Preacher's Peace (3 page)

“Lord, this fella's name I'm sendin' to you is Clyde Barnes. He probably drank too much, cussed too much, and gambled too much. That's the way it is with mountain men, but you, knowin' everything like you do, probably already know that. But that means you also know what was in his heart, and Lord, when you look into his heart you'll see Clyde was about as fine a man as there could be.

“Clyde has some friends up there, and I'd like for you to arrange to have them come meet him, take him under their wing, and show him around. I've got a special reason for asking this, Lord, because truth to tell, it was Clyde and Pierre who took me in when I first come to the mountains. They were good men, both of 'em, and once you get 'em up there and give 'em a chance, why, I think you'll see that too.

“I know there's probably some proper way to end prayers, but I can't think of any way of endin' this one except to just end it. Amen.”

When Theodore Epson, the chief of tellers of the River Bank of St. Louis, passed by the boardroom of the bank, he saw that it was filled with women, all of whom seemed to be talking at once. Smiling, he shook his head and walked on by. Women . . . strange creatures all.

Making such a meeting room available to the public had been Epson's idea, and he'd convinced the board of directors that it would be very good business for the bank. The board had accepted his proposal, and today was a good example of how it was being put to use. The ladies all belonged to the Women's Auxiliary of the St. Louis Betterment League, and its president was Sybil Abernathy, wife of Duane Abernathy, the chairman of the bank's board of directors.

As he closed the door between the front and back of the bank, Theodore Epson heard Mrs. Abernathy banging her gavel to call for quiet.

* * *

“Ladies, ladies, may I have your attention please?” Mrs. Abernathy said.

Most of the conversation halted, though there was one woman in the back who continued to hold court with the three or four who were gathered around her.

“Mrs. Peabody!” Mrs. Abernathy called. “Would you please take your seat now?” When she got no response, she shouted. “Mrs. Peabody, would you please take your seat now?”

“All right, all right,” Mrs. Peabody answered. “You don't have to shout. I'm not deef, you know.”

In fact, Mrs. Peabody was quite deaf, so deaf that she didn't even hear the other ladies laugh at her patently absurd declaration.

When all were quiet and seated, Mrs. Abernathy began the meeting.

“Ladies, I called this special meeting today because I am deeply concerned about the state of morals of our city, more specifically the lack of morals in our fair metropolis. I have heard it said that the people back East sometimes refer to St. Louis as Sodom and Gomorrah on the Mississippi. If we are to build a decent society here, if we are to be recognized by our Eastern cousins as a civilized city, then we must take action immediately to stop this moral decay.”

“What moral decay are you talking about, Sybil?” one of the ladies asked.

“What moral decay? Well, I'm talking about this . . . this Jennie woman, who doesn't even have a last name, and the house of prostitution she operates right under our very noses.”

“Has she done something?” another asked.

“Of course she has done something. She is operating a house of prostitution,” Sybil Abernathy said in exasperation. “Didn't you hear what I just said?”

“Well, yes, but there have always been houses of prostitution, and there always will be. You know how the men are, or at least some of them, none of our husbands or brothers, I'm sure. The way I look at it, better to have someplace like that where you know where it is, than to have women of the evening roaming our streets.”

“And we don't have that, Sybil,” another pointed out.

Mrs. Abernathy was obviously surprised by the reaction she was getting. She had expected overwhelming support for her campaign to rid St. Louis of Jennie and the ones who worked for her in the House of Flowers. Instead, she was getting resistance.

“Sin is sin, and immorality is immorality, no matter where it occurs,” Mrs. Abernathy said.

“Of course it is, and I'm not justifying what she does,” one of the women said. “It's just that she is discreet and she does stay out of everyone's way. I guess I never considered it as much of a problem.”

“What about the orphanage?” Mrs. Abernathy asked.

“What about it?”

“Perhaps you didn't know that she donates a rather healthy sum of money to the orphanage every week.”

“Why, I would think that to be a good civic-minded thing to do,” one of the women said.

“Would you think it to be a good thing if you knew that she recruits her prostitutes from among the children of that orphanage?”

“What?” several of the ladies shouted.

“You don't mean that she actually uses the children?”

Mrs. Abernathy smiled with sly satisfaction. Now, at last, she had gotten them into the proper frame of mind to consider this grave matter that was affecting the city they claimed to care about so deeply.

“As far as I know, she doesn't use the very young children,” Mrs. Abernathy said. “But two of her prostitutes are former residents of the orphanage home.”

“Oh, my, but that is terrible!” someone said.

“We must do something about this!” another added.

Mrs. Abernathy nodded in triumph. “And do something we shall,” she said.

When Wak Tha Go returned to the village, it wasn't in the triumphant manner that he had envisioned, but rather in disfavor. His adventure had cost the lives of four of his eager young warriors, and the widows and families of the slain wept bitter tears of grief. All turned their back on him, blaming him for the deaths.

Wak Tha Go went from tepee to tepee to plead his case, but none would hear him. When council met that evening, Wak Tha Go was not invited to sit in the first circle. Angry at being ostracized, he hung back in the darkness, watching the others as they sat around the fire, mourning and listening to ageless stories and songs.

Wak Tha Go felt they should be telling stories and singing songs of his great deeds. After all, he had personally killed one of the white men who had killed the three warriors. And before this, there had been other encounters with the white trappers in which the Indians emerged victorious, killing the trappers while not losing even one of their own. They had taken booty and scalps, counted many coups. In any war, there was bound to be loss. Why could the others in the village not see this?

The Peacemaker was a chief, but not an all-powerful, autocratic chief. He ruled by persuasion and counsel, and always with advice and assistance from the other elders in the tribe. There was a difference between leading during peacetime and leading during battle, however. War chiefs were neither appointed nor elected. A war chief assumed a position of authority, and if others chose to follow him his authority was validated. Peace chiefs and war chiefs usually coexisted and supported each other—but these were extraordinary times.

In the case of Wak Tha Go, his authority as a warrior chief had lasted only as long as he was successful. Now his rank within the tribe was no higher than anyone else's.

“Grandfather, tell us a story,” one young boy asked of The Peacemaker.

“Yes, Grandfather, tell us of Buffalo Cow Woman,” another said.

The Peacemaker was not their blood grandfather, but was addressed as such by many of the young. Not only was this a token of respect for The Peacemaker; it also, by implication, included the young person in The Peacemaker's family. Elders, whether they held the status of chief or not, were automatically respected by younger people.

“Buffalo Cow Woman?” The Peacemaker said. “You want to hear of the mother of us all?”

“Yes! Yes!”

“Then gather close so that your ears do not fail to hear the words I speak, for I must speak them quietly.” He held his finger to his lips in a shushing motion. “If Buffalo Cow Woman hears us speaking of her, she may get very angry. And if she gets very angry, she will gallop through the village, trampling every tepee, and putting out all the fires. She will cause the meat to go bad and hide the honey and take away the rain. If she does that, we will all . . .” He paused for a long moment, looking directly into the faces of all the children who were now hanging on every word. “Die!” he barked.

The younger children began to whimper in fear. Even the older children shivered, but they were older and braver, and did not cry.

* * *

Wak Tha Go had been just on the periphery of the council circle, listening to everything that was being said. When he saw the council circle dissolve and saw the children move toward the center, and heard The Peacemaker start his story about Buffalo Cow Woman, he snorted and walked away.

“Buffalo Cow Woman,” he said under his breath, scoffing at the name. Everyone in the village was listening to children's stories when they should be listening to stories about his great exploits and even greater plans for the future. Let them listen now, he thought. He would leave this village and go to join the Blackfeet. The Blackfeet were warriors, not old women like The Peacemaker and the cowards who listened to him.

After Art put into shore and secured the boat, he carved a mark in the railing. He had no idea what the date was, though he figured it to be sometime in mid-June or later. If he had remembered to find out the date before he left Rendezvous, he would know now, because he had carved a notch for every day since he left. He had been on the river now for thirty days. The days had been long and lonely since Clyde's death.

Once he made camp, Art took his rifle out into the woods, and less than half an hour later was back with a rabbit. He skinned the rabbit, salted it well, skewered it on a green willow branch, then put it over a fire, suspended between two Y-shaped sticks. Within minutes the rich aroma of roasted rabbit filled the air.

Art had never gone down the Missouri, so he really had no idea how far it was to St. Louis, nor how long it would take him to get there. He was sure that the river didn't go in a straight line. In fact, what with all the twists and turns, he would be surprised if the river route didn't double the distance a crow flies. But he had neither horses nor mules, and floating down the river—even if it was longer—was certainly superior to walking.

Shortly after nightfall, as Art was laying out his bedroll, he became aware of eyes staring at him from the dark. With the hair on the back of his neck standing up, he slipped his pistol from his belt and stared into the black maw that surrounded his camp.

“Who's there?” he called.

There was no response.

“Who's there?” he called again, and this time he augmented his call with the deadly click of his pistol being cocked.

A low, frightening growl came from the darkness.

“Are you a wolf?” Art called. Thinking to lure the animal from the darkness, he took a piece of rabbit and held it up. “Come on in, boy. Come get this meat.”

Tossing the meat about ten feet in front of him, he raised his pistol, ready to shoot the moment the wolf showed itself.

It wasn't a wolf, at least not a full-blooded wolf, though the dog clearly had many of the markings and features of a wolf. The animal walked into pistol range, growling, its eyes locked on the mountain man while it was moving toward the proffered morsel.

Art lowered his pistol and watched the big dog use its powerful jaws to pull the meat away from the bone. The dog fascinated him, not only by its size and power, but also by the way it carried itself. It clearly showed no fear of him.

When the dog finished the first piece of meat, Art threw another piece out—this one closer than the first. The dog came for it. By the time he threw the last piece of meat, the dog was quite close—close enough for Art to touch, and he did so, rubbing the dog behind its ears.

“How'd you get way out here in the middle of nowhere?” Art asked.

Though the dog didn't snuggle against Art's hand, it was friendly enough to be nonthreatening; the growling had ceased.

The dog slept near Art that night. When Art got ready to leave the next day, the dog jumped onto the boat with him.

“Shoo,” Art said, waving his hand. “Get off.”

The dog walked to the front of the boat and sat there, staring at Art with penetrating eyes.

“What are you doing? You can't go with me.”

The dog made no effort to leave.

As a young boy, Art had once owned a dog. He remembered that Rover would go fishing and hunting with him, and he smiled.

“I guess you would be good company at that. All right, you can stay,” Art said.

The dog came much closer.

“So, what shall I call you? How about Rover? I used to have a dog named Rover.”

The dog growled.

“You don't like Rover? How about Skip? That's a good dog name.”

The dog growled again.

“All right, suppose I just call you Dog and be done with it. If you even are a dog . . .”

The dog made a few circles on the deck of the boat, lay down with his nose between his paws, and closed his eyes. Art laughed. “All right, you seem to like that name, so Dog it is.”

Over the next several days, Dog proved to be more than just good company. One night, as Art was making camp, Dog disappeared. Art thought that he had run away, but a short while later Dog returned to camp, carrying a rabbit in his mouth. He dropped it at Art's feet, providing them with their dinner for the night.

* * *

Jennie was in the kitchen, taking inventory of her food items. She had to keep a well-stocked kitchen because most of her girls not only worked there, they slept and ate there as well. She was measuring the flour, trying to determine how much she would need, when a girl came in.

“Miss Jennie?”

Turning, Jennie saw Carla. Though Carla lived there, she wasn't really one of Jennie's girls, in that she wasn't a prostitute. She worked as a waitress at LaBarge's Tavern, and paid for her room and board at the house, though Jennie charged her far less than the going rate.

“Yes, Carla?”

“Deputy Constable Gordon is here to see you.”

“Thank you, Carla. Would you tell him I'll be just a minute?”

“Yes, ma'am. Or if you want to, you can go talk to him and I'll put things away in here.”

“Would you, Carla? That's sweet of you,” Jennie said. Taking off her apron and making a quick adjustment to her hair, Jennie went into the parlor. Deputy Constable John Gordon was standing in the foyer, rolling his hat in his hands. Jennie smiled broadly as she approached him.

“Why, John, I didn't expect to see you here this time of day,” she said. “You don't usually come until it's quite late.”

“Uh, sorry, Miss Jennie, but this ain't exactly a business call.”

“John, you know I don't like to treat my callers as customers. I would hope that all of your calls are more social than business.”

“Yes, ma'am, but, well, this ain't social either.”

“Oh?” Jennie replied, her face registering her curiosity. “If it isn't business nor social, what is it?”

“Sort of duty, you might say,” Deputy Constable Gordon said. “The chief constable would like to see you down at his office. He asked me to come get you.”

“All right, John. Just let me get my portmanteau and I'll be right with you.”

Because he had ridden a horse down to Jennie's, Deputy Constable Gordon waited for Jennie's driver, Ben, to bring her carriage around. He rode alongside the carriage as Ben drove Jennie to the chief constable's office.

“Shall I wait here, Miss Jennie?” Ben asked.

“Yes, Ben, if you would, please,” Jennie said.

Jennie had no idea what the visit was about until she stepped into the office. There, she saw Mrs. Abernathy and two other women, all of whom greeted her with sour expressions.

“Miss Jennie,” the chief constable started.

“Do you feel it is necessary to address a colored woman as
Miss?”
Sybil Abernathy said. “Because I certainly don't.”

In surprise, Jennie jerked her head toward Mrs. Abernathy.

“Don't look at me, girl, like you don't know what I'm talking about,” Mrs. Abernathy said. “Are you going to deny that you are a colored slave girl?”

“Now, Mrs. Abernathy, if that is true, who does she belong to?”

“She belonged to a man named Bruce Eby,” Mrs. Abernathy said.

Surprised to hear the name of the man who had once owned her, Jennie looked down toward the floor.

“Is that true, Miss, uh, Jennie?”

“I used to belong to him. I'm a free woman now,” Jennie said.

The constable stroked his chin. “Then, you are colored?” He shook his head. “You sure don't look colored to me.”

“I'm Creole,” Jennie said.

“Creole, colored, it's all the same,” Mrs. Abernathy insisted. “The point is, she was the legal property of one Bruce Eby.”

“Was?” the constable said, looking at Mrs. Abernathy. “Even you are saying she was, and not is, the property of this man, Eby. Where is he anyway? Why isn't he making a claim?”

“He can't claim her because he is dead,” Mrs. Abernathy said. She pointed to Jennie. “And she killed him.”

“What?” the constable replied. He looked sharply at Jennie. “Is she telling the truth? Did you kill your master?”

“No, sir, I did not kill him,” Jennie said.

“If she didn't kill him, she was the cause of his being killed,” Mrs. Abernathy said.

“Is that right? Was he killed because of you?”

“In a way, I suppose that's right.”

“When did this happen? And where?”

“It happened several years ago,” Jennie said. “At Rendezvous on the Missouri River.”

“And you were his slave?”

“Not when he was killed. Another man won me, just before the killing. And he's the one that set me free.”

“Can you prove that you were set free, and don't belong to the estate of the man you say was killed?”

“I can,” Jennie said. “I have a letter of manumission, given to me by the man who had just won me, fair and square, and signed by two witnesses.”

“Where is this letter of manumission?” the constable asked.

“I keep it . . .” Jennie started, then she glanced over toward Mrs. Abernathy “I'd rather not tell you where I keep it.”

“Ha!” Mrs. Abernathy said. “You won't tell us where you keep it, because it doesn't exist. You don't have a letter of manumission. You are a runaway slave.”

“I am not a runaway slave! I am a free woman!” Jennie insisted.

“Can you get that letter, Miss Jennie, and show it to me?”

“Yes, I can do that.”

“Please do so.”

“Arrest her, Constable. Arrest her and put her in jail,” Mrs. Abernathy demanded.

“I can't do that, Mrs. Abernathy.”

“What do you mean you can't do that? You heard her confess that her master was killed because of her.”

“Maybe he was killed because of her, and maybe he wasn't. But that doesn't give me any cause to arrest her. In fact, even if she killed him and it happened at Rendezvous on the Missouri, I still couldn't arrest her, because that would put it way out of my jurisdiction.”

“Am I free to go?” Jennie asked.

“Yes, I can think of no reason to hold you.”

“Wait!” Mrs. Abernathy said. “What about the fact that she is using girls from the orphanage in the House of Flowers?”

“What?” Jennie and the constable asked in unison.

“You heard me. Some of the girls who work for her now came from the orphanage house. Isn't there some law that would deal with that? Because if there isn't, there should be.”

“Some girls? What girls?” the constable asked.

“Carla Thomas is one,” Mrs. Abernathy said. To Mrs. Abernathy's surprise, both the constable and the deputy constable laughed.

“What is it? What's wrong?” Mrs. Abernathy asked. “Do you find that funny?”

“Yes,” the constable said. “Mrs. Abernathy, everyone knows that Carla Thomas just lives in the House of Flowers. She's not a prostitute.”

“Nevertheless, to even have a young girl living there is wrong.”

“She's nineteen years old,” the constable said. “And I reckon she's old enough to live anywhere she wants. I don't see as I have any right to tell her she can't stay there.”

Mrs. Abernathy glared at the constable, deputy constable, and Jennie for a long moment before she spoke.

“I can see now that you aren't going to do anything to rid us of this . . . this blight on our city, are you? You are going to allow this whore, and the whores who work with her, to continue to corrupt the morals of our young men.”

“We have no laws on the books against keeping a bawdy house, Mrs. Abernathy,” the constable explained. “The only law we have is one that prohibits women from plying their trade on the street. And as far as I know, neither Miss Jennie—”

“Miss Jennie? Why are you calling a colored woman Miss? Even if she was freed, she is still colored, and certainly doesn't deserve being addressed as Miss.”

Constable Billings sighed. “As I was about to say, neither Miss Jennie”—he came down hard on the word
Miss
—“nor any of her girls have ever violated that particular law. So, to answer your question, Mrs. Abernathy, no, I don't intend to put her in jail, run her out of town, or even close her establishment. Now, if you ladies will excuse me, I have work to do.”

Mrs. Abernathy pulled herself up to her full height, then looked at the two women she had brought along for moral support.

“Come, ladies,” she said. “It is clear that we can expect no support from Constable Billings.” She stared at Billings. “Don't forget, Constable, we have a federal marshal in St. Louis. Since you refuse to do your duty, I will go to him.”

The constable looked back at Jennie. “Miss Jennie, you're sure you can find the paper that proves you're free?”

“Yes, sir, I'm sure.”

“You'd better go get it and bring it to me as quickly as you can.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I assure you, this isn't over,” Mrs. Abernathy hissed. “I am a determined woman and I will find a way to rid our city of this filth.”

Back in her room, Jennie opened the chest that sat at the foot of her bed. In the bottom of the chest, under a quilt, there was a locked tin box. Opening the box, she removed a little packet, bound by a red ribbon. When she untied the ribbon, she saw what she was looking for: the all-important letter of manumission.

Holding the letter in her hand, she let her mind drift back to the day it was signed, some six years earlier.