In the Hearts of Men

By Christine Plato

Regina is beautiful and intelligent, and has grown up on a Georgia plantation. When the plantation owner suddenly takes an interest in her, Regina’s family sends her away. They think she is escaping, but they are sending her into an even more complicated – and dangerous – situation. Upon moving to Gatlin, North Carolina, she quickly falls in love with Jacob, the attractive black caretaker at the Mercantile where she now works and lives. She also attracts the attention of a wealthy white widower looking for a replacement of the Cherokee wife he lost. Regina suddenly finds herself involved in a triangle of love and deception, where she is hated for the color of her skin, and loved for the wrong reasons. Through her trials, Regina finds strength within herself that she didn’t realize she had, and it eventually leads her through pain and heartache. She discovers that sometimes love isn’t what you first imagined, and the only one who can truly save her is herself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312196360

Book preview

In the Hearts of Men

In the Hearts of Men

Christine Plato

Copyright © 2014 Christine Plato.

All Rights Reserved. Published by Christine Plato. Distributed by Lulu. Standard United States Copyright Applies.

ISBN #: 978-1-312-19636-0

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No part may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any fashion without the express written consent of the author and publisher.

Prologue - After the Powwow - 1987

It was late morning. I was sitting in my grandparent’s little dining room, sipping hot black coffee with a hint of sugar, and playing the dice game. Grandpa was sitting in his chair listening to the emergency scanner and Grandma was at work. She worked at the only gas station and convenience store on the reservation.

My uncle was showered already; Uncle Rob still lived with Grandpa and Grandma, even though he was in his early 20s. I had wondered who was in the bathroom, but I thought it was my brother or sister. The three of us were visiting for a month during the summer, a regular occasion since my parents’ divorce eight years before.

The White Swan reservation is about an hour’s drive from Yakima, Washington, and since we lived on the other side of the Cascade Mountains, it seemed like a world away. Everything was different - rolling brown hills took the place of evergreen forests; long expansive two-lane highways replaced Interstate 5; Mom n’ Pop gas stations, instead of national chain service stations, took up residence at the occasional four-way stop, selling fresh-picked produce, Indian blankets that were made in Taiwan, and fake Indian jewelry.

When my uncle sat down at the table with me, he smiled and asked, Did you have fun last night? His tired blue eyes sparkled, recalling the evening.

I had, and told him so. It was the first time I had been to a Powwow, and my head was still filled with the sights. The drum circles, the dancers, the tobacco cloud floating overhead (at least I thought it was tobacco,) was like stepping back in time. The only thing that ruined my step-back-in-time reverie was the prevalence of western-style shirts or t-shirts and jeans. I had an irrational thought that anyone attending the Powwow should dress more reverently, in traditional native Indian clothing. Of course, Uncle Rob and I were both in t-shirts and jeans, too.

Uncle Rob seemed to know everyone at the Powwow, and I was introduced to what seemed like half of White Swan. One of Uncle Rob’s friends, Rory, was dressed in jeans and a western shirt, but had his hair braided in one single braid down his back, a large feather stuck in it. He normally kept his hair long or in a ponytail, so it seemed especially mystical to see him this way. He smiled at me, his white teeth flashing happily, a sharp contrast to his dark skin that was even darker than usual because of his summer tan. He and my Uncle Rob worked for a local rancher herding cattle, like old-time cowboys. I swooned over Rory, but tried hard to not let either of them notice.

Since I was with Uncle Rob, we were completely accepted at the Powwow, but otherwise I would have felt pretty out of place. We are part native Indian from my Grandma’s side, but we look white.

Now, looking across the table at Uncle Rob, smiling and recounting the evening, he suddenly stood up and said, Let’s go into town and I’ll buy you breakfast. ‘Gotta couple of errands to run.

He walked out to his truck and started it up. I ran to put my shoes on, careful to not wake my brother and sister who were still asleep on the floor in the back room. I ran back to the front room, kissed my grandpa, then slammed out the screen door and jumped down the porch steps. My uncle’s truck was dusty and dirty, lots of Man Stuff all over: a couple pouches of chewing tobacco, newspapers, gloves, tools of various design, a couple of colored bandanas, and a worn cowboy hat. And that was what I could see right away.

We rode in silence, Uncle Rob switching the radio station back and forth from country to rock, switching gears now and then. We stopped a few times, once at a Mexican family’s house, where Uncle Rob helped load some hay into the man’s trailer, then again at Rory’s house where Uncle Rob told me to stay in the truck while he went inside. That was fine with me; Rory had two mean-looking Healer dogs, one red and one blue, who kept snarling at me. Uncle Rob walked by them as though they weren’t even there.

Uncle Rob appeared in the doorway shortly after and we were on our way again. We were getting out the driveway when he handed me a little leather pouch.

This is for you and your sister, he said.

I opened the pouch and drew out two striking leather bracelets with intricate beadwork. They were different, one in turquoise, white and black, the other in red, yellow and orange. I put the turquoise-colored one on my wrist.

These are cool, who made them? I asked while tying the bracelet.

Rory’s mother, he said absently, steering through an empty intersection, brown dirt fields surrounding in each direction. When we get back home, I’ll let you drive up the hill, if you want.

OK, I murmured, still admiring my bracelet. I would be getting my driver’s license in the spring, and Uncle Rob had been letting me drive his truck on the back roads.

We finally entered civilization. We stopped at one other place, a farm and feed store, before reaching our breakfast destination. I stayed in the truck again. Uncle Rob re-appeared, carrying two large bags of livestock feed on his shoulder. He threw them both into the back of the truck where they made a loud thud and the truck shook when they hit the bed. In moments, the truck was in motion again, but only for a few blocks. We stopped outside a Perkins restaurant, parked and both got out this time.

A worn-out looking waitress showed us to a booth immediately and sloshed coffee into two of the mugs, leaving two others at the table, turned over and waiting for the next set of customers. We sat there, sipping coffee. I put whatever I wanted to into my coffee this time – cream and sugar.

Your grandma is pretty pissed at me for taking you to that Powwow last night, Uncle Rob said, stirring cream into his coffee.

I looked up, shocked. I have never witnessed my grandmother angry at anything. She rolled her eyes and disagreed with my grandpa from time to time, but I had never seen her really mad.

Why?

He wouldn’t look at me. Instead he looked at the menu, scrutinizing every single line of print. Finally, when I picked up my own menu and began my own search for food, he kinda swallowed hard and cleared his throat. When I looked up at him, his clear blue eyes that matched mine were looking at me, with resolve.

She wants you to marry a white man, he said, his face unclear.

I didn’t really know what to say. I said nothing.

She sees you hanging out with the kids in the neighborhood, and it makes her nervous, I guess, he went on. She thinks maybe you’re getting a little too close to that one boy, Bobby.

The waitress appeared. I gave my order for Swedish pancakes and scrambled eggs, my tone subdued. I felt like I was being chastised, but I didn’t really understand why.

My uncle placed his own order for sunny side up eggs and white toast. When the waitress went away, he sat there quietly for a minute. My own head was messed up, confused. I didn’t know that my grandma cared at all about whom I hung out with or dated, and it was surprising to me to hear that she had strong feelings about it. Bobby was a black kid, from the only black family in White Swan, and by far the best looking kid in town. He gave me rides on his motorcycle, taking me one time up to the top of a hill to an old Shaker Indian burial ground, makeshift markers with strange names dotting the fenced area. He kissed me up there, surprising us both.

Sitting here in this burgundy Perkins booth, my butt sinking into sticky vinyl that tried to look like leather, my thoughts must have been written all over my face. My uncle smiled at me apologetically, sympathetically.

You know, she made it difficult for me to keep dating Samantha, he reached across the table toward me and patted my hand with his huge, weathered one. Her father, Howling Wolf, has been a little cold toward us all since I broke it off, but Mama keeps saying it’s for the best. He and Daddy have always been pretty good friends, too, and I guess they haven’t talked much since. I don’t know… maybe Mama’s right. Samantha’s been dating Rory’s little brother now, and they seem better suited, like they understand each other’s life already.

Uncle Rob shrugged a little, the sadness there just under the surface.

We didn’t say much more. I ate my food in silence, hardly tasting my favorite breakfast meal.

Eighteen Years Later – 2005

It was after one in the morning and I still sat at my computer, completely wrapped up in my search. I had finally found a link to the Heston side of my family, from my paternal grandmother’s side. Despite the ache in my back from sitting there for hours, I was so eager to find more that I couldn’t force myself to turn off the computer and go to bed.

A few nights before, I had found a link for one of my dad’s relatives that ended up taking me on a long online journey to twelfth century England, putting fantastic thoughts in my head about what Salisbury and the Isle of Ely must have been like during those times. I was euphoric at discovering such a find, and on this night I was hoping to find another genealogical treasure.

I put the name Heston and location North Carolina into the genealogy search engine, as I knew that’s where my grandma’s family had lived before moving out to Washington State. Several names popped up. I clicked on Hettie Heston, a name I knew because my Grandma’s eldest sister had the same name. The link included a basic birth certificate for a Hettie Heston from North Carolina, but I couldn’t find other links to her at first. I wrote down her name in my notebook and the catalog number for her birth certificate. I found a few other Hestons, all from North Carolina, one of them being my grandmother’s father, Johnson Heston, which I excitedly printed for my notebook.

I looked at the clock, 1:55. Five more minutes and I’ll stop for the night, I decided. The night had yielded few results, but I was addicted to searching for my roots and kept clicking away on new prospects. I sat now, my head in my hands, leaning over the keyboard, rubbing my eyes. Suddenly I was very tired.

I looked up again, resolved to turn off the computer, defeated. But something caught my eye. It was a listing from the 1910 census in Gatlin, North Carolina. The entire household for my great-great grandfather’s family was on the screen. Moses Heston was listed at the top, Caucasian, age 38, widowed. Below his name were my great-grandfather and his brothers and sisters, nine of them. My great-grandfather, Johnson, was the oldest, 16 years old in 1910. And at the bottom was Regina Riddick, listed as a Negro girl, a Kitchen Stewardess, 16 years old.

I went back to the birth certificate for Hettie Heston, born in Harrisburg, NC, in the year 1912 to Johnson Heston, race Caucasian, and wife Regina Heston, maiden name Riddick, race Cherokee. I clicked a link by Johnson Heston’s name and it sent me to a 1918 Census of Gatlin, NC.  Johnson Heston was listed as 26 years old, and his wife, Anna Jean, 19 years old. Four children were listed - Hettie, age 6, Thomas, 3, Emma Jean, 2 and Hartford, 1.

I was perplexed.  If I was to believe what I was reading, my great-grandpa Johnson, whom I remembered pretty well from my childhood, was married first to a young Black-Cherokee woman according to the census of North Carolina. Then he married Anna Jean, whom I knew was my great-grandma.

I recalled the two of them sitting on their front porch together in Concrete, Washington, rocking back and forth, great-grandma spitting from her chewing tobacco into a brass spittoon and great-grandpa whittling some little piece out of soapstone. He had created several charming sculptures, even a miniature likeness of my two childhood dogs running side by side. It still sits on my mantle.

The two of them – Johnson and Anna Jean – had gone through The Depression together, moving out to Washington in 1930 so that Johnson could get a job in lumber. An old neighbor from North Carolina had written, telling him of the work to be had in Washington. Johnson had told Anna Jean, It’s worth sleepin’ on. The next morning when Anna Jean awoke, she found Johnson gathering their belongings to sell. He told her that he had decided to go to Washington, and they would have to take the train. He had already been around to a couple of the neighbors, letting them know that the Hestons were selling their household belongings to make the move. Over the next couple of days, Anna Jean watched her favorite dishes be sold to her neighbor for two dollars. She cried when her mother’s lace wedding dress, that she had worn herself when she married Johnson, went for less than five dollars. One by one, their treasures were given away to the highest bidder. But Anna Jean loved Johnson, and knew that he was doing the best thing for their family by moving them to where there was work. She and the children had been picking tobacco to make ends meet while Johnson had been looking for work, and he couldn’t find anything more than a couple days’ worth at a time doing odd jobs around plantations, fixing plows and mending fences.

Everything had been sold. Johnson packed up his growing family and wife, who was pregnant with another child, and they headed west. They lived a short time with Johnson’s brother, Percy, who had moved out ahead of him, and then homesteaded a plot of acreage close by the small town of Concrete. He worked at a nearby lumber mill until he was too old to work with lumber anymore. Anna Jean worked part time in a fish cannery and also part time in the Baptist Grange of Birdsview, keeping role and preparing revivals. They had two more children in addition to the six that came out west with them; they all stayed in the area, living by each other and vowing to stay close, just as Mama and Daddy Heston, as they became known as, decreed.                                                                   

I sat there at my computer, now almost three in the morning, trying to understand what I had stumbled onto. I decided to call my grandma in the morning to see what she could remember about the family history, and if her father had been married before to anyone else.

* * * * *

Hi Grandma, I said into the phone the next morning. She asked about the weather on this side of the mountains, laughed with me a little about my cousin’s wedding and told me about her recent doctor appointment. She had been diagnosed the year before with macular degeneration.

The sight is now completely gone from my right eye, she explained. The doctor told her there may be a procedure to keep the left eye from getting any worse. She could no longer drive. She was still working one day a week at a local gas station and convenience store, which, outside of mowing her lawn and going to the casino to play bingo, was the only thing keeping her going. We chatted a little about my dad; no I hadn’t heard from him in a while. My uncles and aunt were all fine.

I’ve been doing some genealogy research on our family, I began, explaining the link I had found on her mother’s side that went back to Switzerland. She seemed politely interested in what I had to say about it all. Finally I came to the reason for my call.

Hey Grandma, do you know if your dad was ever married to anyone else? I asked, trying to act nonchalant, as if I really was unsure of what I had found.

She was silent for a moment and then said, Nuh uh, Mama was his one and only, his one and only love. 

She said it so absolutely that I didn’t question her further. We talked of the upcoming reunion briefly, and I told her that I would bring a potato salad.

After hanging up, I briefly told my husband about what I had found and about my grandmother’s denial. He confirmed my thoughts, suggesting that I try looking further for more birth, death and marriage certificates.

Later that night, I rubbed my eyes and saw that it was again nearing the two o’clock hour, and I knew I would have to stop for the night. Staying up late had become a bad habit for me, and the early mornings always made me vow to get to bed earlier.

I printed out birth records for Johnson Heston, born May 8th, 1893, several of his siblings, and his parents. His mother was full-blood Cherokee, father was listed as Caucasian. Lastly, I printed the birth record for Hettie Heston, the same one I had seen the night before, born September 15th, 1912, in Harrisburg, NC. Parents were listed as Johnson and Regina Heston; Johnson Heston’s birthday was not listed but his city of birth was Gatlin, NC. Regina Heston was listed as born July 4, 1893, Atlanta, Georgia. 

I used the clue provided and did a search for Regina Riddick, based upon the Heston family census from 1910, which had listed Regina Riddick, Kitchen Stewardess, 16 years old. Immediately I found a state of Georgia listing for a Riddick family from the 1895 Fulton County Baptist Church Census, from a location called Blessed Hill: Head of Household was Thomas Riddick, race listed as Negro, age 33; wife Liza, Cherokee, age 31. My eye went straight down to the bottom of the Riddick family to Regina, two years old, among five other children listed. Occupations for Thomas, Liza and their two oldest children, Charles, age 14 and Samantha, age 13, were listed as farm laborer.  Then, looking ahead to a marriage record from the Fulton Baptist Church in 1898, I found a list that included the Riddicks, but this time Charles was listed as head of household; he was now 16 years old, still a farm laborer, married to Rachel, farm laborer, also 16 years old. Five relatives were listed, listed as brother or sister: Samantha, age 15, Moses age 12, Elizabeth age 9, Elijah age 8 and last on the list was Regina, age 6.

I sat back and wondered what must have happened to the Riddick family in the years that had passed, wondering if perhaps mother and father, Thomas and Liza, had left to find work. Searching further, I didn’t see another listing for Thomas or Liza Riddick in Georgia. 

Sometimes the needle in the haystack is the first thing you find, and then your job is figuring out who put it there and why. That’s how I felt, sitting there with tired eyes staring at a blue computer screen, too excited to turn it off. I wanted to keep on searching, but something told me that I wouldn’t find too much more on internet genealogy sites.

I wonder if Aunt Hettie will tell me what this is all about, I wondered silently to myself. Great Aunt Hettie was ninety seven years old, and still lived in a little house up river in Hamilton, Washington, about an hour’s drive for me. Aunt Hettie had never married or had children, but she doted on nieces and nephews of each generation in the family. She lived by herself with a big German Shepard named Moses.  Until now, I had assumed he was named after the Patriarch of the Jews from the Old Testament. But it was now quite clear that he was named instead for the Heston Patriarch, and I wondered how much of this my grandmother knew about. Probably all of it, I thought to myself with sudden mirth. My grandmother did not seem to me the type to keep secrets. I was proud of her, my heart filling my chest, for her loyalty to whatever the secret was.

* * * * *

I called Great Aunt Hettie the next morning and asked if I could come up over the weekend for a visit.

I thought you might be a callin’, was all Aunt Hettie said at first. She paused for a moment, during which I held my breath. Your gra’ma called yesterday mornin’ and said you maya found somethin’ interstin’. Y’uns come on up Sataday. Bring the kids. I jus’ love them kids.

Saturday couldn’t come soon enough for me.

I brought along my notebook, preparing for a quaint little story about a love lost. I was not prepared for what Great Aunt Hettie told me. I listened to her story, so enraptured with the tale that I forgot to write. My own daughters sat on either side of me and listened as well.

She told us the truth about my great-grandfather, Daddy Heston, as we’ve all come to call him,  and a young multi-racial girl whose face I had to invent, but a face I thought I must see a glimpse of in Aunt Hettie. 

This is their story…

Chapter 1 -The Escape from Blessed Hill, Georgia – 1908

Regina walked down the dusty street of this new town, feeling small. The smell of pine trees invaded her senses, a scent she had never experienced before. It was dry here, like Blessed Hill, but she could feel a difference in the air.  There were rolling hills that surrounded the little town, and she was overwhelmed by the trees that enveloped everything. She looked no one in the eye, said nothing unless spoken to. She knew her place, had been shown her place too many times by Master James or the Missus.

Master James was not really Regina’s Master, but he had still insisted that the Negroes - or as he called them, the Africans - refer to him as Master. He had been a young, newly married plantation owner before The War, owning nearly 3,000 acres of prime Georgia land that he had acquired through marriage. Most of it had been confiscated, first by the Confederate Army for camp and shelter, then by the Union Army as a spoil of war. What was left had been practically destroyed, hardly producing a quarter of the tobacco it used to.

Master James employed some of his ex-slaves, or the offspring of his former slaves. The compensation to these ex-slaves was to live on Blessed Hill property in the shacks that had once been used to shelter slaves. They all had to grow their own food in the communal plots that were behind the row of shacks. Once a year in the summer, the men were allowed to hunt for wild boar, rabbit and deer, which they then cured and stored for the remainder of the year. They didn’t have it as bad as some, but still they didn’t feel free.

Regina’s family was different from the other workers at Blessed Hill - lighter-skinned, higher cheekbones, finer noses, hair not so curly. Charlie said it was on account of their momma, Liza, being full Cherokee. Liza’s father had joined the Confederate army, but deserted when he found out he would have to fight against the Creek Indians. He was captured in Georgia and convicted quickly of desertion. Regina’s grandmother brought her young daughter, Liza, to witness his hanging, telling her daughter that he was a hero for not fighting. They were taken in at Blessed Hill, where they had been put to work caring for the remaining Confederate soldiers, and then stayed on after the war. That’s where young Liza Dupree met Thomas Riddick, the son of a slave.

Regina’s ma and pa had disappeared quite suddenly when she was 3 or 4 years old. There were rumors about their disappearance - maybe they had run away together, knowing they couldn’t afford to care for their brood of children, or maybe they had been murdered. No one seemed to know for sure. But Regina missed them terribly. She remembered a little about them still – their hugs, their smiles, their laughter, their love. Her brother, Charlie, tried his best to look after her and her brothers and sisters, but he didn’t know how to be a father. He had married Rachel, the only eligible girl left on the plantation who was around his age, but he didn’t love her. He treated her badly, calling her Blacky on account of her skin color. She was so dark she was almost purple. Regina doubted they would ever have children since he despised her so. He seemed to resent everything about her.

Regina was now walking down this dirt-covered brick street in Gatlin, North Carolina on account of her purple sister-in-law. I think I hate her as much as Charlie does, she thought to herself, looking up through her eyelashes at the storefronts. When Master James had suddenly