knees and begged almighty God to take this burden from me?"
He fell silent. He turned away from James, and when he spoke again, he
seemed to be struggling to control his feelings.
"The earth was not made for savage beasts to roam upon at will." His voice
trembled with emotion. "Those who stand in the way of honest industry must
be swept aside. It is the order of Divine Providence, and I accept it with
humility."
Perhaps he was crying. He put one hand to his eyes as if to shield his
grief from sight and waved the other at the man who had once been his
friend, dismissing him. James looked at Alfred, who was still attending his
Massa, and left the room.
As they walked away from the White House, Cap'n Jack glanced back and
thought he saw Alfred at an upstairs window, but it was only a shadow of
approaching night.
James hardly spoke for several days, but the farther they traveled from
Washington and the closer they got to home, his spirits obviously
lightened. Cap'n Jack thought he had cast aside some terrible burden. As
they drove into Florence, on a crisp bright winter day, James looked out of
the window at the bustling town, and chuckled.
MERGING 311
"Massa?" was all Cap'n Jack said, leaving open the possibility of
response.
"I think we will bring Glencoe here," James said, eyes bright with some
new purpose. "I think we will bring all the horses here and make The
Forks of Cypress the finest stable in America."
37
There was one thing left to do, one small piece of unfinished business to
attend to before the new life could begin.
On Christmas Day, James summoned Cap'n Jack to his study.
James was at his desk, filling out a paper. He continued to write while
Cap'n Jack waited, and then looked at his slave.
"I thank you for your many years of loyalty," he said. "No one could have
served me better."
A curious anticipation tingled in Cap'n Jack. "Thank you, Massa," he said
calmly.
James had a little speech prepared. "When you first came to me, I did not
hold with slavery, but it was the custom of the land. I promised you then
that if you worked for me, willingly and well, I would give you your
freedom one day."
Anticipation gave way to excitement. Cap'n Jack knew his hand was
shaking, his stomach churning.
James held out the paper.
"Here is that freedom now," he said. "A little later than it should have
been, but not too late, I trust."
Desperate emotions punched at Cap'n Jack's heart. Here it was at last,
the dearest gift anyone could give him, the thing he had longed for all
of his days, the thing any slave might easily have sold his soul for.
"No, thank you, Massa," he said.
James closed his eyes. Not this, he pleaded, not now, the sin is too old,
it has been atoned for a million times.
312 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
"Don't do this to me," he said.
Cap'n Jack could not do anything else. The vengeance he had nurtured for
so long had become part of him, like the blood in his veins. He could
hear Annie's screams in his ears as she was being dragged away that day.
He could feel the uncontrollable anger, the inconsolable grief, the
terrible fury he had known that day. He wanted to hurt the man he held
responsible, and knew that he could. He was not his own man now. The
demon had him.
"You broke your promise. You let Annie be sold away," he said.
"I wasn't here, it wasn't me," James's voice was a whisper.
"You the Massa," Cap'n Jack said.
"I needed you!"
Cap'n Jack could hardly hear. "What good freedom to me now? I's too old.
Where c'n I go? What c'n I do? My life's here, Easter's here, all that's
left of Annie."
"But you can stay here!" James lost his temper and yelled at the
impassive man. "Free!"
Cap'n Jack stared at him. "Yes, Massa, I will stay," he said. "And every
time you see me, every time you look at me, you will remember what you
did to Annie, and the promise that you broke to me."
He left the room without being given leave. He left the house and walked
to some quiet place under the trees. His hands were shivering, but it was
not because of the fierce cold.
He had won. After all these years, he had his vengeance. But it gave him
no joy. He couldn't understand why the taste in his mouth was so foul.
James was slumped at his desk, staring at nothing. The paper of
manumission had fallen from his hand and fluttered to the floor.
38
c===~
in the spring, the stallion Glencoe arrived in New York. Glencoe stood
slightly over fifteen hands, his color a rich, warm chestnut, with an
elongated diamond star. His head was fine, his neck swanlike, and his muzzle
pointed. He was the most famous horse in England, the pride of Ascot, and
James had paid handsomely for him. When the ship that brought him across the
Atlantic docked, hundreds of onlookers gathered, applauding in admiration
as the magnificent animal was led down the gangplank, onto the pier and
American soil. The press was fulsome in its praise of James, calling him the
most successful importer of Thoroughbreds in American history. Glencoe, it
was believed, would eclipse even Leviathan's performance. It was hoped that
the arrival of the horse at his new home in Alabama would help speed his
owner to a recovery of his good health.
For James was not well, He'd caught a chill in the spring and had not been
able to shake it off. He had planned to be in New York to greet Glencoe,
but after only two days on the journey had turned back, and taken to his
bed. He had seemed to be recovering, when little Jamie, Tom and Elizabeth's
new boy, died at only eight months from diphtheria. They had all grieved
for the child, but the death of small children was a fact of their lives,
and already Elizabeth was pregnant again. But James had taken it especially
hard, and it had caused a physical relapse in him,
The fever got worse; the congestion moved to his lungs. Sally was worried,
but Dr. Hargreaves, who lived with the Simpson family in Florence, could
find no especial cause for alarm.
"It is the process of growing old," he told Sally as they walked to his gig
after a visit in July. "And he has never been hale.
313
314 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
Sally didn't agree. When she had first known James, all those years ago
in Nashville, he had been as healthy a man as you could wish to meet. His
frequent chills and bouts of minor illness had started around the time
they moved to Florence, and Sally blamed the climate here, languid even
in winter after the spikier weather of the Cumberland River. But none of
her husband's chills and minor ailments had lasted as long as this.
Perhaps the doctor was right; perhaps they were simply growing old,
although Sally did not feel
it. Rheumatism bothered her in winter, and
arthritis occasionally, but otherwise she was as fit as any woman in her
forties could wish. James was eight years older. She felt a flash of
resentment at the passing of time. He is not old, she wanted to shout at
the doctor, but could not. James had already lived longer than,many of
his contemporaries.
"You should discourage him from strong drink," the doctor was saying, as
he had said so many times, on so many visits, knowing James's fondness
for port. "And make sure he gets plenty of rest and relaxation."
He left laudanum, in case the cough that bothered James got too
troublesome, and promised to maintain his weekly visits, for he was
doctor to the whole family, and advised on the health of the slaves.
Sally decided to take a stronger command of her husband's welfare. It
wasn't just the chill that worried her. Sally had no immediate fear that
he would die-he seemed to have a whole new zest for living since his
return from Washington-but again, she had to face the prospect of his
mortality, and she dreaded being left alone, without him. So many wives
of her acquaintance had became widows, many much younger than she.
She knew that trying to stop James from keeping his finger on the pulse
of his many business affairs would be an unwinnable war, but at least she
could limit the attention he gave these matters, for their practical
world was functioning smoothly, she knew. Cooper, the overseer of the new
plantation at Panola in Mississippi, was a splendid fellow, who ran the
estate as if it was his own, and Mitchell, the overseer here at The
Forks, was thoroughly reliable, maintaining a clockwork efficiency, and
if not actually liked by the slaves, he was
MERGING 315
not too bitterly resented by them, Sally thought. Tom Kirkman was managing
their business in land, and under James's direction was doing remarkably
well.
So Sally decided that James could afford to be interrupted from the cares
of the material world. Previously, she and the rest of the family had
treated his study as a private world, to be entered only if invited, but
now, after he had spent a couple of hours in there, she would sweep in
unannounced, without even knocking, and demand that he spend a little
time with her. What surprised her was that he didn't seem to mind, and
would smile and put aside his papers, and join her on the veranda or in
the garden or, on cooler evenings, in the warmth of the sitting room. On
the hottest days, he would sit with her in the little sitting area of
their bedroom upstairs, the windows open to catch a breeze.
Actively, she discouraged strangers or acquaintances from making too many
visits, for she knew that most were simply calling on James for letters
of introduction, or advice on local matters that others could have easily
provided, or for loans. As actively, she would ask close associates to
be sensible of his physical condition, to limit their demands on his
attention, and to spend as much time discussing frivolous news as affairs
of the nation. And as actively, she encouraged relations to call,
especially any who had young children, for James, she knew, loved those
distractions. In particular he adored the company of young Sam Kirkman,
Elizabeth's surviving son, a studious boy with an intriguing ability to
alleviate his own gravity by laughing at the seriousness with which he
regarded life. Elizabeth's new pregnancy also delighted James, and he
fussed over her, petted her, and would look longingly at Jass, wanting
a grandson by him, Sally knew, for Elizabeth was not of his blood, and
Thomas, her husband, only his nephew.
Still, it surprised her that James never seemed to mind these
unprofitable claims on his attention, but welcomed them, whereas
previously any intrusions into the hallowed world of his business
dealings had been prohibited. What Sally could not know, for James never
told her, was that he was weary of the empire he had created.
There were no challenges left. He had done everything, even more than he
had ever dreamed of-, he was everything he had ever wanted to be. And he
fell empty.
316 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
He could buy more land easily, he had the resources to create more
plantations, but where was the challenge in that? He had more land already
than several princes in Europe, and the acquisition of more held no delight
for him. He saw the fevered speculation of the land boom that was
flourishing around him and wished them all joy of it, but he wanted no
part, for he had done that when young, and there were no frontiers to be
tamed now, no wilderness to be put to the plow, only farms to be run, and
farming bored him. There were no great political battles to be fought: The
business of his state and of the United States was functioning smoothly,
apart from its dealings with the remaining holdout Cherokee in Georgia, and
James had abdicated any involvement in that. Andrew had left the presidency
and was an invalid at the Hermitage, in the care of Alfred, while Martin
Van Buren was leading the country on the exact path Andrew had defined, but
without the zeal. The Mexican massacre of whites at the Alamo hardly seemed
to touch him, nor did Sam Houston's surprising victory over Santa Ana at
San Jacinto.
It was only a matter of time before the new Republic of Texas was admitted
into the Union, for otherwise it would fall under the influence of Britain,
and Washington would not allow that. With the inevitable shadow of
civilization falling over Texas, the last great frontier of excitement was
gone. Even the uncrossable Rockies had been conquered, and then there was
only pastoral California, which James still dreamed of seeing but knew he
never would.
There was nothing to do anymore, he had decided, which was another way of
saying that he had ceased to be of any real importance to anyone but
himself and his family. Whatever influence he might once have had over the
affairs of his state, if not his nation, was now limited to his prestige
and his signature, and even they were not necessary to anyone else's
dreams.
. There are no great battles left, he thought, or none that have any use or
need of me. I have become irrelevant.
Perhaps he was even irrelevant to his family, although not his wife. His
daughters were all gone now, married with families of their own, and even
though they were sweet to him and dutiful, he exercised no real authority
over their lives. The
MERGING 317
Trio, he knew, were good sons, but even though they loved him and
obviously respected him, and though he loved them and could provide a
father's advice and guidance, the future pattern of their lives was
starting to emerge, and since The Forks would not be their future, they
were already talking of lives beyond it.
&
nbsp; Which left Jass. Jass the dutiful, Jass the caring, Jass the obedient
second son who strove so valiantly to fill the empty shoes of the first,
and who failed constantly, not because of any shortcomings on his own
part but because his father's expectations of him were impossible to
fulfill. Jass saw lightning as a wonder of nature, James thought, not as
an immortal stallion to tame and fide.
It was the mortal stallion, Glencoe, who thrilled James now, the horse
who would outdistance Leviathan and secure James's place in the racing
annals of his country, but it was a poor substitute, not even second best
he knew, for the history books that might have recorded his achievements
as they would Andrew's. And so he allowed himself to be distracted from
the emptiness of his material world by the woman without whom he knew he
could not, would not want to, live, and the darling grandson, the grave
Sam, who seemed so determined to write his own future, and had some
inkling, at least, of what lightning might be.
But where is there left for him to play? James wondered in his darker
moments. The plains of Olympus are gone, neatly furrowed by some giant
plow, and all a boy can aspire to now is more of civilization.
Now, more than ever, he came to rely on Cap'n Jack. When the congestive
fever was at its worst, it was Cap'n Jack who held a little bowl to his
Massa's mouth to receive the phlegm. It was Cap'n Jack who changed the
sheets on his bed when, as happened once, James soiled them, and Cap'n
Jack who washed his Massa clean. It was Cap'n Jack who wiped the sweat
from his fevered Massa's brow, Cap'n Jack who fed him soup when he was
too weak to feed himself. It was Cap'n Jack who carried his Massa
downstairs and up to bed when he could not manage the staircase on his
own. It was Cap'n Jack who sat with him, Alfred to his Andrew, for
endless hours, always there to see an order carried out or a wish
fulfilled.
318 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
With the awful abscess of vengeance lanced and healed, Cap'n Jack now
felt only a total emptiness. The thing that had so obsessed him, that had
given him the will to live, was replaced by the surprising realization
he found in a tiny comer of his heart: James was Cap'n Jack's best
friend.
It was Cap'n Jack who took his Massa to the stables, when he was feeling
better, to see the arrival of the new stallion. They sat with Murdoch and
Monkey Simon, too old to race now, too valuable to sell, and dreamed of
the winners Glencoe would sire, and of the old races they had won in the
days of their youth. They would sit together on the veranda, the ol'
Massa and the slave, and talk endlessly of the days in Nashville, and of
the fun it had been. They seldom mentioned the move to Alabama, they
never talked about Annie, but James delighted in news of Easter, and
would have the girl brought to him, and would spoil her with silly treats
of candy, and once a new frock.
It was Cap'n Jack who sang lullabys as James drifted to sleep, and slept
himself on a palliasse at the foot of his Massa's bed, in case he should
be needed in the night.
Frequently, at night or when he dozed in the afternoons, James dreamed
of Ireland, an Ireland of his memory, that gave him no desire to return
to the country of his birth, for what he dreamed of was gone, he knew,
scythed by the passing years. He dreamed instead of playing in the fields
of his youth.
Of Carrickmacross and Ballybay, not as they might be now but as he
remembered them. Of Jugs and,old Quinn. Of poteen and soda bread, and
peat fires on misty mornings. Of rainwashed fields and white-walled
cottages. Of lowering skies and breaking sunlight. Of croppies, hare
hunts, and hurley. Of swirling fogs and shrouded legends. Of
superstitious priests, storytelling shanachies, and pole-vaulting
messengers.
And of Sean. Blessedly, kind, unvengeful death had not added a moment to
Sean's years and he was now, in James's dreams, what he had always been,