I come awake on a pallet of quilts, felt the heat and heard the crackle of a roaring fire. I couldn’t see good and hurt all over; and my feet burned like fire. Mebbe, I had died and gone to hell. The murmur of soft female voices might mean the other place..
“S’pose he’s ever goin’ to talk right?”
“Ah doan’ know. He was froze near to death and been outten his head nigh on to three days.”
My eyes hurt and the room was all blurry. I squnched my eyes and made out two little dark skinned girls and walls of white washed logs.
“Mama, he’s done opened his eyes.”
The woman’s face was fuzzy like she was under-water but she kindly wiped my eyes and face with a warm wet rag. She spooned soup into my mouth and I felt some better and went back to sleep.
I woke up to a steady drip-drip of melting ice and snow. Sunshine poured through the window and a cardinal sang his love song. It was one of those midwinter thaws that make you think spring is just around the corner. I could see good enough to make out Isaiah and his woman. Then, when my eyes cleared a little more, I recognized Young Isaiah’s wife and kids. They helped to a chair, but I couldn’t put no weight on my feet, which were red, swole up and blistered like they’d been burned.
“You were near froze to death in a snow-drift out back of the hog pens,” said Isaiah. I clung to his hand. “Thank you,” said I. The whole thing rushed back into my mind, but in reverse. “There is a man in the ice, I got scared and ran but if you find him, mebbe he will thaw out, said I.
Jebediah and Obediah, follered my tracks back to the river and found the frozen man, then came runnin’ back. “It’s Young Isaiah. They shot our brother and left him to die in the river,”Obediah said. “We gotta go for the law,” Jebediah said.
“Won’t do no good to call in the law. We need white folks we kin trust. You go into town and tell Mr. Birt,” Old Isaiah said.
They rode fast because in no time, a buggy rolled into the yard with Mr. Birt. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Dr. Steele driving the buggy. I was just plumb happy and limped all the way to the door.
“Doc, you are supposed to be in Chicago,” said I.
“The fire burned the school and most of the city so I came back to Sandy Ford.” said he.
He warmed his hands at the fire while I told him about Pa and the orphanage and how I escaped. “They will send you back,” said Dr. Steele. “No, I ain’t never going back. As soon as I feel better, I will head west and no one will find me,” I said.
“You can’t go until you get over the snow blindness and your frostbitten feet heal. You can stay at my new place,” he said.
He slathered hog grease on my feet and wrapped them with soft bandages. I felt a lot better. Jebediah and Obediah chopped Young Isaiah out of the ice and brought his body to the barn. There were bullet holes in both his legs and his belly. Isaiah went down on his knees and cried like a baby. “He was a good boy, worked hard and a good father to the chillun’s,” he said.
“What happened?” Mr. Birt asked. “A week ago, it was, they shot guns and burned a big cross by the cabins and said they wanted the women and chlluns. They was near abouts twenty men with white hoods. Young Isaiah went after them with an ax. They caught him and took him away. We ain’t seen him since,” Isaiah said.
They put the body on planks and after a while, he thawed enough for Doc Steele to do an autopsy, meaning, that he would cut him open to find the bullets. I put on a pair of big boots over the bandages and hobbled to the barn because I wanted to see what the insides looked like
“He died slow and painful,” said Doc.
Doc cut deep through the layers of skin and muscle until he opened into the cavity and traced holes that went through the liver and stomach all the way to a rib in back. “This is the slug that killed him,” said Doc. “It looks like a .44 caliber bullet from a Henry repeater,” Mr. Birt said.
Sheriff Brewer and two deputies rode up to the barn. “Who authorized you to cut open that body?” Asked the Sheriff.
“Mr. Isaiah Trimmer, the man’s father. “A gang of thugs shot him down with .44 caliber slugs,” said Doc.
“Murphy had a Henry repeater in town last summer,” said I.
“That slug don’t prove a thing, ‘cept that one more uppity darky ain’t gonna bother nobody anymore. There’s plenty of them Henry rifles around,” said the sheriff.
He no more had the words out of his mouth when Sarah, Young Isaiah’s widow, ran out of the cabin, threw herself against the sheriff’s horse and grabbed the reins. “You got to find who done it. You got to find who killed my Isaiah,” she said. Sarah went down on her knees and cried until her tears dripped on the snow. The horse reared up and came down with a front hoof on Sarah’s shoulder. The sheriff stayed in the saddle, got the horse turned and they he and the deputies galloped down the road.
Sarah made no sound, but was sprawled with her blood pooling in the snow. The skin and muscle was torn right down to bone. Dr. Steele bound her arm to stop the bleeding.
“I can’t finish the job without instruments and ether,” said he..
Miz Trimmer came in her surrey and with a basket had fried chicken, ham, homemade bread and a big apple pie. It was a right neighborly thing to do. She looked after the family just like they were her own children on account of she didn’t have any of her own. Miz Trimmer went to Young Isaiah’s two children, who were huddled and sobbing in the corner. “I got room in my house. You come and live with me until your mama is well and you got a new cabin.”
“Are you are the new doctor I been hearing about? Doc Evans is too old to come across the river to look after these folks. Are you fixin to help Sarah? She’s hurt more than I can handle,” said Miz Trimmer.
“She needs an anesthetic and a lot of stitching.” Dr. Steele said.
“There’s folks who won’t like you helpin’ any Negro,” said she.
“Sarah will be the first patient in the hospital I’m fixing up in Sandy Ford. Tom will be my assistant,” Dr. Steel said. My heart just about busted with pure joy. “Do you really mean that I will be your apprentice?” I asked.
“Yes, if you can tend the horses, chop wood and help out with patients and study in your spare time,” he said.
My eyes got all blurry again. “I will work hard and do most anything.”
The darkies put Sarah in Isaiah’s wagon with Obediah’s wife. I went with Mr. Birt Dr. Steele in the buggy. When we drove across the river on the ice and came into town. I scrunched down and hid under a blanket on account of I didn’t want anyone to know I escaped from the orphanage. The word got around and a bunch of men from Murphy’s gang came out of Friday’s tavern. “Get those darky’s out of town. Let’s have a lynchin’ party,” they yelled.
Doc whipped up the horse and we went on through town, without no more bother.
The new hospital was in the old Travis house, a big old mansion. Doc drove around to the barn and tended to the horse. I wasn’t much help because my feet hurt.
“I’ll work as soon as I can walk,” I said.
“It’s all right, stay off your feet until they heal. Tom I know how you feel about your father. We can’t bring him back,” said Dr. Steele.
“It ain’t just Pa. I ain’t heard nothing about Aunt Alice since they took her to the poorhouse. She might be dead for all I know,” said I.
I hobbled after the doctor through the back door of the big brick house. The place was bare and dusty, like nobody had looked after it. The kitchen floor hadn’t been mopped for a while and the place was disorderly except for the big front room with the bay windows that Doc was fixin’ up to be an operating room. The rest of the first floor was for his office and rooms for patients. Doc said I could have a room on the second floor. Most of the rooms had an iron stove or a fireplace. It was a fine big old house with rooms for an office and patients.
By the time Doc had showed me the house Old Isaiah drove up in the wagon with Sarah and carried her into the front room.
“Lay her on the table. Then pump a bucket of water and set it on the stove to heat,” Doc said.
He gave her a shot of morphine and by the time the instruments had soaked in hot water with carbolic and the clean towels were ready, Sarah was almost asleep.
“Tom, you will have to give the ether. Start with a few drops, then do a steady drip until she stops moving.”
I was pretty shaky, and had to sit down because my feet hurt, but was careful. She went to sleep real easy, but it took a while for Doc to clean and stitch the wound. By the time he put on a big bandage, Sarah was waking up.
“You did just right, Tom,” Doc Steele said.
I felt mighty good. Doc and Old Isaiah and Obediah’s wife put Sarah in one of the small bedrooms on the first floor and stayed to tend to her needs.
Folks always said, the old Travis place was haunted because it had been a station on the Underground Railroad for slaves who came upriver from Mississippi and Missouri on their way to Canada. If you listened close you could hear the crying and the hoof-beats of galloping horses carrying slaves north to the promised land. Colonel Travis had made a lot of money in land speculation and built the big house at the edge of town for his wife. They were Quakers and abolitionists. When she died at the end of the war, he moved out and the house was vacant for so long the “for rent” sign was covered with weeds. When Mr. Birt showed him the house, Dr. Steele took the old place and set about making it into a hospital.
I figured that getting out of the orphanage would be like going to heaven, but it was lonely without Pa and Aunt Alice. I stayed awake worrying about the sheriff taking me back to the orphanage. Then I got to thinking about how Old Isaiah had saved me from sure death out there in the cold and how the Negroes were better people than a lot of white folks. It was hard getting comfortable, but I drifted off to sleep.
It wasn’t the wind or painful feet that woke me up just after midnight. A rock came crashing through a front window and then there was a fearsome noise. Men hollered and fired guns.