The Widow's War

by Mary Mackey

  Marry me, Carrie my dear, he thinks. And we’ll make some little hostages together. He grins at his own wit. Then he remembers those cold blue eyes. When he looks into the waiting crowd, they are still fixed on him.

  If Clark has found Carrie, it’s going to cost a bundle to pry her whereabouts out of him. Deacon would rather keep the money; he really would. But there are a dozen men standing around Clark, each more evil-looking than the next: big, unshaven men with dirty kerchiefs around their necks and rifles slung over their backs. Clark’s band. Or maybe they’re Mangas Coloradas’s band, or the Beast of Revelation’s, or Jesus Christ’s. Deacon can’t tell by looking who Clark is this afternoon, but even a fool can see it would be a bad idea to try to cheat him out of what he’s been promised. Those ruffians in the kerchiefs would probably be happy to kill a man for sport.

  Deacon imagines himself stuck to a barn door with Bowie knives. He wonders if they would scalp him first, what parts of him they would cut off. Damn, he thinks.

  He looks at the muddy path that leads up the bluff to the newly constructed pro-slaver hotel. The sun is ridiculously hot, the crowd has begun to cheer in a way that implies terminal drunkenness, the entire landing smells of manure, and he is bound to ruin his new boots before he gets to the top. He wishes his long underwear did not itch, wishes he were in bed romping with Lily, wishes Henry Clark would stop staring at him with those lunatic eyes.

  Chapter Thirty

  Just before dawn. A faint paling of the eastern horizon, the rustle of small animals moving through the grass toward their burrows. Carrie and William get up, yawn, stretch, and trade morning kisses. They light a lantern, and while Carrie nurses Teddy, William stokes up the fire in the stove and makes breakfast. Fried ham, eggs, leftover cornbread from last night, a little reheated oatmeal for Teddy, a pot of coffee.

  William eats rapidly. When he has drained the last sip of coffee from his cup, he grabs his rifle, slaps on his hat, kisses Teddy and Carrie good-bye, and hurries into town to relieve the men who are guarding the Free State Hotel. A little while later, half a dozen early risers stroll down Massachusetts Street to unlock their stores. When they reach the Free State, they stop to learn the latest news.

  A peaceful night, William and the other guards tell them. No sign of trouble so far.

  Good, they say. Glad to hear it.

  The bad news is that the pro-slaver legislature over in Lecompton has issued treason indictments against us, and we hear their boy, Sheriff Jones, plans to show up sometime this morning with a posse. He intends to disarm us, arrest us, and shoot any man who resists.

  We’ll fight back.

  That we will.

  God in His mercy keep us.

  The store owners walk on. Over Lawrence, Mount Oread looms like a great, black-pelted beast. At last the sun rises, hot and orange and so huge it looks like the mouth of a fiery tunnel. As the light strikes the slopes of Mount Oread, it reveals a mob of pro-slavers poised to descend on Lawrence. Armed with cannons, pistols, rifles, knives, swords, and hangmen’s nooses, they still bear the banners that read KANSAS THE OUTPOST! SOUTHERN RIGHTS! and SUPREMECY OF THE WHITE RACE!, but there is a new banner on Mount Oread this morning, one more terrible than all the rest. It is the banner of Henry Clark’s Raiders: an oblong of white cotton cut out of a bed sheet and dipped in blood.

  There is no motto on Clark’s flag, only the blood, dried to reddish black. It comes from a pig slaughtered at Beau Rivage, the Missouri plantation of Clark’s cousin, Jedediah Clark, but whenever someone asks, Henry Clark claims it’s the blood of an abolitionist.

  “Kill ’em all!” Clark yells, slapping Deacon Presgrove on the back. Deacon flinches and turns pale as around him Clark’s men cheer and discharge their pistols into the air.

  Down below, Carrie hears the sound of gunfire. Abandoning the breakfast dishes, she walks to the window and sees the army of pro-slavers gathered on Mount Oread. More gunfire. The sound of men cheering, but no movement yet. Their flags whip in the wind. Sunlight glints off the barrels of their cannons.

  Suddenly, she feels sick with fear. She’s never witnessed a battle and never wants to. She imagines walls coming down, roofs blown off, the ugly hole in Ni’s arm that a single bullet made. The pro-slavers have promised to spare women and children, but she wouldn’t put it past them to use her house for target practice.

  More gunfire. She starts and puts her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. Why can’t they leave us alone? Why can’t they let us live in peace? We don’t want this war! Turning, she hurries to Teddy, scoops him up in her arms, and holds him close. The second he catches sight of her face, he begins to howl.

  “Don’t cry, sweetheart,” she pleads, but he can feel her fear, and he knows with that blind, perfect instinct of very young children that something is going on worth crying about.

  Up on Mount Oread, Clark pulls out a spyglass and peers down at Lawrence. Lowering the glass, he turns to Deacon with a look of disgust. “The craven milksops are still negotiating.”

  By “craven milksops” Deacon presumes Clark means Sheriff Jones and the Eldridge brothers who own the Free State Hotel. If this is true, it’s good news. The attack still might be called off. Deacon doesn’t relish the prospect of walking into a wall of abolitionist gunfire or being shot in the back by one of Clark’s drunken henchmen.

  Clark suddenly lifts his rifle and aims toward Lawrence. He hums cheerfully as he moves the barrel around searching for a target.

  “What in God’s name are you preparing to do!” Deacon cries.

  “I intend to shoot the Eldridge brothers. Quiet, please. It’s hard to tell those damn abolitionists apart at this distance. They’re all wearing black suits. If the Eldridges would just wear some kind of uniform, this would be infinitely easier. Peaked hats, perhaps. Dunces’ caps. Ah-ha!” Clark locks on his target.

  It takes Deacon less than a tenth of a second to figure out that if Clark pulls the trigger there will be hell to pay. Lunging forward, he grabs the rifle barrel and shoves it to one side just as Clark shoots. The rifle goes off with a deafening bang, and he feels the recoil sting his hand. Shaken, he looks up to see Clark smiling at him.

  “Thank you,” Clark says. “As you realized, rifles are not accurate at this range. I might have hit Sheriff Jones.”

  “You’re welcome.” Deacon stutters. He is shaking so hard he can hardly keep his teeth from chattering. Whatever possessed him to foil Clark’s shot? Crossing the man is like taunting a mad dog.

  Clark slings his rifle over his back and retrieves his spyglass. “She’s down there,” he says, using the glass as a pointer. “Last house on the right by the river.”

  “Who?”

  “Your wife. Mrs. Deacon Presgrove. Down there, living in sin with your own brother. Mangas Coloradas wouldn’t have tolerated it. If you like, we can ride down and pay her a visit while the rest of the army is otherwise occupied.”

  “No, thank you, Henry. That’s a generous offer, but I would rather deal with Carrie by myself.”

  “Suit yourself.” There is a moment of silence, and then Clark speaks again. “She has pretty hair. Blonde and curly. Rather like mine.” Clark runs his fingers through his hair and looks up at his flag. He’s clearly thinking about something. Whatever it is, Deacon hopes he keeps it to himself.

  At noon, the men guarding the Free State are served roast beef sandwiches, slices of pie, and hot coffee. Up on Mount Oread, the only thing being served is whiskey, and even that is running low. Around one o’clock, a carriage rolls up the dirt track that leads to the crest. In it sits David Rice Atchison, the former Senator from Missouri. Due to a bureaucratic technicality, Atchison was once President of the United States for a single day. Ever since, he has been looking for a country to lead, and in Kansas he believes he has found it.

  Atchison has previously called on pro-slavery Missourians to kill every abolitionist in the territory. Now, too portly to mount a horse, he stands in his specially re-enforce
d carriage and gives a speech that makes Deacon shudder.

  “Kansas will be ours!” Atchison thunders. “We’ll teach those damned abolitionists a lesson they’ll remember until the day they die! Remember: if a woman picks up a rifle, she’s no longer a woman. Trample her under your feet as you would a snake! Blow her to hell with a chunk of cold lead!”

  The pro-slavers cheer until they are hoarse. Fixing their bayonets, they begin to march down the slope toward Lawrence.

  Below, Carrie sits in a straight-backed chair with Teddy on her lap and a Sharps rifle across her knees. She hears gunshots, a confusion of voices. Ten minutes pass. Fifteen. Suddenly there is a knock on the door.

  “Who’s there?” she demands.

  “It’s Donald Lane, madam. Please let me in. I bring you news of Doctor Saylor.” The voice is unfamiliar, clipped vowels, British accent. If Carrie had ever seen a one-act farce entitled Mr. Buckstone’s Ascent of Mount Parnassus, she might have recognized it as the voice of the hero, Mr. Buckstone.

  Getting up, she walks over to the bed, puts Teddy down, and pulls the quilt over him. “Stay there and be quiet,” she whispers. Returning to the door, she tries to look through the cracks and is rewarded with the sight of a bit of red that could be part of a flannel shirt.

  “I don’t know a Mr. Lane.”

  “Madam, please! The bushwhackers have attacked the town, and Doctor Saylor has been wounded!”

  “Wounded!” Drawing back the bar, Carrie opens the door and finds herself face-to-face with Deacon. Uttering a cry of surprise, she tries to slam it shut, but before she can close it, she’s thrown off balance by an explosion so violent it rattles the windowpanes.

  Down on Massachusetts Street, the Free State Hotel disappears in a geyser of black smoke and fire. Bits of plaster and concrete rain down, coating everything with a layer of fine white dust. As the pieces of the hotel fall on Clark, he throws back his head, opens his mouth, and licks at them as if they were bits of honeycomb.

  The bushwhacker who is holding William at gunpoint gives a yip of triumph. Lowering his pistol, he turns and begins to run toward the dry goods store. Before he can reach the other side of Massachusetts Street, a man on horseback rides him down.

  The bushwhacker screams and writhes in pain. For a few seconds, William watches him curse and claw at the dust. It’s supposed to be enjoyable to see someone who has threatened to kill you suffer, but it isn’t. He hurries to the injured man.

  “I’m a doctor,” he says. “I can help you.”

  “Damn it, damn it, damn it!” the man yells. “You shot me in the back, you abolitionist bastard!”

  “You haven’t been shot. You’re not making sense. You were ridden down by a horse and may have suffered a concussion.” But the injured man won’t listen. Standing up, he staggers forward and throws himself on William. His fingers close around William’s throat.

  “Let go, you crazy fool!” William gasps.

  “Crazy?” the man snarls. “Yeah, you abolitionist son of a bitch, I’m crazy!”

  William sees red spots, long swirls of black, and flames that dance and flicker in front of his eyes. As he struggles to pry the madman’s hands from his throat, he realizes the flames are real. He can feel the heat of them scorching the back of his jacket.

  There is another explosion and a crash of breaking glass. More gunfire. The bushwhackers are destroying The Kansas Free State and The Herald of Freedom, smashing the presses, throwing the type out the windows. Others are looting stores and private homes. They parade the sidewalks of Lawrence wrapped in silk curtains and stolen hats, dump canned goods into their saddle bags, seize hams and sausages, break dishes, bash in the sides of flour barrels for sport. Most search for whiskey, but Henry Clark and his men go looking for guns.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Carrie hits the door from one side as Deacon hits it from the other. Seizing a broom, she jams the handle into the nearest bracket and throws her weight against it. The broom handle bends under the force of his assault, but for the moment it holds. It’s a poor substitute for the wooden bar that goes all the way across the door, but the bar and rifle are both out of reach. If she tries to get to either one, she’ll have to let go, and Deacon is hitting the door like a battering ram, commanding her to open up, yelling that he’s come to take her back to Washington.

  “You’re my wife,” he bellows. “I won’t have you living in con cubinage with my stepbrother. You’ll come, you damnable bitch!”

  She’d yell back, but it would be a waste of breath, and she needs every bit she has. He hits the door again and begins to pound on it like a madman. He’s saying crazy things about how he intends to run for the Senate and how she’s getting in his way. She can feel his blows through the planks. The door shudders, and the broom handle smashes against her fingers and creaks as if it’s about to snap. How long can she hold him off? Maybe a neighbor will hear the noise and come to her rescue or maybe William will show up.

  All at once, the pounding stops. Exhausted, she leans against the door, shaking and terrified. Has he given up? Suddenly, she hears him running across the front porch. She braces herself, but he hits the door with such force that the broom handle splinters and the door springs open, throwing her to the floor. Rolling onto her hands and knees, she scrambles toward her rifle, but before she can get to it, he kicks her arms out from under her and slams his boot down on her back pinning her in place.

  She looks up at him and sees those familiar, catlike green eyes staring down at her. And then she sees the revolver. He has the barrel pointed at her head, and at this range, not even he can miss.

  “Get the hell up,” he commands, removing his boot from her back. Carrie rises to her feet. Her arms don’t appear to be broken, but her hands are full of splinters, her hair has come down around her shoulders, and the left sleeve of her dress is ripped.

  “You look like hell. Like a slut. Where’s my son?”

  “Teddy’s not yours. He’s William’s.” She fights an urge to look over her shoulder and make sure Teddy is still hidden under the quilt. She can’t let Deacon see how afraid she is. He’s a coward and a bully, and if he thinks he’s succeeded in terrorizing her, things will only get worse.

  “Liar. My stepmother told me you were breeding when you ran off.” He readjusts the revolver so it points at her chest. Will he shoot her? He’s dressed like a bushwhacker. What’s he been doing since she left him? What’s he capable of?

  She sets her jaw stubbornly and stares at him until he lowers his eyes, but he doesn’t lower the gun, which continues to waver between her chest and head. Maybe she intimidates him, or maybe he decides it’s time to change tactics. Whatever the reason, his voice grows slick, and wheedling. “Be reasonable, Carrie. Tell me where the boy is. What harm can it do for me to see him?”

  How “reasonable” does he think she’s likely to be at the wrong end of a gun? Could she wrest it out of his hand if she charged straight at him? No, with Teddy hiding nearby, the risk of stray bullets is too great.

  Deacon’s voice becomes oily enough to gag on. “If the boy—Teddy?—really is William’s, then this is your chance to take him to see his grandmother. Matilda asks after him constantly. Poor woman. So ill, and at her age, well one never knows how long—”

  “Liar!” She tosses the word back at him and watches with satisfaction as it hits. “Matilda’s dead. She’s been dead for nearly a year. We get newspapers out here in Kansas. We read obituaries. How did she die? Did you and your porcaria of a father poison her? William wanted to go back east and force you to confess, but I persuaded him the satisfaction wasn’t worth—”

  Deacon lunges at her, and she steps back, sure he’s going to hit her. “Shut up!” he yells.

  “I won’t shut up! I know a lot of things about you that you wouldn’t want made public. I even know about that slave-smuggling operation you and Bennett are running out of Brazil. What are you going to say to the custom agents when I tell them what kind of cargo Pr
esgrove Sugar has been off-loading on the Sea Islands of South Carolina? If you take that gun out of my face and get out of here, maybe I won’t tell them, maybe—”

  Deacon grabs her by the shoulder and shoves her aside. “Teddy!” he yells. “Where are you? Come here! Your daddy has some candy for you!”

  Carrie whirls around, but it’s too late. Teddy has thrown off the quilt and is sitting up. As Deacon starts toward him, she steps between them, grabs the barrel of the revolver, and leans against it.

  “Go ahead. Pull the trigger. You’ll have to kill me to get to him!”

  “Get out of my way, you crazy bitch!” Ramming the barrel into her chest so hard it knocks the wind out of her lungs, he gives her another shove that sends her stumbling backward. She clutches at the air and falls, hitting her head on the stove on the way down. The blow stuns her, and she lies on her back unable to move as the room turns around her in a sickening circle.

  Deacon picks up her rifle and throws it of reach. Grabbing Teddy, he stuffs him under his arm like a parcel, walks over to where Carrie is lying, and stands over her. By now Teddy is terrified and screaming, but Deacon ignores him.

  “I’ll give you one more chance. Come back to Washington with me. Be my wife. I won’t force you into my bed, if that’s what you’re worried about, but if you don’t leave with me right now, you’re never going to see the little brat again.”

  Her head throbs, she’s bitten her tongue, and she can taste blood in her mouth. If there’s anything more she can do to make him put Teddy down and go away, she’s not capable of thinking of it. “I’ll—” she gasps.