Canaan's Tongue (7 page)

“This gone carry me to Cincy, marse?”

There was no sound for a time but the Redeemer’s steady working of the pole. “Bosun,” I said at last, with a rush of self-importance. “I should introduce you to the pilot of this run. You have the privilege of sharing this flat-boat with none other than—”

“I don’t mind a damn if it be Ezekiel himself,” Bosun said. I noticed now that he was naked to the waist, that his lips were slick with blood, and that his left arm hung lifelessly from his shoulder.

“Why we headed down this river?” he said very slowly.

“There’s a keel-boat waiting two miles on,” the Redeemer put in, busy with the pole. “We’ll part ways in less than an hour, Mr. Bosun.”

Perhaps it was the exotic sound of being called “Mr.” by a white man, but Bosun took a sharp, shallow breath, gave a loud guffaw, and turned toward the Redeemer. “Two mile on?” he said.

“At Druthers Crick,” said the Redeemer, nodding. “Step a bit to port, Mr. Bosun, if you please.”

Again Bosun let his great laugh loose. “You artful courteous, marse!” he said to the Redeemer. I could see now that his arm was pulled clear of its socket. He jerked his head toward me. “You ought to give this niggra of yours some finishing.”

“Mr. Delamare is not my negro,” the Redeemer said, stopping in mid-pull. “He is a free man, Mr. Bosun—; as free as you or I.”

Bosun took a little step to one side, as if to get out of the way of something rushing past—; when he spoke his voice was tentative as a child’s.

“As you or I?” he murmured.

“That’s right,” the Redeemer said, his voice as mild as Bosun’s. “The hour of your emancipation, Mr. Bosun, has arrived. The hour to put your indentured self behind you.” He gave a courtly bow. “Mr. Delamare and I humbly recommend that you savor it.”

For a minute, perhaps longer, Bosun gave no answer. I’d begun to wonder whether he’d understood the Redeemer’s little oratory when I saw that he was trembling throughout his great body, gasping with slow, hard heaves of his tremendous shoulders. The raft spun and drifted at the current’s pleasure—; we were out in the black middle of the river.

“What gone come of this?” Bosun said at last. “What gone follow?”

“I suggest you choose a name,” the Redeemer said.

Bosun gave his head a shake, as though a fly had landed on his brow. “A name?”

The Redeemer passed the pole to me now and stepped over to Bosun. “That’s right,” he said. “The name you carry was given to you by your first master, Benjamin Thomkins Grady, that you might come to him when he called. He imagined that by giving you that name, he himself, and no other, had called you into being. The name your mother chose to call you was the name of a play-thing, the name of a house-pet, just as Grady’s name was a name for a champion ox. The name you
yourself
choose, contrary-wise, will be the name of a new-born child.” He smiled. “And whether you
answer
to it, sir, will be nobody’s business but your own.”

That said, the Redeemer stretched up his arm and touched Bosun gently on the mouth. Bosun bowed his head to receive this touch, bashful and not a little bewildered, like Mary before the archangel Gabriel. His expression shuttled back and forth between exultation and dismay, as though he’d been found guilty, through no fault of his own, of some especially noble crime.

“Tell me your name, pilgrim,” the Redeemer said softly. “Tell it to me and I’ll baptize you here and now.”

A measure of silence passed—I know not how long—then Bosun raised his head. “I should be called ‘Simon,’ after Simon from the desert,” he said, his voice full of wonder at itself.

If that was not the sound of religion, the sound of spirit given voice, then I have never heard it in my life. Nothing earthly was real to Bosun at that moment—: not the Redeemer, not the raft we rode on, not the river at our feet. There was only his own body, the fact of all that it had suffered, and the new name hovering before him in the air. Of his own accord Bosun sank onto his knees.

“I baptize you Simon Morelle,” the Redeemer intoned, splashing a palmful of water over him. “Stand up, Simon, and be counted!”

Bosun got to his feet and ran a fist across his eyes. “Simon Morelle,” he repeated, as if to get the fit of it.

“Holler it out now! Out across the river!” the Redeemer said, his own voice cracking with excitement. “Holler so they can hear you back on Benjamin Grady’s land. Let them hear your name, Simon! Let them hear your name and
know
it!”

Bosun hesitated for the briefest instant—; then he smiled and sucked in an eager breath. “
Simon
Bosun
Morelle
!” he shouted, laughing as the raft spun slowly clockwise.

“ ‘And I am a free man!’ ” the Redeemer crowed, tapping Bosun on the shoulder.

“I a new-born child! A god-damn baby
child
!” Bosun yelled at the top of his voice. All hurt and weariness seemed to have left him. To my full and perfect amazement he brought his hands together and clapped. “Mr. Benjamin Grady! I be Simon Once-Was-Bosun and Morelle!”

“So be it,” the Redeemer said.

The next sound I heard was of Bosun’s backside crashing against the planks. The echo came after, by way of the far side of the river, turning over on itself and whipping against my forehead like a switch. The sound was loud enough to have come from a brace of cannon—; the weapon in the Redeemer’s palm, however, was no larger than a bottle of perfume.

I gaped at him a moment, then looked down at Bosun, heaving and jerking at my feet. Bosun, whom I had come across one day coming in quietly from the fields. “Merciful Jesus,” I said.

I passed the back of my hand over my mouth, then turned toward the Redeemer, fully expecting to be next.

“You asked me what became of them, Oliver,” he said, handing me the pistol.

Sweet bloodied world, I said noiselessly, pressing the barrel to Bosun’s temple. Sweet blood-besotted life.

OVER THE NEXT QUARTER-HOUR, still drifting with the current, we stripped Bosun of his clothes, ripped his belly open, and pulled the guts out of him so that he would sink. In the blink of an eye he was gone under the river. My new and vulnerable understanding was plunged into bewilderment yet again by the fact that the Redeemer was weeping freely. When I finally found the courage to ask why in heaven’s name he’d done it, he clucked and laid a finger to my lips.

“I’d meant for you to
look,
Oliver. Not to avert your eyes.”

“But why? Why kill Bosun, sir? What had Bosun done?”

“Bosun did
well,
God bless him. Bosun played his part.”

I waited the better part of a minute for him to say more. “What of us, then?” I asked, when I could stand it no longer. “Did we play ours?”

“We did, Oliver.” He sighed. “We gave our Simon the only freedom he could ever know.”

I let my head sink down against my chest, just as Bosun had done at his baptism. Even as I sensed that the Redeemer was speaking to me as though to a child or an idiot I believed his words implicitly. More than that—: I
knew
them to be true. The look on Bosun’s face as he sang out his name had not yet left my thoughts, nor would it ever. I myself was never to know such freedom.

“I suppose that I should choose a name, as well,” I said. I said it hopefully.

The Redeemer brought a finger to his lips and bit it. Then he gave a laugh.

“The one you’ve got works well enough, Oliver Delamare.”

Dearness.

VIRGIL KEPT COMING, Clementine says. Regular as clap. Regular as my monthly worries.

He came in spite of Lieutenant Beauregard, who called on me now as well. He came in spite of all my regulars and happen-bys. I showed him no special care, made no great fuss over him, the R——’s poppet though he was. But he came every night that I allowed him. Every night that he wasn’t in Natchez, or Vicksburg, or up some back-alley of the river. He told me about his dealings when he came, but so did all the rest. All of them with their beloved and priceless secrets. Virgil paid Madame, same as anybody, before he came up to see me. Or he paid her after. But the things he told me he told no other soul.

Get used to listening, Madame said back at the beginning. Listening is part of it. And so I did. I listened to every caller that felt inclined. I discovered that I had a talent for it. I heard enough complaints and anecdotes and humorous asides to put a unit of infantry to sleep. I listened to Virgil no different than the rest—; I listened to him because of the Trade and the R——, and because I was used to listening. I listened the same way I carried myself straight and lady-like, or let my hips move side-wise when I crossed the room, or rouged my cheeks and nipples. Listening was money in my purse.

Telling,
however, was different. Telling was not a part of it, I knew that. I’d have been caned for it, or worse—: burnt with match-tips, locked away, fed on sugar-water for a week. Telling was not a part of it. But I began to tell him just the same.

I told Virgil everything I knew. In the early morning hours that were my own I’d feed him scraps of what I’d heard or seen. What Beauregard had told me, and Kennedy, and the R——, and all the rest. I taught that half-blind bumbler his own business. I educated Virgil in the Trade.

I should have known, from that, that he was dear to me. I did. I’d have left him to his blindness otherwise. I’d have left him to it gladly. I’d have kept to my own counsel, and been well.

As it was, however, Virgil kept coming. He would come in the spring and bring cut peaches in a bowl—; he would come in the summer and take me out on promenades. He’d walk me down the levee pridefully. This is Clementine, my cousin, he’d announce to all and sundry. Down from Kansas on a visit. Many of the men had been to Madame Lafargue’s and knew me but they bowed to me just the same. “Charmed,” the men said. Or “delighted.” He would come in the winter, and bring me hot buttered rum from the bar. As the years went by I watched him prosper and grow clever. He was a gentleman now, in a proper suit of clothes. I saw to that.

He was dearest to me when I was bitter. I took comfort in him then, which made me bitterer still. Dearness had no equity in that house. I resolved to put an end to it, hoping to recover my fortitude of mind. I changed in my manner toward him. Directly he came in I’d put on my working face and commence to treat him coldly. I dealt with him more coldly than with callers I abhorred. I made the visits bitter for him, as bitter as I could, but he would not be turned aside. I adore you, Clementine, he’d say. I love you truly. His certainty was something to behold. His certainty was a marvel and he grew dearer to me still because of it and I grew ever colder. It was all very well, his loving. I knew what would come of it in the end.

Once a month the R—— came and asked about his darling. Each time he came I expected to be punished, but the R—— would only take me by the hand. Success has made me gentle, Clem, he’d say. Then the questions would begin. How does Virgil seem to you? Is he comfortable in his mind? How is his appetite? How is his spend? Is it copious, or scant? Does he make a great noise, or a sigh? Does he speak to you, or cry out? And so on, like a sheriff, or a grand inquisitor—; but also like a boy of fourteen years. Everything I told him he approved of. Sometimes he scribbled marks into a book. That boy is meant for great things, Clem, he’d say to me. Expect great things from that dear boy of ours. A fear would come over me at this and I’d go quiet, watching the R—— scribbling and muttering to himself. Is that all? he’d say at the end of it, helping me out of my skirts. That’s all, I’d say. Capital! he’d say, and kiss me on the lips. If he knew Virgil was dear to me he took care not to show it.

After each of the R——’s visits I went colder than before. Have I offended you, dearest? Virgil would say, looking at me fit to die. His suffering gave me pleasure of a kind, as I was suffering over him.

Yes, Aggie, I’d say to him. You’ve offended me. Come to bed.

“A Made Man.”

THE NEW VIRGIL BALL was seven years in the making, Virgil says. But it took a single trip to Memphis to destroy him.

Seven years, to the day, after helping the Redeemer with his boots—and four after my first night with Clementine—I was steaming up the great brown muck-a-puddle on board the
Vesuvius,
the third steam-boat ever to clear the whole run of the river and still the most gaudy of the old “floating palaces.” I was a made man now, dandified and whiskered. If the nature of the wares I traded in disquieted me now and then, the fruits of my position quickly put my mind at ease. I was a courier of other people’s goods—; no more than that. The fleet of barges I managed might have carried barrels of beer, or barleycorn, or even pocket Bibles. I’d never once had to raise my voice, let alone fire my pistol. The Trade watched over me like a mother hen. I had no faith, as such, in my sooth-saying eye—; but I couldn’t deny that the Redeemer had made good use of it. The proof was all around me. Slowly, steadily, like a wine-stain working its way through wool, belief was colonizing me.

As the stream of flat-boats, rafts, and tar-bottomed pirogues slid by, I’d doff my hat, if I happened to be on deck, with all gentlemanly sympathies. Occasionally I’d catch sight of the odd colleague or share-holder in the Trade—: the greeting might be a slight nod, or—if the boat passed close by—a bar or two of “City of the Sun,” a shanty-town hymn that the Redeemer favored. It was easy at such moments, standing in the sun and the wind on the open deck, to think of myself as Fortune’s darling. I was the
Redeemer’
s darling, after all.

Only once did anyone catch me at my game—: a well-fed Calvinist from New England, round as a river-buoy, who passed the hours pacing the deck and swilling great jarfuls of quinine-water. Just below Island 30, less than an hour from my port of call, he cornered me against the starboard rail, his face a veritable milk-jug of fraternity—:

“Allow me to congratulate you, sirrah, on the architecture of your waist-coat!”

I stopped in mid-whistle and returned his bow—; the raft I’d been signaling passed quietly down-stream. “My waist-coat?” I replied.

“Yours and none other,” said the man. “A properly detailed waistcoat, to a man of refinement, is as a draught of cool water on a summer’s day.” He squinted at my belly. “Dibbern & Alexander, Jackson Square?”

“Chez Restoux, Paris,” I said, regarding him coolly. The quality of my wardrobe had done its share, in recent years, to offset the particulars of my face—; but I was unused, even now, to being addressed by strangers. Most people avoided me as they had always done, albeit with more civility. This plump little Yankee, however—who introduced himself as Barker—seemed to find my lack of politeness scenic.

“Glorious day to be on the river,” he chirruped.

“Quite,” I said, staring out at the dung-colored water.

“I deduce from your manner, Mr. Ball, that you’ve spent enough time on the Mississippi to be inoculated to its charms.”

I shrugged. “Twelve years this September.”

“
Twelve!
That’s long enough, by God.” Barker rested his elbows on the railing. “I’ll bet you’ve seen your share of devilment along this old creek.”

“Devilment?” I said, smiling at his choice of phrase.

“Which poet was it, Mr. Ball, who wrote—: ‘Skirt if you can its ebon tongue, its languid, fluvial curls . . .’?”

“I know nothing about poetry,” I lied. In fact I had a volume of Blake in my pocket at that very moment.

Barker rolled his eyes at me. “I’m
sure
you remember—it was set to music—quite a popular ditty, in its day—” He stopped in mid-sentence and rapped me fiercely on the chest—: “What tune were you whistling just now?”

I looked at him sharply. “Tune?”

He nodded. “You were torturing it to death against the rail.”

“Some old gospel or other,” I answered as casually as possible. “The name of it escapes me, I’m afraid.”

He took me passionately by the arm. “You
must
sing it for me, Mr. Ball!”

“I have no voice for singing, Mr. Barker,” I said curtly. “You’ve said as much yourself. I’ve only just now tortured—”

“
Blast
you!” he cried out before I could finish. “No matter! I remember it now.” Climbing three steps up the port stairs, so that our faces were level with one another, he began to croon, in a reedy but not unpleasant voice, tapping a lively accompaniment on the rail—:

Be-
hold,
the Lord of
E
-gypt comes riding on a cloud,
The
i
-dols all shall
trem
-ble, the
pha
-raohs cry a–loud—;
Five ci-ties down in
E-
gypt shall talk in Canaan’s tongue,
The first of these is
Mem
-phis, the
City
of the
Sun
!

He paused to catch his breath. “Shall I push on?”

He was a step above me now, staring down at me with the same moist-eyed glee he’d previously directed at the river. He was about to begin the second verse when I caught hold of him by his sleeve—:

“You sing charmingly, Mr. Barker—; but that song is a melancholy one to me.” I fixed my dead eye on him as balefully as I could. “A matter of the heart.”

He gave an impish little laugh. “But you were just now whistling it yourself!”

“It’s the words, sir, since you press me.” I took hold of his elbow and led him down into the bar, away from the river, out of public view. “As to the tune, it’s not so very different from ‘Bringing In the Sheep.’ ”

Barker let out a gasp. “Great
Josh!
I suppose it isn’t!”

We chose a table with a clear view of the river, and Barker sat down with his back to me, content, it seemed, to brood upon its evening majesty. Here was a chance to slip quietly away—: Barker seemed to have forgotten me completely. Instead I found myself sipping quinine-water mixed with bourbon. My mind was a puddle of confusion.

“What do you do for a living, Mr. Barker?” I asked. “Are you perhaps a waistcoat-merchant?”

“Hardly that,” said Barker unperturbedly. He turned and looked me frankly in the eye. “I’m a ferreter by trade, Mr. Ball. I ferret things out.”

Another long moment passed, during which the cogs of my brain came grudgingly into rotation. “You’re a Pinkerton,” I said at last.

“Not in the
general
sense!” Barker said cheerily. “You might say I’m a specialist of sorts.” He lowered his voice. “The nigger question, actually.”

“Runaways, you mean?” The urge to bolt was full upon me now.

“Correct, sirrah! That’s it exactly. Runaways.” Barker’s round head bobbed like the buoy it so resembled. “Runaways are my purview.” He tittered. “I shouldn’t
tell
you that, of course.”

I set my bourbon-and-quinine down carefully. If this man was a bounty-hunter, as he claimed, then he was the most wretched bounty-hunter ever born. One met with no shortage of naturals, jackasses, and madmen on the Mississippi—; the possibility could not be ruled out, however, that he was speaking to me in some manner of code. I racked my addled brain for a reply.

“My dear fellow,” Barker said after a time, “don’t look so stuffed and gutted! Have you never met a nigger-man before?”

“Not of your caliber,” I answered, truthfully enough.

He heaved a sigh. “They run off regular as clock-work, poor desperate creatures—; and if they stay out long enough, I find ’em. I find ’em, I catch ’em, and I coffle ’em together. Then a courier takes them back down-river and collects the bounty for me.” He gave me a wink, an action that lifted his left ear a good two inches above his right. “Often as not, I have to track
those
sons of Samuel down and recover my commission.” He lowered his voice. “Between you, me, and the mud on your shoe, it’s barely worth the effort!”

I stared at him in silence. He was taking on a supernatural quality for me now. “Sounds like a tiresome business,” I said at last.

“It
is
that, Mr. Ball. Very tiresome, and taxing. It helps to have a hobby-horse—anything at all—to wick away one’s worries.” He turned to look out at the water again, smiling at it as if in benediction. “Mine’s a trifle childish, but it seems to turn the trick. I study the kabala.”

“A privilege to meet you, Mr. Barker,” I said, already on my feet. “I get off in a quarter-hour, so if you’ll kindly excuse—”

“In a
quarter
-hour?” Barker squealed. “Where, for pity’s sake? There’s nothing up ahead of us but cottonwoods and muck!”

“A cottage, belonging to a relative of mine,” I said tightly. “On Island 37—”

“Island
37
!” Barker sang out, slapping the table-top in triumph. “I
knew
you lived a life of intrigue, Mr. Ball!”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” I mumbled, backing out onto the deck. “My aunty’s boy, Thaddeus, has a tubercular hip—”

“Don’t slink off like some sort of
pick-pocket,
Virgil!” Barker said, jumping up from the table. “I
may
call you Virgil?”

“Not slinking—begging your pardon—my cabin—”

“Favor me with your card, at the very least!”

“No card either, damn you!” I snapped, struggling against the urge to pitch myself into the river.

“Take mine, then,” Barker said, pressing a moist wad of paper into my hand. Before I could answer him he’d disappeared, quinine-water and all, like a jack-rabbit into its burrow.

I reeled back to my cabin in a daze. Who in Christ’s name was this Barker? I did my level best to know each member of our fraternity by sight, if not by name—; but I’d never before laid eyes on him, I was certain. On the other hand (“contrary-wise,” as the Redeemer would say), the Trade was growing more byzantine by the hour. It was just conceivable that Barker
was
a colleague—; but if so, what the devil was he playing at? I forced myself to walk measuredly about my cabin, taking deep, deliberate breaths, and in time I recovered my calm. There was nothing for it, I decided, but to carry on. Either the man was as pudding-headed as he seemed, or he was sporting with me masterfully—: I’d discover which, most likely, when I tried to disembark.

When the landing arrived, however, there was neither hide nor hair of him. As the steamer pulled up and the hitch-ties were thrown, I remembered the paper he’d given me and dug it out of my pocket. It was bare of print save for this device—:

Underneath was scribbled, in a loose, excitable hand—: MORRIS P. BARKER, RUNAWAYS. That was all. Barker did not appear out of the shadows to whistle at me or to clap me in irons, and I stepped off the
Vesuvius
not so much like a thief in the night as a school-boy who’s been told by his teacher to run along home and hunt squirrels. I all but cart-wheeled down the landing in my relief. But the thought of Barker—Barker blustering, Barker winking, Barker singing “City of the Sun” in his shrill, squirrelish voice—buzzed about me like a horse-fly. It followed me up to the Redeemer’s quarters, worrying me cruelly all the while—; then, all at once, it settled on the Redeemer’s brow and bit him.