When country people called a doctor, it was serious, like an busted bone or a baby stuck in the birth canal. Doc went on those calls right away. When town folks needed a house call, they left notes in a box at the front door. I took in the notes every day and Aunt Alice wrote the names in a book. Every morning, Doc checked the book and made a list for his rounds. It was maybe a week or so after we took care of the miners that I found the note.
“Yer life ain’t worth a plug nickel iffen you keep on with colored trash and miners and such. We knowed you kilt a man and will get you.” KKK
It was written in pencil on a piece of smudgy lined paper. The same day the note arrived, I saw Murphy’s horse hitched in front of the bank. I gave Doc the note right after dinner. He looked at it for a full minute; his face lost color and his eyes got dark and gloomy. He crushed the paper in one hand and stuffed it in his pocket.
“Did you kill a man?” I asked.
“Tom, it is nothing for you to worry about.
There were about a dozen townspeople on the list the next morning. I hitched up the buggy and Doc climbed up on the seat. “Come along, Tom, It’s time for you to learn the finer points of bedside medicine.” Doc said.
We set off down the street in the new black buggy with yellow wheels and the big, high stepping gelding. Sometimes that horse got it in his head to kick the traces and run off like a bee had stung his tail, but now he was calm as anything.
We stopped at the newspaper office to see what was going on in the world. “According to the Chicago papers the mining company crushed the Bolsheviks and Anarchists who started the strick. The paper even mentioned your name,” Mr. Birt said.
Doc ran a hand across his face and it was like he had a bad shock. He held the desk and steadied himself. “Paul, what is the Klan doing?”
“They are holed up in the hills but the sheriff deputized most of them.”
It was a good thing we hardly ever had to go across the river to see sick people on account of the roads were dangerous with those Kluxers on the loose.
Our next stop was the blacksmith shop where Caleb Barker had burned his arm on a hot horseshoe a week before. His arm was swollen and smeary with pus. Doc sat down on a bench next to the forge and lit up a stogie. “Tom, clean the dirt and grease of his arm with soap and water.” I washed away the pus and bits of dead skin, then Doc wrapped Caleb’s arm with bandages soaked in carbolic salve. I ain’t got no money, but I can shoe your horse,” Caleb said.
Next we spent a half hour with Elmer Bailey who had heart failure. Doc listened to his ticker for a long time and gave him tincture of digitalis. Then we saw Mr. Loomis who had a touch of scarlet fever, then an old lady with a stroke and another with pneumonia. Doc gave them iron tonics and a box of big sugar pills. “It isn’t exactly honest, but if folks think it helps, then it might do them good. Then, too, if you don’t leave some medicine, folks don’t think they got their money’s worth,” he said.
I appreciated that Doc was takin’ the time to teach me some of the finer points of medicine, things that you couldn’t get out of a book. Over the next few weeks, I would find out just how terrible much there was to learn, and how hard it was, too.
The last patient was Miss Isabel Downey who had done her best with McGuffey Readers and chalkboards to teach us kids how to read, write and do numbers. She lived with an older sister and neither one had ever married because there was a shortage of men after the war. Her sister met us at the door. “Isabel has a sore throat and can’t swallow a thing,” she said.
Miss Downey leaned forward and breathed like she was strangling. Her lips and face were blue and she had a look of pure fear, like she was seeing the Holy Spirit. She scratched the covers and tried to talk but the words wouldn’t come out. “Look here, Tom,” Doc said. The back of her throat was covered with a shiny, gray membrane. It bled when Doc scraped it with a spoon. “Oh God! Save us! It’s diphtheria,” he whispered.
oc had me fix a kettle of steaming water with menthol to help loosen the membrane. We stayed about an hour, but he was in and out of her house all day and half the night. Despite everything, she died early the next morning.
At home, Aunt Alice had the names of five children from Miss Downey’s classt. Every one had diphtheria. By the end of the week, three had died. The school closed and people were scared to go out on the streets. The gravedigger was the busiest man in town. On one day there were three new small holes in the ground for little kids. Some folks blamed bad air. The preachers said God was angry about sinfulness. Doc said someday scientists would find a germ that caused diphtheria. He was run ragged and usually slept in the buggy when he was out on calls.
People developed different kinds of symptoms. The kids usually had chills, a headache and trouble breathing; older folks died with heart failure. Most folks died when when swelling blocked the windpipe. According to the books, it was possible to make a hole in the throat so people could breathe. We studied anatomy and decided it wouldn’t be hard to cut into the windpipe below the voice box and put in a tube.
That very night, a kid, not more than seven or eight years old banged on the door.
“Ma said for the doctor to come. My little brother is awful sick.”
The Fords lived in a shack down by the river. We got to the muddy yard about midnight and had to use the bulls-eye lantern to find our way down the path to the little house that smelled of fried fish. Children stood in the flickering light of an oil lantern like they were an audience for a show. Old man Ford was at the table, working on a jug and the mother was walking back and forth, wringing her hands.
“Please, help Jimmy. He’s our youngest,” she said, then cried and carried on like he was her onliest child.
“Shine that lantern on his face,” Doc said.
The boy leaned forward, with his head tilted back, breathing hard and noisy. He looked to be about five years old and had blue lips. Death was hovering over that boy.
“Tom, set out the instruments.”
There wasn’t time to boil water, so I just wiped the bistoury, clamps and the silver tube with carbolic. Doc put a pillow behind the boy’s neck and put him down so his head fell back. He pointed to a girl who might have been fifteen years old. “You, girl, hold tight to his head. Don’t let him move.”
She took hold of his head and didn’t let go, even when he bled all over the bed. There wasn’t much light, but Doc was as steady when he sliced down the middle of the boys neck. “It has to be exactly down the middle because the carotid arteries are on either side. If the incision is too high, you get into the voice box and if too low, there is a risk of cutting the thyroid gland,” he said. He clamped a vein then plunged the blade into the windpipe. He cut downward for about a half inch and shoved in a little metal tube. The boy had a fit of coughing. Blood and mucous gushed out of his lungs then he calmed down, breathed easy and his lips turned a healthy pink. The boy went right to sleep and Doc got a big grin on his face. It felt real good to save a life.
After two weeks we took out the tube and the hole in his neck healed just fine. The Fords were mighty poor, but one of their kids brought us fresh fish every week.
Most patients who had tracheotomies, as the operation was called, survived, but we had to keep a steam kettle going and clean mucous out of the tube or it would get clogged. I had that job for a while. When we got too busy, Bessie Pendleton took over and nursed people until they got well or died. When the epidemic spread from the town to the country, we had to ride as much as thirty miles a day to see all the sick folks.
One day, a little after dinner, Doc was on calls west of town and left me to mix medicines and look after people who came to the office. Hooves clattered on the brick driveway and then someone pounded on the door.
Obediah could hardly stand up, let alone talk. He was plumb winded and his eyes rolled back while he hung on to the door and caught his breath. I got a glass of water for him and he drank it straight down. He kept looking back over his shoulder, like he was being followed. “It’s Miz Trimmer. She was awful sick an helpless and couldn’t get out of bed. Those bad men came and beat her, but she wouldn’t give them the papers. Now, she’s near to strangling an’ can’t get no air. Old Isaiah says the doctor has got to come fast or she’s a gonna die.”
“How long has she been sick?”
“Two, three days. De Lord’s angels gonna get her if’n the doctor doan’ come soon. She is sick and those men with sheets over their heads tried to kill her. When Miz Trimmer is gone, they will git the papers an take our land.”
“Doc ain’t here, probably won’t be back until supper or even later,” I said.
“You gotta do something, she’s powerful sick, cain’t get her breath. Folks say you is almost as good as the doctor. You gotta come.”
“I ain’t no doctor.”
Aunt Alice bustled out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on an apron. “What’s he want?”
“Miz Trimmer’s bad sick, but Doc is out in the country,” I said.
“Tom, get on and do your best. I’ll send the doctor as soon as he comes back,” she said.
Doc had taken the mare and buggy, but Sam was fresh. He wasn’t a good riding horse, but there wasn’t any better way to get across the river to Miz Trimmer’s place.
“Put a saddle on the gelding,” I said.
Obediah ran off to the barn, while I put the instruments and medicines and Mr. Birt’s little pistol in a bag. Sam snorted, rolled his eyes and tossed his head but Obediah held him until I got a foot in the stirrup. The damn horse bolted and I went down, flat on my back. It hurt, but I got up in the saddle. I wasn’t much for riding horses.
We were across town and almost to the ferry, when I remembered what Obediah said about men with sheets over their heads. I went to the ice house and found Billy Malone chopping big chunks of ice into fifty pound blocks. “There’s bad trouble at Miz Trimmer’s place. Get your pa and the vigilante’s.”
Obediah made the ferry wait for us. Once we got across the river on the bottom road, Sam lit out like there was a burr under the saddle. My backside was pretty raw when we came near the Trimmer place and saw a big column of smoke.
“Oh, Lordy, they done come back. They been in the woods, looking for the woman and the boy,” Obediah moaned.
“What woman, what boy?”
“Dat woman what ain’t nigger or white. She claims she’s a Creole.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Dey is after dat woman and dey had a picture of her and writing that said she was wanted for robbery in N’Orleans. We hid her out in the woods.”
“What’s her name?”
“I don’ know her name. She brung down those men on us and dat’s how they found out Miz Trimmer was sick and they come to take her will and the deed. Miz Trimmer always say that if anything happens, we s’posed to take de papers to Judge Parsons. They is hid and we don’ know where to look, but those men tore up the house lookin’ for them papers. If’n they get those papers, the sheriff and the depities gonna drive us off our land. That banker man wants our place,” Obediah said.
I got off the horse, took the instrument bag and ran throught the open door into Miz Trimmer’s house. Chairs were turned over, drawers were flung open and books were scattered about the parlor. They had taken bricks out of the fireplace and pulled up boards from the floor. Young Isaiah’s wife and her two young ones were crying and carrying on in the kitchen.
“Miz Trimmer was sick in bed when those men came. She wouldn’t tell where the papers was hid and so they beat her something awful,” she wailed.
I calmed her down and told her to boil a kettle of water. The oldest girl took me to Miz Trimmer. Medicine bottles were knocked off the table, a stuffed chair was all torn up and drawers pulled open. The mattress was cut open and feathers scattered over the room, like a whole flock of chickens had been plucked.
She was on the floor beside the bed with her legs all tangled up with the sheets. There was a bruise across one eye and her gray hair was hanging loose and matted with blood. She was a big strong woman but was too weak to help herself. Her flannel nightgown was hiked up around her knees. “Who did this, where did they go?” I asked.
The girl was scared and could hardly get out the words. “She been awful sick for two days, then those men come and found her and beat her something bad. They was three of them with sheets on their heads and they was mad because she wouldn’t tell them where to find the papers. They left ‘bout an hour ago and headed for the cabins to catch Old Isaiah. They think he got the papers. And they want that N’Orleans woman for the reward.”
Miz Trimmer’s breathing was harsh and gurgly and her chest heaved like she had to work hard to draw in air. She grabbed at her throat and her face was purple. It looked for sure like her throat was clogged with diphtheria. She took in a raspy wheezy breath and tried to talk, but couldn’t get out the words. We put what was left of the mattress back on the bed and got her settled. She kept picking at the quilt or reaching out in the air and trying to talk, but the words wouldn’t come.
“Miz Trimmer, I ain’t the doctor, but I’ll try and help,” I said.
Her eyes were glued shut with yellowish matter. When I wiped them with a cloth she looked in my face and blinked. “First, I gotta look down your throat and listen to your chest,” I said.
She made gurgling noises in the back of her throat and tried to push me away when I pulled down her nightgown to listen to her chest. Her skin was hot with fever and her lungs sounded like they were underwater. She clamped her mouth shut, but I got a spoon between her teeth and had a glimpse of the phlegm in her throat. I was plumb confused. She had bad lick on the head and could have heart failure or diphtheria. I didn’t know whether to open her windpipe or try digitalis.
She was all tuckered out. When Young Isaiah’s wife brought the tea kettle, I added menthol to the boiling water and fixed it so’s Miz Trimmer took in the steam. For a long time, I sat in the rocking chair, watched her struggle, and tried to think of what to do. After a while, she had a bad coughing fit and spit out a gob of phlegm. She looked some better and croaked out a few words. “It’s in the quilt.”
After that she put her hands out like she was reaching for somethin’ she seen in the air. All the time, she threshed around and moaned like she was in pain. I walked around the room and looked out the window, hopin’ to see Doc. Right then, I wished I had studied more, instead of playing around, swimmin’ and moonin’ about a girl. The black folks expected me save her and I wanted to help Miz Trimmer more than anything in the world. There was a pleading look in her eyes when she had another fit of gropin’ in the air with her hands and breathing heavy. Then I remembered how Doc had given morphine to Rachel’s mother and how she settled right down and came out of her pain. I had to stop that pleading in her eyes that accused me for not knowing how to help. I drew up a dose of morphine in a syringe and stuck it in her shoulder. In a little while, she lay back against the pillow and seemed easier. I felt all good, like I had done right. Then her breathing got slower. The noise in her throat stopped and her chest didn’t move at all. After a half a minute, her chest started to move again.
“Miz Trimmer, Miz Trimmer, you got to breathe, you gotta keep breathing.”
I pushed on her chest, but couldn’t force air into her lungs. It didn’t do no good. She took in one last gurgly, raspy shallow breath. I waited and prayed and pushed her chest, but it was all over. It was like she had stopped working at the job of living.
I got a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach and realized that the morphine was a bad idea. It was a fine drug but Doc had once said it depressed breathing in weak patients. It was too late. I pushed harder on her chest, until her whole body bounced up and down. I could feel her heart, beating and pounding inside her chest like an animal in a cage. It couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, then her heart gave out and her spirit flew away.
I held her cold hand and tried to will life into her body. I had killed her, as if I put a bullet in her head. Maybe a hole in her throat or digitalis might have helped. I had no business trying to be a doctor. If Doc had been here, she would still be alive. Then it struck me that I had the responsibility for a dying woman’s request to take care of papers that I wasn’t sure even existed.
Miz Trimmers dead eyes looked as if to say that I had a job to do and better do it right. Women would have to come from town to lay her out and the preacher would have to arrange a burial. That meant getting Aunt Alice or Bessie Pendelton. On top of all that, the darky woman and the two girls were yowling and tearing their hair like sick cats. I shook the oldest girl until she stopped blubbering. “Get Old Isaiah, right now.”
She went off down the road. I shook Young Isaiah’s wife until she quieted down enough to make sense.
“Miz Trimmer say it’s in the quilt,” she said.
The dead woman’s clawed hand hung onto the quilt like she didn’t want no one to have it. I spread and smoothed the quilt and sure enough, there was the crinkly feel of paper sewed in between the quilt’s layers . I cut through the cloth until I came to papers tied up in a bundle. On the outside was written in a spidery hand, “Last will and testament of Captain John Trimmer”. I stuck the whole bundle under my shirt along with the little .32 Colt.
The woman and the two girls went running, yowling and tearing their hair down the dirt road toward their cabins. It was awful lonely in that big house with a dead woman. The sun was real low and daylight was fading fast when I heard hoof-beats. Even though he was at the foot of the hill, in a cloud of dust, I could tell it was Doc from the way he whipped up the horse. In a minute, I made out Bessie, holding her hat with one hand and the seat with her other. The horse was lathered and his head sagged, like he had been run near to death, when they stopped in front of the house.
“You are too late. I kilt her with morphine.” I gulped the words and pointed into the house. “They tore the place up and hurt her bad. She’s in the bedroom.”
“Tell the whole story,” he said. I babbled it all out, but forgot about the woman from New Orleans, on account of I was so upset.
Doc looked at the body. “The glands in her neck are swollen and the skin rash is a sure sign of diphtheria. Wasn’t nothing more you could do. The morphine eased her last moments.”
While Doc was examining the bruise marks on her head and a cut on the scalp, Bessie went to get the Negro women to help lay out Miz Trimmer. The oldest girl came running back up the dirt road. “They is fixin’ to hang Old Isaiah,” she yelled.
Bessie flung me in the buggy and the horse that looked like he was half dead reared up like a bee had stung his tail when I hit him with the whip. We went flying down the road, through the woods. When we came into the clearing, there was Old Isaiah standing on his own wagon with a noose around his neck. The other end of the rope was tied to a cottonwood tree, so if the wagon moved, he would hang. The three men with white sheets on their heads held guns on the old black man. One was on a black horse with a white face. I knew it was Murphy when he whipped and cursed the pair of mules that was hitched to the wagon. Those mules were famous for stubbornness. Neither moved. In front of the cabins, more spooks in white sheets held guns on a dozen Negro children and women and Zebediah and Obediah were tied up with blood running down their backs from lash marks.
Old Isaiah stood ramrod straight with his hands tied behind his back. His eyes were closed and his grizzled old head was bowed in prayer. The mules stood absolutely still. They didn’t even twitch a tail.
Bessie’s hat had come off and her hair was streaming out like one of those avenging angels. She screamed like one too. “Stop it, stop, right now!”
We came fast, in a cloud of dust, that must have looked like an Old Testament vision in the gathering dusk. I yanked the reins and stopped the buggy. Bessie leaped onto the wagon beside Isaiah and before anyone could say “boo” she had unhitched the noose from around Isaiah’s neck. “Cowards, all of you are cowards. I know who you are and if you kill this old man or hurt that boy, you will swing and rot in hell,” Bessie yelled. She shook her fist. Murphy made like he was going for his gun, but without even knowing how it got there, I had the .32 Colt in one hand with the hammer cocked, aimed at Murphy.
Any one of those men could have killed me in a blink of an eye, but that mad woman with the flying hair stopped them cold.
When Murphy let off whipping, the mules stepped out and walked the wagon away from the hanging tree. Old Isaiah was still standing on the wagon, holding one hand to his neck. The rope, still tied to a cottonwood tree, was swinging in the air.
“Sumbitch,” Murphy cursed.
He pulled the eye holes of his sheet back in front of his face so he could see to aim his rifle. I fired the pistol but didn’t hit nothing Murphy Bessie screeched and kicked the back end of his horse. The horse got big eyed, bucked, and went flyin’ up the dirt road toward Miz Trimmer’s house. One of the spooks threw up a shotgun, but his balance wasn’t good and when he fired, I felt a whole load of buckshot part the air over my head. Bessie screeched again and jumped off the wagon like she was going after the fellow.
Just then, there was another gunshot, a great boom that sounded like Doc’s old .44. Then the black horse, with Murphy hangin’ on with both hands came tearing back across the clearing in front of the cabins. Murphy sawed on the reins and yelled whoa, but that horse took off through the woods, going hell for leather. He went crashing through the brush, with limbs cracking and breaking off trees. Bessie stopped to catch her breath and everyone stood still, like one of them tableaus they put on at church.
After a while, Doc trudged down the road, bent over and walking slow, like he was awful tired. The big Navy Colt was hanging from one hand, like it weighed a ton. When he got to the middle of the clearing he put the gun in his belt and looked at the half dozen men on horses with white sheets over their heads. Any one of them could have cut him down in a minute, but Bessie started screeching and hollering all over again. “You cowards killed a dying old lady. If you are men, take those rags off and show your faces.”
The men put their guns back in their holsters and backed their horses into a little bunch, and looked at each other to find out what to do next. I couldn’t understand how Murphy was still alive after Doc had taken a shot at him.
Doc walked through the yard as if he had all the time in the world. “Throw down your guns and give yourselves up before you get in more trouble. A federal marshal is on his way,” he said, quiet like, and to no one in particular.
Sheriff Brewer, with his big silver badge and two Colt pistols on his belt, rode his horse into the yard, dragging two people at the end of a rope. They tottered and staggered like they were all tuckered out and could hardly stand. The man, or what looked like a man, was wearing farmer’s overalls. The boy had on a torn shirt and raggedy pants. The man had long black hair and a red, swollen face. I looked again. It wasn’t no man, but a woman.
“I’m the law here,” the sheriff said, looking at Doc. “You got more to worry from a federal marshal than any man here.”
Bessie stopped screeching and went toward the sheriff. “Who are those people?”
“They’s runaways, wanted by the law.”
“Them’s the folks we hidden in the woods. Dey’s a woman and a boy from N’Orleans, finding their way up north,” Old Isaiah said.
“They are my prisoners. Every sheriff between here and Louisiana’s been looking for this high yella woman and her brother. There’s a big reward. The woman stole jewelry,” the sheriff said.
Doc walked toward the prisoners like a man in a dream. He ran the last twenty feet and clutched at the woman. “Odette?”
When Doc called out that name, the woman swayed and fell to the ground. The sheriff tried to drag her up on her feet with the rope that was looped around his wrist. She struggled but fell back. The rope pulled the boy down on his hands and knees.
Doc squatted down in the dirt and smoothed the woman’s hair, murmuring, “Odette, Odette.” Then he untied knots that held her hands.
The sheriff held a pistol on Doc. “I should take you in along with these thieves. Leave the prisoner alone,” he said.
“This woman has diphtheria,” Doc said in a loud voice.
The spooks backed their horses out of the clearing and took off like they had business elsewhere. The sheriff yelled after them, “It ain’t so, nothing wrong with the woman.”
Doc jerked the rope that was looped around the sheriff’s hand and yanked him off the saddle. The lawman fired his pistol but didn’t hit nothing. Doc wrenched the gun out of his hand and Bessie planted a foot on his neck. The sheriff was spitting and cussing and reaching for his other gun while clawing and grabbing at Bessie’s leg. Her dress was all hiked up and when he made a grab for her leg higher up, she whacked him a good lick across the chops. Doc grabbed his hand and bent back his fingers until a bone cracked. That took all the fight out of the sheriff. I got his gun belt and both his pistols.
Doc took the bullets out of the sheriff’s belt and unloaded the pistols. He gave back the pistols and told the sheriff to get back on his horse and leave. It was all over when Mr. Malone and his troop of vigilantes rode up to the clearing.
“Where in tarnation have you been?” I asked Billy.
“It took a while to round up the men and they were slow getting across the river,” Billy said.
Mr. Malone said the hoof prints were the same as the gang that come to our house and rustled cattle. The committee went off, yipping and yelling, like as if they were Custer’s cavalry.
The woman, Odette, moaned and cried and didn’t appear to recognize Doc when he carried her into the cabin. Her face was swollen with skeeter bites and briar cuts and she had a high fever.
“Does she really have diphtheria?” Bessie asked.
“No, but she is bad sick,” Doc said.
Old Isaiah walked around rubbing his neck, saying “praise de Lawd.” The darky women were sobbing and carrying on over Miz Trimmer. Bessie took charge of the women and got things moving like she was like a tornado. She had the Negroes light lanterns and put the women to work fixing supper and boiling water. She and Old Isaiah’s wife, a big, round lady, undressed and washed Odette and then the younger ones took turns sponging her fever with cloths wrung out in cold water. When everyone had eaten bacon and cornbread, she took two women up the hill to lay out Miz Trimmer.
The boy, Odette’s brother, was ten or twelve years old and a little darker than his sister, but no more than any boy who had been out in the sun. It was hard to know exactly because he was covered with skeeter bites and briar scratches. He was scared and didn’t say a word until he had stuffed himself with three plates of food.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Michele.”
“Ain’t that a Frenchy name?”
“It’s Creole. The Dubucettes brought our people from Haiti.”
Old Isaiah had perked up. “Mos’ them Creoles are octoroons, one-eighth African,” he said.
“Why aren’t they seven-eighths white?” I asked.
“Thas just the way it is. If’n a person has one drop of African blood, he be African.”
I had trouble figuring that one out, but there were a whole lot more questions. The boy was too scared to talk, but Doc had given Old Isaiah a drop or two of whiskey that loosened his tongue.
“I found ‘em in the woods, hiding out from de law. De was walkin’ along de riber. Black folks hep’d ‘em along the old Underground Railway. The lady said she was looking for a doctor who’s been in N’Orleans. Right away, I figured it must be Doc Steele. If’n they woulda kept on goin’, they would a gone right to his house. When deputies came, we hid ‘em in the swamps. She say, when the old colonel died, his white daughter claimed she had stole the family jewels. ‘Cept there wasn’t no diamonds or nothin’ else because the old colonel had sold the jewelry after he lost everything in the war. An old mulatto helped her escape and she came up the river on a boat as far as Alton, then the money ran out. De law been hot on their tracks de whole way. Seems the old colonel was a grand dragon or some such.”
When Old Isaiah nodded off to sleep, there was still one thing I had to know. Odette moaned and sometimes thrashed about, but mostly lay still. Doc didn’t look much better, but he was awake and kept a finger on her pulse.
“Doc, is a marshal really coming? Why did the sheriff say you should be worried?”
Doc stared into the lantern light, like he was seeing a ghost. His eyes went dim and his face, except for the scar, was chalk white.
“I asked Mr. Birt to call a marshal. There wasn’t no other way to settle this business with the Klan. I didn’t fight in that war so that white men could drive darkies off their land. The sheriff found out I killed a man awhile back.”
“But you said you never killed a man with that pistol.”
“I said I never killed a Reb.”
I stumbled out of the cabin and started walking. Nothin’ made sense. I never could understand Doc. Here he had been jabbering about how bad it was to kill Rebs and Indians, and all the time he’d been running from the law. Then I got to thinking about Miz Trimmer and how the life had gone out of her after I gave the morphine. I must have walked halfway to the river before my legs gave out and I had to sit a spell. There was rustling in the leaves and then oo-oo-hoo-ha like them old Indian spirits. I jumped straight up when there was screeching like a woman being killed and then there was ker-unk, ker-unk and something slithered along the ground. I knew deep down that those sounds weren’t nothing but doves callin’ to one another and a bobcat screeching when he caught a rabbit, and that other noise was a big bullfrog. The trouble was, I didn’t know for sure that those noises were doves and bobcats and bullfrogs. Old Isaiah’s wife was a conjure woman who casted spells and talked to spirits. All those sounds could be spooks and ghosts called back to earth when Miz Trimmer died. I shivered and had a powerful urge to get back to the cabins.
The Negro women were still carrying on and Doc was sitting up with Odette. I curled up in the buggy seat and didn’t come awake until the night lightened into gray just before dawn. First thing I thought about was going to see Miz Trimmer. Maybe she really hadn’t died, but had gone to sleep and this morning, she would be just fine. Then I heard shuffling and a soft voice.