In The Face Of Death (23 page)

“I am not as young as you suppose; and Egypt is a furnace.” Madelaine regarded the schoolroom with a mixture of curiosity and dismay. It was so small and had so little to offer. There were two shelves of schoolbooks under the shuttered windows, and perhaps four hundred volumes in the cases at the back of the room, which she understood was the town library. She did her best to show approval. “This is probably the best school for miles around.”

“Probably,” said Mary Anne, “since it is the only school.” She made a gesture that was at once self-deprecating and satisfied. “For where we are and what is to hand, we do well enough. I’d like to buy more books, of course, but we already have more than many of these small communities can boast. Still, it would wonderful to have more to read, and more modern references.” She looked at the clock hanging on the wall and frowned. “The children should start arriving in the next ten minutes.”

“How many do you teach?” asked Madelaine.

“In good weather, about thirty-five, but on a day like this, I will be surprised if more than fifteen or sixteen come for lessons, and they will leave at mid-afternoon.” She set out making stacks of notebooks on her desk. “I try to give them exercises they can work on without my constant supervision, but it isn’t a very satisfactory way to go about it.” Again she glanced at the clock. “I am going to boil some water for tea. Would you like a cup?”

“No, thank you,” said Madelaine, and went to the back of the schoolroom to inspect the volumes there. “I have brought many books with me. Would you like to have a few of them when I leave?”

Mary Anne beamed. “Oh, yes.” Then she recalled herself. “That is, if it is no imposition on you. I would not like to
. . . .
”

Madelaine spared her further confusion. “It would be my pleasure to return some of the kindness you and your family have shown me,” she told the other woman. “I will look at what I am carrying and set aside titles you may find of use.”

“That’s wonderful,” said Mary Anne. “Living here, where we do, it is not often that we have such an opportunity. The plantations in this region do not favor these towns, and so it is not an easy thing to get books. They usually come in from Georgia, or from Chattanooga.”

“It must make your teaching more difficult, being so isolated.” Madelaine thought of the Choctaw, off in Indian Territory, or the Havasupai, hidden in their magnificent canyon, or the Apache, deliberately seeking to be left alone, and she decided isolation was a relative matter.

“I fear so,” said Mary Anne, with no trace of emotion in her voice. “From time to time my brother pays for the supplies we need, and the parents are supposed to give their children notebooks and pencils, but—” She shrugged.

Madelaine recalled her days in Turkey and the hostility her desire to learn engendered, before she was declared
persona non grata
for her attempts to teach her native staff to recognize a few words in French. “But not everyone approves of learning,” she finished for Mary Anne.

“No, they do not,” said Mary Anne, and turned her head as her two oldest nephews came rushing into the schoolhouse, banging the door closed, their faces rosy above mufflers. They carried their notebooks in canvas grain bags, and set these on their desks at once.

“Take your places, Bethune, Russell. And no misbehaving.” Mary Anne used the same stern tone with the boys as she used for the rest of her students, or so she intended. “I will want to have your essays on Texas before class begins.”

The two boys made a show of disgust, but both brought out scrawled pages of exercises and carried them obediently to Mary Anne’s desk.

“Isn’t Pansy coming to school?” asked Madelaine, thinking that the little girl should have arrived with her brothers.

“No,” said Mary Anne tonelessly. “She’s being tutored by her mother. She doesn’t come to school.”

“I see,” said Madelaine.

“Lamont believes that women should be protected from the harsher truths of the world. He prefers that Auralene teach Pansy so that she will not be exposed to any of the unpleasantness a general education too often requires.” She said this as if reciting from memory, and there was a futility about her attitude that revealed this was an old family dispute that Mary Anne had consistently lost. “Auralene was taught the same way. It makes for docile wives, or so they claim.”

“Yes,” said Madelaine, her memory of the Ursuline nuns who had provided her first, properly genteel education coming back to her in a rush. “And she spends as much time learning to set a perfect seam as reading and mastering her numbers.”

“She does; and how she will manage when the world changes, I dread to think,” said Mary Anne with feeling,

“Then you expect the world to change? That is wise of you, but uncommon,” said Madelaine.

“Of course it will change. Look what is happening with railroads, and that is the least of it. In twenty years, who knows what invention will bring to us? We are at the beginning of a new age, and we must prepare.” She was about to go on when more children burst into the schoolroom, their mittened hands holding their schoolwork. Mary Anne turned her attention to these new arrivals, and left Madelaine to her own devices for the next half hour. When a modicum of order was established, Mary Anne announced, “Miss de Montalia is here from France, which is her home. She has graciously agreed to tell us something about her country and the places she has visited, including Egypt. Say good morning to Miss de Montalia.”

The class rendered an uneven chorus of “Good morning, Miss de Montalia.”

Madelaine came to the front of the room and faced the children. There were eighteen of them, ranging in age from seven to sixteen, fifteen of them boys. Madelaine sighed, and began, “My family home is in the south of France, as yours is in the south of the United States. It is near the border with Italy, which is how we got our name, de Montalia, the Italian mountain. I still have a house there. . . .”

Twelve miles northeast of Aurora, Alabama, 18 May, 1860

Fox Woman has decided she will take me as a guest here at her little holding in the mountains. She is a widow of about fifty with five grown children, three daughters and two sons. She lives alone by preference and keeps two goats and a flock of chickens, though she does not make cheese, for she claims it makes her ill. Many Indians have the same complaint. She uses the goat hair for weaving and from time to time buys a young one and slaughters her oldest for food. She is a capable hunter, as well, and knows every edible plant in the region, which information she is willing to impart to me. . . .

Finally I will learn some of the teachings the Choctaw women have gathered over the years. Fox Woman has agreed to let me be her student in exchange for all I can tell her of Europe and Africa. She claims that none of the missionaries she has met have been willing to tell her anything of these places, and she told me she doubts they have any authentic information about them, including the place called the Holy Land. I find her skepticism refreshing and I am delighted to discover another woman who loves knowledge for its own sake. As curious as I am about Indian peoples, she is about whites. And blacks as well, for that matter. I have warned her that I have seen little of Africa beyond Egypt, but she is willing to forgive this lapse in exchange for what I have seen in Turkey and Greece.

Luke Greentree and his three companions have decided to remain nearby at a small Indian settlement, so that next spring they can escort me to Charleston or New Orleans and so fulfill their commission from the leaders of the Choctaw Nation. The reason they are staying in the settlement is less clear: I gather they are looking for wives, though one of the men has said he wants to find a militia commander to take him on if there is war.

Lightning flickered in the clouds like sparks on flint. Fox Woman looked up from where she had been digging, and remarked to Madelaine, “It is the heat that brings the thunderstorm. Heat is the fire in the sky. The clouds are there to keep the fire from consuming the earth, though they cannot stop its heat. Sometimes sparks escape, and the thunder comes.”

Madelaine rubbed her face, hoping that Fox Woman was not too aware that she did not sweat in this appalling weather. “How does the fire get into the sky?”

“It comes from the sun, of course,” said Fox Woman, pointing down to the root she had exposed. “This will help stiffened muscles and restore vitality. It is best when pounded to a paste and then boiled into broth. In times of famine, it will be one of the last plants to die, and therefore it will feed those in danger of starving. It does not dry very well, and should be used fresh.” She dug out the root with her wooden trowel. “Here.”

As Madelaine took the root, she turned it over in her hand, saying, “Where does this grow? Only in these mountains?”

“How should I know the answer to that?” snapped Fox Woman. “I have lived all my life here.”

“But surely,” Madelaine said with all the respect she could muster, “the women’s teachings record if this root is found in other regions.” She slipped the root into the capacious front pocket of her apron.

“Oh. Yes, it is found more often in the mountains, but it can be found in forests from here to the sea.” She rocked back on her heels, then pushed herself to her feet. “In the lowlands, the plants do not grow as tall, and you must look for them in hollows and under trees. In spring, the plant puts out a pale blossom.” She cocked her head. “I have shown you the honey-tree already.”

“That you have,” said Madelaine. “You smoke out the bees the way the people in my part of France do.”

“Just as well. Bees tax us with pain for taking their bounty.” Fox Woman pointed along the trail to a cluster of bushes. “Those are not to be touched.”

Madelaine went a bit nearer and looked at them. “Nettles,” she said.

“That is what the whites call them,” Fox Woman said in her direct way. “They may be cooked and used as a poultice or a tea.” She raised her head suddenly. “Horses coming. Three or more.” With a quick motion she pulled Madelaine back with her into the shadows of the trees. “Say nothing. We do not know who they are.”

Madelaine obeyed, knowing better than to dispute any of Fox Woman’s orders. They remained in the shelter of the trees for some time, and then Fox Woman touched Madelaine’s sleeve. “Is it safe?”

Fox Woman answered indirectly. “They were not Indian people. They were whites. Sometimes they come here, looking for runaway slaves.” She scowled. “There are more runaways now than before.”

“You mean more of them try to hide here? With the Choctaw?” Madelaine asked, her curiosity mixed with apprehension.

“From time to time,” said Fox Woman evasively. “There are tales of Choctaw guiding some of the slaves to the Shakers in Tennessee. What becomes of them after that, I do not know. It may be only tales.”

Madelaine heard this out with growing interest. “Are you saying that some of the Choctaw help runaways?”

“I am saying that it is
said
that some of the Choctaw help runaways. I have no proof that it is so, not as the whites demand proof.” She started along the path toward her house. “There are some of our people who do not wish to do anything that might bring the ire of the whites upon us. There are others who say it is a dishonor not to help a slave seeking to be free if the slave was not taken in battle.” She stopped and indicated a low-growing, broad-leafed plant. “That is very good to eat. It has a taste like good peppers.”

“Shall I gather some?” Madelaine asked, starting to reach for the plant in question.

“There is no reason. We have plenty food at the house. And you do not eat it, do you?” She squinted upward as another spatter of lightning laced the clouds. “It will rain shortly.”

“How shortly?” asked Madelaine, looking upward as thunder muttered in the distance.

“In twice the time it will take us to walk back to my house,” said Fox Woman, her eyes bright with amusement, though there was not a trace of a smile on her lips.

“That is well enough,” said Madelaine. “It might be best for us to turn back.”

“Not quite yet,” said Fox Woman. “We do not want the slave-hunters to find us. They do not use women alone well.” All the mirth faded from her eyes. “I had a good friend, who kept to herself as I do, and she was taken by the slave-hunters and used shamefully.”

“You mean raped?” Madelaine asked, dreading the answer.

“I mean that was the least of it. She was dragged by the horsetail until her legs were ruined, and then they left her beside the road. The rot took her.” She recited this as if it meant little to her, but the stiffness of her back and shoulders gave her away.

Madelaine decided to keep silent. “It would be well to find shelter, in that case,” she said.

“There is an abandoned mill not far from here. We can go there. Those men have already searched there. They always look there first. No one hides there any more, but they always look there, in case the runaways have been stupid. It is the men who look for them who are stupid.” She started off, away from the trail through the undergrowth, taking care to avoid the densest thickets and brambles. She paused once to point out a small, purple berry just forming on a trailing vine. “This is good for those with great swellings. You make a paste of it and smear it over the swelling. It is not good to eat it.”

“I will remember, Fox Woman,” said Madelaine, keeping behind her mentor.

“And well you should,” she answered, lengthening her stride so that her long, soft, deer-hide skirt slapped the underbrush aside.

Madelaine followed after her, matching her pace easily to that of the Choctaw woman; as she walked, she pondered what she had been told.

With Fox Woman, near Aurora, Alabama, 2 September, 1860

When I returned from town today, I found Fox Woman in great distress. It appears that there has been a rift in her people over the matter of States’ rights and the Union, and the damage this has done to the Choctaw Nation is most upsetting to her.

From what I heard in Aurora, it seems likely that there may be some kind of open hostilities between the North and the South on the same issue. At least the men in town were eager to have a fight with the North. . . . The resentment they feel toward the political weight the North has acquired runs very deep with these people and many of them want to show their disgust with the high-handed way the North has handled Southern matters. . . . Luke Greentree has asked me to consider leaving America, in case the rancor between North and South should erupt into open conflict. He tells me he would like to escort me to Charleston so that I could arrange for a berth on a ship bound east. I have informed him I will wait until spring so that we will not risk getting caught in bad weather, for I would not like to have to establish myself in a new location for the winter when I have managed so well here. He does not like my decision, but he has given me his word he will not try to persuade me to change my mind.