Page 35 - WTP Vol.VII #2

“Were you with him?” I couldn’t help myself, this in- “The Ku Klux Klan was powerful in Southern Colo- terruption. rado. Prominent figures in the political system during
Nadya looked at me as if awakening and said, “No.” She got up from the settee with a clatter from her baubles. I should have kept my mouth shut.
the daytime, white Knights in the darkness. They’d ride around on horses scaring Negros and Mexicans. Burning crosses in front of their houses. My daddy sassed the wrong man that day in Penrose. He was a Wizard of some sort in the organization. After my dad- dy answered him, ‘Who you to be asking?’ the coward formed his hand into the shape of a gun and pointed his index finger at my daddy’s forehead. ‘You’re a dead man,’ he said.”
~
All this healing and attention to others took a toll on Nadya. At the end of each day, she was exhausted, drained emotionally. I cooked haphazard stews that included ingredients clients gave her in lieu of pay- ment. One memorable pot lasted us days. She liked it when I massaged her feet, and I rubbed lard from the tin on her stove into her dry heels. I’d tuck her into her bedclothes and be on my way into the night.
I kept my mouth shut.
One night, we sat in her parlor smoking in the dark, the only light the orange tips of our cigarettes and the wobbly flame from a single candle. She took up her story again.
“That afternoon, my daddy drove the wagon home to Manitou Springs filled with beautiful apples, Tant Mieux pulling the load with ease. My daddy was intent on getting as far from Penrose as possible because that man had spooked him.
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“Sure enough, about where that quarry is along the