Independence

Spring, 1862

In his twenty-fourth year, in the middle of April, his mother died.

It was late morning, and both windows and curtains were thrown wide, to welcome the sun and air the room. Buck sat on the bed, his back against the headboard, watching her slow, labored breaths. She was so frail, just a wisp of her former self, thinner and paler than when he had returned three weeks ago, and being with her now was hard.

Being somewhere else would have been harder.

Helen Carter, in her white wicker chair to the left of the bed, concentrated on counted cross stitch and hummed softly under her breath. Buck looked over at her, wondering briefly if these two hadn't been more than sisterly. They had known each other so long, Buck could barely remember a time these two hadn't been friends, and the lines of tension around Helen's eyes were stark and clear.

Buck sighed. "Mother?" he whispered; her eyes were closed, and he was loathe to disturb her.

Her head turned toward him and her eyes blinked open, blue as a robin's egg, blue like the many-ton blocks of ice that got floated down the river in February. Her eyes were alert but tired-seeming, and impulsively he touched her hair.

"Yes, baby?"

"I got to get up, nature's callin'. You want anything?"

"I don't think so."

Helen looked up from her needle work. "You eat something, Maggie. Keep your strength."

Buck watched his mother blink, felt a shiver run through her. Food wasn't staying inside anymore, and she had told him two days ago that the effort to eat was no longer worth the pain. Skin and bone she was now, and not much else. "Little early for lunch, mama," he said, getting her out of it. Helen's eyes met his over his mother's failing body; they all knew the time was near.

Helen sighed and bit her lip, and Buck reminded himself that it was harder for the women. "Get her a nice glass of tea, Buck," Helen finally surrendered. "You want some tea, Maggie? Ice-cold, it'll feel good on your throat."

Her head moved under his palm, nodding once. "That would be a kindness," she whispered.

Leaning down to kiss her cheek before moving off the bed, Buck pushed a wisp of hair back off her face. "I'll be back quicker'n you can say 'stop chasing the girls.'" She smiled, as he had hoped she would.

He met more than one of the girls on his way to the outhouse, offering a quiet smile and a "she wants a glass of tea" in answer to their questioning eyes. They were steering clear of Maggie's room, mostly, letting Helen, his mother's closest and longest friend, sit the death watch in their stead. They had customers to greet and money to make, and of any of them, Buck understood that best. He had always understood it, since it was what had put food in his mouth when nothing and no one else would.

7 - 7 - 7

Helen slipped back into the sick room, glancing worriedly from Buck to Maggie. She had hated to leave, but Jim was a regular customer and she couldn't afford to turn him away. But she had feared, every moment, that Margaret would be gone before she got back.

By the end of the week, Margaret Wilmington had slipped into the half-sleep of cancer and laudanum. A storm was brewing; you could feel it in the air sweeping up from the south, and the old lace curtains fluttered gently with the slow spring breeze. The room smelled of the roses that grew outside Maggie's sick room window. Maggie was lucky, Helen knew, to have a son like Buck--hornier than any three men his age, Buck was nonetheless as kind as any man she had ever known. Most men raised around this life, they weren't so understanding. But then, most men raised around this life didn't have Maggie for a mama.

Easing back into her chair, Helen picked up her needle point and looked at Margaret's dying face. "She's lucky you came home," she blurted out. She had kept her thoughts to herself, generally, not wanting to say aloud what they all knew.

Buck, from the bed where he'd sat vigil almost constantly this last week, looked up at her. His eyes, usually so cheerful and ready to laugh, looked dark and stormy with pain. "I'm lucky I came home," he whispered.

Unbidden, Helen felt tears well in her eyes, and looked hard to her needle and thread. She wouldn't cry; she had promised herself, promised Margaret nearly a month ago, when Buck had walked up the front steps of the main house, that she'd be strong for him, just as Margaret herself always had.

"It's all right, Helen," Buck said tiredly.

"What?" she asked, staring blindly at the thread.

"You think I ain't cryin', every minute I ain't with her?"

Helen knew for a fact he wasn't, and angrily blinked her tears away. "It's silly."

"You wanna talk to her for a bit?" he offered. "I ought ta actually do somethin' round here 'sides eat and shit."

Helen looked to Margaret's lax hand, lying in Buck's loosely clasping fingers. She looked at the open lips and barely slackened jaw, and at how slowly her best friend's chest rose and fell. "You'd best not leave, darlin'." Buck's hand tightened, but he said nothing more.

A few hours later, Helen felt it, and when she looked to Buck, she saw that he felt it too. The frail chest rose once more, and fell, and she was still so long that Helen found herself light-headed from holding her breath. Her body jerked in that violent way a body does, when it resists its maker, then once more, miraculously, Margaret Wilmington inhaled. Her left hand twitched in Helen's grasp, her right in Buck's.

And then she was gone.

7 - 7 - 7

Buck sat on the back porch all night, unwilling to talk to anyone, unwilling to move, unwilling to go inside. The rain fell heavily, lashed by wind from the south, but no thunder rolled, and no lightning crashed. He had plenty to be grateful for. He'd come home in time, and completely by accident. In her last days, his mother's mind had been clear and she hadn't felt much pain. Her friends, the women closest to her, dropped in to say a word or two throughout the day, and her family had been with her right at the end.

She had been loved. And for that alone, he would keep her memory shiny and safe; she'd taught him how to do that, how to care in a world full of users and shit and pain. He knew how to let life happen, and enjoy it, and he knew what family was.

After it got light the next morning, Helen came out wrapped in a wool blanket, and sat on the porch beside him. "Were you two together, Helen?" he asked without looking at her.

"What?"

He didn't waste breath clarifying; she knew what he meant.

"That isn't a question you ask a woman, Buck," she said flatly.

"It's a question I'm askin' you."

The silence stretched, and he thought the rain was lessening, finally, the pounding easing toward a steady patter. "Buck," she said after a time, in that world-weary voice he seldom heard from her, "You know that sex doesn't necessarily make people closer. It sure isn't something I'd have ever needed from her, nor she from me." More silence; the rain was definitely lessening, he was sure of it now. Then, "You choose people, you decide you trust them and you depend on them and you share the pain, yours and theirs. That's what family is. Hell, you know it isn't bodies rubbing on each other that makes that."

He looked at her, finally, and smiled grimly. "You ain't gonna tell me, are you. She was my mother, and I'm askin', Helen, and you ain't gonna tell me."

"That's right," she said, and looked out into the rain. "She was your mother and she was my best friend, and you're askin' and you shouldn't be, and you know better than any man that things like that don't make any difference. A son doesn't go askin' into his mama's private life, and I ain't gonna tell you."

He kept to the house for the next week cuddled up and grieving with one woman or another. It was perhaps the longest time he'd spent in this place since he'd turned thirteen without actually having any sex. After that, he slept alone.

In May, Helen shook him out of it with a simple, "Buck Wilmington, look at you mopin' around like an old coon dog. What would Maggie say?"

"She'd tell me to find myself a silver lining and stop depressing everybody," he said, shoulders bent.

"Yes, she would, Buck," Helen whispered, and ran her fingers through his hair. "She'd also tell you that there was enough suffering in the world without you adding to it. 'Specially with this war on. So are you gonna stop your cryin' and make your mama happy?"

He took a deep breath, then another. He knew she was right, knew that moping around thinking the worst wouldn't bring her back and wouldn't help any of these girls. When he looked up though, all he could see was the poorly veiled grief in Helen's eyes. "What about you? Are you gonna take your own advice?"

"I will if you will," she dared.

The woman could act thirteen years old, sometimes.

At loose ends, Buck stayed on for awhile, fixed the roof, ran errands and hauled groceries and supplies, helping the madam keep an eye out as hundreds of men in Union blue slipped inside the house's doors. More guns than he'd ever seen in one place might be found, on a Saturday, in the coat room at the front of the parlor. No one wanted to go into, or back to, battle without first having relations, and Buck could respect that. From what the girls said, most of them needed a soft shoulder more than they needed a soft spot to put it, anyhow, so the money was good and the work, for the girls, generally easy.

Buck wore a holster and sidearm nonetheless. Lots of these men were coming back from fighting; it wasn't out of the question that they could get out of hand. And some did, and when they did he set them straight and sent them packing. If he enjoyed it more than he should, well, his mother would forgive him that.

He roomed for awhile with a new girl named Elizabeth, who was having trouble. It seemed she'd been a Catholic, and she wasn't very forgiving of herself in her new occupation. She was a good girl hit on hard times, no different from plenty of others; the war had taken her brothers off, and her mother had recently died. Helen prevailed upon him to teach Elizabeth the trade, and between them they tutored her on the fastest, easiest ways to finish a man off.

In the sweltering heat of early summer, hearing the sounds of marching soldiers and sometimes, distant guns, he curled around her and whispered kindnesses in her ear, and thought of his sweet mother.

She took her first paying customer after less than a week in the house. Afterward, she fell apart just as Helen had guessed she would. "I feel so ashamed," she whispered into the dark, her voice cracking on each word. "God will never forgive me." He got up and felt around for matches, lit a candle and used that in turn to light the kerosene lamp. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to tell you something," he said soberly, "and you need to see me when I say it, so you'll know I'm telling you the truth."

She looked scared, sheet pulled up to her chin in unconscious modesty, and so very young. She was nearly nineteen, though, and she didn't need to be doing this to herself. Sitting back down on the bed, ignoring the way her eyes skittered away from his nakedness, he dug under the sheet for her hand and held it tight. "I grew up in this town, and spent all my early years in this very house. And I know better what I'm talking about than any shriveled old priest who gets his pay from the Church and don't understand the trials of the world." He didn't have much use for religion, for this very reason sitting in front of him. But she sure did; he'd seen her rosary, and he'd watched her in desperate prayer. "God don't hate you for what you need to do to survive, Elizabeth. God don't hate you for holding your head up, and loving yourself like you deserve. God made you, and he gave you that beautiful body any woman would be proud to have." Slowly, he pulled the sheet down, watching her blush but watching her eyes, too. She wanted to believe him. And if she was going to take up this life and find any happiness, or move on through this job and marry later, she needed to believe him. "Look at you, beautiful and innocent just like Eve in the Garden."

She looked down at herself, and after a moment the lamp caught the bright traces of tears on her cheeks. "God punishes whores, Buck."

"Mary was a whore, Elizabeth. And Jesus loved her first and best."

"That was because she stopped doing that."

"Huh uh, darlin'. Way I heard it, that was because she loved him, and because she was who she was. Besides, you'll stop too, one day. Don't you worry none."

She began to cry in earnest, and he pulled her up against him and held her till his shoulder was wet and she had tired herself out. Eventually she pulled back a little, and he tilted her chin up to make her meet his eyes. "Everything I told you, Elizabeth, it's the truth. I swear it." Her eyes were big and wide, and he watched her watching him, promised with his eyes that she was a good girl. She blushed a little, and looked away.

"God don't make no mistakes," he whispered, settling her down so they could get some shut eye. "And while most of the men who visit you won't have the skill or the time to treat you right, just remember that you're doin' them a sweet favor. You're makin' em feel alive, and lucky, and good. And there ain't nothin' wrong with it."

He made a mental note to go and find that old retired priest, and see if he'd still take prostitutes' confessions. Seemed like these Catholic girls just couldn't keep things like this to themselves, but had to listen to a man of the cloth. And this old boy, he wasn't so bad. If he kept her from telling anyone else, she'd be all right.

7 - 7 - 7

Another month slid by.

7 - 7 - 7

It was coming time to leave, and Buck was wrought with indecision. The war was going well for the Union, but the Rebs were causing trouble where they could, and Lincoln said there was still much to be done. Buck was getting itchy, without knowing exactly why. Lizzie had settled in nicely. She was even making friends with some of the girls, and he finally heard her laughter, sweet as honey, somewhere around the middle of June. He talked to the soldiers, the ones who sometimes waited or stayed after in the parlor, drinking the high-priced, cheap whiskey he'd pour for them when the women were otherwise occupied. And he waited, fraught with indecision.

By the end of June he had packed up or sold off his few belongings even though he still didn't know where he was going. Helen had promised to keep his things safe, or sell them if she needed money or he didn't get in touch. In turn, she had made him promise to stay with them until he was twenty-five. And at the end of that day, he lay in exhausted bliss from the generous kindness of very talented women.

"Happy birthday, Buck," Celia whispered with a titter when she finally slid out of the bed.

"Happy birthday, Buck," Martha repeated as she rose to follow.

"Happy birthday, Buck," Agnes said, her voice matter-of-fact and business-like as always, but, he liked to think, fond. He was just able to draw enough breath to say "thank you," and then they were gone. Strung out on bliss and loving those girls to pieces, he just lay there, watching the shadows cast on the ceiling by the flickering lamp. A moment later there came a tapping on his door.

"Buck? It's Helen."

He struggled to his elbows, too spent to even drag the sheet up off the floor and cover himself. "I'm naked as a jay bird, but you c'n come on in."

She quietly entered, wrapped tight in a thin cotton robe and carrying a candle and a cloth sack. Setting down the candle, she picked up the sheet and dropped it over him. "The girls are grinning at each other like they just ate the canary," she said, chuckling softly. "They're quite proud of themselves. Did you enjoy yourself?"

"Are you kidding?" he asked, dropping back flat on the bed. He patted the space beside him and she moved to sit. "That was, that was indescribable. You planned it, didn't you?"

She smiled. "Yes. Your mama, she always liked to think you were more innocent than you ever could be, no matter what mischief you got up to. I knew better, didn't I?" She winked, and patted his hand, shaking her head. "If she were still with us, she'd have slapped me silly for this."

"Or laughed herself sick." They both knew he was going, but he suspected Helen knew better where. "Come here," he said, opening his arms. She set the candle and bag down on the bed stand and curled up beside him, comfortably close but not quite pressed against him. He stared, absorbing the lines and creases of laughter on her face, the smooth, papery skin of her throat, the stolen joy in her eyes.

"I have a gift for you."

"I hope you're not expecting much," he said, trying for a leer.

She frowned, and slapped his arm. "The cheek," she huffed. Then she reached around and took up the sack, depositing it on his chest. It chinked, and rustled. "It was Maggie's, you know she always saved so she could retire out to California. Now it's yours. I took it out of the bank today."

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, Buck took her hand and pressed it between his hand and the bag. He didn't even need to look inside; Helen was over forty, and only her regulars still asked for her. "Keep it. Stay in touch with someone here so they can tell me where to find you, when I come this way again."

"I can't, Buck. There's near a thousand dollars in there."

"And I'd lose it gambling or drink it up or let somebody swindle it out of me," he said soberly. He swallowed, thinking again of his mother, and this kind woman who he had known almost as long. "You promise me you'll buy yourself that little house with the tall white fence, and keep yourself a flower garden." It was the house his mother had talked of, and never reached. "I always thought I'd visit mother when she was old and gray and comfortable somewhere, and I can't do that now. I'd like to think I could visit you sometime."

Helen forgave him for crying a little. In fact, she joined him, sniffling a little herself=97about her own good fortune, or her own loss, or the uncertain future he did not know. She slipped out well before dawn, and when he finally closed his eyes, he slept like the dead.

He slept the second day away, too exhausted to even think of getting out of bed to do more than piss or eat. Someone would call him if there was trouble. Well after dark, he surfaced and went to the parlor, finding a cup of coffee and watching customers shuffle in and out. He kept out of the way, not wanting to rouse any of the girls' ire by interfering with their work; it seemed a busy night. It was soothing, actually, entertaining himself by guessing what kind of wants this or that man might have, spotting the virgins almost before they removed their hats and coats, saying a quiet howdy or passing the time of day with someone willing to buy a drink while they waited for their special girl, or to get up their courage.

And he went to bed alone, and stared again at the ceiling until well past the witching hour, this time without benefit of satisfaction or company. He was very afraid that when he left on Wednesday, he'd be heading back west.

Tuesday morning he woke late, and made himself a plate from the various food set out on a sideboard in the big back kitchen. It was nearly lunch time, and the girls were stirring around in the back in bloomers and bathrobes. He didn't want company, so he went to the front porch to watch the world go by.

A man came walking up the street in shiny Union blue, and Buck stopped chewing. Later he would never be able to explain what had made this man, and this uniform, any different from so many others. But Buck stared at his plate, sick inside. He should be in Union blue, too. He should be saying his goodbyes to the women he loved and going off to kick the Rebs in line. When he glanced up again the man was standing right in front of the steps, staring at him with light, assessing eyes. He jerked a little, self-conscious, and nodded his head.

"Door's open, go on in," he said, wondering which if any of the girls would be dressed and ready at this hour. "There's a bell right inside."

But the man just smiled, friendly-like, climbed the porch steps and veered his way.

"I don't suppose you work here, too?" the stranger asked.

Smiling a warning, he replied, "Mister, I hope you ain't asking what I think you're asking."

The stranger looked confused for a moment, and then he laughed out loud, and that laughter rang in Buck's chest like a bell. Strangest thing. "Name's Chris," the man said, extending his hand.

Buck set his plate aside and shook, relaxing some. "Folks call me Buck."

Chris looked back toward the door, then leaned down, still smiling. "Well Buck, I just came here for the women. No offense."

The man had an easy manner about him like he was comfortable in his skin, and intelligence, and he knew enough of the world not to be too shocked by their earlier exchange . . .  and yet. "It's awful early in the day, in'nit?"

Chris shrugged, and hooked a black riding boot under the rung of a chair, sliding it over and spinning it around. "Depends. The other boys from my hometown, they went off to find themselves a saloon. I figured I'd get the jump on everyone and skim the cream off the top of the jug."

"Well," Buck sighed, and dredged up a smile. He'd be leaving here soon, but that didn't mean he couldn't still do help the girls out. "You came to the right place."

"You don't got to do that," Chris said, still casual, in no hurry at all.

He looked around. "Do what?"

"Sell." He sat down in the turned chair, straddling its back and crossing his arms over the top. "I ain't plannin' on going anywhere else, not until you boot me out of here sometime late tonight. But," and he stared down at Buck's half-eaten meal, "I wouldn't mind a hot meal first." He raised his eyebrows, and offered a grin filled with even white teeth. Buck couldn't keep back a smile. "I'll pay to eat here, if they'll let me, or you c'n tell me where to go around here for a decent breakfast. The woman in the boarding house I'm stayin' in, she can't cook worth a damn."

"Yeah," he said, thinking fast and furious about nothing, "I think I can get you some grub. Be right back."

Amazing, what you got to know about a man in the parlor of a whorehouse. After no little conversation and laughter, Buck recommended a particular girl for a little uninhibited romping, and laughed when Chris came down late in the afternoon to beg for sustenance and whiskey. Buck took him out back to feed him, and Chris took the ribbing good-naturedly, and they talked some more, about Indiana, about farming and fighting and horseracing.

He excused himself and spoke briefly with Agnes before returning to Chris and offering casually, "There's a new girl here, real sweet thing, who could use a nice customer." Chris' eyebrows climbed up toward his shaggy bangs, but his eyes looked interested. "She's startin' out real slow, finding her feet. I wouldn't recommend a man to her if he didn't want to relax, maybe even talk to a gal a little, and I thought, after Agnes, you might want somethin' different." He paused, trying to decide how to word it, then, "If I wanted to hold a sweet woman in my arms and look in her eyes and treat her good, this girl's the one I'd see."

Chris looked out at the yard, while Buck watched him think. "I ain't done much romancin', the last year or so," he said slowly.

Buck shrugged. "Maybe that ain't the kind of thing you'd want to pay for."

"No, no . . ." Chris looked up at him, and Buck witnessed the softness in the green eyes. "That might be real nice." Then Chris chuckled. "I didn't know you could pay for that, Buck."

"Yeah," Buck laughed back, "this here's a real special house."

"I'm findin' that out," Chris said lightly. Buck refused to read anything into it. "So, do I pay her by the hour, like with the last one?" Buck swallowed back a startled smile and glanced away. He'd wondered how Chris had kept Agnes upstairs for so damned long.

"Um, yeah."

Chris swallowed the last dregs of his tea, stood up and absently snapped his suspenders. "Where is she?"

"In the parlor, her name's Lizzy. Just tell her I told you to see her, and that you're plannin' on stayin' as long as she'd like to have you."

There was a question in Chris' eyes, but whatever it was, he took it back into the house with him.

Buck left two lamps burning bright in the parlor, reading by one and drinking cold coffee. The house had gone quiet long ago, but he had felt like sitting up until the last of the men left; like as not, this would be the last time he'd see most of these girls. The clock had just struck two when he heard muffled footsteps on the stairs. It was Celia, dragging a sleepy stranger behind her.

She smiled and walked over. "Thought you'd be abed by now, sugar," she whispered.

"No. Couldn't sleep."

"Well, you get on upstairs now, all right?"

"Real soon," he promised, looking behind her. "Let me show you out," he offered, firming his voice. He locked the door behind the man and went back to Celia before she could escape out the back. "I wanted to be sure I said goodbye."

"I thought so." She smiled, and touched his arm. "You always were a good boy. And now you're a good man. You take pains to stay that way, you hear me?"

"Yes'm. You take care of yourself, now."

When she reached for his neck, he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the floor, delighting in her laughter; Celia wasn't small, and she always loved being thrown about. "Sweet man," she whispered, and without another word she turned toward hall.

Chris and Lizzy came down before he could return to his seat; he looked carefully at the young woman, and recognized the puffiness of her eyelids and lips, the sleepy and boneless glide. He felt like he ought to give Chris a little bit of a refund, for that serene look on her face.

"I don't suppose a man could get a last whiskey, this time of night?" Larabee asked when their eyes met. He too looked content, and Buck was glad for both of them that he'd guessed right.

He looked from Chris to Elizabeth and back. "Just one minute." He took her by the hand and led her a few steps toward the stairs. "I'm leavin' early, I think," he said softly. She looked startled, and tears welled suddenly in her big eyes, but didn't spill over. "Aww, don't do that. You're fittin' in real good, everybody likes you, and Helen's lookin' after you. I'm just in the way of you buildin' that fortune you deserve."

She blinked back the tears, and impulsively stepped forward to hug him. Over her shoulder, he saw Chris standing back, watching them. When she let go, he took her shoulders and steered her toward the stairs. "You remember everything I told you," he whispered, and turned away before she could look back. Meeting Chris' eyes, he stood silently until her footsteps disappeared up the stairs.

"She somethin' special to you?" Chris asked, frowning as they made their way to the bar.

Buck shrugged. "No. Just new. Needs a little more."

"I'll tell you Buck," Chris said, the frown fading only slowly, "I didn't know girls like that worked in brothels."

Buck recognized ignorance when he saw it, but he also knew that Chris had been practiced with the likes of Agnes, and good to Lizzy. "Don't kid yourself, Chris," he said soberly. "They're all like that. They ain't no different from your sister, except your sister has somebody ta feed her."

He went to the bar and filled two glasses; Chris took his whiskey to a settee nearest the foyer and stared down into the depths of his glass. Abruptly, Chris snorted. "My sister ain't nearly so nice as that girl, Buck Wilmington," he said with a smile, and when their eyes met, something inside Buck relaxed, and he couldn't keep from answering it.

"Must be an interesting life, working here," Chris said casually.

"Better'n most, I guess." He thought for a moment, then just blurted out his question: "What made you decide to join up, finally? Now I mean, and not before?"

"I was out west, before. I'd pretty much planned to come back, but I got . . .  distracted. "And, well, tomorrow's the fourth of July. I couldn't pick a better day to start in, could I?"

Huh. There'd be fireworks along the riverbanks, if anyone could spare the powder. Independence Day had always meant something to him, and here he had almost forgotten about it.

Eventually, Chris sighed. "Got to find me a corner to sleep in. My boarding house closed three or four hours ago."

Again, Buck couldn't say why he did it, but he said simply, "You c'n sleep here. If you want."

Chris gazed at him for a long while, lounging back on the settee, and Buck relaxed into the look. It wasn't threatening, nor did it make him nervous. It was comfortable, like this man was comfortable, like they'd already known each other a long while. Eventually Chris emptied his glass and said, "Thank you, I'll do that."

The next morning, when Chris left to join his unit at an armory twelve blocks south, Buck went with him.

The End