"What is it, Doc?"

I'd returned to my home, once I was sick enough to realize it was only getting worse. I'd seen plenty of doctors in the south, where I speculated land the Indians had given up for settling. I was in the midst of the buying and the selling until I got sick.

I made a right handsome sum, and I lived well, but when I got sick, I told myself, 'I'll get better.' I always got better, except this time I didn't get better, and I set my sights on the home I'd left when I was sixteen. There was a doctor there my family knew and he knew me.

Dr. Raymond Jones was old. I didn't realize how old until the morning I sat in front of his desk. I sat in front of a lot of doctor's desks recently, but this was different.

"Remember when I brought you into the world Johnny. I slapped your bottom with this hand," he said, distracted by the hand that had probably brought a thousand babies into the world.

"What is it, Doc?"

"Your mama all but died that night. I didn't know you'd live. They'd called me late. She'd been in labor for hours. It was storming out as I drove my buggy to the house your daddy built. It wasn't like it is today. Thirty years ago, they lived out of town. I lived right here."

I didn't have the heart to interrupt him. Going down memory lane before he told me what my problem was annoying at first.

"The lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and I had you in my hands a few hours after I got there. Your mama was so weak. So much blood. I held you in my arms, but you did not cry. Later your scream like a banshee, but I wasn't sure you were alive. That's when you opened your eyes and smiled at me. You opened those big beautiful eyes and you smiled at me. No baby did that before."

Dr. Jones smiled.

"That's when I knew it would be okay You were alive. Your mother was alive. Your father was…, well, he was beside himself."

The doctor went back to looking into my file. It was blank since I was sixteen and I took off to make my fortune. He hadn't seen me in almost fifteen years. He brought me into the world and he treated all of us while I was a boy. "Remember when you had the measles along about '55?"

I did remember. I was ten years old. I'd never been that sick before.

"Oh, you were sick then. Didn't know you'd make it. You were ten, maybe nine. You were so sick. I went to sit beside your bed. Didn't leave you for a day and a half that time. You were sick," he said, seeing it.

"Your father and I knew each other in the old country. Not know how, but we knew of each other. We met on the boat coming over here. We thought it was a sign and we were friends after that. He didn't call me at first that time either. Times were hard and your father wasn't a man owed anyone. He was a good man. I introduced your daddy to your mother. What a Rose she was, Johnny."

"I remember, she cried every time she looked at me the time I was sick"

"Didn't know you'd make it, Johnny. I didn't leave you. Your mama and daddy were petrified. All their kids weakened and died. You were the only one to grow up strong. It was the second morning, you rolled over, opened up your eyes, and you gave me that smile. You rolled over and went to sleep. The fever had broken. You lived. That smile melted my heart a second time. You were always my favorite, Johnny."

I looked at the old man in front of me. Even the hair on the back of his hand was gray. His brow was gray and his skin was leathered by the years. I wondered if maybe he was too old. He'd slapped too many bottoms bringing kids into the world.

He was back to looking into the file he had trouble pulling himself away from.

"Doc, what's wrong with me?"

He looked up at me.

"I'm tired, Johnny. I don't see patients anymore. The ones I've been seeing, but no new patients. Most of mine have moved away … died," he said, getting that far away look in his eye.

"I'd do you a disservice if we went any further today. I'm tired," he said, coming around in front of his desk and taking my arm.

"You come back in the morning, Johnny. I don't have any patients tomorrow. Come early. I'd do you a disservice telling you anything today."

By the time he finished talking, I was standing in the hall and he shut the door in my face.

I stood alone in the hallway knowing no more when I arrived at his office.

I was angry. I should go to another doctor and forget Dr. Jones, but I didn't know any doctors in New York City. I didn't know what was wrong with me.

I went down the stairs and stood on the street before I knew it. The wagons rolled along on a main thoroughfare that was once a quiet street off the beaten path. New York had gotten immense and everyone was on the move..

What was I going to do until nine tomorrow morning?

I took to coughing then. I'd gone for a half hour without coughing. It was always better in the morning, but as the day went on it got worse. The coughing shook me and it hurt my innards. The cough racked me with a pain that traveled from my innards to my brain and back. I put my hand out to use the wall to keep me from falling down.

Then, I bent with both hands on my knees, trying to breathe. I leaned on the wall as I tried to stand. The air was awful. The smell of horse shit was everywhere. My hotel wasn't far, but I didn't know I'd make it that far.

I steadied myself as the coughing passed. I left my bottle of laudanum in my room. I didn't usually need it in the morning, and now I needed it, and it was a block away.

I breathed in the rotten air and stale dung that seemed to be all over the city. I didn't remember there being so many horses, so much noise, so many people. I'd been gone fifteen years, and it wasn't a happy homecoming for me.

My coughing subsided long enough for me to get back to my room. I kept laudanum in my room and when it helped, it offered some relief, but it didn't always help, I drank it down first thing and I went to my bed to lie down.

I was once on the move all day every day. I set my sights on where I'd go to before getting on my horse in the morning. By dark, if I wasn't back to the place I was staying, I was making arrangements for where I'd spend the night.

A speculator has to keep moving. He is chasing commodities and prime land to add to his portfolio.

I'd leave my carriage in Atlanta for these excursions into the land that once belonged to the Cherokee. Their land was up for grabs and I was grabbing my share when the coughing began getting me down. When you stop moving, you stop speculating, and I came home.

I went to the hotel restaurant. I ordered tea.

I had tea because I was told by a man in Alabama, tea will sooth your throat. Coffee is harsher. You need gentle, and I drank my tea and ate bread and butter. If I didn't eat something, I'd wake up miserable, and the restaurant would be closed.

I got back to my room in time for a coughing spell. The laudanum didn't help until I fell asleep. It was going to be a long night, because I was waiting for Dr. Jones to finally tell me what was wrong with me, and more importantly, what to do about it.

*****

I thought about Mr. Jasper. He'd given me the news about tea's soothing properties.

Jasper was a wise old fellow I'd met when I stopped along the road. He took to talking. Mr. Jasper loved to talk. I'm not prone to say much, but Jaspers words were surprisingly intelligent and I was soon caught up in what he was telling me.

His knowledge matched up with some of what I knew. There was wisdom in his words. For a man who hailed from Alabama, he'd experienced life in a way I hadn't. He was older, wiser, and willing to share what he'd learned with me. I was younger, impatient, and I rarely listened to anyone. I found myself listening to Mr. Jasper.

In most cases, when encountering a talkative fellow like him, I might have ridden on, but I was tired, my horse was tired, and there Jasper was. He got my attention and he kept it, and whenever I found myself in his neck of the woods, I dropped by for a chat.

Jasper knew the history of the area, which for a land speculator is a good thing to know. He told me that General Jackson made a killing on running off the Cherokee. He'd acquired thousands of acres of Cherokee land. Jasper told me, and he seemed to be in the know, "Can't say Cherokee weren't better neighbors. Andy Jackson is long gone, but his policies remain with us."

Somehow Jasper calculated I was speculating land. Part of General Jackson's land was what I was trying to get a hold of. If I could buy it at a reasonable price, I could make a bundle. New Indian land wasn't worth that much at first, but when you pay nothing for it, you don't need to get much for it, and a lot of people who got a hold of it, were ready to sell and move on. If they sold it dirt cheap, because they didn't know any better, I made a profit.

It was Jasper who first gave me a thing or two to think about. The Cherokee land once belonged to someone. They'd been on that land a thousand years. White folks come along and put them off it. They don't like savages living nearby where they live, only they've lived there for a few years. Why is it the Cherokee need to move?

"Why is that?" I asked.

"White folks have bigger guns. They took it from the Indians."

"Was it legal?" I asked without knowing the answer.

"Illegal. Supreme Court said so," Mr. Jasper said.

"How'd they get thrown off their land?"

"Jackson told the court, "I'm removing them. You stop me if you can."

"What happened?"

"He removed them. You are buying and selling stolen land."

Now stealing and removing and how the land got on the market was well beyond what I knew. Someone was going to make a bundle off of it. I figured, why not me?

That's when Mr Jasper dropped another little gem my way.

"The Cherokee culture was second to none. They were smart and industrious. They have a written language and a newspaper. Their culture was more civilized than what was flooding into America from Europe."

I was young when I first encountered Jasper. Once he started to talk, I started to listen. Indian was another word for people. How would I feel if I had a nice home, neighbors, a past and a future, and someone came along and said, "Get off. I want your land. That's exactly what they did and when the Indians fought, they destroyed them."

The Cherokee got off. They were marched away from their home by the US Army. Rumors said their treatment had been less than how most humans would like to be treated.

How would I feel if someone marched me away from my home?

The land he'd taken in the Indian removal was on the market at a time I was in the market for land. Getting this particular information was timely, and once I regarded Jasper as a good source of information, we went on to have rousing discussions about our lives and our history. My profession didn't come up, but I had a feeling of guilt Jasper gave to me.

While we sat on his porch, his wife prepared the most delicious meals. It was the kind of meal you didn't get in hotels, and it made the experience even more pleasurable. His wife would often stop to listen as we talked, but she rarely spoke. Mr. Jasper did most of the talking. I can still hear his rugged voice.

It was Jasper who sent me to New York City. Long about the time it was time for me to go on my last visit to his place, he walked me to my horse in the way he always did.

He looked troubled to me as he held Henry's reins, handing them up to me.

"Don't reckon we'll be meeting again, Johnny."

"Your moving?" I asked.

"You got the consumption. That cough is no stranger to me. You'll be dead in a year. It's usually a year between visits."

I was stunned and even more silent than usual. John Jasper was no doctor. He could be wrong, but in the back of my mind, his words rang true as any he'd spoken. Both my parents died of consumption. I'd known it all along. I didn't want to admit I was dying.

The only cure for consumption I knew of was death.

It was on my way back to Atlanta, after Jasper said I was dying, I decided to return to New York City. I made a bundle in Tennessee and Kentucky on the land I'd bought and sold. I decided I'd go home and see what Dr. Jones said about my cough and fatigue.

*****

I was back in the city of my birth, and I was back in Dr. Jones office the next morning at nine. Dr. Jones looked a little worse than I felt, although mornings were usually my best time, after a bout with coughing when I got up.

"You look a little like you have a chicken bone caught in your throat, Doc," I said.

He was restless and hesitant to give me the news I figured was coming, and I was impatient to hear his diagnosis.

Did I have the consumption or not? If I was dying, I needed to know it.

"Johnny, you need to get out of New York. You need to go where the air is fresh. You need to go where you can walk and eat good food. I've given it thought, and if you want to head west to where the fresh air is, and maybe buy a piece of land to settle on, you'll be fine for a while, and that's fine in not getting worse each day."

He was telling me that I was going to die, and since he was the age he was, it sounded like he expected me to precede him in death.

Thinking you're dying and knowing you're dying are different. Did he think I was dying, or was I dying?

"I am getting worse. I travel all the time. It's built into my job. I don't understand. Are you telling me I'm dying, Doc?"

"Can't put nothing over on you, Johnny. Consumption will take you fast in this city. You can't breathe the air. Infections run rampant. You'll catch one, get pneumonia, and you'll die in a week. Your body can't fight infection. Go to where there are fewer people. Go to where you can breathe clean air, get exercise, and eat healthy food. Spend that money you been making. Live while you still have life left in you."

It was my turn to sit and look off into space. I hadn't lived and I was dying?

I'd gone off to make my fortune when I was sixteen. I'd made it many times over. I made a lot of money and I was thirty and still making more. I made money while I sat idle. Banks paid me to keep my money safe. I was going to live once I made enough money, and now I was dying?

I was going to live later. I was going to live high on the hog.

"If you want to listen to me, I'll tell you what to do. I spoke to my banker, Georgie Callahan. He's one of my boys. Brought him into the world two, maybe three years before you, Johnny. Georgie always found his way to the money. He takes care of my little nest egg. I know my money is safe in Georgie's hands."

I was stunned. I was speechless. I was looking at the oldest man I knew, and he was telling me that I would most likely be dead before he was.

What did I do now? I heard Dr. Jones talking.

"What?" I said, hearing his voice.

"I'll give you George's address. He works at 1st National. It's a few blocks. I told him what I was going to tell you to do. He can help you with your money, and as luck has it, he has a surveyor in town that is about to go west. He drives a wagon where he keeps his equipment. George said there would be plenty of room to put your bed, and if you want to go west, you'll not find an easier way to go. You'll be out in the fresh air. You'll get to see the country so many people are coming to grab a hold on. If I were you, Johnny, I'd listen to Georgie."

"George?"

"George Callahan. 1st National. It's a few blocks. I told him I'd send you in to talk to him. I've told him what you need, and he's a man who takes care of people's needs. He is not just a banker, they're land buyers and sellers. They have investments all over the west. They have their own surveyors. One is going west at the end of the week. I've written down the address, and he's expecting you. Go talk to Georgie, Johnny."

Dr Jones handed me the paper, walked me to the door, and I was standing at the top of the stairs alone in the hallway again.

"What was I going to do?"

I looked at the paper. I looked at the stairs. Next thing I knew, I was standing in the doorway looking at the street. My brain seemed to be swirling inside my head, and that's when the coughing started. It racked me and refused to stop. I hadn't brought the bottle of laudanum and I coughed, dropping the piece of paper on to that walkway.

With my hands on my knees and tears in my eyes, I was sure I couldn't make it back upstairs to get him to write it for me again. I had to reach the paper before it blew away.

I tried to see where it went and when I saw it flutter, I reached for it. My blurred vision had me fumbling for it and an ox of a man stepped on my fingers.

"Keep out of my way if you know what's good for you," the man growled.

I yanked back sore fingers. I lost sight of the paper. I'd never find it now. The coughing didn't stop. I thought I might tip over into the street.

How could this be happening to me?

I coughed and wanted to laugh at what was good for me, but my innards felt like they were coming out.

"You okay?" a gentle masculine voice asked. "You dropped this. Here, let me help you. You're going to fall."

I was looking into the face of a boy with bright blue eyes and stunning red hair. He'd taken my forearm to steady me. I began leaning on him.

"You want me to walk with you. Do you need a doctor?" he asked, looking at Dr. Jones' sign.

I started to laugh at the offer. Then, I coughed, handing him the address Dr. Jones gave me. I had nowhere else to go.

"You want to go here?"

I nodded, unable to speak.

"I'll walk with you," he offered.

I nodded between coughs.

He held my arm and we walked together as I held on to his arm. In a block we came to a policeman standing on the corner. My man handed the constable the paper.

He eyeballed us carefully as we walked up.

"You okay, Captain?" he asked, looking the boy over, but he was speaking to me.

"Yes, he's in my employ. The paper?" I said in a whisper.

"Oh, 1st National. Right at the next corner, can't miss it. The bank is across the street. This is the business offices. It's on the right. Building takes up half the block."

"Thank you," the young man said, walking us in the direction the officer indicated.

In a few minutes we stood in front of 1st National. The boy held the door open for me to go inside.

"Will you be okay. Would you like me to wait?" he asked.

He gave me a look of concern.

"You are?"

"Me? I'm Barnaby," he said, pulling his cloth hat off his head.

"Barnaby, are you employed?"

"No work for the likes of me," he said, repeating a thing he was told.


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"My Man Barnaby"

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