Sweetsmoke (36 page)

    Whitacre
said he's returning to Lee. He won't come for you, said Cassius.

    "He
said that?"

    To
his men.

    "He
caught you?"

    No. I
overheard. Said Lee's taking the fight north, an invasion.

    Logue's
expression changed and he sat forward. "That is good information. He said
those words?"

    Close
to them.

    "I
thank you for that, Cassius. That is news I can carry."

    I
heard a man speak once of the rascal's uncomplicated life.

    "I
did say that, did I not? Can't seem to help myself."

    Cassius's
gloom consumed him. His sense of hope slipped away.

    If
Whitacre's her killer, then I've lost him, said Cassius.

    "You,
Cassius? No, I think you will find a way. In time, Whitacre will return to his
wife and family. You will have your chance then."

    Not
before year's end, at Yule celebration, and he anticipates a command so
probably not even then. How would I get to him otherwise, he is an army
captain, always surrounded by his men. And what am I? Just another man's
property.

    "Maybe
someone else will carry out your revenge for you. Some Yank with a
musket."

    I
made her a promise and failed.

    "You
carried it a good long way, Cassius, longer than any reasonable man could
expect."

    Cassius
snorted at the idea that he might be perceived as a reasonable man.

    I got
to ask you a favor, said Cassius.

    "Ah,
Cassius, I'd take you along but now I got to travel in a different manner.
Under other circumstances you could be my body servant, but not this
time."

    No,
something else.

    Logue
smiled. "A favor from a smuggler? A favor from a dangerous man? A favor
from the Angel of Death?"

    Yes.

    "I
am all ears."

    Emoline's
money. Take it and buy her daughters.

    "And
I had such high hopes for you."

    Give
them their free papers. What hopes?

    "I
imagined you would keep that money, and here you prove me wrong. All along you wanted
those girls to have their manumission papers. You're not dishonest enough to be
a smuggler, Cassius. We will have to work on that."

    Will
you do it?

    "You
would be wise not to trust me."

    Will
you do it?

    Logue
was motionless as he thought. Then he nodded his head once. "I will find a
way."

    Then
I will trust you up to that moment and distrust you after.

    A
sparkle passed through Logue's eyes.

    "I
will miss you, Cassius."

    You
don't ask the amount.

    "No
need. I had a look," he said with a gleam. "There may be enough if I
do it right."

    Thank
you, said Cassius, and his sincerity was evident.

    Cassius
walked back from town, leaving the road well before Sweetsmoke so that he could
approach undetected through forest. He had not realized that he had been away
from the odor of the tobacco until he returned. It coated the back of his
tongue and brought back the hard memories, but he forced it all aside. He went
to his cabin, the quarters empty but for dogs and chickens, as the hands were
in the field and the small children were up in the big house yard with Nanny
Catherine. He ate from his rations and washed, then walked the lane to the
carpentry shed.

    With
everything he had faced on his journey, he knew that he now faced the greatest
danger. If he had not been missed, then he would go on with his daily life. If
anyone knew he had been gone, there was little he could do. He would face dire
consequences and perhaps the loss of his life. Confronting this stark
possibility, he wondered why he had not done the same as Joseph. Once at the
railroad trestle, he was well on his way out of the county. He had been
unprepared to travel farther, but others had escaped knowing less.

    He
desperately wanted freedom and yet he had come back. What happened to his
obligation to Emoline if he was unable to finish her justice? Accept defeat and
run. And yet he had come back.

    He
gathered tools and went to the yard so that he might be seen.

    The
bantam rooster saw him first and lifted up on his toes, then ran fussing in the
other direction. Cassius entered the yard and set down his tools by the wooden
fence that he had repaired weeks before. Charles came out the front door and
down the steps and he saw Cassius and stopped cold. Cassius stood tall and gave
him a full look. Charles did not react at first, but Cassius saw the telltale
surprise in his eyes, and at that moment he knew.

    Charles
ran triumphantly back into the big house, yelling that the runaway slave
Cassius had been returned.

    Cassius
did not move from the spot. After a moment Ellen emerged gripping the bullwhip,
spindle fingers white with tension. He saw the blaze of righteousness in her
eyes, and the whip slowly unfurled from the handle in her hand, stretching down
to her feet, and continuing its slow roll down the wood stairs, shaped by each
individual step, until it laid its abradant head upon the dirt to wait, a
swollen snake with a twitch. Charles leaned to see around her skirts.

    Her
voice came out strained, spit chasing the words. "Cassius, you vile, you
treacherous
fiend! You ungrateful
whelp
! Go to the post directly and
remove your shirt,
someone secure him,
two days missing,
two days
!"

    Cassius
faced her with manifest calm, but he could scarcely hear her words for the
roaring in his ears. Ellen had tied Marriah to the post and whipped her
savagely and left her bleeding in the cold. But when Cassius did not move,
Ellen hesitated, and in that moment Cassius understood that Hoke still lived.
She was a powerful adversary and she held every card but one: He was still, in
her eyes, Hoke's particular property. He had known the risks when he left the
plantation, had known that this moment might come, but now that it had, it was
worse than he'd anticipated. His life dangled by a thread. His reply needed
caution and patience, and even then he saw little hope to elude her fury.

    Quashee
came from deep within the house, framed by the front door, and he saw terror
course through her like a disease in the blood and his hope was further
undermined. Up to that moment he had thought he could take his whipping, but
right behind Quashee stood Pet with her delighted vengeful eyes. Peripherally
he saw Mam Rosie come from her kitchen, and he turned his head to see her stop
suddenly as if she had lunged against the limit of an invisible rope. He
recognized her inner struggle, stay or go, bear witness or shrink from the
abject humiliation of another human being. She stayed, as he knew she would.
Cassius also knew that from now on his audience would only grow.

    "Get
to the post and strip, or by God I will lash you where you stand!" said
Ellen.

    It's
true, Missus Ellen, I was gone, said Cassius and he was surprised to hear
strength in his voice.

    His
comparative calm fanned the flames of her outrage. "How well I know
that!
Nettle inspected your cabin and the shed, you slept in neither! We
sent a man to the clearing, you ran from Sweetsmoke, you cannot escape
this!" She came down the steps, whip throbbing, optimistic snake.
"Charles saw you creep away in the night."

    Master
Hoke didn't want you to know where, said Cassius.

    She
slapped him ferociously and the sting bit into his cheek like white-hot
needles. "With my husband upstairs, I
command
this plantation, and
I
will know
what he knows!"

    Quashee
wavered in the door. Mam Rosie covered her mouth with both hands. Nanny
Catherine arrived with Mrs. Nettle and the children, and then Genevieve and
Anne came and he was surrounded. Every one of them wore an expression of glowing
anticipation. His degradation would be a circus act performed for women and
children. He was convinced that escape was impossible; her indignation had
grown so immense that she could not back down. A massive urge welled up inside
him, to grab and choke her, to batter her physically if only for the small
dignity he would gain by giving willful cause for his humiliation. He repressed
the urge, but his temper was alive in his arms, pumping into his palms and
fingers.

    I'm
loyal to Master. And you repay me with stripes, said Cassius softly, but inside
his head, where the blood rushed hard, his voice chimed.

    "What
is
between
you?!? Some satanic connection? What is it about you that
entrances my husband? What, tell me
what!

    The exertion
of her words exhausted her. Deep bruises encircled her eyes, and he knew she
had not slept. He pictured her sitting beside her husband hour upon hour,
praying that he might emerge from his fever, and Cassius knew her fatigue fed
the blaze of her outrage.

    Master
Hoke sent me so you would face no danger, he said. The words came easily and
surprised him as he had not anticipated them.

    
"Me
face danger?"

    I
told him you're strong, that you can do what needs to be done, but he would
protect you.

    The
urge to attack her grew and he feared he could not control it. And yet words
came easily, as if from another.

    "Then
you tell me, Cassius, you tell me what needs to be done," said Ellen
fiercely, but her grip on the bullwhip eased and the snake exhaled in the dust.
"You tell me what my husband would not!"

    Pet
angled her head, her eyes losing their smile. She too felt the change, and
Cassius's overwhelming compulsion to strike out took a small step back.

    Master
Hoke sent me to see a man.

    "How
could that be? Who would meet with you?"

    The
Angel, Missus Ellen.

    "Oh
Lord," she cried out with full understanding. "Oh my dear sweet
Lord."

    For
Sweetsmoke.

    "The
smuggler, dear Lord, I thought that was ended."

    You
thought me a runaway?

    "No,
I—After Joseph I did not know—And then Charles saw you steal away in the night,
so I was certain of it, and Mam Rosie confirmed it, saying you had told her.
But here you are, so how could you be running? Everything around me is intolerable
and bewildering, everything."

    Master
Hoke can't meet with Gabriel Logue. It falls to you.

    "You
tell me it falls to me? You tell me my business? You? One of my people?"

    She
spoke as if the decision had been made without her consent and she was forced
to accept it.

    Mr.
Davis's government would trade worthless paper for your crop. Gabriel Logue
will make a fair arrangement.

    "I
cannot. No. It is impossible; I cannot speak to that odious man."

    I got
no authority and Master Hoke not able.

    "Mr.
Davis's government," she said shaking her head. "You sound exactly
like Mr. Howard."

    Ellen
Howard was disgusted that she was obligated to take action, and further
disgusted that one of her slaves compelled her to that action. She did, however,
understand that Cassius was correct. With Hoke indisposed, she needed to rise
to every call of the Master's responsibilities, including distasteful decisions
necessary to maintain Sweetsmoke's survival. She considered whipping Cassius
anyway, if not for the bold expression on his face, then for the fact that he
perpetually took liberties. He needed to be reminded that if an idea was to
enter the mind of a slave, the threat of punishment would be its eternal
partner. But while she had the strength to plan his punishment, she had not the
will to follow through. She thought to call Mr. Nettle from the fields; he
would be glad to exercise the whip. But that thought fled as a familiar twinge
grabbed her hip and she slid into the place of discomfort only laudanum could
relieve.