Queen (84 page)

Jass assembled and paid for his company, the 27th Alabama Infantry,

offered it to the Confederate Army High Command, and was appointed

lieutenant-colonel. They marched out in January to Fort Donelson, where

they were assigned.

    Sally was pleased. Fort Donelson was named after the family of her dear

    departed friend, Rachel Jackson, Andrew's wife, and was situated on the

    banks of the Cumberland River, near Nashville. Jass would be safe there,

    hundreds of miles from the Northern battlefields.

She was wrong.

    A vast, unstoppable, blue-clad army appeared, it seemed from nowhere,

    from the west, conquering all in its path. Fort Donelson fell to the

    forces of General Grant, and Nashville soon after. Jass was taken

    prisoner of war.

"Perhaps it is God's will that I do not fight," he told his

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mother in a rare letter during his incarceration. "At least, He seems to

be doing His level best to keep me from this war."

    He prayed for a similar blessing for his family and cursed it for

    himself.

    59

Young Davy brought them the news first. For days they had expected it, but

when it came it was shocking.

    "The Yankees done took Florence," he yelled as he ran up the hill. -01'

    Linkun's in there killin' everybody!"

    He'd taken the buckets down to the cesspit that morning, wide-eyed with

    fear, because the rumors said there were Yankees everywhere, and while they

    were supposed to be friendly to black people, Davy wasn't so sure. He'd

    heard Miss Lizzie talking about them the other day, and the terrible things

    they did to women and babies, and if they were that mean, obviously you

    couldn't trust them. He emptied the buckets and was about to go back when

    he heard a horse galloping toward him. There weren't any trees or bushes

    nearby, and he surely wasn't going to jump into the muck-filled pit, so he

    stood his ground, and was filled with relief to see that the man riding

    toward him wasn't a soldier.

    The man didn't stop. "Run tell your Massa, boy," he cried, galloping past

    Davy. "The Yankees have taken Florence!"

    Davy needed no second bidding, but ran for all he was worth, Miss Lizzie's

    stories of the misdeeds of Yankees pounding through his brain.

    The few slaves in the field, tilling the soil in readiness for the new

    planting, stopped work and tried to assimilate what they heard. If the

    Yankees really had taken Florence, it wouldn't be long before they got

    here. It was coming, it was coming, hallelujah, it was coming. Freedom was

    at hand. They laughed among themselves, but instead of taking the day off,

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or the rest of their lives, they went back to work with renewed vigor, and

took up a joyous song.

Sally, organizing the beating of rugs with Poppy, heard the song and was

pleased. An odd thing had happened over the past few months. She had always

believed that the plantation was an island unto itself, and all who lived

there, white and black, were interdependent on each other. In a sense it was

true. Miles from their nearest neighbors, the travails of their daily lives,

the births and deaths, arguments and marriages, parties for the whites,

beatings for the blacks, were the basis of their conversation, with

occasional snatches of misunderstood gossip about the outside world reaching

them through visitors or the grapevine. The well-being of the plantation was

critical to all of them, because if it was a good harvest they all ate well,

and, for the slaves, their Massas might be in better tempers, and if it was

a bad harvest, everyone suffered. Yet one group had privilege and the other

did not, and if Sally thought of it as a community, the slaves regarded it

as a prison. They made the best of that prison, and while a few, especially

among the house slaves, had considerable affection for some of the whites,

there was always a barrier.

    In the last few months, that barrier had, to a considerable degree, been

    removed. With no Massa and fewer slaves, they had all got to know each

    other better. Now everyone was dedicated to the common cause of immediate

    survival. If there was food, everyone ate; if there was none, no one ate.

    If jobs had to be done, they all pitched in to do them. They maintained the

    charade that things were as they had been because that was the ordered

    world they all understood, and in these frightening times, order was all

    they had to cling to. Isaac, solid, reliable Isaac, had been put in charge

    of discipline, and even given, to Lizzie's howls of protest, a gun. He used

    it to shoot rabbits, because very few of the slaves left wanted to run

    away. There was nowhere to go. Jeremiah and two other runaway field hands

    had been recaptured and returned, bloodily beaten, and while they still

    talked of escape, they did nothing about it. The runaways told awful

    stories of the outside world-they'd lived in the woods bordering small

    farms, they'd eaten nothing but turnips and potatoes for days, and

    QUEEN 513

when one of them ventured to a house to beg, he'd been shot at. They all

understood that if they could get away, and get to Union lines, they would

be free, or hoped so, but no one was very sure where the Union lines were.

So they preferred to wait, and see what the war would bring. They had no

Massa and no overseer, except Isaac, so life was tolerable, and they ate

regularly. Happily, the barns at The Forks were still relatively full, and

the first spring vegetables ready for picking.

    The most obvious evidence of this new communality to Sally was that she

    now knew the names of all the slaves. Such as the boy Davy, who was

    running toward her, yelling at the top of his lungs. She'd been expecting

    his news for days; everyone in Florence had been prepared for an

    invasion. There was no army nearby to protect them, only some local

    militia units, and Sally, like everyone else, had been living in dread.

    But she put her faith in her fellowman, and gave no credence to Lizzie's

    lurid imaginings.

    They were here, at last. It would not be long before they came to The

    Forks, Sally was sure, because she could guess what they needed.

And two days later they came.

"They look so fearsome," Lizzie said. "Brutal."

    "Pull yourself together, 11 Sally urged. "They're only men.

    Lizzie corrected her with a fierce, defiant whisper. "They're Yankees!

    "

    But she stood beside her mother-in-law and tried to maintain her

    composure as a small troop of Union soldiers made their way up the drive.

    They were a foraging detail, requisitioning food. Once the first shock

    of occupation had settled down, Tom Kirkman had come out to The Forks,

    to assure them that the soldiers were reasonably well-behaved and looking

    for provisions. He'd volunteered to stay, to protect them, but Sally had

    laughed.

    "You against so many, Tom? You said we had nothing to be afraid of. Go

    home to your family."

    Tom had gone, and the following morning Davy, who had been stationed near

    the road to town as lookout, gave the news of the arriving Yankees.

514 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    The captain, on horseback, led his men up the drive. He was impressed by

    the grace and elegance of the house, which was as fine as any he'd seen,

    and he looked with pity at the bunch of ragged slaves cowering near the

    trees. These were the backs that made the fortunes that built the

    mansions such as this.

    He stopped his horse on the lawn in front of the veranda and looked at

    the small group assembled there. An old woman, and a frightened, defiant

    younger one. A couple of children, and some few house slaves.

    And a beautiful young white woman, dressed as a servant. Mulatta,

    probably, but hard to tell. The sergeant called the men to a halt.

    "Ma'am," the captain said to the old woman, and touched his cap, out of

    respect for her sex and her age, not her station.

    Sally squinted and wished she could see his insignia of rank better.

    "Good morning, Lieutenant," she said, and he did not correct her demotion

    of him. "We are, as you see, a depleted family. There are no men here."

    She did not see his eyes stray to the male slaves, but corrected herself

    anyway.

    "Apart from these few slaves. I trust you mean us no harm?"

    They were all the same, these tough Southern matriarchs, he thought, the

    backbone of the whole society.

    "We mean no harm to anyone who is loyal to the United States," he said,

    by rote. He'd done it a thousand times before.

    "I cannot swear allegiance to your flag, sir," Sally responded as he knew

    she would, as they all did. "I believe in a different cause."

    "Believe in whatever cause you like," he told her. "As long as you do not

    intend to fight. I do not think that you would win."

    He looked at the slaves and women, and then at his own rough-and-ready

    soldiers, his point well made. Sally was surprised at his civility.

    The captain was a very civil man, and loved his country. Second of three

    brothers who had enlisted in the army, he was a college graduate, and a

    teacher at a good school until the war came, this wretched. Rebel, war.

    QUEEN 515

    He went through the details, formally, officially, as he always did. He

    told of the food they needed, and of the chits they would be given in

    return for that food. He told them of the cottonseed that he intended to

    seize.

    "That is our only source of income!" Sally cried, and the captain smiled,

    for that was why he was taking it.

    Business done, he accepted her offer of refreshment, and listened to her

    protests about the cottonseed.

    "You will not hann us, but you will bankrupt us?" Sally reasoned.

    "Orders, ma'am," the captain said, although it was not true. It was his own

    idea, born of his own bitterness. If it had been in his power to drive

    every Southern family to bankruptcy, he would willingly have done so. It

    was with some pleasure that he added to her distress. Units of the local

    militia had destroyed bridges to try to delay the Yankee advance, and the

    cotton gins were to be blown up in retaliation.

    To his surprise, Sally was there the following day, sitting in a carriage

    on the riverbank, the cotton-white, pretty mulatta sittin- beside her,

    watching as the gins were destroyed. Sally went because she had a complaint

    to make to the captain, and because she wanted to see the destruction. Half

    the town was there for the spectacle. The buildings were blown to smither-

    eens. The riverbank shook with gunpowder.

    "How would you have us live now?" Sally asked him, quietly.

    He didn't look at her, and his face betrayed nothing of the vengeful

    emotions he felt.

    "I've lost two brothers in this war, ma'am, killed by Johnny Reb," he said

    quietly. "I don't care how you live. Or if you live. "

He tipped his hat to her and rode away.

"I hate him," Queen said softly, and took Sally's hand.

    Sally shook her head. "He's only doing his duty." She could not find hate

    in her heart now, only an overwhelming sense of sorrow, and of loss.

But Queen had no alternative to hate. On the previous day, some of the

captain's men had beaten her gran'pappy, Cap'n Jack, viciously. Queen had

not wanted to come, but Sally in-

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sisted she be present for her complaint to the captain about the behavior

of his men.

    They had been taking supplies from the bam, loading them onto a Jackson

    cart, and Queen had protested they were taking too much. The soldiers had

    made sport with her.

"Leave us something!" she demanded.

    "I'll leave a little bun in your oven, lady," the sergeant laughed. They

    surrounded her, teasing her, taunting her, thinking her white and a

    serving girl. They smelled of sweat and state beer; their faces were

    rough with stubble and their eyes bright with lust.

    Queen was terrified. She didn't understand men; she had no experience of

    them. The house slaves were no threat to her, the field hands were either

    kind or ignored her, and although a few visiting white men, her father's

    friends, had winked at her and called her pretty, she had been secure

    from their advances because of the family. No one had ever taught her how

    to handle men, for no white woman would bother with instruction, and a

    slave woman had nothing to teach her, except submission to what the men

    wanted. The incident of two years ago, in Florence, when the three

    hooligans accosted her flared in her mind, but they had been boys, and