In The Face Of Death
Read In The Face Of Death Online
Authors: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
In the Face of Death
an historical
horror novel
by
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
HIDDEN KNOWLEDGE
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA
2001
The entire contents
of this edition
Copyright © Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
All rights reserved
In accordance with the International Copyright Convention and federal copyright statutes, permission to adapt, copy, excerpt, in whole or in part in any medium, or to extract characters for any purpose whatsoever is herewith expressly withheld.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, apply to publisher below.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents, except for historical persons and places, are the products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. All incidents involving historical persons and events are fictitious, and have been created for literary purposes only. Any other resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.
A portion of the first section of this novel appeared in
The Vampire Sextet
, edited by Marvin Kaye. (GuildAmerica Books, Garden City, NY (2000); ISBN 0739411543, 1117632830). Copyright © 2000 by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
You, the owner of this book, may make backup copies and/or put a copy on a second or third computer or reading device. You may print out a copy for your own use. You may lend the book, sell it, or give it away, as long as you lend, sell, or give away all copies. You may have the text read aloud by reading machines or computers or people.
You may
not
distribute free copies, put it on a network, e-mail it to your friends (or enemies or strangers or anyone else), photocopy your printout for someone else, or do any of the other things that you, as an intelligent being, know would be wrong.
Just treat us the way you would like to be treated yourself.
— THE PUBLISHERS
Published as a digital book by
Hidden Knowledge
1181 Martin Avenue
San Jose, California 95126-2626
http://www.hidden-knowledge.com
First Edition (Release 1.03)
16 May 2005
For Megan Kincaid
who knows a thing or two
about “Uncle Billy”
Author’s Introduction
Most of the time the first questions that begin one of these historical excursions for me are not readily identified: in this case I can identify at least one factor, which began a long time ago when I was in my high school American History class. We were assigned papers on the Civil War; the topic was ours to determine so long as we could show a connection to the conflict. I wanted to do a paper on how the various Indian nations felt about the Civil War—it struck me that they must have had opinions about it, for certainly the war impacted their lives. Although my teacher did not agree, she let me do the paper for the research experience; and quite an experience it was. What I learned then about digging up material has stood me in good stead ever since.
To answer the question: yes, the Indian nations had opinions, and sometimes deep internal divisions on the subject of the Civil War; many of them were recorded and can be found to this day.
From time to time ever since, I have played around with the idea of using that wedge of American history as a setting for a novel, but I did not have the key to the story until I found a book at a friend’s house in Oakland (alas, both the book and the house were victims of the 1991 Oakland Hills firestorm). This was a collection of memoirs of the Civil War in the Confederacy as ordinary non-combatants experienced it. The title of the work was
The War Down Home,
and it had been privately printed for the families of the contributors in 1907 in Alabama. This book provided invaluable information, which I could crossbreed with the work I had already done during my first, speculative forays though the material on record. Eventually the book you are reading now took shape, aided and augmented by the many accounts I subsequently found regarding the decade leading to the Civil War, as well as the better-known records of the events of the war itself. For no event is wholly unheralded, though the signs are always more clearly recognized in retrospect, when focus and perspective are sharpened by experience and hindsight. By beginning a decade ahead of the war, some of the social conditions and changes that shaped the society of the time can be shown in context.
Of course, I had to deal with the novelist’s dilemma: you as readers know how the war ends. Taking a major conflict in history—the American Civil War or the Siege of Troy—there is constant temptation to make it seem as if the people participating in the events knew at the time how it was all going to turn out; which they did not, any more than any of us know what will happen tomorrow, or an hour from now, or a minute. Luckily, where the Civil War is concerned, there are a great many contemporary reports on both sides to reveal what the participants actually saw and thought at the time.
My thanks, of course, to Dave Nee; to Lou and Myrna Donato for their help in locating research material; to Alan Anderson and his family for the loan of their book (which I suppose I should have held onto); to my many friends who let me see family material relating to the Civil War and the events around it; to those wonderful people at Hidden Knowledge who published a book that fit no known (or all too many) categories; to the booksellers who do so much to keep my vampires where their fans can find them; and to my readers for their tenacity and enthusiasm.
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Berkeley, California
December 2000
“I know of no courage greater . . .
than the courage to love
in the face of death.”
William Tecumseh Sherman
to
Queen Victoria
ENGLAND
Excerpts from the journal of Madelaine de Montalia, February 1845 through August, 1847.
London, 18 February, 1845
. . . Spoke with the American journalist again, and he assures me that it is possible to arrange to study some of the Indians still living their traditional lives in his country. He does not know to whom I should apply to make such studies. . . . He has said that many of them are war-like and do not trust strangers, Indians or whites. Perhaps they have good cause for this, if what I have learned so far is true.
The journalist is eager to go to Egypt to see the Pyramids and report on a few of the expeditions there. He has many misconceptions about Egypt, both as it is now and as it was long ago. I have told him a little of my experiences at Thebes, and warned him that he may well encounter more corruption in the officials around him than he is used to. He answered that Americans are used to crooks in politics. . . .
London, 23 June, 1845
. . . and I find I do want to learn more of the Indians in America while they are still alive to speak for themselves. Saint-Germain has warned me how quickly things and peoples may vanish. Surely, if all I have heard is accurate, the lives of these people are changing rapidly and many will soon be altered beyond recall. How can I turn away from this challenge, to study these people now, learn how they live, before they are gone?
How frustrating it is to be here, on the edge of learning and yet have no way to pursue the necessary information. So little has been attempted in assessing the lives of the Indians, or gathering accurate data about the Indians, and so much of what has been done is written with questionable motives, based on premises that are misleading. There is nothing much more I can do until I cross the Atlantic and meet these beleaguered people for myself. . . .
The prospect of hardships does not deter me; how could it? Egypt taught me to endure many inconveniences, which subsequent studies have taught me to prepare for, and if all I have to fear is a lack of scented soap and a newspaper to read, then I am undaunted. I have come through worse than a lack of personal amenities, gaslight, and civilized company. . . .
London, 4 November, 1845
. . . I am going to have to find someone who has met Indians, so that I may learn how best to go on when I am among them. . . .
London, 26 March, 1846
. . . Geoffrey Prestigne has promised to introduce me to his Canadian second cousin, a fellow who has lived among the Indians for much of his life, and who has recently come to England to take up his inheritance. He cannot imagine how much I want to know about them. I hope he is not so contemptuous of these people as many of the Americans seem to be. . . .
All society here is buzzing about India, and the Sikhs, who are trying to reestablish control of their own lands, or so it would seem. . . .
London, 19 September, 1846
. . . After the performance of
Don Pasquale,
Geoffrey at last presented his second cousin to me: Reverend Daniel Maywood, a widower of thirty-eight years, well-read although not greatly educated, who stigmatized Donizetti’s little farce as frivolous. . . . Geoffrey had already explained my purpose in speaking with him; he did his best to discourage me in this venture, stating that he felt I would not only be disappointed by what I saw, but that I could be in considerable danger. It is his opinion that most of the Indians would not look kindly on a white woman going among them. He was distressed when he learned I do not wish to go as a missionary, for that has been his work throughout his adult life. . . .
London, 22 December, 1846
. . . I have spoken with Reverend Maywood again, and I am more certain than ever that the Indians will be a fascinating and rewarding study. I had no idea there was such diversity in their tribes as Maywood describes, which only spurs me to greater efforts, for I begin to see that the task I have set for myself is a larger one than I had first supposed, and more urgent. Yet the more I question him, the more reticent he becomes; this he excuses by saying he does not wish to encourage what he describes as my caprice. He is determined to dissuade me from going to America. I have admitted to some trepidation about such an undertaking but in truth, it is more the ordeal of a sea voyage that gives me pause than any reluctance to expose myself to the risks of living with Indians. . . .
London, 5 April, 1847
. . . At last I have found someone willing to aid me. Captain Augustus Fowler of Savannah, Georgia, who has brought a vast quantity of cotton to the mills of Birmingham and Manchester on his ship
Minerva,
has been willing to listen to my inquiries without undue animadversions on the folly of my interests. He is like the other men I have met from the southern United States, very gallant and courtly, but fixed in his ways as many from the northern States are not. . . . He informs me that most of the Indians of the eastern coast are being moved off their lands and put on new territories in the western part of the country, and that those Indians living on the prairies have been much visited by missionaries. This, in spite of the United States currently being in dispute with Mexico. Such action will surely trap Indians between the warring nations. I recall what Saint-Germain told me of the peoples of South America, and that was more than two centuries ago. So much has been lost already, I fear I may already be too late to learn all I wish. . . .
London, 30 July, 1847
. . . The house is leased out to a family for a period of twenty years. They have signed the papers and my solicitors have settled the whole matter of maintenance and payments with them to our mutual satisfactions. My furniture and other effects will be sent to Monbussy and the care of those tending my estate on the Marne. I will have my usual chests of earth with me, and have made arrangements to receive shipments of more every year or so, with provision for them to be delivered to ports of call to be determined at a later time. I have been warned that these cannot be reliably delivered west of the Mississippi, so I have arranged to have a second shipment made, in case one is not received. . . .
I leave from Plymouth aboard the French four-masted bark
Duc d’Orleans
bound for Baltimore in the State of Maryland on the 18th of next month, less than three weeks from now, so I have much to arrange in the little time remaining here in London. There are funds to be transferred and certain expenses to be met in my absence, all this before I leave for the United States.
I have already warned Captain des Ciennes that I do not travel well over water and that I will remain in my cabin for most of the voyage. I have given him to understand that I am going to join my brother in America, to make my traveling alone less suspect than it might be otherwise, and he has been very well-paid to keep his doubts to himself. It would not do to have him inquire too closely about my life here, for he might find my longevity disquieting. I doubt he will do so, for he behaves as if he thinks my protestation of seasickness a polite mendacity to protect myself from unwanted attention: women going so far alone are often the targets of intrusive flirtations or greater affronts. Not that I am unable to take care of myself in such circumstances. . . .
On the road to Plymouth, 8 August, 1847
. . . My preparations are made. Saint-Germain has been informed of where I will be, and how I may be reached, if that is necessary. My funds have been established in a letter of credit from my London bank in the amount of £100,000 that will serve me throughout the United States, or so I am reliably informed. I have purchased such maps as may be had of the known territories of North America. I am beginning to think it would be sensible to go all the way to the Pacific, to see what has become of the Indians there, where the Spanish have ruled for so long. Since I am going to be on that continent in any case, and I am free to set my own agenda, I must make the most of my opportunities, which may never come again. . . .
I wish I enjoyed sailing.