“Not putting your trust in the Lord, Preacher?” taunted Henry Partridge.
“Not a question of trusting in the Lord. Proverbs got plenty to say about ants and grasshoppers,” Silas snapped. “Besides, Meissner done been steering us right. He say there’s money in picking up bones, I say there is, too. His little town is doing all right, and he’s doing right by us. His little town is sprouting houses. He sends people here to give us work.”
Silas started swaying to an imaginary rhythm. “He say they a railroad coming to these parts; I say they is, too. He say no job like a railroad job; I say it is, too. He say Nicodemus a gem on the prairie; I say it is, too.”
Teddy grinned. The preacher man was about to get wound up if someone didn’t stop him. But talk moved to argu-fying, as it always seemed to nowadays.
“ ’Spose Tripp and Harrington going to round up anything for us this time?” Henry Partridge rubbed the cleft of his hand as he always did when he was wishing for something.
“Don’t know, and can’t say as I like it,” said John More. “Bad thing, I say, going round to white folks with their hands out. It was different when they was going to Wyandotte. They understand hard times there. And it was taking from the kindness of our own people, but this going out around here ain’t right. You know it ain’t. Gonna give white folks the wrong idea. That we can’t take care of ourselves.”
“Well, we can’t, John. That’s the truth, and you know it.”
“Hell we can’t. Could of, if we hadn’t been lied to.”
“Don’t care. White folks heard lies, too.” Henry wasn’t a man who backed down easily. “You think some of them ain’t out begging just like us?”
They fell silent and stared at the fire. Then Sidney Taylor stepped out of the shadows. “I’ve made something. Something I wanted to do for a long, long time now. Guess it comes natural. Making barrels and then making this.” Shyly the man held out an exquisite drum, beautifully shaped and covered with deerskin.
Teddy swallowed a lump in his throat. Several of the men had tears in their eyes. Teddy’s hand trembled as he reached to touch the taut hide. Before the war, drums were forbidden. Even blacksmiths were whipped without mercy if their clanging sounded too catchy or too even or too uneven or too anything at all.
Masters were scared to death they were talking through those drums. Going to start an uprising. Going to kill all the white folks in their beds.
Whites were right for once. They could surely talk through those drums. They could talk with them now, if they wanted to. As they were able to do in Africa. Always Africa. Always Africa, in their blood, their background, their music. Nothing that had happened so far in Nicodemus gave Teddy a greater sense of freedom than seeing this drum. They could do anything they wanted to. Play anything they wanted to. Make their own music.
The men clustered around, admiring the highly polished wood, the taut skin.
“Reckon all we need now is someone to play it.”
“Reckon so,” said Teddy softly. He went closer to the open doorway of the sod house, where he could hear the women talk as well as the men. They crowded around Queen Bess, pestering her with questions.
“I like to bleed to death with my monthlies. Can you stop it?”
“My boy, he get to shaking sometimes, like he demon possessed, and I don’t know what to do.”
“My time will come soon. Will you help?”
Queen Bess abruptly turned to Bethany. “When did you come here?”
“Just last summer, Momma.”
“No chance then to see what grows. What you can use?”
“No. And no one to ask. There was an Indian woman who was part of the group of hunters that gave us enough food to see us through the winter, but I couldn’t understand her. Through signing and pointing we managed to agree on the uses of the plants I already had, but I couldn’t talk to her well enough to find out what she used that I didn’t know about. She used a word I didn’t understand, like I was supposed to know it. It sounded like ‘Bartholomew.’ ”
“It Bible,” said Sister Liza Stover. “He Bible folks.”
“It still don’t make no sense,” Queen Bess said.
“Then there was a white woman I helped deliver who was just passing through.” Bethany shrugged. “I doubt if she knew anything, because she came from back East where there’s different sorts of plants.”
“It soon be spring,” said Queen Bess. “I’ll start looking right away. I just brought a few things with me.”
“The next time Teddy goes out, there’s a priest he came across. He knows where the government put those Indians. Maybe the Father will let us go with him and talk to the old woman. Help us ask all the right questions.”
Queen Bess spat words in a language Teddy didn’t understand.
“But Momma,” Bethany said. “We have to. We’re all alone out here. Don’t talk like that. Speak English. I can’t even understand those words any more.”
“I said I don’t ever want to see a white man in this town. Not now, not ever. That plain enough for you? We don’t need them, and we don’t want them. Not even a priest.”
Teddy sighed and closed his eyes. No trouble understanding this time. Not her words and not her meaning. The only thing he dreaded more than his people who just loved all white folks, were the ones who just hated all of them. No question which camp this woman fell into.
Trouble had just walked in. Big trouble. Black and blue and seething with anger.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Bethany passed pieces of Meissner’s tattered news pages among the children and told them to duplicate the letters she’d printed across the top. Jim Black planned to make a large board they could all see as soon as he had time to plane the wood.
“Chalk stone’s easy to come by,” he’d said. “Plenty of that ’long the creek. Take a little longer to figure out a coating that’ll hold marks and you can erase.”
Bethany’s thoughts strayed from the child in front of her. Seemed like Jim was right there now every time she turned around. Holding his hat, looking at her with awe. And more. She would have to be a fool not to see the more.
She walked among the children, softly encouraging those who lagged behind, stopping to guide the fingers of the little More girl who was on the verge of tears.
She had just dismissed the class when Queen Bess suddenly appeared in the doorway. It was her first visit to the school. Bethany beckoned her to come on inside. The children filed past the crate where they stored their supplies and carefully put their papers inside. They greeted Queen Bess politely on their way out.
“Why you want to trouble these youngsters with white man’s words and white man’s ways?” Queen Bess said furiously after the last child left.
Astonished, Bethany whirled around. “We must learn, Momma. We must learn.”
“Listen to me, girl. It’s our chance to leave that world and those evil people behind.”
“We have to get along with white folks even out here.”
“Don’t have to get along with no one, girl. Just ourselves, and that keep us plenty busy enough. Trouble with you, you didn’t know you was black soon enough. Now you slow to see you’re a bit too white to know how our people think.”
Bethany gasped. Trained from infancy not to talk back to her elders, for a moment she was speechless. But she couldn’t let this go. “Momma,” she said slowly, “it’s not my fault. Not my fault that I’m not completely black. It’s not your fault, either. Why do you want to blame me for something I can’t help?”
Queen Bess lowered her eyes. “You right as rain. None of this our fault, but child, here we have a chance. A chance. You turning up your nose at plenty of chances thrown at you, day after day. I’ve been here three weeks now, and I see how that fine young man, that Jim Black, looks at you. It’s your chance to marry a blacksmith. A good man. And you just turning up your nose. You would have fine, fine children. You too good for him?”
Bethany’s face flamed with
embarrassment. “No, Momma, I’m not too good for him. And he is a fine man. I know that. But he’s not . . .”
“Not white enough?” Queen Bess said softly. “He too black? Too crude?”
“No,” said Bethany. “No, it’s not that. It’s not.”
“Yeah it is, child.” Queen Bess turned and left as quickly as she had come.
Bethany pressed her hands against her face. Dear God, it wasn’t true. Of course she knew Jim Black would like to keep company. He was a good man, just as her mother said. Tears stung her eyes. “You’d have fine children,” her mother had said, sounding like some old plantation owner matching up slaves for breeding.
She grabbed a broom and started sweeping the floor with long hard strokes. Momma was right about one thing; reading had filled her mind with all kinds of fancy notions. One of them was that she wanted to marry for love or not at all.
She leaned on her broom and looked out the window. She had rolled up the buffalo hide shades to let in light and air. No danger now of anyone being chilled. Soon they would all be complaining about the heat. She saw her mother’s white turban bobbing in the distance. Every evening, Queen Bess searched for plants and herbs.
Bitterly, Bethany watched her mother disappear over the horizon. She had hoped Queen Bess would help her cultivate the baby business in the white community. There wasn’t another doctor or midwife around close. But it wasn’t likely she could attract customers, with Momma wishing a black and terrible death on anyone who came their way if they weren’t the right color.
She saw a wagon coming across the prairie. The driver headed straight toward the schoolhouse, and she went outside to meet him.
“You Bethany Herbert?”
“Yes, sir, that would be me.”
“Donald Hays,” he said with a curt nod. “It’s my wife. It’s her time, and Suzanne Mercer said you were a doctoring woman.”
“Yes,” Bethany said. “Yes, I am.”
“Will you come? Mrs. Mercer says you do a fine job.”
“Of course. Let me get my satchel.”
The man was lean and upright. Plainly dressed, with gentlemanly ways. He had a short, blond beard and keen, blue eyes. Trusting her instincts, she had no qualms at the thought of heading across the prairie with a white stranger. Nevertheless, she was glad her mother had worked her way to the creek bank where she was out of sight and wouldn’t be throwing a fit.
She went back to her dugout to collect her supplies. Some of the children gathered to eye the man. She turned to Zach Brown. “When my mother gets back, please tell her I’ve gone to help a white woman with a birthing, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
She was uneasy before every birthing. What if something went wrong? Her mother was far more qualified than she to deliver babies. But right now, she was furious with Queen Bess and didn’t trust her around white folks.
Back outside, she climbed into the wagon. She guessed they had gone about five miles when he pulled up to a sod house. About five hundred yards to the south, the man had dug out the side of a short rise and made a three-sided earth shelter for his animals. The entrance was fenced across. He had a windmill and a watering trough. A few chickens scratched around the yard. There was a small plot of neatly plowed rows, shining and black right next to the house. A start of a garden.
Inside as well as outside, there was loving evidence of hard work. The woman had a number of patchwork quilts. Pictures hung from nails pegged into a shelf that spanned a whitewashed wall. Muslin strung across the ceiling to catch bugs lightened the dark room.
Hays led her to a bed braced in a corner. It was strung with cords to support a straw-stuffed mattress.
“This here is my Libby,” he said. He took his wife’s hand and gave a little squeeze. She was a young, pretty woman with long, dark hair, damp with sweat. She sat up slightly to see Bethany more clearly.
“Libby, this is Miss Bethany Herbert. The woman Suzanne Mercer told you about.”
“Thank God. Thank Jesus.” Libby’s eyes were dark and huge in her fair face.
Don Hays took a worn bandana from his pocket, wiped tears from his eyes, and loudly blew his nose. “Don’t mind telling you, ma’am, I was worried sick. Now, I’ll just step outside and leave you to your birthing work.”
Bethany went to the stove and stoked the fire, then went outside and filled two pans with water from the rain barrel next to the house. Setting the water to boil, she washed her hands, went over to the bed, and examined Libby Hays’s swollen belly to see if she could expect a normal birth. She gently eased up Libby’s gown. The woman was a ways from being fully dilated. “Everything is fine. It will be a while yet. Shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Lord, I’m glad to see you. I’ve been so scared.”
“You’ll be fine. I’ll be right here beside you. Sleep when you can. Talk when you want to, hush when you don’t.”
There were two straight-backed chairs and one rocking chair. They had used planks and barrels to make a table. “Please, make yourself comfortable,” Libby said.
Bethany moved the rocking chair closer to the bed, opened her satchel, and took out the quilt block she was working on.
“Oh, let me see. Let me see what you’re making.”
“A log cabin, it’s called.”
“That’s one of my quilts, too. Over there on top of that chest.”
Bethany stood up, walked over to the quilt, and admired the colors and stitching. “Where did you get your cloth?”
“I had some of it with me when I came. The rest I traded for.”
Don Hays stuck his head in the door from time to time. “I’ll be right outside,” he said. “Setting right out in front. Got a little harness to mend. Reckon I’ll be better off if I keep my hands busy.”
Bethany and Libby chatted easily for another couple of hours. Then the contractions became even and urgent. Even though it was a first birth, it was easy with no complications. Bethany gave thanks at the first cry of the splendid, healthy, perfect little baby boy. After she cleaned him up, she opened the door and beckoned to Don Hays. “You can come in now. And this little fellow needs a name.”
“Irving,” he said, his face splitting with a grin. “It’s already decided. Irving after my father and his father before him.”
He went to the bed, stroked his wife’s forehead, and beamed with pride. He turned to Bethany. “I can’t tell you how grateful we are. How long can you stay?”
“I can’t,” she said, although she believed in the value of a decent lying-in period. “I teach school, and I must get back to the children. Aren’t there other women around who could help?”
“No, ma’am. Not a one. The lady to the east has her own family to tend to. No one lives close enough to go back and forth.” Don looked at her anxiously. “We’d be much obliged if you would stay on here a couple more days. I would be glad to go back over to your place and let folks know. And we can pay you. Cash money.”
“Can’t you stay? I feel like I’ve known you all my life.” Libby blinked back tears.
Bethany thought of LuAnne Brown. She would be perfect.
“I can’t stay, but I know someone who might be willing. Lu-Anne Brown. She would be excellent. Far better than I to help with the lying-in. Her husband can tend to her children.” She turned to Don Hays. “I’ll stay until you can fetch her.”
Hays turned to his wife. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
Libby nuzzled the little boy wrapped snugly in a new flannel blanket. “I’m sure that woman will be just fine if you say so. We’ll be glad to have her.”
“When you fetch LuAnne, please tell her to bring extra scrubbing cloths, and tell her to get ready to spend ten days. Her family can manage on their own.”
After he left, she changed Libby’s gown and replaced the damp bedding. Then she started tidying the soddy. Don Hays clearly cared about pleasing his young wife. Even the one plastered and whitewashed wall brightened the dark interior and made a lovely display for Lib
by’s walnut-framed picture of her parents. Throughout the room, there were cheery touches.
“Books!” An assortment rested on a crate. Bethany laughed and blushed. “Excuse me. It’s just that they’re scarcer than hen’s teeth out here.”
“Go right ahead and look at them if you’re a reading woman,” Libby said. “Please, help yourself. And there’s a Godey’s Lady’s Book and some newspapers, too. My parents live in Eastern Kansas. They send papers to me, and Don gathers up any spare newspapers for me whenever he goes for supplies. I hear some folks over in Wade City have a Montgomery Ward catalog, but I haven’t been able to get my hands on one.”
“I have work to do first,” Bethany said. “Then if you really don’t mind . . . Oh, ma’am, if you don’t mind. I would just love to.”
Libby gratefully ate fried potatoes and pork, and after Bethany changed her pads, she fell asleep. Irving snuggled next to his mother, breathing easily.
Bethany pulled the rocking chair next to the warm stove. There was a pile of buffalo chips behind it, and they gave off a pleasant grassy smell as they burned. Bethany set the books aside and started through the newspapers. Although she loved subtle reasoning and the nuances of classical literature, she enjoyed the inflammatory rhetoric of Kansas editors. They could skin a mule with their tongues, their words. They came straight to the point. There were no double meanings or smoke screens or even common decency. They strutted and insulted and maligned and slandered and raised lying to an art form.
She laughed aloud when she read a description of Ulysses S. Grant in the Frontier Index. The editor called Grant a “whiskey-bloated, squaw-ravishing adulterer, a monkey-ridden, nigger-worshipping mogul . . . hell-born satrap, a stinking aristocrat and double-dealing hypocrite and other things as well.” Well said, she thought. Well said. Any hopes her people had for the paradise offered by the Yankees had vanished when Reconstruction ended.
She read with amazement that there was a newspaper in Topeka run by colored folks. Her skin tingled with excitement. There was a colored newspaper in Kansas. She had to get a copy. She would give anything to see it. Her people were coming into their own. Eagerly, she snatched up the paper again. It was the Topeka Daily Capital, and inside there was a quote from The Colored Citizen:
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