pallet. The limp was a horrible one, and it pained most humans to see because they thought it must pain her to move. They shot animals for far less, Moses once thought after Henry brought her home. But she was a good worker, limp or no limp.
Moses went back and forth across the lane and told all. All of the cabins, save one, were occupied. A man, Peter, had died in that one and his widow, May, had abandoned it, to give Peter’s spirit time and space to prepare to go home. Before Moses had reached the last cabin on his side of the lane, the one Alice, whom he called the Night Walker, shared with Delphie and her daughter Cassandra, the slaves were filling the lane. A few women had cried, remembering the way Henry smiled or how he would join them in singing or thinking that the death of anyone, good or bad, master or not, cut down one more tree in the life forest that shielded them from their own death; but most said or did nothing. Their world had changed but they could not yet understand how. A black man had owned them, a strange thing for many in that world, and now that he was dead, maybe a white man would buy them, which was not as strange. No matter what, though, the sun would come up on them tomorrow, followed by the moon, and dogs would chase their own tails and the sky would remain just out of reach. “I didn’t sleep well,” one man across the lane from Elias said to his next-door neighbor. “Well, I know I sure did,” the neighbor said. “I slept like they was payin me to, slept anough for three white women without a care in the world.” “Well,” the first man said, “sounds like you gotta hold a some of my sleep. Better give it back. Better give it back fore you wear out my sleep usin it. Give it back.” “Oh, I will,” the neighbor said, laughing, inspecting loose threads on his overalls. “I sure will. Soon as I’m finished. Meantime, I’m gonna use it again tonight. Come for it in the mornin.” They both laughed.
It was often the case that Alice, the Night Walker, would be standing just inside her door when Moses opened it each morning, dressed and ready to work, as if she had been standing at the door waiting for him all night. She was waiting now and she was smiling, the same smile she had for everything—from the death of a neighbor’s baby to the four oranges Henry and Caldonia gave each slave on Christmas morning. “Baby dead baby dead baby dead,” she would chant. “Christmas oranges Christmas oranges Christmas oranges in the mornin.”
“I don’t want no foolishness from you, woman,” Moses said now. He turned and saw Stamford, the seeker of young stuff, in the middle of the crowd, eyeing Gloria, who didn’t want to be his young stuff anymore. “Master dead,” Moses said to Alice. “No foolishness this mornin, woman.” Alice went on smiling. “Master dead master dead master be dead.” “Hush, girl,” Moses said. “Respect the dead the way they need to be respected.” The story went that mule that kicked Alice in the head when she was years younger had been a one-eyed mule, but no more ornery for being one-eyed than any other mule. The story continued that when she regained her senses, moments after the kick, she slapped the mule and called it a dirty name. This was before Henry bought her for $228 and two bushels of apples from the estate of a white man who had no heirs and who was afraid of mules. It was the dirty name that made everyone know she had gone down the crazy road, because before the kick Alice had been known as a sweet girl of sweet words.
“Moses?” Delphie came up behind Alice, her cabin mate.
“Master dead,” Moses said. “You and Cassie get Alice and come up with evbody to the house.”
“Master dead, Moses?” Delphie said. “Whas gonna come of us?” She would be forty-four in a few months and had already lived longer than any ancestor she had ever had, every single one of them. She did not know this history of eons about herself; there was only the feeling in her bones that for some time she had been venturing into a place unknown, and that feeling made her hope for a road that would not cut too deeply into her feet and her soul. To live to see fifty was a wish she was beginning to dare to have. My name is Delphie and I’m fifty years old. Count em. Start at one and count em. One Delphie, two Delphie, three Delphie … Before she had reached forty her only wish was that the world would be kind to her daughter, Cassandra, or Cassie as some people called her. Now a second wish was beginning to creep up on her, and she was afraid that wishing to see fifty might make God turn his back on the first wish about her daughter. God might say: Make up your mind about them wishes, Delphie, I ain’t got all day and you ain’t got but one wish comin to you. Delphie said to Moses, “We gon leave here? Be sold off?”
“I don’t know no more than it’s mornin time and that master dead,” Moses said. “You and Cassie get Alice and come on up to the house like evbody else.”
“Master dead master dead master be dead,” Alice chanted.
“We comin,” Delphie said. She looked at her daughter, and Cassandra hunched her shoulders. The two had been purchased together, one of the few times God had answered Delphie’s prayers. She wondered now if she should pray for Henry’s soul. It came to her as she stepped off toward the house that a prayer for a man who was one of God’s children would not be wasted. She prayed every day that her food would stay on her stomach, prayers that were dozens of words long. So ten words for the soul of Henry Townsend could be spared. Delphie saw Stamford two people behind Gloria, the woman who did not want him anymore. If he touches Gloria, Delphie thought, I will strike that fool man down right out here in the open.
There was a crowd in the lane now and Moses made his slow way through it, through the uncertainty of twenty-nine adults and children. At his cabin he found Priscilla and Jamie his son, who was playing hand games with Tessie, the oldest child of Elias and Celeste. Moses stepped off toward the house and all the rest followed, the children skipping along the way they did on Sundays, their day off. All the children, except those in their parents’ arms, were in front of all the adults. Everyone found Caldonia on the verandah, and with her were Augustus and Mildred, Henry’s parents, on one side and on the other side was Fern Elston the teacher, who was holding Caldonia’s hand. Augustus and Mildred had arrived less than an hour before. Behind Caldonia were her mother and twin brother. Loretta the maid was in the doorway and behind her stood Zeddie the cook and Bennett, her man. The fog was gone and the day was once more moving toward beautiful.
Caldonia stepped to the edge of the verandah and raised her head for the first time since she had walked out her front door. She was wearing the black mourning dress and the veil that her mother had brought with her. The sun was full in her face but she did not shade her eyes. She had been crying before she came through the door, and she knew that the tears would soon come back so she wanted to hurry to get at least a few words out. Fern put one arm around Caldonia and Caldonia raised her veil.
“You know now that our Henry has left us,” she said to her slaves. “Left us for good, left us for heaven. Pray for him. Give him all your prayers. He cared about you all, and I have no less care than he did. I have no less love.” She had not considered beforehand what she would say. Every word was not original, was part of something she had heard somewhere else, something her father may have told her as a bedtime story, something Fern Elston may have long ago put into Caldonia’s head and the heads of dozens of other students. Caldonia said to the slaves, “Please do not worry yourselves. I am here and I will not be going anywhere. And you will be with me. We will be together in all of this. God stands with us. God will give us many days, good and bright days, good and joyful days. Your master had work to do, your master wanted better things for you and your children and this world, and I want them for you as well. Please do not worry. God stands with us.” Something she had read in a book, written by a white man in a different time and place. Henry had always said that he wanted to be a better master than any white man he had ever known. He did not understand that the kind of world he wanted to create was doomed before he had even spoken the first syllable of the word
Caldonia faltered and began crying and Augustus her father-in-law took her into his arms, and then, not long after that, he put her in her brother’s arms and her brother led her into the house, followed by her mother and Fern Elston and Loretta.
Augustus came down the steps and Mildred came after him. They knew all that was in the hearts of the slaves, they knew all that they were thinking. The slaves came to them, wordless. Augustus had come down not to accept their condolences but because he knew now, after hearing Caldonia speak, that the death of his son would not set them free. He knew that not one of them had ever believed that death would free them—that was not the benevolent way their world moved through the universe. But he himself had believed, had hoped from the moment of the knock at his door at two that morning. “Augustus, I’m sorry, but Mistress say to say to you that Master Henry dead,” Bennett had said, holding his pass in one hand and the lantern in the other so his face might be seen in the darkness. Augustus had believed in Caldonia, had always believed in her, having seen from the beginning a light in her that had failed in his own son born into slavery. But the light was not in her words. So he and Mildred came down the steps to offer their own condolences. They went through the crowd, hugging men and women, kissing the faces of the children, for they had come to know them over the years.
It was before they reached the end of the crowd that William Robbins came up to the house in a surrey driven by his son Louis. Louis and Caldonia and her twin brother Calvin had been schoolmates, all taught by Fern.
