by Ed Gorman
Now she let a colored woman show her to the door to what would be her room at the Brawner Hotel. Then she waited, immobile, until the colored porter deposited her bag and left. That one time it was different, she had considered the possibilities. The war would be over one of these days, and it almost didn’t matter if she was on the right side or the wrong one. She would be expected to go back home, like any married woman, and to take up life as she had left it in New Bern, North Carolina. Housework. Church. Those awful times in the dark when Mr. Slater reached for her, caring not at all that she hated the sight of him. She was supposed to hate the sight of him in bed. It was expected of her.
Now, she thought there might be something worse. She might not be able to go home, even to the punishment of Mr. Slater, even to New Bern, if there was anything left of it. She had always known the war would end one day, but she had never considered what it would mean—or maybe, if she had, she had assumed the outcome would have nothing to do with her. The smell of the dead had begun to change her mind. There were too many stories around about what the Yankees did when they captured a town and had it under their authority. There were too many rumors about hangings and fires. She went to the window and looked out on the empty stretch of land behind the hotel. A colored woman was feeding chickens in the side yard. A colored man was carrying chamber pots towards a stand of trees far at the back, where the latrines would be.
Sarah went behind the screen that had been put up for her to dress and reached up under her skirt. She tore at the loose stitches along her waist and got out the papers meant for Mr. Surratt and laid them down on the small stool in the corner. Then she went back up under and felt the second set of papers in their pouch, but these were not so easy. The stitching had been made much tighter. She had to pull at it so hard, she was afraid she was going to rip the dress in two. What would they expect her to do then? But of course, they would expect her to do nothing. They would expect her to wait until she got to Canada to get the second set of papers out, and then if her dress was ruined she could just put on a different one.
The second set of papers came out. Sarah came out from behind the screen with both sets of papers in her hand and laid them out on the lumpy feather bed that took up most of the room. The set that had been difficult to retrieve was different than any other she remembered carrying, but she had been expecting that. Most of what she carried were messages. These papers were official, documented, sealed, clotted with wax in some places—the keys that opened the vault where all that gold had gone. She folded them up again and put them up under her skirt, not caring if a maid walked in to find her with her leggings exposed to the air. The papers slipped into the pouch that had been made for them. She let her skirt drop and took the other set of papers into her hand.
Out in the yard, there was what sounded like chickens panicking. Sarah went to the window to look out. There was a nun standing in the dirt with a basket over her arm, talking to a fat white woman Sarah seemed to remember was Mrs. Brawner herself. But maybe not. It was hard for Sarah to see, and suddenly it was hard for her to think. That hadn’t been the first time she had had the dream about the wide prison yard. Now she seemed to be having it while she was wide awake. The prison yard was empty of trees, of grass, of anything. There was only the scaffold and the rope. What frightened her most was that she could see nothing else. There were no soldiers. There was no executioner. There was only herself and that scaffold and that rope, as if the entire project was to be carried out by ghosts. But maybe it wouldn’t happen like that at all. Maybe it would happen by firing squad, and she wouldn’t be able to see anything because her eyes would be covered by a cloth.
Suddenly, there was something wrong with her heart. It pounded and pounded. It felt as if it were coming out of her ears. She closed her eyes and swayed close to the wall, determined not to start fainting now, after all this time. The wall smelled of woodworm and rot. All of Port Tobacco smelled of woodworm and rot. The papers she held in her hands began to crackle under her fingers. The bile rose up in the back of her throat like hot porridge boiling over on an untended stove.
She was sure some poet somewhere had said something beautiful about dying young, but she had never liked poetry, and she did not want to find a fantasy in it now.
* * *
Mr. Surratt was waiting for her in the entryway when she came downstairs. As soon as he saw her, he stopped his pacing and held his hat in his hands. He looked drawn and pale—but then, they all did these days, all the men on the Confederate side, because this war was so close to being finished. He held out his hands to her and Sarah took them. His skin was very rough. She had no idea how old he was, but she thought that at some time in his life, he must have worked on a farm. He dropped his arms and looked around the entryway, as if a Yankee spy had to be hiding there somewhere, or a Yankee soldier had to be waiting at the ready with a rifle.
“We should go into the lounge,” he said finally. “I could order you something to drink. Lemonade? You drink lemonade.”
Sarah thought it would be better if they could go into the tavern, where it would be dark and hard to hear even in the middle of the day, but the tavern was off-limits to her as long as she wanted to remain respectable. She looked around the entryway herself and said, “I’d very much like some lemonade, Mr. Surratt. And someplace to sit. I feel as if my bones have been rattled into pieces. The roads have grown very rough.”
“Everything has grown very rough.”
“I thought we were going to meet Mr. Corbinson here as well. Or have you already spoken to him?”
“I’ve spoken to no one but you. I’ve had a letter from my mother.”
“I hope your mother is well.”
“My mother is not well, Mrs. Thompson. None of us are well. None of us can be well. Not with the war the way it is.”
Sarah let this pass. Mr. Surratt’s mother was one of those women, the women who craved blood. It made her nervous every time she had to stay at Mrs. Surratt’s boardinghouse. It was a curse that she had to stay there often, since it was one of the few safe places left in the District of Columbia.
She went into the lounge, leaving Mr. Surratt behind her. He was staring at her back, but she didn’t turn to look at him. She took a chair near a window that looked out onto the drive at the front of the hotel. She put her string bag in her lap as if she were afraid that sprites would steal it.
“Mrs. Thompson,” Mr. Surratt said, coming in after her.
“I’ve had letters from all my people at home,” Sarah said pleasantly, looking at the string bag and not at him. “Come sit with me and I’ll catch you up on what’s going on at home.”
Out on the drive, a pair of men rode up on horses, both of them in uniform. Sarah looked quickly at them and quickly away. They were officers and full of money. They would go to the tavern and play cards until well after dark. They were not looking for her.
Then she opened her string bag and took out the papers, quickly, so that even Mr. Surratt would not be able to see the knife.
* * *
It was only after the lemonade had been brought and the colored woman who had brought it had melted away that Sarah got down to business. She found it so hard to accept that she had to pay attention to where the coloreds were and what they were doing before it was safe for her to speak. Mr. Surratt was driving her to distraction. He was always nervous and high-strung. Today he was like a wire pulled tight. Any small noise made him jump, and if she looked straight at him she could see that he was visibly sweating. It was not a good omen.
“I don’t trust that Mr. Corbinson,” Mr. Surratt said. “I’ve never seen him before. Is he known to you?”
“No.”
“He looks like a drunkard. Or worse. And he’s disappeared into thin air. And he’s holding the money.”
“Is that all the money we have? If Mr. Corbinson runs off with it, will we be unable to go on with our work?”
“No,” Mr. Surratt said.
“Well, t
hen.” Sarah picked up her papers and looked through them. “These are mostly what you expect them to be. They haven’t arrived at any surprises. They only wanted me to ask you if you mean to go through with it.”
“Of course I mean to go through with it.”
“And your mother, does she mean to go through with it?”
“She lives for nothing else.”
“And the others?”
Surratt looked her up and down the way men sometimes did when they realized that she was a young woman underneath all that black, but Sarah could see that there was nothing in him of lust or appreciation for her. Instead, he looked like someone who was drowning and refusing all hope of rescue, as a matter of principle. He looked already dead.
“You know what Mr. Booth is like,” he said finally.
“Yes,” Sarah said. “I know what Mr. Booth is like.”
“You know what my mother is like,” Surratt said. “I don’t understand the need for this catechism. It’s been four years. None of us has ever wavered yet.”
“Circumstances have changed,” Sarah said carefully. “There’s no hope of victory now. This will not turn the tide of the war. And at least some of you are certain to be caught.”
“Booth may escape in the confusion.”
“He won’t.”
“I may escape. I’ve made my plans for escape. Haven’t you?”
“I will be well on my way before a single shot is fired,” Sarah said. “I have business in Montreal. One last set of dispatches to deliver for the Cause. But your mother will not be well on her way. She’s tied to that boardinghouse.”
“She’s prepared to suffer martyrdom, if that is what is necessary.”
Necessary for what? Sarah wanted to say. The Yankee soldiers’ horses were tied to the posts outside. There was ammunition tied to the saddles. The soldiers had not worried that it might be stolen, or that it might be used against them, even though Port Tobacco was a city bitter with the hatred of them. Sarah passed the papers into Jacob Surratt’s lap.
“You do understand it won’t change the outcome of the war,” she said. “It isn’t a chance to turn the tide. The tide cannot be turned.”
“It should have been done long ago. Then it would have changed the outcome of the War.”
“It wasn’t done long ago. It is being done now. As an act of—retribution, I suppose.”
“There’s much good in acts of retribution.”
“‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’”
“Sometimes the Lord needs willing helpers to do his work.”
“I think too many people have lived the last four years thinking they were doing the Lord’s work,” Sarah said, but she turned away from it. She let it go. Mr. Surratt was reading, with some difficulty, through the papers she had given him. He ran his finger along under the words to keep his place. The swear was still running down the sides of his face and into his collar. His eyes were feverish and bright.
“There,” he said, passing the papers back to her. “That’s uncertain enough.”
“We can’t settle on the details until we know something about his habits. We can’t make a plan until we know the men he has around him.”
“We will know something about his habits. My mother will rake care of that.”
Sarah turned the papers over in her hands. “You’re to keep these now. I’m to have nothing to do with them. I’m wanted in Montreal. I can’t be in a position to compromise myself. When we get to the District of Columbia, we will discuss details. With your mother.”
“With my mother,” Mr. Surratt smiled. It was a rictus smile, as if there was really nothing left of him any more except his skeleton. He didn’t look dead so much as like a reanimated corpse, moving through the flames of hell and lit up by them. Sarah thought she could feel the heat.
“We should all compromise ourselves,” he said. “That is what my mother thinks. We should stand up and be counted, so that they can never believe that they had the loyalty of their own people any more than they had the loyalty of the people of the South. Judgment is coming, Mrs. Thompson, do you believe that?”
“I believe we will all be judged when Christ comes in glory on the last day, Mr. Surratt. The Bible tells us that.”
“We’ll all be judged sooner than that,” Surratt said.
Then he got up out of his chair with the papers in his hands and turned his back to her.
* * *
For a long time, Sarah sat by herself in the lounge, listening to the sounds drifting across the entryway from the tavern. When she was finally ready to move, it was beginning to get dark outside, but she hardly noticed it. The Yankee soldiers’ horses were still tied to the posts, even though it must have been hours since they had first come. Sarah imagined them stumbling home, dead drunk, a danger to themselves and their animals. Sometimes she listened for other sounds in the hotel: for Mr. Surratt, pacing the wood floors with the hard heels of his boots making drumming noises in the halls; for Mrs. Brawner calling out to the colored women working in the yard; for one of the maids rattling teacups on a tray she was not skilled enough to carry properly upstairs. Sometimes she tried to think, but that was the hardest thing of all. Her mind seemed to have been emptied of words. She had nothing left to her but images. The image that came to her most strongly was not that one of the prison yard, but one of herself, in Canada, free and on her own, without even Jacob Surratt. And then what will I do with myself? she wondered—and then that seemed odd, too, because she had never thought of it before. Always before this trip, she had gone to Canada and then come back, She would not be able to do that this time. She put her string bag in her lap and looked at it. She wondered if Mr. Surratt even wanted to get away, after the deed was done. What was it about people that they longed so to be martyrs? Sarah had never had a moment’s interest in martyrdom in her life, and she didn’t have one now. She tried to picture herself in Canada again, her business done, sitting at a table in a small hotel with one of the men she had gone to before, talking about the glorious Cause—but the glorious Cause was finished, and Canada was a long way away.
It was just about full evening when Mr. Corbinson came in, walking up past the two Yankee horses. The horses seemed to be getting restless and annoyed. They weren’t used to being left idle, and tethered, except perhaps at night to sleep. Mr. Corbinson came in the Brawner’s front door and slammed it behind him. He made too much noise when he breathed. It was that time of the evening when the guests would come downstairs to wait for dinner. Any moment now, the lounge would be full of people, all of them stiff, all of them expecting her to keep up one end of a conversation. If she waited any longer, Mr. Corbinson would slip into the tavern and be unavailable for her until dinner was called. At dinner, he would be unavailable to her still, seated somewhere out of sight, at the end of the table where the less genteel people sat.
Sarah got out of her seat. She slipped her string bag over her wrist, and the heavy weight of it slapped against her side. It felt heavy, even cushioned by all those layers of taffeta and lace. She went out into the entryway and looked around. Mr. Corbinson was standing by himself, looking at a picture on the wall, a little black and white line drawing Sarah hadn’t noticed before. There was, she thought, coming up beside him to look, nothing about it to notice. Three ladies in hoop skirts were sitting around a small round tea table. A gentleman in a long coat and a high collar was standing beside them, holding a cup. Mr. Corbinson smelled, if anything, worse than before. Under the scents of dirt and sweat there was now a scent of liquor.
“Mr. Corbinson,” Sarah said.
Mr. Corbinson turned. “You shouldn’t creep up like that,” he said. “Not in times like these. In times like these, if you creep up, anything could happen.”
“I need to speak to you,” Sarah said.
“We can go into the lounge.”
“I need to speak to you privately.”
“We aren’t going to be any more private than in the lounge,” Mr. Corb
inson said. “I can’t be seen coming out of your room. You can’t be seen coming out of mine.”
Sarah thought about it. Her instinct was to ask him to meet her out back at the latrines, but they were much too far away, and dangerous. The yard was full of colored women. A woman in Sarah’s position would use the chamber pot in her own room. Anyone who saw her walk across the yard or back again would make note of it. The colored women would talk.
“You want to go into the lounge?” Mr. Corbinson said.
“No,” Sarah said. “Is there a pantry, or a root cellar? I want an enclosed space that nobody is likely to enter in the next half hour.”
“Why would you want that?”
“Because I want to speak to you privately. And this is not a very private place. There are two Union soldiers in the tavern. There may be others in the hotel I haven’t seen.”
Mr. Corbinson gave her a long look, suspicious. Then he went to the door of the tavern and stepped inside. A moment later he was back, looking faintly yellowish under the skin.
“They are there,” he said.
“I told you they were there.”
“You know what women are like. They have their fancies. They have their fears.”
“I assure you I have neither fancies nor fears in excess of your own. I need to speak to you privately, I do not want us to be overheard, and it would be for your own safety if we were not. Do you know where the laundry is?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Have you ever stayed at this hotel before?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I’ve stayed here a dozen times. I’m sick of the place. The laundry is out back next to the kitchen. You can get there by going all the way to the end of this hall, but I don’t want you to go this way. I want you to go our the front door and around the back and in by the back door. When you get around the back I’ll be waiting for you.”
“Everybody will see you,” Mr. Corbinson said. “They’ll want to know what you think you’re doing.”