by Bush, Holly
Reed accepted from birth the place slaves held in his home, but he was never foolish enough to think they enjoyed it. They were to him merely the way he earned his living. Non-entities to him, granted, but he could not imagine them as happy.
Thoughts of his father made his stomach turn sour. Reed took a deep breath and forced down the bile rising in his throat. The sacrifice of his legs was for naught and the loss of his brother, a mere glitch in the family tree. I became disposable, much like the old slaves past their prime, Reed thought. Another mouth to feed, whose limbs could no longer carry the load. Reed’s hands began to shake with the familiar anger in his mind.
“Still up, Reed?” Henry asked.
Reed turned in surprise. “Just sitting out in the shadows here. Watching the comings and goings.”
“Pleasant evening all right.” The chair groaned and Henry sighed as he settled himself.
“I believe I’ll hang an advertisement in the land office tomorrow,” Reed said and broke the still of the night.
“That’s where the work will be for you. Deeds, land grants and border disputes. This whole countryside grew when the railroad came through and the war ended. And with the good farmlands and grazing land, men from the East are fighting to get their share.”
Reed nodded in the dark. “Where is the courthouse located?”
“Down the streets two blocks. Sidewalks the whole way.”
His wheelchair surrounded him in all things. Best the shadows of night concealed the look on his face. Reed realized Henry had thought much of this through. And he was grateful. “Thank you.”
“Mary Ellen and I are going to the theatre on Saturday. Would you like to join us?”
Reed was silent. He was not sure he was ready for exposure to the social life in this little town.
“Mary Ellen would really appreciate it if you would. There’s a small party planned at one of her friend’s home afterwards.”
“I don’t know, Henry.”
“Well, think about it.” Henry chuckled. “She’s dying to be the one to introduce a new bachelor.”
Reed shook his head and replied grimly. “I’m hardly marriage material, Henry.”
“Now, Reed. Don’t get yourself in an uproar. It’s just a little party. I know most of the people going. The circuit judge will be there and his nephew. Your competition.”
“My competition?”
“The only other lawyer in town. John Benson.”
“Not sure if I’m interested in watching the unmarried women grimace when they see I’m permanently seated, but I can hardly turn down an opportunity to meet the man I’ll be stealing business from,” Reed said.
Henry harrumphed softly and was quiet. “You sell yourself short, Reed. And women, too.”
Reed watched Henry’s profile in the back shadow from the light in the hallway. “What do you mean?”
“I’m certainly no judge, but Mary Ellen assures me you are a very handsome and charming man.”
“Your wife may need spectacles, Henry,” Reed replied bitterly.
“No. I don’t think so. She sees perfectly well.” Henry sighed. “Truthfully, I’ve heard quite enough about the color of your hair and your strong chin to last me a lifetime.”
Reed smiled. “Why, Henry, you sound jealous.”
Henry turned to him. “Needn’t sound so pleased with yourself, cousin.”
But Reed was pleased. He could hardly stop himself. It did his tortured ego a world of good to hear an attractive woman like Mary Ellen found him handsome. “I hardly think there’s much to worry about, Henry. I watch the two of you. It’s positively sickening. I don’t see how either of you get much done. All the two of you do all day is make silly faces at each other.” Henry’s shoulders lifted in a shrug and Reed was sure the man was grinning like a fool.
“We’re very suited to each other.”
“It’s clear.”
“Mary Ellen is sure the women will think the same about you as she. The handsome nonsense and all,” Henry said.
Reed sat quietly. “You disagreed.”
“I didn’t disagree,” he stuttered. “I just …”
“You wondered though about the chair.”
“Well, yes, Reed. I did,” Henry said. “She assured me though, that women choose men for different reasons than men choose women.”
Reed drew a deep breath of the night air. “That’s not been my experience.”
Henry stood after a time. “I hope you join us Saturday. Good night, Reed.”
“Henry?” Reed saw the man now in the light of the hotel door. “Where does Beulah go so secretively?”
“Nothing secretive about it. Her brother and his wife own a small farm just outside of town. She’s there mostly when she’s not here. Why do you ask?”
“Nothing really. I admit she intrigues me. And I heard her talking to someone earlier before she came in. She’s … different.”
“Ask her, Reed. If she wants to tell you she will. If she doesn’t, well …” Henry trailed off.
* * *
Belle huddled under her thin blanket and read and reread her own scrawling. Miss Belle Richards. She had written her own name and could read it as well. Belle touched the lead marks and marveled at how much she had learned. Only weeks ago, signs, books, everything with letters were merely odd symbols. She knew her alphabet, now and understood they each stood for certain sounds. Belle’s eyes teared as she thought of her mother and how proud she would be. A Richards could read. Well, Belle conceded, not read everything but she had the key, the letters and their sounds and that was enough for now.
Belle had gone to the general store that day and knew the box she was handed was indeed salt. It said so. Belle held the box and sounded out in her head, s-a-l-t, even as the clerk eyed her fascination. She carefully concealed her newfound knowledge from everyone she knew, lest someone mention to her father or brothers her new skill. They would be furious, Belle knew. She was a woman and had no need of reading. They would be jealous as well. But more than anything else, she feared for her very life if they found out a Negro had taught her. Belle shivered at the thought but soon closed her eyes in exhaustion.
* * *
“Git up, Belle. Pa’s as mean as a bear today. Cook him somethin’.”
Belle’s eyes opened gritty to the early morning. She peeled back the blanket and yawned. “Why don’t you cook him something then, Frank?” She stood, stretched and fumbled with the buttons on her nightclothes. “Git out of here. I gotta get dressed.”
“What’s this?”
Belle whirled around and saw Frank staring quizzically at the paper. The paper from under her sheets with her name on it again and again. She felt the blood drain from her face. “Nothing. Give me that,” she said and made a wild grab.
“I knows that word is ‘Richards’. What’s this un?” Frank asked. His shoulders dropped and he turned to her. “That says ‘Belle’, don’t it?”
“How would I know what it said, Frank? I can’t read,” Belle replied.
“Don’t lie to me, Belle.”
She fidgeted with her hands. “Go on. Get out of here. I gotta get dressed.”
Frank sat down on her bed and stared up at her. “Where’d you git this learnin’?” Belle turned away. “Tell me or I’ll git Pa.”
Belle’s eyes opened wide and her lips went white. “Don’t get Pa, Frank, please.” Frank did not move from her bed. “I … I’m a learnin’ at church.”
“Shiiieet, Belle. Pa and Jed’ll kill you. Anyway, ain’t no woman needs learnin’. Pa can’t read. Jed and I can’t read. Ma couldn’t read. What makes you think you needs to know how?”
“What’s the matter with me knowing how to read? Lots a woman know how to read.”
“Not dirt poor farmer women.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be a dirt poor farmer woman, Frank. Did you ever think of that?” Belle asked in a hushed whisper.
Rustling from the other side of Belle’s curtain drew he
r and Frank’s head around. “Belle,” her father shouted.
“Comin’ Pa.” She stared at her brother, pleadingly and whispered to Frank. “Please, don’t tell.”
Frank moved through the curtain first and took a sharp blow to his ear from his father. “Don’t be trying to see your sister dressing. You some kind of trash, Frank Richards?”
Belle hurried to the sink. “We was just talking Pa. Sit down. I’ll get you some breakfast.”
Frank held his head and eyed her. “Goin’ out huntin’, Pa.”
Tom Richards shrugged. “Cup a coffee first, Belle.”
She hurried to do her father’s bidding, straightening the house as her biscuits rose. Belle folded Frank’s clothes neatly and wondered what else she could do assure her brother’s silence.
* * *
It was Thursday evening and the summer heat hung still even after the sun was down. The moon would be a full one soon, Reed thought, as he sat in the shadows of the back porch of the Ames Hotel. His signs posted at the courthouse in the land office had yielded some inquiries, and he had spent the evening reviewing Missouri law. The transfer of Mr. Brant’s deed to the Andrews would be routine. He heard Mary Ellen’s voice and would need to decide if he was going to accompany his cousin to the theatre that Saturday. Reed supposed he would. He was curious about John Benson, the other attorney in town. After Reed had posted his sign in the land office, he had met him.
John Benson was a tall, well-dressed loud talker. Reed heard his booming voice in the hallway and watched men scurry to keep up and women nod with shy smiles. Benson shook every hand and winked at every woman. Reed’s mother would have called him slick, and Reed wondered what office the man was running for. Benson had seen Reed and made a spectacle of their meeting.
“So you’re the new attorney in town,” Benson boomed with a wide smile.
Reed nodded and shook the man’s hand. “Reed Jackson.”
“John Benson. Glad to have another champion of the Constitution here in our small town. The U. S. Constitution that is,” Benson said.
Reed smiled slowly at the sly reference to his loyalties. The courthouse crowd watched them, Reed knew. “A pleasure to meet you, sir.”
Benson’s eyes darted to his audience. “Don’t you be trying to steal all my business,” he quipped with a laugh.
Reed listened to the hushed giggles. “There seems to be more than enough work to go around,” Reed replied.
“I’ll send you some clients I don’t have time for. Staying at the Ames Hotel, aren’t you?”
Reed nodded and watched a young woman approach asking for a few moments of Benson’s time. He replied loudly in the affirmative and leaned down to Reed’s ear. “My leavings won’t be the young good-looking ones.” The man turned and offered his arm gallantly to the young woman. Reed watched them leave and the young woman tilt her head and look up to Benson. Benson gave Reed a quick wink before turning back to the woman with a sympathetic shake of his head.
Reed’s thoughts returned to the present when he heard the latch lift. Would that be Miss Beulah, he wondered? She climbed the steps, and Reed held his breath.
“Good evening, Mr. Jackson,” Beulah said.
Reed let out the held air in his lungs. “Miss Beulah. Spring is gone, and summer is upon us. I can feel it in the air.”
“Another season passes,” the woman said.
“Yes, it does.”
“Good night, Mr. Jackson.”
“Good night, Miss Beulah.”
* * *
The house party after the theatre on Saturday night was held at the home of Fenton’s physician. Dr. Jim and Linda Lowell hosted twenty guests for dessert and coffee after a dismal recounting of Othello. Henry turned Reed’s chair around at the three wide steps leading to the porch and over the threshold into the spacious Lowell home. Reed shook men’s hands and kissed women’s gloves for a full half an hour. He watched John Benson entertain a circling crowd of women and men and, unfortunately, was subject to the man’s boorish opinions on many subjects.
“What a buffoon,” Dr. Lowell said as he seated himself beside Reed.
Reed chuckled and accepted a tumbler of whiskey. “My profession does seem to attract many men who love to hear the sound of their own voices.”
“You’ve said very little,” Jim Lowell replied.
“I prefer to observe,” Reed replied.
“Especially the lovely Miss Walcott.”
“Can you blame me?”
Jim Lowell laughed. “Not at all. Don’t tell my wife that, sir. But Miss Walcott is a tempting package. Have you been introduced?”
“Yes.”
The two men sat silently, watching the crowd. Jim Lowell turned his drink in his hand and faced Reed. “Tell me about your injuries.”
“My leg was shot off.”
The doctor’s brows raised and he smiled. “Obviously.”
Reed’s face grew scarlet, and he turned from the man’s regard.
“What is the extent of the injuries to your right leg?” Dr. Lowell asked.
Reed turned back to face the doctor, grimly. “I didn’t realize you held office hours during a party, sir.”
Jim Lowell smiled. “Henry warned me to keep my mouth shut.” He leaned back in his chair casually and crossed his legs. “I worked in a Union hospital during the war. I had much success with leg injuries.”
Reed bit back a retort. “I have been told by the best doctors in the South I will never walk again. I have resigned myself.”
“Humph,” Jim Lowell remarked. “Many men who heard that exact diagnosis came to me. Some now walk.”
Reed studied the man, and the doctor met his stare, unblinking. “What could you know that they don’t?” Reed asked.
“Maybe you’ll stop in my office sometime to find out. Excuse me, Reed. I hear the Missus calling.”
The festivities lasted well into the evening, and Reed’s anger rose. Controlled, contained fury at Jim Lowell’s implication. Probably thinks all Southern doctors are crackers, Reed thought. May think I don’t want out of this goddamned chair, as if I have a choice. I wouldn’t be in this two-bit town if I had legs, Reed cursed. He was silent on the short trip home to the hotel while Henry and Mary Ellen chatted about the play and the party. Mary Ellen bid good night as Reed wheeled up the ramp.
“I think I’ll follow her,” Henry said to him. “Something wrong, Reed?”
“No.”
“Hope you enjoyed yourself tonight,” Henry said.
“It was a lovely evening. Thank you.” Reed watched as his cousin stood hands in his pockets, apparently waiting for Reed to explain his foul mood. “Good night, Henry.”
Henry’s eyes widened with the dismissal, and Reed did not care. He wheeled himself to the corner of the porch and leaned an elbow on the railing. Reed cursed his cousin and his friends softly, aloud. “Tsk, tsk,” he heard from the other side of the porch. Reed’s head swung around. “Who’s there?”
“Your cousin has shown you nothing but kindness, Mr. Jackson.”
No wonder he could not make out a face. The speaker was Beulah. “I’m in no mood for a lecture.” Reed knew she was right, of course. “I didn’t know you were there.”
“Would it have stopped your curses had you known I was here?”
Unsure of as to why, Reed blurted out what he was thinking. “The only time you speak to me, and I’m too angry to ask my questions.”
The night was silent for a time. “What questions?”
Reed harrumphed and threw up his hands. He still smarted from Jim Lowell’s comments. And here he spoke with a woman whose race and existence somehow bore the blunt of his wrath and blame for the loss of his legs. “You walk around here as if you owned the hotel. You speak flawless English with no trace of the South. Where did you come from?” Reed turned his head.
“The Ameses have entrusted me with a position of responsibility. It is important I fill the role. I was tutored until I was sixteen by an Englis
h man. I was born in Georgia.”
“You were not a slave?”
“Oh, yes.”
Reed shrugged. “Most slave owners do not tutor their slaves.”
“My mother became the plantation master’s concubine when I was very young.”
Reed knew first hand of what Beulah spoke. He had seen it time and again in the South. “Even still, teaching slaves to read was a punishable offense.”
“I was to replace my mother when she aged as his consort. He wanted a woman he could converse with as well as abuse.”
Reed was shocked. Not at what the man had done but at Beulah’s admissions. “Not one of the slaves at my home could read. My mother read them the Bible at Christmas.”
“I’m sure the Negroes who worked your land passed stories in their own way. Without reading.”
Reed thought about what Beulah had said. It still did not answer all of his questions. But the frank talk had let his anger subside and explained some of the mysteries surrounding this woman. Beulah’s voice broke his thoughts.
“With whom or what are you angry?”
Reed turned at her question. In his world, Negroes did not ask those kinds of questions. Personal questions whose answers sometimes revealed inner thoughts. “I don’t care to discuss the matter.”
“With a black freewoman especially.”
She was right, Reed knew. “Why do you want to know who I’m angry with?” He heard the wicker rocker she sat in squeak, and he knew Beulah settled back in her chair. Reed thought their conversation had ended.
“I must admit I’m as curious about you and your kind as you are about me and mine.”
The tone of her voice revealed the reluctance of the confession. Beulah’s voice was soothing, and her pointed and frank talk fascinated him. Apparently she was captivated as well.
“Well, Miss Beulah, since you answered my questions, I feel duty-bound to answer yours.” Reed paused and took a deep breath. “At the party this evening, a doctor asked me what happened to my legs. He seems to feel that the Southern doctors who treated me may be wrong in their diagnosis. That I may walk again.”