Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River]

by River of Tomorrow

  “I say it!”

  Mercy was enraged, her face crimson with anger.

  “You stupid jackass! What do you know about being fit? You can’t read or write, you’ve got the manners of a hog, and you’re standing there telling me I’m not fit to teach.”

  “I ain’t a-talkin’ ’bout book learnin’. ’Tis other thin’s.” He crossed his arms stubbornly.

  “What other things?” Mercy demanded. “What gossip have you spread around that has caused the parents to keep the children out of school?”

  “Wal, if ya don’t know, missy—”

  “My name is Miss Quill to you, Mr. Knibee, and I’ll thank you to use it.”

  Knibee made a sound of ridicule in his throat. “Air ya sure that’s yore name? Ain’t yore name . . . Hester?”

  “Hester may be my real name. I’m not sure yet,” Mercy answered without hesitation, and Daniel was never more proud of her. “But I’ve been Mercy Quill since I was two years old. But what has my name got to do with my ability to teach children to read and write?”

  “That name business ain’t all what’s been goin’ on, ’n’ ya know it.” Knibee uncrossed his arms, and his huge fists hung at his sides. His small, deepset eyes went past her to the men who had crowded out the door when she had first called out to him. They stood silently on the porch. Damn fools! Why didn’t they speak up and say something?

  Mercy stood stiff and prim and waited. “Well,” she snapped after a lengthy silence, “it seems you’ve got more to say, so say it. Spit out the gossip you’ve been so anxious to spread.”

  Knibee’s eyes went to the tall, lean man who stood with a shoulder against the porch post. He had never liked Daniel Phelps. He was too quiet. His way of doing business at the mill irritated him, too—his way of letting a nigger take a turn the same as a white man. Knibee hitched up his breeches. He had been backed into a corner, and now he’d say his piece. He wasn’t going to be backed down by a chit who was no better than he was, even if she had been raised by the Quills.

  “It’s been talked of . . . We heard . . . ah, my Mary heard some fellers say that you’d spent the night alone in the house with Phelps.”

  “I did. What about it?’” Mercy refused to look away.

  “What . . . about it?” Knibee sputtered. “Why, no decent unwedded woman’d stay the night alone with a man.”

  “Are you saying I’m not decent because I spent the night alone in the house with a man who is like a brother to me?”

  “But he ain’t yore brother! Ever’body knows it. And, yeah . . . I’m sayin’ ya ain’t a decent, God-fearin’ woman. Yore tainted, is what ya are. Ya ain’t fit ta be—”

  Daniel’s fist shot out. The blow was so quick, so vicious, that it would have staggered a horse. It landed square on Knibee’s nose. He took two stumbling steps backward and fell off the end of the porch, landing on his back in the dirt. His nose was a spouting fountain of blood. There was no sound except for the thud when Daniel’s fist connected with Knibee’s nose, and the plop when Knibee hit the ground.

  The men behind Mercy crowded to the edge of the porch and looked down.

  Mercy frowned up into Daniel’s face. It was as calm as if nothing had happened. He was holding his cut knuckles.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Because I wanted to.”

  “But I was going to slap him, and you didn’t give me the chance.”

  “Next time you’d better hurry if you want to get your lick in. I’m not waiting.”

  Mercy’s eyes moved slowly over the men watching, confronting each directly until they turned their eyes away. At one time or another all of them had told her how pleased they were that their children were receiving the education they’d never had.

  “You must agree with the ‘gentleman’ on his back in the dirt, or you wouldn’t have kept your children home from school. If you want them to go through life unable to read or write, to be ignorant, as you are, there is little I can do about it. If you reconsider and want me to teach them, I’ll be at home. And by the way, Daniel will stay with me tonight and every night until the McCourtneys get back from Vincennes. If you choose to consider me a fallen woman because of it, it only proves that you are a group of narrow-minded, muddleheads!”

  With her head high, Mercy stepped off the porch and started up the road toward home. Behind her, she heard Daniel’s voice.

  “Get on your feet, Knibee. If one more word about Miss Quill comes out of your dirty mouth, I’ll smash it all over your face.” The words were spoken in a way that left no doubt that he would do exactly as he said.

  “See here! Ya ain’t got no right ta hit me. ’Cause Farr Quill’s gone ta the State House, ’n’ makin’ the laws don’t make you no better’n the rest a us.” Knibee pushed himself up into a sitting position.

  “What you said about Miss Quill made me want to break your dammed neck! If you want to keep teeth in your mouth, keep it shut about her.” Daniel bit out the words sharply.

  The rage that boiled up in Daniel was ready to erupt again. Knibee sensed it; the men on the porch sensed it. Knowing he was no match for the big angry man, Knibee rolled over onto his knees and got to his feet. He pulled a cloth from his pocket and held it to his nose. On his way to his wagon he paused and spoke to the men on the porch. “Ya comin’?”

  Daniel glanced at Mercy’s retreating back, held stiff as a poker, as she walked briskly down the road toward home. He stepped upon the porch beside Mike, and the two of them watched the wagons leave town.

  “I guess that’s that,” Daniel said. “It appears that school let out a little early this year.”

  “How’d she take it?”

  “Hard at first. Then she got mad.”

  “She told Glenn Knibee how the cow ate the cabbage. Ignorant jackass, she called him. It takes a while to get her riled up, but when she is, she don’t back down.” Mike smiled broadly.

  “It wasn’t easy for her.” Daniel’s stern words wiped the smile from Mike’s face.

  “What’s this business about her name being Hester?”

  “Have you seen the two fellows in peaked hats hanging around?”

  “Leather peaked hats? Riding the mules?”

  “Yeah. Have you seen them this morning?”

  “About an hour ago. They were heading for the mill.”

  Daniel muttered a curse and glared toward the mill. “What time did Turley leave?”

  “Long before daylight. I sent food for the woman. Pap and milk for the babe. Coffin gave Turley a letter to a man in Springfield and left shortly after. I wish we could have kept Mercy out of this.”

  “So do I.”

  “About those fellows . . . what’ve they got to do with Mercy? Why were they at the school? By God, if they hurt her, I’ll fill their hide with buckshot!”

  “They didn’t hurt her.”

  Daniel studied his friend for a moment, seeing him once again standing close to Mercy with his hand on her arm, Mercy earnestly looking up into his face. He choked down the jealousy the vision evoked. Whether Mike was in love with Mercy or not, he was like one of the family and had the right to know what was going on.

  Daniel told him in as few words as possible about the Baxters coming to the house, upending Mercy to see if she had the “Baxter spot.”

  “They . . . what?” Mike asked as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “They looked . . . under her clothes?”

  “She said they didn’t hurt her. The mole beneath her eyelid, the brown spot, and the fact that Farr found her on the Green River at the time the Baxter child was taken, are evidence that she is Hester Baxter.”

  “Can it be true after all this time?” Mike murmured with a worried frown on his face.

  “She thinks it is. That’s all that matters.”

  “She’s ashamed to be kin to them, is that it?”

  “Not all of it. They want her to go back to Kentucky with them. Their mother is on her deathbed, and her dying wish is to see her lit
tle lost girl. That’s the way they put it.”

  “That’s a bunch of horseshit if I ever heard any! Why, hell! We’re not letting her go off alone with those two buzzard-eaters, even if she wants to!”

  “Hell, no!”

  “Get her away from here. Take her to Vandalia.”

  “I suggested that. She won’t go. She’s afraid the Baxters will follow and be an embarrassment to the Quills. She thinks this is something she has to work out herself.”

  “What can we do?”

  “We’re going to wait and see what Mercy wants to do. It’ll take a little time for her to get used to the idea that she’s got blood kin. Then she’ll decide if she wants to see them or not. I’ll not tell her to do something that she may regret later.”

  “If she decides to go, then, by God, I’ll go with her!” Mike’s jaws clamped shut, and he pounded his knotted fist into his palm.

  The thought of anyone other than himself taking Mercy anywhere caused Daniel’s brows to draw together in a frown. The pulse jerked in his throat, and he cursed himself for being a jealous fool.

  “If Mercy wants to go to Kentucky, I’ll take her. And I’ll make sure she comes back.”

  “How can you leave here right now with Coffin sending runaways through? I look for this to be one of the main lines of the Underground Railway.”

  “You and George and Turley will have to handle anything that happens while I’m gone.”

  “What about Hammond Perry? That man hates everything about Quill’s Station. If he even suspects that the mill is the place known as Sugar Tree, he’ll watch it like a hawk watches a chicken.”

  “I’m thinking he’ll show up in a day or two. He’s a mean bastard. It would be like him to grab some of the people out on the farm, just to show us he can, and to get back at Farr for the year he had to spend at Fort Dearborne after his attempt to have Farr hung for treason.”

  “He’d be sure to get the legislators riled up if he kidnaps free folk in Illinois. Most of the Negroes here are second-generation freedmen like George. The rest, like the people out on your place and old Jeems and his boy, have papers,” Mike protested.

  “Ha!” Daniel snorted. “Papers wouldn’t make any difference to Hammond Perry. He’d see Jasper’s boys as good breeding stallions, and Birdie, Gus’s daughter, as a brood mare. They’d be a nice addition to his breeding farm. Damn him to hell!”

  “Breeding farm? My God! That’s the worst thing I ever heard of. It’s like he was raising cattle or horses.”

  “That’s it. To Hammond Perry a Negro is no more than a dumb animal to work in the field. Hell! I don’t know the answer. I realize they can’t all be turned loose to fend for themselves. They don’t know how. But, by God, they shouldn’t be treated like animals.”

  With that comment he stepped off the porch and headed for the mill.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The rhythmic thump of the mill wheel was a familiar sound to Daniel. The high whine of the saw told him that the mill wheel was being used to rip boards for Gavin McCourtney’s lumber business. It had become profitable to both Daniel and Gavin to share the mill. After George opened the flume gate and set the wheel to moving, he would leave the sawing to Gavin’s men. George knew as much about operating the mechanism of the mill and keeping it repaired as Daniel or Turley Blaine.

  The Baxters’ mules were tied beneath the trees behind the mill. Daniel walked rapidly up the stone ramp to the room above where the millstones and the saw were operated by the wheel. If the Kentuckians mistreated George, there would be trouble.

  “I ain’t ne’er heared such a racket in all my born days.” Bernie Baxter’s voice rose above the whine of the saw.

  Daniel paused in the doorway. George, a heavy sack of flour on his shoulder, turned to face the Baxters. He had worked at the mill since age twelve, and at seventeen he was as tall as Daniel and almost as muscular.

  “Then get the hell out,” George said as he eyed the two with taunting amusement. “You ain’t tied in here.”

  George was a handsome youth with straight black hair and fine features. His skin was more like that of his Shawnee mother, a light reddish-brown, not black like his Negro father.

  “Ya just better watch out who ye’r talkin’ to, boy. I ain’t a man ta take back talk.”

  “Is that right? I’m just plumb scared!”

  Bernie took a threatening step forward. “I ain’t taking sass from a—”

  “From a what? A nigger? A Injun? I’m half of each, white man.” There was a hesitation in his voice when he said the words. “Take your choice, but be careful how you say it.”

  George Washington was extremely proud. He knew what he was, and took pride in his heritage. To be sneered at raised his anger to the boiling point. He was smart enough, however, to know that if he engaged in a fistfight with a white man, even one such as stood before him now, could get him into serious trouble. But there were other ways to even a score with a white man who ill-used him. One had been known to step on a loose board and break a leg; the axle on another man’s wagon had broken despite a light load. The gates at one farm had been left open. It took the farmer a week to gather up his livestock after they had wandered miles from home. But these mysterious “accidents” were few; and Daniel, aware of the circumstances, considered them so well deserved that he never mentioned them to George.

  “What are you doing here?” Daniel demanded from the doorway, thinking it time he intervened. The Baxters swung around to face him. “I thought I had made myself clear enough to you that I don’t want you hanging around.”

  “Ya ain’t ownin’ the whole town,” Bernie said nastily.

  “No, but I own this mill.”

  “Well now, ain’t ya the high muck!”

  “Hush up,” his brother ordered sharply. Then to Daniel, “We’re a-wantin’ a word with ya.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Here?”

  “Here. I’ve got work to do.”

  “I’d jist as soon walk off a piece. That noise plumb hurts my ears.”

  “That’s the sound of good, honest work. But if it offends your ears, come on.”

  Daniel left the room. The Baxters followed. They walked back down the stone ramp to the ground level and on to stand beneath the tree where the mules were tied.

  “Say what you came to say. I’ve wasted enough time on you the last few days.” Daniel eyes were stormy, his voice full of irritation.

  Lenny spat before he spoke. “Nobody ask ya to put yore bill in, mister. What we got to say is ’bout Hester. Jist what air ya aimin’ to do ’bout our Sister?”

  “I’m aiming to keep Mercy Quill as far away from you two as I can. It’s for her to decide if she wants to claim kin to you. You’ve already caused her to lose her school. Did you know that?”

  Lenny ignored the question and spat again. “She knows she’s Hester. And me ’n’ Bernie know ya ain’t wantin’ us ’round. I ain’t a-meanin’ that.”

  “Then what the hell do you mean?”

  “The Baxters is decent, God-fearing folks. They is looked up to down on Mud Creek. Me ’n’ Bernie, bein’ Hester’s kin, ain’t likin’ what’s goin’ on here, a-tall.”

  “No, we ain’t,” Bernie said. “If’n ya was down on Mud Creek, ya’d be strung up ’n’ feelin’ the lash on yore back fer what ya’ve done to Hester.”

  Daniel was losing patience. He swore, using words he reserved for extreme occasions. Of the two Baxters, Bernie was the one who aggravated him the most. The force of his voice, as much as his words, betrayed his irritation.

  “What the hell are you two muddleheads talking about? Get to the point.”

  “I ain’t takin’ no name-callin’ from the likes a you.” Bernie’s heated tone matched Daniel’s.

  “Hush up, Bernie. Me bein’ older’n ya are, ’n’ next to Hod ’n’ Wyatt at headin’ up the Baxters, I’ll be doin’ the talkin’.” Lenny planted his heavy boots far apart and crossed his arms over his chest. “We kn
owed ya stayed with Hester all night long with nary a soul around ta be knowin’ what ya done. Ya didn’t come out till mornin’.”

  “What of it? I stayed last night, the night before, and I’ll stay again tonight.”

  “See there! See there!” Bernie’s voice squeaked. He jumped up and down, his arms flopping at his side like the wings of a chicken who had just been beheaded. “I told ya he’d be braggin’ it up. Hester ain’t never goin’ ta get a decent man ta wed up with her if’n this gets out.”

  “Mister, if’n Hod and Wyatt gets wind a this, ya’d better look out. We knows what goes on when a feller gets a sightly woman off to hisself. Bernie seen ya huggin’ up to Hester. Huggin’ leads ta kissin’, kissin’ leads ta begettin’ younguns. Ya better be knowin’ there ain’t no feller ruint a Baxter woman ’n’ lived ta brag on it.”

  A look of intense anger came over Daniel’s face. His eyes, filled with rage, were astonishingly bright with it.

  “You dirty, spying, low-lifed, mangy, stupid, muleheaded idiots!” he shouted. “I’ve taken about all I’m going to take from you. I advise you to get on those mules and head for Kentucky, or by God, you may not leave here at all.”

  “Warn’t make no difference at-tall.” Lenny spoke calmly. “Hod and Wyatt knowed where we was comin’ ’n’ what fer. They’d be right up here to see ’bout us. Hod ’n’ Wyatt’ll get Hester if’n they come. They’d not mess around askin’ her nothin’, like we done. They know ’bout the mole ’n’ they’d see the Baxter spot on her butt. Me ’n’ Bernie figger Wyatt ’n’ Hod got plowin’ ta do ’n’ their women ’n’ younguns to do fer. We be already here ’n’ we’re goin’ to handle thin’s the best we know how.”

  “The best you know how isn’t good enough. You’re making me want to break your scrawny necks,” Daniel said angrily. “I’ll tell you this, if it will ease your mind. There’s not a woman in the world I respect more than Mercy Quill, and I would die before I dishonored her.”

  “Ha!” The word exploded from Bernie. “Then why warn’t thar but one light on?”