Going home would be fruitless. Lona would cry and beg her to behave. She had to do something, but ever since the sheriff made his revelation, she didn’t know how. She hated the thought, but she had to go to the Winslows again. She didn’t know if Paul Winslow was home yet, but she had to check and see. This time, she made sure she went to the back door and Bob opened it.
“Ruby, what’s going on?” Bob and Agnes had been at the revival, too, Ruby remembered.
Ruby ignored his behavior from before at the train station and just said it. “The sheriff sold Adam to a chain gang.”
“Jesus, keep us near the cross. The doctor wouldn’t last on no chain gang.”
“I know. Do you think Mrs. Winslow would see me?”
Bob shook his head back and forth. “I don’t know. She mighty cross at you.”
“If I can get Adam back, I promised the sheriff I would go away with him and never come back to Winslow.”
Bob’s face became a mass of wrinkles. “Afore God, Ruby. Where would you go?”
Ruby’s eyes blazed. Now he acted concerned about her after his behavior at the railroad station.
The nerve. Please God, help me to be patient. Bob is just a confused soul. She calmed down. “I got places. The doctor said I could go up north with him and finish high school. Maybe even get to be a nurse and help him out.”
“Maybe he marry you, and be a daddy to your boy?”
Ruby lowered her head and blushed a bit. “I hope so.”
“I take you in.”
Ruby followed Bob in through the kitchen to the parlor where Mary Winslow sat. All corseted up and sitting in her chair, with a bit of needlework in her hands, Mary Winslow was in her own prison. Ruby had pain in her heart for her. Her entire existence was sitting there in her prim, grey dress and purposeless needlework in her hands.
“What are you doing here, Ruby?”
“Ma’am.” Ruby stepped forward and smoothed down her skirt in supplication. “I need your help. They’ve taken the doctor to a chain gang, and I don’t know what to do to get him out. Please help him.”
Something flashed in her eyes—she couldn’t label it. Was it sorrow? Sympathy? She didn’t know what to make of the look. When Ruby came close to identifying it, the empathetic look went away. Something aloof showed up in her eyes as Ruby knew she had reached her “I don’t know what you mean, Ruby. I cannot help you.”
“You can go to the sheriff and let him know he needs to get Adam back.”
“Why? If the sheriff sold him off somewhere else, I have nothing to say about it.”
Ruby narrowed her eyes. “I never said he sold him off. This must be a way of doing things, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Winslow had the grace to look shamefaced, at least. “Well, yes.”
“When is Mr. Winslow coming home?”
“The end of the week.”
Ruby breathed a sigh of relief. Any time he was on a chain gang was long. Still, but they couldn’t break him in three more days. They wouldn’t be able to get their money’s worth out of him. “Well, if you are convinced you couldn’t do something to help Mr. Winslow’s son—”
“David is Mr. Winslow’s son, or have you forgotten?”
“I could never forget. He’s the reason I have Solomon.” Ruby stood still and stared Mary Winslow down in her own parlor.
Mrs. Winslow stood up. “I’ve had quite enough of your coming in here and making trouble for my family. I’m sorry, I cannot help with your request.”
She was protecting her family, as Ruby would have. She couldn’t blame her. “I –I don’t have access to the kind of funds it would take to buy him out.” Mrs. Winslow’s blue eyes reflected her powerlessness with money.
Ruby believed her. She stood a little taller than her short height would let her. “Too bad. Whenever the doctor comes home, I’m going up north with him. I’m leaving Winslow for good.”
“Go north with him? Leave Winslow?”
“Yes, ma’am. For good.”
“You would take your baby? With a strange man? What about your child?”
And the same look of longing showed now in Mrs. Winslow’s eyes as when she first saw Solomon on the Bledsoe front porch. The look appeared again at the picnic. Mary Winslow wanted to be a grandmother to Solomon, but she couldn’t upset her little world.
Everything was in order, and for Mrs. Winslow, her world was a place of the nineteenth century. She still belonged in the old times, a time where women did needlework and waited for their husbands to come home to deal with financial matters, because they didn’t have enough means to buy people off of chain gangs. Mrs. Winslow’s blue eyes showed such sadness, trying to keep up the façade, trying hard not to show emotion when she shouldn’t.
Ruby understood now. They were complete equals. They were women who were concerned about their families. “He’ll be fine, ma’am. Even before the doctor came to Winslow, the world was changing. Took some time after slave times ended, but things are changing now, ma’am. Solomon,” Ruby spoke her son’s name softly before this woman so she could share in his name, just for the moment, “Solomon is part of a changing world. Dr. Morson has offered me a chance to finish my education. He says I have smarts, and I can get to be a nurse and help him in his work.”
Mrs. Winslow gave a little laugh. “And be what to him? A paid companion of some kind, no doubt.”
“No, ma’am. I would be his wedded wife. We would be married before God. He might not have had it in his mind when the sheriff come and take him away, but he has it now. We’re bonded in a way only God would come to know and understand.”
Mrs. Winslow’s face crinkled up in disappointment and confusion. “I thought, if you married the Reverend Dodge, you would stay here. He told me so.”
“It was very wrong of Reverend Dodge to tell you something about my life. I make decisions for myself.”
“I see.” Mary Winslow sat back down in her overstuffed chair. “You’ve certainly never done anything less. Well, this is a blow. That so-called Reverend took a donation for his church on his word.”
Ruby smoothed down her skirt. “I don’t know where Reverend Dodge is. If I see him, I’ll tell him you looking for him, ma’am. I’m going to go now. The revival going to start soon, and I want to go and pray. Thank you for letting me know when Mr. Paul will be coming back.”
“Certainly, Ruby. I’m sure when Mr. Winslow returns, he will do something to help the doctor. It would be a shame for him to lose his investment in all of his education.” There was Mrs. Winslow. The aloofness was back. No need to stay to see that show, so Ruby turned on her heel to go. As she did, David stood there on the steps, having heard every word she said to his mother.
Ruby dipped her head at him. He was not the childhood friend, who, back in the distant past, she thought would be her husband. The divisions of race and class were too strong for them to overcome. She felt sorry for him, too, needing to adhere to those divisions. He didn’t look well, standing on the steps staring after her with his mouth open.
Quickly, as she walked past him, out of the back door, she did something she had not done in a long time. She prayed for him.
Bathed in sweat and completely confused, Adam bumped his head on the pine bunk above his. Breathing deep, he inhaled the stench of a dozen unwashed men in the large roughened cabin. The smell was a slap in the face, reminding him he was on the chain gang, and might as well be far away from the Bledsoes as the moon.
Touching his head, he felt no bump. He could still think and reason as a doctor. He would be okay.
Thank you, God.
The prayer of gratitude came to him, even as he had to smell unwashed men instead of the clean earthly scent of Ruby’s long silken jet black locks.
Carrying Ruby’s smile inside of his mind, and thinking of her keen, curious eyes learning some new skill, he wondered
at her beauty. An unfamiliar emotion inside of him hungered to see her again. He wanted to sob like a child at being on a chain gang instead of with her. His days as a trained doctor were at an end. It was workhorse days for the rest of his life. He might as well rest up.
Soon, the sound of scraping on a washboard made a loud clanging noise to wake them up. The camp did not have proper facilities for washing. Adam looked around him with disapproval. No wonder there was so much disease in the camp. How could he get more leverage to be able to tell them the filth of the camp impacted the workers by keeping them sick?
Of course, it didn’t matter to them about what the workers needed. They would just get more workers if they died off. An endless supply of labor was the point of a chain gang. He had to laugh or he would have been sad he never got a chance to live the kind of life with Ruby he now realized he wanted.
“Are you okay, Doc?” A young man asked him.
“I’m fine. Do you know what they will have us doing today?”
“Hard to say. Might be turpentine, it could be clearing out a field. Who knows? They got breakfast for us.” The young man looked at the grits and sorghum they were dishing out in a chow line and Adam joined in too. His stomach rumbled with hunger. Grits. Better than nothing.
He ate the grits from a tin plate with more rapidity than he would have liked. They gave each of them half a biscuit. Lona’s peach jam would be perfect with this dry biscuit. The memory of the peach jam made him think of how Ruby let Solomon taste peach jam for the first time. The delight on Solomon’s young face was like a sun.
He had never known what it was to care for someone else more than himself. He had never had the opportunity. So many people, relatives, his father, all had wanted something from him and couldn’t love him the way he deserved. Something inside him warmed knowing he now belonged to someone. When he had come to Winslow, he wanted it more than anything, but he had been afraid to hope for it. All he could do was pray for Ruby and her son. Their well-being mattered more than his own health and safety.
They made him do a variety of things on the first day. They were watched over by deputy personnel of the county, armed with guns. How many citizens knew their tax money went to pay for these illegal endeavors? He chopped wood, helped to clear out a barn and dug holes. They gave them more biscuits and some sorghum molasses for lunch, not very nutritious fare, but cheap. They got to drink water from a water pump, which was fresh at least, and continued with their work.
Adam was struck by the looks of despair on their faces and he understood why. This would be their lives. This would be his life. For the rest of his life.
He began to sing. No one stopped him, but some of the men joined in, singing an old church hymn with feeling. He had to believe God would not leave him in this by himself.
They sang songs over and over as they worked until no one could remember another church song. The singing made him feel as if his existence were bearable somehow. As they worked, a car pulled up. He squinted in the hot Georgia sun to see who had come.
To his surprise, David Winslow stepped from the car. His doctor’s eye noticed David stumbled a little as he got out of the car. Adam tried to see more but the deputies were watching. “Keep working, boy.” One of the deputies gestured toward him with the gun.
He had learned enough to know not to tell the man David was his brother, so he kept chopping wood. David went into the small camp house where the sheriff was. Was the brother who he despised there to save him? Half of him wanted it to be so, but the other half did not want to be in David’s debt. He kept working, toying with the possibilities in his mind. After about a half an hour, the sheriff headed to him and gestured with a thumb. “You, you been bought out. Come on.”
“What about them?”
“Bring yourself on. It was enough for this man to buy you out. Be grateful and go with him and do what he say.”
Adam put down the ax, happy at being liberated, but guilty at leaving the men behind. “Go on, boss man,” James said. “Good to see someone getting liberty.”
“Take care of yourself, James.”
“You go on back and do right by Miss Ruby. She special.”
“Yes, she is. Thank you.”
Adam walked behind the sheriff to where David stood in the hot sun. David’s skin was covered in a thin film of sweat, his pallor was off and he did not look normal.
“Hot day,” David waved a lightweight boater in front of his face. “Thank you, Sheriff. I know my mother will be most grateful to you.”
“Tell her I say hello,” the sheriff waved off. “I hope he doesn’t give you any trouble.”
David got in the car and started it up. Adam slid in the front seat next to him, not sure what to say. “Thank you for getting me out of there.” He could start there.
“You couldn’t be there for long. You don’t belong there.”
It was a monumental effort for David to drive the car.
“Do you want me to drive?” Adam reached out to grab the wheel.
“Wait until we get down the road a way. I don’t want them seeing you drive—it wouldn’t be safe.”
Once David drove down the road a bit, he stopped the car and he and Adam switched places. David slumped over into the passenger side, clearly unwell. “I’m so tired.”
“Feel free to rest. You look as if you need it,” Adam advised. Then despite himself, he asked. “How did you know I was here?”
David gazed at him with Winslow eyes. “Ruby came to the house and asked my mother to help. I overheard. She said no, so it gave me the opportunity to do something for her.” He wrapped his arms inside of his jacket as if he were cold. “Some are luckier than others. I just wanted to do something to make it all up to her.”
“Why would you bother?” Despite what David had done for him, the anger still rose inside of him at the way Ruby felt about herself. Because of what David had done.
“Because I love her. I always have.” David slumped down even lower. “It’s unfair. You’re just as light as I am, but you’re a Negro and can live with her and love her. I’m white and it would be against the law for me to love her.”
“Is that why you raped her?”
David sighed. “I’ve lived under the thumb of Paul Winslow all of my life. You, at least, had the chance to make your own way in life and your own decisions.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“How else could I know how she was if I couldn’t marry her?”
Adam’s stomach turned. The complete picture of a spoiled child.
“You don’t do certain things to people you love. That’s not love.”
“It’s all I am ever allowed,” David whispered, and put his head back on the rest behind him. “If I were allowed more, like you, I would do it.”
“How much did it cost to buy me out?” The irritation in him came to the surface of his skin and made him hot and prickly. “I’ll pay you back, every penny.”
“You will not. I told you, I did it for Ruby, not for you. I could see the way she was when she begged Mother to help her. I always wanted her to look at me that way.”
“She had feelings for you.”
David turned over. “Crush feelings. The way she talks about you, thinks about you—she’s got a woman’s love for a man. I wish I could have her woman’s love. All I could have was the one time in the cotton field.”
“My. You just turned an attack on Ruby into being a victim.”
“There are worse things in life than what you think. Like being Paul Winslow’s only true son. Take your opportunity at liberty seriously. Take Ruby and the baby and get as far away from here as possible. Ruby told Mother she would.”
“She did?” Adam looked confused.
“Yes. She told Mother she would leave Winslow with you and never come back. Mother wouldn’t help. I think, in part because…”
David stopped talking and out of the corner of his eyes, he swallowed hard. “She likes the baby. She won’t admit it, of course, but it’s like I told you. And she was angry when Ruby said she was taking the baby away. I think she didn’t want to help Ruby so she could see the baby sometimes.”
“He’s a capital little fellow.” Adam remembered how Solomon’s little face lit up with joy and he drove a little faster.
“Mother was not happy to find out about you. It was galling to her to think—just a couple of tumbles with a maid and Dad had another son.”
Adam tried, really tried to feel some sympathy for Mary Winslow, but it was too difficult. He marveled at her self-centeredness. David probably got it from her and Paul Winslow. A double-dose. He supposed he couldn’t blame her for feeling hatred for Ruby, but at the same time, didn’t countenance it. “What a shame,” was all he could muster.
“So, are you really going to take her away?”
“If she wants me to. I had several offers at graduation. I’ll send a telegram to find out if any of them stand. One offer I was most interested in was in Pittsburgh.”
“Far up in the north in the cold.” David began to cough and had a hard time stopping. “But I’m sure even as a colored doctor, you’ll have enough to buy a coat to keep her warm.”
“I’ll take care of her, however she needs me.”
David’s coughing fit slowed down and he smiled. “If you think you are going to take care of Ruby, well.” The smile left his face. “Take care of one another. Love one another.” He laid his head back on the seat. “Brother Carver, always talked about that bible verse, in Corinthians II—the greatest of these is Love. Love her.”
Adam didn’t want to know how David knew about Brother Carver. He bristled at the thought of Ruby’s rapist telling him what to do, too consumed with driving as fast as he legally could on terrible roads to get to his beloved.
“I will,” he said. He could keep such a promise.
A Virtuous Ruby Page 22