I ONCE ASKED my brother why he became a member of Quantrill’s Raiders. He said, “We became bushwhackers to fight for Missouri without answering to a bunch of Virginians with brass buttons on their coats.”
He said, “I know we do bad things. We raid, we steal, we shoot people, and usually Quantrill doesn’t let us take prisoners. But it’s war, Juliet. Look at what the Yankees do.”
I wanted desperately to ask him how many men he had killed. Most especially in the raid on Lawrence, Kansas. But Martha told me not to. “That’s not a thing a man talks about,” she said. “If he ever wants to tell you, he will. But I doubt it. He hasn’t told me. But I think it’s a lot. And do you know what, Juliet? It was always in combat. Never once did he kill a man just to kill him. He did tell me that.”
Not like her brother, she said.
Every so often she mentioned Bill with profound sadness.
And then, the last time he was home, Seth admitted to me and to Martha, “I’m getting tired of all the killing.” And there was a look in his eyes that made me know he’d done more killings than even he wanted to remember.
“I think after next summer I’ll quit the whole business,” he told her, “and settle down.” Next summer would be the summer of ’64, a year after Gettysburg. The South already knew the scales were tipped in favor of the North. Seth told us that, too, before he left.
“The only action going on now,” he said, “is guerrilla hit-and-run operations. And nobody knows if the South can hold out.”
Eighteen sixty-four was an election year in the North. In the barn one day, I heard some nigras talking about it. We whites weren’t the only ones waiting for things to happen.
BUT AT home, things went on as usual. Every morning I got up at six, as Seth had directed, and milked Daisy. One thing Maxine taught me was how to make butter. I delighted in my finished product. When I brought the milk up to the house and she put it in jars, she showed me the rich layer of cream that formed on top. With it we could do many delightful things.
Martha made me a cake for my birthday and made icing out of the whipped cream. It was heavenly.
I wrote to Seth once a week, and when he could he answered. I thanked him for my birthday presents, a new woolen skirt and a copy of Moll Flanders. On the quiet, lazy farm the hogs were slaughtered the first cold day in November under the management of Maxine. The trees were all bare now and everything stood stark against an uncertain future.
The cold made it harder to get up in the morning. I took a lantern with me to the barn. And all along I’d been taking Seth’s Sharpe’s rifle. Nobody knew I could shoot it. It was my secret.
ONE DAY the first week of December, two riders came up the path from the main road.
One unmistakably wore blue, with shiny brass buttons. The other was a woman. From the porch, I could see that the woman was none other than Sue Mundy, who’d been gone from us for a while.
“Does he look hostile?” Martha asked from inside the door.
“No. They’re chatting. Like they know each other.”
“Well, if it’s Sue Mundy, I suppose they do,” she said. “Tell you what, Juliet. Keep them busy talking out there while Maxine and I hide whatever Seth left around in here, will you?”
How much did she know about Sue not being a woman? Had Seth told her? Or did he keep her in the dark to protect her? He sometimes did that, I minded.
I stood on the porch, with an old jacket of Seth’s wrapped around me, a civilian jacket I sometimes wore to the barn. I remembered that I was not supposed to be Seth’s little sister, or know where he was, and the jacket helped me play the part. Seth Bradshaw’s little sister would be wearing shiny button-up boots, several petticoats, and a fancy cloak with a velvet capelet around her shoulders. The Bradshaws were held in high esteem around here. They lacked for nothing. My pa had had money. Seth handled it now. I recollected him saying to Martha on his last visit home that he was putting it in American dollars and depositing it in a bank in England.
The Yankee rode up, reined in his horse, and nodded up at me. “And who might this pretty lass be?” he asked Sue.
She had her answer at the ready. “That’s one of my cousins, Maud, the one I told you about who fell out of the hayloft and near broke her head open. Maud, this is Captain Heffinger, come to visit for a while.”
I said a polite hello. He doffed his Yankee hat. My god, I thought, I’m a cousin to Sue Mundy! What have we gotten ourselves into? But I followed Sue’s lead.
She had Echo take their horses, then invited the Yankee into the house. He held the door open for me, and as I went past him I noticed his finery, his polished boots, his soft leather gloves, his spotless hat, his haughty demeanor, and I thought, So the North wears brass buttons, too.
Inside the kitchen Maxine was icing some ginger cookies. The Yank’s face went haggard of a sudden. “My mother makes those,” he said.
Maxine offered him some with a mug of milk. He actually set his hat down and sat himself down at the long wooden table and partook of the feast.
Martha came in. He looked her up and down. She was just starting to show her new motherhood by now, and he stood when she entered the room. “Ma’am. You a cousin, too?”
“Yes. I’m in charge when Sue isn’t around. What can I help you with, Captain?”
“I’m looking for Seth Bradshaw. Somebody said they thought this was his place.”
“I never met the man. My name is Martha Mundy. My husband was killed earlier this year at Gettysburg.”
“Sorry for your loss, ma’am.”
I did some quick counting in my head and thought, Good for you, Martha, you’ve got the timing sort of right, anyway.
“Maud here is my little sister.”
“I had her down as the little sister of Seth Bradshaw, the one wounded in the building collapse,” he said, looking at me. “That is a scar on her head, isn’t it? Intelligence has it that she was taken to Fort Leavenworth to have her head stitched. And the brother offered five Yankee prisoners for her release.”
“Captain, you doubt my word?” Sue Mundy could be a coquette when she wanted to.
“No, but something tells me these two women were supposed to be on that wagon train out of Missouri.” He stood up. “Thank you for the cookies. They’re so good I might be back for more. Course in my line of work, you never know when. This is a fine place you’ve got here, Sue Mundy. Much obliged for the hospitality.”
He moved toward the door.
“Hope to see you again soon,” Sue said, smiling. “You dear man, do come back. And give my regards to the others under your command.”
He went out the door. I let my breath out and only then did I realize that it was the first I’d really breathed since he’d stepped foot in the house.
IT WAS December and the days grew short and cold. Sue Mundy had taken off on a secret mission she could not speak of, and it was just me and Martha and Maxine in the house. Martha was tutoring me this year, as Seth wanted. A cough seized me and Martha became worried. She wanted me to stop getting up at six each morning to milk Daisy.
“I can easily get one of the farm nigras to do it,” she said.
“I have to,” I told her. “Seth said I have to, no matter what. And I don’t want to go against him again.” It was like a pact Seth and I had now. A pact we’d made without words. Like he was testing me to see if I had the mettle to carry through with his wishes. He’d treated me with decency, not allowing his anger to take over. And I had to show him I respected him and would honor my part of the relationship.
“Well,” Martha said, not concealing her own anger, “just so you know, I’m writing to Seth today and telling him about your cough. And we’ll see what he has to say.”
I did not answer, but just picked up the freshly scoured milk pail and went out into the cold.
There was no other human in the barn. The horse stalls had all been cleaned, blankets had been put on the horses, and they’d been taken out to pasture to enjoy whatever thin sunshine the day would bring.
My position milking Daisy left me with my back to the barn door. The only sound there was came from the milk pinging into the pail. I thought about the day when I was about seven years old and Seth, maybe all of nineteen, held me in front of him and taught me how to milk a cow. How frightened I’d been, except for the nearness of Seth and the satisfaction of seeing the milk gush into the pail, just like this. I’d about finished now, when someone said:
“I see they’re keeping you busy.”
I jumped, coming out of my reverie. A man’s voice. Familiar yet not. I half turned.
There he stood in the half-light the barn door let in. Bill Anderson. And a girl. It was his sister, Mary, who was sixteen, still bandaged up from the falling building incident.
“You’re not supposed to be in these parts ever again,” I told him. And I reached down for the Sharpe’s rifle on the ground next to me. “My brother catches you, he’ll kill you.”
He gave a short, evil laugh. “Don’t try to fool me, little girl. I know your brother is off with Quantrill, elst I wouldn’t be here. Truth is, I’m here to see my sister Martha. Bid her good-bye. And see if she wants to come with us. I’m taking Mary here with me, back to Texas. Now you take me to Martha like a good little girl. Put that rifle down and I’ll leave you be.”
He knew I could shoot. He’d taught me. I saw Mary’s eyes widen in fear.
“Put it down,” Bill said.
But I did not move. Next thing I knew, I saw him go for his Navy Colt revolver at his hip and in a flash, fire it. Not at me, but at the milk pail on the floor. It made a terrible sound, echoing off the rafters, and there was a rustling of wings from some frightened barn swallows. In the next moment, milk was gushing onto the floor.
I cussed at him then, all my best cusswords, which I never dared say in front of Seth or Martha. And finished off with “You snake-loving polecat!”
He shook his head. “Such nasty language from a sweet little girl like you. Your brother ought to do something about your mouth. Now put the gun down or the next thing I shoot is the cow. I heard what you bartered for her, heard what you gave away. There ain’t no secrets around here. Well?”
I set the gun back down on the floor, trembling with rage now.
“I know Mr. Addison, too, remember. And he’s mindful of who you and Seth really are, and who my sister is, too. How long do you think it’ll be before he tells his friends, the Yankees?”
“He’s not a snake in the grass like you.”
“Enough! Come along to the house and bring us to Martha. Now.” He still had the Navy revolver pointed at me. I went.
Martha was just coming into the dining room to breakfast. She wore a blue silk robe Seth had given her, though he didn’t say from where he had gotten it. Personally, though it is none of my affair, I think he got it from one of the houses in the Lawrence raid. That he’d stuffed it in his saddlebags along with some other loot, like a velvet dress of the right size for me. I’ve never worn the dress. I think I will, for Christmas.
“Hello, Martha.”
He stood in the dining room doorway and she looked up, aghast. Her hand went to her throat and she wasn’t sure whether to be happy or to throw a dish at him. But it was the sight of Mary that opened her heart. She got up, went to her sister, and they hugged and cried for a minute.
She didn’t hug Bill.
He looked at her. “In case you’re wondering, they buried Jenny at the Leavenworth graveyard with the other girls who didn’t make it,” he said. “Right next to Fanny.”
“Someday I must go there,” Martha told him. Then she looked at me, standing, white-faced and frightened. “Bill, you shouldn’t be here. In this house. We know what you did to Juliet. It isn’t right, and if Seth were to come now he’d kill you.”
“I’m not stayin’, sister dear. I came to say good-bye. Me and Mary are goin’ to Texas for a while. Till all this dies down. I came to ask if you want to come with us.”
“Leave Seth?” You might as well have asked Martha if she wanted to have tea with President Lincoln. “Are you all crazy, Bill? Or only part?”
He laughed sheepishly. “When’s the kid due?”
“Spring,” she said.
Mary said nothing. She didn’t seem to be present in full, actually, behind those eyes. I think she was in pain. Why was Bill dragging her around like this?
Thinking the same thing, Martha offered, “You can leave Mary if you want. Seth’s a good man. He’d agree to it.”
“You want to stay, Mary?” he asked her.
“I saw two bear cubs,” she told him. “Outside. Romping.”
He put his arm around her shoulder. “C’mon now, don’t start. It’s time for your medicine, anyway.”
“They want to attack me. I’m afraid, Bill.”
He fished a small bottle out of his pocket. “Here,” he said to me, “take this into the kitchen and have Maxine give her a whole teaspoonful.” It was an order. I looked at Martha. She nodded yes, so I took Mary by the arm and we went to the kitchen.
There Maxine fussed over her, commented on the head bandage, which was larger than mine had ever been, on the wrapped-up arm in a sling, and the way she limped.
“You should be in bed, sweetie,” she told her.
“I remember you,” Mary said, wondering how she could have.
“Course you do, darling.” In two minutes Maxine knew she wasn’t right in the head and made her a cup of tea. “You want some breakfast?” She had bacon frying in the pan in the hearth, coffee bubbling, and was ready to start cracking eggs over the skillet.
“No thank you,” Mary said politely. “We have to go soon. Before either the bears or the Yankees get us.”
Martha and Bill came into the kitchen. He wrapped Mary in a cloak and put a scarf around her head. Martha went about putting some bread and meat slices and cheese in a small sack for them.
He kissed Martha on the forehead and turned to go. I saw her shudder after that kiss. I saw her hug Mary. Then they went out.
“He shot a hole in the milk pail and it’s all lost,” I told Maxine and Martha.
“The devil doan always wear his green ears and tail” was Maxine’s reply.
Martha just shook her head. “There’s another reason you shouldn’t be going out to that barn alone,” she said. “Well, I expect an answer to my letter to Seth today. Come, let’s have breakfast.”
Just as she got those words out of her mouth came the sound of two gunshots, one hard after the other. I jumped. Martha put her hand over her heart and we ran to the dining room windows just as Bill and Mary rode by. Bill saw us and raised his hat in salute with one hand while putting his revolver back in the holster with the other.
“What was he shooting at?” Martha asked.
But I knew. Your heart knows such things. And I ran to the front hall and out of the house into the cold to peer into the patch of woods across the path, where the bears liked to play of a morning.
There they lay. Dead. Blood running down their beautiful winter coats.
“Noooo,” I screamed. And then I went into a fit of coughing and crying. Martha came over to me, and she, who loved those bear cubs so much, held me close and told me that now they were running around in heaven. Where it wasn’t cold and where they could find their mother.
I cried some more. “Dear God,” she asked Maxine, who’d just come out the door, “what would Seth do?”
“I ’spect his bein’ here would be enuf,” Maxine answered her. “Leave her be, Martha, leave her cry it out. Come on in. Remember your own baby. She’ll come in when she’s ready. She’s a big girl now. She’ll come in when she’s ready.”
Somebody put a cloak over me, and I lay there on the cold ground.