The tail of that scar fades out before crossing Wash’s forehead but it leads Richardson’s eye diagonally down across the bridge of Wash’s nose to the top inside corner of the R for runaway written across his left cheek, with the leg of the R kicking back toward his ear.
“Damn. Anything on you they didn’t get?”
Richardson doesn’t expect an answer and Wash doesn’t give one. He keeps hold of Wash’s chin, turning his face first to the sun then away, tilting it back and forth to watch the R show up in raking light then disappear in shadow. Saying nothing but mmmh mmmh. Each mmmh coming out of the deep of his chest hard and bitten off.
Wash looks over Richardson’s shoulder and tries to force himself to breathe. His right arm tingles with wanting to knock Richardson’s grip off his chin.
“Your mamma did a good job with that R.”
Wash fights to hold his arm down by his side for just one more second then another.
“Wish she could have done something about that dent.”
Richardson lets go.
“I don’t intend for you to need to run off from me.”
Wash drops his eyes to the round top of the fence post, counting his breaths. Working to keep them steady.
“That R gives free rein to any fool hunting reward money. You’re liable to get picked up and taken in just running errands for me. Word will get to me but you need to try to stay in one piece until I can send somebody to fetch you home. Best if you stay close by until this fades some and people come to know you as mine.”
Wash keeps silent.
“You hear me?”
“Yessir.”
“You want to help with the horses?”
“Yessir.”
“All right then, tomorrow.”
Wash
You’d think I’d have settled down some. But seemed like I healed up from that brand just as hardheaded as ever. Most folks, you can beat their knowing right out of em. But some of us, each lick lays our knowing in deeper.
I didn’t know exactly what it was I knew, but I wasn’t going to be shaken loose from it. I’d felt my knowing start to rise up in me back at Thompson’s place, before my troubles started. And even though it felt mostly broken and gone, I still held tight to it.
I was a raggedy old yard by the time we landed at Richardson’s. Hardpacked and weedy. But still, I snarled at any threat to my little patch. Somehow, I musta known my blooming out self was tucked away inside me, curled up tight and laying way down deep, along with Rufus and Cleo and Minerva and all my people my mamma had laid in me so careful before that. All of it, laying in there, just waiting on me to pick it back up.
But I didn’t know I knew this yet, so I limped round Richardson’s place with everything new to me all over again. I kept to myself but there wasn’t a thing I could do about the talk. My scars made sure I was a story and no matter how beaten down people get, they stay hungry for a story. They took mine and they passed it back and forth. Talked all round me before they ever said one word to me.
At first, I was too busy being mad and hurting to want their attention on me. I wanted to stay in that far off shed but by the end of that summer, Richardson put us in the quarters with everybody else. Said we needed to get back to work, just like he did.
My mamma started in on her stitching, but I took one look at that crowded cabin and went straight up to that highest loft of the big barn, no matter what that crotchety old stableman Ben had to say about it. I stayed holed up, hating everything and Richardson the most, until it started to dawn on me, stoking my own fire might not be enough.
My mamma kept telling me I’d get hungry for more, like it was a warning on something that had already happened.
And sure enough, soon as I started feeling better, started coming down from the hayloft, there they all were. Sitting at the fire circle in the quarters, talking and cooking and carrying on. Just like at Thompson’s place but with a whole new set. And before too long, this new batch grew round me like a vine. Wasn’t even three months yet and there I was, listening for the hook in one of Albert’s stories or shaking my head at Virgil’s lies, whether I meant to or not.
Life goes on, my mamma kept telling me, life goes on, and I felt my inside soften to her words just like it does when that one horse breathes close and warm on the back of my neck.
I visited her cabin plenty but she knew I couldn’t stay there. I was still too mad. Quick to take offense and quicker still to fight about it, so I needed to stay off to myself. But I did feel myself starting to turn more towards life than away from it. I was still a young man, waking up again, and I couldn’t help from wanting to go and see and do and taste everything.
The only real sting about my healing up was how much it seemed to please old Richardson. He kept coming after me. Said I had a gift with the horses. Made me his pet, sure as any new colt. Said he was trying to pull me back into the world of the living.Made me want to say I may be broke but it ain’t for you to fix.
With the way Richardson stayed after me, it was better to be out of his barn than in it, so I rode with Ben all over this county and the next those first few years, taking our yearlings round to those folks that had bought em and bringing their mares back to our stud for next year’s batch.
It was riding with Ben that gave me a chance to see the world. That’s how I met Nelle over at Bennett’s place and started talking to her. That’s how I met most of the rest of em too. I liked Nelle the best but she wasn’t the only one. The girls loved me. Always had. All through my troubles and maybe more because of em. My mamma grinned about it when she wasn’t worrying over it.
It was people from neighboring places whose eyes snagged on me the most. Who’s that and what happened to him, with the story always sounding better than the truth. All those girls growing into women, they came right straight for me, wanting a story of their own. And there I was, ready to take em up on it. Each one was new and different and better than the last. Each one was a new world I wanted to walk through till it sunk into me.
Richardson had no way of knowing what those girls were to me. He didn’t see how each of those girls was the only way I had to empty my mind from that hammer and everything since. He didn’t know my moving soft and slow and sure with Nelle or with Beck was as close as I came to swimming in that ocean I remembered from before, floating outside the breakers, rising and falling, with everything feeling as new and shiny as when I started out. He just thought I was a hound dog.
So maybe it was more than him being broke and watching me work that Eclipse stud for Carpenter come to breed his mare that led him to put me to stud. Maybe it was all those girls sneaking out of this barn. Maybe he figured if I was forever getting after it anyway, what was the harm in making me be his money? And once he gave up on his good name, I guess putting me to this work wasn’t no big step. But it sure took me a minute to catch onto the switch.
Bennett came for the weekend. Brought two of his mares to be bred, said he wanted one last crop before that fancy horse got too old. And he brought Nelle to look after him. She made sure she was the one he picked so she could see me again. Two whole nights and she spent both of em up in my loft with me.
There I was, being real careful and thinking I’m so smart, with Nelle good and on her way home before I step to the doorway of the barn after finishing my chores. I’m standing there watching their wagon about to pull out. That’s when I hear Richardson talking to Bennett. Thought it was about the mares but it was about me. He’s telling Bennett all about me.
How he bought my mamma and put us out on that island with old man Thompson. How I ran into some trouble with those brothers but now I’m coming along nice. Real nice. Too nice maybe. Then they laugh, talking about how the girls stay after me.
Then I see Richardson stepping closer and Bennett bending down from his high seat with his hand on Richardson’s shoulder and his mouth next to Richardson’s ear. I see the man’s hand snake out with a wad of bills and I see Richardson tuck the money i
nto his waist pocket, asking Bennett what was the name again?
And I hear Bennett say Nelle, that would be Nelle. And Richardson says good, I’ll mark it down, as he turns away saying thank you, pleasure doing business with you as always. See you at the dance. Bring whoever you want.
I stand there, hearing this and feeling my belly drop. Watching Nelle leaning over the far side of the wagon, saying goodbye to some friends she made here. I see her brimming with sugar, knowing she’s thinking about me, and meanwhile, that damn Richardson’s taking me and her both and putting us right in his pocket.
He bet on me. He bet Bennett I’d get with Nelle. He bet I’d do just exactly what I did before I ever did it. Then he took that money and put it in his pocket.
I stand there like I’m rooted. I don’t even nod at Nelle waving goodbye to me. All I can feel is the big barn door sucking me back inside and before I know it I’m trying to break whatever’s laying right there by me. It’s a rasp and it won’t break, no matter how hard I swing. So I stab the tip into the center post and start in on the closest horse.
Queenie is standing there tied in the aisle. I grab her by her lead rope, jerking her till she panics, scrambling to get away from me, her squeals and whinnies echoing through the barn, and I’m yanking her towards me, muttering run away, you want to? You can’t run away from me, can’t run away from me now, and she’s pulling back, but I’m pulling her closer so I can slap her.
I guess Richardson heard the ruckus from out in the yard cause I hear him yelling. Then he’s standing in the doorway. By then, I’d let go of the mare. I turn to face him with Queenie behind me, backed against the end of her rope and blowing loud rattling snorts.
“What the hell?”
I look right at him and I say, nothing. It wasn’t nothing. Bucket fell off the shelf and she spooked is all.
He looks at me. He runs his eyes over everything till they catch on the rasp hanging from the center post.
“What’s this?”
I just look at him.
He reaches out, wrenches the rasp loose with one hand and sets it down on the trunk where it was lying before. Never takes his eyes off me.
“Everything all right in here?”
I’m nodding yessir, with the calming down horses stamping and snorting all through the barn. He looks at me a minute longer but I guess he don’t see nothing cause he turns to go back up to the house, shaking his head.
Richardson
I’d set Wash to working the horses in the beginning because he seemed to have a gift, but I had to pull him out of the barn after the first few years. That temper of his snaked out one time too many and Ben was finished with him.
“Half the horses in this barn head shy from the way that boy gets after em.”
“It only takes once,” Ben kept saying, as if I didn’t know that already. “It only takes once to wipe away years of work, just as sure as a wet rag.”
Ben wanted Wash out of the barn and I couldn’t blame him, especially after Queenie spooked on account of being manhandled, we both knew by Wash. I’d sent for Hobbs’s man Homer to come trim her feet right, but it only took her five minutes to shy away from him then rear up and fall over backwards, breaking her neck after having given us only the one foal. All that careful time we spent bringing that mare into this world and all those fine foals yet to come from her, all of it gone.
I watched Ben backing our big draft gelding through the barn door so he could hitch him to Queenie’s body and drag it out to be buried.
“Question is, what the hell do I do with him now, Ben?”
And Ben shook his head, saying I don’t know and I don’t care but I want him out of this barn today.
I set Wash to work in the field but by day two, he’d sent the pickax into his own instep then worked until dusk in the mud so the foot festered. Almost had to come off. Seemed like Wash was determined to pull himself under, if for no other reason than the satisfaction of taking money from my pocket.
Every single thing I put him to backfired. Finally, in a fit of anger, I carried him off to sell. But nobody bid. Atkinson was fond of reminding me that most people stay too busy to put up with such a troublesome negro. They had heard about Wash and knew better than to spend their money on him.
I had to bring him straight back home with me. And he looked pleased about it the whole way. Burned me right up. Like he was spitting in my face. Seeing how much he could cost me. Breaking my tools and fighting other people’s negroes just to make me pay the fine, digging his heels in and making a damn show out of every time he refused to do right.
He even made me give him the stripes, knowing I pride myself on not having to. He knew how each lashing, even when well earned, unsettles everybody on my place. Raises old buried grudges like hackles on a dog’s back.
But Wash’s favorite way of messing with me used to be his whoring around, especially once he saw how much trouble he could make for me with all the mammas coming to me to complain. Even after I sent him to the fields. Maybe more so.
At my wit’s end, I went to Mena to ask for some help. But my time for going to her was long gone and she looked right through me. Even as I was asking her, I could see her thinking you should have known better. You should have known better all along.
I could see her deciding I am done with helping white folks. Time to let whatever will happen here go ahead and happen. Then she looks at me through my talking at her and says, “I am through. You hear me? Through with it.”
I should have paid more attention to Wash. To him and to everything else. But I remained obsessed with chasing my good name through a past that wouldn’t stand still while we sank ever deeper into the hole. We’d just lost our second cotton crop in a row and the drought was running into its third month while prices for negroes rose steadily.
When Quinn came to me, wanting to get us into the breeding business, I already knew Wash was an unlikely choice. But he was like catnip to the girls and that R brand made sure he couldn’t run off easily. I needed to make him do something and I’d tried everything else.
Bennett said he heard about a man back East who was doing it but he didn’t see why. Too many negroes there already and the land was depleted. The market was out here with us. Some had started walking theirs west to sell but the journey wore them down.
And Bennett had a girl named Nelle. Good worker and sturdy but kept too much to herself. Wouldn’t settle down and start breeding. Wouldn’t let any of his men near her. I bet him that Wash would be able to get near her. Nearer than near. And he did. So it was a gamble at first and it went from there.
Wash
I used to go to the girls cause I liked em and I liked liking em. But after I saw Richardson tucking Bennett’s money into his waistband, saying Nelle, good, I will mark it down, that’s when I started to slide. It wasn’t about me and the girls anymore. It was about me and Richardson. Seemed like everything everywhere was about me and Richardson.
Sometimes, I thought I could hear Rufus trying to tell me something. Show me some way through. But it was dim like an echo and fading. Whatever he was trying to tell me was good and true but it was not here and now. All I could do was shake my head on my new wide shoulders and charge at things, breaking as much as I could.
And you bet I made Richardson give me the stripes. I wanted to make sure he’d have trouble selling me and he did. Most he could do with me was loan me out and he did that before I was ever even born.
But he couldn’t never break his bond with me. That bond with me was one he made with my mamma on that day he raised his hand for her. And I knew he saw her in me and it meant he couldn’t turn his back on me. Couldn’t walk away, even if he wanted to.
She always said you can tell a lot about a person by watching the way they act. She studied those men milling round during the sale, those men thinking they were the ones doing the shopping. She looked and she watched till she found her eye drawn to the one man she was hunting. A man whose manner went several laye
rs deep and not just a coating.
She picked Richardson like she picked my daddy. My mamma picked and chose as careful and sure as walking a fence pole. And she let him know she had. Said it’s a rare person who can walk away from somebody seeing some good in you and counting on it.
That’s what she did to him. She counted on the good in him. She said without saying, I see you seeing me. And sure enough, he looked at her and he saw her and he raised his hand for her. And he kept her. Hired her out instead of selling us. For all those years. And sent for us soon as he got home.
She told me she knew all along, just like he’d had to buy her, he’d hang on to me. Said she could tell he knew his own kind well enough to know right away, soon as he saw me, what I’d bring out in em. He knew I’d make em knock me back over and over till I didn’t get up anymore cause I can’t learn to look away.
∞
Richardson walks through the speckled light falling under the trees onto the thick short grass. The old man moves in a way that makes everybody else seem like they are standing still. A sleek hull cutting through water. Looking, seeing, sizing up. And always carrying that list in his mind, parceling out tasks and chores to just the right people with just the right amount of detail. This way of his is what has kept most of his people on the job. His seeing what skill they have. Seeing it, calling on it, expecting it. Somehow his seeing them like that feels like respect, even though all he’s telling them is how to put more money in his pocket.
It can be hard to catch his attention as he stalks through the day. He’s impatient because he wants everything sorted out well in advance of any situation that might arise. His mind feels clean to him, like a scythe. Even if it falls too quickly at times, often before the request has been fully voiced.
What Richardson has worked to learn, both from his father and from Thompson, as well as from his years of experience, is to discern the rule lying buried within the situation. Sort the exceptions from the rule, keeping these to a minimum. Weigh the costs of making the exception against its benefits and then decide. This is painstaking work and thankless, requiring what feels to Richardson like eternal vigilance. Throughout most of his life, he has had no doubt that he was earning his privileges through the carrying out of his responsibilities.
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