The Purchase

by Linda Spalding

  Swallows rushed in and out of the barn with tiny grubs for their nestlings. I should be like them, Jemima thought as she entered the dark, assailed by the smell of dung and hay. Why am I not? “Rafe?” She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them wide to adjust to the lack of light. She grabbed up her skirt and moved through the clutter that surrounded her – a broken scythe, a winnower, Eb’s plow, various tools she could not name. “Ra-aafe?”

  He stood in a stall with his hands in a pail. Water glistened on the withers of his horse and pooled in the straw at his feet.

  “I need my sister,” Jemima said, coming close to him. “I truly need her. She doesn’t even know about … this.” She put her hand on her round belly. “She’ll know what to do when my time comes.”

  “Jemima, listen to me. Horses, pigs, even people have babies.”

  She was running her hands up and down her arms. “Just help me make peace with my people, Rafe. Let Bry go home and they will forgive you. I know they will. It is not much to ask.” She touched his unshaved face. “They think you stole him.”

  “They think I stole you.”

  Jemima sank to her knees. She was tired. The baby was weighing on body and mind. All day, she had been walking and thinking.

  Rafe said, “If they want Bry, they can make an offer. He has more value now than he did when he came here.”

  “It’s his freedom I want. Can you not make me a gift of it? I promise I will never ask for another thing in all my life.”

  Rafe stroked her hair. “If I give him up, I have to replace him. Don’t you understand simple economics? What the devil has come over you, lately? Let your pa make me an offer. Or your brother. He’s been playing cards, making wagers. He’s rich. Bry is fourteen years old, iron strong. He’s going to be somebody’s slave. Let him be Benjamin’s if you like. For the right price.”

  Jemima’s eyes were suddenly dark, which made her face seem pale, almost gaunt. Pressing against Rafe, she pulled his hand up to her face and took one of his fingers into her mouth. It was something he liked. It had once been a signal between them. “Please let him go.” She looked off to the house, to the porch with its chairs, where she had sometimes rocked herself into an afternoon sleep during the last long year. She looked at the field between the house and barn, at the corn, which was soon to be cut, when even her meeting place with Bry would be exposed. She looked into herself, where her child lay in a curl, opening eyes that were as big as they would ever be, naked, hairless, unloved. Was it Rafe’s? If not, Bry would soon hang from a tree.

  She could not go to her father, but she could visit the millhouse. This she did on horseback later that day, taking the ride at a gallop, and finding her brother with Floyd, fixing a shaft on the paddlewheel. Calling his name, she slid off the horse and steadied herself. “I need your help.”

  Benjamin turned. Two years it had been since he’d seen his runaway sister. “The Fox family is growing,” he remarked, looking hard at her. “Should you be riding?”

  “I have no choice. I need your help, brother. Please, whatever I have done, put it aside for the time it takes to get Bry away from Rafe. I beg you. Please, brother. He is not meant for that life.”

  “But you are?”

  “How can he be expected to sleep on the ground and eat scraps and feel the lash every time he brushes against a damned plant?”

  Benjamin studied his sister. Her hair was lank, her skin pale, her fingers weaving patterns while she spoke of Bry’s wretchedness with unseemly language, lips stretched across her pretty teeth. “When is the Fox cub due?”

  “Too soon.” Then she said, “You are my one hope in the world.”

  Benjamin, who was not tall, had to bend a little to look in Jemima’s red-rimmed eyes. “That unholy child in your belly is where your hope lies. Not with me.”

  That evening, she watched Bry move through the cornrows.

  “That damned hat,” she said as he came into the coolness of the shelter and ran a hand through her wet, tangled hair. On her way to meet him, she had pulled off her dress and walked into the pond with her body all bare. “How do you like that?” she had said to the child, giving her belly a slap. Then she had come to the hut dripping and cool in order to put her skin against Bry’s.

  “Did they put leeches on you? You’re too pale.” He wrapped his arms around her and took the coolness into himself. A bird landed on the thatch overhead and they heard it scratching.

  “What if my sister won’t come when it’s my time?” Jemima sat down, feeling lightheaded.

  “Only because she remembers what Rafe did and hates him very rightly.”

  “She was a child. How can she remember? It was all a mistake.”

  “Is that what he tells you? Do not forget who I am.” Bry dropped his arms and leaned away.

  “Bry, I’ve been thinking and thinking. I’ve been listening to Isaac since he came back because he tells me about Upper Canada, where he was living with a regiment of escaped slaves.”

  “I know. He talks to me too.”

  “He says there are whole towns up there of such people. There are lakes and forests and houses just as there are here, but slavery is against the law. I want you to go there and wait for me.”

  “I am staying with you.”

  “Not if this –” She put her hand on her belly again. “Have you ever considered what this baby might be?” She looked at the field of growing corn beyond which was the growing cotton and in the far distance the white house. “I can’t birth a slave. I would have to smother such a thing as that.”

  Bry got to his feet and ran into the field of corn, leaving Jemima and his tall hat behind.

  When Rafe appeared at the millhouse later, he was looking for Benjamin. The place was crowded. Five or six men stood around the long table, which had been cleared of spoons and bowls with only cups and tankards remaining. Benjamin was just then unfolding his faro cloth and looked up at Rafe without surprise. “You lay down your wager to enter this game,” he said evenly, without showing his interest.

  The men assembled around his table were on their way to Kentucky. Some would go as far as Ohio. A few would go as far as Missouri. They were family men, honest men in unfamiliar territory. They had settled their wagons on the last escarpment, eaten a camp meal, and seen wives and children into their wagons for the night. It was customary then for a young father to enjoy a cup of cider at the millhouse. By ten o’clock, Benjamin had watched them drink, had learned their gestures and abilities, and bidden farewell to the faint of heart.

  “I am not here to wager. I am here to sell,” Rafe said.

  “Who? My sister? Are you so tired of her?”

  “The boy. I find that he doesn’t suit me. What would you pay for him?”

  Benjamin pushed the bench back and stretched his legs as if considering. “Is he so useless? Why would I want such a boy or wish to enrich a man who keeps my sister unmarried in his house?” He stood up, thrust his hand into a pocket of his jacket, and put several coins, both silver and gold, on the table. For his house site, Benjamin had chosen a fine spot in front of Daniel’s cabin at the edge of his two gifted acres. In this way, when Daniel stood on his plank steps, he could watch Benjamin’s bricks being shaped and fired; he could watch a house being constructed from the ground itself. But the making of bricks was heavy work. Benjamin stood at the table where, already that night, he had made enough money to buy wood for brick moulds. “I run a clean table,” he said to the man who had ruined his sister’s life. He was housing his workers in the cellar of his unbuilt house. It was large enough to accommodate the boy. And when his cotton was ready to be picked, his workers would lay down their building tools and move to the cotton fields, which Bry knew how to work, while the soil they’d freed up from the cellar hole would lie there composing itself, later to be mixed with sand and clay for the making of bricks, a thousand of them put into moulds every day and carried to the drying racks. Heavy work. Was Bry strong enough for that? Under the long tabl
e, there was a box in which Benjamin kept the faro cards. He knew which were rough, torn, smooth, or bent while the travellers, rubbing their hands on their breeches and putting their cups on the floor, called bets and waited for the cards to be drawn. The first one was discarded. The second one was the dealer’s. The third card made someone a winner, if anyone had chosen it. “I will wager two hundred dollars against the boy,” he said, shuffling the cards. “If I win, you produce him here by tomorrow morning or pay that amount.”

  Rafe called out a card and Benjamin’s eyes travelled over his scuffed boots and ill-made breeches. He drew a first card and then a second. There were other calls around the table, but when Benjamin pulled the third card from the hidden deck it entitled him to take possession of a boy who had been born on the Dickinsons’ property. Now he would be returned. He put his head back and laughed at the ease of it. “There’s some justice in this world,” he said, “after all.”

  When he got home from the millhouse, Rafe found Jemima in labour, begging for her sister. Frightened, he got back on his horse, attached the cart, and rode to Mary’s house. “Your sister is labouring,” he yelled when Mary opened her door. He tilted toward her, still on horseback. “Her baby is coming. She is begging for you.”

  His tone of voice made Mary grab her cape and drop it and grab it again. She stumbled into Rafe Fox’s cart as if every suffering she had known had not been caused by him. Jemima was having a baby! She tried to compose her face but wanted to scream out. Hurry, she coached Rafe in her mind. Hurry and I will forgive you everything.

  Night had fallen long ago and the house was dark. In the back bedroom where Elizabeth’s father had once lain, Jemima was wrestling with her sheet and chewing on her hand like a trapped animal in the iron bed. “There now, darling, Mary is here. Take heart, little sister. You are only giving birth to your baby.”

  Jemima started up. She pointed at the window, beyond which was the covered porch. “It’s here on me,” she screamed. “It’s crawling up my leg!” The evening was somewhat chill, but she was wet with perspiration.

  Mary went to the window and looked out. When she came back to the bed, she said, “Here now. Let me come wash your hot face.”

  “No! Don’t you see his long nail?”

  “Who has given you laudanum? What’s in this cup?”

  Jemima began to shriek, describing the shape of the thing that was biting her leg, eating her from the feet up, she said, swallowing and spitting her out. “Here, on my arm,” she said, howling. “I am going to hell for it …”

  “I have taught you the falseness of hell,” Mary said sternly. “Now, look here at me.”

  Jemima flung her arms up and beat the headboard and clenched her jaw and began to retch as Mary touched her face with a cloth she had dampened in the water bowl. She touched her sister’s abdomen, which was small for a ready baby. A few minutes later she found Rafe at the table with his head on his outstretched arms and a bottle of brandy on the floor by his feet. “Go, please, and bring Bett to me.” She could not make herself say his name. “Please. I need her.”

  Rafe swung his head left and right. “Better have Doc Howard, if it’s serious.”

  “But he makes terrible mistakes. Truly, I’ve seen it. And Jemima will feel easier with a woman’s hands.”

  Rafe ignored her and shouted for his brother, telling him to ride hard for the doctor.

  It was a wait.

  Then Doctor Howard came at dawn, with the sun scratching at the sky. He joined Mary in the bedroom, shutting the door behind him and examining the thrashing girl on the bed with large, unwashed hands. He pushed and prodded and inserted something. Then he straightened, wiping his hands on a cloth he extracted from his bag. “Missus Jones,” he said gravely, “you go out there and call your brother-in-law to the parlour, where we can speak in private.”

  Mary had not thought of Rafe as a relation. She had not thought of his house as having a parlour. He sat at the table with his head still resting on his arms and the bottle still at his feet and she shook him violently, calling Doctor Howard into the room rather than try to move Rafe. While the doctor talked, breathing hard and using unfamiliar words, Mary looked at the watch chain that moved rhythmically on his vest. His eyebrows were thick and he drew them up whenever he wanted to make a point. “One of two things got ta happen damn quick, excuse me, madam.” The high, reedy voice was no match for what he had to say. “I believe,” he began ominously, drawing out the word, “that you will most likely have to choose between mother and child.”

  Rafe put his head down again. He knew nothing of birth except among horses and dogs, but Doctor Howard explained that a craniotomy, so-called, would save Jemima. “That is, of course, if it goes well, while a caesarean will endanger her but save the child although there is never what we might call a guarantee.” The doctor leaned down and peered at Rafe. “I mean to say, it is your decision to make as the husband.” He added, “And father. You might need a few moments in which to think or pray.”

  Rafe looked at the doctor as if trying to decide why he was there in the room.

  Mary, hovering with exhaustion and fright, insisted now that Rafe bring Bett to the house.

  Doctor Howard said, “You’ll lose them both at that rate.”

  Mary said, “If you don’t bring her, my father …” But what would Daniel do? He had refused to see Jemima even when Isaac went to plead with him. Isaac, the outcast, who was living in a tiny cabin at the edge of Rafe’s land.

  Rafe said, “What was that first choice, doc?”

  The doctor said, “A means of extracting the child to save the mother’s life.”

  “Cranium means head,” Rafe said, blinking.

  “That’s what it means.”

  “The baby’s head.”

  “Your baby will not be born of himself. The only way it will survive is to cut the mother open.” He looked at his watch, apparently tired of explanations.

  Mary fell into a chair and held her own hands. “I will go find Bett myself, do you hear?”

  “Is that what you wish for your sister?” Doctor Howard sneered. “Your kind is built another way, you know. Or you ought to know, since you have seen them at their birthings. And don’t forget that slave medicine is against the law.” He lifted his bag and shook it. “I can get up another warrant, Missus Jones.”

  Mary had not seen Bett since the day she’d confessed. It was I who told Doctor Howard … . She turned to Rafe. “We must let her try.”

  He pushed his chair back and got slowly to his feet, going out of the room, down the hall, and out the back door, where he stood for a moment, then jumped off the edge of his porch. It was a short enough ride to the hut, and when Bett came outside at his call, he reached down and lifted her onto his horse.

  Out there behind the house the ground was barren and dust rose around them so that for long minutes Bett covered her nose with one hand and held on with the other. When they stopped at the house and she heard Jemima screaming, she said calmly, “Free my son first. Or I will not save yours.”

  Rafe clamped his elbows into her sides. “I’m afraid Mister Benjamin Dickinson won Bry last night in a card game and I am obliged to deliver him today.” He dismounted and pulled her down, then slapped the horse and let it drift to the stable as he pushed Bett ahead of him to the porch. They could see Doctor Howard through the open door, pacing in the hallway.

  “You wagered my son?” Bett’s voice was venomous.

  It was now late in the morning and the bedroom curtains were drawn but she could hear Mary pleading and Jemima moaning and calling out. Mary came to the bedroom window, drew back a curtain, and looked out at Bett. She pulled up the window sash as Doctor Howard entered the bedroom, and Bett stepped over the low sill, went to the washstand, and cleaned her hands. Her eyes were half closed as she walked to the foot of the bed, pushed the doctor aside, and put her hand on Jemima’s body. “Oh child.” She looked up at Mary. “What has she taken? I hope there is time. Her
pulse is very faint …” she glanced at a cup by the bed, picked it up and sniffed.

  Doctor Howard was rustling in his bag, grumbling.

  Bett used both hands, first putting her ear close to Jemima. For Mary, the room had begun to spin. “Too high,” Bett said. “Must be turned,” she muttered. “Can you help me, Mary? I need you over here.”

  At this, there was a loud slam of the door and Mary turned to see Doctor Howard leave, his indignation like a cloud that settled over the room. Jemima had stopped struggling. She lay panting and moaning, only now and then turning her head. Bett was applying gentle pressure with her hands, feeling for the baby, trying to move it little by little from whatever position it was in. “Breech,” she told Mary. Then, to the unborn infant, “Your mama didn’t mean to harm you when she took the tansy, so you must turn now and come out to your life. We are right here waiting.” She managed a quick backward look at Mary. “We are losing her,” she whispered and began then to search with her hand until she found a tiny foot. “There’s no time to turn this child. It’s the only way.” Mary began to sob, although the sound of it in her ears seemed small. The baby was folded inside Jemima, all buttock and leg. Jemima no longer struggled or panted. Bett tugged very gently, very carefully, until she beheld her granddaughter in her hands.

  Bry was waiting behind the bushes dressed in the yellow shoes Jemima had given him, shoes meant not for planting or picking but for standing on a porch, drinking something chilled. Shoes that had once belonged to Rafe. He had been waiting for hours. Now he climbed the steps of the back porch and looked through the open bedroom window with its curtains blowing. It was easy to enter and when he did he saw Jemima’s baby swaddled. He went closer. “Where’s your mama?” he asked the newborn. “You should be by her.” He picked up the infant as tenderly as he could manage and felt something for which he had no name.