Outlawed(53)

“I don’t go in for that nonsense,” I said. “Some babies are sickly, some babies are healthy. It’s got nothing to do with whether the parents are black or white.”

“Not just the parents,” Audrey said in her ardent whisper. “It’s like Dr. Lively was saying about horses. Your horse here, she must come from good stock all the way back. Just one ancestor with a lame foot or a weak back is enough to ruin the blood.”

“Our husbands are traders,” said the loose-haired woman, pride making her voice go stiff and proper. “We’ve been all up and down this country from the Bighorns to the Rockies. We know what bad blood can do.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “My fiancée has attended over fifty births. She could tell you—babies from mixed families are just as healthy as babies with a pure bloodline, or whatever you call it. There’s no difference.”

News gave me a warning look.

“You’re wrong,” Audrey said. “Dr. Lively has seen hundreds of babies deformed by the mixing of blood. He once saw a doctor in Laramie poison a cat by feeding it the blood of a black woman and a white man mixed together.”

“If Dr. Lively believes that,” I said, “he’s stupider than he looks.”

“Dr. Lively learned to read and write before he could walk,” Audrey said. “He’s a prodigy. Maybe you don’t like what he has to say because of the company you keep.”

She looked at Henry and News and back at me again.

“If you don’t like my associates,” I said, “you’re free to leave us alone.”

“We will,” said the loose-haired woman. “And we’ll tell our friends to stay away from your stall too. What are you selling, anyway? I don’t remember you from last year.”

“Hot cross buns,” I said quickly, the first thing that came to mind. “But we’re sold out.”

“Lucky for you,” said the loose-haired woman. “My advice? Don’t come back here next year. We don’t have any use for ignorant people here.”

As she spoke, I saw her peer past me into the back of the wagon, which I only now saw was full of farm implements—hoes and scythes and plow blades, each one clearly marked with a price.

No one said anything as we drove the wagon toward the outskirts of the fairgrounds. News held the reins and I sat up front with her; Henry and Lark rode behind with the farm equipment. News drove the horses as fast as she could without exciting suspicion. Evening was shading into night and the shadows were long on the campground as we rode past, attenuated shapes of men in women’s clothes and women in men’s clothes, embracing in tents and against trees and on the cooling ground. No one looked up to take notice of us, and we passed out of the fairgrounds and onto the road to town without incident, the only sound the jingling of the wagon hitches and the occasional huff of one of the horses as they pulled us out of danger.

“I’m sorry,” I said to News. “I should’ve looked in the back of the wagon right away.”

“You should’ve kept your mouth shut,” News said. “What was that? Your fiancée? Haven’t you learned anything about how to talk to people?”

“I thought maybe I could change their minds,” I said. “I thought if they heard it from a midwife, maybe they’d listen.”

“To them you’re not a midwife,” News said. “You’re just a strange man who insulted their precious doctor. You must be pretty convinced of your powers of persuasion if you thought that was going to work.”

Her tone was snide and cynical; I’d never heard her speak like that before.

“I just wanted to help,” I said. “I thought you’d appreciate it.”

“Oh, I see,” said News. “You wanted to help. You figured that if only someone with a bit of education explained things clearly to these Lively people, they’d stop looking at me like I was a deformed goat and start treating me like a person. Do I have that right?”

“That’s not—” I began.

“And if only somebody’d had the presence of mind to explain things to the mayor back home in Elmyra, perhaps I’d be with my family right now. It’s just too bad no one with your intelligence and education was around to help us. What a relief that you’re here now!”

“I’m sorry for trying to stand up for you,” I said, angry now. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

“I don’t need anyone to stand up for me, Doctor. Certainly not you.”

The road from the fairgrounds into the town of Casper was narrow and paved with gravel; our teeth chattered as the horses pulled us over it. All along the roadsides lay refuse from the market: empty bags that had once held Babies’ Tears or fruit tarts or other sweets; eggshells; chicken bones; discarded Easter bonnets and men’s hats and even a false beard, lying in the road like an animal. After what felt like miles of silence while I chewed over my anger at News—could I really be in the wrong when I had done what I thought was the braver thing to do?—we rounded a bend in the road and came upon a gate meant to keep cows from wandering from the fairgrounds into town. The gate had been open when we arrived at the market the day before, but now it was latched, and anyone who wanted to pass through would have to dismount and pull it open by hand.