Queen (40 page)

    nagging sense of guilt.

    "I've been very proud of you, Jass," he said, with a sudden rush of

    affection. "You've never let me down."

    "Thank you, Papa." Jass was astonished. This was the closest his father

    had ever come to an expression of love. A similar, sudden affection

    flooded him, and the boy in him wanted to run to his father, give him the

    biggest hug of his life, and tell him how much he loved him. The man in

    him knew that such an action would only embarrass both of them and

    prob-

    MERGING 237

ably destroy the moment, so he smiled and pretended to be a drunk instead,

    "And thank you for the port." He grinned and left the room, staggering

    in mock inebriation.

    James laughed. Jass was a good lad; he'd behaved beautifully in the face

    of a difficult interview. Now that it was over, James couldn't remember

    why he had thought it so urgent, why it couldn't have waited a day, a

    week, a month, a year, for pressuring the young man to accept the concept

    of an arranged marriage was something that could easily have been delayed

    until the boy had sown at least a few of his wild oats.

    He stared at the silver horse's head, and it reminded him again, as it

    always did, of his own father, and of the bitter disappointment that

    James had seen in his father's face the last time they had spoken. How

    proud of me he should be now, he thought, with all that I have achieved.

    Then he looked at the letter from Andrew lying on his desk, and it

    reminded him of what John Coffee had said to him a week ago, and he

    remembered why the necessity of the talk with Jass had seemed to have

    such a pressing urgency.

    29

Upstairs in his room, Jass undressed and slipped on his nightshirt. All

his senses were sparkling, and he decided he must be a little tipsy. Gee,

it felt good. He wondered if he dared sneak downstairs for another glass,

but he opened the windows, saw the light spilling onto the veranda, and

knew that his father was still in his study. He gazed at the stars, and

smelled the heady scent of jasmine. Crickets sang, frogs croaked, and

somewhere an owl hooted.

    He turned down the oil lamp, and the room was bathed in moonlight. He got

    into bed, loving the crisp linen sheets, and sank into the luxurious

    embrace of the feather mattress, which he blessed his mother for buying

    a year ago. Until then, all

238 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

the children had slept on sturdy, unyielding horsehair, but after A.J.

died it was as if his mother suddenly rejected the spartan upbringing they

had previously endured; she went on a shopping spree, replacing all the

bed furnishings in the children's rooms. She had even bought a new

mattress for A.J.'s bed, although, of course, he would never sleep on it.

Jass, lost in a fluffy cloud of eiderdown, looked at his brother's bed,

next to his own. It was kept freshly made up, the linen changed each week,

the sheets turned down by the maid each night, as if Sally believed that

one day A.J. would come home to her, and rest again where he belonged.

    It should be moved out, he thought, knowing he would never dare to

    suggest it to his mother. A.J. is gone. This is my room now.

    That he had even had the thought astonished him. His mind was racing in

    unfamiliar territories he knew must be a result of the conversation with

    his father. He was James Jackson the Third. He was the young master now!

    It was the first time he fully appreciated the implications that everyone

    else had accepted the day A.J. died. He would inherit The Forks of Cy-

    press, and its welfare and his family's welfare devolved onto him. He

    would marry and have sons and they would inherit it from him and their

    sons after them. A great dynasty flowered in his mind and suddenly he

    understood the full importance of what his father had so obscurely

    presented to him. Sweetened by the wine, the awesome responsibility did

    not daunt him, but aroused and excited him. He saw himself dispensing

    wisdom and justice at his father's desk, in his father's study, in his

    father's stead. He would stand for public office, as his father had done.

    He imagined himself as host at a great levee, his family around him, and

    his wife by his side.

    But who would she be, he wondered, and how would he know who was the

    right woman for him? How would he know if he loved her, and how would he

    know if the woman he loved could fulfill the role that her position as

    his wife demanded? Would it be Lizzie? Did he love Lizzie?

    The only answer he had was to the last question, and it was no. He didn't

    love Lizzie. At least, he didn't think so. Certainly, he could see Lizzie

    swarming around The Forks of Cypress, but he couldn't imagine Lizzie in

    his mother's role, and

    MERGING 239

surely could not imagine her as mother to his children. Maybe his father

was right, maybe love came when you got to know someone, and he determined

he would do all in his power to get to know Lizzie better, and see if love

developed.

    Jass had only the haziest notion of what love might be. His sisters

    seemed sure of it, their noses always stuck in those awful romances,

    penny dreadfuls his mother called them, that were full of swooning

    heroines and knights in shining armor, and Jass couldn't imagine himself

    in that latter role. Mary Ellen had been so convinced of her love for

    Abram Hunt that she made plans to elope with him when she was only

    sixteen, hardly older than Jass was now. Abram was actually waiting at

    the gate for her when Sally heard about it, and stopped them. A lot of

    tears were shed by Mary Ellen before her parents relented and gave their

    permission. And his cousin Mary Kirkman, in Nashville, did elope, with

    Richard Call, who was Uncle Andrew's ADC. Old Aunt Eleanor was furious,

    and vowed that she'd never speak to her daughter again, and when Uncle

    Andrew went to try to talk her round, she had fired a shotgun at him.

    So what was it that girls knew about love and he didn't? How did you find

    out? Did you read books'? Did you ask girls?

    Then again, his father had said that he would be attractive to girls, if

    only because of his position and his wealth. He wondered how much his

    inheritance would be, but had as little conception of the reality of

    money as he had about love. He knew a sum had been made over to him at

    his birth, as with his brothers and sisters-* and was told he would never

    have to worry about money, bui lie had no idea what the original sum was,

    or what it was now, for his father handled all those things. Nor could

    he begin to estimate what his father must be worth. Leviathan had earned

    over $100,000 in stud fees he knew, because the newspapers said so, and

    horses were only a hobby for James, so what about his enormous holdings

    in land? He supposed that he would have to take care of the money one

    day, and he determined to make a closer study of financial matters in the

    future.

    A new and much more interesting fantasy developed. If he was so rich, so

    eligible, so much sought after by potential brides, he would be able to

    have his choice of the prettiest women around.

240 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    Images of every young woman he'd ever met flooded into his mind and

    danced across his ceiling, led by Lizzie, in a dazzling array of

    seductive beauty, and he allowed himself to be flattered and cajoled,

    teased and flirted with by each and every one of them, the dashing eye

    at the center of their hurricane of gorgeous attentions. Other,

    darker-skinned, women appeared now, vying with the whites, and memories

    of all the pretty slave girls he had ever seen jostled with their young

    mistresses in his febrile imagination.

But the only one who made him smile was Easter.

If Jass's dreams were sweet with lust, his father's thoughts were filled

with foreboding. It cannot all be a house of cards, he thought, but

dreaded that it was.

    He poured another glass of port. He shouldn't drink so much. He knew it,

    his doctor had proscribed it, but he needed the comfort of oblivion now.

    Surely he was unassailable? He had never done anything criminal or

    illegal, he was president of the Alabama Senate, he was rich, and the

    value of the land that he owned was enormous.

    If he owned the land. There was the problem. He had never had a moment's

    doubt about his right of title to any of it: He had paid for it, it was

    all property registered with the requisite authorities, it was signed,

    sealed, and delivered in his name.

    "Damn you, Andrew!" he said out loud. "And damn me, too," he said a

    moment later, more softly. "I should never have had any part of it." But

    if he had never had any part of it, he would not be what he was now.

    John Coffee had called a week ago, alone, without his family. The general

    was in an expansive mood, and he and James behaved as they always did,

    with considerable civility to each other, as if they were still friends.

    They shook hands, and spent a pleasant hour discussing the affairs of

    Alabama and the country, and gossiping about political enemies.

    Then John was silent for a while, as if something was troubling him, and

    stared out of the window.

    "Andrew is determined upon the removal of the Indians," he said softly.

    Everyone knew of Andrew's determination to persuadeor force-the remaining

    Indians to migrate. Many had made

    MERGING 241

the long journey to the promised sanctuaries in the West, but their

stories of deprivation along the way made miserable hearing. Many others

had simply refused to leave the land that was sacred to them, and were

suffering for their obstinacy. In six months, the final payment was to be

made to the Chickasaw, and they were obligated to leave their land. No one

knew how peacefully they might go, for the Cherokee in Georgia were

resisting every effort to make them leave.

    "For God's sake, why doesn't he let them stay where they are?" James

    said. "They have suffered enough."

    John turned to look at him. Really, the man is a fool, he thought, a

    weak, dangerous fool. But a gullible one.

    "it is for their own good," he said reasonably. "They cannot live amongst

    us as equals; they don't understand our ways, and have no desire to

    learn. Their language is useless in a white society, and their

    superstitions incompatible with our Christian religion. Nor can they live

    amongst us in their tribal fashion. Their hunting grounds are lost to

    them, and they have no understanding of the proper use of the good land

    they occupy, and so they starve."

    It was the usual justification for their removal. As more and more white

    encroachments were made, legally or otherwise, on Indian land, the

    condition of the native peoples was rapidly degenerating, James knew. The

    election of Andrew to the presidency had only accelerated this. Sensing

    a friend in Washington, Georgia extended its laws over the Cherokee in

    its state, abolishing the tribal units, denying them the right to vote,

    to seek legal redress in court, to prospect for the gold that had been

    discovered on their land, and Indian land on which there was no farm or

    village was appropriated for white settlement. It was an illegal

    move-Indian lands were actually under the protection of the federal

    government-but Andrew had completely supported the state's actions.

    Mississippi and Alabama had followed suit, and intertribal disputes,

    rampant bribery and corruption among the white Indian agents, alien

    diseases, the abuse of alcohol, and the Indians' failure to understand,

    and therefore compete, in the white marketplace were only adding to the

    Indian misery. Small bands of desperate Creek and Cherokee were attacking

    white farms in Georgia. People were calling it a war, but all they wanted

    was food.

242 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    "If they do not go, they will die," John continued. "If they do go, they

    can live, in peace and freedom, governing themselves, in the new lands

    in the West. The many treaties we have made with the more reasonable

    Indians guarantee it."

    It was a harsh position, James thought, but probably a realistic one. As

    to the treaties, there had been so many, warranting so much that had

    later been denied, they seemed irrelevant. His heart bled for the

    disadvantaged, dispossessed race.

    "But a number of liberal hearts are bleeding for the savages," John now

    said. "The wretched Henry Clay is adamantly opposed to the removal, if