Princess Ces'alena (16 page)

Recovering from her disapproval he commented, “It’s not the way you think Josey…it really isn’t. I treat my slaves very well, there’s a mutual respect between us. I know full and well, Webster Fields would not be what it is, nor would our lives be what they are without them. And they know what their lives would likely be if they were elsewhere. So both sides appreciate the value of the other. Even you must admit Josey, that right now - with the way things are…they are much safer and better cared for at Webster Fields; I make sure of that. The same as my mother did.” He assured her.

“What position am I in, to criticize you when my father owns the largest slave holding in the area. I know you would treat them as they are… our equals.” She apologized.

“Yes, as in…my son and I.” She nodded to the space down by her right side, where her son…a little Indian boy stood in regular clothing. Manny looked down surprised to see him standing there so quiet, however impatient.

His arms were crossed over his chest with an agitated scowl marring his attractive features. “Well look’a here, hello there lil’fellow, and what’s your name?” Manny asked stooping low to get a closer look at the young man.

“My name - is Lil’Bear, not lil’fellow.” He answered petulantly, eyebrows drawn into a frown coupled with a lowered gruff voice, trying to sound big. “Joseph! You watch your tongue young man when you’re speaking to an adult! You speak with respect, do - you - understand?!” She reprimanded with hands on her hips leaning down to him. He looked up at his mother with his bottom lip stuck out in a pout, and nodded. “Now apologize…right this instance!” She demanded. “It’s all right Josey,” Manny stood up, “…how -…”

“Wait!” She halted him. “Well?” She demanded of her son, waiting.

“My apologies, sir.” He mumbled. “Apology accepted…” Manny returned, looking at Josey. “Now, how about you two join me for dinner? I’d love the company.”

“You know what, I would as well.” Josey smiled, and Lil’Bear made a face whimpering to himself.

“Manny…Ms O’Brien, how are you today?” Grace of Gracie’s Restaurant and Rooming asked. Josephine remained silent… refusing to return the greeting. Although Gracie was polite, her refusal to recognize Josey’s marital status was an insult to her, one that she took personally. She would rather be addressed by her first name, if they weren’t willing to address her as she had corrected them numerous times as Mrs. Longbow.

Most of the townfolk were the same, knowing of her marriage to the Indian Chief, they still regarded her as if she lived in sin. Unaware of this, Manny returned the greeting with, “Just fine Gracie, it has been a long time since Josey and I’ve had the pleasure, so we’ve decided to have dinner together.” Manny finished, following her to a table near the wall of the hotel restaurant, where she thought they’d be more comfortable out of open sight of other diners.

On the way, they passed two middle aged ladies who’d taken it upon themselves to be the established, ‘head of acceptance society’, and by the look they cast Josey and Manny, with the added indignant sniff, they were not accepted, thus appalled that they should even enter a public place together, with their reputations. But of course birds of a feather tended to flock together. Therefore they felt it within their rights to call Gracie to their table, once Manny and Josey were seated, to complain. The idea that ‘she’ Josey would dare not only enter, but to bring in that half bred product of her sinful lifestyle, was more than their fragile senses could stand. Quite miffed they made this known when Gracie stopped - sighing, because she knew what to expect.

“Yes Mrs. Gordon, what can I do for you?”

“We’ve suddenly grown uncomfortable with our seating arrangements, the air has grown suddenly tainted… stifling in fact. We wish to be moved to another area of the room.” She announced for the two of them, delicately pushing her seat back from the table to stand, as did her dinner partner, Mrs. Hastings who added, “Perhaps next time we should make arrangements to meet at a more respectable restaurant; like in Jackson, where we’re not forced to endure the company of harlots to savages.” Gracie led them to the other side of the dining room - however, not before Mrs. Gordon made certain to be heard saying, “And to think one actually came from such good and proper breeding, only to end up like that, frightening isn’t it?”

“Tis only the curse of a bad seed. We must count our blessings dear. Poor Sarah, how I pity her…that being the only one.”

Manny sat staring at their retreating backs, more stunned than he should have been; and un-bidden thoughts of Lena and his son came to mind, stirring anger and resentment. He hated the division of races and social classes in this world. Stewing in the heat of it…he felt a soft pat on his hand. “Don’t let it bother you Manny, I’ve long since disregarded anything said in my presence or otherwise. With the kind of choice I’ve made in my life, it’s one of the things I had to accept that would come with the decision I’ve made.” She assured him as he turned back to her. He sat silent a moment staring at her.

There was nothing wrong with this woman or the decision she made if she was happy. “Are you happy Josey…despite this?” He nodded toward the women asking, and then looked at her son.

“More than I’ve ever been in my life. I am where I belong, and the man I chose is the man I was meant to be with. Nothing or no one will keep me from him.” He listened to her while watching her son.

His eyes were cast downward, shielding from him the bitter hurt and seeds of anger and racial prejudice they were planting in him. Manny could see it stewing in him now, he knew that the only ones who now accepted him were his grandparents …he must have felt Manny’s eyes on him, because he looked up at him, and shining there from blue eyes, was what he expected would be. The same bitter contempt for whites, as the white held and cultivated for him, his father and his father’s people. Inhaling deeply, Manny reached over to stroke his small hand. “Not everyone is like them son. Although in this world, it may seem that way, people like your mother, and myself exist too.” Lil’bear gave no answer, he returned to looking back at the table cloth pattern. Josey pulled her eyes from her son after giving his head a loving stroke.

“How old is he?” Manny asked.

“Eight this month.”

“He has your father’s blue eyes.” He mentioned, noticing as well that the only other marks lending any features to his white background were patches of red hair matching his mothers at both temples. Josey smiled nodding in agreement. Gracie was soon back to take their orders, first apologizing to Josey for the un-necessary scene. Leaving them in peace after ordering, Josey and Manny sat talking more about her life with her husband, the Indians and her son.

“Sooo…Chief…?” Manny started. “Long bow.” Josey offered.

“Yes, Chief Long Bow… so, he doesn’t mind your coming into town with his son, visiting your family?”

“No…he doesn’t…he believes that our son, because of the rivaling bloods within him, will come to be a better man, that it will give him important tools to be a great leader.” Manny nodded, listening as she continued. “He’s a beautiful man. With many thoughts, visions and hopes for his people. He’s not the way people paint him. He loves me, and he respects who I am and what I am. He would never force me to choose between the two…but gives me the freedom to return home to my family when I have the need.”

“Your family? Jordan Lee especially…somehow I have a hard time seeing him having to accept your marriage to an Indian.”

Josey nodded smiling; shaking her head as she thought back to the way things had at one time been for them. “Of course you’re right, in the beginning, it was something he could not accept. You see, when I knew that I was definitely in love with Chief Long Bow, my father did everything in his power to keep me from him. I tried to reason with him at first. Talk to him, desperate to make him understand.” She shook her head. “He never wanted to hear it. That is when I began running away to be with him, and he’d send trackers out to find me…to bring me back. This happened quite a few times, I lost our first child because of it.” She smiled sadly.

“I’m sorry.” Manny fully sympathized, remembering the two Lena miscarried. He’d gotten her pregnant again a couple of months after Mike’s birth. Miscarrying his second son in her seventh month by falling from his horse. The child had been fully developed at birth, but was too small to live. He’d struggled to breath for 4 hours before his breathing stopped. With that one, Manny had felt relief, hating to see him suffering and struggling to inhale every breath he took. A year after that, Lena had come to be with child again. His third son had been vigorous and active while she carried him, and then towards the last week, no movement at all. When Lena had given birth to him, it was to see that the cord had wrapped around his neck strangling him. With both of them, they’d taken it hard.

But the last one put Manny through more anguish, with the thought of his healthy strong son being strangled to death by his own cord. This haunted him so long he would not touch Lena for some time. He could fully relate with Josey’s loss.

“Thank you…I still think about that child, wondering if it were a boy or girl. What he or she would have looked like.” She looked down sadly.

Manny thought about his two sons, he knew what they looked like, because he had buried them. “Time heals.” He offered.

“Yes, it does…but you never forget.”

“No…and we never should.” He wanted to confide about his own circumstances, but Manny had always been a private person. He wasn’t one to talk about his personal life and the things happening in it. Yet, he’d always been a good listener. This Josey knew…and felt comfortable talking to him.

“What made Jordan finally give in?”

She took a deep breath thinking about that time…still so vivid in her mind. “Well, the last time my father found me, he locked me in my room and had wrought iron bars placed over my windows to keep me from getting out, and Long Bow from getting in. He also put men out in the fields to guard against Long Bow sneaking onto the property. Oh Manny…it was horrible being kept from him…because we were different. He is still a man. I am still a woman. Bothering no one else, we make each other happy…why is that wrong?”

Manny shook his head…this was entirely too close to home…yet he listened without interrupting her. “My father ordered his men to shoot him on sight. I was so afraid for him, because I knew…he’d let no one keep us apart.”

“What happened? How’d you end up back with him now?”

“The days that followed were filled with me screaming and crying. I destroyed my room trying to find a way to escape. I begged my father time and time again to let me go. I loved Long Bow, and would never be happy without him. But my father felt I was being irrational. He swore I had been invaded by something demonic and evil. He made arrangements to have me taken away. I found out, and knew once they got their hands on me, that was it…I’d be taken away with no means of escape. I had only a few weeks to figure out what I would do. My mother, who is more of an understanding person, tried to convince him to, just, let me go, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Then what?”

“I then heard that Long Bow had been shot trying to get to me. They were scouring the land and area trying to find him, but hadn’t yet. My father roared for them to do so and not to come back until he was found. After that, I just…I just — went mad.”

“He charged into my room shouting at me, telling me I had to forget him once and for all! That I had to get used to living my life without him; and nothing I said or did would change his mind. He then slammed out of my room. Locking the door back once again. That night he had important company over for something …I can’t remember.” She stopped to think. “I wrote him a long letter. So in despair… I told him, that he could not have any idea of what love was because one did not just – stop - living without the person they loved if it was within their means to have that person with them. Since he would not allow this, I chose to – end my life.”

“
You what?!”
Manny blurted shocked. Others in the room turned to look at them. He cleared his throat recovering from the thought. “You what?” He asked again, softly this time. Josey smiled. “I was young and impetuous…it was wrong I know. I was trapped and I couldn’t imagine submitting my life to the wishes of people that didn’t have to live it for me. Next thing I know…I folded the letter, placed it on my dresser. Took the twine from my bedroom drapes, and braided it to make a strong rope. Tied one end to the wrought iron bars; I climbed up on a stack of furniture, broke through the ceiling to expose a beam. Threaded the rope over it and pulled it through…I tied it around my neck, took a deep breath, and kicked everything from underneath me.”

Manny stared at her stunned.

“Before I passed out, I remember the shock and horror that I couldn’t undo it. That it was too late for that; because I could reach nothing from there and the weight of my body had tightened the knot in the rope. As I choked, it felt as if my head was going to explode…it was more painful than I’d imagined it to be; then darkness. It was the screaming of my mother’s voice that I came to, hearing. I was in my father’s arms; the look in his eyes is one I will never forget, and my mother sobbing behind him,
“Let her go! Let her go before you kill her!”
You see, when the furniture crashed down, my father in his fury, rushed back up the stairs to set me straight. Only to find me hanging. That did something to him Manny. I don’t know what, but whatever it was, it made him take me down, listen to my mother, and
he
delivered me to Long Bow. He’s never interfered since. He accepts it now…oh, he would never invite Long Bow to our home, but then…I could not see him coming anyway. When Lil’Bear was born… I came home to them. Mother was stunned, waiting to see what my father would do, even though she held her breath wanting to extend her arms to me.” Again she paused.