by John Jakes
“Extend my condolences to your wife. Good night.” He stomped off the porch, sad about the child’s death, angry about Cuffey’s interpretation of it, guilty about performing as he had for the unseen audience. The part didn’t suit him, but he had to take it to preserve order. Cooper had once remarked that the masters and the slaves were equally victimized by the peculiar institution. On this foul night, Orry understood.
And that was the start, he thought, lying with Madeline’s thigh soft against his. That was the first card yanked from the house. That set the others tumbling.
Four days after the confrontation at the cabin, Cuffey’s Anne came to the office at twilight. A nasty welt showed beneath one eye, and the brown skin around it was turning black. She came to Orry hesitantly with a plea: “Please, sir. Sell me.”
“Anne, you were born here. So were your mother and father. I know the loss of Rissa has—”
“Sell me, Mr. Orry,” she broke in, taking hold of his right wrist, crying now. “I’m so scared of Cuffey, I want to die.”
“He hit you? I’m sure he isn’t himself either. Rissa—”
“Rissa got nothing to do with it. He hits me all the time. Done it ever since we got married. I hid it from you, but the people know. Last night he whipped me with a stick and his fist, then he hit me with the skillet.”
Six feet two, the lanky white man towered above the frail black girl and seemed to grow an inch from anger. “I ran out and hid,” she said, still crying. “He would have broke my head open, he was so crazy mad. I tried to take it like a good wife should, but I be too scared any more. I want to leave this place.”
The sorry tale done, she let her eyes continue the pleading. She was a good worker, but he couldn’t see her destroyed. “If that’s your wish, Anne, I’ll accept it.”
Her face alight, Anne exclaimed, “You send me down to the market in Charleston?”
“Sell you? Absolutely not. But I know a family in the city—good, kind people—who lost their house girl last autumn and are too hard pressed to buy another. I’ll simply give you into their care in the next week or two.”
“Tomorrow. Please!”
Her fear appalled him. “Very well. I’ll write a letter immediately. Go collect your things and be ready.”
She fell against him and clung, her face against his shirt. “I can’t go back there. He kill me if I do. I just need this dress, that’s all. Don’t make me go back there, Mr. Orry. Don’t.”
He held her, smoothed her hair, calmed her as best as he could. “If you’re that fearful, find Aristotle in the house. Tell him I said to give you a place for the night.”
Weeping again, this time happily, she hugged him, then drew back in horror. “Oh, Mr. Orry, I was forward. I didn’t mean—”
“I know. You did nothing wrong. Go on now, up to the house.”
Except for five minutes next morning, when he wrote out the pass for the slave who was to deliver her to the Charleston family along with the letter, it was the last he saw of Anne. She thanked him and blessed his name repeatedly as she drove away down the lane.
The following afternoon, Orry rode out to inspect the squares being prepared for June planting. When Cuffey heard the horse, he raised his head in the glaring summer light and gave his owner a long, penetrating stare. Then he turned and began to badger a buck who wasn’t working to his satisfaction. Cuffey hit the buck, making him stagger.
“That will be enough,” Orry called. The driver glared again. Orry made sure he didn’t blink. After ten seconds, he yanked his horse’s head so hard, the animal snorted. The look between slave and master had been explicit. Cuffey had been killing someone, and each man knew who it was.
Orry said nothing about the incident to Madeline, for the same reason he had spared her details of Cuffey’s defiance that rainy night. Of course Madeline knew Anne had been sent to Charleston at her own request, and why. She was also chief witness to the fall of the next card.
It happened early in June. Cuffey had taken crews out for the summer planting, put in each year in case the ricebirds or salty river water destroyed the early crop.
High embankments separated each square of cultivated land from those around it. Wood culverts, called trunks, permitted water to flow from the Ashley and from square to square, and drain again when the trunk gates were raised on an ebbing tide. Madeline rode along the embankments, approaching the square where the slaves toiled. The day was clear and comfortable, with a light breeze and a sky of that intense, pure hue she thought of as Carolina blue. As usual when she rode, she wore trousers and straddled the horse; unladylike, certainly, but did it matter? Her reputation in the district could hardly be worse.
Ahead, she saw Cuffey moving among the bent slaves, hectoring and waving the truncheon he carried as his symbol of authority. An older black man working near the embankment did something to displease the driver as Madeline drew near.
“Worthless nigger,” Cuffey complained. He hit the gray-haired slave with the truncheon, and the man toppled. His wife, working beside him, cried out and cursed the driver. Losing his temper, Cuffey lunged at her, raising his truncheon. The sudden wild motion frightened Madeline’s horse. Whinnying, the gelding sidestepped to the right and would have fallen off the embankment had not another black about Cuffey’s age scrambled up the slope, seized the headstall, and let his legs go limp.
The slave’s weight and strength together kept the horse from tumbling into the next square. Madeline quickly got control of the skittish animal, but the rescue displeased Cuffey.
“Get back down here an’ work, you.”
The slave ignored the order. He gazed at Madeline with concern rather than servility. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
“Fine. I—”
“You hear me, nigger?” Cuffey shouted. He had climbed halfway up the embankment and pointed his truncheon at the other black, whose large, slightly slanted eyes registered emotion for the first time. Not hard to tell how he felt about the driver.
“Be quiet while I thank this man properly,” Madeline said. “You caused the incident; he didn’t.”
Cuffey looked stunned, then enraged. At the sound of snickering, he spun, but the black faces below him were blank. He stomped down the embankment, hollering louder than ever.
The blacks resumed work while Madeline said to her rescuer: “I’ve seen you before, but I don’t know your name.”
“Andy, ma’am. I was named for President Jackson.”
“Were you born at Mont Royal?”
“No. Mr. Tillet bought me the spring before he died.”
“Well, Andy, I thank you for your quick action. There could have been a serious accident.”
“Glad there wasn’t. Cuffey didn’t have any call to torment—” With a little intake of breath, he stopped. He had spoken his heart, but it wasn’t his place to do such a thing; the realization showed.
She thanked him again. Giving a quick nod, he jumped to the bottom of the embankment; smiles and murmurs from some of the people showed they liked him as much as they disliked the driver. Fuming, Cuffey tapped his truncheon on his other palm. His eye fixed on Andy as he kept tapping.
Andy returned the stare. Cuffey looked away but managed to avoid humiliation by screaming orders at the same time. A bad situation, Madeline thought as she rode on—and that was how she characterized it when she described the incident to Orry later. At dark, he sent a boy to the slave community. Shortly after, a knock sounded at the open office door.
“Come in, Andy.”
The barefoot slave crossed the threshold. He wore cloth pants washed so many times they had a white sheen, like his patched short-sleeved shirt. Orry had always thought him a good-looking young fellow, well proportioned and muscular. He knew how to be polite without fawning, and his posture now, straight but at ease, with his hands relaxed at his sides, showed his confidence in his standing with the owner.
“Take a chair.” Orry indicated the old rocker beside the desk. “I want you
to be comfortable while we talk.”
This unexpected treatment disarmed and confused the younger man. He lowered himself with care, sitting tensely; the rocker didn’t move an inch one way or the other.
“You saved Miss Madeline from what could have been a grave injury. I appreciate that. I want to ask you some questions about the cause of the mishap. I expect truthful answers. You needn’t fear anyone will try to get back at you.”
“Driver, you mean?” Andy shook his head. “I’m not scared of him or any nigra who has to push and curse to get his way.” His tone and gaze implied he didn’t fear that kind of white man either. Orry’s favorable impression strengthened.
“Who was Cuffey after? Miss Madeline said the man had gray hair.”
“It was Cicero.”
“Cicero! He’s nearly sixty.”
“Yes, sir. He and Cuffey—they’ve had trouble before. Soon as the mistress left the square, Cuffey swore he’d make the old man pay.”
“Is there anything else I should know?” Andy shook his head. “All right. I’d like to thank you in some tangible way for what you did.” Andy blinked; tangible was plainly incomprehensible to him, though he didn’t say so. “Do you have a garden? Do you raise anything for yourself?”
“I do, sir. This year I have okra and some peas. And I keep three hens.”
Opening a desk drawer, Orry drew out bills. “Three dollars will buy some good seed and a couple of new tools if you need them. Tell me what you want and I’ll order it from Charleston.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll think on it and speak to you again.”
“Can you read or write, Andy?”
“Nigras reading and writing is against the law. I could be whipped if I said yes.”
“Not here. Answer the question.”
“I can’t do either.”
“Would you learn if you had the chance?”
Andy estimated the danger before he replied. “Yes, sir, I would. Reading, ciphering—they help a man get ahead in the world.” A deep swallow, then he blurted, “I might be free one day. Then I’d need it more than ever.”
Orry smiled to relieve the black man’s apprehension. “That’s a wise outlook. Glad we had this talk. I’ve never known much about you, but I think you can be of great service on this plantation. You will get ahead.”
“Thank you,” Andy said, holding up the money. “For this, too.”
Orry nodded, watching the strong young man turn toward the door. Some would have whipped Andy for his admission; Orry wished he had a dozen more with similar initiative.
Night had fallen while they talked. In the distance, big frogs made a sound like drums with cracked heads; the cicada obbligato was pleasanter. Andy wasn’t tall, Orry observed as he watched the slave walk down the path, but his stride—and his nature—made it seem otherwise.
In the morning, Orry rode to the day’s work site to look for Cicero. He didn’t see him. Cuffey curbed his ranting until Orry passed by, then doubled the volume. Orry proceeded to the slave cabins and dismounted before that belonging to Cicero and his wife. A naked, merry-faced boy of five was urinating against one of the tabby pillars. Cicero’s wife heard Orry shoo the boy away and rushed outside.
“Where’s your husband, Missy?”
“Inside, Mist’ Orry. He, uh, not working today. He just a little sickly.”
“I’d like to see him.”
Her response—a burst of nearly incoherent statements amounting to refusal—confirmed that something was wrong. He pushed her aside gently and entered the clean, bare cabin just as Cicero groaned.
Orry swore under his breath. The aging slave lay on a pallet of ticking, arms folded over his stomach, face contorted. Dried blood and matter showed on his closed, discolored eyelids. His forehead bore similar marks. No doubt Cuffey had used his truncheon.
“I’ll send for the doctor to look at him, Missy,” he said as he rejoined her on the porch. “I’ll also see this matter is put to rights before the day’s done.”
She caught his hand and pressed it. She was crying too hard to speak.
By afternoon, it was broiling. Orry nevertheless built a fire in the iron stove in his office before summoning Cuffey from the fields. When Cuffey walked in—he had his truncheon, as Orry had anticipated—there were no formalities.
“I should have sold you instead of Anne. I’ll take this.”
He yanked the truncheon from Cuffey’s hand, opened the stove door, and threw the stick into the fire.
“You are no longer head driver. You’re a field hand again. I saw what you did to Cicero, for God knows what ridiculous reason. Get out of here.”
Next morning, an hour after sunup, Orry again spoke to Andy in the office.
“I want you to be the head driver.” Andy gave a small, quick nod of consent. “I’m putting a lot of trust in you, Andy. I don’t know you well, and these are difficult times. I know some of the people feel a strong pull to run away to Yankee territory. I won’t be forgiving if anyone tries that and I catch him or her—as I most likely will. I don’t engage in cruelty, but I won’t be forgiving. Clear?”
Andy nodded again.
“One more thing. You remember that our former overseer, Salem Jones, whom I caught stealing and discharged, carried a stick. Evidently the late Mr. Jones impressed Cuffey. He adopted the idea. I should have taken Cuffey’s truncheon away the first time I saw it.”
Andy’s lids flickered as he stored the new word in memory. Orry finished by saying, “Carrying a stick shows a man is weak, not strong. I don’t want to find you with one.”
“I don’t need one,” Andy said, looking him straight in the eye.
That was how the delicate card house had collapsed. Orry had started to build another when he put Andy in Cuffy’s place.
He had soon learned that most of the people liked the change. Orry was well satisfied, too. Not only was Andy quick-witted and hardy enough to work long hours, but he also had a knack for leading rather than driving the others. He was neither craven nor truculent; he had somehow acquired an inner strength in which he had absolute confidence. He didn’t need to dramatize it to convince himself of his worth.
The trust Orry had placed in him—on a hunch and an impulse, mostly—created an unspoken but real attachment between the two men. Once or twice Orry had heard his father speak of loving certain of his people as he would love a child of his own loins. For the first time Orry began to have some comprehension of why Tillet Main might have said that.
Much of this flowed through Orry’s mind as he lay beside Madeline, but what came last was a disturbing image. Cuffey’s face. Wrathful—far more so since the end of his short tenure as driver. Cuffey had to be watched now; he would spread discontent. Orry could easily identify half a dozen of the people who might be receptive.
On balance, the situation, while not ideal, was not as bad as it had been a week ago. Orry believed that if he accepted the post in Richmond, Andy would protect Madeline in the event of trouble. Feeling good about that, he fell asleep.
A week later, he received an unexpected letter.
Deir Sir,
My cozin who resides in Charleston, S.C., shewed me your advertisement for job of overseer. I have the honr to prezent myself to your attention. Philemon Meek, age 64 yers but in the prim of helth and gretly experienced—
“There’s a big one he got right.” Orry laughed as he and Madeline strolled through the formal garden to the river at twilight of the day the letter came. “He didn’t get many of the others.”
“Could you take a chance on a man so poorly educated?”
“I could if he’s had the right experience. The rest of this seems to suggest he has. He says I’m to get a letter of reference from his present employer, an elderly widower with a tobacco plantation up near Raleigh; no children and no will to keep the place going. Meek would like to buy it but can’t afford it. The place is to be broken into small farms.”
They reached the pier jutting into the
smooth-flowing Ashley. On the other side, in shallows beneath Spanish moss, three white egrets stood like statuary. Orry slapped a mite on his neck. The smack sent the birds swooping away into the river’s dark distances.
“There’s only one difficulty with Mr. Meek,” Orry continued, sinking down on an old cask. “He won’t be at liberty until sometime in the fall. Says he won’t leave until his employer is properly settled with a sister who’s to take him in.”
“That kind of attitude recommends him.”
“Definitely,” Orry agreed. “I doubt I’ll find anyone better qualified. I think I should write him and begin salary negotiations.”
“Yes, indeed. Does he have a wife or a family?”
“Neither.”
Quietly, her eyes on the smooth water specked occasionally by insects too small to be seen, she said, “I’ve been wanting to ask—how do you feel about the latter?”
“I want children, Madeline.”
“Considering what you know about my mother?”
“What I know about you is far more important.” He kissed her mouth. “Yes, I do want children.”
“I’m glad to hear you say it. Justin thought I was barren, though I always suspected the fault was his. We should find out soon enough—I can’t imagine two people working harder at the question than we’ve been doing, can you?” She squeezed his arm, and they laughed together.
“I’m so glad you heard from that Mr. Meek,” she went on. “Even if you can’t leave till autumn, you can write Richmond and accept the commission.”
“Yes, I suppose I could do that now.”
“So you have decided!”
“Well—” The very way he prolonged it was an admission.
“The bugs are getting fierce down here,” she said. “Let’s go back to the house for a glass of claret. Perhaps we can even find a second way to celebrate your decision.”
“In bed?”
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean that—” Madeline blushed, then added, “Right now.”
