Queen (87 page)

    "There is nowhere you can go, except,to the enemy, for in the South, if you

    go and you are caught, you will be treated as runaways. And if you go to

    the North, you will be enlisted into the army, to fight against us.

    Possibly to die."

    She was surrounded by bewilderment. Freedom had come, but somehow it seemed

    empty. Jeremiah spoke for the many.

"What c'n we do, Missy?" he asked Sally.

    "You can stay," she said. "I need you to work the land. I cannot pay you

    anything, but I will share with you what we have. You will eat as we eat,

    and live as we live. When the war is over and the Massa returns, when the

    future is clearer, we may make other arrangements. For the moment, all I

    can offer you is a safe place to be, a roof for your heads, and a bed to

    sleep in."

    She stopped. It was too hard; she couldn't do it. All her formidable

    resources suddenly deserted her, and she wanted to break down and weep. It

    had come to this: It was she who had to bring the whole house of cards

    tumbling down. And it had been so easy. And yet it was too hard. Tears

    filled her eyes. She could not bear that they might go, she feared too

    genuinely for their welfare, and her own and her family's, but she could

    not believe that they might stay.

    QUEEN 529

"What you gwine do if'n we go?" Jeremiah asked her.

    "I don't know," Sally told him honestly. "Pray for you. Pray for all of

    us."

    There was silence again, and the sound of shuffling feet. Jeremiah was

    the spokesman, the leader. It rested on him. The weight of the decision

    frustrated him. It had all seemed so easy. They would be free and they

    would go and make new lives for themselves. But they were free, and where

    could they go? Very few of them actually wanted to go North now. It was

    alien land to them, enemy country, and filled with war and danger. Most

    of them had been bom and grown up on this plantation; very few of them

    had any concept of the world beyond it, and those who did, like Jeremiah,

    had no affection for it. In the short days of his escape, he had never

    been so hungry in his life. He could go, and make it to Union lines, and

    even join the army, fight for freedom, but he had freedom, Missy Sally

    had given it to him, so what was there to fight for'? Here was food, here

    was shelter, here was what he knew. This was his place. It was so easy.

    Everything else was too hard.

    "An' if'n we stay, we free?" he asked, trying to establish his options.

"If you stay, you are free," Sally assured him.

Jeremiah shrugged.

    "I reckon I gwine stay, fo' a Fil while, anyways," he told the others.

    "This here the only home I got."

    He walked away, and slowly the others followed. They talked about it

    later, when Sally was gone, and most of them agreed with Jeremiah. They

    would stay, for a little while anyway, because they had no other place

    to go. What astonished them was that they felt no different, now that

    they were free. It took some little while for them to comprehend the

    majesty of what they had. And when they did, they had a party.

Sally stood in the clearing, watching the slaves shuffle away. She had

won; she had achieved what had to be done; she had ensured, for the moment

at least, the survival of her family, in some form or other. Later

decisions were for later. If, as the truth of their new situation dawned

on them, some few ran away, she would cope with that then. If, by some

miracle, the

530 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

South won the war, which Sally didn't believe was going to happen, the

institution of slavery would have to change, and they would face those

complications then. If, when Jass came home, he wanted to rescind her order,

that was his business and would be coped with then, but he could only do it

if there was a Southern victory. All Sally had done, she told herself, was

to accept the inevitable. At this moment, the whites needed the nigras to

survive, and, at this moment, survival was all she cared about.

    She turned to Queen. Drained of all energy, she needed the girl's help to

    walk back to the big house.

But Queen was not there.

Terrified by the prospects Sally had offered the slaves, for Queen had no

doubt she was included, she ran to her mother's grave, and knelt beside it.

"I's free, Mammy, I's free," she whispered.

And wondered why she was so very scared.

    61

The war ground on, each day bringing them closer to a conclusion that even

the most sanguine Southerner began to accept as inevitable. They hardly

understood why they fought anymore. For every inch of ground they gained,

they seemed to lose two. But not to fight was unthinkable. A stand had been

taken and must be upheld. They no longer fought to win, they fought not to

lose, but every battle seemed to bring retreat, or, if it was won, news of

another loss elsewhere.

    Jass could justifiably have applied for leave on many occasions, to go home

    and spend some days with his family, but he chose not to. His life had

    become war, and unfamiliar country places its battlegrounds. Edwards Depot

    and Big Black Bridge. Fort Hudson and Champion Hills. Vicksburg. They

    abandoned Mississippi, harried every inch of the way by the

    QUEEN 531

avenging General Grant, and his regiment, or what was left of it, was sent

to Georgia. Every skirmish lost, every yard of ground surrendered, brought

Jass closer to home, until he thought he must stand and fight alone on the

very steps of The Forks of Cypress. Wounds had hardly healed before new

injuries claimed his attention, but he was impervious to them now, inured

to pain. He was as indifferent to the recognitions of his valor that were

bestowed upon him; his medals had no more meaning to him than his scars.

Honor was his only armor, and this he wore with immeasurable pride. He had

no fear of death, for it was a proper alternative to defeat, but it eluded

him and condemned him to face the greater loss, of country, and of cause.

    When they told him that he must lose an arm, smashed up in a battle for

    an indefensible mountain pass at Kennesaw, he had only two questions.

"Will I be discharged?" was the first.

    The doctor shook his head. "Colonels don't need two arms," he said,

    preparing for the operation. "But we need every man we can get."

    Jass could face the rest of his life without an arm, for the odds were

    that his life would not be long. He could not live with failure.

"Will it hurt?" he asked, as the doctor picked up a saw.

    "Like thunder," the doctor told him, nodding at two orderlies to hold

    Jass down. "And I have nothing to ease the pain."

    Jass nodded and closed his eyes. He felt the firm grip of the orderlies,

    and then a searing, screaming pain as the doctor began his work.

Florence fell again to the Yankees, and the citizens lived in fear of the

destruction that must come. Atlanta was gone, burned, burned to the

ground, not one brick of the proud and noble city left. Sweet Atlanta,

capital of Southern dreams, gone to ashes. Sherman was marching from there

to the sea, his army leaving a swath of desolation and destruction, of

barren land, in its wake. Any Southern victory, no matter how small, was

followed by a Yankee retribution many times greater than the provocation.

But Florence was not destroyed.

532 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

Colonel William Hamilton of the U.S. Army was a gracious soldier, who

sought victory, not vengeance. He established his headquarters at the

Coffee plantation, and concerned himself for the welfare of his unwilling

hosts. He gave orders that the citizens were not to be molested, and came

to be known as "the good Yankee" for his charity.

    He attended the funeral of Tom Kirkman, who had died, wom out from worry

    and overwork and loss of faith in the future, and was gracious to

    Elizabeth, the widow, and to Sally and Lizzie, who no longer cared if

    solace wore blue or gray. Death was a constant in their lives. Tom, and

    his son James, killed in battle, and his little granddaughter, Ellen,

    Sam's child. Every woman in Florence wore black, not just to the funeral,

    for every woman had reason to, and the most fervent prayer of all of them

    was that the nightmare end soon.

    Yet it was not to be. Already, a Confederate force under General Forrest

    was moving upriver toward the town, which must become a battleground

    again, and while they longed to be ruled by their own, they wanted the

    war to be over.

    Sally dared to ask Colonel Hamilton when he thought the end would come,

    and he was kind but not gentle to her.

    "When you give in," he smiled. "Or when we conquer you, for that will be

    the inevitable result of your failure to surrender. Apart from those

    already under arms, we are amassing an army of half a million men, and

    you cannot withstand that. "

    Sally turned away, appalled by the immensity of it, and by the bleakness

    of their prospects. Hamilton was a reasonable man in victory. She could

    not imagine every Yankee would be the same.

    "The South cannot win, and the North will not lose," he continued. "What

    should be of greater concern to all of us is what happens afterward."

That, at least, Sally could agree with, and thoughts of a postwar South

troubled her mind as they rode home. They would have no slaves, and while

she doubted that there would be a mass migration of blacks from South to

North, she understood that the relationship between the races would be

radically changed. It was already. Perhaps half her freed slaves had

    QUEEN 533

stayed; the others had drifted away as opportunity presented itself, or

dreaming provoked. Some younger men had enlisted in the Union Army, and

two girls had become whores, camp followers of Northern troops. Those that

were left at The Forks were different people now, truculent if given

orders, lazy if they did not understand why something had to be done. They

worked for themselves rather than the general good, as if preparing for

the time when they would leave.

    As the blacks became more self-reliant, less dependent on their former

    Massas and Missys, so the whites withdrew into themselves, isolating

    themselves, and the previous free discourse between the two races was at

    a minimum. Sally had not been alone in her precipitate action of freeing

    the slaves, and awful stories reached them of blacks taking vengeance on

    their erstwhile Massas. Some houses had been burned to the ground before

    the blacks escaped to the North, and, in one scandalous case, some bucks

    had whipped their aging Massa. It foreshadowed the chaos that every white

    believed would accompany black freedom, and even at The Forks the women

    did not feel safe.

    Jeremiah, who, to Sally's surprise, had stayed, was hardly with them

    anymore, making himself invaluable to the Union troops, shoeing their

    horses, hammering their iron, and receiving payment for his services. It

    was only a matter of time before they lost him, Sally was sure.

    Queen had stayed. Inevitably, Sally thought, and it was Queen who

    concerned her now. In the coming postwar society of whites, there would

    be no room for Queen, who was trying to insinuate herself more and more

    into the family's embrace. There had been an altercation that morning,

    when Lizzie had refused to allow Queen to attend Tom's funeral.

"But he family," Queen grumbled.

    "Not your family," Lizzie snapped, thinking that was the end of it.

    But it was not the end of it. Sally knew there was more to be done. It

    would be hard and it would be cruel, but it was unavoidable.

Queen herself provided the opportunity. There was no tea or real coffee

because of the Northern blockade of Southern

534 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

ports, but they had developed a curious substitute out of ground-up hickory

acorns. Queen brought a cup of the brew to Sally in the sitting room. Lizzie

was upstairs, supervising William's schoolwork. Little James and Eleanor

were napping.

    Sally sipped her drink, and Queen did not leave. She asked a few questions

    about the funeral, still obviously irked that she had been barred from

    attending, and then announced her news.

    "Jeremiah gone," she said. "Jus' upped an' left. Didn't even say to tell

    you good-bye."

    Sally nodded, for it came as no surprise to her. She also knew that Queen

    was reminding her of her own loyalty.

"Do we know where he has gone?" she asked Queen.

    "Workin' for the Yankee army, I guess," Queen shrugged. "He jus' a

    no-account nigger."