“A crime?”
Millie reached for Maizie, rubbing the young girl’s upper arm. “It’s still that way, Maizie, I am ashamed to say. Still a crime for a colored man to love a white woman or a white man to love a colored woman. That’s just how it is.”
“Doesn’t seem right,” Maizie said, looking across the light and shadows of the fellowship hall and thinking of Capp, his beautiful smile, his sun-bleached hair, his attitude toward bigotry. In that moment her heart ached for him.
“I remember when it was Gabe’s birthday. She wanted to give him a gift. I had a pillowcase I was savin’ for when I got married. I embroidered Gabe’s initials on it and told her she could give it to him. She was so excited, but that’s when all the trouble got worse. Her uncle found the embroidered pillowcase in her room and asked her what the initials GF stood for. She wouldn’t tell him. He grabbed her and he noticed she was going to have a baby. He held her down until she told him it was Gabe. He gathered four men and they went and lynched the poor boy. People who loved Gabe recovered his body and buried him near the church where he sang on Sundays. The people here missed Gabe’s voice lifting their souls.”
Millie stopped for a moment and then said, “Then time passed and people forgot, I guess.”
“You mean people didn’t keep my daddy in their hearts? They don’t miss him anymore?”
Millie looked at Maizie, nodding. “You could say that. You can imagine how terrified your mama was after Gabe was hanged. She ran away. Someone told her about a nice old man who needed help. He didn’t have much—just a shack near a creek, but he was gone a lot, tendin’ to barges on the Mississippi River and needed help with his house and garden. Caroline went to stay in his house, which was on stilts. When I heard, my daddy started taking me out there. I would bring her things ’cause she needed everything. She was so grateful. But there is more to the story.”
“A happier story?”
“No, not really, dear. Now you know I could have some of it wrong, but here is what Caroline told me those times I visited.”
“There was a map on the wall in the house. Your mama would show me how she planned to get north. She said life would be better there for you. You wasn’t much colored at all and you had blue eyes, but there were those who would make it hard, she said. Your mama started doing tricks to raise the money. The men came from the river docks when the old man was riding the barges.”
“My mama did that when we traveled. She called ’em small favors.”
“Your mama was tryin’ to get money together is all. The dream of runnin’ north was strong in her.”
“There was one of those men who got to thinkin’ Caroline was his woman. I forgot his name. Your mama was afraid of him, so she left the house on the stilts. No one knows for sure where she went. She never wrote me, but your mama wasn’t good with the written word.”
Maizie felt an overwhelming sense of love for her mother.
“You were so little when I last saw you. You’d sit on my lap and Caroline would tell us a wild tale. Lots of magic in those tales,” said Millie.
“Yeah, I remember those tales. She’d hold me tight and tell me the most interesting things. That map you mentioned was in her things, the pillowcase too. I’d never seen them until she died.”
“She still had that pillowcase? She never got to give it to Gabe, I guess.” Millie sighed. “Now you tell me, Maizie girl, how did Caroline die?”
“She got sick with an infection. It was her appendix. Died in Springfield, Missouri, at a shelter.”
“So she made it to Springfield?” Millie beamed with pride. “My, my.”
“Yes, why?”
“She always said Springfield was a better place.”
“Well, the ranch where I live is a better place. I feel at home there. Protected.”
“Maybe that ranch was what your mama was lookin’ for. But she never found it.”
Maizie sat still, nodding.
“Don’t be sad, Maizie,” Millie said as she gently lifted Maizie’s chin and smiled at her. “A look into your Del Henny blue eyes tells me your mama has passed on her strength and determination to you.”
“What?” Maizie’s breath stalled.
“I said I can see your mama’s strength in your eyes.”
“No, the name. What was the name of my mama’s family?”
“Del Henny. Why?”
Maizie gasped. Her blue eyes filled with tears. “And the man who went north? Was it Buckus Del Henny?”
“Yes, that was it. Who could forget a name like that?”
Chapter 91
Touring Vicksburg
The next day Millie met Maizie, Sugar, and Meadowlark at the church for a tour. Maizie had asked if she could see where she lived with her mother in Vicksburg and where her daddy was buried. Millie complied and offered to drive Maizie and her friends wherever they wanted to go. As the friends climbed into the car, Millie remarked, “This ol’ car don’t look like much and sounds like a thresher, but it will get us there.”
The road to the little house with stilts was rutted from the winter rains and made the ride bumpy in Millie’s old car. Millie attempted to avoid the deep ruts as best she could. “Feels like I’m ridin’ a trottin’ horse, but I do believe a horse is a bit more comfortable,” Sugar teased. Maizie smiled, knowing exactly what Sugar was talking about.
Meadowlark had little experience with horses and preferred it that way. “Now Sugar girl, do you ride horses at the ranch?” he questioned.
“More likely me than you. I love ridin’. Done it ever since I met those Wembleys. Not too much lately.”
“Well, you better get at it
