“Give him another day in the barn to reconsider,” Caldonia said. She took her arms from around him and held them at her sides but still continued leaning into his back.
“A day too long a time, Caldonia.”
As had been planned, they took an early supper at Fern Elston’s. Her gambler of a husband, Ramsey, was there and had started to drink even before their guests had arrived. Ramsey was not drunk but as often happened with him, he turned combative in the middle of the meal and accused another guest of owing him money. That guest, Saunders Church, was there with his wife, Isabelle, two free colored people without a slave to their names. Saunders laughed at first, thinking Ramsey was trying to fun him.
”Ramsey,” Fern said after her husband had asked for the money a third time, “let us leave financial matters until another day.”
Henry had been silent the entire meal. He had not wanted to come but Caldonia had insisted, saying that it might raise his mood.
“I owe you nothin,” Saunders said at last, seeing that Ramsey was not out to fun him. “I owe you nothin.” It was true; the drinking often made Ramsey think the whole world owed him a debt. The three men and the three women were the entire supper party. Ramsey was at the head of his table.
“Why not leave off, Ramsey, just like Fern said,” Henry said. “Saunders be your guest.” He was sitting at Ramsey’s left and Isabelle was sitting at Ramsey’s right.
“I didn’t ask some white man’s nigger about living my life,” Ramsey said. “You ask Robbins what to say this evening?”
Henry looked down at his lap and then reached over swiftly before Ramsey could move and held tight to Ramsey’s throat, shook it a time or two and continued to hold on. Ramsey began to sink in his seat. He was a reddish black man but slowly, as Henry held tight, all color disappeared from his face and his mouth opened and closed ever so slowly, like that of a fish, as he tried to pull in what little bit of air he could. Ramsey was able to look down across the table to his wife. Their marriage was approaching the far side of the hill from where they had started out and Fern looked into his eyes and did not move.
“Henry, for God’s sakes!” Caldonia said and took hold of his arm with both of hers. “Please, Henry!” Saunders got up and managed to pry Henry’s hand from Ramsey’s neck and Ramsey sank even deeper into his seat. Caldonia pulled Henry away and her husband sat in his seat and rested both hands on the edge of the table, on either side of his plate. Henry looked down to Fern and said, “I’m sorry to ruin such a good afternoon.” Isabelle and Saunders and Caldonia tended to Ramsey. Fern nodded and said, “I know you are, Henry. I know you are.”
That day the Townsends and Valtims Moffett arrived back at their respective homes at about the same time. Moffett came up the short lane at his place and before he was even five yards from his little house he could hear his wife and her sister arguing. The dog was dead so there was no one to greet him. There was still a good bit of sun left and his body, oiled and fed by the long day, had enough energy and power to do some work. He took the carriage to the barn and went to his house, stood at the edge of the porch and listened. Their fighting had been going on for two months, since two days after he had slept with his sister-in-law. His unhappy wife had let it be known to her sister that she would not care if the sister slept with Moffett. But once the sister had done so, an unexpected rage took hold of the wife and the two would argue all day and late into the night.
Moffett stood and listened. He took a perverse delight in hearing them, was lulled into sleep by the sound of their fighting. He knew God was not pleased about that, but he felt he had many years of life ahead of him, despite his ailments, and so there would be time to force his knees to bend before God and ask his forgiveness. The women worked to please him, to show him that each was better for him and that the other should be cast out. Did God deny David and Solomon any less? Moffett went to the barn. He could still hear them from there. Soon the sun would be gone, and it would take with it his strength. He prepared the horse for the night and took up his plow. He emptied the money from his purse and counted out what he had earned-$4.50. Still in his Sunday preaching clothes, he took up the tools needed to sharpen the plow.
Henry and Caldonia retired early that night and he made love to her twice, forever seeking the son who might temper Augustus Townsend’s heart. When it was done, he lay on his back and she rested on her side and put her arm across his chest. “What anyone said never mattered to me,” she said after a time, thinking of what Ramsey the gambler had said. He was sweating and she put her tongue to the side of his face where the sweat poured down and caught some of it with the tip of her tongue.
”I know,” he said.
“Put more armor round that heart of yours about such things,” Caldonia said.
“I’m tryin,” he said and smiled. “I spect I’ll have the full armor by day after tomorrow.” He closed his eyes and she pulled herself even closer and the sweating stopped and she closed her mouth. Sam, the man with one ear, lived on at the Robbins’s plantation. He had a cabin to himself, which Robbins had permitted even after the overseer had said it would spoil him. “Once he learned right from wrong, he gave me good work,” Robbins said to the overseer. Sam was still grabbing and frightening little children. The grown-ups knew it was a habit that they could do nothing about, so they tried to teach the children to avoid him. “Give him not even so much as a good mornin or a good night. Wave from way over yonder when he speak to you and be on your way.”
On his way to the Townsend place on Tuesday morning, Oden Peoples the Cherokee met Sheriff John Skiffington and told him he had been hired by Henry after one of his slaves had run away. Skiffington had in his saddlebag a month-old letter from his cousin Counsel Skiffington in North Carolina. The letter swore by a woman in Amelia County who had a cure for stomach ailments, which John Skiffington had suffered from since he was a boy. Counsel had always teased John about his “woman’s stomach” but he had never thought his cousin’s pain was not real. John had set out for an overnight trip to the woman in Amelia, but hearing about Elias running away, he decided to go with Oden Peoples, one of his patrollers. A runaway slave was, in fact, a thief since he had stolen his master’s property-himself. They arrived about 9:30. Moses and one other man took Elias from the field and Oden sliced off about a third of his ear as everyone, including Henry, stood in the lane. Elias had his head down all the while except when Oden pulled it up to get the razor to do a better job. All of the lobe and then some. Oden always carried a pouch with a pepper poultice, which he blended with vinegar and mustard and a little salt-a proven remedy to halt the bleeding of even those who seemed to have more blood than other men. “The bleeders,” Oden called them. Elias lowered his head again and stood with his hands at his side, refusing to hold the poultice in place. In the end, Oden had to tie the poultice on Elias’s head with a rag Moses brought from his cabin.
Henry told Moses to take everybody back to the field. And there in the lane he paid Oden $1 for doing the job on Elias’s ear. “You think it’ll hold,” Henry said after he and Oden and Skiffington had left the lane and were nearing Oden’s saddleless horse and Skiffington’s red mare. “I don’t know,” Oden said. “It depends on what kinda heart he got in him. But,” and he took the reins, “I’ll come back and do the rest of that ear and won’t charge you.”