Dessa Rose Read Online Free Page A

was not the quantity, but the quality, the subtle piquancy of the red-eye gravy or the feather lightness of a biscuit, sunlight falling across a Brussels carpet, the scrollwork on a ladder-back chair. The planters had wrought immense beauty in the wilderness that still dwarfed the nation and Nehemiah felt privileged to rub shoulders with its creators.
    During the stopover in Mobile, Nehemiah had heard the tale ofthe uprising on the Wilson slave coffle, barely a month old and still causing shudders throughout the region. He had the tale from several sources; the name of the trader often varied; the coffle was said to have originated in Tennessee, Georgia, and Montgomery, to have been bound for Linden, Jackson, Huntsville. But always one thing remained the same. The slaves had killed white men in the battle in which they were finally subdued, and in the initial hand-to-hand action that had freed the entire coffle. That fact gnawed at Nehemiah. The slaves had killed white men. He had not heard of nigras doing that since Nat Turner’s gang almost thirty years before.
    Nehemiah rose, yawning. The darky’s pregnancy was a stroke of luck; the rest of the ringleaders had been hanged by the time he heard of the uprising. Still, subsequent attempts to get the darky to talk had not been particularly fruitful. Nor, he admitted as he sat on the narrow bunk, was he particularly proud of the way he had handled them. He remembered one occasion in particular. He and Hughes had heard upon approaching the cellar a humming or moaning. It was impossible to define it as one or the other. Nehemiah had been alarmed, but Hughes merely laughed it off as some sort of “nigger business.” The noise had sounded like some kind of dirge to Nehemiah, but Hughes chuckled when he suggested this.
    â€œHow else kin a nigger in her condition keep happy, cept through singin and loud noise?” he’d asked with a smug consequential air. “A loud nigger is a happy nigger.”
    â€œYou make no distinction between moaning and singing?” Nehemiah asked tartly.
    â€œWhy should I?” Hughes replied with a hearty laugh. “The niggers don’t.”
    Nehemiah had been obliged to rely on Hughes’ judgment in the matter; as slave owner and sheriff, Hughes had had far greater contact with various types of darkies than Nehemiah would ever wish for himself. And he had heard much the same thought—a loud darky is a happy one—expressed again and again while doing research for the Guide . But the thought reminded him unpleasantly of Wilson’s “Raise a song there, Nate,” and Wilson’s empty sleeve.
    The sheriff had opened the door and the darky, caught in the stream of light, fell silent. Nehemiah, cautioning the sheriff to prop the door open as he left, descended into the cellar. The darky started to scuttle away and Nehemiah, fearful of being drawn into the shadows, called to her sharply. The darky stopped, crouching just inside the patch of light, and appeared unmoved when he reminded her that though the pickaninny she carried had saved her from a quick hanging, it would not save her from a whipping. Probably, she had seen that for the ruse it was. Except in the most extreme cases, even the meanest owner would not exact such harsh punishment of a darky so close to childbed. And one never threatened a slave. He had heard this axiom over and over again in his research for the Guide . One promised; and such promises had always to be kept.
    The darky had greeted his statement with a flick of her eyes—almost as though he had been a bothersome fly and her eyes a horse’s tail flicking him away. The memory of that gesture still had the power to outrage him; it had infuriated him then, and he had struck her in the face, soiling his hand and bloodying her nose, and stormed up the steps almost before he thought. He was immediately sorry; he had compounded the first error with another. It was seldom