Come August, Come Freedom

by Gigi Amateau

  He took the last three ready apples from his tree — one for Nanny, one for himself, and one for Ma. I’ll visit Ma first, he decided. He bit into the fruit without polishing it first on his shirt. He knew the superstition about unclean apples, and he didn’t care.

  Gabriel, scared of nothin’, Ma always would say. He could hear her scolding him good. Now, Gabriel, wipe off that apple, or you askin’ for trouble from the devil hisself.

  Let Satan come on, and Mr. Prosser, too, Gabriel thought. I’m goin’ to marry my Nan!

  The whole way back to Ma’s hut, Gabriel planned what he would say, how he would tell Ma. He wanted to bring her this small gift of the last apple of the season while she lay suffering in the clutches of the fever. The news about a wedding would ease her spirit. Nanny will wait for me till I get back from telling Ma.

  His ma was resting, curled up in Pa’s bed. Venus or Mrs. Prosser or someone else had brought quilts down from the house and laid them three deep across her. Gabriel sniffed the top one for cornmeal or lavender to tell who had been caring for his mother. The bedclothes smelled of bacon. Venus, he thought. She’s all right, that Venus. All right after all.

  Ma had yet to stir or roll over. He dunked his kerchief in the water bucket, wrung it out, and draped the cool indigo scrap cloth around the back of Ma’s neck.

  “Ma,” Gabriel said. “I got good news. Mr. Prosser agreed. I’m marrying Nanny.”

  She groaned a little.

  “Nobody knows yet, Ma, but you and me: I’ve about saved up all Nanny’s free money. Your grandchildren will be free and Virginia born, Ma.”

  She still hadn’t moved, so Gabriel tried to tease her by saying what Ma always said to him when she had big news. “Now, that’s what I know. What do you know?”

  Ma managed to roll over and reached for Gabriel. Her lips were dry and cracked. One suffering eye, swollen purple and protruding onto her cheek, was already gone on ahead to seek the best way home. And the other, still tender and searching, fixed Gabriel. “Where’s your pa?” Ma whispered.

  “Shhh,” Gabriel said. “That fever got you seeing things good. That’s what a fever does. Pa’s gone on. A long time now. You remember?”

  “Pa gone already?” Ma looked lost in a place she should have known well. “I was just talkin’ to him. He asked me what kind of trouble you makin’. Asked about your lady, too. Pa gone already?”

  Then Gabriel knew for sure. Only the dying see the dead. He folded her frail hand around the apple.

  Ma brought the green apple to her nose and inhaled deep. “Little boy, you remember how you liked to climb? You remember how you’d shinny up, way up the tippy-top, up that tree? You liked to leave your brother behind and stay all alone up there.”

  He kissed her forehead.

  “‘I can see all the way to Colonel Wilkinson’s,’ you would tell me. And what would I say to you?”

  Gabriel closed his eyes and squeezed her hand. He shook his head no to stop her from dying, but she persisted.

  “Tell me, son. You remember? Tell me, what would I say to you?”

  He gave in. “You never told me to get down. You’d ask me, ‘That’s all the far you see, child? Just to the colonel’s place? Come on, now, how far can you see, angel-boy? To the city, to the market, to the sea?’” Gabriel laughed at the memory, then told her, “But Wilkinson’s is ’bout far as I need to see these days. Only got eyes for Nanny, Ma. Ma?”

  Gabriel never made it to Wilkinson’s place that day. He stayed with Ma through the night, until sunrise, guarding her body until he felt sure her spirit had reached its true home and reunited with Pa.

  When he went up to tell Venus of Ma’s passing over, he learned that, though Kissey had, thankfully, survived the fever, the great house was in mourning. With Mr. Prosser’s death, the care and protection of all the people was conveyed to Thomas Henry.

  Gabriel, Solomon, and Martin buried Ma beside Old Major. The folks who were well or recovered enough came to pay their respects, and they knelt beside her grave while the boys recited psalms and while each one wondered to himself what kind of man could go on without his mother.

  By then, Dog had become a hideous sight to behold from her own grieving heart. Thomas Henry declared her a threat to Brookfield and prevailed on Gabriel to take Mr. Prosser’s pistol to Dog’s temple. Instead, Gabriel drove Dog deep into the swamp, but he wouldn’t pull the trigger on Dog. Ever.

  “Go on,” he told her. “You’re free to be anywhere but Brookfield.” Then he felt the giant crater in his heart where Ma used to be. He said to Dog, “I know just how you feel, girl. Go on, now. Free to go anywhere but home.”

  When Gabriel told Thomas Henry the truth — that he had run the hound off and set her free — the twenty-two-year-old new lord of Brookfield erupted. “Insolent!” he called Gabriel. In return for Gabriel’s defying him, Thomas Henry refused to honor the late Mr. Prosser’s promise to Gabriel.

  “Besides,” Thomas Henry said, “Father wrote nothing in his book regarding permission for you to marry Wilkinson’s Nanny. I desire that you marry Venus instead.”

  Once, Gabriel had loved Thomas Henry and preferred Thomas Henry’s company to that of his brothers, but now he could not even stomach the sweet, pampered smell of him. He recalled how Ma had told him once, “Workin’ hard never been good enough to set a person free or keep a man with his family. Now, that’s what I know; what do you know?”

  What Gabriel knew was that even a constant flow of money would never satisfy Thomas Henry. Mr. Prosser had willed his son plenty of land, bequeathed him fifty hands, and yet left his son penniless. To get what he wanted, to get what he was promised, to get his fair share, Gabriel decided to withhold from hiring out until Thomas Henry agreed to his marriage to Nan.

  Show him what I’m worth. Let his pocket feel empty of my earnings. If working hard’s not good enough for Thomas Henry to give me what I want, then I won’t work at all.

  Prosser’s man summoned Gabriel to the forge, but Gabriel would not yield, so he was ordered beaten, whipped, and strung up.

  GABRIEL WITHSTOOD Thomas Henry’s wickedness, but Brookfield hardly withstood the new master’s mismanagement and neglect. For Gabriel, the year was barbaric. He never thought of running, because of his love for Nanny. Finally, due to the urging of Mrs. Ann Prosser and the dwindling of Brookfield’s funds, Thomas Henry relented, and, for a second time, Gabriel was granted permission to marry Nan.

  Kin from all around the countryside — Henrico, Hanover, Caroline, and Richmond — were fixing to gather for the nuptials. Mrs. Prosser donated faded blue chintz and a strip of frayed lace toward a new dress for Nanny. Jacob Kent gave Gabriel an old black velvet overcoat when he heard the news. Jupiter promised he would wash his shirt and dry it in the sunshine. Solomon joked that he would gladly take a wife, too, if only Jupiter would also wash out his pants. Now all Gabriel needed was a pig to barbecue for the wedding feast.

  Jupiter knew just where to find one.

  Solomon and Jupiter accompanied Gabriel to Absalom Johnson’s farm for the securing of Nanny’s wedding pig. Isaac refused to go along. At the time, Jupiter was hired out to Johnson on land rented from Colonel Wilkinson. Jupiter knew the farm well — where spiders hid from the light, where the best pig slept, and where Johnson napped in the late afternoon. Solomon went to watch out, to create a diversion should the need arise.

  By the letter of the law, Absalom Johnson’s pig was not Gabriel’s to take, though everyone in Henrico embraced the more pliable spirit of the law. Out in the country, moderation abided when livestock went missing. If no man got caught stealing, the theft was most often overlooked, but bunglers had best beware.

  In the broad light of day, Jupiter slipped under the split-rail fence. He dove for the fattest pig and handed the prize across the fence to Gabriel. The boys congratulated themselves at the easy pickings, but the boys celebrated too soon.

  Gabriel did not run but walked from Johnson’s barnyard with the pig un
der his arm. Looking down the wrong end of the lane, Solomon missed Absalom Johnson coming around the back side of the barn. Jupiter didn’t see him, nor did Gabriel. The red-haired man — a newcomer to Henrico — possessed no land of his own but possessed of his own a temper, an ego, and something to prove. With cursing and flailing and a high-pitched squeal, Johnson pursued Gabriel and the hog.

  The farmer called out after Gabriel, “Thief! Thief!” and ordered Gabriel to set down the pig. When confronted, Gabriel tried to persuade Johnson to consider the animal a small gift and invited the farmer to the upcoming nuptials.

  Johnson only yelled louder, this time yelling, “Damned thief!”

  Gabriel held fast to the hog. “A fair trade,” he said, and then suggested Johnson consider the swine repayment in full for the calf taken from Brookfield by Johnson’s own bondmen just last Saturday.

  Everyone knows who took that steer from us last week, Gabriel thought. Even now half a Brookfield calf hangs in Johnson’s smokehouse.

  The farmer laughed at Gabriel, a slave bargaining with a man. Johnson paid his rent to old Colonel Wilkinson in pork so had his own plans for the pig. He had plans for Gabriel, too.

  Only just then did Gabriel consider that the hog he held might be anything other than eaten and enjoyed on the day he married Nanny. “Let us go, and I’ll let go the pig,” he said, too late.

  He was thinking about Nanny — not court or jail or the gallows — when Johnson lunged at him. He was thinking, Nanny might rather have a fish feast for her wedding than a barbecue, after all. He was thinking, Nanny wants me more than she wants a pig or a calf or any fancy meal. He was thinking, I want Nan and that is all. And he thought he might just walk away. For Nanny.

  Absalom Johnson knocked Gabriel to the ground; the pig flew for a few good seconds before landing in the road. Too stunned to squeal, the spared swine watched the two men rolling in the dust. Solomon and Jupiter cheered for Gabriel and never remembered that, while a man has his rights, a man’s property has none.

  Johnson growled into Gabriel’s ear, “I saw your bride walkin’ alone in the woods. Mighty pretty. Not a mark on her, front or back. Am I right? I need a little gal to cook my meals, wash my clothes. Believe I’ll speak to Colonel Wilkinson directly about hirin’ her over here.”

  Gabriel clasped his legs around Johnson’s middle and flipped the farmer over onto his back. Sitting on the man’s chest, he swore to himself, Absalom Johnson will suffer for threatening my Nan. He choked the farmer and wrung his neck until the palette of Johnson’s face darkened from apple-blossom pink to overripe persimmon.

  I have promised Nanny so much. This fat pig was just the beginning.

  Gabriel looked into the farmer’s raging green eyes and released his own ferocious rage. He could easily have smashed Johnson’s skull against the sharp foot of a rock protruding from the road, and he first thought he might. He heard his brother begging him to stop. So Gabriel grabbed Johnson’s shirt and shook him up. “Know this, Absalom Johnson: I am a man with a free will,” Gabriel said, and he decided he was about done.

  “Oh, I will take her.” The defiant farmer snarled his evil intent to harm Nanny.

  Gabriel bent down into Johnson’s face. “No. From this day, you are a marked man,” he said, and imposed on Johnson the common punishment of a desperate master on an insolent slave. With no knife to brand the farmer with, as a slave owner would brand a runaway, Gabriel used his teeth instead. He bit down hard through Johnson’s gristly ear until his teeth gnashed against each other and his mouth filled up with warm blood. He clamped his jaw tighter and yanked the ear free.

  He removed the farmer’s ear for Nanny’s protection. With only one ear, Johnson would now be easily identified by any woman the farmer dared approach in the woods or elsewhere. Now the message would be clear to all who saw Johnson: This man is a danger to our safety.

  Johnson writhed in the dirt. The bleeding man pressed the futile tourniquet of his bare hands against the emptiness on the left side of his head. Blood rushed out, flooding the seams between his fingers, and Johnson kicked at Gabriel, who stood over him.

  Jupiter’s senses — absent midfight — returned. “What have you done, Gabriel? Lordamercy, what have you done?”

  Gabriel wiped his mouth across his bare arm, and, taking up a handful of red dirt, he rubbed the taste of Absalom Johnson from his mouth.

  Solomon took his brother by the elbow. “They’ll kill you, Gabriel. Maybe us, too.”

  Gabriel said to Solomon, “Then ‘let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,’ Brother.”

  “What have you done?” Jupiter repeated.

  Gabriel put his arm around his good friend. “Come on; we should go.”

  Unbound and unharmed, the boys set off for Watson’s Tavern. They left Absalom Johnson lying in the road. They left the pig to savor the dismembered ear.

  Gabriel was hot and flushed from grog when he told Nanny about the fight with Johnson. She popped him good on the head the way she always did when anyone she loved acted a fool. He tried to explain. “I marked him for you, Nan, for your benefit.”

  When he said benefit, Gabriel remembered. They will not hang me. I will ask for my clergy.

  GABRIEL STOOD inside the courthouse along the river in the city exactly one year from Mr. Prosser’s untimely passing. He had been in the building many times on business for Jacob Kent, to replace window hinges and door latches. He even had delivered Dr. Foushee’s newly shod horse there. This Monday morning, it was where he would answer to charges in the maiming of Absalom Johnson. Maiming was a capital offense for a man like Gabriel.

  The court of oyer and terminer — a local tribunal of gentleman justices appointed to try slaves — had earlier dismissed all charges against his brother Solomon, but they hadn’t let Jupiter off.

  At Gabriel’s trial, Absalom Johnson sat in the front of the court with a scrap-cloth bandage wrapped full around his head. Though a month had passed since the fight, wisps of red and brown and yellow still leaked from the dressing.

  He felt the farmer watching him and so met his gaze directly, holding Johnson’s eyes to his until the farmer cringed and looked down at his hands. Gabriel turned toward the jurists, all men he had known since childhood, all men who had hired in his services.

  “How do you plea?” Mr. Younghusband, the county coroner, asked.

  Gabriel listened for the James River. Well past the clearing of throats at the bench and shuffling of papers in the courtroom, just beyond the clopping of horses in the street and creaking of ships at the waterfront, he heard the falls of the James churning and roaring toward the calm, deep port. And in the silent pauses between them all, he heard Ma call him, too.

  Where you off to, my strappin’ boy? To the market? To the city? My angel-boy, off to the sea?

  From a narrow ravine in his heart, Gabriel also heard Pa. You live free, Gabriel-boy.

  Gabriel stated his plea for the court and every witness present to hear: “Innocent.”

  The only evidence the court needed was the hollow side of Absalom Johnson’s head. They took pity on Johnson, a refugee from the more rural and less refined Dinwiddie County. While the Henrico gentlemen considered their verdict, Johnson burst out that he was afraid of Gabriel. “In Dinwiddie, this villain would have been drawn and quartered already.” He begged the court, “He tried to kill me, and he will kill me if you don’t take swift and permanent action.” The farmer trembled, and his voice cracked.

  Gervas Storrs scolded him, “Sir, we all understand you are rather newly arrived to Henrico County. I remind you, we are a genteel and fair-minded people here. I know Prosser’s Gabriel, and this could only have been provoked.”

  “He bit off my ear!” Johnson shouted.

  No matter that the gentleman jurists realized that even their own bondmen stole their neighbors’ hogs and calves on occasion, no matter that the gentlemen recoiled at the sight of the social-climbing Johnson, and no m
atter that they themselves had hired Gabriel on — they would punish him severely.

  Gabriel’s counsel did not show how Johnson had lunged first. His counsel failed to raise the issue of Johnson’s foul threat against Nanny. Yet even had the defense presented all that and more, the five Henrico gentlemen of the court of oyer and terminer would have returned the same exact verdict.

  Gabriel leaned over to his adviser and spoke the three words that he knew would save him: “Benefit of clergy.”

  “What?” The man representing Gabriel had already begun packing up.

  “Request my clergy. It is my right.”

  Any slave found guilty of a capital crime — save insurrection — could save himself from death by reciting for the court a verse from the Bible. Every man in the room knew the law. Instead of hanging, the guilty man would be branded with a cross in the web of his left hand so that he could never again invoke the stay.

  Absalom Johnson rose to his feet and shook his fist at the court in protest.

  “He will be allowed his clergy,” said Pleasant Younghusband. “If Prosser’s Gabriel can stand before us and recite a verse from memory, we will stay this execution. Jailer? Ready the brand.”

  Gabriel rose before the court. He thought of Ma and the psalms she had taught him under the apple tree when he was a boy. He recalled Ma’s lost love of the scripture and how she believed, even in the first days after Pa had been taken, that her Lord was on the side of freedom. He wished Ma had been right.

  He made his selection and spoke the verse in full voice. He glared at Johnson and recited, “‘Such people dig a deep hole, then fall in it themselves. The trouble they cause comes back on them, and their heads are crushed by their own evil deeds. Psalm seven, verses fifteen and sixteen.’”

  Absalom Johnson dropped his head in his hands and wept openly before the court. His weeping quickly turned to wailing.

  Gabriel did not wince when the jailer pressed the bright-orange cross into his hand. He didn’t turn away at the smell of his own singed flesh but only wondered whether he had actually forged this very brand the last time he hired out to Gervas Storrs.