An Undisturbed Peace (19 page)

Edward Redhand was at the mouth of the cave. He was alone. His men had left. He looked as if he had not budged during Abe's audience with his sister but remained motionless under the moon, patient, immoveable, silent, keeping his own counsel, not the master of time nor its slave, but its partner. “I will take you to where you will sleep,” he said.

Abe followed him to a house finer than the other homes of the village, all of which were log homes, each of three or four rooms. The great house was twice as large as that. Its windows were glass paned and had curtains. There were flowering bushes in clay pots at its door, stones laid in decorative patterns in its yard. Two indistinguishable young Cherokee sat in rockers on its porch. They stood when Abe and Edward Redhand approached. Redhand introduced them as his twin brothers, Black Stone and White Stone. Everyone shook hands and they all entered the house.

They waited in a large foyer with hooked rugs and finely crafted tables upon which cut flowers in painted ceramic bowls were set. After a short while, an elder Cherokee woman entered, followed by her black slave. The woman was tiny, wizened, her skin the color of dark honey, bright golden butter, and copper all together. She was dressed extravagantly in a black taffeta dress of antique design with ample skirts and many flounces. As if the dress were not ornament enough, she wore a white lace dickey pinned to her breast by a ruby set in gold. Her white hair was arranged in a thick knot at the side of her neck, and a black square of cloth sat on the top of her head in the manner of the death's cap English judges wear with a tasseled point coming forward over her brow. Her slave was a tall, heavyset woman in middle age, her thick waist and belly obvious under a sackcloth shift. She wore a frayed blue bandana around her head. Tight gray curls poked out all around it. Her face was broad, her features large, fleshy, and impassive. Her ankles were swollen, spilling over the sides of her moccasins. She was twice the size of her mistress.

The lady of the house extended a hand toward Abe while Edward Redhand made introductions.

“I present my mother, widow of Chief Redhand, and mother of Dark Water, White Stone, Black Stone, and me. Mother, this is that peddler we've told you about, Abe Sassaporta, who is known to our sister and who sold us rubber.”

At the word “rubber,” the widow of Chief Redhand slipped her hand out of Abe's respectful grasp though she continued smiling up at him with cold, glittering eyes, two pebbles of blackest quartz.

“Welcome to my home,” she said. Her voice was low, reedy, the voice of an ancient, one laced with a weary cynicism. “I'm sure you are tired. Daniella will take you to your room.” She turned to quit his company, her head high, moving across the anteroom on tiptoe in the mincing steps of a grand lady, although it could have been her age that made her movements so small, so crabbed. It was impossible to him that this was the same woman who'd had strength enough to scratch a young, robust Marian near senseless with a fishbone when she'd rebelled against the idea of marriage to a settler husband. For all her antiquated finery, it was a fact her life had not gone the way she'd wished to shape it. Clearly, she'd suffered over that. He could well believe that this bitter woman would reenslave Jacob. “You may retire when you're done, Daniella,” she called over her shoulder. “I'll undress myself tonight.”

“Yes ma'am.” The black woman nodded in a direction opposite that the widow of Chief Redhand took, waited patiently while Abe bid her sons good night, then, candelabra in hand, led him down a short corridor, stopping at a guest-room door invitingly ajar. Inside, the windows had been open against the heat of the day, but the night air had gone increasingly cool. Daniella stepped inside and busied herself getting a quilt from the wardrobe and draping it over the foot of the bed against evening's chill.

The room was as well appointed as any rich planter's guest accommodations might be. There was a four-poster bed, washstand, the wardrobe, a small writing desk and chair, linens embroidered with delicate flowers, a porcelain chamber pot, and warm, thick rugs. Set on a stone mantelpiece above a fireplace was a silver tray with two small crystal glasses and a decanter of what looked like sherry. Next to that was a bowl of ripe apples and pears. Abe sat on the bed. It felt delightfully soft after nights spent on the ground. Daniella came to the side of the bed where he sat. She leaned over and pulled off his boots, telling him she'd have them cleaned and outside the door by the time he woke. “Might you like a warm bath in the mornin', sir?” she asked. “I can get you a tub and hot water, if you're likin' the idea.” He told her he liked the idea very much. She asked if he wanted her to launder some of his clothes. Pointing to his kit, which had been delivered there earlier, he said most everything he had could use a turn. “Anything else, sir?” She stood at the door holding an armful of clothes and his boots. “No, Daniella. I must say you're very thorough, very kind. Have you worked for the family long?” He wanted to talk to someone about Marian, about her younger days when Billy Rupert was murdered, and hoped the slave might be forthcoming. She did not disappoint. “Oh, yes sir,” she said. “Since I was a young calf. I come here from the islands. I been workin' in the kitchen from the start and only came to the missus after her Lulu run off. Poor child.”

Abe sat up and attempted to sound casual when he spoke next. “Yes, I've heard something of that Lulu. And Jacob, Lulu's husband, did you know him?” Daniella rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes sir. Everyone knew Jacob. He was mighty hard to miss.”

He gestured to the chair by the writing desk. “Why don't you sit down and tell me about them, Daniella. I'd love to know more than what I do.” He put a hand in his pocket, pulled out a copper coin, and tossed it to her. Quick as that, she shifted the clothes and boots to her hip so she could safely catch it and shove it inside her dress before he could grab it back. Abe smiled his winning salesman's smile and told her to sit down by the writing desk while he poured them both some sherry. Within just a few minutes and fewer sips, the slave opened up.

Lord Geoffrey, Lulu, and Billy Rupert

Y
ou want to know about the olden days, do you, when the chief was alive and livin' like the king of England, yes? I can tell you things was different then. His big house was nothin' like the one you settin' in right t'here. This one'd be the slave common house back then. His big house was the biggest house anyone'd ever seen or slept in and that includes the white folks thereabouts. Had to be grand for those parties a his. He called it politickin'. All the white folk from miles around come visitin' time to time and we made banquets for 'em. Oh, yes, squash soups and bean cakes, corn puddin', roast turkeys stuffed with chestnuts, and venison on a spit. The chief never had a lick of liquor himself, more's the pity, maybe things'd gone better for him if he had. But at them banquets, wines and bourbon and brandies came from spigots like mountain water does from the well. There was dancin' too, fiddlers, flutes, and mandolins in every room. Oncet Mr. Crockett came. Another time, Joseph Vann. You know those men?”

Daniella finished her sherry in one go, then put forward her glass for more. Abe refilled it, thinking he'd landed in a pot of good luck, finding a woman who liked to talk and a bottle to coat her tongue, make it good and slick, all at the same time.

“Crockett I know of, he's that representative from Tennessee railed against the Removal Act. Vann? I've heard his name here and there. Has a shipping line, no?”

“Oh my Lord, well, he's just about the richest Cherokee anyone's ever seen. Only one I know of richer than the chief used to be. Got plantations and steamboats and over two hundred slaves at his command. Mean as can be too, lemme tell you. Meaner than his daddy, James, and that daddy a his was one devil of a man. But Joseph Vann. Why, he'd string you up for a rebellious glance. When I was a girl, the kitchen boss used to say, ‘You gals don' behave youselves, I'm gonna sell you to Rich Joe Vann.' And oh my, didn' we straighten up then. Truth is, though, he's mostly white. But for alla that, Mr. Vann, even he come callin' to Chief Redhand with his hat off, that's how my lady's old husband did do.”

She leaned forward, crooking a finger that Abe would come close and incline his ear to her. He did so. She looked right, looked left, then whispered.

“I'll tell you a secret. The chief never was comfy bein' that way. He'd smile and shake the hand what come to him, nod his head at the business talk. But soon as all the world gone home and there's quiet in his room, it's off with his fancy pants and he's into his leggin's and long shirt, callin' for his pipe to puff a li'l thanksgivin' into the air that the bloody thing was over. Ha, ha!”

She pushed him back with one hand, chuckling for all she was worth. Abe saw she had no fear of him, which, drunk or not, was exceedingly strange. If she'd had twice the sherry he'd given her, it still would have been strange. Last he'd checked, he was still white. According to the United States of America, despite being a Jew, he was whiter than a Cherokee, never mind that the Cherokee thought themselves on the same level as whites. A black slave should have been circumspect with him, copper coin or not. Had she never been taught proper manners? Was she spoiled with kindness? He'd never thought much about whether the Cherokee treated blacks any better than white folk, so he put a few minutes to it. The men in the barracks back at Isadore's camp liked to joke about the airs Cherokee put on, pretending they were equal to Europeans, keeping blacks under their thumbs to prove the point. He'd heard they mated with them and had children together, but who among the white plantation population didn't do similar from time to time? How was it Daniella spoke with him so freely, mocking her owners, disrespecting their dead? He recollected Jacob's story of the Cherokee mother who'd loved him, encouraging him to think himself free until she proved he wasn't. He considered Jacob in Chota, where he was given refuge despite being black and a slave, by all evidence honored and protected by his betters. On the other hand, there was this Joseph Vann, who'd lynch a black man as soon as slap him, although he, Daniella had pointed out, was mostly white, so perhaps he didn't count. My oh my, thought Abe, the racial lines in the New World blurred considerably up in Cherokee country. One could rattle one's reason trying to figure out what policies were expedient and what policies came from the heart. Yet this was the field in which the love between Marian and Jacob had taken root, given them the hope that they could love each other in peace. If he hoped to ever understand it, he needed to know more.

“There's something I'm trying to figure out, Daniella,” he tried. “Chief Redhand's daughter had Lord Geoffrey at her feet, and that Billy Rupert came calling too. What happened there and how did the slave Jacob come to be mixed up in it?”

Daniella held her crystal glass against her chest with two hands. Her grasp looked to tighten, then relax, tighten, relax, over and over again, the fingers twisting, loosening, twisting. “Hmm,” she said, “hmmm.” Her lower lip jutted out, her eyes studied the ceiling. “Now, that's a precious story you're askin' me for,” she said. He pulled two more coppers from his pocket and placed them in his open palm. Her gaze bored into him while the rest of her features went impassive. He added two more. Her hand shot out to grab the money. It disappeared inside her dress before he finished closing his palm.

“Alright. Now, where to start? That Lord Geoffrey. My, but he was a sad man to start with. Always looked like he'd et a bowl of gloom for breakfast. Eyes like a beaten dog. Even when he was with Miss Dark Water, or Marian as he liked to call her. Maybe his eyes looked pitiful especially when he was with her, because what'd he ever do besides traipse around behind her holdin' her gloves or her hat or whatever English confinement she looked to be free of. Oh, sure, every day he'd sit awhile somewhere he liked the light and paint his lily-white heart out, but after that he'd be tuckered and take his tea and a nap in his room. Unless of course Miss Dark Water had need of him. Then he was on his toes and runnin'! There was a time after she got home from England that they'd go ridin' together every day but then she had a fight with her mamma and daddy, and she took to the woods for a bit. That was the end of their rides. Poor Lord Geoffrey. After that, he got gloomier still. When she came back outta the woods and stayed to home again, she'd disappear for hours at a time and he'd go lookin' for her, glidin' around corridors of that big old house like a ghost, sad and swift. One day he found her rootin' on the floor of the game house with the slave Jacob, who don't you know was her true love. Oh, yes, lip to lip and limb to limb they was. But you know about how they loved, don't you? Everybody in this village knows you know that.”

She reached out and squeezed his hand while a look of sympathy crossed over her broad, bland features. Abe blinked. Everybody in the village knew the darkest torments of his heart. She'd said so. He had no doubt it was true. Humiliation seized his throat and wrung it dry. How pathetic was the story they told of him that he'd won pity from a slave? She held out her glass. The sherry was half gone. Dry as he was, he didn't dare take more for himself lest there weren't enough left to inspire Daniella to finish her story. Filling her glass, he encouraged her to continue. “And?” he said as pleasantly as his suffering would allow.

“Oh, not much more to that man, was there? They say Dark Water and Jacob didn't even stop their business when he caught 'em. I like to think Jacob probably didn't know. But she did. They say she looked up from the floor and stared right in his eyes, then closed them and kept on goin'. He left in the next few days, as soon as he could book passage back to England and arrange a carriage to take him to the port. But after he was gone, came the letters. So many of 'em! He musta written two, maybe three a day. Then they stopped and after that came the news that Lord Geoffrey was dead, hung from his daddy's game house by his own hand. They say Dark Water didn't shed a tear.”

Abe wondered if all of those who gossiped about Geoffrey killing himself also knew that Dark Water saved his letters and his portrait. Why would a woman preserve the memory of a man who meant so little to her? Was it guilt? Seeing his attention had wandered, Daniella leaned forward and tapped his knee. “But it's the Billy Rupert part you bought the right to know, isn't it, sir?” She leaned back again in the chair, smiling and tapping the sides of her glass, her lips pursed in amusement. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”

“Billy Rupert. Billy Rupert. Such a worthless lad to make a ruckus out of. Let's see, where was I? Oh, yes, Jacob and Dark Water were able to love but in secret. The Cherokee don't care how their men mess with black women. Why look at Shoe Boots, they even made his half-black children citizens equal to all after he pestered the courts. But who is Cherokee and who is not passes through the mother in every other case, so that blood they want pure. Things was a bit easier then, but not much. Today, only white or Injun can marry with the ladies, you see, without punishment. There's the twenty-five lashes—”

“Yes,” Abe interrupted. “I've heard that. Twenty-five lashes if a Cherokee woman marries a black slave.”

Daniella nodded. “Uh-huh, so you know. Now. Once Lord Geoffrey was gone, Dark Water's parents looked about for a rich white to marry her. It shouldn't have been much of a chore except she was known all over for bein' willful. In those days, many whites wanted to marry Cherokee women as a way of grabbing onto their inheritance. They had no love of the people. They were the intruders, the ones who wished only to steal the land and make it their own. Marriage was a heap easier than drivin' 'em off with a torch and gun.

“The chief's plantation was close to the one Teddy Rupert made, only the Rupert spread was spankin' new then and not rich like it is today. His people was from Canada. They knew nothin' of the plants and trees what grow best here, nor did they know the climate or how a crop got the blight. The chief helped 'im. Gave 'im fruit trees, fig, apple, and lemon, tole 'im how to protect 'em in winter. He gave 'im all the kinds of potatoes the Cherokee know, which are five. He taught 'im how to make the best bed for the corn and the cotton and the squash. He gave 'im vines from his own bean field. What didn't he give 'im? In the first years, Teddy Rupert was stunned grateful. He brought the chief the first fruits of his harvest and other presents. After the chief moved us from the village to the big house, Teddy Rupert, his wife, and that bastard, Billy, come visitin' often. The men smoked the wild tobacco while the women played flutes and sang for their pleasure. How Elizabeth Rupert must've hated those visits! Later on, we all discovered what was in her true heart, but even then there was somethin' about her I did not like but could not name.

“Billy would hunt with Wakin' Rabbit, with White Stone and Black, but Dark Water ignored him. Oncet she was gone off to England, he was gone off to Boston to become a gentleman. He returned shortly after she did, fat and red-cheeked, full of airs and foolish gestures. If you could have seen 'im! He'd be takin' a handkerchief and holdin' it in two fingers and wavin' it all about when he spoke. He'd grown a habit too of blowin' out the corner of his mouth to a thatch of hair that fell over his brow, makin' those blondie wisps fly when he wanted you to think he just said somethin' important. Lord Geoffrey, who was still with us then, said even the English was not so ridiculous.

“But then Lord Geoffrey was gone. The chief and my lady turned their sights to Billy Rupert as a husband for their girl. Now, his mama bragged that Billy Rupert was goin' into the law and for the chief the next best husband to an English lord was an American lawyer. Who better to help the nation to thrive among the whites? Cherokee leaders was near every day in the courts up to Washington to represent the nation. Just as they are this day. Anyway, Billy Rupert came callin'. Dark Water laughed in his face. The chief ordered her to suffer more visits from 'im. And that she did but only so no one would suspect she had a lover, much less who that lover might be. Mind you, all the slaves knew what was up and what was not, but the chief and his wife, maybe her brothers too, why they were as ignorant as rocks on the subject. Soon enough, you couldn't keep Billy Rupert out of the house. Wakin' Rabbit took to stayin' in the high places just to get away from 'im. He told my lady he sought a wife out of the paint clan and spent many hours away from home wooin' maidens. Sometimes, because they begged 'im, he took the twin boys with 'im too. No one wanted to be in the house when Billy Rupert was there. Which is why, I've always been thinkin', he started nosin' around the slaves.

“There was gals in the slave quarters didn't mind the company of men, even if it meant a lot of it. Some of 'em were gals lost their babies to the traders or maybe their true loves. Others never got over bein' taken from their mamas too young. I guess those gals figured if they weren't gonna have a regular life, they might as well have one that got 'em somewhere. The poorest man'll find a bit o' ribbon, or a square of lace, maybe a li'l silk or satin, somethin' sweet like that, no matter what trouble it takes, if it's what'll get 'im some sugar from a pretty gal. It's nothin' I'd do and no path I'd raise a boy to follow. But I'm not judgin'.

“So anyway, among all those brokenhearted songbirds, there was one sang her sad song like an angel from above and that was Lulu, the one Jacob threw over when Dark Water turned his head away. That Lulu had strong legs and high breasts, a long neck, the kind a man liked to lay his head against just for the silky touch of it. Sum up, she had a body and a nature made for forgettin' all your cares and woes and there was many who went to her to do so. Maybe it helped her forget some too.

“Well, before too long, Billy Rupert noticed her. Took to usin' her, and not kindly either. Whenever Dark Water was out with Jacob, you could be damn sure Billy Rupert would be botherin' Lulu. One day, that poor gal could take no more. She put a knife from the kitchen in her clothes. I know this 'cause I'm the one gave it to her. I had pity, you see. I thought she was gone to kill her own self and I warn't judgin', but it was Billy Rupert's heart her blade sought.