I took off so smartly, glancing back to make sure she would not move, that I whacked my head against the edge of the open door and reeled back, seeing stars. Now that was some dignified exit.
Why didn’t I bring my horse? There was a judge who lived a few blocks off, but I arrived there in a sweat and found him at his dinner.
He kept me waiting on the porch awhile before he came out, napkin in hand, and looked at me over his glasses. “What is it now, Sheriff?”
I told him the unlikely events of the morning, and his brow wrinkled.
“Pity. I know Miss Cairnes, poor girl. I knew her father. Her mother should take better care of her. She must have gotten up too early from her confinement. Some of them go mad afterward. Let’s hope she didn’t do as she says. Is her brother with her? No? Well, send for him to take her back. I can’t do a thing on a Sunday, not on just her word. We need witnesses.”
“Yes, sir, I was pretty sure of that. But she keeps saying she wants to get hung today.”
He scowled over his glasses. “Then she is demented. Get her family.”
When I got back to the jail I could not find her at first, and that was a relief—maybe she had thought better of it all and gone away.
But I heard a rustle from the cells, and sure enough, that’s where she was, lying on the hard wood bed in one, arm over her face. She had pulled the door closed, and it had latched itself. It was sickening to see her through the bars.
“Now, miss, you know you can’t lie there. You got to come on out and go back home. Tell me, where’s your brother at?”
She sat up, ignoring what I said. “Did you get the warrant?”
“No, miss, can’t do it today. Judge said your own word is not enough. You have to go back home and wait till you get fetched. No one’s told us about a shooting.”
She shouted like I had tried her patience to the limit. “But I’m here! I’m telling you!”
I felt grim getting my keys and unlocking the cell. I thought she might refuse to get up and I would never get her out. But she surprised me. Got right up and marched back to my office. Sat there with a look that said she would not budge until I brought the noose.
HENRY FARNANDIS, ESQUIRE
Attorney at Law
IT WAS A DELIGHTFUL SUNDAY, Mrs. Farnandis supervising in the kitchen as the cooks prepared a lovely meal for all our children and grandchildren. Before we sat down to it, I gathered everyone into the parlor to listen as I read the Word of God. The servants gathered, too, as they did every Sunday, standing around the walls, all of us in harmony, bowing our heads.
But what was that sound? A low rumble like cavalry, and it seemed to come right up our lane and onto our front lawn. Someone pounded the door, and I was disinclined to stop. I read the passage to the end and told everyone to go into the dining room and start to serve, since I would not be long. Folding my spectacles into my watch pocket, I went out to the porch.
I knew at once something was wrong. It was a strange tableau, young Richard Cairnes on his red horse, guarded by more than a dozen of the county’s best-known citizens, Harford Rifles and Light Dragoons. You must understand, they could all have been Knights of the Round Table, and if they were sent to retrieve the Holy Grail, we would have it today. Like me, they had been at Sunday services or dinner, all of them superbly dressed in black jackets, white shirts, clean cravats, and black striped pants. I knew that whatever emergency had taken them out of houses of worship or their homes was something I had to hear.
Colonel Stump rode out in front, right to the porch, and I stepped down to meet him. Stump was the most heroic of them all, excepting perhaps John Wilkes Booth, whose loss we all still mourned. Booth had been our eyes and ears, and once saved Stump himself from capture by the Federals. He had escorted a young lady to her home after a ball and remained there for the night, and when word spread next morning that the troops were after him, only Booth knew where Stump was and got to him in time.
Stump stayed on his horse but leaned his powerful torso down so he could speak low.
“There has been an incident at Jarrettsville, and we need your assistance to save one of the noblest ladies in our land. If you will have your carriage brought out, Richard Cairnes will ride with you and tell you what has occurred. We may need the carriage to bring the lady home. She has gone to the sheriff herself, and we must ride to town and speak to him.”
I wasted no time and ordered my carriage brought around, and young Richard joined me in it as the knights escorted us on horseback, guns stuck in their belts and spurs clinking. Twenty horses strong, in a tight phalanx, we galloped toward town.
Inside the swaying carriage, Richard was flushed and beady-eyed with concentration. “We have to spirit her away. They’ll hang her if she stays! We have people in Virginia we can take her to, where she’ll be safe. If you’ll lend us the carriage, we will take her from the sheriff and head south. I will be so much indebted to you.”
I gave his knee a gentle pat. “Spoken like the loving brother I am sure you are, young friend. But we cannot do that. The lady has turned herself in to the law and taken that decision from our hands. Due process must be served now at its own pace. Put your faith in me. I will never let them hang a lady, and especially not one who has been so terribly wronged.”
Richard was sweating visibly, his eyes gone wild. “Tell them I did it. Say I shot him through the window from the bar! She is completely innocent!”
I scrutinized him, weighing his idea. “Dear boy. I am proud of you for such a noble gesture. But do not give ideas to the prosecution. We will have enough trouble from them. Let us wait and see what we must do.”
Outside the jail, humble townsfolk rushed to help us with the horses so the gallant militiamen could surround me and Richard as we stepped into the jail.
It was a shock to see Miss Cairnes in such a sordid place. Perfect bud of Southern womanhood, she looked far too delicate to endure such injury to her nature. I went to where she sat and sank onto one knee, lifted her soft hand to my lips, and spoke for all of us.
“Here is beauty wronged and innocence so pure it consecrates this godless place.”
The men packed in the room murmured assent, and even the sheriff seemed to stand taller, exuding peacefulness, despite his bulk and his unseemly bulging guns.
Her voice was light and low, a lady’s through and through. “If you would do me any service, sir, you will have them bring a rope without delay. I do not wish to see another night.”
I bowed my head. “A noble sentiment, precisely what one would expect from a heart so fine and pure. You prove your innocence with every word, and gentlemen can only fall upon their knees to honor you. We shall shelter you and give you all our care.”
She stifled a cry, pressing an embroidered linen handkerchief to her lips.
“Please, Mr. Farnandis, try to understand. I want no help. I’m guilty, and I want to hang. I will not leave here alive. I’ve killed a man in cold blood.”
She turned to face the men, and they all closed their mouths and stared.
“You Dragoons and Rifles. You know it was a private matter between me and Mr. McComas. It had nothing to do with you nor with any disagreement between the states. You know the law says I must hang.”
I felt a flood of pity at her certainty. What must have been done to such a sweet lady that she now preferred death to her life?
I signaled to the others that I wished to rise, and several Dragoons assisted me. Gently I placed my palms on both her cheeks. “The shock has been too much for your tender constitution, and one would expect no less. You must let steadier minds decide for you and see that justice is done. What good would come of another death? You have done a greater good than you can know. If it is true a crime has been committed, and there is a trial, I will defend you with every power the good Lord has given me. Now, come, my dear, we’ll take you home.”
I took her hand and tucked her arm through mine, not giving in to her feeble tugs. The men surrounde
d us, and we swept out in a pack to the closed carriage, where I helped her in and drove her home, Dragoons and Rifles on every side. Richard rode his own horse, leading her tawny mare, and through that whole long ride, I had to face her by myself. And I can tell you that she argued with me as eloquently as the finest lawyer might, and a weaker man might have given in and let her have her wish. But the Lord was on my side, as I hoped he would be at her trial, and I kept to my position that she should live.
At young Cairnes’s farm, I left Colonel Stump in charge, and he positioned men around the house, where they would bivouac in shifts until the danger of reprisals passed.
ISABELLE CAIRNES KIRKWOOD
Mother of Seven
THE NERVE OF THAT MAN, sending me a letter! When I saw his writing on the second one, all big and flourished like he thought he was some kind of king—a goddamn king in exile—I chucked it in the fire. Whatever else he had to say, I didn’t care. He was a silver-tongued devil, that was sure. That tongue had cozened Martha, but it wasn’t getting me, no sirree. That was one good thing about losing your respectability at seventeen: You learned some things. You did not give a good goddamn what other people thought, and you knew a bad man when you looked at him and a good one, too. You knew a dear, truehearted friend like Martha Jane.
Cairnes was not a drinking man, so he had not been at the hotel that Saturday, and it was Sunday night before word got to us, when Martin Jarrett came to bleed me as usual. He insisted I had caught poor Sam’s consumption, and that my little Becky had it, too. If it was Sam’s, then I was honored to have it, that’s all I had to say. But I could not stand it that my little Becky could be sick so young. She was just two, an angel, and all smiles. I did not want her to become a real angel yet (if there were real angels), and the sight of Dr. Jarrett always set my worry off.
But when he told me what Martha Jane had done, all other thoughts deserted me. I lumbered to my feet as fast as possible, which was pretty slow by then.
“I have to go to her. You’ll take me there, won’t you?”
I left the children with Cairnes’s mother across the lane, my mind in an awful whirl. How could she have killed Nick, not letting on that she would, even to me? It made me feel odd, like she was someone else and not the best friend I had always known and loved.
She was the one person who had stood by me, even when my mother and grandmother turned their backs. No one was closer to me on this earth, not even my dear Cairnes. We were closer than sisters, which we almost were. Our fathers were brothers and our mothers first cousins, and we were also kin about twelve other ways. I mean, how many ways did you have to be related to a person before you would not marry him? Let’s just say no one in this family liked the word “incest” much.
Martha had always loved it when I said naughty things like that. We had spent our childhoods together, climbing trees, teasing about “bottom burping” when one of us had gas. We never played with dolls or other sissy stuff, not when we could climb up in a hayloft and pitch tiny stones at our brothers till they figured out where they were coming from and took off after us. We liked to hitch up our skirts and climb on a pony, though we would catch it if anyone saw that—both of us on one pony, bareback, one holding the other’s waist, till we started laughing too hard and fell off.
That summer when Cairnes chose me, Martha was my coconspirator. She let me stay with her and share her bed and acted like she didn’t notice when I snuck out at night to meet him on some lawn and get all wet with dew. One morning I was standing in her room naked, sunlight shimmering on the water in the china basin, and she stepped up beside me, chuckling.
“What’s this?” she said and pressed a cool finger to my neck.
“What?” I said, already giggling. She handed me her silver mirror.
On my neck was a mark like a composite flower, tiny purple buds hanging on to each other for dear life. I covered it with the washcloth, but she pulled it off and studied the mark.
“Why, look at that. I think someone has branded you. I can just make it out. It says GCK! George Cairnes Kirkwood, could it be?”
Cairnes was twenty-one then, I was just sixteen, and neither of us knew how serious it was, what we were doing. I planned never to let my girls out of sight when they got to be that age. Not that I was some kind of hypocrite. No. It was because I knew what it led to, for me and Martha both. If it was true she had shot Nick, then anyone who slipped out to meet a lover in the night was asking for her life to end. It might end with a noose or with drudgery like mine, but end it would.
Dr. Jarrett took me to her in his buggy, and as we rolled in the lane, we saw a lantern on the front porch of the house and two young men standing guard.
One of them was Jarrett’s younger brother, and he must have recognized the buggy. But when we got out, he drew himself up tall and fired a warning shot over our heads.
“Who goes there?” he shouted. “Halt right where you are!”
Dr. Jarrett did not even slow his walk. “Evening, Josh, George Andrew.”
He went in the front door, and I followed him. We found Martha flushed and feverish in black mourning dress, sitting by the front door like she was waiting to be lynched.
I brought another chair, sat down beside her, and took her hand.
But she leapt up and clutched Dr. Jarrett’s arms. “Martin! Tell me quickly. What did you do with Nick?”
He gave her an astonished look. “Don’t speak of that. Be quiet now.”
But she wouldn’t let him go. “Why can’t I know, Martin? It’s just a little thing. I’ll be dead in a few days. Why won’t anyone tell me? Just say it—did they carry him inside and wash him and lay him out? Where is he now?”
The doctor’s face softened—he seemed to understand. “He’s in heaven if he’s anywhere. But we took his body in and laid him on the bar, and I attended him. He was already dead. Mrs. Street washed him, and we got him a clean uniform. His brother took him to his mother’s house. They’ll bury him at Bethel, I expect, where his people are. There now, I hope you’re satisfied.”
She collapsed, weeping, and the doctor caught her as her knees gave way.
“You should be in bed. Isabelle, can you stay with her? She shouldn’t be alone. Take away her ribbons and laces, anything that she could use to hang herself. I’ll give her something, and I’ll leave more in case she needs it.”
He got a glass of water from the kitchen, poured a packet of white powder in, stirred it up, and handed it to her. “This will put your mind at ease.”
We almost had to force her to drink it down, but finally she did, and he left.
Martha would not go upstairs. She went on sitting grimly by the door, though I told her no one would come that night. It was already late, no sound in the house except the ticking of the tall grandfather clocks and the stately bong, bong, bongs every hour. The one in the entry hall would work itself up, whirring, then let loose. When all was quiet, the silence would be interrupted by the one at the top of the staircase, bong, bong, bong again.
Martha said wistfully, “I’ll miss these clocks. They have never agreed.”
I clutched her hand and studied her face, trying to decide how odd it was that she could talk about the clocks at a time like this. “Are you all right?”
“Of course,” she said impatiently.
I touched her forehead, and it was hot. “Don’t you get sick, too.”
It felt good to pretend nothing had changed. But I could feel a bad dream gape around us. Where was the baby? He would be four months old, and even with a black wet nurse, he should be here in the house, shouldn’t he? In my house, someone was always crying, and you could smell milk and baby pee and poop as you came in the door. But there was no sign of a baby here. Had she sent him away to hide the color of his skin?
Finally the sedative hit her, and she let me coax her up the stairs and into bed. I got in with her, and when she began to drift to sleep, I looked in other rooms upstairs, but found no trace of the baby. I was a
shamed for not having been there since it was born. But her mother, my aunt, had made clear for years I was not welcome there, and I could just imagine what she thought should happen to the child. I was glad now she lay prostrate in her bed, attended by a freedwoman I did not know. I was willing to wager it was she who had sent the baby off and not Martha Jane.
In the morning, Martha dressed and sat beside the door again. I went to her, took her hands, and looked into her eyes. “Where is your baby?” I whispered low.
She looked at me wildly, like she had misplaced it. Her head quivered on her neck like a person with the shakes. “He’s all right,” she murmured finally.
I was glad to hear she knew that much, that it was a boy. “Who is taking care of him?”
Her head trembled violently, then stopped. “Not here. But he’s all right.”
I had to be content with that and cook dinner for the militiamen on guard.
Richard lived across the lane now with his wife, but he preferred to swagger through his mother’s kitchen with two pistols in his belt, accepting coffee or a light for his cigar. Sometimes he seemed older, aged by marriage. But the next second he would be thirteen again, keeping his broad hat on even indoors, as if his business were too pressing to allow for niceties. He seemed happy, like he had done something grand, when so far as I knew, it had all been Martha’s doing, and it wasn’t grand. She had removed her only chance at happiness, and now she would be hung.
That day a late blizzard blew up and buried everything under two feet of snow, and the sheriff did not come. I missed my children and Cairnes with something like a physical hunger. But so long as she was here, at the mercy of so many armed men and others on their way, I had to stay.
Tuesday morning the sun rose bright, ice gleaming in lace patterns on every windowpane. Across the lane, where the pink magnolia had already burst in bloom, its petals now hung as brown and limp as old banana skins. Every daffodil had frozen paper-thin, and when Dragoons and Rifles stamped in to warm themselves at the cookstove, icicles hung suspended from their mustaches. I took a breakfast tray to Martha as she sat in mourning dress beside the door, but she would not look at it. She sat there all day. But no one broke the ice crust on the snowy lane, and I slept over a third night.
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