Sweetsmoke (30 page)

    But
his wonder gave way to immediate alarm as the dance continued. With each sweep
of the room, he was in ever greater danger of being discovered, and this threat
was more extreme than if he had been trapped by Pet. He might talk his way out
of that trouble, might indict Pet herself, might bribe her or find some other
way clear of her accusations. But a black man who watched a white woman dance
in her nightdress with her legs exposed was as good as dead. He would be
lynched and no one would wait to hear his explanations; the moment he was
discovered, they would secure his hands and drag him to the nearest branch to
be hoisted high in the air by the neck. So certain was this punishment that he
struggled to breathe, feeling the rope closing around his throat. He tried to
make himself smaller in the shadow, but he dared not move lest she peripherally
perceive the motion.

    Sarah
circled the room a fourth time, a fifth, and Cassius heard a gentle scratching
as Charles's cat tested the door from inside Hoke's study. He tightened further
at this wretched timing. The cat then quit scratching and emitted a soft meow.
She bumped the door with her head. Silence. Suddenly her scratching took on a
frantic aggression. Cassius clenched his hand in a fist, trying to will the cat
into silence so that she didn't give him away.

    He
hoped that Sarah's dance was just loud enough, not to wake the others, but to
drown out the cat's exertions with her own. She chose different pathways around
the furniture with each rotation, and at any moment she could turn her head and
be looking directly at him. He waited for when she would stop and shriek, and
he wondered if he should run and risk being recognized. How long would she
dance? He hoped she might change her route to waltz through the breezeway to
the dining area; if she did that, he would make a break for the rear door.

    She
stopped abruptly and looked toward the top of the stairs. The cat meowed with
greater impatience behind the study door, and Sarah's head twitched in that
direction as for the first time she realized the cat was closed in the study
and the noise she made was Sarah's enemy. Cassius had been unable to hear
anything but the cat and Sarah's dance. Sarah, however, had heard something
else. She struggled to control her breath, her eyes open wide. In the skewed
rectangle of moonlight with the whiteness of her gown aglow, she let the hem
drop. If another person joined her there in the greeting room, the likelihood
of Cassius being discovered increased, and he felt the window of opportunity
rapidly closing. She did not move and still he heard nothing. The silence
rushed in and then a faint voice from above broke into the hush.

    Missus
Sarah?

    She
fled to a shadow between the staircase and the breezeway, in position to rush
upstairs if the opportunity presented itself. Charles's cat meowed, and Cassius
was convinced that Sarah also cursed the animal.

    Missus
Sarah? That you I hear down there?

    Cassius
recognized Quashee's whisper. She was risking the displeasure of her mistress
in order to help Cassius escape. Cassius saw Quashee's small feet descending
the stairs, weightless on her toes. Quashee's nightdress did not fall below her
knees and her person was revealed step by step until she reached the bottom. If
she knew Sarah was hidden on the far side of the stairs near the dining area,
she did not show it, as her head turned directly toward Hoke's study. She came
toward Cassius, whispering again, Missus Sarah? As she drew close to him, she
raised her hand in a surreptitious gesture that warned him to stay in place.
She walked to Hoke's study and opened the door, releasing the cat. The cat
scampered out in a maniacal thunder, only to halt midway into the room,
embraced by moonlight. Free at last, the cat casually chose a chair and made it
her own. Quashee continued all the way inside the study. Cassius admired the
wisdom of this move, as Sarah now rushed up the stairs unseen by her servant.
Quashee then poked her clever head out of the den with a knowing smile on her
face.

    I'd
just set up the candle when I heard her leave her bed. Tried to get the flame
out to warn you, she said quietly.

    I saw
it but wasn't sure.

    I'll
tell her I was sleepwalking. She'll believe anything if it'll help keep her
secret, said Quashee, looking upstairs.

    I
didn't want you in danger.

    You
just get away from here, she said shaking her head, looking at the rolled maps
and book in his hands.

    But
thank you anyway.

    Make
up your mind.

    You're
lucky for me.

    Quashee
smiled with satisfaction.

    You
are something, said Cassius, and his joy at the narrow escape made him
reckless. He stepped close to her and kissed her on the mouth and felt her
small sweet body against him. He expected her to push him away, to rush him out
the door to safety, but she did not. She returned his kiss. He held her for as
long as he thought reasonable, but Quashee then put a warning hand against his
chest. He nodded and made his way to the door, then watched her move silently
back up the stairs. He carried the book and maps outside into the warm breeze,
the memory of her lips transporting him through the moonlight and back to the
shed.

    He
was unable to rest and went to see Joseph. The door to the tobacco shed was
unlocked, which was Hoke's way, remorse following his spasms of rage. This
allowed the women to come in the night to clean and dress wounds. But Hoke was
in no condition to have made that decision. Cassius wondered if Mr. Nettle had
left the shed unlocked out of tradition, or if Ellen had given the order. He
found Joseph out of his head. A plate of food waited by his side, uneaten
except by flies and unidentified things that crawled. He was likely to be
shackled there for a period longer than Cassius had endured after his whipping.
Healing would be difficult and prolonged. Joseph would never run again, and
would struggle to walk. He was unlikely to be the same curious, animated young
man, and Cassius mourned the death of his younger self. Joseph was, however,
likely to remain at Sweetsmoke, as his value was now decreased after the
whipping and hobbling. His worth would be estimated at a half hand, although
Shedd, The Little Angry Man, did his share with a worthless hip. Cassius
projected Joseph as The Second Angry Man.

    Cassius
returned to the carpentry shed where he had earlier hidden the maps and the
book, and he slept until Mr. Nettle's predawn bell. He visited the quarters as
the hands ate to make certain that everyone saw him. He heard the talk then:
Joseph had been caught near Springs Junction, which was an Underground Railroad
station. Had he made it there, he might have reached Canada. The hands wondered
who had helped Joseph, as it became clear that only one or two of them had
known about the station until that morning. The hands then went to the fields
and Cassius went to the big house yard and was busy until mid-morning.

    The
big house was obsessed with the bedridden Hoke and once Cassius identified the
new patterns of comings and goings, he returned to the shed, trusting that he
would be undisturbed. He unrolled Hoke's map of Virginia and removed Emoline's
hand-drawn scrap with "W York" written on it. He set her map on the
larger map and started by locating the town near Sweetsmoke. From there he slid
the scrap of paper along railroad tracks, first left, then right, comparing
road shapes, and looked for the words "W York." Initially he was
stymied; there appeared to be no north-south road with the name York. He
broadened his search and discovered a York Road parallel to the tracks that
briefly turned north and crossed, and when he compared other indications on her
map, he believed he had found what he was looking for.

    He
estimated three days as the least time needed to complete the journey, a day
and a half in each direction. If he was to do it, he had to leave soon, as
Whitacre's men were already somewhere in the northern part of the county,
hunting the telegraph man as a spy. The more he thought about it, the more he
thought he could be away for a few days without drawing attention. It would
take a bit of luck, but the timing in and around the household was good. The
planter family was caught up in Hoke's illness. They were likely to be
uninterested in the comings and goings of the carpenter. It was not so unusual
for him to be absent. He was sometimes loaned out to other plantations,
occasionally for days, one time for six months. He did not answer to the
Overseer or the Driver, and they often did not see him for days at a time. He
had made a conspicuous show of not sleeping in his cabin, so his absence on the
lane would raise no questions. Pet worried him, but she was no longer studying
him as closely. That did not mean she was off her guard, and if she happened to
discover him missing, she would gleefully inform Ellen and destroy him, but he
thought that a reasonable risk.

    His
strongest ally was Hoke's illness. He could explain that Hoke had laid out a
mission for him before delirium set in. Hoke would be unable to remember, but
it was not out of the realm of possibility. Cassius simply needed to muddy the
waters enough for three days.

    He
had one more thought to help cover his tracks: to find someone to say they had
seen Cassius around in case someone became suspicious. He considered those he trusted
in the quarters, Abram and Jenny, but things were not good with Jenny. He
decided against Abram, who was a good and decent man, but might not be thinking
clearly with his son in chains. He considered Savilla, but she was too much the
gossip. He decided to speak to Quashee.

    He
met her in passing and they carried on a brief conversation. He asked her to
say, if anyone questioned his absence, that she had seen Cassius going to the livestock
clearing with his tools to repair fences. He appreciated that she did not ask
about his plans.

    He
spent the early part of the evening doing what appeared from the outside to be
his normal chores; in fact he was collecting supplies for his journey. His
initial impulse to go had occurred during his conversation with Logue in
Emoline's home, made in emotional haste when the reality of the journey was so
distant that it mattered little if it was unrealistic. Tonight, he saw it in a
different light. He knew his logical mind might argue against it, might even
have a legitimate argument, but when he looked at his life, at what he was and
had always been, when he thought of what it would mean to him to give up his
quest and return to all that, he knew he would not be able to face himself.
Living the predetermined life of a carpenter at a plantation was no longer
enough. He had experienced too many small freedoms, he had tasted the knowledge
that his search for Emoline's killer had already brought. He was determined to
find this telegraph man, he was determined to learn what he could. Cassius
drove himself toward his journey in a step-by-step fashion, willing to risk
everything, to know. To
know.

    Once
finished with his preparations, he sat down to write himself a pass. With that
done, he thought again, then wrote two more passes, so that one would rest in
his pouch, the second in his hat, and the third in his shoe. Anyone who might
destroy the first pass would not imagine he carried others.

    It
was late when he brought out Hoke's copy of
Julius Caesar.
He was
curious to know Hoke's inner mind, what his choice of the name Cassius revealed
about Hoke's attitude to his slave. He sat by the lantern and held the book
open close to it and began to read from the beginning.

    Caesar's
reference to "yond Cassius" appeared early in the play, and Cassius
was amazed at the emotion it evoked. Looking at the words "a lean and
hungry look" on the page, the precise words that Hoke had used to describe
him after he was born, he had a profound sensation of ownership. He then took
pleasure in Caesar's dialogue, that "he thinks too much, such men are
dangerous."

    As he
continued to read, he found he did not care for Caius Cassius. He had hoped to
admire his namesake or at least find some redeeming value in him, but instead
he was embarrassed by him, as if he and Shakespeare's Cassius were connected
and the other Cassius's personality reflected back on him. Shakespeare's
Cassius was intelligent but conniving, an arrogant plotter with a thin skin, an
inciter who used others to carry out his desires. Shakespeare's Cassius was
unpleasantly envious of Caesar's exalted position. The thought of Hoke naming
him after such a man humiliated him. It reflected poorly on the memory of the
relationship he and Hoke had enjoyed when he was younger.

    He
caught himself dozing off and knew he would not finish reading that night, nor
would he tote the book to W York. It might be some time before he could finish
the play and have a full understanding of Hoke's perspective. He mulled over
what he had read, and thought that perhaps he recognized himself in Cassius.