Queen (96 page)

    selling fried catfish and boiled crawdaddies, so she bought some food and

    was treated with considerable respect, and called " Missy. " She settled

    against an old tree on the bank of the river and used her suitcase as a

    small table, to eat. She giggled to herself again, for she knew that people

    thought her white. A full stomach and the breezes from the river lulled

    her, and she dozed for a while in the pleasant place.

    The afternoon was waning when she woke, refreshed from her sleep, her feet

    aching less and her spirits improved. Her prime objective was to find a

    place to sleep that night.

And once again, Fate, or Chance, or God, decided for her.

"Ferry fo' Decatur leavin' soon," she heard someone cry.

    An enterprising trader had bought an old paddle steamer that was used to

    transport cotton in the season, and whatever cargo they could get at other

    times of the year. Knowing that many people found travel by road arduous

    and dangerous in these postwar times, he had some modest cabins made, and

    began ferrying passengers between Florence and Decatur. The service was

    mildly popular, especially with women who needed to travel, for they

    thought the highways unsafe.

    Decatur seemed like an excellent idea to Queen. Although she was not well

    known in Florence, some few, like Andy, might recognize her, and there was

    always the chance that she might run into Jass or Lizzie if she stayed,

    which she preferred not to do. Besides, the ferry ride would delay a

    decision about her resting place.

    She bought the cheapest one-way ticket, which did not include one of the

    four cabins, and walked along the dock to the steamer. Half a dozen

    passengers were boarding, and their luggage was being loaded. Queen made

    her way up the gang-

    QUEEN 583

plank feeling grand. She had never been on a boat of any kind, and

experienced that sense of nervous excitement that is common to all

first-time sailors, for travel by ship is the most romantic adventure. Even

if she wasn't going very far, she was going somewhere, and anywhere had to

be better than where she had been. Smoke belched from the stacks, the wheel

started to turn, and as the ferry honked its farewell and the lines were

cast off, she felt as if she were saying good-bye to an entire old life, and

welcoming a new. Wide-eyed in wonder, she stood on the deck watching the

dock, the land, recede, until she was surrounded by water.

    "No, you stupid darky," she heard a woman's angry voice. "I told you, that

    goes in the cabin!"

    A plump, middle-aged white woman, overly dressed for traveling, was

    berating a deckhand.

    "Yes, m'm," the deckhand said, carrying a large trunk inside. "I's puttin'

    it dere now."

    The aggrieved woman, fanning herself with a hankie, turned to Queen. It was

    too hot, she'd been traveling for several days, and her stays were too

    tight.

    "You can't trust those darkies to get anything right," she said to Queen,

    who smiled shyly.

    "And you shouldn't be out here by yourself, my dear, a pretty young thing

    like you," the woman continued, taking a little mirror from her reticule to

    adjust her hat and hair. "Those darkies would have us away as soon as look

    at us. If you take my meaning."

    The woman, Mrs. Porteous, or portly Porty, as an unkind friend once called

    her, hated traveling, but had no option. Her husband had recently died, and

    her son had been killed in the war, so she had sold her house in Natchez

    and was going to live with her spinster sister in Knoxville. Everything had

    gone wrong. The weather was hot, there was no reliable coach line from

    Natchez to Knoxville, and she had to change many times. Service was unheard

    of these days in the hotels where she spent her nights, and sleep

    impossible because of those rowdy, occupying, uncouth Yankee soldiers. The

    bone-crunching carriages, riding on rough, untended highways, had made her

    sick, and she had stayed in Florence for several days, unable to face the

    continuation of her journey. She heard of the ferry

584 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

to Decatur, and at least that was a pleasanter mode of travel, and would

bring her a little closer to her destination. She had started out from

Natchez with three cabin trunks, but one had been lost in Memphis, stolen,

she was sure, by darkies, who were far too uppity these days, and didn't

seem to know their place at all. On top of everything else, she had found

her various traveling companions to be decidedly unfriendly, and she was a

garrulous woman who loved having someone to talk to.

    The pretty girl was sweet. Shy, obviously, but sweet. "Such a pretty

    thing," she said to Queen. "Visiting?"

    Queen started to find her voice, but it was not one that Andy would have

    recognized. It was the voice she used when she was on her very best

    behavior, in front of Miss Lizzie.

"Yes, m'm," she agreed. "Relatives. In Decatur."

    "Such a relief to find pleasant company," Mrs. Porteous said. "So much

    trash traveling these days. It's the war, it's changed everything. I've

    been in fear of my life since Natchez. "

    She stared sadly at the river, as if remembering attempts on her life,

    rather than the loneliness of her present widowed ekistence.

    Queen was curious. Clearly, the woman thought her to be white, and she

    wondered how far she could push the pretense. For the first time in her

    life, the possibility of deceit came to her, but she justified it as a way

    to survival. She wouldn't lie, but if people wanted to make assumptions

    about her, Queen was happy to provide corroborating detail.

    "You probably haven't heard of my pappy then," she said. "Colonel Jackson,

    of The Forks of Cypress."

Mrs. Porteous, still staring at the river, nodded absently.

    "It is a very famous plantation," Queen added, trying to think of other

    things that would impress.

    "Our glorious veterans, such difficult times," Mrs. Porteous said, turning

    away from the river. "You must tell me all about yourself. I'll wash -up,

    and then we'll find somewhere to sit, and have a nice, long talk."

    It would be a very long talk, Queen discovered later, although mostly

    one-sided. Mrs. Porteous had a very great deal to tell. She fanned herself

    away, to find her cabin, and Queen looked at the river.

    QUEEN 585

    It was so beautiful. The sun was going down, casting a golden sheen on the

    water. Life was wonderful to Queen, and she started to giggle again,

    because everyone thought she was white. Well, she was. She looked white, so

    she would be white, from now on. It had to be easier than being a nigra.

    The giggle turned into a laugh, and she wanted to do something silly, like

    throw her bonnet into the air, but she was worried it would fall in the

    water. But she laughed and laughed, and some passengers and deckhands

    looked in surprise at the pretty white girl standing on the deck by

    herself, laughing at nothing.

    68

All of Queen's hopes for happiness were dashed by the reality of her

existence in Decatur.

    The once thriving country town had been laid low by the war, and if life

    was difficult on the land, it was close to unendurable in the towns and

    cities. With no industry but agriculture, Decatur, like much of the South,

    relied for its prosperity on a single crop, cotton, and in good years, and

    especially at harvesttime, that crop was bountiful. With the fields devas-

    tated, the white male population decimated, and the black males fleeing the

    plantations, the citizens of Decatur struggled simply to survive. Yet the

    times were rife with opportunity. The armies of reconstruction were slowly

    moving in, having made their base camps in the larger towns and cities, for

    land was cheap, the population naive, and everything scarce. A moderately

    supplied huckster could do well, and barter was the currency. The policing

    Union Army lacked the moral fiber of its generals. Bored with war, hating

    the South, longing to be home, the Yankee soldiers made the most of any

    situation that could be turned to their advantage. So a carnival anarchy

    prevailed, which suited those of a buccaneering spirit, but

586 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

proved disastrous for an innocent country girl with optimistic dreams.

    Nor did Queen help her own circumstances. Totally unschooled in the ways of

    the world, she had lived her life within the sheltered confines of a single

    plantation, with a few occasional forays into Florence under the protective

    arm of her Massa. She might have done better if she had accepted society's

    leveling of her, a nigra ex-slave, but she arrived in Decatur with a

    dangerous self-deception. Denied her heritage, she foolishly believed that

    she could be what she thought she was, the white daughter of a respected

    family, with nothing but her own conviction and the color of her skin to

    support that role. Wary of the black world, she tried to insinuate herself

    into the white, and while passing acquaintances such as Mrs. Porteous were

    tolerant of her, sterner judges, such as potential employers, took a

    harsher view.

    The first few nights had awakened her to reality. She booked into a cheap

    hostelry, only to discover that her fellow guests, mostly male, were always

    rowdy and often drunk, and the few females were of careless morality. Her

    supply of money, which she had thought more than adequate, dwindled to

    almost nothing with puzzling and frustrating speed. Having no idea of the

    value of money, for she had never had to handle it, she spent foolishly on

    food, made some small loans to other women in the hotel who disappeared

    without repayment, and was considered an easy touch by the unscrupulous.

    She was robbed of some dollars by a couple of mendacious soldiers. They

    stopped her because she was pretty, and searched her purse claiming to be

    looking for concealed weapons, but when they gave it back there was less

    money in it than before.

    She could not find a job. There were few to be had, and fewer still for

    someone who was neither black nor white. She would happily have become the

    most menial skivvy, but no one wanted a white girl to do that, and she

    applied for a job as a shopgirl, but her speech pattern, which was erratic,

    gave her away, and her deceit made people wary. She looked for lodgings, to

    reduce her living expenses, but she would not move into a black household,

    and white landladies regarded her with suspicion. She soon discovered, from

    the more blatant guests at her cheap hotel, that she had one commodity of

    QUEEN 587

value, but the concept of selling what she had never given away free was

repulsive to her, and she would not do that. Despair is the mortal enemy of

innocence, but while Queen quickly fell into a period of self-pity, she was

determined to survive, and that determination became the only weapon in her

depleted armory.

    But it was a formidable one. Kicked out of her hotel because she could not

    afford to pay and would not accommodate the landlord in her bed, she found

    herself a tiny cupboard below some stairs in an abandoned warehouse, and

    made herself a squalid home. The warehouse was an unofficial dormitory for

    scores of transient ex-slaves, all going to or coming from somewhere, and

    all of whom dwelt in the barren land that freedom, despite its promise of

    riches, had given them. When Queen first found the new home, she walked

    through silent waves of derision and dislike from her fellow tenants, but

    penury made her brave. She chose the cupboard because it was the only

    private space available, and the door had a bolt on it, on the inside, so

    she could feel safe. She spent some of her last few cents buying a rusty

    padlock from a secondhand stall to put on the outside of the door. A hefty

    kick would have smashed the lock, but it made Queen feel more secure, and

    ensured her tenancy when she was out. She learned to lie with ease and to

    steal with caution. In the pell-mell nighttime world of the main street, a

    muffin man, hawking his wares from an open stall, was her unwitting

    supplier of dinner.

    It had first happened a couple of days after she left the hotel. She was

    hungry, she hadn't had a decent meal in days, her shoes were worn thin, and

    her clothes were starting to look shiny and threadbare. She was scared to

    go into the white soup kitchen and had been rejected from the black. She

    wandered the street and envied even the lowliest of her fellow citizens.

    She stared in the window of a provisions store, the display of food making