Sweetsmoke

by David Fuller

  "You were born here, Cassius. This is your home. You grew up with my son. I daresay you and Jacob were friends. He grew tall and handsome, did he not? He did not take you as a personal servant when he joined Ashby. William was an odd choice, I think. But no matter, perhaps he was protecting you, yes, I suspect that was it."

  The news is very bad, thought Cassius. The man delays.

  "Do you attend church, Cassius?"

  Cassius shook his head no.

  "No, I suppose not. Church is for women. And slaves. Not for men." Cassius realized Hoke had just differentiated him from the rest of his chattel.

  "They have been dancing around you and have only made it worse," said Hoke bitterly. "Everyone knows how she took care of you."

  So. Here it was.

  Hoke stood. He walked out from behind the desk and onto the long rug, hands behind his back. "Unnecessary intrigue, a lot of damned nonsense. Are you a danger to run, Cassius?"

  No sir.

  "No, of course not." Then, musing, "Although would you tell me if you were?" Cassius was unsure if Hoke spoke to him or to some unseen person in the room. "You already enjoy a freedom most of our family can only dream about. How I wish I had your freedom." Hoke looked directly at Cassius.

  Cassius wished he had never entered this room. He wished to further delay the news. He disliked being treated as if he were more than a slave when he knew so absolutely that he was not. When Hoke treated him as a human being, Cassius was unpleasantly reminded of the past, when he had been Hoke's favorite. Cassius wanted nothing more than to continue hating.

  "I will just come out and say it, Cassius, as I know you will handle it, and I trust you will not lose sight of yourself or what you have here." Hoke hesitated, and Cassius saw a tremor in his hand. Apparently the news had been a blow to Hoke as well. "She is dead, Cassius, that is all there is to it, Emoline Justice is dead, and that is that."

  The room blurred before his eyes and for a moment Cassius did not know where he was. Time stretched and at any other moment, he would have recognized his silence as dangerous, but at this moment time had little meaning as his head filled with voices from the past. It was what he had both dreaded and expected, but to have it verified took something out of him. His body grew unexpectedly heavy and he feared the floorboards might bow and splinter beneath the sudden weight of his legs and feet. He no longer saw Hoke's study, as in his mind he was looking at the snow piled up outside, against the window, and in that moment he felt her hands on his back, gently applying salve. But before the sorrow could expand and well up and smother him, he remembered where he was and he compressed his emotion and forced it deep down into the darkest pocket of his mind so that he would be incapable of revealing his feelings.

  He worked to make his voice sound normal: When?

  "Last night. Monday, yesterday."

  How?

  "Someone… Well, from the little I know, someone struck her. Struck her violently at the back of the head, they said."

  Who did it to her?

  "I do not know that, Cassius. No one knows that."

  Someone knows, thought Cassius. The one who did it to her knows. But he did not speak these thoughts aloud. Perhaps she had spoken her mind once too often, and that had led to her death.

  "She was… she was a damned annoying woman, a prickly, frustrating woman, oh how she could make my life miserable," said Hoke, and Cassius's shoulders straightened to hear her spoken of in such a way, but then he recognized the shiver in Hoke's voice and saw that Hoke had turned toward the window, perhaps to allow himself the indulgence of speaking openly of his grief, for he could do no such thing in front of his wife. Perhaps he could do no such thing in front of anyone else. "She tutored me as a boy, she was of course older, and such a bright and lively creature for a negro. My mother saw it first, saw that certain something in her, and Mother went against everyone and taught her to read. She learned well, so well that Mother had Emoline teach me. You would think she would have been grateful to be treated with such regard, but even then she could be so willful! It shocked me in those days, a slave with such strong opinions, I worried even then that she would go too far. I had… I had feelings for her, you may think it impossible, but that is the truth of it. I can still feel her in my arms, so tiny, so tiny."

  Cassius did not care to hear about Hoke's affection for Emoline Justice. She was dead, that difficult and extraordinary woman, a free woman, freed by Hoke himself, a woman who still taught when she could, a woman who sewed for the blacks and told fortunes to whites and had already bought her son's freedom and was striving to buy the freedom of her two daughters. Now they would never go free. Cassius knew her son well enough to know he would not work to free his sisters. But Hoke was correct about her certain something, and Cassius remembered the way a room lit up when she entered, even when she was stern and demanding. Or perhaps it was he who lit up to see her. He thought back on her face, and realized that in his memory she never appeared to be afraid.

  "I was so young then, and unsure, and you can imagine my amazement, my true amazement when she came to me, it being my first time. It was as if I was being bestowed with a great honor."

  Cassius took a step backward. Hoke was lying, he knew that for a fact. Emoline had told him about the times Hoke Howard had come to her bed and how they had made a son against her will. He crushed Hoke's words inside him, Hoke had no right to redefine her memory in that way.

  "She did me a great service. She lied to my mother about the identity of the baby's father. Mother was anything but unintelligent, but Emoline created just enough doubt."

  Cassius thought with disgust that Hoke still would not mention his own son's name, and his thoughts must have played out on his face because Hoke said, "But I go on too long." Hoke brought a sleeve to his cheek, composing himself. His next words were uttered with renewed strength, charged with his significance.

  "Now, Cassius. You tell me how you are with this. I would not like to put you in the tobacco shed again."

  Cassius remembered her small home in town with the two rooms. One wall was taken up with a large hearth that housed a living fire and the smell of the room came to him and he nearly lost his balance.

  If there is a funeral, I would like to attend, said Cassius.

  Hoke considered the request.

  "Depending on how you behave the next few days, I shall write you a pass when the time comes."

  Cassius nodded. He knew that Hoke would wait until after Emoline was in the ground and then he would tell Cassius it was too late. That did not matter. The living mattered. The dead were the dead. He endured Hoke's examining eyes as to his state of mind. This was his unspoken warning, Hoke would be watching, and then he remembered Ellen and young Charles, and Otis Bornock going first to Mr. Nettle in the fields, and Weyman looking away. He thought of the field hands and their song, and the whispering planter's family. The news had shaken them because of what she had once meant to the plantation, as a former house servant, in her relations with Hoke, and because of what she had once done for Cassius. Now they would all be watching. Cassius scanned the desk for the note delivered by Otis Bornock. He did not see it.

  Cassius left by the front door, but went around the side to the kitchen. Mam Rosie was outside; she had not gone in to her pallet yet. She looked thinner and more taut than she had in the afternoon with Andrew and Charles, if that was possible.

  All I got, said Mam Rosie, is pot likker.

  Pot likker, said Cassius.

  You heard what I say.

  She stepped inside and came back with a deep pan. Cassius took it and touched the pan's side and it was lukewarm. He drank.

  That almost remembers being warm, Rose, he said.

  He didn't look up as he said it, just lifted the pan back to his lips and drank more. But he felt her eyes on him. No one called her Rose. Only her husband Darby ever called her Rose, and he had been sold more than twenty years ago and never heard from again. She had not even been allowed to say
good-bye. Only Cassius had said good-bye.

  I s'pose there might be somethin else, said Mam Rosie.

  She moved into the kitchen and came back with a small pan of spoon bread.

  As Cassius took it, he said: Not like you owe me.

  Cassius ate quickly as Mam Rosie watched him.

  What you be plannin? said Mam Rosie coldly.

  Planning?

  I know you, Cassius, don't you even think 'bout sassin your Mam Rosie, you know what I'm talkin 'bout.

  You mean with young Master Charles? Guess I'll just have to hope he forgets all about it.

  You are a damned sight too smart for your own good, said Mam Rosie.

  Cassius looked at her.

  And then he spoke: She was a prickly, frustrating old woman who took care of me once. I am sad to hear that she's dead. But nothing I can do about that now.

  Cassius tasted Hoke's words in his own mouth, surprised that they had come out.

  She took real good care of you, Cassius, don't you be forgettin that. And she was a good friend to me too, said Mam Rosie.

  Cassius would never forget how Emoline Justice had helped him. But he was not interested in saying so to Mam Rosie. He knew that Mam Rosie collected secrets. More than once, people around her found themselves in trouble with the Masters who seemed to know things they should not have known, but Mam Rosie was never in trouble.

  This spoon bread is fine, said Cassius. Just the right amount of molasses.

  He handed her back the empty pan and sucked crumbs off his fingers. He turned and walked down the dark path to the slave quarters.

  * * *

  Chapter Two

  Wooden crosses had been erected haphazardly along the path through the quarters. Tallow—dripping wicks were tied to the arms, spaced evenly and hung long to dry, as if crucified angels had been left to decay, leaving only their shattered skeletal wings. The wicks were now being rolled in partially cooled tallow to add thickness. Savilla had claimed the task of candle-making. She liked her candles thick and no one else had the patience or was willing to devote the time. Unfortunately, the Confederate quartermasters had thinned the herd of livestock, thereby reducing the supply of heavy animal fat, and Savilla had been forced to rein in her enthusiasm. Savilla experimented with the tallow by adding fragrant items to disguise the smell; tonight the lane smelled of animal death and anise. Her sons had been enlisted to help her, but one by one they had slipped away, starting with Joseph, the oldest. Joseph was eighteen, independent and smart, and could appear enthusiastic while doing the least possible amount of work. He had a distinctive tuft of white hair that grew just off-center on his head, which set him apart and gave him a dashing look. He played on his uniqueness and got away with more than his brothers. He was gone before anyone realized it. The next oldest was Sammy and he had stayed longer, but now only young Andrew remained. Andrew maintained a respectful distance so as not to lard his new trousers, his new shoes, or his new hat, all of which he would wear tomorrow for his first day in the fields. And so Savilla worked alone.

  Personal chores were performed at night as daytime was for the Master. The hornworm blight had forced them to spend every daylight hour in the fields and they were worn senseless, performing their tasks in a trance.

  Heat lingered and cabin doors stood open. The lane was lit by heavy iron frying pans burning grease set on stumps, while a few small fires burned in shallow pits, green logs spraying frequent sparks. Smoke burned eyes and throats, and no one lingered near the flames in the heat.

  Cassius approached from the big house, the path barely visible as the moon was setting, a sliver in the sky. He passed Mr. Nettle's home, the Overseer's place, set between the big house and the quarters, visible to neither, so that on this side of the bend he could just make out the glow from the lane above hedges and between trees. Inside, Mr. Nettle's wife shrieked at her children and Cassius knew Mr. Nettle would escape early to patrol the grounds and slave cabins. Cassius rounded the bend and approached yellow firelight and the path went black under his feet. He entered the smoke bloat and identified silhouettes, marking the occasional face lit by low greasy flames. Cassius walked the center of the lane by the gully, named by some previous wit Suetsmoke Run, which was known to swell to a river when it rained and where the women dumped bathwater and other things. His cabin was the last before a cleared area and the woods, and he hoped to pass through unnoticed. To his surprise, they looked at him only to pretend not to see him. He flinched after the third time and examined the ground. To be shunned was worse than to be ignored. Cassius preferred isolation; it served as his cloak and allowed him to pretend to be unaffected by the capricious wisdom of the masters or those in the quarters who schemed for power. But as their eyes brushed off him, Cassius knew that isolation was desirable only when it was by choice. He was surprised to find himself wounded.

  He heard their talk in snatches—don' know why Massa ain't clear out a new field this year, I could'a tol' him that one be played out—

  —got that thing happenin in my lung, ev'y time I breathe I be suckin through a muddy spiderweb—

  —pity 'bout that old woman, used to get potions from her—The voices dimly competed with the unpleasant chatter in his head. The sharp plunk of a homemade banjo cut into his thoughts, George playing a riff as he spoke: You got to practice, Joseph, I can't be playin so much no more, my fingers givin me fits, and this thing on my shoulder hurts bad.

  Joseph replying: When freedom comes, it'll all get better, George, everything better under freedom, and didn't I see you do your shoulder with your own knife?

  Don't make it hurt no less. You got to learn to endure pain, boy, and don't give me no sass mouth 'bout no freedom.

  Banjo George played a song, and Cassius walked on, listening with his head down so that he did not see Shedd. The Little Angry Man commandeered a wide alley in his walk, expecting all hands to make way. Cassius ran directly into him and the little man stumbled for balance. Shedd found his feet and sprang at Cassius, Shedd's good eye boring in while his other eye wandered off to look at something to the side. Cassius was mesmerized by Shedd's loose eye, as if Shedd's words were aimed not at him but at some unseen other standing near him.

  God damn son of a roach! said Little Angry Man, stabbing a thumb at Cassius's face. Starin at your toes like they stuck with diamonds. I been walkin here since before you shit solid, you yellowjack big house whoremonger. Maybe if I seen you out bustin your teats squeezin worms off smokeweed, then maybe you see me back off!

  An ember of fury flamed inside Cassius. He had kept Emoline Justice packed down tight in his chest, but now things churned inside and he was dangerously close to liberating his grief at this pointless little man. At that moment, he disliked Shedd unspeakably, Shedd who held no more claim to injustice than anyone else in the quarters, yet he and his wandering eye wore temper like a skin. Cassius knew he would have a pass from the quarters if he chose this moment to punish Shedd. But Emoline's memory brushed against him and allowed him a breath, and after that breath, another. Emoline had taught him to look for another way to get back his own. Cassius stared at Shedd as all eyes watched.

  Cassius's voice was low and without emotion: Go away, little man.

  Little Angry Man's mouth twisted into a snarl but no sound emerged. He could live with angry, but little man? Shedd framed a response but saw he stood alone. A second tirade would be unwise. He spat in the dirt, held his quivering leg still for an age, and was away. Cassius watched his clumsy—quick shamble, long leg swinging wide as if trying to dislodge a stone. Cassius had been told that Shedd's leg had been crushed on Durning's Hill ten years before when the mule Milady lost her footing in the muck and rolled back on him, but he thought there might be more to the story.

  The tension broke and ended his invisibility. They looked at him, they nodded as they returned to their business, they smiled about a thing to be quickly forgotten, nothing important, just Little Angry Man.

  He did not like
Shedd, but Shedd had done him a service and brought him back to life in the quarters. Now Cassius could become invisible again.

  He saw Tempie Easter wearing a clean dress, presenting a fresh facade for an ordinary night of chores. He found her airs tolerable, and appreciated that she paid him little attention. There was something to be said for frank self-possession. He wondered what trinket, if any, she had gotten from Pet, and wondered further if she would slip away tonight, avoid patrollers and meet up with a buyer. It was not impossible that her customer was himself a patroller.

  Cassius's cabin was large and more solidly constructed than the others. Cassius could have lived in the carpentry shed near the big house, but chose to live here. He had built this cabin especially for his family. He and Marriah had lived there during her pregnancy. She had never returned after the boy was born, and close to four weeks had passed before Cassius was back. He did not doubt that the cabin might be better suited to a family, but the others had been too spooked to inhabit a place thought to be haunted. If it was, then he was the shade. He had built hidden places in the walls that would be near to impossible to discover, and while most stood empty, one held a book, a dangerous possession if it were to be found, along with a toy soldier he had carved for his son.

  He ducked under a wing of candle wicks and arrived at his door. He heard Big Gus's voice and stepped to the outside corner of the cabin to look out on the cleared area near the tall trees. Two women hovered around Big Gus, while a third stayed a few steps outside their circle. Gus was preening, making a pretense of conjuring up a poem right there on the spot to impress them. Cassius had witnessed this act before.

  Big Gus employed his pulpit voice: When I 'member your smile, I come back after 'while, so 'gainst the till I lean, 'cause all about you I dream.

  Cassius stifled a laugh. Big Gus was forever and always a wretched poet, but was he truly so deaf to his own lack of rhythm? When no uncomfortable laughter followed, Cassius wondered if poor poetry, rendered with artificial ardor, might be catnip to women.