Juliet's Moon

by Ann Rinaldi

  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.

  Chapter Fourteen

  MARTHA WAS still ailing. But the day I got back from Quantrill's camp they had her out of bed and she was practicing walking around with crutches.

  That was the nineteenth of August. The sti
tches held in her side, and she told me the doctor had said the wound lessened her chance of having children.

  "I told Seth last night," she said. "He said never mind, we're going to make beautiful children."

  Her voice trailed off. I dared not ask more.

  "So, I hear you told our story to Quantrill," she said quietly.

  I nodded. "Seth told me I'm not to talk about it to anyone."

  "Of course. I'm sorry for asking. My, things are getting tangled between all of us, aren't they?" She gave a small smile. She still had that singsong quality to her voice, as if the fairy story was still going to have a happy ending to it after all. "Well, we can talk about where we're going when we get out of here, can't we?"

  "Of course."

  "Well, Seth wants you and me to go to his house in the holler. He believes it to be the safest place around. Only thing is the Yankees will want to escort us, so we have to lie and say the place belongs to Sue Mundy."

  "But that's not fair."

  "Nothing in the world is these days, Juliet. If the Yankees knew it was Seth's place, they'd burn it. Just like they did to your home."

  I fell silent for a moment, then asked, "When do we go?"

  "When the Yankee doctors let us out of here. Certain things have to happen first, I suppose."

  The retaliation, I thought. The vengeance from Quantrill and his men. The Yankees knew it was coming, but they didn't know where or when. And until they did know, they were going to keep us all where they could keep an eye on us. Just in case they needed to imprison us again, I supposed.

  Martha gave me a look and a weak smile. I smiled back at her. We were likely thinking the same thing, but neither of us would acknowledge it. The worst had happened, we chose to believe. How could the Yankees do anything more to us?

  WE WERE still in the hospital at Leavenworth on the twenty-first of August when Quantrill and his men closed in on the well-cared-for little town of Lawrence, Kansas, and attacked.

  They expected, all four hundred of them, to be attacked along the way by Yankees. But they weren't.

  First they sat on a hillock overlooking the handsome town of some hundred homes that boasted the largest grocery store in the state and the grandest hotel west of the Mississippi.

  Then they went into the town like wolves, quietly and stealthily, only one order of Quantrill's ringing in their ears: "I will have no woman harmed."

  They came right down Massachusetts Street screaming, "This is for the girls!"

  They told us all this later, when they told us that Bill Anderson was the first one in, the first one to fire his gun at a helpless man who'd dropped his to the ground and raised his hands in surrender.

  "This one is for Jenny!" Bill yelled. And on he went, with so many more for Jenny.

  They killed, they burned, they attacked, they ransacked, they looted. They set fire until Lawrence lay in blackened, burning ruins like the underside of hell.

  My brother and the other Quantrill Raiders, I thought, were riding through the dark side of their moons.

  MY HEAD still hurt when the doctor changed the bandage before we left the hospital.

  "Do I still need a bandage?" I asked him.

  "No," he said. "But it'll help, where you're going."

  It was August 25. Sue Mundy was there, with me and Martha, having come back from her spy mission, which I suspected had something to do with Lawrence.

  "Where are we going?" I asked him. His name was Dr. Powers and he was the one to tell us about Lawrence. He chose no sides, though a Yankee. He treated everyone with kindness and consideration.

  "Well, General Order Number 11 came down this morning from headquarters."

  "What does that mean?"

  "Means all persons from Jackson, Cass, and Bates counties have to remove themselves from their present place of residence. They want to rid the border of all those who may have provided food, housing, clothing, or ammunition for Quantrill's men."

  "It means," Sue Mundy put in, "that they couldn't kill all of you when the building fell so they've got to get rid of you another way."

  Martha hobbled over on crutches. "It means us, Juliet," she told me. "And we're only allowed to bring the clothes on our backs and what we can carry."

  "I have a nightgown on my back," I said, "and so do you."

  "Doctor," Martha appealed, "can you get permission somehow for us to make a visit to our house and get some clothes? I know it's a big favor, sir, but we can't go like this."

  "I agree with you, Mrs. Bradshaw, and I'll see to it this day. But you're in no condition to do it. Maybe the powers that be will allow Sue Mundy here to fetch some things for you. Why don't you make a list."

  Chapter Fifteen

  SUE MUNDY returned the next day with clothes and sturdy shoes for Martha and me. We were thankful to learn that so far the Anderson home had escaped the Yankees' torch. But Sue Mundy could not sweet-talk the Yankees on another matter.

  "The girl and her sister-in-law are both casualties of that dreadful prison crashing to the ground," she told the corporal in charge. "They're going to be having hearings and investigations. This little girl can testify about the whole thing. She's a valuable witness. You oughtn't send her away. And her sister-in-law is a valuable witness, too."

  "What do you want me to do with them?" the corporal asked. "Take them home to Mother?"

  "No," Sue Mundy answered. "Let me take them to my house and keep them there. I'll stay and keep them under guard."

  "Look, I've got my orders," he said. "They go on the caravan, out of state."

  "CASS COUNTY had ten thousand residents on the day this order came down," a corporal told us. "As of today, only about six hundred remain."

  We stood on a little rise on the plains, looking at the strange caravan winding along the narrow dirt trail that led out of Missouri. The caravan was made up of army wagons, oxcarts, even large crates with wheels imposed on them. Some were pulled by oxen, some by mules, some by old horses, and some by people.

  Sue Mundy was gone. Back to rejoin Quantrill. The corporal had let her go, which proved what Seth had said to me about her claiming to be a double agent.

  "Where are the wagons headed?" Martha asked. "Where will we be headed?"

  "Don't know," the corporal said. "North, east, or south in Missouri, anywhere not affected by the proclamation. To the eastern states. Kansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, or Texas. Anywhere you want."

  "But we don't know anyone in those places," I objected. "And our families won't know where we are."

  "Don't matter. You brung it on yourselves."

  "My brother, Seth. He's the only family I have. I have no one else."

  "Then he should have kept a better rein on you than to let you go helping to supply the Raiders with shirts and food and the like."

  I ignored that. Who had known it would come to this? "He's Martha's husband," I said. "And she's been hurt. You mean she'll never see him again?"

  "If they'd told us they were married so we could keep record, instead of letting us find out through the grapevine, we'd have made other plans for them. And you."

  "What is all that smoke on the horizon?" Martha asked.

  "Wheat fields," he answered matter-of-factly, "cornfields. Houses and barns. Everything in the area is to be burned. Orders."

  "Our home!" Martha cried, and bowed her head, leaning on her crutches.

  "Here, ma'am," he said politely, for he was nothing if not polite. "Come along. You and the little girl had better get into this here wagon before you collapse." And he halted a wagon with a woman and a child in it. It was pulled by a young boy.

  I still had the mumblefuddles as I climbed into the wagon. That is to say, my head was still dizzy and hurt and sometimes my eyes didn't focus right. But I didn't say anything to Martha. She had enough to spend her energy on.

  The woman in the wagon said her name was Catherine. It was her child she was carrying, she told Martha. A boy, about three. A fine-looking boy at first sight, chubby
and sleeping in her arms.

  It took Martha only two minutes to see that he was dead.

  The woman knew. Quiet tears were rolling down her face. "I don't know what to do," she told Martha. "I'll have to bury him. But I don't know where. John, my other son there, will have to dig a grave for me."

  "There's an ash tree up ahead," Martha told her. "Will the soldiers let us stop?"

  The caravan was being brought along and guarded by Yankee militia.

  "They'll have to. Or they can shoot me, too. Does anybody think I care?"

  Her son, about fourteen, pulled the wagon under the ash tree and immediately two Yankee soldiers on horseback came over to see what we were about. "You got trouble, ma'am?" one of them asked.

  Catherine settled herself under the tree with the little fellow still in her lap as if she were at a garden party. "He needs to be buried," she told them. "Do either of you care to dig his grave?"

  "He dead?" one of them asked.

  "Well," she answered quietly, "I don't usually bury my children unless they are."

  Ashamedly they took small shovels from their supplies on their horses' backs and proceeded to dig, while Catherine held the child close and sobbed quietly. Martha was crying quietly now, too. Tears were coming down my own face.

  At first they couldn't get the little fellow out of Catherine's arms. But Martha set her crutches aside and held her while they did, then picked up the crutches, and with one of us on either side we walked away while they put the child in the ground.

  When it was over, the soldiers asked Catherine if there was anything they could do for her.

  "She needs a decent wagon. And a horse to pull it. Her other son is exhausted," Martha said, speaking up like she did back on Grand Avenue in the prison.

  One of them went to find such a vehicle, and the other looked at me and Martha. "Where'd you two get hurt?" he asked.

  "We were in the Grand Avenue prison when it fell," I told him.

  "Oh, god," he said. "Well, don't worry, we'll get you a good wagon of your own. We'll take care of you."