Dessa Rose Read online

  He shook his head. “Dessa ain’t been in too much of a position to think about no sweetheart,” he said without looking at her.

  “Well,” she began, moved in spite of herself by the simple statement; she faltered. Still, something inside her urged, you didn’t just up and whip a slave, without some reason. “Well, I know it must’ve been something happen to cause all that.”

  “Whatever it was, she paid for it. Man gone, mammy gone. Dorcas, now,” he said abruptly, turning toward her again, “her I can’t tell you too much about. She talked mostly about you, things yo’ll had done. She set a lot of store by you. And mostly, aside from just general conversation, you was what she talked about.” He shrugged. “Ada say she believe Dorcas was from Virginia,” he continued. “Near as we can figure—cause you know Dorcas didn’t just sit down and tell no one her life story—was maybe she had a couple of kids. But they was sold away or maybe she just lost touch with them early on. The peoples she belonged to seemed to have moved round quite a bit, least ways she seemed to know something about a lot of different places. White people don’t hardly travel with no pickaninnies, so, much as she moved round, it’s doubtful Dorcas even know her own children, if she had any.”

  That was worse, Rufel thought, blinking back a quick rush of tears.

  “Mis’ess?” She looked up. “I wouldn’t take what Dessa say much to heart. She been through a hard time. You know you been through a hard time, too—your man gone, Dorcas dying.”

  It was what her own common sense told her but she was outraged to hear herself compared to the wench. “I knew that little hellion couldn’t be no kin to Mammy,” she said tartly.

  “The mistress have to see the welts in the darky’s hide, eh?”

  “Ye—” His tone implied that her desire for proof was mean and petty and she flushed hotly, as the image of herself inspecting the wench’s naked loins flashed vividly to life in her mind. “Well—” How else was she to know the truth of what they said? “I know it’s more to this than you telling,” she flung at him as she turned to go. “And I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”

  Rufel hurried toward the house in some agitation, yet she was relieved that the wench wasn’t related to Mammy—though after hearing that horror story she could well understand the wench’s confusion, her hysterical insistence on her mammy’s love. But just because her mammy had loved her don’t mean that Mammy didn’t love me, Rufel thought, wanting desperately to believe that Mammy had loved her not only fully, but freely as well. Almost she felt personally responsible for Mammy’s pain, personally connected to it, not as the soother of hurt as Mammy had always been for her, but as the source of that pain. She, Rufel, who would never have knowingly hurt a hair on Mammy’s head. It was not so, of course. Rufel’s footsteps slowed as she neared the House. If anything, she had been the center of Mammy’s world—And the children, Mammy’s children—girls or boys? Had Mammy been taken from them? How did they bare such pain? she wondered, thinking then of a branding iron searing tender flesh. Surely whipping was enough; there was nothing she had ever heard like the scream of a darky under the lash. Had Bertie stopped the beatings as he’d said or merely moved them, as Ada had once implied, to the woods? And Mammy—Had anyone ever whipped her? Rufel wondered, surprised at how angry the thought made her. Why, the very quality of her relationship with Mammy might have been grounds for a beating with some masters, she realized with alarm, remembering Mammy’s tart answers, her way of forgetting to do what she didn’t want to do when she felt such forgetfulness was in Rufel’s best interests.

  It didn’t take much: remembering the darky’s words. Often it had taken no more with Bertie than a broken plowshare (which cost money) or a darky who didn’t move fast enough. That was only at first, Rufel protested to herself; Bertie had become a good master. Why, she couldn’t remember the last time a darky had been whipped at the Glen; certainly she would have heard the screams (unless Bertie had taken to whipping them in the woods) or Mammy would have told her—Wouldn’t she? Rufel recalled Mammy’s tight-lipped face the first time they had heard that peculiar, high-pitched screaming. The ashen skin and pained expression had seemed to demand that she, Miz ’Fel, do something. And she had, hadn’t she? Coaxed and pleaded with Bertie, though it had seemed to do little good at first. But the screams had stopped, she repeated to herself. This, with this wench, was unusual. And they had branded her, too. That’s if she took the darky’s word for it, branded her and sold her away. She must have done something pretty terrible. Rufel clung to this belief, although it gave her little comfort.

  The wench was dozing on the pallet when Rufel returned to the House, the baby snuggled carefully in the crook of her arm, and Rufel stood a moment in the doorway watching them. They were as peaceful as a painting, the girl a vivid chocolate and jet against the whiteness of the sheets, the baby as bright as toast against the bedding and the darky’s arm. The darky’s tale of beatings and brandings seemed, in that moment, a lie to cozen the gullible and trade on the goodwill of the openhearted. Rufel stalked across the floor and knelt by the pallet. The wench awakened almost immediately, her eyes gleaming forth from the darkness of her face, quickly hidden as she ducked her head under Rufel’s gaze. “What’s your name, gal?” Rufel asked sharply.

  “Dessa. Dessa Rose, ma’am,” she said in a raspy voice.

  Rufel was slightly taken aback; she had not expected the wench to answer so readily. “Why’d you run away?”

  The darky kept her eyes downcast and plucked nervously at the coverlet. “Cause, cause I didn’t want my baby to be slaved,” she said finally in a rush and still without looking at Rufel.

  Rufel looked at the baby, seeing in him the pickaninnies at Mobile. And that’s what he’ll look like, too, if I put you all out of here, she thought pettishly. “I mean, why your mistress use you so?”

  “Cause she can,” the wench said on a long shuddering breath as she turned her face away.

  Rufel was stunned for a moment by the ring of utter truth in the statement, yet, almost of its own volition, her hand reached to draw back the covers from the darky’s body. She drew back at Rufel’s touch, her eyes popping open in alarm. Rufel blushed, thinking for the first time of how humiliating she would find such an inspection. “Are you—are you healing properly?”

  “Yes. Yes’m.”

  Why, Rufel thought, this wench is actually afraid of me. Conscious for the first time that she herself could be in physical danger from these strange darkies, she realized that she had fallen into the habit of thinking of the runaways as a slightly malicious means of evening the score in their continuing estrangement in the neighborhood. Somebody somewhere was using the Sutton slaves; why shouldn’t she use these—especially since she had neither enticed them away from wherever they came, nor encouraged them to stay here? She associated even Ada with the stock cuts used to illustrate newspaper advertisements of slave sales and runaways: pants rolled up to the knees, bareheaded, a bundle attached to a stick slung over one shoulder, the round white eyes in the inky face giving a slightly comic air to the whole. She still thought Ada and the others no more than casual truants, avoiding work or even punishments. But this wench and that big darky—especially him, she thought, remembering his size and self-possession—even that yellow boy who came to see the wench, were all, no doubt, hardened rogues. Had to be, to get clean away from a coffle as they apparently had done. Yet this wench was afraid of her. Rufel sat back on her heels, fighting a panicky urge to laugh. Like I was the criminal; her mouth quirked involuntarily. Calmed by the wench’s fear, she rose and left the room.

  The wench began to sit up, to take notice of her surroundings, though she said little to Rufel and that in a voice barely above a whisper, eyes downcast. The darky’s diffidence irked Rufel and she was offended by the way the girl flinched from her when she reached for the baby, by the girl’s surreptitious examination of the child when Rufel returned him after nursing. For all the world like she was going to find some
fingers or toes missing, Rufel thought indignantly. Exasperated, she told the wench, “Just because one mistress misused you don’t mean all of us will.” She did stop flinching at Rufel’s approach, but it was plain to Rufel that the wench did not like having to let her nurse the baby; and she seemed incapable of even casual conversation with Rufel. Some times Rufel wanted to laugh—she had thought that “devil woman” business no more than a joke. At other times, remembering the silly, passionate argument over Mammy, she knew the wench’s reticence and timidity were feigned, and was angry and bewildered by the deception.

  The wench talked freely enough with Ada and the other darkies who came to see her. Rufel often heard the murmur of their conversation as she sat in the parlor; now and then she heard a soft chuckle or muffled giggle and was surprised at how envious the laughter made her feel. She watched the wench covertly when she was in the bedroom, wondering what she could have done to make the other darkies, even laughingly, call her “devil woman.” There had been only admiration in the big darky’s tone when he spoke of her, no hint of fear or amusement in his voice. Though it would probably take more than this little pesky gal to frighten that darky, Rufel thought, recalling the breadth of his shoulders and the hard muscled arms. Rufel sensed somewhere in the general outline of the wench’s tale a deeper story and one not entirely unrelated to her concern for Mammy, though she could not say just how. She blamed the curious restlessness she felt on her unanswered questions about the wench and one afternoon she gave in to impulse and wandered out to the stream.

  Rufel and the darky were each aware of the other’s presence this time. He stood and touched his hat. “Evening.” He bowed his head slightly.

  She stood awkwardly, shifting her weight from one foot to another. “Fishing?” she asked.

  He nodded, then as though remembering himself, “Yes’m,” and touched his hat again.

  “Nice spot for it.”

  He shrugged. “Not as good as the spot down by the pool, but quieter. Everyone trying to fish down there this evening,” he explained.

  It seemed somehow rude to tell him that darkies were not allowed to use either, so Rufel merely nodded. She saw the stump she had sat on the other day and sat again, tucking her skirts carefully about her. After a moment he picked up the pole he had laid aside, cast, and sat on the ground a short distance from her. They were silent.

  She cleared her throat. “Why you-all call that wench—”

  “Dessa?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes, that darky. Why you-all call her ‘devil woman’?”

  “Where you hear that?” he asked sharply.

  She shrugged, pleased to have finally gotten a rise out of him. “Oh, I hear things,” she said airily. “It have something to do with you-all escaping from that coffle, huh?”

  He grinned slightly. “That ain’t nothing but something white folks made up,” he said with an air of unconcern.

  “Well, why they call her that?” she prodded.

  “That’s some mess—That’s some of Harker’s talk,” he said annoyed. “Dessa done her part just like everybody else, just she was more easy to pick out cause of that big belly.” He chuckled suddenly. “She did like to scare Master Wilson half to death when she jumped on his back—he screeched like a stuck pig and she was already yelling like a banshee. I guess white folks might of thought they was in hell.”

  “You-all did kill some white people, then?” she breathed, admitting to herself, finally, that this question had been in the back of her mind ever since he told her of the escape from the coffle.

  “Mis’ess,” he said looking at her steadily, “we ain’t harmed no one didn’t offer us harm first.”

  “You-all going to kill me?”

  “No, Mis’ess.” He sounded genuinely shocked.

  “Don’t suppose you’d tell me if you was,” she said, still on a note of disbelief.

  “Mis’ess,” he said earnestly, “ain’t no one here plan you no hurt or would do you or yours any harm.” He cleared his throat. “We all know it’s not too many white folks would let us stay round like this.”

  It was not exactly the expression of gratitude she felt the runaways owed her, but, somewhat mollified and reassured, too, she asked curiously, “Was it a big battle?”

  “On that coffle? Not really,” he said briefly.

  “Well.” Rufel was disappointed. “Did that wench—Odessa really jump on that trader like you said?”

  “Rode him like you would a mule,” he said, laughing outright. “Master Wilson a big burly man but she stuck to him like a burr to a saddle. Knocking him all upside the head with her bare hand, yelling to the rest of us, ‘Get him, get him.’ Oh, she was something,” he said shaking his head.

  “All you darkies from off that coffle?” she asked.

  “No’m; I believe Ned from down round Lowdnes County; Red from round about Dallas County someplace.”

  Rufel had only a hazy idea of whom he spoke and an even hazier idea of where the counties he named were located. To cover her ignorance, she said sarcastically, “All you-all escaping from a cruel master, huh? Beat every one of you worse than what that wench’s mistress beat her, huh?”

  “No, Mis’ess,” he said quietly. “Castor’s old master died and the ’state was being broke up; stead of being sold away from everything he knowed, he runned off.” He paused and looked at her in a measuring way. “Master Wilson cuff me sometime, throw a boot at me now then, but, sometime—sometime I get to wondering why Master can take his ease while I be the one that sweat, why the harder I work the more he gets. But I guess you wouldn’t know nothing about that?” he added, cutting his eyes at her.

  His lightly mocking tone recalled her earlier anguish over Mammy—Had she felt this way? Rufel rose hastily to her feet. How could you love someone who used you so?

  “Ada say you come from pretty big people back there in Charleston.”

  Rufel paused. He was watching her, she saw, not in that disconcertingly bold way he had, but from beneath properly lowered lashes. She was instantly suspicious; he was trying to cozen her, of course. “They wasn’t that big,” she said cautiously, remembering that other occasion, yet, wanting to impress him, she added quickly, “Oh, we was accepted by society, but we wasn’t real prominent.”

  The darky nodded wisely. “Ada say Dorcas was always talking about the parties and dances you was invited to.”

  “Well,” she said slowly, “I did go to a lot of balls and parties,” and remembered with familiar yearning the ballroom glittering with the flames of a hundred candles; the jewellike colors of the women’s dresses swirled in a kaleidoscope before her eyes.

  “Reckon he’ll be home right soon.”

  The darky’s voice recalled Rufel to his presence and she stared blankly at him. “What?”

  “Your husband,” he prompted. “Reckon he’ll be home soon?”

  “Yes,” she said nervously. “Yes, I expects him home any day now.”

  “Must be some powerful big business keep him away so long.”

  What could Bertie do on the river, any river, that would earn him money, that would make him stay away from home like this?

  “—gambling.”

  It was not the first time Rufel had asked herself this question and for a moment she thought she had spoken aloud, that the one word she’d heard from the darky was his answer. She stared at him in disbelief.

  He grinned at her. “Oh, yes, ma’am, Harker’s old master was a gambler; won Harker in a card game. Master’s cardplaying was how Harker got free.” Rufel relaxed as soon as she realized the darky wasn’t talking about Bertie; the darky continued unperturbed. “Harker ain’t had to escape like the rest of us, least ways to hear him tell it. Seem like his master got caught with too many aces—you know it’s only four in a deck, Mis’ess, and there was three on the table and two in his hand. Not that I think the master here would do anything like that,” he said, looking slyly, or so it seemed to her, out of the corner of his eye, then
continuing casually, “Seem like Harker’s master was a regular cutup, a confidence man you know. Sold snake-bite oil and a magic elixir was straight puredee alcohol. Sold well, too—especially to spinster ladies and widders.”

  He paused for breath and Rufel grinned broadly at his fast-talking commentary. “You,” she said clapping her hands, “you are the funniest darky—”

  “Nathan,” he said smiling. “My name Nathan, Mis’ess.”

  Rufel hardly noticed. “What,” she asked laughingly, “what ‘puredee alcohol’ and ‘widders’ got to do with Harker escaping?”

  Not much, as it turned out. Harker had not thought it prudent to stay around and find out what the other cardplayers thought of a five-ace deck, as he himself had several stashed about his person. These he had slipped to his master as occasion and circumstance permitted while he served the gentleman drinks. When his master failed to meet him as they had previously arranged, Harker, believing all to be lost, had fled the vicinity. He had been a wanderer ever since. “Until he happened onto the Glen and a kind white lady named Miz—” He paused expectantly.

  Amused by his mock gallantry, she replied, “Rufel,” automatically, and wanted to bite her tongue.

  He tipped his hat slightly and continued, “—named Mistress ’Fel took him in.”

  Gratified that he showed no reaction to her use of a pet name and oddly moved by his use of the diminutive, she smiled.

  “That’s better,” he said. “Nice Miz Lady like you not supposed to go round all sad,” he said gruffly.

  “Why, why,” startled she stammered. “Thank you, Nathan,” she said touched.

  Now that she knew who Nathan was, Rufel seemed to see him frequently. He came every couple of days to see the girl and now and then she walked out with him afterward, pausing at the edge of the yard for a moment as he finished some amusing pleasantry or anecdote, before turning back to the House. Often they met at the stream. It had been her habit to sit by the stream in summer with her sketch pad. She had some skill, she thought, with caricature, but Bertie had not encouraged this. The form, she knew, was rather vulgar but she could not help preferring the whimsical figures drawn as much from her imagination as life to the crude still-lifes and landscapes that Bertie praised as ladylike. So she had seldom sketched; she had watched the play of sunlight on the surface of the stream, counted the various shades of green among the branches of the overhanging trees, dozed a little, dreamed, though she could not remember of what.