Queen (31 page)

    to sell, and was furious with the catchers for marking them. Slaves who

    were thought to be troublemakers did not fetch the best price.

    The floggings began, and those who watched wept for their brothers, but

    did not cry out as loudly as those being punished. Their screams reached

    the house, and the slaves there, and from the stables, crept out to see,

    but kept their distance.

    Both men being flogged fainted, and water was thrown over them. When it

    was done they were dragged away to the shed, and chained up, and a woman

    sent to rub salt into their wounds, to stop the bleeding.

Everyone waited.

182 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    It was a cold day, and the runaways were shivering. Harris simply walked

    along the line, inspecting them, and trying to evaluate what the catchers'

    beatings had cost him.

    They waited for an hour, and then the auctioneer arrived in his cart with

    his men. There was no official slave market in Florence, but an

    enterprising retired overseer had set up a lucrative business, providing

    and disposing of slaves, as an agent for the larger cities.

    Fear danced through Cap'n Jack's heart and mind. He could not believe the

    Massa would let him be sold.

"These four?" the auctioneer asked, and Harris nodded.

    "And him," he said, pointing to Willis, whose brother Henry had run away

    the previous year, and had never been found.

    "I ain't done nuttin'!" Willis cried, and clung to his woman.

    "You're a troublemaker like your brother," Harris said. The men dragged

    Willis away from his screaming wife. Willis fought and punched, but they

    knocked him senseless and put him in the cart with the runaways.

    Harris watched impassively, and then turned and stared at Cap'n Jack.

    "And him," he said, pointing to a young, rough giant, Abel, who knew no one

    at The Forks and went quietly. He didn't care where he went, or whom he

    served; slavery was slavery, no matter who the Massa was, and one day he

    would be free.

    Harris did not take his eyes off Cap'n Jack. Despite the cold, Cap'n Jack

    was sweating, shivering, praying that his knees would not give way.

    "Fetch the woman," Harris said softly to Albert, who nodded at two

    catchers, and they went to the weaving house.

    Slowly it dawned on Cap'n Jack, and a rage greater than any rage he had

    ever known filled him, and a fear, and an overwhelming despair.

"No!" he cried, from the pit of his soul.

Harris stared at him.

    To Harris it was simple. James had said he had failed at his job, and

    Harris agreed. He had not brought order in six months, and since he could

    not blame himself and his methods, he had to find a scapegoat.

    BLOODLINES 183

Annie.

    If Annie had such a powerful effect on him, a righteous white man, what

    effect did she have on the licentious blacks? She was a whore, like all

    nigra women, who had bewitched him. So she must be a troublemaker,

    causing dissension among the hands, causing them to fight each other for

    possession of her, just as he would have fought any man to take her as

    his own. Women were the root of all evil, foul temptresses, wanton

    harlots, and he could not maintain order and discipline as long as she

    was at The Forks. So he would tell the Massa.

    In any case, it would be too late when James returned. She would be gone,

    gone with her strumpet, lascivious ways, gone from his mind, gone from

    his flesh, gone from his lust, forever.

    They bought Annie from the weaving house. She held Easter in her arms,

    and was not struggling because she did not know what was going to happen

    to her. Even if she had known, she might not have struggled. She had

    never struggled against her fate before, and she had never believed that

    her happiness with Cap'n Jack would last.

    Cap'n Jack saw her and began shouting at her, telling her to run, to get

    away, begging someone, anyone, for help. He pulled at his chains, but

    they held fast to the tree. He used all his strength to jerk on them, to

    break them, to get free, like a crazed puppet unable to be rid of his

    confining strings.

    Women were crying now, not because they loved Annie, but because it might

    happen to any of them.

    Annie accepted what they did to her, because there was nothing she could

    do. Tears were streaming down her face. Although she had known her

    happiness could not last, she couldn't bear that it was going to end, it

    had been so sweet to her, and she called out a curse on the world.

    She struggled when they took Easter from her, but a man held the child

    while they put the chains on Annie, and then gave her back. They pushed

    Annie to the cart, and one of the runaways leaned down to help her up,

    because of Easter.

"No," Harris said. "Not the brat."

    His cruelty was breathtaking to them. He could not separate the child

    from her mother, surely not.

    "The brat has done nothing," Harris said. "The brat stays here. "

184 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    Time seemed to stop for a moment, and there was an eon of silence. Then out

    of the silence came a sound that none of the slaves watching wanted to hear

    again in their lifetime.

Annie screamed.

    She screamed and fought and kicked and bit and screamed and begged and

    punched, and screamed again, the primal cry of a mother's pain.

    Cap'n Jack screamed with her, and their cries melded in the winter air, in

    a duet of agony, and those watching tried to block out the sound, for it

    came from hell.

    The auctioneer had no time to waste and was merciful. Unable to get the

    frantic, demented woman into the cart, he hit her on the head with the butt

    of his gun, and she fell to the ground senseless. They snatched Easter from

    her, and a woman ran to take the child, to hold her and shield her from the

    awful vision of her mother's going.

    Cap'n Jack fell to his knees, weeping and scrabbling through the dirt,

    trying to get to his love.

    They bundled Annie into the cart, and she lay on the floor of it,

    unconscious. Harris signed the papers for the auctioneer, and the cart

    rumbled away.

    Cap'n Jack could hardly see through his tears, but climbed to his feet

    trying to catch one last glimpse of Annie. All he saw was a slave cart

    rumbling down the hill, and all he heard was anguish.

    Harris waited till the slave cart was gone, and then made a speech. He told

    them he had been lenient with them. He had eased up on the discipline and

    punishments, and he had been repaid with ingratitude. Today was just an

    example of what he would do if any more slaves attempted to run away, or if

    any more of them caused trouble. He would forcibly separate husbands from

    wives, mothers from sons, daughters from fathers, just as he had done this

    day.

    He kept them standing in the cold for the rest of the afternoon, and would

    not let them go back to their quarters. Easter was crying, but she was only

    the loudest, for ail the women and many of the men were in tears of grief

    and discomfort.

Toward sunset he let them go.

"What about him?" Albert asked.

    Cap'n Jack had fallen to the ground and lay there, motionless.

    BLOODLINES 185

    "Let him go," Harris said. The slave cart was well away by now. "See if

    he can shut the brat up."

    Easter was still crying, although the woman who had been holding her was

    trying to feed her some porridge.

    Harris walked away. Albert unlocked Cap'n Jack's chains, and left him

    lying on the ground.

    Slowly, sensibility n,,turned to Cap'n Jack, and rage. He lay still for

    a moment, letting his anger boil, until it must, perforce, explode.

    He scrambled to his feet and ran screaming at Harris. Albert cried a

    warning, and Harris turned as Cap'n Jack fell on him, punching him,

    kicking him, but no match for the overseer, who jabbed hard, viciously

    hard, in Cap'n Jack's stomach.

    It winded Cap'n Jack, and gave Harris the advantage. He grabbed the

    slave, and called for Alfred. They dragged him back to his tree, chained

    him again, and Harris lashed him without mercy.

    Not even the physical pain of the lash could match the agony in Cap'n

    Jack's heart, and he screamed and cried and begged God for mercy, not

    because of the whip, but because of what he had lost.

    23

James approached the Hermitage unwillingly. He had always loved coming to

this place before, but now he was filled with foreboding and guilt. He

hoped he would not see Rachel,

    He had avoided coming here for three days, and found some consolation in

    the company of Eleanor, in whose house they were staying, and Sara, who

    came to visit. He had not told them of his conflicting emotions toward

    Andrew, of his divided loyalties, nor had they asked. They greeted him

    warmly, and Sally and the children, and,gossiped about their lives as if

    James had never been away.

Eleanor was in high dudgeon, because Richard Coll, who

186 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

had been Andrew's aide in Florida, was paying attention to her daughter,

James's niece Mary. Eleanor had no time for Coll.

    "A brigand," she sniffed. "Like that eccentric Houston boy, or any of

    those who follow Andrew so blindly. Pirates, the lot of them."

James smiled wryly at Sally.

    "They're not so bad, Eleanor," he said, "just young men sowing their

    oats."

    "Mr. Coll's oats will not be sown near my daughter," Eleanor snapped,

    wagging her finger at James to emphasize her point. "You do not know what

    it's like, Jamie; you do not live here anymore."

    According to Eleanor, Nashville had become impossible. Andrew had

    collected an army of supporters around him in his bid for the presidency,

    mostly young men or army veterans, and they were riding, rampant and

    roughshod over the town.

    "Getting drunk at all hours of the day, picking fights with innocent

    bystanders because they did not vote for Andrew, and doing in broad

    daylight things that decent folk do only in the darkness, in the privacy

    of their own homes."

She was working herself into a considerable state.

    "And Mr. Coll is one of the worst of them," she said, her voice quivering

    with indignation. "But will Andrew call them into line? No. He only

    laughs and encourages them to greater excess."

She rounded on James.

    "Heaven help us if he does become president," she said, as if it were all

    James's fault. "For I have seen his govemment. "

    Sally tried to hide her giggles, and James got cross with her, but

    gently, for he saw the funny side of it.

    They took A.J. to his new school, and were satisfied by it. Sally thought

    it was too spartan, but A.J. told her not to be silly, he could look

    after himself, and asked his father if Ephraim could stay as his personal

    slave. James didn't want to lose Ephraim from the stables at The Forks,

    but promised to find someone for his son.

They went to visit Colonel Elliot, and checked on the prog- BLOODLINES 187

ress of the blooded horses. James was satisfied that all was in order, and

pleased with the colonel's work.

    Then he had no more excuses. Sally offered to come with him, but he

    declined. He had to do this on his own, whatever it was he was going to

    do.

    He rode to the Hermitage and sat on his horse for a while when he got

    there, enjoying the view and admiring the new house that Andrew had

    built. It was much simpler than The Forks, but suited its garden setting

    to perfection. He dismounted, and walked in, leading his mount. A slave

    came running to take the horse.

James looked around, and saw Rachel. He was shocked.

    She was sitting in the garden, with Alfred, wrapped up in blankets and

    reading from her Bible. She had lost a lot of weight, and was pale and

    looked ill, and her hair was quite gray.

    Alfred saw James, and whispered to Rachel. She looked up from her Bible,

    and did not seem to recognize him for a moment, but then a golden smile

    suffused her face, and she tried to stand, to greet him.

    She stumbled against her chair, and Alfred reached out to steady her.

    James walked quickly to them, and kissed Rachel and bade her sit, which

    she did gladly.

    She was so pleased to see him. She smiled and laughed, and held his

    hands. She begged him to forgive her appearance; she had been in bed most

    of the winter, but was feeling better now, and was taking advantage of

    the lovely day to get some fresh air.