by Ann Rinaldi
"You're good," I said.
"But not as good as your brother, hey?"
I didn't answer. Seth never missed his target.
"You know what they tell me about you?" she asked.
My heart thumped inside. "What?"
"That you have a scrapbook about me. Is that true?"
I blushed and looked at the ground. "I had one. For a long time. But it burned when the Yankees fired our house."
"I'll bet it was a beauty," she said.
I nodded yes.
"Hey," and she touched my shoulder briefly, "you goin' shy on me? Don't be shy. It's all a waste of time. I also hear that you can be quite a lively little piece when you want to. Give that brother of yours a run for his money. Good. Keep him on his toes. Wish I could be around when you get older and see how this thing plays out."
"What thing?"
"Never mind. I've something I want you to do for me. Will you listen?"
I nodded yes.
"Come over here, by this tree, and let's sit down."
She took out a cheroot and lighted it, blew out the match, sucked in the smoke, and blew that out, too, then waved it away. Oh, how I wished I could do that! It made you look so grown-up!
She looked amused. "Wanna try?" She took the cheroot out of her mouth and offered it to me.
I didn't want to be a Miss Prissy Boots, but neither did I want to provoke Seth into killing me. "No thanks," I said. "Seth would have kittens if he found out."
"How will he find out?"
"He finds out everything sooner or later."
"I wish I knew that to be true," she said wistfully.
She was sad. Something was bothering her. I waited until she spoke again.
Finally she did. "Your brother," she said carefully, "is smitten with me. At least he thinks he is. What are we going to do about that?"
"I don't know," I said.
"You're taken with me, too, aren't you?"
I blushed down to my toes. "I admire you tremendously," I said decorously.
"It's more than admiration, honey. It's love. Puppy love."
I opened my mouth to object, but she shook her head no. "Before you go thinking that I'm peculiar, let me tell you why you're in love with me. And what it is that we have to tell your brother."
She paused only a moment, then sighed. "Juliet, I'm not a woman. I'm a man."
Her face wavered in front of me. The words echoed inside my head. "What?"
"You heard me, honey. I'm a man. And you are completely normal. That's why you're in love with me."
I scrambled to my feet. "You're not. You can't be. I've seen you in women's clothes!"
"Clothes don't make the person, Juliet. You see, when I fight alongside the men, I really am the Lieutenant Flowers I pretend to be. They all love me for it. They all think I'm a brave, incorrigible woman. The kind of woman they'd marry if they had the courage. And your brother has taken to flirting with me like a schoolboy. He's hooked like a fish on the line, honey. At first I thought it was all great fun, and I planned to tell him one day in the future, and then I come here and I meet Martha."
She hesitated. She inhaled the cigarette. "That sweet, patient, beautiful woman who waits for him to make up his confused mind. And I say to myself: 'Lieutenant Flowers,' I say, 'you can't let this go on. You've got to tell him.' Only I don't because I don't have the courage. And then I meet you."
I said nothing while I tried to piece it all in my head. She was lying, as sure as my name was Juliet. "I don't believe a word of it," I said.
"Why would I make such a thing up?"
"Why not? Look what you've made up already. You've done so much lying you don't know what the truth is anymore."
"Honey, if you were my little sister, I'd slap you for talking like that to me. But instead I'm going to prove I'm not lying another way." And she stood up then and grabbed me by the shoulders and drew me to her. "This," she said, "will open your eyes to a lot of things." And she leaned down and kissed me.
I'd never been kissed like that before. It was at first horrible and intrusive, and then sweet and gentle, and I knew no woman could kiss like that.
Sue Mundy was a man!
He released me and I was wobbly on my feet.
"Who are you!" I demanded. "You have no right!"
"Darling, sweet girl, I just touched you with a kiss and made you grow up, didn't I?"
"You're a man! You're Lieutenant Flowers!"
"Yes, but that wasn't Lieutenant Flowers kissing you. That was Marcellus Jerome Clark."
"Who is that?"
"My own real name. Juliet Bradshaw, we all have our own private moon. And every moon has a dark side. Only we never dare confront it or let others know about it. Most times we don't even know it is there. Not our moon. Our moon has no dark side."
"What is all this talk about moons? I'm going to tell Seth you kissed me. And then you'll be sorry."
"Ah, Seth. He's what this is all about. Think of what a kettle of fish we're all in here. You and your brother both in love with the same person. Only you're in love with Lieutenant Flowers, and he's in love with Sue Mundy. And then there's poor dear Martha, having to wait for the man she loves, disappointed once already, and she's paying the price. I tell you, Juliet, you have to tell Seth I'm a man. You're the one to do it. And that's what all this is about."
"Me? Why me? Why not you?"
"Because he loves you, sweetie. He's a good, gentle man and he doesn't deserve to suffer, and I know you don't want to see him suffer or be embarrassed, or lose Martha. He'll accept it from you, his darling little sister, more than from anybody else. Please, let's not let this go any further. Will you do this for all of us?"
"So you're going to let your secret out, then?"
"No. That's another thing. You and Seth must never let it out. My disguise is important to Quantrill and the Confederate army. I can't tell you why now, but I will soon. Will you cooperate in this?"
I was privy, mayhap, to confidential intelligence. And I was trapped. My eyes misted over. I had a headache of a sudden. My innards hurt. I stumbled toward the house as if running out of a nightmare.
Chapter Seven
IS IT POSSIBLE that being the possessor of another person's terrible secret can get you so filled up with agony that you can get sick inside? That it can make you bleed?
The secret took refuge in my head and my guts. The headache hurt so much that Martha had to give me a cold pack and rub my forehead with vinegar and declare, in her storybook voice, that "a good supper will make you feel better."
I ate. It was a good supper. Browned beef and fried potatoes and fresh green beans. I ate in spite of the fact that someone had a fist around my innards and was squeezing the life out of them.
"To bed," Martha ordered. I did not disobey her. She was known to slap one of her sisters if they disobeyed. She stood for no back talk, and I figured she'd not hesitate at slapping me. After all, Seth had left her in charge. I went upstairs, and when I went to put on my nightdress I found blood in my pantalets and panicked, forgetting everything Jenny had told me about becoming a woman. I called out and not only Martha but Jenny came running.
"Too soon," Jenny pronounced solemnly. "I didn't get mine until I was thirteen."
Martha hushed her and ordered her from the room. Then she took it upon herself to give me the most important talk of my life, telling me how to care for myself and where everything was kept.
I fell asleep, both proud and scared, wondering how much Sue Mundy's secret had to do with my getting my monthly of a sudden, and grateful to have a big sister like Martha. I must get Seth to marry her, I told myself. Sue Mundy was right. I must speak to Seth, first chance I got.
Sue Mundy came into my room to visit and I threw her/him out. I didn't want a freak around me at the moment when I was about to be welcomed into the legion of womanhood. Martha said I was rude and I said I didn't care. She said she was going to tell Seth and I said I didn't care about that, either.
She said I needn't think because I got my monthly I was out of Seth's jurisdiction. I said I wasn't a little girl anymore. Martha said she still wanted to spank Jenny on occasion. I told her Seth never put a hand on me. Oh, I was a brat, and I had to tell her later that I was sorry.
Then Seth and Bill Anderson and two other Quantrill Raiders arrived home unexpectedly. They returned to remove all the gunpowder and cartridges and guns from the cellar, in case the Yankees came by to confiscate them and blamed us girls for keeping an arsenal in our house.
Box by box, they carried them up the cellar stairs, through the outside entrance, and buried them down by the stream. Then, after they'd washed up and had some food, Seth came up to see me.
"What happened?" He stood by my bed where I was propped up against half a dozen pillows.
"I'm sick."
"With what? I don't need you sick now. You have to be well enough to skedaddle with the others if the Yankees come."
I didn't answer. For heaven's sake, hadn't Martha told him what was ailing me? Well, I wasn't about to tell. Let him guess. He was the expert on women. Do him good to worry a bit.
"I will have an answer," he said. "I have to leave in an hour. Don't send me back with an uneasy mind."
I just looked at him, one of those looks I used to give him when I was very small and he was being very dense. He closed his eyes and shook his head as if to clear it.
"Oh," he said. "Oh, I'm sorry for being such a mule-head. And because Mama isn't here to see you through this."
"I have Martha," I said. "She's been good to me."
"Yes," he said, "but there's more to tell, isn't there? Martha said you were by the barn with Sue Mundy and ran in crying. What was that all about?"
I lowered my head.
"Martha said Sue Mundy kissed you. Or was it Lieutenant Flowers?"
Here it comes, I thought. "Neither," I said.
"Don't lie. You know I can take anything but your lying. Whomever she was pretending to be, nobody has a right to kiss you like that, and I'm going to have a word with her."
"Like what?" I pushed.
"Like what Martha told me she saw. I'll have nobody fooling around with you that way. She'll answer to me."
"I'm not lying, Seth. The man who kissed me was Marcellus Jerome Clark."
"Who in purple hell is that?"
"Sue Mundy. She isn't a girl. She's a man. And she wants me to tell you that."
"Look, Juliet, just because the papers print such claptrap is no reason for you to believe it. Sue Mundy is enough of a girl for any of the men in our regiment."
"Then they're all pansies."
"Now listen here, young lady."
"No, you listen, Seth, please. I have to tell you this. Sue Mundy asked me to. She wants you to know she's not a girl. She's really a man masquerading as a girl."
"Hogwash."
"She knows you flirt with her. And now that she's met Martha she wants to bring a stop to it. Please, Seth. For all your sowing your wild oats, don't let her think you don't know a girl from a man to begin with."
"That's enough, young lady."
I looked at him slyly. "If that's true, then you don't deserve Martha."
I tell you, I wouldn't have blamed him one little bit if he slapped me then. I deserved it. But he didn't. He gripped the bedpost with one hand and his face went hard. "There's a line somewhere here," he said quietly, "and you've just crossed it. And you'll find out how serious that is when you're up and about."
"I'm sorry, but I'm telling you the truth. I knew you wouldn't believe me. So did Sue Mundy."
"Sue Mundy is a damned good soldier."
"I don't care." I started to cry and grabbed a pillow to hug.
Seth moved with a clatter, knocking over a chair. "Enough," he said sternly. "We'll not speak of this. And when you're well and I'm home again, we'll have a long talk about your behavior."
"She's a man," I said again into the pillow. "And you're in love with her. I'm trying to help you. Because there's Martha in love with you, and you don't even care."
He just stood there in that black hat of his, hands on his hips, trying to figure out what to do with me. Clearly he was in a quandary. He was mad, there was no question of it. He wanted to drag me out of bed and hang me on the clothes peg on the door, I suspected. He wanted to take off his wide belt and beat me, only it had four revolvers in it. Or maybe he wanted to build a closet in Martha's basement and put me inside.
So he did the only thing he could. "It's clear this is all a mistake with us," he said quietly. "I'm beginning to be sorry you're my sister. And that orphanage in Kansas City is starting to look more and more appealing to me as the days go by."
He started to leave, then turned at the door. "You stay clear of me for a while. For a while I don't want anything to do with you."
"Seth." I reached out an arm appealingly.
He turned, saying, "I need some time to think things through about us."
Then he walked out. He went back to Quantrill.
Within four days the Yankees came to arrest all of us in the Anderson house.
THEY RODE up in a cloud of dust and dismounted. Their blue uniforms were spotless, the brass buttons shining, the horses sleek and well fed with USA embroidered in gold on the saddle blankets, but still not equal to the blooded horses Quantrill and his men rode. Those horses were from superior stock.
For one clear moment those Yankees seemed to say it all for me, only I could not decide what it was that they were saying. They touched some chord inside me, some momentary streak of belonging. Then it vanished.
They stood taking measure of the place for a moment or two, conferring. Then a couple of them came up the steps of the porch where I was standing next to Martha. "Ma'am," one said to Martha, "we have to search the premises."
Martha told them to go ahead and search to their heart's content.
As soon as they went in the door, the other girls came out. Jenny, Mary, and Fanny had slept late this morning. Martha and I had enjoyed breakfast in the dining room alone.
As soon as all the girls were in one place the man in charge, Captain Williams, read some kind of a writ saying we were all under arrest "being kin to Quantrill's Raiders and therefore considered persons as had helped the enemy, furnished him with ammunition, and fed and clothed him and given him board."
"Do you see any ammunition in this house?" Martha asked. Oh, she was brave, far more brave than Sue Mundy who'd come to stand with us.
They'd taken all our names. "Kin to Bill Anderson," Williams had marked down of the Anderson girls, then looked at me. "And you?"
I had trouble saying it. Maybe Seth said I should stay clear of him, not bother him at all. I hated to connect him with this, then, but I said it, anyway. "I'm sister to Seth Bradshaw," I said.
"Tough cookie," he said of Seth. "And you?" he asked Sue Mundy.
"Sue Mundy," she said quietly.
"Well, never in all my born days," Williams said. And he took off his hat, bowed, then took Sue Mundy's hand and kissed it. "I am honored, ma'am, even as I must arrest you. Gentlemen, look who we have here. A real prize."
"You tell them I'm a man, and I'll tell them where your brother is today," Sue whispered to me later.
"Loyal guerrilla you are."
"I was left to protect you girls. I can only do it if I'm in prison with you."
"Protect the others. Leave me alone."
"No talking!" one of the Yankees barked.
We rode off. To prison.
Chapter Eight
IT WAS a long, hot, and dusty ride, and the man whom I rode behind had no consideration for the bumpiness of the road. He exchanged ribald jokes with another corporal until Captain Williams overheard them and yelled, "No cussing, no dirty joking!" and then all went quiet.
So quiet that I almost fell asleep, rocking back and forth. Once I caught myself leaning my forehead against the back of my corporal, whose name I never did learn, on the edge of sleep enough
to catch glimpses of dreams involving Seth. Seth would not know where I was. Likely he would not care. I grew sad and then I was jerked awake again.
***
THE BUILDING was brick and three stories high, a sad-looking affair that had seen better days. Captain Williams handed a note to one of the superior officers and he read it and glanced at us.
"Blood kin to Quantrill's boys, hey?" he asked. I heard a kind of vicious joy in his voice. "Well, we'll have to treat them like blood-kin, then. Inside, ladies, inside. Take orders and keep your mouths shut and everything'll be all right. We've got some more like you inside."
We were ushered from a hot street into a sweltering building, then led up the rickety stairs to the second floor, where the floorboards were cracked and just as rickety.
The soldier had been right. There were at least twelve more girls and young women in the large room on the second floor, sitting around despairingly. They got up when we came in and stood staring at us—though some of them knew us and we knew some of them.
I knew Armenia Crawford, Chloe Fletcher, Eugenia Gregg, and Lucy Younger from school. Martha took tea, made quilts, and later made guerrilla shirts with some of the older ones. All of them looked unkempt, even to their mussed hair and dirty faces. But more than that, their faces looked white and drawn, their eyes were sunken in, some red from crying.
"How long have you all been here?" Martha asked.
"Three weeks," Chloe Fletcher answered. She seemed to be the spokesperson for them. She stepped forward and took Martha's hand. "We're certainly glad to see you all." She introduced her other girls. Their brothers, like mine, rode with Quantrill.
Martha introduced us and we sat down on the beds, which were lined up against the walls. "And this is Sue Mundy," she finished. "You all have heard of her. She rides with Quantrill."
There were instant oohs and aahs. One girl, who'd been introduced as Charity McCorkle Kerr, held close a rag doll, yet she was older than I. She stared at Sue Mundy, unashamedly. "It's right nice of you to come and see us, but we don't have any tea or truffles to offer. You'll have to go elsewhere for that. Oh yes, where did you get the fancy duds?" she asked. "Just you wait. You'll look like the rest of us in no time."