Freeman (28 page)

“There will be no strangling,” she said finally. “Here is what we must do: Bonnie, when Paul arrives, you and he set about cleaning up this mess. Let the children help you. I would like to be able to hold classes here tomorrow, if that’s at all possible. When you are finished, please go down to the telegraph office and order a new set of McGuffeys and anything else we will need.”

“And what will you be doing?” asked Bonnie.

“I will be going to the county seat to speak to the provost marshal. I will implore him to send a troop of soldiers down to help us. I just need to find a way to get there.”

Big Will brightened. “Preacher Lee goin’ up there tomorrow to pick up some supplies. He gon’ have use of Marse Joe’s wagon.”

“Do you think he would mind if I rode with him?”

“We can go ask him,” said Will, “but I’m sure he be happy for the company.”

And so it was that the following morning a wagon driven by the Reverend Davis Lee, a stocky, balding former slave with a thoughtful air and a slow, generous smile, pulled up before the county courthouse, an imposing structure sitting at the top of a flight of white stone steps. “Thank you,” said Prudence as he helped her down.

He touched his hat in response. “I’ll be back in an hour,” he said, as he climbed back up on the wagon. As it went clattering away, Prudence asked a Union soldier for directions. She ended up waiting nearly an hour in a darkened corridor to be admitted to the provost’s office. Inside, she found a thin man with a slight build, who regarded her with a sour smirk over his half-moon glasses as she told him what happened. She told him about the school. She told him about the vandalism. She told him about the cat. “We are at our wits’ end,” she said. “We need soldiers to protect us.”

“Is that so?” he said, mildly. He had his glasses off and was wiping the lenses with a rag.

“Yes,” she said. “The people in that town are determined to drive us out.”

“Well, what did you expect?” he asked.

This stopped her. “I beg your pardon?” she said.

“Surely you apprehend the feelings of white men in the South on the subject of educating Negroes,” he said. “You must have expected some resistance.”

“Of course,” said Prudence, “but—”

“We can barely protect the Freedmen’s Bureau schools, Mrs. Kent,” he interrupted, “and those are open under the auspices of the United States government. There is very little we can do for people, well-meaning though they are, who come down here on their own and traipse around, stirring things up.”

Prudence stiffened. “So you are telling me, sir, that these people are free to do whatever they will to me and my school and you will do nothing about it? I need to be clear on this, because I have some friends in the North who will be most concerned to hear that.”

He regarded her for a moment, his expression so pacific she could not have sworn he’d heard her. “What I am telling you,” he said after a moment, “is that it would be difficult to catch and apprehend the vandals since vandals, by their very nature, operate under cover of darkness and catching them would be a task better suited to a guard or a detective than to the Union Army. Do not bother threatening me with your friends, Mrs. Kent. I am well aware that you are a woman of means and I am certain you have influential friends. I am but an Army colonel who answers to a general. But unless your friends are of such rank as to countermand a general, I am afraid there is but little they can do for you.”

“But the town—”

“The town of Buford is a small place and has been mostly quiet since the fighting ended in this part of the country two years ago. The darks and their white folks got along reasonably well and managed to stay out of one another’s way until
you
came along. So perhaps the problem is not the town at all, is it?”

He replaced his glasses and favored her with a bright, brittle smile. “Is there anything more?” The interview was over. Prudence was dismissed.

She stood, feeling like a leaden thing. He put his head down, pretending profound interest in the paper on his desk. She looked at him for a moment, memorizing the bald spot on the top of his head, trying to think of something else to say. But there was nothing. So she turned and made herself leave the room without a word. It was one of the hardest things she had ever done.

Preacher Lee was standing alongside his rig, smoking a pipe. Without a word, she gave him her hand and he helped her climb onto the back bench of the wagon. Lee took the driver’s seat, flicked the reins lightly over the horses, and they started the two-hour journey back to Buford. Bonnie was grateful to see the hated courthouse slide out of her sight. A moment later, the town itself was only something remembered.

“Expect you didn’t get what you wanted in there,” said Preacher Lee, after a few moments.

“The man could not have been more obstinate and uncaring.”

“Was you surprised?”

“I was. I should not have been, I suppose.”

“No, you shouldn’t. Mrs. Kent, the moment you come down here and opened that school, you cast your lot with the Negroes. Way they feel, if you cast your lot with us, they gon’ treat you like us.”

“I don’t know how you can joke about it,” she said.

“Ain’t jokin’,” he replied. Preacher Lee took a long, thoughtful draw on his pipe, let a cloud of smoke leak out. “You know,” he said, “us colored ain’t really knowed what Yankees was when the old masters and missus started talkin’ about ’em. Some thought they was monsters with hooves and long hair and eyes in the middle of their foreheads.”

“I have heard the children say such things.”

“Yes,” he said, “and some of us thought they was like Moses in the Bible, sent down here to lead colored children to the Promised Land. Thought we’d see the light shining under they skin and the halo floatin’ over they heads.”

“That is what you thought?”

“Some of us, yes.”

“And now?”

He turned, so Prudence could see his disillusioned little smile. “Now we see Yankee ain’t nothin’ but a different kind of white man. Treat you better than the rebs, some of ’em, that’s true enough. But still, he ain’t nothin’
but another white man. And like any man, he ain’t gon’ do but so much for you. Some things, you got to do for yourself.”

“What are you saying, Preacher Lee?”

The smile turned sly. He returned his eyes to the road. “Got me an idea, is all. Have Ginny bring you to my church Sunday. We can talk about it then.”

She wondered what he meant, but she knew from the puckish light she had seen in his eyes that he would not answer her, so she didn’t bother asking. Instead, she settled back on the hard bench as the wagon jostled painfully over the rough road. They didn’t speak much for the rest of the trip.

Four days later, Prudence stood in the bedroom she shared with Bonnie, regarding herself in the mirror and wondering yet again if a spoon bonnet with a nosegay of carnations were not too saucy for church. From beyond the closed door of the tiny bedroom, Miss Ginny’s voice intruded upon her deliberations. “Come on, now. Paul like to be here any second.”

“Coming,” called Prudence. She checked the mirror one last time, decided the nosegay looked just fine. Her dress was a long and rather dowdy affair, lacking bustles, ribbons, and color and therefore suited, she thought, to a colored church out in the country. The hat was her only concession to style.

She opened the door and went to join Bonnie and Miss Ginny in the parlor in front. They sat together on a tatty gold settee that, like the other pieces in the room—two chairs and a table—was the castoff of a white woman Miss Ginny had once cooked for. As Prudence entered, Bonnie took one look at her. “Lovely hat,” she quipped.

The older woman chuckled softly. “Now, you leave her alone,” she said.

Out of Miss Ginny’s line of sight, Prudence made a face at Bonnie—a favorite child taunting a less-favored sibling. The laughter that followed felt good after the trouble of the last few days.

Presently, there came a knock at the door. Miss Ginny opened it and there was Paul. “Mornin’, ladies,” he said. He lifted his hat and smiled a jaunty smile. “Miss Bonnie,” he added.

Prudence was quietly amused. For the last couple of weeks, Bonnie had been teaching Paul to read. The affection between them was becoming obvious, though Bonnie denied it every time Prudence tried to bring it up.

It was a hot day, the air thick and close. They walked in a companionable silence toward the edge of town. When they passed the warehouse,
Prudence could not help herself. She looked over, half expecting some new outrage. But the building stood silent and unabused. She exhaled a breath she had not known she was holding.

Then a gleaming black wagon clattered to a stop beside them and she started. Bo Wheaton was at the reins and he spoke without preamble, without giving her three companions so much as a glance. “My pa wants to see you, ma’am,” he told Prudence.

She felt their eyes on her. “I beg your pardon,” she said.

“My pa sent me to get you,” he said.

“If your father wishes to see me, I am at the Cafferty School six days a week. I am certain he knows where it is.”

The blue eyes darkened and then, to her surprise, he smiled. “Yes ma’am, but he’d count it as a personal favor if you would call on him up to the house. My father, he’s, well…an invalid since the war. Lost both his legs. It would be a great hardship for him to come over here. If you’re worried about missin’ your church service, well, I promise I’ll have you there before the last amen.”

“What does he wish to see me for?”

“Ma’am, I purely don’t know. He just sent me to get you, is all.”

“Well, if I go, my friends must go with me.”

For the second time in less than a minute, he surprised her by smiling. “Ma’am, you’re not from around here, so I guess you wouldn’t know, but in this country, white people do not entertain niggers in their homes. Tell you the truth, it’s not that common they entertain Yankees.” He spoke patiently, as if instructing a child.

“So you expect me to just ride off with you alone?” said Prudence.

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. And if you’re worried about your personal safety, my pa says that I am to apologize for my”—and here, his smile bent with distaste—“boorish behavior last time we met, and to give you his personal assurance no one will bother you while you are in his care. Plus, I’m sure you still have that little pea shooter of yours.”

He spoke to Paul without looking at him. “Tell her if my pap’s word is good or not, boy.”

She heard Paul say, “It’s good.” His voice had gone dead.

She glanced the question at him. He met her eyes and repeated. “It’s good. Marse Wheaton set a great store by his word.”

Prudence was curious. She had to admit that to herself. She turned, seeking out her companions, wanting their opinions. Miss Ginny and Paul held their heads down as though Bo Wheaton were the sun, too bright for direct viewing. Bonnie was staring at her, eyes widened. “I already know what you are going to do,” she said, her voice softened by wonder and disbelief.

Prudence nodded, knowing it herself only in that instant. “Very well,” she told Bo Wheaton. “Let us go see your father.”

He answered her with a curt nod. Paul helped her climb up into the rig behind the driver. She was barely seated before Wheaton flicked the horses with the reins and the wagon started forward with a lurch that pushed her back against the plush leather seat and brought her hand to her head to hold the spoon bonnet in place. Wheaton turned the wagon in the middle of the street, bringing her back past Paul, Bonnie and Miss Ginny, who stood there on the boardwalk watching after her. They looked small and forlorn. She smiled to reassure them. And then they were gone.

Wheaton kept the horses at a brisk pace, just short of a trot. For long minutes, there was no sound except those the wagon made, the striking of hooves against the dirt, the jingling of bridles, the turning of wheels. They drove west toward the river, then turned north. The movement of the wagon stirred a hot breeze that flowed back against Prudence’s face. The sun highlighted ripples of water that unfolded across the broad, brown back of the Mississippi.

“I meant what I said, you know.” Bo Wheaton spoke without turning around.

The sound of his voice surprised her. “Beg pardon?” she said.

“About my behavior last time. My pa was right. That was boorish of me. Can’t blame you for pullin’ out that little pea shooter. You got sand for a Yankee gal. I’ll give you that.”