Alias Dragonfly (10 page)

I looked for anyone in his regiment. Their uniforms were so distinctive, remember? Spiketail coats, red cords, or hats that had “2nd NH” written on them. I didn’t see a single soldier that looked familiar. The cart rattled on.

As we neared the city, with the road growing more impassable, the cart stopped short in front of an empty, overturned wagon with two dead horses splayed across our path. Women and children ran right past, some shrieking in horror, some laughing. A child’s rubber ball flew in the air. A bullet pierced it. It exploded, falling to the ground.

The young man jumped out of the cart. “Got to git this here rig out the way, Pa,” he shouted. I jumped down too and pushed hard at the wagon, as we were both trying to right it. It didn’t budge.

“Best go, girl,” the older man said. “Go find your pa in all this devilish mess.”

“Thank you!” I clasped his hand.

From where we stopped, I could see the President’s House with all manner of people clamoring at the gates. I wasn’t far from the boardinghouse. I knew where to go, but my head was swimming from the sounds of gunshots, screaming, and the sight of bumping, thrashing men and horses blocking my way. Blocking anyone’s way. I remember that moment as a time of such madness. I felt like the little, broken kid I used to be when every noise was an assault on my ears and eyes. I stumbled to a lamppost and hung on, the roaring in my head louder than any steam engine. It felt like the world was on fire, and if I burned up on the spot, no one would notice or care.

I was growing weaker. I stumbled along, weaving and bobbing like a ship in a hurricane. I had to keep stopping to catch my breath. Was this what being in battle felt like? How could anyone endure it?

I felt ashamed. Here I was, safe for the moment, and hardly a soldier at all. Find your strength, I told myself, and square up.

Just then, a wounded soldier plowed right into me, his face running with tears, his bandaged arm covered with blood.

“God, Jesus, little girl, help me!” he cried. “Water! I need water!”

I reached for his other arm, and together we managed to take a few steps into the street, swept along by the crowd like fish in a raging current.

“I got a kid like you,” he mumbled. “Jenny, my little Jenny, I got to see her.”

Jenny. Jenny. Jenny. Mama.
I was feeling delirious. It was hot, so hot, and—I spotted a horse trough. Men and women were lapping up water like animals. I held fast to the soldier. I pushed my way to the trough, cupped my hand in the water and held it to his mouth, then to my own. The water was dirty and warm, but oh, it tasted blessedly good. The soldier kissed my hands.

“Bless you, girl. Thank goodness, I see my captain yonder.” He pointed to a group of men just beyond the water trough.

“I’m good now, Jenny,” he said, moving, stumbling away.

I’m not good, Jenny,
I thought
, but I’m safe for now, and by God, I’m going to find our man.

I made it to my aunt’s place more dead than alive.

I stumbled up to the cellar door. It was unlocked. I pushed it open and tripped, falling to the floor. I was trying to get up when someone grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. Though there was only a single candle burning by the washbasin, I made out his face. It was the Negro man I’d seen when I was in the woods with Jake Whitestone.

He pressed a knife to my throat. “I’ll cut you where you stand,” he whispered.

“I’m—” I drew a deep breath, hard to do as he held me fast. My words were sputters. I took a chance and said, “I’m a friend to your mother.”

There was a silence. His knife pressed harder against my throat.

“Yeah?” His breath was hot in my ear.

“What do you know about it?” He pushed me to the floor. Close by I could hear a child whimper and a woman hushing it.

“I know you are helping these people. I saw you near Centreville,” I said. “In the forest. Do you remember?”

I could feel his body relax just a bit.

“I swear here and now, I will say that I didn’t see you here or there, or ever,” I said. As he hadn’t yet killed me, I kept talking. “I’m a stranger here. Where I come from, we don’t have their ways.”

He drew the knife away. I moved away from him, and he grabbed me again.

“What ways?” he whispered. “Make me believe you, or I’ll slit your throat like a set-down hog.”

“Here, they treat your kind like animals. That is a mortal sin. My father is fighting for Mr. Lincoln, all the way from New Hampshire. God’s truth.” I struggled to rise.

With me in tow, and still holding the knife, he went to the corner of the room. “Stay low,” he said to the woman I knew was there. “It’s all right.”

I could hear her exhale. The child began to whimper again.

“Isaac, go get them out of here, please,” I said.

“You don’t know my name. And don’t you say nothing to my mother.”

“I swear I won’t.”

“You best pray you speak truth,” he said. “I ain’t blind. I know your face.” He pushed me to the floor. “Don’t be moving, and shut your eyes tight.” I could feel his hand on my back.

In a far part of my brain, I knew they were leaving. There were footsteps, whispers and again the whimpering of a child. I heard a low whistle, and horses chuffing and the sound of a wagon stopping just outside the door.

I lay there. There was silence. Were they gone? I let my breath out easy and struggled to my feet. My neck burned where his knife had scraped it.

Without looking back, I lurched over to the narrow staircase that led up from the cellar, and into the kitchen, I heard voices from above. I was gasping for breath. I could feel wetness on my neck.

When I reached the top of the stairs, wobbling and dizzy, I went toward the voices in the dining room. I heard the clinking of glasses and cries of
Victory! Down with the Yankees!
I fell forward in a swoon, right over a chair, and landed limp as a rag on the floor. I was conscious, but so very weak . . . from hunger, and worry, from everything. Faces swam before my eyes. I smelled roasted meat, and of all things, my head was in a puddle of Aunt Salome’s s prized brandy that had spilled from the decanter, as I must have knocked the table before I fell. I tried to get up, but the brandy fumes made me even dizzier.

Mr. Webster bent over me. “She breathes slightly, and there’s some blood.”

“My Lord, is it Madeline?” my Aunt Salome said. “I thought she’d gone missing for good!”

It was Nellie who lifted me in her arms, crooning and pressing her ear to my heart. I was fully conscious by now, but I decided to stay limp until I could figure some things out.

“She ain’t dead, praise God,” Nellie said. She carried me into the parlor and was about to lower me to the sofa, the special, never-to-be-soiled one my aunt guarded like it was made of diamonds.

“Not there!” my aunt called. “Take her to the cellar and wash her off in the privy.”

No!
I thought. Nellie’s son and the slaves might still be there.

I sat straight up, startling them. “No! My room, I need my bed!”

Nellie carried me up the stairs while the rest remained below, muttering to each other.

In my room, spare as it was, the bed was blessedly soft. “Oh, child,” Nellie said, wiping my face with a damp cloth, “What done become of you?”

“My father? Has he come here?”

“No, baby, there’s been soldiers and their wounded in the streets for hours. He ain’t come . . . yet.”

“Were Aunt Salome and Mr. Webster celebrating?” I asked in a voice much stronger than I felt.

“Hush, child.”

“Were they?” I grasped her hands.

“Yes, they was cheering the Yankee defeat, talking about how them soldiers was running back to the city like rats, I’m afeered,” Nellie answered, her face grave.

“Oh, Nellie.” I pressed myself to her bosom, tears running from my eyes.

“There, now, there now,” was all she said. “I’m going to fetch the hip bath and some hot water. I got to see you ain’t broke anywhere under all this here dirt.”

“Wait, Nellie.” I grabbed her hand again. “I know about your son.”

She drew away from me.

“He’s helping slaves escape, isn’t he?”

“You don’t know nothing, Miss Madeline, you hear?”

“I came upon them, or they came upon me, uh, him, I was in the woods, and I saw him, or someone exactly like him guiding a woman and child through the trees.”

Nellie put her hands over her face.

“He’s gone, Nellie. But he was just in the cellar with the same people.”

Nellie’s hands trembled. “Oh, Lord.”

“I’ll never tell anyone, Nellie. I swear it.”

Nellie was shaking all over. “That’s why you wanted your bed, and not the cellar like Mrs. Salome ordered me?”

“Yes,” I answered.

Her voice was ragged with emotion. “My son Isaac, he is my heart. And he tears at it until it has gone to fraying with fear.”

“He’s brave, Nellie.” I leaned my head back, accidentally exposing the knife scratch on my neck.

“He hurt you!” she cried.

“No. Some. It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.” With that, she handed me a clean, white cloth. “Hold this ’crost your neck, baby. I’ll come back.”

I passed out the minute she left the room.

When I woke, through waves of dizziness, I saw a figure sitting by the bed, watching me. I couldn’t make out just who it was because it was like I was seeing though a glass in blinding sunlight.

“Papa?” I reached toward the figure. A hand clasped mine. It was warm and strong.

For a moment, I was small again, and hugging his shoulders as we waltzed in the meadow, just near the river.

“They say you are all right, Miss Madeline.”

His face was not yet in focus.

I blinked again and again.

“You made it back in one piece,” he said. “I figured you would. You’re a real scrapper.”

I blinked hard. His face was blurred. I blinked again. Papa? No. Kind green eyes and black hair, curling black hair, hands holding mine.

“Miss Madeline, oh, Miss Madeline,” Jake Whitestone said, sighing.

I felt so many things just then. Feelings like pebbles pelted me. Relief, a kind of joy at seeing Jake, worry for my father, and disappointment it wasn’t him.

I tried to get up. I was so weak that when I stood I fell forward. He caught me in his arms. I was frozen for a moment. His face was so close to mine, he held me tightly. His hair brushed my cheek.

I pushed him away, trying to catch my breath. “I have to find my father!”

I tottered past him to the door. Mr. Webster, my aunt and Nellie were blocking the entrance.

“Get out of my way!”

My aunt took my arm. “Get back to bed, Madeline. Right now,” she said.

“No! I have to get out of here!”

They surrounded me. There was no escaping them. Mr. Webster was looking tenderly at me. But who was he, really? I’d seen him in front of the Greenhow house in disguise!

And Jake Whitestone, well, I didn’t know what he was feeling. Did I care? Yes! No, maybe. I didn’t even know what side he was on. Or my aunt, for that matter. And Nellie, with her fierce son, Isaac, putting himself and his mother in great danger? Had he left the house? And my father, where was he?