I still didn’t know how I was going to do what I was going to do, and who I might ask to help me. Maybe I’d still have done nothing at all, but the next evening on the piazza, Weaver sat with me.
“What dey done to Marybelle was pow’ful wrong, Morri girl.”
“It sure was, Weaver.”
We fell into silence after that, both of us pondering justice, I reckon. I’ve always felt comfortable with Weaver, like he’s an uncle. He patted my thigh and said, “You know, girl, if I had me a pistol in my hand right now, I’d use it. I swear to heaven ’bove, I’d use it good.”
“I can see you would, Weaver.”
“First I’d put Cousin Edward under the ground. Fifty feet under. Second, I’d walk right to Charleston and put balls in all dem doctors. I’d tell ’em, ‘Dis here is a gift from Marybelle.’ I could do it too. Yaw papa’d tell you dat if he was here. He knew how good I could shoot. One ball is all I’d need for each of’em.”
“I believe you, Weaver.”
I didn’t add anything to that, because he looked like he was making himself feverish. He must have thought I was nettled by his angry talk, because he stood up then and said, “I’m right sorry to put dis on ya, Morri girl. I needed to talk to someone and you’s always been easy for me to talk to. Jes’ f’get what I told ya, girl.”
I tugged him back down. I explained that what bothered me wasn’t what he said, it was knowing that I wanted to kill them all as much as he did and that we’d be mighty justified. I also said he was looking tired to me and if he wanted I’d make him some special tea. His tears started then, like they’d been held back for months, though it was more likely years. I’d never seen Weaver cry. No one had. I knew he’d been sweet on Marybelle, but I didn’t know how much.
“She was a good and brave girl,” I told him. “And real strong.”
That only made him shake. He was a broad-shouldered man, but I managed to put my arms around most of him. That big strength of his had melted into despair.
“I’s right sorry,” he whispered, wiping his eyes.
“No need. We’re family. You cry if you want to. You cry on me.”
“No, it’s enough.” After he’d wiped his eyes again, he made a fist and said, “I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna do it dis time.”
“Weaver, I dreamed the other night that a big flood was coming. Everything at River Bend was going to get covered with water.”
“Even de Big House?” he asked.
“Even that. Now, what would you say if I could get us some guns? And maybe swords. You reckon we could fight our way to Charleston and get aboard a ship? One from the North. Or from England. You reckon you could teach some of us how to load and aim a gun?”
Weaver looked at me, biting his lip, considering hard. Then he nodded. And that’s when we started planning for real.
One thing I knew right away: If we were going to fight our way to Charleston and make it out to sea, it had to be with the help of an old friend named Beaufort. For three reasons: He worked at a dockside warehouse in the city and got to know ship crewmen and even captains; he was a free-born mulatto and could come and go more easily than any Negro; and he was fatherly fond of me. I’d known him practically all my life, because part of what Papa and I always used to do on our marketing trips was collect new plants and supplies stored in the warehouse Beaufort guarded.
Beaufort once taught me something important too. One day, when he was bouncing me up and down on his knee, he sighed real long and said, “Morri, it’s a right shame you’s a slave girl, ’cause you’s a clever little thing and could make somethin’ of yousself.”
I wasn’t more than six years old, but what he said stopped my heart for a beat. Because I hadn’t known I was a slave girl before that. I knew my parents were slaves, but I hadn’t yet thought of myself that way.
I suppose I felt I could trust him because, unlike most of the rest of the mulattos in Charleston, he didn’t consider himself just about white. He always said that a whipping he’d got as a boy from his own white papa had taught him that being
So it happened that I took Lily to town for her to pick out some spectacles, but mostly for me to talk to Beaufort. The coachman, Wiggie, didn’t have to come, since it was his day off, but he agreed to take us. Weaver too, since I told Master Edward that he needed to buy some things for the hens. Edward would never normally let us all go, but he was nothing but calm breezes of late because of getting his money back for Marybelle and fooling my papa.
The first stop for the four of us in Charleston was the eye doctor. It looked like it was going to take a while because there were two black men already sitting in the colored waiting room, so I gave Wiggie the five silver dollars that Master Edward had entrusted to me and asked him to stay with Lily. Then Weaver and I walked to Beaufort’s warehouse.
Charleston used to make me right muddleheaded, there being so much commotion everywhere you looked. But as we walked through those shimmering streets that day, my thoughts were clear. It wasn’t hard at all imagining what all those fine mansions would look like as charred wood, crumbled brick, and ash.
Weaver leaned down and put his mouth up to my ear. “So where’s all de white folks at?”
“Which white folks you referring to, Weaver?”
“Weaver, keep moving,” I said, grabbing his arm and leading him off. “And listen up: Now, every house you can see for half a mile around has got a handful of slaves cooking and cleaning and everything else. Some got twenty, thirty, or more. Must be ten or fifteen thousand Negroes in Charleston. I tell you this, the white folks are swimming in one big dark sea.”
He was quiet for a while, thinking that over. Then he said, “Morri, dey must know dey doin’ wrong. Even dem men who killed Marybelle must know it.”
“Well, if you think that, Weaver, then you need spectacles more than Lily ever will.”
We found Beaufort sitting at the front of his warehouse, behind an old wooden secretary. His hair was mostly gray now, and he had on a fine pearl-white waistcoat and scarlet cravat. He gave me a big smile of welcome and held out his arms. I introduced him and Weaver to each other, then asked if any of my plants or seeds had come in, which was Beaufort’s chance to lead us to the back windows.
Now, before I tell you what I said to Beaufort, I got to explain one last thing. I’d asked him months earlier if he could find out if there was any British sea captain who might take kindly to a Negro girl hiding on his ship. And to get me the date of when he’d next be calling in to port.
Two weeks before, he’d given me the name of such a captain — Timothy Ott. He usually sailed out of Liverpool, bringing fabric from the British mills to America and taking giant bales of cotton back across the sea. Beaufort had asked a few sly questions and had come to learn the Englishman’s views on slavery, which were mighty critical. In fact, he called Charleston an abomination, especially since he had to keep his black crewmen aboard his ships, because the city had a special law that said they’d have to stay in prison if they came ashore.
My heart was beating loud inside my ears as I whispered, “Any news from Liverpool on when the cotton prices might rise again?”
Beaufort looked skeptically at Weaver.
“He’s family,” I said.
“I ain’t heard nothin’ yet, Morri. I’ll get word to you one way or another, don’t you worry. You seem a bit jumpy t’day. You not sick?”
“It’s because I got something else to ask you, Beaufort. Something bigger.”
