Perish from the Earth

by Jonathan F. Putnam

  Meanwhile, Telesphore had shed his frockcoat, and he paced wildly about the clearing in his shirt-sleeves, shouting epithets at his victim. In his right arm, Telesphore brandished a long southwestern whip, ten feet of braided cowhide dangling from a weighted handle. Now and then he flicked his wrist, and the whip snapped and ripped open the air with an earsplitting crack.

  A ring of Negroes had formed just outside the flickering circle of light cast by the flaming torches. They were silent and watchful.

  I walked up to Telesphore, keeping a wary eye on his whip. I knew its sting would not discriminate by skin color. I put my hand on his shoulder, but immediately he shook free of my touch and stared at me, wide-eyed. Up close I could see he was sweating profusely. He gave off an odor of fierce desire.

  “Take a breath,” I said. “Think a moment.”

  “This is none of your concern,” he shot back.

  “I agree with you, it’s not. If someone came onto my family’s plantation and ventured to tell me how to treat my stock, I’d give them one warning and then I’d strike them down.”

  “Consider yourself warned,” Telesphore replied, although I could tell my approach had left him slightly off-balance.

  “I’m not telling you how to treat him. I’m asking you to think.”

  “There’s nothing to think about. The boy needs education.”

  “He’s ready for you,” called Pemberton from behind me.

  Telesphore took a long step toward the pegs and gave a great swing of his whip. His feet left the ground as he heaved his instrument forward with as much force as he could possibly manage.

  The air exploded. The Negro boy screamed. A long, dark line erupted on his back where the whip had struck, and almost immediately blood oozed up and little droplets began seeping down his back. A muted intake of breath escaped from the slaves encircling us. Pemberton laughed mockingly, his ugly hooked nose seemingly aflame in the torchlight.

  Off in the distance, I heard the faint rustling sound of horses moving through underbrush. I hoped everyone else was too preoccupied to pay it any notice.

  Telesphore looked over at me with a defiant expression and I nodded. “You’re right,” I said. “I didn’t stop you. I told you I’m not here to tell you what to do—”

  “Step out of my way then,” Telesphore said, his breath coming even faster now that he’d tasted the thrill of the first blow. “I’m just getting started, and I’ll not be responsible if you get struck by accident.”

  “—but I will ask you to think. All these bondsmen gathered around are watching you carefully. They’d be foolhardy not to. They all know they’ll be subject to your dominion someday.”

  “All the more reason to correct this boy for his error.”

  Telesphore stepped forward and cracked his whip again. The boy screamed and writhed. His flesh shook. His body jerked about and twitched as much as the restraining ropes allowed—a terrible, involuntary dance. Large drops of blood rolled down his back and stained the packed, dark soil of the yard.

  “Think how much more power you’ll have over all these head if you drop your whip now and walk away,” I said. Telesphore looked at me, his eyes a little wider.

  “Not a single one of them doubts you could whip this boy until he passes out from the shock. Until he dies, even. No one doubts you could. I don’t. What do you prove to them by doing it?”

  Telesphore glanced over my shoulder, and I turned and saw Jacques Roman standing in the open doorway, his arms folded across his chest.

  “He doesn’t doubt it either,” I said more quietly.

  “I don’t need to prove myself to him,” he said. “And certainly not to any of them.”

  “You don’t,” I agreed. His breathing was starting to slow toward normal, and I thought perhaps I’d gotten him to turn the corner from emotion to reason.

  “The correction we give is about educating them—all of them—that they must do exactly as we say,” Telesphore continued. “Even if it seems impossible. It’s about ensuring, if we say, ‘Pick two hundred pounds of cotton before you lay down your sack for the day,’ then they’ll pick two hundred that day. If we say ‘two hundred fifty,’ they’ll pick two hundred fifty. Whether or not it’s humanly possible, they’ll pick two hundred fifty. Because they know what’s coming otherwise.”

  “Do you think they know that’s the law under your father’s rule?”

  “I know they know it. That’s why his yield’s so good.”

  “Do you think they know to fear you just as much as they fear him?”

  He hesitated, but his grip on the whip handle loosened. There was no sound except for the continued moaning of the boy tied up among the pegs.

  “I’ll tell you what I think,” I continued. “I think they know you’re every bit as demanding as your father. Every bit as unyielding. And I think if you throw down the whip right now, they’ll also know you’re your own man. That—just like you say—you’ve got nothing to prove to no one.”

  There was a pause. Then the whip slipped from his hand and fell to the ground. I was sure I heard a few low whistles escape from the gathered Negroes. After a moment, two men crept tentatively toward the boy and began to untie him.

  “Hey, gov’nor,” Pemberton called out. I sensed at once he was talking to me, and I willed myself to show no reaction.

  “Yeah, you. I knew it—I’ve seen you before.” Turning to Jacques Roman, Pemberton repeated, louder and with emphasis, “I’ve seen him before. On the river, I seen him.”

  I took off in a dead sprint for the woods.

  CHAPTER 23

  The world had gone dark.

  I was alone in the woods, somewhere between Roman Hall and the river, but where I was, and where Martha and Tessie were, I had no idea. I could only hope I would find them before the Romans and their dogs found me. Or, worse, found them.

  I had a vague sense of the contours of the woods behind Roman Hall from my hunting expedition with Telesphore the previous day, and when I first raced into them, I kept to a footpath that I recalled heading generally northwesterly, the direction of the Commerce steamboat landing. Behind me there was a great commotion and shouting as Telesphore and his father bellowed for Pemberton to assemble the dogs to help them with the chase.

  The shouting gradually faded as I entered the woods, but then the yelping and braying of hounds, distant but unmistakable, rose up from the darkness. I had seen enough of the pack the prior afternoon to know they were well schooled. Telesphore had even boasted to me at one point about their skill in helping keep the Romans’ bondsmen under control. The dogs knew to hold felled squirrels gently between their jaws, Telesphore had said with satisfaction, so as not to spoil the meat for eating, but they’d been trained to show no such mercy when their teeth sank into human flesh.

  As fast as I ran, the din of the dogs gradually grew louder, and terror crept into my heart. What would Jacques Roman do if he captured me? I had committed no crime, and for all he knew, my proposal to his precious daughter had been genuine. But then I realized he would soon discover—if he had not already—that she was missing. And if our suppositions were correct, he or his man had already committed one murder to protect her honor. I pressed through the woods still faster.

  Under the dark tree canopy, I couldn’t see a foot in front of me. I tripped over a root and sprawled headfirst onto the trail. My knee hit a stone and stung with pain. I picked myself up as fast as I could, brushing away the dirt and leaves from my face, and resumed my flight. But there was no escaping the conclusion that the sound of the dogs was drawing ever nearer. Once or twice, I heard a man’s shout punctuate the tumbling canine growl.

  The creek, I thought suddenly.

  I cut off the footpath and headed in the direction of the creek we had waded through on our way to Roman Hall. I crashed through the woods, my arms raised defensively in front of my face to try to shield myself from the low branches. I was scratched and clawed by them nonetheless, and I felt my fine dinn
er clothes being torn into so many shreds. What was more, my flight through the brambles and bushes was making a huge rumpus. But I pressed ahead, clinging to the hope that the creek would not only throw the dogs off the scent but also lead me to the Mississippi and, with it, the Commerce steamboat landing.

  At last I reached the stream, and I charged in, turning downstream, toward where the creek surely emptied into the great river. The water was at my ankles at first, and I splashed along the rocky streambed, not caring how much noise I made now. I could still hear the dogs behind me, but they no longer seemed to be gaining.

  As I raced ahead, the water rose to my calves and then my knees, and then, without warning, the riverbed beneath my feet gave way completely. Frantically, I tread water and looked around in the darkness. Where was I? Not yet to the Mississippi, it was plain, and not in a lake. Tall stands of trees rose close by on either side, outlined by the dim night sky.

  My feet found the bottom again, with the water up to my shoulders. After a few steps, I realized the rocky streambed had been replaced by slimy mud, which grabbed at my boots every time I tried to lift them. So I half waded, half swam my way forward. I looked around this way and that, trying without success to gain my bearings. I stood still and listened. There was no sound of my pursuers. Instead, all around there was a great racket of nighttime creatures, a creepy symphony of sound that seemed to close in on me from all sides. Something feeling very much like a snake brushed past my submerged legs. My skin crawled. But shunting aside all other thoughts, I began to move forward again.

  A tree emerged in the middle of the open waters before me, tall and majestic, with a bulbous root ball rising above the water line. I grabbed ahold of the tree’s exposed knees and pulled myself half out of the water. A sage-woodsy odor filled my nose. Cypress, I realized. Looking around, I saw similar trees emerging from the dark waters in every direction. I had blundered, I suddenly realized, into one of the great cypress swamps that dotted the state of Mississippi.

  As I clung to the tree in the middle of the swamp, I considered my fate. The good news was that the Romans would never find me within such a famously labyrinthine region. There were no paths or points of orientation within a cypress swamp—only trees, roots, marshlands, and small islets without end. Every vista seemed indistinguishable, yet no two were the same. Stories were legion of men who had disappeared into cypress swamps. The infamous Natchez Trace—the overland route from Natchez, Mississippi, to Tennessee, used in the old days by flatboatmen who had floated down the great river and then walked home—went nearby one such swamp. Many a northbound traveler had blundered into the swamp by mistake and never been heard from again.

  That was also the bad news.

  A turtle broke the surface of the swamp directly in front of me, stared at me cold-eyed, and then dived down again. I considered remaining on my relatively dry perch, clinging to the tree’s knees, until morning and then trying to orient my way out. But I remembered Martha and Tessie, with luck having made it to the Commerce landing by now and no doubt wondering where I was. How would they manage, on their own, if I failed to appear? The Mississippi should be that way, I guessed, as I let go of the tree and started pushing through the swamp once again.

  The moon emerged from the clouds, low on the horizon. I was near a tiny sliver of marshy grass, a hump of land not ten feet across that barely crested the surface of the water, and I pulled myself onto it. A pair of pelicans whom I disturbed took to the skies, squawking loudly. Ignoring their racket, I studied the location of the moon. The last few days we’d been on the river, it had set early to the west-southwest. Assuming it had moved a few degrees each day, the river and Commerce should be . . . over there. Precisely the opposite direction from where I had been heading. I pushed off and paddled away, confident now in my bearing if less and less confident in my ability to reach my destination.

  After another hour of wading and paddling, with occasional rest periods spent clinging to exposed tree roots or lying face-up on muddy marshland, I saw a faint glow directly ahead of me. I had an immediate inkling, as unlikely as it seemed, and as I got closer, the conclusion became inescapable. It was a campfire.

  I was about to shout out a greeting when I considered that my sudden appearance in these remote parts might not be welcome. So I paddled as close as I dared, moving silently through the waters now, until I came upon a tiny dot of an island some one hundred yards distant from the glow. I pulled myself onto the land, laying on my belly, and watched through the grasses.

  Four or five shadowy figures moved about in front of the campfire. There was a low murmur of conversation, too faint to be comprehended above the chatter of the night creatures, but from the cadence of the few words that carried on the breeze, I was pretty sure they were Negro voices. I waited and watched. The overwhelming, suffocating noise of insects everywhere closed in. My cold, wet clothes clung to me, and I began shivering.

  Just as I was considering whether to risk trying to bypass the inhabited land, the persons started to move about with purpose. The glow was extinguished. By the faint light of the stars, I saw the figures in a line, moving off silently in the opposite direction, seemingly picking a precise path through the marshy waters. I had a distinct sense of black eyes with white pupils peering out from black faces. And then they were gone.

  Lost travelers weren’t the only persons who disappeared into the cypress swamps. So too, it seemed clear, did runaway slaves.

  After waiting to make sure the fugitives did not return, I waded over to their island. It was larger than most in the swamp. I found a banked fire and some discarded chicken bones. Then, mindful of the fleeting night, I slipped back into the waters and continued on toward Commerce.

  The swamp waxed and waned. The trees and water and little spits of land became a blur. There were times when the land became more regular and less marshy, and I felt sure I had reached the distant edge of the swamp, only to find another pool of water, dotted with nothing but an occasional tree, stretching out before me.

  My body ached. My vision was clouded. My hope faded. It was surely long past midnight now. Perhaps Martha and Tessie had gone aboard that northbound packet after all. I’d catch up with them eventually. If I ever made it out of here.

  As a faint hint of dawn began to lighten the skies behind me, I came upon another cluster of islands. The islands knit close together and then closer still. I stumbled onward, awaiting the devastating moment that had come so often during that nightmarish night when the land gave way and another pool of water spread out before me.

  But the moment never came. Instead, the islands gave way to marshland, which gave way to solid land. I had been walking upon the dry land for a while before I realized as much. And then, again before I realized what had happened, I shuffled into Commerce.

  It was a typical Western river town, not unlike Alton in its own way, with homes and businesses sprawling out from the steamboat landing. All the streets funneled toward the landing, and as I staggered along them, water and muck dripping from my tattered clothing, I saw a swaying stack ahead, towering high above the village. It barely registered in my mind when the stack began to pour forth ever greater quantities of smoke.

  Dawn had nearly broken when I finally reached the levee. I wobbled about, dazed at having actually arrived. My head pounded. My clothes dripped. Dockhands materialized and began to untie the steamer’s lines. I stared at them dumbly. Their actions meant something, I supposed, but—what? Two roustabouts came in and out of focus as they readied to remove the plank leading from the ship to the dock.

  And suddenly a shout. A note of joy. A rush of feminine energy sweeping out of the ship and down the plank.

  “Joshua!” cried a familiar voice.

  And I inhaled the scent of my sister as I felt myself being dragged up the plank and onto the ship.

  CHAPTER 24

  Seven days later, Tessie Roman, my sister, and I approached Conran’s boarding house, opposite the St. Louis levee. We spo
tted the tall stovepipe hat before we had even fully entered the public room.

  “I don’t think,” Lincoln said, appraising us quickly with a crooked smile creasing his face, “I’ve ever seen a more bedraggled lot of well-born souls.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I said as I fell into the empty chair beside him.

  Martha and Tessie had told me about their flight during the upriver journey. They’d gotten to the Commerce levee unmolested, secured a cabin on the evening packet, and gone aboard, waiting anxiously for my arrival. When I did not materialize by the time that packet readied to depart, they’d disembarked and taken shelter at the nearby house of a seamstress whom Tessie knew. The ship we’d ended up on had been the next one to depart, and after a vigorous debate, they decided they couldn’t risk remaining in the area any longer. They’d given up hope I would arrive in time when they noticed a dazed figure staggering about on the dock.

  Lincoln now listened patiently as Martha and I gave him an extended account of our adventures along the river. He had pulled out a packet of paper, and he made notes of several aspects of our story. When we had finished, he turned to Tessie Roman and took her hands. His expression was kindly, almost paternal.

  “You’re willing to testify in open court to your commitment to Mr. Bingham and your certainty of his innocence?”

  Her eyes flashed with determination. “If I hadn’t been, Mr. Lincoln, I never would have run away from home with the Speeds.”

  “The Speeds can make rational people do irrational things,” he said with a smile. “I know it from personal experience.” Turning serious, he added, “I think your testimony on Bingham’s behalf may be decisive. I have every hope your flight will prove worthwhile.”

  “What if her father shows up before trial to try to bring her back?” asked Martha, placing her hand on her friend’s shoulder. The two women had become close confidantes during our trip upriver. “Or, more likely, his henchman, Pemberton. We’ve got to protect Tessie.”