The Known World (28 page)

The evening of the day Fern left, Caldonia told Moses to sit down. He looked over at Loretta in her chair, and after a long minute’s hesitation, he sat down. Caldonia told Loretta that she could retire for the evening and Loretta left.

“You were here from the beginning, weren’t you?” Caldonia said.

“Ma’am?”

“You were here with Henry in the beginning, from that first day?”

“Yessum, I was.”

“What did you do?”

Moses took his eyes from his lap and began to invent some early days when they were building the house and there was not much on the land except what God had put there. Caldonia was at the edge of the settee, in her mourning dress. “Now Masta Henry always knowed what kinda house he wanted to build, Mistress. I don’t even think he even knowed about you at that particular time, but he musta had some idea that you was out there somewhere waitin in your own kinda way, cause he set about buildin a house that you would want. He built it up from nothin. I was there but I wasn’t there like he was there. He said to me that first day, he said, ‘Moses, we gon start with the kitchen. A wife needs a place to fix her meals for her family. Thas where we gon start.’ And he bent down and Masta drove in that first nail. Bam! That was a Monday, Mistress, cause Masta Henry didn’t believe in startin somethin on a Sunday, God’s day.”

Caldonia, her hands clasped in her lap, leaned back and closed her eyes. The story about the first nail came a little more than a month after Henry had been in his grave. It was gospel among slaves that one of the quickest ways to hell was to tell lies about dead people, but Moses did not think about that as he spoke of the first nail, did not think about the dead needing the truth to be told about them. He did not think about it until that day Oden Peoples, the Cherokee patroller, said to the men around him about Moses, “Heft him on up here. I’ll take him in. He ain’t gon bleed for long.”

Barnum Kinsey, the patroller and the poorest white man in Manchester County, was quite sober when he met up with Harvey Travis and Travis’s brother-in-law, Oden Peoples, one night in early September a little more than five weeks after Henry Townsend died. Barnum had been sober for three and a half weeks, and he knew from experience that if he could survive the fourth—maybe even the fifth—week without drinking, he could move through the rest of the year without the craving that had often seized him in those first weeks, the craving that was gnawing at him even as he rode to meet up with Travis and Oden under the brightest moon he had seen in some time. After that fifth week of being sober, he would be able to look the craving full in the eye and say no and tell it to get on away from him. Then, with renewed strength, he could harvest whatever his land would give him that fall and for the rest of the year he could hire himself out so he and his family could make it with a little comfort through the winter.

He was desperately afraid of being without in the winter, saw the winter ahead as God’s challenge for him to pick himself up from drink and walk on two legs without tottering. His grandfather, who had also been a drinker, had died in the winter, gone out for a drink and froze to death on the fourth-coldest night of that winter. Barnum’s father had not been a drinker, so Barnum had been thinking for a long time that the curse tended to skip generations, for not one of his sons from his first marriage showed a need for the stuff. The boys from the second marriage had yet to smell themselves so drink wasn’t yet a problem. As for the women through the generations in his family, the curse had avoided all of them, and they moved through the world unsoiled, their minds clear without a need for a challenge every winter God sent.

The three of them, Barnum, Travis and Oden, were nearing ten o’clock when Augustus Townsend came up the road on his wagon pulled by a mule who was as tired as his owner. The mule was older than the other one Augustus had and he didn’t work him as much as the younger one, but every now and then he would take him out to show the mule that he still had faith in him. The mule and his man had delivered a chest and a chair and a walking stick to a man two counties away, a white man who had recently married off the last of his three daughters and so had a little money to spend on himself. “Make me happy with somethin,” he had told Augustus, “before that next grandchild pops into my world.” Augustus, as usual, had underestimated the time for the trip there and back and so he and the mule were about a day late getting home to his wife Mildred. Augustus had been thinking of Henry all day and all day he had been trying not to.

“Just hold up there,” Travis told Augustus. “Just hold up there and show who you are.” Augustus’s wagon carried a lantern hoisted up from the seat. The mule liked having the light. It seemed to provide him some peace of mind as he went about his work. The lantern and the moon offered enough light for Travis to see Augustus was someone he had stopped so many times before.

Augustus stopped and brought out his free papers. He was too tired to talk, but he also knew words would be wasted on them, at least with the white man Travis and probably with the Cherokee Oden.

“Evenin, Augustus,” Barnum said. Augustus had not seen him at first.

“Mr. Barnum, evenin. How your family?”

“They be good, as the Lord keeps them.”

“This ain’t no damn church social,” Travis said, grabbing the free papers from Augustus. “This is the law’s business.” Travis could read and he held the papers up and borrowed light from Augustus’s lantern as he turned the papers over and over. He did not read them, because he had read them many times before. You and me, Augustus thought watching the white man, know them word by word now. Unable to read himself, Augustus, early in his freedom, had given a free colored man a walking stick just to read the papers to him five times a day for two weeks and in the course of all the listening had memorized every word.

“They be good papers,” Augustus said. “I’ve been a free man for a long time, Mr. Travis.”

“You ain’t free less me and the law say you free,” Travis said.

“Now, Harvey, we been knowin Augustus many a year,” Barnum said.

“Don’t tell me what I know and don’t know. You keep your potato trap shut. Tell what you know to the bottle if it has a mind to listen to you. Ain’t that right, Oden?”

“I’ll stand with you,” Oden said, “if thas what you sayin. Barnum, John wouldn’t want us to let just anybody pass just cause we done it many times before. That ain’t legal.”

Travis waved the papers about and said to Augustus, “I hate the way you just ride up and down these roads without a care, without a ‘Yes sir, ain’t it a good day, sir?’ Without any kinda ‘May I kiss your sweet ass today, sir.’ ”

“I’m only doin what I got a right to do,” Augustus said.

Travis began eating the papers, starting at the bottom right corners, chewed the corners up and swallowed. “Thas what I think a your right to do anything you got a right to do.”

“Now wait a minute,” Augustus said. “You stop right now.” He stood up in the wagon, the reins in his left hand. The mule had never moved since Augustus had stopped him.

Travis began to eat the rest of the papers, making a loud show of it, and when he was done eating he licked his fingers. “You sho you know where them fingers been?” Oden said. Travis laughed and belched.

“Harvey, for God sakes, them papers belong to him,” Barnum said. “What he gon do?” He looked beyond Augustus and saw something making its way toward them. He hoped it was Skiffington. “That ain’t right, Harvey. This just ain’t right.”

Travis wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Right ain’t got nothin to do with it,” he said. “Best meal I’ve had in many Sundays.” Some of the paper was stuck in his teeth and he sucked on his teeth, and the paper came easily away.

“I wouldn’t wanna be you in the mornin when you have to shit that out,” Oden said.

“I don’t know,” Travis said, “it might make for a smooth run off. Couldn’t be no worse than what collard greens do to me.”

A wagon twice as large as Augustus’s came up to the four men. Driving it was a large black man and beside him was a much smaller white man covered in beaver pelts. The heat of September didn’t seem to bother him. In the back of the wagon were four black adults and a black child. The white man in the wagon took two beaver feet and sniffed them deeply. “There ain’t nothin like the smell of Tennessee,” he said.

“Darcy, Darcy,” Travis said. “Where you goin? Off to get married again? You wear out women faster than I wear out my welcome.”

“Just passin through with me and mine before your sheriff gets sight of me and puts too much of his snout in my business. John Skiffington shoulda been named John Sniffington.” Darcy was forty-two, but with the unkempt beard that went to his knees and with much of his body covered in pelts, he could have gone for seventy-five.

Travis laughed and Oden followed. Barnum was silent. The child in the back of the wagon coughed.

“As it is, Darcy,” Travis said, “I think you come along at just the right time. I didn’t think you ever knew what time it was, but tonight, without knowin it, you look to be on time. God works in mysterious ways.”

“Praise his name. I was born with a clock in my head,” Darcy said. “Tick tock. Tick tock. Nighttime headin for more nighttime. Tick tock.”

“Well, this ain’t exactly what I had in mind when I stopped this nigger, but this here will do just the same,” Travis said.

“Whatcha got for me, Harvey?”

“A nigger who didn’t know what to do with his freedom. Thought it meant he was free.”

“That one there,” and Darcy pointed to Oden. Darcy laughed and elbowed the black man beside him. “It’s been a long time since I sold an Indian. Maybe five months. Didn’t bring me the money I was hopin. Remember that one, Stennis?” and he elbowed the black man again.

“Bought anough if I recall correctly, Masta,” Stennis said.

“Well, I’ll bow to your recall cause yours has always been better than mine. That clock in my head don’t like to share it with no memory power. Selfish somebitch. I’ll take the Indian and the nigger both.”

“Not him,” Travis said of Oden. “We’s kin. We’s family. You know Oden. I’m talkin bout the nigger in the wagon.”

Barnum said to Darcy, “Mister, that Augustus Townsend is a free man. You can’t buy him. Just leave him be.”

Travis leaned over and pushed Barnum and spat at him. “ ‘That Augustus is a free man. That Augustus is a free man.’ I liked you better when you was so likkered up you could barely stand, Barnum. You made more sense then. A nigger’s for sale if I say he’s for sale, and this one’s for sale.”

“Mister,” Augustus said to Darcy, “I am a free man and been that way for a lotta years. Freed from Mr. William Robbins.”

“Yes yes yes. Happy Christmas happy Christmas,” Darcy said. “What you askin tonight, Harvey?”

“I tell you he’s free,” Barnum said.

“Gimme two hundred and I’ll sleep good tonight,” Travis said and pointed his pistol at Barnum.

“Damnit! Thas a month of good nights, Harvey. You tryin to turn me into your damn mattress and pillow.”

“One hundred.”

“Try twenty-five dollars. You got them two sayin he free, Harvey. That could be trouble for me down the line.”

“Whoa, Darcy. This nigger makes furniture. He carves wood, and if you couldn’t find wood, I’m sure he’s got a good back for whatever else you need. Gimme that hundred.”

“Still, he say he a free man, Harvey. Thas a risk for me. Thirty dollars.”

Augustus took his reins and prepared to move away. Oden pulled out his pistol, looked a second at Travis and aimed the gun at Augustus. “You should stay. I think you should stay,” Oden said. Augustus halted.

“Yes, stay,” Travis said. “Barnum gon pull out the banjo and we’ll have a good time. Now, Darcy, I got risks too. Fifty dollars, then. I’ll settle for fifty.”

“Hmm,” Darcy said. “I must say you are a mountain of a negotiator. Stennis, could we stand to put fifty dollars in that man’s pocket?”

“Don’t ask that nigger bout white folks’ business,” Travis said.

“I live and die with Stennis,” Darcy said. “Harvey, you don’t know what all he’s done for me.”

“Marse,” Stennis said, “we could stand fifty dollars but I don’t think we could stand much more.”

Travis shouted, “Seventy-five dollars. For the sake of God in his heaven, Darcy. Don’t let your nigger cheat me. Don’t let a nigger do white folks’ business.”

“Then fifty dollars it is,” said Darcy, and he sniffed on the beaver feet again.

“Shit! Then ten dollars for the mule,” Travis said.

“What mule?” Darcy said.

“That one right there.” Someone in the back of the large wagon shifted and Augustus heard the chains move. The child coughed again.

“You can give me that for free, Harvey. I don’t think that’s much of a mule. Does he sing and dance in the moonlight?”

“Don’t pee on me that way,” Travis said. “You can say like you done in the past that I don’t know nigger flesh. I’ll leave you safe with that one, but I do know my mules and horses. I do know them, Darcy. I want ten dollars. I deserve ten dollars.”

“All right, Harvey. But that mule had better hold up. He’d better be worth every penny, cause if he ain’t I’m gonna sic the law on you.” Darcy laughed and right away he was joined in the laughter by Stennis. Then Travis laughed, followed by Oden. Stennis reached down between his knees to the floor of the wagon and brought up a strongbox. He unlocked it with a key on a string around his neck, took out some coins and put them in a tiny sack and tossed the sack to Travis.

Darcy told Augustus to get down from the wagon and Augustus said no. “I’m a free man, mister.”

“Yes yes yes. Happy Christmas happy Christmas. Now get down from there.”

Augustus said he would not.

“Stennis,” Darcy said, “why are we threatened on all sides by the incorrigible? Why do they threaten us every which way we turn? Have we displeased our God in some fashion?”

“I don’t know, Marse. I done studied it and studied it and I still don’t know.”

“But, Stennis, you would agree that we are threatened on all sides?”

“Thas a true statement of what you talkin bout,” Stennis said.