The Orphan Mother (27 page)

People were coming down the sidewalk toward them. More ambled across the street. Tole needed to go, quick, before he was seen. He picked up his rifle, held it low in his right hand, and with his left patted the papers in his pocket. He took a few steps away before turning around.

“I'll let you know.”

“I look forward to it,” Bliss said. He lit another cigarette, making his face flash up in shadows and orange, turned, and disappeared down the block trailing smoke. Tole went the opposite direction, down an alley, keeping to the shadows, and headed south out of town.

August 10, 1867

Tole had nowhere to sleep, so he wandered. He learned that four people had died in the fire, three of them strangers. The fourth, Ronald Hooper—ragman, whiskey maker—had died in the defense of six others and one of the few houses that had not burned.

Tole had not waited to hear any more about how Hooper died: it would have just infuriated him, and that, he thought, would do no good at all.

Instead he wandered the smoking ruins of the Bucket, saying goodbye to the world he had known, until finally the wind freshened and he knew that morning was come for good. He kept repeating that word to himself, like a prayer:
morning, morning.

He turned down the street, where Nattie Coyne had her small food shop, just a few tables, Negroes only. Nattie's wasn't open quite this early, but with all the chaos of the past few days, several people were already there.

Tole knocked on the door, held himself up against the doorframe, and knocked again, this time hard enough to shake the windows. Nattie's face peeked through the glass and the door unlatched.

“What you want?”

“You Nattie Coyne?”

“Yes sir, this here my shop.”

“I work—worked—with Hooper.”

“I know'd Hooper. So what?”

“He told me he used to come in sometimes for your breakfast?”

“He did love my pie,” Nattie said haltingly. He noticed her eyes were red. So she knew, as well. Of course she knew. Everyone knew.

“Listen, can I come in and sit for a spell? They burned my house. I ain't got much time this morning. Hooper told me you make a damn fine pecan pie. Was wonderin' if maybe you had an extra slice, maybe somethin' left over from a few days back?”

“You hurt?”

“Nah,” he said. “I just a little hungry, is all.”

Nattie opened the door to Tole and invited him inside. Tole limped in. Nattie pulled out a chair.

“You said pecan?”

“Yes ma'am, if it ain't too much trouble.”

In just a minute or two, Nattie came out of the kitchen with a slice of warm pecan pie on a plate. She set it down in front of Tole.

“Smells delicious, ma'am.”

“It's a couple days old.”

“Only gets better that way.” Tole's fork cut easily, and he took a bite. He closed his eyes and chewed, exhaling. “Hooper ain't wrong about
that
. This some damn fine pie.”

“Coffee?”

“Please.”

It was full sunrise when Tole stepped back outside and began his long trek out to Carnton one last time. Under his plate he had left a stock certificate signed over to
Miss Nattie Coyne
, and he hoped she'd know what to do with it.

The sky had just turned a pale blue when he arrived at the old plantation. The morning birds were chirping. He knocked softly on Mariah's door, and then again, whispering her name.

Mariah
. It sounded like the wind.

Mariah opened the door.

For a moment, she saw nothing but the gleam of early morning. Up near the big house, three or four butterflies traced patterns, runes, in the summer air. If only she could decipher what they were saying to her.

And then she saw Tole.

Mariah had the sensation that he'd been standing there forever, and that he'd be standing there forever more.

“Mr. Tole. It's barely morning. Somethin' happen?”

“I needed to come see you.” He looked weary beyond belief. As if he hadn't slept in days.

“Come inside.”

“There's something else,” he told her. “Something I need to tell you now.”

She waited, the almost-knowing a taste on her tongue like ash.

“There's something else I need to tell you about your son.”

She had to work to focus her eyes on him, there was so much else to see and everything was so bright. Tole took a seat in one of the chairs. He rocked in place and was silent. The tightness went out of him, the permanent furrow between his eyes eased, and afterward, Mariah would think she had never seen a man so happy and so frightened all at once.
That the Devil fleeing the body
, she said to herself. She knew that feeling. She realized he would soon speak words that would permanently mark a line between the gray world of not exactly knowing, to the sharp world of knowing perfectly. She had tried to live in the gray world and couldn't; now she would see what it meant to live in the clear world.

“If you gone to tell me it was you done shot Theopolis, you can save your breath, because I already knew that.” She had not
known
that until she said it aloud, and then it was so solid and obvious she could hardly believe everyone in the world didn't realize it. Everything fit: everything about the toy town and the strange figure on top of Dr. Cliffe's house, Tole's lurking around, his service in the war and the men he'd killed, the implacable sadness on his face, the sharp way he looked around him.

He seemed so lost, sitting there, goggle-eyed at what she had just said. She saw him slump some more, as if the whole structure of the world had begun to collapse and his bones no longer had the strength to hold him up. He shook his head.

“Who told you that?”

“You did, Mr. Tole. You ain't a mystery. Now I'm just waiting to hear you tell me why. I thought it made a lick of difference who done it and why, but now I ain't so sure.” The anger surprised Mariah. It worked its way into her voice. “Maybe I don't care the
why
.”

“You such a master of death,” he said, “it's so simple for you, that you wouldn't want to know why?”

He was right about that, Mariah thought. She sat down. “Yes, I want to know. Though the
why
of killing black folk ain't ever very satisfying in the answer, you ask my opinion.” She vowed to remain bold, uncowed, and to go out into her new world with some dignity about her.

For a few minutes, the two of them stayed silent. Mariah could hear the crickets, sawing away in the brush. The future was an utter mystery in that moment, the last moment of her enslavement. She had to get past this last thing.

Tole leaned forward, hands on his knees, elbows locked. Then he stood, picked up his chair, carried it over to her, and sat back down so his knees nearly touched her. Now he could look directly at her face. Her cheeks went hot and she stared back at him. The way he held his hands gripping his knees, he looked as if he were keeping himself from flying into the air. He began to speak.

“I seen terrible things in my time,” he said. “I seen the things in war that no man ever sees, you know, all them things that take place in the dark and sometimes in secret, and you don't hardly realize how twisted up it all is until,
right then
, boom, it happens. I killed important men, whoever they said. I looked for the insignia and piping on the rebel officers, which was like the flash of a deer's ass in my sights. Sometimes they tell me who to get, and I got 'em. I killed more than I want to count, and I saw they faces each time. They had good deaths; they never knew what was coming and weren't afraid of me. They were often laughing just before they dropped. Nobody looks out for the assassin when they laughing.”

“I've seen war, Mr. Tole. I've seen the light when it goes out in a man's eyes. You not the only one who's seen war.”

“I didn't see that with your son, and I'm sorry to say it. I reckon he died just like every man dies, here and then gone, but it weren't quick right up to that moment. It weren't a
surprise
.”

“I want to know what you did. What did
you
do?”

“What could I do? When I looked down on that crowd that done sucked up your boy and made him like he never existed, I saw a man in great pain and I stopped his suffering.”

“So you the one? Is that what you think? That you the killer?”

“I already given myself over to that particular devil. Your boy was near to death and in great pain. His shirt had been torn off and blood ran all down his chest. He was on his back still holding his hands over his head, and someone kicked him in his back and he rolled over on his right side, toward me, and in just that instant it was like he had offered up his chest to me, and his heart slid before my sights, and that's the sort of moment you don't think about—you just
do
. I put that bullet right through his heart and I stole their kill. I
stole
it. They didn't get the satisfaction of it. They slunk off like kicked dogs after that. And I spared that boy one more instant of horror.”

Mariah didn't speak. They sat in silence for minutes as she stared at the ground, trying to understand.

The first thing Mariah felt on hearing this was exhaustion. She had been like any other in the world, a world full of collectors of
fact
, who mistake
fact
for the true substance of life, who mistakenly believe that life is an infinity of fact, and that wisdom is the artful arrangement of such facts. She had known better, and yet she had pursued the facts anyway.

For instance, she possessed no wisdom for having been another's slave, which was a fact of hers. There was no wisdom that had been imparted to her in the McGavocks' house or at the end of the switch. If there
was
wisdom to be earned by being owned by another, if there was some special insight into the doings of man and earth that could only come of being enslaved, well then God was an awfully cruel creature best rejected and condemned.

And yet we all collecting facts like they everything
, she thought. She had collected facts to make Theopolis come alive again. And here came a man, Tole, bearing his gift of knowledge and fact, believing that she would relieve him of his burden and bear it up her own self. She felt a shiver of anger.

“When I seen you with his head in your lap,” Tole went on, “I knew that what I done had also been done to you. I should have remembered that. I knew it from long ago. There ain't no killing that don't echo out and mark others. And so I reckoned you had a right to know. It's in you, too. So there it is.”

Mariah stood and walked over behind George Tole. She took his head and gently held it in her hands, as if a priest laying a blessing on him.

“You know the other reason I come, don't you?”

She nodded, but he said the words anyway.

“I came to say goodbye, Mariah.”

“Where you goin'?”

“Hooper's dead. Did you hear?”

“I heard.”

“They strung him up and dragged him by a horse.”

“I heard.”

“It's because of me. And we know about the other men I killed. That'll start coming up soon. Long as I'm here, Negroes in Franklin ain't safe. That's the truth. Those boys'll set fire to everything they see until they find me. Won't be long till they settin' fire to this house.”

“Your going away won't change that.”

“I think it will. I think they need to not see my face, I think they need to forget I existed and don't need reminding that I beat them.”

“Where will you go?”

“Somewhere where they can't find me. Not far, though. I'm going to stay nearby for a while. Make sure that nobody hurts you.”

“Why somebody hurt me?”

“You told the U.S. Army about Mr. Dixon, remember?”

She smiled. “I did, didn't I?”

“I think Mr. Dixon ain't going to cause any more trouble. But I want to be sure. You hear me?”

“I don't know what to say.”

“I've always been something of a shy man. If I'm bein' honest, I want to ask you to come with me. Leave all this mess behind.”

Mariah smiled sadly. “Go where? You don't even know where you goin' and you want me to come with you.”

“It don't matter where. Anywhere but here would do just fine.”

“This is my home, here.”

Tole nodded and began to turn away. Mariah grabbed his hand. “I think I need to put some things together first. Before I go with you.”

“Does that mean you'll go?”

“Means I'll think about it.”

“So before I leave for good, I'll come find you.”

“Do that, Mr. Tole.”

Tole nodded, accepting. “I didn't think you'd come with me, but I brought you something anyway.” He set a cloth satchel on the floorboards and opened it up. She wondered where he'd come by it—it seemed very luxurious, finely embroidered in red and blue.

Tole rummaged in the bag, pulled out an envelope fat with the deeds and the stock certificates from Elijah Dixon. He handed them to her.

“What is it?”

“It's stock certificates to railroad companies. And deeds to land. You a rich woman now.”

“Where you get it?”

“Don't ask.”

“You steal it from Dixon?”

He laughed. “In a way, yes. But he knows and he ain't coming after me for it. It's yours now.”

“You get outta here with all that,” Mariah said.

“No ma'am. This is yours now. You can do a lot of good with it, and I know you will. There a lot of young men, men like Theopolis, like my son Miles—hell, men even like me—who need your help.”

“I don't need no money to help those boys.”

“Maybe not. But I seen the evil killin' over money bring. We both seen the blood that's spilled over money. Now you take this and do good with it.”

Mariah nodded. “I can do that.”

“There's one more thing before I go,” he said. He reached into the satchel and pulled out a white lily glowing in the early morning like something otherworldly. “This for you,” he said.

Mariah reached out and took the stem. She stared at the sky as her eyes reddened and pooled with tears.

“Thank you, George Tole. It's beautiful.”

Later, after he'd closed the door softly and she heard the sound of his bare feet on the steps, she went out onto the porch.