Beloved Enemy Read online

  Payton ground his teeth behind a thin, plastered smile. He itched to know who had given the doctor this information, but he realized that his uncle would never tell. It did not matter. Julia had made the mistake of fleeing to the city that Payton knew like the back of his hand. Even if she had gone to ground in Richmond, he would find her. Once he had her in hand, he would marry her within twenty-four hours, bound and gagged if necessary. Afterward, it would be a pleasure to make her pay for his humiliation.

  To his uncle, he said, “Very well, Doctor, thank you for your hospitality. I will return south in the morning. I have ignored my affairs long enough.”

  A week from now, he would have Julia under his control. A month from now, he would possess her inheritance and would finally be able to pay off his debts!

  Major Scott Claypole folded the secret dispatches that had flowed into Lawrence’s office from the various Union commands in the western states—Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and the Army of the Potomac. Also on his desk lay other secret reports from Pinkerton’s agents who worked undercover throughout the Confederacy. Taken altogether, the continuance of the war looked particularly gloomy for the South. The Confederacy’s scanty food supplies had been commandeered for the Rebel army by the executive order of President Jefferson Davis. This unpopular move only heightened the dissatisfaction among the civilian population. The desire for peace simmered underground throughout the embattled Confederacy. In addition, Davis planned to conscript seventeen-year-olds to fill the ranks depleted by battle, sickness and desertion. Dixie’s land was literally bleeding dry.

  Clearly, the Southerners were willing to consider a truce and get on with the business of living—before there would be nothing left to live for. The Union blockade had the Confederacy in a slow stranglehold. The South’s fortunes were slipping away as bales of cotton destined for the European market rotted on the wharves. The North could win this war by attrition alone. It would be simply a matter of time before the Rebels sued for peace.

  Sitting back in his office chair, Claypole steepled his fingers while he pondered his options. The time had come for him to disengage himself from his Confederate interests as soon as possible. The profits he had made from the black market sales of the U.S. Sanitary Commission’s supplies for Union prisoners had come to an end. Like a good poker player, Scott knew when it was time to fold his cards and pocket his winnings. For him, the lucrative game was over.

  He consulted his desk calendar. Today was Thursday. Tomorrow, he would take a long weekend furlough, then speed south to Richmond in his guise as a Confederate Brigadier General. He could wrap up his affairs on Sunday, when most of the law-abiding population would be on their knees praying in the city’s many churches.

  Claypole chuckled to himself as he tied up the reports with red tape. He, too, would be on his knees during his visit to the Southern capital, but it would hardly be in a church. Richmond justifiably enjoyed the reputation of being the “wickedest city in the world.” The bordellos reputedly housed more prostitutes than New Orleans and Paris combined. He licked his lips. Since this would be his last time in Richmond until after the war, he would pay farewell visits to all his favorite sporting ladies, especially the ones who inhabited the plush cribs in Locust Alley, a few blocks west of Libby Prison.

  Three weeks inside Libby’s walls seemed like a lifetime to Rob. How did the veteran inmates stand it? The prisoners fell roughly into three categories: the seriously ill who were housed in two infirmaries on the first floor; the shufflers, by far the majority, whom hunger, cold and a variety of lesser ailments had turned into scarecrows; and the firebrands who often found themselves in solitary confinement in one of the basement’s rat-infested cells. As the days rolled by, Rob gave his particular attention to the third group, most of whom lived in the Chickamauga Suite.

  Sleeping through part of the day, Rob spent the nighttime hours observing the comings and goings of his fellow prisoners. A remarkable amount of activity took place once the candles were extinguished at seven o’clock. The twin scourges of diarrhea and dysentery forced some of the men to make a continual parade to the slop buckets. Many others couldn’t sleep because of the cold winds blowing through the open windows or the lice bites. A secretive few had undisclosed missions in other parts of the old warehouse.

  Every evening shortly after the sentry outside called “Eight o’clock and all’s well,” five men from the Suite disappeared down the stairs to the prisoners’ kitchen on the floor below. Yet, Rob could not hear any noise through the floorboards until just after the sentry’s call at four in the morning. Then the same five returned to the second floor looking exhausted and smelling strongly of the fetid canal that ran between the prison and the river.

  The following night, five different men slipped downstairs after eight and returned at four, again looking haggard. The third night, a different squad of five repeated the same mysterious exit. This time Rob ventured down to the kitchen after them, only to find the room completely empty. Intrigued, he returned upstairs to his bit of floor where he huddled under his thin blanket and mulled over the implications.

  On the fourth night, the first group of five again went down the stairs. This time Rob’s night vision was good enough to recognize his card-playing friend, Stu Cramer, as one of them. Their leader was A. G. Hamilton.

  These must be the men planning to escape that Lawrence told him to find. They’re tunneling, for sure. But where do they intend to come out?

  After they had been gone for an hour, Rob rose and tiptoed around the bodies of the sleeping men. Braving the icy wind, Rob looked out onto Cary Street that ran past Libby’s main entrance. By day, Richmond’s prostitutes paraded on the sidewalk across from the prison in their efforts to demoralize the men inside, but at night, the street was quiet.

  The moon gave Rob enough light to determine possible escape routes. Just below the window, several sentries marched back and forth, passing each other every few minutes. Across Cary Street and behind the harlots’ sidewalk, a wide vacant lot ran the length of the long city block. Every stick and bit of trash on it cast black shadows against the pale white of the frosted ground. An animal, either a cat or rat, scurried across the open area. Even from the distance of his window, Rob could see it clearly. Any tunnel on this side would have to extend over two hundred feet before it could reach the safety of buildings a block away.

  Rob slipped into the far room that faced west, overlooking Twentieth Street. More sentinels below the prison and another vacant lot facing Libby. A half dozen tents were pitched on the waste ground. This was home for the prison guards. Rob worked his way back to his room and looked out to see the James River flowing silently past the sleeping city. Between the sentry-guarded warehouse and the river was the half-frozen canal. River’s too deep, he concluded, and the ground too wet. The tunnelers would have to dig too far down before going across under the water. The possibility of cave-ins and drowning were too high. That left only the east side of the building.

  Once again, there was a vacant lot next to Libby’s wall but—Rob craned his neck to see better. Two small office buildings with an enclosed yard between them lay on the far side of the lot. Only fifty or sixty feet separated the prison from the—

  “What are you doing, friend?” asked a low voice in his ear. A heavy hand fell on Rob’s shoulder.

  Rob tensed, but his training kept him from calling out his surprise. Studying Libby’s surroundings, he had failed to hear the man come up behind him. “Taking the night air,” he replied softly.

  “You must need a lot of it,” the other observed, not letting go of Rob. “You’ve been sniffing in all directions.”

  Though Rob could not see his face, he suspected his interrogator was one of the fifteen men he had watched over the past week. He decided to chance revealing his identity. He prayed that Lawrence’s underground network had succeeded in smuggling his recognition password and countersign into the prison.

  “I miss seeing th
e dancing girls at the Canterbury,” he said slowly, naming one of Washington’s more bawdy music halls.

  The other man chuckled in the back of his throat. “And I miss eating oysters at Harvey’s saloon,” he responded, giving the correct answer. “I surely do, and that’s the truth.” He released Rob’s shoulder.

  Rob turned slowly to face the other. The man was shorter and slimmer than he, with bright eyes above a full dark beard.

  “Colonel Thomas Rose, at your service, sir,” he whispered, “Commander of the 77th Pennsylvania, captured at Chickamauga.”

  “Major Robert Montgomery, Rhinebeck Legion, New York.”

  “And wounded at Little Roundtop,” Rose added. “Rumors of your exploits have preceded you, Major.”

  “I see that you have excellent intelligence here,” Rob answered, secretly flattered by the tone of respect in Rose’s voice.

  Rose put his finger to his lips. “Rumor, Major, we get only rumors in here, like knowing about the oysters at Harvey’s.”

  Rob looked around at the hundreds of sleeping prisoners that packed the room, and nodded. Any one of them could be a spy for the Confederates, planted among the Federal officers for the express purpose of ferreting out escape operations.

  “Go back to bed, Major,” Rose whispered. “We’ll speak in the morning over a game of poker. I understand you’re very good. It’s a fortunate thing Stu Cramer only plays for chicken bones, or he would have lost his shirt to you by now.”

  Rob grinned in the dark. Here he thought he was the one getting information out of Stu!

  The following evening, six men went down to the first-floor kitchen, where Tom Rose gave Rob a tour of their work-in-progress. Once in the kitchen, the men loosened the fire bricks behind one of the cast-iron stoves that used the flue of the warehouse’s original open fireplace. A man-sized hole gaped behind the wall, though where it went, Rob could not see.

  “It’s a leap of faith,” Tom assured him, “though not as dire as you might think.”

  One of the other men produced a small ladder made of rope and wooden rungs. Rose fastened the top of the ladder around the stove’s legs, then climbed down into the hole. A few minutes later Rob saw a small glimmer of light at the bottom. Joe Grimwold nudged him.

  “You’re next. It’s in the shape of a backward S. Keep your head low. You’ll come out inside the fireplace of the old kitchen in the basement. From there, it’s five rungs to the floor.” He arched one eyebrow. “Step down easy. There’s a lot of furry critters rustling around in the straw down there, and they don’t take too kindly to us.”

  Though Rob could not grasp the side of the ladder with his right hand, he linked his elbow around each step down in order to balance himself on the flimsy contraption. He marveled that Rose had been able to steal the materials to construct it. Despite Joe’s warning, he clipped the top of his head on the S bend. When he finally reached the stone floor, he found himself nearly knee-deep in moldering straw. Tom held up a small candle.

  “Welcome to Rat Hell, Major,” he grinned. “Gateway to Freedomland.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  A week after she had moved in to live with Lizzie in her palatial mansion on Grace Street, Julia still did not know her eccentric hostess very well. Elizabeth Van Lew, known as Miss Lizzie to her few friends and Crazy Bet to the majority of the citizens of Richmond, was the spinster daughter of an enterprising businessman who had made his fortune in hardware. Since her father’s death, Miss Lizzie and her mother were the only full-time residents of the house aside from a number of free black servants. Old Mrs. Van Lew kept to her bed most of the time since she suffered from a number of chronic ailments. However, the household was far from quiet.

  Lizzie maintained a voluminous correspondence and her servants were constantly running out the side door on Twenty-fourth Street with messages, letters and copies of the Richmond Enquirer. Visitors of the strangest sort presented themselves at the side door all hours of the day and night. A country girl who smoked a pipe came several times with a basket full of eggs. A delivery man, known only as Quaker, from the bakery on North Eighth Street, called almost daily, even though white bread rarely appeared on the Van Lew’s table.

  Twice since she moved in, Julia had been awakened at night by the heavy tread of a man’s feet going upstairs to the third floor. When she asked Lizzie who had arrived during the night, the old woman pretended that she misunderstood the question, and launched into a discussion of the proper feed for hens.

  Lizzie spent many of her waking hours in the city, usually dressed in the oddest assortment of clothes. When Julia accompanied her hostess, she noticed that once in public, Lizzie commenced to mumble nursery rhymes aloud, or sing off key, or make the most peculiar conversation with passersby.

  Once in a dry goods shop, a woman, dressed respectably in mauve taffeta, took Julia aside and whispered, “You look like a nice girl. What are you doing in company with Crazy Bet? Be careful, young lady. She’s a witch!”

  Once back at home, Julia related the matron’s warning to Lizzie.

  Her hostess laughed heartily. “My, my, my, what will they say of me next, I wonder?” Then she gave Julia a shrewd look. “Who do you think I am?”

  Taken aback by Lizzie’s directness, Julia said, “You are my kind benefactress. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  Lizzie waved aside the compliment. “Frivle-fravle, my dear, but you didn’t answer my question. Do you think I am as mad as the proverbial hatter?” She poured some tea into Julia’s cup.

  Julia realized that Lizzie would accept nothing but the plain truth, though she might take offense, and toss Julia back into Richmond’s crowded streets. She decided to risk it. “I think that you play-act very well, ma’am. At home, you are the most levelheaded person I have ever met, while outside your door, you assume the character of Crazy Bet. I can almost imagine that you enjoy being called a witch.”

  Lizzie’s smile grew wider. “You are as sharp as I first thought when I saw you in the guard room.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Tell me, my dear, when do you plan to marry that young man of yours?”

  Julia nearly spilled her tea onto the carpet. She slowly replaced her cup on the side table while she allowed her heartbeat to return to normal. “Rob Montgomery is a dear friend, I admit. But I have no intention of marrying him. For all I know, he may be engaged to a girl in New York.”

  “Fiddlesticks!” Lizzie snorted. “I can tell the real story by the way you two looked at each other.”

  Julia lowered her head. Rob had been very cool at their meeting. How could Lizzie possibly see a spark of love in a man who hesitated to even touch Julia? She stroked the back of her hand where his lips had sizzled her skin. No, that wasn’t a sign of his love, she told herself. He was merely being gallant, in thanks for the food she had brought him. She refused to examine her own feelings for the Yankee major.

  “We have never discussed anything more personal than our childhood pranks,” she replied. “We are friends, nothing more.”

  Lizzie shook her head. “Time’s a-wastin’, child! There’s a war going on, if you haven’t noticed.”

  “But I have,” Julia blurted out. “I must confess that Richmond took me by surprise. In Alexandria, we thought all was going well down here, but when I walk about the city, I am alarmed daily by the sights I see, like that woman who was begging for bread with tears running down her cheeks. She was dressed like a lady, but she begged like a…” Julia bit her lower lip to stanch the pain of that encounter.

  Lizzie lifted her eyebrow. “Like a gypsy? Yes, I agree. War is not as glorious or noble as our politicians painted three years ago when they inflamed our young men. War isn’t flag-waving or “Dixie”-playing or handsome boys parading down the streets in shiny uniforms. As you have observed, Richmond is sagging at the corners now, but I venture to say that worse times will come before she falls.”

  Lizzie cocked her head like a small, inquisitive wren eyeing a t
asty bread crumb. “Which brings us back to you. Do you love this Robert Montgomery from New York?”

  Julia had the uncomfortable feeling that Lizzie could read her heart as easily as a book. “Yes, ma’am, I suppose that I do,” she murmured. Her cheeks burned at the admission. “But I’ve not said a word to him about it. I highly doubt that he feels the same way.”

  Lizzie chuckled. “Most men don’t know what they feel until you hit them over the head with a hammer.” She consulted a diamond watch pin that she wore on her bodice. “Nearly noontime. I expect he’s worked up an appetite by now. We’ll fix you up a basket of dainties to tempt the major. Wilson will accompany you down to Libby and back. I don’t want any of those loose women bothering you.” She rang a little bell to summon one of her serving men.

  Julia uttered a gasp of surprise, followed by excitement. “You want me to go right now?”

  “Of course!” Lizzie went over to her desk and scribbled a note in her flurried penmanship. “You have been champing at the bit to see your Rob again, and I expect he’s been wondering what happened to you.”

  “He must think I’ve gone back home.” Julia thought of Carolyn and the cozy room they had shared on Prince Street. “But I can’t return now.”

  Lizzie blotted her note. “Of course you can’t. Your reputation is ruined there. You know it, I know it, and I am sure it has dawned on your fine major that you have tossed everything to the winds for him.”

  She made Julia seem like some flibbertigibbet from a lighthearted novel. “I’ll get my hat,” Julia said aloud, going into the wide hallway where the marble-topped coat stand held her things. Her fingers shook as she tied the satin ribbons of her dark-green velvet bonnet.

  In the parlor, Lizzie instructed Wilson what to pack in the basket, then she came out into the hall just as Julia buttoned up her cloak. She showed her a sealed note addressed only to ER.

  “Give this to Mr. Ross,” she instructed, stuffing the note into Julia’s muff. Then she whispered, “His bark is considerably worse than his bite.”