Free Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles Page B

of the prisoners gone before. Adair felt her hair slowly beginning to stand on end and her heart was wallowing and laboring in her chest and there was not enough air in the world. Her heart was crashing its two halves together like a boxer’s fists.
    A strong woman with big shoulders and a head of pasty brown hair put her hands around her mouth and called out,
    Say thing! Thing and sing and bring! Say on and dog!
    Thang, sang, brang, jeered another woman. Oan! Doag!
    The only light in the dark January evening was from the fireplace. The women’s figures were lit on one side only. Through the shutters, Adair could smell the latrines. It was like the Female Seminary of the netherworld. A ladies’ academy in hell.
    Adair went and sat by the fire on a barrel, tipped her hat back a little. They were all looking at it. Adair clenched her cold hands together and tried not to stare around her. They had been rained and sleeted upon all the way from the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad terminal at Pine and River Streets. Now she could hardly keep her hands from shaking even though they were seized together.
    What’s your name? said the big woman. She bent down to pet a small terrier that danced around her skirt hems.
    Adair looked around at all of them in the light of the fire.
    My name is Adair Randolph Colley, she said. From southeastern Missouri. From Ripley County. And I am here because somebody said I was disloyal.
    Well, are you disloyal? The big woman put her hands on her hips and stared.
    Me? Of course not, said Adair.
    Some of the women were staring at her with inflexible expressions.
    It will be all right, said a sweet-faced young woman nearby her. Adair turned her head to the girl. She had light brown hair and a soiled dress of dark lavender. I am from Danville, Missouri, and I too was denounced. But we must get along here with people of all different persuasions, I suppose. My name is Rhoda Lee Cobb.
    How do you do, Miss Cobb, said Adair.
    I was imprisoned because of my opinions, said Rhoda Lee. Snatched from the Danville Female Seminary.
    A woman with a crown of violently springing red hair coughed explosively three times into her hand and looked up again. Wiped her hand on her skirt. Beside her sat a woman whose face was heavily chalked and painted like a clown or perhaps an actress.
    We have nothing to offer you, I fear, said Miss Cobb. We will be fed in the morning.
    Who says she would get anything even if we did have something to offer her? asked the stout woman in brown check. She was chewing tobacco and turned and spat into the fire. Don’t have any tobacco do you? She tried to stare Adair down.
    I don’t use it, said Adair. She seemed to be losing her anger, which had always sustained her, and now her voice was small.
    You’ll get used to things around here, said the woman. Her brown hair was pulled back so tightly and it was so dirty that it seemed she had a headful of wires, a telegraphic device. Then I’ll bet you’ll use it if you gets the chance.
    The redheaded woman crossed her arms and stared at Adair, and her volcanic hair erupted in savage reds and oranges, backlit by the fire. You’ll learn to get along. You got any money?
    No, said Adair.
    You got anybody sending you delicacies or dainties or comforters?
    No, said Adair. Her word dropped into the well of stone silence.
    Well what the hell have you got?
    What I got in my hand here. Adair kept her carpet-sack in closed fists. Clothes. I guess I could try to write some relatives or something.Out on Fourth Street, beyond their barred world of filth and stone, there was the sound of a fiddle and somebody dancing, thumping in heavy shoes. Then a scattering of applause.
    The stout woman snorted. Her fists were on her hips. These here women might be whores and thieves and fortune-tellers and drunks but they are loyal.
    And around her several women said yes, yes, in low voices. Adair did not look to see who had spoken.
    My name is Cloris and I am the