“I have the right,” Queen Bess said. She looked hard at Jed Talbot, and his eyes wavered for an instant. “I is Bethany’s mother. Filing claims is my own daughter’s bright idea, mister. I see she finally found someone dumb enough to help her.”
“Ma’am, I can’t let you do that. It’s dangerous for a woman to live alone anywhere.”
“You can refuse to help me with the papers, but you can’t stop me.” Queen Bess’s dark eyes glowed with contempt.
Jed wished he had been prepared. A woman would complicate matters. There were parts to the Homestead Act that were deeply troubling. Not everyone was interpreting it the same. It read that only persons filing who had “never borne arms against the United States government or given aid or comfort to its enemies” were entitled to the precious one hundred sixty acres. Some folks figured that included Confederate soldiers; some did not. There were plenty of ex-Confederate soldiers in the area. Bearing a grudge.
“It’s going to take money. Fourteen dollars up front.”
“We has money set aside. Bethany said so.”
“You’ll have to walk a lot of miles when you come back here to visit or if you need supplies. You won’t have any work animals.
You can’t expect some man to just hand over his team of horses.”
“I’m used to walking, mister fancy lawyer.”
“You’ll have to live there. Make improvements.” Jed’s mind raced. Perhaps she would not be a target like a man would just naturally be. Perhaps.
He looked at her hard. There was something about this old woman. Finally, he nodded. “We’ll head for Oberlin tomorrow morning.”
Queen Bess walked back to their dugout with Bethany following close behind.
“Momma, I don’t understand. You know you’re welcome to stay here in town with me, where you’ll be safe. Have I said something? Done something to drive you away? Momma, please. You won’t be safe there.”
“You the one that’s courting death. I want shut of this town before folks get stuck in things they don’t understand and shouldn’t be meddling with.”
She stopped. Spoke carefully. “You the worst of all. You is getting way too mixed up.”
“Momma, I’m not. I’m just doing what has to be done. To get along and to get ahead.”
“Just remember. Remember what I is telling you, Bethany.”
Jed never used Gloriana as a harness horse. He had borrowed Henry Partridge’s worn-out piece of horseflesh and his sorry old buckboard. He and Queen Bess plodded across the prairie. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He would rather have made his first trip to Oberlin on his own high stepping mare.
He had made several attempts to start a conversation with the woman who sat beside him with queenly posture like there was an iron rod holding her spine upright. Queen Bess answered every question with a curt yes or no, then fell silent again.
Well, there were a few things this woman had to discuss whether she wanted to or not. “When we walk into the land office,” Jed said, setting his jaw, “when we walk in, they are going to show you a map of all the land that’s available. You need to give some thought to where you want to settle. Usually folks choose a spot as close as to the creek as possible if there’s no danger of flooding.”
“Don’t want to live close to water. Too many folks come to water. Won’t do to have them see me right off.”
Jed sighed. She was right, but she would bear an extra burden.
He took out a long list from his shirt pocket and read through it. They would have to hustle. Although there were no laws keeping them out of stores like there were in the South, he knew it would not be smart to hang around after sundown.
Besides filing for a claim, he would bring back supplies ranging from woodworking fittings for Teddy, and some shoeing nails for Jim, to a hodge-podge of sewing items and groceries for the women. “Henry Partridge wants oats,” he said. “The sacks have nice prints. I want you to help pick them out.”
“Just want to file my claim. Don’t need to do no traipsing ’round.”
“Miz Herbert,” he snapped, “you are part of a community. You’re not back on a plantation. You must help these people whether you want to or not. I’ll be right there beside you, but you will, by God, pick out the prints on the seed sacks.”
“Don’t you tell me what I have to do. I do as I damn well please. Ain’t no high-toned, freeborn Negro man that had it good all his life coming in telling me what I have to do.”
His hands trembled, and he didn’t try to control the fury in his voice. There was no one to hear him out here. No one except the two of them under the clear, blue sky. Not like being in Nicodemus, where people mulled over every blasted word he uttered, like he was Moses come down from Mount Sinai. He was going to set this old woman straight.
“Madam, there’s a few things about me I would like you to know. Yes, I had it good for part of my life. And I’ve gathered you did, too. Then everything went to hell on me. Plumb to hell. Just like it did for everyone else in Nicodemus.”
“Freeborn miseries ain’t the same. Not the same as what happened to us.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared scornfully into the distance.
Abruptly he stopped the wagon, and she wavered an instant as though fearful he might be planning to throw her out.
“Madam, there’s something I want to get straight. Right now.” He looked hard into her cold, black eyes. “I’m sick and tired of ex-slaves feeling they are superior to other blacks and even other human beings in the eyes of God because they have suffered the most.”
She blinked.
“Many people have been wronged, many times, in many countries, in countless ways. Sometimes I think human beings were created by Satan to torment one another, and God had nothing to do with us.”
She turned away, jaw rigid. He flicked the reins, and they rode on.
Suddenly, as though he could not contain the words any longer, he blurted out between clenched teeth, “It might interest you to know my father hung himself. He just, by God, couldn’t take it any longer after the war. We had a nice house, and yes, I suppose, high-toned ways. We even had servants.”
“Slaves, you mean.” Queen Bess’s voice dripped with scorn.
“Not slaves, servants. Servants. They were paid a decent wage. And after my father died, my sister, my little sister, fell into bad ways.”
“You got schooling,” she said, her voice terse with accusation.
“Yes, and I’m proud of it. It’s carried me a long way. I was even offered a position in the state department. The state department. Because I speak French.”
“Why didn’t you take it?”
He tried to calm down. He could feel that he had piqued her interest. “Because, someone has to be writing down what happened to our people. I’ve been all over the South, collecting affidavits and keeping a diary. In the beginning, a group of us black men were trying to figure out where we could live in peace. We can’t in the South. But we will, by God, in Nicodemus.”
Chagrined by his loss of composure, Jed drove on in silence. Then he spoke again. “And it also might interest you to know I became a lawyer because I thought I could do some good for my people.”
She shuddered like a horse shaking off flies and looked at her hands.
A couple of miles further on.
“And just for the record, slaves did have it worse. Far worse,” he said sheepishly. “And as far as my being a lawyer doing someone any good—any whatsoever—it hasn’t happened so far, I have to admit. It’s going to, though. I can feel it. Going to happen right there in Nicodemus.”
Jed intended to witness Queen Bess’s mark at the land office. He watched, trying to feign casualness as she reached for the pen. Then, to his surprise, she carefully dipped the nib into the inkwell and signed Regina Marie Herbert.
“Don’t tell nobody,” she said as they walked out the door.
“What are you worried about? Do you think I’m going to tell someone who’ll hex you if
they know your real name?”
“Been years since someone learned my name.”
“Where’d you learn to write?”
“That girl of mine. She bringed home lessons every night. I sneaked peeks.”
“Then why are you so set against your daughter’s school?”
“Not set against reading and writing. I’se against all the high-toned ideas.”
He wiped his hand across his mouth to hide his smile. This mysterious Regina Marie had more secrets than a voodoo princess, and he probably had learned more about her today than her own daughter would unearth in her whole lifetime.
The clerk at the land office said a Tobias Gentry would likely be willing to survey their land, and he generally hung around the livery stable.
“Let’s take care of everything else first,” said Jed. He read through the list. “The mercantile store will have most of what we need.”
When they entered, the clerk, Seth Leister, made a self-conscious point of ignoring their color. “Can I help you find anything?”
“I have a list,” said Jed. “We’d appreciate it if you’d help us collect these items.”
Queen Bess moved over to the feed sacks and chose three matching blue calico prints.
The door opened.
“Hello, Mr. Bartholomew.”
“Morning, Seth.”
Queen Bess turned. A tall old man with a luxurious white mustache, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles on his lordly roman nose, stood stock-still and peered at her and Jed with alert, kindly interest. His eyes glistened with curiosity. He reminded her of the old gentlemen doctors she had assisted on the plantation. She stiffened, feeling as if she and Jed were being examined under a microscope.
Then the old man did something so unexpected, Jed and Queen Bess could not think how to respond. He blushed and removed his hat, revealing a bald pate fringed in white hair.
“I do beg your pardon,” he said. “Forgive me if I was rude. You are the first people of color I’ve seen on the prairie. I can assure you, I usually have better manners.”
“Quite all right,” Jed said.
Elam Bartholomew nodded, then briskly turned his attention to the shelf where the owner kept a scant supply of patent medicines. “I’m out of luck, I guess, Seth.”
“You’re not the only one out of luck. Not all of us are just thrilled to be living in a town that’s bone dry.”
“Well, I’ll come back to check your next shipment. I need that alcohol to preserve my tinctures. There’s just no way to keep some ingredients from spoiling otherwise.”
He looked at Jed and Queen Bess solemnly, tipped his hat again, and left.
Queen Bess went over to the clerk. “That man, that Bartholomew, he a doctoring man?”
“They say he’s a botanist. He doctored soldiers during the war. He actually lives in Stockton.”
“A botanist? Out here?” Jed asked.
“Yup. Out here. You find all kinds of strange people out here.”
Jed smiled, his eyes widened, and he put the last of their order on the counter.
“What he mean, no alcohol?” Queen Bess asked as Jed placed the sacks of flour in the wagon.
“Just what he said. Sure none in Nicodemus, and none in this town, either. In fact, none allowed in most towns in this state. You can order straight alcohol through patent medicine people, but it costs an arm and a leg.”
“Can’t be,” she muttered. “Never heard of a place that ain’t got no alcohol atall.”
“Never figured you for a drinking woman.”
“Shut your mouth, fool. Not for drinking. For doctoring.”
“That’s a dead sure way of killing pain, all right.”
“Not pain. Got stuff for that. But after I brings my medicines to life, I need alcohol to keep them from spoiling just like that old gentleman said.”
He looked at her, dumbfounded.
“Got to have alcohol, boy,” she mumbled. “Got to have it.”
“Don’t call me boy . . .” The words died as her head whipped around.
“I said shut your smart mouth. I gots to think. Sugar cane? They any sugar cane out here?”
“Might as well ask for mangoes,” he said as he lifted a box of harness fittings onto the wagon. “No cane, Mama.” The “Mama” had slipped out, and she shot him a haughty look.
“They gotta be apples then.”
“No apples. Not unless they’re brought in special for Christmas. Believe me, last week I rode all over this county, and there aren’t any apple trees. The only fruit I’ve seen growing wild is blackberries.”
“Going have another look around.”
She walked back into the store and looked at the sacks of grain leaning against the wall. Jed followed as though it was the most natural thing in the world to be following the old black woman around. No, he decided, not old. Not young, either. He had no idea what she was up to.
She turned to the clerk. “That sorghum. It raised here, mister? Some man local bring this in? Or a freighter come toting it in? Which?”
“A local man. Lee Morrow. He fools with all kinds of crops. Keeps hoping to stumble across something he can ship back East that won’t take a ton of water to grow.”
“Where he live?”
“About a mile north of Nicodemus. Just him. No wife or youngsters.”
She nodded, then pointed to the sacks of sorghum. “One. Just need one.”
Then she saw a bolt of cloth. “Taffeta,” she whispered. “Real taffeta. Out here.” She walked over to the material and rubbed her fingers over the purple taffeta. “I want one half yard,” she said.
Jed stared, then jerked to attention, like he was her personal servant. He nodded curtly to the clerk. “One half yard,” he repeated. Curious, he studied Queen Bess’s inscrutable face. There had to be a reason.
Jed paid Seth Leister, then hoisted the sack of sorghum seed over his shoulder and carried it out to the wagon. He didn’t know a thing about raising sorghum, and he doubted if Queen Bess did, either.
They drove on over to the livery stable. There were a few men clustered inside, watching a slight man with a wispy, blond beard poke an awl through an old piece of harness.
Queen Bess waited outside.
“Is there a Tobias Gentry around?” Jed asked.
The man laid the harness on a bale of hay and stepped forward. “I’m him.”
Gentry was a small, bandy-legged man. He still wore his Union cap and never passed up a chance to re-fight the war. He agreed at once to survey the land for Queen Bess’s homestead. “I’ll be there the first of next week.”
They started back to Nicodemus. Pleased with the way the day had gone, Jed whistled and admired the hardy grasses carpeting the prairie.
“We is going by that Morrow man’s place,” Queen Bess said.
“What for?” Jed’s good mood soured. “Lord knows you are going to have all the work you can stand breaking ground to plant that one sack.”
“We going. Or you can let me off on the way, and I’ll walk.”
“Oh, you bet. That would be fun to explain, when I drive in without you.” Nevertheless, when he got to the place he judged was about right to turn off, he could see a faint trail through the grass. He followed it to a dugout.
Queen Bess jumped down while he stayed in the wagon. He could not hear what they said, but the man led her to a pile of sorghum stalks. They were still green. She came back to the wagon and grabbed the old quilt she had used to cover herself.
She spread the cloth on the ground and put all the stalks in the middle. She gathered up the four corners, dragged the bundle back to the wagon, and heaved it onto the bed.
She carefully picked out three eggs and carried them over to the farmer. “They fertile,” she said. “Here.”
“Much obliged, but t’ain’t necessary. Didn’t have any use for them old stalks. Just the heads are good for livestock.”
“Take them,” she insisted. “It only right.” She climbed up onto t
he seat. “I’se ready.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
On the evening before work was to begin on Queen Bess’s soddy, Jim Black drove her out to the newly surveyed homestead. They selected a good level place to build; close enough to the creek that the sod blocks would be moist, but over an incline where the house would not catch the eye of strangers passing through the county.
Jim staked out the lines where they would begin placing the sod blocks. “This enough?”
“This a God’s plenty,” she said, studying the twenty-by twenty-five-foot rectangle. “Just so I’m square with the world.”
“I’ll make sure it trues up with the North star.”
They hacked away grass and weeds from inside the area, then smoothed it down with spades. Jim had fashioned a sod cutter in his shop after studying the one loaned to the colonists by a white homesteader Teddy had befriended. But building a sod house was tricky. Folks from Nicodemus would come tomorrow to help.
They camped next to the wagonload of tools. Queen Bess breathed quietly, looking up at the clear, cloudless sky. She would soon sleep out here by herself, night after night. A coyote howled in the distance, and she shivered, not understanding where such an animal could be hiding itself on the barren plains. She trusted Jim Black like a favorite son she never had and was comforted by his presence. But soon she would be completely alone.
When the men arrived the next day, they set to work at once. The settlers had learned the process the hard way. Sod blocks had to be just right when they were laid. Too dry, they fell apart, so they had to be cut fresh every day. Too soggy, they were like working with slippery mud. Too cold, frozen blocks crumbled and settled when they thawed.
But by now they knew exactly how to gauge where the sod would be strong and deep. They knew to keep all the sod strips even so the walls would be regular. They laid blocks side by side, two deep, around the foundation, everywhere except the door, smoothing the layers with spades as they worked.
Then they built up the sides with the joints broken, like they were laying bricks. Jim made them reinforce the corners with boards when it was about three feet high, for he wanted it to be perfect for Queen Bess. For a roof, they tortured the bent branches of a cottonwood into the Kansas Car.
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