The Loom (25 page)

Hang him.”

Jackson bit down and yanked the skin from the flesh of the chicken, dangling the bone between his fingers over a cylindrical ivory candle beside his plate. He flicked the meat, swung his head to its sway, and roared at the shadows dancing on the maroon walls. Henry and Mae stared in silence. Pompous dolts!

“Jackson,” Caroline whispered. “Annie, dessert, please.” She lifted her fingers at the girl at the back of the dining room, then slyly tugged on his sleeve.

Jackson pulled away, annoyed. He had every right to jest, to say what he wanted, to give his friend some advice without interruption from anyone. This was his house. She wasn’t even his wife yet. He shoved breast meat into his mouth, winced, and grabbed his jaw. His tongue slid over the mount burning in his gums and locked down angry words that verged on erupting.

Numbing potion. It kept him smiling, laughing more and more, but its power to soothe had worn off in a wild way. He needed a stronger concoction. And for this dinner to be over.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m telling you what to do, Henry. You’ve got to get him before he gets you. It was people like you who that wild Nat—what was his name?”

“Nat Turner.”

“Yeah, it was people like you he slaughtered.”

“I don’t even remember that, Jack. We were kids.”

“We were kids, but we weren’t fools. You remember the fear folk had. I remember my pa getting ready. Loading up all his guns, getting all his boys together in case that coon showed up here.” The panic he had seen in his father’s face angered him still.

“I’m telling you, Henry, if you don’t get your slaves under control, they’ll turn on you. Slaughter him before he slaughters you. If your boy is sniffing around, congregating with those other Coloreds, you best believe he’s trying to run away. You know that. Take care of it. Unless you’re thinking about becoming some kind of Quaker or something.”

“Me? A Quaker?” Henry laughed loudly. “You know I could blow one away as quick as I could a possum. Only thing is, his mama treated me like her own until her death. She was a good woman.”

“So that gives her son the right to sneak behind your back and plan his escape? She did for you what she was supposed to do and now she’s gone.” He shrugged. “If you don’t show him who’s in charge, you’re not going to be able to control any of them.

Watch and see. You’ve got to put the fear of God in them.” Jackson leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll help you. I’d love to help you get your place in order. I could be there Saturday.” He glanced at Mae, then back at Henry.

The two had been together so long, looking at one was looking at the other. “If that works.”

Mae leaned over, her red curls springing over her heavily painted eyes, and peeked at Caroline. “Is that all right, dear? A wife’s not apt to give up her husband so soon.”

Caroline’s eyes widened before her cheeks pinked.

“It’ll be fine, won’t it, dear?” Jackson placed his hand over hers and patted. “I won’t be gone more than a couple of days. Back by Monday night.”

He hadn’t told her the lie. When he invited them to dinner, Henry made it clear that Mae would not break bread with sinners.

Jackson had sneered. She was doing more than breaking bread with one every night. Fine. Fine. Tell her they were married. They would be soon enough.

“I don’t know,” Henry said. “I just think there’s a better way.”

A better way. He’d sure like to see this better way.

“I’ll be over Saturday.” He was alone in a world of weak men.

Both of the women were quiet, knew well enough not to speak, but he could see Caroline out of the corner of his eye, looking at him, judging him. He turned to her and bore into the icy green daggers of her eyes. “Didn’t you call that girl? Annie? Annie, get over here.”

Jackson tugged at the neck of his collar. It was so hot. Is it hot in here? He glimpsed the open windows, the people from across him and the one at his side. None of them were perspiring, dripping, melting like he was. He was burning up. Never comfortable lately. Under his own roof.

Annie rushed to his side with a golden brown lace pie. The smell of warm cinnamon rose and floated over him, lured him in, distracting him from all discomfort. Enticing him.

“Dessert, sir?”

“No.” Blasted tooth. “I’ll pass.”

He watched Caroline crumble the flaky crust and spoon creamy slices of apple into her mouth. She licked her lips. Her eyes closed a moment too long.

It wasn’t right. How could something so sweet cause so much pain?

Caroline was still seated at the table, in the same chair she had sat in during dinner, afraid to move.

“Caroline.”

She watched Jackson approach, screeching the leg of a chair back behind him. Her heart pounded at the stranger falling into the seat across from her.

“You did well tonight,” he said.

“Thank you.” She bowed her head, afraid he would see in her eyes what she had witnessed in the last hour. A beast of a man.

His beautiful appearance marred by his rage for her people.

If he knew them, Cora and Lou, John… If he knew them… If he knew Lydia…

Annie entered the room from the kitchen. Jackson nodded at the girl.

“Get me a drink.”

Caroline sighed. She hated to smell the liquor, the rum, the whiskey on his breath, in his pores. He was not the man she had sat across the table from the first time with Lizzy. Mean and cold when he drank. Not himself at all. She glanced up at him. Or perhaps he was more himself. His eyes met hers. She hadn’t a clue what was true.

“Must you?”

“Must I what?” His tone was calm, but the question was a threat. Without doubt, she knew, could hear it in the simmer of the words. He was changing, turning from the inside out. She pressed her back against the chair until her spine was flush against the wood. Careful, Caroline, careful.

“Drink. Must you drink, Jackson? I was thinking maybe you’ve had enough for tonight.”

He paused, then laughed bitterly. “You amuse me, Caroline.” He stared at her until she looked away. Annie returned with a glass that he lifted in Caroline’s honor. “This is to my beautiful wife-to-be.” He tipped his head back and gulped the drink in one swallow, flinched, and handed the glass back to Annie.

“I was wondering about something.” Caroline waited until the woman cutting her eyes at her left the room. She needed to be wise, lay her words softly at his feet.

“What is that?”

“I was listening to you at dinner.”

“All right.” He frowned.

“You seem to have a real dislike for Coloreds, I noticed.”

“All right.”

“And I was wondering…why?”

“You want to know why?”

“Well, yes.”

“Am I wrong in my dislike? Let me ask you a question.” He leaned forward on his elbows and clasped his hands together under his chin. “Do you like all animals? Do you? Probably not. If I’m not particularly fond of one type, does that make me a bad person?”

Caroline clenched her hands, hidden in her lap. The pulse in her temple throbbed.

“Listen, Caroline. It’s my last night here for a few days. Let’s just make the best of it.”

But there was something more. There was always something more behind such harshness. “I was just wondering if something happened. Did something happen, with a Colored, I mean?”

He shook his head.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes!”

Fear clamored in Caroline’s throat.

“Don’t say anything else about it.” He grabbed his jaw and cursed under his breath. “Forget about it.” He stood from the table.

“Go. Go, Caroline. Get some rest.” He swayed into a chair, steadied himself with a firm grip against the headrest, and left the room.

For the third time, Jackson rolled over on his left side. He stuffed the thin pillow into a ball that he pounded, squeezed, flattened under his neck, squirming until it sealed the curve between his head and shoulder perfectly. The discomfort was more than a sleep position. With every pound, every squeeze, he tried to flatten the feeling, squash away the thoughts that plagued him.

And now he couldn’t get rid of them. Images ran through his head, as dark and wild as the people he despised.

When intoxication and torment ran their course, sleep came and the memory of his brother filled his dreams.

They were just kids.

“Hey, wanna see something?”

Jack grabbed Tim’s arm and pulled him down the dirt road near the blueberry patch. Pebbles and debris bit into the flesh of their bare feet as they ran in the sweltering heat of summer.

“Look there, ’cross the river.”

Tim brushed aside the tall blades of grass.

“See her?”

A slave girl knelt bathing in the water. Her plaits, erect as soldiers, saluted the sun as its rays beamed a shower of gold against sable skin.

Jack giggled at the sight, but Tim gawked in silence. “Funny, ain’t it? We better get back before Mama comes looking for us.”

Tim didn’t move. “You hear me?”

Jackson woke up in a sweat, his hands shaking, his mouth throbbing. He closed his eyes and tried to stop the story in his mind.

Every chance he got, Timothy returned to the same spot and watched the girls, the women with black skin, even when Jack wanted to chase squirrels or trap fireflies. Nothing compelled him more.

The moment whiskers sprouted on his chin and his laughter deepened, he took them, mothers and daughters alike, one after the other. He forced himself on them until one of their men sliced his throat a red river in the middle of the night.

Those dirty women had lured his brother to an early grave. Their darkness brought death. He was grateful his father lynched the slave who killed him. His only regret was he hadn’t done it, hadn’t strung up the coon himself. It was his only regret. And showing Timothy that wench in the water in the first place.

As soon as the early-morning rays of Saturday spilled into the corners of her room and she heard the pull of gravel under carriage wheels, Caroline stretched across the white lace of her bed and sought rest, but as it had done for days, sleep teased and weariness taunted.