“What are you going to do now, Ridgeway?” Boseman wept. He was leaning against the wagon wheel for support. He looked at the blood on his hands. His necklace had snapped and the ears made it look like the dirt was listening. “Crazy Ridgeway, does as he pleases. I’m the last one left. Only Homer left to beat on when I’m gone,” he said. “I think he’ll like it.”
Homer chuckled. He got Cora’s ankle chains from the wagon. Ridgeway rubbed his knuckles, breathing heavily.
“It is a nice dress,” Boseman said. He pulled out a tooth.
“There’ll be more teeth if any of you fellows move,” the man said. The three of them stepped into the light.
The speaker was the young negro from town, the one who nodded at her. He didn’t look at her now, monitoring Ridgeway. His wire spectacles reflected the lantern’s glow, as if the flame burned inside him. His pistol wavered between the two white men like a dowser’s stick.
A second man held a rifle. He was tall and well-muscled, dressed in thick work clothes that struck her as a costume. He had a wide face and his long red-brown hair was combed up into a fan like a lion’s mane. The man’s posture said that he did not enjoy taking orders, and the insolence in his eyes was not slave insolence, an impotent pose, but a hard fact. The third man waved a bowie knife. His body shook with nerves, his quick breathing the night sound between his companion’s talk. Cora recognized his bearing. It was that of a runaway, one unsure of the latest turn in the escape. She’d seen it in Caesar, in the bodies of the new arrivals to the dormitories, and knew she’d exhibited it many times. He extended the trembling knife in Homer’s direction.
She had never seen colored men hold guns. The image shocked her, a new idea too big to fit into her mind.
“You boys are lost,” Ridgeway said. He didn’t have a weapon.
“Lost in that we don’t like Tennessee much and would rather be home, yes,” the leader said. “You seem lost yourself.”
Boseman coughed and traded a glance with Ridgeway. He sat up and tensed. The two rifles turned to him.
Their leader said, “We’re going to be on our way but we thought we’d ask the lady if she wanted to come with us. We’re a better sort of traveling companion.”
“Where you boys from?” Ridgeway said. He talked in a way that told Cora he was scheming.
“All over,” the man said. The north lived in his voice, his accent from up there, like Caesar. “But we found each other and now we work together. You settle down, Mr. Ridgeway.” He moved his head slightly. “I heard him call you Cora. Is that your name?”
She nodded.
“She’s Cora,” Ridgeway said. “You know me. That’s Boseman, and that’s Homer.”
At his name, Homer threw the lantern at the man holding the knife. The glass didn’t break until it hit the ground after bouncing off the man’s chest. The fire splashed. The leader fired at Ridgeway and missed. The slave catcher tackled him and they both tumbled into the dirt. The red-headed rifleman was a better shot. Boseman flew back, a black flower blooming suddenly on his belly.
Homer ran to get a gun, followed by the rifleman. The boy’s hat rolled into the fire. Ridgeway and his opponent scuffled in the dirt, grunting and hollering. They rolled over to the edge of the burning oil. Cora’s fear from moments ago returned — Ridgeway had trained her well. The slave catcher got the upper hand, pinning the man to the ground.
She could run. She only had chains on her wrists now.
Cora jumped on Ridgeway’s back and strangled him with her chains, twisting them tight against his flesh. Her scream came from deep inside her, a train whistle echoing in a tunnel. She yanked and squeezed. The slave catcher threw his body to smear her into the ground. By the time he shook her off, the man from town had his pistol again.
The runaway helped Cora to her feet. “Who’s that boy?” he said.
Homer and the rifleman hadn’t returned. The leader instructed the man with the knife to have a look, keeping the gun on Ridgeway.
The slave catcher rubbed his thick fingers into his ravaged neck. He did not look at Cora, which made her fearful again.
Boseman whimpered. He burbled, “He’s going to look in your soul and see what you done, sinner…” The light from the burning oil was inconstant, but they had no trouble making out the widening puddle of blood.
“He’s going to bleed to death,” Ridgeway said.
“It’s a free country,” the man from town said.
“This is not your property,” Ridgeway said.
“That’s what the law says. White law. There are other ones.” He addressed Cora in a gentler tone. “If you want, miss, I can shoot him for you.” His face was calm.
She wanted every bad thing for Ridgeway and Boseman. And Homer? She didn’t know what her heart wanted for the strange black boy, who seemed an emissary from a different country.
Before she could speak, the man said, “Though we’d prefer to put irons on them.” Cora retrieved his spectacles from the dirt and cleaned them with her sleeve and the three of them waited. His companions returned empty-handed.
Ridgeway smiled as the men shackled his wrists through the wagon wheel.
“The boy is a devious sort,” the leader said. “I can tell that. We have to go.” He looked at Cora. “Will you come with us?”
Cora kicked Ridgeway in the face three times with her new wooden shoes. She thought, If the world will not stir itself to punish the wicked. No one stopped her. Later she said it was three kicks for three murders, and told of Lovey, Caesar, and Jasper to let them live briefly again in her words. But that was not the truth of it. It was all for her.
Caesar
~ ~ ~
THE excitement over Jockey’s birthday allowed Caesar to visit his only refuge on Randall. The dilapidated schoolhouse by the stables was generally empty. At night lovers sneaked in, but he never went there at night — he required light, and he was not going to risk lighting a candle. He went to the schoolhouse to read the book Fletcher gave him after much protest; he went when feeling low, to weep over his burdens; he went to watch the other slaves move about the plantation. From the window it was as if he were not one of their unlucky tribe but only observing their commerce, as one might watch strangers stroll past one’s front door. In the schoolhouse it was as if he were not there at all.
Enslaved. In fear. Sentenced to death.
If his scheme came to fruition, this would be the last time he celebrated Jockey’s birthday. God willing. Knowing him, the old man was apt to announce another one next month. The quarter was so jubilant over the tiny pleasures they scavenged together on Randall. A made-up birthday, a dance after toiling under the harvest moon. In Virginia the celebrations were spectacular. Caesar and his family rode in the widow’s buggy to the farms of freemen, they visited relatives on estates for the Lord’s holidays and New Year’s Day. The pigs and venison steaks, ginger pies and corn-bread cakes. The games went all day long, until Caesar and his companions fell in panting collapse. The masters in Virginia kept their distance those festival days. How could these Randall slaves truly enjoy themselves with that dumb menace waiting at the sidelines, poised to swoop? They didn’t know their birthdays so had to invent them. Half these folks didn’t know their mothers and fathers.
I was born on August 14th. My mother’s name is Lily Jane. My father is Jerome. I don’t know where they are.
Through the schoolhouse window, framed by two of the older cabins — their whitewash smeared to gray, worn down like those who slept inside them — Cora huddled with her favorite at the starting line. Chester, the boy who prowled the quarter with such enviable cheer. Obviously he’d never been beaten.