Freeman (36 page)

Sam waited until Ben had disappeared. Then he turned in the direction opposite his friend and walked away. It wasn’t long before he couldn’t hear the blacksmith’s hammer at all.

George Flowers was almost 14 years old and that, he felt, was too old for a tanning. Yet Pa had tanned him anyway, but good, on hearing from that nigger how George had stolen Pa’s squirrel gun and shot that other nigger, the big one, in the arm.

With that, George’s mortification was complete. Not only had the fellows seen him forced to back down from that highfalutin Yankee strumpet on Main Street, not only had they seen him tuck tail and run from that big nigger in the alley behind the warehouse, but now they also knew he had been taken over one knee like some baby still in short pants. After all that, how could he ever hold his head up in town again?

He could not.

So last night, George had slipped down to the water, untied Pa’s raft, and struck off down the river to seek his fortune. This, he knew, would only make Pa angrier; he used his rafts to barter and trade and occasionally earn a few pennies providing transport to towns too small or too ruined to be served by the steamboats. But George didn’t care. He would go to Vicksburg, maybe even all the way down to New Orleans, and start his life anew.

At least, that had been the plan. But now, a day and a half later, lying on his back lulled by the late afternoon sun and by the gentle rocking of the raft down the center of the big river, George’s intentions had begun to soften around the edges. He thought of how distraught Ma would be at the thought of her oldest child adrift in the world, heaven only knew where. He thought of Seth, his seven-year-old brother, and how lost he would be
without George to show him how to play base ball or shoot marbles. He even thought of Pa a little and how maybe he wasn’t really the worst father in the world. After all, Dewey Jacobs’s father drank all the time and beat the tar out of Dewey on a regular basis. Pa only tanned George when he misbehaved.

A bank of clouds slid across the face of the sun. Maybe, thought George, he should just go back and take his medicine. It might not even be as bad as all that. They might be so happy to see him that all would be forgiven. And besides, he was beginning to get hungry.

George had about talked himself into beaching the raft and beginning the long walk home. But the sun felt so good upon his face and the current was so slow and peaceful. The river, when it was in a good mood, had this way of making you feel contented within the moment, making you feel that all was right with the world. Surely, he told himself, there would be no harm in resting here a few minutes more.

He slept without knowing.

He woke without knowing at first what had wakened him. He was surprised to see that darkness had pulled itself across the sky and the shore had become a region of shadows broken only here and there by pinpricks of light. Above, the moon was a crescent shape, painting the ridges of the water in a pale white gleam. He reached for the lantern, cursing himself for not having lit it before.

The sounds came all at once, freezing every part of him except his bladder, which, to his horror, released its contents in a free-flowing stream he could not control. Because he knew those sounds, the warning bells, the frantic shouts and cursing, the chopping of blade against water and underlying it all, the deep groaning of the mighty engine. He knew those sounds all right, and when he wheeled about, he was horrified but not at all surprised to see the blazing lights of the steamboat towering over him. And all at once he remembered his father’s voice, all those times he had talked about how you had to hug the bank when you were piloting a raft downriver, because the steamboats owned the main channel. George had never quite listened.

He was pushing himself to his feet when the collision came, logs and bindings snapping with a grinding cracking sound as the boat rode up overtop the raft, splintering it like toothpicks. The boy went backwards into the water, arms flailing. He gulped a mouthful of river, went down into
the murky depths, then kicked hard toward the surface. His head broke the water and he found himself in the middle of a maelstrom, the steamboat towering high above him, somebody still cursing up a blue streak, the air still filled with the noise of collision. George spluttered and hacked, desperately treading water. He brought a hand up to rub his eyes and managed to clear his vision just in time to see a dark shape—a piece of broken timber—hurtling across the moon-streaked water, coming toward his face.

And that was the last George Flowers ever knew.

Prudence had just touched the phosphorous match to the lantern wick when there came a soft knocking at the side door of the old warehouse. She opened it and felt her heart choke on its own blood. “Mr. Wheaton,” she said.

He was leaning easily against the door jamb and to her surprise, he gave her a smile. “My friends call me Bo,” he told her.

“Which is why I shall call you Mr. Wheaton,” she replied, her hand going automatically for the reassuring lump of metal in the pocket of her skirt.

He saw her and laughed. “Told you before: you ain’t got no need for that little pea shooter of yours. ’Least, you don’t need it for protection from me. The rest of the town might be another matter.”

There was, she had to acknowledge grimly, some truth in that. For the last two days, white people had made it a point to walk past the school. They walked in twos and threes and larger groups down this end of the street where whites were rarely seen, going no particular place for no particular reason. Sometimes, they even stopped to mark the big building with hard glares. Making sure they were seen.

One grizzled old woman had approached her boldly just the day before as she stood at the door with Bonnie bidding the children goodbye. “You the one trying to raise the nigger army?” she demanded without preamble, her voice dripping vinegar. Bonnie had given her a pointed, meaningful look and Prudence had struggled to hold her temper and explain as politely
as she could that she had no intention of raising an army and that any suggestion to the contrary was just a misunderstanding.

The woman had grunted and walked away, unconvinced.

“What do you want, Mr. Wheaton?” Prudence asked the smirking face before her. All at once, she felt tired.

Bo Wheaton heaved a theatrical sigh. “You are a purely contrary woman, Mrs. Kent,” he said, though to Prudence, he seemed more amused than truly annoyed. “Always straight to business, that’s you. Don’t they believe in a little friendly small talk where you come from?”

“I have classes beginning in less than an hour, Mr. Wheaton. I haven’t time for small talk.”

A sour look. “Yes, well actually, I suppose that brings us to the business at hand.” Reaching into his vest pocket, he produced a folded sheaf of papers. “This is for you,” he said. “My father asked me to deliver it.”

Mystified, she accepted the papers, unfolded them and read what someone had penned in a spidery hand:

The rest was signatures, hundreds of them. The first name, signed with a defiant flourish, was Charles Wheaton’s.

Prudence glanced through the names, then looked up at him. She didn’t bother to hide her amusement. “‘Appurtenant?’” she said.

He colored a little, covered it with a shrug. “It means something that belongs to something else. They had lawyer Goodrich draw it up. They wanted it to be all nice and legal.”

“I know the word’s meaning,” she said. “I am simply surprised to find such lawyerly language in so blatantly illegal a document.”

“I told ’em you wouldn’t agree,” he said. He half mumbled this, as if to himself.

“Is your name here, Mr. Wheaton? I did not see it.”

Again, she had caught him off guard. She could tell in the way he blinked twice, then stammered. “No, I ain’t signed it,” he said. “Not yet.”

“Why have you not?”

He lifted his hat from his head, brushed a hand back through his hair. “Well, doggone it, I thought, see, you don’t understand how things are down here, you being from someplace else and all. I know my pa tried to tell you, but he can be a hard man on the subject, especially since losing his legs in the war. And I know you’re a spitfire yourself. You get your back up if you think anybody is tryin’ to push you too hard. And I just thought if somebody was patient with you and took their time and explained it real gentle like, maybe then you’d see our side of things.”

“And would that someone be you?”

“I thought we could go for a ride along the river, maybe this evening after supper, just the two of us, and we could talk. You know, get an understanding.”

An incredulous laugh. “Mr. Wheaton, are you trying to woo me?”

He reared back. “No,” he said, “no, I just thought…that is, I hoped maybe…”

She laughed at him. It was the gayest, freest laughter she had known in a very long time. She tried to make herself stop, especially as the coloring in his cheeks turned a deeper plum red, and she saw icebergs swimming in the pale blue lakes of his eyes. It took her a moment.

“I am sorry,” she said. “It’s just…”

“I’m sure there’s no need for you to apologize,” he said, and now his voice was stiff as new denim.

“It is just the last thing I would have expected,” she said.

“Mrs. Kent, I assure you, you read me wrong,” he told her. “I only thought to extend a kindness to you, you being from Yankee country and having no idea of our customs down here. I only thought to help you, but I see my intentions are misread…again. Anyway, I have done what I came to do. You have the petition now and…”

He paused and then, as if on sudden thought, he jammed the hat back on his head and snatched the papers from her. From his vest pocket, he produced a stubby pencil. Bracing the papers against the door jamb, he flipped to the last page and there, he inscribed his name.

“There,” he said, handing the petition back to her. “My oversight is corrected.”

He lifted his hat, gave her a formal bow. “Good day, Mrs. Kent.”

Bo was glad to get away before she could say something else to make him hem and haw like a beardless boy. He walked down the middle of Main Street feeling small, shrunken by her laughter, not seeing much of anything, though he did absently mark the two little colored girls walking toward the school, books pressed to their chests, chattering excitedly about whatever it was that excited people like that. It angered him all over again and he was seized with an urge—he knew it was childish even as he thought it—to pick up a rock and chunk it at them. How could anyone, even a Yankee down from Boston, think anything good would come of trying to teach the slaves? His father was right. All it did was leave them unfit for their natural work and give them pretensions they would never be able to fulfill.

He didn’t chunk the rock. He settled instead for kicking at a stray cur that came sniffing at his heel. The dog’s yelp followed him down Main to the white section of town.

Vern was where Bo had left him, standing next to the wagon tied up outside A.J. Socrates’s store. Horace, Socrates’s colored man, was just unlocking the door. Apparently, Vern had said something amusing and the both of them were laughing companionably about it as Bo walked up. For no reason he could name, the two of them laughing together made Bo angry all over again.

“Little late opening your master’s store this morning, ain’t you, Horace?” he snapped.

The Negro’s smile went away and he shook his head gravely. “No, sir,” he said. “Ain’t never late. Ain’t late now.” He produced a battered old pocket watch. “Ain’t but 7:30, sir. Marse Socrates, he give me til 8:00 to open.”