Queen (43 page)

much money, and Jass thought they would be a nice gift to some young woman,

even Lizzie perhaps, for he was intent on cultivating relationships with

girls. Sally and Sassy sheltered from the sun at the inn on the northern

shore, so he saw little of Easter. She was wide-eyed at this exotic new

adventure of travel-she had never left The Forks before-but she was taking

her new duties as Sassy's maid seriously, and hardly left Angel's side.

    MERGING 257

    The Trio had stayed behind at The Forks. They were not invited to the

    wedding, and were not returning to their school in Nashville. much to

    Sally's relief. She hated sending these youngsters so far away from home to

    school, too young, she told herself, for such separation from a mother's

    watchful eye and warm embrace. A.J. had done it, and Jass, and she'd hated

    that as much, but they'd had little choice-the Stevens School in Nashville

    was the nearest suitable institution. Since then, Reverend Sloss had opened

    his Preparatory Academy in Florence, but that had no facilities for

    elementary education. James had murmured platitudes about character

    building, which left Sally entirely unimpressed, and the only consolation

    Sally could find was that the boys would be under the careful eye of

    Eleanor. Now, and not before time, thought Sally, the reverend gentleman

    had extended the age limits of boys he would accept, and the Trio were to

    go there, as did Jass, and could live at home.

    The journey was slow, the pace dictated by the slave cart. The carriage was

    hot and uncomfortable, jarring their bones as it bounced over the rough

    roads. Sometimes Jass rode on Morgan, but he didn't want to tire the horse

    unnecessarily, and mostly kept him tethered to the slave cart. Then Jass

    preferred to ride on the box with Samuel, the coachman, who claimed to have

    covered all this territory before, in the few short days of his freedom,

    when actually he had never left the outskirts of Florence, and knew the

    road only because he had driven the coach to Nashville and back many times.

    Ephraim drove the luggage wagon, and Easter and Angel were with Cap'n Jack

    in the slave cart.

    Each evening they would stop while it was still light at travelers' hotels,

    around which small settlements had grown, and Jass was allowed to join his

    father in after-dinner conversations with the older men or, in the hour

    before sunset, free to explore the surroundings.

    Jass had made the journey many times, but as a boy, going to and coming

    from his school, and he now saw the adventure with a young man's eyes. This

    is still the frontier, he thought, and it thrilled him and horrified him.

    He saw a slave being mercilessly lashed in public for some hurt, real or

    imagined, to his master, and he had turned away, for it provoked sub-

    258 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

conscious memories of another lashing he had seen, as a boy, to a man who

was now his friend and walked beside him. Once he saw a white man shoot

another to death with a pistol, in full view outside the hotel, for what

Cap'n Jack, talking to other slaves, discovered was a question of honor.

    Conversely, he experienced hospitality from almost everyone he met, a sense

    of welcome to a stranger, which his father assured him was the nature of

    these people. He knew his family occupied a privileged position-because of

    his father's status, because they were guests traveling to an important oc-

    casion, and because they had made the journey so often that many of the

    innkeepers and their families remembered thembut even so, the generosity

    that was extended to them warmed his heart.

    The later discussions with older men, in his father's company, both

    intrigued and bored him. Alfred and Gracie's wedding was on everyone's

    lips, a source of amusement to some, evidence of the increasing uppitiness

    of niggers to others, and this led to discussion of the man Jass called

    Uncle Andrew, who, however, was not related to him and whom he had never

    met.

    Here in the West, Andrew's actions as president had only increased his

    already legendary status. He was seen as champion of the little man, the

    settler, the battling individual. People here believed him dedicated to

    enfeebling the bureaucracy in Washington, reducing the undue influence of

    the industrial Northeast over their lives, and by removing the federal de-

    posits from it, curbing the outrageous power the centralized bank had

    previously enjoyed. Only a few speculators and businessmen dissented from

    this view, and then vehemently.

    It had always been the same, his father explained. Andrew was an

    extraordinary man, capable of arousing violent passions in people, both

    toward him and against him.

    Above all else, Andrew was seen as the salvation of the white settler from

    the bloodthirsty savages, the consensus being that the sooner the land was

    rid of all Indians, the better life would be. It puzzled Jass that his

    father would walk away every time this subject was raised, nor would he

    discuss it with Jass.

    MERGING 259

Easter had hoped to see more of Jass on this journey than she had done all

summer, but she knew something had happened in their relationship,

something he had to come to terms with for himself. He didn't ignore her,

he still visited the weaving house, but now he kept a distance between

them, as if determined to avoid actual physical contact with her, and she

missed the easy familiarity they used to- enjoy. Here on the journey, when

he was riding Morgan, he'd trot beside the slave cart for a while,

pointing out new things to her, but Angel and Cap'n Jack were an obvious,

inhibiting influence to any intimacy between them.

    At night she'd be too busy to see him, for she and Angel had to unpack

    the trunk, prepare the clothes for the morning, and see to their

    mistress's comforts before they could even begin to think about their

    own. They ate and slept in the dingy slave accommodations attached to the

    hotels, and while she enjoyed listening to the slaves of other travelers,

    she was too shy to voice opinions of her own. Up from well before sunrise

    to iong after dark, drowsy on some uncomfortable cot in a lousy communal

    shed, Easter decided that traveling was an overrated experience and

    longed for the comforts of the little shack that was home.

At a small village on the last night before reaching their destination,

James took Jass to a revival meeting in a field nearby. the settlement

being too small for a church. James, although he believed devoutly in God,

was not a deeply religious man and adhered to no particular church, but

the emotional ferocity that the frontier preachers could arouse fascinated

him, and he thought the experience would be interesting for Jass.

    The meeting was already in progress when they arrived. Some fifty people

    attended, country folk, poor whites, gathered in from outlying farms and

    settlements. Many of them had traveled many miles to find some relief

    from the abject hardships they daily endured, some promise of future

    glory. Simply clad as they were, with weathered faces and gnarled, knotty

    hands, Jass could not imagine that these austere people would provide any

    of the exotic entertainment his father had promised. He had not reckoned

    on the Preacher man.

260 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    He heard the Preacher before he saw him, a voice thundering at heaven,

    but in a language that Jass had no knowledge of, and could not

    understand. He was silent as they reached the clearing, and all heads

    were bowed in prayer. The Preacher was standing on a cart, his Bible

    clenched in his fist. A couple of lanterns tied to sticks in the ground

    provided small illumination and ghostly shadows. Jass could see some

    spectators watching from the surrounding trees, a few black faces among

    them, but his father led him closer to the cart, the center of things.

    Suddenly, the Preacher looked up. "You are all sinners," the Preacher

    yelled, and a murmur of agreement ran through his congregation. It

    unnerved Jass, for in the dim light he thought the Preacher was staring

    directly at him.

    "Liars! Swindlers! Hypocrites!" the Preacher cried. The assenting murmur

    of response from the accused was louder now.

"Fornicators! "

    Jass blushed. He knew what the word ft)rnicator meant. Wesley used it all

    the time, and while Jass had never had actual physical contact with a

    woman, the private fantasies he sometimes enjoyed seemed just as

    reprehensible. He wondered if his father knew, or could guess, for his

    guilt must surely be branded on his brow.

    "And as sinners you are damned," the Preacher shouted again.

"Yes! Yes!" a responsive voice yelled back.

    "There is only one way to redemption," the Preacher continued, waving the

    Good Book of direction in the air. "God is your only salvation, and your

    only path to Him is the blood of the Lamb!"

    Now the Preacher shouted again in that alien tongue, and another man in

    the crowd called something in response, but it seemed to Jass to be in

    a different language. He wondered if the two understood each other.

    It made no difference. It wouldn't have mattered if the entire sermon had

    been delivered in tongues-and much of it wasbecause even if the sounds

    were incomprehensible to others, Jass knew what they meant, and knew they

    were all directed exclusively at him.

The throbbing voice of the Preacher touched some deep well

    MERGING 261

of unchanneled, teenage emotion in Jass, and he was gathered into the

mounting ecstasy. He moved forward, away from his father, perhaps to hear

the Preacher better, perhaps to be part of the now swaying throng. The

Preacher warned fire and brimstone, and the crowd shivered from the heat.

The Preacher cried hell and damnation, and the crowd simply cried. The

Preacher held out the promise of salvation, and someone fainted in relief.

    The voice roared on. Jass was not an individual now but an engulfed

    fraction of a mounting collective frenzy. The Preacher jumped down from

    the cart, and came into the midst of it, ranting eye of a hysterical

    cyclone, laying his hands on swooning bodies, casting demons out of a

    babbling fannhand, and yet seeming to direct a torrential energy on Jass,

    as if demanding from him some ultimate submission. Jass was euphoric.

    The unspeakable happened. Jass was incredulous. How could the vile

    monster assert itself here, in this exquisite company? The dreadful

    hardness was incontrovertible proof to Jass that he was guilty of sin

    beyond all reckoning, and he fell to his knees at the Preacher's feet,

    weeping for forgiveness of something he could not even name, and begging

    for salvation from his accursed path.

    Then it all seemed to stop. The Preacher, having done his work, gave a

    few final, less extravagant admonitions; the congregation got up, dusted

    themselves down, resumed their earlier, self-contained composure, and

    departed, on carts, horseback, and foot, into the night.

    Jass looked at James a little sheepishly, wondering what his father would

    think of it all. James didn't say very much. He walked his son back to

    the hotel, asking only a few mild questions about the evening, but Jass

    couldn't shake the conviction that his father was laughing. At him.

    Sally was furious. A devout Presbyterian, she had an aversion to all

    extravagant forms of worship and had tried to stop James from taking Jass

    to the meeting. She rounded on her husband in fury and demanded to know

    why he hadn't stopped Jass from taking part.

    "He was being saved %for Jesus," James responded calmly. "I didn't think

    it was my place to interfere." Jass saw the

262 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

twinkle in his father's eye, and knew for sure what he had guessed. James

thought the whole evening was the best fun. Sally knew it too, because she

also saw the twinkle, and ordered Jass to bed so she could have a few

words with James alone.

    She came to him a little later, before he fell asleep, sat on the edge

    of his bed and talked to him calmly, whispering, because Sassy was

    slumbering in the next bed.

    "I am very angry with your father," she said softly. "I have no love for

    these evangelist religions. They bring comfort to a number of the poor

    country folk, I know, but for me God is to be found in quiet

    contemplation, not in public display."

    She paused, not sure quite how to phrase what she wanted to say, for it

    didn't pertain only to God.

    "If you have truly found Jesus, of course, I couldn't be happier for you,