Page 7 of Where the Rivers Merge

Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus), locally known as fish hawks, are medium-size raptors with a dark brownish back and a white breast, and a distinctive, masklike stripe that extends across the side of the face.

Ospreys live near water and excel at fishing.

Their oily plumage enables them to dive into the water to grab a fish with their long, curved talons and unique toe pads.

1908

“A farm doesn’t run itself,”

my daddy always told us.

Our animals needed to be tended, even when we were sick.

Even on Sundays.

Even on Christmas.

“It’s a pact we make with the animals when we take them into our care,”

Daddy said.

He wasn’t much for churchgoing.

Lord, there were fights with Mama about that.

He often said how this land was his church and he prayed there regularly.

Daddy held that to abuse an animal was a sin not only against nature, but against God.

Mayfield had two barns.

One barn for the farm animals was kept on land a ways from the house.

We had a few cows, pigs, and chickens, enough to keep the family fed.

The main barn, however, was near the house and strictly for the horses.

In particular, Marsh Tackies.

Daddy believed the small but valiant South Carolina Marsh Tacky was the perfect horse for farming, transportation, and sport.

Bringing the breed back into popularity would secure his fortune.

Barn chores meant mucking stalls, fetching feed and water, and doing whatever else Daddy and Wilton told us needed doing.

My mama never reconciled that I had chores in the barn rather than the house, me being a girl.

But I rebelled against being stuck in the house.

I loved the smell of hay, leather, and horses.

That scent felt more home to me than anything cooking on the stove or Mama’s potpourri in the living room.

Plus, my favorite people worked in the barn with me—my brother Heyward, Daddy, and Wilton.

My brother Lesesne didn’t care for barn chores and grudgingly helped out only when made to.

Lesesne helped Mama with her errands, carrying parcels, polishing the silver.

Daddy told Mama she got things mixed up with us two.

Heyward and I lingered and listened to Daddy and Wilton talk about most everything, from the horses to weather to what was happening in Beaufort County.

I think I learned more about horses and life in those hours in the barn than ever I did in a classroom.

As much as I liked people, I loved horses more.

They never found faults in my looks or the way I did things.

I’d look into their liquid brown eyes and a kind of peace would settle in me.

That next day, I couldn’t wait to meet Covey.

But of course, I had to finish my chores first.

I gulped down my breakfast of grits and applesauce, pleading with Heyward to hurry.

He was as good as his word and saddled up our Tackies, Sparky and Queenie, then guided me to Wilton’s cottage.

I rode with my grinning face to the sun, noting how leaves were beginning to turn near as yellow as Heyward’s hair.

He took a path that followed the river, because it would be the easier route to find my way home.

It wasn’t long before I once again spied the cozy white cottage on the rise by the river.

Covey was hanging sheets on the clothesline.

My heart leaped, and I spurred Queenie on faster and shouted out her name. Covey turned and did a little hop of joy, then waved back. When I neared her, I slid from my horse, and we ran toward one another and gripped each other’s hands tightly.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,”

Covey said, squeezing my hands.

“I told you I would,”

I said, giddy at seeing her again.

Heyward dismounted and tied the horses to the hitching post. Covey’s eyes shifted to gaze at him and nervously released my hands.

“Hey there, Covey,”

Heyward said, sauntering toward us.

“Hey,”

Covey murmured back.

I was surprised at their casual greetings. “You know Covey?”

I asked my brother.

“I seen her from a distance when I was out with Wilton,”

Heyward replied. Then to Covey he added, “Nice to meet you.”

Covey stammered something as she looked at her feet.

Heyward walked about the property with a proprietary air. I frowned with fury at him acting like the lord of the manor. The cottage might have been on Mayfield land, but it was still Wilton and Covey’s house.

“I’ve not been in this corner of Mayfield much,”

he said. “I heard tell your daddy has a bird hospital out back.”

“Yep, he does,”

Covey replied, squinting in the sunlight. “I can show it to you, if you like.”

“You don’t have to show him nothing,” I said.

“I’m just curious,”

Heyward said.

“It’s out back. Follow me.”

With a final glance at Heyward, Covey led the way, straight-shouldered proud, toward the rear of the cottage. Heyward’s grin was smug as he passed me. Covey was near as tall as Heyward, and I thought they both looked regal as they strolled through the tall grass. I hurried behind them, feeling small by comparison.

It was plain to see that Wilton was as organized at his own place as he was at Mayfield. But I remembered Clementine told me how Covey was the one who kept everything swept and tidy at home. A whitewashed fence bordered a rectangle of land that was divided into four sections. On the left was a brightly painted chicken coop where six hens pecked at the earth. In front of this, a garden was overflowing with an abundance of vegetables and herbs. The right side of the property was dominated by a white farm shed. The door was painted haint blue, and it held a wooden knocker in the shape of a hawk’s head. I recognized it as Wilton’s work. Attached to the shed was a narrow cage that was twice the length of the shed. Perched inside was an eagle.

Heyward whistled softly under his breath as he slowly approached the eagle.

“Don’t get too close,”

Covey called out.

Bird and boy eyed each other warily. “So, it’s true about Wilton taking care of sick birds,”

Heyward said, stopping ten feet away. “I figured he took in songbirds, maybe a hawk or an owl. But an eagle.”

He turned, his face incredulous. “He handles this bird?”

Covey lifted her chin. “Sure does. Ain’t a bird Wilton can’t handle. Though he’s partial to eagles.”

Heyward gestured toward the eagle. “What happened to him?”

“He was shot by someone.”

“Why, who’d shoot an eagle?”

I asked, horrified. “He doesn’t do naught but hunt rodents and fish. He don’t bother farmers’ fruits neither, like the Carolina parakeet. And it ain’t good to eat.”

Heyward shook his head. “They bother the ducks, but some people shoot things just ’cause they can. Don’t have to have no reason.”

I knew Daddy would have an opinion about that. “He going to be okay?”

I asked Covey.

“Yeah,”

Covey replied. “She was in real bad shape. Wilton worked on her for seven months. She’s in the flight cage now. She’s healed but needs to have room to get strong flying and catch prey before Wilton will let her go so she don’t starve.”

I studied the long coop, figuring it would take but a flap of that eagle’s eight-foot wingspan to cross the distance. “Where’d Wilton learn to take care of injured birds?”

“Clementine says he’s got the gift. Like his daddy did before him. That’s who he learnt all his healing skills from. And he’s passing it on to me.”

“But you’re a girl,”

said Heyward.

“What difference does that make?”

I retorted.

“I don’t mean nothing by it. Only, aren’t you afraid going after a bird that big?”

asked Heyward. “I know I would be.”

Covey shook her head. “First off, I don’t get to handle the big birds yet. But I will when I get older.”

She looked at the eagle. “I respect the bird, but I don’t fear him. Wilton says animals can smell your fear.”

I took a step closer, listening intently. I knew that was true with horses.

“It’s the same with the bees,”

Covey said.

We bit the bait. “Bees?”

we both said in unison.

“We’ve got hives over yonder in the woods.”

She said to me, “You tasted his honey yesterday.”

“So, Wilton’s a bee charmer too?”

I’d heard about people who could work with bees without getting stung, but I wasn’t sure it was even a real thing.

Covey’s eyes crinkled with a laugh. “I don’t know I’d call him that. He has bees and that’s enough to say, I reckon. I’m learning that too.”

I looked at her with awe.

Covey motioned with her hand. “We’ve got a few birds healing inside. Come on, I’ll show you. But you have to be real quiet.”

Stepping inside the shed, I breathed in a pungent scent I couldn’t name. Not that the shed was dirty. It was as clean and tidy as the cottage. Hand-hewn wooden cabinets lined one wall, and a long wood table sat in the center under a single light bulb hanging from a cord. Beside it was a tray covered with small knives and other tools.

“What’s that smell?”

I asked, pinching my nose.

Covey looked puzzled. “Smell?”

“You don’t smell it?”

I asked with disbelief.

She took a sniff. “Oh. That. I reckon I don’t notice it anymore. What you smell is their breakfast.”

“What’re you feeding them?”

I asked. “Manure?”

“No. I just cut up some rats.”

“Rat guts?”

I yelped, raising my hand to cover my nose.

Heyward and I looked at each other. He attempted to act like it wasn’t a big deal, but he looked like he was about to lose his own breakfast. I knew that distinct odor would be forever imprinted on my brain.

Covey snorted. “What do you think an eagle eats? Grits? When they get healthier we put them in the flight cage outdoors. We toss in live prey for them to eat, to be sure we can let them loose. They’ve got to hunt in the wild.”

She led us through the treatment room to the rear door. “This is the hospital,”

she said, then put her fingers to her lips in the universal sign for silence. Nodding, we followed her to the rear room.

I could smell the pungent rats and something else, something musky, which must’ve been the birds. It was dim like a sickroom. Cages of different sizes were stacked on a wooden shelf that ran the length of the room, six on each side. All save three were empty. These were covered with old fabric so only the front was open for viewing.

“You can look, but don’t touch the cages or make noises,”

Covey instructed us. “They’re mighty sick and can’t be shocked.”

I bent to peer into the first cage. It was one of the largest. I immediately stared into the big round eyes of a great horned owl. When it raised its foot with long talons, I bolted back. “That owl didn’t look sick. It looked fit to kill me.”

“That’s just its way,”

Covey said. “Wilton says we don’t want to make friends with them. They need to stay wild.”

In the second cage was a black bird crouched in the back. As I looked closer, the bird raised its white head and I saw the mask around its eyes. “It’s a fish hawk!”

I exclaimed. Hearing my voice, the bird commenced flapping its wings in a panic, banging the cage noisily.

“I didn’t mean to startle him,”

I cried, backing far off.

“Hush now!”

Covey rushed to cover the front of the cage with the fabric. We stood frozen till the flapping subsided.

“What’s wrong with the fish hawk?”

Heyward whispered. “He sure seems pretty strong in there.”

“He got himself tangled in fishing line. Wilton says he’s good enough now to go to the next station.”

Covey cast an assessing glance at Heyward. “And he’s not a fish hawk. That’s just a common name. It’s an osprey.”

“I knew that,”

said Heyward defensively.

Glancing up I saw Heyward’s superior attitude slip away, replaced with admiration for the tall, slender girl. I looked at Covey with a world of respect.

She guided us out the back door into the yard. I breathed deep the fresh air, happy to leave the pungent scent of cut-up rats.

“How old are you?”

Heyward asked Covey.

“I’ll be nine before Christmas.”

Heyward scratched his head with a silly grin on his face I’d never seen before. “Well, we best be off,”

he said to me. “Daddy will have our hide if we don’t show up at the barn soon. I’ll take you back here again.”

“I’m grateful, but you don’t have to worry. I’ll be fine on my own tomorrow.”

I turned to Covey. “If’n I can come back. I’ll help you with your chores. I’d like to learn about birds too.”

Covey brightened and opened her mouth to speak, but Heyward interrupted.

“Can’t tomorrow,”

he said to me. “Did you forget Mr. Coxwold has already arrived? No way Mama is going to let you skip out on the first day of school.”

“I don’t want to be stuck inside the schoolroom all day.”

“You’ve got to. It’s part of growing up.”

He smirked. “And being a lady.”

I slapped his shoulder. “Don’t you call me that.”

“Who is Mr. Coxwold?”

asked Covey.

“He’s our tutor,”

replied Heyward.

“He’s your tutor, not mine. I can already read and write and do numbers. Daddy said I’m the smartest girl in the county.”

“That’s not saying much,”

Heyward replied with a snort. “Half of the girls can’t read.”

“Half the boys neither. Besides, I’m every bit as smart as you,”

I shot back.

“Aw, don’t be that way, Eliza. You’re eight now and you have to start school and there’s not a darn thing you can do about it. Why you always got to be so contrary?”

“I’m not,”

I said, hurt. “I just don’t like everyone telling me what I’ve got to do and what I have to be all the time.”

Covey looked at me. “You can already read? Like books?”

“Sure.”

Then a new thought took root. “Can’t you?”

Covey’s face was uncertain. “Wilton taught me my letters. And to read words on paper. But I’m hungry to learn real books.”

“Don’t you go to school?”

asked Heyward.

“’Course I go to school,”

Covey replied with heat. “I go to the Sheldon School.”

Then, looking at her feet, “When I can. It’s too far to walk regular. Wilton needs to be at the barn early, so he can’t take me there every day.”

“Daddy don’t want to take us to Beaufort, neither,”

Heyward said in a way to mollify Covey.

“And because Mama won’t have it any other way.”

I added. “She blames the school for Lesesne catching the fever.”

“Hush, Liza,”

said Heyward with a nudge.

“Fever?”

Covey’s eyes widened.

Heyward signed with resignation. “Scarlet fever swept through the school a few years back. Eliza and I didn’t get it bad, but Les was the youngest and he’s never been strong. He was as good as dead. But somehow he pulled through.”

“Mama still coddles him,”

I said with a snort.

“Mama never sent us back to public school and hired a tutor for me,”

Heyward explained. “This year, she’s having Eliza and Lesesne join me.”

“Covey,”

I exclaimed, an idea brightening. “Why don’t you come to the schoolroom with us? Your daddy can bring you with him and Mr. Coxwold can be your tutor too.”

A light sparked in Covey’s eyes. “Could I?”

“Hold on a minute,”

Heyward said, shifting his weight uncomfortably. “You’d better check with Mama about that first.”

“Sure, I will,”

I replied, then turned to Covey. “But she’ll say yes. I mean, why wouldn’t she?”

Covey cast a doubtful look at Heyward, who simply looked away.

* * *

That evening, Clementine served a fine dinner of pork chops, applesauce, mashed potatoes, and beans. We always gathered in the dining room for the evening meal, washed and wearing clean clothes, Daddy in a jacket and the girls in dresses. Mama wouldn’t tolerate the smell of the barn at her table. Hungry as I was, I barely made it through grace before I blurted out my question.

“Mama, can Covey come to the schoolroom with us tomorrow? She wants to go to school something fierce.”

Mama was reaching for her biscuit and looked at me like I’d grown two heads. “Covey? You mean Wilton’s child?”

“Yes’m.”

“Don’t be silly, child. She can’t join Mr. Coxwold’s class.”

I stared back in confusion. “But why not? We have plenty of room in the library.”

Mama set down her biscuit and looked at Daddy with exasperation. “Rawlins, can you explain it to her?”

Daddy looked up from his plate, his face blank. It was clear he’d been enjoying his dinner and paying no mind. “Explain what?”

Mama gave one of her long-suffering sighs. When she spoke, it was determinedly slow, as though to a child. “Please explain to Eliza why we cannot ask Wilton’s daughter to join the children’s tutoring class.”

Daddy wiped his mouth and leaned back in his chair and gave Mama the stink eye. My stomach clenched, sensing a change in the air. “Why can’t she? I think it’s a fine idea.”

Mama’s mouth slipped open. “You are not serious?”

It was more an accusation.

Daddy shrugged in the country way that irritated Mama. “I don’t see where there’s a problem. Covey is a right fine girl, sharp as a tack, and she’s part of the Mayfield family. We pay Coxwold enough to take on another student.”

“I pay Mr. Coxwold.”

In the following silence, Daddy worked his jaw but no words came out.

Mama turned and spoke to me with a chilly calm that told me her temper was running hot. “Eliza, you have a unique ability to stir the pot. Just yesterday you returned home after causing mayhem in the entire county, and here you are, causing a disturbance again at my dinner table.”

“I apologize, ma’am.”

I muttered and ducked my head. Lesesne snorted beside me.

“And I’m sorry,”

Mother said in way of conclusion, “but you cannot invite your new friend to the schoolroom.”

My head shot up. “But she wants to learn,”

I countered, feeling if I could just make Mama understand she’d see I was in the right. “Don’t you always tell me folks should study hard to better themselves?”

“I’m not saying Covey shouldn’t study.”

“But she can’t get to her school, not regular. It’s too far.”

Mama picked up her cutlery and began slicing her pork chop. “It’s just the way things are.”

When I looked back at her uncomprehending, Mama sighed and set her cutlery down. “You know very well there are schools for white children and schools for Black children. Everyone knows their place. How would it look?”

Daddy sat forward and put his elbows on the table. “When did I ever give a damn how it looks?”

Mama looked up sharply. “You know as well as I do we don’t mix with their kind. They have their schools and we have ours. It’s the way things have always been. It’s all well and good for the girls to play together—here at Mayfield. Nonetheless there are lines that must be drawn. To allow Covey to be tutored here would be, well . . .”

Mama groped for a word that would not inflame Daddy “. . . inappropriate. For us, Mr. Coxwold, and even for Wilton.”

She took a breath, and said more firmly, “As I said, it’s best for everyone to know their place.”

Daddy clasped his hands together, leaned forward on the table toward Mama, and looked directly into her eyes. He said in a low voice, “Do you think I didn’t hear similar arguments from my family as to why I shouldn’t marry you? That you should’ve known your place?”

Mama paled and furtively glanced at us. “Rawlins . . .”

Daddy put his palms on the table and roared, “I didn’t listen to the harpies then and I’m not going to listen now.”

I looked at Heyward, nervous that my father was raising his voice at the table. Heyward sat ramrod straight in his chair.

“You’re going to talk about that in front of the children?”

Mama said in a threatening voice.

Daddy paused to calm himself. “Wilton has served this family well all of his life, and his father before him. He’s done right by his daughter, raising her on his own. She’s capable, hardworking, and honest. And that girl might very well have saved our daughter’s life yesterday. If that child joins our schoolroom, I say our children would be all the better for it.”

“I don’t think—”

Daddy pushed back his chair and rose abruptly, throwing his napkin on the table. “For God’s sake, Sloane, don’t think. For once, just do the right thing. Mayfield is my land and I’ll be damned if I can’t do what I want to do on my own land. This is my decision. And my final word on the subject. Covey can and should come to school here tomorrow morning. I’m just sorry I wasn’t the one to think of it.”

He looked at me with appreciation. “Education is the greatest gift anyone can give a child.”

He took a breath and looked at Mother. His face was set in stone. “I’ll ride over to inform Mr. Coxwold that he has a fourth pupil. Then I’ll call on Wilton and invite Covey to the schoolroom.”

He paused, then said, “How you tell anyone else—if you need to tell anyone—I leave to you. I’ll be late coming back. Don’t wait up.”

Mama’s lips were tight, and she stared straight ahead until he left the room. For a moment, my brothers and I sat motionless, gazing at our plates. Then, Mama swung her head toward me, eyes glittering. “Eliza, what are you thinking, bringing a Negro child into my schoolroom?”

“She’s my friend,”

I said softly.

“You see what happens when you try to make a Negro girl your friend? Trouble. That’s what happens.”

Without another word, she tossed her napkin on the table and quickly rose, her dark eyes shooting anger at me like an arrow, then left the room. I shrunk in my seat as the rustle of her long dress swept past me.

“Ooh, you’re in for it now,”

Lesesne said in a low teasing voice.

I stuck my tongue out at him, then shot a glance at Heyward. He was looking at the door. Swinging my head, I saw Clementine standing stock-still, a bowl of mashed potatoes in her hand. From the look on her face, I could tell she’d heard it all. She walked straight to my side and served a heaping spoonful on my plate, knowing how much I loved them.

“You want anything more, child, you just let me know.”

I was too surprised to answer as she walked from the room, my gaze following her.

“Hey, Clementine,”

called Lesesne. “I want more potatoes too.”

His cry went ignored. I held back my smile as I picked up my fork and made a show of eating the mashed potatoes. Mama was mad at me, but that was nothing new. Inside I was glowing. Covey was coming to school at Mayfield.