The Purchase (17 page)

R
uth learned about the runaway slave at the Prayer Meeting, where the sermon was about property. “What we own, it is our earthly duty to tend,” the pastor told his little flock. “What we own, we tend, for the Lord has given us everything that is ours.” At one time, Methodists had been fiercely abolitionist. They had broken away from the Episcopal Church with Francis Asbury as their first bishop and in those early years evangelists rode across Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky preaching against the evil of slave owning. But the Southerners had considered the churchmen wrong in this preaching, feeling that to emancipate their slaves would lead to social chaos, and now some churchmen had surrendered to the doctrine of necessity and Pastor Dougherty was among them. “The fowler’s snare is knotted with secrecy,” he told the listening Christians.

Daniel and Ruth were sitting on a bench they had brought in the wagon, Ruth with her feet crossed at the ankles and tucked back so as to hide her split-open boots. The pastor was saying, “And in spite of the words of Paul to the Ephesians – that each slave must obey his master – I am informed by our brother, Jester Fox, that one of his own dark children has rebelled and is living without protection in contradiction of God’s law. This child is in error and must be returned to Mister Fox because we form a community here in Jonesville based on Christian
laws.” He looked around solemnly, searching each face, as was his weekly habit, and several of his parishioners answered back in the affirmative. Satisfied, the pastor raised his voice to address the Almighty: “Lord! We ask Thee now from our humble church and humble hearts … we ask Thee to admonish the one who is fled and teach her the example of Jesus Christ, who gave His life to redeem
her
in spite of her selfishness and grievous ignorance. Let that her selfishness not lead to an outbreak of the same among other workers,” the pastor continued, striking at the one fear his congregants held in common and launching then into the parable of the prodigal, proving the nature of repentance and the Lord’s readiness to welcome all those who return to His guidance. “It is a sin,” he announced, “to look upon God’s gifts as a debt due to us. I say this with regard to the sinner who harbours another sinner, to that one who is tempted by secrecy, dashing into the fowler’s net when destruction stares him in the face. He will commit a sin that is condemned by the law of the land.” Here, the pastor’s eyes stopped for a moment to regard the closed and wary countenance of Daniel before moving on restlessly to other faces.

Ruth also looked at Daniel, who looked down at his feet. She wondered where he had gone when he’d ridden away under the light of the moon only a few thin hours after Jester Fox had accosted him. She remembered the vehemence on both sides of the argument. She had never seen Daniel truly angry until that moment when the terrible words fell on him just as she came to the window to hear what was being said. But the anger had taken a cowardly form as he spoke through his gritted teeth, trying to be reasonable.

When she and Daniel filed out of the church, people were shaking their heads over the ingratitude of a girl who had been allowed to work in a house among white people.

“She can read and write, what I hear.”

“Won’t help her out hiding in the woods.”

“Should know better.”

“Might as well cut her own throat as hide out there.”

On the trip home, the road stretched and lengthened. It grew cumbersome, bumpy, and tedious and Ruth felt she was discovering new corners right and left. The wind beating through the trees blew at her straw hat so that she had to tie it under her chin with the purple ribbon and put a hand on the top of her head. Mulberry kept slowing and shying at swirling branches. Leaves blew past, a few drops of rain. Ruth listened to Daniel urge the horse, but they seemed to be moving toward a place they did not want to visit. When a gust of rain came at them, they avoided speaking of it, as they had so far avoided speaking of everything else. “Lord,” Ruth prayed, “let us be no part of this.” The road had narrowed. Out loud she said, “Only a criminal would hide a runaway.”

Daniel muttered, “So it would seem.” It began to rain harder. He flicked his whip. They came to a clearing in the trees and the rain came down on them.

“There was no sign of rain this mornin,” Ruth heard herself say while she counted up Daniel’s mistakes. Onesimus was not the first of them, although he had brought trouble since the day he first came, using up Daniel’s savings and losing them their best horse, breaking his leg, then creating rage in their neighbour. Slaves had no creed, no laws, no families, and should not mix with civilized people. Ruth looked at the man beside her, whose face was wet in spite of his hat and who had used words instead of fists to defend himself. What if Mister Fox killed him and she was left with his five ungrown children? She stared at
the side of the road, imagining a grave and Daniel lying in it with his hands across his chest. She would have to send the children off to the poorhouse, just as she had been sent, and she felt a rare tug of compassion for her forgotten mother as she pulled her cape across her face so as not to get wet. “Next slave better be smarter,” she said.

“No more slaves, Ruth Boyd.”

At home, they counted the children and Daniel asked where Mary was. The boys were playing with a wooden ball. The baby was wet and whimpering. Jemima was sitting very still on the bed. “Has she … left … thee … all … alone …?” Daniel’s voice was tighter with every word. Ruth pointed at the dress on the floor and he rushed out into the rain, slipping on the steps and catching himself. There was no sign of Mary in the meadow, so he ran on without stopping, as if he had it in his power to change anything, trees snapping, bare branches whipping at his flesh. He stopped to catch his breath. He ran again. He fell down on jutting stones and stood up, calling out his daughter’s name. Then “Oh my child” because, on the bank of the creek, she was kneeling over the body of Jester Fox, who lay face down, washed by rain. Beside him lay a stone and on his head there was a gash. “Child?”

Mary looked up and shook her head. On her indigo dress was a dark wet stain.

Daniel stood frozen under trees that tattled down to the creek. He saw that Bett was there too, holding Mary’s hand, and wondered where she had come from. What had they done? Whatever it was must be undone because it made no sense, and when Simus appeared and took Jester Fox by the arms and began to pull him away through the mud and leaves, Daniel struggled in his heart and mind. He felt all the love he could make himself feel for his neighbour, as if that would bring him
back to his feet. He worked at that love, crouching down. Let him rise, he prayed, and he saw the two girls still huddled together and that, above all, was strange and the dead man was now on his back, blue eyes open, face meaningless, even the small mouth and the curling red beard, sodden, framing it. In that face and body there was nothing left to heal, no inch over which to negotiate, and the forest moved around them when the two girls stood. They walked sleepily, leaning together, and when they reached the body in the leaves, they stepped over it and went on.

A
lready that day the horse and wagon had been on the road three times, although each trip seemed to have been years apart. The ride to Prayer Meeting, the long ride back home along the lengthening road and through the expanding forest and slanting rain, and now a journey in harder rain with Jester Fox in the back of the wagon sliding aimlessly back and forth. At the frame house the two sons came out at a run while Daniel sat dripping and the rain kept falling. The boys rushed at the wagon as if they knew what it contained and their mother ran out of the house with an apron thrown up around her face. “Dear Jesus, dear Jesus.” She threw herself down and beat at the wet ground with her fists, muddying herself. She yanked at her hair while the sons shouted at a small group of workers. “Get away,” one son yelled, shooing his hand in the air. The other shouted, “Damn you niggers, get over here!” The younger looked to be sixteen or seventeen, and both had their father’s red hair.

Daniel said formally, “I have brought your father, who fell on a rock of our creek.” He sat hunched on the seat of the wagon to forestall any show of nervousness. While the boys opened the back and grabbed at the body, making noises of anger and bitterness, Daniel did not turn. His stomach was clenched, his hands shaking. He believed that Jester Fox looked dishevelled
but wet and clean. His red hair, once matted with blood, would be rain-plastered to his head, on the back of which was a deep cut and a shallow concavity.

While Julia Fox beat at the grass, which was wet and plastered like her husband’s hair, Daniel began to climb slowly down as if he should not rock the now empty wagon. He told the widow he was sorry that her husband had fallen. He told her it had happened while he and Ruth were at Prayer Meeting and that there was no reason he knew for his neighbour to be wandering where he didn’t belong when the weather was inclement and the rocks slippery.

Julia shouted, “He come down for water, as is in our rights.”

Daniel said, “Though I saw no bucket,” his voice as kind as he could make it be.

Two little girls came tumbling out of the house and Julia Fox began hurling whatever came to hand, a hammer, a stick. There was the rain with its smell and feel and the flat sound of it striking softened ground. The sons had managed to get the body into the house, where it must be soaking the floors. Daniel climbed back onto the wet seat of the wagon, glancing back at the frame house with a new sense of shame. Often he had wondered whether it was pride or envy that was the worst of his sins, and now, as he looked at those straight boards and windows of glass, he knew it was envy that most assailed him.

“You’ll pay for this!” the widow yelled, shaking her fist at Daniel’s retreat, and he felt a great pity for her.

It came as a surprise, nevertheless, when three boys rode onto his land later that afternoon. Daniel kept his eyes on the rifle one of them was holding. They wore scarves on their faces, but he recognized the red, unruly hair of the two Fox boys and held
up his hand. “Now, boys, you are fired up by justified grief,” he said, managing a tone of authority although he was made nervous by the rearing horses and the gun.

The third boy, who was no Fox, called out, “Give over your murderer!” and aimed his rifle at Daniel’s face.

Daniel merely stood.

One of the redheads shouted, “Let him learn what happens when a nigger kills a white man!”

The door opened and Mary came out to stand by her father. She looked at the rifle before she looked at the boy who held it and then took her father’s hand, which was hot and damp. She opened her mouth but she could not put it to language.

Benjamin crawled out from under the porch. “Simus down there,” he said, pointing, and the three angry boys rode off, breaking low branches and pounding the meadow grass flat while the family stood bolted to the porch that was a thin collar on their newmade house.

When the riders came back, Simus was tied behind one of the horses, running, then falling, then sliding face down, dragged by a rope that bound his wrists, dragged and scraped across ground roughened and ridged by horses’ hooves. Daniel rushed down the steps to grab at him, but Simus cried, “You don hep me.”

And Daniel stopped.

Because this was the day for one of the pigs to be killed and hung on a hoist, it stood to reason that the younger children would later confuse the two events. All the anticipation had led to this: by nightfall, Simus was hanging where nobody knew how to find him.

H
ow long is the life of a tree and how long is the life of a slave? Here, in the soil just around and covering the roots of the locust, there are drops of blood and a tree does not bleed. Above the ground, a boy is hanging – not by his neck but by his hands, one of which has been torn by a knife – and there is no one around to see him kick or to find him in time to cut him down. The sky is hovering over the thorny branches, as if it would drop around the boy and become his shroud. The sun blinks shut for a minute, but no one notices the tiny night. Simus feels his arms pulled up hard like things unplanted. He thinks that if they stretch an inch or two more, his feet will touch the ground and he will somehow root himself again. He thinks about this new meaning of being free – only to touch the ground. He thinks it might be enough but it will never be guaranteed and he next feels the skin of his back and sides pulled tight by the sag of his weight. Then his bare feet jerk down and up and he feels his whole body jump and spin and he knows that someone is sitting above him up in this tree. “Set me down now! Please!”