Freeman (66 page)

Sam was dying.

She hadn’t yet spoken this belief aloud, hadn’t wanted to put the poisonous thought into the air. She tried hard to hold faith in miracles. But faith
died anew every time she looked at him, the feeble, watery eyes, the ashen skin, the oozing wound.

Prudence turned away as the big man carried Sam past, afraid her feelings might surface in her face. Indeed, sometimes she caught Tilda watching her with a hard expression that suggested her feelings were already too well known. And what could she do about that? She could respect this woman, and she did. But she couldn’t make herself stop feeling. She couldn’t make what had already happened not happen.

And she wouldn’t have if she could.

“This is foolish,” Tilda said to no one in particular as she trailed Willie Washington down to the street.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Willie tolerantly, looking and sounding so much like his murdered brother.

“As bad off as he is,” said Tilda, “this wagon ride is sure to kill him. It is madness to do this.”

“It is what he wants.” Prudence hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t meant to say anything. Now Tilda stabbed her with her eyes. But, the thing having been said, Prudence met her gaze. She would not back down. Why should she? It was the truth. Sam knew his condition as well as they did or better. But this was what he had asked of them. And shouldn’t that be honored by those who loved him?

After a long moment, Tilda turned her eyes elsewhere. She climbed into the wagon behind Prudence’s phaeton and barked at Willie Washington to be more careful how he handled Sam as he stretched him out on a cushion in the back.

Prudence was conscious of Colindy’s questioning gaze. She ignored her and stepped into the street to begin organizing chaos.

They were hours late. She supposed that was to be expected. The families had been asked to meet their wagons at dawn, to load them and form up a caravan. But some had brought more cookware or clothing than would fit in the meager space allowed, some were weeping at the thought of leaving the only homes they had ever known, some couldn’t keep their children from scampering off. Prudence had hired a former Army scout as a caravan leader. He stood in front of the abandoned livery stable across the street, watching with unconcealed amusement as the unwieldy cavalcade sorted itself out.

Prudence was conscious of white people gathering on the sidewalk now to stare at them with folded arms and crimped faces. Some bore expressions of hurt disbelief, as if grievously wounded by some great betrayal. Occasionally, she heard one of them say something like, “Look, isn’t that the Johnsons’ Jim?” or, “Look, there’s my Hattie big as day!” But they made no move to interfere, and that was all she cared about. Prudence ignored them.

Then the wagon came clattering down the street, such a rattle of wood and a thunder of hooves that people instinctively jumped out of the way. But Prudence stood her ground, watching it approach and draw to a stop next to her. She knew what was coming. Part of her relished it.

Sure enough, Bo Wheaton was at the reins. His brother Vern sat in the leather-upholstered seat behind him, bracing their legless father, who gripped the brass railing with knuckles that had gone white and leaned his choleric face as close to Prudence as he could without tumbling over. “You minx!” he cried. “You tricked me!”

And in that moment, it was all worth it, all the long hours negotiating for unseen land in an unknown place, haggling with Army quartermasters, begging trust from skeptical dark faces. Prudence hoped that wherever she was, Bonnie was watching. She mustered her sweetest smile. She even batted her eyes. “Why, Mr. Wheaton, whatever do you mean?”

Incredulity turned his features to ice; they did not move, except for a tiny, involuntary spasm of his lip. For a sliver of time, she wondered if he were having a stroke. Then he spoke in a voice cold and dead as yesterday’s cook fire. “You bitch,” he said. “Do not play the wounded innocent with me. We had an agreement and you deceived me.”

Only statues filled the street. Nothing moved. Every eye stared. Prudence was distantly aware that a phalanx of the colored men had assembled at her back, looking on in silence. She knew this through some sixth sense other than sight, for she did not once take her eyes off the glowering visage before her.

“I did no such thing,” she said. “You asked to buy a building from me.” She swept an arm to her right, still not turning away from Wheaton. “It is right there, ready for your occupancy. In fact”—she lifted a key from her bodice and lofted it, so that it landed with a soft jangle on the seat between father and son—“here is the key.”

“But you enticed our niggers—”

“These
Negroes
”—she paused, allowed air to fill the space between this word and the next—“are free men and women able to make their own decisions. That, I believe, was the outcome of the late war that your ‘nation’ lost so disastrously. And if, as free men and women, they have decided to accept my offer to help them resettle elsewhere, well, that is their right, is it not?”

“But what will happen to us?” It was a strangely plaintive cry, the bawling of an abandoned child. “You know very well, these people are our labor force. If you take them away, you cripple our tradesmen and shopkeepers! And what of our planters? It’s almost time for the harvest! Who will work our fields? Don’t you see? You will wreck our town!”

“And what is that to me?” asked Prudence, the flat calm of her own voice surprising her. “You should have thought of that before you passed that damnable ordinance, before you attacked my school, before you massacred a group of people who had done you no harm.” She took a step that brought her so close she could have kissed him, if that had been her intent. “You should have thought of that before you murdered my sister.”

Charles Wheaton blanched. “I have told you before: you cannot hold me responsible for what the rabble decides to do. It has nothing to do with me. Look at me!” he thundered, his arm falling to where his legs ended. “I am hardly in a position to do harm to anyone!”

“No,” said Prudence in the same flat voice, “you only sit in your mansion and
allow
it to happen, when you could stop it with a word, because the entire town takes its cues from you. You let the rabble do what you have not the guts to do, so that when it is done, you can hold up clean hands and pretend you were never involved and continue to believe yourself a gentleman, even though you most certainly are not.”

She stepped back. His gaze remained fixed on her. She had the curious sensation that there was no longer any animating intelligence behind those eyes, nothing beyond a feral rage at being challenged as he had never been challenged before. Wheaton seemed beyond even words.

Vern leaned across his father then. “Daddy, I don’t know why you waste time arguin’ with this highfalutin Yankee bitch.” His eyes radiated a feverish heat. “She wants rabble? Give her rabble. Hell, you give the word and these niggers won’t make it far as the river.”

For the first time in long minutes, Prudence allowed her eyes to stray. They took in Vern Wheaton, his weak chin, his moist lips, his features
gnarled as oak roots with hate. From there, her gaze traveled across to his brother, Bo, who regarded her with sad eyes and a strange little close-mouthed smile.

Now she returned to the father. When she spoke, there was something off-handed in her voice, something casual and unconcerned that made Wheaton’s brow squeeze itself together. “Do you remember, Mr. Wheaton, how this town became enflamed by the false rumor I had armed a small group of Negroes who were guarding my school? You remember what they called it, do you not?”

“A nigger army,” he breathed. “What of it?”

“Well, Mr. Wheaton, if someone were to spread that rumor today, it would not be false.”

She actually heard his breathing stop. “You have armed them?” Prudence nodded. “Every one of them, man, woman, or child, who is old enough to heft a rifle, yes.”

Wheaton gaped. His gaze swiveled to the colored men massed at Prudence’s back, to the women watching him with folded arms, to the families huddled together in their wagons. They met him with a wintry silence.

Then Wheaton’s eyes found Colindy. “Sass,” he said, drawing the one syllable out in a homey burr that made him sound like a disappointed father, “certainly
you
are no part of this foolishness?”

Colindy took a step forward, separating herself from the wall of women with whom she stood. “Mr. Wheaton,” she said, “I think you need to go.”

He stared at her as if she were some new and unknown thing. As perhaps, thought Prudence, she was.

“One other thing,” said Prudence. “You may recall, or at least know of, Sergeant Gideon Russell. He was the Union soldier who sheltered in the school with me the night your rabble burned the colored people out of town. He sent a company of Union men to deliver these wagons. They are waiting to form up with my caravan about a mile north of here and accompany us as far as Memphis. So, should you be tempted to take your son’s rather intemperate advice”—she looked at Vern—“you might wish to keep that in mind.”

Again he stared. His mouth moved, but did not make a sound. It was as if he had used up his entire life’s store of words. Prudence said, “Good day, Mr. Wheaton.”

His father was still struggling to form language when Bo Wheaton settled the matter. He flicked the reins and the wagon rattled off. Prudence stared after them. The street was too crowded for Bo to turn the wagon, so Prudence had no idea what route they would take to return home. She had a sense of them driving until they fell off the side of the world. But that was their problem. She clapped her hands together and spoke loudly enough for the entire street to hear.

“All right,” she said, “enough dallying. It is time all of us were on the road.”

The late-day sun struck gold from the waters of the Mississippi. The paddlewheel slapped at the river with a steady cadence Tilda had long since ceased to hear. Nor did she hear the hammering of the engines or the squealing, grunting, and lowing of the animals in the cargo hold one deck below. She sat with Ginny at a table on deck, watching.

Prudence had somehow found and purchased a wheelchair for Sam in Memphis. She had wheeled him to the railing so he could watch the riverbanks pass them by. Prudence sat next to him. They were talking, their heads close together. Tilda was too far away to know what they said. Occasionally, Prudence dabbed at Sam’s brow with a cold compress.

A white man in a foppish hat happened to see her do this and apparently took exception. He said something to Prudence, whereupon her eyes flashed, and whatever she said in response caused him to recoil. He went on about his business at a quick step. She had a sharp tongue on her, this Prudence. Tilda felt an admiration she didn’t want to feel.

“Who is she?” she asked.

Confusion creased the folds of the old woman’s eyes. “What you mean, ‘who is she?’ You know who she is. She Prudence.”

“No,” said Tilda, “what I mean is—”

Ginny cut her off. “What you mean is, did she sleep with your husband? Was they lovers?”

Tilda looked at her, feeling transparent. “Yes,” she said.

Ginny drew back. There was a moment she seemed to spend just contemplating her next words. Then she said, “When we found Sam, he was more dead than alive.”

“Yes, I know,” said Tilda.

“No, I don’t think you do,” Ginny told her. “I don’t just mean his body was hurt. I mean, his spirit. He was near ’bout at the end of his rope. Done walked a thousand miles, been shot, stabbed, stomped on, done lost his arm, almost lost his foot, lookin’ for someone he ain’t seen nor heard from in 15 years. Lookin’ for
you
. And after all that, he was near ’bout to givin’ up. She felt the same way. She done come down here to start a school for colored, come down here with high hopes and big plans, and all it got her was death. They killed Bonnie. That was a black girl she called her sister, girl that she growed up with her whole life.

“So if you ask me what they done for each other, I tell you like this: they healed each other. They helped each other be whole again. That’s what they done.”

“Were they in love?”

Ginny’s smile bore secrets and sorrows. “I asked him that once,” she said. “He told me he was very fond of her.”

“I see,” said Tilda.

“No, you don’t understand that, neither. He said he was
fond
of her. I asked him if that meant he walk a thousand miles trying to find her if she was ever lost. He couldn’t give me no answer. And we both knowed that was a answer in itself. You see, he could have stayed with her. He could have said, ‘I done enough to find Tilda, been through hell to find this woman and I ain’t found her yet. Can’t nobody in the world fault me if I choose to stay here and be happy my ownself.’ But instead, he chose to keep looking for you. What you think that mean?”