The Widow's War

by Mary Mackey

  “I am never going to let anything hurt you!” she promises. “Do you hear me? I’ll never lose you. Never!”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Washington, D.C., July 1855

  Deacon Presgrove sits at the gaming table in Mrs. Springer’s parlor staring into a handsome face and eyes so cold they make his hands shake. The full lips, red cheeks, soft skin, and curly white-blond hair belong to Henry Clark. Deacon isn’t given to flights of imagination, but when he looks at Clark he can’t help but see bodies piling up in heaps.

  Lily comes up behind him smelling of expensive French perfume. Reaching back, Deacon takes her hand in his. Maybe he takes it for courage; maybe he takes it because if Clark pulls a gun, he can heave Lily in front of him. He’s too spooked to figure out which.

  “What do you want?” he asks.

  Clark smiles. It is a charming smile, but Deacon, who has often used such smiles himself to great advantage, is not deceived. He looks at Clark’s even, white teeth and thinks shark.

  “Money,” Clark says.

  “Why should I give you money?”

  “Because you’re my friend.”

  “I am?” Deacon’s cravat feels too tight. He starts to loosen it and then realizes Clark will take the gesture as a sign of weakness.

  “We drank together. We whored together.” Clark’s smile broadens. “Remember that little quadroon beauty in Savannah? You kept putting whiskey on her nipples. Then you did something that set her screaming. Remember that? When her pimp came in and saw how you’d damaged his property, he decided to shoot you dead. But I saved your life. Remember?”

  “I don’t remember anything. I was drunk.” A lie. Deacon remembers the whole incident all too well.

  “I killed him,” Clark says. “Remember?”

  “Yes,” Deacon admits, “you did.”

  “In a nasty way.”

  “Very nasty.” Deacon can feel circles of perspiration forming under his arms. “When I woke up the next day the memory of what you did to him was worse than my hangover.”

  “I enjoyed it. I took out my pocket watch and timed his screaming. He set a new record.”

  Deacon very much wants this conversation to end. He wishes he had a gun. Shooting Clark would be a public service, but maybe Clark would shoot him first. “How much do you want?”

  “Don’t you want to know what I want the money for?”

  “To keep quiet about the whore, I imagine.”

  “You imagine wrong. When I heard your father speak in Savannah, he said Yankee abolitionists were taking over Kansas. ‘An abomination,’ he said. ‘Sodom and Gomorrah.’ That’s when it came to me. That’s when I found my calling.” Clark leans so close, Deacon can smell the whiskey on his breath. “Think of me as Christ in the wilderness; or if you’d rather, the Beast of Revelation.”

  “You want money to go to Kansas?”

  “Not just me. I want to lead my own band. Like Mangas Coloradas.”

  In the last fifteen seconds, Clark has compared himself to the Beast of Revelation, an Apache chief, and Jesus Christ. Clearly he is insane, Deacon thinks. He clears his throat and tries to look as if such a thought never occurred to him.

  “So if I sponsor you and your men, you’ll immediately head for the Kansas Territory?” And put a thousand miles between us?

  “I’ll come down on those free-soilers like the wolf on the fold.”

  When a man with eyes like glass marbles sits across a poker table from you quoting Byron, it’s dangerous to bargain, but Deacon has never handed over money without getting something in return, and his mouth works before his brain has time to warn him of the risk he’s taking.”

  “Find my wife.”

  “Your wife?”

  Deacon immediately regrets having spoken. Carrie threatened to shoot him if he came after her, and damned if she wouldn’t do it. Could he tell Clark to forget about her? No. If he does, Clark will think he’s weak and indecisive. Deacon decides that there is no use imagining what Clark will do to him if he appears vulnerable. Talking to the man is like having a conversation with a panther. You have to look him straight in the eye and act as if he’s the one who should be afraid. It’s a difficult role, but Deacon has played a lot of difficult roles in his time.

  He wills his own eyes to turn to marbles. Perhaps they do; perhaps they don’t. He can’t tell without a mirror, but when he speaks, he hears the voice he used when he played Caligula.

  “I have reason to believe my wife is in Kansas, but those abolitionist bastards are such a closed-mouth bunch they wouldn’t tell you the time if you showed them a watch. I’ve made numerous inquiries, but so far I haven’t been able to locate her.” He wonders if he should tell Clark about the child and decides against it. The less Clark knows about his personal life, the better. “I’ll give you a list of names she may be using, possible whereabouts, and so forth.”

  “You want me to kill her?”

  “For God’s sake no! I just want you to tell me where she is, and then I’ll go get her myself. You aren’t to hurt her or threaten her or even let her know you’re there. Just find out if she’s living in the Kansas Territory.”

  “I think you should give me something extra for that.” Clark lifts his left hand and brushes his thumb and fingers together. Strong hands that could break a man’s neck so fast that—Deacon pushes the thought out of his mind. For a few seconds, Clark holds his hand in front of Deacon’s face, then swoops down and begins to paw through the pile of jewelry that lies next to the ashtray holding Deacon’s cigar.

  “Your stake?”

  “Yes.”

  “Looks like you’re pressed for ready cash.”

  “I’ll win everything back tonight and more.”

  Clark picks up a silver bracelet, slips it on his wrist, and admires it. “What happened to that gold cigar case Nettie gave you?”

  “It was stolen.”

  Clark makes a clicking sound that might possibly be interpreted as sympathy but which is more likely disappointment. “I see two wedding rings here. Have you converted to Mormonism? If you have, I suggest you recant. I’ve always held that it’s easier to cheat on one wife than support two.”

  “Both rings belonged to my late stepmother. My father gave her the large gold band. The smaller ring, the one studded with sapphires, came from her previous husband. She was a widow when my father married her.”

  “Was, as in no longer with us? Late, as in dead?”

  Deacon nods.

  “My sympathies.” Clark picks up a gold ring guard and holds it to the light. “Are these real diamonds?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah, I thought so. Well, if you don’t object, I think I’ll take all this as a down payment.”

  “Help yourself.”

  Clark scoops up the jewelry and stuffs it into his pocket. As he straightens up, his coat flares open revealing a fancy nickel-plated revolver with an ivory grip.

  “I could use a drink,” he says.

  Deacon turns to Lily. “Get us some whiskey,” he orders. Whatever Clark wants, he can have. There will be no more bargaining.

  PART 5

  John Brown

  Elizabeth

  Excerpt from A Free Woman of Color in Bleeding Kansas

  By Mrs. Elizabeth Newberry

  Vol. II, pp. 76-79. Pub. Thayer and Eldridge, Boston, 1867

  In February of ’55, the big blizzard killed our milk cow leaving my grandbabies with nothing but salt to put on their porridge. Before the snow melted, bushwhackers began streaming across the border again to vote in the spring election. As soon as they got on Kansas soil, they loaded up their wagons with whiskey, guns, and more ammunition than it took to win the Mexican War. Some flew black flags decorated with skulls and crossbones; others taunted us with hemp hangmen’s nooses.

  A thousand or more headed straight to Lawrence, but enough came to Osawatomie that those of us who had black skin kept out of sight. We might proudly write F.W.C. and F.M.C. after
our names to let the world know we were Free Men and Women of Color (and have the papers to prove it in court), but we knew from bitter experience that the slavers would not hesitate to kidnap us and sell us south.

  When the voting was over, those “permanent residents of the territory” piled back in their wagons and left so fast you would have thought they had itching powder in their pants. They said they would hang Governor Reeder if he refused to declare the election valid, never mind that more people had voted than lived in all of Kansas.

  Once they got back to Missouri, they traded in their ox teams for horses and the raids began in earnest. There had been raids all along, of course, but now the bushwhackers came at us in packs, burning cabins and shooting down men in cold blood. The worst gang was led by Henry Clark, a pretty, baby-faced boy who enjoyed killing the way a baby enjoys sucking a sugar tit.

  In late spring, when my son Prosser drove me up to Lawrence to get some cough medicine for my grandbabies, I found William Saylor and the other men fortifying the town with earthworks. Carrie Vinton took me over to see a new hotel called the Free State, built out of concrete with loopholes on the roof so you could take aim without making yourself into a target.

  Carrie was still thin from the fever she’d had after she gave birth to her son, Teddy, but even so, she told me she had been teaching some of the women how to shoot those Sharps rifles they were secretly getting from New England. When I left, she embraced me as if she feared she would never see me again. “Take care of yourself, Elizabeth,” she said. “Remember, you can always bring your family up to Lawrence to stay with us.”

  For reasons I was not then at liberty to tell her, I was unable to leave Osawatomie, but she was right to worry. In July, the fraudulently elected pro-slave legislature met and passed a series of laws aimed at getting me and mine back into chains. Only pro-slavery men could hold office and sit on juries. Anyone who denied that white men had a God-given right to own slaves could to be sent to prison. If you said so much as a word that could be interpreted as supporting slave insurrection, they’d hang you. If a white man wanted to vote, he had to raise his right hand and swear on a Bible to uphold all these laws. As for black people, we knew what they had in mind for us. We’d seen those nooses they wore in their lapels.

  It was then we began talking about arming ourselves in self-defense. I had always taught my sons that violence was something they should avoid if possible, but if we were going to remain in Kansas, we needed to be able to fight.

  “We fled from the South,” Toussaint said. “Must we now flee from Osawatomie?”

  “We have built our homes here, Mama,” Prosser said. “We have crops in the ground.”

  “We will stay in Osawatomie,” I promised my boys, and then I told them about a plan I had conceived the previous November when I was on my way to Lawrence to rescue three fugitives who were about to be lynched. My plan was not for warfare. The bushwhackers outnumbered us a hundred times over and attacking them openly would have been suicide. It was a strategy for self-defense, and a good one if I do say so myself.

  We already had the manpower, but what we did not have were the weapons. The day after we decided to stand our ground, I wrote to John Brown. (I had never met him in person, but as an Underground Railroad conductor I knew him by reputation, and his sons, who lived over on North Middle Creek, were our neighbors.)

  “Come out to Kansas soon,” I told him. “There is a place you need to see.” I did not tell him what the place was called or why it would suit his plans. If you have been running slaves to freedom for twenty years as I have, you do not make the mistake of saying something like that in a letter that could be intercepted by your enemies. Still, just in case Mr. Brown did not take my meaning, I wrote the numbers 66- 13-10 under my name.

  I knew that as soon as he saw those numbers, he would realize I had given him a piece of Bible code. Sixty-six is the sixty-sixth book of the Bible—in other words, the Book of Revelation—thirteen the chapter, ten the verse that reads: “He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.”

  Imagine my surprise when he actually showed up in Osawatomie with broadswords. By now, everybody knows what John Brown used those swords for, but the first time I saw them, I thought: He damn well have better brought guns, too.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Eastern Kansas, mid-April 1856

  Prairie violets, Chickasaw plums, wild strawberries, purple anemones, and everywhere the tall grass sprouting new growth under a sky so huge Carrie feels as if she has swum out of winter into an ocean of spring. Usually on such a day she would have brought her sketch pad, but this afternoon she is riding from Lawrence to Osawatomie with her medical kit, a rifle, and Teddy strapped to her back in a Kaw cradleboard. The cradleboard is decorated with fine beadwork and has a deerskin shade that protects his head from the sun. It was a gift from one of her patients. Teddy is getting a little big for it, but he loves it, there’s no more secure way to carry a child on a horse, and she wouldn’t trade it for the finest perambulator money can buy.

  Three armed men are riding with her. All have the same long, straight noses and deeply set eyes, and all share the last name Brown. The Browns are brothers. For about a year now, they have been living on North Middle Creek not far from Osawatomie. Frederick Brown is the handsomest of the three: round-faced and innocent-looking as a baby although he must be at least twenty-five. Red-haired Owen Brown, whose beard reminds Carrie of a spade, has a crippled right arm. Salmon Brown, the youngest, has the air of a preacher who has been dragged out on Sunday for an excursion he doesn’t approve of.

  Carrie knows almost nothing about the Browns, but she’s glad to have them with her. These days she never ventures out unarmed and unaccompanied. Only a few months ago, the bushwhackers surrounded Lawrence again. This time there were fifteen hundred of them, and they came with cannons, guns, and a hatred so intense you could almost smell it. During the second siege she dreamed terrible dreams. Even now when she thinks about them, they make her shudder. The worst is, she can’t remember what they were. All she can recall is waking up shaking and sweating. At the last minute, a peace was negotiated, but she isn’t taking any chances. Even though things have quieted down considerably, only a fool would ride to Osawatomie alone.

  On the other hand, if she believed they were in any real danger of being attacked, she wouldn’t have brought Teddy with her. Leaving him at home isn’t easy since he’s still nursing, but she would have found a way. Mrs. Crane’s niece might have agreed to nurse him along with her own newborn, but whenever possible Carrie prefers to take him with her. I’ll never lose you, she promised him when he was only a few days old, and not losing him means keeping him close.

  Up ahead, a cloud of dust appears. That should be Mr. Trout. He agreed to meet them and accompany them to Osawatomie, and he’s right on time. But just in case it isn’t him—

  Carrie pulls out her rifle and the Browns follow suit. She wonders how bushwhackers would react to the sight of an armed woman with a baby on her back. She hopes she never has occasion to find out. So far they haven’t killed women and children. In fact, April is proving to be a relatively peaceful month. Over in Lecompton, a Congressional investigation into charges of election fraud is in process, and while the committee is hearing testimony, neither side wants to rock the boat.

  Mr. Trout comes into view riding on a mule. Catching sight of their party, he takes off his hat and waves. Carrie and the Browns lower their guns, and Carrie waves back. When he gets within shouting distance, Trout yells, “Howdy!”

  “Howdy!” Carrie replies. The Browns, who are silent men, say nothing.

  Trout rides up to them, reins in his mule, nods to the Browns, pulls out a bandanna, and wipes his forehead. “Afternoon, Miz Vinton.”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Trout.”

  “I hear you’re headed to Osawatomie because your friend Mrs. Newberry is sick.”

  “Yes, sir, very.” Carrie gestures toward the Browns. “S
he sent these gentlemen to fetch me.”

  “What’s her complaint? Ain’t cholera, is it?”

  “No, Mr. Trout. If it had been cholera, Dr. Saylor would have come. Mrs. Newberry stepped on a nail and the wound has become infected.”

  “You sure about that? You don’t want to be bringin’ a babe in arms to no house what got cholera or suchlike in it.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Humph. Well, you’re the doctor’s lady, so I suppose you’d know.” He points at Carrie’s rifle. “Can you shoot that thing as well as you can shoot a pistol, Miz Vinton?”

  “Yes, Mr. Trout.”

  “Well then if the Browns here don’t have any objection, I reckon I’ll ride beside you. As you know, I don’t fancy turning my back on an armed woman. I believe I told you the story of my gun-toting former fiancée when we first became acquainted, but in case it’s done slipped your mind . . .”

  For the next five hours, as the Browns ride in silence, Mr. Trout talks incessantly. Just before sunset, they reach the outskirts of Osawatomie. Carrie thanks the Browns for seeing her safely to her destination. After they depart for their homes, she presses a pouch of chewing tobacco into Mr. Trout’s hand and gives him a packet of pills for his lung congestion. She’d like to give the Brown brothers something, too, but so far she has seen no sign that they chew tobacco or drink or indulge in any other vices known to mankind. The only thing she could reliably give the Browns are Bibles, and she suspects they already have a sufficient supply.

  Dismounting, she walks to Elizabeth’s cabin. It’s one of three set in a semicircle not far from the place where Pottawatomie Creek flows into the Marais des Cygnes River. The other two cabins are occupied by Prosser and Toussaint and their families. Carrie knocks on Elizabeth’s door, and to her surprise, Elizabeth herself answers.