by Kelli Estes
She was once again a man with all the freedoms that gender enjoyed. She intended to enjoy that freedom to the fullest, starting with a visit to the place where no respectable woman went: the saloon.
Smiling, she yanked open the door to the first saloon she came across, on Front Street. Already, card games were in progress at a couple of tables, or maybe they were still going from the night before. At one table, a man slept with his head in his arms. Someone had placed a daisy into the back of the man’s breeches so that it looked like it was growing out of his backside. For some reason, it reminded Emily of the two soldiers in camp who had danced together one evening, taking turns being the woman and sending the other men into gales of laughter at their antics.
She missed that life. Sighing, she turned to the barkeep, who was wiping the countertop with a rag and eyeing her curiously. “Can I help you?” he asked in a friendly manner, his long mustache wiggling.
Emily dropped onto a stool at the end of the bar. “Do you serve breakfast here?”
“Sure do. Want coffee while you wait?”
She did. Soon she was happily slicing into a slab of ham with eggs, grits, greens, and a buttermilk biscuit the size of her palm filling the rest of the plate. She knew she should save her money, but she needed energy if she was going to figure out how to get to Nebraska.
As she ate, she watched men come in, slam back a drink, then saunter out again, likely on their way to work. The man with the flower in his breeches woke up and hollered for coffee, which the barkeep hustled over to give him. One poker game finished up, and the men shook hands before parting ways and disappearing through the door into the bright day outside. The other poker game looked like it could go for several hours more.
“Hey, boy!” called a gruff man at the poker table. “Yeah, you. Want to join us? We just lost a man.” He nodded to the man heading out the doors with shoulders drooping.
Emily normally would have turned down the invitation, but she missed being one of the men. She missed playing cards with Ben, and she missed sipping on Willie’s applejack. Even knowing this poker game would not be the same as sitting with her friends and would not bring them back, she got to her feet and crossed the room. Promising herself she’d quit when she was ahead, she said, “Sure, I’ll play. Deal me in.”
The hours passed without much notice. She played hand after hand, winning some and losing some and generally coming out even, she figured. She drank the whiskey that appeared in front of her from time to time, and she took breaks to visit the privy in the yard out back, but she kept returning to the game, enjoying how it made her forget everything else. As she played, she did not think about Ben or Willie or being discharged from the Army. She did not think about where to find work or how to get to Nebraska, or what she’d do until she could make a claim on land there. She simply played the cards in her hand.
When she got up to visit the privy for the countless time, she was surprised to see the sun had gone down. She’d played all day.
The unsteadiness of her feet attested to the fact that she’d also drunk all day. She giggled. What would her father have said about this? She giggled again. Alcohol may be sinful, but it sure made her feel better.
As she returned to the game, she noticed two of the men she’d been playing with were gone, and two new faces scowled in their place. Shrugging, she nodded her greetings to them and picked up her cards, ready for another round.
It was clear from the start that these two were men she had to be careful with. She didn’t worry, though, as she knew how to handle them. There’d been some of their kind in her regiment, always causing trouble, never owning their responsibilities. She played the game fairly and kept her conversation limited. And yet, the two men, especially the older, scruffier one, seemed to grow angrier with each hand that they lost and with each drink they swallowed.
By the fourth round, Emily made the decision to excuse herself from the game and return to her sleeping porch. It was a good time to stop, before the men grew violent and while she was ahead in her winnings. That’s one thing Ben had taught her, to know when it was time to quit.
“That’s it for me, fellas,” she said, tossing her cards on the table. “If you will excuse me, I bid you good night.” She rose from her chair.
“Hold on one cotton-pickin’ minute.” The gray-haired man clamped a weathered hand over her wrist. “You cheated!”
Emily reared back. Never in her life had she cheated at anything, unless one counted disguising herself as a man—was that cheating? Still, she’d never cheated at cards, and she never would. “I most certainly did not!”
“Now, now, Walt,” the barkeep said, appearing at Emily’s side. “Don’t go getting carried away. You lost fair and square.”
Walt jumped to his feet, knocking his chair over behind him. His young friend followed suit and pushed up his sleeves as though getting ready for a fight. “I saw him touch his hand to his chest. He’s hiding cards in his shirt. Go on, search him if you don’t believe me!”
Emily backed away. “I promise you, I did not cheat, and I don’t have any cards. They’re all right there.” She pointed to the table. When she noticed her hand shaking, she quickly drew it back and stuck it in her pocket. Catching the barkeep’s eye, she pleaded with him, “Believe me. I’m not a cheater.”
The barkeep tilted his head toward the door, clearly telling her to leave before things got worse. She didn’t need to be told twice. She pivoted and made a beeline for the street.
“Where’s he goin? Stop him!”
“How ’bout you boys let me get you another round on me?” the barkeep was asking as Emily dashed through the door.
The street outside was busy, even though night had fallen. Knowing the men might follow her despite the barkeep’s efforts, she crossed to the other side and tried to blend into the crush of men making their way to their evening entertainment. She headed in the direction of the deserted house.
When she reached the quiet street where she intended to sleep, only a block away from her porch, she thought she’d escaped them. But then she heard footsteps coming up fast behind her. She was turning to see who it was when a fist slammed into her stomach and her body exploded with pain.
“What’s the matter, boy?” the younger man from the saloon yelled in her ear as she doubled over. “Can’t take what you got comin’ to you?”
The man’s beefy fist slammed into the side of her skull, propelling her to the ground. Her head hit the brick sidewalk with such force she saw an explosion of light behind her closed eyes. She curled into a ball with her arms wrapped around her head and waited for him to finish, but the man was far from done with her. He kicked her ribs, and through a haze of pain, she wondered if her bindings would hold her bones in place.
“Stand up and fight like a man! Or maybe you ain’t a man, seein’ as how you can’t even defend yerself.” Kick. “What’s wrong with you, huh?” Kick.
“He’s a baby who should be home with his mama,” came Walt’s voice now. “What am I sayin’? I bet you’re a deserter, aren’t you? Deserters deserve to be hung.”
Emily had never felt such pain in her life. She fought to catch a breath and to see through the blurry vision that came with her pounding head. She wanted to get to her feet, to fight or run away, she wasn’t sure, but her body wouldn’t cooperate.
“I said, get to your feet, boy!” One of the men grabbed the front of her shirt and lifted her. As he did so, her shirt tore and the cool night air hit her skin above her bindings. “What in the…? Walt, look at this!”
Emily tried to cross her arms over her chest, but one of the men roughly shoved them out of the way and she was too weak to resist. She found herself again sprawled on her back, but this time she was lying in the dirt and filth of the street. She had to blink several times to see clearly, and what she saw stopped her blood cold. A blade wavered in front of her face.
She tried to roll away, but the men held her down. All of a sudden, the blade sliced through her bindings. One of them grabbed her diary and tossed it aside, and then he roughly grabbed her breast, squeezing it so tightly that she cried out in pain. He whooped with delight and squeezed again.
“We got ourselves one of those Amazon women. A regular Joan of Arc herself, all dressed up like a man and picking fights.”
“Let’s show her what real men do.”
To her horror, she felt her trousers being tugged down her hips and she was roughly pushed over onto her stomach with her face being ground into the dirt. She squeezed her eyes tight and bit her lip until she tasted blood, terrified of what they were going to do but having no way to stop them.
Calloused fingers grabbed her bare backside and she screamed, hating that they could hear her weakness but unable to keep quiet. She closed her mind off from what was about to happen to her body and drew into herself, waiting for it to be over.
Through the fog in her mind, she heard the younger man’s voice yell, “Walt, get down! Where’d that come from?”
Emily forced the rest of their words from her attention. It was the only way she knew to survive their abuse.
But then, she realized no one was touching her any longer. Afraid to hope, and too hurt to move, all she could do was lie still and wait to see what happened next.
She jerked as a small hand touched her cheek. “You need to get up,” whispered a young voice right into her ear. “They’re going to come back when they realize those were just rocks we was throwin’ and no one was shootin’ at ’em.” Emily felt her arm tugged. “Come with us. We’ll help you.”
Emily squinted through the pain and found the little blond girl from the street last night and her two companions. The pickpockets. She forced herself to her knees and finally to her feet where she hastily put her clothing to rights, shame burning through her entire body.
When she took a step, her knee buckled, and she would have fallen had the older boy not been there to grab her. The other boy, who couldn’t have been older than eight, moved to her other side, and together they helped support her as she limped slowly behind the little girl.
She didn’t know where they took her and, in fact, could not have retraced her steps because she paid no attention to their route. All she knew was when they finally let her lie down, the relief was so great that tears flowed from her eyes. “Thank you,” she managed before losing consciousness.
* * *
Even before coming fully awake, Emily felt her entire body throb with pain. She tried to sink back into oblivion, but then she remembered the two men who had beaten her, and her eyes flew open, afraid of what she was going to see.
She’d expected to find herself lying in the street, or maybe on the abandoned porch where she had slept before, but she was in neither place. Confused, she tried to sit up, but a sharp pain in her ribs halted her movements and told her they were likely broken. Sucking air through her teeth, she eased back down and turned only her aching head to look around.
She seemed to be in some sort of shed or small barn. Sunlight filtered through the few cracks between boards that had not yet been stuffed with wadding. Someone had covered her with a blanket and that, combined with the clean straw that was her bed, made her quite comfortable, pain notwithstanding.
“Oh good, you’re awake.”
A little girl with hair so light it was almost white, yet hanging limp with grease, popped into the shed, and Emily recognized her as one of the street kids she’d seen picking pockets. She wore a simple yellow dress with blue flowers on it over a pair of brown trousers and sturdy black shoes. She reminded Emily of her cousin Ada.
Her memory rushed back. The kids had saved her from those men. Where were the two boys who had helped her here? Wherever here was.
“We were really worried about you,” continued the girl as she reached for something above Emily’s head. From the sounds, it must have been a bowl of water. “How do you feel?” The girl gently placed a cool, wet cloth on Emily’s forehead, smoothing her hair away as a mother would for a child.
“Not well, to be honest,” she said, answering the girl’s question and following it with two of her own. “Where are we? Where is your family?”
The girl settled onto the ground at Emily’s side and crossed her legs “We live here. Don’t worry, no one knows we’re here, and no one saw us bring you here either. All the family I got left is my brothers, and they’ll be back soon.”
The girl sounded like an echo of Emily’s own words after Pa died. Before Ben… She swallowed back the agony of remembering and forced her attention to the girl and the feeling of the cool cloth. From the tender way the girl administered to her, Emily knew she must have recently had a mother. “What happened to your parents?”
The girl’s tiny shoulders shrugged. “They died. Papa was shot by the Yanks, and after our slaves ran away, Mama worked all by herself with only us for help until she got sick and died, too.”
Emily acknowledged the girl’s unspoken pain with a close-lipped smile. “I lost my parents, too,” she told her.
Just then, two bodies burst into the small room, filling it with energy and noise.
“Did you see his face when I started crying?” laughed the younger boy, the one who looked like the girl. “Boy, was he a sucker!”
The older, black boy laughed and grabbed onto the younger boy’s shoulder as though needing his support to remain upright. “I was so scared when he grabbed you, but then I couldn’t believe it when you started wailing! Real tears, too!”
They dissolved into a fit of giggles that Emily could not resist. She smiled at the boys and waited for them to notice her.
“What’d you get? I’m hungry.” The little girl was unamused by the boys’ antics and simply stared at them with big brown eyes.
The black boy looked at the girl, and then his eyes shifted toward Emily. When he saw her watching him, his laughter faded. Suddenly serious, he opened the burlap sack he carried and looked inside. “We got a loaf of bread, some strawberries, and two eggs.”
The girl held out her hands. “Hand them over. Our guest must be starving.”
The black boy scowled in Emily’s direction and handed the sack to the girl, who disappeared outside with it. The younger boy took his sister’s place on the ground next to Emily. “What’s your name? Mine’s Isaac, and he’s Gabriel.” He moved his skinny arm to indicate the black boy still rooted in place near the door. “Our sister is Nellie.”
“Thank you for taking care of me, Isaac. You too, Gabriel.” Emily smiled at the boys even though the effort split her swollen lip open and she tasted blood. “My name is Je…” She stopped, realizing the kids knew she was a woman. They’d also put themselves at risk to help her. She owed them the truth. “My name is Emily.”
“Why are you dressed like that?” Isaac asked, his round face full of questions. “I ain’t never seen my mama dressed like a man.”
“Because I’m all alone in the world now, and I’ve found I am safer as a man and can find better-paying work as one.”
He nodded as though nothing would surprise him. “What happened to your family?”
“My mama died when I was about your age, and my father was killed in battle,” she told him, watching out of the corner of her eye as Gabriel took a seat on an overturned crate in the far corner near the door. She could tell he was as curious as Isaac but afraid to come too close to her. “Then my brother David died of typhoid. After that, my brother Benjamin and I enlisted in the Army. That’s when I started pretending I was a man.” She stopped, wondering if she was telling them too much.
“Where is Benjamin now?” Gabriel asked, though his scowl showed he hadn’t intended to voice the question.
“He was killed in battle at Pittsburg Landing. His fiancée, too.”
Isaac lean
ed forward, his eyes wide. “You tellin’ me there was two of you dressed like men?”
Emily nodded, then told them the story of how she and Willie had met and the three of them became fast friends. “Willie was like a sister to me.”
Nellie came back in carrying a plank of wood with their breakfast on top. She’d fried the eggs and sliced the green tops off the strawberries. “That’s like us,” she said, setting the makeshift platter on the ground between Emily and Isaac. “We aren’t really kin with Gabriel, but he’s our brother just the same.”
Emily’s heart turned over upon hearing the love in her voice. To her, the difference in their coloring was clearly irrelevant. They were siblings, and that was the end of it.
Oh, Willie, she thought, I wish you were here.
And then she remembered. “My diary!” Frantic, she tried to sit up to look for it, but the pain in her ribs stopped her, and she cried out. With shallow breaths, she eased back down.
“What are you fretting about?” Isaac asked, staring at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“I lost my diary. I need to go look for it.” She tried to ignore the pain and get up, but only got as far as rolling to her side before she had to stop and rest, her breath coming in gasps.
“We’ll go look for it after breakfast. You need to rest, and you need to eat.” Nellie gently pushed on her shoulder until Emily gave in and lay back down.
It was gone. Her diary and all her money, but even worse, Willie’s handkerchief was gone. She’d failed her friend so miserably. She’d lost everything.
Tears rolled down the sides of her face and into her ears, but she did not wipe them away.
“Come sit with us, Gabriel.” Nellie was busy ripping the bread into four equal chunks. She used one to carefully scoop up some of the fried egg. She held her offering toward the oldest boy. “Get it while it’s hot.”
Gabriel joined them and hungrily bit into his breakfast. When Nellie tried to hand her a share, Emily turned it down, knowing she could find her own food later.