Teddy watched the mare, knowing she’d had to travel many miles to get to Nicodemus, but her steps were still prideful, as though her rider could barely keep her from prancing.
“Bet she’s five-gaited. Never thought we’d see a horse like that out here. Or a man like him, either.”
Teddy stepped fully into the sunlight.
“Surprised?” Jed Talbot grinned as he dismounted in front of the blacksmith shop. “You do remember me, I hope.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his saddlebag. “Remember this?”
Teddy stared at the circular he had given Talbot at the landing the day they left Kentucky. “Surprised ain’t the word for it.” He looked at Jed in amazement. “Who’d of thought?” Teddy shook Jed’s hand. “This here is Jim Black. Finest blacksmith you is ever going to find.”
Jim mumbled, “Pleased,” but he couldn’t take his eyes off the horse.
“Her name’s Gloriana,” Jed said, smiling at the man’s admiration.
“Passing through?” Teddy asked.
Talbot shook his head, and his lips thinned. “Come to stay.”
“The hell you say.”
“According to this piece of paper you gave me, this here place is supposed to be paradise. Why wouldn’t I want to stay?”
“Well, I can’t rightly claim this is paradise.” Teddy laughed, bending like an old amber grasshopper as he slapped his knees. “There’s a few things missing we done set our heart on.”
“So I see.”
Teddy straightened and proudly held up his head. “Ain’t paradise, but it ain’t hell, either. Sure ain’t hell. Was for a while, but ain’t hell now.”
“That’s all I ask,” Jed said. “The absence of hell.”
Teddy looked at him curiously, then glanced away from Jed’s penetrating, gray eyes. “We most generally puts staying kinds of folks up at Reverend Brown’s ’til we can put something together a little more private. Our schoolhouse is kind of our hotel, and we put passing throughs there.”
“You have a school?” Jed asked. “Here?”
“And a real bona fide teacher. She quality folks.” Suddenly, Teddy recalled Jed Talbot had told him when they first met that he was a lawyer.
A lawyering man. Able to sort out twisty words. Rode right into Nicodemus like he was the Archangel Michael. This man was the answer to Bethany’s prayers.
“Mister I ’spect someone going to be plumb thrilled to death to meet you. Can’t wait ’til you two get together.”
“Guess I’se been standing here admiring that horse of yours long enough,” said Jim. “I’d better get back to my shoeing. Water inside. Oats, too.”
Jed followed the two men inside, then tended to Gloriana. Jim took the cool shoes from the tub and carried them and his tray of nails over to the huge Percheron. Speaking softly, he calmly lifted the huge right front hoof between his legs onto his heavy leather apron and began filing it with a large, heavy rasp and a curved knife. He trimmed the hoof so that all the ragged and dead parts of the sheath were removed, leaving a solid base upon which to nail the shoe.
He drove nails through the holes of the molded shoes into the hoof at an angle. As the nails cut out the side of the hoof, he cut off unneeded ends, then bent and pounded the nails tightly into the side of the hoof.
“You’ve got my business sewn up,” Jed said admiringly while he watched the process of anchoring the first shoe.
“Much appreciated. Be an honor to work on that mare of yours. Now if I’m not mistaken, folks is starting to trickle out to meet you.”
Jed turned. There was indeed a cluster of men outside the door, none of them bothering to hide their curiosity.
“Best you start getting acquainted.”
Queen Bess watched from the edge of the crowd. Saw the tall way the newcomer had of holding himself. Didn’t have a bit of trouble imagining him slicked up in a good suit and a brocade vest. Could just see him, with his lean, fine hands holding cards, or fiddling like the devil or changing into a whirlwind or a dust devil.
She knew at once from the careful look in his too-light eyes, from his fine white man’s lips, and most of all from the easy arrogant way he stood—that this man was not good news. Same as Dolly Redgrave was a burden to them all. Same as her own daughter was, most of the time.
Before the slaves were freed, there were blacks who were born free. They had formed a society in America all to themselves, like they were a separate country. They looked down on the newly freed slaves. Queen Bess would just bet Jed Talbot was that kind of man. If more of his kind of people moved in, they were all doomed.
“And he’s a lawyer,” Teddy announced proudly. “Nicodemus has her first genuine professional man.”
Queen Bess trembled, dread-struck, as she watched everyone make over Jed Talbot.
Her daughter was still inside the schoolhouse, flogging the little children through stuff they would be better off not knowing. But it wouldn’t be long before she would be fawning all over this book-learned miracle that had waltzed right in.
Bethany Herbert stepped inside the Browns’ dugout that evening, expecting to meet the usual raggedy, starving derelict. They straggled into Nicodemus at the rate of two or three a week now, and she was worn to the bone trying to find enough food and clothes.
She stilled when she saw Jed Talbot, who instantly rose to his feet and removed his hat as she walked through the door. She stilled her hands, her face, but she could not still her heart, or the fluttery self-consciousness that swept over her as she looked into his luminous, gray eyes.
“Miss Herbert. I’m Jed Talbot. I’m honored to make your acquaintance. Your good friends here,” he waved toward the Browns and Teddy, “have told me of your abilities.”
Some days, more days than not now since she came to Nicodemus, she had started wearing her hair down, held back from her eyes with a kerchief tied in back. She bit the inside of her cheek and would have given anything if she had changed into her indigo dyed dress and dressed her hair.
Suddenly she was stricken with awareness of what her life really was. She lived on a god-forsaken windblown prairie in a hole in the ground. She didn’t know what she was doing most of the time, because she couldn’t find any of the plants she needed. She was trying to get along with another race, most of whom would always just hate her kind.
Then that part of her which was already Kansan took over. A side she wouldn’t have known existed if she had never moved to the state. A side given to illusions and prideful lies. A side that would knock the hell out of anyone who implied her life wasn’t just fine and dandy.
“Welcome to Nicodemus, Mr. Talbot, and I’m sure you can see for yourself the wonderful progress we’ve made here. It won’t be long until we are the Gateway to the West.”
“I can certainly see that, Miss Herbert. This is a fine town indeed,” he said, managing to suppress a smile. His color was that of a soft fawn, and his voice was rich, melodious, but not Southern. He spoke as though the right words always came easily to him. His cheekbones were high and his nose, thin and straight.
Long ago, she had learned to put her feelings toward men in their proper place. Because she could control her emotions during doctoring, it was understood by all they would be safe with her. This ability let her go into everyone’s houses under special passage. But now, her mouth felt cottony, and for the first time in her life, she didn’t know what to do with her hands. Embarrassed, she looked away from those remarkable gray eyes, then pulled herself together and headed toward Silas and LuAnne, who sat at the table.
“Jed here’s a lawyering man. He going to help us get land,” Teddy said. “He been to fine schools back East.”
Her resolve to conduct herself in a seemly manner vanished at the word “lawyer.” She couldn’t stop smiling and stepped toward Jed.
“I’m sure Teddy’s already told you, I’m the school teacher and do what doctoring folks need. I hate to pester you for legal advice right off, but if you’ll excuse me, I have some pap
ers I want you to see. I’ll be right back.”
She flew out the door and returned in five minutes with the homesteading papers Meissner had given her.
Jed started reading them immediately. “This is a fairly simple process,” he said. “Owning land would be wonderful. A fine move for everyone.”
“Don’t mind telling you, I not as hepped up ’bout all this as Bethany here,” Teddy said gloomily. “Not just because whites going to hate our guts, but because we don’t know a damn thing about farming this country. Never seen ground so contrary.”
“You can’t all be merchants or craftsmen,” said Jed. “You’ve all got to eat. You folks came here ahead of the flood of people coming up out of the South. You don’t know how bad it’s gotten or the things I’ve seen.”
Bethany shot him a warning glance and nodded her head toward the Browns’ children. Silas and LuAnne were listening, spellbound. LuAnne got up from the table and shooed Zach and Mercy off to bed.
“Where are you from originally, Mr. Talbot? Where did you go to school?”
“I’m from Baltimore, and I went to school at Oberlin in Ohio. It’s the first college in the United States to accept men of color. The first one to let in women, for that matter.”
“You were born free, then?” Teddy asked.
“Yes, but that hasn’t meant much since the war. My father has passed on. Before the war, he manufactured saddles and harness. Lot of government business.”
His eyes brightened with unshed tears, and Bethany couldn’t take her eyes off his face.
“And then all your father’s white friends turned on him?” she suggested. “It no longer mattered if you were born slave or free? If you were born black, you were suddenly shunned by the same whites who had treated you with respect before?”
Talbot stared at his clenched hands. “That’s about the size of it,” he said. “We didn’t face the same kind of hatred as those living in the South. But things changed. Every white man who looked at my father now only saw his black face. They all had a son or a nephew or an uncle or a brother who died for his kind.”
“And when they looked at him, they saw blood and death and misery?” Bethany asked softly.
“You seem to know a lot about this, Miss Herbert.”
“Oh, I have my own stories to tell about how the war changed everything.”
“I’m sure.”
“Let’s don’t get into the miseries tonight,” LuAnne said. “My children are all ears. Won’t sleep if they hear any more ’bout the boogeyman.”
Jed held up the forms, abruptly changing the subject. “Nicodemus needs to decide who will file for a homestead first. Teddy says we need to go to Oberlin to file the claim and get set up. Then a surveyor will come out.”
“Another thing,” Teddy said, “since you is a man of words. Wish you could help us get a fellow back that didn’t mean us no harm.” He proceeded to tell Talbot about the blow-up with Meissner. “Never meant us no harm atall. He didn’t. He just ignorant.”
“Would you concur, Miss Herbert? That Meissner was simply caught unaware?”
“Oh, absolutely. He’s as good a friend as we have out here. He gave us books for our school. And paper. He’s tried to help. He’s just . . .” Her voice trailed off helplessly, and she shrugged. “He’s just Meissner, that’s all.”
“Then I’ll call on him. See what I can do.” Jed smiled. “It’s always a good idea to apologize when you know you’re in the wrong. Especially when that person owns a newspaper.”
Bethany looked at him in wonder. She felt a burden lift.
“How do you call folks together?” Jed asked.
“Since so many have moved in, we always have to meet outside around the campfire. We ring a bell for the ones living close. And we’ve started using drums to round up scattered folks when it’s important. One person hears, then beats on his own drum. Chains on across.”
“Please call a meeting for tomorrow night, and we’ll see who volunteers to be our first homesteader.”
On the way back to her dugout, Bethany stopped and stared at the crystal-studded Milky Way. The full moon gleamed softly in the black, velvet sky. She blinked back tears. An answered prayer. God had sent someone. Someone had come to them who could reason and speak well and help with their legal entanglements. Someone who would be an intelligent civilized link with the white community.
Someone who had asked her if she “concurred” with Teddy’s evaluation of Meissner. Someone who had known what the word meant. Someone who valued her judgment.
Then, unbidden, her mother’s face mocked her. Put words in her mind.
You mean someone that’s just a little bit colored. Sort of like a smoked salmon. Someone like you that white folks ain’t gonna want to kill right off.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jed Talbot stood on the north bank of the Solomon. Gloriana drank deeply of the pure creek water. Dragonflies skimmed across the surface. A sudden gust of wind rippled the leaves of the cottonwoods.
He squatted and cupped his hands to get a drink. He filled his canteen, then sat propped against the largest tree, staring toward Nicodemus. Clumps of wild daisies grew in the dappled sunlight. He reached for a handful of the flowers, slit the stems, and began weaving a chain.
Many years ago, he had woven daisy chains for his little sister. But that was before the war. He shut his eyes against the pain as though not seeing the flowers would hold the memory at bay.
Gloriana whinnied and swung her head over to a nearby patch of grass. “Go ahead, girl,” he said softly. “You’ve earned it.” He had ridden many miles since morning, looking over the land surrounding Nicodemus. He had gone from town to town for the last three years collecting information for a committee of fellow blacks; trying to find a place in the South where they could live in peace. Reluctantly they had decided it was time for their people to go.
Jed knew exactly how to blend into each community. He usually took a job at the livery stable—feeding horses, mucking the stalls, running errands, or driving strangers around if they were hesitant about setting out across the prairie with strange rigs. He received lodging, usually a little money, and a lot of information.
It wasn’t true that all towns were the same. Long ago, he had decided that each place called forth an angel. Its soul. Once there, it was nearly impossible to dislodge. People could come and go, and brave individuals might attempt to rid a town of an evil or an attitude, but as long as the angel hovered, nothing worked. Nicodemus had a powerful angel protecting it. He had felt its brooding presence from the moment he rode into the settlement.
Already, Nicodemus was becoming the stuff of myths—glorified, enshrined. “There is a town,” the colored folks insisted. “There is a black town out on the prairie where Negroes are left alone. They are free and proud and fighters, and folks leave them alone.”
You should have been a preacher, boy. You sure can talk. He had heard those words all his life, yet he knew that was not his calling. A preacher ministered to the meek, saved souls, fed the hungry, gave solace to mourners, clothed the needy, and soothed the forsaken. While he surely admired those who could and did, he had the soul of a hawk. For him, it was not enough to feed a hungry man. He wanted to attack the evil that denied them the right to grow enough grain in the first place.
It was not enough to give solace to the mourning. He wanted to send those who had caused their agony straight to hell. He didn’t want to soothe the forsaken; he wanted to stop the tormenters who had made cowards of his own race.
His fellow black soldiers, friends all, had marched into a massacre when they tried to take Fort Wagner. They had died trying to claim the natural rights belonging to all humanity. He would never be free of the memory.
There had to be some place on God’s green earth where blacks could live like men.
He would make his stand, put all his energy into defending that right in Nicodemus, Kansas. He would make the deaths of those black soldiers count for something
. He imagined his dead comrades looking on with approval.
After Jed had made his case for people to file for homestead claims, the group fell silent. The huge campfire crackled and popped.
Then Henry Partridge stood up, cradling his maimed hand. “We all been slaves. We used to being around other folks ’til after the war. Just slave quarters, maybe, but together. Kind of figured we’d all stay together here without some of us marching off on their own. Trouble start, there no hope for some poor black man off in the middle of the prairie by hisself. No hope at all.”
“I know that,” said Jed. His face was solemn in the wavering flames of the fire. “That’s why I didn’t try to make this sound like a lark. It will take a very brave person or a family to volunteer to live alone on a homestead. It’s not just a matter of race. These are strange times, and a lot of white folks get caught up in dangerous situations, too.”
Patricia Towaday leapt to her feet. “So why you come a-stumbling onto Nicodemus treating us all like we was your little colony. Telling us what would be best for us and what we have to do.”
He felt a vein pulse in his temple, but years of training took over. “In the first place, madam, let me enlighten you. I did not just stumble onto Nicodemus. Your own Teddy Sommers gave me a flyer the day you left Kentucky. I sought this town out. I heard about this town.”
“Praise the Lord,” sang out LuAnne. “He hear ’bout Nicodemus.”
“Soon everyone will hear about this town.” Jed glanced at Bethany. “Because it’s the first black town anywhere to make it past a year, and it’s doing it in a part of the country where most white towns can’t make it. This won’t be easy. All I care about tonight is selecting our first volunteer.”
“That gonna be me.”
The people parted as Queen Bess, who had been standing at the edge of the crowd, walked toward Jed.
Bethany gasped. “Momma, why? No, Momma, you know a black woman trying to live by herself is just asking for trouble.”
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