Alias Dragonfly (20 page)

I made out a circle with a dot in the middle. Under it, were these words: “St.” and “Mc,” followed by “BOW,” and finally a sketch of a bull’s head. I grabbed up a pencil and an unwrapped yellow piece of candy paper and copied the letters; I copied the animal head on a piece of lined lesson paper on the child’s desk. I quickly folded it and secreted it under my wig. I noticed that the candy wrappings were in only three colors: yellow, blue and red.

There was no sound from the hallway. Maybe her mother was still sleeping. I took a quick look out her bedroom window. There was no one about.

I nudged Little Rose. She rubbed her eyes sleepily and stuck out her tongue at me. I managed to wash her face and mine from a pitcher of water sitting on a dresser by the bed. I heard the sound of footsteps outside the door. It opened a crack, and there stood Mrs. Greenhow. She looked as tired as I felt, with great circles under her eyes. She smiled weakly and handed me a tray with toast, milk and two bowls of porridge on it. As she left, she closed the door. I realized she hadn’t locked us in . . . yet.

I promised Little Rose a piece of candy if she would play a rhyming game with me, and I wouldn’t make her recite her multiplication table anymore. It worked. The kid was a fiend for sweets.

I clapped my hands and whispered, “Yankee Doodle is a scamp, find him hiding in a camp. Come on, Little Rose, say it with me, okay?”

“Why do we have to whisper?”

“Because we’re pretend soldiers, and we have a secret.”

“Are we Yanks or Rebs?”

“Rebs, of course,” I answered.

“Goody,” she whispered. We recited my impromptu ditty again. “Another one, Miss Swinton!”

“Okay, here we go! I’ll start.
To summon the lady strong and fair, what color should the dolly wear?
”

Little Rose eyed me suspiciously. Out came another piece of candy. “Blue,” she said. “More candy.”

“Nope, we’re not done with the rhymes.”

She pouted.

I was thinking fast now, making up rhymes on the spot. Oh, boy, was I ever. “
And when she’s red, what shall we say
? Come on Little Rose, you finish it!”

She grabbed the last piece of candy. “We tell the lady, ‘Go away!’” she said, red peppermint bits all over her face.

“Wonderful! You are so creative! Isn’t this fun?” I hugged the child. She hugged me back. That felt strange because I was beginning to like the little dickens.

First I had to be sure, and then I had to figure out how to get the color code to the agents. I had to be right. It was night. The child would soon be asleep. I looked again at the high window. There was a small latch attached to a long bar. The window opened out! I’d wait. The arrest wasn’t coming until tomorrow. I pulled little Rose onto my lap. In case she rhymed before just to play the game and it didn’t mean anything, I decided to probe further.

“My mama used to tell me ditties about two little Irish leprechauns who had a secret. They were in charge of a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. One of them wrote down all the colors of the rainbow, ending with one, so when he hid his pot of gold, only another leprechaun would know where to find it. In case something happened to one of them, of course.”

I rocked her in my arms. It felt nice. I have to admit.

“Okay,” she said sleepily, “I have one. But I can’t tell anybody else.”

“Of course not. I will never say anything.”

She hesitated.

“I promise you, Little Rose.”

“It’s my special secret. Mama told me to keep the paper in case they took her away and left me. Will you take care of me if that happens, Miss Swinton?”

“Yes, I will. I promise.” Her whole little body relaxed. She put her hand in mine. I hated to lie to the child, really hated it. “Tell me, sweetheart.”

She spoke so softly I had to strain to hear her.

“
Green. Stay away. Blue. Take message. Yellow. Watch our door. Red. Danger,”
she said.

I hugged her. “Thank you for trusting me. We’re friends now, right?”

“Yes,” she said, nestling close to me. I stroked her hair and wrestled with my conscience over the lies I’d told her.

Now I knew that each color of the doll’s petticoat was a signal. It was a perfect communication. Even I had to admire the sheer cheek of it.

When I was sure the child was fast asleep, I copied the color codes on a sheet of paper along with the odd letter patterns I’d written on the candy wrapping. I ripped a corner off my shawl, put a few of Little Rose’s marbles into the ball I’d made, and climbed on a chair to reach the window. I opened it a crack. There was a soldier patrolling the back of the house. I threw out the ball. It hit the ground at his feet. He looked around, his rifle raised. I saw someone dressed in rags scurry over and take the balled-up material before he noticed.

Thank goodness. Now I knew Pinkerton’s people, at least one of them, was there. I took a chance, then, and tiptoed out the bedroom door to the parlor. The room was still, and sure enough, the doll was in the window. Its legs were splayed open with a petticoat showing clearly. It was blue, meaning a messenger was being summoned. A lit candle sat beside it. I stuffed the doll back in the window.

I heard her voice before she appeared. Mrs. Greenhow came in wearing a nightdress. She had a long hatpin in her hand.

“Is something wrong, Miss Swinton?” she asked, her eyes glowing like stoked embers. “And where is my daughter?”

“She’s fallen asleep, ma’am,” I said, gathering my thoughts. “I thought I heard someone at the door.”

“Was someone at the door?” She neared me. Oh, did I have to think fast.

“Mrs. Greenhow, those soldiers out there. I hate them. Maybe one of them killed my father. If only I could find a way to get back at them!”

She studied me carefully, then lowered the hatpin and withdrew a tiny packet from her bodice.

“All right. Take this packet outside. If a soldier stops you, tell them you are ill and must go to the privy right away. Turn right at the first dogwood tree. They will not follow a young lady there. The privy is just by the tree. Go inside and put this under the seat. Come right back. I’ll be waiting for you, Miss Swinton.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“Of course, if you don’t return, I’ll have to figure something happened to you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I took the packet and ran down the stairs, my hand clutching my stomach as though I was really ill. The soldiers were sitting on the ground smoking. As I ran by them, I made a gurgling sound, and, for good measure, added a couple of groans.

“Don’t puke on me now, Miss,” one said.

The other man laughed loudly.

I found the privy and put the packet under the seat. As I came out, someone grasped my arm. I pushed my attacker to the ground. When I bent down, to keep him or her still, in spite of the tattered clothing and torn straw hat I saw it was Mrs. Warn.

“Go away!” I whispered.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Inside under the seat. There is a message for her courier. And the ball with the marble is her summoning code.”

“I’ve got it. Greenhow sent you out here?”

“She sent me because I asked to go.”

Mrs. Warn got up, rubbing her arm. Turn about is fair play, I thought as I remembered the bindings on my wrists. “Maybe we’ve got her this time,” she said. “You’ve done well. Remember, we are all around you.”

Not if Mrs. Greenhow stabs me though the heart with a hatpin, you aren’t
, I thought. I ran back to the house.

Mrs. Greenhow was pacing in the entryway.

“Were you stopped?”

“No. It went fine.”

“Thank you, Miss Swinton. You are a true daughter of the South.”

“God save them all, ma’am,” I said.

She parted the curtain of the front window and peeked out. I stood behind her with enough room to see as well. A tall, slender figure in a hooded cloak was walking quickly back toward the dogwood tree. Before she rounded the corner to the privy, two dark figures took hold of her. One wrapped his hand over her mouth. It was Betty! I recognized her walk, and saw the side of her face.

I turned to hurry away. Mrs. Greenhow grabbed me by the hair.

“It was a trap, wasn’t it.” Her grasp tightened. My head was forced back.

“You will pay for this. Above all others, you will pay,” she said.

I felt the sharp point of the hairpin in my ear.

“If you resist, I’ll pierce your brain,” she hissed.

“I didn’t have anything to do with it!”

“Shut up. Of course you did. No one knew when my courier was arriving. They were lying in wait for her. Because of you! Damn you!”

She forced me up the staircase. It was high and the way narrow. I had nowhere to go.

She was about to thrust me into a closet when Little Rose woke up.

“Don’t be afraid, my darling,” she said. “Miss Swinton,” she snarled my fake name, “Miss Swinton and I are playing a little game. Come with me now. We’re going away for a while!”

“I want to play the game!” yelled Little Rose, jumping into the closet with me just as her mother was about to lock me inside.

“No!” Mrs. Greenhow cried. “Come out, Little Rose, now!”

“I love games, Mama!” The child screeched.

I yanked her away from her mother and jumped into the closet with the child against me. “I’ll hurt her if you come any further,” I yelled. I slammed the door in Mrs. Greenhow’s face and locked it.

“I don’t like this game,” Little Rose whimpered.

I heard loud voices then. Mrs. Greenhow screamed curses at whoever was there.

“It’s all right!” a woman shouted. I didn’t answer. How did I know who was really out there?

“Fiona!” I heard her call out.

Okay, that name did fine. I unlocked the door. Little Rose ran screaming into her mother’s arms.

I saw a group of soldiers posted in the hallway, their rifles pointed into the room. And there was Mr. Pinkerton himself with Mrs. Warn and Mike.

I watched as a soldier dragged Little Rose and her mother, cursing, damning all Yankees, including me. And to make more of this raucous muddle, Mr. Pinkerton pushed a young, disheveled woman in front of me. Her long blonde hair fell over her shoulders and tumbled down her back. She was sweating heavily, her face twisted, making sounds like a snarling animal. Even though her hands were bound, she raised both in the air. “God save the South, and may you all rot in hell,” Betty Duvall hissed.

“What made you come just then, sir?” I asked Mr. Pinkerton when I was taken to the photography studio soon after the capture of Betty and Mrs. Greenhow.

“When Betty took the packet, we grabbed her. Mrs. Warn kept a steady eye on your room—from a tree, I might add—well, she noted the blue petticoat in the window, and we waited for Betty. A doll, my God, a doll, right under our noses!” he exclaimed.

I do believe a wrinkling appeared at Mrs. Warn’s lips. A smile? No, not yet.

He handed me the paper I’d copied from the child’s room. “What do you make of this, Miss Bradford?” he asked. “Although this dispatch was already delivered by Betty to Colonel Jordan, this is not encoded. This is different.”

I studied the pattern again. I blocked out everything else.

A circle with a dot in the center. Center, Center, Centreville. I remembered the woods behind the town Jake and I had encamped. Centreville. Yes.

Next: Mc. Mc, Mc. Who or what would that be? Who was at Centreville before the terrible Union defeat? Mc, Mc . . . McDowell, the Union general.

Next, the initial B, and the cow head sketch.

But was it a cow? No, it had horns. A bull. Bull Run.

“The Confederate General Beauregard was to meet McDowell’s troops at Bull Run!” I looked at the agents gathered around me.

“Is this how it happened?”

“Yes, the Rebels knew of the Union movement to Centreville, as did the newspapers, but because of Greenhow’s courier, the Confederates were able to get word to Beauregard in time for him to reinforce with many more men.”

“McDowell’s men left Centreville with no idea they’d be met by a wall of Confederate soldiers who far outnumbered them,” Mr. Pinkerton said, and added, “I must tell you, Miss Bradford, that Mrs. Warn came to the same conclusion. You are both to be commended.” This time, Mrs. Warn shook my hand.