at you. I might like to see him just try to cut your heel-strings, because I tell you this: I’d put a knife in his neck and twist so hard that he’d be dead before he could even start making an apology to you!”
XLIX
After Morri learned my identity, we had a long talk by the Cooper River. But nothing I told her could do away with her reticence to talk to me. Frustration made me cry. I let myself believe that once she knew who I was she would inherit all of Midnight’s old fondness for me. I’d forgotten there was no magic in the world.
I despised my awkwardness in front of her and my inability to convince her to come away with me. Then I truly ruined everything by letting my Highland temper go and declaring that if ever Master Edward tried to cut her heel-strings, I would slit his throat.
Morri spoke to me after that as though I were dangerous — as indeed I might have been. She begged me not to say anything to Master Edward about my having known her father previously. Of course I had no intention of doing so, and her obliging me to swear filled me with disappointment. She also requested that I not mention to Master Edward my desire to purchase her. It was simply out of the question, she said, and would only raise difficulties for her. If I truly cared for her well-being, then I would leave her be.
In my room that night, I lay in my bed picturing the slave gardens I’d seen that day — thinking, too, of how Midnight had cleared the land behind our house just after his arrival in Porto, enabling the long-dormant roses there to bloom. This coming spring, his rhododendrons here would be clouds of pink and red.
In the dark of my room, his disappearance left me tossing and turning. One man and one cowardly act could cause damage to so many people, over twenty years or more. The evil of what my father had done might even go on for many generations, because here was Morri, forced to live as a prisoner, isolated from all the rest of the world. Her children would be born and die here as well — or worse, might be sold to new owners living hundreds of miles away.
Risking an invasion of mosquitoes, I opened my window to look for the Archer, but I could not find him. I wished to eat the night and all its stars, just as Luisa had suggested, so that I might gain the prowess of those hunters.
L
Now that I’d met a white man with a memory for black faces, I wasn’t so sure it was a good thing. Because what did I really know about him?
That’s mostly what I was thinking about when I rushed down to River Bend’s main gate before dawn the next day. But no plant or ribbon was in sight.
By the first rays of sunlight peeking through the pines, I was already pounding Master Edward’s washing on the scrubbing rocks at Christmas Creek. I was hoping that John would leave. I figured I didn’t owe him anything just because he’d been friends with my papa. He was only a boy then anyway. Maybe the man he was had nothing to do with the boy he’d been all those years ago.
A little later, Wiggie came to tell me that Rosa’s baby, Cullenn, was coughing and I was needed. I was worried it was the croup, so I went out to Papa’s garden and mixed up some chamomile and cassena for him to breathe in. The air in his cabin was stale as molded bread, so I took him out to Porter’s Woods myself and built a fire there, because Rosa was a field hand and couldn’t be spared from weeding the rice.
So that was where I next saw John — sitting at the edge of the woods. He asked if Cullenn was my baby, which made me laugh, since anyone could see that he didn’t look anything like me.
“Some babies take after the father,” he said, his face getting all long and sad. “Like you, for instance.”
I looked away, because his eyes were softening up my anger and I needed each and every bit of it if I was going to have the courage to pick up my pistol and march out of River Bend.
“Morri, I have to take you away from here,” he told me.
“I thank you for thinking of me,” I said coolly, “but it’s useless talking about these things. I can’t go.”
He took a couple of steps toward me. “Don’t you understand what I’m telling you?” he pleaded. “You don’t have to stay here any longer.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand. I’m likely to be punished if the overseer catches me talking to you. You’re just making life difficult for me. So let me be.” When he wouldn’t move back, I hollered, “I can’t be seen talking to you! Go away.”
I saw I’d hurt him bad, but I knew it was for his own good and didn’t say another word. Even so, I felt real guilty.
I didn’t catch another glimpse of him all the rest of that day, Saturday. Weaver said that he saw him a couple of times sitting on a rock by the Cooper River, looking all worried, drawing in his sketchbook like his life depended on it.
John had supper with the family in the Big House on Saturday evening. Mistress Anne had come up from Charleston, and Master Edward and Mistress Kitty had arrived from Cordesville. They’d all heard there was a Scottish artist staying here, so they just had to stop by to get a good look at him. Crow told me later that Mistress Anne flirted with John something shameful nearly the whole supper.
I stayed most of that night with Rosa in her cabin, since Cullenn was still coughing and needed my constant attention. His nose was awful stuffed, so I did one of my father’s tricks and covered it with my mouth to suck out all that muck.
Sunday was our day free, and Cullenn was better, so I told Rosa how to care for him, then went with Weaver over to Comingtee so he could meet his wife and children. We got bad news there right away. Martha and his two sons were having second thoughts about our running away. But Weaver said that it was too late to change our minds, that we had to go because too many folks knew about the plan and we already had the guns. Martha told us that a washing girl named Sarah was going to come with us, too. She and Weaver’s son Frederick wanted to get married.
I passed the day watching the cotton barges drift on by, embroidering the sleeves on my Sunday dress, and singing some with Weaver’s other son, Taylor, who had an old guitar. No one said another word about escaping. Weaver did a little fishing and caught us some carp, which tasted good for supper, though we all nibbled at the fixings as if we were going to be hanged in the morning. It’s funny how nightfall can make you think about death.
We returned home late on Sunday, near midnight. In the morning, while I was hugging a few last minutes of sleep to me, Wiggie drove John to a house near Stromboli where that fancy black woman lived who’d first come with him to River Bend. I thought he’d given up on helping me, and a whole lot of feelings about that mixed together in my mind. I guess I even felt hurt. But then Crow told me that John had spent a good part of Sunday putting nosy questions to him, Lily, and even Mr. Johnson. He wanted to know all about the murders of Big and Little Master Henry. He had them describe everything in detail, down to what their spells had been like. He even asked Lily for her lemonade recipe!
After hearing that, I was mighty relieved he’d left us. Having him off the plantation meant there was no chance of any of us having to harm him.
Cullenn was just about all better by Monday. No fever and no cough. I figured that at least one good thing had happened. One good thing a day is all I generally ask for, though someday I plan on working myself up to two.
I ain’t never ever going to forget Tuesday the Second of September, 1823. Because on that morning I found a red ribbon tied to the gate and a pot of pink carnations. I can’t say how I carried them back with me to the Big House, because I don’t remember a single thing.
