“One is a nigger buck, so you will have to meet him outside. I am sorry, but those are my rules.” She glared at me, plainly incensed.
Standing on a brick patio at the back of the house was a broad-shouldered black man in a handsome green velvet coat. Talking in hushed tones with him was a thin, elderly white man in a worn linen shirt and trousers. They smiled as I approached, as though heartily relieved to see me. The black man was missing an earlobe, and his eyes were like yellow moons. He introduced himself as Hussar Morgan, and he had a very powerful handshake. The white man was named John Comfort.
They knew my name already.
“I’d ask you to my room, but Mrs. Van Zandt will not allow it,” I said apologetically.
“We are aware of her rules,” Mr. Comfort replied. “Patience is an important virtue in Alexandria, as thee hath surely learned by now.”
Seeing my surprise at his antiquated vocabulary, he explained that he was a Quaker.
“May I see your drawing of Samuel?” Mr. Morgan requested. “I believe I may know him.”
After retrieving my sketch from my room, I opened it for him eagerly. He studied it for only a few seconds, then said with assurance, “Yes, sir, that’s Samuel all right.”
“Did he ever speak of me? Of John?”
“No, I’m sorry, the man I knew was mute.”
“You are the second person to tell me that, sir. But unless he suffered some terrible accident, it would seem impossible.”
“Mr. Stewart, I assure you he never spoke in my presence.”
“I believe you. It’s just that … Might a slave-trader have cut his vocal cords?”
“No, I don’t think so. There was no scar on his neck.”
“Thank God for that. Tell me, was he in good spirits?”
“I did not know him well. He seemed — how shall I put it? — he seemed resigned. He was not sad, but if I were a religious man,” he continued, looking at Mr. Comfort, “I would say there was a piece of his soul missing.”
“And do you know what became of him?”
“After Mr. Miller passed away, Samuel was sold to a slave-trader — a local man named Burton, who worked for a dealer from Baltimore by the name of Woolfolk. Mr. Burton died … well, it must be over ten years ago. I was told at the time that Samuel had been forced aboard a ship bound for Charleston.”
I asked, “How did you come to know him, Mr. Morgan?”
“I was a gardener at the time for a wealthy family. Samuel would help me on Sundays. He was most fond of plants and flowers. And then, when this happened” — he flicked his finger at his missing earlobe — “he treated the wound for me.”
“Did you meet with an accident, sir?”
Mr. Morgan laughed and said it was a trifling story not worth repeating. His Quaker friend replied cryptically, “Alexandria is a town of many accidents,” and would say no more.
“And if you will excuse my curiosity, how did you learn of my presence in your city?”
“It was Moon Mary,” Mr. Comfort replied. “She asked that I help thee. And Hussar is an old friend.”
Mr. Morgan handed me back my sketch. “If I may speak plainly, sir, you are not safe here. People are saying that you are an English mischief-maker and a fervent opponent of the slave trade.”
When I explained my ancestry, Mr. Comfort said, “Scottish or not, I have taken the liberty of booking thee a berth on a ship leaving this very morning for Charleston. And I would beseech thee to consider departing sooner rather than later.”
“If Midnight is not here, then there’s nothing to keep me. Thank you for looking out for me.” I handed both Mr. Morgan and Mr. Comfort cards on which I’d written Violeta’s address. “In the event you learn anything more of Samuel, please send a letter to me care of this friend.”
“May thee find Samuel in Charleston,” Mr. Comfort said gently.
Mr. Morgan seconded this wish, shook my hand, and added, “And may you find that he is no longer mute.”
XL
After my papa disappeared and Master Edward Roberson had me abducted from River Bend in March, he had some white men take me to his brother’s infernal cotton plantation. It was up-country a ways, near Columbia, and I worked my fingers bloody there for seven of the slowest months in history. Those days and nights were made of warm molasses. And they had everything wrong stuck to them, including me.
I worked right on through the first three weeks of harvest time, up till early September. I was smelly as a skunk most of the time — addlebrained too — because Papa was gone and Mamma was dead. And caring for cotton is even worse on your spirit than it is on your back.
I learned then that sadness can get so powerful that it owns you even more than the Master does.
Master Edward took me up there because he thought my papa might wait a couple of months for tempers to settle, then sneak back into River Bend to rescue me.
I guess I couldn’t rightly see how bringing me to that plantation was going to foil Papa’s plans forever. Presuming he was still alive and had any. Because he’d surely find out where I was if he snuck into River Bend and asked any of the slaves. But I hadn’t given Edward enough credit for wickedness. What he did just about outdid even himself. Because he called all the house and field slaves together and told them in a solemn voice that I’d been rushed out of the Big House in the night to a hospital in Charleston shivering
It might have been nice to have some soft velvet on the interior of my coffin, but I had to settle for a pine box. My friends put me in the ground in the slave cemetery down by Christmas Creek. Inside my coffin, Master Edward must have stashed my weight in dirt wrapped in cloth, and maybe some old cheese too, because everybody told me later that I’d stunk so bad that Crow and some of the others had to hold their noses. Edward refused to open the lid, which was nailed closed, because he said my body was eaten up something horrible by disease.
This plan worked just like he hoped, because about two months later a mulatto man stole into River Bend one night when Master Edward was gambling in Charleston and asked after me. Two of the field slaves told him that I was dead from the ague and already buried.
The mulatto crept in and out real quick, like a shadow at sundown.
I hoped that my papa was still somewhere nearby and might have sent someone there to get me out, or, if he was up North and earning wages, paid someone to come rescue me.
Master Edward had me brought back to River Bend in the middle of September. He reckoned that my father, if he was hiding somewhere, had heard by now that I was dead. You could see in his flashing eyes how much evil pleasure it gave him to think that he had fooled everyone.
After a couple of weeks at River Bend, he even let me start going again to Charleston to do our marketing and buy plants.
You ought to have seen the faces on everybody when I came back to River Bend and got out of the carriage in front of the piazza. Lily ran out shrieking from the kitchen. “Morri girl, Morri girl!” She fell to her knees mumbling prayers, thanking the Lord for delivering me from death. Then she wrapped me in her big old hug, taking turns kissing her cross and me. When she let go, Weaver stared at me as if I was a ghost. I took his hand, and he let out one of his big laughs, lifting me up onto his back like I was a little girl wanting a horsy ride. When he finally let me down and I stopped laughing, he asked me what heaven was like, and if it was pretty up there. “Heaven?” I said. “Heaven ain’t got nothing to do with Middle Country South Carolina, best I can figure out. If it does, then I just as soon go to hell next time.”
