Chapter Eight

    Cassius stepped into Mam Rosie's kitchen and the intense heat burned his eyes and pressured his forehead, and his brain pounded as if expanding. Something in the room was unusual, and he looked to see that her unmade pallet and personal possessions were out on the brick floor-if she had not found time to tidy her few belongings, then she had been hard-pressed, cooking constantly for the hunters of Joseph. Within the demonically heated air dwelled good smells that were complex, accented by sweet. He looked to the great hearth; she had built the fire so that it burned at various levels of intensity across its full width. Up front, the older glowing coals slow-roasted embedded potatoes; behind that, a hearty flame licked the side of a hog set on the spit. To the left, heavy cast-iron pots hung from trivets, and coals rested on the cover of one pot so that the insides cooked evenly. Hot as it was, the hearth fire alone would not have made the room unbearable. He looked to the side wall and saw heat waves from the brick oven in full burn. She had been all night bringing the oven to temperature in order to bake. The sweetness was the first boil molasses added to cornbread.

    All this food would deplete the stores quickly, and he projected a lean winter.

    Lot of rumors out there, Rose, said Cassius.

    What you doin here, Cassius, why you come in here today? said Mam Rosie. You see what's goin on.

    You think I got something on my mind?

    Mam Rosie moved at him swiftly, her corded right arm rising to wag a threatening finger. Don't you pretend with me, Cassius, I raised you, I know you, I know how you think! This a dangerous game you playin, you close to findin yourself with a stretched neck.

    What you hear?

    You expect to come in all easy sweet and I just tell you?

    You know me, Rose, you raised me, you know how I think.

    Mam Rosie lowered her finger. Her mouth turned down and her head swiveled side to side, wanting to shake him out of her kitchen and out of her thoughts.

    Somethin goin on with you and that little girl? said Mam Rosie with venom.

    No, there ain't, he said, meeting her venom.

    The hell you say.

    You ask, I answer.

    Pet is like to git you, Cassius, and I can't say's I blame her. What you got against Tempie?

    Never gave her much thought. But she hid that box in the dress of "that little girl," so I ask you: What Tempie got against Quashee? You think Quashee should get sold? You think that fair? You think that right?

    So now you all powerful with right and wrong?

    Rose, said Cassius softly, I did not know what would come to Tempie. I just know she set out to injure someone who did her no harm, someone who belonged out of the fields.

    You never thought maybe Tempie belong out of the fields? You not think that?

    I think she had her chance and it didn't go her way.

    You are the slipperiest, the snakiest, how you get so damn tall anyway? Someone sneaky as you ought be short and oily.

    Cassius thought that he got to be slippery and sneaky because of Mam Rosie, but he said: What you know about Joseph, Rose?

    And don't be callin me Rose.

    Nobody here but us, said Cassius easily. Tell me about Joseph.

    Mam Rosie heard it before Cassius knew anything, a subtle change that caused her to cock an ear, then move directly to the kettle on the right, arriving just as froth bubbled over the lip and sizzled against its outer bowl. She took an iron rod with a C-shaped bend at the end and hooked one leg of the trivet that held the kettle, jerking it two inches off the heat, at which the foam fell back and relaxed to an easy roil. She made mental calculations on the rest, added three coals to the top of the covered pot, nodded to herself, and sat on a low chair setting her elbows on her knees, resting her head forward where her palms covered her eyes.

    Took off in the rain, she said.

    I know that much.

    Goin in the rain was smart, no tracks or scent to follow. Paddyrollers and them dogs havin a bad time 'cause of it. Even got Ol' Mr. Nettle out there, ridin around like some holy prince, and you know Mr. Nettle ain't been on patrol three year now. They got slave chasers and whites comin in from every plantation, don't want no big ideas gettin in the heads of their nigras, got to make a 'xample out of this one or all our nigras goin think they can run, too.

    One rumor is he's caught. Another is he's beaten, whipped, even hanged; can't turn around without a rumor that he had everything done to him that white men can think up to make the rest of us crap the hope out of our sorry asses.

    Rumors, she said bitterly. Rumors are Master Lincoln goin free us, lot of good that do. Right now I settle for just one of us gettin away.

    So he's not caught.

    No, she said wearily, not 'less someone right now bringin him in.

    Somebody had to help him.

    What for, why somebody had to, can't a man just run? said Mam Rosie, her eyes unfocused.

    Man can run. Man can hide for a while, but Joseph ain't much of a man, yet, and if they don't have him already, figures somebody helped him. You think he linked up with that Underground Railroad?

    Mam Rosie whirled at him, her face animated: Don't talk 'bout that, don't even think 'bout that!

    Emoline was alive, she'd've helped him, said Cassius.

    Just wipe that Underground Railroad out your brain, you hear me?

    Cassius remembered that Darby had often spoken about the Underground Railroad. Mam Rosie blamed his loose talk for getting him sold.

    So he didn't come to you, said Cassius.

    Come to me?!? Ain't no way that boy comin to me 'bout no railroad. He just a boy, I ain't never sent nobody, specially not a boy.

    All right, Rose, all right.

    She stared at him, a hard, mean look in her eyes.

    He was the only one allowed to call me that, she said.

    He called you that in affection, said Cassius.

    He was a good man.

    Took real good care of me, he said.

    You sayin I didn't?

    You didn't need a little boy to love you, Rose. When they sold Darby, they took all the love you had.

    Mam Rosie stood straighter, and he saw her forcing her mouth tight to cut off the tremble of her lower lip, but in that struggle her entire head began to tremble. She turned away suddenly and made a nervous tour of her kitchen, testing the hog's side and peering into the pots with her back to him, using her apron to wipe her brow and then her eyes and cheeks. After a long moment, she came back to where he stood, cocked her head, and shifted it back to look at him.

    You eat today? Look like you could use somethin, she said quietly.

    What makes you think I didn't eat?

    That thin look in your cheeks.

    You living in a dream, said Cassius, feeling exposed.

    That's right, thin cheeks and your chin gets sharp and bony, so don't show off that surprised look, Cassius, you think I don't know you? I know you.

    Cassius tried to think of something to say, but nothing came, so he waited before he said: Could probably have some of that cornbread you got baking.

    Won't give you none of that.

    He felt his temper shift.

    Thought you just offered, said Cassius.

    Missus Ellen got to feelin mean since that boy run off, she come in here and spit in the batter, then say I should cook it up and serve it to the hands. Well, I cooked it, but I ain't goin serve it 'less I serve it to them paddyrollers. Maybe I wait a day and serve it back to her.

    Cassius turned to go. Mam Rosie came up behind him, quickly packing something in a clean rag, which he imagined was bread and pork cooked the day before.

    You watch yourself, Cassius. Pet like to kill you for what you did, and she whisper in Missus Ellen's ear. Pet be scary when she got somethin to be mad about, and she got somethin to be mad about with you.

    All right, Rose.

    Never did much like that Tempie, but gettin sold, oh Lordy. She a hard one, but the punishment rainin down on her now, wouldn't wish that on a dead dog.

    Cassius again felt strange, responsible, a small fist closing on his heart. He did not trust himself to speak, so he left the kitchen and stepped out into the hot humid day and was glad after the hellish heat of the kitchen to have the sun cool against his skin.

    White men came and went in a prodigious show of force, the men who had not gone to war, some who had bought their way out or had more than twenty slaves, some older men with families and businesses and small farms, some from other plantations, some from the town or from neighboring towns. Had it been a premeditated display it could not have been more effective as the hands applied themselves to their work while keeping eyes averted. Every one of the hands understood the white mood and therefore the danger. Cassius felt the planter rage, a rage specific and self-righteous, born of their belief that something that had been settled was now unsettled and they were forced to revisit the issue. Lessons would need to be re-taught, harshly this time, so they would not be forgotten, so that it would be settled once and for all, and this, by God, would be the last time. When these men rode off to hunt Joseph, they rode in a fashion determined to impress the blacks, wearing their strength and authority and supremacy on their sleeves. Any minor slip by their people, misinterpreted or even accidental, would bring on instant, short-tempered retribution, overwhelming force in response to indiscretion, an avalanche of righteous indignation far beyond its warrant. And yet, Cassius contemplated their ferocious masks and recognized something behind them, a hint of fear. He respected their numbers and their rifles, backed by their laws and their authority, but he began to understand their power as tenuous. These men believed that if their slaves were to rise up in revolt, the planters could well reap the whirlwind. As Cassius watched them throughout the morning, he saw their authority as theater.

    "Cassius! You there, Cassius, come here now, boy!" said Ellen.

    She stood tall on the porch of the big house, her arm raised in the same manner as Mam Rosie's nagging finger, but Ellen's finger was crooked downward, beckoning him to the foot of the wooden steps. He walked evenly to the spot, not rushing the way she would have liked, but not ambling defiantly. He expected to see Pet standing a few steps behind her missus, and he was not disappointed. He tried to anticipate Pet's revenge, but it occurred to him that Pet had not had enough time to manufacture a plan, much less time to insinuate her plan into her missus's ear. Cassius did not underestimate Pet, but he also did not overestimate her intelligence, and he thought that, for the moment, he would be safe.

    "Cassius, take the carriage to town to the dry goods and fetch supplies. Mr. O'Hannon has our order so you will not require a list. As everyone else is out capturing the runaway, it will have to be you."

    Happy to tote for you, Missus, said Cassius.

    "I don't know that I would send you under these circumstances if I felt there was another way," said Ellen.

    I understand, Missus.

    He did not move from the spot.

    "Well? Be off with you," she said.

    Need a pass from Master Hoke.

    "You know perfectly well that Master Hoke is away bringing back that runaway, and, oh, very well, I will write the pass for you myself."

    Ellen disappeared inside and Cassius watched Pet through the door. He tried to see inside the house behind her, to know that

    Quashee was all right, but as he was standing in bright sunlight, the room behind Pet was too dark to discern anything.

    Pet moved away. Idling, Cassius turned to see Mr. Nettle up on his huge roan talking to Big Gus in the road that ran past the yard. Big Gus carried Mr. Nettle's second rifle across his forearms, offering Mr. Nettle the gun. Mr. Nettle would have found him in the fields and sent him running to his home to fetch it. Big Gus looked up at Mr. Nettle in the saddle and on his face was an expression of humility and faith. Mr. Nettle balanced the rifle between groin and pommel and put his hand on Big Gus's shoulder affectionately, and Cassius curdled inside.

    Cassius drove the carriage to town. He tried to concentrate on what he would say to the women on Emoline's list but his mind refused to focus. His thoughts wandered to Joseph, and then to Pet, as if he had missed a warning. He knew this was a unique opportunity, rarely did he have permission to enter town alone, and for that reason he needed to utilize this time in the carriage to strategize, as a black man contacting white women was a pernicious act. And yet there was Pet in his thoughts as if she constituted a danger more immediate. Had she suggested sending Cassius into town on his own? Was this journey her plan for revenge, and where would he come upon the trap? He was concentrating so intently that he barely noticed crossing over the little bridge. As he approached town, an odd thing occurred to him: He had seen no patrollers on the road. Clearly the hunters had expanded their circle, reckoning that with each passing hour Joseph was farther away. Cassius wondered if Pet was so clever as to consider that fact. He turned it over in every possible direction. By the time Cassius reached the main street, he had carefully dismissed each of his complex theories and come to the simple conclusion that Pet hoped he might see this as an opportunity and run as well. That would resolve her vengeance, as the punishment he deserved would be meted out by the patrollers, planters, and hired slave catchers who already scoured the countryside. He was relieved by this conclusion, and stopped trying to outthink her. But now he had no time to plan his approach to Emoline's clients.

    He guided the carriage down the alley alongside the dry goods store and stepped down, walking to the back. He looked for Frederick the stock boy, but Cassius saw no one among the crates and sacks. He idled a minute, then entered the stockroom and made his way to the door to the main store. He leaned in and saw O'Hannon with a customer, and stepped back. He did not want to deal with O'Hannon. Frederick ran a little business on the side, and Cassius sometimes held back from Weyman a few carved wooden soldiers and other pieces to trade directly with Frederick for hard liquor or other items. Frederick treated blacks in a manner as close to honest and straightforward as could be hoped for. Cassius leaned forward again. The customer was a white woman whose name escaped him. She fingered bolts of fine cloth laid out on the long table that served as O'Hannon's main counter. O'Hannon gazed at her hands with blank disinterest. She would buy nothing off this bolt, nor any of the other high-priced bolts he had laid out for her, but he dutifully brought down the special cloth and waited patiently until she finally called for the rough linen or cotton or the indifferently loomed wool that she would purchase. The cabinet behind O'Hannon was as high as his waist, the shelves above held ewers and clay jars and jugs of various shapes and sizes. O'Hannon kept his small scale there, while the larger rusted scale stood on the floor for bulk items. Along the far wall were the big barrels brimming with barley, oats, and cornmeal, small shovel scoops thrust into the grain. Closer was a barrel holding tools with handles splayed out in myriad directions, hoes, axes, hammers. On the floor in front of the cabinet stood copper pails, large crock pots with flat covers, rough unlabeled muslin bags, and the small barrels holding nails.

    He had not meant to loiter and was surprised to hear O'Hannon say, "Cassius, I don't have your whole order together just yet." Cassius's acknowledged presence had broken the spell, as O'Hannon walked away from waiting on the woman so that she was able to enjoy the fine fabric without O'Hannon hovering.

    I got time, said Cassius.

    "Probably be half hour, Frederick's out on delivery. Mrs. Howard will be most happy about the watercolor paints she was waiting on."

    Cassius went out the way he had come.

    He walked down the back alley behind the businesses where the mud was thicker and the trash stank. He was safer walking here and made his way east. The easternmost area of town housed the poor whites, the greatest concentration of whom were in the southern section, primarily the Anglo-Saxon community; in the northeast were the German immigrants, clustered in a smaller enclave. The small German farms spread out to the north, farming some of the poorest soil in the county. In between the two communities but closer to the Germans were the homes of the few freed blacks, but as the white communities expanded, they began to interlock around the black homes.

    The houses were small and gave the impression that they were in need of repair. Cassius attributed that more to hasty design, shoddy raw materials, and apathetic craftsmanship rather than to a lack of upkeep. He located the house for which he searched and, after his confident march, looked at it with uncertainty. Many of the homes were similar. He knew her front door was white and this door was white, but so was the door to the neighbor's dwelling. He hesitated. He now doubted his memory. He chose a circle of shade under an ancient maple and stood against its trunk, hoping for a chance sighting of the house's inhabitant. The street was empty. For the moment, he was aware that he was not surrounded, and he had an odd sensation of freedom. Yet he had little time to spare on personal pleasure as a black man here would soon attract attention. Minutes passed and his uncertainty grew as his need to get off the street increased. Another minute and he decided to be bold. He would approach the house and pay the price if he was wrong. And then he did not move, muscles betraying his mental choice. In a burst of brio, he propelled himself out of the shade to the wooden door painted white. He raised his fist to knock.

    She opened the door and he removed his hat and lowered his eyes, relieved. He would need to access his best subservient manner, and he was never certain he could rely on it to appear when beckoned.

    "What you want?" she said with displeasure.

    Missus Crowe?

    "Yeah, I'm Mrs. Crowe."

    Sally Ann Crowe?

    "I don't think you better be usin that name."

    Sorry, ma'am, but I just had to come.

    "You had to come? What's that mean?"

    It's the message, ma'am.

    "Well, why didn't you say so in the first place, give it me."

    Well, ma'am, I'se awful sorry, but it ain't that sort of message.

    "Do you have a message for me or not?"

    Yes ma'am.

    "Then give it."

    He looked at her-pale bloated face, small bland eyes too far apart, long stringy dishwater blonde hair that clung to her cheek, fleshy nose, weak chin-and he said: This a message from Emoline Justice.

    He watched her expression for the flicker of horror that might come from a murderer realizing she had not finished her crime. He saw only confusion and imbecility. The moment passed in a flash, but convinced him that Sally Ann Crowe had not murdered Emoline Justice. Nevertheless, he had to carry out the remainder of his plan so that he raised no suspicions.

    "Emoline? But she died a few weeks ago."

    Like I say, ma'am, this a different kind of message.

    Sally Ann Crowe's expression changed to one of wonder. A great intake of air, and she said, "From beyond the grave!"

    That's so, ma'am.

    "Go around back," she said and disappeared into the house closing the door in his face. He walked around to the back, where he waited. She came out the rear door and sat to face him, fussing with her hair, as if to fancy up before receiving the message.

    "Tell me, tell me about her message," said Sally Ann Crowe, and Cassius thought that if she had been a child, she would have clapped her hands in anticipation.

    He could easily have told her something simple and hurried away, but her enthusiasm brought out the sadist in him.

    Well, ma'am, it go back alla way to the whole reason you was goin to see Emoline in the first place, said Cassius, needing her to fill in a few blanks if he was to pull this off.

    "So it's about Lawrence. He all right? He not killed?"

    Ah, there, thought Cassius, something to work with. Sally Ann Crowe had visited Emoline worried about her husband Lawrence.

    To be sure. It about Lawrence.

    "Yankees git him yet?"

    Emoline say Lawrence be all right, said Cassius.

    Sally Ann Crowe exhaled. "Emoline must've looked around Heaven for him, and seen that he warn't there," she said quietly.

    "'Course, never know where he end up."

    I do believe that's it exactly, said Cassius. He was flush with power, a white woman hung on his every word.

    They give the special ones a high perch up there, and we both know how special Emoline was, said Cassius.

    "Oh yes."

    How he enjoyed exalting Emoline. Sally Anne Crowe would never argue with a message from beyond. Inside, he was as giddy as a child.

    But you know Emoline, she may be gone, but she remembers the good folks she left behind.

    "Dear Emoline."

    She tell me she want you to know she lookin out for the special ones.

    "Lord have mercy, she is a good woman." Sally Ann Crowe smiled a heartbreakingly innocent smile of pleasure. Oh my, he was enjoying this.

    She lookin down on what's happenin right now, said Cassius.

    "A woman of amazing gifts."

    Said she been able to see through the mists and seen your Lawrence.

    "She can see him, too?"

    Down there on the battlefield, thinkin 'bout you.

    "My Lawrence?" she said looking mystified and Cassius missed the clue.

    Wishin he was back here with you.

    "So he could slap me around some more."

    Cassius leaned back in surprise, and the giddiness abandoned him in a rush.

    "Didn't get enough 'fore he left, so he learned new tricks in the war, come on back and try 'em all on his dutiful wife," she said with revulsion.

    Lawrence hit you? said Cassius, suddenly tentative.

    "Make sure Emoline warns me when he's comin back. Best thing ever happened when he went off to war, every night I pray some

    Union Bluebelly gits him 'fore our boys finish teachin them Yanks a lesson so they can all come on home without him."

    Emoline will surely watch for you, said Cassius cautiously.

    "Lord knows, somebody needs to."

    He was more tentative when he said: I got this other message, you know a lady name of Abigail Dryden?

    Abigail Dryden had been the last appointment in Emoline's pages, the one scheduled for the day after she was murdered.

    "You think I'd know someone like that?"

    Cassius held his tongue in the face of his second misstep.

    "I seen that trollop bringin men in the back of her house, the first one not three weeks after her Chester went off in his uniform. Abigail Dryden." Sally Ann Crowe's cheeks had colored. "It worse when those quartermaster boys come through. She just as well leave her back door wide open."

    Cassius came to the belated conclusion that he would have made a poor seer. Emoline had obviously collected more and better information before she waded in with advice.

    Why you think Abigail goes to see Emoline?

    "Women things, of course, potions," said Sally Ann Crowe, then caught herself as if she had revealed too much.

    Cassius made an excuse to leave and found his way back through the empty alleys to the dry goods. Logue had been right. He mentally scratched Sally Ann Crowe and Abigail Dryden off his list. He considered Sally Ann Crowe's disapproval of Abigail, and imagined that Sally Ann had her own competing business, paying back her Lawrence by renting out his bed by the hour.

    O'Hannon had a new customer, one Cassius did not recognize, but her clothes were fine and her manner rigid, likely a newcomer to Little Sapling or Philadelphia Plantation.

    "I am so sorry it has taken so long, Mrs. Worthington, but the quartermaster was in earlier to supplement the assessment he gets from the locals."

    Worthington would make her from Little Sapling, the niece come down from Maryland.

    "Yes," said the planter woman, "we are fully acquainted with the quartermaster's assessments."

    O'Hannon laughed uncomfortably. "Well, apparently there are things that cannot be gotten from a plantation."

    "How disturbing," she said with wintry sarcasm.

    Frederick came in behind Cassius. "I'll take care of you, Cassius."

    Out in back, Cassius and Frederick loaded the carriage with some difficulty, as it was designed to haul not goods but passengers. Frederick informed him that he had a bottle for sale, but Cassius had brought nothing to trade and declined.

    Quartermaster comes to dry goods for supplies? With the whole countryside to forage? said Cassius.

    "Word is, Whitacre and his men hunt for a spy. Other than that they wouldn't bother, but quartermasters aren't issued ordnance the same as fighting troops so they came for ammunition and rifles. Probably tried to assess them from the plantations unsuccessfully. Now you sure you don't want that bottle?"

    So he hasn't found his spy yet?

    "Not so's I've heard. Apparently they've gone north looking for someone."

    Cassius flicked the reins. Sam lifted his chin and stepped forward and Cassius knew he needed to do nothing more as the horse was familiar with the way home. Whitacre had gone after the telegraph operator. He wondered if Whitacre knew about W York. Cassius felt the pressure mount, he needed to get to the telegraph operator first.