by James Short
“What happens if I don’t like what I see?” Thornton asked.
“My only expectation is that you act for Penny’s welfare,” Franklin replied.
“I’ve never made the acquaintance of a Negro who owned more than a dozen acres and a few cows and chickens, so you might understand why I’m not inclined to take you at your word.” Sheriff Thornton sat uncomfortably in the parlor, eyeing this black servant who had just informed him that he held the deed to the Boller mansion.
“I do not make claims I can’t prove. Solvidado’s tradesmen weren’t the only ones who had difficulties with Mrs. Boller’s account. She had taken out a loan on the deed of this house. Her creditors were within days of seizing it and throwing Mrs. Boller and Penny out. I paid off the loan, although it cost me more than the property is worth.”
“Mrs. Boller’s daughter, I take it, has something to do with your decision to buy the house?”
“She is the sole reason.”
“So you’re telling me that you, clearly no relation to the Bollers, purchased this property on behalf of an idiot girl. You’re going to have to come up with a story which makes better sense. No, I don’t like the smell of this; no, no, I don’t like the smell of this at all.”
Franklin drew in a deep breath. “Come, meet Penny—Miss Boller. I can’t promise that you’ll approve of my actions afterward, but at least you will have a better understanding of the circumstances and my motivations.”
James Thornton gave a begrudging nod of assent. He followed Franklin up the creaking staircase to the third story and down a dim passageway that reeked of lye. Knocking on the last door in the hallway, Franklin called out, “Penny.” The answer was a sound not quite distinguishable as a word. They went in.
In contrast to the hallway, sunshine flooded the room. A girl in a camisole sat upright in a bed. She was incredibly thin, her wrists having a circumference perhaps slightly greater than Thornton’s thumb and forefinger put together. Her face hadn’t the plumpness that you might expect with a child, although it was animated with a pleasant smile. “Ist ya! Ist ya!” she half shouted and half sang.
“Yes, it is me, Franklin. I’ve brought a friend, Sheriff James Thornton.”
“Jam! Jam!” she exclaimed with enthusiasm and rocked back and forth.
“The girl has been starved,” whispered Thornton as he kept staring, not quite believing that a human so thin could sustain life.
“When I came here two months ago, she weighed four pounds less than she does now.”
“What are you trying to prove?”
Franklin walked up to the girl and slowly passed his hand in front of her face. She didn’t react until the hand got to the corner of her left eye, then she caught it with both hands and beamed with happiness. “Fwan! Fwan!” Thornton suppressed a shudder at seeing the small white hands clinging to the black skin.
Franklin studied his revulsion coolly. “Penny is blind, except she can sense movement out of the corner of her left eye. Her blindness is the result of needles being put into her eyes. I have photographs of her taken three weeks after I arrived. You may also view them.” He gently disengaged the child’s hand.
Once outside the room, Thornton asked, “Why does Miss Boller’s wellbeing concern you?”
Franklin shook his head. “Why I care for Penny is an accident of time and place I might undo if I could because it pains me deeply to see how she has suffered. And, as you perhaps realize now, she returns my affection. She also depends on me. So, Sheriff Thornton, what were my options? I could have let the creditors seize the house, and strangers take Penny. As a blind girl without property or family, she would end up at a home for the blind learning how to weave baskets and walk to her mealtimes and bedtimes with her hands on her blind neighbor’s shoulders. And in the worst institutions, it is not uncommon for girls like her to be rented out for immoral purposes. No, Mr. Thornton, I cannot do that.” Franklin’s eyes, darker than his skin, locked with his.
He continued: “Do you have a good family in mind that would care for her? Can you guarantee they will have as great an affection for her as I feel? Will they have the time and the will to spend the hours, days, weeks, months, years necessary to teach Penny to be functional in society, or will she be perpetually a charity case, a blind pet with a special place in the corner, who is pleasant because she is fed? I am well-off by any standard; I have the time and the will to devote to her. But since my arrangement here is unorthodox, I need an ally, someone who will quell rumors and suspicions and take my place if the need arises.”
“You flatter me in believing I can protect you from rumors.”
“I don’t flatter. I’m certain that if you vouch for me, rumor won’t gain traction. In the end, it’s up to you to decide whether I’m doing right or wrong. You can visit here any hour, day or night. You can bring your own physicians to examine Penny.”
Thornton considered Franklin’s comments for a few moments before replying. “I’ll speak my mind. Your story does some justice to your character. On the other hand, I’m not sure your affection for the girl is correct.” Thornton paused and took a deep breath. “Even when I put my inclination aside and think only in terms of that child, I don’t believe you’re cut out for the job you’ve set for yourself.”
“You’re right there, sheriff. I’ve had two successful vocations—sailor, where I rose to the rank of first mate and would have become a captain of a ship except for my skin color; and merchant in precious stones, in which trade I made my fortune. I never thought about children except on how to avoid fathering them. I doubt I possess any facility or knack in this enterprise, and when you consider that Penny is a young girl, then this all seems absurd and impossible. But she trusts me, and I believe, I know, if I abandon her now, it would break her heart. I can’t hurt her. That might not be enough for you. I realize you must speak to Penny’s mother now. That interview may clarify things.”
James Thornton knocked on the door three times before entering.
“Yes,” a voice came from the bed as he stepped inside. He couldn’t make out much in the dim light beyond a bonnet and a bony hand lifted as if to cover her face. He had seen Madeleine many times, of course, on her way to church. She was a woman of forty with a gaunt patrician profile and a bearing that reminded one of a snake drawing back to strike. The mask was down now; her private face showed the slow ravages of age, and she seemed unsure whether to hide it or not.
“I’m Sheriff Thornton. I just came from speaking to your… your… uh… servant… Franklin… about your daughter.”
Madeleine Boller heaved a sigh; the hand now seemed to be trying to flick him off. “Can’t they understand she is so tired? She is not in the mood to talk about her daughter.”
“Franklin has told me about your arrangement.”
Madeleine’s head suddenly jerked towards him, and he felt her glare. “All lies, all lies. I’ll give you a thousand dollars if you kill that nigger! Who’s to know? Who’s to care? Ten thousand dollars if you do it quickly.”
“Are you saying you want me to evict him from this house?”
“You’re pretending not to understand me, sir.”
“Your daughter seems very fond of him,” Thornton observed.
“Come here very close, young man.”
Thornton approached, and she sat up and leaned forward.
“I will make myself clearer.” Her breath was foul. “Someone would give a hundred thousand dollars if you kill them both,” she whispered.
“Who is that person?” Thornton wanted to remind her that he was the sheriff.
“She’s very tired.”
“Can I see the money?” Thornton tried to sound willing.
“When you bring your wares to trade, the trader will bring the money.”
“Won’t you protect your daughter from this person who wants to kill her?”
“What do you believe is the purpose of this?” She held up an empty bottle of laudanum and rubbed it on her cheek. �
��What other mothers would make such a sacrifice? You think I’m crazy? You do. Well, go ahead and think that. Think about it a lot because the more you think about a thing, the more that thing becomes you. You’ll then see with my eyes. That’s why the girl whom you call my daughter, I don’t remember her, not at all.”
“So you don’t mind Franklin taking care of her.”
“I had a cat once that caught on fire, and all of its hair was burned off… Ah, Sheriff, don’t take me seriously. You can recognize a jest, can’t you?” Madeleine closed her eyes, then opened them and waved her hand in front of her face as if trying to clear him away.
Thornton listened at the door before entering Penelope’s room. She was speaking to Franklin in her funny way, volubly with long strings of what might be words or just odd sounds. When Franklin made a correction, her laugh surprised him. It just wasn’t right, those two enjoying the intimacy of what—father and daughter? Teacher and student? Friend and friend?
Thornton entered. “I need to take a look at your proofs, and I need to know exactly who you are.”
Over the course of the following years, James Thornton came to look forward to his visits to the Boller mansion. The first year Penelope squealed and shook all over with joy whenever she heard his voice. She was bright, usually cheerful, and forgot practically nothing she heard. Within two years, Penny’s pronunciation cleared to a slight lisp here and there. She was full of questions, usually about the people and the affairs in the town. She wanted to learn everything about everybody in the purview of Thornton’s acquaintance, and she expected him to keep her up with their lives.
Early on, Thornton wondered why Franklin didn’t take her out except on furtive carriage rides, always in the late afternoon and always with Penny’s face veiled. He didn’t pry further, perhaps because he enjoyed being one of the three most important people in Penny’s small world.
So the sheriff kept the secret of the Boller mansion, even from his wife who was too busy with their four children to inquire deeply into the explanations for his continual visits. He brought Penny occasional gifts, which always delighted her. When she was about twelve, he gave her a doll that his youngest daughter had lost interest in. After he handed it to Penelope, she became very quiet. “It’s a…” He began to explain.
“I know what it is. A doll.” She stroked the doll’s hair for a long time. Franklin entered the room with four thick books, which he intended to read to her. It was Thornton’s impression that Penny bent her mind to these studies simply because she wanted to please Franklin. She continued stroking the hair of the doll and then used her particular term of endearment—a leftover from when she was learning to speak: “Fwan.”
“Yes, bright Penny.” Franklin stared at her, his brow knitting.
”I have always done what you’ve told me to do.”
“Not always. You’ve been quite stubborn at times.”
“I can’t remember being stubborn since I’ve only wanted to make you happy with me. That’s why I will study. I will study until I have more words than anybody in the world, but I ask you, can you give me this?”
“A doll?”
“You say I’m not ugly. Both of you tell me that. If what you’re saying is true, if a man won’t be repulsed to look on me, then I want this.”
She cradled the doll. “If you were just trying to be kind to me, and I am what no man could endure to look upon, then I’ll be a good girl and learn my lessons. But if you can help me have this: children, a husband, then I want to try. I’m so afraid of disappointing you. You are so excited about your books. Those books have made you a good man. But I want a life that is not history and philosophy. I think I would like history and philosophy even more if I had this in my life. Am I saying you’re not enough? Yes, you are. You are enough for my happiness, yet like every person I’ve read about I’m ungrateful and desire more.”
“A wife cooks and cleans and…”
“Takes care of children and visits shops and does a thousand other things. If it can be learned, then I will learn it. And a handsome man would be wasted on me. I just want… I don’t know. You can forget what I’m saying.”
Franklin opened his mouth as if to talk, and then just shook his head. There were tears forming in his eyes and something else—the inward gaze of a man struggling with a problem which needed to be solved. James Thornton caught himself admiring the dour black man.
The following year, the crisis occurred. Thornton had let himself in because unusually no one answered the door. Upstairs he heard Penny crying out: “How can you expect me to do that? How can you?”
As he ascended the stairs, he heard Franklin explaining, “This is what you requested, Penny. And you were right to ask for it.”
“I was stupid. I’ve never been there! I’ve never been in any church I can remember! I won’t know what to do, and if anybody asks me a question, what am I going to say with mother next to me?”
The behavior wasn’t out of character. Even when Penny begged for a change, she typically had a moment of panic when the request seemed in danger of becoming reality. This time, however, she seemed completely undone by the panic.
“I’ll be there too.”
“Will I have to wear the veil?” She was calmer. Her tempers were almost always just brief squalls.
“Yes. Your mother requires it.”
“Aha, I thought so. And you claim I’m not ugly.”
“We will go out there tonight so you can walk over the ground several times. You can count the steps to your seat in the pew. People will be curious, of course. The church will be full. However, I have told Reverend Culpepper that you don’t want to converse, and given his propensity to spread any word along with The Word, the whole congregation should be informed by now. In case someone does speak to you, your mother or I will answer. You will be blessed, although you’re not to take communion.”
“Is there something wrong with my voice too?”
Franklin growled, “Yes; it’s too argumentative.”
Gaspar sighed. “Matilda wasn’t able to read all the letters. You know that was the longest conversation I ever had with a girl. Matilda soon lost what little interest she had in me and moved out of Solvidado as soon as she could. She died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of fort-two. Surely, she would have done better sharing a life with me.”
Gaspar’s eyes lost focus and his head sank. Philip made his excuses to the nodding head and stepped outside. He was happy to breathe the clean night air and felt relieved that Jacinto was nowhere in sight. Before he could decide what to do next, a crowd of about thirty angry young men appeared rounding the corner. Philip froze. The mob marched resolutely towards him, yelling obscenities, turning over trash cans, throwing rocks through the windows of the parked cars. A flaming newspaper was flung on the front lawn of a corner house.
Philip was uncertain whether they would consider him innocuous or a target for their mayhem. Running away did seem to be the wrong idea because he sensed this mob would chase anything that fled. The mob engulfed him, jostled him, but didn’t offer a threat until a frat boy with a steroidal physique raised a heavy ax handle. Jacinto, who had been conspicuously absent up to then, materialized, reached out a hand and tickled the potential assaulter under the arm. The frat boy quickly drew down the ax handle and pressed on.
“I guess I’m lucky I’m not quite what they’re looking for,” Philip said.
“As a matter of fact, if I hadn’t covered you, you would have been beaten quite severely. I slipped so that one boy saw you.”
“You’re claiming you made me invisible?”
“More in the line of making you inconsequential. We haven’t talked about Kurtz in a while. He was anything but inconsequential.”
Kurtz’s Credo and the Accidental Detectives
Although nobody would have called Kurtz a thinking man, that was what he was. Early on, he determined that thinking men do better in the world—not men who debate the political questions of the d
ay in the saloons or clubs or those who clutter their heads with book knowledge, but men who use their brains to further themselves in the world.
He studied the thinking men in his acquaintance and came to the conclusion that the first requirement of such a man was the ability to read character—that is the subtle skill of looking into someone’s eyes, asking the right questions, plumbing the bottom of his soul and then knowing better than the person himself his failings and strengths. That the young man masquerading as a priest had deceived him so thoroughly made Kurtz consider the possibility that he was getting too slow to maintain his position in the world.
The second requirement of a thinking man was to know exactly what you wanted. Too many men foundered because they put their energy into one thing, got antsy or bored before the task was done, and went off half-cocked to put their half-spent energy into another. If you were clear about what you wanted, then your thoughts had an aim, and your life had a purpose.
Third, was the reining in of passion. Not denial of natural desires that passion expresses, but the realization that impatience in their pursuit often gets in the way of their final attainment.
The final requirement of a thinking man was learning from your mistakes. You had to admit your missteps to yourself, and even if things turned out well, you had to try to figure out how they could have turned out better. It wasn’t necessary to openly confess your errors, however to deceive yourself was the definition of a fool.
Usually, Kurtz as a thinking man took his time going about pursuing vengeance, yet one incident which occurred within the space of four minutes, more than all the other disputes, lawsuits, feuds, run-ins, and fisticuffs combined, established his reputation as a man never to cross.