Nicademus: The Wild Ones (16 page)

“I talk to Ms. Kitty in the kitchen. She has the best plan. But she’ll need your help. I told her about the gold.”

Jeremiah’s heart lurched. “You did what?”

“You lied to me,” Annabelle’s finger poked him in the chest. She stepped to him. “Red Sun speaks English.”

“Yeah, I gather that,” he said.

“Good. ‘cause he understand it too. He just don’t let people know it unless he want to. Last night when he ride on Shepherd he couldn’t catch him. When he found his camp on the rail line he took one of his men. Dragged him off to get the truth out of him. Red Sun can make any man talk. If’n he have ta!”

Jeremiah swallowed hard. Annabelle crossed her arms. “He said the man told him your pa was a slave owner. Down in Tennessee and then in Arkansas. That we fools to help ya. He said you was angry because Tyler Shepherd took your land and freed them slaves after the war.”

“That’s not true!” Jeremiah said.

“Really?” she asked. “Then what is the truth, outlaw? ‘cause you been talking about running away from the truth since this start. What you really care about? Besides yourself?”

“It’s not the entire truth, Annie. Listen to me. Please. Yes. I left out what my pa did. I didn’t want to make you think he was a bad man,” Jeremiah reasoned.

Annabelle laughed and her eyes glistened with raw hurt. He understood her conflict but she would have to understand his. Slavery meant different things to them both. Yes he knew it was morally wrong. But his family and his mission to avenge them was separate from her cause. Did that make him a bad man? He desperately hoped not, because he loved her, deeply.

“My pa was no different than most landowners in the confederacy. They tried to prosper and survive with the laws that governed them. He was never cruel or unjust. Slavery wasn’t his law. And he didn’t make his riches off of it.”

“There is no justification for slavery!” she shoved him. He stumbled back. “None! If my parents hadn’t run I would have been sold off. If Lincoln hadn’t freed the slaves I’d be in a cotton field because I’m too dark to fetch your dinner. Do you understand? I can’t be in love with a man who thinks owning another human being is simply the law! It goes against nature! It goes against God! Do you understand?” she shouted until her voice went hoarse. She turned from him and put her face in her hands. Jeremiah froze. He couldn’t speak. He felt such shame he didn’t know what to say.

“Forgive me, Annie. I can’t change who I was before I met you. I can’t love my father any less for who he was.” He put his hand on her back. He eased his arm around her waist, and still the tension between them kept them so divided it was as if he had never touched her.

“My father found that gold prospecting when our land turned sour and he lost many of his livestock and slaves. He came home and moved us to do what he did best, farm. Tyler Shepherd destroyed him. He took everything. And when he burned down my family he burned every slave that my family owned with them. They died together.” She turned and looked at him. “We have a common enemy. We have each other. We aren’t wrong, Annie, don’t start believing otherwise now.”

Annabelle shook her head. “Still it’s a lie you told!”

“I’m sorry for deceiving you.”

She knocked his hand away. She put her hands to her head and began to pace in front of him. “Ms. Kitty has a plan. She wants your gold to do it. You gon’ give it to her. You hear me!” she stopped. “They right about you, Jeremiah. They right when they say you brought that man and this war to our town. You may not be able to change the past but you can change the present, help us win the future. What say you?”

“I say yes. I’ll do it. I want this fight as much as the rest of you. We may have different causes, but at the end it’s the same. We want Tyler Shepherd gone.”

She nodded. “When it’s done we can’t stay here.”

“We?” he asked.

She gave him a weak smile. “When it’s done we leave. There’s no place in Nicademus for you, outlaw. And if there’s no place for you, there’s no place for me,” she said before she left. Surprised, Jeremiah stood there. He slowly smiled. His Annabelle was wiser than them all.

**

The night before, while he held her she told him of her plan. They fought over the plan until the sun rose. And even now she was too stubborn to be reasoned with. He was in no mood to deal with the sheriff. He was afraid, and fear always made him dangerous.

“All these years. How many? Too many to count, I say. After all this time, you walk around here treating us like we the animals. Unwilling to communicate with us and making everyone go out of their way to speak to you. And you know English!” The sheriff shoved Red Sun in the back. It was the wrong move. Before he realized it he turned and his hands were around the sheriff’s throat. The only reason the sheriff’s neck was spared was because of the cool steel of the Smith & Wesson pointed in his gut. Red Sun released him and stepped back. The sheriff kept the gun leveled on him. And he had that itch. Red Sun could tell. He wanted to pull the trigger. If he did no one would question it. Most in the town didn’t like him and he knew it. But the sheriff wouldn’t pull the trigger because Cora would never forgive him. And that was the real problem: this man’s love for Red Sun’s woman. It only made him want to risk the bullet to crush in his skull.

“Take another swing and I’ll end you,” the sheriff warned.

Red Sun lowered his hands and they both curled into fists.

“What does she see in you? A savage. It’s all you are! I tell you what I think. I won’t let her sacrifice herself for this town, for you, or Annabelle. Do you hear?”

He didn’t bother to respond. The sheriff wasn’t looking for a reply. The sheriff lowered his gun and then holstered it. Red Sun watched him stalk off. As much as he never cared for the sheriff, he understood his distress. Their soiled dove could bring it about in the strongest of men. It’s why he believed her plan could work. It’s why he feared her sacrifice would have her snatched away from them forever. If only he could convince his heart. If only he could let go of his fear.

**

“Doc, Annabelle tells me you know more than our local medicine man. You a man of science,” Cora said from behind her desk. The doctor walked over to the chair and sat down.

“I hear trouble coming our way. Nothing I got in my medical bag can stop it. Any plan to fight those men will destroy this town, Ms. Kitty.”

“I know,” she said. “And don’t worry, it’s not what’s in your medical bag I’m after,” she said.

“How’s that?”

“Remember last year when I was sick with fever? Something spread through the town that year, took three of our babies, and old lady Mabel too.”

“I remember,” the doc said.

“You healed us,” Cora smiled. “You made your own special blend of castor oil to keep us healthy. Remember?” she asked.

The doc nodded.

“I need to share something. It’s about what I know, and why I know it.” Cora tried to smile, but she couldn’t maintain it as the memories surfaced. “I was born the daughter of
Marie Thérèse de St-Denis on the outpost of Natchitoches near the Canes River. My mother was the mistress of a very powerful plantation owner. She kept house like a proper creole
gens de couleur
. She was well respected by both whites and slaves for the traditions she learned from her African mother.” Cora began to wring her hands. Talking of her mother always drained her. The memories were too bittersweet. To this day she never knew what had become of her. She struggled through the tale.

“Cora?” The doctor frowned.

“Sorry. Forgive me. It’s the heat,” she lied. She hated weakness. She was alive today because she knew never to reveal it. Not ever. But Red Sun’s love had changed her. She believed in love again and she prayed it didn’t just mean she had more pain to look forward to. “A person like my mother, with her talents, was called upon to help the needful. Like you. People tend to give their trust easily to healers, no matter the color. Maybe that’s why Annabelle is so bound and determined to become a nurse.” She shrugged. “My ma dealt in elixirs, medical remedies, potions, and West African vodun. She was careful though, never to use it for bad purposes. Until my father pushed her too far.”

“What did he do?” the doctor asked.

“He sold me into
placage.
She begged and pleaded with him. But he needed the money. And for many of my kind it was considered a privilege. They’d have these balls and these men would come and pick us, like virginal flowers. When you’re chosen you’d get a house in the Treme, and your sons would be educated in Paris. It was quite romantic for some girls. It was a nightmare for others. Depending on who chose you.”

“So why did your mother object?” the doctor asked.

“Because I was sold to a man who was pure evil. I didn’t go through a coronation. I was packed up and handed over like yesterday’s garbage. The night I was to leave I watched her make something special for Papa. And she told me her secrets. She may not have been able to protect me but she got our vengeance. I’m sure of it. The interesting thing about it all, Doctor, is the plant she used. I saw it in your office.”

“Your point, Ms. Kitty?”

“My point is, you are no gifted physician. Miracle healer. Your comfort around us proves it. What doctor settles in to be the physician in a town of freed slaves and colored people? You learned our customs somewhere along the way. You know that not all vodun is bad. The plants you grow come straight from Africa and the tropics. The castor plant is the one I’m speaking of now.”

The doctor nodded. “I see. So you know my secrets.”

“I don’t care about your secrets. I don’t care about your reasons. I just need to know if you have the seeds from the castor plant? The bean can be ground into powder. Do you understand its potency? How it can be used? Ricin will make a man sick for days with fever before he even suspects his death. And there is no cure. I need the mask of this sickness to weaken and destroy our enemy. And I’m the only one who can get close enough to give it to him.”

“You want to poison the man. How does that help this town?”

“Tyler Shepherd is dead either way. My man wants to cut off his head and mount it like a trophy!” she shouted. “The sheriff is willing to do the same, risk this entire town because he thinks it will impress me. I can’t have it. None of it. This is the only way to save our town, all of us.”

“Until the next crisis comes your way?” the doctor reminded her.

“Possibly. I’m hoping to pin it all on the outlaw if it comes to it. Let the white men hunt the white men and leave us out of it,” she said.

The doctor stroked his chin. She knew when a man was tempted. And her request tempted him. His reasons were his business. She didn’t know why he came to town and why he stayed among them with ease. She didn’t care to know his story. All she could attest to was his credibility. He did everything in his power to heal the sick and he was loyal.

Cora pushed up from her desk and came around it. “I intend to walk into that viper’s den. I don’t even know if I will walk out. But if there is a small chance that I can defeat Tyler Shepherd I plan to take it. The poison will take three to four days to work through his body. As I remember it, he’ll have a fever, the chills, and nausea. Then his vision will blur and his body will weaken. Before he dies he’ll be awake but unable to communicate.”

“A very horrible, torturous way to go.”

“And it couldn’t be a more fitting end. The symptoms will absolve us of any guilt. No one will be the wiser. Including him. By the time he’s sick with it they’ll believe it to be nothing more than consumption or yellow fever.”

“When you need it by?” the doctor asked.

“This afternoon.”

The doctor removed his pipe and lit it. He took several puffs before answering. “Seen a lot in my days. Always hoped to live in a town like Nicademus. And know a woman as proud and strong as you, Ms. Kitty.”

“Why, doctor?”

He shrugged. “I have my reasons. We all have our stories. Maybe someday I’ll share mine.” The doctor laughed. “Gives me hope.”

“Thanks, Doc,” she smiled.

The doctor exhaled tobacco smoke through his nose. “I’ll have something for you soon.”

“I’m not leaving until you do,” she said.

He stood and nodded, and she watched him go. Cora walked over to the window that faced the back of Blue Moon. She watched Red Sun. He would probably stand there facing the mountains and thinking until his temper subsided and they could talk. She would wait.

**

Jeremiah waited. He waited for what felt like an eternity. He could hear the people of the town pacing, talking, and swearing above him. They actually kept him below the saloon. A trap door that led to a secret hideaway for those they wanted to keep hidden from the law and the rangers. It was equipped with several cots, stuffed mattresses, a desk and a chair. The walls were nearly covered by stacked crates of all kinds of supplies. Including ammunition. How these people came across such a bounty was a mystery to him.

There was noise above. He heard the door open and glanced up to see Annabelle descend the rope ladder with his bag of gold tied to her waist.

She dropped down and dusted off her hands. The person above closed the door. If it wasn’t for the lanterns they’d be trapped in darkness.