by Tara Conklin
Once I commenced working for Mr. Rust, my days took on a routine more or less, with all my work accomplished by midafternoon and my nights free for the tavern. This was the purgatory to which I was condemned, and it seemed like God’s hand. Retribution for what I had done.
So it went, month after month, the dark faces and cracked bleeding feet of my patients blending one into the other just as my days and nights blurred into one long blinding twilight.
So it went, until the morning I saw Josephine.
The day after I first examined Josephine at the barn, I rode to Mr. Rust’s farm to check again on the status of her injuries. I would often administer further care in cases like hers where the wounds were severe or unsightly and might, if not healed properly, affect the price to be fetched later at sale.
I loosed my horse in Mr. Rust’s side field and walked through the long grass to the wooden shed he had erected on his property for the purpose of sheltering slaves before they were sold on. His was a neglected, aging farmhouse with sloped roof and graying shingles, the land overgrown with tall grasses and chickweed. There had once been cattle, I think, and some horses—the barn is still there, the doors sagging on their hinges. It was next to the barn that he had built the shed, just a thin-walled box of a place with cracks in the timber and a tar-paper roof that in a heavy rain dripped down onto those souls locked inside. Inside were six low cots, three on either wall, and a table set at one end with two three-legged stools pushed beneath it. There were no windows, and a large padlock secured the door.
I released the padlock and the door swung open silently. Bo was directly to my left, on his side with his back to the door, and he breathed steadily in sleep. Josephine was laid out on the cot farthest from the door, beyond the circle of light that fell from the open doorway. Someone had covered her with a blanket, and that, and the darkness of the room, had the effect of shrouding her body. Her head was turned towards the wall, and all I saw of her was a knot of dark hair cast across the pillow. She was still and I worried that she had died in the night, that I had been wrong to think there was something inside her that would persevere.
I stepped forward to check her pulse, and she turned her head towards me, and for a moment I froze there, looking down at her across the expanse of empty cots. Her good eye—the left—was toffee-colored, lighter than I would have expected, shot through with green or blue, some color that seemed not to belong there. The light struck that eye and the contours of her face and I could see her studying me, examining.
I advanced into the room, pulled a stool to her bedside and sat; all the while her eye remained on me. Carefully I unwrapped the dressing on her bad eye to reveal a lid tightly closed, the skin swollen a dark purplish black. Josiah had said he didn’t touch her, that he’d found her with an eye like that, and I did believe him. But someone must have struck her across the face, and looking down at that good eye, exposed and alive, I felt a bristling, a sense that something was wrong with a world that permitted, indeed encouraged, the infliction of pain without reason or consequence. During my medical training I had been taught to characterize symptoms and measure the markings of disease, to remove emotion from all our scientific inquiries and attempts at remedy. It was a course that had always come easy to me, which is perhaps why I had remained in the profession, even after Dorothea’s passing. I could focus my mind on the patient as a combination of numbers, colors, symptoms, and facts.
But Josephine’s one-eyed gaze troubled me more than I could say. I saw her not as a doctor, but as a man of faith who had lost himself. Why had her left eye survived? Why had the other closed so firmly with perhaps, as I then feared, a permanent loss of sight? Was it kindness that had spared the left and brutality that had closed the right? In the case of sickness and accident, it was God’s will or fate or luck that struck a person down. But here it was a man’s fist, a man playing at God. A merciless God. And myself playing at it too, in my work for Mr. Rust. I looked at her face and saw no healing there. Just an angry man with heavy fists, a wasted life, a stinking mouthful of drink and shame.
I was shaken and turned away from her gaze. I completed my examination quickly. I applied dressing to her wound, the fresh gauze white and fine as new clouds, and then I left, pushing my horse to a full gallop on the road to town so that he was covered in a frothy sweat and my breath was coming hard and fast when finally we arrived.
The next day, the sky pale and cloudless, I went again to examine Josephine.
I could not wait for the Lord to release us, she said to me. She commenced talking the moment I laid my hand on her face to unwrap the gauze. It came away cleanly and I prodded gently the purple eyelid. The others believed it was God’s will to be enslaved, she said, and only some divine intervention or unmistakable sign of redemption would cause them to break away. She believed different, that is what she told me, and the words were uttered harsh and pure, rousing the rattle in her chest. I had ceased worrying about the eye, it seemed to be healing well, but it was the cough that now gave me pause, as consumption afflicted a great many in the region. Her spasm lasted 30 seconds, perhaps 45 but no more than a minute, and she reached a hand from below the blankets to wipe her wet mouth. When she laid it back against the cover, I saw no blood, which gave me some comfort.
Don’t send me back, she whispered to me then. Don’t. The good eye stared up at me again, those threads of greenish blue blazing. The cabin was stifling, and sweat pricked my brow. Outside I heard the whistle of a meadowlark.
That was when I first began to think of freedom. I believe that was the moment, if I had to pinpoint the exact time, which I want to do now, to remember it all and fix it here for you. That was the moment. The weight of her eye on my face so heavy it was like a hand, the closeness of that small shack, and the bird’s distant call. I thought of freedom for her and for myself.
I didn’t speak. Don’t send me back, she said again, and those words charged the distance between us, the space seeming to wave and pulse, waiting for my answer.
I finished my examination and applied a poultice, some medicinal herbs in petroleum jelly that gave off a strong smell of licorice and left her bruised lid heavy with shine. Still I said nothing. I felt afraid and I did not know why.
Josephine’s left hand lay atop the blankets and I picked it up. She did not fight me though for a fraction of an instant I felt her body tense and it seemed that she might snatch her hand away or even raise it to strike me. But she didn’t, she allowed me to pull down the covers and place her hand gently onto her chest and then pull the covers up around her chin.
I will bring you something more for your eye, I said. I will be back later today to check on you again.
She nodded, her good eye on me. I met her gaze then and I think she saw that I was afraid because she looked slightly puzzled, her eyebrows drawing together and down as she studied me.
As before, Bo seemed asleep. I heard his breathing steady and strong and presumed he did not need my attentions.
I turned and left the room, fixing the padlock as I closed the door. I sat down hard on the front steps of the shack and looked back across the unkempt green field towards Mr. Rust’s farmhouse, some 20 yards away. Mr. Rust just then opened the front door and stepped squinting into the morning sunlight, rubbing his shiny forehead and holding a leather hat in one hand. He placed it on his bony head and directed his gaze, now shaded, towards the shack and me.
I did not wave or acknowledge him as he came wading through the field towards me, slapping at the tall grass and wayward corn stalks left from when a farmer lived there. He stood before me, his belt just level with my eyes, and I did not raise them to his face.
So how are our runaways doing? he asked. I’ve a mind to just sell them on straightaway, not wait for them to heal up. Too many niggers to catch.
He laughed and told me then of a trap he’d orchestrated at the old Rounds farm, once a station on the Underground Railroad but deserted now for some time. Fugitives still went that way
and Mr. Rust paid the overseers throughout the region to perpetuate the illusion that safety might be found there. Patrollers waited nightly to catch unsuspecting runaways and the success of the endeavor had well exceeded Mr. Rust’s expectations. He told me this with apparent pride in his own cleverness as he slapped his palm against his thigh with quick, jerky movements.
Well, I answered slow, my mind working. The female is healing well though her one eye is still swollen shut and the boy Bo is strong and healthy as an ox.
Good, he said and looked back towards his farmhouse and the dirt path snaking from the front door towards the road as though he were expecting a visitor. I think we may have a buyer soon, he said, his head still turned towards the road. Customer from down south, New Orleans–ways. Sugar. There was a pause. He turned back to face me.
I need to fetch some iodine for the girl’s eye, I left my bag back in town, I told him. I stood from the steps and Mr. Rust fell into the shadow I cast.
Go do it, he said with disinterest, but be back before nightfall, the buyer’ll be here then. He’ll be wanting to hear your warranty, he’s a suspicious fella.
I nodded, and cut across the field back to my horse and the path out to the road.
At that moment, I did not know what I would do.
I rode back to town, to the guesthouse where I had been staying, to the black medical bag that Dr. Coggins had given me so long ago. I concentrated on maneuvering the horse through the pitted street, past the saloon where Mr. Rust first found me, past the general store where ladies bought their hats and fine cloth sent from Paris, past the buggies and the people of the town who crowded the street on that sunny September morning.
I hitched the horse before the guesthouse and took the steps two at a time to my room, which smelled of whiskey and smoke and sunshine. I retrieved the iodine bottle and some cotton from the medical bag and stood for a moment with the top open, staring down into its divided compartments at the stoppered bottles and gleaming steel instruments. I wondered if these were as marvelous as once I had thought them, all of these cures to aid the sick and dying. At least half were unopened, untried, and the contents of my bag—so carefully collected, so jealously guarded—seemed worthless to me suddenly, a collection of shiny toys.
I left the bag behind, taking with me only the iodine, cotton, and a thick roll of bills I retrieved from beneath a loose board in the floor, all my earnings from my time with Mr. Rust.
It was nearly noon when I rode back to Mr. Rust’s farm. I knew that he would be in the saloon at this time, drinking his midday meal alone at a table, or with one or two others with whom I often saw him, chewing and spitting their tobacco and talking of money.
Sure enough, Mr. Rust’s horse was gone and there was a stillness about the place. I walked purposefully to the shack with iodine bottle in hand and fitted the key into the padlock. The door creaked open and now Bo was awake and Josephine asleep. Bo sat half-upright on his cot, his bare torso supported on his elbows, and looked at me without expectation. A long, thin scar cut across his chest and stomach, a raised band of flesh colored a dirty pink that seemed not yet fully healed. He lay back down, eyes open to the ceiling, and I walked past him to Josephine’s cot. I touched her shoulder and immediately her good eye flew open and she started, her hand rising up to shield her face.
I have the medicine for your eye, I said. I must administer it outside, I need the light. Can you walk? Josephine peered up at me, lowered her arm, and she seemed to decide something then, and I was glad that I did not have to say more.
I helped her up. She leaned on my arm and we walked awkwardly past Bo, who turned his head away from the ceiling to watch us. His scalp was shiny with sweat and the whites of his eyes lined with red, and I quickly looked away and led Josephine out the door. As we stepped into the hot, breezy air, I heard a growl from inside, a sound an animal would make. As I closed the padlock on the door, the well-oiled mechanism clicking evenly shut, Bo said: Take me too, doctor. It was not a scream but a cry of naked desperation and I shook my head to rid my ears of the sound.
Take me too, he said again, louder this time. I heard a pounding on the back of the door, a furious frenzied noise as Josephine and I walked down the steps, along the dirt path towards my horse.
Josephine looked back, and then up at me. I threw the iodine away into the tall grass and she didn’t say a word but hurried her steps to keep apace with mine.
Then suddenly, as we neared the hitching post, she darted away to the door of Mr. Rust’s house and disappeared inside. I hesitated, unsure if I should follow, unsure if she understood the urgency of our circumstances. I heard noises from within, clanging and items falling to the floor, and just as quickly as she had disappeared, she emerged again, holding a bone-handled knife in her hand. This is mine, she said, and tucked it into the waistband of her dress.
Can you ride? I asked as I untied the horse’s reins. She shook her head no. Well, just hold on then, I said and I mounted and pulled her up behind me. Her arms circled round my waist and, as I spurred the horse on to a gallop, tightened so that I felt the thinness of her forearms and hard pressure of her fingertips against my stomach.
Why did I not take Bo? Why did I not leave the lock open so that he too could run? Was Josephine more deserving than he? Did I believe it might hinder myself and Josephine in our escape were I to let Bo free?
Because of what came later, I have asked myself these questions many times. I have searched for a complexity of purpose, a reason or intention within me; but in truth nothing of the sort existed. The answer is simply that I did not think of Bo. It did not enter my mind to release him. Something in Josephine moved me. Her youth, her voice, her eyes that seemed a reflection of the sea and the sky together. I cannot say what it was exactly that moved me but she did, and Bo did not.
I did not even think of him as a man, which is the sorry shameful truth of it.
Where were Josephine and I to go? I had brought nothing with me; I had not packed a bag or loaded provisions onto the horse. All I possessed was the blanket strapped across my horse’s back, the clothes I wore, and, stuffed in the top of my right boot, the thick pile of bills. It was by no means a fortune, but I expected it would get us far enough.
As we rode, first over open, grassy country to skirt the town to the east and then back towards the road heading north, I fixed on our destination: Philadelphia. Although I had never moved within abolitionist circles, I knew that my connections at the medical college would prove helpful, at least in providing an introduction to those who might aid a fugitive slave. With the Fugitive Slave Act, Josephine would be truly free only once past the Canadian border. Finding her passage along the Underground Railroad, its conductors expert already in the Canadian routes, would surely be safer and faster than my own northward wanderings.
I slowed the horse and half-turned in the saddle to tell her of my intention. She nodded in agreement and smiled, the first time I saw her do it, just a slight upturn of her lips but it was indeed the sun that shone forth from her face, and I felt her whole person relax onto the horse as though only then did she truly accept my assistance, more than a need but a choice she herself was making, the two of us riding together, northwards, to the city of Philadelphia.
For 10 days, we traveled on seldom-used roads that threw dust into my face and meandered us past dry used-up farms, for a time along the cracked bed of a far-gone stream, through the odd small town, on up all the way to Philadelphia. The unseasonable heat continued, both a bane and a blessing for us. We camped away from the road, lighting only small fires; the warm nights required nothing more. But the days riding were hard, the sun bearing down on us, and Josephine without a hat. I fashioned one for her from a scrap of waxed tarp and some rope, and it seemed to ease her discomfort. Once, heavy into our third day, the sky blackened suddenly, and a temple of rain opened upon us. We rode through it, grateful for the cool, and we both lifted our heads and opened our mouths to let the water slide down our throats.
The spectre of Mr. Rust rarely left my mind. Perhaps I was extreme in my caution, paranoid even, choosing such a circuitous route, never hiring us proper lodging. But I had once seen him track down a fugitive, a boy no more than 13 or 14. Mr. Rust had been unrelenting in his search, sparing no amount of time or expense to bring the sorry boy back. I could not say what he’d do to catch the pair of us, but I imagined my involvement would only further harden his resolve to have Josephine returned to him.
As we traveled, the night fires were sheltering, the warm sky was close. In those rare moments when I forgot our pursuer, forgot the circumstances of our coming together, it seemed like we were not running but rather existing in a sawed-off separate place where the days were ordered by constant forward motion and the sun, the nights by firelight and the sound of Josephine’s voice.
At night Josephine talked. Not much at first but more and more as the days passed. I have heard tell of the deep oil reserves in the far West, emerging at first as a trickle and then a moment comes when the powers of the earth unrestrained push the oil up with a great and sudden rush and there is no stopping it. This was how Josephine’s talking came on, and I the prospector there to catch it.
The people of her early life, perhaps you have heard their names already from Jack. Mr. and Mrs. Bell, her owners at Bell Creek. Lottie, the closest she had to a mother. Louis, the boy who cared for her, who was sold away. Great hardship was delivered on Josephine there, though in many ways her lot was better than that of the field hands. Her physical needs, she said, were met. Food, clothing, and the like. She spoke well of the lessons she received from her Missus, an invalid for whom she cared. And her painting, a subject on which she spoke most passionately. She carried with her some pictures of her own creation, on the back of each she put the name of her subject, and they are indeed marvels. There seemed a tenderness in Josephine towards her Missus for these kindnesses, and it was indeed rare I think for a house girl to be given rein to pursue such activities. But Josephine held a deep anger too. The details she conveyed were spare. I did not press her to explain.