A Virtuous Ruby (15 page)

“Are you sure, girl? It ain’t nothing but water.”

“No, thank you.”

Paul Winslow stood there in front of her and drank most of it, then threw the rest on the floor into the jail cell with her. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What do you call yourself trying to do now, by ruining by celebrations? More of your organizing?”

“Sir, I was trying to speak the words so everyone, including those in the back corner, could hear. If the Declaration is for everyone, then it should be loud enough for all to hear it.”

“And so you took it upon yourself to make it happen. Without asking, saying anything?”

She met those Winslow eyes of his, the ones like Solomon’s, Adam’s and David’s. Those eyes figured too much into her life and she would not look away like she was supposed to. “You don’t speak to me direct most of the time, sir. How would I know what you say?”

He flustered at this response. “It’s the job of the Reverend to read the Declaration.”

“He’s getting mighty old, sir. That’s why I did what I did.”

“Not to cause no ruckus or scene like you do?”

“Sir, every problem I have with you and the mill, I take up with the workers direct. I don’t mean to cause a scene; I wanted to help people out. Just like I helped out today.”

Paul Winslow fixed her with a steely stare. “I don’t know, Ruby. You’ve gotten yourself into a lot of trouble in the past.”

“Some of the trouble, sir, was not of my making,” Ruby stared back at him, thinking Adam’s warm grey eyes looked very different in his father’s cold, harsh face.

He cleared his throat. “Yes, well, you got you a baby now. You can’t go around causing trouble. Got to settle down. I hear you’ve had an offer of marriage.”

Ruby shouldn’t have been surprised he would know, given how Dodge had informed them of her plans to do the oration and cozying up to him at the picnic earlier. Still, she was surprised at Paul Winslow’s interference in the life events of his laundress’s daughter. Someone who was supposed to be the lowest of the low.

The casual way Paul Winslow bothered to be down here in the jailhouse, telling her she needed to get married proved she was important, as she had always known. Ruby sat up on the cot a little straighter, and prouder. “Yes?” The one word was a question. Just what did he propose she should do?

“You need to go on and take it. Go on, get married and have some more babies. What women are supposed to do.” He pointed at her. “You, you say now what you’re going to do, and I’ll call your intended in and free you from this jail right now. You can go on home.”

So, that’s what this was all about. He wanted reassurance she wasn’t going to cause him any more worry or trouble. But marriage to the wrong man would be exchanging one jail cell for another. All she wanted to do was to go back to her son, almost worse than anything, but to give in now would set the whole course of her son’s life back, almost back to slavery.

This moment, this confrontation with this terrible, powerful man meant allowing Solomon to go forward in this world. She wanted that more than leaving the jail. “I can’t tell you I’m going to marry someone before I tell the man.”

“You want me to call him down here? I get Dodge in here now, and you can tell him yourself and put an end to all of this. I can get a marriage license and even Reverend. Melvin too, make it all official.” Paul Winslow looked all around him, as if he were going to summon Dodge now.

“No, don’t call him. I don’t want to talk to him now.”

He hung on the bars in such a way Ruby knew he had to be intoxicated. Had that been water in the cup? Ruby’s eyes followed the wet shape on the floor that the tossed away drink had made. As temperance herself, the disgust and alarm rolled in her threatening to empty her stomach. Had he been trying to get her drunk? “And why not?”

“I’m still thinking it over.”

He stood and smoothed his thinning brown hair down. “You better do more than think, girl. You better tell him yes and get yourself married and have a bunch of babies with Dodge.”

“And if I don’t?”

“If you don’t?”

“Yes, what if I don’t, sir? What do you have to say to me, a local little Negro girl who is not married?”

“There’s a whole lot more I could say. I could say, I could call David down here and let him handle you again Yes. I think my son’s got some more celebrating to do on the birthday of the United States. I think he could have some more celebration with you.” She gulped down the near vomit that rose up in her throat.

He believed he could rattle her.

And she was rattled. She wouldn’t show him, though.

“David’s got a few buddies up at school who would like to have a good time with a pretty Negro gal too.”

Stay brave.
Ruby swallowed hard again.

Paul Winslow held out a warning finger. “Then, I could say your fine boy should not be permitted to be with a whore mother. Yes, I could say, a white child like him deserves a chance in this world to live away from a whore mother. I could say plenty.”

“Don’t touch my son!” Ruby cried in spite of herself. “Don’t you touch him!” The tears in her face threatened to break loose in a flood. He had gotten to her.

“You see? We agree. Your baby shouldn’t have a whore for a mother. He deserves a solid, respectable home to grow up in with a father and a respectable mother. What about what he needs? Make up your mind.” He slapped the tin cup against the bars of the door, making loud clanking sounds. “You think about what you want. See you in the morning.” He turned on his heel and left.

Ruby stood and grasped the bars of the jail cell door. “Don’t touch my baby! Don’t touch my baby!” She screamed the words over and over as the tears slipped down her cheeks, her voice hoarse.

I don’t care about myself, God, just protect my baby. Protect Solomon.
The picture in her mind of Adam holding Solomon in his arms was all she had to hold onto. And it calmed her for some reason.

Chapter Fourteen

Adam and John decided to leave during the fireworks display, figuring the crowd would be too distracted to notice. As Adam drove, Lona’s stiff and ramrod straight countenance cast a shadow in the darkness, as did Mags’s worried face. Sad little Delie just sniffled. Delie, reprimanded with a slap at conveying her disappointment at missing the fireworks, wiped away tears with a grubby middy sleeve.

As punishment, Delie had been charged to keep Solomon. For a five-year-old, Delie was doing a great job. Solomon made light fluttering noises of sleep in the backseat as his young aunt clung to him. John had the other girls in the wagon and Adam hoped he would make a brisk pace home.

Even picking his way through the dark, the car got there first. He helped the ladies take everything inside and repacked his medical bag to make sure he had whatever he needed, if anything, to help Ruby. He worked swiftly, with fear-stiffened fingers, to make sure he was prepared.

Mags came to the doorway. “Mama wants you to go down to see about what they doing to Ruby.”

“I’m just making sure I have what I need to help her, Mags. I have to wait until your father gets here to make sure you all are safe.”

Adam turned around, ready to take his bag to the front room when Lona appeared in the doorway, her face still etched with worry. “You go on ahead and see to Ruby. We be fine here until John come home.”

“You need a man to make sure you are protected. Leaving you here by yourselves puts you in danger. Ruby would never forgive me if something happened to you.”

Lona showed him her husband’s gun by the door. “I’ve lived through some danger a time or two in my life.” The clear strength and resoluteness on Lona’s face shone through and Adam understood where Ruby’s stubbornness came from. “I can protect these girls and the baby. I knows how to shoot a gun. I’m more afraid for Ruby being down there by herself. Go on ahead.”

As Adam moved to the door, Lona put a hand on his arm. “You care about her don’t you?”

Adam matched the intense gaze shining from the careworn face. “I do. I want to make sure she’s safe and protected.”

“Please, help her.”

“I’ll do my best, ma’am. Excuse me.”

“God be with you,” Lona said. Adam passed Mags who sat in a chair in the front room, trying to soothe a fussy Solomon back to sleep.

“Take care, Doctor,” Mags whispered as he went past her.

Adam calmed a bit as he heard the creaky sound of the wheels on John’s wagon approaching the farm. He got the car going and drove off.

The shining tan stone of the courthouse, full of life and vigor just hours before, stood dim in darkness. This was where they would have taken her if she were brought here. The empty-looking nature of the building alarmed him. Then, in the still of the night, there were female shouts and screams.

Ruby.

Taking up his bag, he ran to a side door where the sound seemed to come from. What were they doing to her?

His heart beat fast in his chest. How could he get in? The door was made of heavy wooden beams that would not budge. He prepared to run around to the front to see if there were other ways of getting in, when the door swung open and Paul Winslow stood in the doorway.

“Why, Dr. Morson, whatever are you doing here?”

“I came to see if Ruby needed some medical attention.” Adam tried to smooth down his tie and straighten his viewing spectacles. He figured Paul Winslow would have more respect for the posture his education afforded him.

“Really now? Come on in, since you’re here.”

Adam entered the dark courthouse and followed Paul Winslow down a long, straight corridor. Ruby’s shouts sounded much more clearly now, and he could hear she shouted about Solomon. He could let her know her child was safe. Paul Winslow turned into a small office space and Adam stood in the doorway, impatient. “I want her out of here.”

Paul Winslow went behind a desk into a cabinet and got out some glasses and a decanter and filled them with alcohol. “Join me?”

The strong stench of the liquor filled his nose and brought to mind Lucas’s incessant drinking. All of Paul Winslow’s caretaking money went right into those bottles, instead of food to fill his belly. He shook his head to clear the headiness of the memory from his mind. He had to stay focused. “I’m temperance,” Adam said. “Where’s Ruby?”

His father shrugged his shoulders as if he didn’t care. He filled both glasses and looked prepared to drink from them. “I don’t know how you ended up as temperance. Winslows have a long proud history of being able to hold our liquor. Must be Mattie’s side.” He held up the other glass to Adam in salute and drank it down quickly. “What’s it to you for her to get out of jail? One night ain’t going to hurt her.”

“She didn’t do anything wrong. You’re infringing on her rights as a United States Citizen, rights she is guaranteed under the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution.”

Paul held out the second glass before he drank from the other one. “I see. You using all the education I paid for to tell me I should let her go. You got a thing for her.”

“I don’t understand why you are keeping her,” Adam insisted.

“You a latecomer to the town here. So you don’t know or understand who’s running things here. This is my town. What I say around here goes.”

“So then you can see why she should be let go.”

“You don’t know what kind of trouble she causes.”

Adam shrugged . “She’s just a colored girl. What could she do to you?”

“She’s a fine little piece, isn’t she? Man, if I were younger…”

In that moment, he knew God must have stopped him from reaching over the desk and punching Paul Winslow in his drunk face. And he was glad for it because hitting the man would damage the hands he needed to heal others. So he clenched them in pure frustration instead. “She needs to go home to her son.”

“She needs a husband who’ll keep her in line.” His father sat down again. “I told Dodge he could have her. He’s willing to take the task on.”

“You have no right to say what she does. Let her go.”

“What will you do if I don’t? You’re clearly not doing your job, Doctor, in taking care of these Negroes if you’re so interested in just one.” He laughed. “I might could have turned her over to you, if I thought you would keep her in line the way a woman should be kept. But you wouldn’t. No. Dodge is the one for her.”

“I’ll make sure she doesn’t bother you anymore.”

“How?”

“Just leave it to me. If she gives you trouble, then you can deal with me.”

Paul Winslow took a deep swallow of his pungent drink. Adam kept from making a face at the nose-clearing stench of alcohol. His father took the jail keys out of his pocket and dangled them at the ends of his fingertips. “Here. Go get her and get her out of here. I’ll be back to see you, down at that farm, if you don’t keep her in line.”

Adam snatched the keys and followed the sound of Ruby’s sobs down the corridor. Paul Winslow was in league with the devil. How was he going to get Ruby and her son out of his father’s clutches?

And himself as well.

Someone ran toward her down the hall. The fear should have impacted her stomach, as it always did, but it didn’t.

Paul Winslow was too drunk and big to have an alert step. The person coming to her had to let her go—the clink and clank of metal sounded down the hallway along with the footsteps. She wished she had a handkerchief to wipe her eyes and face with. Straightening up on the saggy cot, she tried to look brave. Ida Wells-Barnett had been in jail many times. Ruby would not shame her heroine with sniffling.

Praise God. Adam Morson’s tall body came into view and she had never been so relieved to see someone. With his shirtsleeves rolled up and his collar off, the welcome sight of his lean, muscular body appeared. She almost wanted to laugh with delight at the fact he looked less than his usual correct dress standard, but she couldn’t. She bounced on her toes to reach as high as he was tall.

“Adam!” She grasped the bar doors with joy. “Where’s your tie?” When she threw herself against the bars, she had practically launched into his chest, and the hardness of his body slammed against hers through the prison bars. His big body was reassuring to her, and she wanted to hold him, to bring those muscles closer. But her clothes were ruined.

She calmed down. What a sight she must be.

He leaned forward and tried one key after another. “He couldn’t keep you in here. There were no charges.”

“That’s what they do down here,” Ruby crowed. “Sometimes, they keep people on a trumped up charge, but I didn’t think someone would be in here to get me tonight.”

“It’s after midnight, Ruby,” he informed her as the door swung open. He grabbed her hand and pulled her forward. “Let’s get out of here.”

His voice was forceful and direct. His hand on hers felt like home, warm and caressing. She had held hands with David sometimes, before the attack, but his hands were always cold and clammy. Adam’s hands were a man’s hands, a doctor’s hands, capable and strong. Lona was right. These were hands to take care of a woman.

“Is Solomon okay?” she asked him, forcing her attention away from his body. She shouldn’t think about the doctor in this way.

“He’s fine,” Adam said. “He was fast asleep in the car.”

Ruby breathed out as they hurried down the dark corridor. “I certainly hope so.”

Adam stopped in front of a door and let her hand go as he stepped into an office. Through the slightly darkened door, Paul Winslow’s head was down on the desk. Adam put the keys in Winslow’s hand, and came back out to her. He grabbed her hand as soon as he returned.

Something inside Ruby became warm and wriggly, as if she were holding a new puppy, but much better. He escorted her outside in the dark, humid July morning, and opened the car door for her. She did her best Miss Mary imitation as she got into the front seat next to him. She watched him as he quickly started the car. “We have got to get out of here,” Adam said. “I’m sorry if I am rushing you.”

The stark and sad bare town square sagged. So empty of celebrating citizens. No more Independence Day. “No, I understand. I have seen enough happen with some of these men in the town. We should get back to the farm as soon as possible.”

He jumped into the car and grasped the wheel with those capable hands of his and quickly, with a surety she had not seen in many Negro men of her acquaintance, drove them back to the Bledsoe house. What about her family? Were they all safe despite her escapades?

She didn’t need to worry. When they got back, all was quiet. The farm still stood. No one had come to raid, or burn or pilfer. She breathed out a breath she didn’t know she was holding in. “I was so concerned for them.”

“Fortunately, they are all fine.” Adam pulled the car over. John Bledsoe had opened the front door with a finger to his lips. Ruby alighted from the car and went to embrace her father.

“I’m glad you are okay, girl. You give us a scare.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy. I didn’t mean to.”

John opened the door wider. “Come on in, daughter. You home now.” They embraced.

When Adam came back in the house behind her, her father banked over the coals in the fireplace and made a gesture. “I’m going on to bed, since the cows will wake up in just a little bit.”

“Good night, sir,” Adam said.

John stepped over to him.

“Thank you for saving my girl.”

“It was my pleasure, sir.”

John shook his hand and went to his bedroom off on the other side of the house.

Ruby sat down on the davenport. She wasn’t hungry or tired—she just wanted to revel in the fact she was home.

“What’re you thinking about?” Adam sat in the chair across from her.

“I’m thinking I’m so glad to be here. I want to study a little Latin.”

Adam smiled at her. He had a very nice smile. His handsome features were so serious most of the time, that his smile was a welcome surprise. “
Gaudeo te ipsum
.”

Now she understood what he was about. Something stirred inside of her as he spoke the dead language. The part of her stirring was a part she believed dead, killed by David.

Wrong.

His gray eyes twinkled at her. “What did you say?”

He shook his head.

He wasn’t he going to tell her what he said? Tipping her head to one side as she spoke, she determined to figure it out. “I’m glad, you are here.”

“Home, not here,” Adam corrected, speaking low. “
Spero autem quad te curare
.”

Frustrated, Ruby leaned closer. “I can’t hear what you are saying, come here.”

What had she done? A flush of warmth went straight to her cheeks. She had invited him to sit on the davenport with her. Around Winslow, this kind of invitation was considered a courting move, but she didn’t mean it that way. Not really. She did want to hear what he was saying, so she could translate it. Adam got up and sat opposite her. He repeated the words he had spoken.

Ruby concentrated. However, it was hard now since he was sitting closer to her and she could smell the pomade he used on his black hair to keep it silky. What would it be like to run her fingers through it?

Concentrate
.
I have to let this man know I can do this.
“I hope you take care of yourself,” she said with delight, a little too loudly. Everyone was sleeping.

Adam nodded. “
Quod tot curae tibi
.”

“Because so many care for you.”

His gray eyes sparkled in the dying light of the main room. They seemed to turn a shade darker, serious. “
I fac ut.
”

“As I do.” Ruby finished. What did he mean by that? Brushing aside any hope, especially since she looked so wretched, she said, “Thank you for coming to get me out. If it was up to Paul Winslow, I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded letting me stay in there all night long.”

“I’m glad I could help. I didn’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Thank you,” Ruby’s voice lowered, as they faced each other on the davenport in the dark room. She leaned in to give him a peck on the cheek to show her gratitude. It seemed appropriate, seeing he was her teacher, and mentor, and now, a guardian of sorts.