Forrest smiled broadly in the dim. "I"ll give ye his hide for a wedding present if ye want. I"m sorry to say a good deal of the har has fell out."
"I thought so," she said, and drew him to her. The outside curve of her breast fit naturally into the palm of one hand, as the other slid over the round of her hip to the small of her back. The kiss seemed to open her whole being to him.
"Oh," she gasped, coming out of it at last, one hand pressed to her high-b.u.t.toned throat. "Oh my G.o.d. Well I never."
Forrest was struck by a horrible thought. "Have ye let one of them rascals tetch ye?" he blurted.
"Hush, Bedford," she said, folding herself into his side, and covering his mouth with her fingers. "n.o.body ever touched me like that."
CHAPTER FOUR.
IT CAME ABOUT after some battle or other-Shiloh, Fort Pillow, Franklin (or no, it wouldn"t have been Franklin)-that Henri found Willie and Matthew fighting. Or they found him, brawling out of the undergrowth to swarm each other on the bare packed ground before the hollow tree. It was just dawn, the white mist rising, and all around the graybacks lay, some few snoring, most just barely breathing, exhausted from the work of war. None would rouse to intervene. Those two were fighting to hurt each other, knuckles and elbow, sharp knees and mean kicks aimed to the groin. Both were banged up and a little b.l.o.o.d.y, from each other"s efforts as much as from yesterday"s fighting; Henri knew that neither had been gravely wounded the day before. after some battle or other-Shiloh, Fort Pillow, Franklin (or no, it wouldn"t have been Franklin)-that Henri found Willie and Matthew fighting. Or they found him, brawling out of the undergrowth to swarm each other on the bare packed ground before the hollow tree. It was just dawn, the white mist rising, and all around the graybacks lay, some few snoring, most just barely breathing, exhausted from the work of war. None would rouse to intervene. Those two were fighting to hurt each other, knuckles and elbow, sharp knees and mean kicks aimed to the groin. Both were banged up and a little b.l.o.o.d.y, from each other"s efforts as much as from yesterday"s fighting; Henri knew that neither had been gravely wounded the day before.
"Eh!" he said, and rolled up from his sc.r.a.p of blanket. "Stop that."
The two ignored him, panting, circling each other, looking for a way to close. Willie was bigger of the two, long and rawboned, though gaunt from scant rations, but Matthew was older, cannier, and probably more dangerous. He slipped and struck and coiled and sprang, like a bobcat or a snake. On happy days he could do a back flip standing, and all the men would laugh and cheer, and Matthew smiled bright with all his white teeth, but this morning his jaw was hard set and even his eyes had turned yellow with rage.
Henri took a step and stood between them. Willie let down, just a little, when he did that. But Matthew whipped from behind Henri, throwing a quick one-two that caught Willie hard on the breastbone and the eye socket, the second punch twisting to cut around the eye. The first blow had clipped Henri in the back of his ribs as it went through. He stepped aside. Willie gave his head a hard shake and dropped it and ran at Matthew with his head low and his hands high.
"Bon, si c"est comme ca," Henri said, raising his shirt tail to touch the b.u.mp that had risen on his rib cage, Henri said, raising his shirt tail to touch the b.u.mp that had risen on his rib cage, "Allez-y." "Allez-y."
A handful of other soldiers of the camp were getting up to the watch the fun. One bet on Willie, another on Matthew, all merely for sport as no one had a crying dime to pay real stakes. Henri was inclined for Matthew, but Willie had a plan. He charged in hard and lumbering like a bull, took a punch on the fleshy part of his nose and didn"t let it slow him. He threw his whole weight on the other like a sack of corn, and brought the both of them to the ground. Wra.s.sling, stomp and gouge in the dirt, gave Willie"s greater weight and longer limbs the advantage. He seemed to pin Matthew, just for a moment, and certainly slammed the back of his head against the hardpack.
"You give?" he said. "Say calf rope!" His voice was m.u.f.fled by his b.l.o.o.d.y nose. Matthew stuck a stiffened finger into his throat and weaseled free, landing a swift kick in Willie"s midsection as Willie struggled up, then catching him with an open hand across the cheek when Willie came upright. Matthew danced back, out of range. A demon was in him, Henri saw-it unnerved him more than a little. Some of the graybacks had begun to clap, on a pounding rhythm, to move the fighters harder.
Henri whipped in and caught Matthew on the forearm. "Mathieu," "Mathieu," he hissed, distracting him with the queer p.r.o.nunciation. "Come back." he hissed, distracting him with the queer p.r.o.nunciation. "Come back."
Matthew"s arm throbbed against his palm like a strummed brace wire. His hand and the arm it grasped were much the same shade: coffee with a swirl of cream. As quick as that Matthew broke the grip and twisted away and turned his yellow-burning eyes on Henri.
"Why are you fighting me?" he said bitterly. "Why me?" me?"
If I had a hundred men like you, Henri thought. Or twenty-five or even ten. In New Orleans or Charleston or Louisville ... Harpers Ferry. Though Matthew was a boy yet. He"d soon be twenty, Henri guessed, and if Matthew had really been a slave the boy in him would have long since been extinguished.
Matthew turned his burning eyes on Willie again. In an instant they were rolling on the ground once more. The back of Matthew"s shirt tore loose in Willie"s clutch.
"G.o.dd.a.m.n yore eyes git up from thar." General Forrest had come out of nowhere, himself in a towering battle rage. Henri moved out of the line of his approach. No man wanted to meet that head-on.
"Don"t ye know hit"s still yet Yankees to fight? They ain"t no shortage of"m neither. And you pair of fools a-wasten yore strength on each other. Git up out of that and look at me."
Willie stood, his hands dropping to his hips, and looked at the region of Forrest"s belt buckle, snuffling and swallowing the blood that kept drizzling from his left nostril over his upper lip. Matthew rotated his eyes onto Forrest like muzzles of a pair of cannon.
"My own blood son a-wasten hisself in sech foolishness," Forrest snapped. "And you, Matthew, my boy. Hadn"t ye got no better sense than that? Look at yoreself the both of ye. Look each other in the eye."
Both boys obeyed him then. The yellow fire faded from Matthew"s stare. Henri saw that both pairs of eyes were the same-black, hard and shiny like obsidian.
Willie was first to drop the gaze. He broke away and stalked off into the brush around the clearing. Matthew turned to Forrest then, his open hands held up.
"If I"m yours," he said, "why won"t you own me?"
Forrest"s own rage had drained out of him now. He looked around the clearing. The men of his escort, white and black, were doing their best to seem as if they"d never had the least interest in this fight or even known it was happening. Some cleaned their guns, or searched for dry socks, or rummaged in their kits for rations. Ginral Jerry struck flint and steel over a frayed heap of deadfall sticks, then crouched down to blow on the spark. The sun had come up somewhere now, sending green-gold dappling through the brush. When Forrest spoke, his words seemed to come out of the same sad bitterness as Matthew"s.
"I own the lot of ye," he said. "Cain"t ye see that?"
He looked all around to be sure no one would answer. Now even Matthew"s head hung low. Then Forrest turned and strode away, in the direction of the horses.
Ginral Jerry was molding cakes with cornmeal and cold water. They didn"t even have any salt left now. But when the first hoecake hit the hot iron, the sizzle and smell clenched up Henri"s stomach, and he felt that ache at the back of his jaws.
He looked away from his hunger, anywhere. Matthew, head lowered, wandered out of his view. On a low springing branch of a pin oak sapling, two goldfinches shone bright in a sunbeam. In the hollow of the tree, the stub of a white candle obscurely burned.
CHAPTER FIVE.
April 1854 THE CHICKENS WERE JUST going to roost when the man named Herndon left the Adams Street stockade, unsatisfied with the half-dozen slaves Forrest had paraded for him around the brick walk in the center of the cabins. Forrest showed him politely to the gate in the high board fence, and chained the gate to its post when Herndon had gone out, rattling the iron to prove it sure. going to roost when the man named Herndon left the Adams Street stockade, unsatisfied with the half-dozen slaves Forrest had paraded for him around the brick walk in the center of the cabins. Forrest showed him politely to the gate in the high board fence, and chained the gate to its post when Herndon had gone out, rattling the iron to prove it sure.
"I"ll wager he"ll be back tomorrow," he said to his brother John, who leaned on his cane by the back door of the brick house that closed off the fourth side of the stockade. John only nodded and smiled at his feet.
"Put"m up, then, Jerry," Forrest said, and the black man moved forward, motioning the slaves toward the cabins with the short stick he held in his right hand. A speckled banty hen flew up to a post of the stockade and perched there, bobbing her head between her shoulders, rustling her wings. As the line of slaves pa.s.sed the pump, the slave Benjamin broke away and kicked a chamber pot from the row of them that Aunt Sarah had set on the brick rim of the cistern to dry. The chamber pot flew into the red iron of the pump and shattered. In the next instant Forrest had picked up another and smashed it over Benjamin"s head. Stunned, the slave rocked on his heels like a tree in the wind. Forrest wheeled on Jerry.
"What air ye looken at? Put"m up now like I done tolt ye."
He turned to face Benjamin, a fine stout buck, near his own height. Like the others he had stripped to the waist to parade before the customer. His bare chest pumped; the sinking sun glanced off a point of the nine-foot stockade and caught the sheen of sweat where his breath moved. A trickle of blood ran down from a cut above his left ear.
"Well now, Ben." Forrest lifted the shard of crockery that hung from its looped grip in his left hand and glanced at it with an air of surprise. Then he squinted back into the eyes of the tall slave. "Ye done cost me might near a dollar on them two pots." He watched as Benjamin"s eyes came clear.
"Whup me then." The slave looked past him, to the post that stood a few paces from the house door-a whitewashed six-by-six beam about chest high, with a rope end trailing from a hole drilled near the top.
"Ye been whupped plenty," Forrest said, and stepped to the side; he raised his right forefinger toward the old welts the lash had carved across Benjamin"s back, but stopped short of touching them. By the back door, John shifted his cane to his left hand and swung back his coat with his right, freeing the grip of the pistol in his waistband-yet Benjamin was worth close on a thousand dollars, far too valuable to shoot.
"I don"t see as whuppen has done ye no good," Forrest said. "Jest make ye more ornery is what I suspect. I ain"t got a mind to whup ye no more. Jest aimed to call ye back to yore senses."
Benjamin"s heavy shoulders let down. "Ya.s.suh," he said. "I hear what you say."
"Let that be the end of it." Forrest turned and tossed the potsherd into a corner of the fence. "Aunt Sarah? Would you please come and wash this boy"s head?"
John shifted his weight with a wince, letting his coat flap cover the pistol. As the old woman hurried toward the cistern, Forrest pumped water into his own cupped hands and dashed it into his face. With his fingers he raked back his hair and smoothed down his beard. The flutter of a curtain in the window of the brick house caught his eye and he frowned briefly at the movement. Aunt Sarah had taken Benjamin by the hand and was clucking as she led him to the pump. Forrest lowered his head and went inside.
The children swarmed him as he entered the parlor, pulling at the square tails of his jacket.
"Kin we go and watch the sun go down on the river?" Willie cried. "Kin we?" His sister, f.a.n.n.y, crowded up behind him, dark eyes round and excited. Mrs. Montgomery turned away from the window where she had been working and pulled a handful of pins from her mouth.
"That"s "can," not "kin." "May we." Say "May we," William."
Willie looked from his grandmother back to Forrest. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. He jumped up and down a couple of times, bare heels slamming on the board floor.
"Git on, then," Forrest told him, running a hand across his hair. He lifted f.a.n.n.y to his hip and turned backward, spinning her; the child arched her back over his elbow, shrieking with pleasure, her dark hair flying. Forrest set her down, and steadied her. "Keep a close eye on yore sister," he told William. "See ye both git home afore dark."
The children ran out. Mary Ann, flushed from her work, got down from a stool by the left rear window, tucking up a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She followed the children as far as the parlor door, and called out to the servant girl to bring coffee. Mrs. Montgomery lifted a swatch of flowered calico from the right rear window and let it drop back into place.
"What do you think of our curtains, Mister Forrest?" she said.
Forrest"s mind still ticked with her schoolmarm corrections. Kin. Can. May we? Kin. Can. May we? He flexed his fingers. "They shet out the light," he said briefly. He flexed his fingers. "They shet out the light," he said briefly.
"It is the fence around your slave pens that shuts out the light," she said sharply. "My object is rather to shut out the view."
And yet nonetheless she drew back the curtain. The slave Benjamin sat on the edge of the cistern, chin propped on his folded hands, while the old black woman dabbed a wet rag at the cut and swelling across his temple. Mrs. Montgomery sniffed and let the calico fall.
"I had hoped, when you removed to Memphis, you would not keep my daughter above another Negro barrac.o.o.n."
Forrest"s fingernails bit into his palms. "Ma"am, you can hope in one hand and-"
"Bedford!" Mary Ann cut him off.
"Well, and she oughtent to put my blood up thataway!" Forrest stalked out, swinging the door hard behind him, but he turned and caught it on the b.u.t.t of his palm before it struck the jamb. The force of his glare lingered with Mary Ann for a moment after his footsteps had receded toward the street.
"Now he"ll go and get drunk," her mother said.
"You know very well he"ll do no such thing," Mary Ann said. "You know better."
"Of course," said Mrs. Montgomery. "I tried whiskey oncet to know what it was. I ain"t tetched it since, and I won"t never agin." "I tried whiskey oncet to know what it was. I ain"t tetched it since, and I won"t never agin."
Mary Ann turned white along her cheekbones. "Sarcasm doesn"t become you, Mama."
"I suppose it doesn"t." Again, Mrs. Montgomery drew back the new curtain. Beside the lever arm of the pump, Aunt Sarah was poulticing Benjamin"s cut, leaning in close to peer with her watery old eyes from under the crisp blue line of her head cloth. She leaned one hand on Benjamin"s shoulder, for support, or possibly to comfort him. The red line of the sunset light drew away from them across the packed dirt of the yard.
Mrs. Montgomery moved away from the window and lowered herself onto the edge of a slick horsehair love seat. "I"m sorry I provoked him," she said, looking down at the hooked rug between her feet.
"Let it pa.s.s, shall we?" said Mary Ann.
"But slave-trading, really!" her mother blurted. "He might have done well enough with the horses and mules."
"The whole country runs on slavery, Mother. Even the cloth from the Yankee mills. Slaves picked the cotton for the curtain we hang to shut out the sight of them."
"Well!" said Mrs. Montgomery, working her fingers in her lap. "I"m sure you got those opinions from him."
"It"s right that I should," Mary Ann told her. "He is my husband."
Mrs. Montgomery sighed and shifted slightly on the edge of the seat cushion. The girl came in with the coffee tray and set it down, just a little shakily, on the table before the love seat. Her dress was rather too snug at the hips and bosom for Mrs. Montgomery"s taste, and a warm scent seemed to pour out of her dark velvet skin, overpowering the coffee. The girl straightened, paused for a second, then moved toward the door, hips switching and her long hands swimming around them lazily like fish.
"Catharine."
At Mary Ann"s voice the girl stopped, resting one hand on the door frame. There was something almost impertinent in the way she looked at her mistress, Mrs. Montgomery thought, or perhaps it was only that everything irked her because she was quarreling so pointlessly with Mary Ann.
"Do tell Master John we"ll have supper at seven."
"Yessum," the girl said, and took her sinuous way out.
"There"s a sa.s.sy wench," Mrs. Montgomery did not forbear to say. "I can"t say I much like the eye on her."
"You don"t find much to your liking this evening."
"Oh child," Mrs. Montgomery said, melting suddenly. "You do put me to shame." She clutched her daughter"s hand and pulled her down to sit beside her. "Of course it"s right that you should know your duty to your husband. And he is is a good man-even I know it." a good man-even I know it."
Mary Ann kissed her cheek, then disengaged to pour the coffee. With a sudden clatter the children ran in.
"You"re back soon," their grandmother said.
"Pa sent us," Willie told them.
"You saw your Pa on the riverside?" said Mary Ann. "Did he go into Mason"s?"
"We didn"t see," said Willie. f.a.n.n.y pressed against her grandmother"s knee and gazed up at her wistfully. Mrs. Montgomery plucked a lump of sugar from the bowl and popped it into the little girl"s mouth.
"Mama!" Mary Ann reproved her.
Mrs. Montgomery bridled and looked away. "And Mister Forrest?"
Mary Ann shook her head, just slightly. "I don"t think we"ll wait supper."
MARY A ANN SLEPT COLD, knees curled to her breast. When she woke the first time the bed was still hollow. At her second waking there was a small fierce warmth attached to her back like a limpet-f.a.n.n.y had wormed her way into the bed and wrapped her arms around her mother from behind. Mary Ann worked herself free and shifted the sleeping child onto her lap and stroked her smoothly back to sleep, then carried her to her mother"s room and put her into the bed. Mrs. Montgomery stirred, though without entirely waking, and gathered the child to her. Cautiously, Mary Ann backed out.
She stood for a moment in the pa.s.sage, listening to the sighs of the sleeping house, before returning to the room she shared with her absent husband. It was two hours yet before dawn, but she dressed for the day, and went down the stairs with her street shoes in her hands. John Forrest sat in a straight chair in the parlor, now leaning forward, now back. A teacup on the table near held sweet-smelling dregs of a laudanum brew. A bullet in his spine from the Mexican War had left him crippled and he could not get comfortable to sleep stretched out. Indeed he slept little in any posture. For most of any night he waked and watched.
When Mary Ann caught his eye, he shook his head. She perched on the edge of the love seat and began b.u.t.toning up her shoes.
"I"ll go along with you," John said.
"I"d be glad if you did," she said. "Maybe you can rouse Jerry too."
John nodded, climbed his cane hand over hand to reach his feet and took a second walking stick from beside the door as he went out. By the time Mary Ann had wrapped a shawl over her shoulders and opened the front door, the two men were waiting for her below the stoop.
They went slowly, John laboring along with his two sticks poking up like the hind legs of a gra.s.shopper. Jerry shuffled and stooped and sucked at the stem of an unlit cob pipe. Once Mary Ann tripped over a ridge of dried mud from a wagon rut and Jerry ran a hand under her elbow to steady her.
"Watch yo step, Mistis."
"Thank you, Jerry." With a turn of her waist she slipped free of his hand and stepped forward, slim and straight under the dome of brilliant stars that arched over the town to the Mississippi, where the crescent moon p.r.i.c.ked into a cloud bank like a fishhook sinking into fluff mud.
They went north along the river, going carefully over the rickety plank walk above the mud, toward the lamplight and grumbling of Mason"s.