The Raven's Honor

by Johnny D. Boggs

  “E-man-ci-pa-tion.”

  Houston felt light-headed. “Yes,” he said. “That’s it.”

  “And Father Abe … I mean … Mister Lincoln, he done this?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want me to read more of that story, Master Sam, or just that big word?”

  “The big word for now. Let us eat. No one makes shrimp and grits better than Aunt Liza.”

  “It’s on account of the bacon and butter.”

  “That’s right.”

  Using the crutch, Houston walked out of the library, through the doorway into the dogtrot, and into the adjoining cabin.

  President Abraham Lincoln had announced this Emancipation Proclamation a week after a savage battle near Sharpsburg, Maryland, either a Union victory or a draw, but from some reports a more costly bloodbath than Shiloh.

  As of January 1, 1863, slaves in all territories still in rebellion would be free.

  It took a while for that to register. Of course, anyone could make such a boast. How could you enforce any law in a state in which your government had no authority? Free the slaves in South Carolina? In Mississippi? In Texas? Balderdash. But the more Houston had studied it, the more he realized just what a brilliant political maneuver Mr. Lincoln had managed.

  This war had just become a different type of war. Not for the Confederacy, but to free men in bondage. No matter who Jefferson Davis sent to England or France, now that Lincoln had changed the purpose of the war, no skilled orator, politician, or broker could persuade any country of power and prestige to recognize the Confederate States of America. With one brilliant stroke of his pen, Abraham Lincoln had perhaps just won the war, or, at the least, prolonged it.

  In the long run, Houston realized, Lincoln would have to adjust his proclamation. In the end, Houston understood—and so, he thought, did that raw-boned lawyer from Illinois—all slaves would be free.

  The Confederacy was suddenly alone in the world. The Confederacy was lost.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Tom

  The figure sits on the edge of Houston’s desk, so cocksure and haughty, grinning with a set of teeth that seem even whiter against his dark black skin. His eyes sparkle. He is dressed in the proper outfit of a gentleman’s coachman.

  Houston cannot believe the audacity. He starts to mouth one word, but stops himself before he can call Tom Blue uppity.

  The one slave who had run away from Sam Houston must be able to read his mind, for Tom Blue laughs.

  Houston shakes from a deathly chill. Another ghost has come to visit him, but Tom Blue frightens him more than Crockett, his mother, or Old Hickory. Perhaps Tom Blue scares him even more than Eliza.

  “Tom,” he manages to say. “Are you dead, too?”

  The slave slaps his thigh and slides off the desk. Tall, he speaks like a man with education. Well, Sam Houston had sent him to school—over protests from Texas officials and neighbors—but Tom Blue had already been a man of letters, it appeared, long before Houston had purchased him at auction.

  “Must I be dead to come see you, Boss Sam?” The last words come out in a thickened accent. Houston bristles. This runaway dares mock me?

  “Oh, Boss Sam, I’s so sorry. I sure didn’t mean to insult your pride, Gen’ral. Please don’t whup me. I promise, Master. I be a good boy … an obedient darky … from now on, Boss Sam.”

  Blood rushes to Houston’s head. He pushes himself up. “By thunder, Tom Blue …”

  The runaway slave laughs.

  Houston tries to calm himself. He tells himself that he is dreaming again.

  He bought Tom Blue in Washington-on-the-Brazos. The auctioneer said the strapping young buck was a “quality folk” of good breeding—as good as a colored boy could get—and had been born in the West Indies. That had been … he tries to think … when talk of independence could only be whispered, when he had been new to the state, without any slaves. 1833? Something like that.

  “Why have you come to haunt me? Did you die in Mexico? Well, had you not run off, I would have cared for you. I always cared for you, and all my …”

  “Property?”

  Houston clenches his fist. “I treated you right, Tom Blue.”

  “Did you?” There is no mockery in his accent now, just anger. Those black eyes match the intensity of the slave’s voice.

  “You never chopped wood,” Houston barks. “You never worked the fields.”

  “Because I was your coachman … once you bought that fancy yellow wagon to impress your wife. How is that barouche, General? That new boy of yours, young Jeff, does he have a touch with the leather the way I do? Does he know how to get mules or horses moving at a good lope?”

  “I do not deserve this, Tom Blue.”

  “Don’t you?” The Negro crosses the room, finds a glass, and fills it with brandy from a decanter. He drinks it down in one gulp, tops the glass again, and returns to Houston’s desk. “You think you’re a good man, a hero. The father of Texas. Ol’ Sam Jacinto.”

  “I have lived my life with honor.”

  “White man’s honor. Slaveholder’s honor. That’s what you mean.” Tom Blue sips the brandy. “Oh, how you were something else speaking for the rights of your Cherokee Indian pals. But they were more family to you. Me and Aunt Liza … and old Esau. You remember Esau? How many years did he work for you … before he died?”

  Houston frowns.

  “How many slaves do you own now? Ten?” The mockery returns as Tom Blue sips more brandy. “Nah. Gots to be more’n that. A dozen, maybe. I mean, slaves that you owns and Margaret … you don’t mind my callin’ her by her first name, does you, Master? Oh, I reckon that ain’t fittin’. Reckons that I be actin’ a mite uppity for a runaway slave hidin’ out from all the greedy white bastards who wants to collect a bounty? So, combined, your darkies and Missus Houston’s boys … gots to be an even dozen. Let’s say, eight hundred dollars each. I know. That ain’t right because a strappin’ young buck like Jeff and Joshua, they be worth two three times that much. At auction, I mean. So that puts your wealth at …? So … hmmm. Cypherin’ never was my best skill in that school you sent me to. Nine thousand dollars? Somewhere along that. That be a lot of money, Boss Sam. Lots of money.”

  Houston rears back, pointing a massive finger at the runaway. “You got an education, Tom Blue. I saw to that. You were allowed to go to church, too. I allowed that.”

  “You allowed that.” Tom Blue’s head shakes. “You don’t see for anything, Sam Jacinto. Because you’re just a rich white man. Me? I’m just an animal to you, like one of your mules or pigs or one of those baby geese and turkeys and chickens that Missus Margaret loves. But an animal, now, like that fine horse of yours. An animal has a soul. But a Negro? No.” His head shakes faster and faster. “No, sir. A Negro is an animal, but a Negro ain’t got no soul.”

  Houston opens his mouth, but no words of protest form. He slumps back in the chair.

  “You did let us go to church,” Tom Blue tells him, “but after we had stayed outside to hold your horses while you attended the white services. And you did teach Jeff how to eat with knife and spoon and fork. Yes, sir, Boss Sam, that was mighty white of you.”

  Houston finds another argument. “Do you think Jeff would have been better off had I let him be bought by that son of a bitch Moreland? Moreland would have whipped the boy for spite. Or maybe I should have sold Jeff back to that bastard McKell, who needed to sell Jeff to pay off his whiskey debts.”

  “What’d you pay for Jeff, Sam? Five hundred dollars or something like that. Bargain you got.”

  “Jeff was better off … is better off … with me than he would have been with Moreland or McKell.”

  “Right. You took him straight to the mercantile, bought him new duds, some ginger cakes. You were a fine boss, General Houston. A fine master. You’re eatin’ oysters on the half-shel
l. Aunt Liza and the rest of us would be eatin’ possum and sweet taters.”

  “I do not deserve this treatment, Tom Blue.”

  Now Tom Blue laughs. “Well, Aunt Liza made real fine possum stew and sweet taters. I’ll give you that.”

  “McKell and Moreland were slave beaters. They would have …”

  “McKell and Moreland never owned me, Sam Jacinto. Never would have, either, unless you ran out of money and had to sell me to pay off your own whiskey debts. Then again, maybe you’ll have to sell Jeff or Joshua or even Aunt Liza. War’s not going too good for your Texas, General. And firewood don’t last forever, Boss Sam.”

  “I never beat you, Tom Blue.”

  The runaway tests the brandy on his tongue, swallows some more, and sets the glass on the desk. “Because you knew I would have torn your damned head off if you laid a stripe across my back.”

  Houston almost rises in fury. “If you’d done that, by God, I …”

  “What? Would’ve castrated me? Crippled me? Give me a good Come-to-Jesus beatin’?”

  “I never beat you,” Houston says again. “I never beat any of my slaves. And you know that’s the gospel truth, Tom Blue.”

  The slave grins again, and retrieves his glass. He swishes the amber liquid around the crystal, admiring it, and drains the brandy. “Didn’t you?” he says.

  Houston stares across the library, seeking help. But he’s alone with a runaway slave. He wets his lips. Sweat stains his armpits, and his damned hands turn clammy as they had done at Horseshoe Bend, at San Jacinto, and countless times before and after.

  “I never beat …” He stops.

  He remembers.

  * * * * *

  Huntsville at Raven Wood plantation. Four years ago. Maybe five. Jeff has put a halter on Houston’s fine stallion, Old Pete, and leads the horse to the spring a few hundred yards from the house, the spring everyone called the “baptizing pool.” Houston’s daughter Nannie, not yet in her teens, runs down to the horse. She has been playing musketeers with Sam Junior and Maggie, so she holds a switch that has become a make-believe sword. Jeff knows better, but he jokingly tells Nannie to swat that fly on Old Pete’s nose. With a childish laugh, she smacks the horse. Old Pete is a hot-blooded stallion, tolerates little nonsense, and he rears. Nannie winds up in the spring, Jeff releases the reins, and dives in after Nannie, lifting her up, and pulling her out, barely getting himself onto dry land. Old Pete gallops down the road.

  * * * * *

  “Yeah,” Tom Blue says. “You remember. So do I. I heard the ruction, came out of the woodshed, hurried to the baptizing pool. Poor Miss Nannie’s bawling her fool head off, and Jeff …” He laughs. “Hell, he’s practically white.”

  Houston feels shamed.

  “So, I run off to fetch Old Pete, leaving you and your missus to conduct your own inquisition … isn’t that what you called those Rebel law dogs who come visiting you today of doing? Well, y’all ask Miss Nannie and poor, scared-to-death Jeff anything you can think of. By the time, I’m back, you’ve handed Jeff your knife. You tell him to go cut a good switch, and it better not be a small one. Then you led him to the stable. That’s how it happened. Or am I wrong, Boss Sam?”

  For a moment, Houston cannot answer. He sees himself, though, slashing with the switch, and he remembers the welts on Jeff’s back. He cannot forget the tears in the young slave’s eyes.

  “I would …” he tries to explain, “had it been my own son.” He nods, as though to confirm what he is saying. “I would have whipped my own son for …”

  “For what? A foolish prank? That’s what it was. Nothing more.”

  “Jeff …”

  “Jeff pulled your daughter out of that spring, Sam Jacinto. He likely saved her from drowning. And Jeff … he can’t swim, not any better than Miss Nannie.”

  “Yes.” He is a former lawyer, a former senator. He finds his argument. “But Jeff was responsible. He told Nannie to strike Old Pete’s nose.”

  “Yes, sir. So you beat him.”

  “As I would have whipped Sam Junior had it …”

  The runaway laughs. “Sam Houston,” he says, “tell me something. When did you ever beat any of your children?” A long pause fills the room, and then Tom Blue is walking away, toward the door. “Everybody calls you a hero, Sam Jacinto. The newspapers. The rich white folks, and the poor white folks. The preachers. Your kids. Your wife. You even call yourself one, too. But you ain’t no hero, Boss Sam. You ain’t nothin’ but a rich white man.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  October 1–15, 1862

  The next morning, he brought Jeff back to the office, and again pointed to the New Orleans Daily Crescent.

  “E-man-ci-pation!” Jeff grinned widely at his accomplishment.

  “That’s right. This is a proclamation from President Lincoln. It says that on the first day of next year, you will be free. All Negroes will be free.”

  The young man could not comprehend.

  “Well,” Houston said. “Maybe not immediately. But in the end, when peace comes, you and Joshua and Aunt Liza, Aunt Mary, Pearl, Lewis … all of them … you shall all be free.”

  “Free?”

  Houston nodded vigorously. “Yes. Do you understand?”

  Jeff shook his head. “No, sir. And I don’t rightly think Aunt Mary or Aunt Liza wants to be free, sir.”

  Houston frowned. “Well, you just remember. Abraham Lincoln will set you free. Eventually.”

  “Like God will.”

  “No. Not like God. Just …” Sighing, he gave up. He picked up the letter to lawyer John Rose Sr. in Chicago. “We should take this letter to town to post. And …” He thought of something else, something he and Margaret had discussed. “Give me an hour to pen another correspondence, Jeff. Then take me to Houston City.”

  “Yes, sir.” The slave walked away, and Houston sat in his chair, opened a drawer, and found stationery and an envelope.

  “Master Sam?”

  It sounded like Tom Blue’s voice, and Houston shivered before looking up only to see Jeff standing there. Gathering his composure, Houston said, “And one more thing, Jeff. I would prefer if you no longer called me master.” With a smile, he pointed toward the ceiling. “We have but one master, and he watches over us from heaven.”

  Jeff swallowed. “But, Master …”

  “No. Not ‘Master Sam.’ Our master is the Lord.”

  “What you want me to call you then?”

  “Mister Houston will suffice.”

  “Yes, sir, Mister Sam … I mean …”

  “Mister Sam is fine. I like the sound of it.”

  The slave tried to twist all this until it made sense. Apparently, he failed.

  Houston asked, “Is there something else, Jeff? Something I can explain?”

  “No, Mas—I mean, no, Mister Sam. But … well. Yes, sir. So, we gonna be free on the first day of January, but we ain’t really gonna be free?”

  Houston sighed. “Something like that, Jeff. It is difficult to comprehend or explain.”

  “And Mister Lincoln, he’s freein’ us? But he ain’t quite able to do it?”

  “Yes. That’s about how things size up.”

  “But … well … sir … ain’t you … I mean, don’t you have that power? Couldn’t you free us, Mas—Mister Houston? You, sir? And not Mister Lincoln?”

  Sliding the pen back into its holder, Houston swallowed. He seemed to hear Tom Blue laughing at him again, but he saw no one in the room, only his own reflection in the mirror and young Jeff standing at the door.

  “It is … hard … but …” He could not look Jeff in the eye. “You will be free, Jeff. In time. Remember.” Then he recalled a fact to help him. “When our new leaders adopted the Confederate constitution for our state, they made it illegal to free slaves.” He felt despicable, letting
an illegal constitution in a traitorous state get him out of this trap he had set for himself. “Have faith, though, my loyal servant. You will live to see you and all your race freed. See to your chores, Jeff, and fetch me in an hour.”

  He found the pen, dipped it in the inkwell, and placed it on the stationery. He could not write. His heart pained him.

  He could not free his slaves—but not because of any state law. He just couldn’t do it. Not with the little time he had left on this Earth. Margaret and the children would need something left behind, and Houston had little money. He would not leave them destitute as poor Mary Jones had been after Anson’s cowardly suicide. He had to think of his family first. He had to …

  Returning his pen to its holder, Houston pushed back in the chair.

  “You were right, Tom Blue,” he said in a ragged whisper. “I am no hero. I am but a weak, cowardly man.”

  * * * * *

  Trips to Houston City he could take, but no more journeys to Brenham, Bastrop, Washington, Huntsville, Nacogdoches. Margaret even stopped traveling to see her mother in Independence. On this day, Jeff drove him to his namesake city to see the barber, Perry Stokes. As far back as Lebanon, Tennessee, Houston had learned that barbers were not only good for shaves and haircuts.

  What shocked him was finding the Confederate and state flags flying at half-staff. One woman walked out of the store across the street and dropped her basket of eggs. The gray-clad soldier coming forward to ask for Houston’s pass stumbled, dropped his musket, and gawked.

  Stepping out of his tonsorial parlor, Perry Stokes turned pale, blinked, and leaned against the wooden wall.

  “By …” he started, laughed, then roared. “I told you dumb oafs it was a lie! He ain’t dead!”

  “Who’s not dead?” Houston demanded.

  “Why, you, you old reprobate!” the barber shouted.

  “I live just down the road,” Houston told the barber as he settled into the chair. “Who sent the telegraph?”

  “I don’t know, General. Someone said you had taken sick and up and died. Folks were wearing black armbands in Galveston, Houston City, maybe all the way to Nacogdoches, Austin, and Dallas.”