A Lady's Choice (24 page)

Sarah felt a hand on her shoulder shaking her awake. Ruth Cochran's voice drifted into her sleep. “Sarah, it's time to go back to the infirmary.”

Sarah groaned and threw the blanket back. She pushed up on her elbows and tried to move her legs, but they wouldn't respond. “Can you help me up, Ruth?”

Ruth reached down and pulled her into a standing position. Sarah tried to take a step, but her knees wobbled and threatened to buckle under her weight. “I don't think I can walk alone.”

Ruth placed her arm around Sarah. “Lean on me. I'll help you.”

Sarah looked into Ruth's eyes. “It gets worse each time I go. I don't know how much more I can take.”

“You've held out for five days. Give it up. It's not worth what you're going through.”

“I can't give up. I promised my father.”

Uncontrollable coughs shook Sarah's body, and she turned to the toilet to spit out the phlegm that rose from her throat. Her skin burned like fire, but she shivered with cold.

Ruth felt of Sarah's brow. “I think you have a fever.”

“It's nothing. Let's go get this over.”

They stepped from the cell, and Sarah saw Laura Barnes being led back to her cell. Two guards supported her, and Laura smiled as they passed in the hallway.

After the ordeal, Ruth helped Sarah back to her bed. She covered her with the blanket and left the cell. She returned minutes later with another blanket. “I know you have a fever.”

Sarah felt like she watched a play being performed. She knew that Ruth and Henrietta were there, for she heard their voices. She knew what they said, but she could not respond.

Henrietta knelt beside Sarah and looked up at Ruth. “What do you think is the matter with her?”

“Forced feeding can cause pneumonia if the liquid gets in the lungs. The way she's fought it, I don't doubt that's what happened.”

“Pneumonia? Oh no. What will we do?”

“We'll watch until tomorrow and see what happens. Do you know if she has any family?”

Sarah reached for Ruth and grabbed her arm. “I want you to know about me in case I die.” She hesitated at the coughing that seized her. When it passed, she continued. “I have an uncle and aunt, Charlie and Clara Weston. They live in Richland Creek. Tell them I want to be buried by my mother.”

Henrietta dissolved into tears and threw herself facedown on her bunk. Ruth patted Sarah's arm. “Nobody's gonna die, Sarah. But I'm glad you told me.”

Sarah closed her eyes and succumbed to the swirling darkness pulling her downward.

Sarah sank back on the pillow and pressed her hands over her pounding head. Cramps gripped her stomach, and her body shivered with cold. Sounds of movement came from the other cells, and she knew another morning had arrived.

“Sarah, how are you feeling?” Henrietta's anxious face peered down at her.

“Horrible. I don't think I can get out of bed.”

Henrietta felt of her forehead. “You still have a fever. I'll tell the guards you need to go to the infirmary.”

“No.” Sarah reached up and grabbed Henrietta's hand. “I go to that place enough without having to be sick there. I want to stay here in my bed.”

The key turned in the lock, and one of the guards walked into the small cell. “You gonna get up today and eat, or are you waiting for the servants to bring it to you?”

Henrietta stepped in front of the woman, her fists clenched at her sides. “She's sick. Can't you leave her alone? You've all done quite enough to her without coming in here and taunting her more. She's staying in bed today.”

Sarah's eyes widened at the force with which Henrietta spoke. The guard glanced down at Sarah and back at the young woman blocking the bed. “Have it your way, but you'd better get yourself down the hall before all the food's gone.”

The woman turned and walked from the cell. Henrietta swallowed and turned toward Sarah. “I can't believe I stood up to her. Maybe you're a good influence on me.”

Sarah flashed a weak smile at her friend. “You be strong on your own. You're a kind, gentle girl, but you must stand up for yourself in this world.”

“Maybe I'm on my way to doing that. I have to go to breakfast now, but I'll check on you later.”

Sarah reached for Henrietta's arm. “What month is it? I can't seem to remember how much time has passed since we came here.”

“It's the second week in November. We have about ten days left of our sentence. We're going to make it.”

Henrietta stepped into the hallway, leaving Sarah alone with her thoughts. Ten days and her ordeal would be over. All she had to do was stay alive. Choking coughs shook her body, and her breath wheezed in her lungs. Ten days seemed like a lifetime.

“Are you ready?” The sinister voice chilled her blood, and she cringed at the sight of Matron Herndon. An ominous smile curled her lips, and her nostrils flared as she advanced toward her. She stopped beside the bed, threw the covers back, and jerked Sarah upright. “Let's go have something to eat.”

The morning feeding had been horrible, but the second one of the day proved even more of an ordeal. Sarah stumbled to the toilet and braced herself to keep from falling. Her body heaved and retched the thick liquid from the feeding. A sour smell floated up from the mixture floating in the bowl, and she wondered what they combined to make such a distasteful substance.

When she expelled the last bit, she doubled over in pain at the coughing spasms that attacked. She gasped for breath and tried to control the hacking that shook her body, but it only caused her to cough harder. Henrietta would return soon from supper, and she didn't want the girl to think her illness worse. She staggered to the bed and tumbled onto the cot just as the cell-block doors opened.

Henrietta rushed in and sat on the floor by Sarah's cot, her brows pulled across the top of her nose in a tiny frown. She looked over her shoulder and waited for the guard to lock the door before she spoke.

“Sarah, are you awake?”

“Yes.”

“I have some news, and I want to make sure you understand what I say. Can you hear me?”

Sarah tried to focus on Henrietta's face, but it kept floating before her eyes. “I can hear you. What is it?”

“At supper, one of the kitchen workers told us there was an attack on the women picketing at the White House today. Agnes Morey, you know the one from Boston, was assaulted by two soldiers, and they jabbed her broken banner pole between her eyes. Dora Lewis, that sweet little grandmother from Philadelphia, was mauled by three young boys.”

Sarah tried to prop up on her elbows. “Are they all right?”

“I don't know. They were arrested, and the rumor is that they'll arrive here tonight.”

“Sarah and Henrietta.” They jumped at the intrusion of the voice and turned to see Ruth standing outside the bars. “Watch yourselves tonight. I'm off duty, but some of the guards are upset over the day's events. Get in your bunks and stay there.”

Ruth cast a furtive glance down the hallway and moved toward the exit. Sarah lay back, her head a jumble of unanswered questions. Why would the guards be angry at them? She watched Henrietta slip into her bed and smiled at her. She closed her eyes and waited for morning.

She hadn't been asleep long when frenzied cries awakened her. Screams poured from the cells down the hallway, and the thud of crashing nightsticks echoed in the passage. Hurried footsteps approached their door, and a key turned in the lock.

Sarah tried to focus on the guard at the door, but she could only tell it was a man. His voice thundered again. “Get up, prisoners.”

Sarah shrank from the figures standing over her and scooted against the wall. Two men, their faces masked in rage, reached for her. She tried to slip from the men's grasps, but she had no strength. She felt herself being pulled from the bed.

Henrietta's scream bounced off the cell walls. “No! Leave her alone. She's sick.” Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah saw Henrietta spring from her bed and throw herself against the two attackers. One of them turned, picked up the girl, and hurled her against the wall. Henrietta's body crumpled at the impact, and her lifeless body toppled in a heap on the floor.

“No, no. Help her.” Sarah tried to wiggle free from her captors and get to her friend, but they tightened their grip.

Someone leaned close to her, and a menacing voice whispered in her ear. “You'd better worry about helping yourself. You've given us nothing but trouble since the day you came. It's about time you got what you deserve.”

The two men drug her, twisting and turning, toward the door. She summoned all the saliva she could in her dry mouth and spat the small ball at one of the guards.

He stopped and wiped his face with his free hand. He stared at the wetness between his fingers before he looked into her eyes. He stood there, a snarl curling his lower lip, before he raised his hand and slapped her with a force that rattled her teeth. He grabbed her hands and raised her arms above her head.

“Let's let her cool off some.”

Cold metal encircled her wrists, and Sarah felt her body being lifted. She heard a snap and felt the guards release her. Her full weight dropped toward the floor, and she hung suspended, her body pressed against the bars.

Sharp pains shot through her body at the pressure being exerted on her joints. She looked at her arms stretched above her head and the shackles that cut into her wrists. She stretched her legs downward in an effort to stand, but her feet dangled above the floor. Her toes barely brushed the surface.

She twisted and turned her head in an attempt to glimpse Henrietta, but she couldn't. “Henrietta, are you all right? Henrietta, wake up.”

No answer came from the still form, and Sarah sobbed in fear for her friend. Screams still echoed through the hallway. Sarah pressed her face into the bars and tried to see where the sounds came from.

Two guards at the end of the passage held a woman down, her back bent across an iron bench. The hand of one encircled her throat while he beat her face with his other. Another man held and twisted her wrists over her head.

Other uniformed officers raced in and out of the small cells, and cries of pain and fear rang out each time they entered a new area. Had they gone mad? Why were they doing this to the prisoners?

Sarah pulled at her shackles, but they wouldn't budge.

“Going somewhere?”

She jerked her head up and stared into the menacing eyes of a guard on the other side of the bars. “Why are you doing this? We've done nothing to deserve this.”

The man glanced over her form hanging from the bars and smirked. “I thought in your work you could stand anything. Sweet dreams.”

Without speaking again, the officers pushed the woman who had been beaten in the hall into her small room and banged shut all the doors they had entered. They walked from the cellblock and turned off all lights on the way out.

For the first time since coming to Occoquan, no light shone through the darkness. The black night crept across the floor and obscured everything from sight. Wails drifted from the cells through the murky hallway.

“Why, oh, why?”

“Sweet Jesus, help us.”

Sarah pressed her head between her arms to block the pitiful cries, but the weeping surrounded her from every direction.

Suddenly a voice rose above all the others, a soothing one lifted in song. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,” it sang.

A hush fell over the area, crying ceased, and voices joined in. The song, a familiar one from her days of attending church with her mother, engulfed her. The voices sang on and on, reaching a crescendo with the final words, “We've no less days to sing God's praise than when we've just begun.”

The cellblock quieted, and sobs no longer could be heard. Soon, sounds of sleep filled the night, but Sarah's aching and feverish body hung from the bars.

The minutes turned to hours. Her arms felt like they were being pulled from their sockets by her weight, and any attempt to change her position added extra pain. Coughing bouts racked her chest, and her skin grew hotter by the minute. She shivered from the cold and wondered at her temperature.