Queen (32 page)

    She asked after Sally, and the children, and expressed her sorrow that

    she had never met Jass.

    James talked about his own sons for a moment, and asked after hers, and

    her eyes regained something of their old sparkle. She listed their

    various achievements at school, but talked mostly of Andrew junior, who

    was her darling.

There was a little silence.

"And Andrew?" James asked.

Rachel turned the pages of her Bible.

    "It's such a pity you had to move away," she said. "He misses you, most

    dreadfully."

James gave a small laugh.

188 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

"He has so many friends," he said.

    "No," Rachel said. "He has so many sycophants, and careless, thoughtless

    young men, who like him only because his glory reflects on them."

    She checked herself, as if she had said more than she intended. She

    fought to find a smile, but when she looked at James, her eyes were dull.

    " He wi 11 be so pleased to see you, " she said. " He is relying on your

    support."

    James looked away. She will love him to her grave, he thought, and

    beyond.

    He talked about silly things with her until she was tired and had to go

    inside. Alfred went in with them. Rachel went to her room, and Alfred

    took James to the dining room.

It was full of men, many of them young, lounging around, drinking and

smoking, chewing tobacco. Andrew sat at the head of the table, which was

piled with papers, surrounded by advisers, all telling him what he needed

to do to win the presidency.

    But Andrew was hardly listening to the older men. He laughed and joked

    with the younger, and told ribald stories with them, and cursed and

    drank.

    He finds his youth in them, James thought. Or they are an army of his

    sons.

    Alfred moved to his Massa, and whispered in his ear. Andrew looked up and

    saw James, and he roared a welcome.

    "Well, James," he said. "They are trying to steal this election from me,

    but I will best them yet!"

    It was as much for the benefit of the young men as for James. They

    cheered their agreement.

    "You have come to be one of our army? You have come to offer your

    influence on my behalf?" Andrew said, but not as if it was a question.

"I came to talk to you," James said quietly.

    Perhaps no one else in the room heard him, but Andrew did. The soft

    sapphire eyes hardened to blue diamond. He stood up and walked out of the

    room, beckoning James to follow.

They went to Andrew's study. Andrew sat at his desk, and

    BLOODLINES 189

nodded to a chair for James, who preferred to remain standing. "My enemies

are determined to stop me," he said in a voice of quiet, rolling thunder.

"By lies and corruption, and vicious slanders of supposed past scandals."

    The question of Andrew and Rachel's possibly bigamous marriage had been

    raised during the campaign.

    "But I will use their own tricks against them, and, by the eternal, I

    will be president!"

The thunder broke, and Andrew was roaring.

    "I will do whatever is necessary, by fair means or foul, but I will be

    president!"

Something about James's manner was disturbing him.

    "And I am relying on all my friends to help," he said, more softly. "To

    argue my case, to put my cause-"

He laughed.

--to line a few pockets, if necessary. Eh?"

    "I couldn't do that," James said. There had been enough bribery already,

    and he had done too much of it.

Andrew studied him carefully.

"But you will vote for me, in the Alabama senate?"

It was now. This was the moment.

    "I want you to tell me why I should," James said, diffidently.

    Some spittle was dribbling from Andrew's mouth. It always did, when he

    was vexed. He considered James's question, and then gave his response.

"Because I made you what you are," he said.

    The room reverberated with his anger, and James could feel it crushing

    him. He must give in to it, or break away from it forever. Then Andrew's

    words thrust a memory of his last argument with his father into his mind.

"You will never amount to anything."

"I made you what you are."

    It was the same thing said differently. They were the same men, powerful,

    arrogant men, who would not allow their children to cross them. It gave

    James extraordinary strength. He had walked away from his father once and

    made something of his life. He could do it again now, and he would

    survive again.

    "Nobody made me," James said, furiously. "I made myself. "

190 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    He walked to the door. Andrew didn't try to stop him, just as his father

    had not tried to stop him all those years ago.

    "I will be president," Andrew shouted. But James knew he was not shouting

    at him, only at himself.

When James got back to Eleanor's he told Sally that he had broken with

Andrew, and was shifting his support to Henry Clay. Henry gave all his

votes to John Quincy Adams, who became the new president.

    But Andrew kept his word. Four years later he was elected by an

    overwhelming popular vote. Just before he left the Hermitage for his

    inaugural, Rachel, worn out by the world, slipped quietly away to. meet

    her maker.

    24

Cap'n Jack struggled to waken. His eyelids were heavy and his brain was

numb, and he was sure he had been drugged. He knew other people were with

him. He tried to focus and saw Parson Dick, and Tiara.

Then he remembered his pain, and closed his eyes again.

    After his whipping, field hands had carried him to the weaving house, and

    took Easter to Angel. Tiara came with some of the women, and rubbed salt

    into the cut flesh on his back to stop the bleeding. They used herbs from

    the old days on his wounds, to try to stop scars from forming, and gave

    him laudanum to ease the pain and help him sleep.

    The opium kept him unconscious for half a day, and when he stirred they

    gave him more, and he slept again. He drifted between sleep and waking

    for two days after that, and there was always somebody with him, to try

    to soften his memory when he woke.

    Angel brought his daughter to him sometimes, so she would not forget her

    pappy, and Parson Dick came with beef tea for him to drink, so that he

    might regain his strength.

    BLOODLINES 191

    He lay on his stomach, because of the livid, bloody, oozing welts on his

    back, and sometimes he knew his friends were there, and sometimes he did

    not.

    He opened his eyes again, because he wanted to wake, and begin exacting

    whatever vengeance he could on those who had so cruelly wronged him.

"Annie?" he whispered.

Parson Dick shook his head.

"She gone," he said.

    Cap'n Jack didn't respond. He knew Annie was gone because he remembered

    every detail of her going. It was branded on his mind, and he would never

    forget. He asked because he hoped that maybe somehow she had come back.

    "Massa find her when he come back," Tiara said, but Cap'n Jack didn't

    believe her, and perhaps she didn't even believe herself. She sprinkled

    some more herbs and salt on his back, and Cap'n Jack winced at the sting

    of it.

"Easter?" he said.

    "She doin' jus' fine," Tiara assured him. "Angel lookin' after her. -

Cap'n Jack nodded, and closed his eyes.

    Tiara whispered a few words to Parson Dick. She had to get back to the

    house, to tend to the Jackson children. Parson Dick nodded that he would

    stay for a while, and Tiara left.

    Parson Dick sat waiting patiently until Cap'n Jack opened his eyes again.

    "The pain bad?" Parson Dick asked him, and Cap'n Jack nodded.

"Want some more laudanum?"

    Cap'n Jack shrugged. Parson Dick took a little bottle from his pocket,

    and made Cap'n Jack swallow some of the clear liquid. He had stolen it

    from Sally's locked medicine chest. Locks were no barrier to Parson Dick.

"Not too much, you had plenty," he said.

    He was immaculately clad, as always, in black velvet and a brocade vest.

    He looked incongruous sitting in this smoky room, in the candlelight,

    beside the bloodied slave.

    "Don't ever forgive them for what they did," he said. "Not ever. "

Cap'n Jack would never forgive.

192 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

"And one day you will have your vengeance."

    Cap'n Jack almost smiled. It was as if Parson Dick were reading his mind.

    But he smiled too, at the cultured, English tones of the butler. His accent

    and clothes were at war with his sentiments.

Parson Dick took a small wooden carving from his pocket.

    "Keep this with you always," he whispered fiercely. "It has power. It is

    from the old country."

    Cap'n Jack, who had closed his eyes, opened them and looked at Parson Dick,

    who saw the question.

    "Africa," he said, and started to chant, in a language Cap'n Jack didn't

    know.

    "Africa. 0, Africa. Why did you let us go? Were we not your children? Why

    did you let them snatch us from you? We were your children, Africa, why did

    you let us go? We were the beginning, Africa, we were the start of man. Our

    kingdoms were mighty and our people brave, but you let us go.

    "You let them drag us from you, and bring us, like the children of Israel,

    to bondage in a new Egypt, and we suffer, as the children of Israel

    suffered, but we have not forgotten you, Africa, and we will come back to

    you, Africa, if only in our dreams. I am Africa.

    "May your spirits guard us, Africa, and destroy our enemies. Protect your

    children, 0 Africa, and make them strong, so that they may suffer their

    bondage, and live, as the children of Israel lived, and fly from it when it

    is done. Always, I am Africa. "

    Cap'n Jack understood only the one word, Africa, but that word, and the

    curious chant, coming from this curious man, educated, literate, and

    completely secretive about his background, struck a responsive chord in

    Cap'n Jack. He did not remember Africa, although it had meaning for him,

    just as Ireland had meaning for James's children.

    He staredat the wooden carving, and it gave him strength. He drifted to

    sleep again, and it was a good sleep, a deep sleep, because although he was

    shattered by loneliness, he knew he was not alone.

    Parson Dick put the carving on a shelf, and tiptoed out into the evening,

    to serve the Massa's family.

    BLOODLINES 193

Cap'n Jack woke up a little later, because someone was prodding his arm.

He tried to shake the sleep and the drug from his eyes, and saw a small,

worried face, inches from his, staring at him, and asking what was wrong.

It was Jass.

    Jass was bored. He'd been kept in bed for two days because he was sick,

    and his mamma and papa were away. He hadn't seen Cap'n Jack or Annie or

    Easter for ages, and he missed them. He ate the dinner that Tiara gave

    him, and then toddled on his own, as he had often done, out of the

    kitchen, and made his way to his friends.

    He came into the weaving house, and he couldn't find Annie or Easter, but

    he saw Cap'n Jack lying on the bed, and his back was all covered in

    blood, He got scared, because somebody must have hurt his friend, who

    wouldn't wake up. He'd seen them do it to some of the other black people,

    and they'd screamed so loudly he got scared and ran away.

    When Cap'n Jack opened his eyes, Jass was so relieved that he started to

    cry.

    Cap'n Jack put his arm around the boy, and held him close, told him not

    to cry, everything would be all right.

"Have you been bad?" Jass asked.

"No," Cap'n Jack assured him.

"Then why did they hurt you, and make you bleed?"

    Cap'n Jack struggled for words to explain the unexplainable, but couldn't

    find them. He tried to sit up, but he gasped at the pain of it, and Jass

    started crying again.

    Cap'n Jack tried to hush him, and even hummed a little lullaby, and

    stowly Jass calmed down, and snuggled into his friend's arm.

    Having calmed the boy, he tried to find a way to calm himself. He saw the

    African carving sitting on the shelf.

"You love me?" he asked Jass.

Jass assured him that he did.

"You ain't gwine ever hurt me, not in all yo' days?"

Jass said not.

"Promise? '

Jass nodded his head.

    Cap'n Jack picked him up under his arms, and held the toddler up to the

    carving.

194 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

"Say promise," he told Jass.

Jass did.

    Cap'n Jack wasn't quite sure what he was doing, but he had to find some way