Alias Dragonfly (13 page)

Before I could pause to take it all in, Webster swept me to yet another large oil painting to the side of the gallery.

Across the broad canvas, Indian braves rode in silence, scouting, watching in all directions, for what? Even the horse was vigilant, looking away, perhaps an impending attack? And the colors—

Within minutes, Webster grabbed my arm and walked me hurriedly through the gallery and out the door. I blinked hard in the sunlight, my mind a jumble of images.

“Don’t speak, Miss,” he said. “Just remember.”

We passed through the daisy meadow and left the spires of the fantasy castle behind.

“What now, Mr. Webster?” I asked, sensing this excursion was a kind of test.

“I’m taking you back to your aunt, for now. Be patient.”

Patient? Back to that solitude, the endless chores, for how long? I thought as Mr. Webster bid me farewell at the boardinghouse door.

Two long days passed
without any sign of Mr. Webster, or any word from my father. The papers had the lists of the missing and the dead in Papa’s regiment. His name was not among them. But where was he?

Late in the afternoon of the second day, I was resting after my chores. To keep my mind busy, I kept going over the Indian painting in my mind. I could almost taste the dust, and feel the sweat of the Indian horses, their bodies slick with it. I remembered all I had seen in that remarkable museum. Details and colors skittered in my head.

The door of my room opened slowly. A hand held out a china doll with pink lips and bright, azure eyes frozen open. Her blonde ringlets were swept up in a rose-colored ribbon. A high-pitched voice came from behind the door.

“I jumped straight out of the toy-store window, just so I could be yours.” The doll head bobbed, and her eyes closed.

My heart leapt for joy!

I knew it was my father, and I was beyond relieved, but I wasn’t going to let on.

“Okay, Papa, you can come in,” I said.

My father opened the door wide. I threw myself into his arms, the doll crushed between us.

“I couldn’t come or write, Maddie. I’m so sorry.”

“You are safe!” The doll dropped to the floor.

Now I’ve never had a doll so fine, and didn’t have the heart to tell him that at that moment, I couldn’t have cared less. I picked up the frozen-faced thing.

“I wish you were a little girl still wrapped in your mama’s arms by the fire,” he said. “I wish this terrible war had never started. I watched men I’d come to love die in front of me.”

“Oh, Papa.”

I held him like he was the child and I was the adult.
In that moment as I watched my father weep, how could I tell him I was waiting for . . . something? And for the first time in my life, wishing him to leave?

He drew back, wiping his eyes, and looked at me, at the different me.

“My regiment will remain here, Maddie, at one of the forts that guard the city. I don’t know how often I can get away, what with rumors of a Rebel invasion, and—”

“The doll is really pretty, Papa.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“Maddie, you must promise me never, never to run off again. Salome said you gave her such a fright.”

“I can’t promise that, Papa,” I said.

“Maddie! What has happened to you? Where is my good little girl, my darling?”

“She’s gone, Papa!”

I went to the window and looked out at the alleyway below. I was trying to think what else to say to my father when I saw two large, white men in overalls hovering at the doorway to the kitchen. One carried a rope, the other a shotgun. They were slave catchers, I was nearly certain.

I had to warn Nellie. And if Isaac was about? My God!

I had to leave right then.

“Papa! I forgot! I have to finish helping Aunt Salome. She counts on me, she—” I pushed past him. “Leave me alone!”

I raced through the hall, and down to the kitchen. Nellie was kneading dough, punching it hard.

“Men! Strangers outside, Nellie!”

Nellie stopped cold. “Mm hm,” she said, and calmly walked to a wooden enclosure at the corner of the kitchen where the slops buckets were stored. She hefted a full one and dragged it to the door leading to the alley. She opened it and sure enough, the men still lurked there.

Without a word, Nellie emptied the bucket of waste, and the slime of it flooded the doorway. The men backed away.“Watch your slops, mammy!” one said.

“I’m dreadful sorry, suh,” Nellie answered, head bowed. She backed away muttering her sorrys until she’d closed the door.

Without a word, Nellie returned to her task of kneading, only now her punches grew harder as she slammed both fists into the mass of dough. I watched as Nellie rolled the bread makings into a large ball and dropped it into a pan. She poured water over her hands, wiped them off on a towel, and picked up a quilt from under the wooden counter. It was the same one she’d hung in the window to the alley after she’d caught me alone outside. It was of rough, heavy texture with red zigzag stripes embroidered across it. At the bottom were two half-moon shapes.

Nellie hung the quilt in the window from a large, brass hook.

“Ain’t nobody in the cellar,” she said to me. “Ain’t gonna be for a time.”

With that, she touched my face gently.

I left her there.

There was no sign of my father. I felt beyond relieved that he was safe, and really, really guilty about the ungrateful way I’d behaved.

I was so caught up in these thoughts I didn’t see Mr. Webster pacing in the parlor when I walked in.

He motioned for me to come closer. “Do you know how to use a gun?” he whispered.

“Oh, yes, sir.”
Yes I did, and why was I feeling so excited by his question? Did this mean he trusted me?

Mr. Webster looked around to make sure we were alone. He opened a travel bag and pulled out a long, brown shawl. “It has a pocket, here, where it would drape over your arm,” he said.

He pressed a small pistol into my hand.

“I have my own, sir.”

“You amaze me, Miss,” he said. “Keep yours hidden in case of trouble. Use the one I’m giving you now.”

I put the weapon in the shawl pocket, my hand just over it.

“It’s loaded,” he said.

We had walked a few long blocks into a part of the city I’d never seen before. I smelled wood smoke, horse dung, and heavy, cheap perfume. Some women were draped in doorways wearing nothing more than a chemise and petticoats. Others were beckoning from windows, with curtains half drawn. A few scantily dressed, boldly painted women with bright red lips and rouged cheeks clustered about some soldiers, laughing and pocketing money. Others looked gaunt and hungry, with ragged children at their skirts. Most watched us as we passed.

“Keep your hand on the weapon,” Mr. Webster said, walking close beside me. “This place is known as Swampoodle. It is dangerous, always.” He guided me through a maze of narrow walkways past Negro shanties, old men puffing corncob pipes and women with brightly colored bandanas wringing out wash. A group of corralled cattle—their calves nearly buried beneath them—were packed tight, mooing and lowing.

“They’re on their way to the slaughterhouse,” Mr. Webster said, as one of the cows with long lashes and soft, sad eyes stared at me. “It is a hungry army, hungry to kill and hungry for food.”

I reached through the slats of wood that held the animals and stroked the soft, black nose of a little calf.

“No time for sentiment, Miss Bradford,” Mr. Webster said. “Watch where we are going.”

We wound through those foul-smelling streets at least five times, never stopping. Was Mr. Webster trying to confuse me? I was a bit nervous, but mostly I was wrapped up in storing what I was seeing in my head. Perhaps Mr. Webster wanted me to remember every turn, every shabby door front, every face I’d seen. That, as you know, was easy for me.

We walked further, at least another mile. At last, we came to a street. It was clean, almost serene, with a small park and a grove of leafy oak trees.

A few children played, spinning tops, pitching horseshoes. Their mothers or governesses sat knitting or chattering close by.

“I’ll leave you now,” Mr. Webster said.

“Why?”

Would he leave me alone? Here, in the middle of a strange city that crackled and smelled, and hummed and unnerved me?

“Stay right here on this bench. Someone will contact you very shortly. You’ll be addressed by the name of Fiona. Remember that. Wait for that.” He looked at the children and sighed deeply. “That little tyke with the brown hair and gap-toothed smile,” he said softly. “My only son . . . there is, was, a resemblance. I’ve missed out, you see. He’s a man now, and has no idea what I do.” I saw a mist of tears forming in his eyes. But not for long. He blinked and drew up straight, alert like a hunting dog waiting for a quail to fly out of a bush. “Remember to stay right here, Miss Bradford.”

As Mr. Webster was leaving, he stopped to pick a bunch of buttercups. He held them to his nose, then disappeared into the grove of trees.

I too watched the children, their faces like flowers as they darted about, singing, tussling in the sunlight. I was never that carefree, I thought. Never.

What would happen next?

An elderly woman carrying a cloth bag lowered herself with some difficulty onto the bench next to me. She had sparse, silver hair that peeked from a wide-brimmed straw hat.

“I’ve none of my own,” she said. “Little ones, that is. I could watch them all day.” She rummaged in her bag, her hands stiff and gnarled.

“My knitting needles, might you help me get them out, dear? I’m making a sweater for one of those girl-children, any one of the bunch. I’ve named them all Amy after my dear sister who left this earth sixty-seven years ago. Or was it last week?”

She looked at me with milky, clouded-over blue eyes.

“Amy, is that you?”

I found her needles and put them in her hands. “No, ma’am. I’m not Amy.” Was this the woman who would call me Fiona?

“Yes, you are Amy!” she shouted, holding her hands over her ears.

Just then, a rubber ball hit me square on my arm. I caught it, looking for the child who might have thrown it.

He was next to me in a wink: A tiny boy wearing a black slouch cap pulled down to his nose grabbed the ball from me.

“You’ll get a spanking surely for that, Mikey!” a woman called out, coming straight toward us. She was red haired, slender, and small, not young or old, wearing a blue bonnet and a simple gray dress. “You scared me silly. Come along, now, Fiona, Mikey, the both of you!”

Fiona! The name Webster told me someone would use. Fiona.

The boy trotted obediently to the woman’s side. “Sorry, Mama,” he piped in a high squeaky voice.

“You foolish girl.” She pointed at me. “You were supposed to be watching over him!” she snapped. “Come with me, Fiona.” I hesitated. “Now!” she said. I got up to follow her.

When we were just outside the park, she reached into her pocket and pulled out several coins. She dropped them into the boy’s hand. He picked one up and bit down hard on it. “They’re beauties!” he said, smiling broadly, showing a set of uneven, stained teeth. He pulled up his pant leg and shoved the coins into his sock. Only then did I see he was not a true boy at all. He was a young man, no more than three feet tall, with hairy legs and tiny, and calloused hands. “Thanks, Mike,” the woman said. He doffed his hat to her.

“You got distracted, rummaging into that old woman’s bag,” she said sharply to me. “She was no threat, but you didn’t know that. Listen well, girl. You will never, never know if someone is a true danger. You must be alert and on guard at all times. Expect the unexpected. This is a battlefield. Do you understand?” Her tone was harsh.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, berating myself silently. I never thought that anyone, anytime, anywhere might be an enemy. “I’ll learn, I swear it.” I would.

“I’ll report that to my . . . superior,” she reached out to shake my hand. I took it. Her grip was so tight my hand was growing numb. “I could have thrown you to the ground,” she said. “Don’t ever shake the outstretched hand of a stranger.”

“I won’t.”

“Good. At least you stood your ground.” She let me go.

“Take us back to Swampoodle, Miss Fiona,” Mikey ordered.

Swampoodle. I retraced our steps back, back into my mind. Try to remember the way.

I made a sharp turn, my head rattling with the right directions. I wound around the foul streets; tracking backwards just the way Mr. Webster had taken me. Mikey and the woman watched me closely as I moved with growing assurance.

Finally, a Union soldier with flabby cheeks and a dead-set, grim face moved in front of us so we could not take another step. Mikey extended two fingers of his hand, keeping the other close to his side. With a flutter of his eyes, the soldier acknowledged him and led us to a storefront with heavy wooden doors. The sign in the window read,