discovered? There are different ways of locking people in closets. Sometimes you can do it without having a closet. But you can still keep that person locked away forever. Do you understand, Juliet?"
"Yes, Seth."
He nodded and we started on. "You mustn't tell anybody what I just told you about Sue Mundy. Few people know it. Quantrill does, of course; I do, and a couple of other captains in the group. If word got out, the Yankees would hang her. And she's good at what she does. She can wrap the Yankees right around her little finger.
"Oh," he said, "and Martha doesn't know. Be careful around Martha. I don't want to involve her in this. But you've been friends with Sue Mundy. So I had to caution you."
And so it was that I became the pivotal one to help Colonel Quantrill and his men decide what move to make to get back at the Yankees for the collapse of the building at 1409 Grand Avenue and the deaths of so many of their kin.
Nobody knows I was there. Likely nobody ever will, except me and Seth, Martha, and the remaining Quantrill Raiders. It's a heavy burden to carry, considering what they did. And sometimes a person needs help carrying it.
Chapter Fourteen
M ARTHA WAS still ailing. But the day I got back from Quantrill's camp they had her out of bed and she was practicing walking around with crutches.
That was the nineteenth of August. The stitches held in her side, and she told me the doctor had said the wound lessened her chance of having children.
"I told Seth last night," she said. "He said never mind, we're going to make beautiful children."
Her voice trailed off. I dared not ask more.
"So, I hear you told our story to Quantrill," she said quietly.
I nodded. "Seth told me I'm not to talk about it to anyone."
"Of course. I'm sorry for asking. My, things are getting tangled between all of us, aren't they?" She gave a small smile. She still had that singsong quality to her voice, as if the fairy story was still going to have a happy ending to it after all. "Well, we can talk about where we're going when we get out of here, can't we?"
"Of course."
"Well, Seth wants you and me to go to his house in the holler. He believes it to be the safest place around. Only thing is the Yankees will want to escort us, so we have to lie and say the place belongs to Sue Mundy."
"But that's not fair."
"Nothing in the world is these days, Juliet. If the Yankees knew it was Seth's place, they'd burn it. Just like they did to your home."
I fell silent for a moment, then asked, "When do we go?"
"When the Yankee doctors let us out of here. Certain things have to happen first, I suppose."
The retaliation,
I thought. The vengeance from Quantrill and his men. The Yankees knew it was coming, but they didn't know where or when. And until they did know, they were going to keep us all where they could keep an eye on us. Just in case they needed to imprison us again, I supposed.
Martha gave me a look and a weak smile. I smiled back at her. We were likely thinking the same thing, but neither of us would acknowledge it. The worst had happened, we chose to believe. How could the Yankees do anything more to us?
W E WERE still in the hospital at Leavenworth on the twenty-first of August when Quantrill and his men closed in on the well-cared-for little town of Lawrence, Kansas, and attacked.
They expected, all four hundred of them, to be attacked along the way by Yankees. But they weren't.
First they sat on a hillock overlooking the handsome town of some hundred homes that boasted the largest grocery store in the state and the grandest hotel west of the Mississippi.
Then they went into the town like wolves, quietly and stealthily, only one order of Quantrill's ringing in their ears: "I will have no woman harmed."
They came right down Massachusetts Street screaming, "This is for the girls!"
They told us all this later, when they told us that Bill Anderson was the first one in, the first one to fire his gun at a helpless man who'd
"Yes, Seth."
He nodded and we started on. "You mustn't tell anybody what I just told you about Sue Mundy. Few people know it. Quantrill does, of course; I do, and a couple of other captains in the group. If word got out, the Yankees would hang her. And she's good at what she does. She can wrap the Yankees right around her little finger.
"Oh," he said, "and Martha doesn't know. Be careful around Martha. I don't want to involve her in this. But you've been friends with Sue Mundy. So I had to caution you."
And so it was that I became the pivotal one to help Colonel Quantrill and his men decide what move to make to get back at the Yankees for the collapse of the building at 1409 Grand Avenue and the deaths of so many of their kin.
Nobody knows I was there. Likely nobody ever will, except me and Seth, Martha, and the remaining Quantrill Raiders. It's a heavy burden to carry, considering what they did. And sometimes a person needs help carrying it.
Chapter Fourteen
M ARTHA WAS still ailing. But the day I got back from Quantrill's camp they had her out of bed and she was practicing walking around with crutches.
That was the nineteenth of August. The stitches held in her side, and she told me the doctor had said the wound lessened her chance of having children.
"I told Seth last night," she said. "He said never mind, we're going to make beautiful children."
Her voice trailed off. I dared not ask more.
"So, I hear you told our story to Quantrill," she said quietly.
I nodded. "Seth told me I'm not to talk about it to anyone."
"Of course. I'm sorry for asking. My, things are getting tangled between all of us, aren't they?" She gave a small smile. She still had that singsong quality to her voice, as if the fairy story was still going to have a happy ending to it after all. "Well, we can talk about where we're going when we get out of here, can't we?"
"Of course."
"Well, Seth wants you and me to go to his house in the holler. He believes it to be the safest place around. Only thing is the Yankees will want to escort us, so we have to lie and say the place belongs to Sue Mundy."
"But that's not fair."
"Nothing in the world is these days, Juliet. If the Yankees knew it was Seth's place, they'd burn it. Just like they did to your home."
I fell silent for a moment, then asked, "When do we go?"
"When the Yankee doctors let us out of here. Certain things have to happen first, I suppose."
The retaliation,
I thought. The vengeance from Quantrill and his men. The Yankees knew it was coming, but they didn't know where or when. And until they did know, they were going to keep us all where they could keep an eye on us. Just in case they needed to imprison us again, I supposed.
Martha gave me a look and a weak smile. I smiled back at her. We were likely thinking the same thing, but neither of us would acknowledge it. The worst had happened, we chose to believe. How could the Yankees do anything more to us?
W E WERE still in the hospital at Leavenworth on the twenty-first of August when Quantrill and his men closed in on the well-cared-for little town of Lawrence, Kansas, and attacked.
They expected, all four hundred of them, to be attacked along the way by Yankees. But they weren't.
First they sat on a hillock overlooking the handsome town of some hundred homes that boasted the largest grocery store in the state and the grandest hotel west of the Mississippi.
Then they went into the town like wolves, quietly and stealthily, only one order of Quantrill's ringing in their ears: "I will have no woman harmed."
They came right down Massachusetts Street screaming, "This is for the girls!"
They told us all this later, when they told us that Bill Anderson was the first one in, the first one to fire his gun at a helpless man who'd
Similar Books
![Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 02]](https://fs.dianahicksbooks.com/616522/thumbs/152x264/celeste-bradley-heiress-brides-02.jpg)
![Lakeshore Chronicles [10] Candlelight Christmas](https://fs.dianahicksbooks.com/572035/thumbs/152x264/lakeshore-chronicles-10-candlelight-christmas.jpg)
