Queen (28 page)

    the number of

164 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

slave states, which the New Englanders fiercely resented.

    Even if the public did vote for him, they might not vote in sufficient

    numbers, and if the election had to be decided in the House of

    Representatives, James could not swear to the outcome. For the first time,

    he understood why Andrew had come to him for help.

    He cursed himself for a fool, for not thinking things over before he had so

    rashly allied himself to Andrew's cause. The damage was done; he was

    committed, but he would tread very carefully from now on. And he would ask

    Sally's opinion.

There was a tap on the door, and Egbert Harris came in.

    "Sorry to bother you," he said. "But there's been trouble, with your

    slaves."

James was astonished.

    "A couple of 'em got hold of some liquor and started a fight," Harris

    explained. "I guess it was a setup, because in the fuss another two tried

    to run away."

    James was furious. On this day, of all days, after all he had done for

    them.

    "Damned niggers!" he cried. "After all I've done for them. "

    Evans, he knew, would be useless. "Get the slave catchers," he shouted.

    "Get the bloodhounds."

Egbert Harris smiled.

    "No need," he said. "I took the liberty. They didn't get far. One of 'em's

    a bit of a bloody mess. He won't try running away again for a while."

    James wasn't sure what to say, but thanked Harris, and asked him his terms.

    The money was quickly settled. The conditions took a little longer. Harris

    wanted total authority over the slaves, the permission to enforce

    discipline the way he saw it, and no questions asked. In return he

    guaranteed productivity.

    "Though it'll take me a while," he said, "to bring 'em into line. Things

    have been lax around here."

    James nodded. If the slaves had chosen this day, of all days, to run away,

    then things were in a worse state than he had suspected. He was filled with

    disappointment, and agreed to Harris's conditions.

"And the house niggers," Harris said.

    BLOODLINES 165

James thought for a moment.

    "Those who work in the house are valued and trusted, and have been with

    me many years," he said.

    Harris shrugged. "Have it your way. Don't blame me if things go wrong."

    He was rough and forthright, and James wasn't sure that he liked him, but

    he had no alternative. If the slaves needed discipline, then discipline

    there would be. It was agreed that Harris would commence with James in

    three months, after he had squared things with his present employer and

    gone home to Nashville to see his family.

    They shook hands, and Harris excused himself. James sat at his desk,

    furious with himself about Andrew, and the wretched ingratitude of his

    slaves. Then he remembered who he was. One of the richest men in the

    state, of enormous influence, and a state senator. He was a powerful man.

    He would start to use his power. Even Andrew Jackson had come to him for

    help.

Egbert Harris started work as overseer at The Forks of Cypress three

months later, as agreed.

    Shortly before his arrival, Annie delivered a girt child to the doting

    Cap'n Jack, and they called her Easter, because she was born on the day

    of resurrection.

    20

Sally tried to block her ears to the screams, She hated it

when the slaves were whipped. She hated Harris for doing it,

and hated the fact that it was necessary. In the first few weeks

of his tenure, Harris had a whipping block made at the slave

quarters, and instituted a regime of ruthless punishment for the

slightest offenses. Every few days, it seemed, Harris would

find reason to have one of the slaves flogged, and for the first

time Sally heard, on a regular basis, the primal sounds that are

    166 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

made by a human being in unendurable agony, and she couldn't bear the

screams.

    She demanded that the block be moved to some location farther from the

    house because it was giving the children nightmares, and Harris had

    reluctantly acceded. It didn't make any difference. The pitiful cries of

    the victims still reached the house, and Sally began taking the children

    out, on picnics to the river, or into town, when she knew a flogging had

    been ordered.

    She could not understand why it had all gone so wrong. As a girl she had

    been brought up with slavery, and believed in its necessity. On her

    father's estate, some slaves had been flogged occasionally, for serious

    offenses, and she hated it then but accepted it as a fact of life. In

    Nashville, when she married James, there had been very little trouble with

    the slaves, and Evans had maintained an easy discipline, by use of the

    switch or the rod or, on one occasion, selling away a young troublemaker,

    but otherwise she had thought the people happy.

    When the mansion was being built, the workers had not caused any trouble.

    They seemed to take pride in their craft, and their foremen kept them in

    line.

    But from the moment they had bought the new field hands and started

    planting the new fields, everything had changed. In her own mind, Sally

    blamed it on the Denmark Vesey plot, which had caused considerable

    discussion in the slave ranks, and the runaways had begun then. She

    believed, as James did, that Evans did not have the necessary authority to

    enforce discipline in these difficult times, and while she disliked Harris,

    and bitterly regretted the necessity of employing him, she saw no

    alternative.

    Her heart bled for James, who had worked so hard to achieve his ambitions;

    she blessed those slaves who were loyal to them, and she pitied and

    despised those slaves who were the troublemakers. She examined her attitude

    to slavery, and believed at the core of her being that it was the best

    possible institution for the welfare of the black people, who, like chil-

    dren, were not fitted to survive in the jungle of the white world. She

    allowed that there were several intelligent and literate blacks, and

    several who had done well for themselves as free men, mostly in the North,

    but they were the exceptions

    BLOODLINES 167

that proved the rule. She worried if she was simply rationalizing what was

finally unjustifiable because she understood that the South could not

survive economically without slavery, but she also rejected the argument

that slavery was cheaper than paid labor. She knew how much their slaves

cost them, both in purchase price and upkeep, and the sums were

astounding. Mostly, she believed in the institution because of the

benefits it brought to both races.

    The validity of slavery, to Sally, was that it was so simple. If only the

    troublemakers could understand those benefits, as so many of their house

    niggers did. If only the screaming would stop.

    She worried about James. He was making himself physically ill with worry,

    and could scarcely keep control of his temper these days. She understood

    that it was not only because of the slaves. For some reason, James was

    obsessed with the matter of Andrew's election, and she guessed that

    something had happened to make him doubt his support of his mentor. She

    knew this must cost her husband dear, for Andrew was his greatest friend.

    He adored the man, as a son might adore a father, and believed Andrew was

    partly responsible for their considerable wealth. She knew James had

    doubts about some of Andrew's beliefs and convictions, but she did not

    understand why the election was of such consuming interest to him.

    Sally loved Rachel, but she didn't like Andrew. She thought him arrogant,

    overbearing, and selfish to a degree she had seldom encountered. He was

    condescending to Rachel, and she believed that he probably blamed his

    wife for their inability to have children of their own. She had watched

    Rachel change over the years, from a bright and vibrant woman to a dour

    and ailing recluse who seldom left the house and lived only through her

    vainglorious husband, and had devoted herself to his welfare and her

    sons, who were not her sons.

    She disliked the influence that Andrew had once had over James, she was

    appalled by Andrew's cavalier attitude to money, and horrified by his

    hanging of the missionaries in Florida, and the execution of the boy,

    Woods, during the Creek War.

    If James had finally realized that Andrew was not his best friend, if he

    had come to understand that Andrew was simply

168 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

using James for his own purposes, if James was able to break Andrew's

spell over him, then perhaps some good would come out of this terrible

time.

If only the screams would stop.

    As a mother, Sally had other worries. A.J., her darling, her beloved, her

    firstborn son, was going away to school. A.J. had been taught by tutors,

    as the girls were, but now James and Sally had decided he needed to be

    educated in the company of other boys. There was no suitable school yet

    in Florence, and so he was being sent to the Stevens Academy in

    Nashville. He would live with Eleanor and Thomas, and Sally was sure he

    would be well looked after, but her mother's heart ached for her son; she

    would miss him dreadfully, and worry about his safety. He was only eight

    and far too young to be going out into the world on his own, but she was

    a strong woman, and boarding school was in her son's best interests. She

    tried to devote herself to making his last few weeks at home memorable,

    but the unpleasant atmosphere that began at the slave quarters pervaded

    the house and their lives, and she found herself constantly distracted

    from what she perceived as her matemal role.

If only the screams would stop.

The new overseer, Egbert Harris, loved his job, because he loved war, and

he believed that keeping the niggers under control was a continuing war

of attrition that he was determined to win.

    He had been bom to a poor farming family, pioneers, in the Great Smokies,

    and Harris's early years were unrelentingly arduous. His father scratched

    a living as best he could from their humble acres, and made illegal

    whiskey in a still in the forest to supplement their meager income. His

    mother's life had been one of ceaseless child raising in impossible

    circumstances, and half her brood had not survived infancy or their early

    years. Immigrants from Wales, they had trekked to the frontier in the

    early days, and bought their acres on the best land they could afford,

    putting their faith in the bounty of America. But their farm was near the

    Cherokee land that straddled the Georgia border, and they were subject

    to constant harassment by raiding parties. One of their daughters died

    from a Cherokee arrow.

    BLOODLINES 169

    Egbert, their third surviving son, was a tough and resourceful boy, for

    whom the frontier was home. He shot his first deer at seven, at nine he

    caught a bear in a trap, and when he was twelve he killed and scalped his

    first Indian. Hoping to make his way in the world, he left home when he

    was fifteen, and went to Knoxville, where he worked in a stable and

    developed his skill with horses. When he heard that Brigadier John Coffee

    of Nashville was looking for volunteers for the militia, to fight the

    British, he rode to Nashville in a day, offered his services, and was

    accepted.

    The army became a second home to him, and he loved the life. Adept at

    living from the land and sleeping rough, he survived the rigors of the

    winter march to and from Natchez, and was promoted to sergeant. He fought

    in the Creek War, and revered his direct commander, Coffee, and his

    general, Andrew Jackson. He believed implicitly in the hierarchy of the

    army; he obeyed his officers and his men obeyed him, without question or

    demur. When a firing squad was needed to execute the mutinous boy, James

    Woods, Harris volunteered. The possibility of dying himself in any of the

    battles was of minimal concern to him. He did not believe he was going

    to be killed, but if he was, he would put up a heck of a fight first.

    Most of all, he loved the challenge and the sense of camaraderie, and the

    adventure. His survival, like his fellows', depended on each individual's

    grit and skill and courage, and their collective commitment to each

    other. The possibility of not being strong enough, of being killed, was

    a direct sexual challenge to him, and he would pit himself against the