The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek Read online

Music and merriment spilled out. Surprised, I halted Junia, dismounted, and tethered her to a post. I’d forgotten about the Pie Bake Dance, that it was the first Friday in June. Slipping up to a side window, I peeked in.

  The menfolk had slicked-backed hairdos and clean-shaven faces. Most dressed in city jackets and tall-waisted britches, huddled in small groups, eyeing each other and the women. It was a fancy to-do and only something I could touch in my books.

  I marveled at the ladies’ tight-fitting dresses of bold prints with their big, puffy sleeves, pretty buttons, and smart-looking belts. I glimpsed a few Bette Davis–style hairdos like the big movie star wore in the magazines. Sitting in straight-back chairs, the ladies waited for the pie auction, tapped snappy heels on weathered boards, chatting nervously with each other and sneaking peeks to the men and pie auction table.

  A long table brimmed with pies. Behind it, three men played the fiddles while another cupped a harmonica, their saucy tunes whisking lively around the smoky hall, escaping through cracks to the quiet streets of Troublesome. A few bold fellars picked partners, and the couples danced gaily on sawdust floors through wisps of tobacco smoke.

  I spotted Constance Poole. Her sewing ladies crowded behind her, watching out of the corner of their eyes as she talked to the men. Tonight she wore a stylish pear-green dress, a silk sash drawn tightly around her slim waist, her perfectly coiffed hair swept back with a fancy matching ribbon. Constance chatted with two woodsmen, and I watched them lean in and dote on every word.

  I glanced at the table of pies and wondered which one she had baked—how many would pitch for it. I thought of my own recipe with its hints of sweet, dark sorghum and buttery crust that I would sometimes make for Pa. For a moment I let myself fancy a man bidding on it, and then giggled at the thought and clamped a hand over my mouth. I hadn’t heard my foolery since Mama passed. To hear what had been silenced for so long felt like I’d stolen it from another. I tested it again, louder this time.

  Junia snorted, collaring my vanity and falseness, and I cut a shushing eye at her and turned back to the window.

  Harriett stood over in a corner hanging on her cousin’s arm, her new dress hemline boldly short, nearly naked leg to her knees.

  A man struck out a verse from “Liza Jane,” and the fiddlers picked up the lively tune while everyone moved to the middle and formed two lines, the ladies on one side and the men on the opposite. The two at the far end stepped forward, greeted each other with a curtsy and bow, and hooked arms and began circling around each other, clasping palms, kicking up their heels down between the lines. Another took their spot and did the same to the claps and toe-tapping of others.

  It was all dreamy, like a slick city magazine advertisement. Resting my chin on the sill, I pressed in closer.

  The fiddlers slowed their tune to a soft, sweet melody, the notes bending into the raw warbles of the harp player as couples broke off from the line to dance in corners.

  I felt the music in my hips, the light air sweeping into my singing hands. I wanted to twirl, dance again like Pa and Mama’d done on our porch when my uncle would stop by with his fiddle. At the end, Uncle Colton would slow down his tune, and Mama would sing an old French lullaby, “Au Clair de la Lune.” Her voice would lift softly into the damp night air, lose itself in the droplets of darkness. I’d join in to sing the beautiful French words, while Pa’s gravelly voice would pick up a chorus in English. Mama always had a tear in her eye when he’d finished.

  “By the light of the moon,

  My friend Pierrot,

  Lend me your quill

  To write a word.

  My candle is dead,

  I have no light left.”

  Swept up in the wonderment, the gussied-up folks, the music, and the exciting might of it left me awestruck. In my nineteen years I had never witnessed such, couldn’t imagine the splendor of the Pie Bake dance that Eula and Harriett spoke of, much less it happening in Troublesome.

  Glued, I didn’t see him slip up behind me until it was too late. His whiskey breath was hot on my neck, and his big arms circled around, grabbing my breasts. My scream rippled across Junia’s.

  The man pushed himself into my back and slurred drunkenly into my ear, “Now, why’s a sweet thing like yourself outside here all by your lonesome, sugar?”

  “Leave me be!” I tried to move, but he tightened his hold. The terror rose in my throat, thick and bile-tasting.

  “That ain’t no way to treat a friendly fellar wanting some pie.”

  “Let me go. Please!” I tried to push away from the brick and escape. But he had me pinned hard against the building.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Junia strain and buck, trying to break free of her post, her cries climbing into the music. She’d kill him if her tether broke.

  Again, I screamed out and struggled against him. He shoved my forehead into the brick, cutting my head, his clamped hand over my mouth, snaking his other one downward. “Give ol’ Allen some of that tasty pie, sugar.”

  A loud thump sounded, and the man went limp and fell to the ground. I spun around and saw him wriggle in the dirt, cradle his head.

  Sheriff Davies Kimbo stood over him, holding his gun.

  I backed up into the shadowy wall.

  “Allen Thompson,” the sheriff called, “you got one minute to get your sorry drunk ass back over to Cut Shin. I catch you ’round here again, you’ll be spending time in my jail.” He kicked the man hard in the side and smacked the butt of the gun against his palm. “Git.”

  Junia’s cries carried into the night air, low and quavering.

  Turtle-like, the man rose, unsteady, holding a hand to the back of his head, the other to his gut. He wobbled and tumbled into me. Then his mouth flew open when he got a look, and his red-mapped eyes rounded big and ugly. “You!” The drunken man stabbed a finger. “Gotdammit, you’s a circus freak!” He spit at me, and the dribble landed on my chest. I raised my arms over my face, backed into the wall, trying to escape.

  Cursing, the sheriff grabbed the man by the shoulders and threw him into the street. The drunk scrambled away.

  Sheriff turned to me and I tucked my head, moved deeper into the shadowed lip of the building.

  “Who’s there?” Sheriff took a step. “Bluet”—he squinted—“that you, girl?”

  I mewed out a weak “Yes.”

  “Why are you in town?” Sheriff holstered his gun.

  “I, uh—”

  “Does Elijah know you’re here?”

  I cast my eyes down.

  “You on book business? What are you doing here, girl?”

  I tried to think up a lie. Before I could, he pointed to the feed store door. “The Pie Bake. You trying to go to the dance? Is that it?”

  “No! I… Oh, no, sir. I just wanted to see what it was like.”

  He shook his head and frowned. “Now, Bluet, I got myself a daughter ’bout your age who used to go to the dance before she wedded, but rules are rules. I can’t have you breaking the law, offending these folks on their big to-do night.” He poked his heavily whiskered chin to the NO COLOREDS sign. “I got a bunch of rowdy imbibers in there who I’m responsible for. And I can’t do that if I’m tending to your kind. Get on home to Elijah, girl.”

  “Yes—no, sir. I’ll be on my way. Sorry for the trouble, Sheriff. It won’t happen again.”

  I turned toward Junia and took two steps before Sheriff called out, “By the way, Bluet, you seen my relation anywhere up there on your book routes? Ol’ Vester near your part of the woods? That ol’ boy’s been lying low.”

  I paused, the question nearly toppling me. Lying six feet low. My mind rattled and looped around the horror.

  Sheriff went on, “Preacher man’s nowhere to be found, and as much as I don’t miss that, I’m hoping the ol’ boy didn’t get himself into trouble.”

 
; “Preacher Frazier?” I asked casually, keeping my eyes parked on Junia, forcing myself to keep walking toward the mule and not look back at the lawman. When I reached Junia, my hands pressed into her fur, stroking, petting, drawing a strength. “No, sir, Sheriff, I never see a living soul on my book route—nary a one but my patrons.”

  Oh, but I’d seen the dead ones, and I know’d if Sheriff could see my eyes in the dark night, he’d see them in there too.

  Twenty-Seven

  I rode the mule hard back to the cove, vowing not to breathe a word to Pa about going to town, and praying the sheriff wouldn’t either. I didn’t need Pa going off and trying to defend my honor, to place us in bigger danger.

  Restless, I did chores while I waited for his return. When I finished sweeping the floors, I paused at the mirror to smooth back my hair, studying my reflection, thinking about the ladies at the dance, their fancy dresses and stylish dos. I leaned into the looking glass and twisted a lock around my finger, and then remembering something I’d seen, emptied my satchel and thumbed through the old magazines until I found it again. Using penciled sketches, the article explained how to curl hair with hairpins. Below that illustration, a lady showed how to craft strips of fabric to make pretty locks. I scanned the room. Weren’t no such hair fasteners in my home, but I had plenty of rags.

  Up in the loft, I rummaged through Mama’s old trunk and found a leftover piece of old material she’d saved. I carried it down the ladder and cut it up into narrow strips, then dampened the rags using a small pail of water.

  In front of the mirror, I pulled out a section of my hair, carefully wrapping the ends around the strip of fabric a couple of times, rolling it all to my scalp before tying the rags into tight knots.

  When I finished I stared at myself. An old ballad spilled from my lips, and I stretched out an arm and pretended to accept a dance with a fine man who’d won my pie. I twirled around the room once, twice, and again and again until I stubbed my toe on Pa’s bedpost and yelped. I winced and limped back over to the looking glass. Feeling foolish and looking it, I yanked out all the rag curls and turned my darkening face away from the mirror, untangling my damp hair, scratching at my head.

  After a fitful night, Pa waltzed in at dawn, spent and grumpy. A bruise bloomed on his eye, and a cut climbed across his cheek. He slapped a bulging knapsack onto the table. “Got you some rabbits. Done got the damn bobcat too.” He pointed to the porch. “I’ll make you a warm muff for next winter. And ’fore I forget, I ran into Doc out there. He reminded that he’ll pick you up two weeks from Saturday.”

  I knocked the bag onto the floor, sending the limp critters flying across the old wooden floor. “Pa, you have to stop going! These talks are dangerous—”

  “Hold your tongue! The men picked me, and I have to speak for my fellow miners to get better pay and safer work conditions! It’s thievery down in the shafts, the lung sickness waiting to snatch your last breath. The miserable long hours. And the Company bosses who’d murder anyone who wants better than that—they scalp our land, leave behind the dirt an’ ash, their broken coal trucks and ghost camps. They’ve left their filthy, fancy boot prints everywhere on everything, the poor ’tucky man’s back. Why, even the fish are dying from the poisons running into our streams.”

  “Why you? Can’t someone else do it?” A clamminess slid into my hands, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the other miners chose him because of his color—because they believed his life was of less value, like the mules they sent in to check for leaking gases.

  “Pa, is it because you’re a Blue?”

  He wouldn’t answer, but I could see it there in his eyes, the truth he hid, and I wished more than anything that he was white, and that the burden of his dangerous work wouldn’t be doubled by our ugly color.

  If only I could keep him safe. I felt a catch in my throat and realized more than anything now, I wanted the whiteness for him. A peace that he’d never had. And for a moment, I allowed myself to think how life could be easier, safer, for both of us if we weren’t colored. I sent up a silent prayer that Doc would find a cure, and quick-like.

  “Pa?” I touched his sleeve. “Is it because you’re blue—”

  “It’s because I’m a Kentucky miner, and a damn good one!” he barked hoarsely.

  “Oh, Pa, forgive me. I didn’t—” My words broke apart. Swathed in my own misery, I wrapped my arms around him, tightened, and soon felt his forgiveness in the steady pats to my back.

  * * *

  Doc arrived at 7:00 a.m. for our Lexington trip on the third Saturday in June, just as the morning fog crawled up cedar bark, snaking its way out of our cove.

  Inside his motorcar, Doc passed me the latest issue of the Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper. Despite his kind gift, I was glum. I wanted to ask about food, but it felt too needy. I thought to ask him about the tests coming, but I was too afraid to hear his answers. We rode mostly in silence to the hospital except when he pointed out landmarks and offered the names of big horse farms.

  “Magnificent beasts, aren’t they?” he said. “Those buildings are stalls.”

  “They live in those?” I said, astonished.

  Doc slowed, and I gawked at the stately buildings that housed the kings of horse racing, the princes of Kentucky, stared at the magnificent beasts grazing on land as green as emeralds, lush as velvet, content and fattened in their riches.

  “They do indeed.” Doc nodded.

  “Ain’t never seen anything so fancy. Such big mansions. And built just for beasts at that. Reckon their masters live in castles?”

  “Castles indeed,” he said, smiling. And I searched the countryside, trying to glimpse one.

  When we pulled into the hospital lot, I found my courage and turned to Doc and said, “I’ll do your tests, but not with them nuns.” As bad as I wanted the whiteness for me and Pa right now, and the food for the young’uns, I’d seen a scarier color in the nuns’ mean hearts and was terrified they would kill me.

  Doc raised a brow.

  “I mean it,” I mustered, shaking a little inside from my daring, and peeled back my coat to show him Pa’s hunting knife sheathed in cracked red leather. “They’s—” I caught myself. “They’re not going to touch me again. And I’ll not take off my necessaries!”

  I saw the beginning of a protest in Doc’s face, but then he said, “We’ll make sure they’re not a bother to you, my dear…and I’ll protect your modesty.”

  Emboldened, I held his gaze and waited for his promise.

  “I give you my word.”

  I dropped my flap. “And I need food, a lot of food,” I said, thinking about the schoolchildren. “We’ve been hungry. Starved.”

  “There’s a carton in the back. You’ll find it full.”

  I turned around and saw it brimming with cheeses and bread. Relieved, I pressed my face to the window, stared out at the vast grounds, my own heart full of gratitude, near bursting.

  Mistaking my gratefulness for worry, Doc reached over and patted my shoulder. “We’ll find a cure, Bluet. We will.”

  To have food for the young’uns and now his declaration would be a fancy like none in my books.

  Inside the hospital, we passed the nuns, and I cut them the meanest eye I could give, a rumbling hiss in my throat threatening to slip off my tongue and scratch. Doc hurried me along to the Colored Ward, not stopping when one of the nuns greeted him.

  Inside the ward, a little girl stuck her head out of a room. When the young’un saw me, she let out a shriek and started crying.

  A nun came running and scooped up the hysterical girl, shielding the child’s face from mine.

  Doc grabbed my arm and dragged me past. Inside the quiet examining room, Dr. Mills and the mountain doc asked lots of questions and made notes with each of my answers.

  “Do you drink? Does your family partake of alcohol? Run a still, maybe m
ix it with something other than grain?” Dr. Mills asked.

  I tightened my mouth, glared back my noes.

  “Bluet and her father are hard workers, of good character and moral cloth, Randall,” Doc said softly, but a little miffed.

  No one had ever said such about Blues, and I looked at Doc, appreciative, and saw he meant it.

  “Any illnesses, ailings?” Dr. Mills looked at me closely.

  I raised my hand to my bad ear, lightly touched it, and shook my head, not wanting to tell him about Frazier and the ailings he’d left me with. The busted arm still pained me sometimes, and the ear was just about spent.

  A smart-dressed lady wandered into the room, sat down quietly in the corner chair with a pen and pad, and took notes too.

  I eyed her warily, making sure she wasn’t a nun in disguise.

  The doctors examined more charts, X-rays. “The heart and lungs are normal,” Dr. Mills said. “What about the father, Thomas?” He turned to Doc.

  Doc glanced at me and then said low, “He’s an ailing coal miner. We’ll discuss Mr. Carter later, shall we?”

  They took my temperature, asked me curious questions about kin. “Do you know about your kins’ backgrounds?” Dr. Mills asked. “Their names? Who they married?”

  “Yes, sir. Would you like me to write them down for you?”

  “You write?” he asked.

  Doc placed a hand on my arm and said, “Our Bluet is a librarian for the Pack Horse project. A smart book woman for our little town.” His voice was proud, like a papa bragging on his child.

  “Librarian? In Troublesome?” Dr. Mills said, wrinkling his dark forehead, exchanging glances with the Doc.

  “Yes, a librarian, and in Troublesome.” Doc smiled at me.

  “Get her a pen and paper, Miss Palmer,” Dr. Mills said to the woman.

  “Yes, sir.” The lady handed me a pen and clean sheet of paper, and I bent over the table and scribbled down names while the doctors hovered over me peeking at my script.

  Deliberately, I slowed, fancied it up some like Mama’d taught me, looping my letters fat and just right, giving them the perfect slant.