Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 10:17:26 -0800
From: Michael Andre-Driussi 
Subject: (urth) PEACE: Kate's choice

Roy wrote:
>I take it that we agree that Kate never kept a diary?

Hmm.  Yes, I think so.  In any event, we agree that Lou Gold forged one!

>Let me see if I understand you correctly. I don't understand your emphasis
>on the importance of the tryst, but we agree, I think, that it *was* a
>consensual sexual encounter, not rape. Whiskey loosened the tongues of the
>seven men and Kate overheard them talking about what they had been doing
>down by Sugar Creek to get their boots muddy. Later, when one of the men (I
>think Quantrill himself to have been the least likely of the seven)
>encountered her alone, she took "him to the haymow, and bribed him with such
>talk as she knew how to make, and kisses and more. She was not that ugly a
>woman by moonlight." She used sexual bribery in an attempt to pump him for
>more detailed information than she had overheard earlier about what they had
>buried in the creek. Am I right so far?
>
>What was it that so peaked her interest that she was willing to trade sex
>for information about it, if it wasn't treasure? If it was treasure, then
>why is your position (above) "Q's Gold: not there"? Wasn't that the whole
>point of the tryst? Wasn't it to stash his gold that Quantrill ever came
>near the Mill place in the first place?

Hmmm, that's interesting.  I'm not certain as to Kate's plotting and/or
desires: I am only certain that the event happened (to counter your
insistance that it is pure fantasy). I admit that she seems at least
semi-consenting, but this takes place in a very coercive environment, and
in any event, even if she did plot and all that, she would imply or insist
later that it was rape.  So her cover story will always be that it was rape.

I mean, Q's men were really scary!  The raid on Lawrence, Kansas was really
horrible!  This isn't some sort of "Indecent Proposal," where Robert softy
Redford will pay a guy a million bucks to romp in the hay with the guy's
wife: this is a hostage situation where the terrorists are known to have
executed men who had become no longer useful!  Kate's choice at one level,
at least, is to offer her body to save Mr. Mill and her husband Sean.

Which is why I think it was Quantrill in the hay.  If Kate is going to make
such a play (for either life or for gold) she should aim for the top.

Poking around on the internet turns up a few more interesting tidbits on
Quantrill:

1) The raid on Lawrence was on Aug 19, 1863.  The cash part of the loot
taken was somewhere around $250,000, according to newspaper reports of the
time.  After the raid they wintered in Texas.

2) Q was supposedly secretly married to Sarah "Kate" King in 1863, before
the raid. Sarah was around 15 years old and her parents disapproved of her
marrying so young, hence the need for secrecy.

3) Sarah King also went by the name of "Kate Clarke" (Q's mother's maiden
name was Clarke).

4) Q was shot in 1865 and died of the wounds.  After a deathbed conversion
to Catholicism, he left $800 for his burial, with the remainder to be sent
to Kate King/Clarke.  Q was buried in old Portland Catholic Cemetary at
Louisville, Kentucky.  The priest sent the remaining $500 to Kate
King/Clarke.

5) Q had some kind of sex appeal.  The raid on Lawrence was foreshadowed by
women being imprisioned for helping Q; later a town-woman who was riding
around during the raid was seen as either a heroine or a traitoress; Sarah
"Kate" King/Clarke was said to ride with the gang at times.

Well now!  That whole "call me Kate" thing raises all sorts of weird echos
with the text of 1863 events in PEACE.  As does the "secret marriage" at
around the time of the raid, and several other items that I won't belabor
since it will take us off the immediate track.

=mantis=



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