Secret Tides Page 3

  Camellia shook her head.

  “And what if he should live?” asked Stella. “He’d put you and your family right off this place. Me too. After he whipped me, he’d sell me fast, like a horse he don’t need.” She stood and toed Tessier in the chest.

  The wind whipped through the window, blowing Camellia’s hair. Rain started falling again, but gentler now. Tears streamed down Camellia’s face. She bent to Tessier again. “We just let him die?”

  Stella patted her back. “He’ll live or die on his own. Not up to us.”

  Tessier took several shallow breaths.

  “I did this,” said Camellia.

  “He did it,” Stella countered. “You and me both know it.”

  Camellia thought of the doctor again and started to stand. No matter what Stella said, she couldn’t just stand by and watch a man die. But then Tessier heaved one last big breath and lay still.

  Stella shook her head. “Not ours to worry about. He be gone.”

  Camellia touched his chest. It didn’t move. She looked up at Stella. “How will we explain this? They’ll accuse me of killing him, and they’ll be right.”

  Stella grabbed a rag, handed another one to Camellia, and started cleaning up the potatoes. “The man be drunk,” Stella said, as if talking about the weather. “He come to check on supper, see what we was fixin’. He tripped on this stool.” She took a two-step stool from beside the fireplace and laid it by Tessier’s feet. “He tripped on this stool and fell into the table. That’s all we got to say.”

  “What about the cut on his hand?”

  “A man falls, he grabs for the table, and his hand catches on the knife. He cuts the hand as he falls. A simple thing to happen.”

  “You think folks will believe us?”

  “If we stick to our stories, they’ll let it stand, I reckon. How else they gone say it happened? Two women knocked him on the head? What sense that make? Just say the story over to me; I’ll say it over to you. Then we take it to Mrs. Tessier.”

  “But we’re lying,” said Camellia.

  Stella took Camellia’s face in her hands. “Listen to me, child. This is the way it gone be. Mr. Tessier tripped on a stool and busted his head. That’s my story, and it best be yours. Any other way, and we both gone be messed up for the rest of our lives. You got that?”

  Too shocked to think of a good argument, Camellia nodded blankly.

  “Now repeat the story to me,” ordered Stella.

  Camellia started to protest. The notion of lying cut against all she believed. Yet, Stella told it right. Mr. Tessier had caused this by trying to take advantage of her. If he hadn’t made his shameful approach, he’d still be breathing. He carried the weight of what had happened, not her. Why should she hand over her life for a bad man’s sins? And what about Stella? If anybody ever heard the whole truth, they’d hurt Stella too, put her off The Oak. Where would she go at her age? What would she do?

  Outside the thunder rumbled as the last of the storm died away. Like the storm had fought with the clear sky to see which would win, now Camellia fought within her soul. What should she do? She wanted to tell the truth but knew she had no choice but to lie.

  “You done no wrong here,” Stella whispered. “Mr. Tessier brought this on. Just tell the same story, over and over. Nobody will ever know the difference.”

  Camellia stared at Stella.

  “We best go to the manse,” said Stella. “Tell your pa and the others what happened.”

  “I’m fearful,” Camellia said.

  Stella nodded wisely. “I been fearful all my life, child. But I got words for you. You get used to it.”

  Chapter Two

  The storm that hit The Oak that day missed Charleston, and the sun, a strong steady heat that seemed as though it wanted to bake everything to a crisp, never let up. Underneath that sun in Charleston, a crowd of close to fifty people stood around a raised wood platform about a half-mile from the ocean, not far from the center of town. Most of the people in the crowd were men—rough men, fancy men, men in hats with tobacco in their cheeks, men in frock coats and ruffled shirts—all kinds of men from the best to the worst that South Carolina and its neighboring states had to offer. The smell of sea air and poorly washed bodies drifted in and out as a light breeze rose and fell. A variety of dogs mingled in and out with the men.

  A line of nine coloreds stood on the platform—seven men and two women. The men wore chains on their ankles; the women were unshackled. A bald, stocky white man in a blousy blue shirt stood slightly in front of the darkies, his booming voice chattering constantly as he tried to jack up the prices on the men and women he wanted to sell.

  The two women stood at the end of the line, the last of the coffle for auction that day. The taller of the two women, a buxom girl with skin the color of butterscotch, kept her head up and her eyes straight, almost as if she dared any man to make too low a bid on her.

  The man in the blousy shirt moved to the first darky, explaining all his fine qualities. The taller woman at the end of the line tried hard not to hear. Her lips pouted; she wished she had a last name other than one stuck on her by a white man. People with their own last names didn’t get sold off when the fever burned through their plantation in late summer and killed off their master and two of his children. But since she didn’t have a true last name, the banker man had come to the Rush ton plantation about a day’s ride from Richmond only a month after the fever and poured out some harsh news. She could remember it all, as if it were yesterday.

  “You got to raise some quick cash money,” the banker had told the widow Rushton, his face all scraggly with a sorry gray beard. “Mr. Rushton owes the bank a note you can’t pay without doing so.”

  Lady Rushton glanced around the room, her round face flushed, her brown eyes wide. “Bring me some water, Ruby,” she ordered her house servant.

  Ruby had obeyed quickly, her heart pounding with the tidings the banker had brought. Having served in the house all her life, she knew the chunky Mrs. Rushton didn’t know much of anything about the business of a plantation.

  “How much money does your bank require?” Mrs. Rushton asked the banker after Ruby handed her the water.

  “About twenty thousand,” said the man.

  “Can you wait for the harvest?” she asked. “I expect we could raise that much after we get the tobacco crop sold.”

  When the banker rolled his eyes, Ruby decided she didn’t like him much.

  “You never know about crops,” he said. “Maybe they earn something, maybe they dont.”

  Mrs. Rushton wiped her wet eyes. “I am not good at this,” she admitted. “I wish Junior was older.”

  Ruby nodded her understanding. Mrs. Rushton’s oldest boy had barely reached twelve years.

  The banker picked at his beard, as if digging for lice. “There’s one sure way to raise some money. Faster than anything else I know.”

  Mrs. Rushton looked up at him. “How’s that?”

  “You can let go a few of your coloreas.”

  Ruby held her breath. In all her twenty years, the Rushtons had only sold one of their servants. That man, a squatty field worker with no left hand, had run off at least three times before they got shed of him.

  “I’d rather sell a Negro than whip one,” Mr. Rushton had told his overseer the day they caught the one-armed runner and whipped him for the third time. “Just go on and get what we can for him.”

  That had happened seven summers ago. But now Master Thomas Rushton lay six feet under the dirt on a high spot about five minutes away from the house, and his missus needed fast money.

  “I am not happy with the notion of selling,” Mrs. Rushton told the banker.

  “I don’t see where you got much choice,” said the banker. “Not unless you want to sell off some of these fine furnishings.” He waved his hand over the room.

  Ruby’s eyes followed his hand. Soft rugs the color of a dark red apple lay on the floor, and matching drapes hung on the glass wi
ndows. The sofa, hauled in on a wagon from Philadelphia, had legs that curved all the way to the floor. Ruby had heard Mrs. Rushton brag more than once that it looked like the sofas they made over in a place called France. Tall chests, fancy chairs, and well-smoothed wood tables covered with fine oil lamps and carved glass figures completed the décor in the sitting parlor.

  A sudden chill rolled through Ruby. Mrs. Rushton loved her pretties far more than she did her coloreds.

  “How many will need to go if we do it?” asked Mrs. Rushton.

  The banker smiled. “No more than ten to fifteen, I expect. Depending on their value, of course.”

  Mrs. Rushton wiped her eyes again.

  “You’ll need to make a list for me,” said the banker. “Which ones you want to sell, which ones to keep.”

  Mrs. Rushton waved him off. “I can’t do it. Work it out with Mr. Landers.”

  “He’s your overseer?”

  “Yes, do whatever he says.”

  Ruby shivered when she heard that. Landers had no use for her because he knew that Mrs. Rushton’s oldest child, Donetta, had taught her to read and write.

  “It’s not helpful,” he’d complained to Mr. Rushton the day two years earlier when he’d hauled Ruby to the master’s chambers after he caught her reading late one afternoon on the front porch. “Keeps her from doing proper work.”

  “But I done all my chores for the day,” pleaded Ruby.

  Master Rushton stared at Ruby. “Donetta taught you, didn’t she?”

  Not wanting to get Donetta into trouble, Ruby kept quiet, her eyes on the floor.

  “Don’t matter who taught her,” said Landers. “If I’m gone keep this place runnin’ right, I can’t have all the darkies sittin’ around readin’ books on me, now can I? Besides, it’s against the law.”

  Master Rushton looked from Ruby to Landers. “What do you want to do with her?”

  “Maybe we should make an example of her,” Landers said, narrowing his eyes.

  Mr. Rushton appeared to be considering the matter. Then he shook his head. “Leave it alone. You know I don’t take to whipping. Just makes everybody glum and hateful. Besides, my own girl did the teaching. How can I whip Ruby without doing harm to my own girl?”

  Landers started to protest, but Rushton held up a hand. Landers cursed under his breath and left the room.

  “Stay clear of him,” Master Rushton warned Ruby after Landers had disappeared. “And keep your reading to your room.”

  Boss Landers had not liked her since that day. So when the chance to get shed of her showed itself, he snapped it right up, picking her as one of the thirteen hands to haul away for auction to satisfy the banker.

  Ruby had tried to talk Lady Rushton out of selling her, but the silly woman had just covered her face and let it happen. With Donetta off at boarding school, Ruby had nowhere else to turn, so Landers had shipped her and the rest of the coffle over to Richmond. Four field hands got sold off there, each of them going in a different direction. Four good men and women she had known and loved now were scattered out like thistles on a breezy day. The others, Ruby included, had been shipped by boat from Richmond to Charleston.

  “Better prices in the South,” Ruby had heard Landers say to the ship’s captain as he led them aboard. “More need for the blackeys way down in the land of cotton.”

  Ruby ground her teeth and wished she could put her hands to Landers’s throat. A man like him needed somebody to squeeze his breath out, to make his tongue turn black with death from lack of air. But she, of course, a woman with no name of her own, had no way to harm Landers. So she had shuffled onto the tall sailing ship; had taken her spot on the deck where they put her and her fellow coloreds; had slept under the small canvas tent they had given them to cover their heads from sun and rain.

  Now, less than a month later, she stood on the platform in front of the sweaty white men, her right ankle rubbed raw by the chain she had worn since she left Virginia, a chain that had scraped her smooth skin until it peeled and bled. To her back, a light but hot breeze blew at her head. She’d spent the night in a building one street over from the ocean, just two streets from where she stood. She listened to see if she could hear the waves washing in but didn’t hear anything. She wished the water would reach all the way to where she stood, that it would come in one large wave and wash her away forever. It didn’t matter if it drowned her; in fact, that would please her greatly.

  Her mouth set with anger, Ruby examined her brown dress and tried to put the whole matter out of her head. Although still clean, the dress had a tear near her left shoe and more than a few worn-out places. She glanced at the others on the platform. Some were as black as cooking skillets; others almost yellow-brown. The tallest man stood as high as a horse’s ears, the shortest no higher than three washtubs stacked on one another. The other woman wore a stained cloth on her head and had only three fingers on her right hand. She wouldn’t bring much. The blousy-shirted man pointed at the crowd, his tongue moving like a lizard in and out over his lips.

  Ruby glanced at Markus, the tallest of the black men. The two of them had taken each other to marry six years ago. Part of her dared to hope she and Markus would end up at the same place, but the other half knew better. The chances of it didn’t add up to much. People with no last name got split up all the time—no matter that they had spent lots of nights on a pallet together, and in spite of the fact they had made a living baby out of their union.

  Ruby thought of her boy, Theo, the only thing she loved as much as she did Markus. Though she had wailed and pulled her hair until it came out in clumps, Mrs. Rushton hadn’t seen fit to send Theo with her and Markus.

  “Mr. Landers says he won’t fetch much, since he’s so young,” Lady Rushton had said as Ruby begged her to let her keep her five-year-old boy. “Best leave him with your mammy.”

  The auctioneer started the bidding on the shortest darky. Ruby wiped sweat off her face and pictured Theo. Born with an empty socket where his right eye should have been, Theo’s growing had stalled out real fast, like he didn’t have enough skin for his bones. Boys his age already stood half a head taller than him, and from what she could see, he wouldn’t ever reach too much higher than just about bosom level with her.

  At first she had felt grieved over the boy’s smallness—sorry that he’d taken such a strange turn. But then she noticed how good he talked, like his lack of growth had left some extra power for his head to use. A short but wise child with a round face and a mouthful of teeth, he sounded grown up almost from the day he started speaking. Her mammy, Nettie, said the Lord had made Theo special; had taken his eye so as to give him a different kind of seeing … visions that most folks never spied. Since Ruby didn’t really believe in the Lord, not after what she’d been through, she wanted to argue with her mammy. But since she knew that nothing could shake Nettie’s stout faith, she let it go.

  “I will take care for this baby,” Nettie had said as Ruby made ready to leave the Rushton house. “I will keep him till the day you come back and claim him again.”

  Theo hugged Ruby, then took a spot in his mammy’s lap.

  “Don’t reckon that day will ever come,” said Ruby, her brown eyes wet and red. “Reckon I won’t see my baby again in this old world.”

  “Don’t be grievin’, Mama,” said Theo. “I’ll set eyes on you again. I seen it.”

  Ruby knelt and took his tiny hands in hers. He believed what Mammy Nettie had told him; that the Lord had gifted him with the power to see what others couldn’t. How could she argue with him against that notion?

  “You watch out for your mammy,” she said, not daring to tell him that his mammy’s crazy notions had never helped anybody. “Do what she tells you.”

  Theo touched her cheek, as if he were the adult seeking to comfort her. “You be corran’ back someday. I seen it.”

  “I hope you see it right,” she said.

  “I do,” he stated. “Sho as a dog likes a bone, I seen you corran’
for me.”

  After hugging him one more time, Ruby had turned away and left.

  Now, as she was about to be sold, she wiped her eyes and pushed Theo and Markus out of her head. Unless some true miracle took place—and she saw no reason to expect one—they were dead to her, dead and gone forever.

  The auctioneer sold off the shortest man and called up the next man. “See these good features,” said the blousy-shirted man. “A strong back, thick biceps and thighs, clear eyes—all the things you want in a field hand. What’s the opening price for him? Don’t try to low bid me either. This is a good hand, and you all know it.”

  A man made a bid, and the auctioneer took off yelling. Sweat soaking through the back of her dress, Ruby kept her head down. The afternoon moved slowly, and Ruby’s back ached. The auctioneer kept on working. People made bids. Men stepped in and out, buying and leaving, shouting and spitting streams of tobacco and snuff juice into the cobblestones under their feet. Ruby wished she could go on and die. Shame made her sad and hopeless. She lost track of time. The blousy-shirted man kept things moving.

  “Now, just look at this,” he said, turning a fat Negro around so his back faced the crowd. “He ain’t ever been whipped. That means he ain’t a runner, no sir, no chance of that.” He told the darky to take off his shirt, then pointed to his back. “You see any stripes there? No, you don’t. He’s a gentle man, yes he is.” He twisted the black back around.

  “I’ll go seven hundred,” yelled a man from the left of the crowd. The auctioneer nodded, and the bidding started again. Before long he sold that man, then another, and finally came to Markus.

  Ruby stared at her man. Markus had shoulders like an ox and wide clear eyes. He knew how to keep horses and fix wagons and such. Markus tried to look her way, but the auctioneer grabbed his chin and squeezed it until he turned back to the crowd. Ruby saw Markus’s muscles tighten. She knew if he got the chance, he would pick up the auctioneer, bear-hug him, and crack his back like snapping a twig.