Rafe (6 page)

Dinner was serene. They dined on shrimp and lobster and curried rice, topping the repast with a thick custard made from eggs, cream and wild honey. They lingered over the final glass of wine, reminiscing over childhood adventures and events. There was much to recall. Later on the terrace overlooking Bourbon Street they found a secluded table and over brandy, their conversation, timidly at first, turned to the past four years. Steve had joined the army only a year after his father, the Right Reverend MacKinney Bennett, died while attempting to cross a flooded stream to reach the deathbed of a friend. And what of the plantation? Steve paused a moment before speaking. “Bigger. Much bigger. Ezra has a knack for running the place. Many more slaves. And more land.”

“And mother? How is she?” Crissa asked, disturbed at Steve's reticence to talk about her home.

“Well, no one sees too much of her any more. There's been talk she's been ill. And frankly speaking, I haven't had much call to visit since you've been gone.”

Crissa sat back in the shadow cast by the oil lamp bracket. She had sensed as much about her mother and decided the sooner she returned home the better. “When can we be off to the plantation?”

“As early as you like. Crissa, there's one thing I think we ought to discuss.” He paused and leaned forward. His eyes showed only too clearly what he felt. “I think we need to talk about us, about what we planned … when you returned from school.”

Crissa took a deep breath. She had been avoiding this possibility all evening. Steve was more like a brother than lover and she dreaded having to admit it. “Steve, those were childhood dreams.…” His eyes tightened imperceptibly as she went on. “I'm sorry. I didn't know you felt … I'm very tired. Do you mind? I'm worried about mother, and…”

“I understand, Crissa,” Steve said, his voice filled with disappointment. He rose stiffly, meticulously straightening his uniform, patting the wrinkles out of his blue coat and gray trousers.

“You look very handsome, you know. Very dashing.…”

“Please, Crissa, don't try so hard,” he interrupted, offering her his hand. “May I? You will need some rest. We have a long trip ahead of us.”

They left the terrace and he followed her down the hall, escorting her to her room and unlocking the door for her. She paused before entering. “Dear Steve. I
am
glad to see you. Will you forgive me?”

He smiled wanly. “Of course.”

Crissa leaned toward him and gently kissed his cheek. It was meant as a light good-night kiss but Steve was not to be denied. He drew her close and kissed her passionately and deeply. Crissa felt his hands, rough and demanding, on her back. A little frightened, she pushed herself back from him, only to feel one hand grope across her stomach and grasp her firm, swelling breast. She sensed his arousal and broke from his embrace, managed a good-night and quickly stepped inside her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

Steve wandered down the hall. He paused at the door to his room, then continued on to the stairs. A lone gentleman with a Creole prostitute ascended past him with a great deal of stumbling and raucous laughter.

The lobby was empty save for the desk clerk, and the only indication of activity came from beyond a door to his right. He followed the sound into a plush, smoky saloon. A woman detached herself from her lady friends and took his arm even before his eyes adjusted to the dark. He allowed her to lead him to a dark corner, her musky scent rekindling his arousal. He bought her a drink, then another.…

Her name was Michelle. She was experienced in the ways of pleasing men. Her tousled hair draped over Steve's naked shoulder and lay in dark waves on the sheet. Twice the young captain had emptied his pent-up desire between the prostitute's legs, each time burying himself furiously inside her as she cat-clawed his back. But with each climax Steve had shut his eyes and fed his mind with images of Crissa, bit his lip to keep from calling out her name.

Even now, the prostitute asleep at his side, he could feel the pressure of Crissa's body against his. And despite his laguorous exhaustion and the late hour, sleep would not come.

4

The women moved like somnambulent shadows across the dirt, bare feet snapping brittle stalks. Neither grass, flower nor shrub grew in the compound, only occasional weeds sucked dry by the thirsty clay. In twos and threes, many quietly timid, others raucous and openly eager, they walked in full knowledge of what awaited them—ravenous sexual appetites they were expected to appease. They passed through the compound gate and headed for the longhouse where Clayton's pitbucks waited like gladiators of old in the heady, sweltering heat of a muggy summer night, waited in one large room lacking anything but the shreds of privacy, a draped slip of burlap or a crate or two, partitioning one excited body from another

One of the women headed for Rafe's hut. For Rafe, more fortunate than the other inhabitants of the compound, slept alone and apart. He was the number one pitbuck and regarded as chief and spokesman until someone should beat him in the pit. The victor would then take his place in the cabin. The sod floor and plank walls would show no sign of Rafe's passing. It would be as if he had never been.

Her musky sweetness disturbed him and he opened his eyes, saw the shape of the figure in the doorway. “Who?”

“Julie.”

“I am not to have a woman tonight, much less a child. Go to one of the others.”

“Rafe hab a woman any time he wants,” Julie said. She stepped into the doorway and approached the dark giant form stretched upon his pallet, barely visible in the faint light, the last edge of the day, from the window behind him. Rafe heard the rustle of her cotton shift as it settled to the floor. She knelt to one side and took his right hand, placing it first on one delicate breast then the other, then pressing it down to her flat, youthful stomach and guiding it still further to the moistness between her legs. “And Ah ain't no girl,” she whispered huskily. “Ah stole from the house to bring yo' dis.” She moved back and forth, slowly, rhythmically, causing Rafe's scarred hand and wrist to stroke her maiden's pelt.

Rafe drew his hand away, but caught despite himself and in the passion of the moment, cupped her face and drew it close. Beads of sweat dripped from her glistening cheek to his. Her face was a dark sheen against the darker wall beyond. Animal eyes, glistening, hungry, glared down at him. “Julie …? You're the one who works up to the house.”

The girl stiffened at the tone of his voice, pulled her face away. “Don' matter. We all gotta work someplace. Ah clean and sometime he'p wid de cookin' an' such.”

“You also the one who do her duties in Ezra Clayton's bed. You ain't never gonna whelp him no white pup from yo' black belly. What you tryin' fo'?” The pitbuck cursed as he heard himself begin to allow the slave girl's dialect to influence his own speech. He was proud of the way he could talk. It bespoke culture and position, not servitude. Speech was the only symbol left to him and he had resisted losing its magic for over five years.

Julie's hand swept down toward his face, stopping abruptly as his massive fist rose and clamped about her wrist. She hissed at him like an angry cottonmouth. “Bastard! Ah do what Ah'se to'd, nigger. Same as yo'. Ah'se to'd to spread mah legs fo' de mastuh and Ah do it. Ah do it good. Yo' coulda found dat out fo' yo'se'f. Now you never finds out, nigger.”

She tore from his grasp and scurried across the floor, grabbing her shift and shrugging the light fabric over her heated flesh. Panting, she turned in the doorway, unable to see Rafe lying in the dark recesses of the hut but knowing he was there all the same. “We do,” she spit viciously, “what we's tol' to. What makes yo' any better'n me? Ah screws and Ah likes it. Ah git Mistah Clayton tight 'tween my hot, black thighs an' Ah'm de queen of dis here plantation 'til he go sof an' roll ober pantin'. Ah screws when Ah'se tol'. Yo' fights when yo' tol'. No diff'rence, 'ceptin' dat yo' killin' yo' own kind. An' yo' know what else? Ah think yo' likes de killin', s'much as Ah like de screwin'. Only when yo' guttin' some po' bastard yo' still ain't nuffin'. Jus' a nuffin' nigger killer. But Ah'se a queen. Yo' hear me? A queen!” She sobbed and ran out the door.

Rafe sighed and rolled over on his side. His leg throbbed, but only a little. His back stung from time to time whenever he scraped it across the coarse burlap of the pallet. Run back to your house, little girl, he thought. White man's waitin' for you.

He raised his hand to his nostrils. She smelled ready enough. Perhaps he'd been a fool to chase her off. Ezra Clayton's mulatto. It would have been a meager way to get back at him. Clayton.…

Rafe's memory drifted back to the early days with Ezra. Rafe was Lucas Clayton's trusted manservant in New Orleans. America was at war with England and now the clouds of war had moved south and were gathering over New Orleans. A battle was imminent, waiting only for the arrival of the contestants. The New Year came and went and the air hung heavy with the hush of coming violence. The Lucas Clayton household stored water and provisions in preparation for the worst. And suddenly the storm broke. General Jackson and a wild conglomeration of soldiers, swamp people and pirates against the English. Ezra showed up during the early hours of the battle, shivering from slogging through swamps and bayous, hot and tired from running, trembling with fear of discovery. He and Lucas holed up in the library, but Rafe heard what they said. Ezra had spied for the British and been found out. Jackson's army was after him. Lucas was angry, but what was he to do? The man was his brother.

Somehow the word got out that Ezra was in the house, and before the day was over, even while the final shots of battle were echoing through the muddy streets, a detachment of soldiers surrounded Lucas Clayton's house. Within minutes the house was a raging inferno. No one knew or ever found out how the fire started. Lucas tried to get out but was trapped trying to save his wife and child. The only two to escape were Ezra and Rafe.

The soldiers, a ragtag lot, stopped them to ask questions. In shock and his clothes half burned off him, still coughing from the smoke he'd swallowed, Rafe listened without comprehending as Ezra identified himself as Lucas to the soldiers, none of whom had ever seen either man. When Ezra led him off, Rafe stumbled along, too tired, too broken to understand, much less care, what had happened.

Somehow they made it out of the city. A thin, sallow, toothless man offered them a ride in his
calèche
. They accepted, and on the ragged edge of exhaustion, collapsed into the jolting wooden cart for the ride up the trail along the Mississippi, paying the next to last half-eagle Ezra was able to save from the fire for the privilege. When they got to the junction of the Red River they learned they were being sought, so they managed to wheedle a ride up the Red on a flat boat, working their way for food and passage in order to save the final half-eagle. They got off at Natchitoches, the last stop before the Great Raft halted all navigation to the north, intending to make their way west and into Mexico.

The last half-eagle bought them meager provisions and they struck off on foot along the trail west, ending up at a plantation called Fitzman's Freedom when Ezra was taken so badly with the ague he couldn't walk another step. The people at Fitzman's Freedom took them in, fed them and nursed Ezra Clayton back to health.

Rafe slept for a day and a half once they stopped. Completely exhausted from work to which he wasn't accustomed and half-starved in the bargain, he was in little better shape than Ezra. After he woke up and ate three steaming bowk of jambalaya and a heap of lost bread, the fried bread they'd called
pain perdu
in New Orleans, he fell asleep again. The sound of the calinda, feet beating the age-old dance rhythm on the hardened clay, broke into his dreams and he knew it was Saturday night.

Sunday morning he awoke to see the plantation for the first time. A huge three-storied house of fired brick and native wood sat on the top of a slight knoll. It faced east, with the back open to catch the summer breezes which would later blow off the Sabine River to the west. Two huge magnolias framed it from the front and a stand of giant, ancient loblolly pines stood to its northwest to break the winter wind. The house was in a state of disrepair. Wide steps, some broken, led up to the square-columned gallery which ran the length of the front on two levels. Part of the lower gallery sagged dangerously at one corner, and the whole structure needed paint. As he looked, the front doors opened and a girl accompanied by a huge blue tick hound ran out and stopped to stare at him. He stook stock still when the hound came to him and sniffed inquisitively, then turned and went back to the girl who laughed, and trusting in the dog's good judgement, approached him confidently.

Her name was Crissa Fitzman. She told him all he wanted to know and more. How her father had gone off to war and died aboard his ship. How alone she felt without him. How they'd had to sell many of the slaves. There were only ten left. She took him to meet Pa-Paw Ephraim and the three of them, to escape the cold February winds, sat in Pa-Paw's shack in the pecan grove across the road from the house and talked most of the day.

That had been five years ago. Ezra Clayton recovered, and because he was getting along well with the widowed Micara Fitzman, stayed to court and win her. Another year and Crissa was off to the north to school on the money her father had set aside in a New Orleans bank for the purpose and within another month Ezra and Micara had married and the Fitzman was dropped from the plantation name, leaving it simply Freedom. Within another year the atmosphere at Freedom assumed an ominous note. Ezra, knowing a good thing when he saw it, took over completely. The pit was dug and Rafe, because he knew what and who Ezra really was, lost his position as manservant and was sent to live with the other slaves and fight his first fight.