The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek Read online

  A small boy knelt in the corner relieving himself through a knothole in the boards; a naked baby cuddled next to the potbelly stove and chewed on a stick.

  Henry’s mama pointed across the room. “Henra,” she called faintly and hobbled her hard time across the floor, leading me to where he lay curled on a stingy pallet next to the wall.

  “Book Woman—” Henry tried to smile and reach up for me, but his throat seized and a cough rattled the greeting.

  “Henry,” I whispered achingly, “I brought you this.” I showed him the book.

  He was too weak to take it.

  “Peter and Wendy,” he mewed, focusing his eyes on the cover.

  “That’s right. I’ve brought you Mr. Barrie’s wonderful tale.”

  “It…it’s surely the best, ma’am.” Henry tried to push himself up on his elbows, but fell back shivering, his bones knocking taut flesh.

  I knelt beside the boy and pulled a coverlet over him, tucked the dirty flour sack someone had tried to fashion into a blanket over his small frame. His shoulder blades and hips poked through the rough material. Henry’s lips were faint blue, his cheeks hollowed with dark patches.

  Light leaked through the gaping holes beneath the floor. Under it, chickens huddled in the dirt, clucking, the stink of soil and disease rising through splintered boards.

  I opened the worn book, flipped to the beginning, and pulled out a small horse-shaped badge I’d patched together from pieces of fabric and pressed it into Henry’s palm.

  “Here’s your librarian badge, Henry.”

  He squinted his feverish eyes.

  “Raise your hand, sir.”

  Henry held it up, and I grasped it. “Henry, I do hereby make you an honorary Pack Horse librarian. Do you promise to take care of your patrons, bring them books, and read to them?”

  Henry’s watery eyes bloomed, and he swallowed the knotted promises, gulping them all down. Proud, he pressed the homemade badge to his heart.

  Behind me, I heard a low, painful sob. Henry’s mama clung to the doorframe, apron to her mouth, dabbing at soaking eyes, her bony frame toppled with grief.

  The children in the bed chorused soft murmurs, popped up, the toothless surprises pasted on their sickly, pallid faces, their scaly necks and cheeks roped with the pellagra rash.

  I motioned to his shy brothers and sisters. “Come on, little ones. Don’t be afraid none. Gather ’round while our newest Book Man reads to us.”

  Henry’s face swelled with pride. Again, he tried to rise but collapsed, his mournful cry whisking past tight-tucked teeth. I fitted the cover back over him and rubbed his frail shoulder.

  Henry’s mama nudged quietly. “Git on, childrun. Lissen to Book Woman.”

  One by one they slipped out of bed, crowding in silently beside me and Henry on the floor. The smallest girl curled up beside Henry, laying her head heavy on his arm. With pained effort, he cast a wincing smile at the little one, struggling to lift the blanket to share it with her.

  I shrugged off my bonnet, folded and placed the soft fabric gently under Henry’s head for a cushion. Leaning in close, I opened the book and held it up to Henry’s face.

  “Book Man, will you read us Peter and Wendy?”

  Henry nodded solemnly, then raised a finger to the page, underlining each word with a flesh-bitten nail, graveling out the first sentence. “All chil—” He looked up at me and swallowed loudly. “All children, except one…” Henry paused toward the end of the sentence to cough, his eyes ablaze with happiness, the fever licking his light. He coughed once more, and lifted his “grow up.”

  Thirty-Five

  Devil John stepped onto the path as I made my way home from Henry’s. I’d been huddling inside my grief and didn’t see him until Junia warned me.

  “Book Woman,” he said, taking off his hat, twisting it in his hands, and pulling on his long beard. “I wanted to let you know the young’uns been working now. My garden is in, an’ the chores is getting done. Martha Hannah has the girls caught up on their sewing, and supper’s been on the table an’ on time.”

  “That’s real good, sir,” I said.

  All I could think of was Henry, wishing I could cradle him. But I had no right to take a mother’s important last rite away. I’d left the dying boy in his mama’s arms and quietly slipped out to give dignity to the family. Henry would be gone by morning, and probably all of the Marshall family within three months.

  Devil John said, “Carson, that’s my oldest, asked if you could bring him some more Boy Scout reads. That boy likes his reading more than anything,” he added more with pride than bother. “Lights through the pages and helps Martha Hannah read to the babies now. Takes a hankering to read to me, and”—he paused to clear his throat—“well, he sees fit to sharpen up my spelling a bit. I have me a list of words I’m working on for the pestering boy.” He reddened, but I could see he wasn’t annoyed, just pleased with himself.

  “That’s real nice of Carson, sir.”

  “Well, he killed himself a fat boar and brought home a pail of trout. I reckon you bringing the Boy Scout read won’t bother none.”

  “I’ll try to bring it next Monday,” I said, eager to pass and be on my way.

  “And a better Bible for Martha Hannah too. Her fingers done licked the words off most of the pages.”

  “Yes, sir, we get lots of Bibles.” It was true. We handed them out to every patron, and many were donated from Lexington, Louisville, and Cincinnati, so many we never asked for those loans back. It was like folks in the city had thrown away their religion, given up on Jesus.

  In this moment of emptiness, of mourning, I wondered if I should too.

  I could feel Devil John’s eyes on me. He could see mine, red and swollen. I tried to light a smile his way. “Good day, sir. I’ll fetch the material to you next week.”

  “A Bible and the Boy Scouts, and only them,” Devil John said, and studied me some more before pulling out a pint of moonshine from his backside and setting it on the path. “I imagine it’s a bit wearing for a book woman to tote all them books to the folks around here. And I reckon all that hard work wears on a soul.”

  He put on his hat and was off.

  I slid down off Junia, took the shine, and placed it in my bag.

  Two hours later, I made my last stop, handing Timmy Flynn a new read from atop my mule and stashing his other loan inside my bags.

  Timmy plopped down by the tree and pushed his nose into the new loan.

  I turned to leave and heard someone call for me. “Book Woman, Book Woman, wait.”

  It was Mrs. Flynn.

  “Hol’ up!” she ordered.

  I winced and hoped she wouldn’t fuss today. It’d been bold to leave the scrapbook, but I’d thought she would find something useful in it and dearly wanted to gain Timmy’s whole family as patrons.

  Mrs. Flynn splashed across the creek, holding up the scrapbook, her frayed calico hems darkened from the waters, feet teetering carefully across slick rock. Her bonnet slipped off and hung loose down her back.

  Breathless, she stopped beside Junia and held up the book. “Book Woman, this! Bring me another one like this.” She shoved it into my hand, then lit off back across the creek toward home.

  I stared after her. My tense shoulders slumped some, and a full breath whisked out. After all this time, she’d requested her first loan and would become my patron. The family would be reading together. And despite the hardness of this sad day, a small joy lit my heart.

  Timmy glanced up from his book and grinned. “Pa said that was the best sugar pie recipe Ma’d ever made. Auntie too. She made it for the dance and said she done caught herself a big, strapping man.”

  * * *

  On the path away from the Flynns’, I followed the creek toward home. Minutes later, Junia pulled toward the water and I climbed down and sa
t on the grass to let her rest, drawing my knees under my chin. A bee panther flew down beside me, landed atop a grasshopper, feasting on its midday meal.

  I scooted away from the ugly robber fly. Soon, Junia moseyed back over to me. I pulled out my leather-sheathed bottle from the bags and saw that it was empty. My throat was parched, but I dared not drink from the creek. You never know’d who’d built an outhouse upstream, or what had spilled out from the mines.

  I stared at Devil John’s hooch and tried to decide if that would quench my thirst. “Hard work,” Devil John had said. Feeling it, I grabbed the moonshine, took it over to another grassy spot by the bank. Creek waters slid over slick, gray rock, and I rubbed a thumb over the old glass as I inhaled the scent of rushing creek waters.

  Far away, someone played a fiddle, tickling the mournful notes, the soft music laddering into tall boughs, carrying across the long day.

  A wood thrush whistled overhead and folded its flute song into the strings.

  I pulled the stopper out of the bottle, lifted the moonshine, and swallowed a mouthful, coughing back up some of the burn, spitting, wiping the dribble off with my shoulder.

  I chanced another swallow, coughed some more. Once more. And then again. The liquor—smooth now—warmed my belly and tamped the trouble inside me.

  When it hit my head, I had myself a talk with the Lord, with Henry’s Jesus, railed to the dear Almighty God, shocked and afraid of how angry I was at Him for what he’d done to Henry and his brothers and sisters.

  “Lord,” I whispered, “what did little Henry ever do to You to make him suffer Your wrath? What could the boy have done?”

  Junia edged closer to me and blew out a powdery neigh.

  I thumped the earth with a fist and yelled, “Why, oh why didn’t You love him like I did?” I swigged more corn liquor, then wiped the droplets of panther’s breath off my chin.

  “Why couldn’t you let him grow up?” I curled myself into a tight ball on the blood-soaked Kentucky soil, wailing for Henry and all the Henrys in these dark hollows who’d never be a common grown-up. Stuck forever as Peter Pans.

  Thirty-Six

  I almost missed it at the outpost when I’d stuffed the courier’s pamphlets and flyers inside my bags. And I’d stared at it in disbelief, rubbing my fingers over the elegant script used to write my name, marveling over the mere sixteen days the letter had taken to reach me.

  I held on to the envelope all day, vowing not to open it until I returned home from the outpost. Several times along the path, I stopped, pulled out the envelope, stared at the Philadelphia postmark, the purple three-cent stamp of the woman named Susan B. Anthony with Suffrage For Women written under her photograph. What a strange stamp, and what was the suffrage?

  In the evening, I sat cross-legged on my bed and pressed my very first friendship letter to my bruising-blue lips, smelling the small envelope, turning it over, holding it up to the candlelight, doing it again and in a trance of wonderment.

  I traced a dark finger over Queenie’s city address, the smart fancy script, the blue ink. Leaning into the light, I took Pa’s knife and slowly and oh so carefully opened it.

  July 9, 1936

  Dearest Cussy,

  We made it to Philadelphia safely. I rented an apartment fourteen blocks from the library. It is crowded with five of us in this tiny two-room flat with no porch or hills to escape to.

  Philadelphia is gray from its bootstrap to the top of its tall concrete buildings. The city nights are without stars, and I miss that most. It is hot, noisy, and never beds itself. How odd that Troublesome rises late out of its smoky-blue shadows and struggles for the light when the city won’t shut off its blinding one!

  There are beggars on the streets everywhere you look. One thief stole my bag, and another knocked down my young Aaron and snatched his hat. Hunger abounds. Men, women, and children stand in long food lines for their meals.

  It’s hectic here, and folk are always busy flittering about like bees. Oh, I wish you could see this big city and the people skittering to and fro! The white folk in this big place don’t even look at me like they do in Troublesome.

  The library is big, bigger than the whole town of Troublesome. I haven’t seen all of it, but my boss, Mr. Patchett, promises to take a day off soon and show me around. Mr. Patchett is from England, and calls me a quick study. He says I’m a capable female and smart-enough Negro. He has urged me to apply to the Hampton Institute Library School, and insists on giving me a letter.

  Write to me soon, honey.

  God bless you and your papa,

  Queenie Johnson

  I read the letter many times, until the candle lost its fire and would no longer hold—till the morning light and fanciful and frightful dreams of city life had lulled me into a restless sleep.

  Thirty-Seven

  I rode the mule toward the Moffits’ homestead as the fog parted and the sun broke through another morning, the last week of July bearing down, just as miserably baked as the fiery Fourth had been.

  We saw it at the same time. Alarmed, Junia cantered, then teetered at the edge of the Moffits’ yard. The mule’s rear legs slid beneath her belly until she was nearly sitting. Thin, white foam gathered at the corners of Junia’s mouth, and her eyes were ringed white as she fought to sidestep away, anywhere other than facing the thing in front of her.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off it as I struggled to control Junia and kicked her flanks. She rose stick-legged, straining her neck, ready to bolt. Keeping my eyes locked ahead, I seated myself firmly in the saddle, speaking gently to the trembling animal. Again, I kicked. When the beast high-stepped backward and sideways—every way but forward—I lifted my heels and brought them down hard. Junia burst into an awkward gallop, careering into the yard before skidding to another halt. I drew the reins in tighter. In front of me, a body swayed from the fat branch of a tree.

  Angry cries sparked from the earth, and I dropped my gaze to the ground.

  A baby lay in the dirt beside the large toppled can of Angeline’s Mother’s Lard. Swaddled in her mama’s housecoat, the child’s tiny arms quaked, fisted upward to the corpse, its eyes dead, body limp, rocking in a tight half-spin from a warm gust of wind.

  The branch creaked, moaned under its heavy burden. A bloody sock slipped from a dangling methylene-blue foot and landed beside the wailing baby.

  I dared another peek and looked up, then raised my hand in front of my blue-coloring face, comparing my darkened flesh to that of the hanging corpse.

  Junia pawed the ground, turned her head, and blew hard.

  I slid down and ran to the infant, picked the newborn up, and rushed toward the cabin. “Angeline, Angeline,” I called to her.

  Inside, Angeline lay on the bed atop soiled sheets. On the floor, blood had spilled and a slime of afterbirth spread, seeped through the boards’ cracks. The air was raw, wrapped in iron, festering in the hot cabin.

  Something had gone horribly ugly and wrong in the childbirth. A blood-specked hunting knife lay nearby on the floor, the baby’s shriveled life cord draped over it.

  “Bluet—” Angeline said faintly, stretching a bloodstained hand to me.

  “Oh, Angeline,” I cried, surprised she was alive.

  “My babe…my ba-by,” she choked and sputtered.

  “Right here.” I rushed and knelt down beside the bed, the scent of blood, old straw, and moldy sheets hitting my face.

  “Give her to me. My Honey girl. She needs to feed—”

  I placed the baby in the crook of her arm next to her breast. The child’s breathy cries quieted as she rooted for the nipple.

  Angeline winced.

  There was so much blood. Far too much. Blood that would stain—birthmark the pine floors forever red.

  “When did you have her?” I asked.

  “I’ve been birthing her since yesterday morn�
��. She jus’ came maybe an hour or so ago,” Angeline said, pinching her words. “But Willie got mad, Bluet, and took her. Took Honey from me.” She kissed the baby’s head, and her sob clung wet to Honey’s forehead. “Feared he was gonna hurt her…real bad. Said she smelled.”

  “What? Why would her pa do that?” I looked out the dirty pane, wondering how I would tell her about Willie out there like that and the bad that would be stinking on him.

  “Willie wouldn’t have her. Wouldn’t have our Honey.” Tears filled Angeline’s eyes. “He said he’d married hisself a white, not a colored. And folks would know’d he didn’t.”

  “Colored… But that’s not true—”

  “He didn’t want her. Me. Said he’d rather die than be scarred with us.”

  Angeline pulled back the baby’s wrap, and I saw it. Saw what Willie wouldn’t have and wanted to hide. The baby weren’t entirely blue, but she wasn’t white neither. Honey’s skin was smattered with the sticky blood of her mama’s life, but you could see the soft blue running over her, faint like a coming-twilight blue, and the bruising-blue fingernails.

  The baby kicked, and I saw the tiny toenails were the same.

  “Willie has the Blue in him—it showed itself when he got sick,” Angeline said breathlessly. “I married myself a colored an’ didn’t know’d it.”

  Doc’s words rushed back to me. Your parents carried the same recessive gene. Then Angeline’s long ago words. Willie used to have hisself kin planted up there in Hell-fer-Sartin. I did too…

  Could it be?

  She coughed. “Don’t matter none, and I tried to tell him so.”

  I thought about Willie’s nails, the glimpses I’d seen. “I need to fetch Doc.”

  Moaning, Angeline shook her head. “It’s hurting so bad. Hain’t time. I can feel it leaving me an’ the cold a’comin’.”