Rafe (26 page)

Beaumarchant clawed at the arms, clawed at the mutilate hand, clawed at the air and the lifeless, uncaring clay wall. Darkness was sweeping in on Rafe yet he held his body taut, ever fiber of his being, every vestige of his strength channelled into this last supreme effort.

And then a loud, wrenching crack like a limb torn from a living tree.

There was no more resistance. Beaumarchant's head was twisted almost completely around. Shards of bone jutted from his neck. A gobbet of flesh hung from his mouth where he had bitten through his own tongue. The massive white arms fluttered and the brutish body, dead already, took two steps and buckled.

Rafe fell with it, rolling off the corpse and into oblivion.

12

Images of fire. A house burning. Fiery animal tongues of flame and brimstone lap at the sky and turn it orange. Sound. The horrid crackling consumption of wood. The scream of a child, abruptly ended in a rising swirl of sparks. A face … Lord Lucas Clayton. Black arms drag him to safety, into the welcome coolness of night air where water waits. But his children, his wife … all are trapped inside. He breaks free from wiser, restraining arms and rushes into the blazing death trap as timbers sag and crumble, followed by a horrendous groaning crash drowning out the final, agonized scream of pain … of loss … of despair.

Visions of pale, cooling white. Rain sounds … raining on him … droplets cooling his flesh even as they turn to steam, condense and fall again. Seeping down into the grave, are they? Weary … why do the dead think? Closed eyes already closed, sleep while sleeping and dream of dreams.

Deprivation. Following Lord Lucas' brother. But why? Why follow the man who has no name? Forsaking the high roads and easy paths, keeping to the swamps, the waterways. Mud. Mosquitoes. Hunger. Following … his name is Ezra Clayton … to Freedom.

Kitchen smells! Awkward perusal of a girl. Pert, friendly despite the color of his flesh. Danger! She is white. Black on white, white on black. Contrast. Don't touch. Don't think of touching. Don't think. Slaves don't think. The girl smiles, looks concerned. He is ashamed. Has she noticed how he cannot keep his eyes from her? She is a woman now, continues to stare. Is she concerned? She looks so. “Doan worry 'bout yo' nigger, Miss Crissa.”

Wake to pain. Flames again. His hand is on fire, spouting crimson flames of gore. Throw sand on it! Someone dip it in the mud! Put out the fire! Quench the flames! Whose scream rends the night air? Whose scream dwindles rapidly into the depths of quiet tears and welcome unconsciousness? Who sleeps now, burned by fever, chilled by heat? Who tosses on the cloud of white? Black on white, white on black. Contrast. Cool white towels turned hot by black heat.

Another face leers like a contemptuous death spectre. Slowly drawing near, lurching across miles of open space. Unstoppable. The earth shakes, the staring faces shimmer with laughter. A towering hulk of sinew and bone, a swaggering monstrosity born of fire. Darkies in a row, kneeling, heads bowed. Down the line, the monster comes closer, popping heads with no more effort than eggs are cracked. Pop. Pop. Pop. Hands are tied. Must free them. Got to get hands free before the monster reaches him. Laughter and jiggling smiles from nodding, disconnected faces. Ezra Clayton has bound his darkie's hands, he's smiling into his darkie's face. Two brutish paws close around his skull. Pressure.

Lightning-blue flame. A thunderous collision among the clouds. The bed shook and Rafe woke but did not move. His shack? No. A real bed. And sheets. Sheets? Difficult to remember the feel of sheets, the soft surface of linen beneath his flesh. Rain pounded against a window, spattered, caused faint, besmirched shadows to coil and writhe on the opposite wall. He recognized the thick smell of soap. His body was clean and not perspiring in the rain-cooled room. A familiar room.…

His eyes searched the darkness, picking out and identifying shadows and silhouettes. His room. He was in Ezra Clayton's house. This had been his room for a time five years ago, before the pit, before the one with the red beard, when he had been a house servant to Miss Micara, Mistuh Ezra and Miss Crissa. He used to see her every day, but then Crissa left and things changed. The red-bearded one died. The pit was dug. The pit …? Beaumarchant.

Rafe pressed his left hand against his leg. Part of the hand was wrapped and bandaged. There was no pain, only a dull throb. I'm alive, he thought. Still he did not move, for some instinct cautioned him. Someone was near, in the room and moving in the dark. A rustle of silk like wind through the reeds. A clink of glass. The pressure of hands against him. The sheet covering him drawn away. Through slitted eyes he discerned a shape above him, heard the intake of breath as his awesome proportions were displayed in their naked entirety.

Woman-soft fingers played along the muscular ridges of his chest, then up to trace the hard line of his jaw, back down to his neck and shoulder, traversing his arm, stroking his belly and then lower, to cup, fondle and arouse. The soft fingers lifted him, cradled him, gently squeezed him, rugged and petted until, his fierce heart pounding in his breast, his blood coursing through limbs suddenly alive, Rafe felt himself grow taut and rise high and higher, harder and harder beneath the sensual strokes. His flesh radiated a fierce animal heat to her touch and he heard her whisper with a trace of choked fear in her voice, “At last, my black stallion. At last, at last.”

He caught a glimpse of long, unbound hair and a pale shoulder. A cautioning finger touched his lips and the bed shook for a moment under her added weight. Then a flash of pale thigh across his loins and a leg swung over to straddle him. A hand pressed into his shoulder, another grasped his swollen manhood, guided it to touch and slowly enter the descending sheath of moistness and heat. The figure above him moaned softly. “Oh, my stallion.… my stallion…”

He could not contain himself. Rafe arched his back and violently thrust himself into her. The woman threw back her head and screamed inaudibly beneath a wall-rattling thunderclap sounding in simultaneous fury. She arched back to touch his knees, pulled his hands to her heavy breasts and held them there as Rafe rammed himself deep inside her with increasing brutality. Her thighs gripped tightly to his hips and she matched his violent lovemaking with furious undulations of her own.

And suddenly she was convulsing uncontrollably even as he peaked and his fierce seed erupted into her eager cavity. The vehement words she spewed were not of love, but of hate. “Damn him damn him damn him …” until she fell forward, sobbing, burying her face in the hollow of his throat. Her body persisted in its contractions as his seed continued to flow languidly. He felt a tired, weary satisfaction. I am alive, he thought, alive.…

Her weight slid off him. A rustle of a silk gown and she bent over, kissed him on the lips and left silently. The taste of her lips provoked his memory as he drifted off to sleep again. He was a youth. Night had come and he was secretively pilfering Lord Clayton's personal spirits cabinet. Rafe's favorite was sherry.…

Morning. He could feel daybreak in his bones. He opened his eyes slowly to the hint of light from the single curtained window. He could see the room more clearly now, in greater detail. He had not been mistaken. Five years and he still remembered the room under the main house, the ground level where food and tools were stored. His old room. Suddenly the previous night flashed through his mind. He attempted to sit up but fell weakly back. Crissa? No, not her. He would have known and recognized her. A dream then? No. His lips still tasted faintly of sherry. And then he knew, for word of the mistress's one true affection, sherry, had been bandied about in the pitbuck compound. He lay quietly and wondered why, thought out the reasons until the answer came, and with it a new sense of despondency. Was he to be a weapon even as he lay in bed? To be involved in such a contest was more dangerous than his fight with Beaumarohant.

The door to his room opened and Crissa entered, only to gasp and turn away from his nakedness. Rafe pulled at the sheets, covered himself. When the rustling ended Crissa furtively looked back, then approached. “Oh, Rafe. You're awake. Good.”

She remembered his name. The thought alone nearly shocked him speechless.

“Can you sit up?”

He nodded, staring suspiciously at her. She leaned over to adjust a pillow and her dressing gown parted to reveal a generous display of rounded, full breasts. Realizing what was happening, she backed away quickly, blushing and clutching her bodice, retying the ribbons. “I … I brought you a bowl of broth. I didn't know if you would be able to eat or not. You've been delirious at times and conscious at others. I've been able to get solid food in you only occasionally. Otherwise you might have wasted away entirely. Your eyes look clear now, though.”

Rafe fumbled with the bowl, almost dropped it and didn't complain when she took it from him. Crissa pulled a chair close to the bed, sat and began to spoon the liquid into his mouth. His brain reeled with a myriad of thoughts. He could remember nothing except the fight and then last night. The broth was hot and tasted good. “How long have I been here?” he asked, measuring and pausing after each word. He was determined not to lapse into the compound dialect.

“Three weeks. Going on the fourth.” His eyes widened. So much time asleep was impossible, yet there was no reason for her to lie. And the bearded stubble on his chin was further proof. “You were a terrible sight. All cut and bruised. And your poor hand.…” He eyes grew moist and a tear spilled down one cheek. She brushed it away quickly, smiled. “I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I don't know why I should cry. You're the one who was hurt. But Ezra is a horrible man. What he had you do was a terrible thing. I hate him and his cursed pit. How a man can delight in so much misery and suffering … there. That's the last of the broth.” She brushed a cloth napkin across his mouth, found herself unable to meet his stare.

How could she tell him, make him understand what she believed and how she felt? Everything had gone wrong. The letter from New Orleans, telling her she had no recourse under the law to claim what was once her inheritance. She hid the news from Ezra, hoping to subdue his growing confidence and the liberties he took with her. She might have left had it not been for her mother and the plight of the slaves. And the night when Rafe was brought to the house like so much butchered meat. She remembered how Ezra had delighted in applying the white hot poker to the pitbuck's ravaged hand. Crissa promised herself Rafe would survive. Whatever else might happen, whatever other battles she may have lost or would lose in the future, this sensitive, oddly cultured black man who had been forced to become a killer would live. A killer.… She looked at his powerful torso, his silent brooding eyes. She felt very much alone in the room.

He lifted his bandaged hand. “You?” he asked.

She nodded. “It was bleeding terribly. Ezra cauterized it with a poker. I … I told him I'd take care of you. I was afraid of blood poisoning, of gangrene. At first he wasn't going to let me, but finally he relented and told me to do whatever was necessary. I remembered how the sla … field hands used to talk of the medicine man Chulem and his potions so I had him brought here to put something on your wounds. You caught a chill for awhile as well and lay there shivering for three days in spite of the summer heat. Other times you'd be up to eating, but I could tell you didn't know who you were or where you were.”

He stared at her, and now his eyes were clear she was still unable to read his thoughts. Did he hate her? Did he consider her like all the rest? Why she should care what he thought bothered her more than anything else. What were her motives? Had she cared for him, bathed his feverish flesh with cooling wet cloths and fed him like a mother does a child only to spite Ezra? Or did she, God forbid, care about.…

Suddenly she wanted to be away. Crissa took the bowl and saucer and slid her chair back to the window. Why did he stare at her so, his eyes dark and brooding? Incriminating? She turned to go, stopped and whirled about. Had he started to speak? No. He was only staring. She left, closing the door quietly behind her. Odd, she could feel his eyes on her through the wood, watching her, following her. What was his silence trying to say?

Rafe would not have been able to tell her. She had tended him, true enough. No one except Old Chulem had ever tended him before, and Chulem didn't count. He was confused. He settled back against the pillow, listening to the morning stillness of the house and wishing Crissa hadn't left. But he was a fool. His weakness led to foolish thoughts. Why shouldn't she tend him? He was valuable property, worth more than a horse, or two mules. Dead, he was just another nigger, a hunk of meat to be buried and forgotten. Alive he was gold. Wagered gold. But if she hated Ezra as much as she pretended.… Damn! He had thought too much, and the broth made him
drowsy again.

Micara's room didn't get the morning sun, but when she woke up she could see it brushing the very tops of the giant loblolly pines on the hill behind the house. She lay quietly, assimilating the sight. Morning sun! How utterly beautiful—bright gold on new green. How long had it been? She couldn't remember.

Her whole being was infused with languid bliss. Her body felt warm and cool at the same time. She looked down at herself, halfway on her side, one knee slightly bent, the other straight. Her right hand, palm up, lay gently relaxed on the sheet. She flexed the fingers, felt them move. The fingers she had … they curled of their own volition to memory's shape and her eyes closed to recapture and mirror the secret ecstasy of the night before.

Suddenly she rose from the bed and went to her dressing table, peered inquisitively at herself in the glass. Who was the woman she saw? Where had she come from? Where had she been? She couldn't remember. The horror which bound her to a slow, inexorable decline had snapped in the night and left her divorced from her past, left her giddy with a new sense of self.