Walk in Hell

did was that his connections helped it get food and drink hard to come by in hungry, Confederate-occupied Washington, D.C. If she didn’t do anything for him, why should he do anything for her?

I’ll do this for you, and you’ll pay me off, Nellie thought. How was that different from the sweaty bargains she’d made in little, narrow rooms back when she was too much younger than Edna? “Damned if I know,” she muttered.

“What did you say, Ma?” Edna asked.

“Nothing.” The coffeehouse had become so popular with the Rebels, they’d probably help keep her in supplies if the shoemaker across the street didn’t. But that felt like an illicit bargain, too. They hadn’t been the kindest nor the gentlest occupiers, and a good many of them frequented her place for no better reason than the hope of seducing Edna. Nellie was sure of that, too.

And, to make matters worse, who could guess how long the Confederates were going to hold on to Washington? If she aligned herself with them now, what would the reckoning be when the United States reclaimed their capital? She thought that was going to happen, and perhaps not in the indefinite future. Oh, the Confederates bragged about and made much of what a submersible of theirs had done in the Chesapeake Bay, but was that anything more than a pinprick when you measured it against the hammering U.S. forces were giving the Rebs in Maryland? She didn’t think so.

“You ought to go over there, Ma,” Edna said. “He’s a nice man.”

“Tomorrow.” Nellie didn’t often yield an argument to her daughter, but most of their arguments were about what Edna was doing, not about what she was doing herself. She turned off the gaslight in the kitchen. “It’s late. Let’s go on up to bed.”

The next morning, she did cross the street to Mr. Jacobs’shop. Dirt and gravel had been shoveled into the hole the U.S. bomb made in the street; the Rebs weren’t going to be bothered with proper pavement. She kicked at the gravel. Watching the little stones spin away from her shoe, she wished she could kick a lot more things.

It was early. She tried the doorknob anyway. She wasn’t surprised when it turned in her hand. Hal Jacobs didn’t sleep late. The bell above the door chimed. The shoemaker stood behind the counter, a hammer in his hand. His eyes widened a little beneath bushy eyebrows. His smile showed teeth not too bad, not too good. “Hello,” he said, and then, more warily, “Widow Semphroch.”

That he didn’t use her Christian name said he’d noticed how she’d not been in lately. “You can still call me Nellie, Hal,” she said.

He nodded. “Good morning, Nellie,” he said. He coughed a couple of times. “I was afraid I had offended you the last time you were here.”

Afraid he’d offended her by kissing her, she meant. “No, that’s all right,” she answered. As she had with Edna, she spoke before she’d fully figured out what she should have said. Claiming offense would have given her the perfect excuse for having avoided him. Now she couldn’t use it. She found a question of her own: “What have you heard about Bill Reach?”

He made a face. “In prison. In a Confederate prison as a burglar. This had to do with you, didn’t it?” She found she didn’t like him scowling at her. But after a moment, he went on, “But you knew him some time ago, is that not true?” He looked at her with mixed kindness and suspicion.

“I kind of knew him, yes, you might say so.” Nellie bit her lip. She wouldn’t have recognized Reach now, any more than she would have recognized any of the other men she’d kind of known. But he’d recognized her, and presumed on old…acquaintance. “I thought he was just a tramp. And I thought-” But she couldn’t say that.

“You thought, perhaps, he did not want to treat you as a lady should be treated,” Jacobs said. Nellie nodded, grateful for the graceful phrase. The cobbler sighed. “He did have an eye for pretty women. I sometimes worried it would get him in trouble. I did not think it would get him into this sort of trouble.”

“I wish to heaven he’d left me alone,” Nellie said, which was nothing but the truth. “Why he had to come around after all these years-”

“No one is perfect.” Hal Jacobs tugged at a stray curl of gray hair that had slid over the top of one ear. “You really must dislike him very much.”

“Why do you say that?” Nellie asked, in lieu of screaming, I hated him. I still hate him the same way I hate all the other men who used me, and all the men who want to use Edna, too.

“Because if you were not embarrassed to come here for what we did, the only other reason you would not come here-the only other reason I can think of, anyhow-is that you dislike Bill Reach.”

“Well, yes, that probably had something to do with it,” Nellie admitted. “If Bill Reach was an angel, I’d think hard about rooting for the devil.”

Hal Jacobs looked distressed. “But you must not say this! Without him, the United States would not know half of what we’ve learned of the doings of the enemy from the Atlantic to the mountains.”

“Without me, you wouldn’t know half of that stuff,” Nellie returned with no small pride.

“I admit it,” Jacobs said. “I have been very worried here. I-”

He had to break off then, because a Confederate corporal brought in a marching boot with a broken heel. “Kin I have it this afternoon?” he drawled. “We-uns is a-movin’ out of here tomorrow.”

“I’ll have it for you, sir, I promise. By two o’clock.” Jacobs was, no doubt, noting the regimental number and state abbreviation the corporal wore on his collar. Word that that regiment was on the move might well head for Philadelphia before this afternoon. Confirming that, the shoemaker waited till the soldier was gone and then said, “As you see, Wid-Nellie, I have my own sources of information.”

“Yes, I see that,” she said. “And I see you’re managing to use ’em without having anything to do with Bill Reach. As far as I’m concerned, you can go right on doing that. If he rots in jail, I won’t shed a tear.”

“What did he do to you, to make you hate him so?” Jacobs asked. Nellie set her jaw and said nothing. The shoemaker let out a long, sad sigh. “Whatever it was, he does not deserve these feelings you have about him. He kept track of everything, sorted it out, put pieces of the puzzle together…If any one man kept the Rebs from reaching the Delaware and bombarding Philadelphia, he is the one.”

“A few hundred thousand soldiers had something to do with it, too, I think,” Nellie answered tartly. She looked down at the dingy rug on the dingy floor of the shoemaker’s shop. “Most important thing I’ve heard in the past week is that the Rebs think they’re going to be getting barrels-or maybe plans for barrels, I’m not sure which- from England sometime soon. I think they’re talking about barrels, anyway. Sometimes they call ’em tanks instead.”

“That’s what the English call them,” Jacobs said. “Worth knowing. I suppose we should have expected as much.” He did not sound very surprised or very interested. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he just didn’t want her to know how important her information was. Then he inclined his head in what was almost a bow, part of the old-time courtliness she enjoyed with him. “I hope you will come in again on such matters. And if you wish to come in for other reasons, I want you to know I am always glad to see you.”

Nellie felt her cheeks grow hot. He meant he wanted to kiss her again. She’d liked it when he’d kissed her before. She wasn’t used to being kissed any more, or to enjoying it when she was. He might even have meant he wanted to do more than kiss her. The idea didn’t disgust her as much as she thought it should.

Flustered, she said, “We’ll have to see,” and hurried out of there as fast as she could go.

A Confederate major stood outside the door to the coffeehouse. “Ah, here you are,” he said, tipping his cap. “I looked inside, but I didn’t see anyone.”

“That’s odd.” Nellie opened the door for him. The bell jingled merrily. “Please, sir, come in. My daughter should be here.” She raised her voice: “Edna!”

“Coming, Ma!” Edna called from upstairs, and came down as fast as anyone could have wanted.

“Get the major here his coffee and whatever else he wants,” Nellie said severely. “If we’re open for business, I want you down here ready to work. We lose customers if you aren’t.”

“Yes, Ma. I’m sorry, Ma.” Edna hurried over to the Rebel. “What can I get for you today, sir?”

“Cup of coffee and a fried-egg sandwich,” the major answered. To Nellie, he added, “It’s all right, ma’am. Don’t you worry about it.”

“I do worry about it,” Nellie said, “and it’s not all right.” But she let it drop; Edna had the coffee on the table for the major in jig time, and was frying eggs and slicing bread with practiced efficiency.

The bell jingled again. A couple of lieutenants came in. One of them leered disgracefully at Edna. Nellie made a point of serving that pair herself. Breakfast business was slower than usual, though. After an hour or so had gone