“Shut up,” said Potroff. “There’s got to be that town. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We have to have that town to make us the county seat.”
“No,” said Josiah, “we have to have their vote. There’s a difference. Towns don’t vote. People do. There’s nothing that says we have to fall all over that town. People are watching that town like it’s the new Eden. If we do anything to make it look like we’re trying to do the town in, every reporter in the country is going to be out here.”
“Are you saying we’re going to have to vote right alongside of a nigger?” Clyde McCall’s jaw tightened. He spit a stream onto a pile of sawdust, deliberately missing the spittoon.
“Yes. If we expect them to back us,” Olive said.
“That’s a fact,” Potroff said. “Just don’t do anything stupid again, Sinclair, like the mess you stirred up about that black woman killing a baby. Don’t know who that Sunflower is. Sure as hell don’t know how he found out about that story in your newspaper. But he came close to pulling the wrath of God down around us, and we don’t want that to happen again.”
“This wrangling ain’t getting us nowhere,” Grant Peabody said. “What you said about the vote—about a town not voting, people being the ones that vote. What do you mean by that, Josiah?”
“Just that. Talbot and everyone that’s in cahoots with him think they’re just one big happy family, but I’m telling you they’re not. It’s not human nature. There’s plenty of people right there who don’t like each other much. It’s that way in every town.”
“That’s a fact,” said Potroff. His eyes brightened. “There’s folks in every town that’ll do someone in for a dime. Never takes much, either. A word here, a word there.”
Even as the words left his mouth, he saw Estelle Sinclair step outside the mercantile store and attack a stray chicken with her broom. Damned if the good woman didn’t look like she could use a new dress. In fact, she deserved a fine new dress to wear for all her temperance meetings. Moreover, it would be good advertising for all the fine cloth she was selling in her store.
He would see to it that she got one, especially crafted by Miss Dolly Redgrave, who came and went like the pleasant south breeze, blowing here and there. Dolly, who had access to every house in both towns. Pleasant little Miss Redgrave. Nearly white.
Like he said, there were folks like her in every town.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Bethany walked toward the school. Two boys knelt at the side of the livery stable playing marbles. Little girls jumped rope, cracking out an off-beat slapping rhythm, with a double-dare rhyme, and a double-dutch loop that was timed real fine. Taunting, jeering. Her feet twitched as the familiar jingle wafted on the evening air.
Down by the seashore, down by the sea
Johnny broke a bottle and blamed it on me
She stopped and watched. Joyful little black girls who would never know the bonds of slavery. Children changed, brightened up after they came to Nicodemus. They lost their cringiness. Plenty good enough caretaking in their town. Plenty good enough. As much as most white girls had.
Another girl joined the jumper, carefully eyeing the stinging loop before she rushed under the high arc.
I told ma, I told pa,
Johnny got a whipping, ha-ha-ha
How many whipping did he get?
One, two, three . . .
The voices faded as she passed the hotel.
Tom Jenkins stopped playing his banjo long enough to call out a cheery hello when she walked past. Back behind the Browns’ soddy LuAnne was scraping bits of flesh off a pile of rabbit skins. Her youngest boy was getting to be a dead aim with his little killing slingshot. He was nearly as good as Jamal Gray. LuAnne would have the skins turned into jackets in no time.
The people, the ebb and flow of people. Struck with wonder, she looked around her as though the scene were surreal, as though she had died and gone to heaven and the streets of Nicodemus were gold-paved and the sod walls of their houses and dugouts were shining with pearls and rubies and she could not, not, not get all of their music out of her head.
I’ll fly away, Lord
I’ll fly away
Unbidden, her heart thrummed with the tremor she had felt when the first wave of September settlers danced over the rise by the bank of the Solomon.
Coming home to Nicodemus.
She had never felt this way in her life before and could scarcely keep her feet on the path toward the school. Her head understood joy. Knew what it was. But her careful heart couldn’t find the room before. Didn’t, couldn’t, dasn’t. She had always known her place. Now she could not contain joy. It welled up like a spring.
Music was constant, ever-present in Nicodemus. Music had always healed her people’s hearts, and now it was breaking down hers.
Tom Jenkins’s banjo and plantation songs and drums let loose and all the chanting little black girls clapping out bounce steps. In the evening, after the work was done, old men facing off with clickety-clackety spoons. Bunch of silly young ones on a washboard high, a-whacking out patterns too fast for the eye.
A calling people. Throwing the preacher’s words right back at him. Agreeing, smiling at the man. Amen. Urging him on. Send the words right back, brother, with just a little more. Amen.
A little more religion, if you please, and we’ll sway it right back at you with a clap and a shout. Amen. A little, little more right back. Because we know Jesus and you’d better, Brother Silas. You’d better, Sister Mary, or you won’t be able to hear our song.
She stopped, radiant in the setting sun, to see if her skin was a new color. She pulled out a tendril of her hair, but it was the same shiny black. Her fingers were still long and thin. She was the same on the outside.
But Jesus had come to her last night. Came in a dream. Just as he had to the three kings who went scurrying off to find him when he was a baby.
Jesus came to her carrying a shining gold pen with a silver feather furl.
The point on the quill was sharp as a dagger, and the ink sparkled with stardust, and he reached for her, and she was so tiny she seemed to rest right on his arm, and she knew, just knew she had looked like that sometime before when she was just a little girl. She knew now he had always meant for her to become Sunflower. To pick up that pen.
A poor little black girl. Seeing darkly. She knew it was just about that time joy became buried so deep in her that only God knew how to drag it back out. But she couldn’t remember why. She owned that pen once before. Jesus had given her that pen when she was just a little girl.
“Unnatural. A writing nigger. Causing trouble.”
There had been a voice, a strange terrifying voice. She had tagged along with Queen Bess when her mother was out doctoring, and she had heard a white man speak from a far room. After that, she stuffed back joy like it would kill her if she tasted it whole. She gave the pen back to Jesus.
All day she felt the change from the dream. She was no longer afraid to look; the terror she felt when she saw her mother dragged off and the fire, the terrible fire. Her fury when she saw Estelle Sinclair forcing her mother to kneel in manure.
I’m free. Free, she whispered. Joy and pain alike, it didn’t matter. Neither one would kill her, and she had always thought they both would.
Jesus had given back her bright gold pen.
Her mother came to Nicodemus because she had read one of Bethany’s circulars written by her bright gold pen. And now, the most important newspaper in the state was printing her letters, and blacks and whites alike were making over this Sunflower.
The power. The heady taste of power.
Her mother. She stood dead still. Her heart pounded. Jesus and her dream pen. This was the way her mother felt about her doctoring. Doctoring was what Jesus had handed to Queen Bess.
Bethany sighed. Nicodemus needed the money her own doctoring brought in, because Queen Bess didn’t want anything to do with white people. She could dash off opinions with her little gol
d pen until the cows came home, and it wouldn’t bring one cent to the people here in this town. Not one cent. It was still her doctoring money that did them the most good.
She carried a bucket of coal inside the school, then wiped her hands and read some comments McBane had left for her consideration. McBane’s immaculate handwriting emulated calligraphy. With his usual precision, he pointed out that he was ill-suited to help the younger children and that, in fact, there were only two children in the whole town who would profit from his advanced instruction.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. He was right, of course. He did a good job of keeping those two children engaged, considering the time he was out of town.
In fact, Nicodemus might as well be an outpost of Topeka since Kulp and McBane came. Seemed like the whole town was coming from or going to Eastern Kansas. Some who had relatives back there spent the winter in Topeka and came back to Nicodemus in spring.
She picked up a copy of the Topeka Daily Capital McBane had left for her. She smiled. Too fastidious to underline, he had drawn an arrow on a discarded piece of paper pointing to the article he wanted her to read.
Now that the stream of Exodusters from the South into Eastern Kansas had turned into a flood of threadbare, sickly immigrants overwhelming the state with cries for aid and mercy, their colony was held up as a shining example: “Imitate the plucky settlers of Nicodemus.”
Plucky settlers, indeed. The writer made them sound like trick dogs the state had coaxed into performing, when the town actually had three whirling dervishes of black men who could match wits with any white man in Kansas. Maybe the whole nation.
A new letter from Sunflower was taking shape in her mind, when Sonny Rayborn dashed past the doorway. Zach Brown stuck his head inside.
“Mr. Jed’s back, Miss Bethany. They’s all three back from Topeka.”
Buoyed by the statewide reception given Sunflower’s letters, Jed and Kulp and McBane had devised an equal rights ticket for township officers with positions divided equally between whites and blacks. Then Kulp stunned them all by announcing that he personally wanted to take the required census for organizing the county.
Nothing could dissuade him. Not even when Jed pointed out the risks of a Latin-spouting, Shakespeare-quoting black man asking a nest of Missouri bushwhackers if they could read and write.
She remembered Jed warning him. “Half the whites in this county will be out to string you up if you come prying in their personal business, A.T. No one likes census takers even if they’re white.”
“I’ll be just fine,” Kulp had said.
“Don’t count on it. There was a murder out here. Before you two came. A man from Norton got killed just for helping us get land.”
She tucked back the memory and walked outside. The men were bathed in the fading rays of the setting sun. Golden men. Conquering heroes. People flocked around. Gloriana pranced like she was on military review. Kulp and McBane had a new black buggy. They had added gold lettering on the sides advertising their services as attorneys and their land locating business.
Kulp stood up and pumped his fist in the air. “We did it,” he shouted. “It’s done. Governor St. John has appointed me as the official census taker for the organization of Graham County. And E.P. here will be the temporary county clerk. Stand up, Edward, and take a bow.”
McBane rose, removed his derby hat, and smiled at the cheering throng.
After the commotion settled down, Jed and Bethany went inside the schoolhouse. They couldn’t stop smiling.
“And your little school, my Miss Bethany, your little school is going to be the site of the election for township officers,” Jed told her. “The very first election in Graham County. After A.T. finishes his census showing there’s enough legal voters to legally organize Graham County, Governor St. John will designate the temporary county seat. It’s going to light a fire under the white folks.”
Stunned, she forgot all the layers and layers of protection she always used against this man, like she required voodoo magic to keep him from invading her soul. Clean forgot herself until the words just flew out of their own accord.
“Jed. Do you know what this means? For the first time in the United States—the very first time ever—enough black people have gathered in one place to control votes on issues important to whites. This is the very first time.”
She reached for his hands and squeezed them. But when he started to pull her toward him, she tugged away, turned, and walked to her desk. “This election is going to take place here at my schoolhouse?”
“Yes. It’s the only place in Nicodemus large enough.”
“Then I want everything to look just perfect. In fact, I want this whole town to look spotless. Beyond reproach.”
“Well, you’ve got a whole month. Then as soon as the official announcement of Kulp’s appointment as census taker is published in the paper, he’s going to begin. And after he completes this census he’s going to hand carry the count back to Governor St. John. And then, by God, Graham County will be officially organized, and we won’t have to run over to Rooks County every time we turn around.”
“And it will be over. All over.”
“Not quite,” he said dryly. “Actually, then the real fight will be on to select the permanent county seat.” He could not have stopped the big smile that crept across his face. “And all the fine, upstanding white people of both Millbrook and Wade City are going to go out of their way to make sure all of us black people know how thrilled they are to have us amongst them. We dey favorites,” he mocked. “Sure nuff.”
“I don’t think these white men are going to like it much, having to come to Nicodemus to elect township officers.”
“They may not like it, but if they’re smart, they’ll show up anyway. And vote the equal rights ticket. If they don’t, they can’t expect us to vote for their town for county seat.” Jed picked up his hat and headed out the door. “I guess I don’t have to tell you, we’ve practically had to tie A.T. down to keep him from floating off into the sky.”
As Jed predicted, when they elected officers for Nicodemus Township a month later, Millbrook men came to their town all smiles, offering jobs and complimenting Bethany on the fine school. In fact, those who had intended merely to flatter came away impressed with the neat lessons she had cleverly left on the blackboard. They eyed her hefty pile of books. The Nicodemus women had worked themselves half to death cleaning every building in the town.
Only men participated in local as well as national elections, of course. Women of any race were denied suffrage. It was well known that when females thought about politics, it detoured blood from their uteruses to their brains. Letting women vote would be bad for the country. It would ruin their ability to produce healthy babies.
The equal rights ticket for township officers, sponsored by Meissner and the Millbrook Wildhorse, won the election.
Editors of newspapers in neighboring towns were intrigued by the bi-racial composition and the novelty of Kulp’s appointment.
“Graham County has a Negro census taker,” mocked the editor of a Ness County paper. “We hear it don’t suit the white trash much.”
While Kulp began taking the census, the county seat fight began in earnest. Meissner charged that a number of Wade City people swore they would die before they allowed a black nigger into their house asking personal questions. The Sinclairs shot right back that Meissner was a damn liar, and they had affidavits to prove it. Which they dutifully printed.
Josiah pointed out that he had come from the South and always treated his blacks with the utmost respect, and in fact it took a Southerner to know and appreciate their worth. Estelle charged that Meissner had never made the acquaintance of a Negro in his life until he came to Graham County, and she assured all her fine, upstanding colored friends that the treacherous citizens of Millbrook didn’t plan to have a thing to do with blacks after the county seat election.
One of the upshots of the raging controversy was th
at men from both Wade City and Millbrook were driving over a couple times a week to hire Nicodemus men.
No accusation of racism was too bizarre to print in the papers.
Bethany sat propped against the trunk of a cottonwood on the south bank of the Solomon. The day before, she and Jed and Kulp and McBane and Teddy had spent a hilarious afternoon poring over a collection of newspapers. They took turns reading the fawning rhetoric, with editors throughout Kansas suddenly discovering all manner of virtue in black people.
On Sunday afternoons the banks of the creek teemed with ambitious little boys trying to catch fish or frogs. If she tried to relax in her own dugout now, she was dogged by people stopping by to ask her advice or chat a moment.
Lulled by the rippling of the silvery cottonwood leaves, her mind drifted, and she fell asleep. She awoke with a start when a horse neighed. She jumped to her feet. She shielded her eyes against the bright sun, recognized the rider, and called out immediately.
“Cedric. I’m over here.” She hollered again, hoping he would hear her before he passed out of earshot. She frowned. It was too early for Amity Berlin to deliver, or she would have stayed closer to town.
His horse was sweaty and exhausted. He trotted up, and she flinched at his look of despair. Cedric was a small man with a pinched, thin face that never seemed to tan. It just stayed as white as a dingy sheet. He was a constant worrier, with an annoying mannerism of plucking at his upper lip.
His gentle little wife was one of her favorite patients. She had urged them to get her at once since this was Amity’s first baby.
He jumped down from the horse. “The baby’s here, but she’s dying,” he gasped. “Dying. I tried to tell her that son-of-a-bitch was going to kill her.”
Bethany’s faced tightened with shock. “Who?” But even as she asked the question, she knew, and her stomach plummeted.
“That no good quack, Doc Osborne.”
“But she’s been my patient. How did he come to see her?”
“She asked. One of the women around Wade City spread a bunch of lies. Claimed you were using magic and hexes and would cause little babies to go blind if you took a notion. Said you made the mother’s blood go bad and crippled the little ones if they didn’t suit you. Claimed you left spells in the house and buried stuff to ruin our crops.”
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