A Light in the Wilderness (30 page)

Letitia shook her head. He was saying so many wrong things.

“Finally, members of the jury.” Kelsay turned to the men, some looking like they’d like to be let out for a smoke, others wearing curiosity on their weathered faces. “The deceased also paid to bring this slave across the continent, at no small expense as many of you know, feeding, clothing, keeping her and her child safe. Then he clothed and fed her and her children for nearly ten years.”

“Seven,” Letitia whispered to her attorney. “We only had a little over seven years together.”

“She’s had enough compensation. She deserves not a dime more. I urge you to find for the defendant.”

Thayer had objected and replied to many of the false claims. Neither she nor G.B. were called as witnesses and she watched G.B.’s face change from sneers to flashes of anger, then back to
satisfied. She was the only person of color in the room. She stood out, but for the first time she wasn’t wishing she could sink into the comfort of a fundamentals circle. She was calm having her life splayed out, glad she was taking on a man who bullied her and others before her, she imagined. He was a marse in his heart and would always be unless someone stripped him of his whip. She had a written contract, that’s what this suit was about.

The judge asked a few questions. Thayer presented Knighton’s statement about Letitia’s cow ownership and Walker’s verifying that Davey told him Letitia had done most of the work, owned all but seven of the cows a few years previous. People had stood for her, stood with her.

The jury deliberated while Letitia and the Reads took tea in Thayer’s office. Before the brew cooled off, they were summoned back.

“Do you have a decision?” Judge Williams asked.

The foreman stood. “We find for the plaintiff, nine to three.”

A little chirp went up in the back. Letitia recognized it as Nancy’s cheer of joy.

“We win?” she whispered to her attorney.

“Yes, indeed. But the judgment is yet to be considered.”

What would they grant her? Whatever the amount, it would be helpful but not necessary now. They had won the point, won the day in showing that a white man could not simply abuse a colored woman without justice interceding.

The
Statesman
newspaper reported on the trial, stating that she’d lost and that it was a shame.

“He must have gone out to lunch,” Thayer told her as he read her the story. “We won’t wait for a retraction. They seldom come. But we know we won. Now we’ll see how much of an award they’ll make to you, and what they’ll do about the cattle.”

“I ain’t seen those cows nowhere,” Letitia said. “He’s probably already sold them.”

“You’ll achieve some income from all this, Mrs. Carson. Can you hold out until they decide? It could be months.”

“I hold out. I being held.”

In January 1855, G.B. paid $529 as a portion of the judgment against him, anticipating a final award. He paid even before her lawyer Thayer received the notice. In May, the court ordered another $300 that G.B. paid to the court.

“But $800 isn’t enough,” Thayer told her. “I’ll file a new motion saying that at the very least you are owed $1,500 reached by charging $200 per year for your labor from May 1845 until March 1853. You’re entitled to a minimum of $700 more to meet the labor claim.” For good measure, he also issued a summons for Sarah Davis as G.B. continued to contend that Letitia was a slave and therefore deserved nothing but her freedom.

“This may be all we’ll get on the labor issues, Mrs. Carson.” A.J. Thayer leaned back in his chair. “Your children are well behaved.”

“Yessuh, they are good children.” Martha wore a dress Letitia’d made for her and five-year-old Adam a suit she’d stitched herself. Both children sat quietly, gazing at the plants and shelves of books, their feet short of the oak floor.

“So I say let’s sue him separately for the cows.”

“Suh?”

“The cows are property that haven’t appeared in the records. There’s no evidence of the cows, yet everyone reports there were twenty-nine. He’s absconded with them somehow. Those cows belong to you.”

And so they went to court again, seeking $1,200 as the value of the herd. But with the money G.B. had already paid, Letitia stopped at the mercantile and asked for the box labeled “Mrs. David Carson” to be brought forward. She paid for the tea set and candlesticks . . . in full.

They hadn’t been able to reach Sarah Davis to testify about the cows. Funny, Letitia’s journey west began in a way with the Bowmans and a cow. She knew the lawsuits would be settled and surely the farm would sell, and any money left would go to the heirs—Davey’s sister, brothers, uncles—the fruits of Oregon being harvested in North Carolina. She’d learned that Smith Carson, Davey’s brother, had died the June they’d left Missouri. She wondered if he had children.

She would take the money and stay in the southern Umpqua Valley. The Gages had already moved and she’d delivered Melvina Eliff of a girl, Alice. She’d been asked to remain with them, she and the children. As much as she’d miss Nancy, it was a good place for her, away from the memories of Davey’s death. Nancy found someone else to midwife her latest, Sumner, born in May. Letitia made a new start in Cow Creek Canyon, hadn’t waited for the outcome of legal issues to begin a new life. She had money G.B. Smith had paid. She’d have some left after paying her attorney. She wasn’t afraid of the unknowns. She’d left her cowers behind.

“He pay more?”

“He did.” It was 1856 and Thayer filled his client in on their latest success at his office. “Another $780 to meet the demand of the labor agreement, so the full $1,500. And here’s more. He claims now that the estate was worth $2,250 and it has claims against it of $3,250.79 with $300 cash on hand.”

Letitia had stopped in Corvallis to see her attorney after finding what she hoped would be the perfect property in Douglas County close to the Eliffs and Gages.

“Davey’s heirs get nothing? That ain’t right.”

“That’s the executor of the estate figures. He’s blaming you for putting the estate into debt. But no matter. If we win the suit for
$1,200 for the cows he sold, he has to make that payment out of his pocket, not the estate. The sale of the land he said was worth $2,000 by itself. That’ll go into the estate value. The debts will be covered and heirs will inherit. Just not your $1,500 and the costs of securing justice.”

“Property back in Missouri, Davey never sell it. His heirs take that. Me and my family only claim what we built in the Soap Creek Valley.”

“You’re a fair woman, Mrs. Carson. Fair, indeed.”

In October, four years after Davey’s death, the jury of twelve men met again and found for the plaintiff. They ordered G.B. Smith to make payment for Letitia’s cattle. This time as an individual who had sold a herd of cows and never bothered to add that value to the estate. He hadn’t even gotten money for that herd of twenty-nine cows; he’d sold them to himself. His only response to the $1,200 judgment of October 12, 1856, was that he only had twenty-eight cows. One had come up missing.

Nancy was there with her brood. Letitia would be leaving for southern Oregon the next morning. They’d dug up six apple saplings and took the table and child’s bed from the cabin, all that had been left behind. She lingered at Davey’s grave. She straightened the wooden cross Little Shoot had pounded at the head of Davey’s mound. No one had yet moved onto the property though mice had moved into the house. Letitia hoped someone would come there who would love it as they had, who would plant their feet there and be nurtured by the encircling hills.

“You get the Gages to write.” Nancy wiped at her tears. Letitia wouldn’t be coming back and forth for court now. The case was settled and she had enough to begin a new life and keep her children safe.

“Frances teaching me to write.”

“Even better. Birth those babies down south well, now. And goodness, if you marry again, you let me know so we can come meet the man good enough for you.”

“I will.” Letitia smiled. Leaving this valley saddened her, but she’d faced a cower and won. Power had been mated with the love of neighbors and good people and justice was the kin. Davey would be pleased, she thought. His children were being cared for, and as he kept saying it would, everything worked out fine.