The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek Read online

  My embarrassment reflected in his eyes.

  “He attacked the mule, and she fought back. We didn’t do anything,” I said weakly.

  “Blues don’t have to do much, Cussy,” Pa said quietly, the words needling, raising the hairs on my nape and arms. “Blues and many a colored have been hanged for less. Get on now. It’s your day off and it’s nearly six. He’ll be calling for you in the hour.”

  For less. I stood there, my protest losing its starch.

  “We have to save ourselves from the rope, Daughter,” Pa said. Weary, he walked over to the chair and dropped heavily into it, bent over with elbows propped on his knees, hands rubbing his head.

  * * *

  At seven, Doc rode into our yard perched atop his horse. We took turns riding the steed to his cabin at the edge of town. In front of his home, he tethered his mount, instructing a young boy to tend it.

  Doc’s housekeeper, Aletha, stepped out the door and called a greeting to him, the lilt of music rising in her strange accent. “Gud mawnin, Docta. Mi ave a stew pon di stove—” Aletha stopped when she saw me. Folks said the old Negro woman from Jamaica had worked for Doc’s kin in South Carolina. After Doc’s wife, Lydia, passed, Aletha came here to help.

  “No time to eat, Aletha,” Doc said, taking the porch steps. “I’m here only to retrieve my bag and a journal. I have to get to Lexington.”

  “No nyam?” Aletha looked disappointed.

  “If you’ll just pack some fruit and cheese.” Doc stepped around her. “And bring Mrs. Frazier in and offer her a cup of tea.”

  Aletha cast an eye my way. “But har a Blue, Docta.”

  Doc ignored her. “Bluet, come in. Aletha will see to it you get something to drink before our journey.” He hurried on inside.

  I climbed the steps, following after him. But Aletha moved in front of the door and put her hands on her wide hips. “No Blue inna Missus Lydia’s yaad.” She shook her kerchief-covered head, gestured over to the well. “Yuh jink from di well ova there,” she said, her voice rising.

  “Jink…well,” I puzzled, following her finger.

  “Yuh jink ongle from di well,” she said again. “No Blue inna Missus’s yaad.”

  “Yaad?” I said stupidly.

  “Yaad, yaad!”

  I flinched. Her words were musical, but weren’t no song in there for me.

  Aletha raised a finger above her head and poked it at Doc’s home this time. “Yaad. No Blue inna di yaad, no Blue jink from Missus Lydia’s fine china!” She stomped a foot and disappeared inside.

  The door slammed, and I quickly retreated back down the steps to wait. In a few minutes, Doc came out with his things and rushed me around back to his motorcar.

  My feet plugged the earth when I saw the big machine. The clunky black shoes I’d worn pressed harder against the ground while Doc tried to coax me into his big, steel motorcar, promising it was safe.

  I’d seen motorcars and coal trucks around town, read about them in books and magazines, but I never imagined I’d come this close to one, let alone ride in one. I stared at the shiny steel-winged lady perched on the nose of it.

  Doc must’ve seen my bewilderment because he grinned and said it weren’t nothing more than a radiator ornament called “the flying lady.”

  Blushing, I pulled the brim of my bonnet down and stared at the ground, wondering why he’d put her there and naked like that.

  Then he opened the heavy door. “Time is wasting, Bluet. It’s just a horse with wheels,” he insisted. “A 1932 Plymouth automobile, is all. Get in. You’ll find it’s a comfortable sedan.”

  I know’d what it was, but the leap from knowing to actually touching one seemed overwhelming. I looked at Doc and then back to the machine, and pulled out one of Pa’s handkerchiefs from my pocket to dab my brow.

  “Just a comfortable horse on wheels that’ll take us to the city and see us back,” he assured easily like it weren’t nothing more.

  “When will we be back?” I worried about leaving the chores I’d planned for today, and even more, about what Doc had planned.

  “In the afternoon.” He made a sweeping motion with his hand, pressing me to get in.

  Carefully, I climbed onto a fancy broadcloth-covered seat, snatching glimpses of the big wheel atop a fat pole on the other side and the sticks and pedals on the floor.

  With Pa’s wadded handkerchief clenched in my fist, I squeezed the damp ball until my hand pained.

  I stomped twice on the strange floor to be sure there was one underneath, testing the sturdiness, then inspected the walnut strip running behind the wheel with its strange metal buttons poking out.

  Doc climbed in, and his hand moved feverishly, grabbing sticks, turning, pulling, and pushing knobs. A close roar said the engine had come to life. I pressed my back into the seat. In less than a minute, the heavy machine lurched forward, and we rode across bumpy country roads, bouncing.

  I marveled at the speed, the loud engine and big tires biting at dirt and gravel, and know’d no sure-footed horse would ever ride like that, so smooth and fast and all at once.

  Strangely, the sound of the motor and thrum of tires relaxed me. I passed time by looking out the window as the dirt road opened wider through rolling farmland bordered with stretches of stacked-rock fencing. After an hour, my eyes grew heavy, and the warmth of sunshine, the steady sounds and passing blurs lulled me into a sleep. Almost three hours later, the doc gently called my name, awakening me from my exhausted slumber. “We’re in Lexington, Bluet.”

  I spotted motorcars rolling beside us, and beyond them, a curtain of tall buildings. It was surely a wonder that Lexington was only one hundred and fourteen miles from home, yet it might as well have been across oceans the way the city bustled with a different kind of life—respectably dressed people in heels, gloves, and fancy hats, the many high buildings, the dull roar of machines. On corners, men barked to passersby, waving newspapers, while folks clacked spiffy heels across paved streets, dodging motorcars.

  I touched the collar of Pa’s weathered oilcloth coat, brushed the folds of my homespun dress, and peered down at my unpolished laced shoes, tucking the heels quickly out of sight.

  Doc stopped the motorcar to let people cross to the other side of the street. I watched several folks snatch up the newspapers on that corner, and I marveled that the newsprint could be had so easily and at their whim.

  Once again, I pressed my face against the door’s window, amazed at the hurried life, the folks rushing along the sidewalks, slipping into the many stores and shops, and dashing in and out of other unmarked doors.

  It was a life I’d only read about in my books, and my hungry hands touched the glass, trying to touch the stories I’d read.

  Doc said, “Go ahead, roll down the window. Just reach down on the door and turn the handle.”

  I fumbled with the crank, then finally opened the pane and breathed in smells of oil, gas, concrete, and other scents I couldn’t name, tasted the peculiar spirit of the place, listened to the unusual buzz, the city’s open hymnal.

  The soot of the city, its oils and smoke and grit, filled my nose, burning, watering my eyes.

  A motorcar hurried past us and honked, startling me. Another answered back, and still another and several more. Shouts, the pound of hammers, and music and loud greetings swirled from every direction. “There’s so many noises. How do folks stand it?” I pressed my palms to my ears, swiveling my head to follow it all.

  Doc laughed and sped on past until he turned onto a quiet tree-lined street that led to Saint Joseph Hospital. The wide, red-rose-brick, five-storied building climbed high into the noon sky.

  Doc turned off the engine, jumped out, strolled around to my side, and pulled open the door. All I could do was gawk at the huge place, the porch with its generous sweep of concrete floor and tall pillars. Perched above was a long i
ron veranda. I’d only seen something this grand in magazines.

  “Come on.” Doc motioned to me, grabbed his medical bag from the back floorboard, and led me up the wide steps to the large wooden doors.

  Inside, a woman in a dark dress and a strange white hat greeted us. Doc called her Sister and then leaned to my side and said, “Bluet, there’s nothing to fret about. This is a Catholic hospital, the finest in Lexington, and she’s a nun.”

  I was more interested in the grand foyer, the vast surroundings, and the massive furniture pieces scattered throughout the polished-tile entryway. It seemed like a concrete tree with branches of polished corridors in every direction.

  I felt the nun’s eyes on me and caught her inspecting me over her spectacles. I had half a mind to inspect her right back. Weren’t no such person in Troublesome or in parts close around, but I’d read about her kind in the Readers Digest and National Geographic.

  Doc said, “Good day, Sister, we’ll see ourselves up,” then took my arm and led me into the mouth of an empty white hallway that twisted and turned and branched into more hollow hallways lit up by electric bulbs. Several times I paused to gawk up at the lights, listen to the angry buzz of the bulbs, until Doc would latch onto my arm to pull me forward.

  He paused to open a large metal door and led us up a staircase to another door, and again on a path that seemed to never end. Finally, Doc stopped at the large entry of an arched doorway. On the metal sign, two gray words had been painted at eye height so no one could miss them: COLORED WARD.

  A Negro woman carried a fussy child past us, and a nun followed with another babe in her arms. A small boy peeked around the corner and disappeared just as quick.

  “Here we are,” Doc said, a little out of breath. To our right, I spied a door that read PHYSICIAN.

  My heart thundered, and my throat cinched as if a rope collared it.

  Doc pulled me into the room and shut the door. I backed up into a long metal table with rails. The smell of bleach and other unknown liquids was baked into the green walls. Medical instruments sat atop small silver trays crowded with sharp knives, bottles, cotton strips, balls, and little clumps of rags. A small basin was wedged into the corner. Beside it on the counter was a gauze-covered glass bowl filled with leeches. I recognized a lancet, one like those used in my hills. Sitting next to it was a bloodletting tool and glass cupping cups used to catch blood spilling out from a body.

  Doc reached around me and grabbed a soft cotton wrap from a drawer under the sink and shook it open.

  “Bluet, take off your clothes and your necessaries, and put this on for the examination.”

  I pressed a hand to my chest and shook my head, not willing to remove my coat, and certainly not my undergarments.

  He frowned. “We’re pressed for time. Let me get you a pill.” Doc opened a metal cabinet with a glass door and pulled out a bottle, rattled out small pills. “Take this to calm your hysterics,” he ordered, pushing it into my palm. “I’ll get you water.” Doc stepped over to the basin, and water ran freely out of a spout.

  A knock to the door jarred me. A colored man in a white coat strolled in.

  “Dr. Randall Mills,” the mountain doc chirped. “I’m so glad you could visit today. Come in, come in. This is Cussy Frazier of the Blue Carters I told you about. She’s called Bluet.”

  Dr. Mills moved in close, inches from my face, bobbing his head. “A real blue woman,” Dr. Mills said and circled around me, his eyes grabbing up every inch of me. “Have you done a heart and lung exam, Thomas?”

  “I’m ordering them today,” Doc answered, sounding pleased.

  “Astounding color,” Dr. Mills said, touching my cheek.

  I flinched and turned my head.

  “Indeed,” Doc murmured and tapped Dr. Mill’s shoulder. “Randall, can I see you outside,” and to me, “Bluet, be quick, take your pill, remove your clothing, and robe yourself.”

  The men stepped out of the room and shut the door quietly behind them.

  I shook open the airy, threadbare robe and saw it had a long slit down the front—or was that the back? Shaking my head, I wadded it back up and placed it and the pill on the table.

  Minutes later, Doc poked his head in.

  “It’s torn all the way open.” I pointed to the gown.

  He shook his head and pulled the door shut, leaving me alone once more.

  A few more terrifying minutes passed before Doc swung open the door and stepped aside, letting in two broad-shouldered women wearing the nun robes.

  The nuns gawked at me, then Doc snapped at them, “Sisters, strip her quickly and give her two Nembutal suppositories.” He stormed out.

  I pushed a protest past my fear-thickened throat and tried to go after him.

  One of the nuns grabbed me by the coat, yanked it and my bonnet off. The other reached inside the medicine cabinet and pulled out a large bottle.

  Together, they came at me, blocking me against the wall. I kicked and slapped at them, screamed and cursed until the larger one wrestled me to the floor, stuck her thick knobbed knee in my back. The other stripped off my skirt and then my undergarments.

  I struggled to rise, but one had my head locked to the cold tile, her knee digging in deeper.

  Then the other one knelt and lightly touched my behind, whispering, “Have you ever, Sister Doreen? Look, it’s as blue as lake water on a bright day.” She pressed her icy finger to my skin, poking before giving my bottom a stinging slap.

  A killing rage grabbed hold inside me, and I let out a murderous scream as I tried to wriggle free, spit and bite at them, but caught nothing more than air. The large nun had me pinned down tight.

  She laughed and smacked my bottom again. “Look at it now; it’s plum purple.”

  “Get the Nembutal inside her,” the one atop me ordered and dug her knee even harder into my back.

  They pried me open, pulled back my skin, and inserted something hard and hurting inside my bottom. It went slippery, and warmed. Quickly they tossed the slitted robe over me. Then the nuns hauled me up onto the cold metal table, splayed my arms and legs high and wide, securing them tight with leather straps to the rails, leaving me open, exposed under the dangling, buzzing bulb above.

  Weren’t no time before my screams hollowed under a thickened tongue, and I could barely make out the doctors’ faces hovering over me.

  Drugged, I felt bare skin, their busy hands bumping, crawling over and down and inside me as their excited voices floated into a fading, gurgling string of words. “Take a swab… More blood here. More samples… More. We’re going to make history. The best journals will fight for our articles, our analyses and photos.”

  I tried to move, but sleep sank its teeth deep, my lids grew heavy, and darkness came fast.

  Seventeen

  I stirred awake from a drugged slumber and realized I’d been shoveled into the back seat of Doc’s motorcar. The confused memories of Saint Joseph and medical journals, samples, bolted my sore body upright. My crumpled bonnet had been placed under my head.

  As I leaned my head against the window, I felt a sickness crawl into my belly and rise high in my throat, the hazy blur of trees and road rushing by, dizzying.

  Moaning, I curled back down onto the seat, my breath short and fast. Soon, I escaped in sleep.

  The motorcar bumped over something, growled its engine, and I awoke, raised a crooked arm over my face, the daylight harsh and hurting my tender eyes.

  Instantly, I held out my hand. It was bandaged up the length of my arm.

  I pressed on the dressing and felt the tenderness. Unraveling the cloth, I traced the tracks of blood on my veins, the skin bruised and swelling, the ugly strap welts, raw and deep. “Wh-what did you do?” I pulled myself slowly up and leaned over the seat, the fear tightening my voice. “What—”

  Doc turned his head partway toward m
e. “Ah, you’re awake. Good. Don’t worry, it won’t scar,” he said quietly, and then more pert, “You’ll be fine, dear.” He snapped his attention back to the road. “Fine as one can be with chocolate-colored blood, I reckon.”

  Chocolate. I peered at my arm, picked up the cloth. Brown bloodstains riddled it.

  “I’m sorry the nurses were rough with you, Bluet,” he said, “but it was important—very—and we’ll learn soon about your family’s blood and how we can fix it—fix you, my dear.”

  I felt the spark of anger slip behind my eyes, prompting a headache. What I wanted most was to be okay as a Blue. I never understood why other people thought my color, any color, needed fixing.

  “It’ll be wonderful to fix you, won’t it?”

  Fix. Again, the chilling word caught in my throat, and I suddenly wished Mama had fixed my birth with some of her bitter herbs. Then I would’ve never had to suffer this horrid curse of the blueness. Still, Doc said it would be wonderful, and I couldn’t help but wonder what my and Pa’s life would be like if we were fixed. The confused thoughts made my head pound harder. I reached up and touched my neck, looked at my arms and leg, pressing for more tender spots. A cramp took hold low in my stomach and cut even lower.

  “My innards. I’m…feeling cramps,” I said, too tired to be embarrassed.

  “You’re fine. We took some blood and a sample of tissue from your cervix, a few skin scrapes from your scalp and the back of your shoulder, nothing that will harm or cause you permanent pain, and nothing that a good night’s rest with laudanum won’t fix.” He rattled a bag and pulled out a pear. “Aletha packed this and some cheese here. Would you like to eat something?”

  “I ain’t hungry. It hurts, everything hurts.” I doubled over. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  “Only for a bit. I promise. Listen, Bluet, we may be able to cure you, make you white. Wouldn’t you like that?” he asked gently and pulled the motorcar onto the side of the road.