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nigga sitting around eating his head off while he waited for some flowers to grow. Kaine could laugh, put it off on Master trying to get a rise out of his wife and her mother, but it must be something to it if it could put Young Mistress in tears. “What else she got to cry about?” Kaine, grinning wryly, eyes lit—Dessa wanted to run, to quiet his careless mouth with kisses…she hurried, hearing a quavering, high-pitched twang: “Place going to wrack and ruin cause he [meaning Master] don’t know the difference between a gardener and a common field hand.” Lefonia’s ruddy brown face, twisted in comic mockery, shimmered before her eyes…hurrying…Mammy swore Aunt Lefonia could do Old Mistress to the life, the pinched mouth, the stuffed-nose quality to her voice. Lefonia knew, even if Kaine wouldn’t tell her: “Long as it Vaugham money keep this House a showplace, thatnigger [meaning Kaine] better turn his hand to whatever need doing.” Not Aunt Lefonia’s imitation now, but a voice so harsh and heavy it must have been Master’s—when had she heard him speak? (that question wild within her, making her cold all the way through. Someday Master wouldn’t care about Young Mistress’s tears or Old Mistress throwing his family up in his face. He’d sell Kaine to Charleston or the next slave coffle that passed their way .
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    â€œHey, hey…”
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    Dessa moved as if through molasses: Kaine was coming down the Quarters; temples pounding, she ran
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    Nehemiah persuaded Hughes to allow the meetings with the darky to take place in the yard. He hoped that the novelty of fresh air would help him regain the rapport established during the last session with the darky and broken, he feared, by the brief respite while she recuperated from her chills. She was now fully recovered, suffering, so Jemina said, from no more than an occasional sniffle; the gash, while painful, perhaps, caused her no more than a slight limp. He sat now on a crude chair in the shade of the big elm in the side yard, pad and pen on his knee. The darky sat near him on the ground, knees drawn up to her chest, manacled hands clasped about them; her dress covered the leg-irons that hobbled her feet. A chain attached to her ankle-bead was wound around the trunk of the elm. From time to time she hummed, an absurd monotonous little tune in a minor key, the melody of which she repeated over and over as she stared vacantly into space. Each morning Nehemiah was awakened by the singing of the darkies and they often startled him by breaking into song at odd times during the day. Hughes, of course, found this comforting; thus far, Nehemiah reflected sourly, he had heard nothing but moaning from this darky.
    â€œWho had the file you used to break the chains?” This was a shot in the dark; there was no proof that a file had been used, noindication, really, of just how this darky had first gotten free of her chains. And Nehemiah did not really expect an answer; except for that offensive flicking of the eyes, the darky had responded to none of his overtures. “Where did the file come from?” he asked sharply. “Was it another darky?”
    The darky sat with her eyes closed and he nudged her with the tip of his boot to assure himself that she had not fallen into a doze. He had been told they fell asleep much as a cow would in the midst of a satisfying chew. He had not observed this himself and thought it an exaggeration for the darky did move, flicking her eyes up at him as she did so. He caught himself on an expletive, tapping his watch case impatiently. This was a damnable business.
    The darky closed her eyes. Nehemiah contained his irritation and went on with his questioning. “Where were the renegades going?” They had been heading south when the posse caught up with them and Nehemiah was not the only one to speculate that they had been making for an encampment of