Washington and Caesar (6 page)

“They can’t he’p but lick, suh.”

“I learned about the turbith mineral from Lord Fairfax, and there is no man in America knows more about dogs. I long to tell him about bathing a dog in broth. Do both: I wish to see it in action.”

“Yes, suh.”

Washington left the boy to Bailey, and headed for his house.

He read in his library for a while, then looked at his latest drawing for an improved stable, made a change where he thought he could run water straight from the spring with pipes, and thought better of it. He was restless, and he walked through the house as he sometimes did when he couldn’t concentrate his mind. The servants and slaves in the kitchen were surprised by his passage, but pleased at his satisfaction. Other house slaves looked worried when he passed, or were long in bed themselves, according to their tasks.

Washington stopped on the central stairs and found Martha sitting in the blue parlor. “Are you ready for bed, ma’am?”

She lifted her book to him with a smile and went back to reading, a habit he had once found rude and was now used to. The smile, at least, meant she was in good humor. He nodded, almost a bow, and went up. The stair had never satisfied him. It was too narrow, and lacked something in sweep compared to other houses. It dated from a time when Mount Vernon had been considerably smaller. He began to plan a new staircase, trying to picture where he would have the space for a broader sweep.

“Are you going to bed now, sir?” asked his personal slave, Billy.

Washington realized he was standing at the top of the stair, unmoving, and that his hands were cold. He had been there some time.

“I am, Billy. I am.”

“Will you want anything while you undress?”

“I think I’ll have a small brandy, Billy.”

“Very well, sir. I’ll be with you in an instant.”

Before Washington had done more than enter his bedroom and take his watch out of his breeches, Billy was back with a trumpet-shaped glass on a silver tray. His presentation was elegant, indeed, everything about Billy was
elegant, and he did it so quietly that Washington seldom heard him coming.

Washington swallowed a third of the contents in a gulp, surprising himself. He smiled. “My thanks on that, Billy. Will you see to my watch case? It’s dull.”

“Yes, sir.” Billy took his coat and handed it to a young boy, who took it away with something like reverence.

“I can get my own boots, Billy.”

“I’m sure you can, sir. But you won’t while I’m here.”

Billy had the softest touch of the slave accent, never enough to make
sir
into
suh,
but enough to make his tone husky. He was always softly spoken. Washington sat and allowed Billy to pull off his riding boots, which were handed to the same boy for polishing. Billy left his slippers by the fire. Washington would never submit to anyone putting his slippers on. Washington turned, his aquiline profile strong against the dark outside. He sipped his brandy.

“Anything else, sir?”

“Have you met the new boy, Billy?”

“Which one, sir?”

“The African, Billy. The dogs boy.”

“Cese, sir?”

“That’s him, Billy. Caesar, if you please. What do you think of him?”

“He’s a good boy. Queeny likes him, and that’s somethin’.”

Billy didn’t exactly approve of Queeny, as he was a Christian man and she was easy in her affections. But at another level, they were allies.

“We’ll know what he’s made of when we see him on the hunting field, eh?”

Billy attended Washington even on horseback. They had been together for a long time, and Billy was probably the best black horseman in Virginia. In fact, he was better than most gentlemen, although still not the equal of Washington.

“I think he’ll do fine, sir.”

Washington still seemed in doubt. “I think he’s too…African,” he said, shaking his head. “But he has the makings of a fine young man, I’ll grant you that. Get to bed, Billy.”

The new boy cut quite a figure in his cap and jacket. He had a stick in his hand, almost like a crop, and it seemed to Washington that the stick might be coming it a bit high for a slave, especially if that stick were meant for his dogs.

Washington edged his horse across the drive in the early morning light to the edge of the pack, and watched Caesar separate one of his bitches from one of the visiting Lee hounds with the stick, never a blow, just a firm pressure with the stick and a slap of the hand.

“Where did you buy the dogs boy, sir?” young Henry Lee asked with open admiration. “He’s rather fine.”

Caesar recognized the look and nodded his head to Mr. Lee, leaving Washington uncomfortable again. It was an easy nod—far too easy for a slave, and yet not in any way a breach of etiquette. The nod was of a piece with the stick.

“I had him from a failed plantation in Jamaica, Henry.”

“And I may wish papa will do as well.”

“He does seem singular. That’s a fine mare, Henry.”

“I had him from my uncle at Stratford Hall. Part Arab, they say. I hope so, for the price.” The mare began to circle, and Lee was frustrated by the lack of effect his new silver spurs had on her. He pressed her with his crop and still she turned, her interest divided between worry at the dogs and interest in Washington’s mount, a big bay called Nelson.

“Damn you.” He hit her with his crop.

Washington shook his head. “Not her fault, sir.”

Lee, unused to being checked, looked up, but Washington was already moving away, backing his horse
to the open area beyond the hunt. The huntsman, a local tenant, came in and pointed off over the lane to a distant copse, motioning with a long old-fashioned whip. Lee let his horse have her head a moment and then pushed her away from the dogs, where she instantly settled down. Billy, Washington’s constant attendant, trotted easily around Henry Lee and gave Caesar a smile. Then he followed his master.

The pack gave voice, answered thinly by the select pack over the hill. Someone had found a fox. The huntsman gave Caesar the signal, and he released the hounds, his eyes still following the young man his master had rebuked and the elegant black man on horseback. The hounds leapt away, and the hunt began to take shape behind them.

It was the third draw that produced a fox, with the select dogs of the county behind it and the rest of the pack following from reserve. No one had expected the first draw to produce anything; the night had been very windy and the ground was cold. But the fox found in the wood hard against Dogue Run went away at a view by the schoolhouse, crossed the Alexandria road back into Mount Vernon plantation and ran north toward Belvale, the seat of the Johnstons. Just short of the park wall he turned left and ran the whole length of the new-laid brick, but hesitation at the steep banks of the creek cost him a precious moment. He was headed at the wall and killed in the cart shed behind Belvale, the dogs in fine voice and the copper blood and ordure scent over the whole winter morning. Washington was in at the kill, his horse an extension of his will, Billy at his elbow like a standard-bearer, fine in Washington’s red and buff livery. Caesar was never far from the dogs, running from scent to scent, his eyes on the country ahead. Twice he outguessed the select pack and the bitch in the lead, crossing to a new cover before
the pack found a new voice, and his prowess did not pass without note.

Belvale Shrubbery was the next draw, and here there were three foxes. The field was tired, and etiquette was slipping; the pack split, with the larger part chasing an older female and the smaller a younger male. The field divided in proportion to the hounds and privately held views on the ethics of the thing. The older hunters chased the larger part of the pack; the younger members followed the younger dogs and chased over more difficult country.

Caesar stayed with his own dogs, which had the first scent, and pursued the old vixen with a will. Other dog runners paced him; an older man with the French family’s hounds flashed him a smile as they ran up to the hounds at a check by Little Hunting Creek.

“You can run, boy!”

“Thanka.”

“I be John. Fro’ the French place.”

“Why’d the pack split?”

The older man shook his head, flashing a broad smile.

“Hell to pay when the leaders meet, I be thinkin’.”

The pack checked at the edge of the thick cover of the wood and the rising ground toward Cameron Run. Caesar could see the other pack running well to the south, even half a mile away, straight into the wind, their noses up, tails flat out. The younger members of the field were right up on the hounds, some jumping a small hedge and some angling for the gate nearer the river. The Lee boy, the one his master had been harsh to, was riding flat out, his whip striking the horse’s withers, his whole body leaning forward over the horse’s neck.

The dogs were past the check and beginning to run again, and he began to lope after them. John seemed to be waiting for something.

“I’m Caesar, from Mount Vernon.”

“I know, boy. I know.”

Caesar wondered why he was laughing, but he lost the thought in the glory of the run.

Washington watched him follow the hounds past the check, pleased with his purchase and angry at the day. The wind was wrecking the scent; indeed, they had been lucky to draw a fox at all, and the hounds were going to find the going harder and harder. Worse was the defection of the younger set. He thought they had ridden off willfully, and he doubted they’d make a kill. The older men and one woman had held the field on the first kill. They had done all the real work of the thing and now they were deserted for their pains. He disliked that the young people were allowed to go by the rest of the field. He liked people to follow their parts, and the defection savored of rebellion.

He turned in the saddle and rested one hand on his horse’s rump, looking back into the Potomac Valley, but the lesser part of the hunt’s field was gone over a hedge. He watched the last of the younger riders, their forms darkened by the winter light, balk at a stile and ride around.

“This will not do,” he said aloud, as much to himself as to Billy behind him.

He trotted Nelson along the slow rise to the left, his intention to get ahead of the fox and the hunt. Washington always hunted with a military art; he read the ground and tried to outguess his opponent. The Virginian habit of hurling his horse at every obstacle that the hounds crossed had ceased to challenge him years ago.

He led Billy across country toward Rose Hill, and he noted with some surprise that his Caesar had stopped following the hounds and was running ahead of him in great leaps, like a two-legged deer, bounding over the hummocky grass. The wintry sun broke through the clouds
for a moment, illuminating the three men and the winter grass around them in a brief blaze of pale gold, the slate of the sky an intimidating contrast that threatened worse weather to come.

The last of the sun’s effort showed both of them the sight of the fox fully in view as she burst from the woods along the creek and turned north across the wind-swept open ground toward Rose Hill, her curious red-green coat gleaming with the sun’s touch. Washington rose in his stirrups and yelled, then sounded a view on his horn. The cry of the hounds changed from puzzlement to pursuit within the wood and the leaders of the pack began to appear, scenting the wind and bounding along. Caesar turned to him and smiled, a personal smile that lit his face, and Washington’s thin lips curled. He saluted slightly, just a wave of the whip in a gesture of acknowledgment, and he gathered the horse under him and was gone, Billy in his wake, but Billy’s smile was broad, almost welcoming, and he gave Caesar a wave.

The open ground gave the field a fine burst of about ten minutes, with plenty of jumping when they came to the Rose Hill fences. But the fox was old and wise, and the wind was rising; she lay still once in a covert, and doubled on her own scent when she ran, almost splitting the pack a second time.

Washington heard the other group blow a mort and knew they had killed, somewhere down in the valley on his own land. His first thought was one of sharpened competition, but he pushed that down as unworthy. Their killing did not make their actions right, and this green-red fox, this ancient vixen, had given the best of the field the kind of hunt men talked about for years—fence after fence, the sighting by the woods when the hounds were at a stand, many a twist, a true champion. He looked back at his field, eleven tired gentlemen and one gentlewoman, and then forward to where the chase had made the cover
of the heavy brush at the very bank of the Dogue Run. The hounds gathered about the cover, climbing over one another but held by the tough undergrowth. Washington rode round the pack, the thong of his whip free for the first time in the afternoon. He rode over to the huntsman and William Ramsay, who were sharing a bottle.

“I say we leave her. I think she earned it.”

“Huzzay, then! A well-plucked ‘un.”

“Leave her to have kits.” They all nodded, gave a small cheer, and began to pick their way back toward Mount Vernon, except Daniel French, who was home already. He waved his whip and rode round to his stable.

“He can’t be too happy, knowing you’ve just moved a Vernon fox into the bush behind his henhouse,” said Ramsay, laughing his Scottish laugh.

“’Twas only justice, gentlemen. She gave us good sport. She lives to do it again.”

“Young Lee killed his fox.”

“Young Lee broke the pack. He didn’t follow the right fox.”

“True enough.” Ramsay looked at Washington to see if he was angry, but the man was flowing along, at one with his horse, and the look on his face was one of deep contentment.

The huntsman signaled the boys to call off the dogs. Again, Caesar’s stick stood him in good stead, as he used it deftly to separate dogs and push them back on to the greensward. He tossed tidbits from his haversack, pushing through the dogs until he had the Mount Vernon pack leader by the scruff of the neck and had carried her clear of the pack and off to the grass, where he fed her several bites of bread soaked in molasses until she had her wits about her again. The pack followed her, and Caesar kept them moving away from the covert until they began to calm down and move along with him. The older man, John, had his dogs out of
the bush first, and held them with his voice alone, almost crooning to them. He looked around, saw the mounted party riding away, and pushed one young pup across from his group into Caesar’s.