The Book of Night Women (48 page)

—And where d’ye think you’re going with my husband?

—Fire outside. Smoke was coming through the window.

—But of course. You niggers just want ta burn everything now, is that it? Nothing’s too good for you.

At the end of the gun be a short woman who still in her nightdress and her hair as white as Jack Wilkins’.

—Me say smoke was coming in him room. Look ’pon him, he would be dead before him even got good cause.

—All hell could come before I believe the word of a nigger, Missus Wilkins say.

—Hell all around you, you damn fool, Lilith say. The woman shock. Lilith step past her with Jack Wilkins and help him into an armchair. The only armchair in the hall. Everything else, from chair to table to clock to books, pile up by the door. On the floor by the armchair be more rifles and shotguns and muskets than Lilith ever see in her life, twenty, fifty, one hundred.

—He always knew a day such as this would come, the bastard, she say.

—Day like this he damn well cause, Lilith say.

—Loaded they all are, each and every one of ’em. Did it meself. He was never much use for nothing but breedin’ niggers. Damn that—

—This all right for the door, but what about the windo—

A rock burst through the window and glass explode. Missus Wilkins scream. Lilith move behind Jack Wilkins’ armchair. The man slump over like he sleeping, but jerk every time he hear a sound. She expecting a stick or bottle with fire next, but sounds come through the window of mens and womens with blood on the tongue. The first man climb through. He so tall, he almost touch the ceiling. He look in Jack Wilkins’ direction and yell. Him cutlass cover in blood and didn’t shine. He charge with him cutlass and Missus Wilkins raise her rifle and pull the trigger. The woman fall back but the man chest burst as the shot lift him off the ground. He fall on the floor and the room shake. Another climb up to the window, a woman this time. Missus Wilkins fire again and miss her. The first woman rush to Missus Wilkins screaming and run right into the bayonet. As the woman yelp and fall off, Lilith grab a rifle for herself. Another woman did come in, unbeknownst to Lilith or Missus Wilkins. Missus Wilkins turn to Lilith, cussing all them confounded niggers, when again bang, and blood explode from her mouth. She cough and cackle and shocked when she see her own blood running down her bosom. Missus Wilkins look up straight at Lilith. As she fall out of the way, there be Hippolyta pointing right at Lilith. Hippolyta hiss, then fire.

A click, then nothing. She pull the trigger again but still nothing. The rifle jam and Hippolyta hiss. She not wearing her long black dress but a tear-up white one, and her legs and chest bony. A thick scar run up from her neck to her left ear. Hippolyta hiss but her green eyes screaming. She throw ’way the rifle, pick up the first man cutlass and charge, making sound like a yellow snake. Lilith fire and Hippolyta face blow to pieces. One more nigger push him head up and Lilith fire again without thinking or even looking. The man scream and fall.

Lilith look down in the armchair and don’t know if Jack Wilkins asleep or awake. Him hair long but at the top don’t have much. From where she lookin’, he could be a old preacher. Gunshot burst from nigger nearby and both she and Wilkins jump. She look over to him wife and Hippolyta, both shot in the head, and the other dead people in the room and think nobody should be living. Nobody at all, not she nor Jack Wilkins. She aim the gun at him balding head. But she couldn’t shoot. She didn’t even want to and don’t know why. Surely of all the white mens to get kilt, he be the one who deserve it the most. The man who rape her mammy. But she don’t know her mammy. She never touch her nor smell her nor know if the mammy ever want her.
I’m a wicked son of a bitch
, Jack Wilkins say one time.
Not even the devil ever met the likes of me
. But he save her from the field and he stop them from whipping her—even Quinn didn’t do that. And he be her pappy. She don’t know what that mean. Mayhaps it mean nothing, especially today. But she shed enough blood already, including Hippolyta, who be her own kin. She not shedding no more. She stoop down in front of him and aim for the window and stay that way till whoever come.

 

 

The ground shake with the
best of horses. Redcoats. His Majesty’s regiment coming in from Spanish Town. There be fifty or sixty but they all on horseback, making a noise like thunder and whipping up dust. With they red jacket and shiny sword and brown musket and big black horses, they look like an infantry just rise up from hell. The sun going down and blast a purple in the sky. At the great house a fire blazing.

Pallas set fire to the kitchen when she leaving. Montpelier is a house with plenty book, oil, wood and paper. Fire catch and spread like rumour. Massa Humphrey yell as the redcoats pass by and one stop to pull him up on the horse. The redcoats ride right up to the stairs and watch a third of the house on fire. Massa Humphrey jump off the horse, followed by the redcoat, and set to go inside when they hear a bump. Massa Humphrey look up to the window to him mother room to hear an explosion of glass as a body burst through the window and land from two floor up to the ground. Massa Humphrey rush to the body. Homer step to the window and raise her hand. The sunset hit her body and she change to black. She wave the rifle in the air. The redcoats fire and riddle her body with bullet. She dance from the rifle fire and her whole body shoot blood. She make a yell, then fall, with half her body hanging off the balcony. Massa Humphrey bawling like a baby. Like a little girl. He on him knees and he pull him mother body to him and wrap her up in him arm. He bawling and can’t stop. Some of the redcoats rush inside while some ride off to secure the estate. By now, hundreds of the negroes gone. Evening turning into night, but the flames blaze the county alight like it be day. Fire on the ground, black cloud in the sky, burnin’ sugar and flesh in the air.

In Jack Wilkins’ house, Lilith believe what the evening tell her ’bout Robert Quinn. She know from the minute the tall dark woman appear in the room, unawares to Jack. The skinny dark woman take leave of her and go through the front door. Lilith stay by the armchair and watch her father.

30

NO WOMAN CAN AFFORD TO FEEL ANYTHING FOR A MAN IN 1801. That be the source of eternal misery. Lilith pondering them things when they catch her on the road to the gate, beat her till she pass out and throw her in the back of the cart with other runaway nigger. The redcoats find Miss Isobel still knock out and dishevel with her dress up her neck and her pussy out a door. The commotion wake her up and she scream. She grab her dress and pull it down and bawl that she is lady of good means and superior birth.

Commander Forster of His Majesty’s regiment is no stranger to war. So he begin each time he talk. Forster say that if everybody did take heed of the Barbadian code of 1688, this would never happen. If everybody did remember that niggerman so barbarous and savage that good ol’ England law was unfit, then no white man would have get catch off-guard. He say that to other redcoats as they watch Montpelier cane field burn to the ground. Four days later when he talking, the fields still smoking and the sky still grey and smelling of burned sugar and flesh.

One of the redcoats say that is only ’cause so many slaves run away, and not so much was around to stand and fight, why they didn’t overrun the whites and take over the county. The redcoats scratching them head ’cause they can’t explain how so much nigger manage to plan something so big and still keep it quiet. By the time they chop off a slave woman fourth toe, she tell how they plan to exterminate all backra and set up village states all over the county like what be in the Africa. Like what Tacky was goin’ start in 1760. They think she mad. Rumour start to spread that is woman who plan the whole thing, which make white man and niggerman, slave man and free man perplex, cause such devious and nefarious thinking was beyond the capabilities of the fairer sex, much less a bunch of goat-rutting savage womens.

The fifth white man they find was Richardson, breeches gone, cocky stuff in mouth and bullwhip stuff up arse. The sixth white man they find was Robert Quinn. He dead beside him horse, also dead. Him shirt soak through with red. Massa Humphrey in between weeping, say that Quinn died trying to save the estate, an estate that was not even his, and he was a man he loved more than him own blood. Ninety and four whites dead in the revolt all over the county and seventeen unaccounted for. Some of the white mens get shot and some of the white womens get rape but plenty white people get kill in all sort of wicked way. Massa and Missus Newforth from Worthy Park get find in bed, they head chop off and switch to each other body. Some slave must did remember that twenty year before, Massa Newforth draw and quarter a runaway negro and hang a section at each end of him slave provision ground to warn uppity nigger not to take step. There be no white body that was leave alone. Even the ones who get shot also get chop, burn, hang, and some even get throw into a boiler alive. Even white pickney. Nobody know how much nigger dead.

Plenty negro try to escape to the mountain on foot, but most didn’t get that far. The redcoats catch dozen and dozen including Gorgon, who was dragging Callisto body. Other negro use night darkness to escape, only to get catch by Maroon nigger who set down on them like they was waiting all along. With they musket and rifle and spear and cutlass, they round up over one hundred slave who too tired to fight back or run anymore. Maroon nigger deliver the runaway slaves by they lonesome, though some of the womens they keep.

The slaves that get catch know them fate. By the night, all of Middlesex County smell of flesh. Bleeding flesh, burnin’ flesh, starving flesh and rotting flesh. At Worthy Park, most negro get shot in the head, then hang until they rot to the bone. At Ascot Pen, most get whipped, then hang up to burn, most times over a fire that set slow so that the slaves will burn for two days straight but can’t faint or die quick. But Montpelier nigger get a different fate. Montpelier master lose the two people he love the most in one day, and after crying for three day straight like a mother who lose her pickney, nothing leave in Massa Humphrey heart but blackness.

They leave the capture niggers in a cage, all stack tight. Some whimper that they never do nothing and is error. Some shout that they glad for the first taste of white kill. Lilith quiet. Day and night, living and dead don’t make no difference to she no longer. She find a corner and crouch down and stay there, burying her face. Morning, noon and night pass and she try not to think of Robert Quinn. She will hear Lovey, or Luv or just Lilith said in the Irish way and just shake and shake and scream till her throat sore. On account of that, no nigger stay too close to her. She see the great house, half burn down with just the frame of that part of the house standing, and she think of Coulibre. Days pass and the cage take up with sweat, shit and dead nigger. Lilith look out and see a white man walking through the ashes, with smoke blowing across and hiding him one blink, showing him the next. Her heart jump when she see the black hair, but then she realise that is red hair blackened by ash. Massa Humphrey stepping through damage like a ghost. She see him and he look at her.

The next day, Massa Humphrey wave him hand and one of the redcoats open the back door of the cage.

—Lilith? Who answers to the name Lilith?

Lilith don’t answer.

—Come now, you stupid niggers, I’ve very little time for skylarkin’. Who answers to the name Lilith?

Lilith don’t answer, but all the nigger step away from her.

—I reckon that’s you. Well, come on!

Lilith don’t budge. The redcoat grab her by the foot and yank her out of the cage so that she fall on the ground, her back and head hitting the dirt.

—Report to your master at once, the redcoat say. Before he could shut back the cage, a niggerwoman run out screaming down the road. She get as far as fifty or so pace when a redcoat lift up him rifle, aim like he be on a hunt and shoot off the back of her head. The redcoat look at Lilith and point to the great house.

Lilith inside the great house looking at the hallway. On the left, the red carpet still on the floor and the paintings still on the wall, and the looking glass and the vase and pretty things. But when she follow the carpet and the wall, suddenly they break and there be nothing beyond but ash. Nothing but ash and wood and burned cloth and the sunlight coming in ’cause there be no roof. She find Massa Humphrey by the piano in the middle of the sitting room, where every other piece of furniture, chair, table, cabinet and bookshelf turn over. The chandelier pull down from the ceiling and pieces of glass scatter all over the floor. Lilith watch her step.

—Jack Wilkins says that you were protecting him, he say.

Lilith don’t say nothing.

—See to Miss Isobel, Massa Humphrey say. He staring at the piano. He still in the blue shirt and grey breeches he was wearing the day of the rebellion, but both smudge up with blood that dry to look like wine stain. He hair mess up and wild and he right cheek have a long cut.

—Go! he say and Lilith run upstairs.

Part of the banister break away and all sort of rubbish on the steps. Rifles and bullets too. And clothes and shoes and food and painting that get cut up and rip up to pieces. Lilith smelling flesh and piss and old dust that wake up. Miss Isobel door not lock, but Lilith can’t push it open. She push and push and it only budge a little. She push again and make enough space to scrape through. On the other side of the door is a chest push against it with two chairs and the commode. Lilith didn’t look good enough yet before she hear a crash. She turn around only to see a big broomstick coming after her with a screaming pile of hair behind. Lilith jump out of the way and the broom ram into the wall. Miss Isobel get hit hard in the chest and fall back flat on the floor. Lilith help her up and take her to bed. Miss Isobel smell of mildew and negro. Lilith leave her sitting up but hunch over on the bed. Miss Isobel start to tremble. Lilith go downstairs to what left of the kitchen. Most of the walls gone and the cupboards burn down but the stove still there and working. Lilith draw some water from the well and try not to hear the screaming and shouting niggers. When she go back upstairs, Miss Isobel still hunch over on the bed looking at her trembling hands.