Beverly Jenkins

by Night Song

  “Have you ever been told to lie down because of a black eye?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you suggesting I should?”

  “What are you so mad about all of a sudden?”

  “I’m not a hothouse plant, Chase Jefferson, and I do not like being laughed at.”

  “I did apologize, remember?” Chase found it difficult to keep his mustache from giving away his mirth. If she could only have seen herself wading through the children. He would never laugh at the sight of her being hit deliberately by anyone, even a child. But seeing the battling children tumble out of the door, then watching her emerge from the school like an angry mother hen to pull children off the pile, yelling the whole time, had been too comic. She’d looked so startled by the accidental blow that he’d chuckled in spit of himself. Thinking about it now brought another round of chuckles—a very unwise slip, judging by the angry expression on Cara’s face. She strode away, and he was hard-pressed to stifle his laughter.

  Cara walked over to thank the soldier who’d gone around back to help the children, then turned to Chase and his men. “I’m glad I could provide you Yankees with some entertainment,” Cara said coolly before turning sharply and marching back to the school.

  “Looking forward to this evening, Miss Henson,” Chase called.

  Cara gave him her back and went inside. Only the presence of the children kept her from slamming the door behind her.

  After spending the balance of the day in the saddle, Chase used the long ride back to Henry Adams to rid himself of some of his anger. Of the five ranchers the colonel’s aide at Fort Wallace had asked him to contact, only one had stuck by the agreed upon price for the horses the cavalry wanted to buy. Two of the ranchers on the list had only nags for sale; the other two—well, the other two wanted absolutely nothing to do with “nigger soldiers,” and at gunpoint ordered them off his land.

  Chase’s smoldering ire flared back into full flame as he replayed the incident. More than a few Black troopers had lost their lives to short-sighted, narrow-minded individuals like the two he and his men had encountered this day, while the army, fettered by the times and its own outdated policies, offered little in the way of support. An incident at Fort Concho, Texas, in ’78 stood as a grim example. The army command had received reports concerning clashes between the troops and townspeople of neighboring San Angelo. For sport, Black soldiers were being shot on sight. On the day Orderly Peter Jackson was killed while bringing to town a message from the fort’s commanding officer, the Black troopers had had enough.

  Officers at the fort tried to have the perpetrators, patrons of Bill Powell’s saloon, arrested for the young soldier’s murder, but the lawmen sided with the townsfolk.

  That night, twenty Black soldiers, led by Sergeant Gadsby, armed themselves with two six-shooters apiece, slipped past the fort guards, and walked the three miles to town. When they entered the saloon, the soldiers each ordered a drink. As soon as they’d downed the whiskey the men spun in unison and opened fire. Only seven troopers survived the subsequent shootout, but when the smoke cleared there were also thirty-five dead Texicans on the saloon floor. The surviving soldiers, certain the army would turn them over to the town’s lawmen, left that night for territories where there was no law.

  Extreme measures, some would say, but these soldiers were part of the United States Colored Troops, which comprised twenty percent of all the cavalry in the West. They rode from the Mississippi to the Rockies, from the Canadian border to the Rio Grande, protecting stages, wagon trains, and survey parties. They chased renegades and outlaws, working often for less pay than their white counterparts.

  And to what end? It was a question Chase asked himself with increasing frequency lately. He’d been with the army most of his adult life. As a younger man filled with the fire of freedom during the Civil War, the enthusiasm and euphoria of victory made the rigors of Black soldiering a cross he, and many like him, had been more than willing to bear. For freedom, especially to a race who’d tasted very little, it seemed a small price to pay.

  But the years passed, and now an older man—too old, maybe, he thought—rode the buffalo soldiers’ trail. Watching his men make do with the used mounts and broken equipment handed down from other, more traditional units had always been offensive, especially in the light of the Tenth’s distinguished record. But to be told continually by the generals and politicians in Washington that these same men, no matter how brave or resourceful, no matter the honors and medals bestowed upon them, did not have the genetic competence to be commissioned officers played hell with Chase’s morale—especially when rifle-toting civilians were allowed to cheapen and demean not only the uniform but also the men inside.

  And he could see no solution, at least not in the near future. For a while the equality promised after Lee’s surrender at Appomatox had come to pass. Blacks began to achieve levels in society unprecedented in the country’s history. Mississippi native B. K. Bruce, a highly intelligent man and a former slave, was elected to the Untied States Senate. Other elected Blacks from the South sat in the United States House of Representatives, in state-houses, and as state officers. Former slaves were able to work their own land. Those who’d served masters as artisans, tanners, bricklayers, and in other skilled capacities now could ply their trades. Radical Reconstruction, as the times came to be called, lasted fifteen years in some places and barely five in others.

  Now the clock had swung back. After pardoning those who’d split the country, the Federal government had begun to allow those same individuals to retake the land. In the South Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina where Chase had worked with General Tubman after the war, ex-slaves had been granted confiscated land by the Federal government. The people had worked, planted, formed township societies, and lived within the law for nearly a decade, only to find themselves confronted suddenly not only by returning planters demanding the Blacks submit to a modified system of bondage, but also by Federal troops sent to back up the planters. The long-fought-for right to vote had been repealed in many places. The nightriding Ku Klux Klan, spreading terror, continued to gain members. And throughout all of this, one could count the Black graduates from the army’s West Point on the digits of a three-fingered man.

  Chase loved his country. The debates being waged by the societies promoting emigration to Sierra Leone and other foreign countries held little appeal for him. As a member of the army, he felt a great obligation to carry forward the hopes and traditions of those Black soldiers who’d gone before, for the benefit of those who’d come in the future.

  Chase knew, though, that a man could take only so much. The sneers and slurs from homesteaders and the threats of Reb ranchers were taking their toll. He’d been soldiering a long time—and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could endure.

  “Cara, maybe you should go home. That eye’s pretty bad,” Sophie said from across the church kitchen where she was uncovering the baked goods brought in by the ladies of the church for the night’s dinner.

  “Sophie’s right, Cara,” Sybil Whitfield chimed in. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

  “Yes, it hurts, but the steak helped. Thank you, Sophie,” Cara said, “but I’ll be fine. Even a one-eyed woman can cut potatoes. And you need the help.”

  They did, of course. The parishoners numbered nearly one hundred strong, and all were coming tonight to break bread with the Tenth. Many more women would be arriving shortly to set up tables and the like, but Sophie and Cara had volunteered to come early to help Sybil get the meal started. Since it was Thursday night, the weekly choir rehearsal would be held after dinner, as would the monthly Men’s Club meeting. Cara, who had the singing voice of a bullfrog, would take herself home directly after the clean-up.

  “I haven’t seen your sergeant all day, Cara,” Sybil said playfully.

  Sophie laughed. “Better not let the Black Widow hear you call him that. I thought the woman was going to have him right there in the middle of the dance floo
r last night.”

  “He’s not my sergeant,” Cara pointed out.

  “Well, he should be. What do you think, Sophie?”

  Sophie looked over at Cara and said sagely, “I’ll hold my vote a while longer.”

  “Now that Sybil, is a smart woman,” Cara said, and went back to cutting potatoes.

  Later, as she moved about the room with the other women, laying out silver and china, Cara saw that some members of the Tenth were already arriving. She’d not seen Chase so far, however. She told herself she wasn’t looking for him, but she’d been telling herself a lot of things about him lately that weren’t true, such as, she wasn’t attracted to him, and his mustached smile was as ordinary as any other man’s. On Cara’s walk back to the kitchen to get more plates, not even her swollen eye kept her from seeing Virginia Sutton and her son, Miles, enter the church hall. Dressed in a midnight-blue taffeta dress that showed her curves, Virginia smiled like royalty at the soldiers and townspeople milling about. Virginia was looking for someone, that was clear. “Now I wonder who that could be?” Cara said sarcastically under her breath as she went into the kitchen.

  When people began to go through the line to help themselves from the buffet set up on the far side of the room, Virginia chose to sit with Cara, Sophie, and Sybil.

  “And how is everyone tonight?” Virginia asked, taking a seat. “I thought I’d come join you over here. Good heavens, Miss Henson, what on earth happened to your eye?”

  “Two of the students were fighting this morning. I inadvertently got hit trying to stop it.”

  “Are you having trouble controlling the children, Miss Henson?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  Virginia looked doubtful. “Well, that’s something to discuss when your term expires next time. You’d agree with that, wouldn’t you, Mrs. Whitfield?”

  Sybil answered in a cool voice. “I would think Cara’s renewal would be a foregone conclusion. The reverend and I believe she’s done more than a commendable job.”

  “Well, it won’t hurt to take a look at this issue. We can’t have our schoolteacher brawling with the students.”

  Cara’s prospects for a pleasant evening plunged further when Virginia waved her son over to the table. Miles pulled out one of the two remaining chairs and sat. “Evenin’, everybody. Miss Cara, what happened to your eye?”

  Virginia answered for her. “She was in a fight with the students. Can you believe that?”

  “Certainly not,” he said, grinning. “When you going to visit me at the Lady again, Miss Cara?”

  “The next time you serve alcohol to one of my students.”

  Virginia’s eyes riveted on her son. “You sold liquor to a child?”

  “Mother, I already explained to Miss Cara: Fess Brock’s kid is no child.”

  “The boy’s twelve, Mrs. Sutton,” Cara said.

  “Twelve! What were you thinking of, Miles?” Virginia asked.

  Cara had never expected to find herself on the same side of an issue as Virginia Sutton, who then added, “If it happens again, you won’t have to worry whether Miss Henson will be visiting you, because it will be me, with the sheriff. Do you understand me?”

  “The way I run my business is my affair, Mother, not yours.”

  “It’s my affair if you serve a child ever again. Do not let that happen.”

  Miles’s cheeks had reddened with his mother’s chastisements, and his gray eyes blazed. No one at the table said a word, but everyone’s face mirrored the expression of disgust on Cara’s.

  Chase did not arrive until midway through the meal. When he walked up behind her at the table and placed his hands on the back of her chair, Cara experienced the same kind of knowing she’d experienced the night before on Virginia’s back porch. She felt his presence as distinctly as she felt her own beating heart.

  “Good evening, everyone.”

  “Have a seat, Chase,” Sophie said. “I’ll get you a plate.”

  “No, sit and finish your meal. I see the food over there. I can get a plate in a minute. How are you, Mrs. Sutton?”

  “Very good, Sergeant. And you?”

  “Fine. I apologize for being late, Sophie. We didn’t get back to town until a little while ago.”

  “Well, we’re glad you can join us,” Virginia veritably purred. “Sergeant, this is my son, Miles.”

  “Ah, the saloon owner. Hello.”

  Miles, still angry, nodded curtly.

  Only after those pleasantries did Chase address Cara. “How’s the eye, Miss Henson?”

  “Fine, Sergeant, thank you.” she answered. To her surprise and embarrassment he gently titled her chin and peered at her face. She was acutely aware of Virginia’s presence and wanted to pull away, but couldn’t.

  Chase was concerned about her eye. It had swollen closed, and dark green stains of bruising ringed it. Uncharacteristically, he wanted to kiss the hurt away as if she were a child. “Did you give her a steak for it, Sophie?” he asked, still holding her chin, slowly turning Cara’s face this way and that as he evaluated the damage.

  Before Sophie could reply, Virginia asked suspiciously, “You knew about her eye, Sergeant?”

  Chase ignored her to hear Sophie’s answer.

  “Yes, Chase, Dulcie got her the biggest one she could find.”

  Only then did he respond to Virginia. “My men and I were headed out of town this morning when we passed the school yard and saw Miss Henson and the children.”

  “And how do you think she conducted herself?”

  “Considering the blow she received, I thought she showed remarkable patience.”

  “I see,” Virginia replied.

  Chase quickly excused himself then to get some food, and Cara went back to eating, purposely avoiding the Black Widow’s venomous gaze.

  At the end of the meal, two men, one Black, the other white, walked into the church hall. The strangers were dressed in the fancy suits and ruffled shirts associated with gamblers and drew the attention of most everyone in the room. Cara watched as Sheriff Polk approached them. The three conversed for a moment; the two men smiled, nodded, as if thanking the lawman, then started toward the back of the room.

  The men walked briskly to Miles’s side.

  “Well, boy,” the Black man said. “You got our money?”

  Miles stiffened. Cara watched him turn to the man and saw his eyes go as big as plates.

  “Bet you thought you’d never see us again, eh, Reverend?” the white one asked, smiling.

  Reverend? Cara shared quizzical looks with Sophie and Sybil.

  “Miles, you know these men?” Virginia asked.

  “They’re . . . business acquaintances, Mother.”

  “Business acquaintances. That’s a polite way of putting it. This your ma?” the Black man asked.

  Miles nodded his head.

  “Well, ma’am, me and my partner here beg your pardons for interrupting your meal, but your son owes us some money.”

  “Quite a large sum of money, ma’am,” the other interjected.

  Virginia drew herself up. “How much?” she asked coldly.

  “Mother, it’s not your concern.”

  “It most certainly is, because I’m the one who’s going to end up paying. Wasn’t being dismissed from Howard for gambling disgrace enough for you?”

  “Evidently not. And why don’t you say it louder? I’m sure the people in the front didn’t hear you, Mother.”

  “My, my,” the Black gambler said. “I ever sass my ma like that, I’d be picking buckshot out of my hide.”

  His partner laughed and added, “You know, I’m of a mind not to accept his lovely ma’s money. He acts like a man, let him pay his debts like a man.”

  Cara looked around the room and saw every eye trained on the drama unfolding at her table. It would be weeks before the gossip died down.

  “Where did you meet my son?” Virginia asked.

  “St. Louis, eight months ago.”

  “Why did
you refer to him as Reverend?”

  “Because that’s what he said he was. Course he don’t have on the spectacle and he don’t have his holy book, but he’s the one we’re looking for. No doubt.”

  Virginia had come to a decision. She rose, smiled regally, then said, “Gentlemen, I’m going to take your advice. He’s a man. He can pay his own debts. Good night.” She turned to Chase. “Oh, Sergeant, I’m celebrating my birthday in a few days. I’d be honored if you and your men would attend the party.” After Chase inclined his head in acknowledgment, she nodded frostily to her son, saying only, “Miles.” And she walked across the silent hall and out the door.

  The Black gambler looked at Miles and said pleasantly, “Well, Reverend, we’ll give you one month to come up with our money.”

  “I’ll . . . need more time. I—”

  “One month.”

  The two men tipped their hats to Cara and the other women at the table and departed.

  That night, Cara continued her search for the missing book she’d promised her student. There were still a few crates to go through on the upper shelves, so ignoring the painful throb in her eye, she dragged the sawhorse over to the shelves, hiked up her skirts, and climbed. The changes in the orientation of her head caused greater pain in her eye. She placed her hand against the row of books to maintain her balance, deciding to be wise for once and get down. But being one-eyed threw off her depth perception. She took a side step and slipped. Frantically clawing books and air, she fell to the floor, bringing down an avalanche of books and paper on top of herself.

  On the other side of the wall, Chase, working on reports, heard Cara’s scream, followed by the heavy thumps of things hitting the floor. Alarmed, he snatched up a shirt and ran to her door. He rapped loudly. “Are you all right, Cara?” He slid his arms into his shirt.

  “No,” he heard her call back grumpily. Then she asked, “Can you break your ankle falling off a sawhorse?”

  “Depends.” He chuckled, shaking his head at her spirit. “Let me in, and I’ll take a look.”

  For a moment there was silence. Then came her loud pain-filled groan. “I can’t walk over there. Just come on in. The door isn’t bolted.”