Heresy

by Melissa Lenhardt

  Lana’s arms were shaking with the effort to hold the gun aloft. They dipped, and everyone relaxed enough that she had a split-second advantage. But it wasn’t enough. She’d barely got the hammer back before a Pinkerton shot her. Frank produced a sawed-off shotgun from somewhere and got a shot off at the same time as the other Pinkerton shot him. Within a space of a few seconds, three people dropped to the floor, dead or dying. My ears were ringing, and I felt like the house was tilting. The thick scent of blood made me gag, and I covered my mouth. Hattie said my name, although I couldn’t hear her. Why couldn’t I hear her? Behind her, Lana’s hand twitched, and a thick pool of blood ran along the wooden floor and drained down through the cracks. I couldn’t hold it back any longer, and I lunged for the sink.

  I stared at my sick and swallowed, trying to keep the rest down. With shaking arms I worked the handle of the water pump and rinsed my mouth out. When I’d regained my composure, I surveyed the room. Hattie was back where she’d been before everything happened, Callum stood in the door with a thunderstruck expression on his face and a gun down to his side, and Salter sat at the table still, eating cheese.

  “What in the hell happened?”

  Salter pointed at Lana with his knife. “That’s the cowboy’s mom.”

  “We knew that.”

  “She didn’t know her son was dead.”

  “You told her? Are you a goddamn idiot?” Callum said.

  Salter stabbed the table with the knife. He leaned his chair back on two legs and said, “No, but I’ve killed a few in my life.”

  Connolly laughed. “If you want us to take each other’s measure later, fine by me. But finish this job, the job you were paid handsomely to do. Start by cleaning this up.”

  His eyes settled on me. “You. Where’s my sandwich?”

  Alida and Ruby came into the kitchen. Alida covered her mouth and said, “Oh, good heavens,” but moved forward to check the victims.

  Ruby came to me. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  “I’m fine, too,” Hattie said.

  “They’re past your help,” Callum said to Alida. “You’re needed upstairs.”

  He left the kitchen. Alida finished checking the victims for signs of life and rose slowly, her face a mask of grief. Salter told her to go on, and she went upstairs reluctantly, tiptoeing her way over the blood-splattered floor.

  “Go fetch the sheriff, Detective,” Salter said.

  “You do it. This is your mess, not mine. I’m taking my prisoner upstairs so she can sit by her friend’s deathbed. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “Nope.”

  We went up the stairs, and George the Pinkerton followed. Last I saw, Salter sat at the table still, his blade flashing in the lightning.

  I’m exhausted and don’t have much time if I want to get any sleep before we leave for Cheyenne in the morning.

  Salter paid the sheriff to write the deaths off as self-defense, caused by Lana shooting first. Alida pronounced Garet dead at four in the morning. Callum and Salter had a private conversation on the front porch, and Callum rode off at dawn. We never had time for me, Ruby, and Hattie to be alone to talk through our plan, it was mostly made through silent gestures, occasional whispers, significant looks, and the fact that George was distracted from not eating a real meal in two days. Salter sent me down the street for some bacon and biscuits and allowed Ruby and Hattie to put Garet’s body in the coffin. When I returned, Hattie and George were putting the coffin in a wagon.

  “We’re leaving now?”

  “Yep,” Salter said.

  “Other way,” said Hattie.

  “It don’t matter.”

  “I want her facing east, like she’s supposed to.”

  “That’s just for burying.”

  “No. All the time. You didn’t know that dead bodies are laid out in state facing east? In case the Lord comes back before they’re planted in the ground. It’s the least I could do for Garet, her being so religious.”

  “Just fucking put the coffin in,” Salter said.

  Hattie got her way and didn’t even resist when George slapped irons on her wrists.

  It became clear that Salter had no intention of bringing us to Denver alive. I’d just about decided we should all start taking stock of our lives when I heard a knock from the coffin. She was alive. I should have never doubted it, nor should I have doubted that she would know exactly what to do when the time came. What I never expected, though, was the expression on her face when she shot those two men in the back. It’s not something I’ll soon forget.

  28

  WPA Slave Narrative Collection

  Interview with Henrietta Lee

  Thursday, September 17, 1936 cont

  All I could think about was Jehu, what he was going through. How alone he must have felt in that jail cell. As far as he knew, we were in Denver, an easy train ride to Rock Springs or Cheyenne. It had been a week or more since he’d been jailed, and we hadn’t come. I had to hope that Luke Rhodes had made better time back to the ranch, and I sure as hell knew that Stella and Joan would ride hell-for-leather to Jehu. But he would be expecting me, wanting me, waiting for me, and I was failing him. I’d never failed him before.

  “We made Connolly believe Garet was dead, and we escaped from Salter and the other Pinkerton on the way to Denver. How? Garet rose from her coffin and shot those boys’ heads off before they even turned around. For sure, we hid a gun in there for her. She fainted away after, right back into her coffin. She had been half-dead, after all.

  “Took Garet to a boardinghouse near the tenderloin district. Where the whorehouses were. May still be there. The district. Haven’t been back to Denver in sixty years. There’s probably still a warrant out for me.” Laughs. “They aren’t ever going to catch me. I’m the last one alive. Maybe you should write this up yourself, call it The Legend of Hattie LaCour. Won’t sell a copy, but it’d be a great story.

  “Where was I? Oh yeah. Tenderloin district. We pulled up and I told Claire to go get us a room. She was on edge from seeing five people killed and no sleep, and I was on edge because of Jehu and no sleep. She snapped at me that she was tired of being bossed around like a slave. And I told her I was tired of having to spell everything out to her. The only one of us who was still levelheaded was Ruby, and she stepped in. ‘She’s a nigger and I’m a Chink. They won’t rent a room to us.’

  “Claire apologized and went inside. ‘You didn’t have to call me a nigger,’ I said. Ruby asked if I wanted to fight with a half-breed about who’s talked to the worst. Weren’t no need to be fighting each other. It was hard enough dealing with the crackers all the time.

  “We settled Garet in and sent for the doc. As soon as she got there and I had her word she would check on Garet, I was off. Claire tried to stop me, to guilt me into not leaving Garet, and I just had enough. I told her what we all knew but didn’t want to say, what the doc had been trying to tell us for days—Garet was on borrowed time. Jehu was alive, and it was my responsibility to save him. She could either stay in that dump and watch Garet die, or she could come with me and save a good man from humiliation.

  “‘Humiliation? He’s in jail. Isn’t that practically a rite of passage for men in the West?’ I told her he was different and I didn’t have time to explain it to her. Ruby and I left, and sure enough Claire came after us. All that arguing was for nothing. We missed the last train. Left the next morning.

  “Where’d we get the money? Stole it from the Pinkertons. Salter’d been flush. We might have enough to bribe the Cheyenne sheriff, but I suspected we were past that point, and we were. Too many people knew about Jehu, how he’d been helping some mysterious gang rob the Connollys. Course, there were holes all in the story. Spooner turned him in, but Spooner was the one who’d been blamed for all the robberies. Whatever, the story they cooked up was ridiculous. It was true, you say? I guess if you looked at it a certain way, it was true. But that didn’t matter. We needed to get him out.
>
  “Why? That’s what Grace asked when we all finally got together—the three of us, Stella, Joan, and Luke Rhodes. We were all talking to each other, around her and Rhodes, to be fair. We knew Jehu’s secret hadn’t been revealed, or it would’ve surely been all over the territory. Back then, you might not hear about important news for weeks, but something personal like that would spread like wildfire.

  “‘Tell me what the hell is going on! What are you talking about?’ Grace yelled. She was one of us by then, and she deserved to know. Ruby told her; Jehu was a woman pretending to be a man.

  “I’d known since I met him. I’d pretended to be a man for the better part of a year, and I grew up as a slave to an actress. Worked in a theater until I was about twelve. I knew all about disguises and playacting. Jehu fooled everyone but me and, well, you can’t live with someone for years without figuring it out. Sure, everyone else knew. You’re blushing, Grace Williams. Is there something specific you want to ask me? I didn’t think so.

  “Let me just tell you something. You’re young and haven’t lived a whole lot, God willing you will. It’s not easy for colored people now, I know it’s not. I’ve lived in this skin for ninety-two years and it’s never been easy. The only time I’ve ever found peace is with Jehu Lee. Man, woman, whatever idea you have about him, don’t matter a hill of beans. It wasn’t never about the sex, but let me tell you, we enjoyed it, yes we did. Love. Trust. Respect. Passion. Oh yeah, passion’s important, too. When you touch souls with someone, well, it’s a spiritual experience. I hope you have that one day. You’ll know what I mean. You’ll think of that crazy old slave you visited for a time, and remember.”

  29

  Claire Hamilton’s Case Notes

  Sunday, August 26, 1877

  Cheyenne, Wyoming

  Just when I thought there was nothing in the world that would shock me about this bunch, they reveal that Jehu’s a woman.

  When Ruby told me, she was so matter-of-fact, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “She pretends to be a man.”

  “He’s not a woman,” Hattie said.

  “What?”

  “It ain’t hard to comprehend,” Stella said. “Jehu’s got our parts, but he’s a man inside. What does it matter?”

  “It doesn’t. I’ve just never … My friend Kate, she would go undercover as a man when needed, and I’ll confess I’ve been intrigued by the idea myself. But to live as a man all the time …?”

  “He’s been pretending as long as we’ve all known him,” Hattie said. “I don’t know when he started. He doesn’t talk about life before Garet and Thomas.”

  “Makes life a helluva lot easier,” Stella said. “I’ve done it a few times when I’ve gone to town. Got lots more freedom.”

  “I made fun of him when I found out,” Joan said. “Hattie tore my hide, but Jehu sat me down later and explained it to me. He feels more comfortable in men’s clothes and being considered a man. As long as he gave me piggyback rides and brought licorice home it didn’t matter to me. Women’s parts or not, he was still Jehu.”

  “But if he’s a woman, and he’s your man … What do …” My thoughts trailed off, and I blushed. I looked away from Hattie, and Ruby gave me an encouraging smile.

  Luke Rhodes had been leaning against the door, silent. I asked him if he’d known.

  “Suspected.”

  “Bullshit,” Stella said.

  “Question is, does Spooner know?” Rhodes said.

  “He does,” Joan said.

  “How do you know?” Stella said.

  “We talked about it.”

  Stella and Hattie talked over each other, but their thunderous expressions were identical.

  “When did you talk about it?” Stella said.

  “You told him?”

  “No, of course not. He acted like he knew all along. That Garet had told him.”

  “That’s a lie,” Hattie said. “You tell Garet a secret and she takes it to her …” Hattie cleared her throat and looked away. The weight of inevitability pressed against us all. Hattie continued before we became too maudlin. “But it doesn’t matter if Spooner knows. We need to focus on the job. Jehu’s out there, alone, probably scared like we are, and Spooner is going to use it against him in the trial, I’m sure of it. No way he survives the penitentiary.”

  “We need a plan,” Joan said.

  “Guns blazing sounds like a good idea to me,” Stella said.

  “Maybe later,” Luke said.

  “What we need is a distraction,” Hattie said.

  “Two,” Joan said.

  “We need extra horses on relay in four directions,” Hattie said. “That’s fourteen horses. I’ve got the money for maybe half.”

  “Which means we’ll also need money for the run,” Ruby said.

  “Distraction number one, robbing a bank,” Stella said.

  “I don’t want to ruin you girls’ fun, but we could do this the easy way,” Luke said.

  “You’re right, there ain’t no fun in that,” Stella said.

  “But you’ll live,” Luke said.

  “I like that idea,” Joan said.

  “How?” Hattie said.

  “Walk in and walk out with him.”

  Everyone laughed. “You going to do it? Because there’s no way a bunch of women are walking into a sheriff’s office and walking out with a prisoner. Unless you want us to bribe the sheriff, which I’m not opposed to,” Hattie said.

  “Maybe later. Thing is, we don’t have time to buy horses and take them to relay stations.”

  “We?” Hattie asked.

  “I’m helping.”

  “Because you hate Spooner, or because you like Jehu?”

  “Or because of Garet?” Ruby asked.

  “Let’s just say it’s a little bit of all of that. And I’m a little jealous that you girls have all the fun.”

  “Women,” I said. “We’re women, not girls. And Hattie’s in charge. What she says goes.”

  Everyone looked to Hattie. With a wry smile, she asked Rhodes if he was OK with that.

  “I’m outnumbered, so yeah.”

  “That’s a ringing endorsement,” Ruby said.

  “Keep talking, Rhodes,” Hattie said.

  “I was talking to a deputy, and he told me Salter, who is a Pinkerton, by the way …”

  “We know,” Hattie, Ruby, and I said.

  “He’s coming today to take the prisoner to Denver for trial, which starts in two days.”

  “Salter’s not coming, I can guarantee you that,” Hattie said.

  Rhodes narrowed his eyes at Hattie, who held his gaze without flinching. “We aren’t in the Hole, Luke, and you don’t have jurisdiction over any of us. Remember that.”

  He nodded, and Hattie went on. “One more thing, and this goes for all of you: if you’re not willing to do what needs doing, I don’t want you along. Doubt, hesitation, will kill someone. Probably yourself. I won’t think less of anyone who wants to stay behind. But tell me now. If we get in it and you put the group in danger, I won’t hesitate. Understand?”

  We all nodded, but Hattie said, “I want to hear you say it.”

  A chorus of I understands rippled around the room.

  “First choice is to have a plan where no one gets hurt,” Hattie said. “We’ve done it five times now, we can do it one more.”

  Rhodes said, “If Salter doesn’t show up this afternoon, the sheriff is going to have to send his men to transport Jehu, which will mean overtime that has to come out of his office until he’s paid back by he’s not even sure who.”

  “We need a Pinkerton,” Ruby said, “and they know you.”

  “Who better to play one than a former Pinkerton?” He looked at me.

  “How did you know that?”

  “Spooner. Don’t ask me how he knew.”

  “I was afraid Salter saw through me at the Blue Diamond.”

  “Will you do it?” Joan said.

  I stared at the four women arr
ayed in front of me and thought of Garet—all of them tough, arrogant, vulnerable, intelligent, loyal—and finally, for the first time in my life, knew what family felt like. My voice cracked with emotion, gratitude at being trusted, at being included, at finally being one of them.

  “Hell yes, I will. But I need a bodyguard. So I can convince them the two of us are enough to transport the prisoner by train.”

  I caught Hattie’s eye, and she smiled real slow.

  “Hattie, can you pretend to be a man?”

  “Give me an hour, and you won’t recognize me walking down the street.”

  “That’s what I’m counting on.”

  Monday, August 27, 1877

  Somewhere between Cheyenne and Denver

  Hattie was as good as her word; she was unrecognizable beneath her bowler hat and glued-on mustache. I was shocked to see her hair was close cut against her head and almost entirely gray. In all the months I’d been with her, I’d never seen her without a turban. I hadn’t paid her hair much attention at the holdup, which seems like a lifetime ago. A plug of tobacco in one side of her mouth helped camouflage her high cheekbones. The wad made her mumble, and with her voice lowered, she sounded manlier than even Rhodes. She wore gloves to mask her long, thin fingers, and had padded her midsection to mask her figure. We knew it was a good disguise when Ruby came in the room and didn’t recognize her.

  Forging a letter from Pinkerton wasn’t difficult. I didn’t bother disguising my feminine hand, and explained it away by noting at the bottom that the letter had been transcribed by Chloe Anderson, secretary. I had Rhodes scribble a signature, knowing the sheriff wouldn’t know if it was authentic or not. I considered having the letter come from the Connollys, but figured the chances the sheriff would want to telegram Denver and wait for the response was greater than the chances of his doing the same for Chicago. Luckily, the trial was supposed to start in two days; there wasn’t time to lose.

  Hattie and I arrived at the sheriff’s office at eight a.m. Rhodes, Joan, Stella, and Ruby were hidden along the path we would walk with Jehu to the train to make sure we weren’t followed. We had purchased tickets for everyone the night before, separately, for the 8:25 a.m. train, including a first-class cabin to transport the “prisoner.” Twenty-five minutes didn’t leave us much time to pull off our ruse, but the sooner we got out of Cheyenne, the better.