“Jacob, I don’t hear anything unless you tell me,” she pointed out. “I have not been to town since we settled in here over three months ago. People don’t want to have anything to do with me, and I’m certainly not going to seek them out. I don’t know what I would do if it weren’t for you and your people.”
“Well, my people is thinnin’ out,” he said apologetically. “The white folks is seein’ they gots to have help, so they started payin’ a little. An’ the shacks they offer is some better than what we wuz able to build on yo’ land, Miss Kitty. So they been takin’ off right regular. I tol’ ’em how ungrateful they were, how it was a sin to walk out on you after what you done for us, but they’s afraid you ain’t gonna be able to make it, what with the baby comin’, and the cap’n not comin’ back.”
She squeezed back the tears. “I understand, Jacob. They realize my money can’t last forever, and that is certainly true. I’m trying my best to hang on to enough to plant my crop come spring, but that isn’t going to be easy if I don’t have hands to help me. Poppa always said the future of North Carolina lay in tobacco, and I wanted to plant a crop this year. And corn—lots of corn. And then there are the scuppernongs and the beehives. But I am going to need help.” Biting her lip, she asked fearfully, “Just how many of you are left, Jacob?”
“Tom and Hildy left yestahday to go to work for Mistah McRae.”
“Mr. McRae?” Kitty screeched. “Jacob, Will and Addie went there last week. That makes four families I have lost to that man. What is happening? Is he paying them pure gold or something?”
“Just about.” His frizzled gray head bobbed up and down. “He built that big fine mansion, you know, right where the old Collins place stood, but this one is even finer. It has real marble terraces and steps. He had furniture sent from England and France to furnish it. Dulcie, she one of the first ’uns to go, she say she never seen nothin’ as pretty as that house. He got velvet drapes and silk drapes, and she say the floors is some kind of special wood.”
“Mahogany,” Kitty said quietly.
“That’s what she called it. She heard Mistah McRae say most folks just made stair railings and trim out of it, but he made his floors like that. She has to polish ’em by hand, but she say she likes it, ’cause they looks like mirrors when she through. That house got three floors, and Dulcie, she can’t count but to ten, and she say she counted to ten two times, and they is some rooms lef’ ovah. He payin’ his help good, and he fixed fine cabins for ’em, with fireplaces. He give ’em all the food they can eat, too. So that’s why they leavin’, Miss Kitty. If they can go to work for Mistah McRae, they think they is in heaven. Treats ’em kind, he do. Nevah yells, says Dulcie. She thinks the whole world of that man. She don’t like Miss Nancy, though.”
“Nancy Warren?” Kitty raised an eyebrow. “Is she living there?”
“Not yet, but she comes around a lot. Dulcie says she Mistah McRae’s mistress. She say she stay all night some times, and she hears ’em arguin’ about how Miss Nancy wants to be Missus McRae, and Mistah McRae, he don’t want to get married. Dulcie, she a’hopin’ he don’t, leastways not to Miss Nancy. She say that one mean woman.”
“Dulcie should learn to keep her mouth shut about what goes on in her master’s house, Jacob. It’s wicked when servants gossip.”
“Yes’m.” He bowed his head guiltily, knowing that he was just as bad as Dulcie, having repeated her tales.
Kitty folded her hands across her swollen body. It was getting harder and harder to move about. “How many are left, Jacob?” she asked quietly. “How many families do we have now living on Wright land to help with the spring planting? I don’t know because I seldom get out anymore. I’m so clumsy lately.”
He looked everywhere but at her. He heard her patting her foot impatiently and finally mumbled, “Me and Nolie’s bunch. That’s it.”
“You and Nolie’s bunch?” Kitty grabbed the porch railing for support as she swayed. “Jacob, why haven’t you told me this before? My God! You have two small grandchildren, hardly big enough to pick peas, and if their daddy ever comes back from the war, he’ll, likely as not, take them off and try to make a home for them. You told me so yourself.”
“I don’t think he’s a’comin’ back.” A tear rolled down his wrinkled cheek. “He took his daughter’s dyin’ mighty hard. I don’t imagine he tried too hard to dodge any balls.”
Kitty had no idea the situation had grown so desperate. “Why haven’t you told me this before, Jacob?”
“I didn’t want to worry you none, in yo’ condition and all,” he said humbly. “Nolie, she tell me not to say nothin’. She say the cap’n come back and then ever’thing be just fine. He’ll know just what to do. And Nolie, she said she’d never leave here. She got two girls, too, fine workers. Ever’thing gonna be all right, Miss Kitty. You just wait and see. You don’t worry. The Lord look after all of us.”
The sky overhead was gray and overcast. A damp, chilling wind blew across the lands. Kitty tightened her shawl about her shoulders as she began to pace around the washtub, deep in thought. Suddenly her head jerked up and she eyed Jacob suspiciously. “Why is Nolie so loyal? I never even knew the woman until I went to the swamp campground with you that day. Why does she refuse to leave here? With two healthy, strong daughters, and her experience as household help, she should have no trouble at all getting a very good job. I am sure Mr. McRae has tried to hire her away from me.”
Jacob wouldn’t look at her. He knelt down beside the washtub and ran his fingers around the edges. “I’ll get this cleaned up today, missy, and bring it into the house fo’ you. I know you gonna like havin’ a washtub—”
“Jacob, answer me,” she cried, whirling to stare down at him. “Why does Nolie stay here? She has no reason to be loyal to me. I want the truth. You have been keeping too much from me lately. I suppose next you will be leaving me, just like all the others?”
“Oh, no, missy, no.” He straightened quickly, eyes wide. “Miss Kitty, I’d never walk out on you, not for any kind of money. Mistah McRae, he knows that, too. I told the man he sends over here to tell him old Jacob would never leave. No sir, I owes it to Mistah John to take care of his daughter.”
“Mr. McRae sends a man over here?” She blinked incredulously. “He sends someone right onto my property to talk to my help and hire them away from me? How long has this been going on?”
“All along.” Jacob shook his head from side to side in misery. “It seems like he’d come up out of nowhere, and he’d just talk to one man about his family. Sometimes, others’d be willin’ to go right then, but he’d say Mistah McRae didn’t need nobody else right then. Then, a few days later, or maybe it’d be a few weeks, he’d come back. Nolie and me talked about it, and we knowed they wasn’t nothin’ you could do, Miss Kitty, so why make you fret, jus’ like you a’frettin’ now? T’ain’t right, you in yo’ shape and all. But don’t you worry none. Me and Nolie, we’ll do all we can. Maybe by spring some of the others will get dissatisfied and come back. Like Dulcie. She’d never stay over there if Miss Nancy was to be mistress of the house.”
“Oh, she would find somewhere else to go. Once a Negro girl gets to do house work, you know she finds the fields degrading and those in the fields taunt her for her new, higher status in life. Dulcie is lost to us, just like all the others. Oh, I hate Corey McRae!” She clenched her fists at her sides. “Why did he take it upon himself from the moment we first met to make my life miserable? He even had the nerve to ride over here himself, right after we finished the house.”
“Oh, I remember that.” Jacob laughed. “He brung that big basket of fruit, and you yelled at him and tol’ him never to come back or you’d meet him with a gun. Then you threw that fruit at him, a piece at a time. Hit him right in the back of the neck with a peach, you did. Those of us who was a’watching rolled on the ground laughin’, the way it went a’dribblin’ down the back of that fancy white suit.”
“Don’t make me sound like a
madwoman, Jacob.” Kitty had to suppress a smile as she remembered the sight, the way Corey had spurred his horse, trying to muster his usual dignity, peach juice dribbling down his neck. “He didn’t just come to bring me a basket of fruit and wish me well in my new home. He came to tell me how clumsily it was put together, how it would probably fall apart the first time we had a bad storm. And he asked me when would I come to my senses and marry him, that I had to realize Travis was dead. That’s when I went into a rage.”
Then they both giggled, but the moment passed. Kitty demanded once again the reason for Nolie’s sudden devotion. Jacob took a deep breath and then spoke the words that Kitty had feared. “Gideon. He slips in to see her here. She says he wouldn’t try it nowhere else. If you was to see him, you wouldn’t shoot him or sic the vigilantes on him. Ever’body else would. So she stays, ’cause she knows that’s the only way she ever gonna be able to see her boy.”
Kitty was quiet for long moments, then she murmured, “And Luther. Does Luther come, too, Jacob? Does he slip in with Gideon?”
He turned away, covering his face with his hands for a moment, then lifted his tormented face to the gray sky. “No, he don’t come. He knows I can’t hold to what he’s a’doin’, ridin’ around and stealin’. One of these days, somebody gonna get killed. It might be Luther. If he ain’t killed, he gonna get caught, and when he does, they gonna hang him, and Lord knows I can’t see my boy hung.” He lowered his eyes to the ground, his shoulders heaving. “I wants to see him, Miss Kitty, Jesus knows I do, but I can’t hold to what he’s a’doin’, so I told Gideon to have him stay away till he can come to his senses and come home for good. Gideon promised me he tried to tell Luther he was too young, and I believe Gideon. But Luther was always stubborn. I hear he’s one of the fiercest gunmen Gideon’s got. Oh, Lordy, Lordy, his momma has probably turned over in her grave by now.”
Kitty walked over and put her arm around the old man’s shoulders. “You tell Nolie that she is welcome to stay here as long as she likes, and that Gideon will always be safe here if I have anything to do with it. The same goes for Luther. I don’t approve of what they are doing either, Jacob, but the whole Southland is in a state of turmoil. It will be years before the agony starts to recede from these lands. If only Travis would come back and help us.”
“Do you really think he’s gonna come back?” Now Jacob sounded bitter. He turned to look into her sad eyes. “Miss Kitty, I hate to hurt you, Lord knows I do, but I think you better start thinkin’ about the truth. And the truth is, if he was a’comin’ back, he woulda done been back by now. You knows it, and I knows it.”
“Jacob, I just won’t listen to that kind of talk.” Kitty stiffened, her cheeks reddening. She lifted her skirts and started back for the little house. “Would you mind seeing if Noli’s girls will look down in the swamp for some herbs today? I’ve been feeling poorly, and I’d like to brew some herb tea. And when you get a chance, bring that tub in. I might as well use it, and if I leave it sitting out here, there’s always the chance someone will see it and think I stole it. Heaven forbid if anyone should think I’m a thief, in addition to the other sins they hold against me.”
She was almost inside the cabin when the sound of thundering hoofbeats echoed about them. “Jacob, see who that is,” Kitty said quickly. “If it’s Corey McRae, by God, I will meet him with a gun.”
She started inside, but Jacob called out for her to wait. “It ain’t Mistah McRae. This man’s ridin’ a yeller horse, one of them palominos, and Mistah McRae don’t nevah ride nothin’ but his black stallion or his white stallion.”
Kitty moved quickly back down the steps as fast as her condition would allow. She had just stepped onto the ground when the rider reined his mount to a halt a few yards away. His handsome face was unfamiliar, and her pounding heart skipped a beat as it settled back to a normal pace. It was not Travis, as she had fleetingly dared to hope. He was of average height and build, neatly dressed in buckskin pants with matching vest. Removing his tan suede hat, he bowed, his moustache twitching as he smiled. “Good morning, Miss Wright. My name is Jerome Danton.”
“I don’t believe I have heard the name,” Kitty said suspiciously.
Jacob turned to her excitedly and said, “I knows him now, Missy. Mistah Danton, he owns a store in town, called Danton’s Dry Goods.”
She nodded, looking straight into Jerome Danton’s hazel eyes. His hair was a dark auburn, streaked with gold, neatly trimmed a scant inch or so above his collar. “Why have you come here, Mr. Danton? I usually have no visitors.”
“I know.” He sounded almost pitying. “That is why I’m here. You see…”
Pausing, he looked pointedly at Jacob. Kitty turned to the old Negro and said, “Would you ask Nolie’s girls about getting the herbs for me right away, Jacob? I suppose I should offer my guest tea.” Reluctantly, Jacob turned away, casting wary glances over his shoulder.
Jerome laughed. Kitty liked the way his eyes sparkled. “Your servant is very devoted, obviously,” he commented. “He certainly did not want to leave you alone with me. Do I look that ominous?”
“I suppose everyone is ominous as far as Jacob is concerned, considering the way the good citizens of this county have treated me. Jacob is very loyal, and I am extremely grateful.” She started back up the steps and was about to invite him to follow when he moved swiftly to take her arm and help her up.
“Thank you,” she murmured, and they moved through the door. There was a small wooden table and two chairs. She gestured for him to sit, then set about poking wood into the stove and lighting a fire beneath a kettle of water. She again asked why he had come.
“Oh, I suppose a combination of reasons. First of all, I was curious to see the infamous Kitty Wright.”
She bristled slightly. “People never forget, do they? Forgive me if I sound rude, Mr. Danton, but I do not feel I owe you any narration about my past.”
“As I said,” he went on, “I was curious. I bought a dry goods store in Goldsboro and built onto it. It’s now the largest one in town. You would know that if you ever came into town, but I’ve heard you never do. Well, I began hearing about you from different people in the store, about your Northern cavalry officer, who promised to return but hasn’t, and about your dead fiancé, who died at the cavalryman’s hand. I also know about your father, his reputation as a brave Union soldier, and also about how everyone in these parts seems to have despised him.”
“Well, I do declare! You have a nerve, Mr. Danton, riding all the way out here to meddle in my private affairs. I think I shall have to ask you to leave without the courtesy of a cup of tea.”
“Now wait a minute, Miss Wright.” He held up a conciliatory hand. “I did not come here to talk about your past. I just wanted you to know that I know who you are. I think you have been treated extremely unfairly and I don’t believe a word of what I have heard. It is none of my business, nor am I concerned with gossip. Perhaps I had better start over and tell you exactly who I am, and then we can get into my reasons for being here.”
She nodded, taking a seat opposite him, still wary.
“I’m what the Southerners are calling a ‘carpetbagger’, ” he said, obviously amused. Kitty looked puzzled. He noticed her confusion and said, “My, you have been out of touch, haven’t you? The carpetbaggers are terrible people, my dear. We come down from the North and buy up Southern land dirt cheap, making a fortune from the spoils of war, taking advantage of the whipped Confederates. In my case, however, it is inaccurate of the citizens about to label me a ‘carpetbagger’. Actually, I am a Southerner, originally from Virginia. I fought for the Southern cause. When the war ended, however, it was to my advantage not to return to my home. I came here. For some reason, unknown even to myself, I decided to settle here. I bought the store, and now, as I have told you, it is the most prosperous in Goldsboro. But that is not enough for me, to be merely a shopkeeper. I believe in farming. I believe in the future of tobacco. Most of all, I believe in land
. Which brings me to why I have come to see you.”
Kitty’s eyes narrowed once again, and she pressed her hands together in her lap. She sensed what was coming.
“You know the Griffin land that borders your land on the north side?”
She nodded slowly.
“And the Moseley land on your west side?”
Again she nodded.
“And the Temple property across the road, on the east?”
Exasperated, she cried, “Just what are you getting at, Mr. Danton? You are playing games with me, and I am in no mood—”
“I am getting to my point.” Again he held up his hand for silence. “I own all that property.”
“You own all that property? You bought out the Moseleys and the Temples and the Griffins? How was that possible? I don’t believe it. They must have had over two thousand acres between them.”
“Quite true.” He curled one tip of his moustache as he smiled. “They also owed quite a bit in back taxes, which they could not pay. Their Rebel currency was quite worthless. I bought the land for the delinquent taxes.”
“You scalawag!” She leaped to her feet, despite her awkward bulkiness. “You’re another vulture, preying on people’s misfortunes. Well, I can tell you one thing, Mr. Jerome Danton, you have come to the wrong place if you think you can swoop down and pick my bones. If you had taken the time to check the tax records, you would have seen that my taxes are not delinquent. At least not through 1864. You people make me sick! And I am happy to say you have wasted your time in coming to my door, sir.”
He ignored her outburst and continued in a calm tone. “I did check the tax records, Miss Wright, and I am well aware that your land is, at the moment, unencumbered. However, I did come here to offer you a handsome price for your land. By now, I think you should have come to your senses and realized that it is going to be impossible for you, an unmarried woman, soon to have a child to raise alone, to work this land. As I said, I hear many things in my store, and I have also heard how, little by little, Corey McRae has stolen your devoted Negro friends right out from under your nose. You are left with that old cotton-top nigger and an old nigger woman who happens to be the mother of the outlaw every white man is itching to kill. He even robbed my store one night. But that is beside the point. I am prepared to offer you a generous amount for your land.”
The Raging Hearts: The Coltrane Saga, Book 2 Page 15