Perhaps Wade hadn’t told anyone of his misadventure, Bethany thought suddenly. Maybe they were starting with a clean slate after all.
“And the fellow over by the wall is Aaron Potroff.”
Potroff stepped forward from the shadows. He tipped his hat, but Bethany was chilled by the look in his eyes. She felt it in her bones when someone hated her because she was black. Or because she was a woman doctor. Or just because she was alive.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Potroff said.
Bethany felt the room spin. Her stomach lurched. She reached for the counter to steady herself. Where had she heard the voice before? She had never been out of the South, and this man did not have a Southern accent. He was a Northerner.
I could not possibly have heard this voice before, she thought.
She kept her eyes lowered as Suzanne chattered brightly and told them all her plans. Potroff kept his gaze fixed on Bethany. He was tall, with a balding head fringed by silver hair. His face was the off-white of rancid bread dough. Puffy lids hooded his cold, gray eyes. He kept his head tipped to the right, as though he were listening intently to whatever anyone said. He held his hands high on his chest, his fingers neatly interlaced.
Bethany felt his eyes on her and kept studying the floor. Do what the white man says, honey. Say what the white man wants you to say. Figure it out. If they say the grass is blue, say they smart, they is genius smart.
“Old Potroff here is the real brains behind most things out here,” teased Stanley. “Wade thinks he is, but he ain’t.”
Just then, Josiah Sinclair returned from the back room followed by a tall, painfully thin woman. She had white, liver-spotted skin and stringy, brown hair skinned back into a skimpy bun. Her light-blue eyes were oddly pale, as translucent as a fish’s fin. Bethany closed her eyes for a second, recoiling from the sickly aura emanating from her.
“We don’t serve niggras here,” she said at once. “Your kind isn’t welcome.”
“Beg your pardon, ma’am,” said Bethany, knowing it would not be smart to antagonize her. “We have been tending Mrs. Mercer here. We’re with her.”
Then something steeled inside her. Times had changed. They were free now. She didn’t have to lower her eyes to anyone. Not this rude woman and not Potroff, either. She wouldn’t do it any longer.
“I’m Bethany Herbert. And you are?”
Dumbfounded, the woman responded before she could stop herself. “I’m Estelle Sinclair.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am. I’m from Nicodemus, and you’ll be pleased to know that your kind is welcome in our town. Long as your money is good, we will be more than happy to buy and sell to you.”
Two dark splotches stained the woman’s cheeks. Her mouth tightened, but before she could compose a reply, Bethany noticed a poster tacked on the wall.
“I see y’all are trying to start a church,” she said pleasantly. “Certainly a worthy endeavor, and we do wish you well. In the meantime, you’re more than welcome to come worship with us, also. We have two denominations for you to choose from. Baptist and Methodist Episcopal.”
Heartened by the amused flicker in the eyes of two of the men around the stove, she hid a smile and turned to Suzanne Mercer. “Please send for me if you get sick. And the best of luck to you and your little Abigail. We’d best be getting along.”
“Don’t want you to be strangers, now, hear?” Suzanne said. “You plan to stay a while when you bring back my team.”
Bethany wrapped her cloak tightly around her and walked out the door with Teddy and Jim Black. She could feel Estelle Sinclair’s eyes on her as they climbed into the wagon and drove off.
Later, she would realize how strange it was that on the way home, although they all discussed everyone in the store and gleefully compared Nicodemus to Wade City, they didn’t say a word about Aaron Potroff.
And, for the life of her, she couldn’t account for such a violent reaction to someone she had never seen before.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Josiah Sinclair headed for the half-limestone, half-sod building where Aaron Potroff spent his time. There was a sign calling it a hotel, and there were indeed grand plans in the making, but in the meantime, a couple of extra pallets that would be welcomed by only the most desperate of travelers were all the accommodations available.
As usual, Potroff sat at a poker table in the corner, no doubt conjuring visions of a bustling community as soon as he figured out how to lure more people to Wade City.
Sinclair had the devil’s business to do, but his wife had practically pushed him out the door, insisting it was his duty to let Potroff know of all the misery he was bringing to this county. Sinclair didn’t much care for Potroff, but he was quickly learning that prosperity on the plains called for strange alliances.
Potroff looked up from his hand of solitaire. Josiah paused, miserable at the thought of getting into yet another argument with this man. He reckoned Potroff was forty-something, and if he had ever been married, he hadn’t said so. The man was duded up like a gentleman, but he was not one.
Josiah figured he should know. He came from Southern gentry himself. No amount of slick tailoring could hide Potroff’s flabbiness. His arms were unusually long and lacked muscle. He looked like a pale, intelligent hog. Josiah knew better than to underestimate his capacity for malice.
Before the war, he had overseers like Potroff.
Before the war, he could devote his time to books and finer considerations.
Before the war, he would not have dreamed of marrying Estelle with her stingy Yankee mind.
But his destruction had been so complete that he latched on to the first woman of means and allowed himself to be led West like an old ox. It may have been Estelle’s idea that they speculate in lots in a town on the prairie, but he had taken one look at the vast empty space and decided at once that it suited him.
He had not seen opportunity, but rather the burying place for dreams. A landscape of infinite sameness that did not nurture hope. He did not believe he could stand to have hope rise again, or any other giddy emotions he had once taken for granted. He followed Estelle’s orders like he was another man from another world.
He sighed at the thought of having anything at all to do with the shrivel-hearted man sitting before him. However, Wade City needed Potroff to survive. He was their money man.
“Hope you noticed you got yourself a reading nigger, Potroff.”
“Ain’t my niggers.”
“You’re the one who brought them here.”
“Them?”
“The Nicodemus niggers.”
“Wasn’t me; it was Wade.”
“We all know better. You’re the money behind this.”
Potroff grinned. “One that can read, you say?”
“Didn’t you notice that wench reading that church poster? Hard telling what kind of notions they will get. What they can do. It causes trouble, I tell you.”
“You don’t say.”
Potroff stopped working his cigar. When the cigar stopped wiggling, it meant he was planning something.
“Well, what do you think they’re going to do, Josiah? Start a revolution?”
“No, but if they can read it might not be as easy as you think to get them to vote this town in as the county seat. Wouldn’t that be a deal now?”
“Don’t you worry about them darkies. I brought them here for their vote. Wade says they’re like sheep. Little lambs. We’ll just lead them to slaughter when the time comes.”
“Don’t be too sure. I grew up around niggras. You’d be surprised how smart some of them are. And as for the sheep idea you’ve got in your head, that tells me you haven’t had much dealing with them. They’ve got more ways of going against a white man than a dog’s got fleas.”
Potroff bristled at the suggestion he wasn’t smart enough to keep on top of slaves or rich enough to have owned them. Though he was from Illinois, he knew, in the South, a man’s wealth was measured by the number
of slaves he had owned.
Was measured. He smiled. Was measured.
But it was hard to keep these Southerners whipped. Despite their defeat in the Late Rebellion, as they quaintly referred to it, Southerners were quick to work into the conversation just how many slaves they had owned before the war. How many acres of cotton they had grown. The size of the old plantation.
“Well now, Josiah, I think you’re underestimating how grateful these people are. And I’m sure you’re mistaken about how well any of them actually read. A little poster ain’t that big a deal. All they would have to do would be to recognize a word or two to get the gist of a poster. And, even if they can read, you’re overlooking a small detail. There’s no other town around that’s a contender for the county seat. Wade City is it.”
Josiah shook his head in wonder. “There is another town, Aaron.”
The man looked at him blankly and removed his cigar from his mouth.
“Nicodemus,” said Sinclair. He wheeled around and walked off.
Aaron Potroff stared at the cards. There were no plays left. All the kings were at the top. The aces were set, but the little cards wouldn’t fall into place. He swiped them all off onto the floor. He picked up his dead cigar from the edge of the table and tried to relight it. His hands were plenty steady, but the flame wavered. Annoyed, he looked around at the bleak room, but he couldn’t see the source of the air current.
He rose and brushed the ashes off his vest, then knelt and picked up the cards. When he straightened, he caught sight of himself in the cracked mirror hanging over the basin. He looked seedy. There were stains on his jacket that couldn’t be sponged off. The cuffs of his shirt were dingy. What the town really needed was a good washerwoman. It was hard to make a good impression on newcomers if a man looked seedy.
He walked outside and looked at the bleak collection of buildings scattered along the muddy street. Having the county seat was everything. Railroads came through county seat towns. People bought lots in county seat towns. Those towns became business hubs. Kansas was ablaze with county seat fights. Fortunes were made or lost on the county seat gamble. He intended to make his fortune right here, and he wasn’t going to let anyone steal it from him.
He wasn’t worried about anyone taking Nicodemus seriously as a county seat contender. But what if another white town sprung up to compete for the black vote? He didn’t dare let that happen. People jacked up houses and business on the prairie and moved them to new locations without batting an eye. Whole towns could be dismantled and re-made in a heartbeat, with the old town sites deserted. Until Josiah Sinclair came calling, it had not occurred to him that someone might start a new town under his very nose. A new town would need the Nicodemus vote also. Maybe he’d better start buttering up the darkies.
He pulled on a top coat and stalked off to the livery stable. Since the night the niggers had turned on Wade, there hadn’t been a soul in Wade City who had a good word to say about Nicodemus. Then Suzanne Mercer came along playing like her rescuers were black angels.
Well, he wanted Nicodemians to know how much he cared about their welfare. He surely did. He would put up a little money to tide them over, see how they were doing. And, most of all, see how many palms he would have to grease to make the vote go his way.
Potroff slowed his horse and buggy and stared at a large sod building, with a stovepipe clearly projecting from the roof. Several men, then women, came out of dugouts and silently watched him approach.
“How do, Mr. Potroff,” said Teddy Sommers.
“Good day,” Potroff said. “I see you folks haven’t let any grass grow under your feet. See you’ve found yourself a carpenter.”
“It’s our new meeting place,” said Teddy proudly. “This here’s sort of a church and a town hall and gonna be a school, too. Nobody’s building. Everybody’s building. Belongs to all of us.”
Potroff climbed down from the buggy and walked around the new construction. Not only was it large, but the sod blocks had been laid with precision, and it had a difficult “car” roof unique to Kansas. A car roof involved incorporating three beams, then springing boards into a bow, secured with sod blocks. It involved a considerable amount of knowledge and a great deal of skill with construction techniques.
The windows were covered with greased buffalo hides that could be rolled up in summer. The house faced true north, and the door frame was hung plumb. It was top-notch carpentry. Someone here was a whiz at building. Taking care to hide his surprise, he scratched his chin before he spoke.
“Yes, sir, it looks like you folks have been busy,” he said finally. “Looks like you’re doing all right for yourselves.”
“No thanks to Wade,” Teddy said. “No thanks to that lying Wade. He your man? Folks say he is.”
“Just an associate,” Potroff said quickly. “Not close enough to call friend, even.”
“He done us wrong. Can’t expect us to think kindly of him. He sold horses out from under us to pay for our freight. Promised us food and tools. Didn’t deliver. Left us to pert’ near starve.”
“Well now, I can see where you folks might think he’s been a little neglectful. That’s why I’ve come today. Heard about that. I know you folks got off on the wrong foot with a man from our town, and I want to make it up to you. Help you out a little.”
“We is doing just fine now,” Teddy said. “On our own. Soon as we figured you folks gonna leave us high and dry, we knew we was on our own. Two of our people gone back east to Wyandotte to ask for help. We doing just fine. Things are a little short right now, but our men are due back any time.”
“You can do better, a lot better, and I want to help you out. That’s how we do things out here on the prairie. Folks help each other out.”
Their faces were black and sullen.
“Take those windows there in that house. Fine as that carpentry is, think how much nicer that place would be with real glass. I would be pleased to donate a glass window.”
“Don’t need your glass,” Jim Black said. “Where were you before Tripp and Harrington went for help? When you first knowed we needed food and our horses needed hay?”
“No need to get riled,” Potroff said quickly. “I had no idea you folks were in that bad a shape. No idea atall, or I would have helped. Wade should have told me.”
He didn’t like the men’s steady advance. Didn’t like the look in their eyes.
Bethany Herbert stepped forward. Like she was somebody, he thought. Stepped right out into men’s business just like she had at the general store when she plopped Suzanne Mercer in their midst.
“We don’t need your help,” she said. “We’re just fine. You brought us here, you dumped us here and had your man tell us to make do, and we did. Now get out. We’re here, and we’re staying. You’re too late to help us, and nobody likes you.”
His eyes smoldered. The group took another step toward him, and he took another step back. It wouldn’t do to turn and run, but he wanted to get the hell out of Nicodemus. When he reached his buggy, he swallowed hard and then turned back to the group.
“Sorry there’s still hard feelings.” He nearly strangled on the words. “Real sorry, but you know Western Kansas is hard for all of us, not just blacks. Lots of white folks walked into something they weren’t expecting.”
Bethany’s eyes brightened with agreement for an instant. So he addressed his words to her. “Don’t think everything that happens to you is because of the war and your race. The prairie kind of makes us all equal. Not in a good kind of way, either. If some of you want to start a business, let me know. I can help. I loan money. I loan to white folks, and I can loan to you folks. You’re going to need me. You’d better start thinking ahead.”
Knowing he had made his point, he climbed into the buggy, flicked his reins across the horse’s back, and drove off.
There was quiet jubilation among the men, knowing they had stared down this powerful white man. Teddy walked up to Bethany, his hands clutching the lapels of hi
s old suit.
“Guess we know he means trouble.” The lines in his mottled old face deepened.
“He’s up to no good,” she said bitterly. “I know his kind. I’ve known them all my life. I just don’t know what he’s after right now. But he’s right about one thing; we’ve got to think past just making it through the winter. We can only trade so much back and forth. We have got to figure out how to get some real money into this town.”
“Can’t start no businesses now,” said Teddy. “Could have if this place hadn’t drained us to start with. Some of our folks had a little money. Ain’t got none now.”
“We’ve got to figure out what white folks need enough to pay good money for. And then we’ve got to figure out how to make them trust us enough to give us some work.”
“How we going do that? You know good and well white folks think we they equal in just one way. Think we can lie with the best of them. That’s a fact. Think nobody as good at lying as a lying nigger.”
The wind came up and batted a tumbleweed against their sod building. Teddy never allowed trash to light there. He walked over and sent the bush on its way across the prairie.
Bethany trailed after him, still talking. “We’re not going to lie. I won’t have it. And I have an idea for getting the white folks in this county to give us a chance. I want to print flyers. They worked to get us folks here. But what we say is going to be the truth. When folks come to Nicodemus to check us out, they are going to find things in place.”
“You just going to conjure up paper? A printer?”
“No. A couple of weeks ago, when Jim Black was out gathering wood, a man stopped to talk. A New Englander. Right friendly, too. He said he was going to start a newspaper. A new town, too, maybe. An editor would welcome a print job. I’m sure of that. If he doesn’t, I’ll buy some paper and hand-letter them.” She twisted her apron and watched Teddy’s face.
“I’ll call a meeting for tonight,” he said.
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