The Life and Times of Persimmon Wilson Page 11

  I heard the rustle of Sup swinging his legs off the edge of his pallet. “I cain’t sleep,” he said. “Holmes ridin’ through keepin’ me ’wake.”

  “Ain’t none of us sleepin’,” Henry said.

  Sup stood and stoked the fire, and soon got it going again, the room lighted with its shuddering glow.

  “What you got there, Shoot?” Henry asked.

  I turned to face him. “Little noose,” I said.

  “Lemme see.”

  I reached across the space between our pallets and passed the noose to Henry. “Where you get this?” Henry asked.

  I sat up, swinging my legs off the edge of my pallet, watching as Henry pulled on the rope and closed the noose around his finger. I told him about One-Eyed Jim’s hanging, the single drumbeat, the boys selling these as souvenirs. We heard the sound of the horse riding through the quarters once again. Henry sat up and handed the little noose back to me. “You best get goin’, Shoot, if you goin’.” He reached out his hand and I grasped it in mine. Sup too.

  “How did you know?” I asked.

  “Jest knew,” Sup answered.

  “You might fool them white folk, but you cain’t fool us,” Henry said.

  I put the little noose in my pocket. I pulled on my shoes and tied their laces. I rolled up my blanket and tucked it under my arm. I shook their hands once again. Henry stood and pulled me into an embrace.

  “Good luck to you, Persimmon Wilson,” Henry said.

  “Be safe,” Sup said.

  The night was cool and misty and I made my way from shadow to shadow, sliding between the cabins, hiding behind trees and whatever else I could find. I was behind a wagon when I heard the sound of an approaching rider. It was Holmes, all right. I could see him as he passed. He would have to stop this patrolling at some point, and when he did it might be Master Wilson who took over riding through the quarters.

  Once Holmes had passed, I sneaked along, hiding here and there, behind whatever cover I could find, sometimes flattening myself on the ground along the edge of the cane field, other times hiding behind barns. Twice more Holmes rode through, and twice more I eluded him until at last I reached the sugarhouse and slipped inside its darkness.

  She was not there. I called softly to her, but there was no answer. I waited beside one of the kettles, my body tensing at every sound. Once the doors to the sugarhouse creaked and swayed slightly as if they were about to be opened, but it must have been the wind. I reached into my pocket and fingered the little noose, and felt the folded paper of Chloe’s note. An hour passed. Another. My muscles cramped and I stood to stretch. I judged it past midnight now, and still there was the sound of Holmes circling the property. I sat again. I listened to him go around and around, and waited and waited for Chloe to appear.

  With each circle of Holmes on his horse, hope seeped away from me and pooled at my feet, as useless as spilled blood, until finally all hope was gone and I knew that she would not be coming. The hours of darkness before dawn, hours of darkness we needed in which to escape, were too few now.

  A horse neighed outside and I shrunk behind one of the kettles. The door opened. I saw the outline of Holmes standing there, legs spread wide, the whip coiled in his hand. He peered through the darkness, then he stepped back and let the door shut behind him, and soon I heard him ride away, this time toward the stable. I listened closely for the sounds of his replacement but there were none. No voices of Holmes and Wilson discussing events of the night, no jingling of tack as a horse was mounted, no pounding hooves circling the quarters and the fields any longer. Master Wilson, I was sure, was sleeping soundly, and could not be bothered with patrol. And Chloe, I was sure, lay awake beside him.

  I heard the sleepy peep of a waking bird and could dimly see a change in the light through the crack in the sugarhouse door. I must return to my cabin; I must not be caught outside. Even though there was no patrol that I could determine, I crept again from cover to cover, for a slave who was not where he was supposed to be could never be too cautious. Finally I made it to the quarters and slipped between the cabins until I reached the last one along the lane. The land was hung in a heavy gray mist, and just before I opened our cabin door and tucked inside, I looked toward the big house, shrouded in this mist like a veiled heathen monster.

  Henry and Sup still lay in bed. They were awake, and they watched me brush the dirt from my clothes. The fire was dead, but I did not stoke it. I unfurled my blanket and spread it across my bed. I pulled my shoes off. I unbuttoned and tugged off my shirt. Then I pulled the note from Chloe out of my pocket and slid it again into the crack where wall met floor. “I sorry, Shoot,” Henry said.

  I nodded and lay down, and rolled over, away from the room, away from Henry and Sup, away from my life here at Sweetmore. I closed my eyes. I could not bear to think of Chloe, nor could I avoid it. Her face, her hair, her laugh, her fingers unbuttoning my shirt all floated into my mind, and as if they were inexorably entwined, Master Wilson floated there too. I could see his fat pudgy hands as he held them up to tell us that Missus Lila had passed away. I could see his boots that had kicked me, the spittle coming out of his mouth as he declared my punishment of fifty lashes, the mole on his neck. I thought of his penis, which he forced into Chloe night after night and I wanted to castrate him. I wanted to hang him. I wanted to let his body swing in the air above his wife’s grave, and may the buzzards feast on his putrid flesh.

  Lying on my pallet, in the cabin I had hoped to leave behind, I vowed that I would not give up, that I would not let him win, that I would see her again, that we would get away. I told myself these things again and again and again until at last I tired of my own thoughts and finally drifted into a troubled, hot sleep.

  The bell awakened me, calling us into the yard.

  “It goddamn Sunday,” Henry said. “Ain’t no fuckin’ workday.”

  We pulled on our clothes and our shoes, and we stepped out into the lane and lined up with all the rest. Holmes walked along in front of us, a ledger tucked under his arm, pointing to each slave and counting out loud as he did so. I could see the dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. “Two missing,” Holmes said. “Which ones?” We looked straight ahead, no one answering. Holmes opened the ledger. “Say here when I call your name.” He began his inventory, a chorus of “Here, suh. Here, suh,” following.

  I looked up at the big house. There was a buggy, not belonging to Master Wilson, pulled up out front. Then I saw Wilson and a man step out onto the porch.

  “Persy.”

  “Here, suh.”

  “Jonas and Timothy,” Holmes said at last, closing the ledger. Jonas and Timothy, the coffin builder and his son. “Missing,” Holmes continued. “Anyone want to tell me about that?” We were silent. “Didn’t think so. Get back to your cabins. Don’t let me see you outside today, you hear. Not a one of you.”

  “But it Sunday, suh,” some poor fool ventured to say.

  “I don’t care if it’s Christmas. Get on back to your cabin and stay there.” Holmes held his coiled whip in the air, and then opened his hand, letting it unfurl, its tip smacking the ground. “Lest you wanting this?”

  “Nawsuh, nawsuh, I be goin’ on.”

  Sup built up the fire and we sat on the edges of our pallets without talking. Finally Henry let out a sigh. “Christmas,” he said. “Like Christmas somethin’ special fo’ a nigger round here.” He lay back on his pallet and put his arms behind his head. Then he rose up, punched at his mattress, and lay back down.

  Sup looked at me. “What you want to do, Persy?” he asked.

  “Eat something,” I answered.

  We boiled a ration of bacon and ate it with our fingers, Henry rising out of his bed just long enough to share in this meal and then return to lying down and punching at his mattress again.

  “What now?” Sup asked.

  “Nothing to do,” I answered.

  Sup lay back on his pallet and sighed. He stared at the ceiling. I had the good for
tune that day of being exhausted from my night of waiting for Chloe in the sugarhouse, and I fell easily asleep, but once again the bell awakened me.

  Midmorning, noon, twice in midafternoon, the bell rang, the slaves lined up, Holmes counted us and then reminded us what a sorry bunch of niggers we were, reminded us that he had the whip, reminded us that a runaway could be hung, reminded us that we would never be free, reminded us how good we had it here at Sweetmore, taken care of, fed and housed, and then told us to return to our cabins and not be seen outside. We were counted four times during the day, and each time I noticed that there was a different buggy or horse not belonging to Wilson, pulled up outside of the big house. The last time I saw a man leave, Master Wilson followed him down the steps and shook his hand while standing in the yard. Between the inventories, I slept. But it was never enough, for it seemed as soon as I had drifted off the torture of the bell rang again.

  It rang a final time that day in early evening, just as Sup was stirring up cush-cush for dinner. “Damn shit,” he said. “We done stayed in. It supper time now.”

  We tromped outside once again. Master Wilson was there this time, standing on his favorite cabin stoop. Holmes counted us and reported that, minus Jonas and Timothy, we were all present. Wilson held up his hands.

  “My good people,” he said.

  I turned to look at Henry standing beside me. He gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. No white person had ever before called us people, and the word good had only been said when prefaced by the word be—Be good—unless a slave was dead or being sold, and then he was a good worker.

  “My good, good people,” Wilson continued. “Our very life, your homes, your livelihood, your rations, your women folk, your babies are at this moment under threat of attack. I will not lie to you; the Yankees are close by. They are just downriver at New Orleans. I know that some of you believe that the Yankees are here to set you free, but have I ever lied to you?”

  He had done nothing but lie to us, but we nodded and shuffled among ourselves and answered as expected.

  “Nawsuh.”

  “Nawsuh.”

  “You’s always been truthful with us,” Sally hollered out for good measure.

  I was afraid that my distaste for this theater was becoming unmanageable, for as we stood there listening to Master Wilson extol his virtue of honesty I could barely contain my rage. I could not help but imagine the scent of Chloe still on him, and of him on her.

  “No, I have never lied to you,” Wilson continued. “I have always treated you fairly, kept you sheltered, and fed you well, but now all that is threatened. These Yankees that are coming up the river, do not believe that they are friends to the nigger. They are not your friends. They will rape your women. They will steal your children. They will hitch you to a cart and make you pull it. You must know that yours is, unfortunately, an inferior race. You must know by now that I . . .” He beat his hand on his chest. “I have protected you and kept you safe. But I can no longer do that here.”

  Again a murmur went through our ranks.

  “I can no longer protect you from the scourge that is about to plague our land. We must leave here. It is imperative that we do so. I have arranged to keep you safe, every one of you. At great expense to myself I have done this for you, but it requires that we leave Sweetmore, and all that we love about this land.”

  A wave of movement undulated through our group. Again we murmured and whispered among ourselves.

  Wilson held up his hands and announced, “Tomorrow morning we will begin the long journey to Texas. It is the safest place for us. We will board a steamer, which I have commissioned to take us across the river. We depart first thing tomorrow. It is, as you know, a very sad day for me, for I have just lost my dear, sweet wife, and not long before that, my only son. Besides my family, and you, Sweetmore”—Wilson’s voice cracked—“is what I have always loved the most. I suppose I should be thankful that my wife and son are not here to see this. I know that it is a sad day for all of us, for all of you, for I can imagine that you do not wish to leave the cane that you took such care in planting, and that you will miss seeing all your hard work come to fruition. But we must be strong and brave together. Return to your cabins now, pack up your belongings, get plenty of rest. We leave first thing tomorrow morning.”

  At this Wilson stepped down from the stoop. Several of the slaves surrounded him. “Naw, Massuh. Naw. This here my home.”

  “My husband jest downriver,” Sally said.

  “My daughter down at Lidgewood,” another said.

  “Pa too old to make that trip,” someone said.

  Back at the cabin Sup built up the fire again and cooked the cush-cush. We ate, sitting on the edges of our pallets, listening for a long time to the crackling of the flames as they consumed the logs. Finally Henry spoke up in a fierce whisper. “Now the time to run, Persy, if you goin’.”

  “I’m not going without Chloe,” I said.

  “I goin’,” Sup said.

  “Me too,” Henry said. “Tonight. You come with us.”

  I shook my head. “Not without Chloe.”

  I stood and went to the hearth. I poked at the fire and a spray of sparks rose up, then I lay another log on and watched it catch.

  “She’d want you to be free,” Sup said.

  “I want her to be free.”

  “Ain’t nobody gonna hunt us down,” Henry said. “They too busy leavin’.”

  “Yeah.” I stood at the fireplace staring into the flames. It was the perfect time, what I had been waiting for all along.

  “If only you was in love with a field nigger instead of a house nigger, Shoot.”

  I shrugged. “But I’m not.”

  “So you goin’ to Texas?”

  “I reckon so. If Chloe’s going. And I don’t see she’s got much choice about it.”

  “Naw. I reckon she don’t.”

  “If I don’t ever see you again . . .” I could not finish my sentence. I had been so brave the night before, when I had been the one doing the leaving, but now it was Henry and Sup who would be gone, and I who would be staying behind, who would be traveling to Texas with Master Wilson, who would be choosing slavery and servitude over freedom.

  THE BELL rang long before daybreak. As soon as I woke I knew they were gone. The cabin felt like an empty husk without them, void of their breath, void of their spirits, no one here to call me Shoot or to cook the cush-cush. I got up and stoked the fire and by its light I saw that their blankets were stripped from their pallets, their shirts gone from their pegs. Henry’s hat gone too. One hoecake was left in the fry pan, and I sat on the edge of my pallet and ate it. I rolled my blanket up and slipped Chloe’s note into my pocket. I pulled on my shoes and laced them.

  Outside Holmes stood in front of one of the cabins with his whip coiled around one arm and his book of recorded names resting open in the crook of his other arm. A young boy held a lantern over the book that Holmes might see by its light, but it was easy to tell, even in the darkness, even without the book, that there were fewer of us than there had been the night before, gaps in our line where whole families once stood.

  Henry and Sup were gone of course, but also Sally; Jilly and her baby; Harriet and Sylvie; a man named Willis and his wife and two children; another man named Andrew, his wife, their newborn girl; another named Jacob, his wife, four children. Twenty in all stole away from Master Wilson in the night.

  Holmes made his marks in the ledger and then closed it with a heavy thump. “All right, you niggers,” he said, “what’s left of you. First thing we got to do is get the livestock onto the boat.” He started bellowing out orders, pointing directions with the handle of his whip. You here. You there. You get the horses. You the mules, the cows. Leave the chickens be.

  We spread out to the barns. I was assigned to help bring in the cows and we roped our animals and led them along the lane toward the quay. We stood on the levee waiting our turn, watching as lanterns swung wildly down below,
illuminating pieces of the scene as horses and mules were pushed and cussed and tugged into walking the planks that ran from the quay to the deck of the boat. Lantern light flashed on a face, and then on a horse’s ass, then Holmes and his whip, a slave’s hand, little waves in the river reflecting the gleam like a thousand twinkling stars. I heard a splash. “Nigger overboard,” Holmes yelled, and then a lantern was held close to the water, and I saw a man floundering in the river, and then a slave I knew as Blake lay stomach down on the deck of the ship and reached out that the man might grab hold of his wrist. Blake pulled him up and the man lay panting and coughing on the deck and I heard Holmes say, “Damn niggers. Can’t swim. Falling in the fucking river. Don’t be falling in the river no more.”

  “Yassuh.” The lantern swung away.

  I stood my turn, holding a cow and her calf by ropes tied around their necks. The calf leaned over, nudged my arm with her cold nose, and licked my hand with her soft tongue. I offered it a pair of fingers, and she sucked on them greedily as if they were a teat.

  It took hours to load the stock, but at last each horse, mule, and cow stood on the deck of the steamer, tied closely to the railing. Next loaded was a wagon, pushed and pulled by seven slaves, not horses or mules, lest a horse or a mule panic and fall into the river. I could see that the wagon was filled with meat from the smokehouse, saddles and tack piled into a mound beside it, along with one trunk, filled, I presumed, with a few of Wilson’s personal possessions. And then it was our turn, the slaves.

  The only boat I had ever traveled on was the one that had brought me to market in New Orleans. It was named Deliverance. I do not know what this boat was named, for it was dark still, and although I could see that there was printing along its side, I could not read it. It was not a huge steamer. It was midsized, with a paddle wheel on either side, extending up through a boxlike structure at the center of the deck, which was open on two ends. The large black smokestack rose above everything like a single tree left standing after a forest fire.