Yonder, page 4
“Run,” he said. “Run.”
I had seconds to obey him before flames devoured the entire conveyance.
I returned with haste to the Stolen settlement and came to maturity there under the kind tutelage of men and women who had known the whip and were dedicated to its defeat. They taught me valuable survival skills, talents I couldn’t disclose to anyone beyond their borders, and made me aware of hidden allies to our cause. I emerged with a new identity, Truman Ransom, and the free papers of a dead Stolen in my pocket. In the interim, I had found my calling: to share news of the Promised Land with those prepared to hear it. To my immeasurable dissatisfaction, nearly two decades on the road had uncovered fewer of them than I had hoped.
Cato
The last time I saw Iris she was bound to the back of a cart, her wrists tied in front of her. Another rope was wrapped around her neck. Her new Thief had shucked her carelessly. One breast out in the light, the other covered. Her lips were bruised, cracked, and dry. At first it seemed as if she didn’t see me. Then she licked her lips.
“Cato,” she said. She didn’t sound like herself. Her voice was hollow and far away, as if she were trapped in the bottom of a deep well.
“Best forget about Iris,” Cannonball Greene had told me. “It can’t be helped. My visitor has become attached to her.”
Attached. That’s why I had not seen her for several long days.
“He told me he has to have her. I told him it would require more than he was prepared to pay. I quoted him a high figure, and still he would not relent. Don’t go feeling sorry for yourself, Cato. That would just slow you down, and I need you to work. I will not have you slacking in your duties.”
I ran to Two Forks. I knew there would be consequences, but I didn’t care. Swearing on my seven words that I could endure any punishment, I ran until I found her tied to that cart. I moved to touch her, but a Thief, Greene’s visitor, appeared beside her, raising a firearm. He pointed it at me while stroking her hair with his other hand. She flinched, and he yanked her closer.
“Take another step, nigga, and I will shoot you where you stand.”
“Cato,” she said. “Don’t.”
“But you’re mine,” I reminded her.
“Hardly,” the Thief said. “I got a paper here that says she’s bought and paid for.”
“I have to touch you, Iris. Please, suh, I have to touch her. Just this once.”
“Do so and die.”
I stood in place while he aimed his gun at me. Finally, satisfied that I would obey, he loaded Iris into the bed of his cart and drove away. Even as they faded from my view, I convinced myself that this great injustice would be noticed, that fate would not let it stand. Somehow, some way, my Iris would be returned to my embrace.
A few miles down the road, the cart threw an axle. Iris was flung to the ground, never to rise again. Greene declined to compensate his visitor for his loss.
“My condolences,” he told him, “but a deal is a deal.”
I avoided my reflection afterward. I learned to wash myself in the stream while staring up at the sky. I could carry a pail without looking on the surface of the water it contained. I couldn’t stand seeing myself without Iris beside me.
I resolved to die. When that proved futile, I joined the ranks of the sullen. My condition was not uncommon among men and women in our predicament. We moved as if lost in dreams; we ate without tasting, slept without resting, listened without hearing. Others avoided us for fear of catching our ailment because they knew that not caring meant not living, and they had chosen to live. I would have remained among that disconsolate company if not for Cupid.
During a rare respite on a late Saturday, he taunted me in the quarters. I had learned to pay little heed to his teasing, but on that day, he managed to catch my attention by exposing the memory of Iris to his ridicule. He boasted of his familiarity with her, an intimacy that until that moment had been unknown to me.
“That’s right, I had her,” he said. “The night I whipped that nigga Big Ned and won Cannonball a heap of money. Know what he gave me? A taste of his good scotch. I’m the only nigga you know who’s had scotch. And he gave me my choice. ‘Winner’s choice,’ he said. I said I’d take Iris. She didn’t want to, but I didn’t care. It was fair to middling. The meat was a little tough, but I made it do.”
“What did you say?” I advanced on him, nearly delirious. He seemed delighted.
“I said I had your wench.”
I swung at him, missing by a great deal and nearly hurling myself to the ground. I bellowed, and he bellowed back, mocking me. We circled each other. He chuckled and connected solidly with my nose, my eye. Everywhere I turned, his fist was waiting. It landed against my jaw, filling my mouth with blood. I tottered, then fell to the earth on my hands and knees. I pressed against the ground and tried to rise. Through my one good eye I saw Milton gesturing with his hands, urging me to stay down. I took his advice and rolled over onto my back. I had hardly stopped moving when I looked up and saw Cupid’s boot hovering above my throat. I blinked and it was still there. Then it came down.
Everything was white. Whiteness covering my eyes and nose like a caul, sealing my lips. I struggled against it, fighting for breath, then I woke to the sound of Screech Owl shrieking somewhere in the main house. Above me, the fading sun streamed through the clouds and birds sang sweetly, unaware of my suffering. I struggled to my feet and stumbled to my cabin, where I fell into a long, dreamless slumber. When I woke and tried to speak, my voice had been trampled to a husky croak.
The beating I received at Cupid’s hands was nothing compared to the hole left in me by Iris’s absence. Her tender affection had led me to take leave of my senses, to believe myself an exception to the belief that all Thieves seemed to share, that people like me could know nothing of love.
I knew that I was not the first Stolen to have his heart broken. I had seen it firsthand while still at Mulberry Grove. I tended crops as a young boy, rising with the other field hands at the sound of the driver man’s horn. We stumbled from our cabins, yawning in the dark until a pine knot was set ablaze.
One couple, Isaac and Oney, were always last to wake. After several long minutes the two of them would emerge stretching and grinning, their faces aglow in the orange light. One of the old hands would look at the pair and cluck his tongue.
“It’s a wonder that shack is still standing,” he’d say. “Likely them two have worn a rut in the ground.”
Isaac and Oney used to love so loud that everybody grumbled. Folks were amazed that they could get up and toil after all that tussling and giggling. Seemed like they didn’t sleep at all, and yet they rose up smiling.
All through the day, Isaac kept his eyes on Oney. Whether he was tending tobacco or mending a fence. Whether Oney was right in front of him or far afield. The other men once bet him he couldn’t go more than a dozen words without mentioning her name. He lost, laughing.
The Thief of Mulberry Grove suddenly sold Oney to a farm ten miles away. Ten miles between Isaac and his beloved was no distance at all to him. He’d sneak out of our quarters after dark and return before the horn sounded, until he was caught. Our Thief thought Isaac had been plotting with others to steal away to freedom. When he learned that Isaac was stealing away to Oney, he had him pickled and threatened him with death.
“You dumb wretch,” our Thief said. “All these wenches round here and you want to die for the one I say you can’t have?”
“If it takes dyin’,” Isaac told him.
I knew how he felt. I wanted to belong to Iris when I didn’t even belong to myself. In the eyes of the world I was not a self but a thing. My story was not my own. Like the rules I had stashed away as a youth, my existence was confined to a few pages torn from someone else’s book.
Just when I thought I’d become accustomed to the loneliness of a life without Iris, I found Pandora. Working in the main house, she had somehow vexed Screech Owl and got sent to sweat in the kitchen with Silent Mary. She looked at everything and everyone as a surprise. She was always slow to answer, as if struggling with a dream she couldn’t shake loose. Pandora, pretty with thick braids and golden skin, was nearly as tall as my Iris. I tried not to look at her. I had sworn on my seven words that my body was done with women, and she was much too young besides. Still, I couldn’t help being aware of her presence when she appeared at the pit, bearing a light repast for Cannonball Greene on a silver tray.
I looked up and saw her standing so still, the silver tray steady in her hands. Her face betrayed no expression, and she seemed as solid and heavy as the stones surrounding us. I could not help but wonder at her thoughts.
Pandora
Before my friendship with Margaret, I’d seen women like her mostly from a distance. Barely clad in rags and castoffs, they were often confined to the quarters and the fields where they hacked and pulled and planted. Although I seldom interacted with them, I knew they went to their night’s rest with bruised backs and woke up with knotted muscles and jaws aching from clenching their teeth through the night. I knew all this without laboring beside them because I had been forced to perform burdensome obligations of my own and I often arose in the morning suffering the same afflictions. My brief conversations with them made clear that they often regarded me and other house Stolen as creatures of strange privilege, with simple tasks that caused us little heartache or agony. For my part, I often thought they were the ones who had it easy, that no part of life in the quarters could equal the punishments I endured. I was wrong, of course, and so were they. All our tasks were onerous.
Among my duties at Placid Hall, standing above the pit beside Cannonball Greene was a far better plight than being left alone with Screech Owl.
She used to wait until her slop jar was full before making me carry it outside and stand in the yard. Watching from the open upstairs window, she ordered me to hold the vessel above my head until my arms bent under the strain. Finally, when my limbs began to shake violently, she made me tip the contents upon myself. I sometimes had to stand there for hours as the day grew hotter, baking in Screech Owl’s waste. She thought that the spectacle of me soiled and stinking would discourage her husband’s appetites, but, if anything, it only made him crave me more. He knew his wife’s perversities would regularly send me dashing to the stream for urgent cleansing. Finding some business nearby, he’d fasten his eyes on me while I scrubbed and rinsed. We all—men and women both—had been naked before him countless times, forced to disrobe on the flimsiest of pretenses. The women in his fields, for example, had to strip and hand over their ragged dresses at the end of the harvest, when Greene presented them with the dress they’d wear during the following year. He made a great show of having them try on their new outfits, though they had no other options and the dresses—little more than burlap sacks with holes for sleeves—hardly varied in size or quality. Thus accustomed, bathing brought me so much pleasure that not even his lustful staring could diminish my delight. I always lingered in the stream as long as I dared, away from the main house and away from Screech Owl, who placed her faith in powders and behaved as if soap and water were devils’ instruments. After I dried and returned to the house, Greene seldom dared to do more than squeeze and caress, so fearful was he of Screech Owl’s wrath, and yet I felt that in his heart he nurtured more intimate designs. I convinced myself that I could survive his advances if I regarded him as a household pest, like the flies and mosquitoes that never left us alone.
I had few friends. Many of the other Stolen women held me in contempt, thinking that my mixed blood meant divided loyalties. The men, misunderstanding my relations with Greene, were inclined to look upon me as damaged goods. I found some comfort in the company of Silent Mary, whose melancholy nature suited me. Though Mary did not speak, she had learned to endow her gestures with great meaning. Every raised eyebrow and curled lip conveyed precise instructions, from Take care with the salt to Add more wood to the fire. Planters from farms throughout the county sent their Stolen cooks to study and practice under her knowing gaze. Watching her preside over her smoky cookhouse was akin to watching an elaborate dance. The Thieves, with their reels and waltzes, couldn’t begin to match the majestic grace of Silent Mary and her helpers as they moved about her tiny space, conjuring tasty confections from the smoke and flames.
I came to know Mary a good deal more when Screech Owl banished me from her chambers. Thereafter I divided my time between standing above the pit; laboring in the cookhouse, where I assisted Silent Mary; and toiling at the laundry station, where Nila and I washed the family’s linens. Didn’t that pitiful woman know that those places belonged to Cannonball Greene as much as the main house did, that there was no place she could hide me?
During the many afternoons I stared down into the pit while Greene gave orders and took notes, all but one of the men grinding stone avoided looking at me. In addition to the danger and sheer misery of their labors, each, I could see, had particular habits and concerns. Cupid’s violent temper was obvious to all, for example, and Milton nearly trembled with excitement, his mind filled with thoughts of his newborn child. Double Sam, whose prowess with horses was known beyond the estate, kept his head cocked to the side, talking ceaselessly to his invisible companion. William was stolid and determined when not distracted by thoughts of Margaret, and Little Zander regarded the strange operation as a process designed to help him become strong enough to take flight. Of all the men, Cato intrigued me most. Unlike the others, he managed to sneak a glance in my direction with each rotation. He was older than I, that much was easy to tell. He had a full head of hair and an even more abundant beard, both of them streaked with gray. His skin was a lovely shade of dark brown, but it, too, showed signs of wear. Still, I liked the look of him as he lifted rocks, inspected them, and fed them again into the great wheel. I sensed that anything—anyone—that landed in his hands would be gently cradled and treated with care.
Cato
Because the crescent moon refused to linger for long behind the black and gray clouds that ambled past it, we stuck mostly to the woods. Here and there, enough shadows obscured the roads to enable us to briefly leave the canopied white oaks, hickories, sweet gums, yellow poplars, and loblollies for the path worn smooth by horsemen and wagon wheels. In this manner, Milton and I made our way from Placid Hall to Two Forks, leaping from the road just before the approach of two paddy rollers, whom we knew as Tanner and Kirk. They rode right by us, dragging a Stolen man behind their mounts. He was naked to the waist. The moon’s light revealed fresh, red streaks glistening along the length of his back. He moved at a forced trot despite his weariness, lest his slackening pace draw him into the horses’ hooves. His captors appeared to ignore his struggles.
I asked Milton if he knew him.
“I might,” Milton said, “but I can’t tell with his face so swollen.”
“May the Ancestors help him,” I said.
* * *
We met in the largest cabin, made ready for our arrival. There we found Margaret; Milton’s woman, Sarah, holding their infant; and a pair of Two Forks women whom I did not know. Ransom, as was expected, had arrived earlier. He greeted us while Milton went straight to his family and hugged them fiercely. They remained thus embraced until Ransom cleared his throat. Even then they could not part easily.
After a moment I asked Ransom how he missed Tanner and Kirk along the way. “They were out for blood tonight,” I said.
“Same as any night,” Margaret said.
“The question, friend,” Ransom said, “is how did they miss me? I credit my good fortune to the Ancestors. I’m grateful for their timely intervention.”
“Nice words,” I croaked. “But, respectfully, they do not answer the question. Is there a hiding place along this way that you have not disclosed? Knowing of its existence would surely help us all. How did you manage to elude them?”
“It wasn’t easy” was all he said.
I knew few of the requirements of whispering beyond my part in the ritual, from which I had been absent since my ordeal under Cupid’s boot. During his Sunday visits to Greene’s three farms, Preacher Ransom made sure that certain members of his flock learned every gesture and incantation of the ceremony. “We must not allow the old ways to die when I do,” he often said. In contrast to those sunlit days when Ransom preached, his presence at whisperings was pursued without the approval of Thieves and therefore conducted under cover of darkness.
Beneath the light of a few flickering pine knots, Sarah dipped the baby into a pan of water. Even in the dimness I could detect signs of only one parent in the girl’s countenance. The twinkle in her eyes came from Sarah, as did her mouth, framed by dimples. Knowing little of Sarah’s tendencies, I couldn’t speculate regarding the affect they would have on the infant. But I knew enough of Milton’s to wonder which of his qualities the baby would inherit. He was trained as a bricklayer, but his real talent was making pictures. Those of us who’d seen his creations could proclaim with confidence that the Ancestors guided his right hand.
