I winced and wished I could move Rufus out of his reach. “Alice,” I said, “wasn’t Rufus a friend of yours? I mean … did he just grow out of the friendship or what?”
“Got to where he wanted to be more friendly than I did,” she said. “He tried to get Judge Holman to sell Isaac South to keep me from marrying him.”
“You’re a slave?” I said to Isaac, surprised. “My God, you’d better get out of here.”
Isaac gave Alice a look that said very clearly, You talk too much. Alice answered the look.
“Isaac, she’s all right. She got a whipping once for teaching a slave how to read. Tom Weylin was the one whipped her.”
“I want to know what she’s going to do when we leave,” said Isaac.
“I’m going to stay with Rufus,” I told him. “When he comes to, I’m going to help him home—as slowly as possible. I’m not going to tell him where you went because I won’t know.”
Isaac looked at Alice, and she tugged at his arm. “Let’s go!” she urged.
“But …”
“You can’t whip everybody! Let’s go!”
He seemed on the verge of going when I said, “Isaac, if you want me to, I can write you a pass. It doesn’t have to be to where you’re really going, but it might help you if you’re stopped.”
He looked at me with no trust at all, then turned and walked away without answering.
Alice hesitated, spoke softly to me. “Your man went away,” she said. “He waited a long time for you, then he left.”
“Where did he go?”
“Somewhere North. I don’t know. Mister Rufe knows. You got to be careful, though. Mister Rufe gets mighty crazy sometimes.”
“Thank you.”
She turned and followed Isaac, leaving me alone with the unconscious Rufus—alone to wonder where she and Isaac would go. North to Pennsylvania? I hoped so. And where had Kevin gone? Why had he gone anywhere? What if Rufus wouldn’t help me find him? Or what if I didn’t stay in this time long enough to find him? Why couldn’t he have waited …?
4
I knelt down beside Rufus and rolled him over onto his back. His nose was bleeding. His split lip was bleeding. I thought he had probably lost a few teeth, but I didn’t look closely enough to be sure. His face was a lumpy mess, and he would be looking out of a couple of black eyes for a while. All in all, though, he probably looked worse off than he was. No doubt he had some bruises that I couldn’t see without undressing him, but I didn’t think he was badly hurt. He would be in some pain when he came to, but he had earned that.
I sat on my knees, watching him, first wishing he would hurry and regain consciousness, then wanting him to stay unconscious so that Alice and her husband could get a good start. I looked at the stream, thinking that a little cold water might bring him around faster. But I stayed where I was. Isaac’s life was at stake. If Rufus was vindictive enough, he could surely have the man killed. A slave had no rights, and certainly no excuse for striking a white man.
If it was possible, if Rufus was in any way still the boy I had known, I would try to keep him from going after Isaac at all. He looked about eighteen or nineteen now. I would be able to bluff and bully him a little. It shouldn’t take him long to realize that he and I needed each other. We would be taking turns helping each other now. Neither of us would want the other to hesitate. We would have to learn to co-operate with each other—to make compromises.
“Who’s there?” said Rufus suddenly. His voice was weak, barely audible.
“It’s Dana, Rufe.”
“Dana?” He opened his swollen eyes a little wider. “You came back!”
“You keep trying to get yourself killed. I keep coming back.”
“Where’s Alice?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know where we are. I’ll help you get home, though, if you’ll point the way.”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know, Rufe.”
He tried to sit up, managed to raise himself about six inches before he fell back, groaning. “Where’s Isaac?” he muttered. “That’s the son-of-a-bitch I want to catch up with.”
“Rest awhile,” I said. “Get your strength back. You couldn’t catch him now if he was standing next to you.”
He moaned and felt his side gingerly. “He’s going to pay!”
I got up and walked toward the stream.
“Where are you going?” he called.
I didn’t answer.
“Dana? Come back here! Dana!”
I could hear his increasing desperation. He was hurt and alone except for me. He couldn’t even get up, and I seemed to be abandoning him. I wanted him to experience a little of that fear.
“Dana!”
I dug the washcloth out of my denim bag, wet it, and took it back to him. Kneeling beside him, I began wiping blood from his face.
“Why didn’t you tell me that’s where you were going?” he said petulantly. He was panting and holding his side.
I watched him, wondering how much he had really grown up.
“Dana, say something!”
“I want you to say something.”
He squinted at me. “What?” I was leaning close to him, and I caught a whiff of his breath when he spoke. He had been drinking. He didn’t seem drunk, but he had definitely been drinking. That worried me, but there was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t dare wait until he was completely sober.
“I want you to tell me about the men who attacked you,” I said.
“What men? Isaac …”
“The men you were drinking with,” I improvised. “They were strangers—white men. They got you drinking, then tried to rob you.” Kevin’s old story was coming in handy.
“What in hell are you talking about? You know Isaac Jackson did this to me!” The words came out in a harsh whisper.
“All right, Isaac beat you up,” I agreed. “Why?”
He glared at me without answering.
“You raped a woman—or tried to—and her husband beat you up,” I said. “You’re lucky he didn’t kill you. He would have if Alice and I hadn’t talked him out of it. Now what are you going to do to repay us for saving your life?”
The bewilderment and anger left his face, and he stared at me blankly. After a while, he closed his eyes and I went over to rinse my washcloth. When I got back to him, he was trying—and failing—to stand up. Finally, he collapsed back panting and holding his side. I wondered whether he was hurt more than he appeared to be—hurt inside. His ribs, perhaps.
I knelt beside him again and wiped the rest of the blood and dirt from his face. “Rufe, did you manage to rape that girl?”
He looked away guiltily.
“Why would you do such a thing? She used to be your friend.”
“When we were little, we were friends,” he said softly. “We grew up. She got so she’d rather have a buck nigger than me!”
“Do you mean her husband?” I asked. I managed to keep my voice even.
“Who in hell else would I mean!”
“Yes.” I gazed down at him bitterly. Kevin had been right. I’d been foolish to hope to influence him. “Yes,” I repeated. “How dare she choose her own husband. She must have thought she was a free woman or something.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” he demanded. Then his voice dropped to almost a whisper. “I would have taken better care of her than any field hand could. I wouldn’t have hurt her if she hadn’t just kept saying no.”
“She had the right to say no.”
“We’ll see about her rights!”
“Oh? Are you planning to hurt her more? She just helped me save your life, remember?”
“She’ll get what’s coming to her. She’ll get it whether I give it to her or not.” He smiled. “If she ran off with Isaac, she’ll get plenty.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
“She did run off with Isaac, then?”
“I don’t know. Isaac figured I was on your side so he
didn’t trust me enough to tell me what they were going to do.”
“He didn’t have to. Isaac just attacked a white man. He’s not going back to Judge Holman after doing that. Some other nigger might, but not Isaac. He’s run away, and Alice is with him, helping him to escape. Or at least, that’s the way the Judge will see it.”
“What will happen to her?”
“Jail. A good whipping. Then they’ll sell her.”
“She’ll be a slave?”
“Her own fault.”
I stared at him. Heaven help Alice and Isaac. Heaven help me. If Rufus could turn so quickly on a life-long friend, how long would it take him to turn on me?
“I don’t want her being sold South, though,” he whispered. “Her fault or not, I don’t want her dying in some rice swamp.”
“Why not?” I asked bitterly. “Why should it matter to you?”
“I wish it didn’t.”
I frowned down at him. His tone had changed suddenly. Was he going to show a little humanity then? Did he have any left to show?
“I told her about you,” he said.
“I know. She recognized me.”
“I told her everything. Even about you and Kevin being married. Especially about that.”
“What will you do, Rufe, if they bring her back?”
“Buy her. I’ve got some money.”
“What about Isaac?”
“To hell with Isaac!” He said it too vehemently and hurt his side. His face twisted in pain.
“So you’ll be rid of the man and have possession of the woman just as you wanted,” I said with disgust. “Rape rewarded.”
He turned his head toward me and peered at me through swollen eyes. “I begged her not to go with him,” he said quietly. “Do you hear me, I begged her!”
I said nothing. I was beginning to realize that he loved the woman—to her misfortune. There was no shame in raping a black woman, but there could be shame in loving one.
“I didn’t want to just drag her off into the bushes,” said Rufus. “I never wanted it to be like that. But she kept saying no. I could have had her in the bushes years ago if that was all I wanted.”
“I know,” I said.
“If I lived in your time, I would have married her. Or tried to.” He began trying to get up again. He seemed stronger now, but in pain. I sat watching him, but not helping. I was not eager for him to recover and go home—not until I was sure what story he would tell when he got there.
Finally, the pain seemed to overwhelm him and he lay down again. “What did that bastard do to me?” he whispered.
“I could go and get help for you,” I said. “If you tell me which way to go.”
“Wait.” He caught his breath and coughed and the coughing hurt him badly. “Oh God,” he moaned.
“I think you’ve got broken ribs,” I said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. I guess you’d better go.”
“All right. But, Rufe … white men attacked you. You hear?”
He said nothing.
“You said people would be going after Isaac anyway. All right then, so be it. But let him—and Alice—have a chance. They’ve given you one.”
“It won’t make any difference whether I tell or not. Isaac’s a runaway. They’ll have to answer for that, no matter what.”
“Then your silence won’t matter.”
“Except to give them the start you want them to have.”
I nodded. “I do want them to have it.”
“You’ll trust me, then?” He was watching me very closely. “If I say I won’t tell, you’ll believe me?”
“Yes.” I paused for a moment. “We should never lie to each other, you and I. It wouldn’t be worthwhile. We both have too much opportunity for retaliation.”
He turned his face away from me. “You talk like a damn book.”
“Then I hope Kevin did a good job of teaching you to read.”
“You …!” He caught my arm in a grip I could have broken, but I let him hold on. “You threaten me, I’ll threaten you. Without me, you’ll never find Kevin.”
“I know that.”
“Then don’t threaten me!”
“I said we were dangerous to each other. That’s more a reminder than a threat.” Actually, it was more a bluff.
“I don’t need reminders or threats from you.”
I said nothing.
“Well? Are you going to go get some help for me?”
Still I said nothing. I didn’t move.
“You go through those trees,” he said pointing. “There’s a road out there, not too far away. Go left on the road and then just follow it until you come to our place.”
I listened to his directions knowing that I would use them sooner or later. But we had to have an understanding first, he and I. He didn’t have to admit that we had one. He could keep his pride if that was what he thought was at stake. But he did have to behave as though he understood me. If he refused, he was going to get a lot more pain now. And maybe later when Kevin was safe and Hagar had at least had a chance to be born—I might never find out about that—I would walk away from Rufus and leave him to get out of his own trouble.
“Dana!”
I looked at him. I had let my attention wander.
“I said she’ll … they’ll get their time. White men attacked me.”
“Good, Rufe.” I laid a hand on his shoulder. “Look, your father will listen to me, won’t he? I don’t know what he saw last time I went home.”
“He doesn’t know what he saw either. Whatever it was, he’s seen it before—that time at the river—and he didn’t believe it then, either. But he’ll listen to you. He might even be a little afraid of you.”
“That’s better than the other way around. I’ll get back as quickly as I can.”
5
The road was farther away than I had expected. As it got darker—the sun was setting, not rising—I tore pages from my scratch pad and stuck them on trees now and then to mark my trail. Even then I worried that I might not be able to find my way back to Rufus.
When I reached the road, I pulled up some bushes and made a kind of barricade speckled with bits of white paper. That would stop me at the right place when I came back—if no one moved it meanwhile.
I followed the road until it was dark, followed it through woods, through fields, past a large house much finer than Weylin’s. No one bothered me. I hid behind a tree once when two white men rode past. They might not have paid any attention to me, but I didn’t want to take the chance. And there were three black women walking with large bundles balanced on their heads.
“‘Evenin’,” they said as I passed them.
I nodded and wished them a good evening. And I walked faster, wondering suddenly what the years had done to Luke and Sarah, to Nigel and Carrie. The children who had played at selling each other might already be working in the fields now. And what would time have done to Margaret Weylin? I doubted that it had made her any easier to live with.
Finally, after more woods and fields, the plain square house was before me, its downstairs windows full of yellow light. I was startled to catch myself saying wearily, “Home at last.”
I stood still for a moment between the fields and the house and reminded myself that I was in a hostile place. It didn’t look alien any longer, but that only made it more dangerous, made me more likely to relax and make a mistake.
I rubbed my back, touched the several long scabs to remind myself that I could not afford to make mistakes. And the scabs forced me to remember that I had been away from this place for only a few days. Not that I had forgotten—exactly. But it was as though during my walk I had been getting used to the idea that years had passed for these people since I had seen them last. I had begun to feel—feel, not think—that a great deal of time had passed for me too. It was a vague feeling, but it seemed right and comfortable. More comfortable than trying to keep in mind what was really happening. Some part of me had apparently given up on
time-distorted reality and smoothed things out. Well, that was all right, as long as it didn’t go too far.
I continued on toward the house, mentally prepared now, I hoped, to meet Tom Weylin. But as I approached, a tall thin shadow of a white man came toward me from the direction of the quarter.
“Hey there,” he called. “What are you doing out here?” His long steps closed the distance between us quickly, and in a moment, he stood peering down at me. “You don’t belong here,” he said. “Who’s your master?”
“I’ve come to get help for Mister Rufus,” I said. And then, feeling suddenly doubtful because he was a stranger, I asked, “This is still where he lives, isn’t it?”
The man did not answer. He continued to peer at me. I wondered whether it was my sex or my accent that he was trying to figure out. Or maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t called him sir or master. I’d have to begin that degrading nonsense again. But who was this man, anyway?
“He lives here.” An answer, finally. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Some men beat him. He can’t walk.”
“Is he drunk?”
“Uh … no, sir, not quite.”
“Worthless bastard.”
I jumped a little. The man had spoken softly, but there was no mistaking what he had said. I said nothing.
“Come on,” he ordered, and led me into the house. He left me standing in the entrance hall and went to the library where I supposed Weylin was. I looked at the wooden bench a few steps from me, the settee, but although I was tired, I didn’t sit down. Margaret Weylin had once caught me sitting there tying my shoe. She had screamed and raged as though she’d caught me stealing her jewelry. I didn’t want to renew my acquaintance with her in another scene like that. I didn’t want to renew my acquaintance with her at all, but it seemed inevitable.
There was a sound behind me and I turned in quick apprehension. A young slave woman stood staring at me. She was light-skinned, blue-kerchiefed, and very pregnant.
“Carrie?” I asked.
She ran to me, caught me by the shoulders for a moment, and looked into my face. Then she hugged me.