Surrender the Wind (18 page)

She dropped the newspaper. She wondered if he was coming to get her. To exact revenge for her betrayal. She prayed Grant would not fall short where Lincoln’s other generals had failed. John would hunt her down as promised.

“He’s quite a general.”

Even Jimmy, a staunch Northerner was impressed with John’s record.

“The only place you’ll be safe from Mallory is south.” Jimmy reminded her.

Catherine laughed at the ludicrousness of Jimmy’s suggestion. To trade one madman for another? She dropped to her bed. Didn’t the Union Army separate her from the more dangerous of the two? Was that enough? “And what of Father Callahan?”

“I am positive Mallory has him in Washington.”

“Are you sure you can find him, Jimmy?”

“Can the pope pray?”

Catherine smiled and ruffled his hair. Tilting her head to the side, she said, “Are you sure you’re only thirteen years old?”

* * *

“Morning, Miss Catherine. Brigid bustled into her room with a tray. His Excellency has ordered you up and about for an outing.”

“An outing? Mallory’s never insisted I do anything this early. Where am I going? What am I supposed to wear?”

“Put on this brown dress.”

Catherine wrinkled her nose “It’s horrid.”

“That’s the idea,” Brigid said.

Her maid shook out the dress and lowered it over her mistress’s head. “We need to tone down Mr. Mallory’s interest in you. Not that it would do any good. You’d look fetching dressed in farmer’s britches. However this dress will have the least effect, I am thinkin’.”

“I wish I had the opportunity to talk to Secretary of War last evening about Shawn, but Francis dogs my every step.”

Brigid took a brush in hand and began brushing Catherine’s hair in long strokes. “You’ll find someone who will listen. I have confidence. The servants cannot stand Mallory or his thugs. If your brother was back, Francis would be behind bars.”

“Where is he taking me?”

Brigid shrugged. “All’s I know is that his Lordship is awaitin’ in the foyer. I have half a mind to shy his lean carcass over to Richmond and let the Rebels take care of him.”

“Never mind about that this morning, Brigid. It’s too fine a day.” Catherine threw down the
Richmond Examiner
on the vanity.

Brigid’s brown eyes grew as large as dinner plates. She took hold of the paper. “Is this really General Rourke? Your husband? A fine specimen of a man, yes he is.”

“He won’t be so fine if he gets a hold of me, since. Francis convinced him I was a spy.”

“I don’t believe that for one minute. All he has to do is look into those emerald eyes of yours and everything will be happy times again.”

“Never—delude yourself with romantic notions where General Rourke is concerned.”

“Would certainly make my heart swoon. And to think you were married in a week. How dashing he must be to have swept you off your feet. How passionate.”

“You don’t know John very well. He’s set on revenge. In his present state of mind, he’ll draw and quarter me and take pleasure in doing so. The farther I’m away from the southern border, the safer I’ll be.”

“But your General Rourke is a handsome devil.” Brigid quit brushing and looked dreamily into the mirror. “My dear departed mother always said, sometimes something comes over a woman, and it’s like she’s connected to everything in her life that’s precious to her. Almost like she can reach out and lay her hand on her man and draw him to her, even though he’s not really there. And with him comes all the memories, and they wrap around her like a quilt, the warmest, most comfortable quilt in the world, and she knows it all, and feels it all, and the thing she knows the most is that it’s all right. No matter what happens, it’s all right because she loved her man and that won’t ever go away, no matter what. A perfect love. That’s the feeling that comes over a woman sometimes, and I hope I get that feeling for a man someday.”

Catherine clasped the warm hand of her maid whom she had come to call a true friend. “I have no doubt you will, Brigid.”

Plump and crowned with thick lustrous brown hair and dancing brown eyes, Brigid was a spirited girl, given for the most part to practical matters. The oldest of five siblings, she had already outlived two of them as well as both her parents. The curse of the potato famine had been the impetus to bring them across the Atlantic to a new world full of promise and hope.

“I’m twenty-three years old and have found no one who meets my fancy. All my sisters and cousins were married no later than nineteen years and most of them with wee babes suckling at their breasts before they were a hair over twenty. I would die and go to my maker happy to find a nice Irishman. But never a Scotsman.” Brigid shuddered.

Catherine mouth fell open. “What do you have against the Scots?”

“My dear departed mother told me they’re absolute woodenheads. They come down from their hills sighing for the war-path, yearning to drink their enemy’s blood. They don’t need a reason to fight. They fight about fighting. They rage and rave about war, considering it an inspiration of genius. They gather together, plotting and planning, dizzy with astonishment, admiration and delight of themselves while the rest of the world looks upon these fools for their idiotic blunders. Give me an Irishman any day, but spare me the Scots!” Brigid finished with dramatic flourish as she plucked the brush from thin air and began brushing again.

Catherine was dizzy from Brigid’s dramatic pronouncement. “Never in a million years would I have guessed your disdain for the Scots. What about our driver—he’s a Scot?”

“He’s half-Scot. His mother betrayed the fine Irish race by marrying the most godless creature under the sun—a Scot. How can I hold the sins of his mother against him?”

“Benevolent of you.”

Brigid slapped the brush on the vanity. “Just in case, I cross myself when he passes.”

Catherine burst out laughing.

“There you are all smiles again. That’s the way I like to see my girl.”

“If only Jimmy could find Father Callahan. Then I’d disappear again.” Catherine sighed.

“Now don’t you worry about young Jimmy O’Hara. If he says he’ll find your uncle, he will. We’ll beat that spider-legged devil Mallory. Yes we will.”

* * *

“An entertainment for you my sweet.” Mallory declared more to his men than to her then stripped off his coat and shirt. “A different enterprise which I think you’ll find rather charming.” Her eyes adjusted to the dim interior. A raised platform like a stage was in the center of the musty barn.

Mallory’s men threw wide the barn doors and herded two Confederate soldiers with heavy, clinking chains. Catherine gasped. Starved, filthy and with deep-set eyes, the soldiers haunted her. Mallory waved his hand and two of his men closed in on her, escorting her to the crates.

Mallory snapped his fingers and ropes went up around the stage. He was to fight these men? In a twisted, sick sordid sense, she knew Mallory was showing her he could beat General Rourke by beating these defenseless men.

Mallory ducked under the ropes. “Gentlemen, the north will be victorious over the south.”

“Get ’em in here boys. Damn pathetic,” said Mallory, sniffing the air. “Is this the best you could get out of Capitol Prison? I paid a good penny for this lot.”

“Will you dry up and blow away?” Mallory taunted a gray-haired, gaunt prisoner. His men laughed, and then he pulled on an invisible string. “
Ding!
There’s the bell laddie. Where’s the fight in you Southern bastards? You mean to tell me there’s nothing left?”

Mallory shuffled in the ring. He pushed a fist up against the Southerner’s chin. “Just testing. That will teach you to cover up for when I really tag you. Do you think you can remember that?”

Catherine’s hands fisted. The rebel stared back. He simply didn’t care.

Angered by the soldier’s lack of participation, Mallory slammed him flat with one hard punch. Blood trickled from the soldier’s broken jaw. Catherine shot-up from her crate and moved to the soldier. Mallory waved his hand. Two of his men shepherded her back. Mallory’s goons carried the soldier away.

“Last week at least they put up a little fight. You there, boy. You look like you have a little fight left in you. Your friend couldn’t suck eggs.”

A tall lanky boy of about nineteen years who stared out with pale tired eyes stood mute.

“Happy days, laddie.”

Mallory’s goons jeered.

The boy came out of his corner as if he really meant to make a fight of it. His stiff jabs made Mallory clumsy and flatfooted. Mallory threw a wild right, almost knocked himself down when the boy ducked.

Ten seconds passed before the Rebel feinted to the body, sucking Mallory into dropping his hands, and the boy crossed him with a straight right to the jaw. The blow caught Mallory by surprise.

“Never do that, Rebel boy.” Mallory warned, his face white, his thin lips drawn to a thin line.

The Rebel boy waited in the corner, poised, ready, and Catherine wanted to stand up and shout for joy that someone stood up to Mallory.

Mallory came at the boy then, ready to connect with his ponderous right. But the Rebel boy danced around, scoring with sharp punches, defying the slow-moving Mallory.

The boy kept trying, like chopping down a huge oak. He knocked Mallory off balance with a smart left jab to the mouth that sent Mallory stumbling into the ropes. Blood began to trickle out of one corner of his mouth and down his eyes. At any moment Catherine expected to see Mallory caving in, but not before she saw his nod. Several of his men jumped the ropes, holding the Rebel boy down. They chained his feet together allowing no room for movement.

The boy fought back.

Mallory’s eyes glared red. His left hand shot into the boy’s shoulder. The wallop unbalanced the boy, sending him crashing to the floor. The men cheered Mallory as he climbed on top and pushed his fist repeatedly into the boy’s face. The boy struggled to shield his face. With punishing blows, Mallory pawed the boy’s face until his mouth became a bloody mess. Mallory’s fists were sticky with it too, and each time he brushed the boy’s face they left an ugly red blotch. Mallory kept boring in.

“Stop it.” Catherine screamed, but Mallory kept on. She sprang under the ropes and laid her body between the boy and Mallory, shielding him.

Mallory quit, but Catherine remained, cradling the boy in her arms. “You animal,” she seethed. “You’re nothing but a coward, Francis Mallory. Someday you’ll meet with someone on equal ground. I hope I’ll be there to witness it.”

Mallory wiped his hands on the boy’s shirt.

“Perhaps your uncle would like to go a round or two?”

“You wouldn’t dare—”

“Suit yourself.” Mallory signified with a shrug.

Before they left, Catherine begged what looked to her as one of the more compassionate guards to get the injured Rebels medical attention.

Mallory overheard her. “Of course my dear, anything you desire.”

She knew they would get nothing.

Mallory clasped her elbow. “Make sure you pay particular attention to Stanton, Seward and Giddeon Welles,” he whispered into her ear then greeted important guests. A twirl of colors in silks and satins bedecked the ladies as they danced around the ballroom with their partners, handsomely dressed in sharp navy blue uniforms trimmed with bright brass buttons.

“How could you beat those defenseless men?” She was still reeling from his depraved sparring earlier in the week and had no doubt he continued his activities. Washington’s political elite stood off to the sides while their wives sat on blue-silk embroidered sofas, their shrill laughter in discord to her dismal mood.

“Perhaps your sympathies lay more toward the south?”

“Go back to the hole you crawled from,” she dared and broke away from him when Edward Stanton bowed before her.

“Miss Fitzgerald, it’s good to see you again. I hope you are enjoying your extended stay in Washington. How well I remember your travels to our fair city with your father.”

Catherine extended her hand and smiling, said, “It is good to see you, Mr. Secretary.” How easy to report Mallory to any one of them. No. His threat against Father Callahan was real.

After a few minutes of conversation, she was twirling around the dance floor, besieged by a swarm of requests, responding with a flirtatious gaiety that disguised her turmoil. Only once, she begged to catch her breath. With a bold wink, a servant pressed a cup of wine punch into her hand. Catherine widened her eyes.
Jimmy O’Hara.
He made beeline across the room and dropped his tray on Mallory.

“What do you find so amusing?” A colonel with an enormous girth from the War Office puffed out. He had a beefy face, and when he smiled, his upper lips curled back like the muzzle on a horse.

“Oh—nothing.” Catherine said. Jimmy O’Hara pocketed Mallory’s wallet while wiping wine stains from his pants.

“Thank you, Colonel McCullough, I’d love to dance,” she said, reading the look in his eyes and permitted him to lead her to the center of the dance floor.

Sweating, the Colonel yearned for conversation. “Soon we’ll have those Southern turncoats crushed under our heel.”

“Really. Have you just returned from Cold Harbor?” He was a political appointee who had never seen action.

“Why no, I’m nursing an injury.”

“At what field of battle, Colonel?” she asked demurely.

“I fell off my horse at the advent of the war. The doctors have warned my diligent care.” He grew red in the face. “But we’ll get those Rebels and slam down their leaders. Hang every one of their generals for treason. Justice will reign in the end.”

“You fell off a horse?” Feigning a look of total feminine confusion, she refused to let it go. What would the pompous Colonel McCullough think if he knew she was the wife of one of the South’s infamous generals? The buffoon stepped on her toe.

“I feel like I have two left feet.” He blushed.

Her laughter vibrated through the air. “Nonsense. You’re doing splendidly.” Her foot ached. She longed to fly away, but Mallory kept a watchful eye, as did his men positioned around the room.