by Tammy Barley
But then, she reminded herself, the man paid attention.
Jake also told her that Tom Rawlins had left a message at the telegraph office in response to the wire Jake had sent him from Fort Laramie. Tom had successfully obtained permission on their behalf, authorizing their visit with the Confederate prisoner Ambrose Hale at Camp Douglas.
After three long years of being apart from her brother, Jess would see him tomorrow—if he was still alive.
For the remainder of the evening, Jake, Diaz, Taggart, and Reese spread out over the city, visiting taverns and asking idle questions over games of cards.
When they gathered in Jake’s room late that night, they had learned plenty about the city—and unfortunate details about Camp Douglas prison.
“All of you, stop coddling me. What else did you hear?” Jess demanded, casting a worried glance at the bandaged knife wound on Reese’s arm. “Jake, you wouldn’t want me to keep anything from you. Don’t you keep anything from me.”
Jake leaned an elbow on the small, serviceable desk he sat beside and rubbed his eyes. “You’re right, Jess. No secrets.” He nodded his approval for his men to tell all.
Jess turned to Reese, who was fidgeting beside her on the couch. “You first.”
“Well, uh, Miss Jess, ma’am? Folks around here don’t dislike Southerners. They hate us. More than I’ve ever known anybody to hate anything. I’m not even from what most folks consider the South. I’m from Missouri.” He looked to Jake, reluctant to continue.
“Go on,” Jess ordered.
“I…I think if the boss hadn’t stopped those men, I’d have been a goner. They didn’t just see me as an enemy. The man with the knife said my kind had betrayed everything our fathers and forefathers had lived for and fought for since they first arrived on this continent. He said secessionists were traitors.”
Jess eyed Diaz and Taggart, who stood near Jake. “What else?”
Diaz hadn’t budged, and his arms were crossed angrily. “The colonel of Camp Douglas is a bad hombre named De Land. One barkeeper said De Land was held in a prisoner of war camp in the South, maybe treated badly. Now he thinks up ways to torture the prisoners. He had his soldiers raise a level two-by-four high off the ground, and he makes men sit on the narrow edge with bags of sand tied to their ankles for hours—until they pass out from pain. Many of the men’s feet break and they are crippled. They call it ‘the mule.’”
Jess’s head felt sickeningly light. She could taste bile.
“Ye wouldn’t believe this man, De Land, I’m telling ye,” Taggart agreed. “His men beat prisoners’ naked backs with sticks or shoot them for sport, and he promotes them. He starves the Confederates, as well, and diseases spread, like dysentery and typhoid and smallpox. On Sundays, people from town ride the streetcar to a platform near the camp and pay ten cents to see the prisoners. I heard they see dead men carried out nearly one an hour. Reese is right. Since the prison guards see the Confederates as traitors, they feel justified in brutalizing them and letting them die.”
Jess slumped against the back of the sofa, her arms limp. Her face felt feverish, and the room suddenly grew dark. The odd sound filling her ears was like bubbles breaking in a hundred glasses of champagne. “How many have died?”
“It’s hard to say,” Taggart’s voice responded, sounding distant. “I thought it wise to speak to a grave digger to find out all I could, and he knows a great deal, though I wouldn’t say he’s always honest in business. He said the camp stopped keeping a record of the dead months ago, and universities that teach doctorin’ pay him to dig up corpses for them to study. When there are too many to bury, he throws the bodies into the lake out there. They sometimes wash up on shore. I asked him to guess, and he said between two and three thousand.”
Jess felt herself being pulled gently against a solid chest. “That may be,” Jake’s voice said above her, “but some guards are corrupt and are known to accept payoffs. A lot of men have escaped.”
With a weak hand, Jess squeezed his arm. “Then the men are found, right?”
“Not all of them.”
“But some are found and taken back,” she probed, inwardly begging him to disagree with her.
“Yeah, some are taken back.”
***
Jess trembled as she clipped sapphire earrings to her lobes. She stepped back to assess her overall appearance in the mirror. The blue and white gown hinted at wealth; the wide-brimmed straw hat and the cascade of curls falling to her waist lent her a touch of youthful innocence.
When Jake knocked on her door moments later, she opened it to see the striking figure of a dark-suited businessman who had to duck his head to step through the door. There was nothing Jess could do to mask her admiration of Jake Bennett. She took in his appearance with astonishment, not bothering to shut her mouth. Her eyes flitted from his polished black boots to the gray felt hat pulled low over his eyes.
“That should do,” she managed. Flustered for the first time since she’d met him, Jess found her white gloves and tugged them on.
“The clothes…they won’t work well on the ranch,” Jake reminded her.
Jess preceded him out of the room, her cheeks warm. “I know. I just like seeing you this way for once.”
Jake gazed down at her. “I know just what you mean.”
As they descended the stairs toward the main floor, her fingers played with the folds of her skirt, clenching and smoothing them with her hand.
“If I’d known you wanted wrinkles in your dress,” Jake teased, “I wouldn’t have asked the dressmaker to press it.”
Feeling her panic rise, Jess bit the inside of her cheek. Hard. “Either I’m going to see my brother today or I’m going to learn that he’s dead.”
Jake glanced at her expression and said nothing more. She was too scared to be lifted out of her fears by humor, and he knew it.
Jess hardly noticed when Jake helped her into the rented buggy. Her awareness swiftly returned as he started the horses. They rolled toward the prison—and toward six hundred Union sharpshooters.
A violent convulsion shook Jess’s frame.
Jake drove the pair of grays out of the town, heading south. To the east, sailing ships and barges lumbered up and down Lake Michigan. Somewhere, a church bell rang. A few carriages passed by, probably driving to Sunday services in Chicago.
The prison camp was only four miles from the city, Jake had learned. All too soon, a sprawling stockade fence appeared on the horizon. Pulling her gaze away, Jess looked out over the prairie instead. To the west, she glimpsed three horsemen heading south along another road at a leisurely canter, seeming to have no plan other than enjoying the autumn day. Diaz, Taggart, and Reese.
A large hand settled over hers and held it tight. Forcing herself to remain calm, Jess let out her breath, then released Jake’s hand.
Her gaze drifted ahead to the prison. It was less than a mile away now. A few houses were scattered about the area, some close to the stockade. They seemed totally out of place—symbols of contentment and warmth located a stone’s throw from a tall pine fence enclosing prisoners of war suffering calculated torture.
“My father and brothers and I came here when I was a boy,” Jake commented, as if hearing her thoughts. “His farm is about a day’s ride from here. This used to be the Fairgrounds before the war.”
It had also been a training camp for soldiers, she’d once read. The wind shifted, bringing with it the stench of human waste. Jess nearly gagged. How could anyone stand to live near such squalid conditions?
The prison loomed ahead. Its massive fence stretched skyward, equaling the approximate height of three men, and it ran perhaps two-thirds of a mile across. Along the western wall of the fence, armed sentinels looked down from high sentry boxes spaced seventy-five feet apart. That was, Jess knew, where the prisoners were. Taggart had learned that wooden stakes protruded from the ground a hundred feet from the fence, along its perimeter, to form the martial law zone. Anyone crossing i
t from either side could be killed. Jess clenched her hands in painful fists, as if holding tight to a last strand of hope. Overall, the stockade was imposing, solid, and, as the good men of Chicago had revealed, nearly complete.
“Ambrose is in there,” she said. Along with six thousand Southern men, Jake had told her the night before. She glanced at him. “I feel so close to the war, I almost expect to hear cannon fire.”
The wall rose high beside them, too high to scale, appearing unbroken by any entrance but the main one, facing Lake Michigan. Jake found a place for the horse and buggy in the shade of a towering oak, and he set the brake. He gave Jess a hand down, then retrieved a package from beneath the seat. “Are you ready?”
She dipped the straw brim of her hat once. They entered beneath a massive entryway that bore the name of the prison in big black letters: Camp Douglas.
The large headquarters building stood at a distance to the right, flanked by smaller yet equally foreboding structures. Beyond those, a parade ground was partly visible, the United States flag flying boldly high above. Barracks for the Union soldiers enclosed the parade on at least two sides, as far as Jess could see. More of the stockade separated that field from the prisoners with nearly enough fencing to enclose a city, she thought.
When she hesitated, Jake merely drew her arm through his and led her into the headquarters building.
A well-fed Yankee with thick brows, a sergeant by his chevrons, slowly looked up from his desk. “Can I help you?” he asked, his tone surly.
Jake stated their business and presented their authorization to visit Confederate prisoner Ambrose Hale.
The sergeant called for a pair of guards who, amid snorted chuckles and tomfoolery, managed to escort them down a series of hallways to a small room. Still snorting, they told Jake and Jess to wait, then shut the door behind them.
Jess stared at the wooden table and chairs in the cell, hardly daring to breathe.
Jake moved to the window to see Federal soldiers passing outside. He glanced back. “Jess?”
She laid her hat on the table and wiped the sweat from her forehead. “I’m all right.”
Minutes crawled by. Then a quarter of an hour passed. Though Jess heard no sound from the hall, she knew a guard had taken up position on the other side of the door. She stood uneasily near the window when Jake moved away, her eyes fixed on the solid plank fence across the parade ground. She waited in suspense for word from the guard.
There are six thousand prisoners, Jess reminded herself. It would take time to locate Ambrose and bring him here. But this long? another part of her argued. The camp had stopped keeping a record of the dead, according to Taggart’s report. Corpses were sold to medical schools. Bodies were thrown into the lake. Sometimes, they washed up onshore.
Her nerves raw, Jess kept glancing at the door, then turning her head to search the grounds outside the window. Something must have gone wrong. What if Diaz, Taggart, and Reese had been caught spying? What if…what if Ambrose was dead? Then the guards would find someone who had known Ambrose—someone whom they would bring to verify that fact. Yes, that was exactly what they would do. Cold now, Jess hugged herself and let that idea sink in. This was the fear she had struggled against every moment of the two-thousand-mile trek across the continent.
Another hour passed. Jess wiped dampness from her eyes and willed herself to hope that she was wrong. When she looked up, Jake was leaning against the wall, watching her somberly.
Boot heels clicked in the hallway, approaching. An order was called out. The posted guard entered through the door, then stepped to the side.
Jess watched a tall, painfully thin man enter. The man wore rakish but unkempt civilian clothing, and his sandy hair and mustache were styled long. He slowed to a stop, barely paying Jake any notice. His gaze fixed on Jess.
She lowered trembling hands, tears running freely down her face. She felt no more than a breath away from shattering.
Slowly yet steadily, the man continued toward her.
Jess saw years of fatigue in his dirty face, the deep lines the war had carved there. None of it mattered. She tipped back her head and looked up into her brother’s blue eyes.
Ambrose took her hand, his mustache lifting with a smile.
“Hello, butterfly.”
***
Jess’s tears had subsided, but she wasn’t ready to let go of her brother. She’d waited too long, been through too much.
And she still had to tell him that it was only the two of them now. The rest of their family was gone.
Jake thanked the corporal who had brought Ambrose to the cell. The corporal responded with a brief touch to his hat, then left. The guard who’d entered ahead of Ambrose shut the door and took up position inside it to watch the prisoner.
Ambrose sought to disentangle himself gently as he pulled out a chair. “Here, Jessica, sit down.” Not ready for the moment to end, she only tightened her hold. Ambrose held out his free hand to Jake.
“Ambrose Hale. You must have brought Jess. I’m grateful to you.”
“Jake Bennett. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Jess raised her eyes as the two men she loved shook hands. She didn’t care that they saw her cry. Her heart was full. Ambrose was alive.
At her brother’s insistence, Jess finally accepted the seat, but she kept clinging to his hand. “I thought you were dead,” she said.
Ambrose pulled another chair closer and sat facing his sister. He took in a breath to answer, then grinned as he searched her face. “Now why would you think that? You know it takes a lot to do in a Hale.”
Jess wasn’t ready for banter. Especially since the fire had shown her otherwise.
“Ambrose, your letters stopped. The last one came a year ago. After four months of waiting for another, I asked that a telegram be sent east. The reply said you’d been killed in a battle in Kentucky.”
Jake went quietly to the window and gazed outside, giving the siblings some privacy.
Ambrose studied his hands. “I was shot at Perryville, Jess—in the chest and again in my leg. I scarcely remember the horse carrying me away from the battle. I must have fallen eventually, because some Shaker men found me lying in the woods near Harrodsburg.”
Jess wiped her cheeks. “Shakers found you?”
“They were passing by when the horse I’d been riding came out of the woods with an empty saddle. They found me and took me to their village. I spent four months healing and one more working to get my strength back.”
“So, you stayed with them five months.” Jess knew little about the Shaker people, other than that they were members of an industrious religious order who lived apart from others.
Ambrose patted her hand. “The women know herbs and healing. With their help, I came through just fine.”
There was appreciation for them in his smile, and Jess wanted to ask about the people and their way of life. Before she could, however, her eyes were drawn to his forehead. With a small frown, she reached out and pushed aside his hair to reveal a thin, white scar that angled across his temple and disappeared into his hairline.
“Saber?”
Ambrose looked surprised. “You recognize the wound?”
“I’ve had occasion to see an injury or two,” Jess said evasively. She glanced up. The guard near the door searched her face. After a moment, he pulled his gaze away.
“Yes, it came from a saber,” Ambrose said. “A month or so before I was captured.”
Jess sighed, relieved at last to know what had happened to him yet regretting what he’d been through. “You still didn’t write after you were well again.”
“I returned to my post to scout for John Morgan. There was no getting the mail through, Jess. The Federals kept us busy in Tennessee until July. By then, Vicksburg was under siege, so Bragg sent us on a raid up to Louisville to try to lure some of the Yankees away.” He shook his head with a smile. “Instead of stopping at Louisville, Morgan just kept going.”
“To
Ohio, your letter said.”
“We were captured near New Lisbon.”
“New Lisbon! How did you get that far north?”
“You know Morgan.”
“Yes, I suppose I do.” Fearless, audacious. A thorn in the side of the North. Legendary in the South.
“Is he here at Camp Douglas?”
“No, I believe he was imprisoned in Columbus.” He chuckled. “Whether he’s still there or not depends on how long that prison can hold him.”
Jess eased back in her chair. At some point, she would need to reveal her own intent to free him come nightfall, but with the guard watching her so closely, she knew she had to wait.
She was just starting to recover from the stresses of the morning when Ambrose carefully cleared his throat.
“Father would never have let you come here if he was alive. What happened, Jess?”
***
Telling Ambrose about the fire came hard.
In his letters, he had written of battles in which he had lost neighbors, old schoolmates, and friends. Yet Jess saw that losing his family, especially their mother, was a terrible blow, and he had never even met Emma. Even so, Ambrose’s eyes never left hers as she related the details about the fire. In them, Jess saw grief over his own loss, together with anger that she had been forced to survive it alone.
At least two of the arsonists were in jail, she assured him.
Afterward, she spoke for a long time about the ranch and the people there, being careful to avoid revealing its location with the guard in earshot. She told him that she had found her place, had found herself. That she was happy. And she told him about her struggles trying to find the Lord, only to discover that He had never left her. “I thought He would reveal Himself through His power, perhaps send a violent thunderstorm, but He didn’t. He was subtle, like a whisper,” she said, remembering the morning of July fourth, when she’d heard a sound like a gentle voice in the breeze. “He didn’t leave me at all.”
“He never does,” Ambrose agreed. “A lot of folks need something like a war to see that, but it’s true.”