Read Online Alias Dragonfly by Jane Singer - Free Book Online Page A

in dray carts: Negroes atop gleaming coaches with shiny horses at the head; gaudy, American flag-bedecked huckster women’s wagons with cakes, bottles of champagne, and cooking pots rattling as they bounced along; cigar-puffing, stovepipe-wearing gents, scribbling on pads, and holding maps up high as they jostled by. Elegant ladies with sunbonnets festooned with colored ribbons, others with their slaves holding umbrellas over their heads, carried picnic baskets. It was a ridiculous, festive air, with shouts of “On to Richmond! Damn the Rebels! Death to the Union! Fresh peaches, peaches fine! Pies, and honey cakes, ginger tarts!” I heard the excited whoops of children, acting like they were about to go to the circus.
    A cannon boomed loudly in the distance, like a clap of thunder swallowed mid-sound, just before the lightning hits. We moved as a bubbling mass to the edge of the ridge, swept along like minnows swirling in a pond by this broth of spectators. Finally, we found a spot on the overlook.
    “Huzzah!” someone shouted in a high-toned English accent. “It begins!” The shouting man jumped from his horse, pencil and pad in hand. He dropped to his knees, scribbling on the pad. He was portly and sweating in dress tweeds, with a sharp-cut black mustache in the shape of an anvil. “The time,” he yelled, “what hour exactly is it now?”
    “Ten in the morning, Mr. Russell, sir,” a spiffed-up Negro in a linen duster called down to the kneeling man.
    Jake Whitestone left the carriage, limped over, and squatted next to Mr. Russell on the ground. With a look of certain surprise, then scorn at the sight of him, though he tried to hide it, Mr. Russell said nothing, but quickly turned back to his writing pad, covering the surface with his arm. Did they know each other?
    With like force, two more men, their paper pads and pencils clutched in their teeth, landed like pelicans, nearly atop one another.
    “Make way for the Charleston Courier ,” a small man dressed in black brayed like a donkey.
    “Sure, Rebel,” another said. “I’ll write to the world of your defeat.”
    Another resounding boom! A deep voice rose over the excited babble. “Our yanks have got Parrott rifles, bless them cannons!”
    “They’re green and raw, those boys, but they bloody well shall not die without my tribute,” Russell said. He pointed to an elaborate carriage making its way through the crowd. “It’s the British delegation, come to witness,” he crowed. “Huzzah! Make way!”
    “They’re British diplomats, judges, congressmen, and senators,” a woman shouted.
    They were slapping each other on the back, with cries of “Bravo!” and “Isn’t this fine?”
    A chicken leg landed square on the Charleston Courier reporter’s head. He jumped to his feet and punched wildly, hitting a woman right in the mouth as she balanced two pies in her hands. Berries and dough splattered everywhere.
    Jake Whitestone lay on his stomach peering through his field glasses. I dropped down next to him and tried to see. All below was a tree-shrouded blur, save for a distant roadway beyond a small ridge.
    More cannons rumbled.
    I whispered, “Go to the Warrenton Turnpike. I see it in the distance. We can get closer.” And then I’ll find my papa , I thought. My God, I hope he is all right .
    “How do you know these things? You’ve never been here!” He looked at me as though I’d dropped down from the sky.
    I didn’t tell him about my fine-tuned memory. Why should I? Don’t you agree?
    Jake Whitestone pulled me to my feet. We pushed our way to the carriage and were off, back down the overlook, nearly running over more celebrating women holding children, dragging wagons of hams, tin buckets piled with bread loaves, and more bottles of wine and sarsaparilla.
    “ Rebels dancing at the end of a noose, bobbing like apples, fast and loose ,” someone sang.
    Once we crossed the road out of Centreville toward the turnpike, it seemed we had