Sweetsmoke (26 page)

    That
thin look in your cheeks.

    You
living in a dream, said Cassius, feeling exposed.

    That's
right, thin cheeks and your chin gets sharp and bony, so don't show off that
surprised look, Cassius, you think I don't know you? I know you.

    Cassius
tried to think of something to say, but nothing came, so he waited before he
said: Could probably have some of that cornbread you got baking.

    Won't
give you none of that.

    He
felt his temper shift.

    Thought
you just offered, said Cassius.

    Missus
Ellen got to feelin mean since that boy run off, she come in here and spit in
the batter, then say I should cook it up and serve it to the hands. Well, I
cooked it, but I ain't goin serve it 'less I serve it to them paddyrollers.
Maybe I wait a day and serve it back to her.

    Cassius
turned to go. Mam Rosie came up behind him, quickly packing something in a
clean rag, which he imagined was bread and pork cooked the day before.

    You watch
yourself, Cassius. Pet like to kill you for what you did, and she whisper in
Missus Ellen's ear. Pet be scary when she got somethin to be mad about, and she
got somethin to be mad about with you.

    All
right, Rose.

    Never
did much like that Tempie, but gettin sold, oh Lordy. She a hard one, but the
punishment rainin down on her now, wouldn't wish that on a dead dog.

    Cassius
again felt strange, responsible, a small fist closing on his heart. He did not
trust himself to speak, so he left the kitchen and stepped out into the hot
humid day and was glad after the hellish heat of the kitchen to have the sun
cool against his skin.

    White
men came and went in a prodigious show of force, the men who had not gone to
war, some who had bought their way out or had more than twenty slaves, some
older men with families and businesses and small farms, some from other
plantations, some from the town or from neighboring towns. Had it been a
premeditated display it could not have been more effective as the hands applied
themselves to their work while keeping eyes averted. Every one of the hands
understood the white mood and therefore the danger. Cassius felt the planter
rage, a rage specific and self-righteous, born of their belief that something
that had been settled was now unsettled and they were forced to revisit the
issue. Lessons would need to be re-taught, harshly this time, so they would not
be forgotten, so that it would be settled once and for all, and this, by God,
would be the last time. When these men rode off to hunt Joseph, they rode in a
fashion determined to impress the blacks, wearing their strength and authority
and supremacy on their sleeves. Any minor slip by their people, misinterpreted
or even accidental, would bring on instant, short-tempered retribution,
overwhelming force in response to indiscretion, an avalanche of righteous
indignation far beyond its warrant. And yet, Cassius contemplated their
ferocious masks and recognized something behind them, a hint of fear. He
respected their numbers and their rifles, backed by their laws and their
authority, but he began to understand their power as tenuous. These men
believed that if their slaves were to rise up in revolt, the planters could
well reap the whirlwind. As Cassius watched them throughout the morning, he saw
their authority as theater.

    "Cassius!
You there, Cassius, come here now, boy!" said Ellen.

    She
stood tall on the porch of the big house, her arm raised in the same manner as
Mam Rosie's nagging finger, but Ellen's finger was crooked downward, beckoning
him to the foot of the wooden steps. He walked evenly to the spot, not rushing
the way she would have liked, but not ambling defiantly. He expected to see Pet
standing a few steps behind her missus, and he was not disappointed. He tried
to anticipate Pet's revenge, but it occurred to him that Pet had not had enough
time to manufacture a plan, much less time to insinuate her plan into her
missus's ear. Cassius did not underestimate Pet, but he also did not overestimate
her intelligence, and he thought that, for the moment, he would be safe.

    "Cassius,
take the carriage to town to the dry goods and fetch supplies. Mr. O'Hannon has
our order so you will not require a list. As everyone else is out capturing the
runaway, it will have to be you."

    Happy
to tote for you, Missus, said Cassius.

    "I
don't know that I would send you under these circumstances if I felt there was
another way," said Ellen.

    I
understand, Missus.

    He
did not move from the spot.

    "Well?
Be off with you," she said.

    Need
a pass from Master Hoke.

    "You
know perfectly well that Master Hoke is away bringing back that runaway, and,
oh, very well, I will write the pass for you myself."

    Ellen
disappeared inside and Cassius watched Pet through the door. He tried to see
inside the house behind her, to know that

    Quashee
was all right, but as he was standing in bright sunlight, the room behind Pet
was too dark to discern anything.

    Pet
moved away. Idling, Cassius turned to see Mr. Nettle up on his huge roan
talking to Big Gus in the road that ran past the yard. Big Gus carried Mr.
Nettle's second rifle across his forearms, offering Mr. Nettle the gun. Mr.
Nettle would have found him in the fields and sent him running to his home to
fetch it. Big Gus looked up at Mr. Nettle in the saddle and on his face was an
expression of humility and faith. Mr. Nettle balanced the rifle between groin
and pommel and put his hand on Big Gus's shoulder affectionately, and Cassius
curdled inside.

    Cassius
drove the carriage to town. He tried to concentrate on what he would say to the
women on Emoline's list but his mind refused to focus. His thoughts wandered to
Joseph, and then to Pet, as if he had missed a warning. He knew this was a unique
opportunity, rarely did he have permission to enter town alone, and for that
reason he needed to utilize this time in the carriage to strategize, as a black
man contacting white women was a pernicious act. And yet there was Pet in his
thoughts as if she constituted a danger more immediate. Had she suggested
sending Cassius into town on his own? Was this journey her plan for revenge,
and where would he come upon the trap? He was concentrating so intently that he
barely noticed crossing over the little bridge. As he approached town, an odd
thing occurred to him: He had seen no patrollers on the road. Clearly the
hunters had expanded their circle, reckoning that with each passing hour Joseph
was farther away. Cassius wondered if Pet was so clever as to consider that
fact. He turned it over in every possible direction. By the time Cassius
reached the main street, he had carefully dismissed each of his complex
theories and come to the simple conclusion that Pet hoped he might see this as
an opportunity and run as well. That would resolve her vengeance, as the
punishment he deserved would be meted out by the patrollers, planters, and
hired slave catchers who already scoured the countryside. He was relieved by
this conclusion, and stopped trying to outthink her. But now he had no time to
plan his approach to Emoline's clients.

    He
guided the carriage down the alley alongside the dry goods store and stepped
down, walking to the back. He looked for Frederick the stock boy, but Cassius
saw no one among the crates and sacks. He idled a minute, then entered the
stockroom and made his way to the door to the main store. He leaned in and saw
O'Hannon with a customer, and stepped back. He did not want to deal with
O'Hannon. Frederick ran a little business on the side, and Cassius sometimes
held back from Weyman a few carved wooden soldiers and other pieces to trade
directly with Frederick for hard liquor or other items. Frederick treated
blacks in a manner as close to honest and straightforward as could be hoped
for. Cassius leaned forward again. The customer was a white woman whose name
escaped him. She fingered bolts of fine cloth laid out on the long table that
served as O'Hannon's main counter. O'Hannon gazed at her hands with blank
disinterest. She would buy nothing off this bolt, nor any of the other
high-priced bolts he had laid out for her, but he dutifully brought down the
special cloth and waited patiently until she finally called for the rough linen
or cotton or the indifferently loomed wool that she would purchase. The cabinet
behind O'Hannon was as high as his waist, the shelves above held ewers and clay
jars and jugs of various shapes and sizes. O'Hannon kept his small scale there,
while the larger rusted scale stood on the floor for bulk items. Along the far
wall were the big barrels brimming with barley, oats, and cornmeal, small
shovel scoops thrust into the grain. Closer was a barrel holding tools with
handles splayed out in myriad directions, hoes, axes, hammers. On the floor in
front of the cabinet stood copper pails, large crock pots with flat covers,
rough unlabeled muslin bags, and the small barrels holding nails.

    He
had not meant to loiter and was surprised to hear O'Hannon say, "Cassius,
I don't have your whole order together just yet." Cassius's acknowledged
presence had broken the spell, as O'Hannon walked away from waiting on the
woman so that she was able to enjoy the fine fabric without O'Hannon hovering.

    I got
time, said Cassius.

    "Probably
be half hour, Frederick's out on delivery. Mrs. Howard will be most happy about
the watercolor paints she was waiting on."

    Cassius
went out the way he had come.

    He
walked down the back alley behind the businesses where the mud was thicker and
the trash stank. He was safer walking here and made his way east. The
easternmost area of town housed the poor whites, the greatest concentration of
whom were in the southern section, primarily the Anglo-Saxon community; in the
northeast were the German immigrants, clustered in a smaller enclave. The small
German farms spread out to the north, farming some of the poorest soil in the
county. In between the two communities but closer to the Germans were the homes
of the few freed blacks, but as the white communities expanded, they began to
interlock around the black homes.

    The
houses were small and gave the impression that they were in need of repair.
Cassius attributed that more to hasty design, shoddy raw materials, and
apathetic craftsmanship rather than to a lack of upkeep. He located the house for
which he searched and, after his confident march, looked at it with
uncertainty. Many of the homes were similar. He knew her front door was white
and this door was white, but so was the door to the neighbor's dwelling. He
hesitated. He now doubted his memory. He chose a circle of shade under an
ancient maple and stood against its trunk, hoping for a chance sighting of the
house's inhabitant. The street was empty. For the moment, he was aware that he
was not surrounded, and he had an odd sensation of freedom. Yet he had little
time to spare on personal pleasure as a black man here would soon attract
attention. Minutes passed and his uncertainty grew as his need to get off the
street increased. Another minute and he decided to be bold. He would approach the
house and pay the price if he was wrong. And then he did not move, muscles
betraying his mental choice. In a burst of brio, he propelled himself out of
the shade to the wooden door painted white. He raised his fist to knock.

    She
opened the door and he removed his hat and lowered his eyes, relieved. He would
need to access his best subservient manner, and he was never certain he could
rely on it to appear when beckoned.

    "What
you want?" she said with displeasure.

    Missus
Crowe?

    "Yeah,
I'm Mrs. Crowe."

    Sally
Ann Crowe?

    "I
don't think you better be usin that name."

    Sorry,
ma'am, but I just had to come.

    "You
had to come? What's that mean?"

    It's
the message, ma'am.

    "Well,
why didn't you say so in the first place, give it me."

    Well,
ma'am, I'se awful sorry, but it ain't that sort of message.

    "Do
you have a message for me or not?"

    Yes
ma'am.

    "Then
give it."

    He looked
at her-pale bloated face, small bland eyes too far apart, long stringy
dishwater blonde hair that clung to her cheek, fleshy nose, weak chin-and he
said: This a message from Emoline Justice.

    He
watched her expression for the flicker of horror that might come from a
murderer realizing she had not finished her crime. He saw only confusion and
imbecility. The moment passed in a flash, but convinced him that Sally Ann
Crowe had not murdered Emoline Justice. Nevertheless, he had to carry out the
remainder of his plan so that he raised no suspicions.