"They are going on a long journey, to new land in the West, away from the
power of the white man, and they are very pleased."
Although a Cherokee, Jimmy had been living on the Chickasaw land since
his father's death, had married a Chickasaw woman, and was now going west
with these people, but James was surprised. He had not thought that the
enforced removal would be a source of comfort to any Indian.
"I wish them well," James said. "it will be a difficult journey. "
Parson Dick translated and listened to the reply.
"Many have gone before and have not survived," he told James. "But they
have no choice, for if they stay here they will surely perish."
He listened to Doublehead. James looked at the squaw. Cradling the child
in her arrns, she stared ahead, not seeing him, not seeing anything. She
seemed to James to have no sense Of future, no sense of hope.
"The chief wishes to thank you for the many kindnesses you have shown to
him and to his father, and he asks that you grant one more."
294 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
Anything, James thought, I would give anything to be free of this guilt.
"Anything," he said.
Doublehead spoke, and Parson Dick translated.
"This land is sacred to the tribe, the spirits of their ancestors live
here. The child, the chief's new son, has not heard their voices, and
they wish to take the spirits with them, to the new land, in the West."
They were in territory that James did not understand. He looked to Parson
Dick for help.
"It will be a short ceremony," he said, "and they will be gone by dawn."
"Of course," said James, surprised that it was so easy, and wishing they
were gone now.
Parson Dick told Jimmy and the Chickasaw of the assent, and they moved
to go.
"Tell him-" He stopped, not knowing what he wanted to say. "Tell him-that
as long as I and my family own this land, they will always be welcome
here."
Doublehead turned to James in amazement, and saw an unbridgeable gulf
between his people and the white men who pretended to be their brothers.
He spoke, for the first time, in English. The point he wanted to make was
so basic to his thinking that he did not trust any translation.
"You do not own this land," he said. "You may have the use of it while
you live, but you cannot own it."
He knew James didn't understand, but he had to try to make someone
comprehend. He had so little time.
"You use the land while you live, a few short years, and pass it to your
sons. But if they are killed in battle, or if they have no sons, who does
the land belong to then?"
James could stand it no longer. "It is my land, forever!" he cried out.
Doublehead knew he had touched a deep chord in James, but suddenly felt
inadequate to express the depth of his feelings.
"The land is eternal, and we are mortal," he said. "You cannot own land."
He saw, with astonishing clarity, that James was scared, and understood
that he was scared of death, that the white men
MERGING 295
were seared of dying. Their afterlife, their spirit world, was in some
other, unknown country, and they were afraid to go there. Suddenly, all
the wars and the treaties and the bargains and the promises seemed a
useless waste of time, because the Indians had never understood the basic
fear that possessed the white men. Doublehead knew that he would never see
the new land in the West because he had no heart for it. He knew that he
would die on the journey, and his spirit would roam forever, free, in this
country of his ancestors. All he cared about now was his son, whose life
was not yet chanted. He couldn't bear to look at James anymore, and left
the room. The squaw, who had never looked at James, followed, with the
elders.
Parson Dick did not leave. James had slumped into his chair, and Parson
Dick waited for some response or order that he was sure would come.
He coughed gently, and James looked at him, as if surprised he was still
there.
"Yes, a brandy," James said, and was silent while Parson Dick poured the
drink. Doublehead was wrong. James did understand.
"How do you know the language?" he asked eventually.
"My Massa before you was a Cherokee chief," Parson Dick replied.
He left the room. James's mind swirled with contradictory thoughts, his
heart with conflicting emotions. He had seen, with a clarity that rivaled
Doublehead's, the great chasm between the white world and that of the
native peoples. For one small, glorious moment, he envied them. The idea
that his spirit might dwell for all eternity on this land that he loved
was precious to him, but he did not believe in such spirit life, and for
one small, terrible moment he felt a visceral fear of the God of wrath
and judgment.
He took a sip of brandy, and relaxed. It was easy now. Since the two
peoples would never understand each other, it was better that the Indians
go. Andrew had won, Andrew had been right all the time. Since they could
not co-exist, they should not even try.
James felt better than he had done in years.
The ceremony was short and very simple, and James was charmed by it. The
Chickasaw built a fire on the lawn, and
296 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
sat around it, chanting, a few men beating small drums, Two elders danced
around the fire, summoning the ancestors, James knew.
Slaves had gathered to watch. The drumming and chanting seemed to evoke
some primal, distant memories in them, of other times and other countries
that most of them had no remembrance of, and they began swaying to the
rhythm.
Doublehead, his son cradled in his arms, walked to the center of the
circle of people, and as the beat quickened, he raised his son to the
stars, to hear the voices of the old ones. Again, it struck that distant
echo of memory in the slaves, and they sighed, or it might have been the
gentle wind in the leafless trees, but for a moment James thought he
heard the old ones answer.
A shiver ran down his spine. This simple ceremony had touched some
mystic, primal chord in James, in a way that no Christian idea ever had,
and it frightened him. If these people were truly in touch with the
spirit world, if they could so easily evoke forces, passions, instincts
that were inaccessible to whites, or at least discounted by them, then
perhaps the wrong being done to them was greater than James had ever
allowed himself to imagine. He looked at his slaves, who so obviously had
some visceral understanding of the rituals being enacted; perhaps they
too understood things that were alien to James. And if it was wrong to
disinherit the Indians, was it as great a wrong to disinherit the blacks?
Already James knew the answer, but to proceed along that path was even
more destructive to the world he had created than any of the previous
terrors he had felt. He turned his head away to
break the spell being
woven on him, and tried to dismiss what he was hearing, what he was
seeing, and what he was thinking, because he wanted to, as simple
superstition. These are primitive peoples, he told himself, the red and
the black, and it is incumbent on us to defend them and protect them. But
without us they are nothing. Without us, the land is nothing. Without us,
the world returns to pagan savagery, and has no meaning.
He went back into the house and poured himself another brandy. Tomorrow,
the Indians would be gone, and there would be no further questions about
their land and how it was appropriated.
MERGING 297
The Chickasaw were as good as their word, and were gone by dawn, on their
long journey west, to Texas. Apart from the ashes of a fire, there was
no evidence that they had ever been there.
And it is proper that they go, James thought. We have done our best for
them.
It is the duty of the strong to took after the weak.
Jass was not weak, but he enjoyed the protective ann of Wesley around him.
To his surprise, it had been easy to embellish their small acquaintance,
and it had flowered into a curious friendship. The unlikely foundation to
it was the cause of their previous quarrels. Jass was interested in black
people in a general sense, but Wesley was developing a passion for black
women.
"Oh, I love them, man," he said almost every day. "Especially in a proper
bed, that black skin on a white sheet."
Jass blushed the first time Wesley said this, because he could imagine
it only too well. He tried to think of Lizzie on crisp linen sheets, and
while it was exciting, it didn't arouse him nearly as much as an image
of Easter in the same situation. Wesley, sensing the weakness, played on
it, giving laughing, voluptuous descriptions of his encounters with slave
women, which aroused fierce urges in Jass. Then he would tease Jass about
his sensitivity on the subject of slavery, and Jass, still basking in the
warm memory of white female congratulation in Nashville, began to think
that perhaps slavery was the best solution for the blacks.
It surprised Jass too that Wesley, school champion, constantly surrounded
by admiring cohorts, had very few close friends. He was welcomed and
immediately liked wherever he went, perceived at first, Jass could tell,
as the quintessential young Southern man. Wesley reveled in the
adulation, but delighted in shocking people because he knew he would be
forgiven much. Emboldened by this very charity, Wesley's challenges to
revered institutions were becoming sharper and more caustic, and
attitudes to him were changing. He would skate, wildly, dangerously
across the thinnest ice of decency in conversation, especially with young
ladies, and initially this sauciness had provoked a few raised eyebrows
and the com-
298 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
ment from older men that he was a young ram. Often now, however, he would go
too far, the ice would crack beneath him, and the words "Young scoundrel"
were frequently whispered, not always behind his back.
Like Jass, Wesley was a second son, bom to money, but his older brother was
healthy and not adventurous, and so, barring accidents, it was unlikely
that Wesley would ever inherit the family name or position, and he felt no
sense of impending responsibility. "Life is for living," he would tell
Jass, and was directing all his burning, golden energy to that end. His
attitude to slavery was simple: It always had been and always would be, it
was essential to their survival, and it was right, and if the Feds ever
tried to abolish it there'd be a war. Wesley loved the South and all it
stood for, believed it was one of the greatest civilizations the world had
ever known, and longed for a chance to thrash the Yankees in battle.
Or to thrash anybody, because it wasn't the cause, Jass learned, it was the
fight. It was the danger. It was the adventure. Wesley was bored. Reckless
with a young man's energy, Wesley hated school, hated the idea of college,
and hated even more the idea of a life as indolent second son, indulged and
pampered, waiting in the wings for a role that, once his older brother had
sons, would never be his.
"And then what do I do?" he despaired.
"Get lost in New Orleans, I imagine," Jass had laughingly responded, for
everyone knew of that city's free and easy reputation.
Wesley shook his head. "No, whores are fine, but why pay for something when
you can get it free?" The most compelling argument for slavery in Wesley's
mind was that it provided him with an endless supply of women who could not
say no to him.
"And anyway, that's for after the battle," he continued. "It's the fight
that gets your blood up."
Jass was staying with him for the weekend, and they were in his room, in
separate beds to sleep. Suddenly Wesley jumped up, and began shadow-boxing
with the wall.
"It's all this bloody civilization," he said. "Everything's so neat and
ordered now. There aren't any good battles left."
"Texas," Jass said, smiling because he knew the effect the
MERGING 299
word would have, and because Wesley looked funny, feinting at the wall in
his nightshirt.
"Yes, Texas," Wesley almost groaned. "That's where I should be."
Texas was his dream. Texas was the new frontier. There was going to be
a war in Texas, no doubt about it, for the white settlers there were
chafing under Mexican rule, and the Mexican general, Santa Ana, was
determined to bring them to colonial heel. Scores of young men were
heading for Texas.
"That's the place for me," said Wesley, his eyes bright with longing.
"Kick the Dons' cods in daytime, and javer their women at night."
He fell back on the bed, and grinned at Jass. "There's this little
mulatta down in the slave quarters," he teased. "Hotter than the sun in
August. Shall you go down there with me?"
Jass laughed, and shook his head. It happened all the time. Wesley was
determined that Jass should lose his virginity in his presence, but
delighted in Jass's persistent refusal.
"I know, saving it for someone special," he mimicked Jass's response. He
punched his pillow, and was silent for a moment. Then he took a little
bottle from a drawer in the table beside his bed. He held it out to Jass.
Jass was inclined.to shake his head again. He'd had laudanum a few times
when he was sick, and once, recently, with Wesley, who stole it
occasionally from his mother's medicine chest. Jass had loved it, loved
the sensation of floating on a fluffy pink cloud, all time and care and
guilt removed. It was so wonderful, it frightened him too, and he worried
that Wesley was falling prey to its powerful addiction. He didn't want
to offend his friend, nor appear childish, so he took the bottle, put it
to his lips and, pretended to
swallow. Wesley laughed, took the bottle
back and swigged the drug.
"Better than being bored to death," he said, and lay back on his pillow,
to prepare for the dreams.
Jass relaxed too. He'd taken only a tiny drop of the opiate, but it was
enough. He began to feet warm and slow, and his heart swelled with
affection for his restless friend. He laughed at the very idea that he
could call Wesley his friend, but was thrilled with it, for he often felt
that Wesley was taking him to places he would never have gone by himself,
if only in his mind. Like riding an eagle, he thought.
300 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
He chuckled again at the things they had done together. Now when he puffed
on his corncob pipe, there was tobacco in it, because Wesley had taught him
to smoke. Once they had tried hemp, and Jass had loved that at first, but
fought against it, and had become ill. And once he had gone with Wesley to
that mulatta in the slave quarters. He'd stayed outside, but had listened
in excitement and embarrassment while Wesley took her.
He wondered why he was so reluctant to do it himself. There were endless
opportunities in Wesley's company, and part of him wanted to take that
step, to cross that threshold of experience, but a greater part of him said
not yet. And try as he might, he couldn't keep his mind off Easter.
He chuckled once more at an image of Wesley as Emperor of Texas, surrounded
by a harem of Indian and black women who were dressing him for battle, and
then the image changed and altered, and Wesley was on his horse now,
galloping off to battle some thousands of the enemy, and single-handedly
gaining bloody victory over them all.
He chuckled again, out of sheer, disbelieving astonishment when, the
following August, Wesley came to him and said good-bye.
He was not going to New Jersey, to the College at Princeton Village, as his
family and friends believed.
"It's not for me, old man," he said. "Too bloody boring. Will you tell my
family in a couple of weeks, when I'm safely away?"
He had money in his pocket, given him by his father, and a gun, and he rode
a fine horse,
He was going west, to Texas.
36
That summer was bittersweet for James. The departure to the west of
Doublehead and the Chickasaw had closed a large and unpleasant chapter in
the book of his life, and he found himself less and less interested in the
affairs of his state and his nation, more and more devoted to his personal
affairs and his family. Sassy's marriage to her beau, Bob Andrews, gave
him joy, but then his darling daughter Jane had died of diphtheria, and
Mary's newborn child had not survived birth. Mary herself never recovered
from the ordeal and the loss, and passed away in March. It had hit James
hard-he loved his firstborn daughter-bui it was not the acid grief he had
felt for the loss of his firstborn son. He found comfort in the living,
and took particular pleasure in Sam Kirkman, Elizabeth and Tom's grave and
serious son, who, at five, was discovering the joy of a doting
grandfather.
Spring eased his sense of loss with its promise of the renewal of life,
and summer, with its abundant stream of visiting friends and relations,
healed his pain and gave him a new purpose and vigor. He was alive and
master of a fine estate, and that was what mattered most to him.
And then there was Jass. James thoroughly approved of his son's
friendship with Wesley, who seemed to have kindled bright new flames of
confidence in Jass, if not adventure. Perhaps they were always there,
James thought, and it was I who wanted too bright a fire too soon. He
encouraged the friendship, for he saw in the increasingly wayward Wesley
something of the larrikin he missed in his son, and through that
friendship he saw his son becoming more like the boisterous Wesley.
He was not prepared for the news Jass gave him on a hot day in August.
He had not seen Wesley at the house for a few
301