The Healing

Chapter 8





Granada was asleep on her thin pallet by the fireplace when Aunt Sylvie nudged the girl with the toe of her brogan. “Get up, now, baby,” she said. “I got to get breakfast ready and you under my feet.”

This morning Granada was just a regular house girl, only darker than the others. She would go back to performing her usual duties helping in the kitchen and watching over Little Lord for Lizzie. By the dim light of the new day, she donned her plain servant’s dress, the beautiful gown and the pretty shoes and the velvet ribbons of yesterday a faraway dream.

“Granada,” Aunt Sylvie said, “the best way to unburden the heart is to busy the hand.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Soon Granada was helping with breakfast—stirring pots, tending the fire, and making trips out to the smokehouse, trying her best to get over her great comedown.

The night before, after the household had gone to bed, she had begged Aunt Sylvie to allow her to wear the dress a little while longer. Granada promised that she would not even sit down and crush the fabric.

“Anyhow,” she said, “Little Lord ain’t got a good look at me all dressed up.”

Aunt Sylvie scowled. “I told you to stay away from that boy unless you in my sight. He’s only eight but one day he’ll be your master. Not your playfriend.”

Granada didn’t think that would be such a bad thing, belonging to Little Lord. She liked being around him. And studying him. He was put together in such a curious way. His hair was as soft as Miss Becky’s satins and silks. And his skin, so pale and thin, if she were to back him up to a lantern, the light would probably shine right through.

“Please, Aunt Sylvie, just a little while.”

The cook would have none of it. “Scoot yourself out of those clothes,” Sylvie had said. “Don’t you know you tempting the devil wearing the raiments of the dead?”

When the cook saw the tears in Granada’s eyes, she softened her tone. She drew Granada to her and held the satin-clad girl in her arms. Sylvie didn’t seem to care anymore about wrinkling Miss Becky’s dress.

“You and me both just too tired to fight no more,” Sylvie whispered into the girl’s ear. “I know it’s hard on you, too. I don’t know what Mistress Amanda expects you to make out of all this. Some days it makes me want to cry with you. And you a poor motherless girl.”

After a few moments, Sylvie released Granada and said, “Enough of this talk. Let’s get you undressed.”

As she lifted the dress over Granada’s head, Sylvie muttered, “I thought for sure one day the master would put an end to this silliness. But he didn’t listen to Silas way back when. Brushed him aside like a fly. I reckon as long as the mistress’s daddy got his name on the deed, the master won’t go against her. One word from her, daft or not, her daddy could turn Master Ben into a regular Mr. Ben. He knows it and she knows it. They at a draw and you in the middle.”

Sylvie had been right about busy hands. As the thick slabs of side meat began to sizzle, giving off its aroma, and the house servants, the only family Granada had ever known, ambled into the kitchen, taking their usual places around the big pine table, Granada’s spirits began to rise.

By the time she returned from the cistern with a bucket of water, Chester had already made himself the center of attention. He caught Granada’s eye and winked, like he was saying, Watch this!

Granada went about her work minding the pots and putting the food on platters, but she kept an eye on Chester so as not to miss his latest caper.

“Now just the other day I rode the master by the banker’s house in Delphi. While I stayed back in the buggy, I heard the master tell that banker to draw out a draft for five thousand dollars.”

“That ain’t no big secret,” Pomp groused as he sat down to join them at the table. “That banker keeps the master’s money. To get his money, he naturally got to go where the money is kept.”

“But what you ain’t guessed is what that money is going to buy. See, I’m telling you I got some answers none of y’all can guess.” Chester smiled and waited.

“Well, I suspect it’s probably for some sheep or some cows,” Aunt Sylvie ventured. “Nothing special about that.”

“Maybe a new horse,” Granada guessed, taken up in the show Chester was putting on.

“Listen to that girl,” Chester laughed, shaking his head. “Don’t matter what the question is, she’s all the time guessing the answer is a horse.”

Aunt Sylvie frowned at Granada, letting her know this was her time to work, not to guess. Granada grabbed a kitchen rag and pulled a skillet of corn pone from the rack.

“Could be a boatload of near about anything,” Pomp said. “Molasses, spirits, a hundred barrels full of brogan shoes. This don’t sound like a big secret to me.”

Satisfied he had stumped them, Chester leaned in over the table and whispered, “He says he was going to market and buy him a slave!”

“Naw!” snorted Pomp, the saddle of red freckles across his nose bunching up when he scowled. “Five thousand dollars for just one head? You bound to misheard. Ain’t no slave costs that much. And the master don’t buy slaves off the plantation no way. He was bragging about that yesterday to his company, how he can raise as many as he needs.”

“I ain’t lying!” Chester exclaimed. “And you should of been there to hear that pink-faced banker squeal! Sounded like a stuck pig.” Chester squeaked in his highest register, imitating the banker. “ ‘Mr. Satterfield! That’s enough for four good niggers or a wagonload of used-up ones. What’s so special about this one?’ ”

Granada set out the tin plates. The talk about buying slaves was new to her. She believed everybody on the plantation was like her, born and raised on the place. She figured slaves were just something that came with the land, like trees and swamps and white-tailed deer.

But whatever the answer, Granada could tell that Chester was enjoying himself, savoring the fact that he knew something the others were dying to be let in on. The only person making any sound was half-blind Silas slurping hot coffee from his saucer.

Pomp, whose buttermilk cheeks were always the first to redden, finally blurted, “Go on and finish what you started, Chester. What did the master say? What so special about this one?”

Chester leaned in over the table again and whispered, “That was the queerest thing of all. Master Ben, he don’t say nothing to explain himself. All he said was it’ll be something like nobody in these parts has ever seen before. Then he told that banker to make a draft written out to a broker in North Carolina. Master just turned his back on that gape-mouthed banker and walked back to the buggy whistling to hisself.”

Aunt Sylvie motioned for Granada to set the platter of fatback on the table and then turned to the coachman. “Hurry along this tale of yours, Chester, or I’m liable to be just as slow with your grub,” she said. “What’s so special about some slave from up the country?”

Chester shrugged coyly and then took a sip of coffee. “I tried to ease it out of the master on the way back from town,” he said. “But drunk as he was, he still wouldn’t say. And if he ain’t telling me, he ain’t telling nobody. Y’all know I’m the master’s right-hand man.”

“Biggity fool!” Aunt Sylvie said, dropping a corn pone on his plate. She cast a quick glance over at Old Silas. “Right-hand man” was a title that used to be Silas’s. Everybody knew that a while back Old Silas was the one who carried the plantation keys for the master.

But if Silas had heard, he didn’t show it. All his attention appeared to be on cutting his fatback into pieces he could easily gum.

Aunt Sylvie turned her ire back on Chester. “You so stuck on yourself you liable to break a sweat trying to get loose. You don’t know nothing!”

Everybody laughed, including Chester. He seemed to like getting Aunt Sylvie’s goat best of all.

“Don’t get me mad or I won’t tell you the rest of it,” Chester bluffed. He looked around the table at his audience. They were growing impatient with his pranking so he decided against teasing them any longer.

“Well, yesterday after the preaching, the master told Barnabas to start up on a new cabin.” Chester nodded toward the kitchen door. “It’s going to be setting right out on the other side of the yard. Four big rooms and a brick fireplace big as Aunt Sylvie’s over there. Told Barnabas to make sure it was finished when he got back from North Carolina. He catching a steamboat out of Port Gayoso next week.”

Chester leaned in over the table. “Now don’t y’all reckon him buying a new hand and building a new cabin at the identical same time has got something to do with one another? I figure them two mules is hitched to the same wagon.”

Aunt Sylvie, having fixed her own plate, sat down at the table next to Old Silas. “Now ain’t that curious?” she said. “You sure about that fireplace? Reckon he might be buying another cook and ain’t told me about it?” she asked, her eyes anxious. “You smart with riddles, Chester, what you reckon it means?”

“Don’t think it’s no cook, Sylvie,” he reassured. “What does he need with two cookhouses and two fine cooks all in the same yard?”

Sylvie straightened. “Of course that’s right!”

“Way I figure,” Chester continued, “that cabin is bound to be a stable he’s building special for some ten-foot-tall stud slave, taller than Big Dante, somebody man enough to straddle three rows of cotton and plow two teams at once. Need two rooms jest to stretch out at night and another to wiggle his toes.”

Granada giggled, but Aunt Sylvie seemed offended. “That ain’t it,” she snapped. “Master ain’t going to have no common field slave staying here in the yard with us and the family. No matter how big a giant he is. They spread disease. That’s why he moved them all out in the swamps after the cholera.”

“Now look who’s stuck on themselves,” Chester chided. “Them folks are just like us. But they get treated like cattle is all. Only difference is we get treated like pet dogs. Don’t make us any better. We just know more tricks.”

“Y’all talking like it’s got to be a ‘him,’ ” Pomp grumbled, getting back to the subject at hand. He glanced toward the kitchen door and then lowered his voice. “Knowing the master, I suspect this new one is a high-yellow fancy gal. Somebody Master Ben will keep all to hisself in that big ol’ cabin.”

Aunt Sylvie huffed. “That cabin will be in sight of the great house. The mistress ain’t going to allow any frolicking where Little Lord can see. No matter how much medicine she swallows, she ain’t going to swallow that! He ain’t going to misbehave right under her nose.”

Pomp chuckled to himself. “Guess he’ll have to keep hisself satisfied with that pretty green-eyed gal out at Burnt Tree quarter.”

Aunt Sylvie scowled at Pomp, and then fussed in a violent whisper, “Shut your damn mouth, fool!” And without missing a beat she looked up at the doorway, acting surprised to see Lizzie standing there. “Good morning, Lizzie!” the cook sang out for all to hear. “Come on in here and get you something to eat. Granada, tend to Lizzie’s plate.”

Lizzie stepped into the room, her movements as leaden as her expression. If she had heard Pomp’s remark about Rubina, she didn’t show it.

Granada didn’t stir a muscle, not able to take her eyes off Lizzie. Whenever talk of Lizzie’s poor daughter arose, Granada wanted to disappear. “Every fine road comes to a stopping place,” Aunt Sylvie was always warning Granada. “Poor Rubina was green-eyed with soft curly hair and look what happened to her!” In Lizzie’s scowl, Granada could sense the tragic and shifting nature of whims and preferences, and the ground became unsteady beneath her feet.

“How you doing, Lizzie?” Chester asked in his cheeriest voice.

Lizzie looked around the table with her good eye, and watched silently as Granada, with a shaky hand, put meat and bread on her plate. Then Lizzie looked up again. “I know what y’all sayin. Ain’t no secret to it. Don’t let me spoil your fun.”

Everybody was now frowning at Pomp. The house servants had a soft spot for Rubina, especially after the mistress had exiled the girl to the swamps when Miss Becky died. Of course Sylvie always said it could have been a lot worse. If she hadn’t pleaded with the master, Mistress Amanda would have sold the poor little girl to one of those houses down in New Orleans just to get her out of the master’s reach. White men paid pockets full of gold to be with a young light-skinned girl like that, Sylvie said. Even though it was common knowledge that the master visited Rubina on occasion in her cabin, Sylvie insisted, “At least it’s just the one. Thanks to me, it ain’t a new caller every night.”

It was Chester who broke the tension. With a straight face, he offered, “Maybe the master found him a first-rate breeder. One that only hatches triple-yolkers. And she needs all that room to nurse them babies like a queen bee.”

There was an explosion of laughter, fueled by the relief everyone felt for Chester maneuvering the conversation away from Rubina. Even Old Silas, who hardly ever spoke up when the servants gathered to swap tales, cracked a toothless smile.

Seeing her man enjoying himself, Aunt Sylvie decided to push him into talking. “What you reckon, Silas?” she asked, reminding everybody he was still among the living. “What you figure that cabin’s for?”

In the old days, before he got in crossways with the mistress, they said Silas was the first to know anything. He received his information mouth to ear from the master. And some said the master got his orders mouth to ear from Silas. Said Silas was the one who laid out the entire plantation, designing the complicated system of levees, dams, drainage ditches, and irrigation canals. Silas was just as dark as Granada, though she had never heard anybody bringing it to his attention.

“Yeah, what you think, Old Silas?” Chester laughed. “You think the master going to get him a gal that’s been bred from a setting hen?”

Old Silas looked around the table. His eyes were dark, the whites nearly yellowed. He seemed surprised he had been spoken to. He then nodded slowly and answered, his voice faint and trembling with age and memory, “That’s what he needs most, I reckon.”

Chester and Pomp laughed, probably thinking Silas was making a joke. Old Silas acted like he hadn’t heard them and kept talking into his coffee cup. “He’s lost many a head over the years to sickness. The yellow fever. The cholera. But he never bought from off the plantation unless things were awfully bad.”

There was a nodding of heads. They all had stopped smirking and started listening.

“That blacktongue must be taking out more hands than we know about. It’s been as bad as the cholera was,” he continued and then gave a half grin. “Yep, maybe that’s just what he needs now, Chester, a flock of first-rate breeders.”

“Those were some terrible days,” Sylvie remembered aloud. “We carried those poor souls out by the wagonful.”

“Sure cut down on his breeding stock,” Old Silas added. “But Master Ben never went off the place to buy. Doesn’t believe in it. Doesn’t like to buy bad habits.”

“He’s a stubborn man,” Sylvie said. She leaned in and spoke just above a whisper, “Lost his own daughter because of that bull head of his. I could have told him. ‘Now you listen to me, Master Ben, it was me who washed and shrouded her body. And don’t you reckon I know? The Angel of Death that took Miss Becky was the exact same color as the one what took all the rest of them …’ ” Sylvie let her words trail off. “He still ain’t admitted that the sickness made it past a white man’s door.”

“Now it’s the blacktongue,” Old Silas said. “Last I counted he got twenty-five hands out at Mott’s quarter on their backs ready to up and die on him like they’re doing ever place else in the county. Master Ben buried three himself.”

“I hope the master learned his lesson,” Aunt Sylvie said, and then closed her eyes. “Please, God, don’t let it travel here to us. ‘Death he is a little man, he go from door to door …’ ”

Chester, rarely serious, now seemed dispirited. “Don’t know what he’s going to do with them that’s already down with it. I know he ain’t going to ask me to fetch that Dr. Barbour. Calls him the killing doctor. I suspect he’s right. I heard of one gal so scared of that man and his purgatives she let her baby die from the measles instead of turning the child over to that white doctor. That’s sure what they call him. The killing doctor with his black bottle of medicine.”

“Same all over,” Pomp grumbled. “Everybody saying it’s best to let it roll with God than tell your miseries to any white doctor. Puke and purge is all they know. Treat you like a field mule. Old Silas is right, it must be going to get a lot worse if the master is buying off the place.”

“That what he needs all right,” Silas said again, “a flock of powerful breeders.”

Chester rose from the table and looked down upon the morose group. He laughed darkly. “I guess Old Silas answered my riddle. Master bought him some gal with hips as broad as an oxen yoke. A gal so fertile, the master won’t never have to buy off of the plantation again.”

He slapped his hands together at the thought. “It’ll sure be a sight. I’m going to be right there in the yard watching when they tote in that gold goose and set her down on her nest.”