had once been another Eden was a wasteland, barren and bankrupt.
The men straggling back from the war had no choice but to see the
devastation, and to comprehend its vastness. After the surrender of the
South, the soldiers of the Confederate Army laid down their weapons and
began their long walk home. Penniless, dispirited, hopeless, they trod
through fields that had once been fertile, along roads that had once
resounded with bustling business. As they marched, they were joined by
QUEEN 537
a new army, a fulsome, extravagant, free-spending army. An army of
Northern opportunists, who saw in the ravaged South a feeding ground of
opportunity for fortunes as yet unmade. The generals of this army had
noble ambitions for the reconstruction of the South, but the foot soldiers
wore florid suits, carried carpetbags stuffed with the most precious
ammunition, Federal banknotes, and their training manual was a bible of
chicanery. Marching with them came other battalions of highminded
missionaries, devoted to the capture of the newly freed black souls, while
many of the mortal targets they sought passed them by, walking North to
promised riches.
"All them niggers let loose on the world," Henderson said to a weary
companion. The bitterness of the veterans was intense. Everyone, it
seemed, had food in their bellies but them. Even the poorest of the
carpetbagging businessmen was rich compared to those who had fought for
the South. The missionaries came with the blessing of their Northern
churches, or their own life savings, and fed any hungry black they saw.
But for the whites, for the soldiers, there was nothing but further
abasement.
Henderson had walked for days. He had been stationed at Richmond in
Virginia since his promotion to sergeant three years ago, and had seen
the vagaries of the war from its front lines. His regiment had laid down
its arms the day before the general surrender at Appomattox, and after
ten days of indecision and enforced idleness, and infinite frustration,
bright news had come to them. Lincoln, wretched Lincoln, architect of
their destruction, had been killed, shot to death by some righteous,
avenging angel. The men of the South had cheered and hollered at the
news, and picked fights with their Northern captors. Order had been
restored with rifle butts and broken bones, and the following day they
had been told to go home, by whatever means they could. Which meant
walking. There was not a horse or cart to be had, even for ready money,
which was in shorter supply.
Footsore and weary, nursing new blisters and old grievances, Henderson was
resting with a hundred other veterans outside a barn. A sympathetic farmer
had given the veterans use of his outbuildings, and scores of men were
resting there. Blacks,
538 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
walking North, used the fields opposite as their resting place. No
Confederate soldier would have shared his sanctuary with them, even though
there was no Confederacy left. And carpetbaggers were practicing their
craft. One of them stood under a tree near the returning soldiers, hawking
his dollars.
"Any man who wants to sell his land, I'll give him a fair price for it!" he
barked at the broken men. "Cash money! Greenbacks! No questions asked."
"I got five fair acres in Georgia," a man responded. Five fair acres was
all he had. Confederate troops had not been paid in weeks, or months, and
anyway, the Confederate dollar was worthless paper. He sold his five acres
for five dollars, which was a fortune to him.
"A man could buy the whole South for a good honest meal," Henderson said to
the veterans near him. No one replied, although they all agreed with him.
At that moment, they would have sold their souls for a good honest meal.
But not Henderson. All he had to do was get back to'The Forks of Cypress,
where a comparative treasure awaited him, God willing, tucked away in a
little box under some floorboards in his cottage. He had told no one, not
even Letitia, of its existence, and while he knew her life had been hard
while he was away, he guessed that the Jacksons would have provided basic
necessities for her. Besides, a little suffering, a little hunger, a little
deprivation, would be good for her. It was nothing compared with what he
had been through, and might knock some of the edges off her. So, barring
some terrible accident, fire or flood, which were both unlikely, or
marauding Yankees, which was possible, be expected to find his store of
gold intact when he returned. Andhe would be, comparatively, rich. Yet all
the gold on earth col~ld only partially alleviate his bitterness.
Everything that he had~striven so hard to achieve was meaningless, for the
slaves were ascendant, and the white man trash. Often his thoughts turned
to his dead mother, and he could not bear to think that her lifelong
struggle for existence had been without sense or meaning, and that her
place in the scheme of things had been reduced to less than that of the
humblest nigger.
Like the poor black who stood before him now, begging for food. There were
no missionaries nearby, and the black, who
QUEEN 539
had been called Washington by his hopeful mother, had accepted in good
faith the promise of Abraham Lincoln. All men, whatever their color, were
equal now. On his way to the city that bore his name, whose streets, he
was told, were paved with gold, he hadn't eaten for two days, and doubted
that the returning soldiers camped in the barn had much to share, but
might have something.
"Get away from me, you nigger bastard," Henderson drawled lazily at the
man. "Or you'll wish you'd never been bom. "
Washington bridled inside, but stood his ground. Perhaps this veteran
hadn't heard the news.
"Yo' cain't do nuttin' to me," he said. "I's free now."
Henderson stared at him, secure in his recent rank, his expected wealth,
and the authority given to the whites, he believed, by God.
"Can't IT' he said, and his tone was the more ominous for its powerful
understatement. "Listen to me, boy, and you listen good. You get your ass
out of here, get to your Yankee friends as fast as you know how."
The other white soldiers said nothing, but their hearts were with him,
Henderson knew. All they needed was a leader. All they needed was someone
to voice what they all felt.
"We might have lost the war," Henderson continued, seizing the moment.
"But we're men, and we can still fight, and we will. You ever get in my
way, you or any of your jungle kin, and we will come to you in the dead
of night, with flames of retribution, and roast you so good, hell will
seem like a better idea."
He had not prepared the words-they came to him from some deep, dark place
in his soul-but as he said them he saw what he described, and it made him
feel better. It also made his compan
ions feel better. Listlessness about
their condition gave way to unspoken hostility, directed generally to all
niggers, and, at this moment, to just one, whose name was Washington.
"I wam you, boy, it's acoming," Henderson said.
No one doubted him, certainly not Washington, who was scared by what had
been said, and by the palpable atmosphere of violence the words had
evoked.
540 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
"Yes, sub, Massa," Washington said, already moving away. "I sorry,
Massa."
Henderson watched the retreat of Washington with a small sense of
triumph. It had been so easy. It would be as easy, in the future.
He turned to his enraptured audience of disadvantaged whites, and felt
the heady taste of power.
"Giving 'em freedom, giving 'em the vote, it don't make a lick of
difference," he said. "They're still niggers."
Some men nodded, and a couple moved closer to him, younger men, who
longed for action, and for whom the defeat had been especially bitter,
as if reassured by his easy, commanding presence. They talked into the
night, of the future, of the protection of their families, and of the
sweet smell of burning nigger flesh.
Henderson slept well that night, for the first time in weeks. He hadn't
felt so good since he heard of Lincoln's assassination, which he saw as
divine and proper retribution. The future was looking good after all. The
war was not over; it would simply be conducted differently now, covertly,
by small groups of like-minded, true Southern men. And women, for he had
no doubt that Letitia would share his purpose, and even less doubt that
Letitia would be alone.
"Let the niggers have their day," he said to his newfound friends before
he bunked down. "A long, dark night is coming."
63
Queen had solved the problem of leaving The Forks of Cy
press by the simple expedient of not going. Sally had not put
a time on her departure; she had simply indicated that Queen
should go at some time after the war, but when the war ended,
the Massa would come home, and everything would be all
right again. The Massa wouldn't make her leave; her pappy
QUEEN 541
wouldn't make her go. So she stayed, and did all that she had promised she
would. She cooked and cleaned and scrubbed and gardened, and tended to the
household as if they were her own dear family, which, in her mind, they
were.
She could not run the fields-that was beyond her-for as the Southern
defeat became more and more obvious, more and more slaves decided to take
their chances on another life, and left The Forks in search of a new
bright day. Gradually, the mansion fell into disrepair, and the land
became useless, the fields untended, the cotton unplanted, the fences
unfixed. By the time the war ended, only old Isaac and young Davy were
left to struggle against Nature's reclamation of its own, and even they
had their hopes set on somewhere else. There was so much to do, they
chose to do none of it, and spent their days whittling and dreaming.
"What we gonna do, then?" Davy asked Isaac, as he did every day. "Go, I
guess," Isaac replied, as he did every day.
Davy nodded. He wanted to go; he wanted some adventure, some high life,
some fun. He thought Isaac would go too, and didn't want to leave without
him, but their choices of destination were so many they could never make
a decision, and they had a residual loyalty to this place. Or to Missy
Sally, who was kind to them, which amounted to the same thing.
"Ev'ry nigger goin' North," Davy said, hoping they could decide on a
direction, if not a haven. Really, he wanted to go somewhere else. "Be
full up with black folk soon."
Isaac looked at the empty, wasting fields. "We could stay," he said. "We
ain't got nowhere else."
But Davy was young, and, like a bird who has no alternative but to fly
from the nest, whatever the danger of falling, he wanted to stretch his
newly freed wings.
"No, man!" he cried. "I wants me some freedom!" He knew Isaac wanted it
too, just to try the taste of it. After all, if they didn't like it, they
could always come back. "Hear tell y'c'n have a high ol' time in
N'Orleens."
He had heard wonderful stories, of music and dancing and beautiful women
who were only too ready to cosset an energetic young man, and Davy had
energy to spare, when there was something he wanted to do.
Isaac didn't seem all that keen on New Orleans, and they
542 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
lapsed into silence, Davy contemplating unfulfilled lust, and Isaac
wondering why he felt no real urge to go anywhere.
Queen banged her way out of the kitchen door, in a grumpy mood. She was
always grumpy these days. She saw Isaac and Davy sitting whittling by the
well, and wanted to bang their lazy heads together.
"Cut me some firewood, Davy," she yelled. She came to the well with her
bucket, and stood waiting for Isaac to draw water. Isaac clambered to his
feet, but Davy still wasn't too sure of this freedom thing, and wondered
how far it could be pushed.
"Don't feel like it, Missy Queen," he drawled, sticking a straw in his
mouth and lazing back on the grass. "I's free now.
Queen could, when she wanted to, turn it on. "Well, you better start
feelin' like it, and get yo' free nigger ass choppin' wood, or you don't
get fed!" she exploded.
Davy, who had taken orders all his life, and knew nothing else, looked
uncertainly at Isaac, who chuckled.
"Ain't no one else gwine feed yo'," he told the reluctant boy. "An' yo'
cain't cook."
That surely was the truth and persuaded Davy to action, although he still
thought that freedom meant more than it seemed to. But it was not sensible
to argue with Queen, who was in charge of the kitchen, in charge of
everything, and had a very short temper. He got to his feet and wandered
off to the woodpile.
"I's a-choppin', Missy Queen," he assured her reluctantly. I Is a-choppin'."
Queen sniffed, and waited for Isaac to fill her bucket. She didn't speak to
him, because he was only an ol' nigger, and she was family.
:'Pretty day," Isaac said, to break the silence.
'An' you better get fixin' the plow, or you don't get fed either," Queen
snapped, and toted her bucket of water back to the house.
Isaac watched her go. There was no point in fixing the plow, because even
if the fields were tilled, there was no seed to plant, and he was bored
with taking orders from that grumpy half-caste girl. Davy was right, they
should go. Even if they
QUEEN 543
ended up living on the land, like a few other ex-slaves from the Forks,
camped in the forest only a few miles from their former home, they would
be their own men, in charge of their own existence. While they stayed,
though, it was better to keep out of Queen's sight. lie wandered off to
the barn as if to repair the plow, but once inside he settled on some
straw and took a little nap. It was a warm day.
In the kitchen, Queen banged a pot on the stove and filled it with well
water, to boil. The weight of the bucket had strained her arms, and she
was tired, always tired.
"Workin' my po' fingers to the bone, for folks as don't appreciate it,"
she told the empty room. Or God, to Whom she voiced her many grievances
these days.
She slumped in a chair at the table while she waited for the water to
boil. If only the Massa would come home, he would appreciate how very
hard she worked, he would be kind to her, and make her feel as if she
mattered. Miss Sally and Miss Lizzie couldn't manage without her, but
they never said thank you or please, never spoke to her, pretended she
wasn't there, that she didn't even exist. She did everything for them,
and for the children when they were here-cleaned their clothes, cooked
their food, emptied their bedpans-and they accepted it all, as if it
happened by magic. She couldn't go on, she was exhausted, site hadn't
even had time to visit her mother's grave in weeks, there was so much
else to do. But she had to go on, somehow; it could only be a few more
days, at the very most, and then he would be home again.
01' Massa Henderson had come home last week; he'd been in fine spirits
even though he'd walked a thousand miles, cheery and jolly, although not
to Queen, and had whisked his wife away for a holiday in Charleston, to
see her family. He seemed to have money, she didn't know how-perhaps sol-
diers were paid a lot. He talked of buying a general store, of setting
up in business for himself. If soldiers were well paid, the Massa would
have money when he came home, and that would be such a relief; she
wouldn't have to scrimp and save every penny that Miss Sally gave her,
and wonder how on earth she could feed the family that night. But Massa
Henderson had no word of Jass, nor had Miss Sally heard anything from
him.
544 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
She knew he'd lost an arm. A letter had come last year, and Miss Sally
couldn't read well anymore. She'd left the letter lying on her table and
when Queen came in to clean the room had wondered aloud, of no one, what
news it might bring. So Queen had read the letter, and Jass said he
couldn't imagine why the good Lord had given him two arms because he was
doing just fine with one. Miss Sally had cried, but still wouldn't admit
that Queen was there. It was as if she were listening to a ghost, someone
who had been there once, and wasn't anymore.
Queen had cried that night, and hoped that losing the arin hadn't hurt
too much, and tried to imagine what he looked like. It didn't make any
difference, he was her pappy, and she'd look after him and take care of
him, nurse his body if he needed it and his soul if he would let her. One
of the dogs had lost a leg once, caught in a trap, and rather than put
him down, old Solomon had nursed the animal back to health, and kept him
as his own. The dog managed fine with only three legs, and was a sweet,
dear thing. Queen's heart had gone out to him, and she had always tried
to save a few tidbits from the table for him. It wouldn't worry her that
her pappy's body was incomplete. It would make him need her more.
The water boiled, and she made the fake coffee, reminding herself that
she had to roast and grind some more acorns, poured two cups of the
drink, put them on a tray, and left the kitchen. Deliberately, she went
the long way to the sitting room, through the hall, because she was
taking stock of what had to be done before the Massa came home. Paper was
peeling from the walls. The drapes needed to be washed. She couldn't
possibly do it all.
Sally and Lizzie were in the sitting room, enjoying the spring day. It was
a mercy that warrn weather had come because they couldn't spare wood for
a fire. Lizzie was doing tapestry work, to make some cushions. Sally, her