The Healer's Daughter

by Charlotte Hinger

  As surely as Joshua stopped the sun in the sky, every dust mote, even the air, stilled. Slowly Jed looked at the two men. His friends who were moving heaven and earth to start a new civilization.

  He had been part of that effort. He looked around at the other great, good souls who had flocked to Nicodemus. His people, joyful at last. Coming into their own. People who wanted churches and schools. Men who wanted to reclaim their manhood and their lost honor.

  Their chances of making that happen would be ruined forever if he raised that whip.

  Nicodemus. Kansas. This insanely idealistic state was their only chance.

  As though seraphim rushed forward to seal his lips, he was unable to speak. Paralyzed with indecision.

  From the past, he saw lines of blacks shackled together, broken, bleeding. Captured, torn away from their families. Ripped from their mothers’ bosoms. Lonely, terrified.

  Before him, toward the future, he saw men like Kulp and McBane. Ambitious, intelligent men determined to bring forth a new world of their own choosing.

  Women, too. He saw the face of his beautiful Bethany. A maiden. An African maiden. He trembled. Nicodemus was their chance. Their only chance to turn their back on the horrors of the past and begin anew.

  “Cut these two men down,” he said softly to Jim Black. “Cut these two men down.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Elam Bartholomew was inside the general store when he saw the men from Nicodemus drive the wagon up to the new doctor’s building. Bethany jumped off and pounded on the locked door. He stepped outside and crossed the street. “He’s gone. For good, I’m afraid.”

  “No, please. No. My mother,” she sobbed.

  He followed her gaze to the wagon bed. When he saw Queen Bess, he paled and buried his head in his hands.

  His soldiers had died of lesser and far fewer wounds. Pain and shock had killed almost as many as bullets. The chances of her dying of infection were astronomical.

  Then he stiffened. “My house. Bring her to my house.”

  He sprinted toward the edge of town, and the blacks followed him with the wagon. Inside, he went to the closet and dug out a stretcher he had used during the late war. Its canvas surface was still stained by old blood. He carried it outside, retrieved the poles, and inserted them into the sleeves.

  Reverently, stiffly supporting the taut blanket, the men transferred Queen Bess onto the stretcher and carried her to Bartholomew’s house. Bethany grasped her mother’s dangling hand and felt for a pulse as she walked beside her. It was weak and rapid.

  Queen Bess lay on her stomach, her head turned to the side. Her skin was dull. Her hair was thin, her skull mottled with blue-purple spots. Bethany had never seen her mother without a turban before.

  Alonzo and Earl carried her inside. Bartholomew ordered Elijah and Silas to move his bed away from the wall and lay the stretcher on top of it so he could reach his patient from all sides. “I wish I had something higher, like a proper operating table,” he said gloomily, “but at least we won’t have to move her again.”

  “Mr. Bartholomew, I know you’re not a doctor, but you were a medic during the war.” Bethany’s voice shook with despair.

  He straightened and peered at her. “Miss Herbert, do you think you are going to have to talk me into doing my best for your mother?”

  “Oh no, sir,” she said, “that’s not what I mean at all.” All her training deserted her as she glanced at the bloody, black seepage of Queen Bess’s back. It was too raw to bear the slightest current of air.

  Bethany drew a deep breath, reached for Elam Bartholomew’s hand, and held it in both of hers while she gazed intently into his eyes. “What I’m trying to say, sir, is that I don’t know what to do. Where to start. If I had been able to think, I’d have grabbed every little bag of herbs and potions she had hanging in her cabin. But I didn’t,” she said bitterly.

  He looked at her somberly, his eyes compassionate.

  “I didn’t. I couldn’t. I just wanted to get her away. Even if I had gotten all her medications, I wouldn’t have known what to do with them.”

  Bartholomew pulled his hand from Bethany’s, gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze, and bent over Queen Bess’s back, examining her, tracing a number of the wounds without touching them, his finger hovering over each one.

  “What I meant, Mr. Bartholomew, was if you don’t know what to do either, none of us will hold that against you. We just want you to try. You’re the best we have.”

  He straightened, turned, and looked at her with a sad, wry smile. He gestured at all the little bottles neatly arranged on his shelves and the little deerskin bags hanging from a rope. “Actually, I know a great deal, Miss Herbert. Your mother taught me, you see. She taught me everything.” He eyed all the bags.

  “Everything.”

  Bethany stood at the edge of Nicodemus, her herb basket over her arm, and looked out over the prairie. She raised her hand to her throat and pressed her fingers against her pounding pulse.

  It was the third time now she had started to gather plants and could not overcome her sense of foreboding. She always found some excuse to turn back. Wistfully, she looked at the swaying grass. It was such a short time ago that this land had seemed like the Biblical green pastures to her. She had felt no evil. The Lord had been with her, shielding her.

  Now the grass was whipped around by a chilling wind. All the people in the town were edgy. Unsure of themselves.

  Something terrible had happened at Queen Bess’s soddy. And as horrified as they were by her savage beating, they were more stunned over that which they had not known existed inside themselves. A dark beast had been unchained.

  One of the emotions that had always sustained them as a people, both men and women, was the certain knowledge that they were morally superior to whites. They would look at each other across the centuries with tragic, whip-crazed eyes and whisper, “At least we’re not like them. Not at all. At least we have our humanity,” they said smugly. “White bastards can’t whip that out of us.”

  But they had.

  The prairie seemed desolate now. The wind mocked. They were no longer willing to lean into it. And the colonists remembered the dark omen when they first left Kentucky. The fog, the terrible fog.

  “Warn’t natural,” they recalled now as they sat around the campfire in the evening. “Knowed it warn’t at the time. Always knowed you should do a leaving when it’s green.”

  They nodded sagely, like they had always known the Lord was trying to tell them something with the fog. The way wasn’t clear.

  Any fool could see now what the gray had meant. As sure as if He had sent a bolt of lightning.

  Unable to bear the grief, her own and the town’s, Bethany turned to go back. Then she saw Jed walking toward her. Slowly, like he was savoring the sight of her.

  He nearly always wore dark, store-bought pants during the day now and a coarse, blue shirt topped by a scarred leather vest. He carried a gun. She could not remember now when she had last seen him without a gun.

  “You’ve been watching me,” she said softly.

  “Yes. I was hoping you would take the first step.” He gestured toward the prairie.

  “I couldn’t. I’m not like I was after Teddy was killed,” she said slowly. “I don’t think I’ll ever get to that state again. But I’m not quite the same as before, either.”

  “How is your mother?”

  “Doing well. Against all odds, she’s doing well. You know, Mr. Bartholomew was probably superior to any white doctor in the state to begin with. And since all the treatments he used on my mother were ones she told him about in their little chats—and they worked, they obviously worked—he now treats Momma like she has a medical degree from Cambridge. He waits on her hand and foot.”

  “They are the strangest alliance I’ve ever seen,” Jed said.

  “Aren’t they? At any rate, he says she can stay as long as she likes. She’s weak, but she’s healing well. I saw her just l
ast week.”

  “And her mind? Her attitude toward this place wasn’t exactly ideal to begin with. I suppose she’ll be making a bee-line out of here.” He slapped his hand against his thigh repeatedly and gazed into the distance. “I suppose there’s going to be one more claim up for grabs. At least she can get some money for it with all the improvements she’s made. Enough for her to get a new start in Topeka or wherever she wants to go.”

  The wind ruffled Bethany’s skirt and whipped it against her legs. “She plans to stay here in Graham County. In fact, she seems eager to get back out to her homestead.”

  “She doesn’t want to leave? After all that’s happened to her?”

  “No. It’s as though she had been braced for the worst, the very worst, and she doesn’t have to worry about it happening now. It’s over with.” Bethany laughed. “She doesn’t have to worry about it ever happening again.”

  “Who’d have thought,” Jed said softly. “Who would have thought?” He shook his head. “Isn’t that a deal, now.”

  “I give up on predicting my mother’s reasoning.”

  Jed grinned. “And besides wanting to know about Queen Bess’s condition, there’s another reason I came looking for you today. I’ve got some good news of my own. I’ve just returned from Norton. I’ve had a long meeting with Sheriff Bogswell.”

  “Are they going to do something to those monsters? Or will it work the way it used to in the South?” she asked bitterly. “One kind of justice for white men and another for blacks.”

  “That’s where the good news comes in. Dr. Winthrop Osborne, that no-good son-of-a-bitch, was only too happy to tell Casper everything. In great detail. Potroff was behind killing Tobias Gentry, that surveyor from Norton, too. Both of them. Teddy and Gentry. Bogswell has been looking for Gentry’s murderer for a long time. They were friends. And the sheriff found proof,” he added. “Of everything.”

  He closed his eyes for an instant. The proof had been in a little leather bag in Potroff’s pocket. Within was a pair of shriveled black testicles. Potroff had been carrying them around like they were a good luck charm. He glanced at Bethany and decided she didn’t need to hear all the details. “I don’t think there’s any doubt those two will be sentenced to death according to the laws of Graham County. And Kansas. We hang people here in Kansas.”

  It’ll be a legal killing, this time, he thought darkly. Legal. He shuddered, knowing if he hadn’t stopped that day, hadn’t laid down the whip, he would have lost Bethany forever.

  “They deserve to die,” she said softly. “If two men ever deserved it, those two men do.”

  He nodded.

  “Jed, do you know what you’ve done? Not just you, but all of us. What we’ve done? You’ve proven that black people can use the law to protect their own out here.”

  A muscle in his cheek jumped from his effort to disguise his pride. Then he looked at Bethany intently. “And I’ve proven that black men can use the law to protect their women.”

  She burst into tears and covered her face with her hands. He went to her and gathered her into his arms. They stood embracing each other for a long time until she stopped trembling. Her warm breath finally steadied against his chest like she was a sleeping infant.

  “And I’m especially going to take care of you,” he whispered into her hair. “With your mother’s permission, of course,” he added wryly. “With your mother’s permission.”

  “She’ll give it,” Bethany blurted. “She’s definitely going to give it.”

  He pushed her away so he could see her face. Then he bent and kissed her until they both were breathless.

  “Darling, I was coming out to your mother’s that day to tell you another bit of good news.”

  Her eyes widened when he told her about St. John’s telegram. It was the chance of a lifetime for their people.

  “And after our wedding, when I go to Washington, to testify before the Voorhees committee, I want you there with me. Watching.”

  Her eyes shone with adoration. “Your work. All those years of writing things down. It’s finally going to get the attention it deserves.”

  Jed looked toward Nicodemus and held his hat across his chest. Like he were looking at a battlefield.

  Bethany clutched Jed’s arm. “This town. Just think what your testimony will mean to the people of this town. You must call a meeting tonight and tell everyone you’ve been selected to go to Washington by Governor John Pierce St. John, himself.”

  “I love that man,” Jed whooped, throwing his hat into the air. “I love that name. Now that’s a name for a man just naturally destined to do great things. How can a man not live up to a name like that?”

  “Oh, Jed, Momma’s going to about have a fit if I go traipsing off to Washington.”

  He grinned.

  “The law,” she said, “the law will work for us, too.”

  “Yes, the law. We have the power, right here in this town, to make the law work for us. In this great, good country, this loony state, this quarrelling county, and this half-off-the-ground town. Us. You, me, all of them. We can make it work.”

  She laughed at his exuberance.

  Hearing a voice borne by the wind, they looked across the waves of grass. Jamal Gray was running, running, running, his words a distant plaintive wail. In front of him was the magnificent herd of wild black horses, necks thrust out, running across the prairie, their impossibly long manes streaming after them.

  “Do you suppose he’ll ever catch them?” Bethany asked wistfully as they passed over the horizon.

  “No. But we were promised those horses when they came here,” said Jed. “They’re ours for the chasing.”

  “Now about this wedding . . .” Bethany said.

  “Sweetheart, we’re going to have the biggest wedding this part of the state has ever seen.”

  “And all the right words, Jed. All the right words. And all of our friends. Mr. Bartholomew. I want him to be there, too. And Norvin Meissner. Not just black people but all our white friends, too.”

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing.” They stopped, and he kissed her again.

  “You see? A marriage made in Heaven.”

  They strolled toward Nicodemus, their arms around each other’s waists.

  She stopped suddenly and shyly looked up at him. She bit her lip. He smiled tenderly, knowing he had better get used to this woman’s whims.

  “Jed?” Her lip quivered. “The wedding. I want us to jump the broom, too.”

  Shocked, he looked at her warily.

  “Not in place of all the other stuff. In addition to it.”

  He said nothing but quirked his eyebrow.

  “For Momma, Jed. For Momma.”

  Jed did not have to fill the settlers in on the importance of the Voorhees committee. Every county paper in the state of Kansas had something to say about the investigation. Even if local editors were not interested in national politics, they still relied on the patent sheets forming the core pages of their editions, whether dailies or weeklies. These pre-printed insides shipped from the East kept up a running criticism on the daily testimony.

  The settlers were summoned with the drums. The fire burned brightly with the healing scent of cedar wafting across the gathering. It was a tradition by now. They were comforted by the odor.

  The fiery beams from the setting sun pulsed over the green grass and tinted even the blackest of faces with a touch of red. The clouds floated like a filmy layer of red gauze. A damp breeze cooled their faces.

  The children, sensing something important was afoot, abandoned their games and plopped down by their parents. Families sat in little clusters. It was the largest group ever assembled in the town.

  An unnatural hush fell over the gathering while Jed told them Governor St. John had requested his testimony. “The formal title of this investigation is ‘The Causes of the Removal of the Negro from the Southern States to the Northern States’,” he said. “Senate report number 693. I spent years gathering
information. It is our chance to be heard. To bear witness.”

  Henry Partridge rose slowly to his feet and stuck out his mangled paw. His eyes sparked with righteousness, and his voice trembled. “I want them to know about my hand. Somebody gots to know about this here hand. What they did. What they said. You gonna tell them about people like us?”

  “Yes,” Jed said. “About people like you. All of you. For the first time, the first time ever, this country is going to see on a witness stand a whole wide range of black men. All of us. Witness after witness. Some with tongues of angels and some treacherous as snakes. Some with lightning fast minds and some who had their brains beat out of them years ago, but this country will hear us, by God.” His deep voice shook. “By the great, good God, the men running that investigation will hear us. The living and the dead. The mighty and the meek.”

  They were lighted by the afterglow of the sunset as family after family rose and told their stories. Evening deepened.

  By the time the last person had given witness, their souls had crept back into their bodies.

  Bethany sat quietly, flushed with hope, giddy with adoration as she watched Jed’s face. The tall, elegant man who would soon be her husband. Her mother had dreamed that their first child would be a girl. A great healer, knowing more than her and Grandmother Eugenie combined. Queen Bess was alive with anticipation.

  Bethany looked across the prairie toward the Solomon. She would go there tomorrow and rest under a silvery-leafed cottonwood tree and watch the wind ripple through the sparkly undersides of the leaves.

  Her prairie beckoned. Her green pastures after all. They had not forsaken the memory of green when they left the South.

  She looked around at the people, their burned-out hearts restored. They had taken back their town. Their birthright.

  And they would tell new stories to their children now. How they thought the fog was a bad omen, and they had been fearful of leaving. And for a while, a very short while, they thought they had made a terrible mistake.

  But they came to understand they were told to steal away from the gray to a new land.