by Cotton Smith
“I’m not preaching about boots.” Cordell’s smile stretched across his tanned face and he rose to get more coffee. “What do you need?”
“Would you and the missus find it in your hearts to teach schoolin’ to some black kids over in the next county?” Eliason ran his fingers along the edge of the saucer. “I can pay. Cash money.”
Taullery coughed to hide his surprise, but Cordell merely turned and refilled their cups before answering. “I thought the Freedman’s Bureau was running schools for black children.”
“Yes sir, they be doin’ that. ’Cept some white folks ran off the last three teachers.” Eliason nodded his thanks for the coffee.
“I’m not a teacher, Suitcase.”
“Nobody’s gonna run you off. I’ll start with that.”
Taullery wondered if Eliason knew who his minister friend actually was, but that wasn’t his question to ask. He added a spoonful of sugar to his own coffee and stirred it twelve times, counting to himself, and was careful not to connect with Cordell’s gaze.
“Suitcase, we’d be happy to help. But Aleta’s got her regular school every day. You need her more than you need me. She’s a good teacher.”
“I know all of that. How about three nights a week?” Eliason continued. “Would ten dollars a week be fair?”
Aleta Langford conducted a school for white children to help provide for their income. Ten dollars a month for five months of the year; the children were needed on their parents’ land the rest of the time. The school itself was actually a converted chicken coop. But she enjoyed teaching as much as he did preaching, although her Spanish accent occasionally caused confusion among the students.
“I’ll have to ask Aleta, but it sounds fine to me if she agrees.”
“Oh my, that’s sweet music to this black man’s ears,” Eliason said, and added, “You know, most of my people don’t even know what money is. They haven’t eaten with forks and spoons. Haven’t bought a railroad ticket or just walked through a town. The government may say they’re free—but ignorance be a worse master than one with chains and a whip.”
Cordell nodded agreement. His dark eyes flickered and his mouth was a line of intensity.
Eliason drew an imaginary line on the table with his dark finger. “At least most around here are getting paid to work—or gettin’ a share of the crop. That’s a start. But them Yanks are swarmin’ around, gettin’ into their pockets every which way. All the time smilin’ and sayin’ they want to help ’em. The bastards.”
Taullery tried to hide his discomfort at Cordell accepting the black school job. It wouldn’t sit well with most of the white people in town, and especially not his parish. He also knew it was useless to bring up those objections to Cordell; they would only serve to make him more determined.
Discussion about the schooling continued between Eliason and Cordell, with decisions made to start next week and to hold it at the boot-making plant. Eliason would take care of getting the word out and insisted on paying Cordell in gold for books and supplies for all the children. Talk wandered to the subject of food, and Eliason volunteered that the Freedman’s Bureau was doing the best they could with rations to blacks and some whites, too. He said he planned to offer supper as an incentive to attend the schooling.
After an hour, Eliason excused himself and left, but not before leaving two gold pieces on the table. For nearly ten minutes, neither Cordell nor Taullery spoke after watching the black man drive off, waving as he did. Both knew what the other was thinking, and it didn’t need further conversation: Taullery was worried about what the town would think, and Cordell was worried about the black children.
Their friendship had begun as children. Taullery was two years older and knew well the bitter agony his younger friend had endured with his maniacal minister father. Once, he stole his father’s shotgun with every intention of shooting Reverend Aaron Cordell after he beat his seven-year-old son bloody. The beating, one of many, came with a liberal dose of Bible quotations and wild ranting. Cordell kept Taullery from using the gun.
When Cordell was ten, it was again Taullery who helped him get over the sudden death of a young colt. Discovering that the animal was dead, Rule asked his father why God had taken Blackie. Reverend Cordell screamed that the question was blasphemy and slapped the boy into the side of the stall. He stood over the crying child and roared a Bible verse that made no sense and left, leaving young Rule Cordell to believe that the colt’s death was his fault. Taullery told him about a colt of theirs that had similarly died and finally convinced him that he wasn’t to blame.
Taullery also comforted Cordell after the youngster learned that his mother had run off with a farmer. His weeping was uncontrollable, much as it had been during the War when a stray dog Cordell had befriended was killed in battle. Cordell couldn’t be consoled then either. Taullery was struck by the irony that friends had been dying around them for three long years but a dog got to Cordell’s heart and broke it.
When Taullery was a young teenager, his parents died from influenza and pneumonia and it was Cordell’s turn to help bring him back from the blackness of grief. An Indian-style, blood-brother ritual, something Taullery had heard about from a frontiersman, became a demonstration of their great friendship. Of course, Taullery was the first to explore the magical wonder of kissing girls, smoking tobacco, and shooting pistols. Cordell became unmatched with a gun; Taullery, with women—until Mary took his heart.
It was logical that their decision to join the Confederacy in their fight for states’ rights would be made together. Taullery was drawn to the pageantry of it all; Cordell was pulled by the passion to fight. When he was leaving, Cordell’s father exploded into another tirade after Cordell told him he was going to fight for the Confederacy. This time, though, Rule Cordell caught the vicious slap headed for his face and forced his father to sit in a chair. As he left, Rule asked the minister to pray for the South, and for Texas, but the last words he heard from his father were “May you rot in hell.”
“It’s a long way from Boydton Plank Road, Rule,” Taullery finally said, staring at the buggy, now a speck on the horizon. He was referring to the “masquerade battalion” stand they made during their final winter of battle in Virginia. His gaze was broken by two chickens scooting from the side of the house to check out the front.
“Seems like a long way from Texas,” Cordell answered, and turned away from the door. “What’s the Bible say? ‘I have been a stranger in a strange land.’”
“A lot of folks will be upset by your doing this.” Taullery bit the inside of his cheek to give him the courage to say it.
Cordell looked at his friend, and Taullery blinked away the intensity of the glare.
“Upset? Where were they when Padgett hanged Douglas Harper?”
“That’s not fair, Rule. What were they supposed to do? He’s the law. An’ there was Lion Graham looking like a man hoping someone would try something. Come on, Rule.”
“Padgett—and Lion—and my father would get along real fine.”
It was the first time Taullery could remember Cordell mentioning his father in a long time. He wasn’t sure of how to respond, but it didn’t matter—Cordell did it for him.
“Men like them become strong because no one stands up to them. They’re weeds taking over a field. You can’t wish away weeds.” He paused and added, “Can’t pray them away, either. You have to tear them out with your hands.”
Chapter Six
“What’s that got to do with teaching Negroes how to read and write?” Taullery closed the door behind them and hurried to catch up.
“Ignorance is the weed I’m going to help pull out. It’s the only answer for those people, Ian, and you know that as well as I do.” Cordell walked back into the main room, his eyes searching for the Bible he used for church services. He spotted it on a narrow table pushed against an overstuffed chair Aleta had purchased from an estate sale for back taxes.
“A lot of people are afraid of the Afri
cans taking control. I’ve heard it. I’ve read it. So have you, Rule.”
“That sounds like something my father would say.” Cordell held the leather-bound book in his hands. Taullery noticed a slight tremble as his friend gripped it, then remembered that his friend had been mostly unconscious for three days.
“You’d better take it easy, Rule.”
“I’m all right. Just a little weak,” Cordell said. “I’m going to catch up with Aleta at school. Then I’ll go along to see Missus Harper and her kids.”
“I think you should rest.”
“You going with me—or to your store?”
“I’ll ride with you. Mary’s there. Then we’ll go open up.” Taullery paused and said, “There’s another Bible in your bedroom—on top of your guns.” It was the closest he could get to a direct question.
Cordell never looked up; his fingers stroked the book’s leather cover. “Those guns are there to remind me of the man I used to be. Every day I tell myself that I don’t want to go back. Every day I touch that Bible and ask for God’s help.”
“I liked that man.”
“He’s dead.”
An hour later, the two friends rode up to a square, unpainted building surrounded by a split-rail fence in need of repair. There had been little attempt to hide the fact that it had once held chickens. Texas sun slammed against the ramshackle roof like bullets from a giant gun. Even the bare earth crackled beneath the impact. Their horses’ hooves drummed the parched land like it was a giant hollow shell. Taullery’s wagon was parked on the west side, with two hitched horses tied to a low branch of a scraggly cottonwood. Taullery muttered that he had warned his wife to be careful about leaving the animals unattended. Roving bands of homeless scavengers, black and white, would steal a horse any way they could.
Swinging down from the saddle, Cordell wobbled and grabbed the mane of his gray horse to keep from falling. The animal jumped sideways in surprise and he stumbled forward, landing on his hands and knees. His wide-brimmed black hat sailed toward Taullery. Not pausing to pick it up, Taullery rushed over to find his minister friend laughing.
“You all right, Rule?”
Cordell nodded his head. “Yeah, I was working on my dramatic entrance into the school.”
“You’d better let me take a look at that wound, Rule. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“If I’d had a gun, Douglas Harper would be alive.” The proclamation jumped from his mouth before he had time to stop it. His expression soured in recognition of the blurted thought.
Taullery grabbed his arm and helped Cordell to his feet. The storekeeper’s mind was whirring with images and things to say.
“If you had, you’d be dead. There were too damn many of them, Rule. An’ there was good old Lion David, too.” He didn’t try to tell his friend that a minister shouldn’t be talking that way. He wasn’t certain anymore what was the right thing to do. Texas was being pounded into the ground mercilessly and no one seemed able to stop it. What were wishes against guns? What were prayers against absolute authority? What were words against economic ruin? Didn’t a man have to find the way the river was running and go with it?
Cordell brushed himself off, his forehead furrowed with frustration. “Forgive me for saying that, Ian. A gun isn’t the answer to anything.”
“A gun is just a tool, my good friend. You know that. In the right hands, it can do the right things.” Taullery looped the reins of both horses over adjacent fence posts. He studied the quiet building ahead while Cordell retrieved his hat. “I’ll see if Mary wants to go with me to open the store, her and little Rule. When you’re ready to go see the Harper family, you can come and get us. If that’s all right with you.”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
“It looks like it could rain. Would you rather wait until tomorrow?”
“No, I think they need us today. We won’t melt.”
“All right, I’ll bring along two of those English umbrellas I just got—and a couple of slickers, just in case.”
Cordell reached into his pocket, retrieved two gold coins, and held them toward his friend. “Let’s take along food for the Harpers, too. As much as this will buy.”
“I don’t want your money, Rule.”
“It’s Suitcase’s.”
Taullery laughed and took the coins.
They opened the door to the small commercial structure that had once housed hundreds of chickens, removing their hats as they entered. Immediately, they drew the attention of the closest children. Holding his hat with one hand, Cordell put the finger of his other to his mouth to ask for silence. Giggles and whispers were the response, followed by glances from books at the new distraction. He studied his wife, working with two boys on their subtraction near the front of the class. A stray streak of sunlight sought her face and illuminated it. “She’s beautiful,” he muttered.
“Yeah, she is. Too damn beautiful for you,” Taullery whispered, and nudged his friend with his elbow.
Taullery’s wife sat in the other corner, holding their sleeping baby and reading to six younger children, grouped eagerly around her chair.
“Look who’s talking,” Cordell snapped in a hushed voice.
Aleta glanced at the back of the schoolroom, either from the inner connection that comes from knowing her man was close by, or simply hearing the murmur in the back, or both. Her eyes raced to Cordell’s and embraced him. Her smile washed away the dizziness he had hidden from Taullery. She told Mary of their arrival and Taullery’s wife looked up, smiled and waved, and returned to her reading.
Brushing the dush from his black suit, Cordell studied the tiny classroom and wondered if schools for the newly freed black children could possibly be worse. Twenty writing tables were crammed into the stifling room, surrounded by the baked-in odor of chicken waste. The walls had been whitewashed when the building’s usage was changed, and they provided a smell that actually neutralized the other somewhat. Nailed to the front wall was a makeshift blackboard with the upper corner missing. On it was written in faint chalk the reading assignments for each grade. In the far corner, a potbellied stove sat, unneeded now but woefully inadequate on cold days. At least there were windows—with wooden shutters pushed opened as far as they could go. Hot air was eagerly joining the stale remains of yesterday. But school was nearly over for the year; children would be needed on farms and ranches.
“Good morning, Reverend. My mother said you were very brave at Sunday meetin’. She said you went after those awful Regulators all by yourself.” The greeting came from a smiling, freckle-faced girl with brown hair and a faded blue dress.
“Oh yeah? My pa said he was plain stupid to do that. A wonder he didn’t get the whole congregation killed. That’s what Pa said.” A towheaded boy with two missing teeth spit his challenge to her statement.
She stuck out her tongue at him, and he responded with a thrown book. Her hand deflected the missile, and the book thumped on the chicken-waste-stained floor. Aleta stood and asked both what had happened.
“Ernest threw his book at me,” the girl replied, folding her arms.
“Por favor tell me, Ernest, did you throw thees book?” Aleta’s voice was stern.
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“Why did you do thees thing, Ernest—to a girl?”
“He said the pastor was stupid for fighting the Regulators.” The girl burst out the accusation, barely containing her triumphant smile.
At the rear of the school, Taullery held his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing, and Cordell avoided catching his friend’s gaze for the same reason.
Her dark eyes sparkling, Aleta ignored the girl’s outburst as well as the men’s reaction, and asked the red-faced boy again. “Ernest, I asked you—why? Por favor, please tell me.”
His face squirmed with embarrassment; his lips pursed and retreated; his shoulders squeezed against his neck to release the tension. “I . . . ah . . . my pa, he said . . . Reverend, ah, Langford . . . shouldn’t of, ah
, done what he done . . . Sunday.”
With a victorious gleam in her eyes, the brown-haired girl exclaimed, “That’s not what he said. He said—”
“I heard you, Margaret. I am talking with Ernest. Por favor.” Aleta closed the distance between herself and Ernest, who was trying to look anywhere but at his teacher. She came to his desk and knelt beside it. Her voice was soft and gentle. “Ernest, you have a right to say your ideas, even if it ees something not all want to hear. That ees the beauty of freedom, ees that not so? Many brave men fought for thees right—for you and me. Look at me, Ernest. Sí? I cannot hear your head nod.”
Ernest smiled and raised his head to look at her. She smiled and added, “But you don’t have a right to throw a book at someone, do you?”
He started to shake his head but mumbled, “No, ma’am.”
“Esta bien. That ees good.” Aleta stood and stepped back. “Now apologize to Margaret.”
He squeezed both hands together, pursed his lips, and said, “I’m sorry I threw a book at you, Margaret.” Under his breath, he muttered, “And missed.”
Both Cordell and Taullery heard the final attachment and burst out laughing. Margaret heard it, too, and complained loudly to Aleta, but she already had other thoughts on her mind as she continued to walk toward the front of the class.
“Now, Ernest, I think we should hear from the man who caused thees commotion, don’t you?” Her eyes again sought Cordell’s as he fought to bring his laughter under control. “Señor Langford, will you please tell the class what you were trying to do last Sunday?
“Oh come on, Aleta, I don’t . . .”
“Por favor, my husband. I think it ees good for children to know what things are happening. They must hear—to learn.”
Slightly annoyed, Cordell cleared his throat. “Last Sunday, an innocent man was hanged. Without a trial. Without any reason, except that he fought for the Confederacy. Like most of your fathers did, I reckon. I tried to get them to listen to reason, Ernest, but they wouldn’t. I tried to get them to stop and got hit on the head. I would do the same thing if they came for your pa. You can tell him that.”