Al felt like an imposter when he thought of the irony of their lives. Hébert––the man moving the freight wagon around to the back porch––by all decent standards should be the owner of the Waters farms. Yet, he refused to accept Charles as his white father. He and his mama Zoé maintained a power of their own making. Hébert ran the farm, and the co-op and his mama served as the community social and spiritual arbiter.
When Al stepped onto the back porch, his chest almost burst at the sight of their neighbors filling the yard, smiling faces––every shade from ebony black to white as ivory. Hébert made his way through the crowd laughing in his deep-throated way. He called out to the boy who was backing through the door with his second trunk. “Tob, we’ve got you a going-away crowd.”
Al watched Tobias’ face change from shock to a rosy glow of whooping laughter as he gazed out at the families. Tob, everyone calls him that. He leaped off the porch into the arms of women and men who had loved him from that first day. Al stood to the side fighting another wave of crushing sorrow.
“Isn’t he about the handsomest man you’ve ever seen?” Hébert stepped on the porch and wiped at the tears streaking his cheeks. Except for the blousy shirt and rough trousers of a field hand, he looked like a sun-scarred white man.
Al laid his hand on Hébert’s muscled shoulder. “This means a lot.”
“We wouldn’t miss it.” Hébert––the contented overseer––crossed his arms and gazed at the boy shuffling through the crowd. Then he laughed. “Remember how everybody showed up with that load of blankets and dresses and diapers? Violet could go for days without washing.”
“I’ll never forget.” Al ached with the memory of that day. These people were the only welcoming party. Samantha stayed in the big house, but she couldn’t resist pulling back the drapes to glare at them. The three-month-old gazed around at the cluster of welcoming faces and then grinned a wide toothless smile before he tucked his head back onto Al’s shoulder.
Mama Zoé––a pale-skinned woman with high cheekbones and eyes as gray as storm clouds—wore an orchid tignon wrapped around her head. She lifted a flowered bag and called out over the laughter. “Tob, we stuffed this tote full of fried chicken, French bread, and a pile of pralines. You won’t be hungry all the way to the Harvard College.”
After Tobias thanked and hugged each one at least twice, the crowd parted as father and son swung the freight wagon onto the road. Tobias looked back, waving until they rounded the bend past the pecan orchard and the school. They rode in silence until he said, “I think what got to me the most was the way those kids looked at me. They acted like I’m famous.”
“You are. You’re going all the way to Massachusetts. You might as well be sailing around the world. And you’ll be a doctor. I bet every one of those kids wants to be just like you.”
Tobias grunted, “they don’t have a chance to do what I’m doing. Not one of them has a white father who’ll claim them, pay all this money for an education.”
“Boy! Tobias!” Al barked, causing the mules to flick their ears and pick up their pace. “Don’t twist the truth. You can’t deny I’ve always loved you.”
Tobias pulled a leather pouch from his breast pocket, packed tobacco in a pipe, and bent to light it. Al ignored the whiff of sweet smoke that fanned over both of them. He would not fight over something as trivial as smoking, even if it made a man stink like dead ashes.
“You’re really gambling on me. Paying over two hundred dollars for the first-year tuition without even knowing how much the textbooks will cost or the amount of rent I’ll be paying. You’ve handed me a wad of money like you believe I won’t get kicked out on my ass.”
Al looked at his son, puffing on his pipe like a steam engine, and reached his arm to circle the boy’s shoulders. “You were accepted at Harvard because you were the top student at Soule and at Baylor. You’ve studied more than their catalog requires for its first-year medical students—Latin and physics. You’ve studied the Roman writers and orators and the Greek––”
“Tobias leaned forward, away from Al’s touch. “Last night, they were joking about you being the only planter to free slaves before the war. Except it wasn’t funny. We were the butt of their jokes.” And Patricia heard all that. “You had to run two stores to keep the farm going.”
“Toby …Tobias, I’ve never been a planter. I came to Washington County because your uncle Charles was sick. To keep from going crazy, I opened both stores. It allowed me to stay connected to New Orleans.”
“You said you went there to get drunk.”
“That started later. For a long time, I went back to get the best merchandise for the stores. And to enjoy the Quarter and my friends.”
The mules trotted right along, holding their heads high and stirring enough breeze to make the heavy air tolerable. The wagon clattered over a wood plank bridge. The dry creek bed looked as dead as Tobias felt. “What turned you into a drunk?” Yesterday, he would not have considered asking that question of his own father. Now, he didn’t care.
Al squeezed the hard reins; his thumb working against the leather’s smoothness. “I fell in love with a German woman. She was a merchant, adventuresome, really alive. Despite having a lousy marriage, she believed she had obligations. I couldn’t get her out of my mind.”
Tobias had let the fire die in his pipe. He turned his body toward Al, his face a picture of scorn. “I never figured you for the sort to let a wrecked love affair turn you into a drunk.”
Al shrugged. “After your uncle, Charles died, I added to my misery by agreeing to marry Samantha if she’d let me free the slaves. At the time, it felt like an opportunity to do something worthwhile. Prove that they would thrive as paid workers.”
“So, you married someone you didn’t even like?”
That was a question Al often asked himself. After losing Priscilla and the baby and then finding Amelia and losing her, he had given up having another woman. Besides, he couldn’t stop thinking of Amelia, wondering what she was doing, wondering if she remembered. Al shut his eyes to the sudden coolness offered by the cottonwood trees forming a shaded alley along the dirt road. The drought-plagued leaves were falling too early, crunching under the wagon wheels. Our roles have reversed, my son sounds like the man. “I did a lot of stupid things. Freeing the slaves was the one decent thing I did.”
“What happened to the woman you loved? Did you keep seeing her?” Tobias kept his gaze ahead, feeling uncomfortable imagining his father with a woman.
Al handed the reins to his son, shifted his weight onto his right hip, and stared at the dirt tracks grooved into the road climbing over the next low rise with no hint of what lay beyond. “I never saw her again.”
Tobias’s hand slid over the sweat his pop had left on the hardened reins, evidence of his struggle to hide his leg pain. He watched without turning his head as Al shifted, searching for a spot to find relief. He heard the words come before he even formed the question. “What about the war? You freed Miss Samantha’s slaves. Then you fought so the South could keep its chattel.”
Al kept shifting his body, finally propped his foot on the buckboard. “I’m a businessman. I can’t keep customers if they believe I’m not part of their community. They thought I was crazy for freeing slaves. I would have been an enemy if I’d refused to join. So, I mustered in with Terry’s Texas Rangers. Hébert went with me.”
“What possessed him? You’d freed him. Then he fought to keep other men enslaved? Shit! I don’t believe all this.” Tobias leaned forward wanting to leap from the wagon. Everything he’d always thought good and right was a lie, a white man’s lie.
“In the beginning, everybody thought the call to war was to stop the North’s aggression. It was only later that the poor farmers who left everything behind realized they were fighting so the planters could keep their slaves. I tried to convince Hébert to stay home and look after the place. He insisted on going as my aide.”
Tobias looked down at the empty sack of a man slumped against the wooden wagon seat, and he couldn’t name the feelings churning in his chest. “So, he thought he had to take care of you, like your nursemaid?”
Al shook his head, stared at a field of parched corn stalks standing still as old men. “You could explain it that way. In the Battle of Woodsonville Kentucky, where Colonel Terry got killed, my horse was shot out from under me, and I took a hit in the leg. Hébert traded his fine mare for an old nag because the deal included a rickety cart, and he walked me home. We arrived in time to have Christmas with you.”
“I remember getting in your bed.” Tobias’ throat swelled, he softened his voice.
Al laughed, his head thrown back. “You refused to go to bed. Even when Violet threatened to whip you, you’d sneak back into my room and sit on the floor bumping up against my bed. I finally convinced her to let you crawl in with me. The instant you lay down, you were gone. You’d stayed awake for almost two nights, and your little five-year-old head did not move again until late the next afternoon.”
Tobias remembered the terrifying fear that had gripped him when Hébert carried his pop into the house like a baby. His skin stretched tight over the bones making his face look sharp and pointed, as white as the cattle skeletons left out in the pastures. When Dr. Petty unwrapped the bandages, the smell was so putrid that Tobias wanted to vomit. “I remember after the doctor left, Violet sent Hébert to find some honey.”
“She saved my life. That honey cleaned out the infection and got the healing started.”
Tobias looked at Al’s leg swollen against his pants. That was when he had decided if an old colored woman knew more about healing than Dr. Petty, he was going to become a smart doctor. He never wavered from his plan. He looked sideways at his pop. “I still plan to operate on that knee. The catalog says this first year in anatomy we study internal ligaments of the hip and knee joints.”
Al had scooted lower on the wagon seat, leaving his leg stretched out. He pulled his hat down to shade his eyes. “I hope to be your first patient.”
A colored doctor doesn’t stand a chance with Patricia Sutlebury. “This kills my chance to have a white wife.”
Al raised up, his body taut with shock. “Why not? You’re a white man, Toby.”
“What’re you saying? You’ve hammered honesty into me all my life. Touted your high-minded principles. Gloated about how you freed the slaves. Now you’re telling me to keep my black blood a secret from a woman?” He shook his head. “It’s hard enough to find out I’m colored. Now I see my father for who he is.”
All strength left Al, and he slumped back on the seat bereft of words to defend himself. He had brought Toby home and gone on with his life as though his child were white. He thought of him as white. Should he have lied to Toby this morning?
The wagon creaked past the outlying milk barns and chicken coops on the edge of Brenham. Al had not taken back the reins. Instead, he continued the constant movement of a lost man unable to find a place of comfort. “Do you want to drop your trunks at the depot and stop at the store? We’ve got plenty of time.”
“I’d like to tell Mister Wally and Miss Cora goodbye. Take a last look around.”
Al sucked in a breath of relief. Maybe the visit would melt the ice. “Let’s do it.”
Tobias wrestled his trunks into the depot, got them checked in, and sprang back onto the wagon bench with an eagerness that Al felt glad to see and sad to watch. He wanted the boy to get the education, but it hurt for him to go so far away. Especially this way, so filled with anger.
Tobias maneuvered the mules between the jumble of freight wagons, buggies, and spirited horses clogging the streets around the square. Cattle—destined for the train—milled inside the livestock pen circling the two-story frame courthouse.
Wally Chesterman burst out the store’s double doors in such haste that the glass rattled. “Tob, you didn’t forget us. Look at you.” Wally stood, feet spread, puffy hands gripping the bib of his apron. “Come in here and tell your schedule to the missus and me.”
Without looking back, Tobias leaped onto the porch and into Wally’s arms.
Al eased himself off the bench. He had to baby that leg after a jarring ride in the wagon. He much preferred the springs and padded leather seat in his Democrat Buggy, but there was no way he could haul all the merchandise up to Independence in that fancy little carriage.
“Hey, Mister Al, looks like you could use a shoulder.” Ezra Parsons pressed his skinny black frame against Al’s hip. “Put it right there, and we’ll make it up them porch steps.”
“I’m way too heavy to lean on you.” Al felt the bony little shoulder and smelled the ten-year-old body that hadn’t seen a bath in days or maybe weeks. “I was sorry to read that your father passed away.” The newspaper article had gloated about the death of one of the leaders of the local Union League. A man influential in getting the Negroes registered and out to vote.
“I’m strong as a bull. I helped Pappy when he needed to walk.”
Al looked down into the eager, smiling face. “How’s your mama doing?”
Ezra lifted Al’s hand and planted it firmly on his shoulder. “You lean on me when you step on that left foot. That’s the way me and Pappy worked it out.” He grinned up at Al; his big front teeth so far apart there was space between for a third. “Mama says we’ll manage fine. We get a little of that money for widows and orphans. And she’s got plenty of gentlemen who take her out and give us money for the pleasure of her company.”
The pleasure of her company is probably all she knows how to do. “You know how to help a man. Am I leaning too heavy on you?”
“No, sir. We do good together. When I get you settled I’ll take your mules to Crawford’s stable, get them unhitched and brushed and fed.”
“I’m going on to Independence after Tobias takes the train. I’ll give you two bits if you’ll tie the mules here and give them some feed and water.”
“I’ll be obliged.” When he grinned, his eyes crinkled like a kid without a worry in the world.
The store felt cool away from the midday sun. Cora and Wally Chesterman had settled their bulk on nail kegs and offered rapt attention to Tobias listing all the places he’d be passing through on the way to Boston.
Al always looked at the store through the eyes of his customers, scanning the shelves of canned goods, dishes, and sacks of flour lining the right wall. Wide oak beams across the ten-foot ceiling suspended dippers, coffee grinders, and cooking pots above five-gallon tins of kerosene, barrels of coffee beans and rice. Bolts of cloth, stacks of shirts and pants colored the opposite wall. Further back, shoppers found parasols, bonnets, silk shawls, and soft leather boots for men and women, and an assortment of unnecessary items like ribbons, soaps, and toiletries. The furniture—Mallard beds and handsomely crafted tables from New Orleans—sat at the rear of the massive room lit along the walls by bronze kerosene sconces. Al insisted that Wally keep the parlor lamps with cranberry glass chimneys burning to add a New Orleans atmosphere.
His practiced eye noted areas that called for up-dated merchandise. Some of the furniture looked stacked instead of arranged to be the most appealing. Wally was a dedicated worker, but his tastes were limited to his mouth.
“St. Louis and Chicago. I can’t imagine how big they must be. Changing trains in New York would scare me plenty.” Wally clasped his scaly, red hands together. “I remember how busy New Orleans was when your pop took me with him. Never will forget that trip.” His eyes looked watery when he smiled at Al.
Cora hurried to the counter. “We have some coconut cake that didn’t sell at lunch. Why don’t you take it with you?” She was already wrapping the fluffy white cake in a thick towel.
“I can’t take more food. Mama Zoé had everybody cooking. I can barely lift my tote bag.” Tobias looked over at Ezra filling pails of feed for the mules. “I bet Ezra and his sister could use that cake.”
Ezra’s eyes grew owl large, and his bulky teeth appeared in a grin. “I’d thank you, Missus Cora.”
She shrugged and unwrapped the towel from around the cake and rewrapped it in a flimsy white rag.
Al watched Tobias’ brows lift, silently pointing out the slight.
Ezra stood proudly by the mules, his grin plastered in place. His thumb rubbed at the two-bit piece. “I’ll get some bread and a pitcher of milk with this. Ma feels poorly today.”
“Why don’t you get it now? We’ll give you a ride home,” Al said.
“Sure thing, Mister Al.” He rushed into the store.
“I’ll help him carry it. Miss Cora didn’t look pleased about giving him that cake.” Tobias long legs reached the door in two strides.
When Ezra scrambled into the bed of the wagon he said, “Mr. Wally sold me this hunk of cheese. Ella’s going to love it.”
The gray wood shack, about the size of a chicken coop, sat next to the railroad track on the edge of the Negro section called Camptown, named for the hated site of the federal troops’ barracks when they patrolled the town during Reconstruction.
Dry weeds grew up to a misshapen rock that served as the step into the open doorway. Ezra’s twin sister Ella sat there dangling bare feet. Her tow sack dress hung loose from her shoulders and her hair, twisted into two short braids stuck out like sassafras roots.
Al said, “You think your mama would let you work for me overnight? I’ll be coming back late tomorrow from Independence. I can pay two dollars plus meals for your time.”
“She won’t care a bit. If she’s feeling better, she’ll be out on the town. Won’t be back until late. Once Ella tastes all these goodies, she’ll be happy as a buzzard.”
They watched Ezra spread the food on a table just inside the door. Ella came to the door gnawing on a chunk of cheese and watched her brother race back to the wagon without eating anything.
Tobias waited for his trunks to be loaded in the rear of the railcar. All the other times he had left for school at Soule or Baylor, he had thrown his arms around Al. Now it felt awkward. He hadn’t wanted to leave like this. He wanted the old ways back, but the past had been fake––a stage show. He was a Negro man saying goodbye to his white father.
When the engineer rang the bell, Al threw himself against his son, buried his face in the boy’s shoulder. His voice choked as he whispered, “I will always love you.” He felt Toby’s big hands pat his back and then set him aside.
Tobias turned, shook Ezra’s hand, then pulled the boy into an embrace before heaving himself up the steps and into the coach. He found a seat near the rear and raised his window to the top. Al stood perfectly still, his hand resting on Ezra’s shoulder, a tight smile seaming his lips. The train lurched, then eased slowly away past the one-room depot. He leaned out the window, watched his white father diminish to a speck while an ache like death settled over him.