Queen (12 page)

    only the territory of Missouri, a wild Indian land, and the Mississippi

    River, and beyond that was a foreign country, the Mexican province of

    Texas. To the south was Louisiana, which Jefferson had just purchased,

    against the strident opposition of the New Englanders, from Napoleon.

    John believed that the Purchase would open up vast new territories for

    settlement, and that Nashville would be the gateway, for it was the

    junction between the East Coast and New Orleans. If James and Washington

    wanted to go to Nashville and open a store, John would provide them with

    credit and supplies.

    BLOODLINES 67

    "What are we waiting for?" Washington cried, already chasing bison in his

    head.

    "Be careful," John said with a smile. "They're rough men there."

    He looked at the letter he was holding and passed it to James. It was

    from a customer in Nashville, Andrew Jackson-who was not related to

    them-and was full of complaints about the supplies he had received from

    them, and their prices.

    "He's a crusty curmudgeon," John grinned. "He's cross because he sold his

    cotton early, and the prices have gone through the roof since. I warned

    him, but he wouldn't be told."

He grinned again.

    "Nobody can tell Andrew anything," he said. "He's as likely to fight a

    duel with anyone who tries."

    James had seen some of Andrew's correspondence before, voluminous, irate,

    and eloquently phrased. He felt a stirring in his soul, a call to

    something extravagant, a feeling he had not known since he first saw the

    land of America from the bow of the ship. This was the challenge he had

    been seeking, not just of the land, but of the men who inhabited the

    land. If his customers, frontiersmen, were all as cantankerous as Andrew,

    and if he could survive, and even win, against them, then he would have

    reason to be proud of himself. That would be an achievement, and of his

    own making, of his own doing.

"He's a good customer," he said. "We'll do well by him."

    "Let's go!" Washington yelled, dancing about the room, shadowboxing an

    imaginary Andrew.

    They laughed, and drank a toast to the new venture. It was three months

    before they were ready to leave, but those weeks flew by in a welter of

    preparation and planning.

    "And watch out for yourselves," Uncle Henry cautioned them, as they were

    ready to leave. "There's Injuns there."

    Washington whooped, and James tingled with excitement, In all his time

    in Philadelphia, he had not seen an Indian. There were a few half-breeds,

    shabby, dispirited men mostly, often drunk, and with vacant eyes, as if

    they were looking for something they had lost.

But they were not the real thing to James. They were not

68 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

the warriors of the legends. Soon he would see them, the noble

red-skinned savages on line horses, naked but for paint and brilliant

feathers.

Soon he would know the real America.

Soon he would be a true pioneer.

    It was so close. Just a few hundred miles away. Just on the other side

    of the mountains.

    48

The simple thrill of being on the road kept their spirits up for the first

few days, and Washington took unalloyed delight in everything he saw. It

amused James to be guide to his younger brother on their journey of

exploration, for he knew the way, at least as far as Baltimore. They

stayed with their brothers Hugh and Alexander, who were doing well in

business, and organized the supplies to be delivered, at appropriate

intervals, to them in Nashville.

    "Land," Hugh told them. "Buy every scrap of land you can, be agents for

    others' purchases, accept land as guarantee for credit, but get

    yourselves into land as fast as you can."

    From Baltimore, they were in virgin territory for both of them, but the

    road was well traveled by others, and they headed inland, to the new

    capital, at Washington. 'Me days were warm and sunny, the villages they

    passed through charming, and they spent the night in an inn where German

    was the first language. They arrived at their destination the following

    afternoon, and Washington laughed out loud when he saw the capital, a

    small village in the middle of a swamp with a few extravagant buildings

    rising out of the marsh. There were no rooms to be had at any of the few

    inns, so they slept in their wagon, delighted in the fireflies in the

    bushes, which they had never seen, and were attacked by mosquitoes all

    night long. They played sightseers for a day, gawking at everything, and

    stood outside the presidential mansion for half an hour hoping

    BLOODLINES 69

to see Mr. Jefferson, but he did not appear. They loaded their wagon onto

a barge and crossed the Potomac, to Alexandria, and suddenly found

themselves in another country.

    They could not define why Virginia was different at first, but quickly

    realized it was because of the slaves. There was nothing else odd or

    unusual-Alexandria was a lovely city, of gracious red-brick buildings,

    built on a little hill that rose up from the river, but with more black

    people than they had seen anywhere else.

    "Slaves," Washington whispered in wonder. "They are all slaves. "

    They had seen a few slaves in Maryland, which was also a slave state, and

    a slave ship in Baltimore, but it was empty, as was the auction house,

    and they felt a little cheated. None of the blacks they saw on the

    streets there looked any different from those who were free, in

    Philadelphia, but they knew that here almost every black they saw was in

    bondage.

    They felt cheated again in Alexandria. Everyone, black or white, was

    simply going about their business, whatever that might be, and they saw

    nothing to justify the sermons they had heard denouncing the trade.

    Still, there was something different, some different manner or attitude

    between the faces, or perhaps it was only a different accent, or perhaps

    it was simply that they knew they had crossed an invisible line, and were

    now in unknown territory, where the rules were changed.

    They found an inn for the night, and talked freely between themselves

    about the slaves they had seen, who were not in any way remarkable, until

    they realized that no one else, in conversation, ever used the word

    slave. Darkies, nigras, niggers occasionally, if women were not present,

    or simply our people, but never slaves. They knew the servants at the inn

    must be slaves, but they seemed no different from servants on the

    Northern side, and the owners treated them no better or no worse than

    servants were treated in the grander houses in Dublin. Again, they were

    disappointed that the country they were in, which was exotic, was not

    exotic enough. James thought it was rather like going from Dublin to

    Liverpool: The accents and manners were different, and the laws, and you

    realized you were in a foreign country, but everything else was much the

    same.

70 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

The following morning, as they were loading their wagon, they saw something

that jolted them.

    A young black man was staggering down the street carrying a large box of

    something, and could hardly see over the top of it. Walking directly toward

    him were a couple of welldressed white businessmen, deep in conversation.

    They were on a collision course with the black youth, who, peering over his

    burden, saw them in time and, at the last possible moment, swerved out of

    the way. But a comer of the box clipped the arm of one of the whites.

    Without breaking his stride, or even seeming to look at what he was doing,

    the white man raised his cane and smashed it on the black youth's

    shoulders. The youth fell to the ground, and there was an awful crash of

    breaking glass inside the box he was delivering. The two white men walked

    on, and the black youth, after catching his breath, picked up his box and

    staggered on. He was weeping, but whether it was from the pain of the blow

    or because of the damage to his cargo, James and Washington could not tell.

    No one paid any attention to the incident but themselves. They said nothing

    to each other, but climbed into the wagon, flicked the horses, and drove

    away.

    They rode in silence for a while, each trying to come to terms with what he

    had seen, until Washington spoke.

    " I've seen as bad or worse in Dublin," he said. "The British treated the

    croppies no better."

    James nodded, for he had seen worse, but the incident soured their pleasure

    in their travels, until the countryside, the loveliest they had ever seen,

    worked some magic on them, and they thought themselves in Arcady. They rode

    through arbors of walnut and oak that bordered pretty farms, where horses

    grazed on flawless grass. The farmhouses were neat and ordered and painted

    white, and babbling streams and creeks called runs-Four Mile Run, Holmes

    Run, and Bull Runfed into lazy rivers.

    As the days passed by, they had the sense that they were climbing upward,

    higher into the mountains, and daily the scenery became more

    beautiful-grand but placid and peaceful. They saw snakes sunning themselves

    on the roads, but they slithered away when they heard the wagon. They heard

    birdsong that was beautiful, and saw squirrels and deer and

    BLOODLINES 71

possum. They learned to be careful when they had to go into the bushes,

because of a nasty little creature called a chigger, an insect that

burrowed into skin and itched like blazes. Kindly innkeepers gave them a

cure for it, a pungent oil based on turpentine, and everywhere they stayed

they were treated with extraordinary civility, and a lazy, casual courtesy

that was overtly friendly, yet curiously reserved.

    They never talked about slavery again, did not discuss it even between

    themselves, but came to accept the practice as the tradition in this part

    of the world. They did not see anything they considered as unfair or

    harsh treatment of the blacks, but their standards had adjusted since

    Alexandria, and things that might once have set their teeth on edge

    became an accepted fact of life.

    Each town or village they came to seemed prettier than the one before.

    Almost always there was a well-tended square, surrounded by churches with

    spires and lovely, white-painted houses, but after Charlottesville the

    villages became less ordered, less formal, newer in construction, and

    with an increasing abundance of log cabins.

    They crossed a small mountain range, and gasped at the splendor of the

    valley that lay before them that was called Shenandoah, and found

    themselves in another country again, a different and exciting country,

    for if eastern Virginia had been Arcady, then this, surely, was Eden.

    Their most extravagant dreams came true. They climbed the mountain range

    on the other side of the vast valley, and the people were rougher, if

    still as hospitable, and pleased to see the strangers, and desperate for

    news of the outside world. They had a sense of wilderness only recently

    tamed, and while they saw many farms, they also saw true pioneers,

    clusters of families who lived in log cabins, miles, it seemed, from any-

    where, even their nearest neighbors. Then they would come to a small

    town, and the wilderness would recede for a while, only to open up before

    them again as they traveled on.

    In the evenings they heard fiddlers more frenetic than any they had known

    in Ireland, and drank a clear white liquor called moonshine-for it was

    made by the light of the moonthat had the kick of a mule and produced a

    wondrous, dreaming drunkenness. They saw a revival meeting, the preacher

    on a wagon outside a church, practicing a brand of Christianity

72 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

that provoked his congregation of simple hardy souls to an ecstatic fervor

that was moving and slightly frightening.

    Sometimes they saw a few Indians, still not the naked, noble savage,

    painted and feathered, but a far cry from the drunken half-breeds of the

    city, Calm and self-possessed, they came to the little villages or simple

    trading posts to sell soft animal hides, or fish they had caught in the

    river, or trinkets of beads, and took in return the supplies they needed

    instead of money.

    They came down from the mountains through stands of magnificent pine or

    cedar, past gushing waterfalls and some small mountains that were

    perpetually shrouded in a mist that looked smoky. Now they came to

    rolling gentle hills, of grass so sweet that in the distance it looked