"Yeh," Isaac agreed, dreamily, for he wanted it as much as any of them.
"It's a'comin'."
They drifted to sleep that night to the sound of the guns at Shiloh.
Queen heard the guns, and shivered in fear. Cap'n Jack heard them, and
almost smiled.
"What is it, Gran'pappy?" Queen whispered. He mumbled something she
couldn't quite catch, and leaned close to him.
He tried to tell her, but it hurt to talk. He whispered words that he knew
she did not hear, but leaned back on his pillow
520 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
and smiled. For even if she could not hear'him, he knew she could hear
that other sound, and that was all that mattered, for it was the most
glorious sound of all. It was the sound he had waited for all his life.
It was the herald of freedom.
60
Still Cap'n Jack did not die. He seemed to be waiting for something more
than the sound of distant gunfire, and clung tenaciously to a tiny thread
of life. Whenever Sally went to see him, he asked about Jass, and she
began to understand that he could not bear the idea of his young Massa
being a prisoner. His mind had regressed to a happily remembered past.
Often delirious, he would mutter about the days when Jass was a boy, and
Cap'n Jack was closer to him than his own father. Confused and irrational,
he could not remember that Easter was dead, and talked of the joyous day
when Jass came home from the war to Easter. At other times, Jass became
confused in his mind with James when he was young, a golden, brawny, Irish
youth, who had engulfed Cap'n Jack in friendship and promised him his
freedom one day. Eventually, his memories always turned to Annie, and when
they did he became bitter, and fell silent.
Queen spent as much time with him as she could. It was a relief to be
with him, to escape from her many and increasing duties, for life was
becoming, daily, it seemed, tougher for them, and the news from the war
bleaker. Queen had schooled herself to understand that her gran'pappy was
dying, and while it distressed her, she was no novice to death now.
Besides, too many other new emotions were claiming attention from her
heart.
None of them had experience of war, or of this strange new world without
Massas. The duties of life, of the house and plantation, fell
increasingly upon the women, but it was not a
QUEEN 521
life any of them understood. The white women had been brought up to
plenty, and scarcity was an alien burden. The slaves had been used to
discipline all their lives, and the present disorder of their existence
confused most, frightened some. They had existed without hope for tomorrow
for all of their lives, and while there was a hope now, of this intangible
freedom, it was as elusive as ever and as close as whispered rumors. It
was generally believed that it was only a matter of time, but how much
time, how long, 0 Lord, how long? The Yankees had come, but had not
brought freedom with them. The Rebels had retaken Florence, and the Union
troops had retreated to the northern side of the river. The slaves had no
understanding of the confusions of war, and lived on rumors of it, but
each rumor was contradicted by its successor, and so they clung to the old
ways and what they understood their lives to be, but again, without a
Massa and an overseer, the old order was gone, and no one celebrated its
temporary replacement. Some slaves, the younger men, had been pressed into
service by the Confederacy, not to fight but to dig for the sappers.
Law and order, as such, had almost ceased to exist. Pillage and robbery
were commonplace and rape was not rare. Bands of men, some in uniform,
some not, but all armed, roamed the countryside, taking what they could,
at will. To protect themselves against lawlessness, the entire community
at The Forks of Cypress was united against the world, although that unity
was as temporary as the weather, and would disintegrate at the first
positive sign of what the future might be.
They all held their breaths and went about their business, waiting for
something to happen, even Cap'n Jack, and when it happened, it was
double-edged.
It came to Jass first. Tom Kirkman brought the news to Sally on a warm
October day. Jass's imprisoned regiment had been exchanged with a Northern
unit. Jass was a free man again. Sally whispered a tiny prayer of thanks
for his deliverance, and waited for Tom to tell her the sweet news of her
son's return. It was not to be. Jass had been promoted to colonel of his
regiment, and was being sent south to Fort Hudson, near Vicksburg, in
Mississippi.
522 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
Tom had other news of freedom. Lincoln had announced his intention to sign
a proclamation emancipating the slaves, in all the states, as if the
Confederation did not exist.
"He can't do that," Sally said, knowing that Lincoln could do anything he
wanted.
Tom smiled, and agreed with her statement and her thought. If it happened,
it seemed likely that those slaves in Southern territories under Union
control would be freed. He almost didn't care. He was tired, perpetually
tired, and he could not shake off a chill he had caught.
"Here?" Sally wondered, and Tom shrugged. Much of the area around Florence
was held by the Federal Army, but battles raged for control of the river,
both sides determined to hold what they had, and take what they had not.
"Everywhere," Tom said. "I don't know how he intends to enforce it, but it
will bring chaos to us, if it is true." Sally could not imagine how it
would directly affect them, as part of the Confederacy, and she put aside
concerns for what might happen in the future, and gloried in what had
happened now. For Jass was free.
She told Lizzie, who let out a shriek of joy, and went racing to tell the
children, but then came running back to find out when Jass was coming home.
On being told that he was not, much of her joy deserted her briefly, and
she sulked alone in the sitting room. But still it was good news, or better
news than they had heard in a very long time, and, calmer now, she found
the children, and hugged them to her, as hard as she had hoped to hug her
husband.
There was someone else to tell. Sally climbed the stairs slowly and paused
to catch her breath on the landing. Then she went up the little attic
stairs to Cap'n Jack.
Queen was with him, bathing his chest. The room smelled awful, of waste and
illness, and that other rich and heady aroma that Sally knew betokened the
presence of death.
Queen covered Cap'n Jack with a blanket when Sally came in.
- He say he dyin'," she blurted, grumpily. "I can't talk him out of it. "
"The Massa has been freed," Sally said softly, so that Cap'n Jack would not
hear. She saw a light sparkle in Queen's eyes, one she had not seen for
months.
QUEEN
523
Queen stared at Sally, hardly daring to believe that it was true.
"When he coming home?" she asked.
"Not for a little while," Sally told her, guessing that Queen wanted to
be somewhere else. To be alone, perhaps.
"I'll stay with him," she said. Queen nodded, trying to contain her joy.
She made Cap'n Jack as comfortable as she could as quickly as she could,
and then went to the door.
"Thank you, Missy," Queen said. "I got to tell Mammy."
She hurried from the room. Sally smiled. She understood the girl's need
to be at her mother's grave, to tell her news she could not hear, and
wondered why she felt no need to tell James. Or be with him, beside him,
alone in the silent cemetery with the man whom she had loved.
When Queen had gone, Sally settled in the chair beside the bed, and took
Cap'n Jack's hand, to let him know that she was there.
He seemed lost to her, in some other world, and for a moment Sally
thought he might be gone already, but then he opened his eyes and stared
at her.
"I dyin', Missy," he said.
"Now why on earth would you want to do that?" Sally said gently. "When
the Massa's coming home."
She knew he understood, because a duller version of the same sparkle that
had brightened Queen's eyes glittered into his. His lips moved in what
she knew to be a silent prayer.
"Massa Jass free," he said. "Now I can die happy. The good Lord's
a'callin' me, Missy."
"I'm sure He would wait a while," Sally said, knowing He would not.
"Massa Jass free," Cap'n Jack said again. "Oh, blessed freedom."
Suddenly, Sally understood what he had been waiting for, why he would not
leave, and she wanted to fulfill his dream.
"And you are free," she said.
Cap'n Jack stared at her.
"You've been free for a very long time," she continued. "I have the paper
downstairs in the safe. Massa James gave it to me years ago, believing
you would ask for it one day."
It wasn't true. James had told her, years ago, of his offer
524 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
of freedom to Cap'n Jack, and of his subsequent refusal. Furious with his
slave, he had burned the paper.
"If he ever wants it, he'll damn well have to ask for it," James had said.
But what did it matter now, if he asked or it was given? Sickness,
weariness, pain, seemed to vanish from Cap'n Jack's eyes. If I have done
nothing else good in my life, Sally thought, I have done this.
"Free." Was it a question or a statement? Sally couldn't tell, and it
didn't matter. The lies were nothing. The result was all.
- And soon all the slaves will be free," she said. Perhaps they would, if
Lincoln had his way.
Cap'n Jack smiled, then frowned. "Queen?"
"Queen and all the slaves," Sally reassured him. "Very soon.
"Oh, Lordy," Cap'n Jack whispered. He closed his eyes, and squeezed her
hand. Then he turned away from her, turned to the wall.
Sally sat holding his hand, and felt his grip slowly loosen until there was
nothing of it left.
She looked about the empty room, and tears stung her eyes.
"What on earth am I going to do without him?" she cried out to no one, and
was unable to control her choking voice.
They buried him in the slaves' graveyard, next to Easter. No one cried,
because no one had any more tears to shed. The war had left them bereft, not
of grief but of the means to express it. They moved through life now in an
emotional vacuum, accepting whatever was given them, and little of it was
good.
Sally stood next to Queen at the grave and read her favorite passage from
the Book of Common Prayer, which spoke of loss in terms of hope.
"We seem to give him back to Thee, 0 Lord, who gavest him to us. But as
Thou didst not lose him in the giving, we shall not lose him by his
return."
When the service was done, Queen helped Sally down the hill. They did not
speak to each other because they had no need to speak. They simply shielded
each other against loss.
QUEEN 525
Soon after, rumors began to fly among the slaves, and life and vigor
returned to them, and the mounting optimism of the slaves was matched by
the increasing pessimism of the whites.
And Queen was petrified.
She heard the rumors, but no joy came to her with them. She snapped
angrily at those who told her the news, and said it hadn't happened yet,
and it didn't affect her. What worried her was that it might. She threw
herself into preparations for Christmas with febrile energy, and when the
blessed feast came, she tried to make herself indispensable to the
family, as if she belonged to them, was part of them. They had no idea
of the fear besieging her, and treated her no differently than usual. Or
perhaps they did, a little, for her unspoken but incessant demand for
proof of their affection, for some recognition of her place with them,
wearied them and caused them to snap at her. So Queen's fears magnified.
She didn't dare ask Sally if the rumor was true, for fear that it was.
She wouldn't ask Lizzie, and, with Cap'n Jack gone, there was only one
person she trusted.
She went to Parson Dick's room one night, and tapped on his door. She
heard fear in his voice when he asked who it was, and when she told him,
there was silence. She went in. Parson Dick was packing, stuffing his
clothes into a big old bag made of carpet.
"What you doin'?" she asked.
"Getting out of here," he told her.
She panicked. "But vou can't!" she cried. "We belong here.
"I don't 'belong' here, I don't belong to no one," he said. "An' now Abe
Lincoln's made that legal."
"We still slaves!" she insisted. "This ain't the North. Abe Lincoln can't
do nuttin' down here."
The rumor was that Abraham Lincoln had issued a proclamation freeing all
the slaves, in any state, as of the first day of the coming New Year.
"We can get away is what we can do," Parson Dick said. "Over the river,
to Union lines."
"They catch you, they bring you back, whip you good!" Queen tried to
sound casual, but failed, and Parson Dick laughed at her.
526 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
"They ain't going to waste time catching slaves now; there'll be too many
on the run!"
He looked at the miserable Queen and felt a sweep of pity for her.
"You come with me and Ruby," he said. "We look after
you. "
Queen shook her head, defiantly.
"This here is my home," she said. "This here is my family. "
"You ain't nothin' to them, 'cept some skivvy slave," he replied. But she
did not hear him, or did not want to.
"Colonel Jass is my pappy," she said.
Parson Dick understood her fear, and the foolishness of her dream,
"Oh, girl," he said gently. "What you think your pappy's going to do? You
think he's going to raise you into the bosom of his fa
mily, and say to
all the world you is his true-born daughter?"
Queen looked at him uncertainly. That was what she wanted to happen, what
she wanted to believe would happen, but faced with the actuality of it,
it seemed unreal.
"Slavery's finished, thank the good Lord in heaven." Parson Dick pressed
his point. "But it going to bring hard times for the Massas, and they
going to stick to each other like glue. They never going to admit that
all those mulattos and quadroons and octoroons and Lord knows how many
'roons is begat out of white blood!"
Queen was trembling, and shaking her head. She didn't want to hear any
more.
"You stay here, you nothing, you worse than nothing, coz they won't even
admit that you exist," he said softly, sadly, accurately predicting her
future.
"It ain't true!" she cried. "You don't know! My pappy loves me!"
Crying, she ran from the room. She stumbled down the back stairs and into
the kitchen. She stood in the middle of the room, gasping, panting, not
knowing what to do. A ferocious energy invaded her, and she began to
clean what was already clean, scrub what was already scrubbed, tidy what
was already neat, as if the faultless management of the house proved her
indispensability to it.
QUEEN 527
A few hours later, when everyone was asleep, Parson Dick crept from the
house to the stables. He took an old nag, fair wages, he thought, for his
years of service, and rode into the night. He met Ruby at a bend in the
river near Florence, a spot they had arranged in whispered assignations
conveyed by the seed merchant's assistant. They spent the day in the
woods, and the following evening they stole an old rowboat they found on
the riverbank, and made their way across the river. By morning, they were
behind Union lines and threw themselves on the mercy of some soldiers.
Although they were treated roughly, as runaways, they were fed, given the
use of a tent, and no serious attempt was made to return them to their
owners. With the tolling of the church bells on New Year's Day, they were
free.
Those same church bells proclaiming the New Year sounded ominous to Sally,
tolling for a way of life that was dying. The Emancipation Proclamation
had no direct effect on themthey were beyond its jurisdiction-but already
it was working indirectly. It hurt her deeply that Parson Dick, most
reliable, she had thought, of their, slaves, had been the first to take
advantage of this new situation, for she had little doubt as to what he
had done, and others, she was convinced, would follow. The..Union Army,
Northern law, was too tantalizingly close to them. Yet she had to do
everything in her power to stop them from going, even if that meant the
unthinkable. Hands were needed to run the farm, for without the farm the
whites could not live, and Sally was aware of the paradox. The white South
depended on the enslaved blacks for their very survival. They did not have
the means to keep the slaves against their will if they chose to go, and
Sally determined that she must make them choose to stay.
Once again, she had them gathered into the clearing, although Isaac was
in charge of them now, and she came to them as supplicant, not as
mistress. She told no one else of her plan. Lizzie would not understand,
Tom would disapprove, and Mrs. Henderson would resist it fiercely. It was
possible that if it was generally known, Sally would be accused of
treachery to the cause.
"Abe Lincoln has issued an order making all slaves in
528 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
United States territory free," she began, and stopped again for a moment. It
was not easy for her. She heard the muttered prayers of some of the slaves.
If the Missy was telling them, then the rumors were true. Free at last, free
at last.
"That order does not apply to this plantation, or any in the Confederacy,"
Sally continued, and heard the sharp intakes of breath, the audible
disappointment. "But the army of the United States is only twenty miles
away, freedom is only twenty miles away, and I do not have the means to