1886
Al tried to hide his limp on the walk from downtown. When they finally reached the boarding house, he wanted to throw the prosthesis against the wall and grab his crutches. But everyone had made such a fuss over how marvelous the contraption would be for Hermie that he kept his mouth shut and tried to remain still to keep his scalded inner thigh from getting worse.
After supper, they gathered in the parlor. Hermie sang Der Christbaum, his sweet tenor leading the family chorus. The cedar tree––heavy with an embossed paper chain, glass balls, and tiny painted seashells––sparkled in the glow from the fireplace. Al drew in deep breaths of pleasure watching his wife’s radiant face, her voice blended in the sweet harmony of Stille Nacht.
Finally, Hermie said, “Would you show me how that prosthesis works?”
“Me, too.” Samuel grabbed his papa’s finger and bounced on his toes.
“Follow me.” Al tried not to sound too eager to be rid of the thing.
Samuel stood close to Hermie who sat on the opposite bed and watched Al pull up his trousers and unfasten the wooden slats that held the prosthesis in place. The nub and his thigh looked blistered and raw.
Hermie bent forward. “Damn. That looks painful.”
“You bet. You’ve got to go easy, build up calluses. It’s not a miracle fix.”
“Papa’s leg doesn’t hurt.” Samuel laid his hand on Hermie’s stub wrapped neatly in his folded trouser leg.
“Samuel’s right. It doesn’t hurt.” He stroked his son’s head. “I’ll think about it. I’ve gotten pretty good on these crutches.”
“Good? You’re as agile as any of the circus performers who come through Brenham.”
Helga’s daughter Gretchen and her family arrived from New York, and the women spent hours baking and laughing. Al wanted to go into the kitchen and hug Amelia every time he heard her giggle like a kid. The women chattered in German. Without knowing what she said, he sensed the joy in her voice and the abandon she felt with her family.
Children scampered throughout the house. Eagle had bought a pony for Samuel, and his New York cousins took turns sprawling bareback on the animal. They clutched his mane while Eagle led them round and round the house and down the road. Every evening, they gathered in the parlor and sang carols. The exuberant voices filled the house, pulling Al into their warmth. He began to dread New Year’s Day when Gretchen’s family would sail back to New York, and he would take his wife away from these people whose spirit infused her with so much pleasure.
When 1886 dawned, clear and cold, they loaded wagons and drove Gretchen’s family to the docks. Al held Amelia and felt her tears wetting his collar as the ship tossed off its lines and moved into the bay. His memory of Amelia standing on the deck of that long-ago ship sailing out of Galveston harbor––the desperate finality of that image––made him ache even as he held her in his arms.
That night, when they crawled into bed, Al pulled her against him. “Will you still go home with me?”
Amelia raised up, stared down at him in the dark. “Go with you? Just try to get away without me. I loved being here, but I’m eager to get back. I’ve missed them all, especially Albert.”
“I wish I could arrange for you to be with your family.”
“We have family at home. Toby’s like my son, our son.” She lay across him. “I left here dreaming that I could be with you. That dream came true.”
Summer 1886
The drought did not let up. Amelia drew water several times a day to keep the garden alive. The cotton became shriveled stalks. Corn turned to dried leaves. Grass disappeared in the fields, and they used all the hay in the barn and the feed in all the storage bins.
Al paced the kitchen while Amelia cooked breakfast. “Too many farmers are going broke. They can’t pay their seed bill if they don’t make a crop. Hackworth’s warning it’ll hurt us at the polls. In hard times, they’ll vote for something new.”
“Hébert’s holding precinct meetings every week. It seems like the brass band gets them stirred up and eager to vote.” Amelia placed hot biscuits on Al’s plate and waited for him to join her at the table.
“There’s no worry about our precinct. They’ll all vote. It’s the Germans in the west part of the county and the small farmers who might jump ship.”
Amelia motioned for her husband to sit. “Washington County feels like a different world. In Indianola, the colored men stood no chance of being elected to anything.”
“That’s what we fear will happen here.”
By the end of July, the heat had cooked all the crops. Al and Hébert hunched over their coffee that had grown cold. “We’ve sold every animal that anyone will buy. Prices have hit rock bottom.” Al took a sip of coffee and shoved the cup aside.
Hébert scooted his bench back and stood. “I’ll round up the co-op members. They’ve been saying we need to start butchering.”
“I’ll send word to Eagle to come for his share.” Al looked at Amelia washing breakfast dishes. “Why don’t you ride into town with me. Last I inquired, it was twenty-five cents a word to send a telegram. You can help me keep it short.”
After sending the message to Eagle, they rode to the store hoping to see their feisty grandson. Instead, they found Toby watching his last patient go down the stairs. No one sat on the benches lining the hallway. He spread his arms. “I guess you see I’m not swamped. People can’t even afford to barter. I get emergencies only. I’ve got colored patients by the bushels, but they won’t come to this office.” He led Al and Amelia into the apartment and closed the door. “Here’s what I’m thinking. I’m carrying some large accounts for several patients in Camptown. They offered to pay off their debt by building an office onto our house. I’ll have a lot larger examining room and a waiting room instead of a hallway––”
“White patients won’t go to Camptown.” Al sank onto a chair at the table and stared up at his son.
Amelia clenched her teeth, waiting for the fight.
“I guess you never noticed that the number of white patients dwindled after the eighty-four elections.”
“Are they going to ol’ Doc Ramsey?”
Toby shook his head. “Who knows. They may be doing without.”
Amelia laid a firm hand on her husband’s tensed shoulder. “It sounds like a good way for patients to pay their debt and for you to benefit.”
“It’ll save me tromping around at night to see Negro patients.”
Al dropped his head. “It’ll be the end of any hope of having white patients.”
Toby’s eyes narrowed as he stared down at Al still slumped at the table. “I don’t know why I bothered to tell you. I’ll never be the son you wanted.” He was gone so fast that his presence could have been a mirage. The only sound was a footfall in the hall, and the snap of the closing outside door.
Amelia’s throat had drawn tight, her body empty. She followed Al to the carriage and rode like a dead woman through the streets.
When they reached the edge of town, Al whispered––a man speaking to himself. “I never dreamed that boy, with all his education, couldn’t build a practice in this town.” He shook his head. “He passed as white all his life. Why did he do this to himself?”
The feel of her tears dripping down her neck reminded Amelia that she was alive. She leveled her eyes on her husband. “How dare you turn your back on that boy. He feels like my own son, and I won’t stand by while you drive him out of my life. He’s not regretting anything, especially his beautiful black wife and honey-colored son.”
Al’s jaw clenched. “You make me sound like a bigot.”
“You are a bigot, Al Waters. The only difference in you and the Klan is you don’t burn down schools. You destroy your son.”
Their days moved on as silent as the slaughter. The men worked in joyless rote, killing animals, smoking meat night and day. They salted the excess in barrels, and they divided it among the co-op members.
Eagle arrived in early August. He hadn’t shaved, and his eyes looked like black sinkholes. He worked alongside the men. After three days, he loaded what he could carry. “I always worry about how one of these prolonged droughts will end. Most times it takes a storm coming off the Gulf.”
Amelia watched Eagle’s wagon disappear around the bend. She knew that he’d stop only long enough to care for his mules.
The next morning, they awoke to clouds and an increasing breeze from the south. “Let’s hope the rain doesn’t pass over us again.” Al pulled on his pants. “I’m going to help Hébert hitch the mules and put a tarp on the wagon. I’d like to tell him to wait and see if this weather blows past, but we need feed for the few cows still in the pasture.”
After Hébert left, Al kept going outside, looking off to the south, watching the clouds tumbling like gray fluff. “This may be a big blow. I told Hébert to stay in the apartment. We don’t need that feed bad enough for him to come back through a storm.”
Wind and clouds increased until it grew so dark that the chickens went to roost. Then like a door slamming shut, rain hit the house in solid sheets. The earth sucked in the welcome moisture before it began trailing down the road, cutting new grids across the garden. The trees bent like old people hunched before the gale. Limbs ripped loose like grasping claws scraping the house. Lightning lit the landscape in silhouette and then dimmed to the crash of thunder. A streak shot white hot into the weathervane on the barn, and the wood sparked.
“The mare’s in that barn.” Al grabbed his coat, and Amelia chased behind. The wind shoved them toward the fire eating through the shingles. The barn door gaped wide exposing rafters sparking with the residue of hay igniting like matches. In her stall, Sunshine reared, her eyes wild. Al pulled open the gate, and a blazing board crashed behind him. The mare rose up, struck his shoulder with her front hoof, and knocked him backward. She reared again, slamming herself against the walls.
“Get out, Amelia,” Al yelled as he staggered to his feet, pulled off his coat, and grabbed a rope. He moved slowly toward the terrified animal, clutched her mane, and threw the rope and his jacket over her head. He coached the mare forward as the flaming roof timbers began to sag.
Choking from the thick smoke, they ran out the door as blazing rafters crashed like dominoes onto the barn floor. Sunshine screamed and whirled wildly about the barnyard. She snorted and reared as Al clung to the rope around her neck. She pitched and dragged him as he stumbled, gripping the rope and trying to get his prosthesis positioned to regain his footing.
It looked like she would trample him, like she wanted to break loose and kill him. “Let her go,” Amelia screamed. “Get away from her.”
Al kept skidding along with the animal, dangling his prosthesis, his good leg gouging a groove in the mud. Finally, the mare let up enough for Al to right himself. He hobbled alongside the trembling animal, still tossing her head like she needed to ward off the pouring rain.
Amelia picked Al’s coat out of the mud. Flames licked at the sheets of rain and lit the path to the house, making it glow in the reflection of the fire.
“I’ll tie her head down low. That should calm her enough to leave her on the back porch.” Al’s breath came in gasps as he kept his hand moving over the mare’s withers and around her neck. “Dig in my coat pocket. See if I have a little sugar.”
The mare’s soft tongue lapped the sugar from Amelia’s hand.
As the mare settled down, Al leaned his head against the twitching animal, his breath slowing. “Will you grab me another coat? I’m going to the school, check on Nancy and the kids. Parents should be straggling in.”
“I’m coming with you. Let’s put some food in the garden cart. The kids will need to eat before this is over.”
They loaded bread, canned fruit, and smoked beef. Al covered the food with a tarpaulin, and they moved, heads-down into the biting rain. Each lightning strike showed the school standing white and whole.
Al shoved open the front door as a flash of lightning lit the room and revealed the faces of terrified children huddled around Nancy. Frightened, rain-soaked parents began arriving, hugged their children and then gathered around the wood stove. The little building rocked prompting the men to organize into groups to distribute the weight on all sides.
Late in the evening, the door burst open, and Hébert grinned, streaming water from the top of his drooping felt hat. Nancy yelped like a child and rushed into his rain-soaked arms. He looked at Al over the top of Nancy’s head. “I had to come back, man.”
“I know.” Al took off his coat. “Wrap this around your shoulders and get next to the stove.”
The night passed, and the men paced the floor. Amelia heard Al speaking quietly to Hébert. “This remind you of what we had when that last storm hit Indianola?”
“I’m thinking exactly that. I hope it’s coming from some other place on the coast.”
Al saw Amelia and turned away.
“I heard,” she said.
“We’ll go to Brenham as soon as it lets up. See what the Banner has on its wire.”
At dawn, they ventured out, tromped over twisted tree limbs and picked up milk pails that had blown from the cow lot. The shingle roofs had ripped off the milk barn and the stone smokehouse. The big barn lay in a heap of smoldering ashes still spitting at the persistent sprinkles of rain. The metal frame of Al’s carriage poked up like skeleton knees from a mound of ashes.
Al’s eyes roamed the wasteland, and then he turned toward the exhausted crowd that stood in dejected silence. “If we look at the good side, we’d already used up all that hay. Didn’t burn a bale. Only its leavings fueled the flames. The other good part is that Hébert had the mules and the wagon with him. We could never have gotten the mules and Sunshine out before the roof came down.”
Amelia knew he had given all the comfort he had, and he was empty. She went to him, tucked her arm into his, and they walked back to the house where the mare waited on the back porch. He took one look and hurried to the storage shed for a shovel to remove the droppings.
Hébert helped Al rub down and feed the mules that had stood all night hitched to the wagon. “Since the barn’s almost new, let’s get Mundy and the boys to rebuild it.”
“We better be glad we’ve had some good years. I’ll go to the bank and get enough for the barn and another buggy. Maybe one that’s not so fancy.”
Hébert slapped Al’s back. “Ha, I bet this one has red leather seats.”
Al climbed on the wagon seat beside Amelia. “There’s no good reason for me to be so extravagant.”
She laid her hand on her husband’s knee. It had been a long time since she’d wanted to touch him. “I have some money I’ve never used. During that last storm, our Indianola bank saved its depositors’ money by tying bales of cotton to its safe. When the building blew away, the safe floated. I also sold Dr. Stein’s property.”
“You mean I’m married to a rich woman?” He grinned and touched her cheek. “Save your money for things I’m too tight to buy.”
She tried to return his smile, but the real reason for the trip to Brenham made her ache with fear.
Al patted her knee. “The telegraph service is the first thing they would’ve lost, even if they only got a remnant of the storm. We’ll have to wait until the train gets down there to find out what happened.”
Amelia hugged herself and stared ahead. Ditch water washed mud across the drought-withered grass laid flat as broom straw. The fields looked like lakes, dull with debris.
The mules pulled at a steady clip through brackish water that covered the road. Al judged the track by keeping the mules centered between bois d’arc fences clogged with clumps of grass and strips of cloth.
Roof shingles, buckets, and hats marked the edge of Camptown. They rode past neighbors shoring up leaning walls and sagging porches. Toby’s and Ella’s house had withstood the storm, but the frame for his new office lay flat and scattered. Al pulled the mules up to the newspaper’s porch. “I’ll go in. See if they know anything.”
“I want to go with you.” Amelia’s throat convulsed, her steps unsteady. She stared at the man bent over the clacking telegraph machine.
“The wires are humming from Victoria. Bad damage there.”
“What about Indianola?” Al moved close to the counter.
“Nothing. The train can’t get in. Reporters from the Victoria Advocate rode in on horseback. Sent word it’s mostly gone. They carried water and bread on their first trip. A few people are walking out to the train. Means they’re not all dead.” He turned away, read a few minutes from the clattering machine. “Downtown burned up. It’s a wreck.”
“Are any names listed?” Amelia heard her voice ask the question.
“Naw. They won’t have names for a long time. If ever. You know they never found lots of those folks when that last one hit. Those people are fools to keep hanging around that place. You ever been there? It sits right at the edge of Matagorda Bay. Not going to take anything to wipe it off the map.”
“My wife’s people are there. I’m taking her to our apartment. Would you send word if you get any news? Anything that will give us some answers.” Al circled Amelia with his arm and almost lifted her to the door and back into the wagon. “Let’s take the outside stairs. No sense stirring up everyone in the store. Especially Cora.”
Toby followed them into the apartment, laid his cool hand on her forehead. “Sip a little of this laudanum and sleep,” he said. “You can’t do anything until you’ve rested.” He turned to Al. “From the looks of you, I suggest you lie down beside her. No laudanum.”