Grace (13 page)

“Why you want to know?” I say.

“Hell, girl, you already told it.”

I won't look at her.

“You kill somebody? Another slave? No, no . . . This is something big. Somebody that mattered.” She gets excited again. “A white woman? A man!”

My crying quivers out of me.

“I don't believe it!” she say, and rushes her face close to mine, almost touching my nose with hers. “You did!”

She lifts my arms, pulling me up to a stand. “Oh, let me look at you. Yep, you a killa. I didn't see that one right off. Well, one thing's certain . . . you better not try that shit with me.”

After a moment more of her threatening look, she gets excited again, hurries back to her vanity, zips opens her special drawer, and unlocks the silver box she keeps inside. Her funny-smelling tobacca is in there. It looks like dried grasses.

She takes a pinch and pokes it along the middle of her smoking paper, adds tobacco, and rolls a fat one. She lights it with her burning candle and takes a long drag, relaxes.

“Them plantation owners is bad news,” she say. “Always messing around in their henhouses. Thas what happened, isn't it? Good girl like you. A little rebellious. About sixteen, seventeen. Still a virgin. I say you was overdue.” She takes one, two, three puffs, like she's swallowing the smoke, then blows it out, coughing. “Don't worry,” she say, “he deserved it.”

“You gon' kill me now?” I say.

“Kill you? Hell naw, you gon' save me. See, what you got is special. Something God sees as honorable—a virgin. I'm gon' do for you what my momma never did for me. I want God to see me protecting your innocence so he write my name in His Book.”

She puts her hand on my shoulder and shakes me like we got a deal.

But I ain't got nothin. Less than nothin since I lost Hazel. Momma.

Like all these days here, alive, have been extra time for no reason—a judgment so delayed that even telling Cynthia what I done didn't bring it. A confession wasted.

There's no mercy here.

17
/ 1862

Tallassee, Alabama

Y
OU CAIN
'
T REASON
with a fifteen-year-old girl who's convinced she's in love.

Seeing Jackson last night on her birthday was all the sure Josey needed. She was awake before eight this morning, smiling before she opened her eyes. She twirled Jackson's red bracelet around her wrist, then buried her face in her pillow, laughing in it. Took her 'til now to get out of the house and on the road. It's almost noon.

Her white headscarf is tucked in a bulge above her forehead, wonky, so a single lock of her blonde hair is swaying across her face.

She spent twenty minutes buttoning her skirt but still she skipped two buttonholes, so there's a bulge there, too.

A sweaty stem of a yellow flower is in her hand. She plucks one of its petals and sends it to the ground where it joins a trail of other petals and bald stems behind her.

“He loves me not,” she say.

She needs to be thinking about eating and watching where she's walking, not a boy, but this is love. She already stopped two people on the way to the yard, asking if it was almost eight o'clock—the time she'll meet Jackson again.

She takes the next petal off her crumpled flower—there are only two left—so with the first petal she pulls she keeps the odds in her favor and say, “He loves me not.”

Rain begins to splatter on the ground, spreading dirt into tiny circles. Her new-plucked petal falls, adding color to the mud.

“Josey!” Ada Mae calls, running toward her from the top of the road. Her thousand-toothed smile is like a white corncob set sideways and bent up on both ends. “You hear the rumor?” she say, squealing. “We free!”

Josey's confused.

I'm confused. Could it have finally come?

Everett overruns 'em and almost knocks 'em over. “More than a rumor,” he say, shouting. “The president signed papers!”

“President?” Josey say. “The man nobody like?”

“But everybody got to do what he say. He make the law. Make the whole world mind him.”

“So, we could just leave?” Josey say. “But what about this war? The war's still raging.”

“It's safe, ain't it, Everett?” Ada Mae say. “But, you think they just gon' stop the fighting and let us walk on through their battlefield, north?”

“‘Not even a chicken could survive those fields,' is what I heard,” Josey say.

“Maybe they give us guns to protect ourselves,” Ada Mae say.

“And shoot white peoples?” Everett say. “Well . . . maybe if we join our Southern armies. Fight 'longside our masters . . .”

“And shoot white peoples!” Josey say. “You think Nelson will turn his back on you with a loaded weapon?”

“Maybe the president will come get us,” Ada Mae say.

“If he could get this far,” Josey say. “If he could win.”

“I ain't never seen the president before,” Ada Mae say.

“Well, I don't know if he come, or if he send somebody . . . ,” Everett say.

“And then take us where?” Josey say. “He'll be our new Massa?”

“No, we free!”

“I don't know what you mean, free.”

“Free mean free,” Everett say. “It's what Mr. Sam's gon' say. He about to make the announcement. Tell us what the 'Mancipation Proclamation paper mean. What we got to do to get it . . .”

“When Mr. Sam gon' tell us this?”

“Now!” Everett say. “Everybody going to the meeting now.”

“Now! I gotta tell Daddy!”

“But the meeting's about to start,” Everett say, grabbing her hand. “Why don't you come with me. Your daddy's probably there already.”

“He wouldn't go without me.”

“I'll go with you,” Ada Mae tell Everett, smiling full of teeth.

Josey don't wait for them to leave before she does. She darts between trees, using 'em for shelter from the new pouring rain. She steps out of the hollow near her front door and gets a running start to slide herself across the muddied way to the door with her arms held out to her sides to keep from falling over. “Daddy!” she yells.

No answer.

“Daddy!”

Charles ain't inside.

Just as Josey pushes the door open, something catches her eye in the woods behind her. She touches her bracelet, whispers, “Jackson.”

I wait at the door when she goes back to the place she first met him.

She walks inside the hollow and I hear her calling to the boy, “Jackson?” I go with her.

A bright green frog hops across her path and she shoos it. I wish I could shoo it, too, chase it with her, hold her hand, enjoy this rumored freedom 'cause there's hope in it right now even if its meaning is lost.

If I could talk to Josey, I'd tell her to always enjoy the present. To live in it. I'd tell her about love, too. I'd tell her the love she has for this boy, she'll feel again. I'd tell her about real love. Tell her to not be fooled by what feels real. Tell her to get married like I never could. Tell
her to marry someone who's kind. I'd tell her to make herself kinder by learning to care for people with bad attitudes and nothing to offer 'cause the kindness she measures to others will be measured back to her. I'd tell her that in the end, we'll all need somebody to take care of us, if we live long enough. If we get old. That's when it'll matter most. When we're living the consequence of our old yeses and nos. And if you're lucky, I'd tell her, your caregiver will be your own spouse because you'd have paid for that privilege with your commitment. And if not your husband, let it be someone you love and loves you.

I take a look around and share this present with her.

“Massa George?” I hear Josey say. “Somethin I can do for you, suh?” I hear her muddled scream before I can reach her.

His hand is at her throat and her eyes are wide. She grabs his hand and a squeak like a quick-blown whistle shoots from her mouth but cain't nobody hear her but me. She swings her hands, her feet, at his body but he sends his fist to her cheek. She's limp.

Jesus! I don't know what to do! Tell me what to do!

He grabs her by her blouse and drags her moaning along the ground. Her headscarf unravels, her blouse rips away. He holds her under the armpits, pulling her deeper into the woods, then drops her in a patch of dirt he already prepared for this. George straddles her, pulls his belt from his loops one-handed and wraps it around her throat, pulls it tight, then loosens it.

Josey wakes and flails wild on the ground, tugging at the belt, her nails break against the leather, the sharp broken bits scratch down his arm, slicing thin lines. The belt strap slips from his hand. She screams hoarse, out of breath. He finds the strap again, pulls harder, like reins.

A smirk grows on his face as her fight weakens. He double loops the strap around his whole fist.

Josey stops. Her eyes roll back. He loosens the leather and moments pass. She takes a life-saving breath. Coughs. He say, “You scream again, I swear I'll kill you.”

Something nearby in the bushes moves and George looks over his shoulder. Just for a second. Enough for Josey to kick him square in the jaw. She leaps up, confused and running in the wrong direction. He dives on her back, puts his full weight on her, anchors her down 'til she shrinks to her knees. He puts his hand on the back of her neck, pushes her face down in the ground, presses her cheek in the dirt. He bites her shoulder through the skin. She screams. He rolls her over, puts his knee in her stomach. She reaches for his face. Too short's her arms. She only huffs beneath him now. A whistle joins her exhales.

“Please,” she say. He reaches for a low branch and runs his hand down it to rip the leafs off. He shoves the leafs in her mouth, turns her over, face down in the mud, sits on her spine, both his hands pressed down on her shoulder blades. Tree roots, like dead fingers, have risen from the wet ground and press against her throat, crushing her windpipe.

He shifts her head and she breathes.

“Please, God,” I say. “Please kill this man right now. Burn him up. Stab him through the heart. Please!”

Josey cries loud and hollow. He pushes her back on the root 'til she cain't make a sound.

I kick up the wind, make tornadoes of leaves and dirt, send it to his face. He only brushes them away. “God, have mercy. Please kill this man! Please, God? Please?”

Josey stops moving.

Only he's moving now. Grunting.

The only thing I can do: I lay down on the forest floor with her. See her breathing. Just enough. We lay together. Stay still together. I imagine I kiss her tears. I imagine I stroke her forehead. Whisper, “You ain't alone.”

Part
III

18
/ FLASH

Conyers, Georgia, 1847

T
HE HOT
G
EORGIA
sun is beating down on all of us, 'fectin me most 'cause I'm the only one that got to walk in it. Cynthia sent me to the apothecary to get some medicine for Bernadette. I forgot the sheet of paper with the medicine's name written on it but I already know. It's the same as always. Coca leafs.

The heat is keeping the streets mostly clear except for the white children playing in 'em, a few shades darker than usual, their winter skins brown. White women are posed under the shade of storefronts with their pink and blue dresses on, fanning themselves softly like it ain't that hot. But in the shack far behind the shops, black women are sitting side-by-side across the porch, wide-legged and perched back on their hands, welcoming a breeze. Their skirts are scrunched up to their waists showing their hand-washed britches.

White men roll by on horse-drawn wagons crumbling rocks beneath 'em and spraying out dirt, stinging my arm. Some old bits of grass get caught on my face and stick to the sweat. And other men are walking around with no shirts on, or thin garments with their nipples and nuts showing through their clothes. It ain't fair they tell women to wear something like a baggie sleeve from neck to ankle even in a heat wave.
The religious ones tell her it's what God wants. To honor her body. When really it's to make women servants to those men's sin because they cain't see women the way God intended—not everybody's a possible lover—sisters and brothers, maybe. But those men blame her instead of asking God to cleanse and fix them. Around women, those men are always halfway in hell. Double-minded.

I stagger up the porch steps and into the brothel. Inside's as hot as out and Cynthia's complaining in the corner like it's gon' make God turn off the heat.

“It's about time,” she say to me. “Put it on the counter and go wash your hands out back.”

I love the way Jeremy play piano.

He looks like a stray cat sitting over there all spit-cleaned and skinny. He's playing a slow and easy melody, erasing the stains of this place. Even though Cynthia hired him to play for the house, I think he only plays for me.

He's real good with his fingers.

Cynthia told him she gon' cut 'em off if she catch him touching my hand again when I pass him by to serve drinks. So I don't go near him this time. Instead, I pass Bobby Lee and another man sitting at the side table near the mouth of the hallway. It's the first time I've seen Bobby Lee this close without his hat pulled all the way down and his arms crossed high on his chest.

Down the hall, in the back room, the washbasin is filled with already-dirty water but it's cleaner than me so I rinse my hands in it. I can still hear Cynthia yelling, “It's too damn hot to screw!” and, “Percy, move over. It's already hot as hell in here. I don't need you breathing on me, too.”

But Jeremy's music stirs. It covers the squeal of her voice with the smoothest song I ever heard. It's the only slow song he know.

I bury my face in a cool towel, pat it slowly, then pinch my cheeks sore to remind myself not to smile too happy if Jeremy look at me 'cause Cynthia might see.

He don't never look at no other girls. The only reason he's here at all is the debts he got to pay off, even some he owe Cynthia. She told him he needed to stop selling his family heirlooms and get another job. It's why she gave him one. It's like she thinks she's part responsible for him. Knew Jeremy's daddy before he passed. His daddy sold her this brothel even though she a woman. Almost impossible to repay the favor.

When I get back in the saloon, Cynthia's standing across the room squirming in her low-cut dress, picking at her lace stockings. She cracks her toe knuckles when she takes her feet out of her heels.

I take a pitcher of water from near the front door and pour two short glasses full while I watch Sam through the window. He's out front talking to some plantation owners. Been out there since before I left. I don't know why Cynthia ain't called him in yet 'cause whatever news he getting cain't be good and he should be working. Ray joined 'em a second ago and already he riled up, pacing, and threatening to hurt somebody.

“Bring me some water,” Cynthia tell me, keeping her eye on them outside.

I meant to bring her the water directly but I caught Jeremy smiling at me. It makes me flush.

I pick up the pitcher and pour water on the wrong side of the glass, drench my dress, splash the floor.

“I can damn well do it myself,” Cynthia say, getting out her chair, coming for her pitcher. Sam and Ray come back through the door.

“Who you out there talkin to?” Cynthia say to Sam.

“Authorities,” Sam say. “Found the body of a plantation owner over in Alabama. Don't know who did it. Got the rest of 'em scared.”

My stomach lurches.

“Goddamn niggers, that's who!” Ray say. “And . . .”

“I didn't ask you, Ray,” Cynthia say.

“Then
you
tell her, Sam. Tell her what some nigger did.”

Jeremy's melody starts to fade from my hearing, and the sound of my own heart is loud as a drum at my ear.

Sam goes behind the bar, leaving Ray standing next to me and everybody else waiting for Sam's answer. Even Jeremy stops playing.

My hands tremble and I hug the pitcher to my chest to stop 'em. Without a word, Sam picks up a wet glass and dries it.

“The whole household was killed,” Ray say. “The nigger stud, too. Three bodies, all . . .”

My hearing goes.

He spits as he talks. His words become noiseless sprays on my hands—soapsuds of colorless spit bubbles piled into tiny dome clusters there. They stretch and thin and turn from pink to yellow, then pop in rhythm, one after the other, leaving tiny white circles on my brown skin.

“No one knows who did it,” Sam say, bringing the noise back. “Anything more is gossip.”

“Ain't gossip,” Ray say. “It's the truth. Somebody dark was seen running from the scene.”

“Could've been a shadow,” Sam say. “Everybody looks dark at night.”

“Not as dark as the nigger who did it. I'd bet on it. Bounty hunters followed his tracks for miles. Damn near to this place.”

“Wasn't nowhere near here,” Sam say. “Happened ten miles from Faunsdale. That's still seventy or more miles from here. Could've gone anywhere.”

I hold my breath, feel sweat on my face. Jeremy begins his piano again. His low notes like a funeral hymn inside me.

“So it was a
him
,” Cynthia say.

“At least six-one, six-two, six-three foot tall,” Ray say, stretching his arms up high like I did the night I ran with the coat above my head. “That's what the witnesses said. Broad shoulders. But I heard some of their females get big as seven foot in Alabama.”

Ray reaches for the water pitcher in my hand and tugs at it. His quick movements almost send me out my damp skin. I want to let go of it but I cain't. My hands done taken root in it. Our eyes meet. Dead center. His brown eyes are cold blue. He say, “Where you say you from?”

“None of your damn business, is where,” Cynthia say. “Five feet nothin, she is.”

“She black. Maybe she know who done it.”

“Give that fool the pitcher, Naomi,
after
you pour me the water I asked for twenty minutes ago.”

“I'm puttin my hat in it,” Ray say. “Me and my cousins. We gon' find who done it, get the reward.”

I unstick my fingers from the pitcher and pour a glass for Cynthia and take a deep breath before I give it to her, feel my racing heartbeats slow—just a little.