The Healer's Daughter

by Charlotte Hinger

  The womenfolk started coming mid-afternoon of the third day. They had searched their homes for gifts. Queen Bess had come to Western Kansas with the clothes on her back and a sparse collection of medicines. She needed everything, although the community had very little to spare.

  LuAnne Brown had made a beautiful quilt, using a Bear’s Paw motif from the few decent sized scraps she could find. Libby Hays had given her two yards of red calico in addition to wages when she helped take care of the new baby, and LuAnne used it for the borders and binding.

  Patricia Towaday was as close to a friend as Queen Bess had ever allowed herself to have. She’d taken to the small, feisty woman ever since Patricia had put Norvin Meissner in his place. She still remembered all too well the plantation tragedies when black folks thought they had a friend for life in their own people, and they turned out to be spies for white folks. Nevertheless, there was something comforting about Patricia, who saw plenty and didn’t mind calling a spade a spade.

  Patricia beamed when she shoved her offering into Queen Bess’s hands. “It’s for your curing things. I noticed you hangs a whole bunch of stuff separate.”

  She had made little bags with leather drawstrings from deerskin. “We could find different plants to make ink. Draw pictures of what’s inside, unless you wants your daughter to do some writing. I heered you say sometimes you’ve got to doctor fast, and I figured if you could see what was in them right off without having to open or smell them, it would help.”

  “It sure ’nough will.” Queen Bess gently rubbed one of the little bags against her cheek. It was soft as pussy willows. “Where you come by such fine leather? How you learn to finish it so soft and wonderful?”

  “Indian woman who passed through here last winter give me one. Then I traded her one of my pans for a whole big piece of this leather, and she told me how to get it to looking like this. She offered to teach me how to bead it like their folks do, but I ain’t got time for that kind of prettiness. I just needed to know how to keep the skins soft so we could wrap stuff up right.”

  “Remember me telling you about the old woman who stayed with me, Momma?” said Bethany. “She knew things about plants that we need to know.”

  Queen Bess stared into the deepening night. She remembered Bethany telling her about the woman. With a jolt, she recalled something else.

  “Bartholomew.” That was the word Bethany had used. The Indian woman had said “Bartholomew” when she left. Bess knew what that word meant now. There was a person on the prairie who could tell them right off what plants was what.

  As soon as she decided for herself what kind of person he was, she would tell Bethany about him. He had seemed like a right nice old gentleman. Right nice old doctoring gentlemen didn’t fit into the special place in hell she usually sent white people.

  Bethany turned one of the bags over and over. “There’s plants out here I’ve never seen before and plants missing I’ve always counted on. It’s what’s missing that’s killing us. But that Indian woman knew.”

  “That may be,” Queen Bess said, “but those Indians sure don’t depend on none of the stuff we got used to back in Kentuck’. Back there, white folks used to give us everything we needed.”

  “What they thought we needed,” Patricia said. “Not enough. You know that. Not nearly enough.”

  “Maybe so, but when we was slaves we had enough food to stay alive, and we got used to it. We’re going to have to learn different ways out here.”

  “Or start depending on white folks again,” Patricia said.

  “Yes.” The two women’s gazes locked in understanding.

  Bewildered, Bethany looked from one woman to the other, knowing she didn’t understand what was being exchanged in their glances, and knowing she didn’t like it either. She shuddered, wanting to break up this mysterious intimacy. “There’s other gifts for you, Momma. Waiting outside, where everyone can see.”

  She led her mother out to a shiny new washboard and a tub and a bucket. Delighted, Queen Bess stroked the sides like they were made of silver. She felt the hide on a new buffalo robe. She admired the barrels and planks that would serve as her first table. There was a precious hoe and some seeds.

  Dolly Redgrave presented her with a needle stuck in a piece of cloth.

  “I’ll just put it inside on where you won’t lose it,” Dolly said, as though Queen Bess needed help tracking her possessions.

  Once inside, they heard Dolly cry out like she had stepped on a snake. She stuck her head out the doorway. “Y’all got taffeta, old woman? Purple taffeta? How you come to have real taffeta? Like you was some queen?”

  “My mother has always been full of surprises,” Bethany said evenly, although her face flushed with fury. “But I’m sure she wants to go right on receiving her gifts right now. Don’t you, Momma? Come on back outside, Dolly. We don’t want you to feel left out.”

  Dolly gave a knowing snort but rejoined the group.

  “I’ve got something for you too, Momma,” Bethany said, with false gaiety as she tried to regain her composure. “Close your eyes. Close your eyes, Momma.”

  But her mother wouldn’t do it.

  Bethany sighed. “Momma, I just didn’t have anything to wrap these new cook pans in, that’s all. There’s three. I wanted you to see them all at once.”

  Everyone had found something, given something. The only person missing was Jed Talbot. He had ridden off the day before without telling anyone where he was headed.

  After they had all come forward with their offerings, Sidney Taylor brought forth his precious drum. A steady rhythm resounded across the prairie, and they told stories. Stories passed down to their people, some going back to Africa and some reaching no further back than Kentucky.

  From the back of the circle, a woman rose. Gertie Avery was huge and homely, her neck nearly hidden in the great folds of flesh. She started to sing, and the group parted and beckoned her forward. Her stunning contralto began as a low vibration, then soared to such a dazzling clarity, it was as though she could stop the grass from swaying with the power of her voice.

  “Ain’t gonna study war no more,” her voice echoed. When she launched into “Beulah Land,” the others joined in. They sang of freedom and sorrow and tragedies and lost families and grief.

  Bethany closed her eyes for an instant, heartbroken at the sheer pathos. She always raised her own voice in praise and was grateful for the comfort it gave her patients, but it was not her talent. She needed to stay clear-headed and objective. If she ever gave way to the emotion her people put into music, she might break with the pain she saw around her.

  She knew if her people ever lost their music, they would lose their souls, but if she could sing like Gertie, her mind would float up to the clouds. She was made to think, like Gertie was made to sing. Born to roll words around her mind. That meant not clouding another person’s emotions with her own.

  The evening was mild; there was little wind. She looked across the prairie when she heard a horse neigh. Jed Talbot spurred Gloriana toward the group.

  He reined up and leaped to the ground.

  “Sorry I didn’t make it back sooner,” he said, rushing over to Queen Bess. There was a package strapped to his back. “Didn’t figure Gloriana would appreciate this bouncing around.” He shrugged out of the cord and handed her a bundle wrapped in hides. “A little something to cheer your new home, Mama.”

  She shot him a look at the “Mama,” then turned it over and studied it like she was unwrapping snakes. Queen Bess removed the hides to reveal a sixteen-by eighteen-inch window pane of real glass. It would be the very first one in the whole community. She slowly lifted it and held it up to the light of the campfire.

  For an instant, her face held fear again. The fear of a person who has never allowed herself to become attached to things that could be taken or smashed. Ruined out of spite or to teach her a lesson or to keep her from getting uppity or just because, that’s why.

  There was a telltale
bob in her throat, and she winked back tears, and Bethany did, too, because she had never seen them in her mother’s eyes before.

  Queen Bess ran her hands over the shiny surface. She turned with wonder from one face to another.

  “Glory be,” LuAnne Brown said. “Ain’t that fine, now.”

  Shyly Queen Bess looked at one face after another, and then she looked at Jed. Her lips trembled into a smile.

  “Thank you,” she said finally.

  Bethany looked at her with wonder. Even rarer than her mother’s tears was her mother’s smile.

  The morning after she moved in, Queen Bess set to work. It did not take long to put her meager possessions in order. Jim Black had broken up ground for a small garden and a patch for planting the sorghum. The men had donated a rain barrel and filled it from the creek.

  She dragged two stumps intended for chairs over to the side of the doorway and placed two boards across them. The height was wrong for a work table, but she was used to backaches.

  She separated the boards so there was a good crack in the middle, then placed one of her new cook pans on the ground underneath. She went to the bundle of sorghum stalks she had brought back when she filed for her homestead. She dragged it over to the table and placed some of the stalks on the boards. She began to mash them with a small, smooth log. It was not as handy as a rolling pin, but it would have to do. As she worked the stalks, juice dripped into the pan.

  It took her two full days to collect enough.

  As always, she had guarded her starter of yeast well, not letting it get too cold or too hot. It just took a bit of sugar to start it fermenting, but she threw in a good measure, because she would need a lot of yeast working before she was done.

  When she had worked the last stalk of sorghum, she carried the juice to her cooking trench and set it to boiling. When the syrup was just right she skimmed little pieces of stalk off the top.

  That night, although she could barely drag herself around, she made a large batch of biscuits. After they baked, she took them out of the cast iron pan atop the trench and finally stopped for the day. She sat in front of her soddy watching the sunset and ate them dripping with her newly made molasses.

  The next day she dipped out a quart of her molasses, and a whopping pint of yeast and three gallons of rain water, into one of her two precious kegs. She stretched a piece of gauze over the top to keep out flies and let in air. She studied the sun and decided the weather was perfect to keep the mixture outside. If it was too hot, she would take the keg inside. In winter, she would keep it by the stove. Warmth and air were the crucial factors.

  In three weeks, she had good strong vinegar. It took constant tending because medicinal vinegar either worked or died.

  One morning she warmed a generous supply of rain water and washed her hair. She dipped a cloth into a basin and washed herself all over, even her calloused feet, which she shoved back into ugly, misshapen boots. She changed into a spotless gray-brown dress, which she had made after coming to Nicodemus. She wrapped a snow-white turban around her head.

  She took a tin cup and dipped a generous amount of vinegar from one of her pans. As she did not have a jar, she would have to carry the liquid carefully.

  She walked.

  She reached Stockton early in the afternoon and meekly asked for the whereabouts of a Mister Elam Bartholomew. She was directed to a small house, half sod and half limestone, on the edge of town. Three rocking chairs were lined up neatly in front.

  He saw her coming and went to the door.

  “Mr. Bartholomew. I’m known as Queen Bess.”

  “Ma’am, we met in the mercantile store at Oberlin.”

  “Yes, sir, we did,” she said, straightening with his use of ma’am. “I heard you say you set back because you ain’t got alcohol for your medicines.”

  “Yes. I need alcohol to preserve my tinctures.”

  “There’s other ways, Mr. Bartholomew. Other ways. I’se come bringing you another way. This here my own special vinegar. It’ll pickle a corpse. Keep stuff a long, long time. Keep herbs of all kind. Release their powers, then keep them from spoiling.”

  “I say, this is very generous of you. Quite generous, indeed.” Confused by her lofty bearing, he stammered, which he had not done since he was a small boy. “Do let me pay you. I mean, of course I must pay you.” He wondered if the mixture worked, if this extraordinary black woman with the dark, smoldering eyes knew what she was doing.

  “You don’t owe me nothing,” she said quickly. She nodded, then turned to leave. He called her back, as she knew he would.

  “Ma’am. Please. Tell me how you did this. How you would know to do this. Please at least stop to visit a moment,” he said helplessly, not having the faintest idea as to what might be the proper behavior for a gentleman in such a situation.

  He removed his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose. If she were a white woman, he would invite her to rest awhile. Outside the house, of course. Never inside. One would never compromise the reputation of a visiting white woman. It was, after all, a warm afternoon. Just right for sitting outside and chatting a bit.

  “Please allow me to fix you a cup of tea before you start on your way.”

  “That would be most kindly.”

  She sat down in one of the rockers and arranged her hands on her skirts. He stared at her for an instant, went inside, and tried to regain his composure. By the time he finished making tea, he had decided to be amused at the bizarre situation. He merrily carried out one of his precious china cups and turned his rocker to face her.

  “I am quite curious, of course, how you would come to know how to preserve medicines. How you would come to be here to begin with.”

  She told him about her work as a healer and a midwife in the South. She told him about the doctors she had assisted on plantations. She told him about her confusion over plants and their properties on the plains. She told him about her despair that so many medicines were not available. They talked until early evening. It would soon be time for her to leave.

  “Please come inside.” He hesitated. “Beg your pardon.” Appearances again.

  “Sir, ain’t nobody going to pay no never mind to some old slave woman. Truth is, old black women already so sullied in folks’ mind, it don’t matter none. But I gots to be gone by dark, that’s all. Just not seemly for me to be here after dark.”

  “Truth is,” he blurted suddenly, “truth is, old botanists are already viewed as being so crazy in some folks’ minds that I stopped caring what folks think a long time ago myself. So we make a pair, then, Queen Bess. You and I. A deranged white man who collects and labels plants for no good reason and a woman of color who fancies herself a doctor.”

  He led her to a room inside where he had tiny little bottles arranged on a shelf. On a larger table were little sprinklings of herbs placed on squares of paper. There were other groupings of grasses and plants with whole leaves and stems. Some he had already sketched and labeled.

  “Oh my,” Queen Bess said. “Lord have mercy.”

  They looked at each other and began laughing.

  “Now please, sir, tell me what all these is for.”

  When she started back for her homestead, with the moon lighting her way, she reverently held her empty pan, which was stacked with small folded papers containing crushed herbs. On each was a sketch of what the whole plant would look like blooming, and her own marks reminding her of its healing properties.

  Inside also were three precious glass bottles with glass stoppers. She now had sealable containers with which to extract alkaloids.

  In turn, Elam Bartholomew now had an ample supply of her medicinal vinegar.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Word got around about Queen Bess’s housewarming. Josiah Sinclair strode into the hotel at Wade City. Aaron Potroff sat by the window reading the Topeka Daily Capital as though he didn’t have a care in the world. Well, Sinclair had news for the dumb son-of-a-bitch.

  “You hear about
the little party that took place for that uppity old colored woman?”

  Potroff shook his head and removed his cigar.

  “I knew those people spelled trouble from the moment they first came here, Aaron. I tried to tell you. Well, they didn’t stay put. I knew they wouldn’t. That godawful old woman sent straight from hell took out homestead papers.”

  Potroff slammed his fist on the table. “That’s impossible. The ungrateful coons are supposed to stay in the town, goddamn it. Not file for homesteads.”

  “See, I said you don’t know nothing about them. I tried to tell you. You know what I heard last night? Drums. Heard them clear like they were right there in my store. My people never allowed darkies to have drums. They can talk with drums. Talk in ways white folks can’t understand.”

  Potroff rose, shoved his hands in his pockets, and clamped down on his cigar as he paced back and forth. “Just calm yourself, Josiah. Give me a little time to think.”

  “You’ve got to stop those drums, and you’ve got to stop their organizing. No one in their right mind lets black folks organize. I hear there’s another load of them coming in. Bold as you please. They’re all over Topeka. We’ve got to stop them from coming out here. You hear? Before others get the same bright ideas and your precious little town is scattered to hell and gone, and we’re surrounded by a bunch of niggers owning the best land.”

  “I no longer give a damn about their little town,” Potroff growled. “Nicodemus was a good idea at one time, but they turned on me. Ungrateful black bastards. Would have skinned poor Wade alive if they had caught him. He outsmarted them.”

  “From what I hear, he out-ran them. Smarts didn’t have nothing to do with it.”

  “The important thing is to keep them under control.” Potroff tried to relight his cigar. “We’ve got to keep them on our side until Wade City is voted in as county seat. That’s the main thing. Then we can run them all off, back to where they came from. The black vote can wreck us.”