“You’re hurting me.”
“I’ll do worse if you don’t obey me.”
“I want to kill Yankees.”
“That isn’t the way to beat them. I know the right way. I don’t want you arrested, Ouida. I don’t want your reputation hurt. No, no,” he whispered, pulling her into his shoulder and stroking her hair. Her powdery chin smeared the lapel of his frock coat.
Her strident breathing subsided. He dropped his hands. “Throw it out, Ouida. Brew regular tea.”
She sniffled. “All right.” She carried the strainer to the door and dumped its contents in the weeds. Gibbes smoothed his shirt, composed his face, walked back through the swing door.
“Tea’s coming, Major. Just a few more minutes.” He smiled. “Where do you hail from, sir?”
“Bangor, Maine,” the major said. “I’ve always heard of Southern hospitality, Mr. Bell. Now I understand the phrase.”
68
Riot
“She’s moved her damn school.”
Folsey lounged in the parlor of the spacious house on George Street that had been in the family since Crittenden’s day. “You sure about that?”
“Saw it for myself. You know the abandoned Daws place next to Bells’? I climbed up to the second floor—damn scary, stairs are half caved in. From a bedroom there’s a fine view across the broken-down garden wall.”
“Rex, you’re a born snoop.”
“When it comes to nigger mischief, that I am. She’s teaching the darkies in her dining room, at night. Seven grown men and women. It’s a damn outrage.”
“Now, just a minute. Your own mother’s teaching pick-aninnies in public school, isn’t she?”
“Damn if I can do anything about that. Anyway, they handed her the class, she had no say.”
Folsey’s guest, Rex Porcher-Jones, was a prewar graduate of South Carolina College and expert at toadying to those he considered his betters. His face was round as a pie, white as the lard that greased the pan. “Two hundred says you can’t hit the woman from the Daws house,” Folsey said.
“Hit her? You mean with a bullet?”
“I don’t mean a slingshot.”
Rex’s consternation warred with eagerness to please. He hedged. “That’s a damn lot of money.”
“All right, make it fifty. Won’t owe you so much if I lose.”
With a sweating palm Rex shook hands to seal the wager. Kaspar walked into the room barefoot. Although it was nearly noon, he still wore his nightshirt. He smiled drowsily and reached for the glass of Madeira Folsey had been sipping. Folsey tousled his hair as he ushered Rex to the hall.
Rex peered at a box of white-painted stakes lying against the baseboard. Each stake bore a black two-digit number. “What are those damn things?”
“Little scheme of mine. You know Sherman’s field order giving vacant land from Charleston to Port Royal and thirty miles inland to any niggers who care to claim it? General Saxton down at the Freedmen’s Bureau in Beaufort, he’s started to parcel it out, forty acres at a time.”
“Still don’t understand. What’s the damn number mean?”
“Not a blessed thing. A big buck named Slope, brute with forehead like this”—Folsey slanted his hand in front of his brow—“he sells the sticks for me. He tells the colored folks they’re freedom sticks, all they’ve got to do is plant one at each corner of a piece of land and it’s theirs, nice and legal. We charge four dollars the set of four. Slope keeps a dollar, I take the rest. Sold over two hundred so far. Isn’t that a stitch?”
He slapped Rex on the back. “I look forward to paying off my bet. Just don’t get caught.”
Plato Hix learned the copperplate script alphabet using a quill pen. Alex insisted that he draw ruled lines on the blank pages before he practiced. He wrote letters, words, phrases, then sentences from an exercise book she supplied. His spelling was abominable; he made frequent errors even when copying a maxim. Christanity cals for kindness. Hard work takes away sadnes. Plato couldn’t imagine someone working harder than he did, and he was constantly sad about it.
He and Mary and their children, Benny, named for Benjamin Franklin, and Abby, named for Mary’s mother, rented two tiny rooms in a rookery on Prioleau Street, near the Cooper River piers. Every corner and cranny of the three-story building smelled of dirt and rotting garbage and human waste.
The Hix family could afford nothing better. Plato’s night duty with his fire brigade brought in no money. With his crippled hand the best job he could find was boot-blacking in a dim hallway off the lobby of the Mansion House. Crouching on his homemade box of polishes and rags, he earned a dime per customer. He paid three cents of that to the hotel manager.
Plato’s back ached from bending over the fancy footwear that gentlemen presented for his attention all day long: gray leather ankle boots with laces; elastic-sided boots with patent leather toe caps; low heels, high heels, stacked heels. Any mistake had consequences, as when he accidentally dabbed brown paste on the suede upper of a gentleman’s buttoned boot. For that he got a knock in the head and a cursing out, as well as a dollar fine from the manager.
Plato was determined to improve his lot, so he went to South Battery one night a week to study and write in his copybook. Miss Alex gave him a small dog-eared dictionary she’d bought at the Marburg Bookshop. It taught him words he might need if he ever found the courage to write about Maj. Owen Wheat. Plato, Mr. Gibbes Bell, and Major Wheat had all served under Gen. Wade Hampton, though Gibbes Bell hadn’t come along until the spring of 1862, replacing an officer who stepped on a buried torpedo during McClellan’s siege of Yorktown.
July turned the tenement to a furnace. Plato’s pride, little Benny, developed a severe headache, then a pronounced jaundice. It was the dreaded yellow fever. People either died of it or they recovered, without a doctor’s intervention.
To buy ice to cool his son’s throat and feverish skin, Plato begged for an advance from the hotel manager. He was refused. He contemplated robbing some stranger on the street, but while he was still pondering the danger, Benny’s fever broke. Miraculously, the boy recovered without apparent damage.
The near tragedy taught a lesson. He could no longer subject his family to such extreme poverty, not when he possessed a secret that might rescue them from it.
He decided he’d learned what he needed in Alex’s class. He stopped going, without informing her. While Mary and the children slept, Plato sat over a candle with quill and copybook, laboriously composing an account of the demise of Maj. Owen Wheat.
“Plato Hix hasn’t been to class for three weeks. I’m going to call on him and find out why.”
In the steamy dusk Maudie’s face ran with sweat. The house was so still, Alex fancied she could hear the ancient beams settling for the night. Ham had left before candlelighting time, to weed and water St. Michael’s churchyard for an hour, as his friend Petigru had done regularly. Ham would spend the rest of the evening with some gentleman who hoped to resurrect the Fortnightly Club.
“Wouldn’t do that,” Maudie advised her. “Heat’s got people in bad temper. Saw two fights at market today.”
“Who was fighting? Whites? Colored? The soldiers?”
“Pick any one of ’em. They’re all mad as hornets. Besides, Prioleau Street’s a bad part of town.”
“I’ll go with her,” Little Bob said from his chair at the dining table. Alex tried to read his round face. It was expressionless.
“I’d be happy for the company, Bob.” The boy slipped to her side, clasped her hand. He’d never broken out of himself like this before. It delighted her.
They walked to East Battery, past the abandoned gun emplacements, then turned north. She tried to converse with Bob, but he answered her questions with monosyllables. Still, he held her hand tightly.
The August evening was oppressive. It had been one of those late summer days she called white days: sunless, the sky a simmering blank whose color reminded her of dingy linen. On the stoop of a pale p
ink house a man and woman quarreled, pouring out a torrent of foul language. Little Bob seemed unfazed.
A raggedy drunk approached, reached for Alex’s arm. Bob said, “Go ’way, you old son of a bitch.” Before the drunk could decide if he was angry, they escaped.
“A lady is certainly safe in your company,” Alex said, laughing. She really wanted to ask where he’d learned to curse. Bob responded with pursed lips. She counted it a smile.
At Queen Street they turned east into Vendue Range; Prioleau led north off of it near the water. The street was crowded with unkempt men and a few prostitutes. Inside a dimly lit dramshop men serenaded the past. “Hurrah, hurrah, for Southern rights, hurrah—hurrah for the bonnie blue flag that wears a single star.” Several others lounged on benches outside. One hailed Alex, invited her to sit on his lap.
When they were still a few steps from Prioleau, they heard new singing. Male voices again, loud and slurred. “We’ll hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree, oh, we’ll hang Jeff Davis—” Around the corner came a sizable gang of black soldiers. A brickbat flew over Alex’s head, hitting one of them in the chest.
“You fucking niggers better not come down this street.”
A soldier pointed at the dramshop. “One of them white boys threw it, I seen him.” Men at the dramshop stepped into the street. The Prioleau intersection lay beyond the soldiers; Alex and Little Bob were cut off in both directions.
She flashed looks right and left. No easy sanctuary there. The soldiers sauntered toward her, taunting the whites. A corporal tried to push Alex aside. She refused to move. One of the white roughnecks yelled, “The coon’s molesting that white woman.”
It took nothing more to ignite the brawl.
Men from the dramshop rushed past her. She glimpsed a dirk, metal knuckles. The soldiers lined up across the street and met the attack with swinging fists. A white man inadvertently pushed Alex forward; a black fist smashed her jaw. “Miss Alex,” Bob cried as she fell to her knees. Men were all around her, pummeling and kicking, biting cheeks and gouging eyes. She tried to crawl out of the thicket of legs; someone walked on her fingers.
Bob started punching anyone handy, got a brutal slap in return. Alex rose to one knee, groggy and nauseous. Someone grabbed her shoulder, tore the sleeve of her dress. A black corporal fell against her, face split open from eyebrow to chin. His blood stained her bodice as he slid down and passed out. She clutched Little Bob’s hand, consumed with panic.
“Get out of the way, stand aside.”
Who the man was, she didn’t know. He bulled through the crowd, a shadowy phantom with a revolver. “Follow me,” he said, then spun suddenly to jam the gun muzzle against the jaw of a white man who’d laid hands on him. “You want to eat this, sport?”
The man slid away. Alex recognized the stranger’s voice but not the beardless face. When he turned his head, the dramshop lanterns showed her Richard Riddle’s flecked eyes.
“Where did you come from?”
“A table in the tavern where I was enjoying sausage and a glass of combustible. Let’s get away from these damn fools before they kill us. Boy, hang on to my hand.” Richard booted a soldier’s rear and opened a path.
They ran west on Queen, Alex panting to keep up with Little Bob and their rescuer. All three darted out of the way of a detachment from the provost guard hurrying to the riot at double time. The provost guards charged in, attacking their fellow soldiers with truncheons. Alex heard cries of pain, saw men drop, mercilessly clubbed. Sickened, she turned away and followed Riddle.
69
Unexpected Encounters
On King Street at that same hour Cal saw a woman accidentally step into a rut and fall. Her parasol and hatbox flew. The mishap occurred in the dark center of the block, where streetlamps didn’t reach. Though more than slightly inebriated, Cal ran to assist, as any well-bred Southern gentleman would.
“Here, ma’am, let me help you.” He offered his hand. She felt light as a little bird when he lifted her. Her gloves were soft suede, her stylish London-style riding habit dark gray lightened by two splashes of white: frothy ruching at her throat and a veil trailing behind her high silk hat. She smelled pleasantly of lilac water.
She brushed herself off. “Very kind of you, sir. They haven’t fully repaired the street.”
He retrieved her hatbox and furled parasol. “Not a good hour for a young lady to be out by herself.”
“I know, and it’s curfew soon.”
“Allow me to escort you home. Cal Hayward’s the name.” He tipped the black slouch hat he’d bought because it made him feel a bit like a soldier again.
The young woman hesitated. “I live near Marion Square. Henrietta Street. Mrs. Talcott’s lodging house.”
Cal knew Mrs. Talcott’s. He’d spent a night there, in the company of a comely quadroon. Mrs. Talcott was an elephantine Negress who rented rooms to the brown demimonde.
They walked north. In the corona of light at the corner of Liberty Street, he saw her clearly. She was older by as much as ten years but the difference wasn’t apparent, except to him. His face haggard from prison and from drinking, Cal looked nearly as old.
The girl tilted her chin up, smiled prettily and said, “I’ve neglected the courtesies, Mr. Hayward. My name is Adah Samples.”
Along Meeting Street, trees were in full leaf. Streetlamps threw dappled patterns on the dusty paving. It was cooler.
Alex noticed changes in their benefactor. Richard Riddle was shaved and barbered. His plain workman’s clothes looked clean and relatively new. He smelled of bay rum. “We’ll forever be grateful to you,” she said.
“I’d have done the same for any lady.”
“Even so, it was gallant. It embarrasses me to remember how rude I was when we met on the wharf.”
“I recall I wasn’t so polite myself. Maybe we should start fresh.”
“We must. Have you found decent lodgings?”
“One room. Small, but sufficient. Found a better job too. Mr. Riggs of the Charleston City Railway wants to put the cars back in operation. He’s hired me as a driver. Been handling horses all my life. I ran a freight-hauling business in Columbia.”
“I remember. Your father started it.”
“And Sherman finished it. Would pipe smoke annoy you?”
“Not at all.”
Little Bob seemed fascinated by the tall man, and the blued revolver he’d hidden in the pocket of his sack coat. Ex-Confederates weren’t supposed to carry arms. Richard packed a corncob with tobacco from a muslin sack, struck a match on his boot. Sweet smoke clouded in the lamplight.
When they reached the house, Alex invited him in for refreshment. She was pleased when he said, “That’d be fine.”
The downstairs was dark; Maudie had retired. She asked Little Bob to light two lamps in the dining room while she went to the pantry. She returned with a plate protected by a gauze dome. “This is strawberry cheesecake, baked today, if you’d like some.” He said he would. “I can offer you apple brandy or cider. I’m afraid the cider’s warm.”
“Cider will be fine.” He sat at one side of the table, opposite his reflection in a tall window. Little Bob watched raptly, chin in his hands.
“Were you in the war?” the boy asked.
“Yes, sir, the Congaree Mounted Rifles. Spent most of the time in a Yankee prison, I regret to say.”
Wide eyed, Bob said, “Did you hate it?”
Richard’s expression clouded. “That doesn’t begin to cover it, lad.”
Alex brought in a tray with glasses of cider. He ate the cheesecake without dropping crumbs. When he finished, he brushed his lips with a napkin, which he then folded carefully. He indicated the McGuffey readers piled in a corner, the easel holding a large slate, the matchboxes filled with chalk sticks. “Looks like a schoolroom.”
“I’m teaching a few adults to read. Black people who never had a chance to learn.”
“You think it’s wise to teach their kind?”
He wasn’t sharp, but his unspoken assumption irked her. “Are they any less entitled to education than we are, Captain Riddle?”
“I was brought up to believe so.”
“The old days are over. The old ways are gone. When the war ended, everything changed. We have to let go of the past.”
“I don’t know as I can do that, I—”
The window reflecting his image burst inward, scattering glass. Little Bob dived to the floor. Behind Richard the ball had torn the wallpaper and dug deep.
He jumped up, seized a lamp, and ran out the hall door, revolver in his other hand. Alex and Little Bob followed to the porch. Maudie clattered downstairs, her nightdress flapping at her ankles. “What in thunder’s going on?”
“Someone shot at the house from next door. Our guest went to see about it.”
“Guest? Who—?”
“Sssh, I’ll explain later.”
A hazy sphere of lamplight bobbed across the unrepaired gap in the brick wall and disappeared in the abandoned house. Alex clutched Bob to her side. She heard someone running on a wood floor, then Richard’s shout. “You halt right there.” A pistol cracked.
A half minute went by. The lamp reappeared outside the Daws house. Richard climbed over the broken wall and returned to the porch.
“Got away. I saw the dirty sneak, but I couldn’t scope his face, it was too dark. Tried to wing him as he ran, but I missed.”
Alex introduced Maudie, who was polite but plainly puzzled by Richard’s presence. Richard set the lamp on a hall table, where it illuminated Joanna’s painted face. Without asking he went to the dining room and blew out the other lamp. He returned carrying his slouch hat.
“Guess it’s pretty obvious someone doesn’t like you, Miss Bell.”
“I expect it’s the teaching they don’t like.”
“Well, I don’t like it much, either, but I wouldn’t register my opinion with a cowardly attack.”
“I owe you for all you’ve done, Captain.”