by Tim Bowling
A light flickered in the parlour window. He crept closer, needing to be sure. Before he even peered through the glass, he knew. His whole body told him. At the table the two faces hung side by side in the faint candlelight, almost touching, the overseer’s rounder and flaccid, like a melon gone to rot, the mulatto’s just the same as ever, round but hard, the forehead ridged and prominent, hanging above the deep-set eyes and full mouth. The two men were tearing into a cooked chicken. John could smell it. The grease of the meat made the overseer’s face shine. Silently the two sets of jawbones worked up and down, almost in unison. He watched, unable to pull away. To kill them seemed as impossible as it was desirable.
Done with the chicken, Orlett lifted a small sack off the floor and dropped it on the table. The mulatto nodded like an excited dog. Orlett began to remove the contents—coins and folded bills. There was a great deal of money. The two men bent so low to the table that they seemed to be lapping water off the surface.
John stared at the shine of the silver and gold as if he was seated at the table, as if the wealth belonged to him. And then he realized that death was not enough, that it was not a practical compensation for all that he’d suffered and witnessed. All his life he’d been property, even when the fact wasn’t so brutal as it had been for the past two years. Suddenly the wealth heaped in front of him was more of his future than the overseer’s death. But the one had to happen so that the other could begin. He began to pant and knew it was starting.
But before he could pull away from the window, he saw Orlett and Cray stiffen and look toward the window. Just then, something struck the glass. A ferocious barking ensued. John fell back, the dog’s teeth inches from his own. He scrambled to his feet and ran. The barn loomed in front of him. Inside, he looked desperately around. If he hid in the hayloft, he’d be trapped there like a treed raccoon, especially if Orlett came out with the dog. He decided instead to crouch in a dark corner behind a barrel. Picking up a shovel from the ground, he hurried into his hiding place, his mind racing. They might not come out with the dog. After all, this was a war zone; the night was tense, they might not bother to check every time the animal barked. He fought to still his blood. A minute passed. His hands clenched the handle of the shovel. Thin shafts of moonlight fell between him and the open barn door.
Then he heard the horses. Smelled them. They were stabled across the dark. He took a chance and sprinted over. If the overseer came with the dog, then a horse would provide a useful means of escape.
John approached the animals cautiously but without fear. He had worked with horses; their power had often seemed to contain a promise, as if they, too, would one day break free of their bondage.
There were only two of them. He recognized the overseer’s bay, but the large white charger was unfamiliar. He stroked the horse’s necks. Both were warm, the mouths frothed. Then Orlett and Cray had very recently returned. Had they even checked on the blacks in the cellar and attic and found them gone? Likely not. He stood between the horses, his panic subsiding. Something in the animals’ calm clarified his thoughts. He was much taller and thinner than two years before, and he wore the uniform of a Union soldier; if he kept his face hidden, they might not recognize him until it was too late. The element of surprise might not have been lost. If only he had the courage and calm . . .
The night remained still. The dog’s barking had faded away. Several minutes passed before he allowed himself to believe that Orlett and Cray were not coming out to investigate the dog’s alarm. Confirmed in that belief, he yet remained unsure of his next move. Somehow he would have to separate the two.
Then he heard a faint sound. Someone was crossing the yard. He returned to his hiding place and watched as the mulatto entered the barn and headed for the horses. He untethered the bay and walked it toward the door. When Cray had gone through it, John followed, hardly able to believe his good fortune. If the mulatto rode away, leaving the overseer . . . John stood just inside the barn door as Orlett left the house and crossed the yard; the dog was not with him.
“They won’t have gotten far,” the overseer said. “I’ll join you when I can. If they’re with the Federals, you tell the officer in charge whose they are. We’ll have them back. Tomorrow I’ll get a start with the contrabands if I have to.”
Then he put his two hands to the side of the mulatto’s great head and shook it roughly, the way a man does to a favourite dog.
Cray mounted.
“I’ll get them,” he said. “Don’t you worry, honey.”
For a long moment, John was alone with the overseer in the same yard where Orlett had given Caleb the whipping, where Caleb’s blood had dripped into shining pools. The stars were many but dim, the moonlight faint. For a long moment, his body tensed; he almost ran out, risking all. But something held him back, some instinct of patience that had developed in the long, sun-scorched hours in the rice fields. He looked past the overseer to the house rising beyond like a black cliff. He’d spent most of his life there, but the house held almost no emotion for him except numbness, a numbness that quickly became rage. His old master was dead, buried in the family graveyard. Daney and Caleb were dead. Jancey and all the children were gone. He had nothing to attach himself to this place but his hatred. And he knew his hatred would have to play out inside the house.
When Orlett finally walked toward it and pulled the door shut behind him, John followed. He still had no plan, but the mulatto’s absence came as such a gift that he believed the night would contain others, that he would be given the courage and strength he needed if only he did not weaken. On the ground near the door, he saw two large rocks. He pocketed one and clenched the other in his fist. With luck, maybe he could separate the dog from the overseer, shut it in one room while he took on its master. If that luck didn’t come, maybe a well-placed throw of the rock would at least stun the animal until he could escape it. The overseer would be armed; he always was.
For another moment, John hesitated, wondering why he had not taken a weapon from the battlefield. But he saw his hands around the overseer’s throat just as he had seen them there a thousand times and knew that the killing would be intimate; that’s why the idea of a gun or knife had not even occurred to him. From the moment Caleb had been tied to the whipping post, John had watched the overseer’s face redden, his eyes bulge, his tongue flail in his foul, rotten mouth. It would happen that way or it wouldn’t happen at all, he was sure of it.
He opened the door and slipped inside, tensed for the dog’s bark. It didn’t come, so he continued to the staircase, thinking that he’d hide upstairs and wait for Orlett to come up alone. But a heavy boot fall told him that the overseer was already above. Now a ferocious barking broke out from the parlour behind him. With relief, he saw that the door was shut, heard the dog scratch at the wood. He looked up the staircase, debating whether to go up or to hide somewhere and wait for Orlett to come down and check on the dog.
In the end, he couldn’t wait for the strategic advantage of remaining downstairs to unfold. His blood decided him, drove him on. His fate had begun at last, it was on his lips like salt. He needed to get upstairs before the overseer started down. The rock was cold in his palm, rough like grizzled skin. He took the stairs at a sprint, his feet barely touching the wood.
The blow fell before he’d even stopped running. It glanced off his skull and sent him sideways into the wall at the top of the case. On his hands and knees, facing the floor, he struggled to stay conscious as a lantern light puddled around him.
“You’ll find nothing here, soldier,” Orlett said. “Better forage among your dead comrades.”
A breech clicked.
“You’re lucky I don’t kill you and drag you out there with them. No one would know the difference.”
He laughed.
“Didn’t expect a dog, did you? Thought you’d slip in and take the fine silver? Get up!”
He could feel the overseer’s shadow heavy on his back. His vision blurred, came clear again.
Then his hand closed around the rock’s cold. Slowly he began to rise, Orlett’s rank smell in his nostrils. He’d be grinning, almost panting, his rotten breath, the shine of grease . . . John threw the stone and rolled to one side as the gunshot blasted into the ceiling. Orlett had reeled back, dazed, and kicked over the lantern. In a flare of pale light John saw the blood on the overseer’s forehead before the blood and the man vanished. The shot echoed in the dark. Bits of plaster and dust floated whitely down. John leapt forward, his hands already closing in a tight circle. The dog howled below, scratched frantically at the door. John struck nothing. There was a flurry to one side. He ducked as the overseer’s gun swung toward him. But he did not avoid the kick. It hit him hard in the stomach. He collapsed to his knees, bent over, gasping. Then his head was yanked up by the hair and the overseer’s fist struck him only a glancing blow as he found a burst of strength to pull away. At the same time he reached out and grabbed the overseer’s leg and jerked him off balance. In seconds John was on top of him, his knees pressing into his chest, his hands on his throat. But he did not close them tight. It was too soon. Orlett didn’t even know who he was; he thought he was only a soldier out foraging. John struggled to control himself. He kept a firm pressure on the overseer and said, “I’m not a soldier.”
The overseer’s eyes swept across him. Suddenly his body relaxed. He grinned. His lips pulled back from the rotted teeth.
“Welcome home, bright boy. You’ve grown since I saw you last. What did you do to your cheek?”
He laughed hoarsely, and John had to increase the pressure to stop the sound.
Orlett gasped. “Go on. What you waiting for?”
He squeezed harder. Now he heard only the dog’s howls and his own quick breaths. It was what he had wanted, it was everything, he needed only to shut out Caleb’s voice, but you’re not a killer, John, dat ain’t your way, he needed only to bring his hands as close together as possible, to cuff them to the overseer’s throbbing blood. Why couldn’t he do it? He had to; there wasn’t a choice. So why couldn’t he squeeze harder? Why had his grip weakened?
Orlett said in a rasp, “Goddamn ignorant not even a nigger you’re not even . . .”
“What?” John eased the pressure a little.
The overseer’s lip curled. “Sold by your white trash . . . not even a nigger . . .”
“What?”
“You heard. He told me. Bought you in Baltimore. Poor white trash. But I made you a slave. More of a slave than any nigger. You think you’d know.”
He wheezed laughter between his rotten teeth. “You’d think a body could just tell something like that.”
John’s grip loosened. “You’re lying!”
“Not an ounce of nigger blood in you, bright boy. But maybe there’s some just born to be niggers anyway.”
John lifted one hand to his cheek. Caleb and Daney would have said if they had known. And they would have known. It couldn’t be true. Orlett would say anything to . . .
Then it was too late. The overseer bucked him off and rolled clear. When John recovered, he found the shotgun pointed at him, the doglike grin wider than ever. In the splay of light the blood shone in streaks on the overseer’s face. His foul breath came rapidly. He swayed. There was a lot of blood.
“You missed your one chance, bright boy. Goddamn ignorant, white or black. For some it don’t matter, I reckon.” He placed his arm against the wall for support but kept the gun fixed straight ahead.
John saw the motion at the same instant he heard the screams. It was a sound unlike anything he’d ever heard, closer to the shriek of a wildcat than anything human. The overseer shrank under it, the gun knocked clear. It clattered down the first few stairs. John did not spring for it. He was frozen at the sight of the two women’s wild faces as they tore at the overseer’s body. In seconds they had him on the ground, and seconds later they had his breeches down. Something dull-bright flashed in one of the women’s hands. Orlett’s screams were terrible.
John leapt forward. This was not how it was supposed to happen. This was not his revenge. It took all of his remaining strength to pull just one of the women clear. She scratched and flailed at him but stopped once the other woman, with a savage cry of triumph, raised a chunk of bloody flesh in her hand and ran down the hallway, her screams a kind of cadenced singing that descended to a moaning as she vanished from the lamp glow, the other woman running behind.
Screaming, his face dissolved with blood, Orlett suddenly called out, “Cray! Cray! Help me! Cray! Where are you?”
John should have watched without pity, with a pleasing sense that the overseer had received what he had deserved for so long. But he was not pleased, he was sickened. It had all happened so fast, like a whirlwind from those bible stories Motes had liked to tell. There was something unworldly about the women’s revenge, something final that seemed to involve more than just the overseer. John found he could not remain near the place where the attack had occurred. Bile rising in his throat, he followed the overseer down the stairs and outside, watched him stagger into the barn. A moment later, the white charger galloped out, Orlett slumped in the saddle, arms wrapped around the horse’s neck, the reins flailing over his shoulders. The sky was beginning to lighten. As the charger passed him, the boy saw that its flank was drenched in black blood. Orlett’s weak cries for the mulatto hung in the festering air. John dropped to his knees, put his hands over his eyes. Not even a nigger . . . Poor white trash . . . But you’re not a killer, John . . . Goddamn ignorant . . . Dat ain’t your way . . . Not a nigger but a slave . . .
He raised his face to the fading stars, the dead air cool on his cheek. It was the second day after the great battle and he did not even know who had won. But he knew where he’d felt the most victorious, he knew where there would be sanctuary for him, if there could ever be. But not yet.
Dazed, he went back to the house. He had no energy left, his body weakened with every step. He needed just a little sleep. And then he’d find his way back to the hospital and the doctor with Caleb’s eyes.
He did not sleep long, perhaps an hour. At a sudden eruption from downstairs, he woke with a start and immediately crept to the head of the stairs. The dog was not barking in the shut parlour. Perhaps the mulatto had returned? John started down. All at once voices broke over the stillness.
“In here. Set the tables up. And for Christ’s sakes drag that dog’s carcass out. We don’t need to attract any extra flies.”
He breathed easier, relieved that it was not the mulatto. A flurry of boot steps. He crouched on the stairs and watched men carry in stretchers of wounded. There were a great many stretchers. Doctors in stained gowns hurried about, shouting instructions. Many of the wounded wore grey uniforms. Had the enemy not left the field after all? But then he saw a number of blue-uniformed wounded and realized that the Union doctors were tending to both sides. As the moans and cries of the wounded filled the house and the strong smells of decaying flesh and chloroform floated up to him, he decided that it was safe to descend. His uniform, torn as it was, protected him, and in any case the doctors and soldiers were too preoccupied setting up the hospital to take much notice of him.
Without difficulty, he made his way outside. Just beside the back door lay the dog; it had been shot in the side. Flies crawled in the wound and along the muzzle. He could not take his eyes off its mouth, the bared teeth, the too-familiar human grin. But he looked away at last. The sun hung just above the tree lines to the east, the sky was pale blue. Out in the fields the troops moved, heading away from him. Closer, a single black wagon, pulled by a horse, bounced among the shell holes and rotting bodies. Closer still, a group of blacks with spades over their shoulders walked slowly across the battlefield. Other lone figures dotted the landscape. It was quiet except for the constant low buzzing of flies rising off the dog’s bloodied fur.
He tried to let the daylight clear his mind. Too much had happened too quickly. He needed to think. The overseer had ridden off, likely with t
he sack of money on his person. The mulatto would come back. But to find what? With such a wound, Orlett would not have survived long unless he’d found help. Where? At a hospital. John looked to the north where the overseer had gone. It was the same direction in which lay the hospital where he had helped the doctor.
He began to walk to the north, but then stopped, frozen by the sound of a horse’s hooves. From the other side of the barnyard approached a single rider. John did not need a closer look to know it was the mulatto. Now, more than ever, the doctor’s sanctuary beckoned. He increased his pace, every second feeling Cray’s hands around his throat; the mulatto would not hesitate in his vengeance. Every heartbeat became a pursuing hoof beat. He expected even the dead dog to rise up and sink its jaws into his flesh. He began to run, tripped and sprawled face down in the dirt. He got up and ran faster, the black of the woods a bobbing blur as he crossed the torn field, his blood thrashing in his throat and temples and his destination seeming to slip away each time he looked down to secure his footing on the blasted earth. At last, after ten minutes, he arrived gasping at the hospital.
The doctor stood at the operating table. No part of his smock was unstained. His beard and face were flecked with blood and pus. John approached. The doctor blinked at him, then smiled broadly. It seemed to take all of his energy.
“Ah, John,” he said. “Come to lend a hand again? Good man.”
And they resumed their work of the night before, and little had changed except perhaps his blood. Orlett had said he was white. Like this doctor. Could it be true? John put his finger on an artery and stared at the red blood flooding over his hand. It didn’t matter. He had been a slave but now he was free. But freedom required more; it required a future. And that, he understood, would be possible only with money. If there was a chance of recovering that sack, he would do so. And then he would somehow put the mulatto and his own memories and Maryland itself behind him forever.