Vivid (2 page)

But Vivid's illustrious ancestry mattered
not at all in 1876. Today she'd been bitten by Jim Crow, and even though she
was one of a small but growing cadre of women able to declare themselves
certified physicians, society forced her to travel under conditions even oxen
would find appalling.

As the sunlight waned and shadows filled
the car, Vivid began to wonder where in the ashes she could sleep. The bench
she sat on was barely wide enough to hold her hips, let alone her whole body if
she were to lie prone. Frustrated, she took a deep breath, refusing to give in to
the tears of anger and loneliness threatening to roll down her cheeks. She was
dashing away any telltale moisture when she was startled by the door opening.
The conductor, looking even more uncomfortable than before, stood in the
opening, and after some hesitation finally spoke. "Miss, I feel real bad
about putting you back here, especially with night coming on. Why don't you
come with me?"

She wondered briefly where he planned on
taking her now, but didn't ask. She gathered her belongings and followed him
out.

He led her to the crowded and very noisy
smoking car. Inside were men seated around tables playing poker, men on the
floor circled around a dice game, and others lounging on the upholstered seats
with bottles of liquor and gaudily dressed fancy girls. The smoke from the
cigars and pipes thickened the air. Vivid looked the room over, then smiled.
For the first time since leaving San Francisco, she felt at home.

All activity and conversations stopped at
their entrance. The conductor mumbled his standard "Have a comfortable
trip," and backed out of the door.

"And you are?" one of the card
players asked in regal tones.

Vivid saw that the high-toned voice
belonged to a very well-dressed, dark-skinned man. He looked close to her
father's age. His face had been ritually scarred. The exotic scarification
coupled with his great height made him appear quite imposing. "I'm Dr.
Viveca Lancaster," she replied.

He bowed at the waist, saying, "We
are graced by your presence."

In a voice loud enough to be heard clearly
by everyone in the car, he then stated, "The lady doctor is under my
protection. Approach her with anything other than respect and you will die. Is
that understood?"

The men were a spectrum of race and class.
Not a one said a word, so Vivid assumed the gambler had been understood.

The activities resumed as he beckoned her
over to his table. "Welcome, Dr. Lancaster." He then commanded, "Someone
get this young woman something to eat. Let her have a seat, boys."

At her approach, every man at the table
instantly stood and offered her his chair. She smiled politely at them, then
took the seat nearest her newfound protector. The man whose chair she'd taken
retrieved another for himself from a table nearby and rejoined the group.

As if by magic, a plate appeared on the
table before her, piled high with ham, chicken, yams, and bread. She smiled,
and everyone seemed pleased as she picked up the silverware and ate.

For the balance of the evening Viveca
found herself charmed by the men who'd taken her under their wing. They all
went out of their way to be polite in their manner and speech, and not once did
the scarred man who introduced himself as Ned Johnson find it necessary to kill
anyone. He'd spent quite a few years in Michigan, Vivid found out as the talk
flowed and the card game resumed. He'd escaped from his Missouri slave owner in
1846, and followed the North Star to the edge of Michigan's northern peninsula.
As fate would have it, he discovered a large deposit of copper on the land he
had purchased and sold the mineral-rich lode to a group of Boston capitalists
for more money than he would ever need.

"So what is your life's work?"
Vivid asked during a break in the poker game.

"This is my life," Ned said,
smiling. The matching scars on either side of his face creased like dimples.
"There is seldom Jim Crow at the poker table. Gamblers tend to judge you
on your honesty, not on the color of your skin."

Vivid saw some of the other men at the
table nod in agreement. One man, whose dark skin bore the true hue of his African
ancestry, added, "Gamblers don't care who your daddy was as long as he
didn't teach you to deal from the bottom of the deck."

That brought a round of laughs and more
nods of approval. The game continued, and when Vivid asked to be dealt in, a
quiet settled over their small group. "I can play," Vivid assured the
men around the table, all eyeing her skeptically. "Not as well as I play
billiards," she confessed, "but I won't embarrass myself or
you."

Their eyes widened. Vivid, familiar with
the shocked stares, assumed they would not let her join in. To convince them,
she added, "Gentlemen, I have played in hell houses all over San
Francisco, surely you'll give me a—"

"You play poker
and
billiards?"
Ned asked, grinning.

"Yes."

Ned looked to the other faces at the
table, then surveyed Vivid. Finally he said, "Gentlemen, deal the lady
doctor in."

They agreed to play for matchsticks out of
respect for Vivid.

Ned explained, "We make our livings
at cards, Dr. Lancaster. We don't wish to take advantage of you."

"I do appreciate that, Mr.
Johnson," Vivid replied genuinely, then proceeded to win the next two
pots.

As Vivid scraped up the cards for her turn
as dealer, she smiled as Ned proclaimed with awe, "You can indeed
play."

Vivid held them all spellbound as she shuffled
the deck with an expertise born of long practice. That done, she slapped the
deck down on the tabletop for the mandatory cut and replied, "Yes, Mr.
Johnson, I can indeed."

For the remainder of the journey to Omaha,
and then from Omaha to Chicago, Vivid played poker with her new gambler
friends, read her medical journals, and slept as best she could on one of the
lounges in the car.

When the train pulled into the Chicago
station, the games and talk ended. Her small cadre of protectors had been more than
kind, yet when she attempted to express her gratitude for their outstanding
company, they waved it off. "You're traveling alone," one of the men
said in explanation.

Another offered, "You remind me of my
sister. I'd want somebody making sure she arrived safely."

The men nodded, smiling.

"It has been our privilege to serve
you, madam," Ned intoned as he bent over her hand. Then added, "I
don't say this to offend you, but were I thirty years younger—''

Vivid grinned. "I know all about you
gamblers. A woman is secondary in your lives. Your first love will always be
the cards."

Ned bowed his head as if accepting her
statement, "You are as astute as you are lovely, Dr. Lancaster."

Ned and his friends escorted Vivid to the
baggage car and graciously saw to the removal of her many crates. They then
helped the porters transfer them all to the train bound for Michigan. When
everything had been put aboard, Vivid turned to them and once again expressed
her sincere thanks.

Ned shook her hand one final time, saying,
"Some of my companions will be traveling east also. I will leave you in
their charge. Good luck, Dr. Lancaster."

Ned and the men who were heading for the
train to St. Louis and other points south left as one. The three gamblers
taking the same eastbound train as Vivid made certain she boarded safely. They
left her in the care of one of the kindly porters, then removed themselves to
the pleasures awaiting them in the smoking car.

The new train proved to be far more
crowded than the previous one, but the mutton-chopped conductor sat people
fairly and not according to race. With that worry out of the way, at least for
now, Vivid removed her hat, leaned her head back on the seat, and fell asleep.

Niles, Michigan May 1876

Vivid sighed with relief when the train
roared to a stop and the conductor loudly announced they had arrived in Niles,
Michigan. She gathered up her bags from the seat beside her and stepped into
the aisle to disembark. The thick black smoke from the train's stack billowed
in through one of the car's open windows, making Vivid cough and quicken her
pace to escape the foul air. Once she stepped onto the platform, she wanted to
put a fair amount of distance between herself and the train; she was only
slightly rumpled after the long journey from Chicago and had no desire to have
her appearance destroyed by the coal dust and burning embers belching like
brimstone from the stack. She'd already had to sacrifice a favorite jacket to
cinder holes at the depot in Virginia City.

Vivid spent the next few moments
supervising the porters unloading her crates and trunks; she had them stack
everything against the weathered wood wall of the depot. When they were done,
she fished in her handbag for a tip, but the older of the two men declined.

"Put your money away, Dr. Lancaster.
Having your smiling face on the ride from Chicago is tip enough."

Vivid smiled her thanks and put the coin
back into her bag. She'd spent most of her life among people who provided
service for others, and she knew a genuine refusal when she heard one. She
thanked the porters again and watched them hurry away.

The train blew a shrill warning to
announce its imminent departure. She heard someone calling her name over the
roar and turned to see some of the gamblers smiling and waving from the smoking
car. A grinning Vivid waved enthusiastically and then offered a curtsy in
humble thanks.

The train departed, leaving behind a
roaring shower of cinders and smoke. When things settled, she looked around and
saw that the depot was nothing more than an open-faced wooden shelter in a
clearing, surrounded by more trees than she'd ever seen. There weren't many
people around, either, a marked contrast to the hustle and bustle of the depots
she'd seen in San Francisco, Denver, and Chicago. Here there were no vendors
loudly hawking their wares over the cacophony of foreign and native voices so
prevalent in San Francisco. The only person selling anything appeared to be the
lone Black woman offering dippers of water from a barrel for two cents. Vivid
knew she should be trying to locate Abigail Grayson, who was supposed to meet
her, but at the moment her parched and dust-filled throat craved refreshment.

"You here visiting?" the woman
asked Vivid after accepting her money. Vivid had politely declined to drink
from the offered dipper and instead had the woman dip into the barrel with the
small tin cup Vivid always carried in her bag. Only after Vivid had drunk
deeply did she answer.

"I'm here to be the new doctor at
Grayson Grove."

The woman smiled, pleasant surprise
showing on her face. "You really a doctor?"

"Yes, ma'am, and I'm supposed to meet
Abigail Grayson. Do you know her?"

"Everybody knows Miss Gail. Haven't
seen her today, but her nephew Nate's here. Saw him just a while ago. Your
people must be real proud."

Vivid smiled, thinking about her parents,
and replied, "Yes, they are."

"And they should be. Little bitty
thing like you, a doctor. That's something. Wait until I get home and tell
folks I met you." The woman looked around the depot. "I don't see
Nate right this minute, but he's around here somewhere. Can't miss him, biggest
man in the depot, handsomest, too. What's your name?"

"Viveca Lancaster."

"Well, it's been a pleasure meeting
you, Dr. Viveca Lancaster. My name's Kate Pierce; I have a boy down at
Wilberforce."

"Pleased to meet you also, Kate
Pierce."

They spent a few moments discussing Kate's
son and then Kate shooed her on. "If Nate's supposed to meet you, he'll be
mad at me for keeping you. The next time you're in Niles, you have someplace to
sleep if you need it."

Vivid thanked the woman, then went off in
search of this Nate Grayson.

There were only a few people still waiting
on the platform. Most of those who'd disembarked with her had since departed
with friends and family, or bartered the price of a fare with the drivers of
one of the three horse-drawn hacks waiting beside the tracks.

She heard someone hailing, "Dr. V.
Lancaster."

She spotted him on the far side of the
depot and from Kate Pierce's description knew that this was probably Nate
Grayson.

His height dominated the premises. His
wide shoulders and muscular chest were prominent beneath the plain brown shirt.
His sleeves had been rolled back in deference to the humid day, revealing
strong mahogany arms. Vivid raised her eyes to his face. Kate Pierce had not
erred in that description, either. He had a smooth, shaven face, which appeared
to have been chiseled from dark marble. The nose was prominent, the jaw strong.
He wore a weather-beaten hat atop his head, and a pair of oval wire-framed
spectacles in front of a set of arresting, smoky-black eyes. The spectacles
were necessary, she decided. Without them to deflect the masculine beauty of
his face, women would undoubtedly swoon in his wake.