The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek Read online

  Across the creek, Timmy let out an excited whoop and called to his mama.

  Junia blinked and swung her head to the boy’s cries.

  Again, Timmy called out, “Look, Ma, Auntie, look, I have us pie!”

  Junia’s ears went limp.

  I snapped the reins and chuckled. “Let’s get home, ol’ girl.”

  Junia brayed, then dropped her neigh into quavering nickers as if laughing too.

  Thirteen

  I’d been dreaming of making scrapbooks atop a fiery lookout when I awoke in the fat hours of slumber to Junia’s furious screams. I lay there trying to rouse from my dream.

  In the inky blackness, I blinked and rubbed my eyes, listening to the silence. I reached for the candle, struck a match, and peered at my timepiece in the light. Only a few minutes past four and still twenty minutes before I rose.

  I plopped back onto the pillow, snuggling deeper under the covers. The May weather chilled, found its way into loose panes and log chink. Again, I heard the mule’s high cries and then the loud blast of a shotgun.

  I bolted upright and untangled my twisted covers.

  Pulling on Mama’s old housecoat, I rushed down the loft ladder, stumbled, missed the last rung, and fell hard on my knee. I rubbed off the hurt and went for the shotgun under Pa’s bed, but it was gone.

  Panicked, I lit a lantern and flung open the door.

  The muffled light on Pa’s old carbide lamp bounced around from his miner’s helmet, flickered, then steadied and shone a brighter light over by the stall.

  Pa crouched beside a body with Junia close by, pawing an angry hoof and loudly belling the night.

  “Daughter, quick.” Pa saw me and hollered, “Get the beast back. Back!” He took off his helmet, waved it behind him. “Settle it down ’fore I use the shotgun again, and this time I won’t miss. Hurry on, and round that damn beast up.”

  I saw Pa’s gun in the dirt beside him and gasped.

  “Junia!” I put the lantern down and ran to her with my hands raised. But Junia just shook her long head and tore at the earth with both hoofs, raring to fight. “Haw! Back now. Back. Whoa, whoa, girl.” I sidestepped and tried to block her.

  “Whoa, ol’ girl. Easy there. Easy.” I slowly reached out and touched her side. Her flesh quivered, and I patted, rubbed, stroked her shoulder and gray muzzle while talking to her in low tones. Soon, she quieted and hung her exhausted head over my shoulder. I looked back and saw what had her troubled.

  Him lying there like that, I was sure he’d come back from the grave, and it scared me so that I yelled out to Pa, “Is his ticker broke?”

  “Get the mule in its stall,” Pa ordered. “I said, get!” Pa lifted his helmet and raised the light over the body. “Get now.”

  Junia startled and gave a shrill choking neigh. I grabbed a rope from her shed and hooked it over her neck, tugged, pulled her inside over muck and a splintered board. The wooden half door had fallen where she’d kicked it, the rope fastener sat on the ground broken away from its frame.

  I pulled the gate up, righted it, and latched it with a piece of cord, then hurried over to Pa and knelt down beside him and Vester Frazier.

  “Is he alive?” I whispered, torn between wishing he weren’t and fearful he was. Frazier’s head was matted with gore, and an ugly gash cratered the forehead. His jaw was split to his mouth, and his nose parked to the side, leaking blood.

  “He has some life in him,” Pa said, “and is going to be feeling a’might harder one if he comes to.”

  I noticed the ring of coal soot around Pa’s nose, but his clothes were only lightly dusted, not filthy like usual. “Pa, why are you home so early?”

  “Mine shut down. One of the sections collapsed, and the inspector sent us home.”

  “What happened here?” I eyed the gun beside his knees.

  Then I saw it, a glint in the dirt, and my relief was washed away in a budding fury. Beside Vester Frazier’s body lay a long hunting knife and another oil lantern snuffed out.

  I plucked up my lantern and ran to the stall. Rubbing my hand over every part of the mule, I inspected her as best I could under the dim, flickering light. I raised the wick. It caught full and it burned brighter, and again I examined her.

  “Just a scrape that’s bloodied her rump, but no serious harm,” I hollered to Pa and went back over to crouch beside him. “What will we do?”

  “We help our fellow men, Daughter. We’re God-fearing folk,” he said simply, though I know’d he meant “careful folk” more, and worried about what could happen to us if a white person was found here, injured or worse. Like all Blues, I’d grown up to be “careful,” learning when to bow down and when to cower.

  “He’s been hunting me.” I barely breathed. “Sneaking around the hills for me, Pa.” That he’d tried again, and so soon, sent a chill scuttling over my body.

  Pa studied me, a coldness settling in his weak eyes. He swallowed what I thought was a curse, then knocked a fist against his leg.

  I know’d he was remembering my marriage bed. Pa didn’t say much then, but I saw it all in his eyes now.

  “He didn’t hurt me none.” I placed my hand over his. “But Junia got scuffed some before she ran him off. She saved us.”

  Pa glanced over at Junia, surprise and admiration taking hold. “I’ve been meaning to tighten up that gate… Good thing I didn’t get around to it. I reckon the beast got a sniff of his wickedness and busted out of its stall to stop him.”

  “Whatever we do, he’s going to come after us, Pa. And keep coming until he has his day with me.”

  “Yes. But he’s got to live now, or else we’re in trouble. If this preacher dies, folks will pick up their ropes—”

  “Wonder where his mount run off to, Pa.” I cocked an ear, looking around, listening for it.

  “I reckon the blast sent it hightailing back into the hills.”

  Frazier coughed, then moaned and stirred a little from his stupor, wincing. A stink of blood and fear rose from his body. When he opened his eyes fully and saw me and Pa hovering above him, he shielded his face with both arms.

  “Let’s get him inside,” Pa said.

  I stared at him and balked.

  “Now.” He cut me a warning look.

  “Yes, sir.” I gulped. We hitched the preacher under his arms and legs and carried him up to the cabin.

  Inside, we laid Frazier on Pa’s clean bed, the bed I’d made, and on sheets I’d scrubbed. Then Pa said, “The last thing we need is another dead Frazier. Best take the mule to town and get the doc.”

  Fourteen

  “His body done broke,” Doc said, pulling the coarse muslin over Frazier’s gray face. He folded the stethoscope back into his medical satchel and glanced at me and Pa seated at the table and said, “That mule is dangerous.”

  Doc peeled the sheet back off Frazier and grimaced, studying him once more before draping the fabric back over the dead preacher’s face.

  I know’d Junia had spent her rage on Vester Frazier and busted his ribs and other innards, but the herb jar half-full of dead man’s bells sitting by the kettle was new and something I’d noticed as soon as I arrived back home with the doc. An empty mug rested on a stool beside the bed. An uneasiness took hold as I wondered just how much of the foxglove Pa had given the preacher.

  Pa told Doc, “The pastor had been hunting my daughter and meant to do harm.”

  Doc looked at Pa, then me, and back to Pa and nodded with the full knowing of that harm. Doc spied the jar and then picked up the empty cup.

  “He came to and”—Pa’s voice folded into a cough—“and I gave him some foxglove for the hemorrhaging until you got here. No more than I’ve given myself for a headache.”

  I wrung my hands in my lap, then tucked them under my bottom and felt the blue heat itching them.

  “The b
east busted him up good,” Pa continued.

  “You best shoot that striking mule before the town does it for you, Elijah,” Doc said, slamming the mug back down onto the stool. “Shoot it right now!” He snapped his bag shut.

  I flew up from my chair. “No! Junia was trying to protect me, and she stopped him.”

  Doc raised a hand and said, “Don’t matter a spit. Now, Elijah, you know two Fraziers found dead—and both with Blue Carters—ain’t gonna sit well, no matter what the excuse.” Doc worried a hand over his whiskered cheek, rubbed his tired eyes, and slipped a hard glance at me. “Charlie, and now Vester.”

  I dropped my gaze downward, the ugly memory of Charlie Frazier’s broke ticker loud in the cramped cabin.

  Pa said, “He attacked us on my land.”

  “He’s dead, Elijah. A dead white man in a colored’s home. They’ll burn your house for it. Hang you for sure,” Doc said.

  “Blue,” Pa corrected.

  “It’s still a color to them, and one they’re afraid of,” Doc said.

  “Pa.” I latched onto his arm. “We’ll tell Sheriff how he came for me on my book route. The lawman pledged his protection to us librarians.”

  “He’s Frazier kin.” Pa worried a rough hand down his face. “Hell, half the town’s related to a Frazier one way or another,” he said, defeat wearing him down.

  Doc mused, “Frazier clan runs thick, one of the biggest ’round these parts. Some of them are rotten, and some are decent-enough folk. The sheriff’s a good lawman, of good cloth, and he takes his responsibility seriously enough”—Doc grimaced as if he was reminded of something unpleasant—“if not too serious sometimes. But this is two dead Fraziers.” He shook his head.

  “The preacher attacked me,” I barely whispered. “I’ll tell Sheriff how he tried to violate—”

  Pa wrapped his hand over mine, pressed a hush into it. He squeezed once more, and harder again, a warning in his cold touch.

  I swallowed my accusation and tucked down my chin. A woman violated would be damned—persecuted—and dismissed from her job like Postmistress Gracie Banks had been after she was raped last year and told. And there’d been more than a few other Gracie Banks who’d blabbered. Rarely was justice served and then only if the woman’s kin took it upon themselves to mete out punishment in a quiet, lawless way. Disgraced, soiled like that, even womenfolk would silence, shun, and cast blame on the tainted female—make good ’n’ sure she’d carry the sin of the man’s stain for the rest of her days. Over the years, I’d seen that burden in a few women’s hooded eyes around town. I remember Mama telling Pa when she thought I weren’t listening that the female’s silence let those vile godless men walk free among their prey, boldly pass their sufferers on the streets of Troublesome with a sly tip to the hat, a smug pat to the crotch.

  “But he was hunting me,” I said to Doc, my words weakening.

  “On my land.” Pa dropped my hand, stabbed a finger to the window. “Carter land.”

  Doc drew a long, bothersome breath. “Folks’ll surely think the worst. And fear of peculiarity, things that have no name, nor grasp”—his gaze fell on us—“will drive even a saintly man to do evil under this dark sky in this old, dark land.”

  Fear seized hold, and I looked at Pa’s flushed cheeks.

  Doc took a seat at the table, piano’d his long fingers across the scarred wood, and snatched more peeks at me. “We have us a problem, Elijah,” Doc said, concern shrouding his voice. “A problem that needs fixing.” Doc knocked the worry into the wood, softly cleared his throat. “Yessir, we do.”

  “Fetch us a drink, Daughter,” Pa said, studying him. “The doc must be thirsty.”

  “Yes, Pa.” Trembling, I pulled out an old whiskey bottle from the back of the cupboard, poured the men drinks, and placed the tin cups in front of them, meaning to take a seat too.

  Pa grabbed my arm. “Check on the beast and make sure it’s good and tucked in.” He gently shoved me off. “Go on, Daughter,” he said, a bit gruffer this time. “Get.”

  I opened the door and glanced back over my shoulder.

  The men had pushed aside their cups and tilted their heads together, ready for talk.

  I stole one last glimpse of Frazier’s sheeted body before going out. A problem…that needs fixing, Doc said, and I know’d somehow he’d meant fixing it with me.

  Fifteen

  I huddled on the porch in the darkness, my ear flattened against the door, trying to sip the words from inside. Behind me, Doc’s horse nickered in the yard where he’d tied it to the post. Junia answered back in a worn, sleepy bray.

  I pressed in closer. The conversation fell and rose, a clattering of broken sentences skating through the old cabin’s chinks.

  “Frazier did… He would’ve killed her,” Pa said.

  The doc muttered something I couldn’t understand. Then Pa’s angry voice stepped onto Doc’s. “Dammit, man,” Pa said. “When Frazier spent his last breath telling me God sent him a vision to plant his white seed inside her to rid the land of the Blue Devil, I prayed he would die—”

  I covered my mouth to push back a gasp.

  Pa mumbled something else. Then came Doc’s softer tone.

  More words crawled over and under, jumbling.

  “Frazier was the devil hisself,” Pa insisted.

  “A man of the cloth,” Doc said.

  “A charlatan.” Pa coughed.

  “He was an important man to some,” Doc insisted.

  “He had hisself the importance of a fool drunk,” Pa bit back.

  A hush grabbed the early-morning darkness. Then Doc’s words sounded clear. “It’s a lot to ask of a man.”

  Silence. I heard my name once, then again. They’d lowered their voices before the mountain doc added, “Hell, it’s a mighty lot, Elijah, to ask a respectable fellar to look the other way and without…compensation—”

  “Pastor. Hide. They’ll never know,” one or both of them said, muffled.

  More pinched talk uttered in fast, penniless words laddered atop confusion. Blue, medical, Bluet, doctors, cure, tests were mingled.

  Then I heard Doc urge, “I’m a forthright man. Do me this small favor, and I’ll ensure you and the girl’s safety.”

  More puzzling talk.

  Then from Doc, “I promise you’ll live in peace for as long as I live.”

  I wrinkled my brow, tried to get the gist of it all, picked apart the word favor, sifting it over and over in my head.

  “Give Bluet to me, Elijah, and I swear she’ll see no harm,” the doc pressed.

  It felt as if I’d stepped right off the mountain and was clawing air to climb back atop. My heart knocked so hard, I feared it might be sounding against the door, and I slid a hand across my chest to quiet the noise.

  I caught more rattled talk and further strings of hushed discussion that gave me no understanding, abruptly followed by a hard thump. Then chairs scraped against the floor.

  Slinking back, I snuck off the porch and raced to Junia, a tangle of words muddling my head, my knees near buckling.

  Inside the stall, I collapsed against the mule, buried my face and fright into her soft coat. She didn’t move, didn’t stir the slightest. And I know’d she must’ve felt something. Something coming at us fast.

  Sixteen

  “But I ain’t ill, I’m just colored different,” I cried to Pa two days later, knocking a dark, angry fist against my chest. “And I ain’t any different than the white squirrel we’ve seen on Thousandstick Trace that scampers alongside the red and grays. They’re all just squirrels, all the same—”

  “Cussy,” he urged, “I’ve had a trying shift in the mine, and I don’t need more of it here. It’s just a few trips to the city, and only once a month. It won’t affect your route. Doc says he can carry you there on your day off and promises to see you home safel
y.”

  “Pa, please,” I pleaded. “I don’t want to go anywhere with him. I… Pa, it’s Saturday, and I need to work on my scrapbooks on my day off.” I crossed to the shelf of books. “Get my reading material stacked, clean this place, and—”

  He caught my wrist. “You will go, Daughter. And you will let him and the Lexington medical facility do their tests. Help the doctor with his experiments.”

  I snatched my arm away, brushed off the coal-dusted prints he’d left behind.

  “They might find a cure for our color, for you,” Pa said with something that sounded a lot like hope. “Our burden would be gone.” But the notion died on his tongue.

  His words hit like a heavy slap. “I-I’m sorry. Sorry I couldn’t be white… Sorry I’m not the daughter you wanted—that I was born your burden, Pa,” I whispered, my voice swollen, pained.

  His shoulders slumped, and his eyes welled up with sadness.

  I’d never talked to him, Mama, or another soul like this, and seeing his grief and brokenness broke something in me. I looked away, balled up the loose fabric on my skirts, and squeezed, my anger dissolving, abandoned to heartbreaking misery.

  Pa cleared his throat. “I want you safe, Daughter. It’s the only way to keep us from the hangman’s noose”—he jabbed a finger at the windowpane—“and keep him good and tucked in the ground out there. To keep the doc on our side and quiet.”

  I followed his finger. Two days ago, as morning slipped in and cast its rays over a sheeted Frazier, the doc slipped off for home, and Pa had sent me up to the loft, ordering me to stay inside. From my small windowpane, I saw Pa drag Vester Frazier’s body across the yard and dig fast into the ground beyond Junia’s stall, while the first light of day broke over him, burying the pastor in a stinking grave topped with manure and sticks.

  “Pa, the doc knows he trespassed and tried to attack us.”

  “The doc only knows one thing: he found one more dead Frazier in the company of Blues. And that’s exactly what he’ll tell folks if you don’t do as he asks.”