believes that any letters he wrote you should be returned to him, for his
safekeeping." He was brisk now.
James knew exactly which letters he meant, and knew they were political
dynamite. He kept them locked in a strongbox. They were safe there; he
didn't want them in anyone else's hands. Especially not John's.
In that moment, he hated John. The man's always been a bully, he thought,
and found some streak of stubbornness in himself, if not exactly courage.
"They are private correspondence," he said. "If Andrew personally
requested the return of them, and if I believed it necessary, I would
deliver them myself."
John saw the flash of temper in James, and knew it was a waste of time
to argue.
"Very well. I have to go to Washington tomorrow, to an- 244 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
swer questions about the treaties. May I tell Andrew that you will keep
those letters private? I need hardly say that publication of them could
cause very serious damage to your considerable reputation."
James nodded. He hardly heard the rest of their conversation, didn't
remember John saying good-bye, although he responded by rote, but sat at
his desk, trying to come to terms with what John had said.
Driving home in his carriage, John was well satisfied with his afternoon's
work. He did not despise the Indians; he simply saw them as savage beasts,
lions in a jungle, who stood in the way of progress. He resented their
unproductive occupation of so much rich land, and believed the white man's
right to that land was divinely ordained. He wished the Indians no
especial, individual harm. Like Andrew, he could be kind and generous to
those who were useful to him or allied themselves to him in the
prosecution of his ideals. He particularly admired the warriors, the
braves, worthy prey for his military skill.
He did despise weak men, especially those lily-livered dunces in
Washington. How could he explain to them, here in the prosperous
afternoon of his life, what it had been like, all those years ago, in the
exultant morning? Andrew had led them in battle against the Creek and
they had won, obtaining a cession of land in the victory spoils, but no
one, not even he as subsequent surveyor appointed by Andrew, knew how
much land the Creek could be said to own. Indian lands had no borders or
boundaries as white men understood them. The Cherokee, who had aided them
in the war against the Creek, laid claim to much of it, as did the
Chickasaw. So Andrew and John, by force, persuasion, coercion, and-it was
a fact of life-bribery, had simply appropriated as much of the land as
they could.
And what did it matter if money had been paid to a couple of individual
Chickasaw in the treaty for their land, rather than to the whole tribe?
The government had what it wanted, which was the point, and the Chickasaw
would soon be gone. Why make a fuss about it now?
He had also come to despise James.
James was only a tiny fragment in the elaborate jigsaw of
MERGING 245
Indian removal that Andrew was piecing together. So much gossip and
misplaced indignation surrounded his dealings with the Indians that one
more scandal could hardly matter. But the imminent removal of the
Chickasaw, and the desperate plight of the Cherokee, was causing furious
argument, especially from the hypocritical New Englanders, who had
annihilated or banished their Indian populations long ago and now claimed
piety. Positive information that a treaty had been obtained illegally, by
bribes, could cause the whole thing to blow up in their faces. James had
that proof because his money had paid the bribes, and despite the repair
work that had been done to the rift between them, Andrew no longer
completely trusted James, and thought he should be neutralized. Which
John, very effectively, had done.
Put the fear of God in him, he thought. He sneezed, and wondered if he
was catching a summer cold.
James didn't eat that night, didn't even leave his study, and the tray
that was sent in to him remained untouched. He thought of burning the
incriminating letters, destroying them and proof of his culpability
forever, but he also knew that as long as he possessed them they gave him
powerful ascendancy over Andrew. Sally probed him gently later, in bed
that night, but he could not discuss his troubles with her, or with
anyone, until he had come to terms with them himself. In the week since
John's visit, he had worried and fretted about what had been said, and it
was only today that he had been able to come to any decisions.
It was unlikely, he was sure, that his titles to his land would be
questioned. Sure, but not certain. The battle between the states and the
federal government as to who had what authority over which land was a
continuing and complex one. He remembered that, years ago, half the
squatters in what was now Kentucky had lost title when Washington had
denied North Carolina's assumed rights to the territory. He remembered
that the most prolitable business for any lawyer on the frontier was from
the endless claims and counterclaims as to who owned land. He had thought
all the dealings of the Cypress Land Company to have an unassailable
basis in law, but he had come to understand over the years, when he
admitted the truth
246 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
to himself, that much of what the company had sold had been obtained by
Andrew and John Coffee in an appalling, and probably illegal, land grab.
And it was certain that if anyone found out that his money had paid the
bribes to the Colbert brothers, it would destroy his political career and
the reputation he had worked so hard to achieve.
The darkest truth of all was one he could hardly bear to admit, for James
had come to believe that what had been done, was being done, to the
Indians was no different from what the British had done to his countrymen
in Ireland. He now believed himself to be as corrupt as his sometime
oppressors, a complaisant pawn in a dreadful colonization, subjugation,
and degradation of a native people by a foreign power.
That he was not alone in feeling this didn't help. Many of his
associates, business and political, were now expressing concern over what
had been wrought, but it was especially bitter for James, for he saw he
had been so easily corrupted. Settled and affluent, away from Andrew's
powerful influence, he had begun to believe that every acre he had
purchased was contributing to the destruction of a race. Nor did he
seriously believe Andrew's, or John's, or anyone's, assertions that the
removal would be the end of it. The frantically expanding society that
was America needed ever more space, and going west was the clarion call
of the pioneers. James had heard it, like uncountable others, and it
still beckoned him; he longed to go farther still, to the fabled land of
California. Realistically, he knew that he would neve
r see the distant
Pacific, but others would, driving the Indians before them until the
proud few who were left stood with their backs to the boundless ocean,
and then where would they go?
The bitter fires of injustices he had seen in his youth, in Ireland, were
kindled again in his heart. Enough, he thought, we have done enough. It
must be stopped.
Andrew was the lock and the letters were the key. Andrew could make
anything happen; the world seemed to jump to his command. If Andrew could
be persuaded against the removal, if he could be made to see the
necessity of an accommodation with the Indians, of learning how to live
compatibly with them, side by side, perhaps something could be salvaged
from the wreck.
MERGING 247
The arrival of the wedding invitation that morning had fallen on his
troubled soul like manna from heaven. Andrew's accompanying letter had
been in a reasonable, placatory tone, making few references to the
subject that was so vexing James. He would see Andrew in Nashville, at
the wedding, and persuade him of the folly of the path on which he was
so resolutely determined, or else he would threaten to publish the
letters. That would make Andrew see sense. And at heart, he told himself,
Andrew loved the Indians; they were his children, he their father.
Having come to a decision, or having decided on a course of action at
least, James felt much better, and another concern presented itself for
his attention.
Jass.
He was quite proud of his son-no one could deny Jass's sense of duty and
honor-but part of him longed for another son, or different aspects to the
one he had. Oh, for a son who would give his father a sense of
exhilaration and danger, make him stand in awe of the giant that sprang
from his loins, a son like the man James had always wanted to be.
A son who would ride a streak of lightning. Someone had said that once
about Andrew, and it summed up James's longings exactly. Andrew rode
lightning. So had Sean. A.J. might have. He wasn't so sure about Jass.
He saw too much of himself in Jass, and just as a shepherd is a king to
his flock, so a son is a monument to the man who created him.
For James lived in an agony of self-doubt. As with his present guilt
about the Indians, the high moralist in him believed that slavery was an
unbearable sin. He wanted to free them all, to set up this estate as a
utopian ideal of what a prosperous, well-managed and slaveless plantation
could be. The other part of him, the pragmatic, practical, materially
ambitious part, had cast his lot with Andrew, and thus with the
institutions the South espoused, and thus with slavery and with the
appropriation of Indian land. And it had made him rich. And it had given
him power. His father's final words to him were a distant whisper now,
but they still had painful echoes:
"You will never amount to anything."
He had proved his father wrong. He had amounted to something, whatever
the cost, and he took a resonating pride in the
248 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
achievement. The Forks of Cypress and all it represented were his and
would remain so, by right of title and right of tenure. But would Jass
ever amount to anything? That was the constant, secret fear the father
held for his son. The fear would never be voiced, for he had sworn that
he would never say to his sons what his father had said to him, though
when he had first made that vow, he had no conception that he might have
a son who would even warrant the thought.
Jass would amount to something; he would see to it. If the boy could not
do it for himself, it was up to the father to do it for him. So lass must
marry, and marry well, sooner rather than later, and have sons, and those
sons would ensure the future prosperity of all he had striven so very
hard to achieve.
He was drunk now, he knew it, and found himself staring at a dreadful
truth. He hadn't worked so very hard for anything. It had all come to him
from someone else's largess. A man more daring than he had given him
everything he owned, crumbs from a giant's table. He hadn't ridden on any
streak of lightning, merely on Andrew's coattails.
The absolute inadequacy he now felt, together with the drink, made him
sentimental. His thoughts turned to A.J., and to the sons he might have
had. Waves of loss washed over James, and he found himself crying, tears
that might have been for his dead boy, but were as much for himself.
30
Early next morning, Easter was hanging newly dyed cloth on the line to dry
when she became aware that Jass was nearby. She looked at him, wondering
if he had news for her. Cap'n Jack had shrugged his shoulders when she
asked him if he'd said anything to the Massa about the wedding, and
ordered her not to fill her head with dreams. But she didn't want to
believe him.
Jass was lounging against a tree with a silly grin on his
MERGING 249
face, watching her. He knew something, she was sure. Why didn't he tell
her?
"Pretty color," he said. The cloth, still dripping wet, was dyed a deep
reddish brown.
Easter lost her temper. "You got nuttin' better to do than stare at me?"
she demanded. She jammed the clothes prop under the line, and stalked
away to the weaving house.
"It's all right," he called after her, laughing. "You can go, You'll be
Sassy's maid. And you can wear a pretty frock and everything."
Her reaction was not delayed for an instant. She squealed with delight,
and ran toward him. He met her halfway and she jumped into his arms.
Elated by her joy, he swirled her round and round in the air and knocked
into the clothes prop, which dragged the line down on top of them, and
now they were rolling together on the ground, covered in the wet cloth.
Laughing together, without a care in the world, until he was on top of
her looking into her eyes, and seemed to be looking, she felt, into her
very soul, and she could see inside him, almost to his heart, when
suddenly something changed.
In that moment, all of Sally's fears had come true.
Jass pulled himself away.from her, got up and turned his back, as if to
hide himself from her.
"Look at my clothes," he said, angrily.
Easter wasn't sure what had happened. It had been so wonderful, locked
in his laughing embrace, the warmest place in all the world, and then
she'd felt this unaccustomed hardness pressing against her belly. She
knew what it was-she was not a stupid girl-and it didn't bother her. It
felt natural and right. Clearly, it bothered Jass.
She wanted to say something to calm him, to let him know that she loved
that special closeness of him, that he could do anything he wanted with
her, but she feared his rejection.
"Yo' mammy gwine be mad," she ventured. "That dye
don't come out."
He muttered something about fixing his clothes, and walked away. She
didn't know he was vowing that he would see less of her from now on.
She looked at her own clothes. They were covered in dye, too, and Easter
let out a howl of disappointment. They were
250 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
only her work clothes, but they were all she had. What would she wear to
Nashville?
The summer passed in an orgy of preparation for the coming wedding, and a
constant parade of visiting relations, so that the house seemed to be
cluttered with Jacksons and Hannas and Kirkmans and seamstresses and drapers
and tailors. The family would be in Nashville for a week, which meant ten
complete new outfits for Sally and Sassy, for no woman of substance would
consider wearing the same thing twice in such fon-nidable society.
Merchants in Florence sent bolts upon bolts of cloth for their inspection.
House slaves stitched and sewed and measured and fitted, and the house was
filled with such an overwhelming urgency of female matters that Jass was
happy to be out of it all. He had been measured for new clothes too, by the
tailor from Florence, but it had taken only a few minutes of time, and he
found it difficult to understand how the women's could take a whole summer.
Jass was trying to keep his vow not to see so much of Easter. The
unspeakable thing that had happened in their embrace had shocked him. He
knew what it meant, and he knew that he wanted her, but he wasn't ready for
such an enormous adventure yet, such a complication to their relationship.
Even on those few occasions when he did try to see her, it was mostly a
waste of time. She was having only two new dresses for Nashville, simple
linen for day, muslin for evening, but she fussed about them almost as much
as any woman going to the wedding. In any case, she was in the big house
most of the time, getting instruction from Angel in her new duties, and
didn't want to be away from the center of dressmaking activity when she had
nothing else to do.
Cap'n Jack was as busy as the rest of the staff, at the beck and call of
the visitors and responsible for the welfare of the visitors' slaves.
Jass, left to his own devices, spent the time riding and swimming and
visiting friends from school in the district. He even spent a cheery
afternoon with Wesley, who enjoyed Jass's company when they had no quarrel,
and delighted in titillating Jass with his most recent conquests of female
slaves. They
MERGING 251
had sparred together for a while, and Wesley had given Jass several hints
on the finer points of boxing, even though the information might very well
be used against him in some future fight with Jass.
William, Alexander, and George had come home for the summer from school
in Nashville. They were always pleased to be with Jass, but were
completely content, possibly happier, with their own company. Cheeky,
bustling, even more of a tight-knit group than before, they became known
to everyone as the Trio, and several more distant relations, elderly or
absentminded, began to forget their individual names.
They had arrived at the beginning of summer in a bustle of boxes and
carts and schoolboy noise, in the care of their cousin John, who had come
to look for a house in Florence, since several of the Kirkmans were
moving to Florence. The Trio clutched at their mother, weeping, begging
her never to send them away from her to that awful school again, but
within minutes they were gone, causing havoc in the garden, chaos in the
kitchen, and endless tolerant vexation from Tiara in the slave quarters,
for she had been nurse to them, as she had to all the boys, and still
loved them and their boyish games.
The Trio left chaotic, frustrated joy in their wake wherever they went,
and especially for Sally. She loved them all dearly, but it was a less
fretful love than she had lavished on her older children when they were