American Front gw-1
Page 71
When Anne woke again, dawn was beginning to leak through the Venetian blinds over the window. But the light was not what roused her. From out in the street came a terrific racket of shouts and crashes and, after a moment, gunshots.
Roger Kimball sat bolt upright. Unclothed though he remained, he was suddenly and obviously a military man, not a lover. "What the devil…?" he said, his voice sharp as a cracking whip.
Right under the window, a black man, without intending to, gave him his answer: "To de barricades!" the fellow yelled. "De revolution comin'!"
Anne and Kimball stared at each other. "Oh, Lord," they said together.
Below them, the cry grew louder and came from more and more throats, till it seemed to fill the whole world: "De revolution! De revolution comin'!"
Scipio was talking with one of the cooks in the Marshlands kitchen when the woman's scream came from upstairs. "Good God in heaven, what can that be?" the butler exclaimed. Since he was talking as an extension of the estate rather than in his own person, he used the elegant formal English he would have employed when addressing Anne Colleton or some white guest at the mansion.
"Dunno, but I gwine find out," the cook said, and, ignoring the fine points of the pecan-and-sweet-potato pie about which Scipio had been trying to instruct him, ran up toward the front of the house.
Scipio followed. He had no sooner reached the foot of the stairs than another scream rang out, this one louder than before. "No! Godalmighty, no!" the woman up there wailed.
"Who dat?" the cook demanded.
"I believe that is Cherry," Scipio replied. Had it not been undignified to do so in front of the cook, he would have scratched his head. The second scream and the wail had both come from Jacob Colleton's room — so, presumably, had the first. But that made no sense. Cherry had gone up to Jacob's room a great many times. Scipio didn't know exactly what she and the mistress' gassed brother did behind that closed door, but he did know she'd always kept quiet about it till now.
The closed door opened, then slammed shut. Cherry came running out. Now the cook said "Godalmighty!" in a tone half shock, half admiration: she was naked and, though she clutched her dress to her, quite a lot of her remained on display.
She dashed down the stairs, moaning, "Dat debbil! Dat horrible debbil! What he try an' make me do!" She ran past Scipio and the cook, both of whom stared even more, for she was not covered at all from behind. She opened the front door and ran outside, out toward the fields if the direction from which her cries came was any indication.
"Damn white folks," the cook muttered, glaring up toward the closed door from which Cherry had emerged.
A moment later, the door opened again. Jacob Colleton wheeled himself out to the banister. "Come up here, Scipio," he croaked.
Scipio obeyed, as he had obeyed white men and women^every day of his life. "How may I help you, sir?" he asked, his voice the polite, attentive, meaningless counterpart to the mask of service stretched across his face.
Instead of answering at once, Jacob Colleton wheeled back into his room, motioning for Scipio to follow him. Once they were inside, Colleton demanded, "What's the matter with that wench? Has she gone mad?"
"Sir, I would not have the faintest idea," Scipio answered stiffly.
"Oh, don't act stupid with me," Colleton said, anger bubbling in his hoarse whisper. "You know we don't play caroms up here. We were about to screw, not to put too fine a point on it, the same way we've screwed two dozen times before this, when all of a sudden she went tearing out of here as if — I don't know as if what. I haven't found anything she doesn't do-and like doing, too, by God."
He panted, trying to catch his breath after such a long speech. To Scipio's own surprise, he believed Colleton. He knew bewilderment when he saw and heard it. What was wrong with Cherry, then? Had she gone round the bend?
Scipio glanced out the window toward the fields. Sure enough, there stood Cherry, still holding the dress in front of her, haranguing a swelling group of field hands. Scipio couldn't hear what she was saying, but he recognized the pose from meetings of the. Reds in Cassius' cottage.
And — Scipio stiffened. Here came a good many Negroes with rifles in their hands. All at once, everything came clear. This was the moment Cassius and Island and Cherry and the rest had been talking about for so long. Jacob Colleton hadn't done anything out of the ordinary with or to Cherry… but she was saying he had, to bring doubters over to the cause.
Whatever Colleton had or hadn't done with Cherry, he had seen Scipio's attention focus on what was happening outside. Coughing and swearing in rasping gasps, he had a look for himself. And then, most abruptly, he reminded Scipio he had been a soldier, and a good one: he had the Tredegar down off the wall and a clip in it before the butler could blink. He pointed it straight at Scipio's head.
Scipio stared down the barrel. It was black as midnight in there, and looked about a foot wide to his frightened gaze. He could smell gun oil. "Get out of here, boy," Colleton said, his bubbling whisper making the words all the more deadly cold. "You niggers want to play games, I'll show you how it's done up at the front." He was smiling. Scipio hadn't seen him so happy since he'd been gassed. The rifle barrel twitched toward the doorway. "Git!"
Scipio fled, not just out the door but down the stairs. Jacob Colleton slammed the door behind him, and locked it. The first shot from upstairs rang out when Scipio got to the front door, which Cherry hadn't closed after her.
He reached the doorway just in time to watch Island 's head explode into red mist. The revolutionary took half a step, then fell on what was left of his face. The rifle he'd been carrying bounced on the ground beside him.
"Git down]" Cassius yelled as another rifle shot barked and another Red went down, probably for good. Some of the armed Negroes listened to the hunter. Some just started banging away at Jacob Colleton's window. The racket was like the end of the world. Then Colleton fired again, and another black man sprawled twitching in the grass. By then, Cassius had taken cover behind a buggy. A bang! from upstairs and yet another Red went down. Scipio remembered what Colleton had said about the game of war. He was getting another chance to play, sure enough, and he still remembered how.
"Rush de house!" Cassius shouted. "I cover you." His men — and there could be no possible doubt they were his men-did as he ordered. Colleton knocked down another of them, but Cassius was shooting at him, and Cassius was no mean shot, either. Three barefoot Negroes in gray homespun dashed past Scipio up the stairs.
They pounded on the door to Jacob Colleton's room with their rifle butts. One fell back with a groan, shot from inside the room. But the door flew open. More shots rang out, and then a black man's whoop of triumph: "Dat white debbil, he done fo'!"
Cassius came walking up to Marshlands, rifle in his hand. He shouted for everyone to get out, waited half a minute, shouted again, and then went inside. "Wish dat damn Frenchman still have he ugly paintings here," he remarked to Scipio. "I do dis wid dey." He struck a match and touched it to a gauzy curtain. Flames raced up it, reached the wall above the window, and caught there. Grinning, Cassius hurried back outside, catching Scipio by the arm and hustling him along.
Scipio stared in through the window at the growing fire, feeling a pang for beauty destroyed no matter upon how much suffering it rested. The bourgeois in you, Cassius would have said. "You got to do dat, Cass?" he asked.
"Got to," Cassius said firmly. "Gwine burn it all, Kip. De revolution here."
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Document creation date: 02.12.2012
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