Reconstructing Jackson

by Bush, Holly

  “Mary Ellen talked to me before we got married and, even though it shouldn’t matter, how you and I look and dress will have something to do with whether or not you do well,” Belle said. “I want you to do well. You’re awful smart, and you deserve it.”

  “Mary Ellen is right, of course, and it shouldn’t matter, but appearances count.”

  Belle reached down under one of the curtains covering her kitchen cupboards and pulled out the wooden leg.

  “What is that?” Reed said sharply.

  “It’s a wooden leg. I got it from Dr. Lowell …”

  “Take it back,” Reed interrupted. “I don’t want the thing in my house. I can’t walk anymore, and I’ll be damned if you’re going to display that thing and remind me of that very fact, day in and day out. Take it back!”

  Nathan jumped from his seat and hid behind her skirts. “There’s no need to shout,” Belle said. “No need at all.”

  Reed jerked his chair around and slammed his hands down on the arm rests. “Who gives you the right to interfere?”

  “You did every night when you let me work your leg,” Belle shouted. “You’re getting stronger everyday! You don’t even realize it!”

  It tore at Belle’s heart to see Reed huffing and puffing and red-faced with anger. She knew that someday that anger would eat him up inside, like it did her Pa. Beulah had told her that Reed would never be happy until he let go of his fury. Bitterness would always be between them if Reed could not see a future ahead of him, regardless of how the past had torn him down.

  “And anyway,” she said. “I’m not going to cut the leg off that good pair of pants like you do all your others. I don’t want you going into that courthouse looking less than every other lawyer there. I thought if you’d wear it with your boot over it and in the leg of your trousers, you’d look just like everybody else.”

  Reed looked up at her and whispered. “I’ll never look like everyone else, Belle. I’m in a wheel chair.”

  Belle watched Reed turn himself around and wheel into his office and close the door.

  “I was right, Miss Belle,” Nathan said. “Mr. Jackson is mad at us.”

  Belle kissed Nathan’s head. “He’s not mad at you at all. He’s mad at me some but mostly he’s mad at himself.”

  * * *

  Reed pulled himself into bed that night well past midnight. He was exhausted and still angry about the wooden leg. But he couldn’t help himself for feeling indebted to Belle for caring enough to face his wrath. When she turned to him, sleepily, as he lay down, he kissed her hurriedly and hard. Reed yanked up her night gown and rolled over on top of her, something he’d never done. He levered himself up on his leg and knee and entered her roughly. Reed pushed one hand through her hair and held her head steady as she looked up at him. Belle moaned with the rhythm he set as he pounded flesh against flesh, hoping maybe to ease some long held resentment in the softness of Belle’s body.

  Reed dropped his weight on his wife and buried his face in her hair. He stroked his thumb down the side of her cheek where he held her face. He breathed a few ragged breaths and felt tears fill his eyes. Reed rolled onto his back and laid his arm over his face. Belle kissed his cheek tenderly.

  “I love you, Reed.”

  He sat up and grabbed his trousers from the table beside his bed.

  “Where are you going?” Belle asked.

  “Outside.”

  He struggled with the back door, trying not to wake Nathan, sleeping soundly in front of the fire place. He wheeled out on the level earth and felt the crisp night air and saw a star lit sky above the tree line. Reed sobbed with great heaving breaths, wiping his eyes with his bare hand. Never once through all the pain of his injuries or the surgery that followed had he cried or shouted in despair. He didn’t cry when the letter came that Franklin had died of dysentery in a Northern prison. He did not shed a tear when his father told him his fiancée and home would be surrendered to a younger brother.

  Reed calmed himself and wondered if these tears had been stored up so long that they finally just had to come out or if the kindness and love of his wife, and she but a stranger three months ago, had coaxed the pain to seep out of him. It didn’t matter which. Belle was his salvation, he knew, and he thanked God above for her.

  Reed awoke early the first morning of the trial and took extra care washing and shaving. He admitted to himself he was nervous. Not that he cared a bit if Jed Richards rotted in jail or hung by the neck, but that how he conducted himself over the next few days would very possibly be remembered for all the time he spent in this town. Belle had told him the night before that she and Nathan had planned to do garden work the whole day and that she would not be in the court room. He was not surprised and was glad she wouldn’t be there. Reed knew he may have to badger some witnesses, which Belle would take exception to, although he intended to play the part of Southern gentleman.

  Reed stopped to see Henry and Mary Ellen the day before and received a frosty reception. While Henry admitted to understanding his reasoning, Mary Ellen refused to speak to him. Her reluctance to be in the same room with him bothered him sorely.

  Belle helped him dress, and while he buttoned his shirt, she knelt down in front of his chair holding his left boot with the wooden leg sticking out the top. She looked up at him solemnly.

  “Go ahead and see if you can make it look right,” he said.

  Belle yanked up his pant leg and placed the boot on the floor. After some adjustments on both of their parts, she got the final leather strap over his knee, through its buckle and pulled the pant leg down over the boot. Belle sat back on her haunches.

  “It looks fine. How does it feel, Reed?”

  It felt strange having the stump of his leg connected to something that reached the solid ground. It felt odd to feel even with two feet planted on the floor. It felt different but totally familiar, but he did not say that either. “It’s fine. Thank you,” he said.

  Nathan stood by the entrance to their bedroom. “I’ve got your satchel, suh. All shined like new. Can I help you put your papers in it?”

  “Go on into my office,” Reed said as he rolled to the door but stopped when Belle spoke.

  “I want to say good luck, but I don’t want luck for Jed to be any part of this. I’m sure you’ll do a good job and live up to Mr. Bastille’s oath.” Then she smiled and patted his lapels. “And I’ve got to say you are the most handsome man in your dark suit and your starched shirt. The women in town will faint dead away when they see you.”

  Reed caught her hand and kissed her palm. “I know this whole ordeal has been hard for you. You’ve been very strong, Belle. Well worth my admiration which I rarely give.

  She reached down and kissed his cheek. “Hurry into your office. Nathan wants to help you.”

  * * *

  Reed wheeled himself down the street to the front of the courthouse when a man stepped in front of him.

  “You Jed’s lawyer?”

  Reed looked up. “I am Mr. Richard’s counsel.”

  The man smiled. “Good. I’m glad to see we have a son of the South on our side when it comes to slave matters. Nobody has any business in Washington telling us Missourians what to do with our niggers.”

  A few other men gathered round his chair as the man spoke. Reed took them in one by one and then answered. “The Civil War was fought and lost by the South. In this matter, the federal government held sway. And this court will abide by rules laid down by the U.S. Constitution and other laws. In any case, Mr. Richards is due a fair trial, which I am certain he will receive.”

  “I’m not so sure I like your attitude,” the man said to nods from the other men.

  “Hey, watch out there,” Belle’s brother Frank said and moved the men away with his elbows. “You need help up this step, Mr. Jackson?”

  “I do, Frank,” Reed said. “Thank you.”

  Frank pushed Reed in his chair into the dimly-lit marble foyer. It was cool and there was the steady noise
of activity from all the people milling outside of the courtroom, waiting for the trial to begin.

  “Mr. Jackson?” another man said and stopped next to Reed’s chair. “I’m Ian McConnor with the Fenton Times. Can I ask you some questions?”

  Reed held his hand up to Frank to stop wheeling. “Mr. McConner. What can I help you with?”

  “Do you predict an acquittal? Or will Jed Richards be proven guilty? Didn’t this crime occur on your property? Isn’t the accused your brother-in-law?”

  “I predict that Jed Richards will get a fair and impartial trial by a jury of his peers. This horrible crime occurred on the main road going south out of Fenton, commonly referred to as Hayfield Run.”

  Mr. McConner was still busy writing in a small tablet when Reed signaled Frank to push him forward towards the door of the courtroom. A group of women and one lone man, the Methodist minister in town, Reed believed, nearly blocked the entrance to the courtroom. Deputy Pearson was shouting at them to be quiet and move away from the door. Frank slowed down as they approached.

  “Good afternoon, Reverend, ladies,” Reed said with a nod and noticed Mary Ellen among the crowd.

  “This isn’t Georgia, where Negroes are property, Mr. Jackson.”

  “How can you defend a man that committed such a heinous crime?” a woman asked.

  “The U. S. Constitution guarantees its citizens certain rights when they are accused of a crime. One of those is the right to an attorney. There are Fenton men, I’m certain, who died defending that Constitution in the Revolution and in War Between the States. What better way to honor them than to uphold the rights of every person,” Reed asked.

  “We want justice!” a woman shouted.

  “And our esteemed judge and jury will render it,” Reed said. “Excuse me now.”

  The crowd parted slowly, and he wheeled through the doors, expelling a deep breath as he entered the relative calm of the courtroom. Reed stopped half-way down the middle aisle and took a look around the room. It was what he expected for a relatively prosperous community with a high table for the judge and rows of bench seating for the crowd. There was a small loft with more seating over head and large oil paintings on the walls between tall, paned windows. Reed heard laughter behind him and turned.

  “Morning, Counselor,” John Benson said. “Welcome to the Fenton County Courthouse. Quite a reception the good citizens of our little county had for you as you arrived.”

  * * *

  Belle straightened up from pulling the last of the overgrown string bean plants out of the ground. They’d moved into to their house too late in the summer to ready a garden for three seasons, but she’d turned over a patch and planted some items that loved the hot weather. Nathan was raking the ground where she’d pulled the dead plants.

  “We’re going to make this garden three times as big next spring,” Belle said. “We’ll have onions and potatoes and okra and tomatoes and be able to get the root cellar full for winter. This year we’re going to be buying from the mercantile, I imagine.”

  “I think there’s an apple tree on the other side of the road,” Nathan said. “My momma made pies with apples for our master. Sometimes she’d save a little dough and bake me a slice of apple with some sugar. They smelled so good cooking.”

  “You’re making me hungry, Nathan,” Belle said and laughed. “We’ll see about gathering apples next year and storing them up. I can still buy a bushel now, though, but they’re dear this time of year. Everybody wants them for their fruit cellar.”

  Nathan stopped raking and sat down in the dirt. “I’m getting hungry talking about this food.”

  “It’s near noonday. Let’s go inside and eat,” Belle dusted her hands. “I wonder if Reed took anything to eat. He’ll be starving, I’ll bet.”

  “I’ll take him something, Miss Belle,” he said. “Please, oh please. I’ll go straight there and be right back.”

  “You’ll be right back?”

  “Right back. I promise.”

  “What if the trial is going on? You’ll have to wait.”

  “Not too long. Pa used to clean the privies at the courthouse some, and he said those lawyers and judges, they didn’t miss no meals.”

  Belle packed two pieces of her homemade bread, a slice of ham and a mason jar filled with tea in a bag and handed it to Nathan. She walked him out to the picket fence gate where she could watch till he got on the town’s sidewalk three houses down. Belle handed him the cloth bag with Reed’s meal.

  “Now, no poking around where you don’t belong. Say please and thank you. And here’s a penny to take to the mercantile to get peppermint sticks.”

  Nathan grabbed the bag and the penny and smiled. “Thank you, Miss Belle!”

  * * *

  Reed had just got done asking Mrs. Monroe questions about what she’d heard the night that Beulah died and had elicited some jeers from the crowd. Judge Hensler didn’t brook any interruptions to his courtroom and had several women removed. John Benson described Hensler as a stickler for the law, and that was fine with Reed. The judge had given him a stern rebuke when he questioned the sheriff but had been just as gruff with Benson.

  “Adjourned for the mid-day meal,” Hensler declared with a slam of his gavel.

  The sheriff hooked an arm under Jed’s and lifted him from his seat. “Come on, Jed. Back to your cell till this afternoon.”

  Reed turned around in his seat and thought about having to negotiate home for something to eat or go to one of the restaurants that would be no doubt busy on a court day. Just then he saw Nathan standing in the doorway, holding a bag. Reed motioned him forward, and Nathan weaved his way through the people exiting till he came to Reed’s chair.

  “I’ve brought some bread and ham and a jar of tea for you, suh,” Nathan said. “And Miss Belle gave me a penny for peppermint sticks. I’ve saved you one.”

  “Good. I’m starved. Grab my satchel and follow me,” Reed said.

  Reed opened the door of a small room in the courthouse down the long hall from the entrance. “We’ll sit in here. I’ve got to read, and I’ll eat while I do it.”

  Reed opened his books and ate while Nathan sat quietly. “Here, boy,” Reed said and turned a book Nathan’s direction and wrote a word on a piece of paper. “Take your finger down the page till you see this word while I look at something else. I won’t have enough time to get done what I need to do, I don’t imagine.”

  Reed read and Nathan diligently ran his finger over the typed words. “Here it is!” Nathan said.

  Reed turned the book and looked up at Nathan. “Well-done. Now get on home because Mrs. Jackson is probably watching for you.”

  Nathan stood up. “I told Miss Belle about an apple tree across the road from your house. She said next year she’ll make us apple pies. Do you think I’ll be still living there, suh? Will you?”

  Reed pulled Nathan close to his chair. “I haven’t forgotten about filing the papers to adopt you, Nathan. Once that’s done, you’ll be living with us till you’re old enough to go out on your own. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, suh.”

  “Here’s a dollar. Go get a half bushel of apples at the mercantile and take them to Mrs. Jackson. I’ve got a hankering for apple pie.”

  Nathan grabbed the dollar. “Yes, suh!”

  * * *

  Belle heard Reed come in the front door near dark and she hurried to greet him.

  “Give me your case. We’ve been waiting supper for you. Come and wash up and I’ll brush your suit after dinner,” she said.

  Reed wheeled to the dinner table. “Shouldn’t have waited on my account. And I do thank you for sending me a noon-day meal.”

  Belle had wondered all day what had happened and if Reed would tell her anything.

  “Your brother Frank helped me get in the courthouse today. Your father was not there, but Frank stayed the whole day.”

  “I was wondering what you’d do about that step out front,” Belle said. “Is it over? The
trial? Did the jury decide?”

  Reed shook his head. “No. I don’t imagine the jury will go out till tomorrow afternoon.”

  “What do you think is going to happen?”

  Reed looked up at her. “Do you want to talk about this?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do,” Belle said. “Nathan and I talked today after he came back from the courthouse. Whatever happens, you’re not responsible for his father or Beulah’s deaths. There’s no use being mad at you. What happens in a trial? I have no idea.”

  Reed explained that witnesses were called and that both he and John Benson were allowed to ask them questions. He said the judge seemed fair. “And the jury is made up of twelve men from town. They’ve got to listen to what witnesses say, and then Judge Hensler will instruct them on what must have been proven to convict Jed.”

  “And these twelve men get to decide?”

  “They must think Jed did this beyond a reasonable doubt,” Reed said.

  “A reasonable doubt,” Belle repeated.

  “Did you get the apples for Miss Belle, Nathan?” Reed asked.

  Nathan smiled. “Yes, I did. You know I did. The pie is sitting right here on the table, suh.”

  “Is that what smells so delicious? And since you and I have both cleaned our plates, I’m wondering why Miss Belle hasn’t offered us a piece.”

  Nathan giggled and looked up at Belle.

  In the midst of all the frightening upheaval and tragedy the summer had brought, Belle clung to these short moments when she and Reed and now Nathan talked to each other about everyday things and even were happy enough to tease. She imagined this was what a normal family did, and she wanted it for herself all the time.

  “I will cut the pie since you have asked so nice,” Belle said.

  * * *

  “So as you’ve said, Mrs. Monroe, you heard men on the path near your outhouse on the night that Beulah Freeman died?” Reed asked the following morning after watching Mrs. Monroe make her way to the witness chair.

  “Yes, Mr. Jackson. I already told Mr. Benson that yesterday.”

  “Indulge me, ma’am, and recount again what you saw and what you heard that night.”