Dessa Rose Read Online Free PDF Page B

runaway slaves long rumored to be in the vicinity of Mobile. The darky opened her eyes and stared off into space, humming again, that absurd tune. “Who were the darkies that got away?” He raised his voice so as to be heard over her humming. This, too, was a shot in the dark; there was no proof that any of the renegades had escaped the posse. But there was a discrepancy between the number of slaves listed on the coffle manifest and the accounting made by the court of those killed, executed, branded, and/or released. It might be, as Wilson’s partner, Duncan, maintained, that those slaves—by Nehemiah’s count there were at least two—had been sold en route and not immediately noted in the manifest. But the discrepancy remained a loose end in Nehemiah’s opinion and he knew the darky could tie it up.
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    â€œLawd, give me wings like Noah’s dove
    Lawd, give me wings like Noah’s dove
    I’d fly cross these fields to the one I love
    Say, hello, darling; say how you be.”
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    The darky’s song burst in upon these reflections and before Nehemiah could react, she spoke.
    â€œKaine just laugh when Mamma Hattie say that playing with God, putting yourself on the same level’s His peoples is on. He say Mamma Hattie ain’t knowed no more about God and the Bible than what the white folk tell her and that can’t be too much cause Masa say he don’t be liking religion in his slaves.” She had caught him by surprise, but he wrote quickly, abbreviating with a reckless abandon, scribbling almost as he sought to keep up with the flow of her words. “…Kaine just go on singing his songs to me in the evening after I gets out the fields. I be laying up on our pallet and he be leaning against the wall. He play sweet-soft cause he say that what I needs, soft-sweeting put me to sleep after I done work so all day. He really feel bad about that, me in the field and him in the garden. He even ask Boss Smith could I come work at the House or he come work the field. I scared when he do that. Nobody ask Boss Smith for nothing cause that make him note you and the onliest way Boss Smith know to note you is with that whip. But he just laugh; tell Kaine he a crazy nigga.”
    She laughed softly, shaking her head. “Kaine not crazy. He the sweetest nigga as ever walk this earth. He play that banjo, he play it so sweet till Mist’s even have him up to the House to play and she talk about having a gang of niggas to play music for when they be parties and such like at the House.”
    Nehemiah stopped writing. More of that business with the young buck. He scowled, looking at the darky in exasperation. Sunlight filtering through the leaves dappled her face with shadow. In the cellar, her skin had seemed an ashen black, almost scaly in its leathery pallor. Now it seemed the color of pekoe tea, a deep lustrous brown that even in the shade glowed with a hint of red. Her voice had lost some of its roughness yet still held a faint echo of that desperate bravado that had fascinated him during their last meeting.
    â€œâ€˜Niggas,’ Kaine tell me, ‘niggas just only belongs to white folks and that be’s all. They don’t be belonging to they mammas anddaddies; not they sister, not they brother.’ Kaine mamma be sold when he little bit and he never know her face. And some time he think maybe his first masa or the driver or maybe just some white man passing through be his daddy.”
    Perhaps that was it, Nehemiah speculated, that strain of white blood that had made the young buck so rebellious. He should interrupt her, he knew; this was hardly germane. Yet he was reluctant to disturb the darky’s trancelike state. He watched as her mouth quirked drolly, an eyebrow lifted skeptically. He wouldn’t have thought the darky’s face so expressive. Well, he thought, tapping his watch case again yet oddly arrested by the darky’s display, he