Enemy Women (13 page)

Miss Colley, he said. Sit down. I am Major William Neumann, of the judge advocate general’s department. He stood and took her in, her face and hair and her dress. I am in charge of your case, so far. I repeat, sit down.

His voice was low, his accent was neither North nor South. It was an American accent but very odd. She sat on the sofa. Then he sat down as well. His officer’s sword had been slung casually by its hangar on a hat rack, and as he turned to sit down his elbow knocked into it and it rattled in little metallic crashes on its chain. He took up his papers. She felt a tremor start up in her hands and she hid them in her skirt.

Miss Colley, you have been here for three weeks. He jiggled the papers. Imagine that.

He was saying something just to have something to say.

Time just flies by when a person is in good company, she said. Jolly evenings of improving readings around the fire.

The room was warm. She was surprised to feel how pleasant it was to be in a moderate-size room that was warm all over. She put her hands out to an ornate parlor stove with its leaves of shining chrome on the sides. There was a deep glow of coal through the isinglass window in the front. The floor was scarred with chair scraping, and the wall had a shelf of books about Indian languages and geographies of far places.

There were people and vehicles going by on the street outside. She could see that the storefronts were swagged with Christmas greens. Here inside was a table in front of the sofa with a lamp so far unlit. Behind the major was a map of the United States, in various colors. She was surprised there were not flames depicted on it, breaking out throughout the South like brushfires. Bullet holes. Sleet stung at the windows. Her heart slowed a little to a repetitive series of dull explosions.

I know you are uncomfortable there in the General Ward, he said. He paused and then began again. As if back onto an unalterable text. I know you are uncomfortable in the General Ward but this is how we
process prisoners. At first they join the general prison population and then we conduct interviews and things may change for you or not change. He waited for her to say something.

Well, all right then, she said. What am I charged with? She leaned forward. She wished she were apprised like her father concerning the statutes of the State of Missouri.

He paused. He cleared his gravelly throat. He brought one paper out from under a pile of other papers. It was a printed form, and beneath it a large blank space that had been filled in with a minute hand.

I am not obligated even to tell you that, he said.

He sat and looked at her, at her deep Italianate eyes, the fineness of her pale face, and the pitch-black hair in a crown of braiding. Her narrow hands folded. The coloring of some prehistoric people of the British Isles that were there before the Saxons, perhaps even before the Celts, some ancient race of savages that had invented a terrible tale called Snow White. She was prison thin, and he saw her ears were pierced but she wore no earrings. He sat back and searched in a drawer for a pen that he did not need. He became firm again, lest he be seduced by appearances. Thus it was being assigned to the women prisoners. Temptation was ever before him.

He said, St. Louis, and in fact all of Missouri, is under martial law. Because of the extreme condition of guerilla warfare in this state. All right?

I see, she said. Then the state laws don’t apply to anything at all?

He raised his head from the papers. His hazel eyes gazed at her solid as wooden buttons.

No.

No?

No,
Miss Colley. He was impatient. Martial law applies.

What is marshal’s law?

I don’t see why you should concern yourself. He was irritated. What would you do about it if I handed you the statutes?

I’d sit here and read them. She brushed her hair out of her eyes. She
was proud that it was clean, and that she had a clean dress and clean hands. The major probably took a bath twice a week in hot water.

You have no business reading them. You will merely get odd ideas and interpret them in peculiar ways. You will have a lawyer assigned to you to do that. He regarded her from under his thin eyebrows. Can you read?

Of course I can read. My father is a justice of the peace and he teaches the common school.

The major smiled. Read that, he said. He shoved a copy of
Godey’s Ladies’ Book
in front of her. They tell me this is suitable material for ladies.

Adair took it up. She said, Do I get treated better if I can quote some poetry? Should I have brought my watercolors?

Read.

She read, in a firm, clear voice,

“In the first place, the breathing of impure air tends inevitably to shorten life: the body loses its health and strength, the mind its vigor, and becomes feeble and desponding.”

The major heard
In th fuss plaice, th breathin of impyuh aiy-yur .
. .

“People who breathe bad air day after day are always in a low, nervous state—they are, in fact, little more than half alive. A hundred years ago, the Lord Mayor of London, two judges and one alderman, all died from a fever which broke out at Newgate, owing to the dirt and want of fresh air.” She looked up. Is there any chance you might take this here to heart or is it going right over your head?

He paused and for the first time he smiled a meager half smile. I have sent a copy to the matron, Mrs. Buckley, and have been told to mind my own business. I think they call her The Ironclad.

Well take it to somebody else, Adair said. Surely she ain’t the last word in prisons around here.

I am doing my best, he said. Although I don’t expect you to rise up and cheer.

Are you waiting for us all to die?

Young woman, I said I am doing my best. You are impertinent.

I’ll pray for your soul, Major.

He turned his eyes down to his papers and cleared his throat. In regards to your case.

Why are you even talking to me about it? she asked. She kicked out her foot in impatience and made her hem jump with the toe of her stiff ankle-jack. If it’s all marshal’s law and I am a prisoner without recourse.

Listen to me, he said. Your treatment will improve if you cooperate.

How old are you? asked Adair. How’d you get into this kind of thing, you a major in the U.S. Army and tormenting women?

I am a soldier, he said. I do what I am assigned to do. He was furious. He bit his teeth together and pressed his fingertips on the paper. His fingertips were white. This is the kind of assignment given to those of us daft enough to have read law.

Well then, go on, she said. She turned to the window and saw a man on a gray horse going past. The horse had its chin tucked in and head tilted to one side as if it were searching for lost change in the gutters. She looked at the major again. I suppose you have to go on about it.

When I was first assigned here—

And where are you from, anyway?

Shut
up
! he said. If you continue I will send you back to the General Ward.

Adair looked down at her shoe toe. There was a long silence and the fire crackled in the stove.

He said, When I was first assigned here I found the situation confusing, as most areas of Missouri have both Union and Rebel adherents living sometimes side by side. You can imagine my relief when I was assigned to prisoners from the district of southeast Missouri. You are all Rebels down there. Solid South. Every man jack of you, and so there is no confusion whatever.

Well, said Adair. What a relief that must have been.

You can’t know.

But there’s about ten people gone over to the Union down there, she said. Is what I heard.

He went on as if he had not heard her. And we are occupying the southeastern counties by force of arms. But we cannot pacify the countryside, can we? Adair realized this was a speech that he gave to everyone. To all the women. He said, We dash out of Iron Mountain and Rolla, and burn things and then retreat to our garrisons. Then your people shoot at us from treetops and bushes. He ran his fingers through a drumroll on the desktop, his nails clattering on the oak like a startled horse. Then he stopped and picked up the pen. Our purpose there is to deny the guerillas sustenance, food, and clothing and whiskey. His voice was that of a lecture to the soldiers. All these things are produced by women. Apparently they are getting their horses from Illinois.

Think of that, she said. The Union Militia took my daddy and my horse both. Times are hard all around. Adair tapped her foot.

You really are insolent, Miss Colley, he said. He leaned back in his chair. He smiled at her. You are very good at it.

Well! Adair brightened somewhat. I never thought of it as a talent.

Do you think it will get you out of here?

Will anything?

Depends.

Well go on with what you were saying. I guess you got to say it.

He said, Ahem, as if it were a word. Missouri is under martial law, Union martial law, and the other side is not regular Confederate Army as far as we are concerned, but guerillas. They have no regular communication with the CSA staffs and are not part of the chain of command and they are not in regular communication with their superior officers in the CSA. So we maintain they are freelancers moving at will and freelancers are called guerillas. It is the rules of war. You see I have given this little lecture many times. He did not smile. You understand that captured guerillas are not accorded the same treatment as regular CSA troops.

She said, But, Major, I think Colonel Reeves has a commission from the Missouri State Guard and is charged with the defense of the state. We’ve been invaded by Buckeyes and Hoosiers and ice people from Illinois.

He said, Miss Colley, I believe it is wrong to argue the war with women. Since women are under our protection and cannot vote nor sit on juries. However. Reeves’s Fifteenth Missouri Cavalry is, as far as we are concerned, a guerilla band, and they are outlaws, and criminals.

Well what do you know if they are criminals or not? said Adair. What about your own criminals? Her face tightened and her voice became heated.

He went on. And if they are caught they will be executed after a very hasty trial. With a drunken mob of Missouri Union Militia troops standing around outside screaming for the rope.

She said, The Militia don’t give people trials.

He said, I know. He took a grip on the papers in front of him, as if to lay hold of the whole nasty business. I will admit we have had to court-martial at least fifteen men from those assigned to southeast Missouri for arson, theft, murder and one case of. . . .He paused. Arson, theft, and murder.

I would think that would be enough, said Adair. Surely to God you ain’t waiting for them to start roasting babies before you do something about them.

He stared at her and said, The Union Militia is an embarrassment to the Union Army. We are trying to disband them. He fussed again with the forms before him. But they are Frank Blair’s pets and Frank Blair is a powerful man. He tapped a forefinger on the papers. Blair organizes very popular parades and rallies here in St. Louis. They pass out pony kegs of beer and sing “Rally ’Round the Flag.” It is all very patriotic and fervent. He cleared his throat. Men join up in droves.

I’m sure it’s all to the good, Adair said. A way of admonishing the erring.

He bowed slightly. And are not we all erring in the sight of the
Lord? Pray for my soul, Miss Colley. He walked back to his desk and dredged up a report. But wait. There is more admonishing here. He looked down. Miss Colley, you are suspected of three things. He had a blank, careful expression on his face. He then turned again to the forms. First, with cutting telegraph lines. I am sure you know that in December of 1861 General Halleck declared that all those caught cutting Union telegraph lines were to be shot, women included. Secondly, you have been accused of harboring and feeding guerillas, and harboring can mean anything we want it to mean, including keeping guerilla money in a bank account under your name. This means we may confiscate your family’s bank account on nothing more than suspicion, that order given by General Ulysses Grant. He who is even now trampling out the grapes of wrath in Virginia. Thirdly, you are accused of spying.

He put the papers down. Looked up at her without expression.

She said, Gracious. Adair nodded, as if she had just been told some interesting fact about the amazing volume of shipping in the St. Louis port. I’ve been a busy girl.

The spying part was supposed to be when you were brought here on the train.

It was flat dark, she said. It was the dead of night.

Adair thought, They have made up all these accusations. One of them ridiculous so it could be easily thrown aside and she would feel relieved and happy. She would confess to one thing but not another, they would become friends, she would begin to tell him things to please him.

Suddenly and without any preliminaries she felt panic and a kind of frantic surge of energy as if she were having a seizure. There was no way out. She had been shut up in a dark hole. She took in a long breath through her nose with her lips shut, as if breathing in secret.

Miss Colley. He was watching her, alert as a raptor. You have thought of something.

I thought . . .She paused. I thought of my father.

And where is he?

Captain Tom Poth and some militiamen took him away and he was very beat up and then I don’t know.

She thrashed silently in the snare she found herself in. Her father might even now be dying of a fever, and his handsome big dark horse Highlander hitched to an artillery caisson and sprayed with flying metal. Her sisters sleeping on the floor of Dalton’s Store and treated like redheaded stepchildren. Adair strove mightily within herself against the weird internal noises of alarm, as if she had just caught fire or were drowning.

He looked at her for a long moment and the parlor stove thumped and sucked air, radiant with dry heat.

Do I have your attention? he asked. Not unkindly.

Yes, she said. Adair knew if she kept on with these thoughts she would end by giving in. She read the titles of his books. There were large tomes by a man called Schoolcraft,
Lewis and Clark’s Report on the Louisiana Purchase,
a
Report on the Flora and Fauna of Texas.