The Cotton Run

by Daniel Wyatt

  Then it dawned on her.

  Of course. The ship was trying to signal to the fort. She looked back at the dark cannon barrels protruding over the walls of Fort Caswell. They were ghostly silent. Why weren’t they covering the runner by firing on the Federals? The guns across the water at Fort Holmes hadn’t fired either. Strange. Very strange.

  Marie squeezed Mae’s arm. “Jump down. Quickly!”

  “Why?”

  “Get down!”

  “But why?”

  “The ship, she’s in trouble.” Marie helped Mae to the sandy beach. “We have to yell to those men to get their attention.”

  “Yell? Me?” the old woman clucked, her nostrils swelling.

  “All right, then. I will.”

  “Widows don’t do that. What would people say?”

  Marie held her breath, then blew up. “Out here? Mon Dieu! This is stupide. Do you see anybody out here?”

  “Well, no... except for the men...”

  “Excuse moi!” Marie ignored Mae and lifted her skirts up to her ankles. “Like my papa used to say,” she muttered to herself, “if you want something done right, you might as well do it yourself.”

  She set the binoculars down in the buggy, then ran thirty feet or so up the shoreline, her heels digging into the soft sand. She stopped, screamed and waved her arms, shawl, and bonnet at the soldiers beside the nearest cannon. The men looked over, and she pointed at the runner. “Over there! A runner, she’s in trouble!”

  “We know. They’re not close enough!” came the reply in a slow, drawling voice that carried across the weeds and sand. “We might hit the runner!”

  Marie understood. They did see it after all. These men knew what they were doing. Why waste shells. Or worse, sink the runner. Marie ran back to the buggy. The two women continued to sit and watch the incredible chase, flinching at every Federal shell raining down on the runner. The volley of firepower became intense. Then the ship came within a mile of the fort’s walls. Three of the fort’s guns erupted in blasts that reverberated over the water and beach, a devastating explosion of sound, accompanied by fierce yellow-orange flames. The ground shook beneath the carriage, startling the women and Mae’s horse. Huge puffs of smoke quickly blanketed the men and their guns. Then, across the water, the battery of guns at Fort Holmes opened up.

  Marie fought the horse to bring it under control. “Easy, easy.”

  “We had better remove ourselves from here, Marie.” The exploding shore cannons so near frightened Mae. Two more heavy guns fired. She winced and plugged her ears. The horse jumped again and neighed.

  “I’m not moving one inch, Aunt Mae.”

  The cannons kept up a steady stream of firing. Frightened, Mae began to scream and wouldn’t stop. Marie turned to her and shook her by the shoulders. “Stop it.” When that didn’t work, Marie slapped her hard across the face.

  Mae was stunned. “You slapped me.”

  “Oui. I had to do something. Control yourself. I’m staying right here. You are too.”

  Marie retrieved the field glasses. With one hand on the reins, the other on the glasses, Marie watched through the lenses. She wasn’t going to miss this for anything. The ship was closer, much closer. She saw a bare-headed figure on the paddle-box. He was tall, light-haired. He was wearing a white shirt rolled to the elbows and unbuttoned in the front, exposing the top portion of a muscled chest. “Mon Dieu!”

  “What’s the matter?” Mae said.

  “I think she’s the Silver Sally.”

  “Are you sure? How do you know?”

  “I recognize her captain, Joshua Denning.”

  Mae was taken aback. “I know the pilot.”

  “You do?”

  They gawked at each other, surprised at what the other knew.

  “Homer Cogswell,” Mae said. “His family lives in town. He has two of the most darling girls.”

  Marie slid the glasses down from her eyes, then raised them to her face again. It was him. Joshua Denning. She saw that one of the enemy ships was in closer pursuit than the others, in a position to perhaps fire at and capture the runner. Shell after shell hit the water nearby. She urged the runner on.

  Go, Joshua, go. You can do it.

  Then she closed her eyes, reopening them moments later. The air filled with a continuous pounding thunder from the fort’s guns. A steady stream of smoke engulfed the beach, until the women were breathing in the sulfur.

  * * * *

  Captain Carlisle realized he was going to lose the race and his promotion, unless he did something. By now the cannon balls from the Rebel shore were landing in the center of the Union fleet. Although caught in a crossfire from the two forts, he wasn’t about to turn back. Not yet. He removed his pistol from his holster and stormed over to the engineer’s pit.

  He pointed the barrel at the terrified chief engineer below. “I need more steam,” he wailed. “If you can’t get this ship moving any faster, I’ll blow your damn head off! Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Carlisle looked to the rear of the Sally and back to his Big Bear crew. He lifted his arm into the air. “Fire!”

  On command, a Big Bear shell was on its way.

  Commander Farley tried to catch his superior’s attention. “Sir, they’re shooting at us. Look out! Here comes one!” His next words were lost as a blast of water lashed the hull and tumbled along the deck, forcing both officers to their knees.

  Carlisle scrambled to rise. “Confound it. Denning’s going to get away.”

  “Captain, turn her around!” Farley cried.

  “No!”

  “Sir, give it up!”

  Another shot landed in the ship’s path, sending the bow up and down over the turbulence.

  “All right! All right!” Carlisle cupped his hands around his mouth and cried, “Hard to port!” He cursed.Denning got away again.

  * * * *

  The shore cannonade ceased. The Sally was out of danger.

  Denning shook hands with Parkens coming down the foremast. “We did it, Jimmy. A day-lighter.”

  The youngster’s bronzed, freckled face shone with sweat and pride. He was always eager to please his boss. “We sure did, sir. Wait till my friends in town hear about this. And waving a whore’s dress.” He looked at the garment in his hand and laughed at the idea of it. It was ludicrous. But who cared? It worked.

  Denning turned to the others on deck. “Well done, men! Well done!”

  “I don’t believe it,” Balsinger said, glancing back at the retreating Union ships. Denning said they were supposed to be at anchor. They weren’t. They were on patrol. Their guns were now silent, but his ears still buzzed from the sound of shells.

  “Nothing to it,” Denning replied, laughing, collecting the dresses from the men and throwing them into the open crate on deck. He gave Balsinger an I-knew-it-all-the-time smile. “Break open the victory champagne.”

  “I could use a good belt, skipper,” Balsinger admitted.

  “Me too,” Bishop laughed, nervously. “Now that was a bit of all right.”

  * * * *

  The smoky mist over the beach lifted.

  Marie watched the men celebrating through the eyepiece as the Sally steamed by the tip of Oak Island. She could hear the men’s voices raised in a victory song. The runner absorbed the last golden rays of the day, until it took on the color of the sun now dropping below the western sky. She saw Denning near the rail, holding a dark bottle. The singing stopped. She waved to him with enthusiastic arms.

  “Joshua!” She saw him look to the beach. “Joshua!”

  “He can’t hear you,” Mae said.

  “He sees me. He’s looking.”

  “Do you know him that well?” Mae asked, shocked. “And by his first name?”

  “He did it! He did it!”

  “You seem happy to see him.”

  “I am.” To Marie, Denning was a real Reb hero and she felt a part of his success. Marie and Denning exchanged loo
ks through the glasses. Marie knew he had recognized her. Then the ship’s bell rang three times. Her heart was in her throat. The bell was for her.

  He had recognized her.

  Chapter twenty-one

  Oak Island

  Marie turned the buggy around. She watched the Sally sail up the Cape Fear River with Joshua Denning aboard, still waving. In another twenty-five miles the runner would be docking in Wilmington. She wanted to be there, to share in the excitement. Wilmington would celebrate for days. Then she looked over at Mae.

  “I’m sorry I had to slap you,” Marie apologized, stifling an outright laugh. “You were becoming hysterical.”

  “That’s not what concerns me.”

  “Meaning?”

  “That is not becoming a woman in your condition.”

  “What isn’t?” Marie clucked the horse into a trot, onto the main road into Smithville.

  “That display of emotion. Waving and screaming. Oh, my dear.” Mae stopped herself and wiped a drop of perspiration from her forehead.

  “Emotion! I’m not dead just because my husband is.”

  “That’s disrespectful. If only... oh, my.”

  For a moment Marie thought Mae was going to faint again. “What?”

  “Ever since you’ve arrived you don’t seem very remorseful over Luke’s death. I haven’t seen any tears.”

  “That’s not so,” Marie replied, avoiding Mae’s eyes. “You have it all wrong. I did all the crying I could before I got here, thank you very much.”

  “Oh, you did?”

  “Oui.”

  “What does that man on the Sally have to do with you?”

  “He’s... he’s a patriot,” Marie said. “He’s supplied The Lads of Liberty with blockaded blankets.”

  “You’re a widow. You must conduct yourself accordingly. You must wear the proper clothes. You must behave yourself. What are you going to do when you go back to work? If you do not wear black, the town will ruin you. As if they are not saying enough things about you now. Don’t look at me like that. I know! And to think that Luke loved you so.”

  Marie heaved on the reins and stopped the buggy on the dirt road. They tried to stare each other down. “Oh, did he?”

  “Didn’t he?”

  “You want to hear the truth?” she said to Mae.

  “Yes,” Mae paused. “Of course.”

  “He didn’t love me.”

  Mae put her hand to her mouth. “Whatever do you mean, girl?”

  Marie took a deep breath to say what she had never told anyone else. “For the three years I’d been married to Luke, I played the perfect Southern wife. I did what was expected of me, with dignity. The Southern way. I was expected to be quiet and unassuming in political discussions at parties, even though I felt my opinions were just as important as any man’s, and oftentimes made more sense. I had to be silent or talk about nothings, look sweet and innocent, and play dumb.

  “He never once told me that he loved me,” she continued, taking a well-deserved breath. “I was there to... impress his friends, his family, you, his associates. What else? I never had any say in the matter of marriage and neither did he. Our parents thought it best that we bridge the two international businesses — cotton and wine. He was never mean to me or anything. I was just bored. I’ve been bored for three years. What I saw today was... was the most exciting thing I’ve seen in years. Now you know why I can’t wear black. Why I can’t mourn for Luke. I didn’t love him.” Marie put the horse in a trot.

  Mae’s smile was half-warm, half-cynical. “Are you in love with that captain?”

  Marie was not prepared for that. Her palms hurt from gripping the reins so hard. “And what if I am?”

  “So, you are in love with him.”

  “I didn’t say that. You did.”

  Mae was flabbergasted. “Those captains have the nastiest of reputations, you know. They frequent with low-lives. They sleep in brothels. They have a woman in every port. And the orgies! No street in Wilmington is safe when their sailors are let loose in town. I’ve seen them on leave in Smithville...”

  Mae prattled on with gossip of brawls in town. Marie scarcely gave ear to Mae’s tales. She looked ahead in a daze, thinking only of Joshua. It’s true, he had complimented her on her knowledge of politics and the war, but was he like the other captains? He was a bachelor, a handsome one, too. Did he have a wicked woman in Nassau, another one in Bermuda, a third or fourth in the red-light district of Wilmington where no decent woman would be caught? And worse, was he a drinker like Luke? Did he beat his women? Did he throw his money in the streets, as one drunken captain did last week in Wilmington?

  Suddenly, Marie was looking at Joshua Denning through new eyes, as if her perspective had suddenly shifted. And why not? She hardly knew the man. Had she been blinded by that aura of mystery about him? Right now she felt as if a knife had sliced right through her heart. How could she have been so taken by him?

  For once, maybe gabby Aunt Mae was right about something.

  * * * *

  Cape Fear River

  The sun dipped below the horizon. The walls of Fort Anderson, to port, formed ahead in the twilight.

  Denning watched Marie on the shore, until she faded from sight around a turn in the river. What was she doing out here? And who was that with her?

  “Who was that woman calling your name?” Bishop asked.

  Denning smiled. “A friend from Wilmington.” He turned to the Englishman. “You were pretty clear-headed under fire, Mr. Bishop.”

  “On the contrary. I was quite scared,” Bishop admitted.

  “But you didn’t panic. Now, how are you going to send your story to England?”

  Bishop downed his second glass of champagne. He was enjoying himself. “Actually... I...”

  “You didn’t think it through that well, did you?”

  “Not precisely, no,” Bishop confessed.

  “Do you mind if I give you some advice?”

  “Not at all. Please do.”

  “If you wish to stay in the Confederacy for some time and continue to do stories for the Times, you’ll have to come up with an organized system of sending your work out quickly. While it’s still news. Maybe I can be of help.”

  “Anything would be appreciated, captain.”

  “Wire is the only way,” Denning advised Bishop. “I know someone at the Wilmington telegraph office. Perhaps we can talk to him together. If your dispatches can be wired to him, he could send them out by runners to Bermuda and Nassau. Sending out on two different ships might be a good idea, just in case one ship gets, well, you know.”

  “Caught.”

  Denning nodded. “The captains would only have to transfer your work to a British cotton steamer and there you go. Your story could be home a week after it’s written.”

  “I must say, captain, that’s splendid.”

  “I’d be more than happy to be a part of the courier service and deliver when I’m able. What do you say, Bishop?”

  “I rather like it.”

  “Just say a few good things about me in your first dispatch.”

  “Oh, I will. Certainly.”

  * * * *

  Washington, D.C.

  Edwin Stanton was in one of his customary black moods two days later at his office.

  “I want Yankee removed from Lee’s army,” he ordered Colonel Baker.

  “But... how else can we get the inside information on Lee’s progress?”

  “He didn’t do anything for us at Chancellorsville.”

  “What about Gettysburg?”

  “Too late. It’s out of his hands. We have our army between Lee and Washington. Any movement can now be reported by our army scouts. Yankee has outlived his usefulness. I have a new job for him in Wilmington.”

  “Wilmington?”

  “Yes, Wilmington. The Navy Department has been pressuring Lincoln to put a stop to blockade running completely, to lessen the threat of England and France entering the war o
n the side of the Rebs. No one wants to hear of any more daylight runs either. It’s giving our Navy a bad name.”

  “But, sir. It was only one run.”

  “One was sufficient. We need a direct contact in Wilmington, not through our spies in Richmond.”

  “But, sir,” Baker began, then stopped himself.

  “But what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I know what you’re going to say. You already have a man in Wilmington.”

  Baker’s mouth quivered.

  “I told you once before, Baker, that I have my own sources. You shouldn’t keep things from me. I know about your border shipments. I know about your secret telegraph. And I know about your cotton and gun-runner friend in Wilmington, Eli Jacoby. I know everything that goes on in Washington, including what you’ve been doing. Not all your agents are loyal to you.”

  “Now that you know, what are you going to do?” Baker said, feeling out his boss.

  “I don’t know. I suppose that’s up to you.”

  Baker confronted his superior. “Bring me up on charges and I’ll take a bundle of people with me. It’ll cause a scandal that could even rock your position here.” You arrogant ass.

  Baker expected Stanton to fly into a fit. He didn’t.

  Instead he said, “Listen to me, Baker. And listen good. The power base in Washington and across this country is not controlled by Lincoln and his cabinet or the House of Representatives or even the War Department. No sir, the real power in this country belongs to an inner group of Republicans from Wall Street, who run the nation lock, stock, and barrel. Do you want to jump on the band wagon, or be left in the dust? This group needs the support from your forces to carry out some of their plans. They also want total control of all telegraph communications and I’ll run it for them. They can’t allow anyone to stand in their way. That’s where you come in with your people. As for your other operations, I don’t care. Just do as I say and don’t go off on any more spy operations without consulting me.”