“Has to be money,” Teddy said promptly. He twisted his hat in his hands. His gaze faltered for the first time. “Can’t see how. We ain’t got none, and ain’t going bring them none that I can see. But when white folks show up dangling prizes for black folks, money always changes hands. There’s them what does the fleecing and them what gets fleeced. Don’t guess I have to tell you which we usually is. But this time we going to stay one step ahead of them.”
She heard Nancy St. James’s weak, whimpering voice before she even opened the door. The poor woman cowered in her bed, her eyes wild with fright. “State your name, sir,” she called.
Bethany gave her a short, dark look as she whisked into the room. “Shh, now. It’s just me. Surely you remembered this was my church night.”
“You don’t have the right to go gallivanting. You know how sick I am. Get me my tea. I feel a headache coming on.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bethany murmured. Resentfully, she took her time, and by the time the tea had steeped, Miss Nancy was asleep.
She undressed quickly but was too stimulated by the service at the church to fall asleep instantly. Hours later, she was still mulling over the old mulatto’s words.
“It will never be the same,” he had said. “You can’t go back. What our people need is learning. Come to a new clean state, and make a fresh start. Kansas. The home of John Brown. They understand freedom. The land is free. The people are free. You’ll know what the word means at last.”
The next morning, she rose while it was still dark and dressed quietly lest she wake Miss Nancy. Worried about a patient who was still bed-ridden after a difficult birth, she wanted to see if the woman was getting her strength back. She picked up her bag of medicines, then heard a wail of protest.
“You can’t be leaving. I haven’t had breakfast yet.”
“I’ll be back soon, ma’am. Go back to sleep. I have a few people to see, then I’ll make you something special.”
“Uppity nigger,” Miss Nancy mumbled. Then in a flurry of new-found strength she swung her legs over the bed, swayed to her feet, grabbed a nearby broom, and held it like a club over her head and rushed toward Bethany.
Bethany easily sidestepped as Miss Nancy stumbled clumsily over the coal bucket. Her momentum sent her crashing onto the floor.
Stunned, Bethany stared down at the helpless bundle of flesh. She stretched out her hand and helped Miss Nancy to her feet.
She could no longer pretend it was night terrors. That Miss Nancy didn’t really know what she was doing. That she couldn’t help herself. Truth was, this crazy woman—once dearer to Bethany than life itself—wanted to kill her.
“Get dressed,” Bethany said coldly. “You’re coming with me.”
“You don’t understand.”
Bethany didn’t reply. She lifted the blue dress Miss Nancy had worn yesterday off the nail holding her daywear, then fairly yanked off the frilly white nightgown. She roughly thrust the dress over Miss Nancy’s head and stilled her own trembling hands long enough to manage the rows of buttons. She plopped Nancy down into the nearest chair like a rag doll and shoved her feet into her useless, just-for-show shoes without bothering to fasten them properly.
Bethany walked over to the dresser where she kept their cache of money, counted out half, and tucked it into her medicine bag. Then she grabbed Miss Nancy’s hand and pulled the stumbling belle of the St. James plantation down the streets of Lexington to a house off the main street. A small sign in one of the windows read Milliners.
The shop belonged to the Mueller sisters, distant aunts of old Mister St. James. Poor relations. They had come to the plantation once, years ago, and Miss Nancy had made it quite clear that they were just barely members of the family.
Once inside, the sharp-eyed woman in charge gasped when she saw her niece.
“Miss St. James is ill,” Bethany said curtly. She unfolded a piece of paper. “Here is the deed to her house. She owns it outright. I have been taking care of her. I can no longer do so.”
Her mistress stood there, slack-faced and expressionless. Drained of will.
No fool she, Nancy’s Aunt Winona quickly took the deed to the house. “You’re Bethany Herbert?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re well known. We are grateful for the care you’ve given our darling niece. We thought she was doing just fine. We had no idea. Of course she’s welcome to live with us and there’s a place for you here, too. We insist.”
Knowing it was the money her doctoring skills would bring in that prompted the invitation, Bethany looked at her incredulously. “No, ma’am. But I thank you kindly.”
“Nonsense.” Winona’s face mottled with anger. “Where will you go? What will you do? You need a white family to protect you.”
“I’m going to Kansas.”
“You are out of your mind.”
Bethany said nothing.
“You belong to us, you know.” Then, infuriated by Bethany’s silence, Winona added, “We’ll find a way to bring you back. You’ll never get away. Not really. There’s ways to deal with people like you.”
Bethany slowly raised her eyes and beat back the knee-weakening terror that swept over her. It was replaced by a trembling fury she had never felt before.
“Ma’am, I’m off to Kansas.”
CHAPTER THREE
Teddy Sommers wished the sun would shine. The haze was pulling everyone down. It was one thing to talk bravely in halls and churches and homes and quite another to board a boat leaving for a mythical promised land. This new unknown was as frightening as death. Some had burst into tears, a few had changed their minds and hadn’t boarded at all. Most had gone trembling quiet.
The four-tiered Anchor Line packet boat was barely visible through the heavy fog. These shallow-hulled, broad-beamed steamers seemed miserably unbalanced, but they were cleverly constructed and the workhorses of river travel. Even so, the War Eagle looked like she could sink at any moment.
The War Eagle, a stern-wheeler, was built to navigate the shifting sandbars of western rivers. The main deck housed the boiler room and engine room and had cargo space. Passengers and animals were on the next tier. The lucky persons who won out in the dive for sleeping room on decks teeming with children and animals got to rest on thin cornhusk mattresses. The third tier housed the crew, who were only slightly better off than the human cargo. Above this, the square pilothouse perched recklessly like a top hat on a dandy and gave the navigating captain a clear view of the river.
Teddy finished overseeing the boarding of his group of fifty ex-slaves who would become part of the new colony in Kansas. They were packed in with over two hundred other persons—both white and black—bound for other places along the river.
It hadn’t gone well. By the time his people moved around and shifted to accommodate crates of chickens, squealing pigs, bleating goats, dogs, and tools and utensils of the trades they would start in their new town, there was hardly room to move. Each family guarded their possessions like jewels. Folks looked penned up; trapped.
A bleating horn echoed across the scummy water. Black and white dock hands cursed and strained to ease bales of hemp and cotton into the hold.
B. R. Wade, the small white man who accompanied the eloquent A. P. Harrington on the preaching tour, stood on the dock. He was talking to a huge black man wearing the most peculiar set of clothes Teddy had ever seen. His mustard-colored jacket topped tattersall pants, and his black hat looked ridiculously small on his large head.
Wade spun his derby hat on one finger as he gestured with his other hand. He saw Teddy, nodded his head, then waved in a casual salute.
Teddy headed toward him. He’d been mulling over some things. He had been haunted by Bethany’s question ever since they’d met that night at the church. “Do you trust these men?” she’d asked.
Truth was, he didn’t. He never really trusted any white man not to sell him out if it were in their best interests. But he could always find a way to twist their
deals around to where black folks got something. Not much, usually, but something.
He was troubled because he couldn’t figure out the angle that would make white men lure his people to Kansas. There had to be a reason. He was sure it had to do with money—it always did—but damned if he could see where Wade could make a cent off of poor, starving, scared-half-to-death Negroes.
Yelps from two half-starved mongrels fighting over a dead rat rent the air. The waterfront smelled of grease and decaying fish. As he walked toward the men, he decided sticking out his hand might be seen as too uppity and settled for respectfully touching the brim of his hat.
“Mr. Wade.”
“Mr. Sommers. Fine day, for a fine trip.” Wade turned toward the large black man standing by his side. “I want you two to get acquainted. This here is Paul Tripp of Nicodemus. This here fellow can sing the bird out of the trees. You can count on him to make the town go.”
Teddy reached for the huge extended hand. “Pleased,” he said tersely.
“Everyone accounted for?” Wade asked. “Captain says we’ll be on our way in another hour.”
“Yes, sir. We will. We will for a fact, if the sorry excuse of a boat stays afloat.”
Wade laughed. “Never knew of one to sink right next to the dock. Could happen, but not likely.”
Despite Wade’s easy words, Teddy saw the flicker of irritation in the speculator’s eyes. Dismissing him. Annoyed at having to make conversation with a wrinkled old black man who didn’t amount to much.
“Just making sure I’m telling these people the truth, Mr. Wade,” Teddy said doggedly. “Still a short jog up the Ohio, then on up the Mississippi to the Missouri?”
“Rivers don’t change, man.” Tripp laughed heartily. “What you worrying about? Looks like we got us a fretter here, Mr. Wade.”
“I know you want to be thought of as a man of your word, Mr. Sommers. Everything is in order. Tickets bought and paid for. Then after you reach Wyandotte you’ll go by rail to Ellis. Those are paid for, too. Courtesy of the town company. Then I’ll have wagons waiting to take you to Nicodemus. Just a short ride under God’s blue sky to your own town.”
“Everyone on that boat came up with five dollars,” Teddy said. “Not all is courtesy of the town company. You need to know, sir, I been listening. Some of these people going to want more land than just a tiny square of a town lot.”
“Both doesn’t work,” said Wade sharply. “You folks have got to stay right there in that spot. Can’t work a homestead and get up a business at the same time.”
“Mebbe not. Just telling you, these people free now. Land hungry. Not everyone going to stick with a town. Everything better be there just like you said. That’s what I want you to know. We is counting on you, and, truth is, you is a rank stranger.” He looked Wade in the eye, stopping short of saying, white stranger at that. “And mebbe we’ll want to pick a different spot.”
“I picked the place for that town myself, by God,” snapped Wade. “That’s the one thing I won’t allow. Switching townsites. I tramped those fields barefoot and asked for divine guidance. The Lord Himself led me to that divine spot. I’m telling you I saw your people ascending and descending up a golden ladder in that very spot just like Jacob’s angels in the Bible.”
“That’s the God’s truth,” Tripp agreed solemnly. He swept his little hat off his head and began turning it around in his huge hands. He fixed his black eyes on Teddy. “God’s solemn truth. He told me so himself.”
Teddy swallowed hard. His mouth was parched. Mothers scolded their children, and their urgent voices echoed across the water. Birds skimmed over the brown surface of the river. The odors of oil and sweat and dead animals trapped in the heavy water wafted from the landing.
He stared at the two men. It was no problem to control his temper; he had been doing so all his life. What he was trying to keep at bay was a warning flare of despair triggered by their easy use of religion. Assuming that was all it would take to make him shut his mouth.
“Angels is nice,” he said carefully. “But horses and plows is better. Even if we don’t farm, we gonna need food. Gonna need a garden. Gotta stir up some land to grow food.”
The two men laughed as though delighted with Teddy’s wit. “Now that’s a fact, Mr. Sommers,” said Wade. “Angels aren’t as good as plows. Everything will be in place. Mr. Tripp and I will be coming along behind you. We’re taking a separate boat. If you beat us to Nicodemus there are already people there waiting for you.”
Teddy wished them a good day and watched them walk off. He soured with the sure knowing that these two men weren’t about to be stuffed in with his smelly, crowded collection of humanity. They would be on a better boat.
He turned to go back on board, then stopped. A tall, slender man with mahogany skin nearly identical to the coat of his Morgan mare watched without bothering to hide his interest.
Teddy stared back, then walked over. “That is one fine horse.”
“The best. Bar none.”
The man’s fine, intelligent eyes were a luminous light gray. Teddy had never seen eyes this color on a black man before.
“Looks like you’ve put quite a crew together,” the stranger said. “Been watching you load up.”
“Going to Kansas. Going to Nicodemus. Want you to have this here flyer.” He shoved it at the man. “Be glad to help read it to you, sir, if you’ve a mind,” he said kindly. “Name’s Teddy Sommers. Some folks call me Pappy. I’m a townsman.”
“Jedidiah Talbot,” the man said cordially. He grinned and looked at the circular. “Seeing as how I’m a lawyer, I’m supposed to be able to read it myself.”
Teddy laughed, glad to know the man wasn’t a poker player, because with those eyes giving away every thought, he couldn’t imagine Talbot would fare very well. Doubted if they did him much good in a courtroom either.
“Strange place for a lawyer to be hanging around.”
Talbot’s smile faded. “Just been collecting information. Talking to people. Trying to figure out how we can still live in the South.”
“We can’t. That why we leaving. Place for you out West, too, if you’ve a mind.”
“Not that desperate yet. Might be, but not yet. You watch yourself, hear? There’s some mighty funny goings-on to keep people from bolting from this part of the country.”
“Funny usually means no good.”
“Mean things. Things you wouldn’t believe. Men are getting killed just for thinking about going to Kansas.”
“Why they want to do that? We no good to them dead.”
“No good to them free, neither.”
“That’s a fact, sir.”
Teddy eyed the canteen attached to Talbot’s saddle horn. It was stamped with the insignia of the United States army.
“Guess you was a soldier,” said Teddy, realizing Jedidiah Talbot with his magnificent horse might have been part of a cavalry unit. Quality animals. Both of them.
“54th Massachusetts,” Talbot said tersely. His eyes clouded.
“Lord God Almighty,” Teddy said. His mouth was dry as cotton. Words failed him. He could barely recall his own name. He wished to God he was entitled to salute or show some sign of respect worthy of this man instead of standing there slave dumb.
The 54th had changed history. Proved blacks could fight. Proved they were just as fatalistic as whites when it came to obeying senseless orders. Teddy knew he was looking at one of the few survivors of the doomed troops commanded to take Fort Wagner.
“Lord God Almighty,” Teddy said again.
Talbot gave him a weak smile and picked up his reins.
A horn sounded through the fog. “I best be going.” Teddy shook Talbot’s hand, then reached to pat the horse, who jittered to one side. “You can keep the flyer, sir.”
“That I will, old man. Godspeed to you all.”
Teddy joined his people. They all gazed at the fog-shrouded shore. A wave of wild, mindless grief, for what might have been in their
own native state, swept over them like a tidal wave.
Some of the women had all their worldly possessions tied in bundles and balanced on their bandana-wrapped heads. There were eating utensils, carefully guarded and, for a fortunate few, needles and bits of thread. Some wore the traditional white turbans, and some had on men’s fedoras. With the exception of about three women, they were all clad in the same dresses they wore when they first came out of slavery. Some had worn plaid aprons, but the dresses were gray and brown and patched over and over again.
A large, calm man with the clear, brown eyes of a young horse came up to the deck and stood beside Teddy.
“Gotta be better,” the man said slowly. “Gotta be somewhere on God’s green earth where we’re safe and white folks ain’t gonna covet the poor miserable life we cobbled together. That war surely was for sumthin’. Can’t believe those white boys died for something that ain’t never going to happen.”
They didn’t take their eyes from the water and strained to see through the fog.
“Name’s John More. Know who you are. Guess everybody does.”
“Guess so,” Teddy said.
“Funny, I never thought it would matter, but I’d like to see the damn place for the last time.”
“Don’t reckon it’s my last,” Teddy said. “I’ll come back for more folks. I always do. I wouldn’t like it much either if I was seeing Kentucky for the last time in a cloud of fog.”
Later, when the rag-tag group talked about the trip, some thought it was better, leaving when they couldn’t see their green homeland clearly one last time, their blessed shades of green in full sun. But their dreams would be haunted by memories of grass and trees and water like it was a part of their skins, like their blackness.
The fog, the gray, was the color of death, and like a lover denied viewing the body of their loved one, later they were bedeviled by the vision of a gray shroud hovering over the South when they wanted to be brave and needed the memory of green.
“Miss Bethany.”
The Healer's Daughter Page 3
