Beverly Jenkins (19 page)

Cara gave herself over to his kisses and soothing hands, hoping they would distract her from the hurt. Initially they did not; too much of herself was centered on the fiery tenderness enveloping him. A moment later, he resumed his sultry stroking. Gradually, the sweet invasion, aided by the hands guiding her hips, overrode all; she knew no pain, time, or place. The deliciously slow circles he tempted her to join became her whole world.

Then it began, that glowing, reaching brilliance; rising this time not from his hands or mouth but from the hard perfection moving like bliss between her thighs. The pleasure rose and spread, radiating over her in much the same way as the light of the lamp pulsed over the tautened lines of his face. More strokes stoked inner fires even higher, making her hips rise to seek and accept all he had to give.

Caught up in the rhythm and feel of her, Chase ground out, “Oh, Cara . . .” She was so hot and soft, her body so beautifully responsive, he could hold back no longer. His hands tightened on her hips and he boldly gifted her with memories guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Later, much later, a half-asleep but fully sated Cara had no idea of the time when he finally carried her back to her room and put her to bed. She
returned the poignant farewell of his parting kiss, heard the last whispered voicing of her name, followed by the faint, dull sound of his door as it closed. Then she slept.

But Chase did not. He had only a few hours before he and his men would depart, and sleep at this point was out of the question. More than anything he wanted to slide into bed with Cara and kiss her until she awakened, but he had gear to pack and horses and men to round up.

It didn’t take him long. Being cavalry, he traveled light. As he looked around the room to ensure he hadn’t left anything in the drawers or beneath the bed, his eyes grazed the mattress. In the center of the rumpled sheets lay the proof of her virginity. The vividness of her passion made him want to see her one last time.

He soundlessly reopened her door and stepped inside. Over in the bed she slept peacefully, her breathing rising and falling in the silence. The pain of leaving her overcame him, as did the realization that he’d probably never see her again. He bent and tenderly kissed her soft cheek. “Goodbye, schoolmarm,” he whispered thickly.

He gave her cheek one last parting stroke with his hand, bent to kiss her again, then quietly slipped away.

When Cara awakened, she looked at the clock beside her bed and panicked, realizing she’d overslept. Then came the memory of how she’d spent the previous night and she could only smile. She got up, padded over to Chase’s door, and knocked softly. She heard movement, then the door opened, but to her surprise, Sophie stood on the other side.

“Oh! Good morning,” Cara stuttered.

“And good morning to you,” Sophie replied. “You overslept.”

Cara did not say a word.

“I’m not judging,” Sophie told her softly. “By the way, Chase said to tell you that he’ll be at Fort Davis if you need to contact him.”

Cara looked past Sophie and into the room. “He’s gone?”

“Yes,” she said gently. “He and his men rode out a little after dawn.”

Cara’s heart shattered.

“Dulcie saved you some breakfast,” Sophie said.

“Thank you.”

“Well, I need to finish cleaning up in here. Cara, if you need to talk to someone, Dulcie and I are here.”

“I appreciate that, but I’m fine. I’ll . . . be down to eat in a while.”

Stunned, Cara closed the door. Of course, she’d known he’d be leaving this morning, but she hadn’t counted on his not saying goodbye.

A
fter receiving his new orders Chase had saluted the colonel at Fort Supply, and left the commander’s office. Two hours later Chase mounted Carolina, and rider and horse headed north out of Oklahoma Territory. Chase hadn’t wanted this assignment. He and the colonel had agreed this investigation should have been handled by the local U.S. marshal; what with all the demands placed on the soldiers in the area from renegades, lawbeaking survey parties, and homesteaders clamoring for protection, tracking mail coach bandits rated very low on the army’s list of priorities.

But a growing number of the express line’s men had been killed. Bank officials all over the region were screaming for the army’s intervention. Chase’s orders were to go into the area where the robberies had been concentrated and investigate. He was to pose as a civilian, conduct his investigation as a spy.

Had Chase not served with General Tubman during the Civil War, he might not have been tapped for this assignment. Playing the part of a drifter would give him access to ordinary people, and as General Tubman had proved to the Union brass during the war, cooks, stablehands, laundry
workers and the like were invaluable sources of information. More likely than not, they knew more about what went on than the town officials did. As long as Chase didn’t draw unnecessary attention to himself by acting outside the bounds usual for a man of his race, the operations generally went smoothly.

This was not a role Chase relished. On several occasions, no matter how invisible he tried to be, he found himself in conflict with individuals who still harbored the hatred and bitterness of the war. One such incident in Texas, three years before, had resulted in a ten-day jail stay for him and three broken ribs. He’d gone into the small town after information on some horse thieves. The Reb sheriff accused Chase of breaking the law. He beat Chase, charged him, and threw him in jail. Chase believed he still might be in that jail if a guard on one of the overland coaches hadn’t recognized him and wired Colonel Grierson at Fort Davis. Even after being contacted by the colonel, the sheriff, convinced Chase needed to be taught his “place,” refused to release him until the army’s threats forced him to do so.

There had been no such incident on this trip. Over the past month, he and Carolina had visited all the towns on the colonel’s list except one that he’d deliberately left for last. Although Chase hadn’t run into any trouble, he also hadn’t turned up any information about the robberies.

The latest coach ambush had taken place two weeks before on a trail between Dodge and Wichita, Kansas. Again, the driver and guard had been killed, their deaths bringing the count to nine victims.

The town Chase had to visit now was Henry Adams. He was due to give his report at Fort Wallace,
Kansas, in less than a week. There would be enough time to find out if Sophie or Asa could shed any light on the robberies and to visit Virginia Sutton. Funds from the Sutton Merchant Exchange were among those stolen in the first outlaw attack. He’d been asked to relay the army’s reassurances that a thorough investigation was under way.

By operating within such a tight time limit, Chase hoped he’d be less inclined to seek out the real draw in the small town—Cara Lee Henson. Leaving Cara that May morning, Chase had assumed the memories of her would fade. He and his men went back to guarding roads, fighting renegades, and mapping water holes. In the unforgiving climate of the Southwest Territories, Chase defied any man to linger over the memories of any woman.

Yet he had.

Neither heat nor sun, nor long patrols across the harsh desert landscape kept memories of one small schoolteacher at bay. And on days when safety and survival wiped her from his thoughts, she visited his dreams, lingering, waiting.

He began to see Cara in the face of every woman he encountered. He imagined her hips swaying beneath each skirt, and her eyes . . . those copper eyes shimmered no matter where he looked, effectively killing any desire he might have had for anyone else.

He’d finally come to admit to himself that she haunted him. He also had to admit now, as he fished in the pocket of his double-breasted shirt for a smoke, that his feelings for Cara Lee Henson went way beyond attraction . . . way beyond.

* * *

In keeping with the tradition originated in the 1830s by the Black abolitionists of the North, the people of the Valley busily prepared for the annual celebration of August First.

When the British Parliament decreed an end to slavery in the British West Indies on August 1, 1834, America’s Northern Blacks embraced the day for the hope it held for those still in bondage in the United States.

Since Blacks found little reason to honor July Fourth, they embraced August First instead. It became a day of celebration, a day for antislavery rallies and speeches; picnics and parades; and in Black churches from Cincinnati to New Bedford, Massachusetts, midnight services, known then as night watches, were held in solemn commemoration.

Those celebrations in the thirties and forties were usually joint town affairs and were well-attended. Seven thousand people participated in one such gathering in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and in 1849, August First in Harrisburg, Ohio, drew an interracial crowd of two thousand, the largest coming together for any event in the town’s history. Now, nearly fifty years later August First continued to be a date for gathering to honor the past and to look forward to the future. The Black colonies of Kansas took turns hosting the main activities, and this year the task fell to Henry Adams.

The town was a hubbub of activity. The flag of the United States flew beside flags of Liberia and Haiti, and the standard of the Nicodemus Town Company. Food was cooking, kinfolk were gathering, and desserts, baked to garner prizes in a contest, were set on sills and porches to cool.

Some folks had already ridden the thirty miles
to Ellis to bring back relatives arriving by train, and there was not a room to let for miles around.

The people of the Valley first attended church on the morning of August First. The traditional sunrise service commenced at six
A.M.
with prayers, hymns, and thanksgiving. Everyone in attendance under the big tent, knew of the violence spreading like a plague across the South—the lynchings, the burnings, and the disenfranchisement—but Reverend Whitfield spoke of the need to persevere. When he vowed “to let nobody turn us around,” the responsive “amens” rang to the rafters. He reminded the celebrants of the Black colleges being built; of the vision of people like Henry Adams, Martin Delaney, and Mary Jane Garrett; and of the Homestead Associations all over the territories fostering the continuing migration of thousands of Blacks to the newly opening West. Progress would come, he promised, and whether it came with the swiftness of a railroad train or the crawling pace of a snail, destiny would not be denied.

The traditional after-service breakfast followed the last hymn. There was not enough space beneath the tent for all the people, but the food never ran out, and on the acreage cleared just a few days ago by the Men’s Club, there was more than ample room to spread a blanket or tarp to sit upon.

While the clean-up committee stayed behind, the majority of the people headed over to Henry Adams’s Main Street to view the parade.

As always the Civil War veterans marched first with Mr. Deerfield, the oldest surviving combatant, leading the way. The people lining the street cheered loudly as the men representing state companies from all over the nation filed smartly by.
But the crowd saved its most boisterous appreciation for the two largest contingents of veterans: the men of the six companies of the First Regiment Kansas Colored Volunteers, one of the first Black regiments organized during the war, and the soldiers who’d served in Major George L. Stearns’s Tennessee regiment, the Twelfth Colored Troops.

After the veterans came the Free Masons and their nine-member band, followed by the Knights of Labor and college students carrying banners from Oberlin, Howard, and Prairie View.

For the first time, thanks to Cara’s prodding, the children were allowed to participate in the parade, and more than a few parents had tears in their eyes as they watched their offspring march past.

Trailing the children were members of the political societies. Republicans and local and national Independents marched with representatives of the nearly extinct Greenbacks. The people cheered all. However, the three Black men marching under the banner of the Democrats were given a different kind of greeting. They were met with eerie silence. For the majority of the celebrants, the Democrats were synonymous with Black Codes, lynchings, and the Kluxers. The people wanted nothing to do with the call of East Coast Blacks for the race to align with the Democrats to keep the increasingly distant Republican party from taking the Black vote for granted. The Democrats were the reason the Valley residents had joined the Exodus in the first place.

When the three Black Democrats moved on, the air seemed to clear and the festive atmosphere returned. Soon everyone was cheering again at the passing of church societies, merchant associations, draymen unions, colonization organizations, and the robed and singing visiting choirs that had
come for the annual August First choir competition.

The rest of the morning and afternoon were devoted to horseshoe tosses, greased hog races, and hay bale rolling. Cara presided over the children’s fastest-pet contest, and awarded first prize to Frankie Cooper, who’d been training the family rooster for months.

Cara, her name on so many committees, had hardly a moment to catch her breath as the afternoon waned. She went from the baseball competition to helping Sybil with the choirs. From there she hurried over to the schoolhouse where the Graham County Debate Society would be holding one of the more serious undertakings of the celebration. The topics the society chose were always controversial. The year before a representative from Bishop Henry M. Turner’s American Colonization Society had come to town beating the drum for emigration to Africa. The speech drew over two hundred people and press coverage from around the state. This year’s debate—“Frederick Douglass—Whom Does He Really Represent?”—promised to be fiery. Many people had never forgiven Douglass for not supporting the Exodus.

By the time Cara finally made it back to Sophie’s she was exhausted. She grabbed a plate of dinner from Dulcie in the kitchen and retreated to the quiet of her room to eat before going back out to listen to the choir competition.