office, Jana squirmed around on the varnished surface of her wooden chair. The early morning sun peeped through the window, trying to cheer up the dismal mood skulking about the room. But nothing could temper Jana’s anxiety, which climbed ever higher to the crude ceiling beams with each dip of the captain’s quill pen in its ink well and with each scratch of her personal information against the coarse, brown pages of his log book that grated on her ears.
From behind his small cherry desk, Captain Richardson said, “I need your date of birth, Jana.” He cleared his throat. “For my records, that is.”
“For my headstone, you mean?” Jana asked in a tone sympathetic to his dark task.
Dr. Mary Walker reached over and squeezed Jana’s hand, helping to keep her at ease.
“You don’t have to coddle me, Captain. You’ve been overly kind to me these past three months,” Jana said.
The captain kept his somber eyes and pen aimed at his log, unable to face Jana. He’d made it clear to Jana that he wanted no part of escorting her—or any woman for that matter, especially the first on either side of the war—to the gallows to hang as a spy.
Jana knew Captain Richardson admired her for helping around the prison instead of sulking in her room as her death crept closer. He’d rewarded her by granting her exercise in the prison’s courtyard and Mary permission to bring her back any food she could get her hands on at the market during her strolls there under guard.
When Miss Lizzie became aware of Mary’s living arrangements with Jana and her wanderings outside of the prison, she’d tried to make contact with Mary in hopes of making her another messenger between her and Jana. It proved too dangerous. From the very day Mary had arrived in Richmond and everywhere she went since, her peculiarities attracted a cavalcade of onlookers. So, they kept to using the woman who occasionally cleaned Jana’s room; she’d smuggled out the letter that Jana had written to Ma and Pa before the battle at Brandy Station and that she’d updated to include her wound, spying, and hanging. With the letter, Jana included instructions for Miss Lizzie to mail it only after her hanging—no sense her family grieving for nothing should her execution be delayed or canceled. It would’ve been easier if Jana could’ve been a courier of her own messages to Miss Lizzie, but she understood Captain Richardson’s reasons for prohibiting her from strolling around Richmond. Unlike Mary who was no threat to the Confederacy, Jana was a spy. Her being swept up and stoned by a mob that the guards couldn’t quell was too great a risk.
In a hushed voice, the captain repeated, “Your date of birth, Jana?”
“The fourth of May, year eighteen hundred forty-five,” Jana replied over a quivery lower lip.
Mary caught her breath sharply.
The Captain’s head shot up in surprise. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” he said and raked a shaky hand through his thick, dark hair.
Squeezing Jana’s hand tighter, Mary conveyed her sympathy.
Jana stared through the window, toward heaven. Sorrowfully, she said, “I suppose there’s no better day for one to leave this world than the day they came into it,” she said, referring to the day’s date—her nineteenth birthday.
The captain shifted uncomfortably in his chair while he recorded the momentous date in his log. Placing the pen in its ink well, he stood and scraped his chair across the wide-planked floor as he pushed it back from his desk. He paused to look toward the door as though he expected a miracle to come bounding through. Then he heaved a heavy sigh and said, “Time to go. It appears there’s to be no pardon from President Davis.”
Knowing any pardon would’ve come long before now, Jana had already resigned herself to her fate. She could still hope, just as she imagined Timothy Webster, a Pinkerton-Agency operative in Richmond and acquaintance of Miss Lizzie’s, had done right up to the moment before he hung in the spring of 1862. Jana’s effort to stand in her fatigued and hungered state sent her heartbeat into a tizzy. Bunching up her bodice over her heart, she fluttered her eyelids closed and began collapsing to the floor.
“Not again!” Captain Richardson said. The floor vibrated beneath his heavy footfalls as he raced to her.
Jana felt him catch her in midair, cradle her in his muscled arms, and lower her to the dusty floor with care. He’d witnessed a few of her fainting spells, with Mary apprising him of others. Though aware of her surroundings, Jana kept her eyes closed, seizing a few more seconds to compose herself. She knew it was Mary pressing her ear against her chest when she caught a whiff of the perfumed pomade that she’d only recently started rubbing through her hair. She did it more to perk up her unwashed curls than to heighten her masculine appearance. Luxuries such as soap and a large enough basin of water to rinse out the suds in one’s tresses, let alone off the body, were scarce in prison. Mary’s closeness comforted Jana.
“She’s only fainted, but I prayed her heart took her.” Mary’s tone dripped acid when she said, “I can’t believe the Confederacy’s going through with this nonsense. Chivalry’s dead in the South.”
Ignoring Mary, Captain Richardson asked, “What can I do for her?”
“Set her free.”
“Why me, Lord?” Captain Richardson exclaimed. Although he might want to, he couldn’t turn a blind eye and let Jana escape. If he didn’t produce her for execution, the Confederacy would suspect he’d let her get away and, if the government didn’t order his hanging, the citizens of Richmond would stone him to death. They wanted revenge! And they were holding their breath that Jana’s heart, rumored to be the cause of her fainting spells, wouldn’t give out before the gallows got her. “What else can I do for her?”
“I don’t suppose there’s anything else either of us can do for her now,” Mary said with a huff that drifted across Jana’s cheek.
Coughing and gagging on something pungent fanned under her nose, Jana opened her eyes to see Mary capping and pocketing her trusty vial of smelling salts.
The commandant peered down at Jana, his worry adding wrinkles to the jovial crow’s feet branching out from each corner of his eyes. In a low voice, he said, “You’ve had another spell, Jana, and Dr. Walker has revived you.”
Jana repeated the words he’d once said, “Why let Mary fix me, Captain, when I’ll only be broken soon?” She patted his hand to assure him that she held him blameless for her predicament.
A rap on the door sent a thunderous roll around the room.
“Enter,” Captain Richardson called out.
A guard stepped in, looking curious; he dared not ask about the gathering on the floor. Instead, he saluted and said, “The escort’s here, sir.”
Though at a snail’s pace, Jana sat up, showing her willingness to get on with matters. She rubbed her dusty hands on the soft fabric of her long-sleeved day dress. Miss Lizzie had gone through great pains to smuggle this dress in to her, specially cleaned and ironed, to wear in place of the two tattered, filthy ones that she’d alternated between cleaning and wearing since her imprisonment. Respecting this, she brushed the dust away to make it presentable again. A hanging wasn’t pretty, but knowing Miss Lizzie, she wanted Jana to look her best for it. Jana was one-hundred percent positive she’d chosen this particular outfit for its humble and feminine colors of pink and pale gray in hopes of shaming the public for hanging a woman; though, Miss Lizzie would be mortified if she knew the blouse’s stiff chin-high collar scratched Jana’s neck, reminding her with every move that her neck would soon face a far worse fate.
Once Captain Richardson and Mary got Jana to her feet, they linked their arms around hers and kept her steady as they exited the office and progressed through the hallway to the front door.
A sentinel blocked Mary’s way when she showed her intent to accompany Jana and Captain Richardson out.
Mary’s glare could’ve turned him to stone faster than a fleeting glance from Medusa.
Jumping aside, the guard proved that Mary’s tirades terrified him and the other watchmen, whom she’d forced into succumbing to those of her demands within their control.
Mary turned her pleading eyes upon the captain.
“I’m sorry, Mary. It’s for your own good. The swarm out there is thirsting for Yankee blood—man or woman, spy or not. I won’t have another hanging or a bludgeoning on my hands,” Captain Richardson said.
Jana turned to embrace a brooding Mary. She might be labeled odd by her actions and dress; to Jana, she was courageous to sail across uncharted waters. When Mary returned Jana’s hug with her own tight squeeze, Jana felt her positive energy flow through her and inject hope. She stepped back. “Don’t worry, Mary. I’ll be fine,” she said, smiling. “I’d never wish prison on you, but I thank God for bringing you here to make my last month bearable. You’re an angel of mercy.” Jana truly believed that divine intervention had nurtured Mary’s imprisonment. Why else would she have been so foolishly imprisoned?
“I pray another angel guides you to your promised land,” Mary said.
Praying for that too, Jana hugged Mary again and turned to step through the prison’s open doorway.
Spring’s fresh air swooped in, erasing the smell of tobacco and Jana’s strongest memory of her temporary home.
Jana’s eyes teared from the mid-morning sun’s blinding rays. With her hand against her forehead, she created a temporary awning until her pupils adjusted to the light, allowing her to proceed safely down the gangplank.
Mounted soldiers in dress coats with spit-shined brass buttons surrounded a black-chromed carriage. They were armed with their rifles, pistols, and sabers, more to thwart any rowdies along the way than to prevent Jana’s escape.
Hoisting up her skirt, Jana advanced toward the carriage, struggling not to see it as a hearse with its black curtains tied away from the windows. Behind her, she heard the prison door slam shut to her forever as the captain nudged her up the steps and into the coach.
Captain Richardson closed her door, and then withdrew to give the prison guards some last-minute orders.
Through her open window, Jana spied the spire of St. John’s Church, diagonally across the street from Miss Lizzie’s mansion. There she could almost hear Patrick Henry saying to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the rest of the Second Virginia Convention, “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” to spark rebellion against British suppression of American colonists. Jana had no regrets whatsoever about sacrificing her life for Miss Lizzie’s safety and Keeley’s freedom.
Captain Richardson roused Jana from her reflections when he bounced the carriage climbing up onto the backseat next to her. Knocking on the front wall, he ordered her procession underway.
As the carriage lurched forward, Jana stole a last look at the faded red bricks of Castle Thunder Prison. Whereas before they had gazed upon her in a menacing way, they now seemed to do so mournfully. Jana knew from her studies in Greek mythology that Castle Thunder symbolized a place where lawbreakers suffered the wrath of Olympia’s gods. She shuddered with fear; she had offended the Confederate States of America and was about to suffer its wrath.