Page fired the overseer, some dandy from a Memphis garbage heap. Page wouldn’t honor white trash wit his spit. He sold the driver, an evil cuss ripped from a cruel vine. He wasn’t much good nohow. His whip create more sound than pain. Seeing that was the case, he took Whole Daddy outa the fields and put him in charge of em.
Whole Daddy ran a tight ship. He rung the bell before daybreak. He kept the books — he wrote in the neatest hand of the county — and if a slave sweat a good day, a good week, a good month, a good season, he allow them what Page allow them, time to work off the tation, be drovers, drivers, steamboatmen, draymen, carpenters, store clerks, and what have you — good works to make cash.
Whole Daddy. Overseer in name and title only. Spent most his time overseeing Page’s garden and his own. Raising the hogs. And tending the horses.
Horses? They had horses on the tation?
Did he wear a hat? Hatch asked. R.L.: when he went out West.
Hush, Sheila said. Hush.
Did he listen to all that cowboy music?
Hush.
Do dogs have hair? Horses, you bet. Whole Daddy knew him a horse. He’d heat an iron bar red hot—
She saw it, like the tip of a dog’s red dick.
— then he’d hammer it til it sent out a shower of sparks. He’d put that hot shoe on a horse. It smelled like burnt horn. And the horse would turn its wise eyes and say, Alright there, Mr. Whole Daddy. Go on. I won’t make a fuss.
The warm air and sun breathed strong passion in Pappa Simmons as he spoke.
Rarely did Whole Daddy leave home without bridle, halter, blanket, girt, horsewhip, and saddle. Go ridin off holdin the reins stiff like he was frozen to death. He rode some of Page’s horses into the grave.
Whole Daddy was a cowboy?
Not exactly. A drayman, drawing work from the harvest horses. And Page’s coachman too. Drive him wherever he need to go.
Pappa Simmons shut his eyes. Two eyeballs under two closed lids, bulging the skin out, protruding bellies.
So those last thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two years befo Juneteenth, Whole Daddy lived the good life. Walked on time-slowed feet. He would overseer and dray and go to auction and purchase niggas.
Well, this one auction, Whole Daddy bought these two girls fo his own private matters.
Those ten or eleven years befo Whole Daddy came to Sabine Hall, those eight or nine years he was there before Cuthbert died, Whole Daddy had put so many long years in the fields his shoulders bent like cane stalks. These two Indians were field-bred too. The same slumped shoulders. The same black tongues. Indian girls.
Indians?
Yes. And twins.
Twins?
Indians and twins.
Indians can’t have twins.
Couldn tell em apart. Nola and Idelia. The one who birth me. One my mammy Idelia and the other my aunt T Nola. They had raven-black hair and wings that fly bout they heads whenever they get excited, which was rare, since they both talked bout as much as a log. But beautiful. I member the sound of they walking hips. Like cooter shell. Whole Daddy married the one that become my mamma. Maybe he married them both. Cause you couldn tell them apart and I don’t know all there is and ain’t to tell.
Me and my brother, recent saint of memory, grow up wit the four fussy red hands of these two sisters. Barely women when Whole Daddy marry em but old in work and season.
Well, they duddied up, usin money Page prescribe. Page hired the best preacher. Whole Daddy’s choice. They jumped the broom on Page’s front porch all cluttered wit saddles, bridles, bale cotton, hoes, rakes, a washstand, washbasin, pitcher, towel, and wash bucket. Page squeal a note or two on the fiddle. Then he throw a sumptuous feast.
REBS COME RIDIN TO SABINE HALL and tell Page to git ready to fight. Said, All yo nigga foolishness fine peacetime, but this wartime. Said they’d give him three days and he’d better come, else they’d come and git him. He said, Guess you’ll jus have to come and git me. I done already served.
The war came. Some woogies holed up in they houses all circled bout wit sharp stakes they niggas build. Other woogies run off to the war, blessed with traveling dust they niggas sprinkle on they feet.
By and by, word came. Whole Daddy ride horseback up and down and all about ringing the dinner bell and yelling above the clanging, Free.
Pappa Simmons rested his tongue, a humming ache of silence. Porsha studied his silence, a red stain in the light.
Nightfall, Whole Daddy gather up his hunting rifle and stepped bold as daylight into Page’s bedroom.
Porsha saw it. Sun pushing through a window, bogarting.
Ernest, Page said. By and how, what’s the meaning of this? You free.
Whole Daddy ain’t say a word. He commence to workin. Raid Page’s larder. Clean out Page’s wardrobe, cluding his best pair of shoes. (They wore the same size.) He looked at Page. Follow me, he said. Page followed him out to the kitchen. Whole Daddy cleaned out the pantry provisions. Follow me, he said. Page put on his hat. He followed Whole Daddy out to the stables. Whole Daddy cleaned it out, then he put all his cleanings into Page’s buckboard. He fixed the two best horses. Took Page’s best shotgun. Follow me, he said. By God, Ernest, Page said. Can’t you see? Page was still in his nightgown. Get in the wagon, Whole Daddy said. Page got in the wagon, where the two Indian twins sat waiting. Howdy, Page said.
They rode bout three miles. Then Whole Daddy stopped the horses and stepped down from the wagon. He spread his arms wide, marking off the best fifty acres on Sabine Hall. All this mine, he say. Far as yo eye travel yonder and yonder and yonder and yonder too. I repeat, all this mine. Enter on pain of your life.
Okay, Ernest, Page said.
Since the hailstorm, Page had tried to be a better man than his father. But you can’t run wit the hare and hunt wit the hound.
What? she said.
Whole Daddy said, I’m gon come back fo some mules and hogs. Now get on back home.
Page tipped his hat to the ladies. Walked the three miles home.
They bedded down in the wagon. Whole Daddy sleep between the Indian twins. Those first weeks, Whole Daddy and the Indians keep one eye sleep and one eye shut. They didn’t take no chances. Never know if a cup of courage replace Page’s morning coffee. Never know if the old paddies come ridin. So they ain’t take no chances. They greet visitors down the sight of a rifle.
Whole Daddy and the Indians set to the sweat of work. Whole Daddy was a glutton for work. That’s why he stuffed his belly with three plates of food at each meal. Wore out his boots in a week. He say, In the morning sow yo seed and until evening do not let yo hand rest. Labor is the deck. All else is the sea.
He and the Indians sawed trees, split logs, cut and trim timbers fo a foundation and laid a line of Page’s bricks fo the house. Built the house with scrap boards from Page’s lumberyard. The house was nothing fancy. Front room, two bedrooms, a kitchen. They built a fence. Dug a well. Cut and hammer an outhouse. Nothing fancy. Jus a plank of oak stretched over a hole in the ground. When it rained, Lawd. Pappa Simmons pinched his white tomahawk nose, red.
They build a barn, a smokehouse. (The smokehouse my favorite place. Manfred and me, we be playin out behin the smokehouse, whipping each other wit chitlins.) And a hogpen. Fenced off with a shelter jutting from the barn. Hogs closed off in stalls.
Chickens. Yall ain’t have no chickens?
We had a coop. They built that too. And planted the harvest. Know how? Press a hole with yo heel. Drop a seed. Now cover it wit yo foot. Hard work. Pick worms off the growing crops.
Yuck. Slimy worms.