Rebel falls, p.8
Rebel Falls, page 8
Mr. Douglas paused and looked to Wreet and then back to me. “But my favorite story concerning your mother isn’t in that book. You know of what I speak, don’t you, Miss Wreet?”
Wreet nodded.
“There was this young woman, who had escaped from the South years before,” Mr. Douglas began.
“Cindy Sue,” Wreet added.
“Yes, that’s right,” he said. “She was working here. Had been for several years. Late one afternoon, after her shift, she was heading home to her husband in the Falls. You see, she had begun a new life, about to start a family of her own. She was walking away from the Cataract House, into town, when this white man, all dressed to the nines, stepped down from a carriage and asked her, ‘Don’t you remember me?’”
“It was her old owner,” said Wreet. “He had hunted her all the way to the Falls. That would have rocked many a soul, but Miss Cindy was a smart one.”
“That she was,” Mr. Douglas continued. “She turned on a dime and began running across the lawn, heading for the river and the landing, ready to cross over the Niagara just like that. No looking back.”
“And from what I remember,” Wreet said, “her old master was having none of it?”
“Indeed,” Mr. Douglas said. “He started to yelling and carrying on, telling anyone who would listen that he’d give one hundred dollars to anyone who would help him fetch back his property. Your mother heard the commotion, Rory, and soon enough, she was right down in the middle of it. That’s what I always appreciated about her. She was ready to act.
“Soon enough, your mother was alongside Cindy,” Mr. Douglas continued. “Both heading down to the river. Fast enough to get ahead of the growing crowd. The two of them hurried down those stairs, three steps at a time in some places, and jumped into an empty rowboat.”
“As if God himself put it there,” Wreet said.
Mr. Douglas tried not to smile. “Except in the winter, we always had a boat at the ready,” he explained to me.
“But you cannot guarantee an oarsman, now, can you?” Wreet teased.
“Few are perfect in the eyes of the Lord,” Mr. Douglas replied.
“So what happened?” I asked.
Both of them turned toward me. “What do you think your mother did?” Wreet asked.
“She manned the oars herself?” I said in disbelief. “She got Cindy Sue across? Through the rapids and the current to the other side?”
Mr. Douglas gazed past me, as if he could still picture Mother pulling the oars through the mist. “That she did,” he replied. “Never an easy task, rowing across such a tempest sea.”
The three of us sat alone, not saying a word for a time. I never doubted that my mother was courageous. But as we sat there, considering that momentous crossing, I couldn’t help but wonder how much bravery, determination, and purpose she had truly passed along to me.
“What can we do now?” I asked them. “With the rebels slipping away?”
“I have an idea,” Mr. Douglas replied. “But you’ll have to trust me.”
Wreet and I watched Beall come down the front steps of the Cataract House and walk into the town itself. The other one, Burley, had left minutes before, undoubtedly sent on another errand by his captain. For a moment, we feared that the rebel leader would grab a hackney across the Suspension Bridge to the Canadian side. But after taking a glance at the clearing sky, he decided to walk, cane and all, to the nearby railroad station. I assumed his intent was to ride to the Bridge Station and catch the spur-line shuttle to the Canadian side. The next train north was due in ten minutes, but it sometimes fell behind schedule, waiting for the connector from Lockport. That’s what we were counting on to make Mr. Douglas’s plan come together.
We followed Beall to the platform, keeping well back in the growing crowd, watching until he sat down and checked his pocket watch. As he did so, we saw Aran and Cesar, dressed in Union uniforms, coming down the platform. The two in Yankee blue didn’t say a word, but they slowly surveyed each passenger, giving them the once-over, before moving on. Many of the passengers didn’t think anything of it. Yet for a Reb spy, like our Beall, it would be enough to strike terror to his very core. Here was the nightmare of any diehard secessionist come to life: Negroes wearing a uniform.
“He’s seen them,” Wreet said. “It’s your time now, child.”
I quickly moved toward Captain Beall, weaving my way through the crowd, my skirt skimming past this person and that, until I was right in front of him. Beall had been so concerned with Aran and Cesar moving down the platform that he hadn’t seen me draw near.
I said, “They’re on to you, kind sir.”
Beall looked up, and I knew he believed me.
“Follow me,” I told him. “I can get you away from here.”
I held out my elbow, and he took it; then the two of us were off, fading into the crowd, away from the train platform, with the Black men in blue uniforms edging closer. We went down the backstairs that Wreet had shown me, reaching the street and moving at a brisk pace away from the railway platform. Only then did Beall come around.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“To the river,” I told him. “It’s your only escape.”
Down the steps along the embankment we went, with me leading the way and Beall laboring to keep up. He had been right. While he may have been a fine foot soldier once upon a time, in step with the famed Stonewall Brigade, Captain John Yates Beall would never serve in the infantry again. Still, by bracing himself with his ornate cane, he kept up with me, down the 290 steps to Ferry Landing, where Mr. Douglas had arranged that a rowboat would be waiting, with a white, not a Black, man at the oars. Only here, in the shadow of the mighty Niagara Falls did the rebel hesitate. Yet I was ready for any protestations.
“Up there,” I said, nodding at the top of the slick stairway we had taken down. “See them?”
Beall turned to follow my gaze. He so wanted to believe what I’d told him. He peered up through the mist and the roar and the madness held in the shadow of the Falls, and he somehow convinced himself that the Black men in uniform were still after him. Of course, there was no one up there, no one on his tail. Still, the mind often believes the lie. We all so want to believe the lie.
We clambered into the rowboat, with John Yates Beall and me hunched over in the stern. We pushed off into the surging waters, and I had to admit this was the only part of the plan that truly concerned me: that someone other than Mr. Douglas was at the oars. In a perfect world, it would have been the head waiter from the Cataract House. But a Black man at the helm? Captain Beall never would have fallen for such a ruse, so instead we had to make do with someone else, a workman with white-enough skin. As our small craft began to pitch and roll in the angry waters, I briefly closed my eyes, praying that we would be all right.
Too soon, though, I knew everything was amiss. Our oarsman couldn’t handle the Niagara’s fast-moving waters. Already he was breathing hard, struggling to control the oars, as the current seized ahold of us, pulling us too quickly down the river, bearing toward the larger whirlpools that would capsize us for sure. Beall was gazing crazily about, and he soon saw that we were in deep trouble, too.
Sliding forward on both knees, I came face to face with the craft’s operator and took ahold of the long oars as well. Together, the two of us started to work in tandem—pushing harder on this oar and now the other. Panic rose in the man’s eyes, but as we began to edge through the flashing white water, the Canadian side finally beginning to draw closer, he regained control of himself and then our battered craft.
“Thank you,” he whispered as we reached the shadow of the far side.
16
“It appears the bait has surfaced a big fish,” Wreet said the next morning. She held out the small envelope addressed in his neat cursive to me.
“When did this arrive?”
“I don’t rightly know,” Wreet said. “It’s ahead of the regular mail. On Clifton House stationary to boot.”
I peeled open the envelope and glanced at Wreet in surprise. “How did you know he’d be asking us to dinner?”
“John Yates Beall may be a scoundrel from the backwoods of Virginia,” my friend replied, “but he tries so hard at being a proper gentleman, doesn’t he?”
“Dear Miss Chase,” I read aloud. “I would be honored if you and Mrs. Thayer would join us tonight at the Four Aces for another performance by our talented Leila Beth Kidder. I have reserved two seats for you at our table.”
It was signed Captain John Yates Beall.
That evening, the rebels’ table was more uproarious, and the champagne flowed freely as Wreet and I entered the Four Aces’ ballroom.
“Despite all the heartbreak in the world, the party never stops with this lot,” Wreet muttered as she pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders.
I surveyed the table, my eyes settling upon a dark-haired gentleman with a thick mustache and piercing eyes. He sat next to Captain Beall, and I realized that I had seen him somewhere before.
Burley approached us, his face flush with excitement and alcohol. “Good news,” he beamed.
“Has the war ended, dear chap?” Wreet asked sarcastically.
“Almost as good,” Burley said, trying his best to be in on the joke. “John Wilkes Booth is here.”
“The actor?” I said, now recognizing the man next to Beall. The two of them were caught up in their own conversation.
“One and the same,” Burley replied. “He and the captain go way back.”
Several years ago, before the war, I had accompanied Fanny Seward to Syracuse to see Booth in the role of Romeo in Shakespeare’s play. While Booth was better known for playing more clever parts, Mark Anthony in Julius Caesar and the lead in Richard III, both of us came away impressed by how well he had carried the role. Despite the longing looks, the ridiculous way a first love can make a person appear to the rest of the world, Booth’s manner carried a hint of mischief and even melancholy. As Fanny later remarked, it helped that he was so handsome, with his jet-black hair and devilish eyes.
Tonight, as we drew closer, I recognized that same air about him in real life. How Booth could slide close toward a person he was with, in this case John Yates Beall, and appear to be hanging on his every word. Yet his mind was elsewhere, scheming and preparing for what was next.
“Ah, here they are,” Beall said when he saw us, accompanied by Burley. “Added fuel for our cause, Wilkes.”
Booth rose, took Wreet’s gloved hand, and brought it to his lips.
“We’ve met before?”
“I doubt it,” Wreet said.
“No, no, I’m sure of it,” the actor continued. “The captain says you’re from this part of the world?”
“Born and raised in Buffalo.”
“And you’ve been to the theater there?”
“Once in a blue moon.”
“The last time I was through this part of the country was as Romeo, speaking so many heartfelt, dare I say boyish, utterances to his beloved Juliet.”
I almost mentioned that I had seen the same production in Syracuse, but I bit my tongue.
Wreet nodded. “Yes, I was at that show.”
“You were sitting down front, stage right, I believe.”
“How can you remember that?”
Booth beamed. “Every actor has his tricks, the sleight of hand to get him through another performance in fine stead. From the lip of the most stages, I can make out faces in the first few rows. That allows me to lock onto the eyes in front of me. I can pretend that we are the best of friends, and we share such confidences. Some lines I’ll speak directly to the person right there, in front of me. Dear woman, I undoubtedly opened my heart and my very soul to you that evening in Buffalo, and you didn’t even realize it.”
That brought laughter from all around. Booth nodded, dismissing Wreet, as he turned his attention to me.
“This is Miss Chase,” Beall said. “The one I’ve been telling you about.”
“Suffice to say that if Miss Chase had been in the front row for Romeo and Juliet,” Booth began. “Well, I would have never forgotten her lovely face.”
Even though I knew it was all an act, I couldn’t help but blush at such attention.
Throughout the evening, Booth became the hub of the wheel, the one everyone turned to. Only his example was followed. So much so that Leila Beth Kidder eventually came down from the stage and took a seat at the table, realizing that she couldn’t hold a candle to the famous actor. The band played on as background music to Booth’s tales, jokes, and monologues. As the night drew to a close, the actor couldn’t resist one last performance. Climbing onto the stage, he urged anyone left in the ballroom to join him.
“Now let’s imagine it’s the dawn before another great battle,” he said, “perhaps Manassas or Chancellorsville.”
I prayed that he didn’t mention Ball’s Bluff. That would have been too much for me.
“Now gather round, in groups of two or three,” Booth said. “We’re in our encampment, fearful but resolute. It’s one of those times when words can mean a lot.”
As everyone drew close, the actor gazed out on the nearly empty ballroom. Once again, our party had gone late into the night, and soon Booth’s voice began to fill every corner of the place.
“‘I’m not covetous for gold,’” he said. “‘Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost …’”
His voice became a shade louder and richer, soon a soaring entity unto itself. “‘But if it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul alive.’”
Heads turned toward him, enthralled by his web of words.
“‘This day is called the feast of Crispian. He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, will stand a tip-toe when the day is named, and rouse him at the name of Crispian …’”
I recognized this was more Shakespeare—the speech before the final battle in Henry V. What the embattled British king told his vastly outnumbered army before the Battle of Agincourt.
“‘This story shall the good man teach his son,’” Booth continued, “‘and Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, from this day to the ending of the world.’”
Here Booth shifted his gaze from the ballroom to those of us who had joined him upon the small stage. “‘But we in it shall be remembered.’” The actor smiled. “‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, be he ne’er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition. And gentleman in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon St. Crispin’s day.’”
Booth raised his arms skyward as those final words rang throughout the ballroom. To this day, I don’t know if it was clever acting or true passion on his part, but Booth’s face had grown flushed and his eyes wild. It was if he had somehow carried himself back to the French countryside centuries ago on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt. For a moment, he was our sovereign, our beloved Henry, and we had no choice but to rally around him, ready to turn the world upside down at his plea. Alarmingly, I found that I had begun to tear up myself. Was this the same abandon and madness that had cut down my beloved uncle in battle? It’s only an illusion, I repeated to myself, an illusion conjured up by an actor who was seemingly part magician, part madman. Looking about, I found that I wasn’t alone. So stunned were we that witnessed Booth’s portrayal at the Four Aces that it took us several moments to remember to applaud.
17
The next morning, I came up the steps to the Cataract House, looking for Mr. Douglas, only to find Captain Beall, sipping tea, in a wicker chair near the front entrance.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “It’s not safe.”
“I can slip away like a shadow, my dear,” he smiled. “Especially now that I know the secret way down to the river.”
I couldn’t believe how reckless this man could be.
“Besides, somehow I knew you’d be up and about,” he said. “You seem to have a connection with this foolish place. It was better to find you here than Wreet’s gallery of deceit.”
I reminded myself to better cover my tracks. The man seemed to know my routine too well.
“Here, please join me,” said Beall, and I reluctantly settled into a chair across from him on the wide veranda that overlooked the rapids and the Falls beyond.
“What did you think of last night’s performance?” Beall asked. “John Wilkes Booth’s rendition of the Bard?”
“It heartened me.”
“Interesting.” He took another sip of his tea and then asked, “How so?”
“I lost an uncle to this war,” I told him, letting the truth spin out to encompass as many lies and tangents as possible.
“Yes, your Mrs. Thayer mentioned that the other night.”
“I barely knew Wreet until a week or so ago,” I said, and that much was true. “She’s a distant relative, but I hadn’t laid eyes on her since I was a child.”
“And why did you come to the Falls? To finally meet her?”
I paused, uncertain of which lie to follow.
“My heart was broken after my uncle’s death,” I told Beall. “His name was Frank, Franklin Hawes. He lived on a farm outside of Baltimore,” I said, testing this lie out. “In northern Maryland.”
I pictured that part of the world in my mind. I had seen it once before, riding the train from Auburn to Washington in the company of Fanny Seward.
“He was a fine man. Loved the land,” I added. “We often visited him at his farm. Near the village of Westminster. Do you know it?”
Beall shook his head thoughtfully.
As I spoke, I conjured up the names of the towns and hamlets as they flashed by the train window that day with Fanny.
“There was a skirmish with Union cavalry,” I continued, letting the lie take root and grow. “And the authorities rounded up those who they decreed were responsible. One of them was my Uncle Frank.”
Captain Beall took a sip of his tea and nodded for me to continue.
