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