Sweetsmoke (11 page)

    He had
grown up loving the quality of the air of the plantation, seasoned as it was
with the sweet, sensual scent of curing tobacco. Cassius had lived his entire
life within that luxurious smell, so that it only stepped forward at certain
moments, to highlight the freshness of a day, or intensify a moment of human
kindness or dignity. Now, chained in the shed, the aroma encircled and forced
itself on him. As it mingled with his fury, it became cloying, thick and oily,
accented by a creeping suggestion of mold and the acrid bite of tar. By the
time he was released, he had learned to despise the smell.

    For
three days, the hands brought food and salve for his stripes, but despite his
questions, no one spoke a word about Marriah.

    After
Mr. Nettle and Big Gus released him, he emerged from the shed to find Hoke
waiting. Hoke said it was over and there was nothing Cassius could do, so he
might as well accept it. He told Cassius that he had restrained him for his own
good.

    He
returned to the quarters and found his cabin empty. The women saw him and began
to sob.

    Where
is she!?

    She's
dead, Cassius.

    The
sound of Savilla's voice rattled in his mind still. She's dead, Cassius, how
precisely it came to him even after the years in between…

    A
sound brought him out of his reverie. The handle turned to Emoline's front door
and brought him to his feet.

    "I
knew someone would come," Emoline's son said, stepping inside.
"Eventually." He wore a checked waistcoat over a clean white shirt.
He did not wear a hat. Cassius was struck by how much Richard Justice resembled
his father.

    Cassius
watched him prowl the room, stepping over a broken water jug and two smashed
plates. He wondered if Richard Justice had been the one to destroy the things
in his mother's home, as he would not have feared her curse. Cassius knew that
Richard had been hunting for his mother's money.

    "Looking
for something, Cassius?" he said, indicating the mess.

    No.

    "This
is the first time you've been here since it happened, I wager."

    Looks
like from when she was murdered.

    "Someone
searching."

    Find
anything?

    "I
don't know, did you?" Richard Justice watched carefully Cassius's
response. "No, perhaps not. You were fond of her, as I recall."

    Cassius
suddenly understood that it was Richard Justice who had torn the room apart.
You get what
you
were looking for? he said.

    Richard
Justice rubbed the root of his nose between his eyebrows with his left thumb
and forefinger, just like his father. "And what would that be?"

    Cassius
smiled, but he felt anger boil up inside him. At that moment, if he were to
discover that Richard Justice had killed Emoline, Cassius would kill him and he
would get away with it. It was easier to kill a free black. As he was no one's
property, you would not be depriving a white man of his future value in the
form of hard work. The sheriff would see it as just another dead nigger, which
is how he obviously saw Emoline's death.

    Who
killed your mother, Richard?

    "Wasn't
me. Was it you? What are you doing here, Cassius?"

    You
said you knew someone would come.

    "And
now I find it's you. Did you come out of love, out of respect?"

    Why
do you think?

    "I
think you came for her money."

    Ah,
said Cassius. Her money.

    "You
were close to her, where is it?"

    Don't
know.

    "Why
do I not believe you?"

    You
think I'd sit here if I knew where it was?

    "Do
not bandy with me, Cassius, I'm a free man. If I choose, I can have them take
you—"

    You're
free till some white drunk rips up your free papers and sells you for a pint.
Don't threaten me, Richard.

    Richard
Justice raised his hands in a defensive gesture. "Very well, Cassius. Very
well. But that money is rightfully mine. And I need it."

    Yes, I
suppose I know that.

    "You
know?" Richard Justice appeared suspicious.

    Your
sisters. You been working to buy their freedom. With Emoline's money, you can
free at least one of them.

    "That
is precisely correct," said Richard Justice.

    Cassius
considered whether someone else had killed Emoline over money. He did not think
it was Richard Justice. Richard Justice liked to gamble. Even a free black was
at the mercy of whites when it came to fairness. Richard Justice assumed he was
unlucky, but Cassius suspected that his poor luck was aided by the collective
design of his gambling rivals.

    A
face appeared in the window behind Richard Justice. Cassius's eyes met her
eyes, but he looked away so that Richard Justice would not know. A moment later
the window betrayed nothing.

    Cassius
wondered if she would wait.

    Tell
me something. Did you love her? said Cassius.

    "She
was my mother."

    Funny
answer. Did she love you?

    "She
made me what I am."

    Yes.
Hard and distant, even where it concerned her.

    "You
neglected selfish. All things that I would need to survive as a black piece of
property in this world."

    She
did you a kindness, then, said Cassius.

    "I
will be off; I do not like being here."

    I
will stay.

    Richard
Justice smiled. "To look around."

    Possibly.

    "And
if you find something?"

    You
know where I am.

    "At
the Big-To-Do tomorrow?"

    There,
too, said Cassius nodding.

    "If
I hear you've come into an unusual sum of money, we will speak again."

    No
doubt, said Cassius.

    Richard
Justice left the door ajar and a brisk hot wind rushed in. Cassius sat a
moment, listening to Emoline's son's footsteps move away from the house, then
he was up, stepping out and closing the door behind him to eliminate the small
patch of light that leaked from the lantern.

    Cassius
stepped behind a tree and listened. The street swarmed with the song of
crickets, flickering lights glowed behind windows, and Cassius leaned to look
in every direction. Windows were open in the small homes of the poor whites and
he would have to be quiet. He heard laughter from the tavern in the next
street. As Cassius was about to move from behind the tree, a thick white woman
stepped into the frame of her front door and swung a basin of soapy gray water
to douse the roots of a climbing rosebush. She wiped a damp curl off her
forehead and returned inside. He stayed behind the tree a moment longer. From
his position, he considered the places the woman who had appeared at the window
might hide, if she had indeed remained behind.

    He
stepped around the corner to the window, but found no one lurking under the
ledge. Across from the window sat a small house surrounded by low bushes with
windows closed and dark. He looked both ways and took a step into the road and
something moved behind the bushes. He was quick to round the hedge and grabbed
her by the arm.

    What're
you doing here? said Cassius.

    Lookin
for Miss Emoline, said the woman. Let go my arm.

    Cassius
did not let go.

    What's
your name?

    Maryanne.
Where Miss Emoline? I ain't seen her in there.

    Cassius
cocked his head. You telling me you don't know?

    What
I knows is I'se suppose to meet her. Who're
you?

    She's
not here, why you meeting her?

    Give
her somethin, that your business?

    Cassius
let go of her arm and said: Better not be seen out here.

    Cassius
led her across the road to Emoline's door and inside.

    Why
there no fire in here? said Maryanne. This ain't right, Miss Emoline never be
lettin her fire go out.

    Miss
Emoline is gone.

    Where
she gone? You mess up her place, oh, honey, she goin be angry with you.

    No.
She won't.

    Maryanne
looked at his expression and understood.

    I
told her it be dangerous, she got herself in trouble and that mean trouble for
me.

    What
kind of trouble?

    Oh
no, said Maryanne.

    Emoline
Justice took care of me when I was sick.

    You
Cassius, then.

    After
a considered pause, Cassius nodded.

    Miss
Emoline told me 'bout you. Maryanne nodded now, as if retelling stories inside
her head, but inserting the man in front of her into the stories.

    So
you know you can trust me, said Cassius.

    I
don't know no such thing, only that
she
trust you.

    What
kind of trouble was she in?

    I'm
suppose to give her this. Now you take it.

    Maryanne
held up a packet. Cassius reached for it, but Maryanne thought twice and pulled
it back to watch his eyes. He kept his hand there but did not move it closer.
Slowly she moved the packet to his hand.

    My
massa, said Maryanne, he a cap'n in the Secesh Army, he quartermaster with that
General Lee. I travel along, his cook, and

    I'se
a good one. I gets papers and such from the cap'n when he ain't lookin and
bring 'em to her and she give 'em to somebody else who likes to know what
General Lee goin do.

    Cassius
glanced at the false wall he had built for Emoline. Stolen papers from a
Confederate captain. Meetings at night, information, secrets.

    What's
your master's name?

    Cap'n
Solomon Whitacre, like I say, quartermaster. He got men and they travel 'round
gettin food for the army and such. He come through here regular, his wife and
children be livin up at that Jarvis place.

    Willa
Jarvis, said Cassius.

    She
the one, said Maryanne.

    Cassius
opened the packet and found a letter from Captain Whitacre to his wife.

    This
is a letter. How is it he doesn't notice when his letters go missing?

    Well,
I don't take 'em all. And anyway, he writin all the time, then ask me to mail
'em and the way things is, some get lost.

    Cassius
scanned the letter and saw that Whitacre was candid with his spouse and had
informed her that General Lee was planning to leave Richmond, and General T.
Jackson's command was to go north on the Virginia Central Railroad to
Gordonsville.

    You
readin that? said Maryanne.

    Cassius
refolded the letter, thinking about the meaning of this information. Why did
Emoline collect such information? What did she plan to do with it?

    I
seen it. You read that letter, said Maryanne.

    No, I
can't read. Tell me about these, said Cassius.

    I am
done tellin you, and done takin from Cap'n Solomon 'cause he lookin at me like
he know somethin.

    What
did she do with this information? She travel north?

    Miss
Emoline never leave here. You go on the road on you own, even if you free, bad
things happen.

    So
someone came to meet her.

    Don't
know for sure. Best not to know nothin. She force me to do it, say I got to if
I ever want be free. I knowed all along it never goin happen, and now that she
dead, I seen it for sure. Just another fancy dream, gonna be a slave all my
life and my children gonna die slaves.