Becomings Read online

  “I don’t care.”

  He smiled at that. “Are you hiding from someone?”

  “Anyone who was looking for me is already dead,” she said, a trace of bitterness betraying itself in her voice.

  “We’ll start with some basic information.” He began asking questions, writing down the answers in a quick scribble. He didn’t offer her a seat, nor was there another chair in the room.

  She answered most of his general questions, demurring on a few. She found herself staring at the blank wall at one side, the rich color of the paneling concealing the reality behind its thin veneer. When he asked for an occupation, she felt her poise slip for a brief moment, and wondered if he had noticed.

  “Occupation?” he repeated, looking up from his pad.

  She looked down at her hands, at the slender fingers whose purpose had been transformed as much as the rest of her life.

  “I don’t have one anymore,” she said quietly.

  He shrugged and continued with his questions. When he was finished, she passed over a good portion of her money. He flipped through it in a cursory fashion, and told her to return in a week.

  She left and began making her way back the way she had come. A light snow had begun while she had been inside, covering the ground with a blanket of white, its surface already marred by tracks from foot and street traffic. She barely felt the tickle of the snowflakes on her skin, as she tried to consider where she would go from here.

  As she walked, she heard another set of footsteps join hers, their soft sound mirroring her own, briefly syncopating now and then as they reduced the distance behind her. She stared down at the ground for a moment, her face set. Then she turned the corner, and stopped.

  She grabbed him as he rounded the bend and shoved him hard against the wall. She saw immediately he was another like herself.

  He recovered from his alarm and began to grasp for something. Her hand clamped over his wrist and yanked away the gun that was emerging from his pocket. She brought it up and pressed the barrel against his forehead as her thumb cocked back the hammer with practiced ease.

  He went still, eyes gone wide as he stared back at her.

  “Shall I grant you my mercy?” she said softly.

  “Please,” he whispered. “Don't . . .”

  “Tell the others I won't be staying. And that I want to be left alone.” She eased back the pressure against his forehead and began backing away, her aim never wavering. “Now get out of here.”

  He didn't move, but continued staring at her.

  “Go.” She gestured with the gun.

  He turned and launched into a stumbling run, looking back over his shoulder at her as he fled.

  She looked at the gun in her hand, the familiar weight and feel settling against her skin. Her lip twitched as she stared at it. Then she disassembled the weapon with quick, efficient tugs and flung the pieces at his fleeing form.

  Her face had gone very still. She clenched and unclenched her hands, staring down at them for a long while.

  She began walking again, her feet finding their route without any thought on her part as she kept her gaze downward. She found herself following a path now that had been ingrained deeply into her memory from childhood, when she had looked to her father’s old map of this city, searching for something that existed only in her dreams.

  After a long while, she finally drew to a stop. She raised her eyes once more. She was standing in front of Carnegie Hall.

  The red brick was cast in an even deeper hue by the streetlights and the shine of traffic that passed unnoticed behind her. She stretched her hand out to touch it, wondering at the way this solid form held so many memories within itself.

  She sat down on the pavement, her thoughts drawing inward, trying to discover something that might awaken within her once more. Her head lowered for a moment, as though bound by a great weight. She struggled to look up again, to look past these walls and see inside to the music they held within.

  Snow fell in light flakes around her as she stared, searching within and without. She didn't feel the snow as it clung briefly to her bare skin before melting away, leaving tracks like tears on her face. Her sorrow ran as deep as the earth, unknown and unacknowledged by any who saw her.

  * * * *

  IMOEN WRAPPED her arms tightly around Darya, holding her close, her cheek pressed against Darya’s. “Why did you never tell me this before, Darya?”

  “Because the past can never be undone.”

  “Did you ever share any of this with Seth?”

  “Some of it.” Darya stared down at her hands, and her eyes welled up. “My past came back to me, though. My choices have always killed the people I’ve loved.”

  “That isn’t true, Darya. You can’t let yourself believe that.”

  “What should I believe then?” She turned her face to Imoen, showing a rare openness and vulnerability.

  Imoen clasped her hands. “That everyone who loved you made their own choices. To be with you, to know you, and to love you.”

  Darya looked to the mantle where pictures were arranged, memories captured from another time.

  “We're going to get you a piano,” Imoen said with sudden conviction. “You're going to play again.”

  Darya turned and looked at her with a sad smile. “Who would I play for?”

  “Who did you play for when you began? Why did the music call to you?”

  Darya looked away again. “Because it could always say what I never was able to.”

  Imoen leaned forward and hugged her again, holding on until she felt Darya begin to respond. She whispered in Darya’s ear. “Then do it for yourself.”

  “I’m so tired of being alone.” Darya’s arms tightened around her, as she breathed deeply.

  “Neither of us are alone anymore, Darya. You will always and forever be my sister, and I’m so thankful for that.”

  Darya nodded, her chin pressed against Imoen’s shoulder. “I am, too,” she said softly.

  Katharine

  The first thing that struck Katharine each time she approached the camp was the smell, a fetid maze of odors layered across one another so thoroughly that they overpowered the senses. It was a sensation she could perceive long before she neared the camp when the wind was blowing from the right direction. And sometimes, even that didn't matter. The stench of six thousand men confined within such a small area existed like a living entity, something that was experienced, and barely endured. And like the men held within the confines of the wooden palisades, there was really no escape from it.

  She got off the trolley, stepping aside while the horses pulling it trudged away in a weary and resigned manner, accustomed to stops whose only meaning for them was a respite from an endless repetition of the same tired scenery. She spared a glance at the observation tower that loomed outside the camp, where fellow citizens took turns staring at the prisoners enclosed behind the walls and paid a token fee for this privilege. She shook her head and lifted her skirts as she trudged across the muddy tracks, aware that a few of the onlookers had turned to watch her passage.

  She approached the camp, took a deep breath, and was passed through by the guards. A wave of noise assaulted her hearing as the stockade doors opened for her. She paused just inside, taking in the disheartening sight, dimly aware of the doors closing behind her.

  Guards barracks lined all four sides of the square, serving to contain the mass of men who moved about within its confines. A Union flag hunt dispiritedly from the tall flagpole, its fading colors barely rippling in a listless wind.

  Prisoners dressed in nondescript grey uniforms and mismatched civilian clothing mingled with the blue-coated guards in Garrison Square, congregating in small knots whose conversations served only to blend into a single and indistinguishable modulating rhythm. A line of prisoners waited in turn at one of the hydrants, jostling one another forward as the next took his place, shoes in one hand and feet sunk to the ankles in the muddy quagmire.

  A few
guards were gathered in a loose semi-circle around a prisoner sitting in the dirt with a battered fiddle, who ignored both jeers and half-hearted sounds of encouragement as he drew the bow back and forth across the instrument. Nearby was another group whose ragged dress and unkempt hair and beards belied the seriousness they were investing in a game of cards where the stakes appeared to be a random assortment of buttons.

  She noted the pervasive notes of hacking coughs throughout the assemblage, automatically comparing it to her last visit the day before. October had arrived, but the true test of a Chicago winter still awaited these men. Most had neither experienced anything similar in the span of their lives, nor were they suitably clothed for it. She wondered whether the new commander, Colonel De Land, would provision blankets and warmer clothing in anticipation of what lay only weeks away.

  She watched one young prisoner, still in his early teens, run past a group of disinterested guards, his bare feet kicking up clods of sodden ground as he waved for the attention of someone among a gang of prisoners working on the stockade fence. Further down, a line of shovels descended and rose in unison from a ditch where new sewers would be installed in the near future.

  The whole tableau evoked a sense of chaos held in check only by men’s spirits suspended somewhere between hope and the weight of the reality of their situation, and not yet jaded enough to have fully fallen into despair.

  She began to walk with measured steps to her left, toward South Square and its collection of buildings whose barely serviceable condition could hardly be matched to the relative newness of their existence. Like much of the camp, these structures had only come into being two years before. Other parts of the camp were newer still, having been built or repaired in the past year after a fire had destroyed a good portion of barracks and fence.

  She kept her focus on the squat hospital building, aware of the encroaching reek of accumulated bodily wastes and stagnant water mingled with a teeming mass of unwashed bodies. Just past her line of sight lay White Oak Square, where over six thousand prisoners were now housed, and whose open latrines were long past the point of adequately providing the function for which they had originally been intended.

  A ragged line of prisoners were assembled nearby, taking instruction from a Union sergeant whose bored expression spoke of too many repetitions of this particular duty. She supposed these prisoners were new arrivals. While their uniforms were the usual patched together assortment of homespun and official issue, they hadn’t yet achieved the bedraggled state of clothing worn by those who had already spent months in this camp.

  One of the prisoners, heavily bearded and surly-looking beneath a slouch hat, glanced her way and nudged his neighboring companion. He cast a sidelong look to see whether the guard was watching, but the sergeant was occupied at the far end of the group, the negative shake of his head not deterring whatever questions were being directed toward him.

  Satisfied, the prisoner put fingers to his lips and released a loud catcall at Katharine. His partner slapped him on the back as both smirked.

  “Watch your mouth.” This came from a tall and rangy prisoner whose relaxed bearing hinted more at a façade that could readily transform into action when called upon. A dirty bandage was wrapped around the right side of his upper chest and a second one was wound about his waist.

  The bearded prisoner scowled. “Just funnin’. Don’t get worked up.”

  “You treat a lady with respect,” the rangy man said quietly, his eyes steady on the other.

  The bearded prisoner spat on the ground. “That ain’t no lady. She’s—”

  The wounded prisoner’s left fist shot forward, a powerful throw of his arm that carried past the point where it connected with the bearded prisoner’s jaw. As the bearded man dropped, the fist arced in a wide haymaker into the surprised face of the bearded man’s companion.

  Katharine stopped, watching the sergeant hurry down the line, already shouting commands to stop before any melee could erupt. A number of other guards were running up. The prisoners shuffled their feet warily, keeping their heads down while casting glances from the corners of their eyes.

  The bearded man’s companion lay in a stunned sprawl on the ground. He looked up at the wounded prisoner who had knocked him down.

  “What’d you hit me for?”

  The wounded prisoner aimed a finger at the bearded man, who was on his hands and knees and giving a groggy shake of his head. “You’re with him, ain’t you?”

  Two guards arrived and grabbed him roughly by the arms, yanking him away from the two downed prisoners. He was thrown to the ground, landing hard on his wounded right side. His face tightened into a grimace and his teeth clenched against a gasp as he rolled halfway over.

  The sergeant gestured to the two guards. “Pick him up.”

  Katharine spoke up. “That one is wounded, Sergeant.”

  The sergeant glanced at her. “That one’s going to White Oak Dungeon.”

  “Not in that shape.” She spoke with a calm air of authority that invited little room for dissent. Yet she accompanied her words with a question as she saw the sergeant hesitate. “What do your orders say about him, Sergeant?”

  Recognizing the out, the sergeant withdrew a smudged piece of paper from his chest pocket. His lips moved as he peered closely at it, his eyes roving slowly down the list. He looked at the wounded prisoner, noting the bandages where bright red patches were spreading now inside larger dried circles the color of rust.

  Satisfied, the sergeant ignored Katharine and nodded to the two guards. “Take him to the hospital.”

  The guards leaned down to grasp the wounded prisoner’s arms. He shrugged them off and struggled to his feet, favoring his right side as he pushed himself up with his other arm.

  “I can walk,” he said.

  The guards fell in on either side of him. Katharine stepped past them to walk ahead. She spared a glance at the wounded prisoner.

  “Welcome to Camp Douglas,” she said.

  He managed a grin as he hobbled along, prodded to walk faster by the two guards.

  “You’re in luck,” Katharine continued. “We have a bed for you in the chapel.”

  The prisoner coughed before replying. “Am I getting Last Rites?”

  “We’re out of room in the hospital. We have to put the lesser cases in the barracks.”

  They were at the chapel now. Katharine smiled and nodded to the two guards. “I don’t think he’ll be any more trouble from here. Thank you for the escort.”

  She opened the door and ushered the prisoner inside. The interior of the chapel was lined with cots arranged closely side by side, allowing little room to maneuver between them. Most of them were occupied. Katharine motioned to the far side of the chapel.

  “Where did they get you?” she asked as they made their way slowly to one of the few empty cots.

  He pointed to the bandages.

  “I can see that. I’m asking where you were captured.”

  “Chickamauga,” he said. “Tennessee.”

  “That’s where you’re from?” She motioned for him to sit.

  He settled carefully onto the cot, still favoring his right side and bracing himself with his left arm. “No, I’m from Texas. Born and bred.”

  “Welcome to Chicago, then.” She began untying the bandage around his chest. She leaned forward to sniff for any sign of gangrene. Satisfied, she continued unwinding the long strip.

  “I’ve been here before.”

  “You’re an escapee we recaptured?” She peeled back the sodden pad covering his wound, feeling him flinch as part of a scab came with it.

  “Nah.” He laughed and glanced around. “Although, this place doesn’t look that hard to get away from. What I meant was I came to Chicago before the war. I did a couple cattle drives here.”

  “That must have been interesting.” She glanced up from what she was doing, noticing he was staring at her now. He had crystal blue eyes set into a face whose worn appearance made his a
ge hard to determine, although she suspected he was younger than he appeared. “Do you have a name?”

  “Jacob.” His blue eyes twinkled. “You can call me Jake.”

  “I’ll call you Jacob.” She began to work at the bandage around his side, her brow wrinkling into a frown as she tried to work a knot that was now heavily crusted with mud from where he had fallen.

  He smiled. “Suit yourself. What do you go by?”

  “Katharine.” She placed a hand against his chest. “Lie back.”

  He complied, easing his legs onto the cot.

  Katharine retrieved a pair of scissors and began to cut away the bandage. “Since you’re familiar with Chicago, you may wish to write your family and ask them to send clothing and blankets.” She spoke very matter-of-factly as she worked. “Winter will be here very soon, and prisoners are making do with what they receive in packages, along with whatever they’re wearing.” She gestured to his clothing. “Which in your case isn’t going to be enough.”

  “I guess I’m out of luck, then,” he said. “All my family is gone.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” She returned the scissors to a pouch in her apron and peeled away the bandage carefully. She turned her attention now to both wounds, one in his side just above his hip bone and the other in the fleshy part above his collarbone. “Can you turn onto your side?”

  He rolled gingerly over. “They’re through and through,” he said. “Missed the bone.”

  She examined his side, peeling back the edge of a sodden mass that covered a long and uneven deep gash. “What did you pack this with?”

  “Moss and spiderwebs. Stops the bleeding pretty well.” He rummaged inside his shirt pocket and retrieved a large handful of dried green lichen. “I’d just as soon re-pack it with the same.”

  “It appears to have been healing fairly well, either with that or despite it.” She considered for a moment, then held out her hand, accepting it from him. She removed the packing in the wound, replacing it carefully with the new moss. “Can you sit up?”

  When he complied, she unrolled a fresh bandage and began winding it tightly around his side. “The scabs will probably re-form soon enough.” She looked at him. “Provided you don’t go hitting any more people.”