by Gigi Amateau
Gabriel fought no one that day, but he did run up to the great house to fetch Mrs. Prosser. He pleaded for the missus to intervene. Ann Prosser protected them, and neither Gabriel nor Ma nor Solomon got whipped. The next day they buried the little dead child with all of the others who had passed over, and Ma returned to the field. Gabriel went back to his lessons with Thomas Henry Prosser.
GABRIEL LOVED Thomas Henry like a brother. From the beginning, Thomas Henry Prosser had suckled at one side of Ma while Gabriel nursed at the other. When the boys were babies, Gabriel and Ma had even lived in the great house and slept on the nursery floor, so that if the infant master ever cried from hunger, Ma would be right there.
In those days, Ma ate what the family ate. In the kitchen behind the house, Kissey fed Ma fried asparagus, delicate breads, and nourishing meats to keep her strong and full and ready for little Thomas Henry. Bundled up and placed together, the two babies often napped close to the cooking fire.
Once they reached schooling age, Mrs. Prosser began to teach her son reading and writing and mathematics. She taught Gabriel, too, because the young Prosser boy stayed restless and anxious if his milk brother went too far away.
And in turn, Gabriel taught Thomas Henry the songs from the quarter. So Thomas Henry and Old Major, on the fiddle, together would perform for family from Amherst or friends from Richmond. Sometimes, Kissey would sneak Gabriel into the great house and set him crouched in the dark foyer to watch his friend sing the quarter songs in the parlor. He loved to hear the Prossers’ blue-silk-and-black-velvet-clad guests praise the quarter songs and would have liked to have stood and sung alongside Thomas Henry.
Gabriel especially loved how Old Major’s eyes would find his and share a secret nod that asked, “Can you hear the folks, son? Can you hear them? Shine up; shine out, now.” Then, cloaked away in the stairwell, Gabriel would listen and hear in the music all that the velvet-and-silk people could never know — not even his playmate, Thomas Henry. For Old Major could fill the merriest tune with the running of a river or the calling of a road spilling over with kin and leading them all away to someplace green, someplace open, and someplace free.
As Gabriel neared the age that he would be put to work for Brookfield, he and Thomas Henry still entertained themselves with all sorts of games, day and night. When they played hide-and-seek in the great house, if their voices turned too loud or if they got too up under her skirt, Kissey would shoo them out to the yard. There, along Brookfield’s poplar-lined drive, the boys pretended to be Virginia patriots — James Monroe or George Washington.
Playing war under the old trees, they argued over who should get the part of Patrick Henry. The boys knew all about the brave Mr. Henry. Many times they had heard Mr. Prosser brag to his friends of how his good friend Mr. Henry had roused a gathering of men upon the church hill in Richmond with a strong and stirring speech.
“I was named for him!” Thomas Henry bragged, as if his father’s friendship with the popular orator, now governor of Virginia, should make a difference.
“Well, I was named for the archangel, and it’s my turn,” Gabriel reasoned.
“My father served in the legislature with Patrick Henry.”
“My grandfather was a king!” Gabriel told his friend what Pa had once told him.
Thomas Henry rolled his eyes. “Do you even know what the legislature is, Gabriel?”
“Yes.”
“Can you even spell legislature?”
Gabriel fidgeted around and looked away, up to the sky. Mrs. Prosser had yet to teach them that word; still, he said, “Of course I can. Can you?”
“Would I have asked you?” Thomas Henry kicked at a dead and downed poplar limb, then bent to wipe the rotten crumbles from his shoe buckle. “Besides, your grandfather was no king. He came to Brookfield from Lancaster County, from Robert King Carter. I read of the purchase in my grandfather’s book. King Carter was the only king to come from Lancaster!” The Prosser boy laughed, and Gabriel’s face turned red-hot.
Lately, Thomas Henry seemed obsessed with King Carter, and he would not be quiet.
“You’re all kin, Gabriel, don’t you know that? Westbrook, Half Sink, Spring Meadow, all started with hands bought from King Carter. I’m going to be rich as he was when I’m a man,” said Thomas Henry.
Gabriel thought to sock Thomas Henry in the mouth — a sure guarantee of a lashing — but he heard something different in the boy’s crowing this time.
Are all of us here in Henrico descended of the same African king? Could folks from all the quarters for miles and miles be one big, scattered family? Is everybody related to everybody? He needed to get Ma; she could tell him.
“Anyway, your father was only my father’s blacksmith until he . . .” Thomas Henry stopped when he saw Gabriel turn to leave.
My father came from great men, and, just like Patrick Henry, he fought for the greatest cause, Gabriel reminded himself. He took off for the tobacco field; he knew he would find Ma there.
Thomas Henry followed after him. “Where are you going?” Thomas Henry demanded to know.
“I’d rather pop hornworms,” Gabriel muttered. And imagine one of them is you.
“You’re supposed to stay with me today!” Thomas Henry shouted.
Gabriel kept walking.
When Thomas Henry saw that Gabriel truly meant to leave him, the child’s breathing turned shallow and his palms grew sticky. “I’ll let you be Patrick Henry!” Thomas Henry shouted.
So Gabriel ran back.
He stood tall in a stream of light shining through the crown of a century oak and onto the chestnut stump. Thomas Henry squatted in the moss, rubbing his chin, playing a statesman. Two squirrels froze halfway down the oak; a nice flock of killdee swooped into the grass.
The old stump felt smooth and warm under Gabriel’s bare feet. With a deep bow to his playmate, he closed his eyes and waited for the most famous, most talked-about part of that speech to find its easy voice in his heart. Gabriel thought of Pa, not Patrick Henry. Then he imagined he was his own grandfather, a captive king, speaking to his people.
Gabriel let the birds settle, and then he began. “‘Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?’” he recited. “‘Forbid it, Almighty God!’”
Just behind and beside him, Gabriel noticed that Mr. Prosser now stood, watching them pretend. To show off for the head of Brookfield, when he reached his favorite part, Gabriel folded his right arm across his chest and raised his left to heaven. “‘I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!’”
A blue vein flared in Thomas Henry’s temple, and Gabriel knew he had delivered the speech well. Thomas Henry jumped up, shook his fist, and shouted, “‘To arms! To arms!’”
The boys grabbed makeshift weapons. Gabriel took up a handful of rocks; Thomas Henry took up a stick. They joined hands to charge the battlefield and stir the killdee. Before the boys could take possession of the imaginary earthworks, Mr. Prosser lurched at Gabriel and shook him by the ear. “Enough! Who thought up to make this mockery?” A vein bulged from Mr. Prosser’s temple, too.
Gabriel tucked the rocks and his hands in his pockets and wished he knew the secret way to send his true self deep away into the century oak. No one had yet shown him how.
Thomas Henry spoke first. “It was Gabriel’s idea, Father. He always wants to be Patrick Henry and play war.”
“Is that true, Gabriel?”
Gabriel kept his tongue still. Over the years, he had learned to let Thomas Henry do the explaining.
Mr. Prosser sent his son away up to the house.
“Do you play this game in the quarter?” Mr. Prosser demanded to know of Gabriel.
Gabriel searched the yard for Kissey to help him. Of everyone at Brookfield, only Kissey knew what-all could calm Mr. Prosser. Ma said Kissey had practically reared the master herself from the time she was ten and Mr. Prosser but a babe, but Kissey was n
owhere to be seen and Mr. Prosser stood waiting for an answer.
Every day Gabriel thought about how Pa had been dragged away for wanting freedom, so he refused to answer even when Mr. Prosser twisted his ear.
“No more war play,” Mr. Prosser finally said. “I won’t tolerate such poisonous talk. I learned that lesson from your father. Come with me,” Mr. Prosser said, and pulled Gabriel along behind him.
When they reached the overseer’s dwelling, Prosser’s man came out and hooked Gabriel around the neck.
“Knock some sense into the boy,” Mr. Prosser ordered.
Gabriel saw his friend’s shoes poking out from behind the woodshed. Thomas Henry’s come, he thought. I see him there; he’s come to help me. Sure and relieved that he would not be beaten, Gabriel waved for the young master to step out. He smiled in comfort that Thomas Henry was truehearted after all.
Prosser’s man smiled, too. With a force Gabriel was unprepared to absorb, the man struck Gabriel’s chest and face and back with a wooden board. Had Gabriel expected those first quick blows, he might have stopped the single yelp from escaping. Instead, Gabriel teetered between gasping breath and no breath at all. Bright white blinded one eye, and from the other he saw Brookfield’s red ochre dirt and watched the man’s brown pants rush toward him.
He dropped to the ground and lay there until both his eyes found, again, the full blue, empty clear sky. Warm rocks tumbled around his mouth. He tried to figure how they had gotten there all the way from his pocket. He spit and turned sick at the sight of his two front teeth swimming in his blood spittle.
Mr. Prosser had just watched. Now the master shouted toward where Thomas Henry hid. “Son, get out from behind the shed. If you’re grown enough to defy me, I expect you’re man enough to finish this yourself.”
Thomas Henry will never hurt me. We go for brothers; everyone says so.
Prosser’s man handed the bloodied board to Thomas Henry.
“Don’t be chickenhearted, Son. Gabriel must learn his place,” said Mr. Prosser. “Are you a man?”
“I am a man, Father,” Thomas Henry insisted.
Gabriel covered his face and he rolled onto his side.
The boy struck at Gabriel’s head and his legs and his bare feet, then dropped the board and sprinted away.
“Do you understand now?” Mr. Prosser asked Gabriel.
Gabriel nodded that he did.
“Good.” Mr. Prosser pulled Gabriel up. “I’ve always liked you especially well, Gabriel. Go see Kissey for a poultice to stop that bleeding, all right?”
Within earshot of Gabriel, Prosser’s man said, “Idle African hands are no good for Brookfield, Mr. Prosser. Negroes that can read and write are dangerous. I expect ones the size of him ’specially so. Considerin’ he got his father in him, you might take some action, sir.”
“I well know how to control my own bondmen,” Mr. Prosser barked. Then he joked, “Controlling my wife is an altogether different matter. I mean to speak to Ann again. She favors Gabriel terribly, indulges him on an almost daily basis. Still, I admire her charitable heart.”
The overseer shook his head and pointed at Gabriel. He opened his mouth to speak, but Mr. Prosser interrupted him. “You’re right, of course. A boy like Gabriel has a busy mind — too busy.” The planter called after Gabriel, “Tell your mother I’m sending you to Richmond.”
“Yes, sir,” Gabriel said, and he ran to the quarter for Ma and Kissey.
The words I’m sending you to Richmond might have caused some other boy to take to the marsh, but Gabriel was descended from a family long in greatness and courage. Richmond petrified Ma, but a mere city could not frighten Gabriel.
MA KNEW that Mr. Prosser determined the life’s work of Brookfield’s people. She had no voice for herself and no voice for her sons. When Gabriel had come to her saying, “I’m going to Richmond,” she could only let him go.
Even though Pa had been taken away, tradition declared that Pa’s trade would rightfully pass to his sons. Solomon, who had just turned eleven, would learn to smith, and Mr. Prosser had arranged that Gabriel would join his brother as an apprentice. The two younger sons of Brookfield’s former blacksmith would learn their new trade together, and they would learn in the city.
Ma thought Gabriel might make as fine a smithy as Pa and, she reckoned, an even better one than Solomon, but still she prayed, Not yet, Lord. She could do nothing more than pray; Mr. Prosser had decided.
What can a woman do, Lord?
On the night before her sons were to leave, the pine knots in the fire had nearly all burned up, and Ma watched Gabriel twitching restlessly on the floor. She placed her hand on his chest to calm his fitfulness.
“Gabriel.” She tried to soothe him into a peaceful sleep. “Settle down, now. Sleep if you can. Settle down.”
If Mr. Prosser’s plot to send Gabriel to Richmond didn’t scare Gabriel, it did Ma. She had seen that city tear apart many families, including her own.
Why come Gabriel’s goin’ there now, when I still need him here, only the Lord knows, she thought. No good thing come from bein’ in Richmond.
Ma had once been one of the women standing exposed in the bottom of that town. She had stood on the wood wearing only a modest soiled muslin cloth knotted around her waist.
Every day still, some buried but not forgotten hurt swelled through her. Now’days Ma never knew whether the bad memory might be roused by the sweet-earth smell of Richmond’s bad tobacco burning on the wind or awakened by Prosser’s man pausing to bend and stare her down. She never knew what might drive the terrible recollections back into the forefront of her brain; she only knew the evil imposed on her could not be suppressed inside her. Every day, still, in muscle and mind and skin, she remembered how the trader had, for the bidding crowd, held up first her left breast and then her right, as if testing fruit for its prime. Even folding over tobacco plants or handling holiday turkeys with Kissey might suck Ma right back to that day.
She was only a girl and her bleeding had only just started. At first, she had not understood when the trader called her a good breeder, but when he then invited Mr. Prosser and the other bidding men to remove the muslin in order to squeeze her hips and examine the between of her thighs, she understood. Standing there outside the courthouse facing the James River in Richmond, she had prayed the river might sweep her away home. Once she realized she could never go back, she prayed she might never bleed again.
Now, after so many years of holding herself prisoner to her past, Ma tried to set free her mind from the terrible thoughts and memories of that day, let them all fly away with smoke from the dwindling fire. She knelt down beside Gabriel and blew her cool breath across his face. If I gave a good increase for Mr. Prosser, it’s only ’cause I love the blacksmith so.
To lure away all the suffering that her tired mind liked to unleash in these kinds of still moments, Ma hummed out loud. To fill herself up with today, right now, only this instant of watching her boy sleep, Ma stroked Gabriel’s brow. Yet somehow, the stubborn taproot of the worst yesterday of all refused to loosen its hold, and she remembered.
She remembered how Prosser’s man had come to the quarter to fetch Pa in the darkest strand of earliest morning. Pa’s trade had often sent him away from Brookfield around the countryside or into the city, and Ma could always sense his returns. The last time Pa left, Ma knew he would not be back.
Pa hadn’t time to explain or run before the overseer showed up with a gun. When she saw that Prosser’s man was armed, Ma had figured the truth. Pa been talkin’ again — here, there, all over — about us risin’, about us bein’ free. Mr. Prosser had enough now.
“I’m goin’ to Richmond,” Pa had told his family.
Ma could only nod. “Couldn’t make a better man than you, the Lord. You find a way back to me, Pa. Hear me? No better man.” Her hands had started to shake in fear and in rage. Ma considered whether she had the strength to seize the gun from Prosser’s man and strike him down.
On the still-dark morning that Prosser’s man took Pa to Richmond, Gabriel had grabbed a hold of his father’s pant leg. That act had quelled Ma’s murderous thinking.
“I want to come with you, Pa,” Gabriel had begged, and Ma peeled her boy from his father. She saw then that she needed to be Gabriel’s mother more than she needed to slay a man.
Her husband had always told her, “I see the place in you that no man can ever harm. Not Prosser. Not his man. I belong there.” Pa knew that place. Pa. No one else.
Then Ma fell to her knees, too, and wrapped her own self around Pa. “I can’t stay without you; I don’t want to. You find your way back to me,” she said, again.
“I will, Ma. I will.” Pa had tried to lift her up, but Ma spread full out on the floor.
“I’m goin’ to Richmond now. I’ll be all right,” her husband had said. Pa kissed Martin and Solomon, and Ma. He put his lips to Gabriel’s ear. “Be brave, and you will be free, my angel-boy.”
While revisiting the memory of that horrid day, Ma had let the fire completely die out in their hut. Not a curl of smoke lingered; nothing to carry this memory away, so Ma stopped tugging on the taproot. She knew this one would only grow stronger.
What can a poor woman do, Lord?
She lifted her sleeping youngest son to the bed and took his place on the floor.
In the morning, she stood beside Prosser’s cart and watched Old Major and the bay mare take two of her sons away. She jogged along next to the cart, holding Gabriel’s hand through the bars.
Ma didn’t worry as much about Solomon. Solomon follows, but Gabriel, he leads by his own mind. Trouble creeps along after a strong and willful boy like him. Pa would be proud. Lord, I am scared.
“Solomon, take care of Gabriel. Keep your brother safe,” she pleaded.
Ma ran faster to keep up and would not let go of Gabriel’s hand. “I don’t like Richmond,” she cried. “Come back to me.” Mr. Prosser urged Old Major to whip the bay mare away faster.