The Healer's Daughter

by Charlotte Hinger

Four weeks later, Tobias Gentry was on his way back to Nicodemus to survey another homestead. He stopped for an instant to let his horse graze in the tall bluestem grass that was encroaching on the buffalo grass. It was a moonless night with no wind. Stars like diamonds flung across velvet sparkled in the jet-black sky.

  His horse, Daybreak, a sleek little paint, was not as fast as he used to be. He was in no hurry anyway. Just wanted to get to Nicodemus by morning. Since the war, Gentry no longer cared about owning fast horses. It was past time to put this one out to pasture. Daybreak had earned his rest.

  Gentry pulled Daybreak’s head out of the lush grass and studied the stars. Despite his sure sense of direction, the lack of any landmarks on the prairie still unnerved him. No trees, no rocks, nothing to show if a man was on the right track. God knew it was impossible to get lost with this many stars.

  His spirits had been high after surveying the land for the feisty old Negro woman. At first he had been glad to rub salt in the wounds of the ex-Southerners in the county. Glad to see the incredulous looks on their faces when the paper came out with the filing notice. When folks’ surprise escalated to molten anger, he decided not to go around crowing about being the surveyor.

  The Topeka Capital was keeping folks riled up over the Voorhees Committee investigation conducted by the United States Senate. They were considering the causes of the removal of the Negro from the South to the North.

  Damn fools. Any Negro could tell them. He could tell them. If the truth be known, there wasn’t a Southerner anywhere who didn’t know in their hearts why their “Niggras” were leaving. They didn’t want to be starved and beat no more. Shouldn’t take too many brains to figure that out. But no, the government was going to waste the taxpayers’ money on a whole investigation like it was a damn mystery.

  One thing sure—and it tickled him plumb to death—the exodus was ruining the South. Not that the war hadn’t already, but they were all scared to death there wouldn’t be anyone left to do the work.

  Tobias tugged at his hat and started off again. Folks in this county were madder than they had a right to be over that little handful of people in Nicodemus. He hadn’t fought a whole war to be scared off a little surveying job on their behalf.

  At first he attributed the prickling he felt on the back of his neck to the goddamned emptiness that always gave him the creeps. It was an unnatural expanse of land. Even in full sun, he found himself imagining shadows that weren’t there. Hidden things when there was no place to hide.

  Daybreak whinnied and started. Gentry looked around. He could not see any reason why the old paint should be skittish, unless the horse simply sensed his growing uneasiness.

  Then he twisted in the saddle and saw a dark shadow, a rider, swiftly coming across the prairie. The horseman had simply materialized out of surrounding blackness. Gentry’s blood surged. His heart pounded.

  Normally, he would have assumed the man was friendly. Called out to him. Invited him to ride on together. Chat a bit. But his heart was gripped by terror at the suddenness, the strangeness, the silence of the swiftly approaching stranger.

  He froze, undecided.

  A fierce rebel yell split the night air.

  He whirled around and kicked Daybreak into a lunge. The horse streaked across the prairie as fast as he could run. The old paint’s breath weaved in labored gasps like leaky bellows. He slowed, lurched, then regained his footing.

  Faint with dread, Gentry clung to the horse. He didn’t dare look back. His blood pulsed loudly in rhythm with his horse’s exhausted heart. His own heart and Daybreak’s heart drummed as one with the hoofbeats of the rapidly approaching rider.

  When the single deadly shot echoed across the prairie, Gentry slid to the ground. He saw the black kerchief around the face of the silent stranger who walked toward him, holding his rifle in front. He struggled to speak through the blood already gurgling up in his throat before the man coldly aimed for the second time.

  “Don’t shoot my horse,” Gentry tried to say. Don’t shoot my horse. But the bullet was for him, and the words were only thoughts.

  The assassin kicked him once and watched until he saw the death stare in Gentry’s glazed eyes. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a note he had brought with him. The words were printed with a common piece of charcoal: Niggers, go home.

  He raised Gentry’s body and laid the paper underneath him so it wouldn’t blow away.

  Then he pointed Daybreak in the direction of Nicodemus and slapped the horse’s rump.

  Jim Black was the first to see the riderless horse the next morning. Teddy was already at Jim’s place, helping mount a wagon wheel, when they spotted him.

  “That looks like Gentry’s Daybreak. Something’s wrong.”

  Teddy walked toward the horse, hand extended, careful not to startle him. He spoke softly, then reached for the bridle and led Daybreak to the blacksmith shop.

  “We’d better start looking,” Teddy said. “Something is terrible wrong here. We’d better look fast.”

  A group of men fanned out and began walking. Jim rode Daybreak so he could see across the tall grass. Even so, it was a man on foot who first saw the body. Teddy reached for the paper poking out from under Gentry. He read the words silently. A tear slipped down his wrinkled old cheeks.

  All the men gathered to hear. A few women had joined the search, and they waited for Teddy to speak the words aloud, their worn skirts billowing like tattered sails, their dark faces drawn, aged with despair.

  “It say ‘Niggers go home,’ ” Teddy said finally, in a low, trembling voice.

  No one spoke. Then a keening arose from Patricia Towaday. A chorus of wailing followed, a dirge that floated up to heaven.

  “So it started,” Jim Black said bitterly. “It done commence. It followed us out here. Where all we want is to be left alone.”

  “Did you think it wouldn’t?” They turned to look at the stony face of Jed Talbot, who had been searching a mile away and rode over when he saw the cluster of people gathering. “Did you think the white man’s evil wouldn’t reach out to here?”

  They all looked at Teddy as though he could supply some answers. He was the one who had told them it would be different here in Kansas. He was the one who had said this was the Promised Land.

  “What in the hell we going to do?” Henry Partridge demanded. “Someone has got to take this soul back to Oberlin. We can’t just leave him here or bury him like we has something to hide. This is none of our doing. We just wanted a little land surveyed.”

  “You’re right, Henry. No hiding. Not for any reason,” Jed said. “We’ll need to borrow your wagon. I’ll go, and I want Teddy to go with me. I need someone to bear witness.”

  Henry and Silas Brown stood by the body until Teddy returned. LuAnne Brown had sent a blanket back with Teddy. He spread it on the wagon bed. Then Henry and Silas hoisted Gentry’s body, and Teddy pulled the blanket around him.

  “Going to be a long miserable trip,” Jed said grimly.

  The veins throbbed in Jim Black’s neck. “Yonder on that wagon lies a good man. He just trying to help us, that’s all. Just trying to help us get by.”

  Sheriff Casper Bogswell got shoved into the job of sheriffing when he first came to Oberlin looking for a no-good cattle rustler who had taken off with his brother’s prize bull. He and Lewis had planned to start a nice little herd. Their dreams had vanished with the death of their thirteen cows during the ungodly bad winter.

  Lewis had thrown up his hands and quit, saying anyone who stayed in the godawful state was a damned fool, and that’s not what his mamma had raised. Bogswell let him go with a shake of his fist and a few good-natured cuss words, as the claim had been in Lewis’s name, and he was willing to sign it over. Bogswell decided to stay. He sort of liked the unreasonable odds on the prairie. Made him feel more of a man to say he could stand Kansas.

  However, the bull stolen right from under his nose had been the last straw. The bull had been worth so
me money. Besides, hunting down the bull gave him something to do while he figured out just where he wanted to fit in. When the trail led to Oberlin, and the people needed a peacemaker, it seemed to fit. He suited the folks just fine.

  Bogswell was six foot four inches tall, big-boned with a long reach. This scared folks enough that they usually didn’t notice the mild, blue eyes of a basically pleasant man. Strangers who did notice his eyes immediately assumed he was a pushover. If they had looked at him longer, they might have noticed the quick shrewd glances of a man who didn’t miss much.

  He was clean-shaven and scrupulously clean. He had fine, sandy hair, close, even sideburns, and a wickedly attractive cleft chin. The people of Oberlin slept better with him on the job. He had an uncanny ability to sort out real trouble from good-natured high spirits and didn’t keep folks riled up all the time like some sheriffs did. He checked out strangers the instant they rode in and was known to help them ride right on out if he thought they weren’t the right kind of folks to be hanging around. He nearly always showed up for church and socials.

  Jed and Teddy drove down the main street and stopped in front of the sheriff’s office.

  “What we going to say?” Teddy asked.

  “We’re just going to say what happened,” Jed replied. “This man was most likely murdered for helping us. Even if they won’t admit it, it’s that simple, and most of the folks here will know why he was killed as well as we do.”

  “I ’spect most of them will blame it on the cowboys anyway.” Teddy glanced over at the sheriff’s office. “ ’Stead of their own folks what think we shouldn’t be taking any land atall.”

  Bogswell was already standing at the door and saw the ominous outline lying on the wagon bed. Before Teddy or Jed could speak, he stepped out and went to the back of the wagon. He flipped the blanket open and looked at the body. A muscle leaped in his jaw when he saw Tobias Gentry. Tobias had been his friend.

  “How did this happen?”

  “We don’t know,” Jed said carefully. “As to the how, he’s obviously been shot. We just don’t know who.” He looked squarely into Bogswell’s eyes. “We want you to know, the people of Nicodemus will do anything we can to help you track down that person.”

  “We just found him,” Teddy said. “His horse came dragging in, and we knowed something was wrong.” He drew a deep breath. “He did some surveying work for us. We found this, too.” He reached inside his old jacket, pulled out the crude note, and shoved it at the sheriff.

  Bogswell read it, and his eyes flashed with anger. “I won’t have this, by God. Not out here.”

  Teddy’s face softened with relief. “We’s sorry,” he said simply. “We’s sorry we’s the cause of all this, because he was a good man.”

  “You don’t have to tell me what a good man he was. He was one of the best,” Bogswell said. “We spent many a sociable evening arguing. About a lot of things. You are not the cause of this, so don’t blame yourselves.”

  “I guess we should start back,” Teddy said. He turned, awkward now, wondering if he should say more.

  “There’s something I want you to know,” Bogswell shouted as their wagon rattled down the street. “If any of the rest of you want to prove up, I’ll personally see to it that nothing stops you. I won’t have this, by God, if I have to get everyone who ever fought on the right side in the war to patrol the prairie with me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Bethany snapped at Zach Brown and then, ashamed, went to her little board to illustrate the answer to the math question he had just asked. But in a flash her mind turned back to the murder again. There was so much land. So much space. So much of God’s blue sky. Why would anybody care if black people took up just a little part of it? Why should anyone mind?

  This was the third day since the discovery of Gentry’s body. She kept waking up at night, hearing sounds, her heart drumming with terror.

  There was no use in trying to fight white folks head on. It couldn’t be done. It would just get her people killed. There weren’t enough blacks for anyone to give a damn about; that was what was so strange. If there were hordes out here, like she was reading about coming into Topeka, lining the streets and the riverbanks, that would be different, but there weren’t.

  Her little schoolroom suddenly fell unnaturally quiet. One minute there were the usual whispers and shuffling of feet, then dead silence. Nerves on edge, she turned around and saw her mother standing at the back of the room. Bethany had not heard her come in, but, as usual, the children had sensed Queen Bess’s disapproval.

  “Morning, Momma.”

  Queen Bess nodded stiffly. She stood there, arms folded. Bethany concluded the lesson, then sorrowfully faced her class. “Children, please tell your parents that school will not be in session for a while.”

  “But Miss Bethany, what about these here multiplication tables? I just got started.”

  “I know, Zach. Keep on with the work on your own, please. For a while.” Her voice trembled. She could not look Silas and LuAnne’s son in the eye.

  The children silently filed out.

  “You’ve heard?” Bethany asked after the last one left.

  “Patricia came over yesterday.”

  “I’m just sick, Momma, just heartsick. I didn’t think this could happen out here. I thought things would be different.”

  “Things ain’t never gonna be different.”

  Bethany bit her lip, covered her face with her hands, and swayed from side to side. “It’s got to be different. It’s just got to be.”

  “Well, it ain’t. I tried to tell you. You wouldn’t listen. You keep dabbling in things you don’t understand. Trying to go where our kind ain’t supposed to go. And look where it got you.”

  “Are you saying it’s my fault?” Bethany asked, raising her head. “Are you saying this was in any way my fault? You’re the one that filed for a homestead, Momma.”

  Queen Bess’s eyes flashed. “I was just trying to move away from the foolishness I saw going on in this town. Black folks acting like white folks, like they could slip into another world. We is what we is. What God made us to be. Ain’t my fault that man died.”

  “It’s not my fault, either, Momma.”

  They both stood silently, grieving for the good man who had died on their behalf.

  “Why did you come here, Momma, if you’re not trying to lay this death at my doorstep? Why are you taking it on yourself to trouble me?”

  “I came here because you is my daughter, and you has a lot of sway over these people here. You has book learning, and you is a granny to boot. They all listen to you. Tell these people to back down. Live apart.”

  “And stay frozen? What am I teaching these children for? What is the point?”

  “You teaching them all for nothing, child. I am trying to tell you. You should be teaching them to stay alive. That’s all. Just stay alive and stay out of white folks’ way.”

  “Stop it, Momma. Just stop it. You’re driving me crazy. And scaring me to death. This was surely the doing of one person. One evil, crazy man. I didn’t come out here to be scared all the time. I came out here to be free.”

  “Oh, you foolish, foolish child. You think there wasn’t a bunch of people behind this? Bulldozers? Night riders? People who ain’t never going to forget the war. You fool enough to think white folks don’t still hate us?”

  “Momma. This town is what I’m all about. Don’t you understand this? If we can’t believe this, then there’s nothing left. Not now, not ever. I’ve got to believe that there’s good people out there. Good as well as bad. If we can’t believe that, there’s nothing left for any of us.”

  Queen Bess quivered with fury. “You ain’t hearing me, daughter. You ain’t listening. I is trying to tell you, which way people go in this here town is up to you. You and Teddy. Better not make no mistakes, or you going to get us all killed. It started already.”

  After her mother left, Bethany slowly wiped the writing off the blackboard
. Difficult as her mother’s words had been, they jolted her like a bolt of lightning. She knew she could turn Nicodemus in the direction it would go, and, once turned, they couldn’t go back.

  Would they live apart from white folks, or would they keep on trying to work out an arrangement with them? Could they play a role in deciding the affairs of the county, or should they be content with survival? Was it worth the risk, the constant fear? Was it worth dying for?

  She walked over to the window and gazed out at the prairie. Before the murder the openness had seemed to offer endless opportunity. Now the expanse seemed threatening. Too much empty space.

  Exhausted, she walked back to her dugout. Before the murder she usually roamed across the prairie in the evening. It soothed her frazzled nerves. Now she no longer felt safe wandering alone. She stepped inside and went to the bag holding some precious chamomile leaves and fixed a cup of tea, then sat terrified staring out the doorway as the evening darkened around her.

  The whole community was abnormally quiet. Children no longer played outdoors until full nightfall. Finally, she rose and decided to squander a match and light a candle. She could not bear to go to bed and risk having nightmares. Suddenly her hands started to shake. Her face tightened with fury. She went to the corner where she kept snow-white bandages, wide strips torn and sun-bleached from flour sacks. Painstakingly accumulated for her patients.

  She reached for a needle and a spool of thread and placed the bandages end by end. Tears streamed down her face. Convulsive sobs racked her body. She keened like a wild woman as she stabbed the ends together with brutal uneven stitches. When the length reached about six foot, she stood and grasped her hair, twisted it on top of her head, and fastened it with an old broken comb.

  Then she began wrapping the snow-white cloth around her head into a slave’s turban. When she finished, she picked up the candle and carried it to the broken mirror hanging beside her hanks of medicine. She looked at her ugly, tear-stained face.

  “This is the way you looks. You is still a slave,” she said slowly. “This is the way you talks. Not fancy. You is still a slave. This is who you are. You is still a slave.”