Love and War

Ashton saw twenty women, then twice that many, storming down the center of Main Street. More followed. Inside, Franzblau said, 'Lock the door, Will.' It closed and clicked.

'I run for the carriage,' Homer said. Some of the women had the same idea.

'Ill follow you,' Ashton whispered, terror-stricken at the sight of hundreds of shabbily dressed women pushing, screaming, hurling rocks and bricks at plate glass, ripping shoes and clothing from the shop windows. 'Bread,' they chanted, 'bread,' while helping themselves to apparel and jewelry.

A produce cart trapped in the center of Main was lifted by a pack of women. Its cargo of crated hens tumbled out with a splintering of slats, a fountaintng of feathers, a ferocious flapping and squawking. The farmer cowered underneath the wreckage of the cart.

Jumping into the open carriage, Ashton was horrified to see the women drag the man out and swarm over him. They punched, clawed, and kicked. He yelled, but the cries were quickly submerged in the chanting.

More rioters rounded the corner of Ninth Street, some pouring up from Cary, some down from the direction of Capitol Square. They were not all impoverished householders; ratty boys had joined the mob, and some older toughs as well.

Homer fumbled with whip and reins. Half a dozen women rushed the carriage, hands extended, ugly mouths working.

'There's a rich one.' ;

'Got food in that hamper, I bet.'

'Hand it over, dearie —'

'Hurry, Homer,' Ashton cried, just as a gray-haired woman in smelly rags jumped onto the carriage step. A dirty hand clasped Ashton's wrist and yanked.

'Get her out, get her out,' the other women chanted, pressing around the rag woman. Ashton writhed, struggled. It did no good. Marginally aware of Homer flicking the whip at two boys holding the horses, she bent and bit the woman's filthy hand. The woman screamed and fell off the step.

'Bread, bread!' More windows shattered. Women charged the door of Franzblau's Epicurean, broke it, tore down the blind, and jumped through the opening edged with glass. A pistol went off; someone cried out.

Homer whipped one of the white boys, then the other. He got the team started, only to have two women seize the rear of the carriage and hang on. A third attempted to leap in and grab Ashton again. The street was in tumult. 'Shoes, shoes!' 'Police down there —' 'Jeff's coming out to speak.' 'Let him. We'll cook him for dinner.'

'Give me, little Miss Rich,' panted the woman as she put her hands on the hamper. Ashton's mouth set. She flipped the hamper open, took the champagne bottle by the neck, and swung it, breaking it squarely across the side of the woman's head.

The woman howled and let go, falling back, covered with foaming champagne and bits of glass. Ashton jabbed the broken bottle at those nearest the carriage. They melted back. Damned dirty cowards, she thought.

Grimacing, she knelt on the seat, reached over, and struck at the hands of the women holding the carriage. She slashed left and right with the bottle neck, cutting veins in the backs of their hands. Blood pumped out. 'Homer, goddamn you, get moving!'

Like a wild person, he whipped horses and rioters alike. He turned the carriage and charged another group of women, who scattered. Many were running, Ashton noticed as the carriage careened around a corner into Eleventh Street. She heard shrill whistles, gunshots. The metropolitan detail had arrived.

The unexpected violence wrecked Ashton's schedule for the morning. By the time the carriage reached Grace Street it was twenty past eleven, and another impatient hour went by before she felt she could leave by herself. The servants suspected she had a lover, or so she believed; whenever she went out alone, she was careful not to confirm the suspicion with haste or any kind of outrageous behavior. So she lingered at the house, feigning a case of nerves. Curiously, once she was out of danger, recalling the riot induced a state of arousal.

The war had that same kind of stimulating effect on Ashton. It sharpened every pleasure, from totting up the profits of Water Witch to clasping Powell with arms and legs as he drove into her — love was too soft a word for the nearly unbearable sensations he created. In what other time but wartime could she have brought her husband and her lover into the same business enterprise? It was macabre, but it was exhilarating.

Finally, having washed and refreshed herself, she drove to the Queen Anne house on Franklin Street. She arrived at half past twelve, carrying the hamper with the two pots of foie gras.

'I had a bottle of Mumm's, but I had to break it to escape the mob,' she explained to Powell in the parlor. He was barefoot, wearing only breeches.

'When you didn't come on time, I decided not to answer the door if you did arrive,' he said. 'Then I heard a drayman shouting something about a riot downtown. So I forgave you.'

'It was the maddest confusion. Hundreds of ugly, utterly filthy women —'

'I'd like to hear about it.' He guided her hand. 'But not now.'

A clock was chiming two when Ashton came swimming up through sleepy satiation. The bedding had been tangled and torn loose. Powell dozed beside her. She brushed hair from her eyes and drowsily studied two surprising objects on a taboret near his right shoulder: a map of the United States and, resting on it, his favorite gun — a rimfire Sharps pocket pistol whose four blunt muzzles gave it a menacing look. The custom grips were carved with an intricate leaf pattern. She had seen him handling and cleaning it on several occasions.

In a few minutes he woke and asked about the riot. His hand idled between her legs while she described it. 'They chanted for bread, but they were stealing anything in sight.'

'They'll do more than steal if King Jeff continues to run amok. The situation in Richmond — the whole Confederacy — is disastrous. It can't be borne.'

'But we have all the money we need to replace Water Witch and perhaps buy a second vessel. We needn't worry about the President.'

'We do if we give a damn about Southern principles.' He said it softly, yet with passion. Alarmed, she realized she had unintentionally angered him. 'I do. Fortunately, there is a way to curb Davis and preserve them.'

'What do you mean?'

In the silence, the bedroom clock went tock-tock. Iron wheel rims rumbled over cobbled Franklin Street. Powell's thin, strong mouth turned upward at the ends, though his eyes remained chill.

'How much do you love me, Ashton?'

She laughed nervously. 'How much —?'

'It's a simple question. Answer it.'

'My God — you know the answer. No man has ever made me feel the way you do.'

'I can trust you, then?'

'Hasn't the partnership taught you that you can?'

'I believe I can,' he countered, 'but if I shared a confidence, then found I'd made a mistake —' he snatched the Sharps and pushed the muzzles into her breast '— I'd rectify it.'

Ashton's mouth opened as she watched his finger whiten. Smiling, he pulled the trigger. The hammer fell — on an empty chamber.

'What — Lamar — what is —?' Confused, inwardly wild with fright, she could barely form the words. 'What's behind all this?'

He put the pistol aside and laid the map on the tangled bedding. In the southwest corner of the map, he had inked a vertical line through the Territory of New Mexico and to the left of it had inscribed several small squares, none overlapping, with dotted lines.

'What you see right here, love. Our inept generals in Texas lost the Southwest. The Union has it all. Including this —' he tapped the section of the map containing the squares '— the new Territory of Arizona. The Yankee Congress created it with the Organic Act, passed in February. A few regulars from California and some New Mexico volunteers are expected to guard this entire area, which of course is impossible. It's too large, and, beyond that, the red savages keep the soldiers dashing hither and yon to protect isolated settlements. The new territory is perfect for a plan conceived by myself and some other gentlemen who realize King Jeff will ruin us if we allow