A Matter of Souls Read online

But Beesi put that lie to rest one day—for Covington, at least—when a mouse had run across his foot near the woodpile. Covington had unfortunately never gotten over his fear of such, and he’d squealed, jumped, and thrown his armload of kindling higher than his head.

  A laugh, loud and sweet and free as singing, rang out from the kitchen window, and Covington saw Beesi smiling directly at him.

  “You funny, funny!” She’d laughed, pushing the window up so he could hear her clearly, then shutting it quickly. She held his gaze for a long while, until Covington remembered himself and began to gather up the wood to go on with his duties.

  Covington believed he had loved her from then on. They had waited four years till the end of the War to marry, so they could do it legal. Covington’s only regret was that his uncle hadn’t lived to see freedom come—nor see them wed.

  “Beesi, I thought we were going to set up house together today!” He gulped coffee sweet with honey.

  Beesi looked at him with a schoolteacher’s stern frown.

  “Don’t you fret none ’bout that. I’m gonna put everything good. You got feet to make shoes for, dontcha?”

  She flashed him a dazzling smile, her dimples deep, and Covington knew right away that Beesi was well aware of the way she had twisted the old folks’ saying about making feet for shoes. Making babies.

  Covington blushed.

  Beesi, still smiling, waved her apron tail at him as if to shoo him off.

  “Gone work, now. Gone!” she cooed.

  Covington pushed back his chair and swallowed the last of the sausage.

  He felt he must’ve been walking on clouds, leaving his own wife to go into his own business on his own property.

  Covington sat comfortably at his stool and took a moment to survey the shelves of lasts around the walls; many he had carved himself. He could almost see the faces of the people whose feet were modeled in wood. Mostly well-off, these were generations of planters, farmers, businessmen, and fine ladies that Elizear and his father before him had courted and kept satisfied by their exquisite workmanship.

  Along the bench to his left, Beesi had neatly arranged his familiar tools in the order he liked: lasting pincers first, to shape the leather onto the custom-carved lasts; the small hammer next to the awls he used to pierce elaborate patterns into the leather of women’s shoes; rubbing sticks to finish the heels and edges just right.

  On another small bench to his right were several pairs of shoes in progress. A ripple of annoyance ran through Covington; he was behind, everything was behind, what with Elizear Markham’s sudden taking sick (though he was close to three score), and then the trips back and forth to fetch Worthy, whom he only spoke to behind closed doors. And then the dying, and the funeral, and the disposing of the shoemaker’s things … the one face-to-face conversation Markham’d had with Covington was minutes before his last breath: he had insisted that all his personal belongings, except the pine table and chairs, be sold at public auction two days after his funeral. And then he had said, as if Covington were not standing there beside him, “And to my son, I leave my business, tools, and good name.” Elizear’s chest had rattled one last time, and his eyes rolled sideways. Worthy bowed his head briefly and then buckled up his case. Beesi produced two coins, which she placed on the dead man’s eyelids.

  Covington had turned away to the window, vowing—not against a dead man’s soul, but to the perfect rainbow of a setting sun and passing storm—vowing that he would never take the name of his father.

  That was two weeks and a lifetime ago. Covington leaned over his progress bench to examine the tag on the left shoe of a men’s pair. This was Worthy’s order. Covington set to work.

  He enjoyed the sounds of Beesi humming and moving in and out as she carried things off the wagon they’d driven over from their rented room yesterday. She never interrupted him, and he never interrupted her. When the sun fell in just the right place across the wood floor, Covington got up and went across the shop to flip over the “Open” sign and unlock the front door.

  He brought in a selection of tools to do finish work as he sat at the counter.

  Business was brisk; there were still condolences to receive (on the loss of his “master,” which he didn’t bother to correct, since the year on the great big calendar behind him clearly added up to five years past that day Lincoln had used the unbelievable word, “Emancipation”). There were old customers to reassure and curious new ones to entertain, including the silly young daughter of a local plantation owner who wanted dove-colored slippers for her wedding party of twelve.

  Covington remembered his uncle’s teaching well. He was clear, he was precise, he averted his eyes, and he never let them see him cipher.

  Near the end of his first day in business, Covington looked up as the bell on the door tinkled. “Sam!” Covington put down the shoe he was working on and got up to greet the giant of a man striding across the floor with the traces of Africa still proudly bred and borne across his nose and mouth and cheekbones.

  Sam was carrying a package wrapped in brown paper. “Cov! I come to give you business!”

  Covington smiled and shook his friend’s hand, shaking his own head at the same time. “Hard to believe, Sam. I waited, and I wouldn’t even let myself hope, but …”

  Sam slapped Covington lightly on the back.

  “Quit that nonsense talk. You a free man, done inherited your—” he paused, cocking his head to one side. “—your blood papa’s business. It’s what he readied you for, what’s by right any man’s. Now come on here, and measure these feets for me!”

  Sam lifted his pants leg. Covington looked down, then up. Sam jangled coins in his pocket.

  “I come to be your first Colored customer! You gonna do me right?”

  Covington was speechless, tongue-tied by joy and gratitude.

  “Do who right?” Beesi peeked through the curtain of the workroom. “Sam! Vi come with you?”

  “Naw. She want y’all to come Saturday night for some cake and good wishes on your fortune,” he said with a straight face. “And I come to get myself measured for some of Cov’s shoes!”

  Beesi clapped her hands together, then propped them on her broad hips. “Shop closed, Sam. Shop closed. Covie done worked a full day, and friends don’t get special!”

  “Beesi!” Covington laughed.

  “You got a tough biddy there, Cov!” Sam laughed too. “All right, I come reg’lar hours tomorrow, soon’s I get off my job.” He moved to tap the brown paper package.

  “Meantime, this here’s for you, Cov. Vi and me put our heads t’gether on it.”

  “Oh, open it! Open it, Covie!”

  “Beesi!” Covington laughed again. Covington ripped the paper, and his eyes blurred for a minute as he read his name, painted in bright blue swirly script letters outlined in black. The sign itself was arched on top, sanded smooth and whitewashed.

  “Oh!” Beesi breathed, tracing the letters with her fingers. “It’s mighty fine, Sam.”

  Beesi could neither read nor write, so Covington read out loud.

  “Covington’s Fine Shoes.”

  “You hang your shingle out first thing,” Sam said over his shoulder, not waiting for thanks. “Else, I won’t be able to find my way to my new shoes. Haveta go barefootin’!”

  Beesi giggled, and Sam’s chuckle rumbled down the street behind him.

  Pleased as he was over Sam’s gift, something inside Covington made him wait until darkness fell, wait until he and Beesi had eaten their cozy supper, to set up the tall ladder and remove the black bunting from Elizear Markham’s sign.

  Sam had drilled the holes just right, so that Covington’s new shingle fit easily on the big brass hooks attached to the sign pole.

  When Covington climbed down, a sudden breeze came from nowhere, swinging the shingle gently.

  “Some kinda sign that you gonna be all right.” Beesi leaned in the doorway, framed by the glow from the gas lamp inside. Covington froze that picture of
her in his mind, because although he couldn’t see her features, her presence was strength, somehow … and that soft, pale light was like sun coming through night.

  Covington’s next day keeping shop was actually the end of his week, a Saturday, and since Sam and Vi were expecting them to make a party, he thought to work a little longer than usual. It wouldn’t do to show up early and set Vi into a tizzy, so he and Beesi had decided that around nine would be right.

  Saturday had been the busiest day he could remember in a long time, as word had spread about the wedding shoes, and the girl had actually been showing around the little drawing Covington had made. Beesi had to come keep order behind the counter as the steady stream of White folks poured in, along with a trickle of new Colored customers. Every now and then, in a lull between the commotion, Covington would hear her say, “Mr. Covington be right with you, please. Have a seat. Have some tea.”

  Tea?! Covington almost choked the first time he heard that one, but the people couldn’t get over it.

  Beesi had purloined Elizear Markham’s mother’s china tea set in all its gold-rimmed beauty before it went on the auction block.

  The time flew, and when the last customer left, Beesi went to put the china away and prepare for the party. Covington, caught up in the work he loved, stayed at his bench until he heard the muffled chimes of the clock upstairs as it struck eight. He began hurriedly clearing away, and dropped his hammer. As he bent to pick it up, he thought he heard a noise outside.

  Who in the world could that be? The closing sign had been hung since five.

  He took his time, picking up this and that, as he made his way to the front. The shades were drawn, so he would have to go to the door to see what was going on. Certainly, he now heard somebody—more than one somebody—outside.

  “Covington!” A rough voice that he did not recognize seemed to growl his name. Covington had never turned down a customer before, but he had seen Elizear do it, and he knew that there were some folk he would never work for, even for pay.

  He squared his shoulders back and set his jaw as he unlatched the door and opened it, pulling it shut tight behind him.

  The glare of torches almost blinded him and completely hid the faces of the small group huddled a few feet away.

  Covington tried to shield his eyes so he could make out the figures, but the flames waved back and forth. As if these people did not want to be known.

  “Store’s closed, folks. Come back first thing Monday morning.” Covington did not use his Colored voice.

  “Who you think you are?” demanded a high-pitched, youngish voice.

  Covington squinted, but the torches moved again. “Unless you’re new around here, you know who I am. Covington. Born and raised here, learned my trade here.”

  “What you doin’ running a White man’s business like it’s yours?” Another growl. Mutters rippled through the crowd. Covington felt them begin to move.

  “I think you made some kind of mistake,” he said calmly. “This is my shop. My property.”

  A stone flew over Covington’s head and crashed through the store window. He jerked around, but it was followed by another, which caught him on his temple. He felt blood trickle into his eye. He clenched his fists, but didn’t move. “Get off my property!” he called out.

  “The problem is you niggers all a sudden think you good as us!” The high pitch was a nasty squeak now. In his mind, Covington knew he was better, always had been.

  Covington raised his hands in an attempt at conciliation. “I don’t know what your quarrel is, but if you would just leave me and my wife—”

  “Your wife? You mean that half-wit from Dawson’s place?”

  Covington’s blood quickened inside him, and he stepped forward.

  A fist as hard a stone knocked him down, and he felt the blows all over him, heard more glass, heard snapping, splitting wood.

  He twisted his neck, wincing as a boot tip landed in his ribs. He could see his shingle flapping in two parts, cracked raggedly from top to bottom.

  WHAM! BAM! They were trying to ram the door. Covington managed to elbow away a body and get up onto his knees. Through the legs and in the flickering light, he spied a dropped club on the ground. He crawled toward it, his fingers taking hold just as somebody grabbed one of his legs, twisting it until the pop and the pain exploded in his thigh. But Covington swung the club up, landing a hit.

  “BEESI!” he yelled blindly as fresh blood from some new head wound ran into his eyes. He heard the heart-stopping crash of the front door, and he dragged himself, pulled himself toward the step.

  The attackers had all but forgotten about Covington now. They swarmed past him, swinging the clubs, catching shelves and sending shoes flying.

  Covington tried to look at the upstairs windows, but couldn’t see.

  He prayed that they didn’t have guns.

  Then an ear-bursting howl broke through the men’s cursing terror, and Covington blinked to see Beesi in the doorway of the workroom, her eyes wide and angry, her black hair waving like a dark crown.

  Covington closed his eyes. “Lord, don’t let one of them have a gun,” he prayed, then watched Beesi’s arms swinging, flashing the blade of her garden machete in one hand and a heavy brass poker in the other.

  “COVIE!!!” she screamed and ran forward, wearing her best dress, wearing her fancy Covington-made shoes.

  “Look out!” somebody yelled.

  Covington slumped. They didn’t have guns.

  “Told you! That Black bitch is crazy! Look out!” They were falling back, Beesi was flying toward them, and Covington was cheek-down in the dust.

  High-Pitch was hanging over him again, his sour whiskey breath whispering. Covington willed his broken body not to flinch.

  “Lookit you, crawlin’ in the dirt … You ain’t nothin’, nigger,” High-Pitch said before he aimed one last kick to Covington’s side.

  All Covington heard after that, before pain shut his eyes, was Sam’s booming command.

  “Say it to a nigger who’s standin’!”

  “You’re a mighty lucky Colored man, Covie.”

  Covington’s eyelids were heavy, fighting his attempt to open them. He had to try several times, and finally he squinted into the brightness of midday.

  He realized, as he shifted his body and felt pain answer back, that he didn’t know just which midday it was. He had a dull ache on one side of his head, and there was some kind of binding around his ribs.

  Abe Worthy was sitting across from him.

  Was this a dream? Or a memory? Hadn’t he heard those words a long time ago?

  “I have to tell you, though … that wife of yours …”

  Covington tried to push up at the mention of Beesi, and all at once the screaming and crashing of that awful night washed over him, pressing him back down.

  “Beesi?” he croaked. Somehow, he couldn’t make his voice any louder.

  Abe Worthy leaned in and said in the same low tone, “She’s just fine. I’m supposed to watch you until she returns.”

  Covington thought he heard wrong. He raised his brows in question. Worthy was smiling, shaking his head and looking off as if there was another life going on in the air between himself and the window.

  “Your wife, Covington, saved your life. Oh, your friends came, and even a few of your sympathetic White customers were roused from their parlors. But they needn’t have worried. She got at least one good wallop in on young Dawson with that poker. She shed no blood and scared them witless—if that, indeed, is possible. But then, I understand, she had your friends bring you up here, and she herself went to fetch Doc Barton. Don’t try to move, now … I have strict orders from your nurse.”

  “How long … have I …” Covington coughed, and his ribs hurt.

  “No talking, Covington, nurse’s orders. Now, where was I? Ah, yes. I came into the story later that evening, when your wife bundled all your shoe lasts into a bedsheet and dragged them across town to my office, where sh
e insisted that I lock them up in my safe. Then she informed me that I was to escort her, as soon as she ‘did her hair up respectable,’ to the sheriff’s office to file charges for, as she so eloquently put it, ‘outrageous damage to the business and body’ of her husband … you.”

  Covington was not exactly surprised; he was more proud, in a way he had never been before, of the choice he had made. Of the woman he had decided to build his life with. He carefully turned his head to Worthy, wanting to know more.

  “Yes, well, after that pronouncement, Adebesi proceeded to describe all seven of the White men in question in such detail that the deputy had to look for extra paper to write it all down …”

  Covington forgot himself. “She told you her name?”

  Before Worthy could answer, there were brisk steps in the stairwell that carried across the floor of the sitting room. The bedroom door was abruptly thrown open, and there was Beesi.

  There was the sunlight smile that hurt Covington’s eyes and healed them.

  She took two steps in, and his heart began beating so fast Covington thought it might jump out of his chest.

  “Thank you, Lawyer Worthy. Now Covie and me gonna be alone!”

  Worthy bowed as he obeyed Beesi, turning to wink at Covington.

  “I reckon I’ll see you some other time, Covington. Miss Adebesi, whenever I can be of service?”

  Beesi nodded curtly, and didn’t even see the lawyer out. She shut the door behind him and walked slowly to the bed.

  “How you?” she asked. She touched his forehead. Covington shuddered.

  “Covie?”

  “Fine. How are you?”

  “Fair.”

  Covington grinned at her modesty. She looked wonderful to him. He reached up and pinched the tip of her nose.

  “Been busy, I hear?”

  Beesi ignored him. “Time to get up, time to move.” She bent to slip her arm behind his back. As he raised himself up, Covington was aware of a numbness in his left leg. He threw the covers back. Was it—no, his leg was there, laced to a thick splint. He tried to move it, and the numbness turned to throbbing, but he couldn’t lift it.