The Known World (2004 Pulitzer Prize)

by Edward P. Jones

  The crops would escape the fire and would thrive, tended by no one. The fields had not had such bounty in more than seven years. There would be no harvest in the usual sense, as no one came to reap what the slaves had sown. Had someone counted up what crops the fields had to give, it would have come to more than $325 a slave.

  The fire at A Child’s Dream burned for three days. Counsel left that second day, heavy with all the sorrow he would ever know, and went west in the county and then south, avoiding all human beings as best he could. He did not care, but it occurred to him in South Carolina that what he had done was a crime, since much of what he had belonged to others. He continued on, aimless, saddled with the memories of his loved ones and the end of a plantation that even men in Washington, D.C., knew about. He had kin in South Carolina, and Belle had people in Georgia, on the coast, but he decided not to go to those towns. Who could understand what had happened to him? And he had the cousin he had grown up with in Manchester County, Virginia, but he had always had so much more than John Skiffington had and Counsel had never missed a chance to let John know that. He could not see himself standing on John’s doorstep, penniless, even though he sensed that John would have held his arms open wide and given him all he had. So he rode on, not even knowing that he just wanted some peace, and not knowing, until much later, that he wanted back all that he had lost.

  About three months after he left his plantation, Counsel came to Chattahoochee, Georgia, south of Columbus, thinking that he was far enough away from the coast where some of Belle’s relatives lived. He had ridden nearly every day except for a two-week stretch in Estill, South Carolina, where a rough cold had put him on his back. It was like no other cold he had ever had and he suspected that it was more, that the smallpox he was not even trying to outrun had finally caught up with him. He had brought some money from North Carolina and that afforded a place in a back room at an old couple’s boardinghouse. He paid for a week’s stay, thinking that by the end of that week, he would be dead. The old woman may have suspected what was in mind because she told him, on the third day as she fed him, that no one had ever died in her house and he would not be the first. He recovered and left their place in the night, taking the horse and the saddle that he had given them.

  In Chattahoochee, a month after leaving Estill, illness found him again, just as he had hired himself to a man with a large-sized farm. The man had no slaves, only free Negroes he hired when he needed them. Counsel found himself strangely uncomfortable around blacks who toiled but were not slaves, people who came and went as they pleased. He said nothing, needing the money to be able to push on. He worked three days and then collapsed on the fourth day. “I am dying and there is nothing to be done,” he said to the Negroes and the white farmer as they carried him from the field. “Then we’ll find a place for you out yonder,” the white man said, pointing to a cemetery that Counsel had passed by his first day there. He stayed in the room in the white man’s house and was attended to mostly by Matilda, the black woman who cooked and cleaned for them. If she knew how to talk, she never said a word to him, not even good morning, not even good night. He began to recover, slowly, and day by day he cursed God for playing with him. “Make up your mind,” he said to God. “I don’t mind dying. I just want you to make up your mind.”

  Late one night, three weeks after he took ill, he waited until all were asleep in the house and took money from a desk in the man’s parlor and saddled one of the man’s horses and left. He wanted to go to Alabama and eventually make it to California. He knew nothing about California, only that it was very far from North Carolina. In November, in Carthage, Mississippi, he bought a pistol to replace the one he had not been able to find in the dark in the Estill farmhouse. That 1840 Allen pepperbox had belonged to his father and all through Alabama he had thought he might go back to the farmer and return the money so he would not have to be without his father’s pistol. But so much more that had been his father’s had been burned up in North Carolina and he realized, nearing Carthage, how foolish it was to dwell on a mere gun.

  Outside of Merryville, Louisiana, in Beauregard Parish, he came to a wide expanse of land that seemed without end, parched grass and soil widening with cracks that were a foot or more in some places. The trees seemed not to have grown up out of the ground but to have been placed on the land, like a piece of furniture in a room. His horse, on his own, began to move slowly and Counsel felt the animal might at any moment decide to turn around and head back. He would have abided by that decision. Then, little by little, the land greened and cypress after cypress appeared and the horse moved ahead with more confidence. Counsel saw pelicans and thought he could smell the sea. But he still saw no sign of human beings.

  The green land began to even out and at last he could see a house and a smaller structure in the distance, a place he might reach in two hours or so depending upon how fast his horse would go. He took his time, thinking what he saw was some trick of a tiring mind, and he came to the house in about an hour. But after riding for that hour, he was back in a desolate place again. The land seemed incapable of growing anything but sorrow, yet, as Counsel looked about, he could see that some effort had been made to farm. And in a few spots he saw some success, though he did not make out what was growing. The crops were about three feet high. The house was leaning to the right, and the barnlike building next to it was leaning to the left.

  A mule came out of the barn and looked away from where Counsel and his horse were and then looked at Counsel and moseyed out to him. The mule nudged the horse in the nose and the horse nudged back.

  Counsel had seen the smoke from the chimney about a half hour earlier and he dismounted and went up to the door. Before knocking, he took one last look about. Everything seemed better from the porch; it was a place that might well sustain a man and his family, if sustain was just all he ever wanted. Pelts and game, squirrel and rabbit and somewhat larger animals Counsel had never seen before, hung from the ceiling of the porch from end to end.

  The door was ajar. He knocked once and a woman opened the door wide, looked at him as if she were deciding whether he deserved her smile. She didn’t smile but turned to someone in the room and said, “It’s somebody.” Counsel found the woman attractive, especially after she moved her head and he saw the way her neck rose up to meet her hair. The beauty was fading and it was doing so at a fast pace. “Who somebody?” a man said.

  A boy about twelve years old came to the door and told Counsel to come in. He called the woman “Ma” and told her to close the damn door after Counsel came in and she did so. A man was at a table in an area that passed for the kitchen. The floor was hard-packed earth. The room smelled heavily of smoke and the humidity hung thick. The house was much bigger than it appeared from the outside, but it was not a house of rooms but one giant one and each area seemed to have a function as rooms in a normal house would. Beds far to the right, stove and table in the back to the left, and near the front of the place was a living area where two girls smaller than the boy were playing on the floor with corncob dolls. Counsel could tell by the way one girl was talking that it was not friendly play.

  The man was eating at the table and said to Counsel, “I’m Hiram Jinkins.”

  Counsel told him who he was and that he was passing through and would appreciate a place to stay for the night, maybe a little something to eat. Jinkins pointed to a chair across the table from him and indicated that Counsel should sit. The chair had one leg shorter than the others and Counsel found it necessary to balance himself the whole time. He had the feeling that the man would not want him to move elsewhere. The only other empty chair was next to the man and the boy sat in that one soon after Counsel sat down.

  “That Meg,” Hiram said, pointing to the woman who came up and took away the empty metal pan that Hiram had been eating from. “And this here Hiram number four,” and nodded sideways to the boy. Counsel said good day to them both. “You say you ain’t ate?” Hiram the man said. “That’s right,” Counse
l said. “Well . . . ,” and the woman soon returned with the same metal pan, now brimming with a stew that shared the pan with congealed grease. It had generous portions of meat. Counsel was too hungry to ask what the meat was. The woman set a spoon beside the pan. “Biscuits, too,” the boy said to his mother. “Don’t forget the goddamn biscuits.” Meg brought biscuits and Counsel ate. The girls were still playing in a far part of the room and the one girl with the mean talk had quieted.

  “Where you from?” the boy said. “You Louisiana stock?” While he looked to be about twelve, his voice was husky and in a dark room he might have gone for a man.

  “Georgia,” Counsel said, trying to remember all he could about the Estill farm.

  The room was darkening as evening came on and Meg and the girls went about the place, lighting candles and two lanterns. The boy saw one of the girls with a lantern. He turned quickly in his chair and said, “Save the damn lanterns. You know better. Save the damn lanterns.”

  “Where he say?” the man asked the boy softly.

  “Georgia. Where your damn ears?”

  The man touched both his earlobes at once and said, “Where they always been.”

  “Well, act like it. He said Georgia clear as the damn day and you didn’t even hear him. You closer to him than I am and you still didn’t hear him.” For the very first time ever, Counsel missed the evenings with his family, Laura playing the piano, Belle reading to the younger children. Make up your mind, God, that’s all I ask.

  “You can go eat shit, boy,” the man said. “Pick up your goddamn spoon and eat shit.”

  “I’m doing anough of that already.”

  Hiram, the man, said, “What you do in Georgia, Mr. Skiffington? I can tell you know your way round books. I can tell that.”

  “How can you tell that?” Hiram, the boy, said. “How can you tell anything bout him when all he did was say his name and Georgia and come in here and eat our food? How can you say that, Pa?”

  “Easy nough,” the man said. Out of the corner of his eye Counsel could see Meg standing at the window. There was a draft from somewhere and the candle in that part of the room wavered and now and again, with the intermittent light, she seemed to disappear. The girls were talking but he had no idea where in the huge room they were. “What you do in Georgia?” the man said again.

  “I did some farming. I even had a little store, sold some dry goods and whatnot.”

  “A man of everything,” Hiram, the man, said. “I like men of everything.”

  “That ain’t what he said, Pa. He ain’t done everything and I don’t know why you make it out to be so.”

  The man yawned. “I had three children die, then you come along,” he said. He crossed his arms and said to Counsel, “We can put you up in the barn. You think you can live with that?”

  “Yes,” Counsel said. “And I’m thankful for that.” He stood up.

  “I just know you are,” the boy said.

  “Hiram,” the father said, “see Mr. Skiffington gets settled in the barn. Show him where the shithouse is.”

  The boy said, “You see him get settled in the damn barn.”

  The man held a fist out to Counsel. “Three of em went on by.” He opened one, two, three fingers. “Three of em and then he came along. God and his mysteries.” He shook his head. “Meg, see that this man gets settled in the barn.”

  Meg had a candle and two blankets in her hands and led the way and Counsel followed to the barn, leading his horse. “You keep the candle,” she said once she had pointed out an agreeable spot for him to bed down, “but please don’t burn the place down. That would not do.” “I’ll be careful,” he said as she left.

  He saw that his horse was comfortable and he bedded down across from the mule that seemed to be pacing in its own stall. “Stop,” Counsel said to the mule once he was settled. “Just stop that.” The mule paused, seemed to consider what the man had said and then went back to pacing around. Counsel turned over on his side and pulled the blanket up to his ear. He was well into his sleep when he felt something touch his shoulder. He thought at first that the mule had wandered over and was nuzzling him, but the touching became more insistent and he reached for his pistol. He turned and cocked the gun. “Oh,” Meg said and fell back with the sound of the gun.

  “What? What you want?” Counsel said. He tried to make out her face in the dark, tried to remember what little of it he had seen during the evening, but all he could pull forward was the face of a woman in Alabama who passed him in her wagon with her belongings and her family.

  Back on her knees, Meg raised the blanket and came in with him and began kissing his face. She pulled up her dress and put his hand between her legs. He wondered if the boy had come out of her. Finally, he laid her down and they continued kissing and he could hear the mule still pacing. His horse was silent. The woman pulled him on top of her and opened her legs wider, never once taking her lips from his. He was surprised to be inside her, as if all the touching and the kissing were not supposed to lead to that but to something quite innocent, something they could do at the table in front of the boy. In all the time she was there, the “Oh” was the only thing she said.

  In the morning he lay awake for some time to get himself together. He heard the mule peeing in its stall. He knew right away that Meg coming to him was not a dream. That had sometimes been his problem with events since leaving North Carolina, the sense upon awaking that where he was was no more than a dream, that North Carolina was the real and nothing after that could be trusted. He looked over at his horse. It was staring out the broken barn door. If he lay for a while, Counsel had discovered, the world would right itself and he would know where he was and that it was North Carolina that couldn’t be trusted.

  As he came out of the barn, he looked at the side of the house and discerned that the dimensions were far smaller than the actual inside of the house. What he saw outside—the wall of no more than twenty feet—could not possibly hold all that he had seen inside last night. And the front of the house was no more than fifteen feet. The inside last night was easily seventy-five feet by fifty feet. Counsel thought he should go back to the barn and try to start the day all over again, but the thought of the boy made him want to get away.

  He stood at the door to the house before knocking. He counted on the woman to keep their business to the two of them. She seemed the kind to know how to do that. He was still standing when the door opened and one of the little girls told him good morning. He said good morning and she said there was a little something to eat at the table.

  Inside he saw the same seventy-five feet by fifty feet of the night before. The two Hirams were eating at the table and Meg stood behind the man. “Have a bit to chew,” the father said and pointed at a pan across from him. Counsel took the same seat as the evening before. There was a lump of scrambled eggs and a slab of hard-cooked bacon sharing the pan with two large biscuits. Counsel sat and only then saw the gun beside the man’s pan. It was about equal distance between the man’s pan and the boy’s pan, so it was difficult to tell who the gun belonged to. But to make it plain, the man put the gun in his lap and sucked once on his teeth.

  “Sleep well?” the boy asked Counsel.

  “It was better than most places,” he said. “And I thank you for it.” He had left his own gun out with the horse in the barn, and though he had walked in hungry, the food before him began to turn his stomach. He wondered: Does a bullet in the gut hurt more when the bullet doesn’t have to mix it up with eggs and bacon and biscuits? Does it take longer to die on an empty stomach?

  He had a good look at the woman. A dark blue knot sat right next to her left eye.

  “We ain’t got hotel fixins,” the boy said.

  “What he means is we aim to do right by strangers.”

  “I know what I mean, Pa. He know what I mean. I’m speakin Jesus’ English.”

  The father continued, “You never know when a stranger is an angel, come to test which side of right and wron
g you standin on. God still does that to people, no matter what some men, even preachers, might claim. He still sends out angels to test us. I don’t want to fail.”

  “No,” Counsel said. “I wouldn’t want to fail either.”

  The father took up the gun and pointed at the food in front of Counsel. “Eat, eat,” he said. “My wife slaved all mornin over that.” He sat the gun beside his pan, much farther away this time from the boy’s pan.

  “I’m not all that hungry this morning,” Counsel said. “Truth is, I just come in to say my good-byes.”

  “Oh, go on. Eat. I’m sure you hungry anough. Angel work must be hard work, I would think. Angels do all that hard work for God and the least we could do is feed em as we can.” He had picked up the gun and said the last words tapping himself in the chest with the barrel. “I know I would be hungry if I was doin all that work.”