Enemy Women (14 page)

He said, I can decide to turn any one of these accusations into actual, legal charges.

Well, don’t wait for me to make up your mind for you. Her hands hardened together.

He paused. Then he said, You are quite brave.

I am? Adair was caught flat-footed.

Yes. He moved his chair to one side of the desk, and sat facing her, his hands clasped together between his thighs, bent forward to her. Miss Colley, the provost marshal’s department seems bent on extracting confessions from women. I am one of the unlucky fellows sent to get them. I don’t like this any more than you do. You must help me. You must plead guilty to one or the other and then write a confession.

She said, What am I confessing to? She looked at the forms. Do I get a choice, there?

Provisioning guerillas. That’s the only way they can continue to operate.

Why is that?

Don’t evade me, he said. When Captain Poth went down to oversee the November elections, he reports he found a number of uniforms and gray cloth in Doniphan. He drew out his handkerchief and blew his nose and put it away again. The uniforms were at a house belonging to the Colleys.

She stared at him. Well that’s a flat lie, she said. We live fifteen miles from town!

Quiet down. He began to jiggle his foot. You all quiet down after a while. You start out all fiery and defiant and then you quiet down.

Adair said, That captain who wrote that was the one who came to our place. Took my father away. They beat him in the face with a wagon spoke. They broke his face bones. My father is a judge and a teacher and he wears spectacles.

The major regarded the floor between his thighs and interlaced his fingers. I am sorry for it. There was a long silence. What else did they do?

Set the house on fire. Took the horses. They smashed up everything, said Adair. Then she suspected his sympathy. Are you trying to get on my good side?

Do you have one?

When I’m not in prison I am very charming.

I am not interested in your charms. I am interested in some solid information.

Adair then opened her hands in her lap. She would try acting. She sighed and brushed a tendril of hair out of her face. Well, you had better give me some advice on what I am to do, I suppose.
Lord listen to me I am turning into Rhoda Cobb.

Stop acting, he said.

Well, how could I know any of this? I am not a soldier!

You’ll do.

My father is too old to go for a soldier. My brother has a withered arm and can barely plow!

Apparently your brother is with Reeves’s Fifteenth. And are you not engaged to someone? His voice was slightly strained when he asked that question. Then he hurried on. I imagine you are.

My brother is not with Reeves, she said.

The major watched her.

And your intended?

I don’t have one. She looked up at him. Last I heard. But they write anything they want on those reports, don’t they? I am surprised they ain’t give me six children and several husbands and a pair of bloomers. The standing water in her eyes spilled over. He had her fixed in his barbed black handwriting, the wrought-iron bonds of reports. Who writes all this?

Various people. He picked up his pen and laid it down again. Sign here. This guilty plea. Guilty to a vague charge of provisioning guerillas. Then you can be moved into a cell. I know perfectly well what is in the women’s General Ward. I don’t want you in there.

Adair raised her head. She said, Can you find out if my father is in any of these prisons up here?

Yes. Write down his name and the date when you last saw him, and where. And in return, Miss, I want you to write a full statement of all you know of Reeves’s activities, Reeves or the Chiltons, or Colonel Berryman, the Freeman brothers. Names and mail routes, contacts with the CSA command, and so on. And a confession on your own account. Then perhaps release.

Adair bit her lower lip. Is that
all
? she asked. Anything else? Her voice began to quaver.

Buried treasure, he said. Indian herbal remedies,

Adair wept beautifully into her hands. Oh, Major, you can’t know how it is in there. The latrines, and doing the washing with the guards looking on. She continued to cry in a light, dainty way.

He said, Miss Colley. Quit sniveling. It sounds very false. However hard you may find this, remember that the human beings that you people have held in bondage for a hundred and fifty years have been subjected
to worse degradation than you can imagine. What you are suffering is nothing. Nothing.

She kept her hands over her face and was furious at how he managed to say all these things in practiced, smooth, complete sentences, and then remembered he had probably talked to a dozen women like herself. Had said all this a dozen times.

I never held a living soul in bondage!

But your society has. You see I have found the perfect, irrefutable answer to any complaint, he said. She heard him sit back with a creaking of the chair. Miss Colley, I am very sorry about all this. She kept on crying. I will do what I can for you. It is grievous to see a young woman like yourself in such conditions. She heard him rattle the accursed papers. Please think a little better of our cause. His voice was no longer officious. To preserve this country. To free an innocent people from bondage. He paused. I am attempting to drown you in guilt.

Adair was desperate to regain lost ground and so she began to cry once more. She began with a long snivel and then burst out in hiccupping sobs.

It’s not fair, she said. It’s not fair. She heard him walk toward her, his pocket change rattling and a few crashing noises as he passed his sword hung on the hat rack, he was simply a walking trade in scrap metal, noisy as a tinker. She looked through her fingers and saw his boot toes.

This is much more convincing, he said.

Adair wiped her face with the flat of her hands and straightened up.

Well, it ought to be. I am about to faint with all this arguing. Pretending to cry is not as easy as you think.

He opened the door. Sergeant, would you go and bring something to eat? Bring some coffee as well. Thank you.

Apparently a glass of something was ready to hand. Here, Miss Colley. Here.

No, she said. She smelled brandy. Get it away from me.

Very well then. His hand remained on her elbow, he was bending over to her.

Is she all right, sir? The sergeant was standing in the door. They always end up crying.

Yes, she is all right. Major Neumann turned and shut the door with a vigorous slam. She jumped. Miss Colley, listen. She turned up her face to him and saw that he had pulled his chair up before her with scraping noises and was bent over to her. He had a pleasant scent, of good soap and tobacco. Are we agreed? This is all I can do for you. I want you to write a confession to assisting guerillas, the one charge, and then I will do my best to see that it is taken lightly. After all, these are your own family.

Adair stopped crying. She looked over at the papers on his desk. Adair wanted to live. She was young and she had all her life ahead of her and she would live to go home.

A knock at the door. The sergeant came in with a tray and a disapproving stare. Adair reached for the tray almost before he had set it down. She sniffled and wiped her hands on the napkin. Tore a beignet into small pieces and ate the pieces one by one. The sergeant still stood at the door.

All right, Sergeant, said Major Neumann. You have some concern?

The sergeant said, I didn’t spend fifteen years in the army to be a waiter.

All right, Sergeant.

To a secessionist gal.

Lady.

Sir.

At ease, Sergeant,

Sir. He saluted and left.

Adair drank a cup of hot coffee from a thick ironstone army mug and wiped her lips. Then she said,

Give me the pen. She got up and went to his desk, looked quickly at all the papers without appearing to.

It was a steel pen, and he dipped it into a glass ink bottle and handed it to her, and showed her where the line was, and she signed, and stood back.

He said, All right, then.

He bowed slightly. He took up the paper and blew on the ink. You will be put in one of the single cells on the second floor. He put the signed confession down. He turned to her stiffly. I am thirty-one, he said. From Havre de Grace, Maryland. I have been in the army for seven years at the insistence of my father. The result of a misspent youth. I hope you enjoy your new cell.

Thank you, she said. She turned for her shawl. She was thanking somebody for putting her in a cell in a great stone prison. I just appreciate it so much.

10

Working with the Log Cabin quilt block, quilt makers added a domestic symbolism. . . .The block is built around a center square, usually about one to two inches wide; quilt makers refer to this square as the “chimney” or “hearth” and to the strips around it as “logs.” The symbol of Log Cabin as home must have touched quilt makers deeply, for in all the lexicon of quilt making, only this block has names for its components.

Even the colors used in the quilt carried symbolic value. Quilt makers traditionally centered the block with red to reflect the fire on the hearth. Two variations were allowed—yellow centers to represent a lantern in the window, or, in a special variation, black in the center of a block. In this variation, known as Courthouse Steps, the black was thought to represent the Judge’s robes as he entered the court.

—
FROM
Gateway Heritage,
VOL.
16,
NO.
1, 1995

Union soldiers came through the Ponder homestead three times during the course of the war. . . .On one of these raids a soldier picked up one of Martha’s quilts. Admiring the delicate handiwork, he said, “I think my wife would like this quilt.” As he held on to one end of it, spirited Martha boldly gripped the other. “If you take it, you’ll have to steal it.” The soldier relinquished the quilt with an indignant retort, “I’ve never stolen anything in my life.” After this, Martha gathered up the quilt and whatever precious, small valuables she could fit into a wooden trunk. She hid the trunk in a hollow
tree near the house . . .the heirloom was salvaged and is in Woodrow’s possession today.

—
FROM
The Civil War in Ripley County, Missouri,
PUBLISHED BY THE
D
ONIPHAN
P
ROSPECT
-N
EWS,
D
ONIPHAN,
M
ISSOURI,
1992

We have one eccentric genius in our number who I think deserves a sketch. We style him “Feminine Joe”; he is quite good-looking, medium size, has blue eyes and glossy black hair—which he curls; embroiders like a lady, and has a great fondness for teasing his fellow prisoners by catching them and hugging and kissing them, one in particular whom he calls “my Joe” and declares himself in love with; he torments him almost to death—if “my Joe” starts for a drink of water, the “feminine” is sure to follow; if he lies down, he is clasped in the loving arms; at table the “feminine” refuses to eat unless “my Joe” helps his plate. We all get provoked sometimes and read the offender a genuine scolding lecture but it is merely a waste of words. We are all fond of him and he is a noble generous fellow; but his feminine airs are often very provoking.

—G
RIFFIN
F
ROST,
Camp and Prison Journal

T
HE WRITING PAPER
lay broad and white as a counterpane. the evening sounds of the city were beginning, men bringing around drays of wood for the evening fires, tired men and children from the factories riding home packed in wagons. Since Adair was now on the second floor she could see out the narrow window into the streets of St. Louis. Her window was so high in the wall she needed to stand on something to see out. So she stood on the writing table. At the edge of the great river she could see the steeple of St. Louis Cathedral and could hear the bell as it rang out the hours. Adair felt odd and light-headed, as if she had a fever.