Chaneysville Incident (65 page)

“She stepped away from the fire again, turned and looked into the corner of the room, then moved out of his range of vision. Then he became aware of the wind at his back and the numbness creeping up his legs. Then he found he could move, and he left the window and made his way slowly around to the door. The latch string was out; he wondered why she had left it that way, then realized that it made sense to leave it out, for if anyone came he would see it and enter unawares, and give her a chance to take him by surprise…. And then he realized what he was doing, figuring all that out: he was wasting time. Because he was afraid to go inside. Afraid of finding out that it wasn’t her, or that it was; afraid of the truth. But the feeling was gone from his hands, and the rest of him was as cold as it had ever been, so finally he stopped trying to think about it; he just opened the door and went in.

“The room was dim, lit only by the glow from the hearth. But his eyes were accustomed to the darkness, and he could make out the shapes of all of them, three women and seven children, one a baby, and, in the far corner, the bent, frail form of an old man. He looked at them, not seeing them, really; looking for her. And then he heard a whisper of sound and threw himself forward, twisting his head just in time to see the knife that came stabbing down out of the darkness. But he need not have moved. Because the knife stopped inches shy of where his back had been, hesitated a moment, and then seemed to disappear into the shadows behind the door. And then she stepped out. She had a slightly sour expression on her face. She looked him up and down, taking in the snow-covered slouch hat, the snowy blanket, the gunnysack of supplies he held in his hand. And then she was in his arms.”

I closed my eyes then and waited, waited for the question. But she did not ask a question. When I opened my eyes I saw her sitting, not moving, just sitting, and I realized that there would be no questions. And then I realized that something strange was happening. Because I was no longer cold. At first I thought it was because the wind had died, but when I listened I still heard it singing to the hills. And then I saw that the candle no longer flickered, that she had moved a little, just a little, but enough to block a draft, or perhaps create a new draft that balanced out the old one. I saw that she was leaning forward, her eyes shining in the light, fixed on the candle. And I looked at it too, at the steady flame, hardly a flame at all now, but a round, warm, even glow that seemed to grow as I looked at it, expanding until it filled my sight.

“He was warm now,” I said. “He was warm, and the feeling was strange. Because he had not realized how cold he had been. He had known that his hands and feet and face were cold, even though they were so numb he had lost the feeling in them—he had known that because anyone who knew the weather and who knew how long he had been exposed would have known—and so he had not been surprised when the heat from the fire had caused the feeling to come pounding back into them. But he had not known about the other cold, the cold inside, the glacier in his guts that had been growing and moving, inch by inch, year by year, grinding at him, freezing him. He had not known that. But he knew it now. Because he could feel it melting. The heat that melted it did not come from the fire; it came from her, from the warmth of her body that pressed against his back, the warmth of her arms around him, the warmth of her hands that cupped the base of his belly. He lay there, feeling the warmth filling him, feeling the fatigue draining from him, feeling the aching in his ribs easing, becoming almost pleasant, and wishing that he would never have to move.

“For the moment, he did not. For the moment, none of them was going anywhere. That was what they had decided, he and Harriette, in a quick, whispered conference by the door. He had hoped to move immediately, to escape the danger of the narrow cove in the dark and while the wind blew the snow around to cover up their tracks. But she said that the others were too tired to move. They had been resting for only a few hours; before that, they had been running for more than twenty-four. That had exhausted them; the only reason they had been able to do it was because they believed that when they crossed the Line and left the South, they would be free. She had told them the truth, but they would not believe, and in the end she had let them run hard, because she had believed that when they reached the mill they would be met by men with a wagon, and they would not need to run anymore. But they had heard the dogs chasing C.K. and they had realized that what she had told them was true, that there was no safety south of Canada, and then when they had reached the mill they had found nothing: no wagon, no rescue, nothing. Then the hours of running, the miles of effort, the dashing of hope, the cold, the hunger, had come down on them. So they were exhausted; their bodies were, perhaps, a bit recovered, but their minds and hearts were far from that.

“C.K. looked at them, and realized that what she said was true. But he also knew that they would have to move, and move soon. And so he set about restoring them, using the tricks he had learned over the years. He went to them, speaking to each of them in tones so low that none of the others could hear, getting their names, gently touching them, asking about their pains, their fears, gently eliciting their stories, reminding them of why they had run in the first place.

“The first was a woman named Lydia, a short, small-boned woman, with ample hips, matronly breasts. Her age, she said, was twenty-five. She knew because the master had told her, once, berating her for being childless. She dropped her eyes when she told him that, dropped her eyes and lowered her head. It was not that she was not fertile; she had been pregnant eight times. But five of her children had died before their first birthday; she did not know why. One had been three when he died of cholera. The other two had been miscarriages. It hadn’t mattered to the Old Master—she was an excellent midwife, good with children, good in the kitchen. But when the Old Master died his son had told her he was going to sell her, because she was twenty-five, and getting too old to breed. She had told that to Harriette Brewer, one day as they worked together in the kitchen. A few weeks later, Harriette Brewer had said she was going to run away, and had asked Lydia to run with her. And Lydia had.

“The second was Juda, a young girl, perhaps fifteen, hardly more than a girl. She had had a lover, a field hand, but strong and determined to somehow become skilled. When he had learned she was pregnant he had run, hoping to reach the North, to somehow find the money to send for her and the child. She had waited for him to send word—had waited for months, worried that he had been killed, or that he had forgotten her. But then she had seen him brought back, his arms and legs chained, a man on a horse dragging him through the dust on his belly, like a snake. She had seen him flogged and branded. And when he had been sent back to the fields, he had told her that he had been wrong to run, that they would live together in slavery, that their child would grow to be a strong field hand…. But when her pregnancy had at last begun to show he had hanged himself with his chains. And so she had run with Harriette Brewer. The child had been born on the journey, delivered with the help of Lydia, in a Virginia barn. She held it to her breast, a tiny, wrinkled thing, sick from exposure, its tiny lungs choked with fluid. It would die soon; she knew that, and so she had not bothered to give it a name.

“Next was the old man. His master had called him Jacob, but that, he said, was not his name; his name was Azacca, he had been given it by his father, who had come from Haiti. He did not know how old he was, but he knew he was an old man because he had been a slave for a long time. When he was young he had learned to count to seven, and from then on he had counted up his Christmases. When he counted seven he would start over. He had started over seven times, and he was up to five and he was worried that he would not know when Christmas was, without a master to bring a trinket. If he did know, he would have another problem, because that would make seven sevens and six more and he would only have a year to learn another number, or to figure out how to keep track…. Of course, since he was an old man, he might go home first. His job had been to tend the gardens, the special ones that grew flowers and the vegetables for the master and his family. He had been very good at that, and he had liked it; he had known that he would go on doing that until he died. He hadn’t minded that—he liked the garden. But he had wanted to be a free man, and the Old Master had promised that he would be, that he would put it in his Will. But when the Old Master died the Young Master said there was nothing like that in the will. And so he had run with Harriette Brewer. But first he had plucked every flower and smashed every vegetable, and poured salt on the ground.

“The fourth was Linda. She was young and strong, in better health than the others, not only because of her youth but because she had not run as far as they had. She was from a different plantation; she did not know where it was, but it must have been farther north, because the others had passed it, and she joined them. She had not really wanted to run away, but she had always helped those who did. She had been bringing food to the others when she had been seen by another slave, a man, who said that unless she would sleep with him he would betray her. She had said she would, to play for time, while she slipped into the fields to get her three young sons, Daniel, Robert, and Francis, and they had run away.

“The children were already sleeping—Daniel, Robert, and Francis curled together on a sack of corn, the other three sleeping on the hard dirt floor. Two were girls. Harriette told him their names were Cara and Mara. The boy was William. He was the eldest, about ten, it seemed to C.K. And then he realized that the boy could not have been that old, because they were all Harriette’s children. He looked at her, but she turned quickly away, going silently back to the hearth, where she was cooking a mixture of the corn meal they had found in the mill with water and the little salt she had carried. C.K. said nothing. He simply took the dried beef and dried apples from his gunny-sack and gave them to her.

“They ate slowly, dipping with hand-carved spoons into the communal pot, not rushing because they were too hungry to really feel hunger. They looked as though the food was just another meal, not their first real one in almost a day. C.K. knew what the effect of the food would be; it would make them sleep, heavy and deep. But before that they would become cheerful. He waited for that, watching as they finished the last of the corn meal and beef, and chewed on half an apple each, watching as their eyes began to take on a little sparkle, their movements a bit more life; as the children, who had at first been more than a little cranky at being roused from sleep, began to act almost as children should act; the two little girls whispering to themselves and peeking at him from behind their spoons, the three boys, inspecting him with curiosity, edging ever closer to him, before slipping away to explore the corners of the mill. The fourth boy, William, was different; he sat calmly on the floor, his attention divided between C.K. and his mother. When C.K. rose and took the pot the boy followed him outside, stood silently at his elbow while he washed the pot and filled it with water, aped his movements when C.K. stood and peered up at the sky, looking at the clouds driving northwards. But when C.K. looked down he found the boy looking not at the sky, but at him. He smiled, but the boy did not; simply regarded him silently, and then trailed him back inside, watching as he placed the pot over the fire, only sitting down again when C.K. resumed his seat.

“When the water boiled C.K. took the jug of whiskey from his gunnysack and poured it into the kettle. He served the grog to them, one by one, using the only cup they carried. Then, when they had drunk, he stood up in the firelight and told them what they were going to do. How they would sleep for eight hours or so and then get up and make the run out of the cove while there was still darkness to hide them, and to hide their trails until the snow, driven by the south wind, drifted and covered it. How once they were clear of the cove they would simply climb the mountain, with the wind at their backs, and still in darkness. How after that they could slip into the cover of the deep woods and go north by trails he and no one else knew, how they would reach the Town the next night and be hidden and fed; how all it came down to was a simple run of a few miles to get them out of the cove, and then they would be safe. He watched their eyes as he spoke, saw the disbelief in them, the defeat, the distrust. He stopped talking then. Not abruptly, just letting it go, knowing that there was nothing that he could say to them that would really bring their spirits back to life. That would take a miracle. And so he fell silent, feeling, with sudden sharpness, the pain in his ribs, the fatigue in his muscles, the age in his bones. He sat down heavily. The others said nothing. After a while Harriette rose and went with Linda to settle the children for the night.

“The others began to talk again then, but C.K. did not pay any attention to them; he stared into the fire and listened instead to the rattle of the shutters as the wind gusted outside. But then he realized that one voice was a little louder than the others. Or perhaps not louder, just more distinct. He turned then, and saw her. She had left the children and was kneeling by the fire a few feet away from him, staring into the flames as he had been, but talking softly, as though she were talking to herself, and he and the others were only overhearing. But they all heard, C.K. and the rest of them, and they listened as she told her story.

“She told them how she had grown up favored, black, but in a place where black people had their own society, a society in which she, light-skinned and well provided for, occupied a high place. She told them how she had only known a good house and good clothes and good food and good schooling. And how one day the single, unquestionable sign of her womanhood had come, and her mother had told her what it meant. Then she had realized where the money came from, what her mother did to get it. Then she had begun to hate. To hate her mother for being a white man’s mistress, for giving herself airs to conceal the truth from the world. To hate the white man, not because he was unkind, or ungenerous, but because he made it possible for her mother to debase herself, because he took it as his right that a black woman should do that, should be grateful for his generosity, should ask for nothing more. And to hate herself. Because even though now she knew where the money came from, and why, she still took the things it purchased: lived in the house, wore the clothes, ate the food, went to the school, and worse, did nothing for it, not even debase herself.