Hot Valley (10 page)

I could think of nothing else as I rode out of town, the road blurring in front of my eyes. I could see only your face, your lips, your taunting smile as you lay there in the straw daring me to take what I wanted but I knew I must never have. I thought of the other men to whom you had given it—so casually, so cheaply!—in the bars of Bishopstown, in the woods, on the floor of the boiler house that same afternoon. I saw you, Jack, and I watched for as long as I could before the urge to kill someone drove me away.

My horse slowed to a canter, to a walk, and stopped altogether, cropping the grass at the edge of a field.

I dismounted, and was violently sick.

I puked until there was nothing left to bring up. I had been kicked in the stomach, of course, that was the reason—and yet I felt as if I was voiding all the love that I felt for you, Jack, all the sweetness that had turned to bitter bile. I was empty. I remounted my horse, my guts in pain, and rode slowly into the night.

Ill-equipped as I was for life on the road, I had no alternative but to avoid towns and large settlements and to put some distance between myself and Bishopstown. I slept that first night in the woods, under my coat; luckily for me the night was dry and I was unmolested by animals. I woke up aching and sore in my limbs, but rested and ready to face whatever fortune might throw at me.

Fortune played her first trick: the horse had worked loose from its tether in the night and gone, presumably to find its way back to Bishopstown. I cursed my carelessness, and the stupidity of the horse: it deserved a better master than Windridge. I was alone, and on foot.

The first question was which way to head. North, toward the Canadian border? South, into Massachusetts and Connecticut? West, into New York State? And then where? To stay in the Yankee states, or to return to the South?

Whichever way I turned, the path seemed strewn with dangers. As a lone black man, on whichever side of the political line, I ran the risk of being arrested, declared “contraband of war,” and set to work on the railroads, a fate I will avoid at all costs. But New England, far from being the haven of tolerance and opportunity I had fondly imagined, had dangers of a subtler sort. I thought, by and large, my best chance lay in the South, to return to Virginia, claim whatever remained of my inheritance, and then to continue my travels as far west as possible, to California, maybe, or even into Mexico. Away from all these fine gentlemen and their not-so-fine friends, from ladies who smile at you in church but whisper behind your back in the street.

And away from you. Poor Jack—poor, childish, brave, fond Jack, too spoiled to know what life could do to an ill-matched pair like us! We were nothing but a danger to each other. I thank God that I never took the final irrevocable step that would have bound us together, however much I may have longed to do it.

Putting on my shirt, I munched on a piece of stale bread that I had managed, despite my haste, to shove into my bag, and I quenched my thirst with water from the stream. The first priority was to equip myself with the necessities of life—a horse, if possible, warm clothes, a weapon, blankets, food. I had a little money, all that I had saved, rolled up and stuffed into the toe of my boot. It was enough to feed me for a few days, to make a few necessary purchases, but it would not furnish me with a mount or the means to protect myself. Those things I would have to earn or steal.

The other side of the mountain, there was a village where I knew there were farms; and where there were farms, there was work, and outbuildings, and horses, and all manner of useful things for a man in need. My inclination is to be honest, but I've seen enough of how the world treats an honest man to consider the alternatives.

The sun was up, and the farms would be busy, and I thought this the best time to present myself as a hired hand—and also, if I was lucky, get a little breakfast into the bargain. The first establishment that I found was a run-down farm, just a house and a barn with a few ill-tended vegetable patches, a cow in desperate need of milking and a handful of scrawny chickens pecking for worms in the yard. But there was smoke rising from the chimney, and a good smell of coffee, so I braved the yapping of the mangy yellow dog that snapped at my heels, and presented myself at the door.

I knocked, although the door was open, and shouted a hello. There was banging within, and an upper window was flung open. “Get away from here!” came a high, frantic, female voice. “There's nothing for you! My husband will come out and shoot you!” I could tell she was on the verge of tears, and I had no desire to frighten her further—not least because she was waving a shotgun out the window. I bowed, and tried to look harmless.

“I'm just looking for work, ma'am,” I said.

She was surprised, as white folk always are, at my accent, which does not accord with my appearance. The gun stopped waving, and she realized that she was not about to be raped and murdered.

“There's no work here! Go away!”

“I could milk the cow for you, ma'am, or weed that pumpkin patch, or chop you some wood.”

“No… Thank you. My…husband takes care of all that.”

I could see that she was weighing in her mind the usefulness of a fresh pair of hands around the place, against the dangers of letting an unknown black man onto her property.

“Perhaps I could talk to him?”

The gun started waving again, and she passed a hand across her brow, pulling back loose strands of brown hair.
I reckoned she was 30 years old, but she looked tired and careworn, as everyone does these days. I knew there was no husband in the house, no man at all, possibly just her, and she knew that I knew. It was better for us both if we maintained that convenient fiction.

“He's…he's just ridden down to the…er…lower field to see the men… And he'll be back any minute for his breakfast.”

“Perhaps in the meantime I could start by milking the cow? She looks mighty uncomfortable.”

“Don't you come into the house, you hear me? And stay where I can see you!”

She banged the window shut. I walked over to the cow, found a clean-looking pail in the shed, and started milking her right where she stood. She bellowed loudly as the first few squirts came out, but soon she was calm and the milk flowed, thick and copious, into the pail. If nothing else, my efforts would be rewarded with a cup full of that.

The woman stood on her porch, watching me with her arms folded. It would have been so easy to knock her on the head, steal her gun, ransack the house for money, and run. Plenty of men would have done it. I think she expected me to do it, and knew herself to be at a great disadvantage. War has made women like her vulnerable. I suspected that her husband was away fighting, that she was left, like so many, on her own, to scratch a living from the soil, unsupported by family or friends. I could not bring myself to add to her woes.

“When you've done that, you can chop some firewood for me.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And then perhaps I can bring you some breakfast.”

“Thank you, ma'am.”

An hour later, almost faint with hunger, I sat on the edge of the porch with a mug of coffee, a hunk of cornbread, and a pork chop, still sizzling from the pan. There were apples and milk waiting for me indoors. I ate ravenously, tearing the meat with my fingers; she had not given me a knife. She watched me nervously, still scared, but delighted, as all women are, to see her food appreciated.

“Well, thank you, ma'am, that was a good breakfast. Now I must be on my way.”

“Where you headed?”

“South.” I gestured vaguely in that direction.

“Not planning to stick around? I could…we could use a hired hand. You could sleep in the barn, it's warm and dry, and we'd feed you and…well, I can't pay you but…we'd look after you. What do you say?”

I was astonished, and sorry to let her down. “I'm afraid I can't stay around here,” I said. “And it wouldn't be good for you either. There's too many who take exception to the color of my skin.”

“The Lord says it don't matter.”

“People have a way of ignoring what the Lord says, ma'am. That's why we're fighting a war against our brothers.”

Her hands hung down by her side, and her face crumpled. And then, in a gesture she had made a dozen times before, she pushed back her hair, straightened herself up, and swallowed her grief. “Well,” she said, “we live in wicked times, that's for sure. And when my husband gets back from the—” She looked crestfallen, as if she'd given away too much.

“From the lower field, ma'am?” I said.

“Yes, from the lower field,” she said, smiling for the first time. “Well, then we'll get this place going again, and we'll be fine with our neighbors, and you'll come back and we'll show you our gratitude for your kindness. But till then, there's nothing I can give you. Unless you want my dog. Can't eat him, he don't give milk or lay eggs, and he ain't much use as a guard.”

“Thanks, but I prefer to travel alone.”

“You could stay for a night, maybe?”

I saw the loneliness and fear that made up her day-to-day life. I might have stayed there, licked the farm into shape, kept her safe—but how long before I was chased out of town again? And this time they wouldn't hesitate to kill me. A black man shacked up with a white woman? It was their favorite nightmare.

“Thanks, but I better be moving along.”

“Wait,” she said, and ran into the house. When she came down, she had a rolled blanket under her arm. “Here's a few things I don't need no more. You can keep them or sell them, whatever…”

The roll was bulky. I could see from the expression on her face that it was best not to look inside it just now. Instead I expressed my thanks, and walked on, with many glances back to that brave, lonely woman as she stood, watching and waving, at her kitchen door.

Regaining the relative shelter of the woods, I unrolled the blanket and took stock of its contents. Two clean white shirts, a pair of pants, a pair of thick woolen socks, and even, to my astonishment, a large hunting knife. I took it from its sheath and felt the edge; it was as sharp as a razor.

And so I found at my first stop several of the necessities of life, but I was still lacking a few essentials. I knew I had to move quickly; word of my presence in such a small community would soon get around, and I was reluctant to travel much further on foot. A horse was at the top of my shopping list.

Keeping to the woods, I skirted two more farms where the yards were busy, the comings and goings too regular. I had not consciously decided that I was going to steal a horse; the plan seemed, instead, to have formed itself in my head without my wishing it.

Finally, I came upon a house at the far end of the village; like the first, it had that unkempt, wartime look that spoke of absent men and struggling women. There was a stable building, and the unmistakable scent of horse shit.

Dropping down behind the house to avoid being seen from the windows, I ran quietly to the stable and looked in. There were three horses in there, all sound-looking animals. And there was something else: a stable boy. He was crouching at the furthest of the three stalls, picking at the horse's hoof with a small knife. He was half naked; his shirt was hanging over a saddle rack, presumably to protect it from the muck that inevitably comes with horse husbandry. For a moment, I could study him unobserved. He was a strong lad, perhaps 19 or 20 years of age, with curly brown hair that could do with a trim, a snub nose, and freckles across his face and neck, extending over his broad upper back. There was a patch of hair on his chest and a little on his stomach, standing out in stark relief from the milky whiteness of his skin. As he delved away with his knife, the muscles bunched and extended under that skin; his lower arms were sunburned to a brick red. It was obvious that he was well fed, and could look after himself in a fight. But he was, I reckoned, shorter than me by a good six inches, and if it came to a simple trial of strength, I could overpower him in a second.

I had no desire to harm him, however, not least because I was enjoying looking at him so much. Where you, Jack, are smooth and slender, with blond hair and a skin that tans gold, this lad was stocky and sturdy—a worker, rather than a student of life. And he was good at his work; with a final, deft twist of his knife, he shot a jagged stone the size of a walnut out of the horse's hoof, and stood up, patting the beast on its big brown behind.

I thought it better to announce my presence, not least because he had a knife in his hand, so I coughed gently. He didn't jump. Instead he just looked toward the door, shielding his eyes against the light, which was behind me and put me into silhouette.

“Ben, is that you?”

“No, it's not Ben,” I said, taking a step forward. When he saw me more clearly, his hands went to his sides and he adopted a defensive posture. The muscles in his chest bunched up, with two pink buds on top of them that looked good enough to eat.

“What do you want? Who are you?”

“I just wondered if you were interested in maybe selling me one of your horses.”

“Selling? You were planning on stealing one, more like.” He relaxed a little, and rubbed a hand across his torso, where a trickle of sweat ran from neck to navel. His hand left a dirty track behind it.

“And could you stop me if I did?” I asked, smiling.

“Maybe.”

“And maybe not.” We stood facing each other, and I became aware of the scent of his sweat above the smell of the horses—a rich scent, like wood smoke. I was already half-hard from watching him at work, and that smell finished the job. I saw him glance down toward my swollen crotch, and his body relaxed.