Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1)(54)
I incline my head. “Thank you, ma’am, for the fine tour of your establishment,” I say before bobbing another curtsy.
She gives me a bemused smile in return and just shakes her head as she slips through a door, off to see about her business.
There’s a shelf of glasses along a wall and I grab one, twisting the handle above the spigot. Water flows out, clean and clear. I fill the glass and drink deeply. The water tastes strange, as strange as anything else in this town, but not lethal.
At least, not yet.
The Bible has been a comfort, and one of the younger girls has even started a school for the little ones. It is such a miracle to listen to them read the Scripture, although I must admit it does make me heartsick for you, darling Jane.
Chapter 21
In Which I Attend Church
After a bath, I head out to find dinner. The town ain’t all that big, and it’s easy to see what the Duchess meant when she said that all the girls ate together. Everyone spills out of a plain, whitewashed building with a cross hammered onto the door. The meeting hall is next to the church but separated from the grander building by a garden of white crosses, memorials to the deceased. In the old days it would’ve been a graveyard, but most sensible folks have taken to burning their dead and mounting a cross in a field or yard, like these. It’s just safer that way.
The meeting house smells of good things, so I push aside my worry that God will strike me down when I walk through the doors. I’m too hungry to worry about my tainted soul.
As I enter, every pair of eyes lands on me. Toward the back of the building are two large tables of boys and girls, all Negroes, hungrily shoveling food off tin plates. The Duchess and her girls sit at their own table near the door, plenty of room around them, some of the girls making lewd gestures to a few rough and ready white fellas sitting at a nearby table. I don’t see Jackson. More important, I don’t see Lily or the Spencers, and I wonder if we made a mistake, if we got ourselves sent out here for nothing.
I get a plate of a thick, hearty stew and a slice of bread from the woman at the window. My serving is about half that of the white man in front of me, my plate hammered tin instead of the stoneware. I open my mouth to complain, but I ain’t given the chance.
“Keep it moving,” says a high voice. Bill stands over me, shotgun propped on his shoulder. Why’s he need a shotgun at dinner? No one else is armed.
The old man from the church glides up to me. He smiles, but there ain’t nothing friendly about it. “Jane, Miss Deveraux will be so happy to hear you’re settling in nicely.”
“I got this, sir,” Bill says, a quaver in his voice. There’s an air of fear about him, and after I spot the large gold cross around the old man’s neck I figure this must be the preacher the Duchess warned me about.
“No, Bill, you have other matters to attend to. It’s Bible study night. Go watch the door. I won’t have the whores sneaking out again.” Bill walks off. The old man still smiles, thin red lips stretched garishly over large front teeth. His eyes are watery, the brown washed out to the color of a penny, his hair completely snow white and thinning. He looks like a walking skeleton, sun bleached and pale, and I involuntarily shrink back from him when he reaches a hand out to guide me toward the back of the building.
“Allow me to formally introduce myself; I am Pastor Snyder. You’ve no doubt already met my son, Sheriff Snyder. While my son enforces the laws here, my purpose is to give Summerland both spiritual and moral direction. It’s a task I do not take lightly, as you will see.”
There’s a feverish gleam to his eyes, and his wide grin hasn’t left his face. I didn’t even know it was possible to smile and lecture someone at the same time, but here I am.
“Miss Deveraux told me that you’re a bit impulsive and she was worried for your welfare. Told me your services were a gift from her now deceased father, and how valuable she finds your companionship.” As we walk, the preacher keeps my right arm in a bruising grip, but I can’t shake him off without dropping my dinner.
“In any case, believe me when I tell you that I understand how to deal with headstrong Negroes. In my youth, I was an overseer in what was formerly South Carolina. Tobacco fields, sometimes cotton. It was there that I came to understand the divine order that the Lord saw fit to bestow upon we men. I also learned many of your kind fail to understand this order, and I know that you can deal with obstinate Negroes as long as you remember they are, at their heart, children. ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child,’ as the Scripture tells us.”
My penny has gone icy under my shirt, and I stop walking as the preacher stops. His eyes haven’t left my face, not once, and I get the feeling I’m being cataloged, like a butterfly in a collection.
“I’m sure you will find that your place is a comfortable one if you make it so, Jane. God can be merciful and kind, as long as you follow His laws. But how you find your life here in Summerland is entirely up to you. Do not disappoint Him and do not disappoint me, and you will prosper. Enjoy your meal.”
Preacher Snyder finally releases my arm as we pull up alongside the tables full of Negro boys and girls. Most of them are about my age, but none of them look familiar, and I wonder where they’re from. I’m glad there ain’t any other girls from Miss Preston’s, as I ain’t in the mood for any kind of heartfelt reunion. Still, I wonder where the girls Miss Preston has been feeding to Mayor Carr have gone off to. Is there more than one town like Summerland?