The black swan (9 page)

Tom stood up immediately when the elderly gentleman made his way out of George's office, his cane tapping in

unrhythmic cadence to his faltering steps. More in control, but no calmer, Tom entered the office. "George, my apologies. I was in a lather, and—"

"No gentleman conducts his business in a lather. Pier-son. What is so urgent?" He folded his hands on the desk top, elaborately patient.

In Andreas's eyes it would be Edmund who was behaving in a civilized manner, not Tom. It would be foolhardy to explain that he simply loved Ullah and wished to conduct his life as he saw fit. George would fix him with a baffled blank stare as if faced with the logic of a maniac.

More clearly than Edmund would ever .have guessed, Tom understood Edmund's wrath against the North. While Edmund cried out that the Southern planter had the slave's well-being at heart in a way no Northerner could understand, Tom cried out silently within himself that he was no insurrectionist. He was only one man who had taken one slave to heart and to wife.

Bleakly he watched George making notes.

"Assuming I can find buyers for your holdings, what do you want me to do with the proceeds?"

"I'U still do my bankin' on Carondelet Street," Tom said, saddened at the hard-drawn disapproval of his father's best friend. "George ... I can't explain, but I know what I'm doin'."

"So do I," George said implacably. "You're destroying your life. You are making the good name of Pierson anathema in New Orleans."

"George—'*

'There's no more to be said between us, Tom. I'll have your affairs in order as quickly as possible. Good-bye." George's face, along with his friendship, was closed against Tom.

Saddened and subdued, Tom rode through the Streets of Nine Muses to his house. The elegant Greek Revival mansions stood as symbols of wealth and position. As George had pointed out, Tom was on the verge of throwing it all away. In the bayou house, warm and tended by Ullah, it seemed easy. Here in New Orleans, faced with what he had been and all his father had labored to make for his family, Tom was finding it a task most painful. He was not merely leaving a house, he was turning his back on his own father, his city, his people.

His tread on the piazza was slow and heavy. The front door flew open, and William's purple-black face smiled down at him.

"Welcome home, Mastah Tom. We sho' does be missin* you."

Behind William came Bessie, puffing from the exertion her speed had cost her. "Where y'all been? Folks sayin' bad things. An' two o' dem wuthless niggers done run off. Wa'n't a body to gits 'em back."

"Two ran off, did they, Bessie?" Tom repeated wearily, and thought about how there were two he wouldn't have to worry about.

Bessie followed him into the study. "Sho' dey did. Things is bad 'round a house when de mastah doan watch out fo' his niggers. You come home jes' in time."

"Bess, have you ever thought of bein' free?"

"Nossuh, Ah ain't. What you gwine do 'bout dem wuthless niggers?"

"I'm goin' to send you all North."

"Nawth?! What yo' gwine do a thing like dat fo'? Who gwine look aftuh you? What we all gwine do effen you do a thing like dat?" Her black face glistened and quivered in disapproval.

"Sit down, Bessie."

"Siddown! Wid you? Ah ain't doin* no sech a thing, Mastah Tom."

Tom put his head in his hands, leaning heavily on the desk top. He couldn't make anyone understand, not even the people he wanted to free.

After supper he wrote the letters of manumission, sending them North in groups of four. He gave each of them ten dollars and directions to the first of many Underground Railroad stops. "These people will give you food and shelter, and guide you onward. Whatever you do, be sure you keep your freedom papers. Once you are out of Louisiana, you may stop wherever you wish and live as free persons of color. Just be certain you leave Louisiana. As most of you know, feelin's are runnin' high regardin' me. You won't be safe heah any longer."

Some left eagerly, giving Tom thanks and assurances they would remember him. Some left with trepidation, facing an uncertain world. Others, like William and Bessie, left like the exiles they were, their eyes filled with hurt

and rejection, their lips pursed in silent accusation: He had turned them out of their home and away from him, away from all that was left of their family.

When the last of them had gone, Tom remained alone in the splendid, hauntingly empty Clio Street house. A few more days and the house would be closed. The only trace of Tom Pierson left in New Orleans would be the bulging bank account on Carondelet Street.

Chapter Six

Ullah put Angela to bed, then went, as she had every night since Tom left, to sit on the front stoop. Wistfully, her eyes fastened on the path on which he would appear. She had wished him near so many hours of so many days that when his horse, Sable, lathered and tired, trotted into view, Ullah sat momentarily stunned, the breath gone out of her. Then she ran to the barn, crying his name.

"Yo' safe," she breathed, her hands running over his body, finding each curve where muscle met bone. She laughed and cried as he held her, turning her face to his. In her naked emotion, she was startlingly beautiful. She didn't know how to play at love. Hers had the power to strike like lightning right to the heart of him.

Her hands fluttered back to his face, her fingers tracing vibrant paths around his eyes, down his cheeks until they rested against his lips. "Nothin' bad happen to you, did it, Tom?"

He looked into the deep darkness of her moist eyes. To be once more in Ullah's arms was as soothing to Tom as the cool waters of the bayou after a day in the merciless sun. He smiled. "Nothin' bad. I'm home, an' neither one of us has to look back. It's all finished."

She sighed in relief, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "What you do 'bout Bessie an' Will'm?"

"Sent them North with their papers. I sent all of them North, except two that ran off while I was heah."

"Dey Rm off! What you gwine do 'bout that?"

Tom laughed, walking her toward the edge of the sun-struck bayou. Overhead wild pigeons flew, blackening the

purpling sky with their bodies. In the distance they heard guns begin to sound.

"Hurry on, li'l bird, big man-hawk after you," Ullah said softly.

Tom put his hands on each side of her face. "Let's let the blacks go like the birds."

"But . . ." she began, confused with her own feelings and the beliefs she'd been taught at Gray Oaks, "niggers cain't run . . . lessen you wants a passel o' troubles with the res'."

"Ullah, love, I have no others. They're all gone. There's only you and Angela and me now."

"Doan seem like that's possible."

He smiled. "Maybe not, but it is. N«w, tell me what y*all have been up to since I left."

"Hog's ready to kill t'morra. Adam gwine do it iffen you din't get back. An' his mama doan jes' say she proud to come to the barbecue, she sen* me a letter. Adam read it to me."

"What did she say?'*

"Miz Zoe a fine lady, jes' like Ah 'spects. What she write come from the heart," Ullah said earnestly, her hand against her breast. She hurried to fetch her battered little box of treasured belongings accumulated over her lifetime. "Ah's gwine keep this fo' Angela. Mebbe when she or enuf to be knowin' 'bout her mama, this letter he'p. Nobody ain't never spoke to me like this 'ceptin' you an' Adam, Tom."

Tom read the letter, finding nothing exceptional in it. He handed it back and watched her carefully enclose it in its envelope to be returned to its place of honor in the chest of treasures.

The next morning dawned crisp and clear. Tom felt vividly alive, stretching and giving out a yelp that caused Ullah to leap upon him, wrestling playfully until the bed sheets tangled around them.

"My God, it's good to be home." Tom dangled his arms over the edge of the bed as he looked up into the azure patch of sky that showed through the window. The soft, fragrant breeze crossed over his body, as caressing and sensual as UUah's hands. They would be leaving all this behind them, going off yet again—^to what or where Tom didn't know. For a moment the knowledge hardly bothered him. He would say nothing to Ullah until after the barbecue on

Saturday night. Whatever Edmund might do, it would not be hasty or haphazard. It would be precise, and exquisitely cruel.

He sprang up from the bed, giving Ullah a smart slap on her rump. "Bring on the hog! I'm ready for anythin'!"

"You sho' is!" she laughed. "It's a wonder Ah didn't jes' waste away, not havin' you 'round to pester me all the time."

"If it's pesterin' you want, it's pesterin' you'll get," Tom roared, charging at her like a happy calf. Ullah squealed, running from him in a welter of delight and anticipation.

Adam and Tom spent what remained of the day preparing the hogs. Tom knocked the largest in the skull, laying it flat. Ruefully he looked at the other two, thinking it a pity that he and Ullah would not be here to use the meat. Ullah would not stand for any waste. From hoof to hide, Tom would present every scrap of usable material to Ullah for processing. He slit the animals' throats and hung them to drain over the big pans Ullah had scrubbed clean.

Adam stood looking at the fattened razorbacks. "You'll have meat for jfive barbecues, Tom."

Tom grinned and shrugged. "I don't guess Ben's and Beau's mamas'll mind the boys comin' home with a good slab of meat. Yours either."

"No, but Ullah might," Adam said. "She's already fretting about you not having enough grain and feed to last through next harvest."

"We have enough." Tom dumped the bark he had been collecting for the tanning into the primitive bark mill he had found in the back of the bam. As Adam brought more bark for the mill, Tom said, "No more."

Adam looked at him quizzically but put the bark back into its pile. They hitched up the horse and watched its dizzying path around the mill as the bark was ground. The leach pit filled, and Tom and Adam added the water that would sit for the next few days until it reached the proper strength for Tom's hides.

"That should take care of it," Tom said in satisfaction. "I've only got a piddlin' amount of skins anyway."

Adam tried to decide if Tom were simply lazy or if the signs were true. "You planning on leaving soon, Tom?"

Tom straightened up. His eyes met Adam's, startled, then slid away to rove over the landscape. His mouth was set hard. He didn't want to leave. It was the first place that

had ever truly been his; the bayou house bore the marks of his own labor and sweat. He was happy here in a way he had never considered. There were no soirees with their obligatory flirtations, no drinking bouts or wild hilarity that had marked his friendship with Ross and Edmund; but here were satisfaction and purpose. And here was the quiet sweetness of having Ullah and Angela as his own.

Adam watched him, then looked down at the ground. He said softly, "I guess things didn't go as well in New Orleans as you let on."

"No. They didn't."

"Someone knows about you and Ullah?"

"I think so."

Adam stared at him for a moment. "You're not bothering anyone. Why should anybody make trouble? Maybe nothing will happen."

"Nothin' is goin' to happen. I'm goin' to see to that, boy."

"By leaving."

"By leavin'."

Adam was silent. He had let this unassuming man become his hero; now anger and disappointment clouded his eyes. "I don't see why you let anybody chase you out! Who are these people? What business is it of theirs what you do? And what do they know anyhow?"

Tom saw the look of pugnacious indignation on Adam's face. He realized two things. He wouldn't run if it were anyone but Edmund Revanche. Tom would have faced his attackers and he would have defeated them.

Edmund Revanche was different. He wouldn't come at Tom as Ross might. Edmund held his hatreds long, nurturing them as he would a fine wine, waiting for the moment when they would blossom into ripened action. Edmund was a shadow, a threat without tangible substance, coming up behind silently by sun or by moon to seek his revenge. Tom had never completely trusted Edmund, his friend. Today he knew he was afraid of Edmund, his enemy.

He clapped Adam on the back and managed to smUe. "I don't want Ullah to know yet—not 'til after the barbecue. Come on, boy, you promised Angela some fishin'."

Adam hung back. "You know we'd help, Ben and Beau and I. You can count on us. We wouldn't let anyone hurt Ullah or Angela ... or you."

"I know. God, boy, I know. But you can't help this time. I'm not a fearful man, Adam, but I'm not a stupid

one either. Sometiqjes the only way to tell the difference is in judgin' whether to fight a thing or walk away from it. If I were alone, I'd fight any way I had to. But I'm not alone. This man won't take his hates out only on me. I can't risk Angela or Ullah on my pride. Can you understand that, Adam, or are you too young? Blood runs high in the young."

Adam nodded, because Tom wanted him to understand, but he didn't. He wanted Tom to stand his ground. He wanted victory over Tom's enemy.

The days until the barbecue saw Ullah scurrying around her cookroom in a spate of anxious activity. Adam, his mouth full of Ullah's delicious concoctions, yielded to Tom's restless desire to see and travel all the bayou paths, discovering the secrets of its intimate world before he left it for good. They spent long afternoons on Adam's boat, with Adam poling as effortlessly over the shallowest strips of watery land as he maneuvered with deft speed through the deeper channels.

Angela sat on her father's lap, delighting in the fish Adam caught each day for Ullah and his mother. She screamed in indignation whenever he and Ben went eeling. She wasn't allowed to play with the wriggling creatures they brought in buckets to her mother's door. But her frustrated anger was always soothed as soon as Tom picked her up and headed toward Adam's flatboat.

Though Tom could not have said it, Adam, more than even the bayou house itself, held him here. There was a strength about Adam that was more than muscle and sinew, a visionary quality that outdistanced his youth to look squarely and sensibly into tomorrow. Tom questioned that Adam had ever been a boy at all in the usual sense.