“It’d be nice if the mayor spent less time worrying about our mourning clothes and more time worrying about how to get us fresh supplies,” says Sally. “We ran out of anything resembling a bandage in the first twelve hours.”
Archie ignores Sally and addresses Mrs. Kimball. “Do you have a frock you could dye?”
Finally, Sally comes to the list of the dead and missing.
There are maybe sixty names on the list—arranged alphabetically, by ward, and then by skin color. Unmarried women are listed by first and last name, and married women are listed under their husband’s names.Colored people are distinguished as free when the information is available.
Sally whispers the names aloud, like the words of a prayer: Adeline Bausman, Mary Clay, Margaret Copland, Lucy Gawthmey, Patsey Griffin, Arianna Hunter, Cyprian Marks, Elizabeth Stevenson.
Two women on the list share the same last name—Page—and she thinks of the young woman who refused to jump from the window, paralyzed by the knowledge that her sister was dead on the ground below.
Near the bottom of the list is the name Cecily Patterson. The newspaper identifies the Price family’s servant as a woman of color, but what is more significant are the words that follow that brief description:Supposed to have perished.
Sally reads the rest of the names on the list. At least a half-dozen other colored people have perished, but no one else’s name is accompanied by this odd phrase, this “Supposed to have.” Did Elliott get to Ritchie? He didn’t say anything about theEnquireron the ride back to Mrs. Cowley’s.
As Sally studies the list more closely, she notices something else. “It’s almost all women,” she says in surprise as she looks up from the paper.
“What do you mean?” says Archie.
“The dead. They’re overwhelmingly women.”
“That can’t be.”
Sally begins to count quietly to herself. When she gets to the bottom of the list, she starts again. Finally, she announces, “I count just fourteen men among the dead. And two of them are young boys.”
“How many women are there?” asks Margaret.
“Fifty.”
“Heavens,” Mrs. Kimball says. “That many?”
“It’s not a definitive list,” says Archie. He points to a small note from the editor at the top of the column. “See, it says so right there.”
He is right. Ritchie warns that the list will grow. But it doesn’t matter if it does. The ratio of men to women is unlikely to shift.
Sally rereads the article. There’s something about it she doesn’t like, but it takes her another pass before she decides what it is.
Ritchie describes fathers shrieking for their children, husbands for their wives, and brothers for their sisters, but it was the other way around. It’s the women who were shrieking, while the men pushed past them—and in some cases, climbed over them—to get to the door.
JACK
Anderson has been asleep upstairsfor an hour, maybe two, when Thomas Ritchie raps on the doorframe of the tavern’s back room.
“You again,” he says to Jack in lieu of a greeting.
Jack was half-asleep sitting up, and he pushes back his chair and stumbles to his feet. He’s so very tired, and Ritchie is the last person he wants to see right now. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Mr. Placide and Mr. Green.”
“They’re not here,” says Jack.
“Where are they?”
Jack is terrified of saying the wrong thing. But he also doesn’t want to look like he’s got anything to hide. “They board at Mrs. Barrett’s,” he says, then offers to wake Anderson, whom he promises will be only too glad to take Ritchie to see them.
“You seem perfectly capable,” says Ritchie. “Why don’t you let him sleep?”
Jack wants to scream,Because I’ll be buried in a shallow grave!Instead, he nods politely, pushes in his chair, and leads Ritchie onto the street, resolving to tell him nothing except the absolute essentials.
