Jana got lost in spring’s vibrancy as her conveyance jogged the two miles north and west through the streets of Richmond to Camp Lee. She poked her head through the open window to feel the warmth of the sun on her face, hear the trills of the songbirds, see the white petals of the dogwoods, and smell the sweet perfume of the blue bells. She never fancied it being fair for anyone or anything to die on a day so alive.
As the carriage veered away from the railroad tracks and continued rattling westward along Broad Street, Jana leaned back in the leather seat to pay her last respects to home. It would be this alive and colorful too. She pictured Pa plowing the fields for planting, Ma baking bread, Rachel and Rebecca in the parlor studying etiquette, Eliza riding Commodore, and Molly jump-roping in the barn. For the first time since she’d left home, she felt a suffocating homesickness. She wished she could say a personal goodbye to her family.
After a right turn and short ride on a rutted, hilly road, the coach slowed to a crawl.
Captain Richardson poked his head out of his window and invaded Jana’s thoughts as he fumed, “It’s like Manassas Junction all over again.”
Jana understood his reference to the mass of civilians and politicians who’d turned out from Washington with their picnic blankets and baskets to watch the Rebels rout the Yankees in the first significant clash of the war back in July 1861. She looked too. The military camp, once a thriving tobacco plantation and then a fairground for agricultural exhibitions, appeared as a small village. It was set on a high, level plain with over fifty buildings of various sizes. Some were brick, others whitewashed wood, and still others weathered board. Rolling green pastures and forests of oak created the canvas all around the tents. However, the horde of people, probably mostly Richmonders, who had come to witness her hanging, cast a dark shadow over the otherwise picturesque landscape. Pushing and shoving their way toward the carriage, they tried to steal a glimpse of her.
Settling back into her seat to hide in the cool interior, Jana followed Captain Richardson’s solemn gaze toward the wooden scaffold set up for her hanging. Its sinister aura dredged up the fears that she constantly harbored: of dying, of never seeing her family and friends again, of never knowing life as a woman, especially with Keeley. She gagged on a hot wave of nausea and leaned out over the door and spilled her guts.
The crowd heckled, calling her a coward.
Captain Richardson sacrificed his handkerchief to her.
As Jana wiped her breakfast’s sour remnants of cornbread and coffee away from her mouth, the ride ended in front of a two-story frame house.
The mounted sentinels stayed posted around the carriage with their hands resting on their pistols. They were warning the crowd that they’d tolerate no one pushing or shoving toward the carriage and their prisoner.
All alone, surrounded by her foes, Jana felt herself beginning to crack under the pressure.
A persistent old woman, hobbling on a cane, managed to slip past the guards and sidle up to Jana’s window. Her face was tucked inside the hood of her black cloak. “Let’s see you escape the grim reaper,” the witch cackled.
A familiar, soapy smell drifted Jana’s way. She knew the old lady before she tilted her head back and winked. Jana dropped her chin to her chest and began sobbing.
“Off with you, old lady,” Captain Richardson commanded.
By the toe of his boot, protruding through a stirrup, a cavalryman nudged her back into the crowd.
“I’m sorry if she upset you,” Captain Richardson said.
Jana dabbed her wet eyes on the parts of the handkerchief not soiled by her spittle. Captain Richardson would never know tears of relief ran down her cheeks. Although fleeting, Miss Lizzie’s appearance had chased away her loneliness and boosted her courage. “Only the noose can hurt me now,” she said.
The front door of the house squealed open. An officer Jana knew to be a colonel by the three little gold stars on each side of his uniform collar stepped out and hurried toward Jana’s entourage. He was followed by a minister in his black garb and white collar.
Making his way outside, Captain Richardson saluted his superior.
The colonel returned a salute, then peered inside and said, “Jana Cassidy, I presume?”
“Yes,” Jana said with a sniffle.
Captain Richardson introduced Colonel Shields, the commandant of Camp Lee, to Jana.
She nodded her acknowledgment while staring over his shoulder at the hangman, who was testing her noose for tautness.
Colonel Shields looked behind him. With a somber expression, he turned back to Jana and said, “We’ll keep you right where you are until all is ready. No point exposing you to the crowd any sooner than we have to.”
Flurrying to her side, the clergyman cleared his throat nervously before saying, “Shall we ask the Lord to forgive you of your sins?”
Jana couldn’t tell to which faith he belonged. Did it matter? Last rites were likely the same whatever the religion. Setting her jaw with firmness, she said, “For all my sins, except spying for the Union.”
“May God forgive you for doing what you considered was right.” He dropped his eyes, cueing her to do the same. He prayed for her soul not to be damned.
Jana found solace in the preacher’s words. It was important for her to have her soul in good standing with God when she went into the afterlife, and she prayed along with him to make sure of that.
When the pastor uttered, “Amen,” Colonel Shields nodded, signaling that her hour of reckoning had come.
Colonel Shields ordered the guards to dismount, and they tethered their horses to the hitching posts before his cabin.
Captain Richardson ushered Jana from her sanctuary and then linked arms with her to hold her steady.
Sensing his trepidation, Jana patted his large, leathery hand. “Thank you, Captain, for all of your kindness.” She fixed her eyes forward and said, “Now, shall we get on with it?”
Colonel Shields led the way, and the soldiers stationed themselves all around Jana.
As they marched onward, Jana saw a photographer fiddling with his camera. It called to mind Miss Lizzie’s warning about not having her likeness taken or else risk Ma and Pa seeing her hanging on the front page of a newspaper long before they received her note. If she successfully avoided this, the papers would report that a Jana Cassidy had hung, and Ma and Pa would be none the wiser. She faced downward at the grassy path, making a clear shot of her impossible as she passed the camera.
The crowd taunted Jana as she passed. Some hollered, “Death to the spy!” Others yelled, “Hang all Yankee aggressors!”
Jana felt something small and hard strike her cheek. As she rubbed it, she saw pebbles being hurled at her from every direction. It got her blood boiling. She wanted to shout, “Isn’t my hanging enough for you?”
“Get these people under control!” Colonel Shields ordered the guards, who aimed their rifles into the masses to subdue them.
More bothered by her noose, which was swinging in the breeze and beckoning her, Jana looked away. Instead, her eyes followed the sun’s beam downward with the hope that it would find her earthly angel. Intent on her search for Miss Lizzie, she didn’t see the wooden steps of the scaffold before she stubbed her toe and tripped up them.
Captain Richardson righted and guided her up onto and across the platform.
The masses elbowed their way forward.
After the hangman tested the rope and noose for tautness one more time, he tied Jana’s wrists together so tight her fingertips went numb.
Jana wished he could deaden her rising fear too.
A ruckus arose. The black-cloaked old lady was clearing everyone aside with a tap from her cane. If Miss Lizzie were caught anywhere near Jana, she’d resurrect the Confederacy’s suspicions of her role in the Castle-Thunder-blueprint affair and heighten their surveillance of her, jeopardizing her intelligence operation.
Why does she risk her life by drawing attention to herself to come to me? Jana wondered as the noose settled around her dress collar, making it scratchier against her neck.
As Miss Lizzie hobbled up into Jana’s near vision, the crowd averted their attention to the scaffold, forgetting the crotchety old woman. Again, she tilted her head back and winked.
When it dawned on Jana that Miss Lizzie had risked her life in coming here today to show her how to be brave, she was certain there weren’t enough words in any existing dictionary to describe her admiration and appreciation for this very special woman. Although it had cost Jana a huge price to fight for her country, she’d never regret the path she’d chosen. Angling her face heavenward, she prepared to meet her fate with pride and courage—but on her own terms.