by John Jakes
Cooper, on the other hand, spoke with enthusiasm about formulating a plan to make the company profitable. “They’re shipping more and more cotton out of this state every year. We should get our share of those revenues.”
“Well, do what you can,” Tillet replied with a shrug. Orry had once said Tillet hated to hear about South Carolina’s expanding cotton industry. Somehow he construed it as a threat to rice planters in general, and the Mains in particular. He considered all cotton farmers to be upstarts without pedigrees, even though one of the state’s most distinguished citizens, and possibly its richest, Wade Hampton of Millwood, planted cotton.
Cooper heard all of that in the older man’s remark, and it irked him. “Count on it, sir,” he said with determination. Clarissa sighed and patted his arm. Tillet paid no attention.
Ashton, already showing the first signs of young womanhood, kept staring at George during the meal. The attention made him nervous. Brett elbowed her sister to get her to stop it. Ashton yanked Brett’s curls, whereupon Tillet blew up and sent both of them out of the room with Clarissa for a licking.
Brett was gulping, red-eyed, when the others came outside. The carriage had arrived. Ashton stared at her father with hot, hateful eyes. If the child had any feelings, they were all the wrong sort, George thought.
Cousin Charles sat with his back against one of the columns, whittling. Unexpectedly peevish, Clarissa flicked his ear with her middle finger. “Stand up and say good-bye to your cousin.”
Charles looked sullen. “I’m trying to finish this carving.”
Orry strode forward. “On your feet.” He slipped his hand under Charles’s left arm and yanked. He pulled so hard that Charles yelped. Then he glared. Orry glared back without blinking.
George studied Orry’s hand. It looked powerful, much thicker through the wrist than he remembered. Had Orry exercised to strengthen it? Apparently.
After Charles muttered a good-bye to Cooper, he put his bowie knife in his belt and rubbed the spot where Orry had held him. He was still rubbing when the carriage pulled away five minutes later.
That night George told the Mains that he would have to depart for Pennsylvania in the morning. Orry said he would accompany his friend to the little woodland way station of the Northeastern line. George slept fitfully and woke at first light. He dressed and left his room. He presumed no one would be awake except the slaves, who would have a pot of coffee ready. To his surprise, he heard loud voices below, voices of masters rather than servants. Tillet was up, and Clarissa, and Orry. Why?
He hurried down the great staircase and found the Mains in the dining room. Outside, the first faint rays of daylight shot over the eastern trees. A mist lay on the lawns, which were white with frost.
“Good morning, George,” Clarissa said. He had never seen her with her hair undone—much of it was white—or in anything but proper attire. The dressing gown she wore was old, the colors of its complex embroidery faded by the years.
“Good morning.” What did he say next? Why were they gathered? Had someone died during the night?
Tillet slumped in his chair, looking older than ever. A clay mug stood beside his hand. The coffee sent up curls of fragrant steam. Orry let out a long sigh and addressed his friend.
“No point hiding it from you. The whole plantation’s in an uproar. Lately we’ve had nothing but trouble from that buck named Priam—you remember him.”
George nodded; how could he forget the screaming that night?
“Well,” Orry said, “it appears he’s run away.”
In the ensuing silence, one of the house girls entered with a plate of biscuits and a pot of wild honey. George recalled the girl from his earlier visit. She was a sunny-tempered creature who joked with everyone. This morning she kept her head down and her eyes averted. Her footsteps hardly made a sound.
When she left, he once again caught the sound of anxious voices, this time through a window that was open a few inches. Out by the kitchen building, the house servants were talking. George heard no laughter. The crime of one slave was apparently the crime of all. But the slaves weren’t the only ones who were worried. Here in the dining room, the stink of fear was almost as strong as the smell of the hot biscuits.
“Papa, what’s wrong? Why is everyone up?”
The unexpected sound made them start. Brett stood in the hall, grave-faced in her cotton nightdress.
“One of the niggers ran off. We’ll catch him. You scoot back to bed.”
“Which one was it, Papa? Who ran off?”
Tillet struck the table. “Get back to your room.”
Brett fled. George listened to the rhythm of her bare feet on the stairs. Clarissa changed the position of her chair. She folded her arms and stared into the table’s brightly polished surface. Orry walked up and down in front of the windows.
The dawn burned away some of the mist outside. Tillet rubbed his palms over his cheeks and eye sockets. George munched a biscuit, finding himself confused. Why were three adults so upset about one man’s escape? One man’s freedom? Was freedom such an unacceptable idea? Hadn’t Tillet Main’s ancestors fought against the British for freedom in this very state?
But those were idiotic questions, he soon realized. The Mains had been fighting for freedom for white men, something greatly to be desired. Freedom for a black was altogether different, to be feared not only for its own sake but for its possible consequences. At last George began to understand something of the Southern dilemma. He began to understand the stranglehold that slavery had on those who practiced it. Not one slave could be allowed to escape, for if one succeeded, thousands might try. The Mains and all others like them were prisoners of the very system by which they profited. And they were prisoners of fear. He pitied Orry’s family, but for the first time he was scornful of them too.
The sound of a horse brought Tillet to his feet. Salem Jones galloped into sight in the drive. A moment later he strode into the room. The overseer looked exhilarated. He suppressed a smile as he reported.
“Still no sign of that buck. Last anyone saw of him was around sunset yesterday. I searched his cottage. I now understand why he’s been so troublesome.” He shot a quick, accusing glance at Clarissa. Her attention was elsewhere, but Tillet didn’t miss the overseer’s look.
“What are you talking about?” he said.
Jones reached under his coat. “This. I found it hidden in Priam’s pallet.” He flung a dirty, dog-eared book on the table. The others crowded around to see it. “I suspect he was reading it before he ran off. I’ll wager it gave him ideas. About how bad he was being treated,” Jones added with significance.
George said, “I thought slaves weren’t taught to read.”
“Not usually,” Orry said.
“In Priam’s case we made an exception,” Tillet said, without meeting his wife’s eye. “Mrs. Main thought he displayed great potential as a boy. A peaceable disposition, too. She may have been right about the former, but as for the latter—well, I’m not blaming you, Clarissa.”
At that point, finally, he looked at her. He was assigning her every bit of the blame.
“I gave you permission to teach Priam to read and cipher,” Tillet went on. “It was a calamitous mistake.” He turned to George. “Now perhaps you understand why the South must have laws prohibiting education of the Negro. Even the Bible, read with the wrong interpretation, can be a source of rebellious ideas.”
Orry picked up the book, which had paper covers. “Who brought this piece of garbage onto the plantation?”
“I don’t know,” Tillet said. “But you make sure it’s burned.”
By now George had identified the book. He had seen a copy at home some years ago. On its cover it bore the colophon of the American Anti-Slavery Society of New York and the words American Slavery As It is. The Reverend Theodore Weld had published the work in 1839. It was a compendium of excerpts from slave laws, testimony by escaped slaves, and damning quotes from Southern slaveholders attempti
ng to defend the institution and minimize or deny their mistreatment of blacks. George had heard his sister Virgilia say Weld’s tract was the most important and influential anti-slavery document yet published in the United States.
Clarissa said, “It’s all very well to point fingers, Tillet, but what do you propose to do now?”
Salem Jones spoke first. “I’ll question Priam’s sister, though it won’t do a hoot of good. She’s scared. What’s worse, she’s ignorant. Even if she wanted to give me a useful answer, she couldn’t. If I asked where her brother’s gone, all she could say is one word. North. And she’d be telling the truth, I expect. In my humble opinion, we have no choice but to appeal to our neighbors in the district and organize a special mounted patrol to pursue the nigger.”
Stiffly, Tillet said, “An armed patrol?”
“Heavily armed, sir. It’s regrettable but necessary.”
The little monster’s going to giggle before this is over, George thought.
Tillet nervously passed his hands across his forehead. “Never in the history of Mont Royal have the Mains resorted to a special mounted patrol. Not one of my people has run off in my lifetime. Not one!” He looked at George with anguish and pleading. Still confused and at the same time angry, George looked away.
Tillet’s face hardened. “But you’re right, Jones. Evidently the lesson of the cat-hauling was lost on Priam. An example must be made.”
“I agree,” said Orry with scarcely a trace of reluctance. George stared at his friend, inwardly aghast. Not bothering to conceal his eagerness, Jones strode out.
A couple of hours later, Orry and George rode to the railroad stop. Few words passed between them as Orry led the way along back roads and trails. He had donned a swallowtailed coat, old but obviously of fine quality. His bolstered Johnson pistol hung at his right hip.
Mist still floated near the ground, and the orange light of the sun falling through it lent the forest a beautiful, spectral quality. The hoofs of the horses plopped softly on the carpet of pine needles and rotting leaves. George’s valise bobbed behind his saddle.
Why was Orry so quiet? He acted angry. But at whom? Priam? His father? Things in general?
Or me?
He wanted to ask about Madeline LaMotte. During the visit her name hadn’t come up once. He decided he had better not.
When they were about a half mile from the little way station, the forest echoed with the long wail of a whistle. George booted his horse up beside Orry’s.
“Is that my train?”
Orry pulled a heavy gold watch from an inside pocket. He flicked back the lid, then shut it with a click and a shake of his head. “A northbound freight. It passes every morning at this time. It’s still five or six miles south of here. Sound carries a long way over the marshes. The passenger local won’t be along for twenty minutes yet.”
He rode on. The trail took them out of the trees, around the perimeter of another misty marsh, and back into the woods. Shortly they emerged in a gloomy clearing bisected by a single track running roughly southeast to northwest. At one side of the track stood a weathered cypress shed, open on the side next to the rails.
Orry’s judgment of distance had been right. The freight train was close, but not yet visible. The woodland resounded with the clatter of couplings and the shriek of wheels. While George tethered the nervous horses, Orry stepped inside the shed and lifted the lid of a wood box hanging on the wall. From the box he pulled a red flag. He raised the flag on the halyard of a pine pole at one end of the shed.
“There. That will signal the local to stop.” He crossed the tracks to rejoin his friend just as the freight locomotive rounded a bend to their left. The whistle sounded again, deafening. The engine rattled by, traveling about ten miles an hour. The fireman and the engineer waved. Orry returned the wave laconically. George brushed falling cinders out of his hair.
The locomotive disappeared into the woods on their right. Boxcars and flatcars went shuttling by. Orry started to say something. George was staring past him, startled by the sight of a black man who had burst out of the underbrush and was now running beside the train.
Orry saw his friend’s expression and turned. Surprise quickly changed to anger.
“Priam! Stop!”
The slave had seen the white men but apparently hadn’t recognized them. He looked terrified. He scrambled up into the open door of a boxcar as Orry ran for his horse. George had never seen his friend move and mount so fast.
Clinging to the floor of the boxcar, Priam made the mistake of looking back. He recognized the bearded face looming above the horse. Wild fright filled Priam’s eyes as Orry booted the horse forward. Go on, George found himself shouting silently. Get inside the car, where he can’t see to shoot you.
But the sight of his owner apparently threw Priam into confusion. He lay on his belly in the doorway of the boxcar, floundering like a beached fish. His legs hung down outside, his dirty bare feet just clearing the roadbed. Orry galloped past the car, all the way to the edge of the clearing. There he wheeled, his right side nearest the train.
Gasping, Priam raised his right leg and got it into the car. George could only assume the slave was not only scared but exhausted; otherwise he would have clambered inside with no trouble. His left leg still dangled, thrashing the air.
As the boxcar rolled slowly by, Orry reached out and seized Priam’s ankle. Priam was dragged backward through the opening. He tried to hold onto one of the doors, but then he shrieked and let go, as if splinters had torn his palms. Orry kneed his horse to the left, still pulling. Priam cleared the train and fell.
He landed on his chest on the shoulder of the roadbed. George could hear the slave’s sobs above the rattle of the last cars passing. A brakeman on the caboose platform gaped at the scene in the clearing, then vanished in the trees.
“George, I need your help,” Orry called, dismounting and pulling his pistol. George hurried forward. Orry gave him the pistol butt first.
“Keep this pointed at him. Shoot if he moves.”
Priam looked up over his shoulder. George could barely stand the sight of the slave’s eyes.
“Mist’ Orry—please, Mist’ Orry—”
“Don’t take that tone with me,” Orry interrupted, lifting a coil of rope from his saddle. “You knew what you were doing when you ran off. Stand up and put your hands behind your back.”
“Mist’ Orry,” Priam repeated, staggering to his feet. All traces of his former defiance were gone. His escape had rendered him as vulnerable as a little child. There was something shameful and almost obscene in a grown man begging so desperately that tears trickled down his cheeks.
“Keep that gun on him,” Orry said without taking his eyes off the runaway. He looped and tied one end of the rope around Priam’s wrists. He was as dexterous with one hand as most men were with two. He had taught himself a lot in a short time.
George licked his lips. “What will happen now?”
“I don’t know. He’ll probably be lamed so he can’t run away again. But my father’s so angry he may have him killed.”
Priam bent his head. “Oh, Jesus. Jesus.”
“Stop it, Priam. You knew the penalties before you—”
“Orry, let him go.”
George was astonished at the hoarseness of his own voice. He had approached a precipice and impulsively stepped over. This was none of his affair. Yet something in him was constitutionally unable to stand by and see the black man returned to Mont Royal to be crippled, perhaps even executed.
For a moment he felt idiotic. Priam meant nothing to him; his friendship with Orry meant a great deal. Still, he knew he would never be able to live with himself if he kept silent.
“What did you say?” Orry asked, his expression what it might have been if the sun had risen in the west, or the trees had grown bank notes in place of leaves.
“Let him go. Don’t be a party to murder.”
Orry fought back a furious reply, drew a deep brea
th. “You’re confusing men with slaves. They’re not the same th—”
“The hell they aren’t! Don’t do it.” Trembling, George struggled for control. His voice moderated. “If our friendship means anything, grant me this one request.”
“That’s unfair. You’re taking advantage of me.”
“Yes, I am. To save his life.”
“I can’t go back to Mont Royal and tell my father—”
“Why must you say anything?” George cut in. “I won’t, and you’ll never see Priam again.”
“Yes, sir, I be quiet,” Priam babbled. “Fore God, Mist’ Orry, I swear that after I’m gone, no one will ever—”
“Shut up, goddamn you.”
Orry’s shout rang in the stillness. George had never heard his friend invoke the Deity’s name in anger.
Orry rubbed his palm over his mouth. He squinted at his friend—angrily—then snatched the pistol out of George’s hand. Christ, he’s going to shoot him on the spot.
Orry’s face said he would like to do exactly that. George knew that what he had asked ran counter to everything Orry had been taught, everything he was. Suddenly Orry slashed the air with the pistol, a gesture of rage as well as dismissal.
“Run,” he said. “Run before I change my mind.”
Priam wasted no time on words. His great, liquid eyes flicked over George’s for a second—the only thanks George got. He bolted into the pines at the north side of the clearing.
Orry walked away, then halted, head down. Priam’s footfalls faded. From the other direction George heard the whistle of the approaching passenger local.
George took a breath and moved toward his friend. “I know I shouldn’t have asked you to let him go. I know he’s your property. But I just couldn’t stand by and let—”
He stopped. Orry was still standing with his back turned.
“Well, in any case, thank you.”
Orry spun around. He held the pistol so tightly his hand was white as flour. George expected him to shout, but his voice was pitched low.
