Stephanie Grace Whitson - [Quilt Chronicles] (4 page)

Mamie prayed for a long while, naming each one of the women in her care as she talked their problems—and her problems with them—over with the Lord. She’d learned that, if she prayed often enough for each one by name, the Lord eventually granted her grace to love them all. Even Agnes Sweeney who, until Pearl’s arrival, seemed to be the blackest of the black sheep. Agnes was beginning to come around. Pearl—well, she was another matter entirely.

As the eastern sky began to show tinges of pink, Mamie rose to dress, continuing her conversation with the Lord even as she donned unmentionables and a simple gray skirt and waist, even as she bent to button her sturdy, black ankle-high boots.

As she closed her apartment door and locked it behind her, a thought came to mind, almost as if the Lord was talking.
It IS a flock, Mamie. It just isn’t the flock you expected Me to give you.
That, Mamie thought as she descended to the second floor, was the understatement of a lifetime.

Years ago she’d ended several restless nights of internal struggle and walked the straw-strewn aisle of the revival tent one Reverend Joseph Weaver had pitched near Salt Creek. She’d stood in front of a hundred of God’s saints and told them she was finished wrestling with God. “I am a sinner, but I am putting myself in God’s hands and trusting Him to forgive me. I am asking Him to be my Lord.” Mamie had hiccuped—something she always did when feeling emotional—and then looked at the Reverend Weaver as she concluded, “The fields are white unto harvest, and I will go wherever He sends me.”

The next day, Mamie followed Reverend Weaver and five other born-again sheep into the saline waters of the meandering creek. Emerging from the baptismal waters, she shivered with joy and not a little fear about to which fields God might send her. Part of her hoped Reverend Weaver would see fit to propose so that she could labor in the fields to which the Lord sent
him.
But if he did not, there were fields all over the world where a saint could work out her salvation with fear and trembling, as the Good Book said to do.

Two young women from Lincoln had gone north to work among the Dakota Sioux in recent years, while a third sailed for the Sandwich Islands—wherever they were. But nothing quite so glamorous as laying down one’s life in exotic places seemed to be in God’s plan for Mamie Dawson. Nor, for that matter, did marriage. At least not yet. Mamie still hoped the Lord was working on that one.

Motion on the other side of turnkey pulled her out of her memories and back to the day at hand… and a suppressed sigh of regret. Why did it always have to be Martin Underhill waiting to escort her upstairs? She’d protested this practice from the day the new warden had enacted it. She didn’t need a male guard looking over her shoulder every time she unlocked the ward in the morning. She had things well in hand.

“I know you do, Miss Dawson,” Warden McKenna had said with a smile. “Please don’t take this as anything more than what it is—a desire to keep you and the ladies in your care as safe as possible.”
Ladies.
He’d called the women inmates
ladies.

As the guard at turnkey admitted Mamie to the secure side, Mr. Underhill began to babble about his horse. Again. “Lovely spring morning,” he said, as they headed upstairs. “I could hardly keep Bessie in hand on my trip out from town. She pranced about like a half-broke filly.”

By the time they reached the top of the stairs, Mr. Underhill had stopped talking about his horse and progressed to his other favorite subject. The weather. As they bypassed the empty set of rooms constructed for Negro women, a childish thrill rippled up Mamie’s spine as she saw who’d been on post outside the female department overnight. “It’s good to see you, Mr. Selleck,” she called out. “It’s been so long since you had the post up here, I’d begun to wonder if something was wrong.”

“Just taking a little holiday to Omaha,” Selleck said with a smile that almost made Mamie start to hiccup.

She knew it was ridiculous, but she couldn’t help it. The man made her feel like a schoolgirl with a crush. He probably knew it, but he seemed to enjoy bantering with her—even though she didn’t think she was very good at it. He always had a new joke to tell, and he noticed things about her that no one else did; if she changed the part in her hair, or if she added a bit of lace to her ensemble.

Mr. Underhill didn’t give her a chance to say a word. “Tom’s courting in Omaha,” he sputtered. “And a right fine lady she is, too. President of the Women’s Missionary Society and sings in the choir at the Baptist church.”

Selleck chuckled even as his pale eyes sought hers. “Well, Martin, I don’t know as I’d call it
courting.
” He changed the subject, nodding toward the dormitory. “No trouble in the henhouse last night.”

Mamie thanked him and wished him well with his friend in Omaha. She hoped she sounded sincere, but she couldn’t help the twinge of regret accompanying the man’s departure.
Such a handsome man.
So much so that she felt downright intimidated in his presence sometimes—in a thrilling way.

The bell rang, signaling the arrival of breakfast. Mamie started, then reached for the key to the dumbwaiter. Mr. Underhill retrieved the rolling cart they served from, even as he groused about Adam Selleck’s lack of respect for the women. There was no love lost between Martin Underhill and Adam Selleck, but Mamie wasn’t inclined to step into that situation, and so she asked Mr. Underhill to retrieve breakfast while she roused the women.

Martin shook his head. “You’re supposed to have a guard with you.”

“And I do,” Mamie snapped. “You’ll only be three steps behind me. Mr. Selleck said things were fine. Please, Mr. Underhill. Just unload the dumbwaiter for me. I’ll leave the outer door open. You can close it when you come in with breakfast.” She bustled off without waiting for his answer. Unlocking the first door, she made her way through the combination parlor/workroom, past the bathroom, and toward the second locked door in the apartment that led into the dormitory where the women slept. Calling out a greeting to the ladies, she unlocked the second door and stepped inside.

And that was when she noticed the body on the floor.

M
amie let out a shout that roused the women from their cots, even as she crouched beside Vestal Jackson’s still form. Mr. Underhill appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. Having abandoned the breakfast cart, he placed himself between her and the rest of the women. Mamie sent a fleeting prayer of thanks heavenward, even as she told him there was no need for the truncheon he’d pulled from his belt. The second she felt Vestal’s blood pulsing through the veins at her wrist, she stood back up. She was about to send Mr. Underhill to rouse the prison doctor when Vestal groaned. Scanning the room, Mamie waved Jane Prescott over.

As Prescott knelt down, Vestal clutched her hand, begging and gasping, “My baby. Don’t let them take my baby, Jane.”

Prescott said nothing, only settled beside her and murmured meaningless comfort while gently stroking Vestal’s hair back out of her face.

No one’s taking your baby.
Mamie longed to say those very words. Instead, she told Vestal to hush, that Mr. Underhill would go for the doctor. New terror washed over Vestal’s thin face.

“What about Dr. Mason from town?” Mr. Underhill murmured.

Mamie glanced his way.
What an odd thing to say.
Odd, only because it came from him. It was no surprise Vestal didn’t want the resident physician. No one would. The man was notoriously fond of strong drink, and Mamie had intended to bring the matter up with the new warden soon. But for Mr. Underhill to be so… perceptive… was—

“Bessie would love the run,” he said. “We could have him here within the hour.” He took a step toward the door.

The terror on Vestal’s face eased. “Dr… Mason?” Her hopeful tone dissolved into a groan as a reddish stain seeped into her prison gown.

Lord, no. Vestal may not be a good girl, but You’ll recall defending one about to be stoned to death… and this child she’s carrying deserves a chance. Don’t You think so? Show me what to do, Lord. Help!

“Let me in there.” Agnes Sweeney lumbered to Vestal’s side. With a grunt, she knelt down beside Jane Prescott and, with absolutely no apology and no ceremony, leaned down and positioned one ear on Vestal’s rounded belly, frowning slightly as she listened.

“Have you had experience as a midwife, Mrs. Sweeney?” Mamie asked.

Agnes only shrugged as she lifted the edge of Vestal’s nightgown, looking for the source of the blood. Grunting again, she reached for Jane Prescott’s free hand. “She’s been stabbed in the leg.” She positioned Jane’s hand over the growing red stain and ordered her to press down, then glanced up at Mamie. “Needs stitching, but it’ll keep.” She nodded toward Mr. Underhill. “If he hurries.”

Mamie glanced at Mr. Underhill. Was that compassion on the poor man’s misshapen face? It was hard to tell. More than once, Mamie had seen a child duck behind a mother’s skirts at the sight of Martin Underhill’s too-large nose and too-wide forehead, his weak chin and the bulging eyes that looked off in different directions. Minnie said he shuffled along the city streets, looking no higher than the belts of passersby. Yet, for all his physical anomalies, Mamie knew that Mr. Underhill had gifts. He was a fast runner, and he prided himself in owning a fine—and fast—horse.

“Say the word, and Bessie and I will be halfway to town before the prison doc even wakes up.”

“Go, then,” Mamie said and moved to unlock the door even as she spoke to the women. “I’ll be right back.” She and Mr. Underhill hurried past the abandoned breakfast cart and across the parlor. She let him out.

“It’ll be all right, Mamie. You’ll see.”

It had better be.
Even though Dr. Mason had kindly offered to attend Vestal’s confinement, no one expected an emergency, and Mamie hadn’t had time to get Warden McKenna’s approval. If the warden’s seeming kindness didn’t extend into his view of the female department budget, she might be risking her job to call a doctor from town. Ah, well, she’d worry over that another time.

Her heart pounding, Mamie headed back into the dormitory. What she saw there brought her up short. She wished the people who wrote newspaper articles assigning labels like “villainess” and “deranged” to incarcerated women could see this. The “depraved shadows” in Mamie’s care had lifted Vestal onto a cot. Jane Prescott stood at her side while Agnes Sweeney dipped a cloth into a basin of water on the small table at the head of the cot, wrung it out, and laid it across Vestal’s forehead. Susan Horst tucked a pillow beneath Vestal’s knees, and when Vestal grimaced and announced another birth pang, the three women murmured encouragement.

Mamie gazed around the dormitory, feeling a renewed sense of care for her wandering lambs. But then—she frowned. Told herself she’d miscounted. Counted again. And tried to suppress a shiver.

Pearl Brand was missing.

The alarm bell.

Ellen McKenna jumped to her feet, leaving her trowel stuck in the freshly turned earth of her backyard garden. Mama’s okra seeds would have to wait. With the back of one gloved hand, she lifted the wide brim of her sunbonnet away from her face and peered toward the limestone building across the road. Her gaze ran along the top of the cellblock toward the guard tower. Expecting someone to be aiming a rifle down into the yard to stop something horrible, she was surprised to see that, whoever the guard was, he wasn’t aiming anything. In fact, he was waving at someone down below.

Frowning, Ellen hurried down the freshly turned furrow toward the house. Thank God Jack was already on his way to school in town. Whatever was going on inside those walls, he was safe. Her heart pounding, she scurried up the back stairs and inside, pulling her garden gloves off as she went. Dropping them to the floor, she untied her bonnet and hung it on the hook just inside the back door before heading toward the parlor where Georgia was descending the front stairs.

“The bell,” Ellen said, her voice trembling. “Do you think someone’s escaped?”

Georgia went into the parlor and drew the drapes open, peering out the window. She shook her head. “No’m. They’d be out on the walkway with their guns. And Mr. McKenna would have sent guards our way.” She didn’t seem any more worried by that alarm bell than she would be if something boiled over on the kitchen stove.

Ellen joined her. What could be the problem? She glanced at Georgia’s regal profile. “I’m glad you’re here. It makes me feel safer.”

Georgia kept her eyes on the building across the road even as she smiled her thanks. In a moment, she glanced Ellen’s way. “Would you like me to go over there and see what’s caused the alarm?”

Ellen thought back to Ian’s explaining his feelings about this new job. “People are made in the image of God, and I refuse to believe that any human being deserves to be thrown away. But don’t mistake all of that for softness. I’m sworn to protect, and I’ll do whatever it takes to fulfill that part of the job.”

Thinking back on Ian’s promise, Ellen relaxed a little. Whatever had precipitated the alarm, it couldn’t be anything horrible or there would be a lot more going on up there along the wall and in the guard towers. Ian would have sent someone over to the house. Still…