Kindred

by Butler, Octavia

  “I never thought you’d be fool enough to let a man beat you,” she said as she left. She was disappointed in me, I think.

  “I never thought I would either,” I whispered when she was gone.

  I waited inside the house with my denim bag always nearby. The days passed slowly, and sometimes I thought I was waiting for something that just wasn’t going to happen. But I went on waiting.

  I read books about slavery, fiction and nonfiction. I read everything I had in the house that was even distantly related to the subject—even Gone With the Wind, or part of it. But its version of happy darkies in ten- der loving bondage was more than I could stand.

  Then, somehow, I got caught up in one of Kevin’s World War II books—a book of excerpts from the recollections of concentration camp survivors. Stories of beatings, starvation, filth, disease, torture, every possible degradation. As though the Germans had been trying to do in

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  only a few years what the Americans had worked at for nearly two hundred.

  The books depressed me, scared me, made me stuff Kevin’s sleeping pills into my bag. Like the Nazis, ante bellum whites had known quite a bit about torture—quite a bit more than I ever wanted to learn.

  3

  I had been at home for eight days when the dizziness finally came again. I didn’t know whether to curse it for my own sake or welcome it for Kevin’s—not that it mattered what I did.

  I went to Rufus’s time fully clothed, carrying my denim bag, wearing my knife. I arrived on my knees because of the dizziness, but I was immediately alert and wary.

  I was in the woods either late in the day or early in the morning. The sun was low in the sky and surrounded as I was by trees, I had no refer- ence point to tell me whether it was rising or setting. I could see a stream not far from me, running between tall trees. Off to my opposite side was a woman, black, young—just a girl, really—with her dress torn down the front. She was holding it together as she watched a black man and a white man fighting.

  The white man’s red hair told me who he must be. His face was already too much of a mess to tell me. He was losing his fight—had already lost it. The man he was fighting was his size with the same slen- der build, but in spite of the black man’s slenderness, he looked wiry and strong. He had probably been conditioned by years of hard work. He didn’t seem much affected when Rufus hit him, but he was killing Rufus.

  Then it occurred to me that he might really be doing just that—killing the only person who might be able to help me find Kevin. Killing my ancestor. What had happened here seemed obvious. The girl, her torn dress. If everything was as it seemed, Rufus had earned his beating and more. Maybe he had grown up to be even worse than I had feared. But no matter what he was, I needed him alive—for Kevin’s sake and for my own.

  I saw him fall, get up, and be knocked down again. This time, he got

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  up more slowly, but he got up. I had a feeling he’d done a lot of getting up. He wouldn’t be doing much more.

  I went closer, and the woman saw me. She called out something I didn’t quite understand, and the man turned his head to look at her. Then he followed her gaze to me. Just then, Rufus hit him on the jaw.

  Surprisingly, the black man stumbled backward, almost fell. But Rufus was too tired and hurt to follow up his advantage. The black man hit him one more solid blow, and Rufus collapsed. There was no question of his getting up this time. He was out cold.

  As I approached, the black man reached down and caught Rufus by the hair as though to hit him again. I stepped up to the man quickly. “What will they do to you if you kill him?” I said.

  The man twisted around to glare at me.

  “What will they do to the woman if you kill him?” I asked.

  That seemed to reach him. He released Rufus and stood straight to face me. “Who’s going to say I did anything to him?” His voice was low and threatening, and I began to wonder whether I might wind up joining Rufus unconscious on the ground.

  I made myself shrug. “You’ll say yourself what you did if they ask you right. So will the woman.”

  “What are you going to say?”

  “Not a word if I can help it. But … I’m asking you not to kill him.” “You belong to him?”

  “No. It’s just that he might know where my husband is. And I might be able to get him to tell me.”

  “Your husband …?” He looked me over from head to foot. “Why you go ’round dressed like a man?”

  I said nothing. I was so tired of answering that question that I wished I had risked going out to buy a long dress. I looked down at Rufus’s bloody face and said, “If you leave him here now, it will be a long while before he can send anyone after you. You’ll have time to get away.”

  “You think you’d want him alive if you was her?” He gestured toward the woman.

  “Is she your wife?” “Yeah.”

  He was like Sarah, holding himself back, not killing in spite of anger I could only imagine. A lifetime of conditioning could be overcome, but not easily. I looked at the woman. “Do you want your husband to kill this

  man?”

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  She shook her head and I saw that her face was swollen on one side. “’While ago, I could have killed him myself,” she said. “Now … Isaac, let’s just get away!”

  “Get away and leave her here?” He stared at me, suspicious and hos- tile. “She sure don’t talk like no nigger I ever heard. Talks like she been mighty close with the white folks—for a long time.”

  “She talks like that ’cause she comes from a long way off,” said the girl.

  I looked at her in surprise. Tall and slender and dark, she was. A little like me. Maybe a lot like me.

  “You’re Dana, aren’t you?” she asked. “Yes … how did you know?”

  “He told me about you.” She nudged Rufus with her foot. “He used to talk about you all the time. And I saw you once, when I was little.”

  I nodded. “You’re Alice, then. I thought so.”

  She nodded and rubbed her swollen face. “I’m Alice.” And she looked at the black man with pride. “Alice Jackson now.”

  I tried to see her again as the thin, frightened child I remembered—the child I had seen only two months before. It was impossible. But I should have been used to the impossible by now—just as I should have been used to white men preying on black women. I had Weylin as my exam- ple, after all. But somehow, I had hoped for better from Rufus. I won- dered whether the girl was pregnant with Hagar already.

  “My name was Greenwood when you saw me last,” Alice continued. “I married Isaac last year … just before Mama died.”

  “She died then?” I caught myself visualizing a woman my age dying, even though I knew that was wrong. But still, the woman must have died fairly young. “I’m sorry,” I said. “She tried to help me.”

  “She helped lot of folks,” said Isaac. “She used to treat this little no- good bastard better than his own people treated him.” He kicked Rufus hard in the side.

  I winced and wished I could move Rufus out of his reach. “Alice,” I said, “wasn’t Rufus a friend of yours? I mean … did he just grow out of the friendship or what?”

  “Got to where he wanted to be more friendly than I did,” she said. “He tried to get Judge Holman to sell Isaac South to keep me from marrying him.”

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  “You’re a slave?” I said to Isaac, surprised. “My God, you’d better get out of here.”

  Isaac gave Alice a look that said very clearly, You talk too much. Alice answered the look.

  “Isaac, she’s all right. She got a whipping once for teaching a slave how to read. Tom Weylin was the one whipped her.”

  “I want to know what she’s going to do when we leave,” said Isaac. “I’m going to stay with Rufus,” I told him. “When he comes to, I’m

  going to help him home—as slowly as possi
ble. I’m not going to tell him where you went because I won’t know.”

  Isaac looked at Alice, and she tugged at his arm. “Let’s go!” she urged. “But …”

  “You can’t whip everybody! Let’s go!”

  He seemed on the verge of going when I said, “Isaac, if you want me to, I can write you a pass. It doesn’t have to be to where you’re really going, but it might help you if you’re stopped.”

  He looked at me with no trust at all, then turned and walked away without answering.

  Alice hesitated, spoke softly to me. “Your man went away,” she said. “He waited a long time for you, then he left.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Somewhere North. I don’t know. Mister Rufe knows. You got to be careful, though. Mister Rufe gets mighty crazy sometimes.”

  “Thank you.”

  She turned and followed Isaac, leaving me alone with the unconscious Rufus—alone to wonder where she and Isaac would go. North to Penn- sylvania? I hoped so. And where had Kevin gone? Why had he gone any- where? What if Rufus wouldn’t help me find him? Or what if I didn’t stay in this time long enough to find him? Why couldn’t he have waited …?

  4

  I knelt down beside Rufus and rolled him over onto his back. His nose was bleeding. His split lip was bleeding. I thought he had probably lost a few teeth, but I didn’t look closely enough to be sure. His face was a

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  lumpy mess, and he would be looking out of a couple of black eyes for a while. All in all, though, he probably looked worse off than he was. No doubt he had some bruises that I couldn’t see without undressing him, but I didn’t think he was badly hurt. He would be in some pain when he came to, but he had earned that.

  I sat on my knees, watching him, first wishing he would hurry and regain consciousness, then wanting him to stay unconscious so that Alice and her husband could get a good start. I looked at the stream, thinking that a little cold water might bring him around faster. But I stayed where I was. Isaac’s life was at stake. If Rufus was vindictive enough, he could surely have the man killed. A slave had no rights, and certainly no excuse for striking a white man.

  If it was possible, if Rufus was in any way still the boy I had known, I would try to keep him from going after Isaac at all. He looked about eighteen or nineteen now. I would be able to bluff and bully him a little. It shouldn’t take him long to realize that he and I needed each other. We would be taking turns helping each other now. Neither of us would want the other to hesitate. We would have to learn to co-operate with each other—to make compromises.

  “Who’s there?” said Rufus suddenly. His voice was weak, barely audible.

  “It’s Dana, Rufe.”

  “Dana?” He opened his swollen eyes a little wider. “You came back!” “You keep trying to get yourself killed. I keep coming back.” “Where’s Alice?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know where we are. I’ll help you get home, though, if you’ll point the way.”

  “Where did she go?” “I don’t know, Rufe.”

  He tried to sit up, managed to raise himself about six inches before he fell back, groaning. “Where’s Isaac?” he muttered. “That’s the son-of-a- bitch I want to catch up with.”

  “Rest awhile,” I said. “Get your strength back. You couldn’t catch him now if he was standing next to you.”

  He moaned and felt his side gingerly. “He’s going to pay!” I got up and walked toward the stream.

  “Where are you going?” he called. I didn’t answer.

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  “Dana? Come back here! Dana!”

  I could hear his increasing desperation. He was hurt and alone except for me. He couldn’t even get up, and I seemed to be abandoning him. I wanted him to experience a little of that fear.

  “Dana!”

  I dug the washcloth out of my denim bag, wet it, and took it back to him. Kneeling beside him, I began wiping blood from his face.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that’s where you were going?” he said petu- lantly. He was panting and holding his side.

  I watched him, wondering how much he had really grown up. “Dana, say something!”

  “I want you to say something.”

  He squinted at me. “What?” I was leaning close to him, and I caught a whiff of his breath when he spoke. He had been drinking. He didn’t seem drunk, but he had definitely been drinking. That worried me, but there was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t dare wait until he was com- pletely sober.

  “I want you to tell me about the men who attacked you,” I said. “What men? Isaac …”

  “The men you were drinking with,” I improvised. “They were strangers—white men. They got you drinking, then tried to rob you.” Kevin’s old story was coming in handy.

  “What in hell are you talking about? You know Isaac Jackson did this to me!” The words came out in a harsh whisper.

  “All right, Isaac beat you up,” I agreed. “Why?” He glared at me without answering.

  “You raped a woman—or tried to—and her husband beat you up,” I said. “You’re lucky he didn’t kill you. He would have if Alice and I hadn’t talked him out of it. Now what are you going to do to repay us for saving your life?”

  The bewilderment and anger left his face, and he stared at me blankly. After a while, he closed his eyes and I went over to rinse my washcloth. When I got back to him, he was trying—and failing—to stand up. Finally, he collapsed back panting and holding his side. I wondered whether he was hurt more than he appeared to be—hurt inside. His ribs, perhaps.

  I knelt beside him again and wiped the rest of the blood and dirt from his face. “Rufe, did you manage to rape that girl?”

  He looked away guiltily.

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  “Why would you do such a thing? She used to be your friend.” “When we were little, we were friends,” he said softly. “We grew up.

  She got so she’d rather have a buck nigger than me!”

  “Do you mean her husband?” I asked. I managed to keep my voice even.

  “Who in hell else would I mean!”

  “Yes.” I gazed down at him bitterly. Kevin had been right. I’d been foolish to hope to influence him. “Yes,” I repeated. “How dare she choose her own husband. She must have thought she was a free woman or something.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?” he demanded. Then his voice dropped to almost a whisper. “I would have taken better care of her than any field hand could. I wouldn’t have hurt her if she hadn’t just kept saying no.”

  “She had the right to say no.” “We’ll see about her rights!”

  “Oh? Are you planning to hurt her more? She just helped me save your life, remember?”

  “She’ll get what’s coming to her. She’ll get it whether I give it to her or not.” He smiled. “If she ran off with Isaac, she’ll get plenty.”

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  “She did run off with Isaac, then?”

  “I don’t know. Isaac figured I was on your side so he didn’t trust me enough to tell me what they were going to do.”

  “He didn’t have to. Isaac just attacked a white man. He’s not going back to Judge Holman after doing that. Some other nigger might, but not Isaac. He’s run away, and Alice is with him, helping him to escape. Or at least, that’s the way the Judge will see it.”

  “What will happen to her?”

  “Jail. A good whipping. Then they’ll sell her.” “She’ll be a slave?”

  “Her own fault.”

  I stared at him. Heaven help Alice and Isaac. Heaven help me. If Rufus could turn so quickly on a life-long friend, how long would it take him to turn on me?

  “I don’t want her being sold South, though,” he whispered. “Her fault or not, I don’t want her dying in some rice swamp.”

  “Why not?” I asked bitterly. “Why should it matter to you?”

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  “I wish it di
dn’t.”

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  I frowned down at him. His tone had changed suddenly. Was he going to show a little humanity then? Did he have any left to show?

  “I told her about you,” he said. “I know. She recognized me.”

  “I told her everything. Even about you and Kevin being married. Espe- cially about that.”

  “What will you do, Rufe, if they bring her back?” “Buy her. I’ve got some money.”

  “What about Isaac?”

  “To hell with Isaac!” He said it too vehemently and hurt his side. His face twisted in pain.

  “So you’ll be rid of the man and have possession of the woman just as you wanted,” I said with disgust. “Rape rewarded.”