Chapter Two

    Wooden crosses had been erected haphazardly along the path through the quarters. Tallow—dripping wicks were tied to the arms, spaced evenly and hung long to dry, as if crucified angels had been left to decay, leaving only their shattered skeletal wings. The wicks were now being rolled in partially cooled tallow to add thickness. Savilla had claimed the task of candle-making. She liked her candles thick and no one else had the patience or was willing to devote the time. Unfortunately, the Confederate quartermasters had thinned the herd of livestock, thereby reducing the supply of heavy animal fat, and Savilla had been forced to rein in her enthusiasm. Savilla experimented with the tallow by adding fragrant items to disguise the smell; tonight the lane smelled of animal death and anise. Her sons had been enlisted to help her, but one by one they had slipped away, starting with Joseph, the oldest. Joseph was eighteen, independent and smart, and could appear enthusiastic while doing the least possible amount of work. He had a distinctive tuft of white hair that grew just off-center on his head, which set him apart and gave him a dashing look. He played on his uniqueness and got away with more than his brothers. He was gone before anyone realized it. The next oldest was Sammy and he had stayed longer, but now only young Andrew remained. Andrew maintained a respectful distance so as not to lard his new trousers, his new shoes, or his new hat, all of which he would wear tomorrow for his first day in the fields. And so Savilla worked alone.

    Personal chores were performed at night as daytime was for the Master. The hornworm blight had forced them to spend every daylight hour in the fields and they were worn senseless, performing their tasks in a trance.

    Heat lingered and cabin doors stood open. The lane was lit by heavy iron frying pans burning grease set on stumps, while a few small fires burned in shallow pits, green logs spraying frequent sparks. Smoke burned eyes and throats, and no one lingered near the flames in the heat.

    Cassius approached from the big house, the path barely visible as the moon was setting, a sliver in the sky. He passed Mr. Nettle's home, the Overseer's place, set between the big house and the quarters, visible to neither, so that on this side of the bend he could just make out the glow from the lane above hedges and between trees. Inside, Mr. Nettle's wife shrieked at her children and Cassius knew Mr. Nettle would escape early to patrol the grounds and slave cabins. Cassius rounded the bend and approached yellow firelight and the path went black under his feet. He entered the smoke bloat and identified silhouettes, marking the occasional face lit by low greasy flames. Cassius walked the center of the lane by the gully, named by some previous wit Suetsmoke Run, which was known to swell to a river when it rained and where the women dumped bathwater and other things. His cabin was the last before a cleared area and the woods, and he hoped to pass through unnoticed. To his surprise, they looked at him only to pretend not to see him. He flinched after the third time and examined the ground. To be shunned was worse than to be ignored. Cassius preferred isolation; it served as his cloak and allowed him to pretend to be unaffected by the capricious wisdom of the masters or those in the quarters who schemed for power. But as their eyes brushed off him, Cassius knew that isolation was desirable only when it was by choice. He was surprised to find himself wounded.

    He heard their talk in snatches—don' know why Massa ain't clear out a new field this year, I could'a tol' him that one be played out—

    —got that thing happenin in my lung, ev'y time I breathe I be suckin through a muddy spiderweb—

    —pity 'bout that old woman, used to get potions from her—The voices dimly competed with the unpleasant chatter in his head. The sharp plunk of a homemade banjo cut into his thoughts, George playing a riff as he spoke: You got to practice, Joseph, I can't be playin so much no more, my fingers givin me fits, and this thing on my shoulder hurts bad.

    Joseph replying: When freedom comes, it'll all get better, George, everything better under freedom, and didn't I see you do your shoulder with your own knife?

    Don't make it hurt no less. You got to learn to endure pain, boy, and don't give me no sass mouth 'bout no freedom.

    Banjo George played a song, and Cassius walked on, listening with his head down so that he did not see Shedd. The Little Angry Man commandeered a wide alley in his walk, expecting all hands to make way. Cassius ran directly into him and the little man stumbled for balance. Shedd found his feet and sprang at Cassius, Shedd's good eye boring in while his other eye wandered off to look at something to the side. Cassius was mesmerized by Shedd's loose eye, as if Shedd's words were aimed not at him but at some unseen other standing near him.

    God damn son of a roach! said Little Angry Man, stabbing a thumb at Cassius's face. Starin at your toes like they stuck with diamonds. I been walkin here since before you shit solid, you yellowjack big house whoremonger. Maybe if I seen you out bustin your teats squeezin worms off smokeweed, then maybe you see me back off!

    An ember of fury flamed inside Cassius. He had kept Emoline Justice packed down tight in his chest, but now things churned inside and he was dangerously close to liberating his grief at this pointless little man. At that moment, he disliked Shedd unspeakably, Shedd who held no more claim to injustice than anyone else in the quarters, yet he and his wandering eye wore temper like a skin. Cassius knew he would have a pass from the quarters if he chose this moment to punish Shedd. But Emoline's memory brushed against him and allowed him a breath, and after that breath, another. Emoline had taught him to look for another way to get back his own. Cassius stared at Shedd as all eyes watched.

    Cassius's voice was low and without emotion: Go away, little man.

    Little Angry Man's mouth twisted into a snarl but no sound emerged. He could live with angry, but little man? Shedd framed a response but saw he stood alone. A second tirade would be unwise. He spat in the dirt, held his quivering leg still for an age, and was away. Cassius watched his clumsy—quick shamble, long leg swinging wide as if trying to dislodge a stone. Cassius had been told that Shedd's leg had been crushed on Durning's Hill ten years before when the mule Milady lost her footing in the muck and rolled back on him, but he thought there might be more to the story.

    The tension broke and ended his invisibility. They looked at him, they nodded as they returned to their business, they smiled about a thing to be quickly forgotten, nothing important, just Little Angry Man.

    He did not like Shedd, but Shedd had done him a service and brought him back to life in the quarters. Now Cassius could become invisible again.

    He saw Tempie Easter wearing a clean dress, presenting a fresh facade for an ordinary night of chores. He found her airs tolerable, and appreciated that she paid him little attention. There was something to be said for frank self-possession. He wondered what trinket, if any, she had gotten from Pet, and wondered further if she would slip away tonight, avoid patrollers and meet up with a buyer. It was not impossible that her customer was himself a patroller.

    Cassius's cabin was large and more solidly constructed than the others. Cassius could have lived in the carpentry shed near the big house, but chose to live here. He had built this cabin especially for his family. He and Marriah had lived there during her pregnancy. She had never returned after the boy was born, and close to four weeks had passed before Cassius was back. He did not doubt that the cabin might be better suited to a family, but the others had been too spooked to inhabit a place thought to be haunted. If it was, then he was the shade. He had built hidden places in the walls that would be near to impossible to discover, and while most stood empty, one held a book, a dangerous possession if it were to be found, along with a toy soldier he had carved for his son.

    He ducked under a wing of candle wicks and arrived at his door. He heard Big Gus's voice and stepped to the outside corner of the cabin to look out on the cleared area near the tall trees. Two women hovered around Big Gus, while a third stayed a few steps outside their circle. Gus was preening, making a pretense of conjuring up a poem right there on the spot to impress them. Cassius had witnessed this act before.

    Big Gus employed his pulpit voice: When I 'member your smile, I come back after 'while, so 'gainst the till I lean, 'cause all about you I dream.

    Cassius stifled a laugh. Big Gus was forever and always a wretched poet, but was he truly so deaf to his own lack of rhythm? When no uncomfortable laughter followed, Cassius wondered if poor poetry, rendered with artificial ardor, might be catnip to women.

    Why, that beautiful, Big Gus, said the deeply stupid Fawn. Fawn embodied the black woman's curse—she was pretty. Hoke had named her as well, her newborn face reminding him of a young deer. As she developed, her body grew curvaceous to exaggeration so that men could not look at her without envisioning fornication. By age thirteen, Fawn's presence was required at the big house when Ellen was away, and sometimes at the smokehouse when she was not.

    The second girl with Big Gus was light-skinned, freckled Polly, she of the flat round face that pinched her small features in toward her nose. But she was as clever as she was plain. Cassius wondered why she attended to Big Gus but then knew it was because of her cleverness. She played pilot fish to the pretty one, safe in the knowledge that Gus would never amuse himself with someone so homely, allowing her to collect whatever scraps might fall.

    You like that? said Big Gus, referring to his poem. He did not look at Fawn. He looked at Quashee, the new girl. He raised his voice a notch and said: Mr. Nettle has expressed appreciation for my poetry, other patrollers, too. One said I ought present 'em to Old Master Hoke hisself.

    Quashee had come with her father Beauregard from Master John-Corey's plantation, and the two former house servants had been put to work in the fields. In the wake of Big Gus's plea for flattery,

    Cassius considered her for the first time. Quashee was unusual in the quarters where adult field hands were strong and large. Her shoulders were narrow, her breasts small, her hips and legs lean. Cassius admired her face, although he might have taken little notice had Big Gus not blazed the trail. Her eyes were wide-set, an almond shape that swept up and away from her nose. Her forehead was high, smooth, and her upper lip was particularly defined and appealing. In the right company she would be high yellow, lighter than most field hands, light enough to be welcome in the big house. And unless Cassius was mistaken, Quashee was edging away from Gus, a smile on her face that did not encourage him and may well have been indulgent. With that pleasant realization, Cassius came by a measure of respect for her.

    Might surprise you to know how many whites be appreciatin my poetry. But I want to know 'bout you, how you like it? said Big Gus.

    Oh I liked it, Gus, I did, said Fawn.

    No, I mean you, new girl, said Big Gus and Quashee's head dipped in a manner that resembled a nod.

    To go against Big Gus was dangerous, almost as dangerous as it was to get close to him. Big Gus was the Driver, and as such, his favorites reaped benefits. Those who crossed him found themselves trapped in unpleasant working conditions while being eyed suspiciously by the Overseer, as Big Gus regularly whispered in Mr. Nettle's ear. Wise to stay on Big Gus's good side, but even that could be treacherous. Once Gus tired of someone, then they too would be eyed suspiciously.

    Thought you ought to know, Quashee, your time in the fields can go easier, said Big Gus.

    It's not so bad, said Quashee softly.

    I got me a fine relationship with the white folk here, he said.

    I imagine you do, said Quashee.

    And I don't take serious all that talk 'bout bad luck, said Big Gus.

    Cassius saw Quashee's head flinch sideways at the words "bad luck."

    Big Gus moved to her, taking her hands in his, turning them over to expose her palms. Neither Fawn nor Polly moved, watching the moment play out.

    These hands, said Big Gus, ain't used to field work. These be inside hands. See how they split and blister. I can help these pretty little hands return to the big house where they belong.

    They just gettin used to new ways, said Quashee. Always that way in the beginning.

    Big Gus smiled at her, holding her hands for a beat too long, and Cassius shared his confusion. Was she playing the fool, or did she truly not understand what was being offered? If she did understand, was she being coy or was she not interested? Big Gus could offer good things to a pliant female, and he enjoyed it when women competed to satisfy him. What would cause this new girl to hesitate?

    Cassius saw Big Gus for what he was, a fickle boy in a man's body empowered by white people who enjoyed his groveling flattery. If Quashee saw through Big Gus, then she was wise indeed. Maybe even wise enough to play the fool.

    Quashee saw Cassius and a brief smile crossed her face. Cassius could not pretend he had not seen it, so he nodded. Big Gus saw her smile and turned his head, thus trapping Cassius.

    Hello Gus, said Cassius.

    What you lookin at? said Big Gus.

    Cassius did not care to start things with Big Gus. Did the new girl imagine that Cassius might protect her? Or was she simply redirecting Gus's attention away from her? Wise, perhaps, but Cassius wanted no part of it. If Gus had a fresh female target, so be it. Cassius's life was altogether simpler when he avoided friction with him.

    I was just thinking about your poem, said Cassius easily.

    You were thinkin 'bout my poem? said Big Gus.

    Heard it when I got to my door. You got that voice, Gus. Might sound good if you sing it.

    You sayin I should sing it? said Big Gus. Big Gus was altogether baffled by Cassius's meaning.

    Some poems sound better sung, said Cassius.

    What that mean? What you sayin, Cassius?

    Cassius was clever enough to trust silence, which put Big Gus in deeper torment. On one hand, it resembled flattery, but Gus knew Cassius and, what was worse, suspected Cassius of mocking him.

    You think you're better 'n me, Cassius?

    Gus, I only know I could never make up such a poem. But that's all I got to say 'cause I am dog tired, so I'll only say one last thing which is good night.

    Cassius walked back to his cabin door. He wondered why he had done it, making himself a target so the new girl Quashee could get away.

    Big Gus looked back and found only Fawn and Polly. He looked over their heads as they attempted to engage him.

    That was nice of him, said Fawn.

    Maybe it was, said Big Gus.

    But go on with your poem, said Fawn. I'd be lovin to hear it again.

    Don't remember it no more, said Big Gus as he saw Mr. Nettle coming down the lane, performing his evening check early. Big Gus rushed now, to walk with Mr. Nettle, who smiled when he saw Gus coming.

    Cassius opened his door and saw Savilla's husband Abram sitting inside waiting on the small stool by the cold hearth. Cassius had not kept a fire in the hearth since the rains in March and April. Abram was admiring the carved toy soldiers Cassius had been whittling for Weyman. He set them down in military formation.

    Little bit like you go out your way to get his goat, said Abram.

    Little bit like he goes out of his way to be a horse's ass, said Cassius. No one can say I wasn't pleasant as a man can be.

    You get to eat? said Abram.

    Cassius nodded. Got something from Mam Rosie.

    Because Savilla saw you were goin be late so she made extra in case you was hungry. You could'a had my portion. Can't eat nothin with my tooth.

    Savilla's a fine woman, Abram. You tell her I thank her, but that I'm all right tonight. Time you got that tooth pulled.

    Then Cassius caught himself. He had been about to tell Abram to visit Emoline in town, she had poultices that could lessen the pain of an extraction.

    Tooth ain't nothin, said Abram. Ain't nobody right. You hear 'bout Banjo George? Got the bilious fever.

    Banjo enjoys complaining so much he makes his own pain, said Cassius.

    Ain't nobody right.

    Abram stood up. He looked at the tobacco leaves hanging off the rafters drying near the ceiling.

    Some of them gettin the mold, you best dry heat 'em.

    Cassius nodded.

    Been out to the traps?

    Not in a few days.

    Abram nodded. Abram was glad to have his wife cook for Cassius, as Cassius was a lucky trapper and he brought to her whatever he caught, to share with her family.

    All right tonight, said Abram with a thoughtful frown, as if memorizing Cassius's exact words so he could repeat them to his wife. Cassius could see that Abram had something else on his mind, and he did not care to hear it.

    I'm just going to get some sleep, said Cassius, hoping to ward it off.

    I'se heartily sorry, Cassius. If it be all right to say so.

    Not necessary to say—

    Had a real good likin of that woman and she did not deserve to go in such a way.

    That's kind of you—

    She always decent to me and mine, and I think that be all I got to say 'bout it.

    Cassius had known that Abram could not be stopped from saying what he had come to say. Once Abram set on a path, he had to offer his condolences about Emoline Justice or eventually burst.

    Well, said Cassius. Maybe she's the lucky one. You remember to tell Savilla I thank her.

    All right tonight, said Abram. Cassius caught a whiff of Abram's breath and knew that his tooth had to go.

    Abram was a decent man and in the raw caverns of Cassius's mind, Abram's concern and empathy were a balm. But it was a relief when he was gone.

    Cassius lay on his pallet and listened as the quarter settled. Children's voices drifted off as bathing ended and bedtime stories concluded. Low conversations among men replaced them, as well as the activities of women, finishing candles, washing clothes, or mending their only frocks or their husband's one pair of trousers.

    Insects and crickets voiced their songs as the air cooled. His mind drifted and touched briefly on Mam Rosie. She had raised him, but Hoke had named him. Which act was more important to his personality? he wondered. Hoke Howard was not his father; his mother had been pregnant when Hoke bought her, although he had not bought Cassius's father. He had sold her four years after Cassius was born, and Cassius wondered if an incident had precipitated her sale. He thought not; Hoke's fortunes had always been up and down, and the turnover in slaves and horseflesh was considerable, new favorites purchased when he was enthusiastically flush, sold off when things went sour. Cassius considered Hoke Howard's name. If Cassius was named on a flight of whimsy, Hoke was named with grave consideration. The third Hoke Howard bore a name of substance with extensive roots. His great-grandfather Horace had built Sweetsmoke; his grandfather, the first Hoke, had made it a monstrous success; his father, the second Hoke, had further expanded it; and he now commanded it. If Cassius was a name from a book, Hoke was a name with great expectations. What would it be like to bear such a name? Cassius thought of the responsibility he had witnessed that afternoon, and for a fleeting moment imagined Hoke Howard as trapped in his destiny as Cassius was in his.

    Jenny came to his cabin door. She opened it without knocking, but tonight lingered in the doorway; normally she would have closed the door behind her and begun to undress.

    You want me with you tonight, Cassius? said Jenny.

    He looked at her silhouette, her arm stretched out with her hand on the door. Behind her, the grease fires were out, and a log shifted and sprayed embers in what remained of a fire by the gully. An instant of flame hugged the log, then dropped back into the glowing red ashes.

    Not tonight, said Cassius.

    Her silhouette nodded and backed out. He regretted turning her away, but did not know how to be anything but alone this night. Jenny would have been smart enough to provide nothing more than warmth and an easy presence, but he could not have that now.

    Back when it happened, Cassius had assumed that the love component of his life was over for good. His wife and son were gone. In the aftermath of that, with a raging and tormented mind, he saw women shy from him the way wild deer shy from a company of soldiers. More than a year passed before Jenny happened by the carpentry shed with something to be repaired. A few days later she visited again. In time, her excuses became careless. He had thought Jenny offered charity for old times' sake. Years before he had courted her, but it was a poor match and she had ended it and he had borne that hurt for some time. Now she came at night so the others would not know.

    Cassius and Jenny did not meet often. They rarely had occasion to speak; he a carpenter, she a field hand; and she only came when he nodded to her at some point during the day, granting her permission. She would not always come at his nod, but when she did, she would come furtively and lie beside him where he pretended not to be waiting. He craved the physical element of their liaison, but youthful passion was gone. She had once abandoned him—her punishment was to be ravished, but not loved. Yet she was willing, while others acted as if he were in smallpox quarantine. He better trusted the judgment of the wary women; they saw him as he saw himself, a raging, bitter, coldhearted man. Jenny tried to be near him, the way small children and animals tried to be near him, and this to him was inexplicable.

    On his worst days, small children, barely old enough to speak, would hover as if sensing his need. He imagined himself unapproachable, and yet they came, sometimes to sit by him, sometimes to take his hand. And he would grow calm. Domestic animals, independent cats in particular, would approach. Blinded within black storms, he would be jolted by a nudge against his shin, the shock of a cold nose, the amazing strength of a tiny body running its length against him, a layer of fur coating the sweat of his leg or neck or cheek.

    It was strange to think of these things, at a time when he was ready to release the demons of his memory.

    Cassius dreamed of running. His muscles knotted and anxiety passed through his legs as he slept fitfully on his pallet with his back on fire.

    He woke suddenly. He tried to shake off the dream, but it encircled him. On that day, he had been unaware of his back bleeding, but he had felt a deep cold and searing heat all at once. Marriah was dead. The boy who had yet to be named was gone. Cassius ran.

    The patrollers chased him on their horses with their dogs. When his mind was right, he knew ways to fool the dogs and evade the patrollers, but that took planning and this was not planned, he had to outrun them with the only tools he possessed: Stamina fueled by hatred and horror, the stamina to run forever and never stop, not to eat, not to sleep, just to run until he had outrun all of it.

    He ran through the fields, past crops and hedgerows, he ran across dusty roads and into woods, he ran through brambles and brush, he ran along the creek, he ran without thinking.

    The dogs were close, then far, then close again. He did not care. He anticipated the moment the dogs would catch him and tear him apart, a chance to feel again—would they go for his back, would the blood drive them mad, would it happen quickly or would he have time to savor his own death?

    He ran to the edge of town. A flash through his brain warned that if he were to run through the streets, he would surely be caught. He ran through the streets.

    They came on, dogs, and horses carrying men, and he ran between houses and past the dry goods store and a boardinghouse and a tavern, and then his legs were strange, as if no longer joined to his hips, running full-out in his mind while his legs lagged, as if dragging a dead steer, as if he had plugged into dense muck, thick legs sucking to pull free, the bottom of his feet shooting roots that dug in and grabbed. Each step tore his feet out of the ground while the world rushed and swirled around him.

    The first dog was too fast, barking maniacally, dancing around him. Then came the pack, a thunderous wave of sharp barking and hot breath chased by whistles, horsemen ordering dogs back, horses blundering in, dust clouding and choking.

    A woman's voice poked a pinhole of light into the scrabble of his mind, and he pictured the sound coming between himself and the dogs horses men. Her voice was a safe sound, a barrier, authority without fear. He quivered with exhaustion as he willed himself to remain standing. Never before had his body quit on him, never, he could press it to impossible limits and yet here in the direst of moments, it trembled.

    Her voice was close, the patroller's voices responded from far off. In a moment or an hour, the horse hooves backed away and she was in front of him, her arms under his armpits, and they moved, a miracle, but it was her legs doing the work, his own being dead.

    He did not know that Emoline Justice had saved him from being hobbled. He did not know that she had confronted the patroller who had unsheathed his blade, readying it for Cassius's Achilles tendon. He did not know that they were soon joined by Hoke on horseback. He did not know that she told them she would take Cassius into her home and that when he was recovered he would return to Sweetsmoke and his duties.

    He did not know that Hoke nodded in agreement at the same moment that the others scoffed at her in that high-handed arrogance of the desperate poor who crave a lower creature to abuse.

    Hoke turned them back and created a simmering resentment. Hoke informed them that Cassius was a valuable possession and he did not care to throw away property. Neither county nor Commonwealth would reimburse him for the loss of a carpenter, and he suggested that any patroller on their eight-dollar-a-week salary who damaged his slave could repay Hoke for Cassius's fair value. But Cassius knew Hoke Howard. Hoke was an emotional man who trusted his first instincts. In a moment of high dudgeon, Hoke had been known to sacrifice his own best interests for that heady savor of power and revenge. As he healed, Cassius revisited Hoke's choice. That same man three days before had flayed him with a bullwhip, carving stripe after stripe into his back. Planters reckoned that each stripe lowered the price of a slave by five dollars, but at that moment, Hoke was interested only in punishment. Cassius did not consider that something decent might be coiled inside the planter. Emoline alone had seen that.

    The first two days spent in Emoline's home, Cassius did not know where he was. His mind was convulsive with fulminating rage, ashriek with images of Marriah and her baby, images that burned inside until he was empty of everything, and yet the fire still would not quit.

    Pain gripped and ripped him, pain more intense than his shredded back. His helplessness was his horror, as he could not save the ones he loved. He could do precisely nothing. She was gone, the baby was out there somewhere, and there was no way to find him. By now, the boy was three days away and might well have been sold more than once. How could he force Hoke to name the slave trader and his destination? And were he to escape Sweetsmoke, he had never traveled more than thirty miles from the plantation. He did not know what existed out there. He could not read, and to him, a map was nothing more than a jumble of shapes and lines. He had done every possible thing in his power and it was not enough, it would never be enough. He had bargained, offered himself as proxy to accept the punishment intended for his wife, he had fought, he had run, and still he had ended up here. He had not even been able to defend himself. He was alive and not crippled only because an old freed woman had come to his defense. The wail that rose from his pith blinded him, engorging and splitting open the whole of his skin: Who will love him, who will love the little boy?

    Emoline Justice nursed him from the outside. She showed him a different side of her aggressive, opinionated nature. She worked her magic with salves, using extracts from leaves and bark and seemingly every other potion in her possession to soothe and heal him until his back responded. He wondered later if she had borrowed the intensity of her uncompromising persona and transposed it into healing, and he thought some of that persona had inadvertently rubbed in and taken root under his skin.

    Emoline had grown up at Sweetsmoke, a house servant and nanny to the children of Hoke Howard's parents. Hoke's mother, Grace, had been particular about the language spoken by her servants, and Emoline was her star pupil. Emoline then served as tutor to the children, one of whom was Hoke, a mere five years younger. After Emoline and Hoke's son was born, she "married" a man in the quarters who gave her two daughters. Marriages among slaves were not considered legal or binding in the eyes of the law, but Emoline treated her marriage as sacrosanct. Hoke's resultant jealousy caught him by surprise. Then Hoke's father died with Hoke still in his young twenties, and shortly thereafter his bereaved mother followed, leaving him the callow master of Sweetsmoke. He attempted to rise to the challenge of his father's expectations, and in a moment of magnanimous sentimentality he would come to regret, Hoke allowed Emoline to buy her freedom. She chose the last name Justice for herself and shared it with her son, Richard, whom she was able to buy a number of years later, when Hoke floundered in one of his depressed financial periods. The man in the quarters she had married now married another, a marriage Hoke had encouraged if not arranged. Emoline, however, remained true to her vows. She called herself a schoolteacher, even as she made more on the side as a conjurer, and it was conjurer money that bought freedom for her son.

    Throughout the first week of Cassius's healing, she read aloud. After a number of days he became aware that he was listening, and her words added up to a story. She read about a man named Ulysses, a warrior struggling to return home. As Cassius's interest grew, his rage became intermittent and she began to turn the open book and show him the words. Initially he saw small black shapes arranged in rows on white paper, and as they meant nothing to him, they were little more than magical markings. Yet they somehow conjured up fantastic imagery. In the years that followed, Cassius remembered few specifics from the book, only that it was another salve to his pain. He did remember that Ulysses had been away from home a long time, that when he returned he found more troubles, and Ulysses defeated those troubles in a great paroxysm of violence.

    Sometime during the second week, he asked Emoline why, with her knowledge and gifts, she told the fortunes of whites but never of blacks.

    She acted as if the fact that he had even asked such a question was a wonderful sign, because any interest in a topic outside his anger meant he was improved. Her explanation was delivered in her familiar, self-assured voice: She told only white fortunes because the future must not be predicted nor anticipated. She would not bring false hope to her people. Their lives were hopeless enough without packing them with lies. She was more than happy to take money to manufacture white fortunes, sewn out of whole cloth and presented in a pretty package, and wouldn't you know, the odder her predictions, the more her clients desired them.

    Emoline left her home on occasion to visit these clients and she carried her tools with her, as she would not have others in her home while Cassius was healing. Cassius knew that Hoke sometimes visited her for conjuring, and wondered if during those weeks she ever ventured to Sweetsmoke.

    By the second week, Cassius discovered he had less pain. He sat up. Emoline taught him the alphabet. He learned quickly, filling his aching, empty, hungry brain. By the end of the week, he recognized words. By the third week, he read sentences.

    Somewhere in the second week, Cassius noticed a distraction in Emoline's eyes and he wondered about it until Hoke sent the first messenger. At the knock on the door, Cassius rose to his feet in defiance, his back bristling. Emoline pushed past him and opened the door herself. The messenger was one of the grooms from Sweetsmoke, saying that Master Hoke was anxious to have his man back. She sent the messenger away without explanation. A few days later, another messenger arrived, this time William, the butler. To him she said simply, "Not yet." But for all her certainty, Cassius continued to identify a nervous energy in her demeanor.

    She could heal him physically, but his mental healing followed a separate path. For this she could only offer tools, and she knew her time was limited. She was pleased to see him learn words and sentences, and this new ability, this ability to read, reshaped his mind. For the first time in his life he experienced a nugget of personal power that was not a gift from his master. He did not know what might come of that power, but he knew it was greater than the strength of his arms, the power owned and benefited from by the Master. Reading was his secret power, and through it he recognized the small budding cancer of hope.

    By the third week he was moving well, and in between her reading lessons, she put his skills to work. He built for her a false panel between the hearth and the perpendicular streetside wall. She did not say why she desired a hiding place. He assumed it was to protect her money and her free papers.

    When the false wall was finished, he knew it was time to return to Sweetsmoke and he was able to pretend to be mentally recovered.

    The citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia marked time from that day, January 16, 1857. But more to the point, slaves living in the Commonwealth marked that day. Many slaves did not know their birthdays, but they remembered the day of the Cold Storm that blanketed the state and brought everything to a halt. It snowed and then it snowed. Snow waves crested under eaves and rolled up against doors, where they froze in place. People did not leave their homes. Cassius could not leave for the plantation, so he stayed another week with Emoline Justice, and his reading improved and his comprehension grew.

    He would return to Emoline's home many times in the ensuing years, and she would give him a Bible of his own to read, the book currently hidden in his cabin, and he would return with questions that she attempted to answer. But it was that last week, with snow falling on the roof over their heads, that he felt his confidence grow as he became fluent.

    On returning to Sweetsmoke, Cassius walked down the lane of the quarters. Snow melted, a trickle glinting down the Suetsmoke gully under a cover of lacy snowpack. He returned to his cabin on the lane, where it had stood empty for weeks. He stopped in the doorway and took in the large room with the cold hearth barely discolored with soot. He walked around to the back, to what remained of Marriah's garden, blanketed by snow that was unblemished. His shoes crunched through the icy top layer. Black sprigs of a sapling poked through a drift; he had planted it to coincide with the birth of his son. He dug his fingers down in the snow to secure the narrow trunk and wrenched it out of the earth. He threw it aside, where it remained as the snow melted beneath it, until someone sometime later took it away.

    The only excuse for a tree or garden was to invest in the future. No future existed. His heart was as cold as his fingers and knuckles had been on that day when he had wrenched out the sapling. He hated Jacob for what he had done, but it was not unusual or unexpected—he hated Hoke more, for protecting his planter son and for the three days in the tobacco shed.

    He rose from his pallet fully awake, his legs sore from running in his sleep. He found the cigar that he had hand-rolled earlier in the day, and a Lucifer friction match, and put them both into his pouch and went outside.

    The last of the fires sizzled. Wooden crosses surrounded him, dark and erect, fresh bulbous candles dangling off their arms. The smoke had cleared, a few crickets persisted in the night air and the dew cooled his bare feet. Mr. Nettle would have made his final pass down the lane hours ago. Cassius considered going into the woods, but it would be a slow and tedious journey to his traps in the dark. He had decided to go to town on Saturday night. Friday was the Fourth, and there would be celebrations, but Saturday would still see many hands traveling to their abroad husbands or wives. The patrollers would soon tire of checking passes by lantern light for the second straight night, and he could utilize the whole night, as Sunday was free. The Big-To-Do was Sunday at Edensong, the Jarvis plantation, and not even Hoke would dare take that away from his "family," not even for hornworms.

    He ran his finger over the piece of string he had tied around the end of the cigar, an inch from the lip end, a personal habit and his alone, then brought the cigar between his teeth and dug for the match. Unable to find it in his pouch, he ducked under the arms of a cross and pushed the other end of the cigar into a banked fire. He stood slowly, drawing in the smoke, thinking that he would have to see if his pouch had developed a hole and if it could be mended. He looked back at the pale dry shapes made by his bare feet in the dew-covered dust where he had walked from his cabin. He smoked awhile standing there, and after many minutes had passed, he saw her in the cleared space beside his cabin. She sat on a log under a tree, and she hadn't moved. His heart raced, thinking her a spirit or an illusion, but when she smiled, he knew she was real and had been staring at him. He walked over to her. As he got closer, she seemed to duck away, and Cassius knew that she had not wanted him to see her. He considered that, and thought that it had to do with her being perceived as a jinx.

    Quashee is an unusual name, said Cassius.

    Not for an African.

    You born in Africa?

    No, I was born here.

    Your name got a meaning?

    What make you say that? she said.

    Something I was told, African names got meanings, and you didn't get Quashee from a white master.

    No. My father gave it to me. Quashee's a girl born on Sunday.

    Ah. So what day were you born? said Cassius.

    She smiled graciously. And your name? she said.

    My name came from Hoke.

    So no meaning.

    Got a meaning to Hoke. He plucked it from a play. From Julius Caesar, by Shakespeare.

    Ah. William Shakespeare.

    Cassius was surprised. You know Shakespeare? he said.

    I heard the name, she said, looking away as if she had revealed too much.

    Can you read?

    She looked back at him and considered his expression. Then she said: No.

    Cassius almost spoke up, but caught himself. She had not asked him if he could read, but if she had, he would also have said no.

    Why're you out here? said Cassius.

    Why're you? she said.

    Running from a dream.

    My muscles are too tired to run, I lie still and my leg knots up, said Quashee. She reached down and rubbed her calves.

    Savilla probably got a balm for that.

    Savilla got some witch's brew for most everything, said Quashee.

    Guess I forgot, wouldn't be like you to believe in low negro superstition, you being part big house.

    You ain't exactly a field hand.

    Cassius smiled. No. So why're you sitting here?

    Didn't know this was your field.

    Most likely that didn't come out right.

    It's late. Someone comes out, they like to ask questions, she said. Cassius smiled and looked down. She went on: Over here, I am out of their way.

    Cassius nodded, thinking, Out of the path of insatiable young men. Out of the way of gossiping women. Out of the way of people imagining you to be bad luck.

    She looked at the cigar in his hand.

    Your cigar got a string, said Quashee.

    He raised it as if seeing it for the first time. Nodded.

    Any reason for that? she said.

    He took her in with a full look, then spoke the truth: Did it once years ago, when all I had was an old leaf wouldn't hold together. Some of the others laughed, so instead of explaining I said it made the smoke taste smooth. They believed it, and a few even tried it once or twice, said I was right. I did it for the next one and now it's just habit.

    Does it make it taste smooth?

    No.

    They were quiet for a moment, staring at the dying fires on the lane.

    So why're they keeping you down here? You belong up at the house, said Cassius.

    They won't see me at the big house.

    Who won't?

    Missus Ellen. We've been called up, but always get sent back before she sees us. I asked her girl Pet, but she's got nothing to say to me.

    Cassius saw Quashee catch herself, letting her literate big house voice slip through. He imagined she was considering revising herself, but she clamped her mouth shut.

    I know they could use you, said Cassius, but he remembered how Pet had tried to convince Ellen to use Tempie Easter as a personal servant.

    Seems like they already got a full staff.

    Sarah should have someone, said Cassius.

    Quashee considered that and nodded. She said: I hoped to work for Master Jacob's wife, but she's always in her bed. Not much for a personal servant to do but bring food and empty the slops.

    Pet and the others do for Sarah but they don't like it. Ellen is spiting her daughter-in-law.

    Then I would surely love to be part of that, said Quashee with a low laugh.

    Cassius was aware of an undercurrent of tension.

    You think they'll sell you, said Cassius, making a statement.

    No good at field work, said Quashee. And now I'm bad luck.

    Stupid talk. Something bad's always happening in the quarters. Makes no sense to make it about you.

    Seems to be about my master John-Corey.

    So I hear. John-Corey dies in the war and starts a run of bad luck, then you come with your father and bring it along.

    They say we brought the hornworms.

    Hornworms started up before you came. Just another excuse to blame someone else for their troubles.

    Sounds 'bout right, said Quashee.

    Cassius thought for a moment before he said: I can talk to someone up there.

    From what I hear, you ain't got a whole lot of influence.

    That from Big Gus?

    From all of them. They wonder how you stay so independent. Big Gus would like to have you in the fields.

    Big Gus may get his wish, but that would be his bad luck.

    She smiled at that.

    Cassius was tired of talking. He wanted to be alone, out here where he hoped to avoid thinking. He said nothing more. Quashee may have sensed his desire because only a few minutes passed before she stood and walked back up the lane to the cabin she shared with her father.

    Cassius touched the warm dry spot on the log where she had been sitting, then sat on it. He had forgotten to smoke his cigar and it was out. He was unwilling to walk back to the embers to relight it.

    He sat until the sky turned pale and Mr. Nettle's bell rang. He heard the field hands rousing from their sleep to face another day battling the blight.