The Healer's Daughter

by Charlotte Hinger

  “Yes?”

  “We need your help. Already, ma’am.”

  Bag in hand, Bethany followed, quickly skirting the clusters of black people packing the deck.

  “This happen before,” Teddy said. “Ain’t never killed nobody.”

  “What’s happened?”

  He was silent for a moment. “No name for this. Just happens.” In his own mind, he had always called it the African Terror. “I’ll take you to her.”

  People parted to let them through. An old lady lay on the deck, trembling, her eyes rolled back as she twisted from side to side. A woman who had been trying to restrain her struggled to her feet. “You the healing woman?” she asked.

  “I am,” said Bethany. “What’s happened here?”

  “I don’t rightly know. She bound for Kansas, same as us, but when we got underway she got fitful.”

  “Happen before,” Teddy said. “Gonna happen again. She old. She scared. She heard stories her old granny told her mammy and her mammy before her about the big trip years ago. White men rounded them up, and their own people helped. It in their bones. Their mammy hexed them so they can’t never forget. Comes back to them when they get on a boat. They ’fraid they gonna die. ’Fraid their own black people has lied to them. ’Fraid white people lied to them. ’Fraid they gonna be thrown down a black stinking hole and never come back out. They is hexed.”

  “They’re not hexed,” snapped Bethany. “We’re not going to start off that way.” She pulled the woman to a sitting position, then snapped her fingers in front of her eyes. The frightened victim focused on Bethany’s face as though she had come back from a long journey.

  “Praise the Lord,” said the woman who had been caring for her. “Yes, Lord, I praise thee. She going to be just fine.”

  “She would have been just fine with just what you were doing,” Bethany said. She eyed the nursing woman, whose skin was gray-brown as tree bark without a bit of sheen. Her homespun dress had been colored with black-walnut dye. Her hands and face could have been one with her clothes were it not for the dusky circles under her calm, brown eyes. Her plum-purple lips were the only variation in her sameness. She kept her strong, ready hands neatly clasped over a dingy, gray apron.

  “You did just fine.” Bethany rose to her feet. “I’m Bethany Herbert.”

  “I know that, ma’am. I is LuAnne Brown, and I is traveling with my husband and my two youngsters.” She swiped at her hair, which was trying to frizz away from the bun at the back of her neck. “Old Mr. Sommers, he make sure we all know we got a healing woman coming along.”

  “Made sure there was some of us, too, instead of just ignorant field niggers.”

  Bethany stiffened at the words, turned, and looked into the pale, hazel eyes of a woman who was the color of weak tea. She had a lavish sprinkling of freckles over her fine, high cheeks. Her dress was a light tan with the hint of a bustle in back. Her matching bonnet had stiff little pleats along the brim. She extended her slim, elegant hand to Bethany.

  “I’m Dolly Redgrave.”

  Bethany suppressed her anger. She knew to the marrow of her bones what this arrogant woman had meant by “some of us.”

  She couldn’t remember how old she’d been when she first became aware of the hierarchy of color among her people. She’d always known people stepped away from her mother not just because she was a granny, but because Queen Bess’s blackness was the color of their night terror and eyes gleaming in the dark woods. From the time she was little, she’d known there was something about her own light-brown skin and dark, straight hair that set her apart.

  Bethany had loved Queen Bess and her royal all-knowing soul above all things on earth. She trusted the kindness of the dark and her mother’s blackness. There was a meanness to light-skinned ones, a harshness that came with the pale skin, and these people were not her own despite her own generous dollop of white blood. Because she had always known that, even if she wasn’t as black as Queen Bess or the field niggers, she was plenty black enough.

  Dear God, she prayed, don’t let us carry this to Kansas, too. Let us leave all this behind.

  Pretending not to understand, she shook Dolly Redgrave’s hand. “I surely do admire your dress,” she said. Dolly’s face glowed with pride.

  “I’m a dressmaker,” she said. “I plan to open a little shop in our new town.”

  Astonished, Bethany looked away, then caught the eyes of LuAnne Brown. The gray-brown nursing woman, she noticed, was equally amused that Miss Dolly Redgrave believed ex-slaves would have the money to hire a dressmaker. Both women managed to keep straight faces as though they were partners in a conspiracy.

  “You by yourself?” asked LuAnne easily, as though she had not heard Dolly’s first remark.

  “No, I have three youngsters,” Dolly said. She looked around and shrugged. “Hard telling where they’ve took off to. Reckon you all will get to know them soon enough.”

  “Maybe they managed to find mine,” said LuAnne. “I have two—a boy and a girl.” She shielded her eyes and looked around the deck. “There they are. With my husband.” She looked in the direction of a man leaning over the rail, pointing at something in the distance.

  “Reckon I’ll see what mine are up to,” said Dolly. They watched her make her way along the deck.

  “Reckon I’ll do the same,” said LuAnne. She didn’t bother to hide her broad smile as she nodded to Bethany and headed toward her family.

  Bethany strolled along the deck. Folks were chatting and passing around their cherished circulars describing Nicodemus, as though they were holding the Bible itself.

  The town was located on the Solomon River. Not all the buildings would be completed by the time they arrived, but they would be finished by September. There would be homes for them all, and they would be set up for the business of their choice.

  Wade had promised a church. Saloons were outlawed for five years. There were plenty of trees and an abundance of water. Excellent water, in fact. As pure as the river flowing through the Garden of Eden. Just laying around on top of the ground was a kind of stone used to build houses. So easy to cut, children could do it.

  They would be happy and free and even rich. Rumors of wealth for the taking flew around like bluebirds.

  But when nighttime came, there were darker rumors. Tales out of Africa sweeping the ship. Even brave men trembled at the ancient memory bred in their bones, and when a night bird called it was the gray ghost of one of their own ancestors. Warning, warning.

  Bethany put her own blackness aside; the knowing, the knowing, the blessed sure knowing. That part of her that was white and rational rushed forward from group to group reassuring little clusters of people.

  Then her stomach tightened. Suddenly she wasn’t at all sure she had done the right thing in leaving. The part of her that loved books and learning and could think knew Teddy was right—things would never be the same. They had to leave.

  But there was a cold fear working at her guts. Worse even than when Winona Mueller told her she could never really get away.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Bethany sat on the seat of one of the heavily loaded wagons. Unlike the ones used for long trips, these did not have canvas tops, and she yearned for shade. Two days ago, after arriving in Ellis, she had relaxed for the first time since she turned Miss Nancy over to the Mueller sisters. It seemed like years had passed instead of a mere five months since she decided to leave for Kansas.

  Gathering up her few belongings had been a simple matter. A couple in her church offered her lodging until the departure. She was ready to leave in a heartbeat, but some of the people heading for Nicodemus had to sell their land, and their belongings. A lucky few of them had done right well after the war.

  The train ride had been swift, almost pleasant. Most wondrous of all, the town company had kept its promises. At each step of the way, all the necessities for completing the journey were there waiting. There were tickets from the Mississippi River transferring them to
the Missouri, then a man waiting to see them safely aboard the train from Wyandotte to Ellis.

  At Ellis, there were wagons pulled by heavy-footed work horses furnished by the Nicodemus Town Company. So, compass in hand, Teddy gleefully pointed west. The children were ecstatic. Their spirits rose after they got off the boat. They were on the last leg of the two-day overland trip and would see Nicodemus by nightfall.

  Giddy with excitement, they had camped out on the prairie the night before. But the sun came up like a burst of fire this morning. As they moved across the prairie, away from Ellis and toward Nicodemus, the horizon wavered in the heat. Bethany felt like she had descended into a fiery furnace.

  There was no breeze, no trees. The hot air seared her lungs. Toward midday, a mild wind began to blow and then turned harsh and scalding, bending the vast sea of grass. Rather than cooling them, the wind was malevolent, pushing more heat before it.

  The people turned inside themselves. Turned jumpy like a herd of spooky cattle. God knew most of them had been hot before, but there was no name for this wicked wind. No song or chant to ease its hold. No devil’s blacksmith to clang away the blistering gusts.

  They did not speak or sing. Children did not bolt away from the wagons as they had the day before. They simply pushed on, with Teddy grimly consulting the compass from time to time.

  About twilight, when they would have been hearing hoot owls and cattle lowing and mothers softly calling their children home to supper in Kentucky, they came over a little ridge. Before them were three tents centered around a small campfire with a tripod in the center.

  Five black men stood there in a line as though they were waiting to receive the queen of England. One of them called to Teddy.

  “Hello. Hello, sir.”

  Teddy stopped, looked at them, and waved. “Hello to you.” He climbed down from the wagon, flexed his stiff knees, and tugged at his coat. “I’m Teddy Sommers, and who might you gentlemen be?”

  One of the men gave a nod. “I’m A. C. Jones, and these are my colleagues. Welcome to you all. Welcome to Nicodemus.”

  Teddy’s hand froze in mid-air. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. He’d supposed these men were just strangers journeying to another place. He’d thought they would spend a pleasant moment or two chatting about this fine state before he and his people went on.

  “The circular said there would be buildings and a church and stores in place,” he said slowly.

  “And there surely will be. Meantime, we’re here to help you get started.”

  Teddy wheeled around and walked away. He rested his head against the flank of the exhausted horse who had pulled the overloaded wagon across the difficult thick grass without so much as a trail to find their way. Through air so hot it seemed like the breath of a dragon bent on incinerating them all.

  He could not bear to look his people in the eye. People he had led into this merciless cauldron of flames. He could not bear to think of the home in Wyandotte he had sold, where there were trees and water and people. Civilized people who went to meetings and church and visited one another. People who sat on their porches in the evening.

  People who could breathe.

  He slowly lifted his head and looked around. He had been lied to. He was used to that. But what he could not figure out was how white folks thought they could make any money off of them. He could not bear to look at Bethany Herbert.

  Overwhelmed with fear, Bethany drew deep breaths to quell her panic. When she heard the words “welcome to Nicodemus,” she looked around over the vast empty prairie and fought a surge of nausea. What would they eat? Where would they live? Was that pathetic measly trickle in the distance a creek? Was that the Solomon River promised in the circular?

  Slowly she turned in her seat and looked as far as she could see in every direction. Where were the plants she would need to keep her people well? Where were plants to stop bleeding? Draw out poison? Keep babies from coming too fast? Where were plants to doctor a burn, or stop pain or cure a stomach ache? She clutched the nearly empty medicine bag closer to her side.

  Teddy straightened, gave her a look, and something passed between them. The sure knowledge that they alone could keep the whole group from collapsing.

  He turned to the stunned people sitting in the wagons.

  “This is it. This is Nicodemus.”

  “Can’t be,” said John More.

  Then Jones stepped forward. He was a tall man, easy with words, with the face of a wise old ram. His hair stuck out in white tufts on the side of his bald head. He had staked out a homestead himself a couple years earlier. He had no use for folks—black or white—who weren’t up to Western Kansas heat. No truck with weak people who couldn’t stand a little breeze now and then. Folks who carried on about the wind.

  “Reckon this is a moment you’ve all been waiting for,” Jones said. “Reckon this is the time to show you we means business. Want you all to climb down off those wagons. Want you all to line up. Want you to look north a little with me.”

  Exhausted, all the men obeyed. When they were all grouped, Jones waved his hand toward a set of stakes sticking up over the grass.

  “Now close your eyes tight, and just let the picture fill your head. See that church. See that school. See that hotel, that lumberyard. See all those fine homes.”

  A woman sobbed. A child wailed.

  Jones paused, his gaze wavering under Bethany’s angry glare. None of the women had their eyes closed. The women seldom did. Bethany looked around at their sad, weary faces. There were thirteen children among the fifty-five people gathered.

  She swallowed her tears and looked away from their despair, remembering her gentle Kentucky with its soft swelling hills—where the sun was bright and kindly—not this merciless molten disk rimmed with red.

  “Now I want you all to open your eyes,” said Jones, “while I give you something you can hold in your hands. Something of your very own that you can keep. Want each man of the household to step up here. Gonna give you something. Something more precious than gold.”

  And the men obeyed that command, too.

  John More was the first in line. Bethany’s eyes brimmed with tears. They had talked on the boat. At the time she had been deeply moved by his expectations, his soft, brown eyes alive with hope.

  “Can you write your name?” Jones asked him.

  “I can,” he said proudly.

  The four other black founders had formed a crescent around Jones. Behind them was a board spanning two barrels. On it, a hammer kept a stack of papers from blowing away.

  Bethany glanced at the few trees growing along the creek bank. The undersides of cottonwood leaves sparkled silver in the fading rays of the sun.

  “Good!” Jones said. “We want the first person to be someone who can sign his own name.” He cleared his throat. “Gentlemen and your loving wives who have journeyed from your Egypt to this here promised land of Kansas, we commend you for your vision, your courage. Like Moses of old and Joshua after him, the Lord is rewarding you for your obedience to the natural laws that move us all. And now, Mr. More, I present to you the very first certificate of membership in the Nicodemus Town Company of Graham County, Kansas.”

  John More slowly extended his hand and, with wonder, received the precious piece of parchment.

  “Sir,” he said, “I can’t read this here writing. I can scratch out my name. Can’t read much of anything.”

  Bethany quickly stepped forward. “Allow me, please.” She quickly scanned the certificate. “Says here they were printed in Topeka.” She looked up at Jones.

  “That’s right, ma’am. There’s lots of them. We have faith in what we’re doing here. No way we could have time to hand-letter all those pieces of paper.”

  “But it would take a great deal of money to have things like this printed.” She knew her own words sounded foolish. But she was growing more confused with every passing moment. Then she slowly began to read aloud.

  “It says, ‘State of K
ansas, Graham County. This is to certify that—’ There’s a blank space here for your name, Mr. More,” she said. She looked up at the trembling ex-slave, ex-field hand who was now clasping his arms around his chest, his hands tucked under his armpits as he swayed back and forth.

  “ ‘This is to certify that John More’—that’s after you fill in your name, John—‘of Graham County, State of Kansas, has this day paid the sum of Five Dollars, being the full amount of Membership Fees in the Nicodemus Town Company of Graham County, Kansas, and that said John More is entitled to any vacant Town Lot on the town site of Nicodemus, Graham County, Kansas, at the time said party arrives at Nicodemus.’ ”

  “Um, um, um,” murmured More. His eyes were still closed, and he still swayed. “That be me, sure enough, and I have arrived. I have, indeed.”

  “ ‘The said Nicodemus Town Company,’ ” continued Bethany, “ ‘giving their obligation to make Title to said lot as required by law. And it is further agreed that no intoxicating liquors shall be sold on said lot within five years from this date. Dated at—’—another blank here, John—‘this day of 1877. Not valid until countersigned by W. R. Wade, general manager.’ ”

  Her voice wavered, and she spoke the last words softly. Everyone was clustered around her now. “ ‘Nicodemus Town Company.’ ”

  Tears streamed down John More’s face. “Glory be to God,” he said. “Glory be. I’se a gentleman now. Better than a land owner. Got me a place in town. A real honest-to-God place.”

  They clustered around More as he proudly held the certificate aloft and waved it in the still scorching night air. He whooped and jumped as he clutched the piece of paper.

  “I is truly free now. Glory be. I gots a place. Says right here I get to choose my lot first.” More’s hands shook as he allowed the emigrants to have a look. Then they all lined up to receive their titles to their new lots in their new town in their new state.

  Bethany looked at the vast open prairie dissected by the feeble little creek and a few spindly trees, and thought she was losing her mind.