Part 22 (1/2)

The look on Nehemiah's face was a complex one-sadness and fear and anger, too, though he was trying to conquer that, and over everything a veneer of respect. He dipped his head. I had slowed down, but now Master Harry was looking at me, so I sped up and walked around the corner into the next street, where I stopped and clutched that one word to my bosom. The Samsons! The Samsons had cheated Master Harry!

I waited in the shadow of one of the buildings there until I saw master and missy drive past, her with her bonnet pulled way forward and him whipping the chestnuts into a brisk trot. Then I ran back around the corner. Nehemiah was nowhere to be seen. I looked about, then called his name, and after a moment, he came from behind the shed. Without saying anything, I held out one of the peaches to him, and with only a brief hesitation, he took it and bit into it. There was a box there, turned on its side next to the corral, and I sat down on it. Nehemiah said nothing until he had finished his peach and sucked the last bits of juice off the pit. Then he said, ”Missy won' let 'im hurt my gal. She loves my gal lak her own sissy.”

”Is Josie your wife?” I whispered.

”Nah. She mah own gal. Her ma were Lil. She pa.s.sed on yeahs ago.”

I handed him another peach. After a bite of that, he said, ”Dat waren't bad for Ma.s.sa Harry. He been a lot worse den dat sometimes. He done shot his own brother, you know. Dem boys had a duel, and Ma.s.sa Jacob got kilt. It 'bout kilt the old missy. She didn't last long after dat. She preferred Ma.s.sa Jacob over Ma.s.sa Harry, but dey waren't much daylight between de two of 'em, ifn you ask me. Dey was both hotheaded little boys. But Ma.s.sa Jacob, he kiss her an' hug her, and Ma.s.sa Harry, he push her away, so she saw it her way.”

”What did they duel over?” I whispered.

”Somethang. Over bein' brothers, you ask me. Never did git along. Dey was lookin' fo' dat fight all dey lives.”

He licked off the pit and put it in his pocket, and I handed him the third peach. They certainly did look delicious, I must say. I croaked, ”Who are the Samsons?”

”Oh, dem boys!” He laughed.

”Well, they got you in trouble.”

”Dey is trouble. Dey from over by Blue Sprang, theahabouts. Dem boys gonna be hung someday.”

”Is there a boy named Chaney with them?”

”Don' know 'bout dat.”

”When did they leave their mules here?”

”Well, dey come through with a bunch of animals a month or so ago. Couple mules, three or four horses, and dey put dem horses and mules up heah, and dey give me fi' dollars. Well, dat's enough fo' one week heah ifn yo is a stranger and Ma.s.sa Harry don' know ya. He know dem, so he let dey old horse stay heah, four bits a week. Den dey rode off for a piece, den dey come back, and I say to dem dat dey owe fi' mo' dollars, and dey gi' me three, and dere wagon fo' what dey call security, and de wagon's settin' out heah, right wheah we sittin' nah. Well, one mornin', I gits heah an' dat wagon is long gone, and den about a week later, I see it comin' down the street, and I speak to de n.i.g.g.ah who's drivin' it, and he say his ma.s.sa done bought it faih and squaah, and dat ma.s.sa, who war from Kentuck and new in town, he show Ma.s.sa Harry de bill o' sale, an' a rifle an' a pistol and a long knife and a big evil grin, and so dat was dat for Ma.s.sa Harry!” Nehemiah let out a big rolling laugh.

”Were there two men and a boy?”

”Nah, dey was three or four men. But dey was only two men who come by heah two day ago and git dem mules. They showed me a paper! Ha ha ha! I war a fool fo' dem! Ha ha ha!” The extortion of funds from Ma.s.sa Harry cheered us both. I offered him the last peach, but he covered his mouth, gave a discreet eructation, and shook his head. I ate it myself. It was sublime, perhaps because I'd gotten some information, or perhaps because I found myself sublimely angry at Master Harry, the very type of a southern slavocrat villain, and exactly the sort of person Thomas thought peopled the south.

The thing, of course, was to go to Blue Springs. I knew that now. Even if these Samsons weren't the ones I was after, they might be cousins. Samson wasn't so common a name; it was less common than Newton, or Harkness. In all of Quincy, for example, we had been the only Harknesses. If someone had come looking for any of us, all of us would have known where to find the others. I briefly pondered persuading Mr. Morton that I needed to use Athens on newspaper business, as Blue Springs (I asked around) was twenty-five or thirty miles east, past Independence. But were I to find my Samsons, then there could be some difficulty in returning Athens to his owner. Additionally, I wasn't sure, either, that Athens would benefit by a thirty-mile trip or that I couldn't go faster, in the end, than he. Athens was an agreeable mount in his way, but I felt that I had fairly well plumbed his willingness to exert himself. And then another day of setting type confirmed my own reluctance to proceed any further in the newspaper business. Some other branch of letters, I thought, might be more to my taste. I mentioned this to Mr. Morton, by way of parting, and he laughed and handed me three dollars. ”Typesetting always shakes 'em out,” he remarked. I thanked him for giving me a try. As I walked down the long staircase to the street, I felt myself wake up.

When I returned to the livery stable that evening, a Sat.u.r.day it was, I planned to probe Nehemiah a bit further about these Samsons, but he was nowhere to be found, and anyway, my conviction that they and Thomas's killers were the same men already approached certainty.

All the distractions of Kansas City and my new life as a man did not at all deflect me from my sense that everything swirled around Thomas's killing and the justice to be exacted, as a ball on a rope swirls around the boy spinning in the center. Although I had never been a woman of much religious sentiment, I had faith in this-that every event and every step I might make must lead from Thomas to his killers, just as the engines and cars on rail tracks must lead from one station to the next. The distractions that beset, and even intrigued, both Lyman Arquette and Lidie Newton were entirely exterior to that. And so I got up early Sunday morning, pulled on my hat and boots, took up my case, and set out for Blue Springs. I had some biscuits that I saved from my supper the night before, and I ate them as I went along.

I also gazed around me, memorizing the seething activity of Kansas City. The day was a hot one, and business started early, then there would be a lull in the afternoon, when folks who wanted to would go to services. There was none of the Sunday quiet here that prevailed even in Quincy, not to mention in places like New England. Forgoing business one-seventh of the time couldn't be done where things were just building up. And anyway, there were few women around to present the claims of conscience.

It didn't take so long for me to get out of Kansas City. I was eager and strong, and it was easy to walk in trousers, as I had noticed before. Giving away my petticoat had lightened my case some, and I contemplated tossing the whole thing aside, but in the end I couldn't quite do that. It represented too much who I'd been. I was afraid to lose that entirely.

The difference between the look of the Missouri countryside and the look of K.T. countryside was striking. Missouri was regular land, the way you would see it in Illinois-hills and trees, fences and pasture, a regular amount of sky and a regular amount of privacy to everything. Houses and barns peeked out from groves and appeared around bends in the road. The hills and their canopy of trees ate up the vastness of the sky and broke up the wind-though there was a breeze, it eddied about rather than simply bearing down. And cultivation had made its mark. The area wasn't as settled as the area around Quincy-cabins as humble as ours in K.T. were visible here and there, some with hogs milling about them, revealing what they'd fallen to. Mostly these had given way to larger, more refined log houses, or even to clapboard dwellings, even to whitewashed ones. And I did pa.s.s big houses, set well back, gla.s.s windows elegantly ranged to either side of the front door. Not every field was being worked by slaves, not every wagon was being driven by a slave; I didn't see only slaves throwing out animal feed, or hanging out wash, or beating carpets, or weeding gardens. It varied from one farm to another: this one could be set in Illinois or Ohio, with its neat, small house and its diminutive yard; that other one could be set in Kentuck or Tennessee, with its columns and veranda, its wide approach, and its crew of dark laborers. Mostly I saw Negroes busy with hoes in fields of hemp. I knew Missouri was a great place for hemp, not so much for cotton, and I knew what a field of hemp looked like, but that was all I knew about it. White men and boys were busy in fields, too, hoeing corn or flax, say. Taken all in all, Missouri was a mixed-up sort of place.

There was a great deal of traffic between Independence and Kansas City, even on a Sunday, and many men on horseback, or driving wagons, went by. Some of them offered me rides, and as the day got hotter and my hat began to weigh upon my head and my case to weigh upon my arm, I was tempted to take one, but I had now been a man, a boy, for five or six days, which put me in an odd situation. Any lady could safely take a ride. No one would hurt, or even challenge, a lady in those days, but then it was as likely as black apples that a lady would be walking along the side of the road, carrying her case. On the other hand, no man, or boy, could safely take a ride, because he was sure to be probed as to where he came from, where he was going, what his business was, who his friends were. This was the effect of the goose question. And answers would have their degree of rightness and their potential punishments. Reflection gave me to believe that quizzes on the goose question were ones I didn't necessarily know the proper replies to. Tarring and feathering, whipping and throwing in the river, shooting and hanging, had gotten to be things folks rather hankered to be doing, as an outlet for their feelings. So I didn't accept any rides. Pretty soon my feet began to hurt inside my too large boots, but I took hold of Thomas's watch in my pocket and went on. In the middle of the day, I sat down under a large oak, around on the side away from the road, and rested and dozed.

It was late in the day when I woke up, maybe an hour before sunset, and I didn't quite know how far I had gone or how far I had to go yet. I've got to say that I felt a moment of panic, or rather, I was once again intimidated by the largeness of my project. It seemed far beyond my strength and my wit. I had twenty-nine dollars now, with the three Mr. Morton had given me. Not much, but no doubt enough to get me to Blue Springs, to the Samsons there. After I was finished with them, I felt, I would have no need for money. I was hungry. I got up, smoothed down my clothes, took off my hat and put it on again, and resumed walking. In K.T., it was a regular thing that if someone was making his way in the countryside late in the day or at night, or if someone had no food, he might stop at any claim cabin he saw and ask for hospitality. Sometimes the places where he might stop had little enough to offer, but sharing was the rule, and in return the traveler might pay a bit of money, or do some work around the place. No doubt, even though Missouri was longer settled, it wasn't so surprising to farmers and householders by the side of the road when travelers did the same here. But of course, anything like this would expose me the same as taking a ride would. My hunger soon began to conflict with my prudence, though, and I wondered what to do. While it was August, and I knew there must be various things ripening by the side of the road, berries and whatnot, I didn't see any, and I was afraid to explore and to be caught stealing. I kept on walking, not so fast as before. The afternoon light reddened and grew shadowy, and not so many folks pa.s.sed me, leading me to wonder if I had gotten off the road to Independence. I scrambled down to a little stream I pa.s.sed and took some water. It was clear enough.

What could you eat? I hadn't ever thought much about this question before. In Quincy, I ate what was set before me-pork, sometimes chicken, bread, corn bread, b.u.t.ter. Cuc.u.mbers. Pickles. Steak. Greens. Apples. Peaches like the wonderful peaches I had shared with Nehemiah (peaches were ripe in Missouri; I looked around but saw no orchards). Watermelons, which grew in the sandy areas down by the river. Eggs. A lovely boiled egg. Cakes and especially pies. Alice had liked to make pies, had a definite way with a crust. Toast. Jam. Blackberry jam especially, seeds and all. I had picked and boiled down many a pail of blackberries myself. Hotcakes.

In K.T., we had prided ourselves on making do. Much was scarcer than in the States, though there were prairie chickens enough and turkeys. Bread flour was almost unknown, corn and cornmeal ubiquitous. Hot corncakes, stirred up with that limey water they had there, and a bit of salt. Well, there were many things worse and not many better. That was what I wanted right then-not anything fancier than that: just a dishful of fragrant yellow corncakes, with maybe a bit of honey on them.

These thoughts made me feel faint, I admit, but I didn't want to stop thinking them; that seemed like yet another deprivation, hunger beyond hunger. So I walked along, thinking of good food and feeling my stomach turn over and my mouth water. I'd heard that people could go without food for three days or more. Sometimes in the newspapers or other places, there were pieces about mountain men or parties of pioneers who went without food for weeks on end, and it wasn't as though we hadn't been a bit pinched from time to time the previous winter. In addition, I had eaten what most people would consider a good enough meal the previous evening. Nevertheless, a bit of hot sausage would be good, and some boiled potatoes with b.u.t.ter. Even a carrot, just a crisp raw carrot out of the ground. I cast my eye down each side of the road, but I didn't see any gardens. No doubt they were planted back near the houses. Each time I saw a house or a cabin, of whatever sort, I was tempted to turn toward it, but each time I saw a man or a woman in a field or in a yard, I knew I dared not. I kept on, Thomas's watch firmly clenched in my hand, but no doubt I wasn't making much progress. Soon enough, it was dark, and I went under some bushes, where, if I placed my case at my head, I could see a sliver of moon but was myself hidden from the sight of pa.s.sersby. The ground was damp and soft with leaf mold. The sharp, earthy, woody smell helped to drive away thoughts of food, and I quickly fell asleep.

I woke up considerably bolder, and eager to vacate my night's bed, as small insects, or the ghosts of small insects, seemed to be crawling all over me-up my trouser legs and down the back of my neck. I scrambled out of the bushes and jumped up, throwing off my hat and running my hands through my hair, shaking my shoulders and stamping my feet. The sun was up, and I immediately heard the haw haw of Missouri laughter. I put my hat on and tried to summon some dignity. I coughed, then croaked, ”Is there something funny, sir?”

”Haw haw haw haw!” shouted the man, who was sitting on his wagon seat, flicking his whip at the tips of his mule's ears. The mule stood there calmly, only shaking his ears as if at flies. ”That was some little dance, boy, that was!”

I could still feel things running up and down under my clothes, so I snapped, ”Thank you very much!” and reached under the greenery to retrieve my case.

”Now, boy, you been walking a long way, I ken tell by lookin' at ya! Where ya headed?”

”Independence. Blue Springs.”

”Is that so? Haw haw haw. What's wrong with ya? Why are ya talkin' that way?”

It seemed tedious to tell, and even a bit dangerous to pursue further colloquy with this man, so I didn't answer but only adjusted my hat and coat and began down the road. After I had taken maybe five steps, he shouted, ”That an't the way, boy! You got turned around!”

I stopped.

He laughed.

I glanced toward the wagon and saw that a Negro youngster of maybe ten or twelve had sat up in the back of the wagon and thrown off its covering. The child was now staring at me. I couldn't tell from either the cropped head or the shapeless garment whether it was a boy or a girl. The master saw me looking and turned around, shouting, ”You lay down, now! You an't got to sit up and look around!” The child disappeared. Then he said to me, ”Independence is that way,” and pointed behind me. I tried to walk confidently forward, but after two steps I couldn't do it, and hesitated. The inevitable ”Haw haw” rose from the wagon. In fact, the man was so excited that he laid the whip exuberantly across the mule's shoulders a couple of times and then stood up and slapped his thigh. The mule jumped forward, knocking the man off his feet. He fell back in the wagon.

Now it was my turn to laugh. And I could have sworn I heard a giggle from under the wagon canvas. The mule, however, came immediately to a halt, rather than running off, which would have been my preference. In the meantime, I got my bearings and saw that I was headed in the right direction, after all. The undergrowth that had provided me with shelter for the night had been to my right when I sought it and was still to my right; across the road was only rail fencing and pasture. Without glancing at the man or the wagon, I marched forward. Soon enough, the mule came up beside me, and then I felt a poke in the middle of my back-the whip, no doubt. I quickened my step. The mule quickened his step, and I felt another poke. All at once, I turned around and demanded, ”Who are you?” in my most authoritative croak.

The man was grinning, showing clearly the effects of tobacco-his few teeth were brown as nuts-and behind him, a little dark head bobbed up, and a high voice said, ”He Ma.s.sa Philip!” then dropped down again. Master Philip spun around, his whip held high, but the child had disappeared. The shaft of the whip came down rather ineffectually on the canvas, then Master Philip spit into the road, raising a puff of dust. He turned around on the seat and faced me again. I had gotten a few yards off by now, maybe twenty, and I was walking fast, though every step was agony in my large, heavy boots. Over the night, my feet had swelled, and numerous tender spots from the day before now burned against the heavy leather as if I had no stockings on at all. But I hastened forward, looking for a break in the brush to slip through, out of the sight of a man who appeared to me possibly mad and certainly threatening. He whipped the mule into a trot and closed the distance between us. I stumbled and dropped my bag, which fell partly open, necessitating sufficient delay so that the mule came up beside me again. I looked at the man and began backing away. He said, ”Now, boy, I notice about you that you an't got no manners. Here I am, your elder and better, no doubt, and I asked you a question, and you an't answered it but just croaked at me like a duck. Round these parts we know a thing or two about a thing or two, and I'm guessing you to be a stranger, and an unfriendly one at that. You some G- d- abolitionist, or something?”

I didn't say anything but turned and attempted to hurry away. A curve in the road now revealed a break in the fence across the way, and I thought if I ran I could get there and off into the field. I doubted whether Master Philip had enough interest in me to pursue me off the road. Nevertheless, he did whip up the mule to a steady trot, and they came on behind me. At the break in the fence, the mule was practically on top of me, Master Philip was haw-hawing to beat the band, and I was able to duck around in front of the animal, waving my arms and brandis.h.i.+ng my bag in the mule's face, so that he threw up his head and came to a halt, toppling the man out of the wagon into the dirt. I slipped through the opening in the fence, hearing but not seeing Master Philip pick himself up with a torrent of curses. From the back of the wagon came high-pitched yelling: ”Ma.s.sa Ablis.h.i.+nist! Save me! Tak me 'long, Ma.s.sa Ablis.h.i.+nist! Don' leave me wid Ma.s.sa Philip! Tak me! Tak me!”

I ran across the field as far and as fast as I could, never looking back but hearing both the screaming and the cursing until they blended into one sound and then were lost in the other sounds of an August morning. When I stopped at last, out of breath and ready to drop, I couldn't be sure that I actually saw the wagon and the mule, nor did I care, as my pulse was pounding so hard in my ears that that itself made me afraid, and a kind of red cloud seemed to be closing over my sight from both sides. I staggered into the shade of a stand of hackberry trees and knelt down, resting the top of my head on the cool earth. I closed my eyes.

Perhaps I crouched in that position for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, not unmindful of Master Philip but too overwhelmed by my own exertions to make much of him. Then I came more to myself and peered about. He was nowhere to be seen. I spied some deeper shade and crawled to it, and only then did I recall the pleas of the child.

At first they seemed only strange, as if, somehow, they were a performance that had nothing to do with me. Of course, they had nothing to do with Lyman Arquette, who was the boy walking along the side of the road, who was from Palmyra, Missouri, and for whom the inst.i.tution of Negro servitude was a righteous and inevitable disposition of natural, and scripturally justifiable, inequality. A slave screaming to be saved was, to Lyman, a piece of disobedience that deserved punishment. If Lyman were a kindly fellow, then he would stay the master's hand from too severe a rain of blows and counsel Master Philip to attempt to win his servant's love and loyalty through gentler means. But all things considered, taking to his heels had been Lyman's wisest choice, given the unpredictable irascibility of Master Philip, who was certainly armed and might be happy to shoot a strange boy of no value to himself, while desiring only to whip his own property. It was surely not required of Lyman that he risk his life to preserve the child from but a few of the many, many blows he had received and was certain yet to receive.

And yet it was with Lydia Newton's ears that I heard the child's pleas. I knew perfectly well the difference between Lydia and Lyman, that Lyman was merely an outward appearance. Save me! There had been a fullthroated note of pure desire and pure grief, mingled, in the child's plea. Tak me! Surely Master Philip had heard the same desperation that I heard, the same hatred of himself, the same richly felt revulsion. Would he have then turned on the child and beaten it senseless, beaten it to death, beaten the hatred out of it? For I had noticed one thing in this far western territory, and it was that men, and southerners in particular, couldn't stand to be made to seem mean or dishonorable in their own eyes, that they would commit any aggression to efface that feeling. New Englanders, like Thomas, acted on what they called conscience, which made them seem self-righteous but also allowed them to turn away without a fight from those who disagreed with them. Southerners acted on what they called honor, which existed only in how they considered themselves to be regarded by others. Often, this made them friendly or sociable, but someone who thought ill of a southern man and made him see himself through disrespectful eyes had to be proven wrong, even if you had to kill him to do it.

Did I think I could have saved that child? No.

But his voice hurt me every time it came back to me, and I thought Thomas might have handled the whole incident more coolly and to better effect. Oh, Thomas! It seemed as if he pressed me hugely now, as hugely as ever he had alive.

A man and a boy who were coming out to hoe their field found me lying in the trees. When they had gotten to within a few paces, I sat up and put my hat on straight. As they were neither frowning with suspicion nor grinning with mischief, I suppressed the urge to run. The man came over to me, peered into my face, and poked me on the shoulder. He said, ”You all right, boy? You're on our land, I reckon. An't got nothing fa ye. Best be gettin' on.”

I got my feet under me and went to stand up, but I couldn't quite make it and fell back. The man pushed his hat to the rear of his head and gave himself a scratching, and the boy came over and stared down at me. He was a year or two younger than Lyman.