A Chance at Love

by Beverly Jenkins

  “No, but after my daddy died, it was either learn to be fearless or spend the rest of my life on my knees. I chose to stand and fight.”

  “Must’ve been hard being on your own.”

  She thought back and said quietly, “Harder than anyone will ever know.”

  Jake wanted to ask her to explain but he didn’t feel comfortable delving into something that sounded so personal. If she had the desire to share her life’s journey with him, he knew she would in her own time.

  Loreli didn’t want to discuss her past, mainly because she wasn’t certain how he might respond, so she changed the subject. “Tell me about this union business.”

  Jake sensed she wanted to talk about something else so he didn’t question her change in topics. “It’s a national movement that’s trying to bring workers, farmer, and trade unionists together to form one voice.”

  “The Knights of Labor?”

  “They’re involved, but there are also farmers’ alliances and grangers in the ranks too. Ideally, we could become strong enough to form a pretty powerful third political party, and that’s been discussed as well.”

  “A third political party?”

  “Sure. We can’t look to the Democrats for relief. Their main concerns are disenfranchising us as quickly as possible, and restoring the Confederacy. The Republicans may as well be Democrats for all the good they’re doing the race these days. So why not form a third party to carry forward the issues of the workers and the poor?”

  Loreli admittedly paid very little attention to politics, but even she knew that the Republicans were no longer supporting the rights and issues of the race, and that the nation’s Black newspapers were howling with outrage over the lack of commitment by the party of Lincoln.

  “With all this industrialization going on and the factories being built,” Jake said, “people are being paid less for working more. Skilled workers like shoemakers are being replaced by machines that can make hundreds of shoes a day, and run by people who are rendered mindless by the sheer repetition of their jobs. If we can get all of the factory workers and farmers and the trade unionists to unite, we could get the mortgage mess cleaned up, demand that folks be paid what they’re worth, and make sure the money they are paid is worth something.”

  “Sounds pretty grandiose.”

  Jake shook his head.

  “I don’t think so. This country owes it to the farmers to make sure we stay afloat. After all, the nation’s getting bigger every day and folks have to be fed, but the way it stands now, all of the tariffs and taxes seemed designed to break us, not build us up.”

  “I can’t see the bankers and capitalists wanting to change things.”

  “Of course not. They’re getting fat. They don’t want to have to tighten their belts just so children won’t have to work in their mines fourteen and fifteen hours a day, or so that the thousands of women working in the garment factories can make more than a few pennies a week in wages. No, the rich want to preserve the status quo and they’re doing everything in their power to stop us. Some organizers have been killed.”

  Loreli found that disquieting, “You said that before.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you been threatened?”

  “Not so far.”

  “Do you think you may be?” she asked.

  “Anything’s possible.”

  “Well, I’m an excellent shot.”

  He gave her just the ghost of a smile. “I figured that.”

  “Well, let’s hope Rebecca and her friends figure that out before church tomorrow. I’d hate to have to give them a demonstration.”

  Humor lit his eyes. “Let’s hope that won’t be necessary.”

  As the sun disappeared below the horizon, dusk rolled in. Loreli stared at the view. “What was it like growing up here?”

  “Not bad, though it wasn’t called Bloody Kansas for nothing.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Lots of fighting between Free Staters and the Missouri border gangs who wanted the territory to be proslavery. Blood was shed on both sides before it was all decided.”

  “Wasn’t John Brown from Kansas?”

  “He was born elsewhere, but Kansas became his home. He and my father were good friends. They were both Old Testament men—all hellfire and brimstone, and an eye for an eye.” Jake paused for a moment as the memories flooded his mind. “Mr. Brown had the coldest blue eyes I’ve ever seen on a man—had ten children too.”

  Loreli didn’t know that.

  “I remember him and pa sitting on this very porch, planning and plotting their holy war against slavery—and in their minds it was a holy war. Even though my father claimed to be a man of the cloth, both he and Brown helped the Jayhawkers—”

  “What’s a Jayhawker?” Loreli interrupted.

  “Members of a guerrilla band of Kansas Free Staters commanded by Captain James Montgomery.”

  “I’ve never heard of a jayhawk. Is there really a bird by that name?”

  “Supposedly. A jayhawk is an Irish bird that hunts smaller birds and shakes them to death the way mousers do rats, but the Kansas Jayhawks hunted proslavers.”

  “And your father knew these men?”

  Jake nodded. “Yes, he even rode with Captain Montgomery for a while, as did Mr. Brown.”

  “It sounds odd to hear you refer to him as Mister Brown. I’m so accustomed to hearing him called by his full name.”

  “I was what, nine, ten years old when I first met him? Being a youngster, I had to address him that way.”

  “Makes sense, but never thought I’d be standing on the same porch that he once stood on.”

  “Wanting to eradicate slavery made him fearless, but my mother swore he was unbalanced,” Jake said.

  “Why?”

  “She called him a zealot, and sometimes zealots do things that god-fearing folks wouldn’t.”

  “Such as?”

  “Back in 1856, proslavery Missourians sacked and burned Lawrence. Many of the citizens were murdered. Mr. Brown was living over near Pottawatomie Creek at the time, and when he heard what had been done in Lawrence, he became so enraged and so filled with vengeance he kidnapped five of his proslavery neighbors.”

  “Were these neighbors involved in the Lawrence fight?”

  “No.”

  “What did Brown do after he kidnapped them?”

  “He and his sons killed them. Split their heads open with broadswords.”

  Loreli was surprised. “My. So that’s what you meant by an eye for an eye.”

  “Yes.”

  Loreli had never heard that story before, but figured that since slavery was unbalanced, it seemed only fitting to pit a man like John Brown against it. “What was your mother like?”

  “Timid but loving. She didn’t want anything out of life but to go to church and raise her family. She thought her dream had come true when she married my father. He was a simple preacher, and she was proud that he was a Jayhawker and an abolitionist, but finding out he was an adulterer turned the marriage into a nightmare and broke her heart.”

  “When did she die?”

  “During the last year of the war. My father was away fighting for the Union at the time.”

  Loreli’s voice softened. “My daddy died that same year. September 20, 1865.” She would never forget the date nor the horror that befell her in the hours immediately following his death. She changed the subject again. “How long have you been doctoring animals?”

  “Most of my life. Started with an eaglet I found when I was about ten. I went to Howard College, hoping to learn enough to get a certificate, but I quit after three months and came home.”

  Loreli was surprised. “Why? You’re certainly smart enough to have done well.”

  “Thanks, but I missed the land. Missed the sunrises and the sunsets. Back East was too noisy and crowded. I’m a country boy—all that rushing around wasn’t for me. So, I left Washington and came home.”

  “Was
your father angry?” Loreli asked.

  “Of course, but I didn’t care. Didn’t care about anything he had to say back then.”

  “Why not?”

  “I blamed him for my mother’s death. Bonnie did too. He never treated her right. Left her home for days, sometimes weeks at a time. When he wasn’t off Jayhawking, he was out saving sinners or coveting his neighbor’s wife. She begged him not to join Lincoln’s war back in ’62. I remember the argument they had the night before he left again in ’64. She told him then she wasn’t well and didn’t want to be apart from him, but he told her fighting slavery was more important than any mortal’s health. He left her and us the next morning.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Just turned seventeen. I wanted to fight. I’d already signed my name, but he made me stay and take care of my mother and Bonnie. He said it was a fight for men, not boys.”

  “Maybe he just wanted to protect you,” Loreli offered.

  “Maybe he just wanted to leave his family to see what was on the other side. He never seemed happy at home.”

  “Well, I’ve had restless feet all of my life too, I can’t fault him for that.”

  “But you don’t have a family and two children. You didn’t leave in the middle of planting season and assume your children and wife would somehow survive without a means of support.”

  “But it was the fight against slavery, Jake. Everyone left families behind.”

  “I know, but I could have gone in his place. He didn’t have to go.”

  She heard the underlying bitterness in his tone. “Did the two of you ever reconcile before his death?”

  “No, after my mother died, he saw the devil in everything and everywhere, mostly in himself. He spent the last years of his life in that room upstairs on his knees in the dark, begging God to forgive his sins. He rarely bathed, ate just enough to stay alive, and berated me for trying to keep the farm going. Wanted me on my knees praying for his soul instead of planting.”

  Loreli now understood some of the reasons behind Jake Reed’s stoic exterior. In the face of such difficult family circumstances, she would have been forced to view life stoically as well. She also understood why he’d been so grim when showing her his father’s attic room. “If you don’t want me to open that room again, I’ll understand.”

  “No, it’s time for light up there. It’s been closed off long enough. Maybe it’ll help me get rid of a few ghosts of my own.”

  Loreli was touched by his readiness to share his past. “You’ve told me a lot about yourself this evening.”

  “I hadn’t planned on it, so how about you return the favor?”

  She turned and looked at him in the shadows. “You want to know something about me now?”

  “I think it’s only fair.”

  “Okay, how about this? The fire that killed my mother was set by men hired by my father’s mother?”

  “What?”

  “Yes. They came to the house one night while my father and grandfather were away on business.” She looked out over the darkness and continued, “I guess my grandmother had a conscience of sorts because the men took me out of the house first. I don’t remember if my mother put up a fight or not, I was too young to remember, but my pa always said I got my spirit from her, so I imagine she did fight them, but it didn’t matter. They took me, tied her up and nailed the doors and windows shut.”

  Loreli’s voice was barely above a whisper, “Can you imagine being tied up and unable to free yourself while someone is nailing you in. She must have been terrified. They poured kerosene around the outside and set it on fire.”

  Jake was appalled. “What did they do with you?”

  “Gave me to my grandmother who in turn, sold me to a friend of hers in the next county. My father didn’t tell me this story until I was ten or so. Said I wasn’t old enough to know the truth before then.”

  “How did he find you?”

  “At first, she told him I too had been burned to death, but when he couldn’t find my body in the ashes and rubble, he confronted her. She eventually told him what she’d done with me, and he immediately came to claim me.”

  “But why did she do such an awful thing?”

  “She hated my mother, I suppose. He was her only child and he broke her heart by marrying a slave woman, but once my father found me, we never returned to his parents’ home.”

  Loreli then said, “Second story. My father was killed in a card game. Stabbed to death by two thugs. Later that night, before I could find somebody to bury him, those same men came back, dragged me behind the boardinghouse where my daddy and I had been staying and took what innocence I had left.”

  Jake whispered, “My lord.”

  “Yep. So, although Rebecca and her kind might not believe it, I’ve been very, very particular about who I invite into my bed since then.”

  Jake didn’t know what to say or feel.

  She asked him emotionlessly, “Are we even, now, you and I?”

  He still found it hard to speak. “Were the men caught?”

  She shrugged. “Sheriff didn’t care about a mulatto and her troubles. One of the whores from the saloon took me in, patched me up. A few weeks later, I took off north. Eventually wound up in Philadelphia.”

  “How’d you feed yourself?”

  “Playing cards, throwing dice, pitching pennies. My daddy was one of the best gamblers in the south and he taught me well.”

  The night’s silence rose between them for a moment, then Loreli said, “I vowed to never be that kind of victim again, and I haven’t. No matter what it took, Loreli has always been in control of Loreli.”

  Jake heard the mix of anger, defiance, and pride in her voice. He wanted to somehow go back in time, find the men and punish them until they hurt as much as she’d been hurt. Jake knew about rape, but blessedly no one in his acquaintance had ever been subjected to such an outrage. He could only guess at how long it must take a woman to get over such a horrendous experience, or if she ever did at all. “Are the memories still there?”

  “They’re always there. I don’t think it’s something you forget. The harshness dulls after awhile, but it never goes away.”

  Jake knew then and there that he would hurt anyone who called her whore in the future.

  “I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you this, but I will because it’s part of the story too.”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, later in my life I met a wonderful man who helped me heal some of the scars. He taught me that a man and woman coming together didn’t have to be a nasty, painful, or degrading act; it could be beautiful, loving, even fun. He helped me learn that a man could touch a woman with wonder, desire—passion.”

  Loreli looked over at Jake and said, “I’m not trying to upset you, Jake.”

  “I understand. Did you love this man?”

  Loreli replied truthfully, “I did, but loving him was like trying to love the wind. He’s even more restless than I am.”

  “So is he still in your life?” Jake steeled himself for the answer. For reasons he refused to examine, Jake didn’t want to learn that this mystery man was awaiting her in California.

  “Haven’t seen him in years. Last I heard, he was in Cuba somewhere on a sugar plantation.”

  “Working?”

  She chuckled. “Owns the place more than likely. Trevor Church never did an honest day’s work in his life, far as I know.”

  Jake turned the odd-sounding name over in his mind, and realized he didn’t know one man of color with the name Trevor.

  “Where’s he from?”

  “Ireland. His mother was an Irish noblewoman—his father, a Black British seaman.”

  “That’s unusual.”

  “Not really, according to Trevor. Britain’s Black seamen have fathered children all over the empire just as their White comrades have done. In fact, he swears mulatto children like him are the true reason the term Black Irish came to be.”

  Jake didn’t
know anything about Black Irishmen or even White Irishmen, if the truth be told. What he did know was that he was suddenly jealous of the man’s place in Loreli’s life, even though Jake knew he had no right to be. How had he gone from barely tolerating this woman to being jealous of the people in her past in less than a week? Once again he could only wonder if he were under some kind of exotic spell. He’d never had a woman affect him this way, but then, he’d never met a woman like Loreli.

  Because of the lengthy silence, Loreli felt compelled to say, “You are angry, aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m not. I’m just thinking what a remarkable woman you are.”

  She studied him for a moment. “Are you being serious, or sarcastic?”

  “Serious, Loreli. Very much so.”

  “Compliments?”

  “Yes, and don’t act so surprised. I’ve given you a few before now.”

  “You’re right, you have, but—”

  “But what?” Jake asked.

  “I didn’t know how you’d react to hearing about Trevor, is all.”

  Silence reigned for a moment, then he said, “No man enjoys hearing about the accomplishments of another man, especially in relation to the woman he’s about to marry.”

  “But we aren’t marrying for each other. We’re doing this for the girls.”

  “True, but I’m still a man, Loreli.”

  Her heart pinged. “So, you are upset?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “I think you are.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not.”

  “Then let’s change the subject.”

  “Fine.”

  “You are upset.”

  Jake’s lip tightened. “I thought we were changing the subject?”

  “You’re probably never going to meet Trevor, you know.”

  “Loreli?”

  “Sorry. So, what shall we talk about? Politics is always a safe subject. You’re a Republican, am I correct?”

  “I was for the last election, but if the Populists can gather enough support I may vote for them this time.”

  “Who are the Populists?”

  “That third party I told you about earlier.”

  “Oh.”

  Loreli sensed he was still out of sorts about Trevor, and she didn’t really care to discuss politics. “Your turn.”