Morning in Nicodemus (8 page)

   Jenny had more pupils than she expected. They ranged from five years old to Bethel Martin who was seventeen. Some learned much faster than others. Since Liberty could read, she helped with the reading lessons while she was learning more advanced subjects than she had had in her school in Kentucky—geography, history, and mathematics.

   Though Bethel was having problems with reading as she was just learning, she grasped the math concepts faster than Liberty. Soon the two girls were helping each other as well as the younger ones.

   Liberty loved school. She quickly finished her work at home each morning, fixed the boys' dinner, and saddled Beauty for the quick ride to Nicodemus. Marcus learned that if he didn't let her go because of some task he needed done, her bad mood ruined the day for all of them. Liberty rarely missed an afternoon.

   Not only did she absorb the learning in the few books Jenny had available, but she thrived on the social contacts. Though she had been friends with Bethel since the Martins moved in, this close contact and mutual interest bonded them even more.

   She thrilled with the knowledge she was getting, but more than that, she decided for sure what her future would be. She would become a teacher. Jenny bragged often at Liberty's skill in handling and teaching the pupils, even those her age or older. Her vitality and optimistic personality infected the whole school. 

   Jenny told her about the state Normal Schools that offered more advanced work than elementary schools. They taught students how to teach. In Kansas colored students could attend. Previously, her visions of the futures for young people had been the same as her family's. If a boy, to become a landowner and farm the land. If a girl, to marry a farmer. Most of the people she knew made their living as farmers. Jenny said that two out of every three workers in the whole United States made their living from the land. However, the Fletchers didn't. Jenny's husband was a merchant. And she wasn't merely his assistant. She was a schoolteacher.

   One afternoon in class, Liberty was thinking about her future plans instead of reading the passages in her book about the Greek and Roman civilizations. She wondered if women then had interesting jobs. The books didn't say. All the narrative was about the men–-their achievements in government, in trade, in battle. Even in the arts. Nothing about the women. Did they do anything but keep house and have babies?

   Her American history book didn't mention women either, except as a wife of some famous man, like Martha Washington or Mary Todd Lincoln.

   She wondered if the reason Mrs. Lincoln looked so sour in the picture in the book was that all she could do was to keep house and raise babies while her famous husband was freeing the slaves and trying to stop a war.

   There had to have been teachers back in those historic times. “Miss Jenny,” she asked, “were there any women teachers in Greek and Roman days?”

   “I hadn't thought about it,” Jenny said. “But I don't think so. They were all men and the students were boys.”

   “What about the girls?”

   “I guess their mothers taught them what they needed to know.”

   Liberty grinned. “We're better off here in Nicodemus. This is our promised land. We have a woman teacher and in my family, I, the only girl, am the one with any education. My brothers never got to go to school a single day.”

   “Boys are needed on the farm. Without their work, the family would starve.”

   Liberty knew that. Goodness sakes alive, she'd been told that often enough. But she couldn't help wondering if the whole purpose of life was just to exist, not to starve, then what's there for them to exist for? Just work and work and . . . People have minds and souls as well as stomachs. She sighed. “What a waste when there was so much beauty to see and hear.”

   Virgil frequently stopped by the school when he was in town for special errands, or sometimes when he is just playing hooky on a not-so-busy day. Marcus never stopped by the schoolroom when he had business in the store. 

   And he never played hooky, even on slack days. However Liberty noticed that he always rode Buck by the schoolroom and took a quick glance to see if Bethel was there. 

   Sometimes Bethel looked up and they smiled. Marcus didn't slow down, but rode on past, though his mood that night at supper was happier.

   But Virgil would leave Lady hitched to the store rail and walk over to the schoolroom. He'd hang around until recess time. Since Liberty and Bethel and a couple other older girls didn't go outside to play, he'd enter and go to Liberty as if he had some business with her. Of course, Bethel was usually beside his sister, so the two chatted away the recess period.

   Virgil would even sometimes stay a bit after class took up again. The fact that he was a big man with mustache and beard and looked out of place among the little children didn't bother him at all. He'd listen for a while to the recitations before quietly stepping out.

One evening when he and Liberty were alone in the soddy, he said, “I need to know how to read.” Marcus was outside in the new patch digging up a few more blocks of sod before it became too dark.

   “Want me to teach you?” Liberty asked.

   For answer, Virgil pulled her down to sit on the bench beside him at the table. Without any books and only a few precious sheets of paper she saved for writing letters to her parents, she didn't know how she would start. Tomorrow she would go to the river and find a slab of slate-like stone and a chunk of that limey rock to write with. 

   Virgil's eager expression told her he didn't want to wait. He wanted to start right now. She glanced around the room for something she could use. The walls were papered with old newspapers she'd gathered from the discarded ones at the store.

   “Perfect,” she said. It was still light enough in the soddy to see without lighting a candle. She pointed to the bigger letters in headlines and sounded them out. 

   She decided the consonants would be easier to begin with. “B,” she said, “it sounds like bah, like in bah-ttle.” Then he picked out other words starting with B and emphasized the bah sound. It didn't take many lessons for his keen mind to grasp the secret of reading. Soon he could read all of the newspapers, even the advertisements. Sometimes he had to crane his neck or almost stand on his head as the papers were often pasted on the wall upside down or sideways.

   At every meal he would sound out more words from the newspaper wallpaper as he ate. Marcus didn't say anything, though Liberty noticed that he listened intently.

 
   Marcus was unrelenting. When there was no urgent job to do, he insisted they break more ground. “We can plant more wheat this fall,” he said. “Break more ground to plant more corn next spring.” Break more. Plant more. That was the key to their survival. Feed the animals, break some more ground. Milk the cow, break more ground. Cultivate the corn, break some more ground. It was the underlying refrain in the unending rhythm of his work. He explained that they wouldn't have any income if they didn't plant more crops. And to plant crops, they needed to deal first with the deep, tough sod.

   Virgil knew that, of course. But preparing the virgin prairie for a crop was the job Virgil disliked most. He usually managed to find something else he needed to do, so that Marcus did most of the work of working with the sod. 

   During the early summer weeks Virgil cultivated their few acres of corn with Lady harnessed to the battered one-horse cultivator he traded for. He had to rebuild the handles and sharpen the rusted blades, but he enjoyed that task. 

   Fixing things sure beat cutting sod. He sometimes hitched Buck to the cultivator to train him to harness. Buck was more stubborn than Lady. 

   He'd stall so that Virgil had to use all his skill to make him move. The gelding continually tried to get a bite of the tender corn plants as he plodded down each row. Virgil persisted, even though he could finish the job with Lady in half the time. He was determined he'd have a team ready to bring his parents home from the railroad station when they came. Bringing his parents home was his excuse, but under his concern for their comfort, he knew his main reason was because he liked working with the horses. Even stubborn Buck. Anything to avoid the sod-breaking.

   As he guided the unwilling gelding between the last two rows of corn, he figured up how long it would take before he'd be able to have all his acres in cultivation. At the rate they were going, he'd be an old man before they could have even his 160 acres ready for crops. So far in a year and a half, they had only ten acres, five in wheat and five in corn. He was good with numbers. He could figure out sums quickly in his head. It'd take at least fifteen more years just to do his farm at that rate. Then when Pa got his 160 acres and Marcus his . . . ? 

   Virgil shook his head. Not in his lifetime. He couldn't do it. He had much better things he wanted to do. Then he wondered. Maybe they shouldn't break the ground at all. Leave it natural and run cattle? Marcus certainly wouldn't agree to that thinking. Nor would his neighbors. Break ground to raise more crops was the guiding rule.

   He finished laying by the corn before four o'clock. This late in June the sun was still high in the sky. The river beckoned. Lots of time. 

   Satisfied with his work, instead of joining Marcus to help him in the new plot he was breaking, when he unhitched Buck, he spent extra time currying him. 

   He told the buckskin what a good horse he was and even let him eat a few precious grains of corn out of his hand before turning him loose. He gathered his fishing gear and walked to the river. His excuse? Easy. They hadn't had any fresh fish in a while.

   Thinking happy thoughts about Bethel and the pleasant chat they recently enjoyed after their disagreement at the church dinner, he walked through the tall grass to the line of trees and brush along the river that concealed his favorite rocky perch. Just upriver from the sloped entry down the bank to their ford was a rocky, half-hidden recessed ledge below the wooded bank. This rocky spot, unusual along the river, was one reason Virgil picked this claim. Expecting to spend an hour or so of quiet time there, he was upset to see Bruce Wallace climbing over the rocks along the edge of the water. He was carefully crawling along the water line, searching every inch of the way, from the water to the top of the bank, poking into crevasses with a stick and jumping on rocks to see if they wobbled. He was just about to reach Virgil's fishing spot.

   “Hey!” Virgil shouted. “What the hell are you doing here?”

   Astonished, Bruce looked up.

   “This ain't a public ford,” Virgil yelled. “This is my land.” When Bruce didn't say anything or move, Virgil shouted again, “I asked, what're you doing here? Can't you answer a simple question?”

   Bruce glanced about him. There was no way to escape unless he jumped into the water or climbed up the bank where Virgil's tall figure blocked his way.

   “Ah, I'm just—”

   “You're trespassing, is just what you're a-doing,” Virgil said. His face was hot. He clenched his hands. 

   Finding Bruce in his private spot brought up all the animosity he'd felt for this man the months he'd been in Nicodemus. Except for his own family, Likes-to-Hunt was the only person Virgil had ever seen here. They were natural and belonged here like the squirrels and the fish. This man was an interloper. “You got no business here.”

   “Ah! I'm leaving,” Bruce muttered. He stepped back from the rocky ledge. “I was just—” His boots slipped on some loose sand and pebbles. He lost his balance. With arms waving wildly, he fell into the river. Though the river was shallow in most places along its banks, here where it washed against the rocky ledge, it had carved out a deep hole. With a big splash, Bruce hit the water flat on his left side. He screamed as he sank. Surfacing, his arms slapping the water, he screamed again. “Help me! I can't swim! Help m—” he sputtered with a mouth full of water as he sank again.

   Disgusted and without hurrying, as if Bruce deserved drowning, Virgil pulled off his boots, his shirt, and pants and folding them, arranged them in a neat pile. He jumped into the river. Bruce was yelling and sputtering. When Virgil grasped him, Bruce thrashed his arms in panic.

   “Easy man,” Virgil said. When Bruce quieted, Virgil turned him on his back. “Just lay still,” he said. “I'll get you to the bank.” He tugged Bruce behind him as he swam down the river to the ford where they could touch bottom.

   Bruce choked and coughed up river water as his thrashing feet found the bottom. Grabbing Virgil around his waist to steady himself, he stood upright. 

   Still clutching the back of his sodden shirt, Virgil led him to the ford and the little-used trail leading from the prairie into the ford. Safely out of the river, Bruce collapsed, trembling and holding his head in his hands until he could breathe normally. 

   “Thanks,” he managed to say. He coughed a couple more times as he cleared his throat. “That's the second time I've almost choked to death,” he said in an undertone as he looked steadily at Virgil.

   “You should learn to swim,” was all Virgil could think to say. A minute ago he hated this man. Now that he'd saved his life, he didn't know what to think. He'd heard that Indians believed that if you saved someone's life, you were responsible for him. He sure didn't want that obligation. Not for this scum. But even though he disliked him, his feeling toward Bruce was changing. His anger lessened. Instead, he felt pity. He guessed that was what the townspeople felt toward him.

   “Yes, I should learn to swim,” Bruce said. He paused and though he hung his head, Virgil could see his agonized expression as he said, “The other time was on dry land.”

   Virgil was too busy trying to decide what to do next to realize what Bruce had said.

   “And at that time nobody saved me,” Bruce continued. “Everyone wanted me dead.”

   The last sentence caught Virgil's attention. “Wanted you dead?” 

   Bruce nodded.

   Virgil looked carefully at Bruce, starting from his dripping hair and his swollen face to his neck. There he noticed for the first time a jagged scar across the front like a rope would have made. As soon as Bruce realized Virgil saw the scar, he put his hand over it. 

   “What . . . ?” Virgil asked. “What happened to you?”

   He grabbed Bruce's hand and pulled it back to expose an ugly, red scar, usually hidden under his buttoned shirt. Now it was clearly exposed where the button had been pulled off when Virgil grabbed Bruce's shirt to save him.

   “I was lynched,” Bruce said as if that happened to people every day.

   “Did you steal someone else's horse and get caught?” In spite of this new information, Virgil wasn't ready to let go all of the anger he had for this man. 

   “No, I didn't steal no horse. And I didn't really steal your horse, neither. Or I didn't aim to. The bay was running loose, and I just couldn't help taking her. You had other horses. I didn't have nothing. It was my bad luck that Martin and Bethel saw me ride by their place. But I tied the mare up in back of the store until I could get her to Ellis and sell her. In that town no one would recognize her.” He looked at Virgil begging him to understand. “I gotta get some money. I'll do anything to get some. I didn't figure you'd show up so quick that morning afore I had time to hide the mare.”

   Virgil remembered some of the comments people in town said about Bruce. They didn't seem to think he was the scoundrel Virgil did. He heard remarks like, “He was alone,” or that “He'd had some trouble.” They seemed sorry for him. Virgil hadn't paid much attention to the comments because of Bruce's obvious resentment toward the Landers.

   Even though the afternoon was hot, Bruce was trembling. Water dripped from his sopping clothing onto the dry sand. He sat on a brush pile the river had washed up the last time it rose. His hands still shaking, he unlaced his boots and poured out the river water. 

   “If you didn't steal nothing, then why were you lynched?” Virgil demanded, looking at the scar on Bruce's neck. He tried to bring back the old anger, but in spite of himself, his voice softened as he added, “You're not dead, so how come you were almost lynched?”

   “Long story.”

   “I got time. Tell me.”

   “Yes, tell us.” Marcus's voice behind them on the trail surprised them. He was panting from running.

   “Yes, what happened, Bruce? Marc and I heard someone screaming down here,” Liberty said explaining their presence. “We came to see what it was all about. We thought it was Virge.” She was also breathing hard and leaning over to ease the pain in her side from running the quarter mile to the river. She looked at Bruce's soaked clothing and wet hair and saw Virgil buttoning up his shirt, which was dry. “I see that it must have been you who screamed. Did you almost drown?”

   Bruce nodded. “I fell in. Virgil saved me.”

   “Yes,” Marcus said, “we can see that. Now what about the lynching? Why were you almost lynched?”

   The three Landers sat in a semi-circle facing Bruce. They waited until he quit trembling and calmed down a bit.

   “What happened, Bruce?” Liberty asked, her eyes showing her compassion.

   “I'm from Arkansas,” he began slowly. When the three nodded for him to continue, he said, “I have a wife, Isabel, and little boy, Joey. We were sharecroppers and only barely scraped out enough to get by on.”

   When he paused, Marcus said, “Sounds like most of the settlers here. We all came to Nicodemus to find a better life.”

   “But what happened to you?” Liberty asked, urging him on.

   Bruce looked at each of the Landers. Apparently what he saw there reassured him, for he continued. “One night a gang of men with their heads tied up in hoods come to our place. Joey was asleep and Isabel and I were getting ready to go to bed. The men, there was about twelve of them, busted down the door and surrounded me. Isabel grabbed Joey and ran into the woods behind our house. The men wasn't interested in them. Before I could move, a couple men seized me. I seen they also had some of our neighbors tied up outside. They blindfolded us and strung us up one at a time on the limb of the big oak tree down the road from us.”

   Liberty sucked in her breath, “Oh!”

   “How'd you get away?” Virgil asked again looking at the scar on Bruce's neck.

   “Somebody out in the woods shot off a gun. I don't know who it was. Maybe the sheriff? It scared the hooded men and they run off. I was last to be hoisted up on the limb. The other men was dead. The rope was around my neck and my feet was just pulled off the ground when the shot sounded. The rope burned through my skin, making this scar,” he ran his fingers over the slanted line that ended by his right ear. “When the feller let go of the rope, I fell down and though my neck hurt like sin, it wasn't broken. I run.”

   Bruce paused. The others waited for him to continue. “I run all night. I didn't know where I was. When it got light, I just kept on a-going. 

   “Maybe for days, I don't know. All I wanted to do was get away. I prayed all the time that the men wouldn't see Isabel and Joey. Maybe they never saw them and didn't know they was there. I hoped so for I knowed them fellers. 

   “I recognized their voices. I couldn't never go back. I'd be a dead man sure if I ever did. I guess I run north because when I stopped and learned where I was, I was over the state line in Missouri.”

   “What happened to your wife and boy?” Liberty asked.

   “They're all right. I got word to them.”

   “And bringing them here is why you need the money?” Marcus asked.

   Bruce nodded. 

   “How come you came to Nicodemus?” Virgil asked. 

   Bruce told them the rest of his story.

 

 

*     *     * 

 

 

   When Bruce stopped running, both from exhaustion and believing he was far enough away to be safe, he was befriended by a rancher in Missouri who lived near the Kansas border. Frank Walker and his wife owned a big spread, and needing hands at round-up time, they gave Bruce a job. After learning Bruce's story, they got in touch with Isabel. She and the boy were safe and living with her parents in Arkansas.