4
I stayed in the cookhouse when I finished eating because it was near the main house, and because I thought I could make it from the cookhouse into the hall if I started to feel dizzy—just in case. Wherever Kevin was in the house, he would hear me if I called from the hallway.
Luke and Nigel finished their meal and went to the fireplace to say something privately to Sarah. At that moment, Carrie, the mute, slipped me bread and a chunk of ham. I looked at it, then smiled at her gratefully. When Luke and Nigel took Sarah out of the room with them, I feasted on a shapeless sandwich. In the middle of it, I caught myself wondering about the ham, wondering how well it had been cooked. I tried to think of something else, but my mind was full of vaguely remembered horror stories of the diseases that ran wild during this time. Medicine was just a little better than witchcraft. Malaria came from bad air. Surgery was performed on struggling wide-awake patients. Germs were question marks even in the minds of many doctors. And people casually, unknowingly ingested all kinds of poorly preserved ill-cooked food that could make them sick or kill them.
Horror stories.
Except that they were true, and I was going to have to live with them for as long as I was here. Maybe I shouldn't have eaten the ham, but if I hadn't, it would be the table leavings later. I would have to take some chances.
Sarah came back with Nigel and gave him a pot of peas to shell. Life went on around me as though I wasn't there. People came into the cookhouse—always black people—talked to Sarah, lounged around, ate whatever they could put their hands on until Sarah shouted at them and chased them away. I was in the middle of asking her whether there was anything I could do to help out when Rufus began to scream. Nineteenth-century medicine was apparently at work.
The walls of the main house were thick and the sound seemed to come from a long way off—thin high-pitched screaming. Carrie, who had left the cookhouse, now ran back in and sat down beside me with her hands covering her ears.
Abruptly, the screaming stopped and I moved Carrie's hands gently. Her sensitivity surprised me. I would have thought she would be used to hearing people scream in pain. She listened for a moment, heard nothing, then looked at me.
"He probably fainted," I said. "That's best. He won't feel the pain for a while."
She nodded dully and went back out to whatever she had been doing.
"She always did like him," remarked Sarah into the silence. "He kept the children from bothering her when she was little."
I was surprised. "Isn't she a few years older than he is?"
"Born the year before him. Children listened to him though. He's white."
"Is Carrie your daughter?"
Sarah nodded. "My fourth baby. The only one Marse Tom let me keep." Her voice trailed away to a whisper.
"You mean he … he sold the others?"
"Sold them. First my man died—a tree he was cutting fell on him. Then Marse Tom took my children, all but Carrie. And, bless God, Carrie ain't worth much as the others 'cause she can't talk. People think she ain't got good sense."
I looked away from her. The expression in her eyes had gone from sadness—she seemed almost ready to cry—to anger. Quiet, almost frightening anger. Her husband dead, three children sold, the fourth defective, and her having to thank God for the defect. She had reason for more than anger. How amazing that Weylin had sold her children and still kept her to cook his meals. How amazing that he was still alive. I didn't think he would be for long, though, if he found a buyer for Carrie.
As I was thinking, Sarah turned and threw a handful of something into the stew or soup she was cooking. I shook my head. If she ever decided to take her revenge, Weylin would never know what hit him.
"You can peel these potatoes for me," she said.
I had to think a moment to remember that I had offered my help. I took the large pan of potatoes that she was handing me and a knife and a wooden bowl, and I worked silently, sometimes peeling, and sometimes driving away the bothersome flies. Then I heard Kevin outside calling me. I had to make myself put the potatoes down calmly and cover them with a cloth Sarah had left on the table. Then I went to him without haste, without any sign of the eagerness or relief I felt at having him nearby again. I went to him and he looked at me strangely.
"Are you all right?"
"Fine now."
He reached for my hand, but I drew back, looking at him. He dropped his hand to his side. "Come on," he said wearily. "Let's go where we can talk."
He led the way past the main house away from the slave cabins and other buildings, away from the small slave children who chased each other and shouted and didn't understand yet that they were slaves.
We found a huge oak with branches thick as separate trees spread wide to shade a large area. A handsome lonely old tree. We sat beside it putting it between ourselves and the house. I settled close to Kevin, relaxing, letting go of tension I had hardly been aware of. We said nothing for a while, as he leaned back and seemed to let go of tensions of his own.
Finally, he said, "There are so many really fascinating times we could have gone back to visit."
I laughed without humor. "I can't think of any time I'd like to go back to. But of all of them, this must be one of the most dangerous—for me anyway."
"Not while I'm with you."
I glanced at him gratefully.
"Why did you try to stop me from coming?"
"I was afraid for you."
"For me!"
"At first, I didn't know why. I just had the feeling you might be hurt trying to come with me. Then when you were here, I realized that you probably couldn't get back without me. That means if we're separated, you're stranded here for years, maybe for good."
He drew a deep breath and shook his head. "There wouldn't be anything good about that."
"Stay close to me. If I call, come quick."
He nodded, and after a while said, "I could survive here, though, if I had to. I mean if …"
"Kevin, no ifs. Please."
"I only mean I wouldn't be in the danger you would be in."
"No." But he'd be in another kind of danger. A place like this would endanger him in a way I didn't want to talk to him about. If he was stranded here for years, some part of this place would rub off on him. No large part, I knew. But if he survived here, it would be because he managed to tolerate the life here. He wouldn't have to take part in it, but he would have to keep quiet about it. Free speech and press hadn't done too well in the ante bellum South. Kevin wouldn't do too well either. The place, the time would either kill him outright or mark him somehow. I didn't like either possibility.
"Dana."
I looked at him.
"Don't worry. We arrived together and we'll leave together."
I didn't stop worrying, but I smiled and changed the subject. "How's Rufus? I heard him screaming."
"Poor kid. I was glad when he passed out. The doctor gave him some opium, but the pain seemed to reach him right through it. I had to help hold him."
"Opium … will he be all right?"
"The doctor thought so. Although I don't know how much a doctor's opinion is worth in this time."
"I hope he's right. I hope Rufus has used up all his bad luck just in getting the set of parents he's stuck with."
Kevin lifted one arm and turned it to show me a set of long bloody scratches.
"Margaret Weylin," I said softly.
"She shouldn't have been there," he said. "When she finished with me, she started on the doctor. 'Stop hurting my baby!'"
I shook my head. "What are we going to do, Kevin? Even if these people were sane, we couldn't stay here among them."
"Yes we can."
I turned to stare at him.
"I made up a story for Weylin to explain why we were here—and why we were broke. He offered me a job."
"Doing what?"
"Tutoring your little friend. Seems he doesn't read or write any better than he climbs trees."
"But … doesn't he go to school?"
"Not while that leg is healing. And his father doesn't want him to fall any farther behind than he already is."
"Is he behind others his age?"
"Weylin seemed to think so. He didn't come right out and say it, but I think he's afraid the kid isn't very bright."
"I'm surprised he cares one way or the other, and I think he's wrong. But for once Rufus's bad luck is our good luck. I doubt that we'll be here long enough for you to collect any of your salary, but at least while we're here, we'll have food and shelter."
"That's what I thought when I accepted."
"And what about me?"
"You?"
"Weylin didn't say anything about me?"
"No. Why should he? If I stay here, he knows you stay too."
"Yes." I smiled. "You're right. If you didn't remember me in your bargaining, why should he? I'll bet he won't forget me though when he has work that needs to be done."
"Wait a minute, you don't have to work for him. You're not supposed to belong to him."
"No, but I'm here. And I'm supposed to be a slave. What's a slave for, but to work? Believe me, he'll find something for me to do—or he would if I didn't plan to find my own work before he gets around to me."
He frowned. "You want to work?"
"I want to … I have to make a place for myself here. That means work. I think everyone here, black and white, will resent me if I don't work. And I need friends. I need all the friends I can make here, Kevin. You might not be with me when I come here again. If I come here again."
"And unless that kid gets a lot more careful, you will come here again."
I sighed. "It looks that way."
"I hate to think of your working for these people." He shook his head. "I hate to think of you playing the part of a slave at all."
"We knew I'd have to do it."
He said nothing.
"Call me away from them now and then, Kevin. Just to remind them that whatever I am, they don't own me … yet."
He shook his head again angrily in what looked like a refusal, but I knew he'd do it.
"What lies did you tell Weylin about us?" I asked him. "The way people ask questions around here, we'd better make sure we're both telling the same story."
For several seconds, he said nothing.
"Kevin?"
He took a deep breath. "I'm supposed to be a writer from New York," he said finally. "God help us if we meet any New Yorkers. I'm traveling through the South doing research for a book. I have no money because I drank with the wrong people a few days ago and was robbed. All I have left is you. I bought you before I was robbed because you could read and write. I thought you could help me in my work as well as be of use otherwise."
"Did he believe that?"
"It's possible that he did. He was already pretty sure you could read and write. That's one reason he seemed so suspicious and mistrustful. Educated slaves aren't popular around here."
I shrugged. "So Nigel has been telling me."
"Weylin doesn't like the way you talk. I don't think he's had much education himself, and he resents you. I don't think he'll bother you—I wouldn't stay here if I did. But keep out of his way as much as you can."
"Gladly. I plan to fit myself into the cookhouse if I can. I'm going to tell Sarah you want me to learn how to cook for you."
He gave a short laugh. "I'd better tell you the rest of the story I told Weylin. If Sarah hears it all, she might teach you how to put a little poison in my food."
I think I jumped.
"Weylin was warning me that it was dangerous to keep a slave like you—educated, maybe kidnapped from a free state—as far north as this. He said I ought to sell you to some trader heading for Georgia or Louisiana before you ran away and I lost my investment. That gave me the idea to tell him I planned to sell you in Louisiana because that was where my journey ended—and I'd heard I could make a nice profit on you down there.
"That seemed to please him and he told me I was right—prices were better in Louisiana if I could hold on to you until I got you there. So I said educated or not, you weren't likely to run away from me because I'd promised to take you back to New York with me and set you free. I told him you didn't really want to leave me right now anyway. He got the idea."
"You make yourself sound disgusting."
"I know. I think I was trying to at the end—trying to see whether anything I did to you could make me someone he wouldn't want anywhere near his kid. I think he did cool a little toward me when I said I'd promised you freedom, but he didn't say anything."
"What were you trying to do? Lose the job you'd just gotten?"
"No, but while I was talking to him, all I could think was that you might be coming back here alone someday. I kept trying to find the humanity in him to reassure myself that you would be all right."
"Oh, he's human enough. If he were of a little higher social class, he might even have been disgusted enough with your bragging not to want you around. But he wouldn't have had the right to stop you from betraying me. I'm your private property. He'd respect that."
"You call that human? I'm going to do all I can to see that you never come here alone again."
I leaned back against the tree, watching him. "Just in case I do, Kevin, let's take out some insurance."
"What?"
"Let me help you with Rufus as much as I can. Let's see what we can do to keep him from growing up into a red-haired version of his father."