47

_19.

We waited until nightfall before John and I made our way back to the Corinthian Plantation. We left Eighty-four behind because John was going to use a second sound machine he'd found in his yellow bag and that would put her to sleep along with the rest of the plantation. He didn't tell her that, though. He said that two could move around better than three. She didn't argue. I think that Eighty-four had made up her mind never to step foot on the master's

estate again.

It was nigh on midnight when we entered upon the main yard in front of Tobias's mansion. John walked onto the porch with impunity but I was more timid. Even though I had seen his machine put everyone to sleep before I was still nervous that if a sound could put someone to sleep then maybe another sound could wake them up. And if I made that sound then they would awake to see me sneaking around the white man's rooms.

Flore had been the center of my life and she stood up to protect me when my twelve lashes were announced. She was mother to me and I would have done anything to save

her life.

I went to the closet where she slept but there was another woman there. It was Clemmie, Mr. Turner's old nursemaid, sleeping in Big Mama's place.

"Is she dead?" I asked my friend. "Did she die while you

were savin' my life?"

John put his hands on top of his head and shut his eyes tight. It was like he was trying to rememberwhere Flore had gone. He stayed like that for a minute or more. And while he was thinking I felt something like a pinch at the back of my neck. It was so sharp that I rubbed my hand back there but there was nothing I could feel. I understood somehow that I was feeling John's mature light searching around for Flore. I knew that some day I would be able to do the same

thing.

John opened his eyes and said, "She's in the barn." I was running as soon as the words were out of his mouth. I found Flore on a pitiful mattress of hay. Her face was drawn and ashen. The bruise of where she was bludgeoned loomed large above her brow.

She was asleep, as was everyone, but her breathing was

shallow and weak.

I went into the corner and beheld the most heartbreaking thing I had ever seen.

It was the body of Mud Albert. He'd been stripped naked and the blood had been washed from his wounds. He lay upon the burlap sack they would bury him in. His eyes were still open and his beard hairs seemed brittle and sparse. One hand was across his chest but the other was up to his shoulder curled into a claw-like hook.

I remembered all of the kind words and wise words Albert had spoken to me over the many seasons of my slavery. Looking down on him I realized that he died because of his love for Flore. It came to me then that no one should have to die for love.

"She must have a vascular cleansing to hasten her recuperative powers," John said as he threw a blanket over Mud Albert's small frame.

He often spoke in big words like that but this was the first time I understood what he was saying. It struck me as odd but I didn't have much time to think about it because I was mourning Mud Albert. "What can I do?" I asked.

"If we put her in a wagon and took her to where my sack is I might be able to relieve her symptoms some. She has had a serious trauma to the head so she might be a little slower."

"Steal a wagon from Master Tobias?" I was worried about my adopted mother but stealing from a white man was certain death in Georgia at that time.

"We can leave her," John suggested.

I was enraged by his offhanded manner. It was as if he didn't care if Flore lived or died.

"Don't be angry with me, Forty-seven," John said. "What you're worried about is true. It will be hard to keep out of sight if we have to carry Flore. And if we're all captured she will die anyway Sometimes we have to make hard choices."

It was a tough call. Here the woman who had raised me was near death and I had to brave death in order to ease her pain.

"Let's do it," I said, full of fears and trepidation.

"You go on and find Tobias's carriage," John said. "I'll stay here and get her ready."

I went through the barn door into the yard. The carriage was kept next to the vegetable garden so I went off looking for the mule Lacto that had crippled Pritchard.

The mule was nowhere to be seen but when I came to the rear of the mansion I saw Tobias's buggy still hitched to his great gray mare. The mare was just standing there with her back leg crooked so I knew she was asleep. Gently I roused her by rubbing between her eyes and then I led the sleepy horse and buggy back toward the barn.

As I was crossing the yard someone shouted, in a raspy dry voice, "Hey you, boy."

Coming toward me was a white man with a pronounced limp. As he shambled closer I was able to make out various details about his features. His head was bald, that was the first thing I noticed. After that I made out the eye patch. A shiver went through me and I was so frightened I didn't even think about running.

Closer still I could see that the skin all about the top of the man's head had been sewn like leather.

"Stay right there," the man said, and I knew it was Mr. Stewart.

"You dead," I said.

"Hallelujah and I am risen," he replied, a big smile crossing his ugly maw.

In his right hand I could see the bullwhip. And even though I was healed I could feel the pain of my twelve lashes all over again. He raised his arm and released the lash but before it could reach me before I could even think I was a quarter of the way across the yard looking at Mr. Stewart from the side. After the bullwhip cracked in the air he turned and smiled.

"You lookin' a little taller, Numbah Forty-seven," he said. "Look like you gotta new master too."

Again he swung at me and again I moved faster than I could think.

"Neither master nor nigger be," I said, standing at a spot eight feet from where Stewart's bullwhip bit. "Fool," he said, and then snapped his whip again. Six times he swung at me and six times I avoided the whip. On each swing the lash got closer. The last time I felt the breeze caused by its passage.

But I was ready to run again. What I hoped was that John would hear us and come out. I didn't want to call to him because then Mr. Stewart would have known that I had an ally. If I kept my friend's presence a secret I hoped that we could overcome him by stealth if not by strength of arm.

There I was in the year 1832. There was no electricity yet or flying machines or laser beams; the glorious miracles of the twentieth century had not been invented and so when I looked upon the walking corpse of Mr. Stewart I could only think of magic, evil magic. Somehow a spell had been evoked and Stewart had become a zombie. He was the walking dead and everybody knew that a walking dead man could only be put back in the grave by the use of salt or silver and I didn't possess either one.

The onetime overboss was maybe twelve feet away from me but I was prepared to defend myself. Somehow I had gained the speed of a wildcat. I knew that there was no man in Georgia who could catch me. I waited for him to draw back his whip but he surprised me and jumped!

He hurtled through the air even faster than I could run. I made it four steps and he came down, catching me in the crook of his right arm.

Everything that happened next came to pass in a few

seconds but those few seconds felt like many long minutes.

As Stewart's arm curled around my waist I stepped up

on it and over his grasp. I skipped a step away but before I

could run he caught hold of my ankle. I turned around then and pushed on his hand, moving my foot before he could get a solid hold. We were face to face for a moment. I could see that his skin color was paler than it had been and he smelled wild, like a dog after he's rolled around in something foul. I had no time to consider those things because the one-eyed man pushed me and as I fell he rose up, intent upon falling on me.

I made it into a crouch but I have never in my very long life been in a tighter spot. If I turned to run the human Cyclops would jump and take me down. If I stayed there all he had to do was reach out and seize me.

In that standoff, which lasted no more than two seconds, I noticed that Mr. Stewart's eye-patch was made from wrought iron. All across, the metal was etched with delicate designs. In spite of my situation I wondered, Where could he get such a thing?

Mr. Stewart bent down a bit and I knew he was about to jump. I prepared to avoid his lunge but my chances, I knew, were no better than even.

The slave boss grinned.

"Begone!" The word boomed all around us.

I was amazed by the splendor of that voice but Mr. Stewart grabbed his head and fell to his knees. When he went down I could see John a few paces behind him. He was standing tall and regally.

"Begone!" he intoned again, and Stewart raised up on all fours and scampered away like a cur running from a lion.

"Quickly," John said to me then. "We must be away

from here."

"What about Mama Flore?" I cried.

"There is no time," he said. "Big trouble will be here

soon."