by David Fuller
He continued to sit, dazed, in her cabin, slivers of information filtering through to him. The floorboards had absorbed a dark spot, and after staring at it for some time, he understood that he was looking at dried blood. The closest he would ever come to viewing her remains was this stain. Hoke had not bothered to tell him that she was already buried. Cassius remembered that he had also been protected from viewing Marriah's body. His thoughts flowed to her.
He had won Marriah despite being the slow, salacious young bear among swift, adolescent wolves. He had always been slow. He remembered firsthand the trauma of separation when his mother was sold. He was raised by Mam Rosie and for a brief time her husband Darby, as Darby was sold soon after. He grew tall and made to himself a secret promise, that he would be different. He would not love anything. He would make his heart cold. He evaluated the available young females of Sweetsmoke as well as those at other plantations. Opportunities existed to make a match outside the home plantation through the infrequent communal dances, corn shuckings, and the occasional collective rigging of Sunday church. But Cassius decided he was too smart to fall into an abroad marriage; he saw what the lovers were forced to endure-traveling at night, begging Master for a pass, the difficulties inherent in living apart. He limited his courting to the women of Sweetsmoke. His promise to shield his heart made him overcautious, thus the slow bear. Females in their early teens were courted by eager young men, and these couples were kept company by the girls' mammas; if the young men were approved, with permission usually automatic from the big house, they "married." He briefly courted Jenny. He courted Fawn, but men craved her brutishly and his heretofore unacknowledged jealousy flinched. Emotionally stunted Fawn was unable to publicly parade the gown of faithfulness, as she mistook sexual ardor for love. He left her to others, and Cassius entered his young twenties without a steady partner.
Before the war, Hoke Howard's investment in a fleet of ships brought an influx of new wealth to Sweetsmoke, and he celebrated by traveling, purchasing French chateau gates, expanding his cellars of wine, adding to Ellen's wardrobe, and almost as an afterthought, purchasing the slaves of an acquaintance whose wife and child had died while visiting New England during a yellow fever outbreak. Marriah arrived with five others two years before the Cold Storm. She was older than most available females, almost twenty, but when on that first evening she toted her belongings to her assigned cabin, the wolf pack pricked up. Cassius held back and studied his competition. He learned that she'd had a husband at her old plantation, a forced marriage by the whites who mated couples deliberately and conscientiously, breeding them to add size and strength to their herd. She bore him a son who never took a breath and made that the excuse to push him away. He found another and she was glad. Cassius chanced to be there when Master Jacob first set eyes on her, and he saw the effect Marriah had on him. But Cassius was determined.
When Cassius made his move, he discovered that she had been waiting for him and wondered what had taken him so long. It was the first time Big Gus knew that he was outmaneuvered.
Cassius and Marriah decided to be married. As neither had parents in the quarters, only permission from the big house was required. Genevieve, the unmarried daughter of Hoke and Ellen, took interest in their wedding. Genevieve delighted in matchmaking, but by this time her planter friends no longer agreed to submit to her manipulations. Thus she had turned her sights on the quarters. Genevieve planned a lavish event, the bulk of the celebration being for the planter families, with the marriage ceremony serving as spectacle. Cassius learned of the plan and he and Marriah chose a day and married in secret. On that day they jumped the broom, and pulled on opposite ends of a rope thrown over the roof of the cabin he had built. The rope pull was designed to end in a stalemate so when the bride then moved to the side of the groom and they pulled together, the rope came easily, demonstrating the importance of cooperation. They moved in to the new cabin that afternoon.
Genevieve noticed uncommon bustle in the kitchen on that day and learned from Mam Rosie about the secret wedding. Cheated out of her event, Genevieve summoned Marriah to the big house. When the sun set and Marriah did not return, Cassius was irritated but not overly concerned. He trusted his relationship with Hoke. Cassius was his favorite. Hoke would surely keep his bride from Jacob's bed. Mam Rosie came to the quarters to inform Cassius that one of the planter children suffered with fever and Marriah was to remain at the big house to care for him. Cassius spent his wedding night alone.
Marriah returned the following morning. Only a moment did they share, but she reassured him with her eyes and a touch on his arm. At sunset, he hurried to their cabin, and found her waiting.
She suspected she was pregnant that night.
Marriah evolved into a different person during pregnancy. She went weeks without bathing, the odor of her body changed, small noises caused her to flinch, and he would wake in the night to find only her body's imprint on their pallet with Marriah wandering in the dark. It was as if she hoped to make her baby unwelcome.
The night arrived for the delivery. Marriah asked Cassius to stay away, but when he heard the baby cry, he forced his way past Savilla and Mam Rosie. He lifted the newborn and held it in his arms, umbilical cord still attaching baby to mother, birth blood smeared on his shirt, beholding a child he could not have fathered, a child who could pass for white.
Master Jacob had gotten his way. Cassius's anger was directed neither at the boy nor his wife, and, oddly, he was not angry at Jacob. He felt instead the betrayal of his old master, believing he should have prevented Jacob from indulging his compulsion. Cassius took advantage of a bottle for a day and a night before he accepted what he had known from the beginning, that he would raise the boy as his own.
Ellen traveled to the quarters. She was repulsed by the sight of a white child born to chattel. She returned to the big house and insisted her husband send for the slave trader. Two days after giving birth, a weakened Marriah was directed to join the hands in clear- cutting a new field. The winter of 1856 into 1857 was unnaturally cold, and she bundled herself as best she could, returning to the yard by the big house every three hours to breast-feed the infant. Cassius was directed to a job in the second barn. The slave trader arrived in a carriage accompanied by a black woman. The business was transacted in the yard. The slave trader took the still-unnamed boy from Nanny Catherine's arms and placed it in the arms of the black woman, and the three of them rode away. Marriah returned to the yard, breasts engorged. Nanny Catherine said the baby was gone. Marriah did not believe her. She searched until Mam Rosie confirmed the story.
Marriah ran away to catch the slave trader who had her baby. Hoke took a horse and groomsman and set out after her. He returned with the groomsman and a loud conversation was overheard between Hoke and his wife. Hours later, patrollers arrived with Marriah, hands bound, hair in her face, breathing sharply like a wild animal.
Ellen met the patrollers alone, and ordered Otis Bornock, Hans Mueller, and Isaac Lang to secure Marriah's wrists to the high ring on the whipping post and expose her back. Ellen took up the bullwhip and swung it over her head, then snapped it into Marriah's skin with the patrollers looking on. She counted two dozen lashes, set the bullwhip down, and dismissed them. She ordered the yard cleared and strode back inside, leaving Marriah tied there whimpering in the cold, milk leaking down her belly.
At close of day, Cassius approached the yard intending to walk with his wife and son to the quarters. He discovered her alone in the yard, tied to the post with her back in shreds. He cut her down and carried her to the quarters. He learned about the slave trader and left her facedown on their pallet with Savilla attending. At the big house, Hoke would not see him, and he returned to find the pallet empty and Savilla rocking on a stool. Savilla had left her alone in order to fetch herbs from her cabin, and Marriah had run again. Cassius ran after her.
He found her on the road standing on the small bridge, cold and weak and insane, but then the lights of lanterns app
eared around the road's elbow, patrollers hunting them, taking them, returning them to Sweetsmoke. Cassius begged to take her punishment for her, but they laughed and said he had punishment of his own coming. Cassius was taken into the shed with tobacco drying overhead and he was shackled to a ring bolt in the wall. He called Marriah's name. Hoke came with the whip which was red wet at its ends. After Hoke laid into him, Cassius was left there.
He had grown up loving the quality of the air of the plantation, seasoned as it was with the sweet, sensual scent of curing tobacco. Cassius had lived his entire life within that luxurious smell, so that it only stepped forward at certain moments, to highlight the freshness of a day, or intensify a moment of human kindness or dignity. Now, chained in the shed, the aroma encircled and forced itself on him. As it mingled with his fury, it became cloying, thick and oily, accented by a creeping suggestion of mold and the acrid bite of tar. By the time he was released, he had learned to despise the smell.
For three days, the hands brought food and salve for his stripes, but despite his questions, no one spoke a word about Marriah.
After Mr. Nettle and Big Gus released him, he emerged from the shed to find Hoke waiting. Hoke said it was over and there was nothing Cassius could do, so he might as well accept it. He told Cassius that he had restrained him for his own good.
He returned to the quarters and found his cabin empty. The women saw him and began to sob.
Where is she!?
She's dead, Cassius.
The sound of Savilla's voice rattled in his mind still. She's dead, Cassius, how precisely it came to him even after the years in between…
A sound brought him out of his reverie. The handle turned to Emoline's front door and brought him to his feet.
"I knew someone would come," Emoline's son said, stepping inside. "Eventually." He wore a checked waistcoat over a clean white shirt. He did not wear a hat. Cassius was struck by how much Richard Justice resembled his father.
Cassius watched him prowl the room, stepping over a broken water jug and two smashed plates. He wondered if Richard Justice had been the one to destroy the things in his mother's home, as he would not have feared her curse. Cassius knew that Richard had been hunting for his mother's money.
"Looking for something, Cassius?" he said, indicating the mess.
No.
"This is the first time you've been here since it happened, I wager."
Looks like from when she was murdered.
"Someone searching."
Find anything?
"I don't know, did you?" Richard Justice watched carefully Cassius's response. "No, perhaps not. You were fond of her, as I recall."
Cassius suddenly understood that it was Richard Justice who had torn the room apart. You get what you were looking for? he said.
Richard Justice rubbed the root of his nose between his eyebrows with his left thumb and forefinger, just like his father. "And what would that be?"
Cassius smiled, but he felt anger boil up inside him. At that moment, if he were to discover that Richard Justice had killed Emoline, Cassius would kill him and he would get away with it. It was easier to kill a free black. As he was no one's property, you would not be depriving a white man of his future value in the form of hard work. The sheriff would see it as just another dead nigger, which is how he obviously saw Emoline's death.
Who killed your mother, Richard?
"Wasn't me. Was it you? What are you doing here, Cassius?"
You said you knew someone would come.
"And now I find it's you. Did you come out of love, out of respect?"
Why do you think?
"I think you came for her money."
Ah, said Cassius. Her money.
"You were close to her, where is it?"
Don't know.
"Why do I not believe you?"
You think I'd sit here if I knew where it was?
"Do not bandy with me, Cassius, I'm a free man. If I choose, I can have them take you—"
You're free till some white drunk rips up your free papers and sells you for a pint. Don't threaten me, Richard.
Richard Justice raised his hands in a defensive gesture. "Very well, Cassius. Very well. But that money is rightfully mine. And I need it."
Yes, I suppose I know that.
"You know?" Richard Justice appeared suspicious.
Your sisters. You been working to buy their freedom. With Emoline's money, you can free at least one of them.
"That is precisely correct," said Richard Justice.
Cassius considered whether someone else had killed Emoline over money. He did not think it was Richard Justice. Richard Justice liked to gamble. Even a free black was at the mercy of whites when it came to fairness. Richard Justice assumed he was unlucky, but Cassius suspected that his poor luck was aided by the collective design of his gambling rivals.
A face appeared in the window behind Richard Justice. Cassius's eyes met her eyes, but he looked away so that Richard Justice would not know. A moment later the window betrayed nothing.
Cassius wondered if she would wait.
Tell me something. Did you love her? said Cassius.
"She was my mother."
Funny answer. Did she love you?
"She made me what I am."
Yes. Hard and distant, even where it concerned her.
"You neglected selfish. All things that I would need to survive as a black piece of property in this world."
She did you a kindness, then, said Cassius.
"I will be off; I do not like being here."
I will stay.
Richard Justice smiled. "To look around."
Possibly.
"And if you find something?"
You know where I am.
"At the Big-To-Do tomorrow?"
There, too, said Cassius nodding.
"If I hear you've come into an unusual sum of money, we will speak again."
No doubt, said Cassius.
Richard Justice left the door ajar and a brisk hot wind rushed in. Cassius sat a moment, listening to Emoline's son's footsteps move away from the house, then he was up, stepping out and closing the door behind him to eliminate the small patch of light that leaked from the lantern.
Cassius stepped behind a tree and listened. The street swarmed with the song of crickets, flickering lights glowed behind windows, and Cassius leaned to look in every direction. Windows were open in the small homes of the poor whites and he would have to be quiet. He heard laughter from the tavern in the next street. As Cassius was about to move from behind the tree, a thick white woman stepped into the frame of her front door and swung a basin of soapy gray water to douse the roots of a climbing rosebush. She wiped a damp curl off her forehead and returned inside. He stayed behind the tree a moment longer. From his position, he considered the places the woman who had appeared at the window might hide, if she had indeed remained behind.
He stepped around the corner to the window, but found no one lurking under the ledge. Across from the window sat a small house surrounded by low bushes with windows closed and dark. He looked both ways and took a step into the road and something moved behind the bushes. He was quick to round the hedge and grabbed her by the arm.
What're you doing here? said Cassius.
Lookin for Miss Emoline, said the woman. Let go my arm.
Cassius did not let go.
What's your name?
Maryanne. Where Miss Emoline? I ain't seen her in there.
Cassius cocked his head. You telling me you don't know?
What I knows is I'se suppose to meet her. Who're you?
She's not here, why you meeting her?
Give her somethin, that your business?
Cassius let go of her arm and said: Better not be seen out here.
Cassius led her across the road to Emoline's door and inside.
Why there no fire in here? said Maryanne. This ain't right, Miss Emoline never be lettin her fire go out.
Miss Emoline is
gone.
Where she gone? You mess up her place, oh, honey, she goin be angry with you.
No. She won't.
Maryanne looked at his expression and understood.
I told her it be dangerous, she got herself in trouble and that mean trouble for me.
What kind of trouble?
Oh no, said Maryanne.
Emoline Justice took care of me when I was sick.
You Cassius, then.
After a considered pause, Cassius nodded.
Miss Emoline told me 'bout you. Maryanne nodded now, as if retelling stories inside her head, but inserting the man in front of her into the stories.
So you know you can trust me, said Cassius.
I don't know no such thing, only that she trust you.
What kind of trouble was she in?
I'm suppose to give her this. Now you take it.
Maryanne held up a packet. Cassius reached for it, but Maryanne thought twice and pulled it back to watch his eyes. He kept his hand there but did not move it closer. Slowly she moved the packet to his hand.
My massa, said Maryanne, he a cap'n in the Secesh Army, he quartermaster with that General Lee. I travel along, his cook, and
I'se a good one. I gets papers and such from the cap'n when he ain't lookin and bring 'em to her and she give 'em to somebody else who likes to know what General Lee goin do.
Cassius glanced at the false wall he had built for Emoline. Stolen papers from a Confederate captain. Meetings at night, information, secrets.
What's your master's name?
Cap'n Solomon Whitacre, like I say, quartermaster. He got men and they travel 'round gettin food for the army and such. He come through here regular, his wife and children be livin up at that Jarvis place.