For a moment she feared they were being abducted, but then she realized they were only going to the building where she’d seen the lights illuminating the American flag.
The front door opened into a long corridor lined with stone cells. The goons were throwing the women into the cells, three and four at a time. A man in uniform kept poking women with a long stick as the men shoved the prisoners in.
Two men pushed Mrs. Bates into a cell so hard that she smacked against the rear wall and slumped down in a heap. Furious, Elizabeth wrenched one arm free and threw herself into the same cell before her captors could make another choice for her. Before she could see if Mrs. Bates was all right, someone outside her cell screamed in agony.
The plug-uglies had Anna’s arms twisted above her head, and they slammed her slender body over the arm of an iron bench, then dropped her onto the cement floor, where she lay unmoving.
“Anna!” Mrs. Bates cried. “Help her!”
Elizabeth scrambled to her feet and scurried out into the melee, dodging the other women and their captors. Anna’s eyes were wide with terror on her chalk white face, but she hadn’t moved a muscle. Just as Elizabeth reached her, she suddenly drew a gasping breath, and Elizabeth realized with relief that she’d just had the wind knocked out of her.
Grabbing Anna’s arm, she dragged her toward her cell. Mrs. Bates hurried to help, and they got her inside. Mrs. Bates cradled her gently. “Anna, are you hurt? What did they do to you?”
She gasped a few more times. “I couldn’t breathe!”
“They knocked the wind out of her,” Elizabeth said. “It scares you to death, but no harm done.”
Outside, the screams had died down as the last of the women were run past and deposited into cells, but no sooner had they finished than the women began calling out the names of their friends, checking to make sure everyone was safe.
“Mrs. Lewis!”
“Mrs. Nolan!”
“I’m here!”
“Where’s Mrs. Lewis?”
Across the way, two women were lifting a third onto the single cot. She appeared to be unconscious, and the other two were crying over her.
“She’s here,” one of them called, “but I think they’ve killed her.”
“Quiet!” a man shouted. The ugly old man was back. What was his name? Whittaker. He looked like he might have apoplexy. “Be quiet, all of you!”
“Is Mrs. Lewis truly dead?” This from the red-haired woman who had spoken up for them at the courthouse.
“Shut up!” Whittaker screamed. “Guards, handcuff her!”
To Elizabeth’s horror, two of the big apes slapped manacles on the woman’s wrists and chained her to the bars with her arms over her head.
Undaunted, she cried, “Mrs. Lewis!”
“She’s alive,” someone called. “She was only stunned!”
“Quiet, all of you, or I’ll put you in a straitjacket with a buckle gag!” Whittaker cried.
Elizabeth didn’t know what a buckle gag was, but the threat of it frightened the women to silence.
“Let’s put her on the bed,” Mrs. Bates whispered, and Elizabeth helped her lift Anna onto the narrow iron cot, the only furniture in the cell except for a toilet.
Outside, Whittaker was giving orders, and in a few minutes, the guards came back and started throwing ratty mattress pads and filthy blankets into the cells. Theirs landed with a cloud of dust, and the guards slammed the iron barred door shut on them. All down the corridor, doors clanged with a sound like the end of hope.
Elizabeth went to the barred door and looked out. As the guards withdrew, having finished their task, other women also came to the bars. In the cell opposite, the old lady who had been so brave at the courthouse tended to Mrs. Lewis as she recovered from her brush with death. Down a ways, the red-haired woman still hung from the bars, her arms stretched agonizingly above her head and the handcuffs digging into her wrists. A buzz of whispered outrage rose like a cloud of flies at the sight of her, and over and over they said her name in awe: Lucy Burns.
Elizabeth wanted to despise her. What kind of fool would put herself in a position like that? But then she saw the woman’s face. Surely, she was in agony, but her expression was triumphant as she met the eye of every woman straining for a glimpse of her. Her red hair glittered like a flame in the light from the corridor, and her eyes glowed with an inner fire.
In another cell, a woman reached up and grabbed a bar with both her hands and stood there, mirroring Lucy Burns’s position. She stood there half the night, even after the others had bedded themselves down, until a guard finally came and released Miss Burns.
What on earth was wrong with these women?
CHAPTER THREE
Sometimes Gideon was afraid he would die in his office. Could a person really die of boredom? If so, today was certainly the day.
Even his law clerk appeared to be in danger of nodding off, lulled by the sonorous drone of Mr. Ernest Pike’s reedy voice. How long had they been listening to Pike’s tedious account of his life, a life that had culminated in his phenomenal success in the production of packing crates?
An eternity, at least.
“So you can understand, Mr. Bates, how important it is to make sure my estate is safeguarded for my daughter, Eugenia,” Pike said. “She is my only heir.”
At last! The man had finally made his wishes known. Gideon straightened up in his chair and smiled across his desk at Mr. Ernest Pike. “We can certainly make sure of that, Mr. Pike. How old is your daughter, may I ask?”
His clerk perked up, too, finally sensing something he could make notes about.
“She’ll be twenty-two next Tuesday. She’s a lovely girl, and so accomplished. She plays the piano and sings. Everyone remarks on how musical she is.”
“You must be very proud.” Gideon understood now. His yawn evaporated. Eugenia Pike was of marriageable age. Pike would want to protect her from fortune hunters and expected the law firm of Devoss and Van Aken to be the guiding force in protecting the family estate. Gideon was on board to make sure these estates lasted for generations. This wasn’t a kindness. The law firm earned substantial fees for doing the work, so it was in their best interest to make the money last forever. “Your daughter must have many suitors.”
Pike blinked in surprise and hesitated just a moment too long. “Yes, of course she does, but she’s very particular, you see. That’s why she hasn’t married yet.”
Gideon took a hard look at Ernest Pike. If Eugenia Pike resembled her father, she might not have any suitors at all. But Gideon could assist with that as well. A large dowry could increase a young woman’s appeal exponentially. “You’ll want to make sure she’s comfortable when she does choose a husband, I assume.”