Page 59 of Queen

He was found later that night, unconscious and bleeding, lying in a field

  of dead and wounded men, by a friend who did not recognize him.

  486 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  Wesley was a veteran of killing, an able and eccentric fighter, who had

  spent the past twenty-five years in a wild and lawless life. He was a gun

  for hire, an Indian fighter mostly, who spent his days slaying braves, and

  his nights in sweet domestic comfort with his Comanche squaw. They lived in

  a little shack by a pleasant river in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains,

  and Wesley had a fine collection of Indian artifacts, and several Redskin

  scalps. But already the frontier was not what it had been; settlers were

  slowly occupying the pristine territories of Wesley's youth. Federal

  soldiers were building forts and govemments were whining about law and

  order. Although there was land enough to spare, and adventure enough for any

  man, the wilderness was slowly being tamed. Wesley wondered if he was simply

  getting old, for the chase had lost its thrill, his squaw and half-breed

  children bored him, and he was disgusted by the ambitions of so many of the

  settlers, who lived in fear of the hunting grounds and were deten-nined to

  bring a bourgeois civilization to what had been primeval. The Indians were

  not his enemy anymore; the white man was.

  When he heard of the possibility of war between the North and the South, he

  knew where he wanted to be. He made provision for his family, saddled his

  horse, and rode to Richmond, where he offered his services, by old family

  connection, to General Beauregard, as a scout.

  He cut an unlikely figure. His hair was long and held back in a ponytail;

  his face was weathered and gnarled. He scomed a traditional uniform, but

  wore fringed leather decorated with several small Indian totems to ward off

  the evil ones, and a tanned human scalp hung from his belt. He lived rough

  and alone, in a small teepee he had made for himself, and men laughed at

  him behind his back, but feared what he represented.

  He was an excellent scout, and it was he who had warned of the first Union

  reconnaissance of the day, which had been routed. He was furious at the

  initial Southern retreat, for a man stood and fought, and he won or he

  died, but he did not run. He had approved of General Jackson's exhortations

  to his men to stand firm like a stone wall before the Yankees, and he had

  nodded in satisfaction at the subsequent Yankee withdrawal, which turned

  into a panicked rout.

  QUEEN 487

  Now he wandered the battlefields alone. He was not averse to scavenging

  from dead men, but his true purpose was as an angel of mercy. If he found

  a man alive but mortally wounded, Wesley used his hunting knife to help

  that man into the dark night. If he found a man alive but simply wounded,

  he would call the medical orderlies, for they, as green as the soldiers,

  had no experience of the carnage of war, were overwhelmed by the numbers

  of the injured, and could not always differentiate between those who

  would live and those who would die.

  So it was that he found a man who seemed familiar to him, and carried the

  wounded Jass, fireman-fashion, to a medical tent, for this one, Wesley

  knew, would live.

  ,Duty done, he slipped out into the night again, back to the killing

  grounds, and went about his business.

  Sam, Sawbones Sam, bright medical star of the Kirkman family, had traveled

  with his mother, Elizabeth, to Richmond to stay with friends, for he knew

  his services would be needed. When news of the battle reached him, he went

  to Manassas and offered his services. It was Sam's first experience of

  war, and when the bodies, hundreds upon hundreds, were brought to the

  medical tents, he had initially been appalled at the useless carnage. But

  his training served him well, and he patched and sewed and cut and

  amputated, and comforted those who were beyond his help.

  Like the young soldier, who could not have been more than eighteen, who

  had fallen under some horses and had been fatally trampled.

  "Am I done for, sir?" the boy had asked, and Sam had told him the truth.

  The boy was silent, and then admitted his most private fear.

  "I'm scared, sir," he said.

  Sam was used to death, although never in such quantity.

  "It's easy," he told the dying boy. "You will see a great light, and all

  you have to do is follow it."

  The boy was silent again, but had another awful fear. He had not joined

  the army for any great cause, although Dixie, glorious to him, was cause

  enough. Bored with his life on a small farm, he had enlisted for

  excitement, for adventure. In

  488 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  other times, he might as easily have escaped the monotony of his life by

  seeking his fortune in a big city, and he had left home with a solemn

  promise to his mother, which both of them knew was useless, to avoid

  harm's way.

  "What will my mother say?" he said so quietly that Sam could hardly hear

  him.

  He closed his eyes, and Sam knew he would never open them again. He sat

  with him for a little while, for his own benefit as much as the dying

  boy's. It was nearly dawn, and he was exhausted by blood and pain and

  death.

  It happened quietly, peacefully, and no one but Sam marked the boy's

  passing. Sam sighed, and turned to the man lying on the next blanket, who

  would live. His awful chest wound had been bound with bandages, and he

  had been sleeping from the effects of the laudanurn that Sam had given

  him from his small, private stock, but now he was drifting to the

  surface. He opened his eyes.

  "How is it, Jass?" Sam asked.

  "Bloody dreadful," Jass replied, for the effects of the opium were

  wearing off, the pain was filtering through his lungs again.

  He tried to focus on the face smiling down at him, and a fragment of

  memory came to him.

  "Sam?" Jass almost smiled.

  Sam nodded, and Jass closed his eyes, for Sam would protect him. If he

  could be protected. He looked at Sam again.

  "Am I dying?" he asked his nephew.

  "No, Jass, you'll live," Sam told him. "I worked my guts out to save

  you."

  Relief flooded through Jass, but then he winced in pain. Sam gave him a

  little more laudanum. The army did not approve of lulling drugs for

  enlisted men. They were too costly, and might lead to addiction, but Jass

  was not a soldier anymore, only Sam's uncle.

  "You had a bullet through your lung," he said softly, as if it was good

  news. "And you'll be no more use to the army."

  Jass could not begin to assimilate the implications of that, for

  something else had a greater importance.

  "Did we win?" he asked.

  "Yes, we won," Sam said.

  QUEEN 489

  Jass almost smiled. "Then God be thanked," he whispered. "I wouldn't have

  wanted to die for nothing."

  Two days later they move
d him to an army hospital at Richmond, where

  Elizabeth, his half sister, took charge of his nursing.

  He was released from the hospital and honorably discharged from the army,

  but he was still unfit to travel and spent the early fall recuperating

  from his wounds at the home of friends in the lovely Virginia

  countryside.

  "It is the end of the war for me," he began a letter to his mother, but

  then put down his pen in bitter disgust.

  He had not expected it would end like this.

  57

  Queen didn't know what to do. Her father was coming

  home. Much as she longed to see him, she felt she had not

  lived up to his expectations of her. She had been charged by

  him with a most sacred, solemn duty, the protection of his

  family while he was away, and she had failed. It might have

  been easier with a full complement of fellow slaves to share

  the burden, but they were reduced to half their number. Julie,

  the cook, was dead. There had been a brief epidemic of ty

  phoid in the summer, and Julie and some others had suc

  cumbed to it. Polly was gone, fled with a field hand. Since

  Tom Parsons, the replacement overseer, had mysteriously dis

  appeared, discipline among the field slaves had fallen apart,

  and several had run away. There were slave catchers, but they

  were mostly old men and young boys, and the number of

  runaways in the district so large that there was little hope of

  any but a few being recaptured. Mitchell had tried to help, but

  he was old, his arthritis troubled him badly, and he had simply

  stopped coming to The Forks. Pattie was still there, but she

  was not young, and was always sick. She was shamming,

  Queen was sure, but had no way of proving it. Poppy had

  490 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  taken over the cleaning, but the big house was too much for her; she

  grumbled and complained, and shirked her duty, and spent most of her days

  loafing in the laundry room.

  Mrs. Henderson was worse than useless, constantly demanding help from the

  slaves, and as constantly telling Sally and Lizzie to use the whip to

  maintain discipline. Queen was the most common target of her waspishness,

  for Mrs. Henderson thought the girl was uppity and should be kept in her

  place. Queen was scared of Mrs. Henderson, for she still had authority

  as the overseer's wife, even though he was away. She could tell terrible

  lies to the Massa and Henderson when they returned, and possibly have

  Queen whipped, which she had threatened to do herself.

  The house had to be run and the cotton had to be picked, and there

  weren't enough able-bodied people left to achieve either. Parson Dick

  divided his time between the house and the fields, picking like a

  veteran, Cap'n Jack struggled to keep up with him, and Easter helped

  Queen with the cooking for the family. They-had managed tolerably until

  Mary and Little Sally got sick, and then Easter had to spend her days

  nursing them.

  Miss Lizzie was worse than useless, imaging herself as mistress of what

  had once been, and now frantic with worry for her babies. Miss Sally

  tried to help, but she was old and walked with a cane, and her eyesight

  wasn't the best anymore, and William had his schoolwork to worry about.

  It fell to Queen to look after Eleanor and baby James, who, mercifully,

  hadn't caught the diphtheria, and it was Queen who went out into the

  fields and yelled at the slaves to pick cotton. Sally had called on Massa

  Tom Kirkman for help with the harvest, but he couldn't find any extra

  hands. Every plantation had a similar problem, and most of Tom's family

  were gone, his older sons enlisted, his daughters married and caring for

  their own families, his wife, Elizabeth, nursing in Richmond, and his

  younger children trying to run their own house. He had organized a picnic

  at The Forks one Sunday, and brought with him several friends and

  relations. They made a party and picked cotton, the whites out there in

  the field with the blacks; it had been tremendous fun, and they'd

  gathered a good crop, but it was a drop in the ocean of what had to be

  done, for the harvest was bountiful that year.

  QUEEN 491

  And it all had to be picked because they needed the money. The

  Confederate dollar was worth only sixty-seven cents of a Yankee dollar,

  and was dropping like a stone every day. The price of cotton had fallen

  because of the blockade of Southern ports, and so they needed every boll

  they could get.

  The fields spread white to the horizon, and the gold that cotton once had

  been became a curse to Queen. If it was not picked soon, it would rot and

  be useless.

  She sighed, and bent her aching back to the task. Because she was so

  tired she didn't get enough sleep, and because she didn't get enough

  sleep she was always grumpy, and because there was so much to do, she

  didn't know what task to attend to first. Except to pick cotton.

  Today she had baby James and Eleanor with her, because Easter was tending

  the invalids. They were no trouble, James slept happily in the little

  wooden cot that Queen had once used, and Eleanor played at the side of

  the field, and watched over James, but they were an added responsibility,

  and she had to go to them every hour at least, and see to their needs.

  If only Jass would come. The letter said it would be at least a month

  before he returned, and Queen didn't know how to cope for another four

  weeks. Or even one.

  As she picked, she grumbled, enumerating her woes to God. Parson Dick

  laughed at her, and told her it was a waste of time-God was white and

  didn't listen to niggers-but Queen told him to mind his business. Parson

  Dick laughed again, and stretched his back. He looked at the acres of

  cotton that still had to be picked, and wondered why he bothered. Who

  would whip him now, if he did less than he had to? He could run away,

  flee with his darling Ruby, and probably avoid the slave catchers, but

  where would they go, who would employ them, how would they live? Nothing

  had changed. Between them and any safe haven was the whole hostile

  territory of the Confederacy, and sympathy for runaway slaves was

  nonexistent. Those that had gone were fools, Parson Dick thought; a few

  might make it to the North, but most would be recaptured and imprisoned

  or pressed into further labor by unscrupulous whites.

  . So Parson Dick stayed, and because he had formidable resources of pride

  in himself, he put his hand to any task that

  492 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  came his way, and did it with a will. The other slaves were grumbling at

  their increased work load, and slowing down when they needed to speed up,

  for cotton was their bread and jam in these uncertain times.

  What they needed was a Massa, and since no Massa was there and Queen had

  too much else to worry about, Parson Dick took on the role of leader. He

  started to si
ng, softly at first, a work song, and soon it caught on and

  lifted everyone's spirits, for this much, at least, was as it had always

  been. They were picking cotton.

  The calming sound of the work song drifted to the house. Sally heard it

  and it cheered her soul. It was the first positive thing, no matter how

  tiny, that had happened since Jass went away. The absence of the Massa had

  created a void in all their lives, which no one could fill, but now he was

  coming home and everything. was going to be all right again. That he was

  wounded distressed her; that he was out of the army did not. He had done

  his duty, and was needed here, for home was the battlefront now.

  The letter from Jass had arrived the previous evening, Torn had brought

  it, and Sally had struggled to read it in bed, but her eyesight was too

  bad. She had forced Queen to read it to her that morning, when they were

  alone in the kitchen after breakfast. Queen still denied she could read,

  although everyone knew it was a lie, and, as Sally had said to her, who

  would whip her for it now?

  She wondered if Queen had told the other slaves that Jass was coming

  home, and that was why they were singing the work song, but she guessed

  not. The return of the Massa had little meaning for the slaves.

  Upstairs in the nursery, Lizzie heard the distant song, but it brought her

  no solace.

  It wasn't fair of God to let her babies die. He couldn't be so cruel!

  Yet they were dying, Lizzie knew. Mary and Little Sally had diphtheria,

  and there was nothing anyone could do. She'd nursed them for days, wiping

  their fevered brows, praying for their return to health, sleeping in a

  chair beside them, so they would know their mother was always near.

  QUEEN 493

  She was so tired. All she wanted to do was sleep, but she couldn't sleep

  until her little ones were better. Or gone. But they couldn't go, not

  yet; she had to make them hold on, just for a little while longer,

  another few weeks, because Jass was coming home, and when he came back

  they'd get better, because when he came back everything was going to be

  all right again.

  Easter was with her, bathing the sweat from Little Sally's

  face. The child's breathing was labored, and Lizzie was in

  despair. I

  "She's slipping away, I know she is! Do something, Easter," she begged

  the slave.

  "Nuttin' we can do, Miss Lizzie," Easter said softly. ... Cept pray. "

  Anger at her own inadequacy to help her children swept over Lizzie, in

  mounting hysteria. She got to her feet, moaning, and paced around the

  room, looking frantically for something to do.

  "We can't just sit here! My poor babies-" she cried.

  "Hush, now, Miss Lizzie," Easter said. She got up from the bed, and took

  Lizzie by the shoulders to calm her.

  But Lizzie's fury exploded. Her frustrated passions finally found a

  focus. She hit Easter's comforting arms from her.

  "Don't you touch me, you nigra slut," she screamed. "You want my babies

  to die. You don't care about them; all you care about is your brat,

  Queen! Haven't you had enough from me'? You stole my man! Now you want

  my babies dead, too!"

  There was no consistency in her thinking; all of her hurt over the years

  and all of her present impotence came flooding out. She ranted and

  whimpered by turns, her arms flailing uselessly.

  Easter, not knowing what else to do with the hysterical woman, slapped

  her hard across the face.

  Lizzie was stunned. She could not believe a slave, this slave, had

  touched her, struck her.

  "How dare you," she whispered vehemently. "I'll have you whipped, I'll

  have you sold away. Get the oveiseer!"

  Easter remained calm.

  "Ain't no overseer here, Miss Lizzie," she said. "There's only us, now,

  We got to help each other."

  494 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  The simple, calming truth of it forced its way into Lizzie's fractured

  mind, and for the first time she genuinely understood the fact of their