by David Fuller
Cassius shook his head. He could more easily live with the responsibility as Quashee had been saved from Tempie's fate. But Hoke felt it and it ground him down. Cassius was not inclined to make Hoke's conscience easy.
Cassius got the second boot off and left the rest to the others. Hoke would sleep first and they would clean him later. Cassius turned and his eyes met Ellen's, and the full look she gave was something unknown. Later he would wonder if it was jealousy, but the ambiguity of the look made an impression on him.
Cassius walked by Quashee and said: Tonight.
She appeared startled, but he knew, with the house in an uproar, the time would never be better. He walked down the hallway to the stairs, then through the downstairs and back out into the hot sun. The yard was free of planters and servants, leaving him with the occasional cat and a high-stepping bantam rooster, a strange and astonishing emptiness after so many men, horses, planters, and hands had passed through on this foul and rancid afternoon.
* * *
Chapter Ten
The lights in the big house were snuffed, but he remained seated on the log he had positioned for the occasion. He had long since allowed his cigar to go out. It was late enough that the moon had risen. He watched the roof where moonlight etched the triangular shapes of the three gables. He had not bothered to burn elm logs in the carpentry shed hearth. Quashee would light her candle when it was time, there in the window on the far left, two stories above Hoke's den. So intent was he on the triangles under the moon that his eyes played tricks and he watched the shapes change, bloom and contract until they degenerated into dancing dots.
It was some time before a glow lit the inner top rail of the sash, grew brighter as a hesitant flame quavered into the left lower pane, then settled to a steady burn. He abandoned his cold cigar on the stump. He made his way to the back side of the privy, which was built to be hidden from the big house, in a cluster of trees. He again fingered the pouch inside his shirt, as he had obsessively throughout the evening, to know the friction matches he thought he would need remained safely therein. He clung briefly to the rim of the trees, his eyes checking every window until he settled his gaze on the rear door closest to Hoke's den. All remained quiet and peaceful as the candle burned for him in the third-floor window. He had heard Mr. Nettle finish his final rounds hours before, locking barns and sheds to prevent theft by the hands-he left the carpentry shed to Cassius—but the big house doors were generally kept unlocked. Cassius left the shadow of the trees, quick across the open land through the moonlight, skirting the vegetable gardens, rushing to the big house, and reaching the shadow made by the big house in the moonlight, glancing one last time up at the gable. From his extreme low angle he saw the glow in the window abruptly vanish and he thought the candle was extinguished. He paused right there, in shadow but still in the open. A warm breeze passed through the rows of vegetables, shivering the tomato plants while broad flat watermelon leaves scraped dryly together. An emerging cauliflower head nudged his knee. He weighed his options. Had she blown out the flame, or did the angle deceive? He backed up a step into moonlight and was convinced the candle was out. Quashee was clever but also cautious. She may have extinguished the candle because she had seen him cross, making the signal no longer necessary. Or something had happened and she was attempting to warn him. He had to move from this exposed place, but retreat to the privy, or press on? He knew this to be a unique opportunity and he had but a small window to complete his mission; the family would be exhausted by the ordeal of the runaway, followed hard on by the master's illness. Optimism and hunger for information trumped caution and he ventured forward. The door was unlocked.
He stood inside at the back of the great greeting room near the large fireplace and allowed his eyes to adjust. After a few moments he was surprised at how well he could see. Silver light from the plump waning moon angled in through the large windows in front, and he could readily make out the stairs to his right as well as the breezeway that led to the dining area and other rooms. To his left was the closed door to Hoke's study. He moved to the middle of the room but rather than rush to his task, he stopped and was still for a moment. He listened attentively to a particular quiet that he had never before experienced. This was his first visit to the big house in the dead of night when the planter family and their servants slept. He heard the cavernous hush as the outdoor world was kept at bay, banished by strong walls and windows and multiple stories piled above. Within that hush came small irregular creaks as wood cooled and settled, or someone above turned in sleep. He focused on the quiet, a sound that so amazed him, he was in danger of becoming hypnotized. He became aware of his own shallow breathing and then noted in his ears a high-pitched whine. He attributed the whine to the heft of moonlight pressing great silver rectangles against the floor. He took a step toward Hoke's study and a floorboard creaked under his foot. He stopped and listened for warning shouts and running feet, but heard none. Just as he was about to move again, he saw a flash of movement on the ground and felt something tickle his leg and his heart leapt, and he used all his strength to prevent himself from crying out. He looked down to see Charles's favorite black-and-white cat running the side of her head against the back of his calf. He tried to slow the racing of his heart, which was so forceful his chest felt as if it might burst. He knelt and gave her a scratch around the ears as prelude to shoving her away. She returned, bumped again, and commenced to purr. Her purr was unacceptably loud and he walked rapidly and silently, cat trailing, to the study door. He touched the knob, she slithered between his ankles, the door opened a crack and the cat bumped it wide open with her head, bounding inside. He closed the door behind him to seal in her treacherous noise.
Ellen Corey Howard gazed down at him from her portrait on the far wall beside the bookshelf he had built. His heart slowed to a tolerable pitch. He could see equally well in here as another great window invited the moon. He observed the way moonlight bent, coming through the blown glass windows, the whorl pattern creating light and dark spots on the floorboards and rug. Charles's cat sprang into Hoke's chair, rolled herself into a ball, and lifted her hind leg straight up, licking its length with a purr that occasionally slipped into nasal clatter. He slid open the flat wide drawer with Hoke's maps and carried an armload to the window to examine them in the light. He found a recent map of the county and another, older map of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and set those aside. He found maps of the Mediterranean Sea, Southern France, and the ports of England.
Hoke had marked the shipping lanes, following the routes of his fleet. Cassius found maps unrelated to shipping, maps of land-bound European countries and Asian countries, maps that Hoke collected for the sake of collecting. He found maps of coastal Northern states, several maps of the Chesapeake Bay, a map of New Orleans, as well as a number of maps that detailed the Mississippi River. Some maps were works of art and some were indifferent presentations of basic information. He returned all but the first two to the drawer. He rolled up the county map and the Virginia Commonwealth map. He started to the door, but returned to the shelves on a whim, reached for and liberated Hoke's copy of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. Charles's cat sat up, alert, leg still high, looking at the door. Cassius saw moonlight glint off her eyes as she looked at him. She thumped to the floor and Cassius moved to the door, book under his arm, rolled maps in his hand. He opened the door quietly, hoping the cat would leave first, providing an explanation to any curious family member as to the source of any suspicious noise. But Charles's cat was not there. Cassius looked back and did not see her. As this was a poor moment to be polite to a house pet, he slipped back into the great greeting room and heard the soft click of the door behind him. He listened to detect from which direction the danger would come. The ambient sound in the house had changed. Initially he was unable to identify the cause of the change, only that the hush was no longer prevalent. He angled his head and determined the sound came from above. He moved to the shadow of a wooden chiffonier. He narrowed h
imself within the shadow, as it would have been impossible to reach the door to the outside before being discovered.
Gentle footsteps along the upstairs hallway had arrived at the top of the staircase. It was clear to Cassius that the person stepped quietly in an effort to remain undiscovered. This gave him hope that Quashee would descend the stairs. But he hoped with his emotions; his analytical mind knew it was not Quashee. By revealing herself, she might reveal his presence, and that was a thing she would know not to do. With chilling apprehension he realized it was Pet. She had discovered his plan to steal into the big house and had waited for him. He had underestimated her; she had lurked in the upstairs hallway while he finished acquiring that for which he had come, waiting for him to emerge from Hoke's study with his thieving hands full of evidence, and now she was coming down the stairs anticipating her sweet sweet revenge. How idiotically bold he had been, making the sort of mistake every slave learned to avoid in childhood. Cassius girded himself for exposure.
He saw a bare foot placed on a step, the hem of a floor-length dressing gown stretching to follow, her other foot dropping to the next step. But these were not Pet's feet, her skin was African dark with light-colored soles. The feet on the stairs were as pale as the dressing gown, and step by cautious step she descended until she was at the bottom, a casual hand on the banister. From his shadow, Cassius was wholly amazed, as he did not recognize this woman with her black tangled hair that spilled to her shoulders. He became convinced she was an unearthly spirit. She turned and moonlight reflected from a low angle, illuminating her face, and he recognized Jacob's wife, Sarah, a woman he had not seen in at least a year.
Sarah pressed her feet flat against the floorboards and he heard her toes excitedly drumming against the wood. Her hands reached down in a gesture common to a formal ball and between forefingers and thumbs she lifted her gown so that the hem rose and exposed her legs up to her knees. She curtsied to an invisible partner, leaned her body one direction, then with a wide smile she released in the opposite direction, her feet moving rapidly in an ecstatic, silent waltz. Her handsome partner led her, and she spun and circled the room. Her dressing gown was buttressed by imagined petticoats, and she swept around chairs and on and off rugs, into and out of the moon boxes on the floor, a dance of exultant freedom. She twirled close to him at one point and he heard that she murmured a tune as she whispered the one-two-three, da-dum-dum that propelled her dance, and in her wake he smelled her acrid bed sweat.
Cassius understood at that moment that Sarah had been feigning illness, confining herself to her bed to punish her mother-in-law, Ellen's daughters, and the big house servants. He was grudgingly impressed with her willful manipulative power, to have carried out this charade for almost a year out of sheer spite. He wondered how often she danced alone in the night. Perhaps this was a regular occurrence, her nighttime exercise, a preventive to atrophied muscles and bed sores.
But his wonder gave way to immediate alarm as the dance continued. With each sweep of the room, he was in ever greater danger of being discovered, and this threat was more extreme than if he had been trapped by Pet. He might talk his way out of that trouble, might indict Pet herself, might bribe her or find some other way clear of her accusations. But a black man who watched a white woman dance in her nightdress with her legs exposed was as good as dead. He would be lynched and no one would wait to hear his explanations; the moment he was discovered, they would secure his hands and drag him to the nearest branch to be hoisted high in the air by the neck. So certain was this punishment that he struggled to breathe, feeling the rope closing around his throat. He tried to make himself smaller in the shadow, but he dared not move lest she peripherally perceive the motion.
Sarah circled the room a fourth time, a fifth, and Cassius heard a gentle scratching as Charles's cat tested the door from inside Hoke's study. He tightened further at this wretched timing. The cat then quit scratching and emitted a soft meow. She bumped the door with her head. Silence. Suddenly her scratching took on a frantic aggression. Cassius clenched his hand in a fist, trying to will the cat into silence so that she didn't give him away.
He hoped that Sarah's dance was just loud enough, not to wake the others, but to drown out the cat's exertions with her own. She chose different pathways around the furniture with each rotation, and at any moment she could turn her head and be looking directly at him. He waited for when she would stop and shriek, and he wondered if he should run and risk being recognized. How long would she dance? He hoped she might change her route to waltz through the breezeway to the dining area; if she did that, he would make a break for the rear door.
She stopped abruptly and looked toward the top of the stairs. The cat meowed with greater impatience behind the study door, and Sarah's head twitched in that direction as for the first time she realized the cat was closed in the study and the noise she made was Sarah's enemy. Cassius had been unable to hear anything but the cat and Sarah's dance. Sarah, however, had heard something else. She struggled to control her breath, her eyes open wide. In the skewed rectangle of moonlight with the whiteness of her gown aglow, she let the hem drop. If another person joined her there in the greeting room, the likelihood of Cassius being discovered increased, and he felt the window of opportunity rapidly closing. She did not move and still he heard nothing. The silence rushed in and then a faint voice from above broke into the hush.
Missus Sarah?
She fled to a shadow between the staircase and the breezeway, in position to rush upstairs if the opportunity presented itself. Charles's cat meowed, and Cassius was convinced that Sarah also cursed the animal.
Missus Sarah? That you I hear down there?
Cassius recognized Quashee's whisper. She was risking the displeasure of her mistress in order to help Cassius escape. Cassius saw Quashee's small feet descending the stairs, weightless on her toes. Quashee's nightdress did not fall below her knees and her person was revealed step by step until she reached the bottom. If she knew Sarah was hidden on the far side of the stairs near the dining area, she did not show it, as her head turned directly toward Hoke's study. She came toward Cassius, whispering again, Missus Sarah? As she drew close to him, she raised her hand in a surreptitious gesture that warned him to stay in place. She walked to Hoke's study and opened the door, releasing the cat. The cat scampered out in a maniacal thunder, only to halt midway into the room, embraced by moonlight. Free at last, the cat casually chose a chair and made it her own. Quashee continued all the way inside the study. Cassius admired the wisdom of this move, as Sarah now rushed up the stairs unseen by her servant. Quashee then poked her clever head out of the den with a knowing smile on her face.
I'd just set up the candle when I heard her leave her bed. Tried to get the flame out to warn you, she said quietly.
I saw it but wasn't sure.
I'll tell her I was sleepwalking. She'll believe anything if it'll help keep her secret, said Quashee, looking upstairs.
I didn't want you in danger.
You just get away from here, she said shaking her head, looking at the rolled maps and book in his hands.
But thank you anyway.
Make up your mind.
You're lucky for me.
Quashee smiled with satisfaction.
You are something, said Cassius, and his joy at the narrow escape made him reckless. He stepped close to her and kissed her on the mouth and felt her small sweet body against him. He expected her to push him away, to rush him out the door to safety, but she did not. She returned his kiss. He held her for as long as he thought reasonable, but Quashee then put a warning hand against his chest. He nodded and made his way to the door, then watched her move silently back up the stairs. He carried the book and maps outside into the warm breeze, the memory of her lips transporting him through the moonlight and back to the shed.
He was unable to rest and went to see Joseph. The door to the tobacco shed was unlocked, which was Hoke's way, remorse following his spasms of rage. This al
lowed the women to come in the night to clean and dress wounds. But Hoke was in no condition to have made that decision. Cassius wondered if Mr. Nettle had left the shed unlocked out of tradition, or if Ellen had given the order. He found Joseph out of his head. A plate of food waited by his side, uneaten except by flies and unidentified things that crawled. He was likely to be shackled there for a period longer than Cassius had endured after his whipping. Healing would be difficult and prolonged. Joseph would never run again, and would struggle to walk. He was unlikely to be the same curious, animated young man, and Cassius mourned the death of his younger self. Joseph was, however, likely to remain at Sweetsmoke, as his value was now decreased after the whipping and hobbling. His worth would be estimated at a half hand, although Shedd, The Little Angry Man, did his share with a worthless hip. Cassius projected Joseph as The Second Angry Man.
Cassius returned to the carpentry shed where he had earlier hidden the maps and the book, and he slept until Mr. Nettle's predawn bell. He visited the quarters as the hands ate to make certain that everyone saw him. He heard the talk then: Joseph had been caught near Springs Junction, which was an Underground Railroad station. Had he made it there, he might have reached Canada. The hands wondered who had helped Joseph, as it became clear that only one or two of them had known about the station until that morning. The hands then went to the fields and Cassius went to the big house yard and was busy until mid-morning.
The big house was obsessed with the bedridden Hoke and once Cassius identified the new patterns of comings and goings, he returned to the shed, trusting that he would be undisturbed. He unrolled Hoke's map of Virginia and removed Emoline's hand-drawn scrap with "W York" written on it. He set her map on the larger map and started by locating the town near Sweetsmoke. From there he slid the scrap of paper along railroad tracks, first left, then right, comparing road shapes, and looked for the words "W York." Initially he was stymied; there appeared to be no north-south road with the name York. He broadened his search and discovered a York Road parallel to the tracks that briefly turned north and crossed, and when he compared other indications on her map, he believed he had found what he was looking for.