Sweetsmoke (52 page)

    Cassius
crossed to a drawer and found a sheet of paper, a pen and an inkwell that still
held some ink, so he didn't have to mix it from powder.

    He
sat and wrote. Weyman watched.

    You
really doin that, ain't you? said Weyman. Then he laughed happily, the laughter
of relief: Y 'all was somethin, keepin such a thing a secret.

    Cassius
finished the note and handed it to Weyman.

    This'll
get you home, said Cassius.

    Weyman
held up the pass as thanks, moving to the door.

    Got
enough jalap to last you?

    Enough
to last.

    Good.

    Weyman
went out the door and Cassius followed to watch him walk down the road in the
direction of the Chavis farm.

    Once
out of sight, Cassius took the lantern, closed Emoline's front door, and ran in
the street to the German part of town.

    He
stood outside the
bierhaus.
He knew that if he entered, they would know
he was alive, and then everything he had planned would be near to impossible.
But he had to alert Mueller. He was on the verge of writing a note when he saw
the fifteen-year-old, Mueller's brain-simple son. Cassius made certain that no
one else was on the street, then stepped out and caught the boy's arm just
before the boy went inside.

    Can
you give your father a message? said Cassius.

    "Message?
What you mean?" said the boy.

    Can
you remember what I say, and repeat it back to him?

    "Sure,
ain't stupid, you know," said the boy. Cassius thought that the boy was
not as brain-simple as he had heard, and he began to doubt his decision. But
the boy did not recognize Cassius, so he went on.

    Then
listen close. You know that one of the patrollers, Bornock, been accusing your
father of taking his gun? said Cassius.

    "I
hear 'bout that all the time," said the boy.

    I
know where that gun is.

    "You
ain't gettin no reward, boy."

    Cassius
started, not having anticipated that reaction. He knew he had to play out the
moment.

    Maybe
just a little something? Cold out here.

    "Nothin
for you. Now you come in, you tell my papa."

    Maybe
better if you do it. Then he'll be happy with you. Yes?

    Cassius
watched the boy's eyes light up. He started to nod, and Cassius nodded with
him.

    You
go tell your papa. You tell him the man who has Bornock's gun is on the road,
walking back to his farm now.

    "Walking
back to his farm now," repeated the boy.

    Tell
him those words. The man who has his gun is named Weyman.

    "I
know Weyman," said the boy.

    Weyman
is on the road now and he has the gun. Tell your papa to get his patroller
friends, and they'll catch him.

    "I
will," said the boy, and he ran into the
bierhaus.

    Cassius
backed up and hid in the shadows, waiting to see that the message would be
delivered. He still had time to write a note if it was needed.

    Mueller
came out in a hurry, dragging on his coat and pressing his hat on his head. He
ran past Cassius's hiding place and headed for the stable, and Cassius heard
him when he was down the street, calling aloud for Bornock and Lang.

    Cassius
set out on the road, traveling in the same direction as Weyman. He was already
out of town when he heard the horses coming on behind him. He stepped out of
sight and the patrollers thundered past, whipping their mounts and kicking up
dust. The cold night air tightened the sky and made the stars hard and he felt
winter coming on fast now. He came back out and continued walking along the
side of the road, letting the beam of his lantern pick out the way.

    He
heard them ahead, on the far side of the elbow in the road, and he sat down on
the cold hard ground to wait. He could see light from their lanterns poking
through the leaves and trees, and he listened to the sounds of what was
happening there. Fifteen minutes later they rode fast in the other direction,
returning to town. Cassius put out his lantern and sat in the dark by the side
of the road and watched them go by. In the quiet that followed, he thought
about Emoline and knew that she would not have approved.

    He
waited a little while longer until the cold earth made his thighs numb. He
found a Lucifer match in his pouch, relit the lantern, stood up slowly, and set
back out on the road. He rounded the elbow and walked toward something white on
the ground.

    He
picked it up; the same piece of paper that Weyman had thought was a pass. He
angled his lantern and read his own handwriting:
I got that pearl-handle gun
to sell. Meet me tonight.

    He
angled the lantern's beam to the level of Weyman's feet, swinging gently. One
of his feet still wore a shoe. He folded the note and tucked it in his pouch.
He continued to walk down the road toward Sweetsmoke. The pit of rage inside
him slowly, slowly burned out.

    Cassius
came through the woods, skirting the quarters and Mr. Nettle's place to approach
the big house well before dawn. He entered the open area and crossed to the
privy, hidden as it was from the big house by a stand of trees. He dragged a
stump over to where he could see it from a hiding spot he had chosen in the
woods.

    He
took a cigar from his pouch, knelt to the frayed cuff of one of his trouser
legs, and unraveled a small length of thread. He tied it around the cigar, near
the lip end, and placed it on the stump, pointing it at the place where he
would wait.

    She
came out in the early morning, as he knew she would, but she was not alone, and
she no longer carried the chamber pots herself, as he had expected. She was
directing Pet and Anne's girl, Susan, and he knew that things had changed for
her in the big house.

    He watched
her with his heart full. His memory during the time he had been away had done
nothing to enhance her; in fact, she was prettier than he had remembered, and
she warmed his lonely eyes.

    She
kept her distance from the privy. His heart, which had soared when he saw her
again, now began a rapid drumbeat as he feared she would not notice his marker.
He did not know another safe way to let her know where he was. This was the
moment; it had to be now. Cassius saw Pet intentionally drop a chamber pot when
Quashee looked away. Quashee grimaced at the prospect of having to help clean
up the mess, and then she stopped. Cassius held his breath. He saw that she was
looking at the stump. He saw her take a step toward it. He experienced an idiot
delight at this success, because he knew she had seen the cigar. But he had
expected a different reaction from her, and his pleasure fled as he saw her do
battle with shock and confusion when she recognized his signature. Pet asked
her a question, and she did not respond. Pet asked again, a little louder, but
from where Cassius watched, he could not hear what it was.

    Quashee
looked up at Pet, attempting to cover the astonishment that ruled her face, and
she waved Pet back to the big house. Susan, who was more clever than Pet,
looked to where Quashee had been looking. Cassius recognized the danger in this
moment. Quashee walked quickly to the stump and sat on it, thus hiding the
cigar, bringing her foot to her knee as if to examine a sliver. Quashee
indicated that Susan should follow Pet and take the empty pots, and after a
moment, she was alone.

    Cassius
watched as Quashee took the cigar in her hands, finger and thumb running along
its length, stopping at the thread, and then, as if suddenly picturing
something that she dared not believe to be true, she lifted her head. She
turned in the direction that the cigar had pointed and looked directly at
Cassius. It was a jolt to meet her eyes, but he knew she could not see him,
hidden as he was. She knew that if he had come back, then he was right there.

    Quashee
stood, a hand at her breast, running suddenly, directly, toward him. After a
few steps, she forced herself to slow, throwing a glance over her shoulder
toward the big house, but she kept on coming, the longest walk Cassius had ever
experienced. She entered the trees with their naked limbs, leaves crunching
beneath her feet, and she looked this way and that for him. When he knew she
could no longer be seen from the big house, he stood up. She stopped dead in
her tracks.

    Still
twenty feet away, she lifted her hand toward him, but came no closer. She was
in the presence of the dead come back to life. She opened her other hand and
revealed the cigar in her palm.

    You,
said Quashee in complete amazement.

    I've come
for you. To take you with me. To the North.

    You're
dead. Jacob's letter.

    I
wrote that in his letter. To keep them from looking for me.

    What
that did to me. To hear you were—And now you're here, you're alive, she said.

    I had
to, I'm sorry. I came as fast as I could.

    She
moved to him then, stepped up very close, close enough to breathe his breath,
but she did not touch him until she put her hand on his chest to be certain
that he stood there. Slowly her hand moved and he felt it graze his neck and
cheek, running over his eyelids, his forehead, stopping to rest on his lips. He
pressed his head forward against her fingers, kissing them, then kissing her
lips. He said quietly and deliberately: I've come for you. I'm here.

    Yes,
you're here, yes, said Quashee, her face against his chest, and he heard a
small, joyful laugh well up from deep inside her. Her narrow arms wrapped
tightly around him, and then, of a sudden, she let go and stepped back. As she
stepped, she shook her head.

    I was
done, I understood, it's what we have in this life, it's what we are. I was
prepared to be lonely, prepared to mourn you. I'd already started.

    Cassius
spoke warmly, explaining: We'll go tonight. The nights are long now, so there's
more time to travel. Patrollers say they're on alert, but it's winter. With the
cold, the whites rather stay inside. Even the patrollers like to be warm, in
their homes. We stay alert, stay away from towns and keep moving, we can make
it.

    You
went off, like you said you would. Never thought to see you again. A man on the
road, those were your words. It was different than the man I had at
John-Corey's. Worse, so much worse than when he got sold. Didn't even know I
was still waiting for you until Jacob's letter. I was relieved, Cassius, do you
understand? I was relieved to know for certain you were dead.

    He
did not move toward her. He thought that was too risky, as any sudden movement
might startle her, like spooking a cautious deer who had already stepped too
close.

    You
said if you don't take the good too, then you got nothing, said Cassius. Just
pain.

    But
you were right. Don't love nothing in this life. You only give them power over
your mind as well as your body.

    I'm
here to take you away. To a place where it's safe to love something again.

    I
can't go with you, she said.

    You
can.

    No.
My father.

    Bring
him.

    They
think you're dead. They won't look for you, not now, not ever. If you go alone,
you'll be safe. What will they do if two house servants run?

    They'll
come after you, but I can get us through, I know the way.

    You
know the way of a ghost. But they'll catch flesh and blood and make it pay. You
won't make it with me. I won't let you give up your freedom.

    He
had no answer for that. There was no point to argue. Everything he had seen in
their future rushed away from him.

    Don't
stay here, said Quashee. Go now. Go tonight. Get away from this place, I can be
happy if I know you're away and safe.

    He
wanted to say that he would find a way for them to be together. He wanted to
tell her how it was to see her again. But he said none of it.

    Maybe
the war will end, said Cassius.