Juliet's Moon (7 page)

"We have but a few minutes." Was that Seth's voice? "If the Yankees find us, I'll be hanged. I mustn't be caught. I've too many scores to settle."

"Here comes the father now."

It
was
Seth talking. I could see two, maybe three, and then four forms standing around Martha's and my beds. "Seth," I called out weakly.

He moved toward me. "Juliet, yes. I'm here."

"Is it really you, Seth?"

"Yes, honey. They came and got us. Bill Anderson is here, too."

"Is Martha dying?"

"No. Why do you say such?"

"Why do you need a priest?"

He was holding my hand. I was crying quietly. Tears were coming down my face. With his free hand he wiped them away.

"Seth," I said, "I'm sorry."

"Hush, don't you dare. Sorry has no place here."

"She saved me. Sue Mundy. Jumped out the window holding me." I didn't dare say Marcellus Jerome Clark. Leave it be. Let it die. Let it crumble under the building. "Do you still want me for a sister?"

"I've got you. I'm stuck with you. The Constitution of the United States says I can't give you back."

"I thought you gave all that up, the Constitution."

He leaned over and kissed me. "I need you to do something for me now. Will you?" His voice was ragged, full of tears.

"What can I do, the way I am?"

"I'm going to marry Martha. Bill Anderson is going to be my best man. Martha and I would like you to be our maid of honor."

"I can't stand up."

"You don't have to. Just be there for us."

The father was putting his priest's long stole around his neck and holding a Bible, though he couldn't see to read. Martha held Seth's hand and the words were said. Low, like the stars outside. Bright like them, too. My own heart was bursting inside me. Those darned tears wouldn't stop flowing down my face.

We weren't Catholic, but the Andersons were, and Seth stood staunch and proud and I don't think wedding vows ever meant so much, especially with him knowing the Yankees could get word that he and Bill were here any minute, and the result could be a hanging tree.

Bill Anderson produced a ring from somewhere. Said it was his mother's, and Seth put it on Martha's finger, then leaned down to kiss her, long and full of his love.

Bill was tugging at his arm. "We gotta go."

"Yes." He came to my bed and kissed me again. "Martha has instructions. Listen to her and behave."

In the next instant it was as if they never were. The room was empty again, and silent, and dark except for the one candle glowing on the nightstand at the foot of my bed.

"I
NEED YOU
," Seth was saying softly. It was the second time in a week that he'd said that to me, and I wasn't upset at hearing it.

"What for?"

He was holding a set of brown trousers and a Quantrill shirt in his hands. He set the clothing down on the bed. "I should say Quantrill needs you. I was sent to bring you along to the camp at White Oak."

My heart beat very fast. Was he joking? He was not. He gave the clothes a small push toward me on the bed. "How is the arm? And the head? Do you still have a fever? Are you still as weak as you were, or are you better?"

He sat down on the side of my bed and felt my head. His hand went gently over the bandages and he felt my arm. "Head still hurts, hey?"

I nodded yes. He ran his hand over the healing cuts on my face. There were many of them. "They'll leave scars," I said, "and I won't be pretty anymore."

"They'll heal. We'll ask Maxine for some of her special concoctions. Look, I wouldn't bother you this morning, but this is important. You feeling up to an assignment from Quantrill?"

That was like asking me if I wanted to walk on the moon. "Yes."

He didn't like the whole idea himself, he said, but Quantrill needed someone who had been at the prison, who would be able to tell him what it had been like, how they'd been treated. And besides Martha and a few girls with bad injuries here in the hospital, all were dead.

"I'll do it," I said solemnly.

"And keep your mouth shut? No questions? Of me or anybody? And take these clothes off soon as you're done?"

"Yes."

"Good, put them on." The room was near dark in the morning half-light, but he went over to Martha's bed anyway and sat on the edge of it and stroked her hair away from her forehead. She must have come awake because they spoke in low tones while I struggled to dress.

The boys' clothing was rough against my skin. But I didn't mind. An assignment from Quantrill was all I was thinking. Would he make me a spy like Sue Mundy? Where was Sue Mundy, by the way, and why wasn't she doing this, and what in God's name had ever made my brother agree to allow me to take part in something so outrageous?

He answered some of these questions when we were out in the chilly August morning, mounting our horses. He'd managed to secure a horse for me, and for that I was grateful. But he was a man of few words, and, as promised, I asked no questions.

"We're going to Camp White Oak, where Quantrill is holed up," he explained briefly. "Quantrill is brewing a plan in retribution for so many kin of his men being killed in the prison collapse. Sue Mundy is on another spying mission for him. And we all know she wasn't treated as a prisoner, anyway.

"They're going to vote this morning on Quantrill's next attack," he told me quietly. "After you leave. And depending on what you say. No, you cannot know what it is. Or when. Just tell the truth as I've taught you to tell it. No embellishments. No pretty words. Spare the words, instead. Tell everything you saw, everything everyone said to the Yankees and they to our kin. Be polite and respectful. Then I'll take you back to the hospital and you will never, in all your born days, speak of this morning again. Do you hear?"

"Yes, Seth."

"Good girl. Now silence. We don't have far to go."

About a mile from the camp we stopped so he could put a blindfold on me. "For your own safety," he explained. "Now, if asked, you can honestly say you don't know how to get to this camp."

He led my horse by the reins and I held on to the pommel tightly. Soon, very soon, I heard low talking. Then we stopped again and the talking stopped, too, and he removed the blindfold and gave me back the reins.

At first I was blinded by the morning sun coming through the trees. I heard, rather than saw, the men who knew me saying their greeting.

"Hey there, Juliet, how you doin', kid?"

"See your head is still bandaged up. Does it hurt?"

"You kin put all the boys' clothes on her you want, Seth, she still looks mighty fetchin'."

Low laughter. But respectful.

They all wore the gray Quantrill shirts with the red stitching. Some were cleaning guns, others brushing down horses. Some were eating and some huddled around a campfire sipping coffee.

"Get her some coffee," one of them said. "Where're your manners, boys? We have a lady present. Treat her like one."

It was Quantrill. He'd been leaning against an oak tree smoking a cheroot and talking with Bill Anderson in low tones, and now he came over and looked up at me for a full minute. "How do you feel?" he asked.

"I'm middling well, sir."

He nodded. "You of a mind to tell us a story?"

"Yes, sir."

He nodded. "Get her down, Seth. Bring her over to that tree. Bill, get a blanket and spread it on the grass. Ground's cold. Somebody got coffee and vittles for Juliet Bradshaw?"

Of a sudden the camp came alive. Everyone went to do his bidding. Seth lifted me off my horse and someone led him away for food and water. Seth carried me over to the tree and set me down on the blanket next to Quantrill. For a while it was just me and Quantrill and Seth, eating and drinking the heavenly coffee in the sun-washed morning with the pleasant murmur of the men's talk around us. And the horses munching grass and the fire crackling.

Then, as if given a signal, everything changed. "All right," Quantrill said. "Listen up."

They gathered around with their guns in hand, like children about to hear a bedtime story. The looks on their faces had changed. Now they were weary, bitter, and sad.

"You can ask about your kin as we go along," Quantrill told them. "But I want no cussing. And anybody frightens this here little girl will answer to me. Got it?"

They nodded yes.

And so I began my story, from the first day we got to the three-story brick building at 1409 Grand Avenue. I wished I could speak like Martha, with a storytelling voice that would make them feel as if everything would be all right, but I knew I couldn't do that. Because I knew, and they knew, and likely now even Martha knew that we couldn't count on anything being all right again. Ever.

I told them about the food. The sleeping arrangements. The lack of clean water. The stifling heat. The water given to us at first in slop jars until Martha demanded better.

Sometimes they stopped me to ask a question about a little sister, or a cousin, and how she behaved. Or how she "answered them back" or how she "took all that sass," and always I made their kin stand out in a bright and shining light. Because most of the girls they asked about were dead.

And if I was lying, well, then God would have to deal with me. But I was sure that even He would understand.

I saw Bill Anderson bite his lip as I told how Jenny kicked and fought the Yankee guard and how they put the ball and chain around her ankle. "She would do that," he murmured. "She would."

I even told them how it was when the building shook and trembled, and how Sue Mundy got me out of there. And how we were driven to Fort Leavenworth. And how some of the girls were crippled for good now, but still at Leavenworth. And then I ended with "If there's anything else I can do, Captain Quantrill, I'll do it, sir, gladly."

He gave me a thin smile. But it didn't travel into his eyes. "Thank you, sweetheart, but there is one thing."

"Yes, sir?"

"You can call me colonel."

"Yes, sir, Colonel."

Nobody laughed. He stood up. The men stood up. "We'll take a vote on the matter later this evening," he told them. "You have the truth now about what happened. Mull it over. Meantime, Bradshaw will take his sister back to Leavenworth."

The men dispersed. I looked at Seth.

"They're going to vote on how to retaliate. Hush now, not another word about it. Come on, we've got to get you back."

And so we rode off.

About a mile from the camp, when Seth took the blindfold off me again, he started to speak, very softly.

"You should know," he said, "something about Sue Mundy."

My ears perked up. Was he about to tell me he knew, now, that she was a man?

But no, it was not that. I doubted he would ever talk about that with me, since the subject had almost caused him to give up on me and made me hate him temporarily.

"This information I'm about to give you is as confidential as the meeting with Quantrill this morning. Hear me?" He was using his stern voice.

"Yes, Seth." I was using my obedient one.

"She's pretending to be a double agent," he said. "Do you know what that is?"

"Yes."

"Tell me."

"It means she spies for the Yankees as well as for us."

"Good girl. Or not so good. I don't know. In other times girls your age were lucky if they could name the Big Dipper in the sky. I don't know if I like the kind of education this war is giving you. But we can't help it, so we might as well be as smart as we can about it before it kills us all. Listen to me now, this is important. She isn't spying for the Yankees. She just lets them
think
she is. That's why they like her so and do special favors for her. Are we clear on all this now?"

"Yes, Seth. But—"

"But what?"

"Some of the girls in the prison were already starting to say that about her. That she was spying for the Yankees, because she was talking with them in secret so much."

"Where are those girls now?"

I bit my lip and lowered my head.

"I don't hear anything," he pushed.

"They're dead, Seth."

He just looked at me. "And those who lived have a lot more on their minds these days. Like learning to walk again. Or see. Or wondering if they're going to live. Don't they?"

"Uh-huh."

"I don't like
uh-huhs.
I like yes or no."

"Yes," I said.

"I'm bullying you," he admitted, "and I promised myself I would never do that again. When I found out that the Yankees took you, I made all kinds of deals with God, that if He let you be all right, I'd be the best brother and guardian in the world to you. I'm not doing so good, am I?"

He stopped his horse, and I stopped mine. "You are the best," I told him.

"Well, if I mess things up and start to bully you, you just tell me, okay? Throw cold water in my face or something. I don't want to be like the old man. God, I don't want to be. You know what I discovered? There are different ways of locking people in closets. Sometimes you can do it without having a closet. But you can still keep that person locked away forever. Do you understand, Juliet?"

"Yes, Seth."

He nodded and we started on. "You mustn't tell anybody what I just told you about Sue Mundy. Few people know it. Quantrill does, of course; I do, and a couple of other captains in the group. If word got out, the Yankees would hang her. And she's good at what she does. She can wrap the Yankees right around her little finger.

"Oh," he said, "and Martha doesn't know. Be careful around Martha. I don't want to involve her in this. But you've been friends with Sue Mundy. So I had to caution you."

And so it was that I became the pivotal one to help Colonel Quantrill and his men decide what move to make to get back at the Yankees for the collapse of the building at 1409 Grand Avenue and the deaths of so many of their kin.

Nobody knows I was there. Likely nobody ever will, except me and Seth, Martha, and the remaining Quantrill Raiders. It's a heavy burden to carry, considering what they did. And sometimes a person needs help carrying it.