Dessa Rose

by Sherley A. Williams

  Nathan stopped a runaway horse and buggy in a little town not far from Arcopolis. Wasn’t no one in the buggy at the time, but he saved it from being tore up, sure, and the horse from maybe running down somebody or hurting itself. The owner of the buggy was real taken with this, and offered nine hundred dollars for Nathan right there on the spot. This had all happened so fast, you understand, I’m still setting up there on that wagon seat holding Clara and them reins. Miz Lady got her mouth open; Nathan and the man was standing there waiting for her to answer. “Why, why, sir, this here is my personal servant, my personal driver,” she say, drawing herself up like she was setting in the finest carriage.

  “A thousand dollars, madam,” he say before she’d even finished good. “I’m a horse-trainer myself and I never seen such a fine hand with the horses. Courage can’t go unrewarded.”

  All our eyes blinked at this. We hadn’t sold no one for less than eight hundred dollars but it was rare for us to get a thousand without some kind of auction.

  “Why sir, sir,” she was stuttering sho enough now. “Why, sir, who would drive my wagon to Arcopolis?”

  “Tell you what, madam,” he say cool as you please, “you throw in the wagon and I’ll call it eleven hundred dollars even. You can finish your journey by stage.”

  By this time, I’m hunching her, reminding her that we got to meet “Master” Harker in Arcopolis and he be real disappointed not to see his favorite driver when we get there. And Nathan wheedling, “Oh, please, Mistress,” like a regular numbskull, devils dancing in them little red eyes. “Oh, please, Mistress; this master say he got a lot of horses.”

  I guess this what did it, eleven hundred dollars and them little devilish eyes. I had my doubts about selling Nathan and I guess she did, too, but Nathan was so set on it that if she hadn’t said yes, I believe he would have tried to sell hisself. See, Harker and them would always come back with some kind of tale and it was plain to see when Nathan was listening to them talk that he wanted to get in on the venture, on the fun, as they called it. Wasn’t nothing to guarding money, guarding womens and childrens. He’d helped spike them robbers, and now he wanted to do something of his own.

  We’d come a long way from the time we’d watched Harker and Ned walk back into slavery. What we used to do with fear and trembling, we now did for fun. I told myself this was good, that it showed slavery didn’t have no hold on us no more. Even me and Miz Lady had got in on the act with that bad Oscar, and Nathan deserved his turn. Bumping along the road in that stage, it was easy to believe this. With what Nathan had brought, we had made close to thirty thousand dollars—some fantastic number like that. The number really didn’t mean that much to me. I had money wrapped around my waist, sewed into the seams of my petticoat, stuffed down the legs of my drawers. We had made so much money, and my mind about bust when I would think this was only a small part of the money in the world. This, I told myself, this what we come to get; this would put us beyond the reach of any slave law and the more we had, the better.

  The stage got into Arcopolis at nightfall. She taken a room in the best hotel and had them send up some food. We ate and went to bed. We was tired, tired. This was the end of selling, of scheming, of traveling and trembling. The end of watch every word. I was tired all the way to the bone and I slept very hard.

  Things looked some better next morning. I knowed Nathan could keep care of hisself—and other peoples, too, if it come to that. That’s how I’d got free in the first place. Long as he didn’t hold us up waiting on him, I didn’t think Harker would have too much to say about it. Fact, they’d probably all have a good laugh about me worrying so. No, I wasn’t real, what you call chipper that next morning when we went to inquire about boats going upriver, but I wasn’t down in the mouth neither. The man at the ticket office told us two or three boats left every day from the landing, and they wouldn’t have no trouble putting us all up whatever day she want to leave. Miz Lady bought the tickets; then wasn’t nothing else we could do but wait.

  Before, time was important; we kept on the move and trusted to luck that no would track us. But now, in this final move, caution was most important. Harker and Flora-nem was all to take they time making sure they wasn’t followed before they met us there. Roundabout as they was coming, we didn’t spect to see none of them for four or five days. They was all posed to meet up outside of town and come to the hotel together, trusted hands reporting where they’d been told to go. Miz Lady was Miz Carlisle, meeting some hands her daddy was sending from his place to help her husband finish up the harvest.

  So we waited; and while we waited, we shopped. This was something I had never seen done before. Oh, I had been in the cash-stores now and then on the journey, and that store where we bought my first clothes. But all of it was too new for me to see anything then and them cash-stores had such a mess of things, it was hard to see any one thing less you knowed what you was looking for. Well, the stores in Arcopolis was some different. These was emporiums and mercantile houses, selling everything from silk to steel, chock-full of stuff I hadn’t never even heard of, let alone seen. Eggbeaters, apple corers, potato peelers (I thought these was going to be little mechanical fingers like the figures come out a clock. Oh, yes, I seen one of these, too, my first time on this trip), farina kettles, a bosom board for ironing shirts, skirt boards for the dresses, all sizes of flatirons. My eyes was just dazzled. It was hard for me to keep my hands to myself; I had never seen so much in one place.

  Miz Lady bought for use at the Glen as well as our trip West and I learned a lot from watching her buy. She never let them clerks see in her purse. All they knew at first was that she knew what she was talking about, and only when she was satisfied that they knew what they was talking, did she buy. And then she bought a lot. (I know most times, colored womens can’t do this; clerk don’t want the colored person to know much as he know, don’t want you to know nothing, far as that go; liable to get mad, you show you know anything at all. Cheat you better, you don’t know nothing. But we not excused from knowing, even if we can’t let it show in no way but keeping money in our purse and buying at the next store.) We bought all sort of provision—sugar, salt, coffee, tea, flour, molasses, plates, mugs, utensils, blankets, mattress ticking. And then we bought for the peoples, shoes and boots, hose, calico and kersey for dresses, jean cloth for trousers, heavy wools for coats and cloaks. She had all these things sent down to the boat landing to be stored until we left.

  After we finished shopping in the mornings, we walked about the town some. The Tombigbee cross the Warrior River there at Arcopolis, so it was a lot of river traffic come through there. This was a good-sized town, two big, wide streets full of stores and a lot of going in and out. I have seed Decatur since that time, and St. Louis, so I know Arcopolis wasn’t no real busy place. Fact is, there was more going on down to the landing than there was up there on that bluff. But I could’ve stayed in the streets for hours, listening and looking. Even so simple a thing as the dressmaker’s, the barber shop, and the printer’s—I couldn’t see that printing machine often enough to suit me. The horses, the different wagons and carriages, the way the white peoples dressed. I’d seed some of these things from the coffle, I guess, must’ve seed them. But I didn’t pay no tention to them; too deep in misery, too scared. And now my eyes didn’t get enough of looking and I made excuses to be out in them streets. Course, I was looking for our peoples all the while I was out there. This how Nathan’d done when he was with us, sort of stroll around the town so the peoples could spot him and know we was there.

  Afternoons I would go out on some errand, down to the bakeshop to buy a pastry or to the dressmaker’s where Miz Lady was having some clothes made for herself. Sometimes I bought a paper for her. Once I even mailed a letter; she was just writing to Cully up at the Glen to say we’d be on directly, but this was something I’d never experienced. Sometimes in the evenings, Miz Lady’d take Clara and sit on the gallery there in front the hotel, trying to keep cool. It was almo
st October now, the dead tail end of summer, but it was still warm. I would stand behind her chair fanning them with a big palm-leaf fan. I did this, too, when she went down to dinner or supper—I fetched breakfast and we ate that in the room. At night we would blow out the candles, open all the windows, and lay cross the bed watching the streets below. She taken a corner room. It was noisy sometimes—there was a tavern down the street—but that cross breeze from the windows cut the heat some. Often we talked back and forth over Clara while she slept.

  We called up the comical things had happened on the trail. She could mock some of them white peoples to a tee and it tickled me even more that she would do this in front of me—and laughed some more about that bad Oscar. Sometimes, there in the darkness, I’d catch myself about to tell her, oh, some little thing, like I would Carrie or Martha; and I wondered at her, her peoples, how she come to be like she was. Her husband didn’t sound like much of nothing and she didn’t want to go round her mamma without no money. She did ask about that coffle and scaping out that cellar. I told her some things, how they chained us, the way the peoples sang in the morning at the farm. But I wouldn’t talk about Kaine, about the loss of my peoples; these was still a wound to me and remembrance of that coffle hurt only a little bit less. So we didn’t talk too much that was personal. I mean, I know I mentioned mammy-nem, and she talked about Dorcas—or “Mammy,” as she called her. But this was a white woman and I don’t think I forgot it that whole, entire journey.

  Still, I think me and Miz Lady was in a fair way to getting along with each other, if it hadn’t’ve come up about Council Bluffs. This happen one afternoon I was changing Clara’s diaper. We hadn’t been talking much of nothing, hadn’t been that long come in from lunch. “I’m thinking about going on to Council Bluffs with you-all,” Miz Lady say all a sudden.

  Now Harker always wanted her to go far as the jumping-off place with us; much slave territory as we had to get through, it just made sense for us to travel with a white person long as we could. But Charleston was one way and West was another; it was a lot to ask anyone—even for what we was willing to pay—to go so far out they way for us. “Harker be real glad to hear it,” I said. This the first thing come into my mind cause I knowed it was on his mind. “I know he set aside a good amount for someone to help us get through to Council Bluffs.” I finished with Clara and stood up. Miz Lady didn’t say nothing. She was standing in front one of the windows twisting a hanky in her hands. I guessed that was something to be uneasy about, traveling through so much slave country with a gang of runaway negroes.

  “These white peoples act so hateful,” she say, turning to me, smiling now, “maybe, maybe I just go West with you-all myself. What you think about that?” talking fast, nodding her head like she was agreeing with me. “What I got to stay round here for? I can’t work that farm. Nathan say it’s other womens have gone West.”

  She said some more, but I stopped listening at mention of Nathan. I hadn’t thought that much about him and her loving in a long time. Mostly, we had too much else on our minds to be thinking about loving—least so far as everybody act. So it was easy to forget there was something more between them two. But now, when she said Nathan name, I membered setting up there on that wagon seat between them at the start of the journey. I could feel myself getting warm. “I thought you was going back to your peoples.” I knowed she didn’t set no store by her peoples, but that feeling of danger, of fear was back. Couldn’t she see what harm her being with Nathan would cause us? Hadn’t her peoples taught her nothing?

  “I don’t want to live round slavery no more; I don’t think I could without speaking up,” she say then, looking down at her hands like she couldn’t look at me. But it was funny, cause that was the thing I had come to fear most from her by the end of that journey, that she would speak out against the way we seen some of the peoples was treated and draw tention to us. And what she was talking now would sho enough make peoples note us. “What you think about that, Odessa?” She was watching me, smiling. “About you-all coming with me?”

  “I think it scandalous, white woman chasing all round the country after some red-eyed negro,” I told her; and could’ve bit my tongue. She looked like I’d slapped her, face white as a sheet, them freckles standing out like hand-prints cross her jaw. “Speak, neither act out of turn” seem like I could hear them words in my head. And it seem like I was bound to do one or the other. Oh, I had learned some on that journey. “Mis’ess,” I say. And couldn’t bring myself to say sorry; she’d risk us all for some belly-rub. I mumbled something about it not being my place to speak, something about getting some pastry.

  I was almost to the door when she spoke. “Place,” she say, “place” but not like she was talking to me. “That’s how they answer everything,” she say, “‘Ain’t my place, Missy,’” mocking us, you know, “‘Morning, Mammy’ ‘Ain’t my place.’ ‘Afternoon, Dessa’ ‘Ain’t my place.’ Well, I ain’t talking no ‘place,’” she was yelling now, “no ‘mistress.’” Didn’t seem to me she knew what she was talking, and I knew if I heard much more I was going do more than speak out of turn. So I went on out the room and tried not to slam the door. “I’m talking friends,” she scream and I heard something thud against the door. I stood there in the hall, breathing fast, wanting things back like they was when we come in from lunch, her Miz Lady and me the one she was partnered with in the scheme, wishing she’d come to the door and say what she’d said again.

  Not talking “place,” talking “mistress” talking “friend.” This what was going through my mind as I walked out the hotel. And, Swole all up, told me I didn’t know a “dinner dress” from a “morning gown”—Like I don’t know friend from slave just cause I spoke up about Nathan. I had swole up when Martha spoke about that Robert boy, how he bragged on the girls before the mens. I membered that and it was like a pain in my heart. That was what the white woman was talking about, being Martha, being like Carrie to me; and I was shaken. I’d slowed down, now I started walking fast again. This was the damnedest white woman. White as a sheet and about that much sense—sleeping with negroes, hiding runaways, wanting to be my friend. I slowed down again. Wanting to be my friend. Who wanted to be her friend anyway? I speeded up. It was like her to take for granted I’d want to be her friend, that we-all would want her to come West with us, that she could have what she want for the asking. Would “friends” put us in danger the way she had? And she want to be my friend. I stopped. This was something I hadn’t thought of in her. And I wanted to believe it. I don’t think I wronged her at first, but the white woman I’d opened my eyes to at the start of the summer wasn’t the one I partnered with on that journey; I admitted this to myself that afternoon. Harker might would joke me; Ada probably call me a fool, after all the sand I raised, but I wanted to believe I’d heard the white woman ask me to friend with her. I wouldn’t put no dependence on her holding to it, I told myself, not tarrying now, wanting to see how this would end. “Friend” to her might be like “promise” to white folks. Something to break if it would do them some good. But I wouldn’t draw back from her neither.

  I was almost to the bakeshop, when I thought I heard someone call, “Odessa.” Miz Lady was about the only one call me that and this was a man’s voice, so I kept going. And it come again, “Odessa.” I kept walking, knowing they must be calling someone else, but walking faster and looking round trying to see where it come from just the same. All a sudden, a hand clap me on my arm and jerked me around. First thing I thought about was someone trying to steal that money. We didn’t generally wear them money belts less neither one of us was going to be in the room. We didn’t wear all them petticoats, neither; these was packed away in the bags. But—what with all that friend and place talk—I had come out that day and forgot to take the belt off. When I felt that hand on my arm, the money was the first thing I thought about, and I started fumbling for that pepper.

  “I knew it was you,” and I was looking in the face of a white man, wasn�
�t too much bigger than me.

  I knew he’d mistook me for someone else name Dessa so I tried to pull away from him, but without touching him, you know. I didn’t want to be cused of disrespecting no white person. “Master, Master, I don’t know you,” I told him, but I was scared.

  “Don’t know me, eh?” he said grinning in my face. He had big teeth and no lips and his smile made him look like he was in pain. His nose look like a beak, it was that bony and sharp. His eyes was deep-set close beside it; they was empty as a unclouded sky. It was the white man, the last one, talked to me in that cellar. His eyes made me know him; when I looked into them I didn’t see no reflection of myself. Oh, I knowed him. He knowed I knowed him; and he grinned.

  I started jerking away from him in earnest then. White peoples had stopped, a course, was looking at us, and I tried to talk to them. “I don’t know this master,” I called out. “I belongs to Mistress Sutton staying down to the Hotel Gilmore.” I was so upset I forgot all about Miz Carlisle and them hands. People was saying something, some of them was laughing but wasn’t nobody helping me. The white man started pulling me along, back the way I’d come from. I jerked away and commence to run. “Stop her, someone,” I could hear him yelling, “dangerous criminal, reward.” Then something knocked me off my feet and something smashed into my temple.

  When I come to myself, I was standing with my arms held tight behind me, heavy breathing rasping in my ear. I looked into the face of another white man and the floor about reach up and grab me; hadn’t’ve been for my arms being held, I would’ve fell. I thought it was Boss Smith, had them same light eyes and sandy hair. But this white man was standing behind a desk. There was bars at the window behind him and I could hear other white mens behind me. At first I couldn’t member what happened and when I did, everything inside me felt like it was coming unglued and I fought to hold myself together, just to draw breath. This was a jail; the white man was a jailer, a sheriff. I wanted to scream but all I could do was shake and lick my lips. A voice behind me was saying something and I could see the sheriff’s mouth moving. Sheriff say, “Now just a minute, Nemi—”