Queen (25 page)

    bodice, and inspected her skin for scars of a lashing, but there were

    none. As they were taking their leave, the house nigger turned back to

    her and smiled.

    She went to the block the next day, and a few Massas bid for her, but

    then suddenly the Massa with the house nigger made a bid that was much

    higher than anyone else's and everyone gasped in astonishment. She was

    sold to him. The Massa came to her, and told her he was sorry that she

    would have to stay here for a few days until transport could be set up,

    but he made arrangements to have her moved to the auctioneer's own slave

    quarters, which were a little more comfortable, and she wasn't barred in.

I She guessed that her new Massa must be very rich, because when the slave

cart came for her, there were four other black men, field hands, in it,

and a lighter-skinned man who was immaculately dressed. He said his name

was Parson Dick, and he spoke differently from the others, almost like a

Massa. Four slave catchers had been employed to take them to their new

plantation, and they traveled for four days, staying in the slave quarters

of cheap inns at night. To her surprise, they weren't chained at any time.

"New Massa said not," Parson Dick told her.

    BLOODLINES 145

    Not that she, or anyone, could have escaped. One of the slave catchers

    was always on guard, and they had guns.

Besides, where would she escape to?

    At the end of the fourth day they came to a fine plantation, with fields

    ready, although no cotton had been planted. There was a big mansion on

    a hill at the end of the drive, but it wasn't finished yet. Workmen were

    putting glass in the windows, and slate on the roof, and the grounds

    around it were still wild, and not yet a garden.

    They were delivered to the overseer, a middle-aged man called Evans, and

    he warned them that he would not tolerate troublemakers or runaways. For

    all his bluster, Annie didn't think he was a very strong man, and the

    field hands sniggered softly when he turned his back to greet the Massa.

    The Massa welcomed them, and told them he expected them to work hard, but

    that if they did he would treat them well. The house nigger was with him,

    smiling, Annie thought, at her.

    The overseer took them to the slave quarters, a collection of newly built

    huts around a clearing, and assigned them their places. As they walked

    there, the house nigger walked with them, and pointed out the Massa's log

    cabin, in a field behind the big house, and said he'd be moving into the

    big house next month.

    Annie's room was as good as any she had ever had, small and bare, with

    a small window, a chair and a bunk, but it had the smell of new timber,

    and that pleased her.

    The house nigger came with the Missy, and she was very kind, and said she

    would organize some new clothes for Annie, who had only the dress she

    wore. She admired the weave of that dress, and said she hoped that Annie

    would be happy making lovely cloth for them.

The Missy left, but the house nigger stayed.

"I's Cap'n Jack," he said. "I's the Massa man."

Annie shrugged.

    "Ain't nuttin' to be afeared of here," he said. "Ain't no one to hurt you

    here. "

Annie shrugged again. She always got hurt, eventually.

    Cap'n Jack stared at her for a few moments, then told her he'd come by

    to see her again soon and left.

146 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    Annie sat down on the bunk and stared at the place that was to be her new

    home.

    Some people at her old plantation said she had the gift of second sight,

    but although she could see the future, it wasn't true. It was simply that

    Annie knew that nothing good was ever going to happen to her.

    18

Cap'n Jack was fascinated by Annie from the first moment he saw her. A sad,

silent woman in a pen at the slave market, she seemed filled with dark

secrets, and some inner pain that Cap'n Jack guessed came from beating or

rape, or from being sold away from her family. She bore her grief with such

quiet dignity that Cap'n Jack wanted to take her into his arms and hold her,

and never let anyone hurt her again.

    He told James about her, and that she was a weaver, and James's eyes

    glinted with a spark of an idea that he wouldn't reveal to Cap'n Jack. They

    went to Annie and inspected her, and James was impressed. Cap'n Jack was

    pleased to see that she bore no scars from the lash on her back, but knew

    that some Massas had subtler ways of inflicting punishment. The following

    day, at the auction, there was some bidding for Annie, but then James

    surprised everyone by offering a price well above the highest bid. Cap'n

    Jack looked at him in surprise, but James only shrugged.

"She can do the weaving," he said.

    When they got back to The Forks, James told his builders he wanted a

    weaving house, and put Cap'n Jack in charge of it. Cap'n Jack went to the

    slave quarters to pick out a site, but it was for Annie, and he wanted to

    keep her apart from the others.

    There was a small grove of oaks halfway between the big house and the slave

    quarters, with a clearing in the middle, just large enough for a small

    house. This was the spot that

    BLOODLINES 147

Cap'n Jack chose. Here, Annie would be half hidden from the world. James

approved of his choice and ordered a loom from Atlanta.

The new slaves were delivered a few days later, and were greeted by Evans,

the foreman. Evans had been with James in Nashville, and was really an

overseer, but James didn't like the title. Evans was gruff and shouted a

lot, but was not really a strong man. Cap'n Jack doubted that he was the

right man for the new job. In Nashville they'd had only forty slaves on

the plantation, including the house niggers, and here there would be

nearly a hundred working in the fields, and several more in the house.

Evans organized the field hands, and Cap'n Jack was left in charge of

Annie and the new butler, Parson Dick.

    He took Annie to a hut, and tried to talk to her, but she only shrugged.

    Whatever her hurt was, Cap'n Jack knew it would take time to heal. He

    went outside and Parson Dick made himself comfortable on a log, waiting

    to be told where to go. They were pressed for space. The big house wasn't

    ready, the Massa and his family were crowded into the log cabin, and not

    all the new slave quarters had been finished. In the end Cap'n Jack

    suggested that Parson Dick bunk in with him. The butler made a bit of a

    fuss, saying that things had been different at his old plantation, but

    it was either Cap'n Jack's hut or the shed with the field hands, so

    Parson Dick saw reason.

    Parson Dick settled in and washed at the well. He was finicky about his

    personal cleanliness, and had not been able to wash properly at the slave

    market, nor on the road. He asked to be taken on a tour of the new house

    and to meet his staff, so Cap'n Jack conducted him through the nearly

    finished mansion, and introduced him to old Crosspatch, the cook who had

    come with them from Nashville, and her new young assistant, Julie. Parson

    Dick thanked Cap'n Jack and dismissed him, saying he would like to talk

    to the Missy next. Cap'n Jack was not used to being given orders by other

    slaves, but saw the sense of it and went to find Sally. Parson Dick

    settled at the kitchen table with Crosspatch and Julie and told them how

    he intended to run the house. Crosspatch, who had a short

148 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

temper, flared, but Parson Dick told her he was in charge and if she didn't

like it she could complain to the Massa. Julie giggled.

    Cap'n Jack found Sally but she had some other jobs for him, for the

    furniture was starting to arrive from Charleston, and the new drapes and

    rugs. It was all in crates, for it had come from Europe, and so they stored

    it all in one of the back rooms in the house until they took possession. It

    was nearly midnight when Cap'n Jack finished his work, but that was not

    unusual these days. Ever since the Massa had bought the land and then got

    sick, Cap'n Jack had been in charge of many of the preparations for the new

    house.

    He went past Annie's hut on the way to his own, but the candle was out, and

    he guessed she was asleep. He hoped the angels would guard her, and went to

    his own hut, where Parson Dick pumped him for two hours about the Jackson

    family, until Cap'n Jack fell asleep, fully clothed, on his bunk.

    He woke at cockcrow, washed at the well, and saw Annie in line for her

    food. He greeted her, and told her she had no work to do until the loom

    arrived, but could make herself useful cleaning up in the house. She nodded

    and was pleasant, but otherwise ignored his existence. Cap'n Jack had his

    meals in the kitchen of the big house, which was the first part of the

    building to be completed, and ate his breakfast listening to Crosspatch's

    complaints about the new butler. She was particularly aggrieved this day,

    because Missy Sally had sided with Parson Dick on some matter of the menus,

    but Cap'n Jack ignored her. Crosspatch was always complaining.

    It was another chaotic day. The builders were Scrambling to finish the

    house, Sally was trying to move furniture into rooms that weren't ready,

    Micah and Tiara were looking after the children, Ephraim was running round

    the stables getting ready for the horses which were soon to arrive, and

    everyone wanted something from Cap'n Jack.

    As he walked back from the stables, Cap'n Jack saw Evans charging around on

    his horse organizing work gangs to plant the new season's cotton.

    The new field hands were a crew of fine and able-bodied men, but, strangers

    to the Jackson household, had no special loyalty to their new Massa, and

    were testing the limits of the foreman's temper and ability to control..

    BLOODLINES 149

    "There gwine be trouble," Cap'n Jack said to himself, but it was not his

    business, and Missy Sally was calling him to help talk sense to the

    gardeners.

    He hardly saw Annie that day, but after his evening meal he filched a

    couple of pieces of fried chicken from the plate and took them to her.

    She was sitting in her hut staring at nothing, and humming some odd chant

    to herself.

"Got some chicken," Cap'n Jack said.

    She took the chicken without thanks, and ate it with a surprising

    daintiness.

    Cap'n Jack squatted on his haunches and waited till she had done. There

    was silence for a while.

"It was a purty song you was humming," Cap'n Jack said.

"African," Annie shrugged. "It from Africa."

"That where you from?"

"No," Annie said.

    He asked a few more questions, but she only responded with a yes or a no,

    or a shrug, and then he heard Parson Dick calling him, so he bade her

    good night, and went to find out what the matter was.

He saw her every evening after that, and always took her some nice scraps

of food from the main kitchen. She took the food but never thanked him,

and responded to his questions simply. He told her of his life, but she

didn't seem interested. He told her of how he had come to Massa Jackson,

but she didn't seem to care. He told her of the promise offreedorn the

Massa had given him, and then she spoke.

"Ain't never gwine happen," she said.

    Cap'n Jack told her she was wrong, that Massa James was different from

    other Massas, but she only shrugged.

"All Massas the same," she said.

    Cap'n Jack felt cheered. At least she had started to take part in the

    conversations, even if it was on a negative note.

    A few days later the new loom was delivered, and Cap'n Jack had it set

    up in Annie's hut. It was enormous and almost filled the little room, but

    they had no other place to put it until the weaving house was ready.

Now, for the first time, Annie showed interest in something.

150 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

She traced her fingers along the wooden frame of the loom, and sat in front

of it, and tested its span with her arms. It was an excellent piece of

equipment, the finest that could be had, for James was not stinting on

anything for The Forks of Cypress.

    Annie began setting up the lines for the warps, and seemed to have

    forgotten Cap'n Jack was there.

"I , s need yam," she said after a while.

    "Tell me what yo' want, I get it for yo'," Cap'n Jack replied.

    She asked what cloth she was to make first, and then gave him her list and

    he went to organize it. When he came back, she was sitting at her empty

    loom, as if it was her natural home.

    The yam came, and she started weaving. Cap'n Jack loved to watch her. She

    worked gracefully, elegantly, shuttling the bobbin to and fro with a

    natural rhythm, patient in her labors, and as she worked, she hummed odd

    and lilting melodies that seemed to be from another place and time, and

    lovely cloth began to reveal itself, out of the complexity of wood and

    string and bundles of yam.

    Mostly, she worked during the day, but Cap'n Jack could come to her only in

    the evenings, and she took to weaving when he was there. She seldom spoke,

    but listened to everything he had to say, while she chanted and made cloth.

    After a while he would fall silent and just watch her, enchanted by her

    easy grace, and lulled by the sweet songs she sang. Cap'n Jack was happy in

    her company, and slowly it dawned on him that she was as happy with him. In

    the winter he got sick and she nursed him, with herbs and strange potions.

    He got better. He began bringing his food from the kitchen, to cat with

    her, and always had enough for both of them. When the weaving house was

    ready, he supervised the moving of the loom, and found her some simple

    furniture, a bed and a table and a couple of old rocking chairs that the

    builders had used and didn't need anymore.

He helped furnish the big house, too. At last it was ready, six months late,

and they unpacked the crates and for the first time he saw what James and

Sally had bought. The drapes were

    BLOODLINES 151

velvet and the rugs were intricately patterned and came from a place called

Persia. The chandeliers were crystal, and some held over a hundred candles.

The furniture was beautiful, mahogany and teak and cedar, hand-carved in

Europe. The new cutlery was silver, and the crockery was of fine china from

England, with a pattern especially designed for James Jackson. The beds were

magnificent four-posters, heavy and solid, with flowers and birds and small

animals carved on the wooden posts, and canopies of brocade and damask.

    The floors were polished until they shone like mirrors, and the rugs looked

    even more beautiful against them. Parson Dick, who knew a very great deal

    about a lot of things, told him that the weavers deliberately made a flaw

    in every carpet, because only the God they believed in could create

    something perfect. The dining table was long and gleamed with beeswax, and

    could accommodate twenty people without seeming crowded. The dining chairs

    were high-backed, and had tapestry covers. The paintings that adorned the

    walls were old and in heavy gilt frames, but then James commissioned a

    traveling artist to make portraits of all his family.

    When the house was finished, relations and visitors came from all over the

    South to see the wonder of it. James was a state senator now, and

    politicians and businessmen and their wives, and the governor of the state,

    and even some politicians from Washington, the capital, all came to see the

    wonder that was The Forks of Cypress.

    Shortly afterward they had a party, a housewarming and a christening,

    because Sally had given birth to another son, and he was called James

    Jackson III in honor of his father. Everyone agreed that the name was right

    and proper, but laughed at the confusion it would cause. If they called the

    father's name, would the boy come running, or if they spoke to the boy,

    would the father respond?

    James and Sally toyed with nicknames for him. Sara and Eleanor were keen on

    Jamie, which had been James's pet name in Ireland, but the parents thought

    he should have his own identity. For a few days they tried Jimmy, because

    of Sara's late husband, but it didn't suit him.

    The registrar of births solved the problem. He was a punctilious clerk from

    England, neat and fastidious, and trained in

152 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

the old ways. When he wrote the new boy's name in the book, in the most