Come August, Come Freedom (10 page)

Gabriel took the wing chair facing Mr. Prosser and the doorway. He heard Venus rustling in the foyer — her way of warning him to keep still and ready.

“I take seriously my responsibility to provide for the care and protection of all my family here at Brookfield. Have I not been generous with you ever since you can recall?” Mr. Prosser asked him. “Are you not happy, Gabriel?”

He knew what Mr. Prosser meant by “family.” Mr. Prosser often called Gabriel’s people family, though he had never known Mr. Prosser to tie his wife or his son naked to a tree limb, then leave them lying out in winter to wait for a whipping.

In the counting room, Gabriel’s heart and mind worked to one accord. He had come seeking Mr. Prosser’s mercy, not his wrath, so he answered, “I am most happy when I’m with Nanny. Sir.”

Mr. Prosser laughed to himself. “Ah, yes. You’ve come for a gift!” The planter man coughed once, then twice, and with the third he gave in to a violent hacking fit. Venus slipped into the room and placed a glass of water in the master’s trembling hand. The girl nodded for Gabriel to hurry with his request, then left the two men alone again.

“I’ve been loving Nanny since I first saw her when I first went to Richmond.”

“I knew you visited Wilkinson’s at night lately.” Mr. Prosser crossed, then uncrossed, his ankles and leaned forward. “But tell me, what do you think about Venus? I have long hoped you would take Venus.”

Gabriel shook his head
no
before Mr. Prosser could finish speaking. He looked to the door, thankful some other business had pulled Venus away. Still, he softened his voice before he spoke so that she would not hear. “Thank you, sir. I love my Nan, and besides, Venus is too trifling a woman for me.”

Mr. Prosser leaned his head against the chair back and groaned. So much time passed that Gabriel cleared his throat to try and rouse the master from sleep.

Venus entered the room again and startled Mr. Prosser awake.

“Yes, yes,” the planter said. “I give you my permission. I’ll speak to Wilkinson on your behalf, though I expect the old colonel will take no issue. He’s getting the better part here. You must know I’ll have no claim on any increase from this marriage.” Mr. Prosser picked up his pen to write their agreement in the book, then set it down again. “Venus, I can’t get warm today. Send Old Major in to tend to this fire.”

Venus and Gabriel exchanged glances. “Old Major passed over, Marse. Gone home now,” said Venus.

Mr. Prosser rubbed his eyes. “Did I not just see him there at my window? Well, I’m tired and nervous today.” The master sighed. “I need a good strong cup of coffee. Or some soup. Now, tell me, how is your mother?”

“Comin’ ’long, sir. Mam be back up here to the house before long,” Venus answered.

“Good, good. I miss having Kissey near.” He sank deep into his chair, then remembered Gabriel. “I’ll do your bidding with Wilkinson. Are we finished?”

“Thank you,” Gabriel said. Then he rushed to add, “Venus here, she loves Mr. Burton’s Isaac, sir, and it’s a known fact he loves her back. Isaac’s a good, strong man and will care for her.”

Before Gabriel could wink at Venus and slip out of the counting room, Mr. Prosser grabbed Gabriel by the wrist. “Wait.”

“Sir?”

“I dreamed of your damned father last night. He came to my bed drenched by rain. Laughing.” Mr. Prosser described the ghostly encounter. “I asked what business he had with me, then his face became yours. On waking this morning, I prevailed upon Venus to check the floor for dampness, to see if he had come back and haunted me in the night.”

Gabriel envisioned Pa’s bony face. Even now, he met up with Pa every night in his sleep. He had often wondered if he would speak a single word or simply fall into Pa’s embrace when they would finally reunite, way up yonder. He wanted so badly to tell his father,
Pa, I’m going to marry Nanny at Young’s spring. I’m going to set my Nan free.

He said to himself,
We’ll hold hands when we jump the broom. Three times, then she’ll be my wife. Forever, Pa. Like you and Ma, forever.

“I also dreamed of my father in the night,” Gabriel said, and ran from the counting room. Mr. Prosser had kept the room so hot, now Gabriel felt dizzy and out of breath. Outside, he leaned against the cold, white wood planks of the great house, then he set off past the quarter to Young’s spring to meet Nanny.

He knew she would be waiting. Seeing him there, smiling his snaggletooth smile at the top of the hill, Nanny would come running toward him. He would call out,
My bride, my bride,
over and over when he saw her blue skirt hiked up to give her long legs room to sprint up the hill. She would jump into his arms when she reached him, then he would swing her around and around and love her right there on the still side of the hill. Afterward, Nan would complain about being cold. He would bring all of her into his lap until she felt warm again.

But when Gabriel did reach the apple tree, he changed his mind. The smell of fallen, fermenting fruit longing to return to the earth bade him turn around back to the quarter.
Nan will wait.

He took the last three ready apples from his tree — one for Nanny, one for himself, and one for Ma.
I’ll visit Ma first,
he decided. He bit into the fruit without polishing it first on his shirt. He knew the superstition about unclean apples, and he didn’t care.

Gabriel, scared of nothin’,
Ma always would say. He could hear her scolding him good.
Now, Gabriel, wipe off that apple, or you askin’ for trouble from the devil hisself.

Let Satan come on, and Mr. Prosser, too,
Gabriel thought.
I’m goin’ to marry my Nan!

The whole way back to Ma’s hut, Gabriel planned what he would say, how he would tell Ma. He wanted to bring her this small gift of the last apple of the season while she lay suffering in the clutches of the fever. The news about a wedding would ease her spirit.
Nanny will wait for me till I get back from telling Ma.

His ma was resting, curled up in Pa’s bed. Venus or Mrs. Prosser or someone else had brought quilts down from the house and laid them three deep across her. Gabriel sniffed the top one for cornmeal or lavender to tell who had been caring for his mother. The bedclothes smelled of bacon.
Venus,
he thought.
She’s all right, that Venus. All right after all.

Ma had yet to stir or roll over. He dunked his kerchief in the water bucket, wrung it out, and draped the cool indigo scrap cloth around the back of Ma’s neck.

“Ma,” Gabriel said. “I got good news. Mr. Prosser agreed. I’m marrying Nanny.”

She groaned a little.

“Nobody knows yet, Ma, but you and me: I’ve about saved up all Nanny’s free money. Your grandchildren will be free and Virginia born, Ma.”

She still hadn’t moved, so Gabriel tried to tease her by saying what Ma always said to him when she had big news. “Now, that’s what I know. What do you know?”

Ma managed to roll over and reached for Gabriel. Her lips were dry and cracked. One suffering eye, swollen purple and protruding onto her cheek, was already gone on ahead to seek the best way home. And the other, still tender and searching, fixed Gabriel. “Where’s your pa?” Ma whispered.

“Shhh,” Gabriel said. “That fever got you seeing things good. That’s what a fever does. Pa’s gone on. A long time now. You remember?”

“Pa gone already?” Ma looked lost in a place she should have known well. “I was just talkin’ to him. He asked me what kind of trouble you makin’. Asked about your lady, too. Pa gone already?”

Then Gabriel knew for sure.
Only the dying see the dead.
He folded her frail hand around the apple.

Ma brought the green apple to her nose and inhaled deep. “Little boy, you remember how you liked to climb? You remember how you’d shinny up, way up the tippy-top, up that tree? You liked to leave your brother behind and stay all alone up there.”

He kissed her forehead.

“‘I can see all the way to Colonel Wilkinson’s,’ you would tell me. And what would I say to you?”

Gabriel closed his eyes and squeezed her hand. He shook his head no to stop her from dying, but she persisted.

“Tell me, son. You remember? Tell me, what would I say to you?”

He gave in. “You never told me to get down. You’d ask me, ‘That’s all the far you see, child? Just to the colonel’s place? Come on, now, how far can you see, angel-boy? To the city, to the market, to the sea?’” Gabriel laughed at the memory, then told her, “But Wilkinson’s is ’bout far as I need to see these days. Only got eyes for Nanny, Ma. Ma?”

Gabriel never made it to Wilkinson’s place that day. He stayed with Ma through the night, until sunrise, guarding her body until he felt sure her spirit had reached its true home and reunited with Pa.

When he went up to tell Venus of Ma’s passing over, he learned that, though Kissey had, thankfully, survived the fever, the great house was in mourning. With Mr. Prosser’s death, the care and protection of all the people was conveyed to Thomas Henry.

Gabriel, Solomon, and Martin buried Ma beside Old Major. The folks who were well or recovered enough came to pay their respects, and they knelt beside her grave while the boys recited psalms and while each one wondered to himself what kind of man could go on without his mother.

By then, Dog had become a hideous sight to behold from her own grieving heart. Thomas Henry declared her a threat to Brookfield and prevailed on Gabriel to take Mr. Prosser’s pistol to Dog’s temple. Instead, Gabriel drove Dog deep into the swamp, but he wouldn’t pull the trigger on Dog. Ever.

“Go on,” he told her. “You’re free to be anywhere but Brookfield.” Then he felt the giant crater in his heart where Ma used to be. He said to Dog, “I know just how you feel, girl. Go on, now. Free to go anywhere but home.”

When Gabriel told Thomas Henry the truth — that he had run the hound off and set her free — the twenty-two-year-old new lord of Brookfield erupted. “Insolent!” he called Gabriel. In return for Gabriel’s defying him, Thomas Henry refused to honor the late Mr. Prosser’s promise to Gabriel.

“Besides,” Thomas Henry said, “Father wrote nothing in his book regarding permission for you to marry Wilkinson’s Nanny. I desire that you marry Venus instead.”

Once, Gabriel had loved Thomas Henry and preferred Thomas Henry’s company to that of his brothers, but now he could not even stomach the sweet, pampered smell of him. He recalled how Ma had told him once, “Workin’ hard never been good enough to set a person free or keep a man with his family. Now, that’s what I know; what do you know?”

What Gabriel knew was that even a constant flow of money would never satisfy Thomas Henry. Mr. Prosser had willed his son plenty of land, bequeathed him fifty hands, and yet left his son penniless. To get what he wanted, to get what he was promised, to get his fair share, Gabriel decided to withhold from hiring out until Thomas Henry agreed to his marriage to Nan.

Show him what I’m worth. Let his pocket feel empty of my earnings. If working hard’s not good enough for Thomas Henry to give me what I want, then I won’t work at all.

Prosser’s man summoned Gabriel to the forge, but Gabriel would not yield, so he was ordered beaten, whipped, and strung up.

GABRIEL WITHSTOOD
Thomas Henry’s wickedness, but Brookfield hardly withstood the new master’s mismanagement and neglect. For Gabriel, the year was barbaric. He never thought of running, because of his love for Nanny. Finally, due to the urging of Mrs. Ann Prosser and the dwindling of Brookfield’s funds, Thomas Henry relented, and, for a second time, Gabriel was granted permission to marry Nan.

Kin from all around the countryside — Henrico, Hanover, Caroline, and Richmond — were fixing to gather for the nuptials. Mrs. Prosser donated faded blue chintz and a strip of frayed lace toward a new dress for Nanny. Jacob Kent gave Gabriel an old black velvet overcoat when he heard the news. Jupiter promised he would wash his shirt and dry it in the sunshine. Solomon joked that he would gladly take a wife, too, if only Jupiter would also wash out his pants. Now all Gabriel needed was a pig to barbecue for the wedding feast.

Jupiter knew just where to find one.

Solomon and Jupiter accompanied Gabriel to Absalom Johnson’s farm for the securing of Nanny’s wedding pig. Isaac refused to go along. At the time, Jupiter was hired out to Johnson on land rented from Colonel Wilkinson. Jupiter knew the farm well — where spiders hid from the light, where the best pig slept, and where Johnson napped in the late afternoon. Solomon went to watch out, to create a diversion should the need arise.

By the letter of the law, Absalom Johnson’s pig was not Gabriel’s to take, though everyone in Henrico embraced the more pliable spirit of the law. Out in the country, moderation abided when livestock went missing. If no man got
caught
stealing, the theft was most often overlooked, but bunglers had best beware.

In the broad light of day, Jupiter slipped under the split-rail fence. He dove for the fattest pig and handed the prize across the fence to Gabriel. The boys congratulated themselves at the easy pickings, but the boys celebrated too soon.