IT WAS a long, hot, and dusty ride, and the man whom I rode behind had no consideration for the bumpiness of the road. He exchanged ribald jokes with another corporal until Captain Williams overheard them and yelled, “No cussing, no dirty joking!” and then all went quiet.
So quiet that I almost fell asleep, rocking back and forth. Once I caught myself leaning my forehead against the back of my corporal, whose name I never did learn, on the edge of sleep enough to catch glimpses of dreams involving Seth. Seth would not know where I was. Likely he would not care. I grew sad and then I was jerked awake again.
THE BUILDING was brick and three stories high, a sad-looking affair that had seen better days. Captain Williams handed a note to one of the superior officers and he read it and glanced at us.
“Blood kin to Quantrill’s boys, hey?” he asked. I heard a kind of vicious joy in his voice. “Well, we’ll have to treat them like blood-kin, then. Inside, ladies, inside. Take orders and keep your mouths shut and everything’ll be all right. We’ve got some more like you inside.”
We were ushered from a hot street into a sweltering building, then led up the rickety stairs to the second floor, where the floorboards were cracked and just as rickety.
The soldier had been right. There were at least twelve more girls and young women in the large room on the second floor, sitting around despairingly. They got up when we came in and stood staring at us—though some of them knew us and we knew some of them.
I knew Armenia Crawford, Chloe Fletcher, Eugenia Gregg, and Lucy Younger from school. Martha took tea, made quilts, and later made guerrilla shirts with some of the older ones. All of them looked unkempt, even to their mussed hair and dirty faces. But more than that, their faces looked white and drawn, their eyes were sunken in, some red from crying.
“How long have you all been here?” Martha asked.
“Three weeks,” Chloe Fletcher answered. She seemed to be the spokesperson for them. She stepped forward and took Martha’s hand. “We’re certainly glad to see you all.” She introduced her other girls. Their brothers, like mine, rode with Quantrill.
Martha introduced us and we sat down on the beds, which were lined up against the walls. “And this is Sue Mundy,” she finished. “You all have heard of her. She rides with Quantrill.”
There were instant oohs and aahs. One girl, who’d been introduced as Charity McCorkle Kerr, held close a rag doll, yet she was older than I. She stared at Sue Mundy, unashamedly. “It’s right nice of you to come and see us, but we don’t have any tea or truffles to offer. You’ll have to go elsewhere for that. Oh yes, where did you get the fancy duds?” she asked. “Just you wait. You’ll look like the rest of us in no time.”
“Charity, dear,” Chloe Fletcher interrupted, “we’re all in the same boat. I’m sure Sue Mundy is in even greater danger than the rest of us, being she actually fought the Yankees. So leave her alone. Please, darling.”
She spoke as if Charity were a little girl. But in the next moment I found out Charity was the wife of one of Quantrill’s men. Kerr was her marriage name. And there was a wedding band on her finger.
Charity had reverted in her mind, these last three weeks, to a child. One girl standing behind Chloe Fletcher put her finger to her temple and pointed to Charity and twirled that finger around.
“I can make a sound like a piano,” Charity told us, “without assistance of any instrument. I drive the Yankees to distraction at night. I’ll play for you all later.”
“Go back to your corner now, sweetheart,” Chloe directed. And Charity did. She sat down on the floor in a far corner, humming to herself and to her doll baby.
“Poor dear,” Chloe whispered. “Her mind is completely gone.” She gave a deep sigh. “And I’m afraid of what her husband, Johnny Kerr, will do, when he finds out.”
“Will he find out?” I asked boldly. “I mean, will we all ever see our kin again?”
“Have they tried to force themselves on any of you?” Jenny Anderson asked.
“Do they speak of keeping us here? Or sending us somewhere else?” asked Fanny Anderson.
Sue Mundy had been quiet. Finally she spoke. “More to the point, have they questioned any of you?”
Silence. Only Sue Mundy would ask such a pertinent question.
“Some,” Chloe answered. Behind her a few hands went up and we heard some yeses.
“Chloe,” Sue asked, “do you mind if I have a session with your girls and ask what they’ve been questioned about? And advise them how to talk to the Yankees in the future?”
Chloe was taken aback, but she said, “Of course.” And immediately Sue Mundy ushered the girls to one side of the room and had them sit on the floor as she stood in front of them.
“Go,” Martha directed me.
“Do I have to?” I was angry at Sue Mundy and she knew it.
“Yes. This could help you. Seth is a captain now. Directly under Quantrill. They likely know this and will want to question you. Go.”
I went and sat down.
The girls who had been questioned by the Yankees were telling Sue Mundy what the tone of the questions had been.
“They wanted to know when my brother was coming home again,” said Eugenia Gregg.
“They wanted me to tell them if we had any ammunition around the house, and if I made any cartridges for my brother,” stated a girl whom I did not know.
“Does your brother ever tell you about the next raid?” put in Lucy Younger. Then she laughed. “I wouldn’t ask. Besides, he wouldn’t tell. For my own protection.”
It went on like that. Then Sue told them what to say if questioned again by the Yankees. “‘I don’t know anything. My brother—husband—cousin—said it was for my own protection.’ And don’t let them threaten you. They can’t shoot you as a traitor. The army doesn’t make war on women.”
Nobody thanked Sue Mundy when she was finished. As a matter of fact, the girls seemed to resent her. Armenia Crawford came over to me. “Who does she think she is in those fancy clothes? She hasn’t been sat down across from a dirty-dog Yankee and sneered at and threatened and scared out of her wits. How dare she tell us what to do?”
“The Yankees admire her,” I said. “When they came to the house to get us, they were delighted to meet her. The captain even kissed her hand.”
She stood stock-still. “Just because she dresses up like a man and shoots them?”
“I guess so.”
“There’s got to be more to it than that.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Let me sleep on it. If I ever sleep in this godforsaken place. Oh, another session this night yet. Now our Chloe is going to give you all the two-cent tour of the place. You better go listen. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“THE ONLY large windows to let in air are in front,” Chloe pointed out. “The side and back of the building have the smaller windows that look out onto weed-choked lots. There is no crosscurrent of air and that’s why the place gets stifling hot. As you can see the bunks are set along the other three walls.
“You empty your own slop jars,” she went on, to the groans of Jenny and Fanny and Mary, Martha, and even Sue Mundy. “Just throw the contents out the side or back windows. The hogs are waiting below.
“And to change the subject, remember there are guards at the entrance to the building, down on the street, and more at the second-floor landing. The Yankees have a meeting room just outside this room. The walls are thin. So we must be careful of our chatter.”
She looked into our fearful faces. “Our girls get so hot during the day they like to take off their dresses and walk around in their shimmies. I can’t blame them. Just be careful to carry a shawl or something in case a Yankee comes in. They like to leer at us. They’ve been away from women a long time, and we don’t want to tempt them. Now the food is bad, and it sometimes isn’t enough. But eat it if you can. You all have to survive. Thank you.”
THAT FIRST night, after a watery dinner of beans and old corn bread, a man came around who was known as Leonard Richardson. He wore an eye patch. Word soon went around the room in a buzz that he was a supplier to wagon train companies.
“I hope he doesn’t supply them with this,” said Charity McCorkle Kerr. “This food is poison!”
Mr. Richardson gave a short smile as he glanced around the room at the girls seated on the floor. “I represent the town fathers,” he told us. “I want to make sure your needs are met.”
Always spotless, Martha Anderson stood up then. But I could see her blouse was already stained with sweat, her hair disheveled. “Our needs!” she said. “Sir, we need clean bed ticking, better food, and clean water. Do you know they bring us our water in the slop jars and expect us to drink it?”
“I’ll see what I can do about it. Your name is Anderson, isn’t it?”
“What difference does it make? I speak for us all.”
“We hear your brother, Bill, has offered ten Union prisoners for you and your sisters, that’s what difference it makes.”
A murmur of oohs and aahs went through the room. I sighed. My brother doesn’t even want me for a sister anymore, I thought.
Then Leonard Richardson looked around. “Who is Juliet Bradshaw?”
Uncertainly, I raised my hand.
“Your brother, Seth, offered five prisoners for your freedom.”
A flood of disbelief and gladness rushed through me, even while tears came to my eyes. Your brother, Seth, offered five prisoners for your freedom. So he still considered me his sister. He hadn’t meant it when he said to stay clear of him, that he didn’t want anything to do with me. And all that talk about the orphanage looking good to him? He hadn’t meant it after all. Oh, Seth, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t!
“So what happens now?” I was brave enough to ask.
“It depends on how the Yankees accept the offer. But they’re both generous gestures. You girls sure are lucky.”
Then another thought came to me. How did Seth know we were here? I put the question to Richardson, who only gave that small smile of his. “There’s not much Quantrill doesn’t know,” he told us. “He’s got spies.” And he shifted his eyes over to a nearby window where Sue Mundy stood smoking a cheroot. “Settle down now. I’ll have some clean water sent up.”
I set my supper aside. I’d go hungry before I’d eat it.