Vivid
"Because you need one."
A very logical conclusion, Vivid admitted, because the place was dreadfully small, but again, why? "How much do you think it will cost?"
"It's all courtesy of your neighbors, and if you start fussing about wanting to pay them, you're going to risk offending some mighty fine people."
Mr. Farley walked by pushing a wheelbarrow. He must've heard the conversation because as he passed he said, "All we want to hear Doc, is you saying thank you."
She looked into his wise old eyes and realized that he was serious.
Vivid could do nothing but say, "Thank you."
"Smart girl," Mr. Crowley said. "Now, come over here and look at these plans my son Paul drew up. The place won't be fancy, but it'll have a bit more space than you have now."
The plans called for an addition to be built onto the original cabin that would include another bedroom and study, a front room, and a kitchen. The old cabin would have its roof refurbished, walls resealed, and a new plank floor installed. Vivid could then use the additional space for her office and to treat her patients. Mr. Crowley estimated the job would take about a week to ten days to complete.
"Whose idea was this?" Vivid asked after Mr. Crowley re-pocketed the hand-drawn plans.
"Nate's."
Vivid could only shake her head. He wasn't even here and he was still courting. It would serve him right if she did say yes to his proposal.
She came out of her reverie to find Mr. Crowley watching her closely. "I'm sorry, Mr. Crowley, did you say something?"
"You wouldn't happen to have any sisters, would you?"
"Yes, two."
"They married?"
"Happily."
"Pity," he said.
Vivid laughed and gave him her most sympathetic look. "Your sons will find wives, Mr. Crowley, I promise. They're all intelligent, handsome men."
"But will these marriages happen before or after they eat me into the poor house?"
They both laughed.
Vivid left the men and went over to the Grayson house. In the kitchen she found Abigail staring out the window. Vivid wondered if Abigail was really that fascinated by the activity in the yard or just the activity of one particular worker. "Abigail, did you and Mr. Crowley ever settle your differences over Benjamin Rush's contributions to our race?"
"Yes, we did. We agreed to disagree."
"How long have you and Mr. Crowley known each other?"
"All of our lives. His wife and I were best friends."
"He told me she passed away some years ago."
"Yes, it's been seven years since we lost Meggie," Abigail said softly, her voice tinted with sadness. "Her given name was Margaret, everyone called her Meggie. I still miss her."
Abigail turned from the window. "Have you eaten anything today?"
"The Quilt Ladies brought me a basket over at the church around midday."
Any sadness Abigail may have harbored over her friend Meggie's passing disappeared. "Viveca, it is nearly dark. You need to take the time to eat more often. Who's going to take care of your neighbors if you wither from lack of sustenance? Sit. I'll fix you a plate."
A knock at the back door saved Vivid from further lecturing. Adam Crowley entered the kitchen.
"We're done for the day, Gail."
"Good, Adam."
Vivid watched the two of them. Abigail seemed intent upon ignoring him as she busied herself with fixing Vivid's plate, while he stood observing her with a knowing look in his black eyes.
"Mr. Crowley, if you haven't eaten, why don't you join me?" Vivid said.
Abigail, who had her back to them, replied, "If he wants to stay, he's welcome."
"I'm sure he wants to stay, don't you, Mr. Crowley?" Vivid asked.
He gave Vivid an assessing look, as if trying to ascertain her intent. "Yes, I would like to stay," he finally said.
They had a very pleasant repast. Abigail and Mr. Crowley were on their best behavior until the subject of Eli came up. It started out innocently enough. Abigail related Eli's plans to go to Philadelphia when Nate returned to visit the nation's Centennial exhibition. Mr. Crowley lobbed the first shot in the skirmish by saying, "Eli's grown into a fine man, but he should have been my son, Gail, our son."
Vivid was so surprised she dropped her fork, and it clattered on the table.
"Adam Crowley, I am not going to discuss this with you," Abigail replied.
"Not discussing it won't change things," he told her. "He should have been mine, and you damned well know it."
"You have had one too many oaks fall on your head, Adam Crowley. You married Meggie, remember?"
"And why did I marry Meggie, Gail? You didn't want me, you wanted somebody with a bit more polish."
"That isn't true," she snapped.
Her anger seemed to shock Mr. Crowley because he asked quietly, "Why isn't it true?"
Silence.
"Abigail?"
Silence.
He turned to Vivid and said, "See how she is? Talking to her is like trying to converse with a mule."
He stood then and said, "All right, Abigail Grayson, I've had enough of your foolishness. If Nate can court a recalcitrant female, then so can I."
Vivid stared at him in surprise. What had Nate been telling people?
Abigail looked up at him with skeptical eyes and asked, "What are you saying?"
"This is what I'm saying. I'm putting you on notice. Before the snow falls, you and I are going to be man and wife. This has gone on long enough."
"Are you proposing to court me?"
"No, Gail, we're going bear hunting. Yes, woman, I propose to court you."
"You have sawdust where your brain should be."
"With you running me through a sawmill for the last thirty years, it's no wonder. And just so you'll know I'm serious, I'll be making the announcement at church on Sunday."
"You wouldn't dare."
He looked into her eyes and said, "Abigail, you won't believe the things I'm going to dare."
And he left.
Dumbstruck Vivid glanced over at Abigail. In spite of the heated argument, Vivid swore Gail's dark eyes were smiling.
Because of the work on the cabin, Vivid moved into one of the spare rooms in the Grayson house. She spent the night dreaming of Nate.
The next morning she was alerted by one of the men working in the yard that Maddie of Maddie's Emporium needed assistance. He drew her a map in the dirt and Vivid and Michigan were on their way.
When she reached the small whitewashed cabin, she grabbed her bag, and as soon as she was inside the gate, she heard dogs barking angrily. Then she saw five hounds bearing down on her at a very fast pace. Instinct told her to hop back over the fence immediately, but her brain said the dogs would probably jump the fence as well, so Vivid stood absolutely still in hopes of being rescued before she became their lunch.
They circled her, snapping and growling, when a man dressed in buckskin and wearing a large beat-up hat stepped haltingly onto the porch. "Who are you?"
The voice belonged to a woman.
Vivid didn't have time to deal with that surprise, she was too concerned with the intimidating dogs. “Dr. Lancaster."
A sharp whistle pierced the air and the dogs instantly calmed. The woman called, "Now let her pass."
The silent pack parted and, still trembling, Vivid made her way to the porch.
"Come on in. Sorry about the dogs but they know I don't like visitors."
Vivid noticed the woman walking as if her leg was paining her. "Mr. Avery said you needed my assistance."
"Yes, tried to cut my ankle off with an axe last evening. Want you to take a look at it."
The cabin was plainly furnished and clean. There were no curtains on the windows and no rugs on the shining plank floor. There were, however, books covering every inch of the walls.
"Name's Maddie."
"I'm Viveca."
Maddie tossed off her hat and revealed a beautiful,
honey-colored face and a long braid of jet-black hair. She looked to be only a few years older than Vivid. Vivid watched Maddie ease down into a cane-backed chair. Her face was etched with pain as she said, "Let me get my breath here a minute and I'll see if I can get my boot off."
Vivid set her bag on the floor beside the chair and instructed, "You just sit, I'll take the boot off."
Vivid untied the work boot and gently eased it off her foot. A blood-soaked bandage was tied around the ankle. "You must have cut yourself fairly badly. You said you did this last night?"
"Yep, right after supper. I was chopping wood and the damned blade shattered. What was left came down on my ankle."
The bandage, torn from a petticoat, had dried to the wound and Vivid was carefully peeling it away so she could get a look at the cut. "Hold still now, this will hurt."
Maddie cursed a blue streak as Vivid undid the layer of fabric closest to the skin. The cut began to ooze and Vivid peered at it closely, periodically using the bandage to stanch the flow. "The axe blade may have been defective but its sharpness was true. Bit more force and you’d have been cut right down to the bone." The diagonal cut ran from just below her small toe to her ankle on the top side of the foot. Vivid thought stitching it would be best, but it had to be cleaned first.
While Maddie called out directions from her chair in the front room, Vivid found a pot in the small kitchen, then went out to the pump for some water. She brought it back and set it atop the stove to boil.
"I'm going to stitch you up as soon as the water's boiled. Now, you said you were chopping wood. Did you clean it out before you wrapped it?"
"Poured some whiskey on it is all."
Vivid dug around in her bag for her glass magnifier. She held the small oval over the still oozing wound and searched for splinters. The few visible ones she extracted with a pair of tweezers. When the water came to a boil, she poured some into another pot and threaded two large needles with lengths of her sturdiest thread and tossed them in. She put some of the remaining water into a clean china bowl and carried it back to where Maddie sat.
While Maddie grimaced, Vivid methodically dripped the cooling hot water over her foot until the wound ran clear. Careful to keep the blood from filling the wound again, Vivid staunched it lightly and repeatedly. When the area appeared free of debris Vivid went back to the kitchen and retrieved the thread.
"Maddie, if you're a drinking woman, you might want to take a shot of that whiskey right about now because this is going to sting more than a bit."
"I'll be okay, you just go ahead."
"Are you sure?"
Maddie nodded yes.
As Vivid eased the needle into the other woman's skin and began to stitch, Maddie grimaced and winced. She drew in her breath a few times but she didn't flinch. Vivid went about her work as quickly as she could to spare her patient prolonged pain, but the stitches had to be uniform, and as a result it took a bit of time. When it was near done, Vivid smiled and said, "We're almost there."
Vivid tied off the last knot, cut the trailing threads, and looked up at Maddie in triumph but Maddie had fainted.
A whiff of ammonia from the vial in Vivid's bag brought Maddie back to her surroundings. She blinked a few times and coughed, then asked, "Did I faint?"
Vivid nodded yes.
"Guess I'm not as tough as I thought."
Vivid smiled. "Your foot's stitched. You'll have to stay off it as much as you can."
Vivid watched Maddie inspect the stitched wound and heard her say, "It looks real good. Hurts like hell but looks fine."
"It's going to hurt for a few days but it should ease more and more after that. If it just keeps hurting let me know."
"Sure. How much do I owe you?" Maddie asked.
"Nothing. First time visit is always free."
"You'd make a terrible whore, Dr. Lancaster."
Vivid chuckled, saying, "What?"
"Never give anything away, especially a service you can get money for. I was a whore, I know what I'm telling you."
Vivid didn't know what to say to this very beautiful woman dressed in buckskin.
Maddie asked, "You did know you were treating a whore, didn't you, Doctor?"
Vivid shook her head no.
"I'm surprised Avery didn't mention it."
"Why would he?"
"Because most folks, especially Avery's fat wife, believe the words 'whore' and 'Maddie' are synonyms."
She related this without bitterness or rancor; in fact, she'd spoken with a hint of amusement in her tone. "I'm Grayson Grove's black sheep, or should it be ewe?" she asked.
Vivid grinned and shrugged.
"Well, ewe or sheep, I'm it. Don't you know about Maddie's Emporium?"
"I've heard of the Emporium, and I heard it bore your name, but that is all I know."
"Well, I used to own it. Sold it about a year or so ago, though."
“May I ask why?''
"I was tired of it all. I didn't need the money, and besides, my father died three years ago. That took all the fun out of running a whorehouse."
Vivid's eyes widened in shock.
"My whoring killed him, which was my intent."
"Why?" Vivid had never heard of such a thing.
“Because he killed me, with his piety, his ignorance, and his abuse. You're a doctor, Viveca—ever been beaten for reading books?"
"Of course not."
"I was, many, many times. My pa believed females didn't need learning. Having babies and waiting on a husband was all I needed to know according to his view of the world."
"That's horrible."
"Yes, it is. He took me out of school as soon as I mastered my letters and put me to work at the store. He ran the store before Miss Edna."
"But didn't anyone try to help you?"
"The Graysons did. When we were young Nate and Eli would meet me every day after school and teach me everything they'd learned that day. Miss Abigail said I was the smartest child she'd ever encountered and she would lend me books on history and literature and I would devour them and hide them in the store's cellar until I could return them. Well, he found my cache one day and..." Maddie paused and her voice softened.
"Dr. Lancaster, he beat me right there in the store. Somebody, I don't remember who now, ran down to the mill and got Nate's father. Mr. Grayson stopped my pa but not before he'd blacked both my eyes and stripped my back with his strap. I can still hear my pa's voice as he laid that strap on me again and again. 'Girls don't need learning,' he said over and over."
"What did Nate's father do?"
"Wasn't much he could do, my pa was my pa, he was the one raising me. Mr. Absalom did tell him that if it happened again he'd give him a citation and throw him in the Grove jail."
"So did you give up learning?" Vivid asked.
"Nope, I had too big of a hunger for it. Still do. The last time he beat me was when I asked him if I could take the examination for Oberlin. I was fifteen. He beat me so hard and long I could barely walk."
"Did Mr. Grayson put him in jail?"
"Sure did. Didn't matter to me, though, because I packed what little belongings I had and took off up the road."
"Where'd you go?"
"Fort Wayne, Indiana. Stole the money out of the store's till, had Nate drive me to Niles, and I bought a train ticket."
"Did you have kin there?"
"Nope, just the address of a drummer who used to sell pa pots. I thought he was handsome in an oily sort of way. He told me once if I was ever up his way to be sure to stop in."
"Was he a nice man?"
"In my fifteen-year-old naiveté I thought he was. He took me to a boardinghouse, paid the landlady a month's rent, and told me not to worry. He bought me clothes and shoes and sometimes even let me accompany him on his drumming. I was in love."
"It didn't turn out well, I take it?"
"No. He professed to love me, too, and so I let him take my chastity in the back of his wagon on a road outside Chicago
. He promised to marry me."
"Did he?"
''No. I look back now and realize how stupid I was—''
"You were fifteen, Maddie."
"Yes, I was, and at fifteen when the man you love tells you we have no money and no place to stay, and would you please let this stranger make love to you just this once for a few dollars so we can eat..." She paused, then shrugged. "You do it. I loved him that much, or so I believed at the time."
"How long did you stay with him?"
"Six, seven months. When he asked me to do it a second time, I refused."
"Did he accept that?"
Maddie chuckled bitterly, "He threatened to kill me if I didn't. Said I owed him, it was the least I could do for all he'd done for me. So rather than have my throat slit, I became his whore. He took me to a hotel in downtown Chicago one night to meet a White gentleman who introduced himself as Mr. Pierce. I must say, the man found me quite fascinating. He'd never met a whore who could conduct an intelligent conversation on world affairs, literature, or history. He asked me if I would consider entering into a contract where I would entertain only him. I asked him if he'd ever hit a woman. He said no and I told him we had a deal."
After that night, Maddie never saw the drummer again. Mr. Pierce leased her a small house in the country and visited her at first only once or twice a week, but as the weeks turned into months and the months into three years, she saw him almost every day. He treated her royally, purchased books for her, fine clothing, jewelry. She had a servant to cook and one to clean. Then all of a sudden the visits stopped.
For a month and a half she heard nothing. The landlady said the lease hadn't been paid for the month and neither had the servants.
To deal with her debts, Maddie used some of her old contacts to sell some of her jewelry. She paid the servants their back wages and a small severance because they had to be let go. She used the rest of the funds to pay the lease, then made tentative arrangements to move and sell her other possessions. She was certain something had happened to her Mr. Pierce and he would not be coming back. Her suspicions were confirmed the next day when a carriage pulled up in front of her house and a beautiful woman stepped out.
"Who was she?" Vivid asked.
"His wife."
“Were you aware he was married?''