Trail of Bones (9 page)

I didn’t…

But the shot came anyway.

I dropped the gun.

Another
shot went off.

The men jumped.

And the young buffalo was down, lying on the
grass, his tongue lolling to the side, all the calmness — all the
everything — slowly slowly draining from his eyes.

Chapter Nine

Thea: Mulberry Row

May 1804

Clink-clink-clink.

I follow the hammer sounds down the dirt
road outside Jefferson’s house. His great home on top of this
forested hill: Monticello.

And like all great homes, many people are
required to tend to its rhythms and needs, the many wants of the
building, and its inhabitants.

Many of those people live right outside the
house itself — in a string of small clapboard buildings called
Mulberry Row. In Eli’s English, they’re called shacks — and this is
where the slaves live.

Whole families dwell in one or two rooms,
crowded together, laboring, growing Jefferson’s crops, making
clothes, doing laundry, fabricating construction material so that
more of Monticello may be refined and built.

Clink-clink.

I am looking for the one they call a
blacksmith.

One who works shaping metals.

A man named Issac.

Clink.

He fashions building fasteners — nails — out
of raw metals. And he makes shoes, too. For horses.

I am here to see one horse in
particular.

Clink.

A small boy standing in a doorway waves at
me. His mother, who is washing something in a large tub, pulls him
back inside. I am considered the “new slave” here. The other slaves
don’t know if they can trust me yet.

I have learned a few things: I have learned
that Jefferson is considered a “good” master, compared to many
others, because he doesn’t beat his workers or whip them. Still
they are not free. Unwhipped or not, they cannot
choose
whether to be here.

Clink!

The boards on these shacks are loose,
compared to Jefferson’s own grand home. I wonder how cold these
people get in winter. Or at night. Fortunately, it’s been warm
lately.

Or maybe that’s just me. The hot flashes,
actually, are why I’m on my way to see a horse.

Clink-clink ting!

Sooysaa.
Ever since I fell and
tangled with him, the wagon-horse has been reported as acting
strangely, or “touched,” as Sally says.

He’s touched, certainly. With a
lingo-spot.

I need to see what the effects are.

Clink ting.

Show me…

I brush at my ear, like there’s a fly
buzzing there, but of course there isn’t.

The horse grew so unpredictable, they moved
him from the main stables out here, behind the blacksmith’s on
Mulberry Row. Since the animal was potentially dangerous, they
decided to let the slaves deal with him.

Did the idea of slaves get invented in the
first place when someone realized life had suddenly become too
complex, too much for one person, or one family, to handle on their
own?

So you force someone else to help handle it
for you.

“Can I help you, miss?”

I had followed Sally’s instructions. I was
at the last building on the row, with the wooden fence behind
it.

“I’m looking for Isaac.”

“That’s me. You have permission to be out
here by yourself?”

Sally said Isaac actually grew up with
Jefferson. His family was “inherited” by Jefferson President from
his own father. In other words, the slaves are treated just like
horses.

“I don’t want no problem with no runaway on
my hands. I don’t want no blame for nothin’.”

What’s he so scared of? I’ve just come to
look at a horse.

“You’re that runaway slave girl, right?”

“No. No slave,” I tell him, with my
newly-practiced English.

“What do you mean, ‘no slave’?”

I don’t try to answer. I see the horse I’ve
come for. He’s tied to a post in the small stable area behind
Isaac’s workspace. Even in the shadows, I can see the animal is
still scared, pulling against the bridle ropes that keep it tied to
the fence.

Poor thing. If the lingo-spot is working,
it’s probably overwhelmed with information.

“No slave.” I repeat absently, making my way
toward the horse.

“Really, you shouldn’t—” He’s almost
pleading with me, but I don’t listen.

Then another voice starts up. Someone ahead
of me. In the shadows.

“No slave but Brassy.”

I recognize the speaker.

It’s Mr. Howard. He’s waiting for me by the
horse.

No wonder Isaac seemed so nervous.

Howard probably told him I wanted the horse
because I was trying to escape.

I probably should tell him I
am
escaping, though I’m not. It would make more sense than the truth.
But why talk at all? He’ll grab me at any moment, so I have to
focus on the horse.

“
Sooysaa
… ”

The animal flicks its head in my direction,
eyes widening.

Show me…

Show me what?

Howard is advancing toward me, the same wild
look on his face that he’s had ever since trying on Eli’s cap. He
takes a whip off a nearby post.

Horses are whipped to control their
behavior. And so are slaves who are caught trying to escape. That’s
what I was told, though it hasn’t happened to me, so far.

I’ve had a couple of days of rest and
recovery here, at Jefferson President’s estate. After my fall from
the horse, they wanted to make sure none of my bones were broken. I
suppose there was some genuine concern there. “But they also have
to return you to Louisiana’s governor in one piece,” Sally told me.
“They want the merchandise to be in good condition.”

Unless I can find a way to leave this place,
I am apparently to be sent to this territorial governor within the
week. No wonder Mr. Howard thinks I’m trying to escape. He’s been
telling Jefferson to have me watched more closely and to stop
leaving me alone with Sally.

“All of America appears gripped by fevers
and fugue states,” Jefferson said in response to one of Howard’s
warnings. “At least, all of Monticello does. It would behoove you
to be sure of your facts.”

He often said such things in Latin, for my
benefit. He imagines I understand him, and is intrigued by that. Or
amused.

“She will be wasted on that governor,” he
said.

Apparently, if one is a slave, one is better
off amusing the master than angering him, and better off still
being thought of as particularly useful. None of it flatters
me.

Jefferson’s use of the Roman tongue does
allow me to listen more intently with my actual ears, while trying
to tune out the lingo-spot. More and more, the Saurian translation
device seems to be creating a type of noise that can become quite
disturbing. Like an unbidden thought that startles you.

As it did during my carriage ride with
Sally. It’s as if the spot were becoming an extra mind to direct my
own. I have tried to remove it, putting the residue in a small
crystal jar I retrieved from the cooking quarters. Honoré,
Jefferson’s chef, was there, standing by the long wooden tables and
knocking carved spoons over large iron pots.

“Get out! I am busy! Can you not see?”

“I need —”

“I have been ordered to sabotage perfectly
good
fromage
on another of Monsieur Jefferson’s experiments,
and if he has sent you here to tell me about another
idée
he
has for an
entrée
, well,
mon Dieu
! It will have
to—”

“I just need a jar,” I said. In Latin. He
didn’t understand.

“Can you not speak
français
?” he
asked, but after I gestured with hand signals, he let me take what
I wanted.

I wanted to preserve the lingo-spot in order
to examine it later, when I get back. But back to where? Eli’s
home? K’lion’s? Certainly not mine.

Mine’s been burned.

The most startling effect of the lingo-spot
happened shortly after I was brought here and put to bed to recover
from my bruises suffered in the fall. Evidently I not only slept
deeply but also experienced a kind of “waking trance,” according to
what Jefferson President and Sally told me later.

This was one of the “fugue states” Jefferson
made reference to. While in it, he said that I “talked so vividly,
it was as if you’d actually lived in ancient Egypt.” I resisted the
urge to tell him, “I did.”

But what did he mean by “ancient?”

In the lingo-spot vision, I had been with my
mother, Hypatia. I was lying on a marble bench, covered in a light
cotton cloth, shivering with fever. “Mermaid,” she said to me
softly, using her favorite nickname for me. “Mermaid. You are not
yourself.” She smiled. She took a pitcher of lemon juice, honey,
and water, and dribbled a little on my lips.

“Come back, Mermaid.”

“Where — where have I been?” I managed to
ask her. “And… what am I becoming?”

She looked at me and just kept smiling. I
wanted to kiss her, to thank her for a lifetime of touching, of
whispered love. For warm food and lazy naps and needed healing. For
letting me see her in her sadnesses and rages, and letting me know
she still loved me then, too.

I wanted to do all that, and it felt —in
that vision — like that balmy afternoon stretched infinitely in
front of me, giving me all the time I’d ever need.

You always think you have all the time
you’ll ever need.

Show me…

But you don’t.

Show me…

And yet it was so vivid to me, it was as if
the lingo-spot were trying to show me… the things I really meant to
say, if I only had a chance…

As if its task had now become a different
kind of translation, that of making a deeper self known,
intelligible, to me.

But when I woke, I was in Jefferson
President’s house, still a slave named Brassy who was supposed to
be returned to the one who “owns” her.

“Show me…” I whisper to the horse as I draw
close.

The animal is frightened. According to the
rumors I kept hearing in the house, the one I call Sooysaa has been
fearful ever since the accident. In Alexandria, people often
regarded sudden skittish behavior in their animals as an augury of
some human disaster.

Sooysaa was acting spooked, haunted.
Jefferson even mentioned having the animal destroyed.

I had to find out if I could help it. If I
talked to it, calmed it, then maybe it wouldn’t have to be killed.
There’s been too much death around me lately.

But, of course, I couldn’t tell anyone any
of this. Especially not if they’re all insisting I’m really this
—

“Brassy!”

I won’t answer to the slave name. I step
toward the horse, but out of the corner of my eye, I see Howard
stepping over the stacks of hay, holding the whip, and it’s hard
not to flinch.

“Here, Sooysaa.” I’m trying to keep the
horse calm. “Don’t be scared.” I just want to get close enough to
whisper a single question to it before I’m hauled away.

I see now that the horse is also restrained
by chains around two of its ankles. Otherwise, it would bolt.

“Easy, Sooysaa
.
”

Mr. Howard’s right behind me.

“I’m not trying to run away,” I tell him,
without turning around.

I don’t say it in English, so he doesn’t
understand. In fact, my speaking at all — in a foreign tongue, no
less — seems to make him even angrier.

Then the whip
cracks
.

And lands on the horse.

“Obey!” Howard hisses

And again on the animal.

Sooysaa is screaming, kicking against his
stall with his free legs.

Crack!

This time the whip lands on me.

The pain is stunning: the leather coil has
sheered off some of my skin above the shoulder.

Howard is getting ready to land another
blow.

“Mr. Howard. Stand down.”

It’s Jefferson. He stands in the rear with
Sally and Isaac.

“No more hurt. No more hurt.”

Another voice. Near me. But I feel it, more
than hear it.

Show me…

Sooysaa. Yes. A lingo-spot that can
translate… emotion… wouldn’t require a specific language to work.
On animals. Or anyone else.

“No more hurt.”

It’s the horse.

“No more.”

I can feel blood start to run down my
arm.

The horse and I are talking. Both thinking
we’re about to explode, or go under, from the feelings inside.

Mr. Howard stands nearby, the whip raised,
uncertain whether to strike or not.

“You will not hurt the girl, Mr. Howard. She
is the new governor’s property, after all, and she’s in our care
now.”

I’m nobody’s property. But if it keeps
another blow from landing, I’ll let the comment pass. For now.

Sally walks over to me. She has a rag, which
she touches gently against my shoulder.

“Horse,” I tell her. In English. “Horse.
Much scared.”

“Who can blame it, child?” Sally says. “It’s
a frightening world for a horse.” She looks at Jefferson. “We need
to get this one back inside.”

She means me, since the horse isn’t going
anywhere.

“She was trying to escape. Sir,” Howard
says, in an attempt to explain his actions. “it would hardly do to
allow the governor’s property to disappear.”

“When I need your counsel on slave matters,
Mr. Howard, I shall ask it. Please prepare my carriages. I can no
longer put off my return to Washington, and fear we must return
there in the morning.” Then he turns to Isaac. “I am sorry for this
interruption in your commendable duties, Isaac.”

Isaac nods, but doesn’t say anything.

Howard quickly fills the silence. “She’s a
danger, sir. I can feel it.”

“Your feelings are duly noted, Mr. Howard.
But I have use of her now, in my study. I find she may help in
solving a scientific anomaly I have come across in my
research.”