Queen (19 page)

    reciprocated love of James's life, but he found her when he was older,

    and had lost the foolishness of youth. They approached each other and

    their marriage as adults, delighting in each other, but with a deep

    concern to lay the foundations for a lifelong partnership. Their great

    gift was laughter. James's Irish sense of humor touched some Celtic chord

    in Sarah, and others regarded them enviously, for their heads were always

    together, and their eyes were always smiling. They didn't seem to need

    anybody but each other, although they never excluded anyone else from

    their company.

    Because of the confusion between Sarah, his fianc6e, and Sara, his

    sister, the family began calling their new relation

110 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

Sally, and it pleased her, because it made her feel young.

    Sally, who had been Sarah, returned to South Carolina to visit her many

    relations, to put her affairs in order, and to show Elizabeth to her

    aunts and uncles and grandparents. She went to Baltimore and Philadelphia

    to buy her trousseau, and she met James's relatives there, who welcomed

    her into the family. She returned to Nashville the following spring, and

    in October, James Jackson married Sally Moore McCullough in a simple

    ceremony attended by two hundred friends and relations.

Andrew Jackson was James's best man.

Friends loaned them a small house not far from town so that they might be

alone, apart from several slaves, for the first few days of their

marriage. They drove there late on their wedding night, Cap'n Jack and

other slaves riding beside them with lanterns. At the house, Angel had

made ready for her Missy and new Massa. A supper was laid on the table,

and candles lighted the scene. James carried Sally over the threshold, and

once the couple were comfortable the slaves drifted away to the kitchen,

and made their own party.

    Sally went to the bedroom first, and made herself ready. James undressed

    in another room, and came to her after a decent interval. He was oddly

    nervous. He had no doubt of his ability in the marriage bed, but he did

    not want to disappoint his bride, who had been married before. She had

    talked to him of Samuel, and he understood her passion for him, but he

    was anxious to prove himself the better man.

    Sally was standing by the window staring out at the room. She looked

    ravishing in oyster silk, with her hair loose. James came to her, put his

    hands gently on her shoulders, kissed her elegant neck, and swore that

    he would do everything in his power to make her happy. She turned and her

    eyes told him that she believed him, and she swore a similar vow.

    He bent to her and they kissed, and her mouth seemed to melt around his

    tongue. He picked her up and carried her to the bed, laid her down and

    lay beside her, stroking her, running his hands through her hair, and did

    not want his mouth ever to be separated from hers. He freed her breasts,

    and could not resist a whispered joke, that these were the reason that

    he had fallen in love with her. To his relief, Sally laughed, and

    BLOODLINES 111

told him that was why she had shown herself so boldly. The laughter was

the key that unlocked James's passion. He buried his face in her breasts

and explored her body with his hands and his tongue. With gentle hints and

subtle persuasion, all modified by smiles and giggles, Sally guided him

to those places that pleased her, and was expert enough in the ways of men

to know what he needed.

    When James entered her, she locked him to her as if she would never let

    him go, and called out his power and her surrender. James was filled with

    a sense of his own masculinity, and her soft and yielding capitulation

    to him made him feel, at his climax, the most sublime pleasure of his

    life.

    They slept very little that night, because he could not get his fill of

    her. He no longer cared if he was a better lover than Samuel; he felt no

    sense of competition with the dead, because he, James, was living, and

    her master, and she had no alternative but him, now. When she whispered

    her need for his baby, he shared the longing, and told her that the seed

    he gave her was the seed of life.

    The fact that he did not have to compete with anyone, anymore, for

    anything, freed him from restraint, freed him from inhibition, and while

    his conscious mind believed that she was giving herself, his soul knew

    better. He was engulfed by her.

    They spent their honeymoon in idyllic circumstances. The house was a

    charming, well-appointed log cabin, set among tall trees. The crisp,

    chill weather and the riotous colors of autumn filled their senses in the

    day, and the warmth and companionship of the marriage bed, and their lack

    of coy reserve, made the nights endlessly delightful. There were very few

    problems between them, and any that arose were solved with laughter,

    which remained the constant fixture of their marriage. Still they each

    kept a part of themselves closed from the other, believing that they had

    a lifetime to discover those things, and did not want to become overly

    familiar too soon.

    After two weeks they returned to Nashville, and began the business of

    building their family.

A year later, Sally gave birth to a daughter, who was named Mary, as the

biblical Mary had been the ftiend of Elizabeth. James was cock-a-hoop on

the day Mary came into the world, and bought endless rounds of drinks for

his friends at the inn,

112 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

who ribbed him gently. Making a baby wasn't so difficult, they told him.

Most men could do it. Even niggers could do that.

    When he came in to see Mary for the first time, his heart filled with

    love for her. He could not believe that he had made this tiny, perfect

    thing. He held her in his arms, and sat in a chair by the window, and

    told her stories of how she was blessed by the fairies and leprechauns.

    Mary seemed to believe him, and snuggled contentedly into her father's

    arms.

James looked at Sally, and smiled, and thanked her.

    "Are you disappointed she isn't a boy?" Sally asked him, for she had been

    worried. Like all the women of the frontier, she knew sons were critical

    to the family's survival, and James was obsessed by family.

    James laughed and said no, but examined his conscience. In truth, he had

    felt a mild twinge of disappointment, but had shrugged it aside. When he

    held Mary in his arms, not even the memory of that disappointment

    remained, but Sally's question had revived it.

    "No," he said again, wanting to convince her that he wasn't lying. "She

    is beautiful."

Then he gave Sally his most impish smile.

    "And anyway, she's just the first," he grinned. "We can always keep

    trying."

    They tried very hard, but were not successful in their efforts at first.

    Martha was born the following year, and Mary Ellen two years after that.

    Everyone was kind, friends and relations, but they all longed for a boy,

    and James began to understand Andrew's obsessive need for sons. He

    consoled himself with the thought that at least he and Sally could

    produce children, while Andrew and Rachel could not.

This time James's prayers were answered. Sally delivered a son, a

strapping, chubby boy, who was as healthy as anyone could wish.

    The arrival of his son had an extraordinary effect on James. He held the

    boy, and stared at him, and, against the strong advice of Eleanor and

    Sara, took him outside into the warm night. He sat with his son for an

    hour and dreamed of the future.

    BLOODLINES 113

    He had ensured the succession of his family. His son would have

    everything that he did not. He would grow up surrounded by love, as James

    had not, and flourish and be a fine man, and inherit his father's estate,

    as James had not.

    They would be friends, James swore to it, and while he would give his son

    the discipline a man needed to survive in the world, and to prosper, he

    would always know that he occupied first place in his father's heart. He

    would be honest and reliable and adventurous. He would be well provided

    for, he would want for nothing, but he would be given an appreciation of

    the value of money and the glory of labor. He would own slaves, but would

    be taught respect for the dignity of man. He would be given a sense of

    independence, and the will to expand and develop what James had created.

    He could be anything he wanted to be, a farmer or a general, or both,

    like Andrew, but he would be a son any man could be proud of, and always,

    he would be loved.

    James felt the salt sting of tears in his eyes. He returned his son to

    his women, and went and got drunk with his friends at the inn.

    The son came to be known as A.J., to avoid confusion with his illustrious

    godfather, but that was not his name. As if to give him a sense of the

    majesty of which he was capable, of the heroism that was his patrimony,

    through his father's dearest friend, as if to remind the boy always of

    the man James wanted him to emulate, he was christened Andrew Jackson

    Jackson.

Because always, there was Andrew.

    14

Amdrew Jackson, orphaned himself as a youth, gathered young men unto

him, just as he gathered sons who were not his own. He awoke the

limitless horizons of the boy in all of them. He put his great,

embracing arms around them and swept them off to realms of

extraordinary adventure.

114 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    An extravagant Pied Piper, his embrace was extensive and undiscriminating.

    Those who were prepared to follow his path were given spectacular rewards

    of excitement; the others simply fell by the wayside, unmourned and

    unnoticed by Andrew. Those who were in his way, he tried to eliminate,

    honorably, through duel or the courts, or by the stinging whiplash of his

    eloquent invective. He demanded discipline, obedience, and loyalty from his

    apostles, but encouraged them to explore the outer limits of their own

    individuality.

"He rides a streak of lightning."

    James could never remember which of Andrew's entourage said that, but, oh,

    it was true.

    So Andrew Jackson, the restless, roving visionary, had gathered James the

    merchant to him, and had shown him the places of legends, of chivalry and

    honor and breathless daring. To the misty shores of Avalon, where dedicated

    knights created the noble vision of Camelot, and quested the Holy Grail,

    and to the plains of Olympus, where fearless warriors challenged the gods.

    And standing in unquestioning support of the man who would be king was the

    flawless Rachel, the loving woman and wife, who represented all that was

    good on earth.

    What James could not know was that he did not stand as high in his mentor's

    firmament as Andrew did in his.

    When John Coffee and Andrew purchased the prizewinning horse Pacolet, they

    decided to offer shares in the animal to their loyal friends, those who

    could afford it, as tokens of their esteem. The first five shares were

    easily allotted, but they debated the sixth.

:'Why not James?" John Coffee said. "He can afford it."

    'Which James?" Andrew asked. His mind was elsewhere, and he knew several

    men called James.

:'James Jackson," John Coffee laughed. "The merchant."

    'Oh, yes," Andrew agreed. "Let's give the bookkeeper a share. "

Andrew's parents had migrated from Ireland, and made an arduous trek from

Pennsylvania to North Carolina. They settled on an adequate piece of land,

and began clearing their property. It was a hard life, and Andrew's father

strained him-

    BLOODLINES 115

self grubbing tree stumps, and died in agony. A few days later, his mother

gave birth to her third son, and he was called Andrew in memory of his

dead father.

    The widowed mother raised her son according to the creed of Sparta.

    "My door is always open to brave men, and perpetually closed to cowards."

    Young Andrew adored his mother and took her lessons to heart. Gifted with

    a fearless bravery, a passion for the use of language, and a reckless

    disregard for his own physical wellbeing, he had a hot temper and an

    unshakable conviction of his own destiny. He was bom to be a leader of

    men.

    His Irish blood gave him a hatred of the British, and at the onset of the

    American Revolution he offered his services to his uncle, who had formed

    a small band of militia. At the age of thirteen, he was made a messenger,