What would the Old Man tell her to do? He’d tell her she was a fool. He’d tell her to look after herself. He’d tell her she shouldn’t be mixed up in somebody else’s fight.
Except this wasn’t somebody else’s fight anymore.
“No, I won’t reconsider.”
The nurse grinned, her gimlet eyes sparkling with anticipation, but Elizabeth glared at her with her rich woman’s glare and said, “We’re doing this for you, too, you know. We’re doing this for every woman who has ever been beaten down and abused.”
The nurse blinked, and her grin faltered, and the doctor said, “Help me here,” and she moved to help him. She wasn’t grinning anymore.
“When I put the tube in your mouth, try to swallow it. That will make it easier.”
Don’t fight them, Anna had said, and she tried, she really did, but it was no use.
The tube tasted bitter and filled her mouth.
“Hold her,” the doctor shouted because she was thrashing, swinging her head—or trying to—until something grabbed it in a vicelike grip. She tried to push him away, tried to grab the tube, but something caught her arms and held them fast, and a heavy weight bore down on her legs. The tube was down her throat, gagging her, choking her, ripping and tearing its way down inside of her, a searing pain like a hot poker against naked flesh. She gasped, desperate for air, but she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, even though she was screaming inside. They were holding her, crushing her, suffocating her, killing her. Dark spots danced before her eyes, then everything went black.
• • •
Gideon and David found Thornton waiting for them in the hotel bar. They’d hurried back from the Woman’s Party headquarters when he’d telephoned them saying he had news. He was sitting with his two plug-uglies, Lester and Fletcher, and another large man Gideon didn’t know. Gideon thought he looked like he should be pushing a plow instead of drinking in the Willard Hotel.
Gideon and David pulled chairs up to the already crowded table and sat down.
“You said you had some important news,” said Gideon, still eyeing the newcomer with suspicion.
“I do. Whittaker is in Washington.”
“What?” David almost shouted.
“Lower your voice,” Thornton said, glancing anxiously around the nearly empty room. “Everyone in this town is on the government payroll.” Fortunately, everyone on the government payroll seemed to be still at their offices, working. “We found out Whittaker has been hiding here in the city the whole time we’ve been looking for him.”
Gideon muttered a curse. “And who is this?” He nodded at the big farmer.
“Mr. Bates and Mr. Vanderslice, meet Deputy Klink,” Thornton said.
Klink nodded politely.
“The deputy you found to serve the writ,” Gideon remembered. Lester’s telegram had said they found him hiding out on his brother’s pig farm. Buying a transfer of his loyalty had been surprisingly cheap.
“Yeah, and he tried to serve it six times, but he never could find Whittaker, either at home or at the workhouse,” Fletcher said.
“Because, as we found out this morning,” Lester said, “he’s been here in Washington since the writ was issued, hiding from us.”
“Where is he?” David asked.
“At a cheap hotel, but it don’t matter. Deputy Klink, here, he don’t have no jurisdiction in Washington.”
“We need to get Warden Whittaker back to Virginia,” Deputy Klink said. He didn’t seem to notice the black look Thornton gave him.
“And how do you propose to do that?” Gideon asked.
The three men looked at each other for a minute or two. Finally, Lester said, “We was hoping you’d have an idea.”
“Good help is so hard to find,” Thornton muttered, and for once Gideon had to agree with him.
“If we know where he is, why can’t we just go talk to him?” David asked.
Thornton turned his black look on David. “What do you propose we talk to him about?”
“About releasing the women, of course.”
“David,” Gideon said patiently, “Whittaker couldn’t release the women even if he wanted to, and we have no reason to think he does. He is bound by the law to keep them until ordered to do otherwise by a judge. That’s why we need to get him to court.” He turned to Thornton. “We do need to get him back to Virginia. What have your men found out about him?”
Thornton gave the men an impatient glance and said, “Just that he lives not far from the prison and he hasn’t been home in days.”
“Does he have family?”
“A wife.”
“Good. She’s going to send him a telegram telling him . . .” He gazed off into the distance, considering the possibilities.
“Why would she send him a telegram?” David asked.
“She wouldn’t,” Thornton snapped. “We’d send a telegram and sign her name.”
“Oh, I see. Yes, of course. We could tell him she’s sick or something.”
Thornton seemed a little shocked by David’s lack of insight. Apparently, he didn’t really know him very well.
“And do we just hope Whittaker cares enough about his wife to go rushing home?” Gideon said. “Would that bring you rushing home, Thornton?”
Thornton smiled grimly. “Not if the president of the United States wanted me to stay in hiding.”
“I think Whittaker would agree,” Gideon said. “Maybe the president will send him a telegram instead.”
This earned him a nod of approval from Thornton, but David said, “Does the president send people telegrams?”
“No, but I’ll bet his secretary does,” Gideon said. “And I just happen to know his name.”
• • •
Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. Deep breaths.
Air had never smelled so sweet, even the foul air of the dispensary. She wanted to tell Anna how happy she was to breathe, but she couldn’t speak yet. Her throat burned and her jaws ached and every muscle in her body throbbed.
Don’t throw up. They’ll just do it again. The others had told her. Deep breaths.
The mess they’d poured down her throat lay like lead in her stomach. She tasted the sharpness of iron. Blood, she knew, seeping from the cuts in her mouth. She probed them gingerly with her tongue, testing each one, teasing the ragged skin and savoring the delicious twinge of pain because it proved she was alive.