Drum (69 page)

"I'm not afraid of dying, Hanmiond. There is only one thing I fear."

"Fear they mistreat you? Don' blame you."

"No, not even that. I'm afraid that I might die before I tell you I love you. I love you more than anything in the world. Now that I have told you, it doesn't matter what happens to me."

Hammond opened his arms wide and she stood inside their strong security for a brief moment while he kissed her and then gently pushed her away.

Drumson kept his back turned to them, surprised at the new tenderness between the two, the emotion of their quiet embrace. In another moment he heard Hammond walk to the door and saw Augusta and Lucretia Borgia step back into the shadows.

Hanmiond himself was surprised. He was unable to classify his own feelings for this white woman; he had always thought himself incapable of loving a woman of his own race. Now he knew suddenly, for the first time in his life, what it was to love another. It was not the passion he had lavished on the young Ellen nor the taken-for-granted ecstasy he had accepted from Regine. It was something far beyond either of these, and he felt within him a quiet joy he had never known before.

As he stood by the door with his hand on the big iron bolt, he could hear the noises outside growing louder and louder. There was a crash of glass in the fanlight above the door, and a rock landed on the floor of the hall. Vile words

from the stables and the slave pens were screamed, yelled and shouted by the milling slaves, and one black fellow, bolder than the rest, leaped up the steps of the portico and pounded on the front door, swinging the big brass knocker so that its sound reverberated throughout the house. . "We goin' to kill you, Maxwell. Then we goin' to pleasure ourselves wid yo' women."

Hammond pushed back the bolt and swung the front door open. He took quick aim at the black figure hardly more than a foot away. There was a flash from his pistol and a loud report. The fellow's head was knocked backwards as if it had been hit with a hammer, and he crumpled to the floor. Hanmiond stood in the doorway and handed his pistol to Drumson who was behind him, to reload it. With legs spread wide apart, he stood, hands firmly planted on his hips, and regarded the sea of faces in the semicircle surrounding the portico. The dying light of the fixe gilded the long curved blades of the scythes, the tines of the pitchforks and the black faces, most of which were strange to Hammond.

"Who's a-goin' to kill who?" Hammond pointed to the long black legs and arms stretched out on the white floor. "What you goddam fool niggers think you doin'?" He looked at the row of faces below him, trying to recognize one of them.

"What you a-doin' here, Meg?" He pointed straight at him. "Who let you out?"

"Masta Hanunond, suh." Meg was almost apologetic. "They tells me you going to nut me and Alph tomorrow."

"And what if I do? You're nmie, ain' you? Kin do as I please wid you. Cuts yo' balls off if n I want to. Chop yo' hands off if n I want to. But don' plan on geldin' you tomorrow. Not a-goin' to geld you, goin' to hang you. Goin' to put a rope 'round yo' neck and string you up. And you too, Clees." He had located Clees standing a few men away from Meg. "Goin' to hang you, too, but goin' to strip the meat off'n yo' back 'fore I do. Goin' to flog you till you wants to be hung. But perhaps, if n you lays down them pitchforks and scythes, I'll leave out the floggin'. Jes' hang you 'thout strippin' the meat off'n yo' back."

Hammond saw Clees raise his hand and caught the glint of light on the steel barrel of a pistol. So . . . Clees was armed.

Clees flourished the pistol. "We free, Masta Hammond. Ain' a-goin' back to be hung. We a-goin' north and you cain't stop us."

Hammond felt the solid weight of the pistol being slipped into his hand by Drumson behind him. It gave him reassurance. He stepped out onto the portico, remembering that these were not men, only animals;—^remembering that they had only the intelligence which his mind gave them;—remembering that they had never thought for themselves but had been conditioned to obey white men always.

"You-all know you ain' got a chance of gettin' away with this. Soon's you leave this place, patrols after you. You won' git five mile,"

"Who goin' to send de patrols?" Clees had not noticed the gun in Hammond's hand and he swaggered up on the steps of the portico.

"I'm a-goin' to send 'em, goddamit. Goin' to give 'em orders to shoot every one of you varmints on sight but not shoot to kUl. I'm a-goin' to hang you myse'f."

"You ain' a-goin' to send them if'n you dead." Clees started to aim the pistol but it was clumsy in his hands. He fumbled, trying to get his oversized finger on the trigger.

Hammond fired and Clees stimibled and clapped his hand to his thigh, his face contorted with pain. Drumson ran out onto the porch, grabbed the empty pistol from Hammond's hand and started to reload it, while keeping his eye on Clees, He saw Clees slowly raise his arm and steady his stance against a pillar. The pistol pointed directly at Hammond but Hammond did not move. Drumson hurled himself at his master to push him aside just as the pistol in Clees' hand barked and spit fire.

He felt a thimdering impact as though he had been kicked in the chest with a heavy boot, and he slimiped to the floor, across Hammond's body.

"Masta Hammond, suh." He dimly realized that he had no right to be lying this way on his master but it was hard for him to speak for his mouth was filled with blood. He felt Hammond's body being pulled out from under him and heard the slam of the front door. He closed his eyes in a strange red light which seemed to come from within. A great volcano of pain burst in his chest and he tried to cry out for Hammond but he couldn't. With a last effort he opened his eyes to see black feet aroxmd, padding noiselessly on the floor. There was a flash of the cruel blade of a scythe and another shattering pain and then he remembered no more. Pitchforks* stabbed at the body that mercifully no longer could feel them, and the body was lifted by cruel hands

that sought to tear it to pieces. The maniacal blacks had found an outlet for their years of oppression and once again they were back along the sluggish Niger, in the mangrove swamps of Calabar and on the simbumed plains of Senegal. They were no longer the English-speaking slaves who had been taught to obey the white man. For this brief moment they had become warriors with only the inherited savagery of their ancestors to govern them. Drumson's body was dragged to the edge of the portico, his head lolling over the step imtil a scythe blade, as sharp and as effective as any African sword, severed his head and it was clutched by black fingers and impaled on the tines of a pitchfork to become a tribal symbol of victory. His imseeing eyes were open, staring wide at the milling crowd that rushed at the house, oblivious of the bullets that came from the broken windows as the defenders shot at them.

Then there were other shots, coming up the long lane that led to the big house from the main road, and the sound of hoofbeats and the avenging yells of the white men as they galloped up to defend not only the occupants of the house but their own way of life. Without dismoimting, they rode into the melee, shooting, killin g and trampling in a relentless and methodical destruction which quickly ended the brief triumph of the blacks. It was all over in a few minutes, and Lewis Gasaway sprang down from his horse and walked over the scattered corpses, up the slippery, bloodstained steps of the portico to the front door. The bolt slipped on the inside and he entered.

A candle had been lit in a tall brass candlestick on the floor beside Hammond Maxwell, who lay with his head in Augusta's lap, while Lucretia Borgia knelt beside him.

"They got Ham?" Gasaway knelt beside Ham's stretched-out body.

"Not by a damn sight. Lew." Hammond opened his eyes. "Got me in the shoulder, tha's all."

"They's all dead, Ham." Lewis jerked his head in the direction of the door. "Didn't have to go all the way to Benson. Crowd of men down at the Johnstone place. Lucky we got here but think that Montgomery got away safe, Jes' as we a-comin' down the road, saw his wagon kitin' off in the other direction."

He waited for an answer from Hammond but Hammond had fainted. .

chapter xvi

As THE FIRST gray fingers of dawn crept through the shutters into Hammond's room, enfeebling the light of the candles burning on the table beside his bed, Augusta gently disengaged her fingers from his grasp and laid his hand back cm the sheet that covered him. She marveled at the strong fingers with their blunt, clean nails, at the growth of short hairs on the back of his hand and on his arm which gave his body such a golden sheen. Now he belonged to her. No longer need she fear Regine nor the shadow of the woman who dwelt ia the other house. If, that is, she were still alive, which Augusta doubted, for the report brought back by Ajax was that the old house was now nothing but a pile of still-glowing ashes.

Hammond was sleeping. His face was in repose and not the contorted mask it had been while Doc Redfield's clumsy fingers, aided only by a kitchen paring knife, had probed for the bullet which had passed through Drumson and landed in his shoulder. Then he had lain tense with agony, drops of sweat beading his forehead, while Lewis Gasaway had held him down and while, with his uninjured hand, he had clasped Augusta's so frantically her fingers were almost crushed. She had not minded the pain for she felt she was giving him her own strength. Then it was over and his hand had gone limp in hers as Redfield held up the lead slug with bloody fingers. She thought Hammond had fainted but he had not. He had even smiled at her and then she and Lou-ella Gasaway had washed the wound, and packed it with lint which Lou-ella had scraped from a napkin, and bound it with clean linen.

Augusta, at Redfield's suggestion, had given him laudanum and now he was sleeping.

She stroked the hair back from his forehead, adjusted the pillow, and quickly bending over, brushed his forehead with her lips and kissed his sleeping mouth. She tiptoed over to

the big rocking chair where Lou-ella was sleeping. Lou-ella awakened at her touch and Augusta pointed to the bed.

"Will you sit with him, Lou-ella, dear?" she whispered. "It is daylight now and there is something I must do before the others get up." She crossed the floor, lifted the latch quietly and went into the big room where Lucretia Borgia was sitting bolt upright in a chair beside the door.

"How's he?" Lucretia Borgia pointed to the door.

"Sleeping now."

"Thank de good lord. Oh, Miz 'Gusta, what we all a-goin' ter do? To think that this should come ter Falconhurst. Ter think that my Meg and my Alph would try to kill Masta Hammond. Oh, Miz 'Gusta, cain't never face Masta Hammond 'gain. What're we a-goin' ter do?"

"We'll go on, Lucretia Borgia. Well go on as usual. But first there's something I must do. I'll need help. Will you go up to the room over the kitchen and fetch Brutus for me?"

"Whaffor you wants that Brutus? I'se here."

"I'll need a strong man." Augusta hesitated. "It's Drum-son."

"I jes' as strong as that Brute boy." Lucretia Borgia heaved herself out of the chair. "And 'sides, Miz 'Gusta, I got myself some work to do, too. Them two boys a-lyin' out there, they's my flesh and blood. Disowned 'em, I had, but now they's dead, they's mine 'gain. I goes wid you."

"Yes, come with me, but we'll still need Brutus, so go and wake him for me."

Lucretia Borgia lumbered out of the room and Augusta could hear the shuffling of her carpet slippers across the polished floors as she passed through the hall, the parlor and out into the dining room. When the pantry door closed behind her, Augusta turned and went out into the hall. She mounted the stairs one at a time, dragging herself up by the balustrade. All the doors along the upstairs hall were mutely closed—^the guests had returned to their rooms after the horrors of the night. Augusta walked the length of the balcony to a big chest which stood under the windows. She opened it, smelling the faint aroma of cedar from the inside, and took from it a quilt, pieced together of myriad little diamonds of gaUy colored silk. It was soft to her touch and rippled imder her fingers with an iridescence of bright colors. With it over her arm, she descended the stairs and stood in the hall waiting for Lucretia and Brutus.

When they arrived, Brutus was sobbing.

"He done gone, Miz 'Gusta. What we goin' to do 'thout him, Miz 'Gusta? Misses him, I do. He good boy, Drumson was. He my fren."

"There's little more we can do for him, Brutus, but we'll do what we can. I want you to go over to the carpenter shop and make a coffin for Drumson. Can you do it?"

"Don' needs to Miz 'Gusta. Al'ays one or two over there. One for white folks, made of cypress and one for niggers, made of pine."

"The cypress one then, Brutus." Augusta was decisive.

"Ain' no white mans dead."

"The cypress one." She felt almost too tired to repeat the words. "It's none too good for Drumson. Now go, and bring it back. If you can't bring it alone, get someone to help you."

Brutus left, running through the house to carry out Augusta's orders. She stood for a long time with her finger on the doorlatch, trying to get up courage to open the door. A horrible scene awaited her outside and she dreaded having to look at it. Yet, she must go.

Lucretia Borgia came up behind her and laid a heavy arm around her waist.

"Don' go, Miz 'Gusta. Ain' no call fer you to go out there. Spare yo'self. You kin send Brute or Ajax or some other boy and I'll go wid him. Thinks that pore Drumson mus' be awful gory. Ain' no fittin' sight fer mist'ess to see."

"But if it wasn't for Drumson, Master Hanmiond would be out there. We must remember that, Lucretia Borgia. As it is, he is sleeping safely in his own bed, and he is alive." Her finger came down hard on the latch and she pulled the door open.

Her first impulse was to close it again. She could not face the horror that lay there before her. Let some slave do it— she could not. She shut her eyes to blot out the weirdly postured black corpses that littered the front of the house. And yet, even as she felt her inability to do what she had intended, she resolutely took a step out onto the portico, than another, trying to disregard the carnage before her. The remaining steps, which carried her to the edge of the portico, were easier. Now she could blot out everything except what she was seeking. She reached the edge of the steps. The headless body lying on the floor of the portico with its poor shoulders on the ground was Drumson's. The graveled drive where the shoulders rested was clotted with a pool of darkened blood. The arms, chest and abdomen were