Cese had worn shoes before, but never boots. He had been given trousers in Jamaica, but here received stockings and good strong breeches of hemp twill. Queeny dressed him several times, trying clothes on him until she was satisfied.
She walked around him like an artist with a sculpture, admiring her work. “I wan’ cut those sca’s right off you, they look so ‘landish,” she chastened him. The days had sharpened his English considerably, and she refused to help him in Benin or the trade language any longer, except to taunt him. He reached up and touched the scars. She pushed his hand away.
“Don’ draw no ‘tention to ’em.”
She was a tall woman, but he stood over her, six feet or more in the boots. His legs were long for his height, and the breeches and stockings accentuated the muscles of his calf and thigh. He had a white shirt from Mr. Bailey’s castoffs; the patches at the shoulders never showed under his waistcoat and the short blue jacket that Nelly had let out for him, a remnant of Mr. Charles’s younger days. He held his head straight, and placed his right hand on his hip like the white gentlemen, a rather striking affectation for a black man and one Queeny had never seen. Cese never considered it; he had been beaten as a child until he learned to hold his shield in just such a way, resting his spear hand, and the pose, alike in Africa and classical Rome, had been ingrained in him as it was in the men whose statues adorned the white world.
The pose made Queeny a little nervous, although she couldn’t place why, but the face reassured her—an open, honest face, with a long, broad nose and large, dark, wide-set eyes still free from cynicism, his smile directed at her breasts under the boned cotton jacket she wore. It had taken her less than a day to lead him into seducing her, and she had tied him with the strings of his own notions of loyalty. Those eyes promised her some time of pleasure and comfort, as long as she could train him to his tasks and keep his arrogance at bay. He was a good man. She wanted him to stay and not go the way of Tom. But the easy confidence of his pose was troubling, and the clothes had not had the effect she expected, of cowing him, but the opposite. What he had in common with Tom was the danger—too damn smart. Queeny was old enough to know that what drew her to them was the very thing that would take them away. She smiled, a secret, bitter smile.
He smiled back, turning out his toes. “Hard to run in dese, Queeny.”
“These,” she said automatically. “You jes’ learn, Caesa’. Colonel gon’ expec’ you run in those, and those clothes too.”
“Dese ones hurt the feet, Queeny.”
“These, Caesa’. I don’ speak like Miz Bailey, but I wants you to speak bettah, not like no field negra. This, That, These, Those. Say it.”
“This…that…these…those,” he said purposefully as he began to trot up and down the street, followed by children from all the huts. His speed was already a byword. He had beaten the plantation champion on his first evening, and then downed another slave, Pompey, in a short but fair fight whose origins escaped him. Later he accepted that Pompey had seen him as rival for Queeny before he himself had even thought of wanting her.
The boots hurt his feet, but they could be borne. His toes splayed wide from a life spent barefoot, and the short boots had been made to accommodate a more civilized foot. He changed his stride, taking longer paces to change the pressure on his feet, and leaned into the turn by the well. As he passed it, his feet went out from under him, the slick leather soles betraying him on the dry ground. He rolled over and felt the thin material around one of the patches in his shirt give way, but he bounded to his feet and increased his speed back to Queeny’s distant door.
“Don’ run so hard, Caesa’. Never give them all you got. They jus’ wan’ it every time.”
He smiled at her, his big open smile full of teeth and confidence. She was angry, for some reason.
“I always got mo of dat ting, I think. Always little mo.”
“Always a little mo. That thing.”
“Yeah, yeah. Always a little mo. That thing.”
“Now give me that shirt, you. You gon’ keep me an’ Nelly sewing all the time.”
“Not all the time,” he said neatly and clearly, and put his hands round her waist, lifting her playfully through the door of her hut. She liked to be lifted, liked when he showed his strength. She laughed, and he was caught in her again.
The dogs were easy—easy in that keeping dogs had been his job in Jamaica, and easy in that these had never been mistreated and took to him from the first. They were trained, he could tell; they had good noses and fine voices, and he fed them meat—more meat than he himself got in a week, but that made no mind. The pack leader was a surprisingly small bitch with a full bell-toned voice, and he took her out and ran with her in the yard, and then with one of her mates. In Jamaica he had known all the packs, and most of the ground, although the packs hunted slaves more often than animals. Cese knew the fox hunt only by repute, never having seen one, but he had learned the rules.
The Master was due home in a matter of days, and the hunt season was on them. All his tests would come together. Virginia was a step up from Jamaica, and he didn’t intend to go back to the beatings and the threat of worse—the barracoon and the pens. Queeny had passed to him her fears that he would be found wanting and sent back to Jamaica. He ran with the hounds and listened to anything any man could tell him about the hunts. Most of them had been beaters, one time or other; Pompey worked the hounds from time to time, and seemed to bear little ill will about the fight.
Pompey resented him for Queeny, and for his instant possession of the dogs, but the fight had been a matter of form. If Pompey bore him a grudge it was well hidden, and none of the hundred other blacks he had met seemed to hold his position against him. Any resentment they might have felt for his clothes and his possession of Queeny vanished in the face of the bricklayer, who already had six of the slaves working under him and was laying the front walk, formerly a broad expanse of white gravel, in brick. He was demanding and brutal as only a man who has learned his leadership on a Jamaican plantation could be. As a skilled man, he had his own hut. As an outsider, he had already earned more than his share of enemies. He was working to get the front walk paved for the Master’s return to keep his place, and Cese had already heard rumors from the others of things that might have been done to the walk—chalk in the mortar, holes under the bricks to make cracks appear. Cese watched and learned, keeping his thoughts to himself.
The other slaves were a mixture, their names and faces still a blur in his head, alien faces, Ebo and Efik and Teke, Luo and Seke and others from further inland. There were no other Yoruba or Ashanti soldiers, hardly any Benin at all, and they half-castes from the coast. His mother had once said that there was good even in an Ebo, if one was patient, and he schooled himself to patience. Queeny was good company, and the work was light compared to the Indies.
He asked Queeny about the threatened attacks on the front walk.
“Oh, it do happen, Caesa’. It do.”
“In the Indies they rack a slave till they know who done it.”
Queeny shook her head. “This ain’t the Indies, boy. You be ‘spectful, you smile, but then you keep some fo’ you. If’n they push hard, you break yo’ tools. If’n they ‘spect you to work all night, you spoil yo’ work. Every one of us know to do this, Caesa’. You pay ‘tention, boy. Indies slaves work too hard, too ‘fraid. Make the otha’s look bad.”
“Queeny, I be’nt afraid. If’n you’s so brave, why not run?”
“Some do. It be a hahd life, Caesa’. Hahd in woods, and hahd on the road, and the devil to pay if they catch you.”
“I heah no slaves in England.”
“English ship brought me heah. English mans run the farms. You know ‘bout Flo-ri-da?”
“No. You tell me.”
“Some time I tell you ‘bout John Canno. But you walk careful, listen to what I tell you. Be ‘spectful, but keep some back.”
“I heah you. I hear you.”
“Cause they don’ really thank you fo’ it, Caesa’. If’n they nice o’ if’n they nasty, you still a slave.”
“You know ‘bout Somerset, though?”
“I know I hear fools say we all be free. He one man. Good fo’ him, I say. He free. I ain’ free.”
Cese looked at the ground a minute, and kept his thoughts to himself.
Today, I am a slave.
Washington rode easily, one leg cocked up over the pintle of his saddle. He had almost reached his own land and had nothing but pleasure ahead of him. He looked forward to a release from politics for a few days, because the incessant clamor against the home country could be fairly shrill. In darker moments, he wondered that they dared. In others, he suspected that they were simply grumbling like soldiers on a long march. Soon enough, the debts from the Great War would be paid, and surely then the politics would return to something like normalcy.
Jacka was up on a new bay behind him, riding out in circles when the ground allowed to try to work the friskiness out of the big horse. Washington looked at him and grunted in approval. As he looked, his gaze was caught by something well to the east over Jacka’s shoulder and he sat up, tacked his free foot back in the stirrup, and put his spurs to his horse. Jacka, caught off guard, was well behind him in an instant.
There was a man, a big man, taking crabs from the river in a little punt. Two black women and another man were building a fire on the bank. Washington rode up to the big man, already angry.
“What are you about, sir!” he called.
“Takin’ crabs, squire,” said the man. His tone was insolent. “They’re God’s crabs, I think.”
Washington dismounted and walked along the bank until he was opposite the little boat.
“What’s your name, then?”
The man was as big as Washington or even bigger, with a strong, even brutal, face and a squint. He was dressed in an old overshirt and filthy linen.
“I’m Hector Bludner, squire. I was in the Virginny regiment, I was.” He chuckled, clearly sure that such a point would clear him of any wrongdoing. “I know you, too, Colonel.”
“All right, Mr. Bludner. Bring that punt back in here and get off my land.”
Bludner looked at him as if genuinely offended. Perhaps he was.
“This ain’t England, squire. This is Amerikay. You don’ own the crabs!”
Washington stooped and lifted a rock the size of a man’s fist. He cocked his arm and threw it at the boat. It went right through the flimsy timber, and in a moment, Bludner was splashing and cursing in the shallow water.
“Bastard!” he yelled.
While he was floundering about, Washington turned on the little man and the two women. One was a black girl of perhaps sixteen with a fine face marred only by a collection of bruises. The other was older, perhaps her mother. She moved slowly and Washington could see she had a broken leg, badly reset.
He addressed the smaller white man.
“Get off my land this instant, or I’ll arrest you all as vagrants. What do you do?”
The little man scratched his head a moment.
“We take slaves for folk.”
Washington spat. “I have no use for your kind. My slaves don’t run.”
Jacka caught that remark coming up late, but if he thought anything of it, he kept it to himself.
Bludner was ashore now, soaked and raging. He struck the young woman hard, so that the impact sounded like a pistol shot. The little man just got out of his way and began to load a pony. His attack on the woman enraged Washington, who stood his ground, waiting for Bludner to approach him. Bludner spent a moment getting his blood up, cursing.
“Your kind is why we need to spill some blood in these parts, by damn. No ‘nobles’ in Amerikay!”
Washington watched him with calm ferocity.
“You’re a coward and a pimp.”
Nothing spurs hatred in a man like the memory of admiration, and Bludner had once sought Washington’s approval through a whole summer as a soldier. He took his time making his move, talking a great deal, so that when he finally shifted his weight he almost caught Washington off guard. But Washington had wrestled Indians and Virginians all his life. He sidestepped and sent a blow from his fist into Bludner’s head that staggered him. Then he struck him again, stepping inside his long-armed blows and pounding a fist up under the man’s arm, knocking the wind out of him, then hammering the man’s face and chest until he fell. Then he kicked the man twice without compunction. Jacka watched with a smile, while the little man just kept loading the group’s goods on two ponies. Washington could see the butt of an unexpectedly fine rifle standing up from one pony.
He nodded at Bludner on the ground, and at their camp.
“Take any crabs you already have ashore—I won’t have them go to waste. Then get you gone. If I see you in the country, I’ll have you taken up on a charge.”
The little man merely nodded.
Jacka was watching the pretty girl. She was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen—prettier than Queeny—with her almond eyes and pouty lips. She met his eye boldly.
“What’s you’ name?” he asked.
“I’m Sally,” she said, tossing her head despite a new and spreading bruise on her cheek. Clearly mere beatings couldn’t break her spirit.
Washington mounted again and rode a little apart, watching them, his easy mood of the road broken. He handed Jacka a pistol.
“See they get clear of my land.”
Jacka nodded.
Mr. Bailey wanted a great reception for Colonel Washington, and he intended to line the drive with the servants and slaves, some old retainers, and a few friends at the top, nearest the house, standing well back to be discrete and different from the lower orders on the drive. In the meantime, fires were lit throughout the house, everything was cleaned to a fare-thee-well, and the beds were turned down in the master bedroom. They posted a boy well up the road to give them the signal.
When the boy came dashing back, Mr. Bailey gave the signal, ringing his hand bell, and men and women came running from the nearest farms and outbuildings. Mr. Bailey was appalled to see his master riding up without a coat, with one hand swollen and bleeding and his breeches all muddy. He stood at the great horse’s head and welcomed the colonel, and all the servants and slaves stood silently as Washington reviewed them and nodded. He rarely praised, and in his current mood, although he was aware that a special effort had been made and that something was called for, he merely grunted to Bailey as he completed his review.
He saw new slaves, and he didn’t know them. The tallest of them, a well-built lad, had tiny ridges of scars over his eyes. He’d never seen the like, and it did nothing to improve his mood, as it was a disfigurement on a noble-looking man, and meant he was fresh from Africa. He didn’t like Africans. He’d said so often enough.
“Let me see to your poor hand,” said Mrs. Bailey, and he let himself be dragged inside.
Two chimes of his French watch later, he was dressed in proper clothes, the dust of the road and the dirt of the fight washed clean, and the knuckles of his hands well bandaged. He had taken a glass of rum and mint, cool from the back house, and followed Bailey out on to the lawn to inspect the front walk.
“What’s the bricklayer’s name?”
“Jemmy, sir.”
“He’s done some good work here, Bailey. But the men don’t think much of him. They’ve spoiled the mortar in a few places.”
“Yes, sir. I tried to watch them, Colonel. I made two men replace the gravel. They left holes in the work.”
“I see.”
“He hit them, did this Jemmy.”
“I won’t have it. See that he understands, Mr. Bailey, and get the walk finished. I expect to turn a nice profit on this fellow and his crew when they can pull in harness. Mrs. Carter would pay handsomely this minute to have her outbuildings touched up. I want a new kennel.”
“I understand, Colonel.”
“But it will be a wasted investment if he tries to come it the lord over them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now there is a smith?”
“I haven’t seen much of him, sir. Perhaps I was remiss. I put him to helping at housework, as I didn’t want to test him on your forge. He came with a character for being capable with firearms, but I didn’t see fit to test him on yours.”
“I’ll see to it. I thank you for it. I fairly dread the notion of a wild man loose with my fowlers. And the dogs boy?”
“A likely lad, sir. Young and cheerful, runs like the wind. Beat Tam in a fair race and downed Pompey with his fists. And the dogs like him.”
“Well, I look forward to seeing this paragon. He’s African?”
“He is. Queeny says Yoruba, perhaps…perhaps Ashanti.”
“I don’t take to Africans, Bailey, but we’ll see. I’ve always heard said Ashanti made the worst slaves.”
“Perhaps this one will change your mind, sir.”
“I’ll expect to see him with the dogs this afternoon. Send the smith to me in a few minutes.” He cast a last glance over the new brick walk and the lawn running down to the Potomac.
“You did well in my absence, Bailey. My thanks.”
He was gone in a few long strides, leaving Bailey to enjoy the rare praise alone.
The new boy was working grease into his boots in a cool corner of the shed, a small wooden tub of the stuff under one hand and the boots laid out before him, their laces stripped off to the sides. He also had several of the dog collars laid out in the straw and a leash, as well. The hounds were gathered round him, and he was speaking to them, slowly and clearly, enunciating English words, “This, these, that, those.”
Washington stopped in the doorway and watched him for a moment. “He has something of the air of a soldier.”
Bailey stood behind him, concerned that the floor of the kennel would spoil the boy’s new breeches.
“I remember the regulars with Braddock,” Washington went on. “They cleaned their gear the very same way, everything laid out neat before them.”
Cese was aware of the Master when the first words were spoken, and he betrayed no alarm at being caught sitting barefoot in the kennel, but put his boots off to one side and rose gracefully to his feet without his hands touching the floor. His height was just shy of Washington’s, and he looked him in the eye for a moment before bowing from the waist. He saw a tall man, in a scarlet coat and buff cloth smallclothes, top boots. He had an impression of power, cloaked, a little hidden—like a chief. A more athletic man than any master he had had—more imposing. Mr. Bailey seemed a slight thing by comparison.
“What are you putting on that leather, boy?”
Cese worked it out in his head, to be sure.
“Hog’s fat, suh. Little linseed oil.”
Washington nodded briskly. He examined the dogs; they looked clean and fit.
“I hear you are fast, boy.”
Cese smiled and bobbed his head.
“What do they call you?”
“Cese, suh.”
Bailey actually stepped forward, as if to fight off the African name. “Caesar, Colonel.”
“Ah, Caesar. He has a bit of the Roman look to him, does he not?” Washington was disconcerted for a moment—a rare feeling, quickly dismissed. Then he smiled—a quick flash, without teeth, but one that lit his face—and he turned back on Bailey.
“Am I understanding? Caesar beat Pompey?”
Bailey looked at him without understanding, and Washington shook his head and moaned inwardly; his moments of learned wit were few enough, to fall on such barren ground.
“Perhaps we’ll call him Julius Caesar?”
Bailey was still trying to make out why Washington was so concerned that the new slave had beaten Pompey.
“It were a fair fight, Colonel.”
Washington smiled again, nodded.
“I’m sure it was, Bailey. But I like the name. Julius Caesar. Tell Queeny—he’s with Queeny?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“Julius Caesar. I like the look of him, Mr. Bailey. Tell him I will want him and the hounds out tomorrow morning. See to it.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“He has a jacket?”
“Yes.”
“I have the caps in my baggage. See that he has one. All the neighborhood will be riding tomorrow, and he must be smart.” Washington leaned over the stile and looked him in the eye.
“I like to be there when the dogs are fed, Caesar. When you have their food made up, you send to the house for me, if I am by. Do you understand?”
“Yes, suh. Then dogs know you.”
Washington nodded. “Exactly. Boy, what will you feed ’em tonight?”
Caesar took a moment to think over his reply.
“They gun dogs, they rest tomorro’. They get meat. They hounds, they run tomorrow. They get bread soaked in broth, roll’ in balls.”
Washington smiled, a thin-lipped movement that hid his teeth.
“And they’re all well, Caesar?”
“Blue heah…Blue here, she’s coat be dull, be’nt it, suh?”
“You tell me.”
“An’ she won’ take huh food. Her food.”
Amused at the boy’s eagerness and air of confidence, Washington leaned out farther over the stile.
“What do you do for a dog like that?”
“I wash her in broth and see dat…that she licks herse’f and get her some food.”
“I take a little turbith mineral, I make it into a ball with corn syrup, and I give it her to eat.”
“Neva heard that one, suh. What’s turbit?”
“Mr. Bailey, would you be so good as to reach down the second tin. The very one. Look here, boy. I take as much as will cover a nail. See? I’ll mix it with a dash of syrup. Damn it, there used to be corn syrup here.”
“Right here, Colonel.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bailey. I mix them together and then roll it in a pill, like this. Now you give it her, Caesar.”
Caesar took the sticky pill and stroked the dog for a moment before running his fingers along the bottom of her jaw, where he pressed. The dog opened her mouth wide and Caesar laid the sticky pill on her tongue. It was gone in a single lick, the dog looking back and forth between the people with the weary air of one who has been practiced upon.
“Four times a day until she takes food. I do rather like the notion of bathing a dog in broth, though. Do you find that it answers?”
“They can’t he’p but lick, suh.”
“I learned about the turbith mineral from Lord Fairfax, and there is no man in America knows more about dogs. I long to tell him about bathing a dog in broth. Do both: I wish to see it in action.”
“Yes, suh.”
Washington left the boy to Bailey, and headed for his house.
He read in his library for a while, then looked at his latest drawing for an improved stable, made a change where he thought he could run water straight from the spring with pipes, and thought better of it. He was restless, and he walked through the house as he sometimes did when he couldn’t concentrate his mind. The servants and slaves in the kitchen were surprised by his passage, but pleased at his satisfaction. Other house slaves looked worried when he passed, or were long in bed themselves, according to their tasks.
Washington stopped on the central stairs and found Martha sitting in the blue parlor. “Are you ready for bed, ma’am?”
She lifted her book to him with a smile and went back to reading, a habit he had once found rude and was now used to. The smile, at least, meant she was in good humor. He nodded, almost a bow, and went up. The stair had never satisfied him. It was too narrow, and lacked something in sweep compared to other houses. It dated from a time when Mount Vernon had been considerably smaller. He began to plan a new staircase, trying to picture where he would have the space for a broader sweep.
“Are you going to bed now, sir?” asked his personal slave, Billy.
Washington realized he was standing at the top of the stair, unmoving, and that his hands were cold. He had been there some time.
“I am, Billy. I am.”
“Will you want anything while you undress?”
“I think I’ll have a small brandy, Billy.”
“Very well, sir. I’ll be with you in an instant.”
Before Washington had done more than enter his bedroom and take his watch out of his breeches, Billy was back with a trumpet-shaped glass on a silver tray. His presentation was elegant, indeed, everything about Billy was elegant, and he did it so quietly that Washington seldom heard him coming.
Washington swallowed a third of the contents in a gulp, surprising himself. He smiled. “My thanks on that, Billy. Will you see to my watch case? It’s dull.”
“Yes, sir.” Billy took his coat and handed it to a young boy, who took it away with something like reverence.
“I can get my own boots, Billy.”
“I’m sure you can, sir. But you won’t while I’m here.”
Billy had the softest touch of the slave accent, never enough to make sir into suh, but enough to make his tone husky. He was always softly spoken. Washington sat and allowed Billy to pull off his riding boots, which were handed to the same boy for polishing. Billy left his slippers by the fire. Washington would never submit to anyone putting his slippers on. Washington turned, his aquiline profile strong against the dark outside. He sipped his brandy.
“Anything else, sir?”
“Have you met the new boy, Billy?”
“Which one, sir?”
“The African, Billy. The dogs boy.”
“Cese, sir?”
“That’s him, Billy. Caesar, if you please. What do you think of him?”
“He’s a good boy. Queeny likes him, and that’s somethin’.”
Billy didn’t exactly approve of Queeny, as he was a Christian man and she was easy in her affections. But at another level, they were allies.
“We’ll know what he’s made of when we see him on the hunting field, eh?”
Billy attended Washington even on horseback. They had been together for a long time, and Billy was probably the best black horseman in Virginia. In fact, he was better than most gentlemen, although still not the equal of Washington.
“I think he’ll do fine, sir.”
Washington still seemed in doubt. “I think he’s too…African,” he said, shaking his head. “But he has the makings of a fine young man, I’ll grant you that. Get to bed, Billy.”
The new boy cut quite a figure in his cap and jacket. He had a stick in his hand, almost like a crop, and it seemed to Washington that the stick might be coming it a bit high for a slave, especially if that stick were meant for his dogs.
Washington edged his horse across the drive in the early morning light to the edge of the pack, and watched Caesar separate one of his bitches from one of the visiting Lee hounds with the stick, never a blow, just a firm pressure with the stick and a slap of the hand.
“Where did you buy the dogs boy, sir?” young Henry Lee asked with open admiration. “He’s rather fine.”
Caesar recognized the look and nodded his head to Mr. Lee, leaving Washington uncomfortable again. It was an easy nod—far too easy for a slave, and yet not in any way a breach of etiquette. The nod was of a piece with the stick.
“I had him from a failed plantation in Jamaica, Henry.”
“And I may wish papa will do as well.”
“He does seem singular. That’s a fine mare, Henry.”
“I had him from my uncle at Stratford Hall. Part Arab, they say. I hope so, for the price.” The mare began to circle, and Lee was frustrated by the lack of effect his new silver spurs had on her. He pressed her with his crop and still she turned, her interest divided between worry at the dogs and interest in Washington’s mount, a big bay called Nelson.
“Damn you.” He hit her with his crop.
Washington shook his head. “Not her fault, sir.”
Lee, unused to being checked, looked up, but Washington was already moving away, backing his horse to the open area beyond the hunt. The huntsman, a local tenant, came in and pointed off over the lane to a distant copse, motioning with a long old-fashioned whip. Lee let his horse have her head a moment and then pushed her away from the dogs, where she instantly settled down. Billy, Washington’s constant attendant, trotted easily around Henry Lee and gave Caesar a smile. Then he followed his master.
The pack gave voice, answered thinly by the select pack over the hill. Someone had found a fox. The huntsman gave Caesar the signal, and he released the hounds, his eyes still following the young man his master had rebuked and the elegant black man on horseback. The hounds leapt away, and the hunt began to take shape behind them.
It was the third draw that produced a fox, with the select dogs of the county behind it and the rest of the pack following from reserve. No one had expected the first draw to produce anything; the night had been very windy and the ground was cold. But the fox found in the wood hard against Dogue Run went away at a view by the schoolhouse, crossed the Alexandria road back into Mount Vernon plantation and ran north toward Belvale, the seat of the Johnstons. Just short of the park wall he turned left and ran the whole length of the new-laid brick, but hesitation at the steep banks of the creek cost him a precious moment. He was headed at the wall and killed in the cart shed behind Belvale, the dogs in fine voice and the copper blood and ordure scent over the whole winter morning. Washington was in at the kill, his horse an extension of his will, Billy at his elbow like a standard-bearer, fine in Washington’s red and buff livery. Caesar was never far from the dogs, running from scent to scent, his eyes on the country ahead. Twice he outguessed the select pack and the bitch in the lead, crossing to a new cover before the pack found a new voice, and his prowess did not pass without note.
Belvale Shrubbery was the next draw, and here there were three foxes. The field was tired, and etiquette was slipping; the pack split, with the larger part chasing an older female and the smaller a younger male. The field divided in proportion to the hounds and privately held views on the ethics of the thing. The older hunters chased the larger part of the pack; the younger members followed the younger dogs and chased over more difficult country.
Caesar stayed with his own dogs, which had the first scent, and pursued the old vixen with a will. Other dog runners paced him; an older man with the French family’s hounds flashed him a smile as they ran up to the hounds at a check by Little Hunting Creek.
“You can run, boy!”
“Thanka.”
“I be John. Fro’ the French place.”
“Why’d the pack split?”
The older man shook his head, flashing a broad smile.
“Hell to pay when the leaders meet, I be thinkin’.”
The pack checked at the edge of the thick cover of the wood and the rising ground toward Cameron Run. Caesar could see the other pack running well to the south, even half a mile away, straight into the wind, their noses up, tails flat out. The younger members of the field were right up on the hounds, some jumping a small hedge and some angling for the gate nearer the river. The Lee boy, the one his master had been harsh to, was riding flat out, his whip striking the horse’s withers, his whole body leaning forward over the horse’s neck.
The dogs were past the check and beginning to run again, and he began to lope after them. John seemed to be waiting for something.
“I’m Caesar, from Mount Vernon.”
“I know, boy. I know.”
Caesar wondered why he was laughing, but he lost the thought in the glory of the run.
Washington watched him follow the hounds past the check, pleased with his purchase and angry at the day. The wind was wrecking the scent; indeed, they had been lucky to draw a fox at all, and the hounds were going to find the going harder and harder. Worse was the defection of the younger set. He thought they had ridden off willfully, and he doubted they’d make a kill. The older men and one woman had held the field on the first kill. They had done all the real work of the thing and now they were deserted for their pains. He disliked that the young people were allowed to go by the rest of the field. He liked people to follow their parts, and the defection savored of rebellion.
He turned in the saddle and rested one hand on his horse’s rump, looking back into the Potomac Valley, but the lesser part of the hunt’s field was gone over a hedge. He watched the last of the younger riders, their forms darkened by the winter light, balk at a stile and ride around.
“This will not do,” he said aloud, as much to himself as to Billy behind him.
He trotted Nelson along the slow rise to the left, his intention to get ahead of the fox and the hunt. Washington always hunted with a military art; he read the ground and tried to outguess his opponent. The Virginian habit of hurling his horse at every obstacle that the hounds crossed had ceased to challenge him years ago.
He led Billy across country toward Rose Hill, and he noted with some surprise that his Caesar had stopped following the hounds and was running ahead of him in great leaps, like a two-legged deer, bounding over the hummocky grass. The wintry sun broke through the clouds for a moment, illuminating the three men and the winter grass around them in a brief blaze of pale gold, the slate of the sky an intimidating contrast that threatened worse weather to come.
The last of the sun’s effort showed both of them the sight of the fox fully in view as she burst from the woods along the creek and turned north across the wind-swept open ground toward Rose Hill, her curious red-green coat gleaming with the sun’s touch. Washington rose in his stirrups and yelled, then sounded a view on his horn. The cry of the hounds changed from puzzlement to pursuit within the wood and the leaders of the pack began to appear, scenting the wind and bounding along. Caesar turned to him and smiled, a personal smile that lit his face, and Washington’s thin lips curled. He saluted slightly, just a wave of the whip in a gesture of acknowledgment, and he gathered the horse under him and was gone, Billy in his wake, but Billy’s smile was broad, almost welcoming, and he gave Caesar a wave.
The open ground gave the field a fine burst of about ten minutes, with plenty of jumping when they came to the Rose Hill fences. But the fox was old and wise, and the wind was rising; she lay still once in a covert, and doubled on her own scent when she ran, almost splitting the pack a second time.
Washington heard the other group blow a mort and knew they had killed, somewhere down in the valley on his own land. His first thought was one of sharpened competition, but he pushed that down as unworthy. Their killing did not make their actions right, and this green-red fox, this ancient vixen, had given the best of the field the kind of hunt men talked about for years—fence after fence, the sighting by the woods when the hounds were at a stand, many a twist, a true champion. He looked back at his field, eleven tired gentlemen and one gentlewoman, and then forward to where the chase had made the cover of the heavy brush at the very bank of the Dogue Run. The hounds gathered about the cover, climbing over one another but held by the tough undergrowth. Washington rode round the pack, the thong of his whip free for the first time in the afternoon. He rode over to the huntsman and William Ramsay, who were sharing a bottle.
“I say we leave her. I think she earned it.”
“Huzzay, then! A well-plucked ‘un.”
“Leave her to have kits.” They all nodded, gave a small cheer, and began to pick their way back toward Mount Vernon, except Daniel French, who was home already. He waved his whip and rode round to his stable.
“He can’t be too happy, knowing you’ve just moved a Vernon fox into the bush behind his henhouse,” said Ramsay, laughing his Scottish laugh.
“’Twas only justice, gentlemen. She gave us good sport. She lives to do it again.”
“Young Lee killed his fox.”
“Young Lee broke the pack. He didn’t follow the right fox.”
“True enough.” Ramsay looked at Washington to see if he was angry, but the man was flowing along, at one with his horse, and the look on his face was one of deep contentment.
The huntsman signaled the boys to call off the dogs. Again, Caesar’s stick stood him in good stead, as he used it deftly to separate dogs and push them back on to the greensward. He tossed tidbits from his haversack, pushing through the dogs until he had the Mount Vernon pack leader by the scruff of the neck and had carried her clear of the pack and off to the grass, where he fed her several bites of bread soaked in molasses until she had her wits about her again. The pack followed her, and Caesar kept them moving away from the covert until they began to calm down and move along with him. The older man, John, had his dogs out of the bush first, and held them with his voice alone, almost crooning to them. He looked around, saw the mounted party riding away, and pushed one young pup across from his group into Caesar’s.
“That un’s yours, John,” Caesar protested.
“An’ you jus’ take him down to Vernon. I come by latuh, pick him up, I don’ miss all the pahty jus’ because Missah French be tired. Right?”
“If’n you say,” Caesar said with some hesitancy.
“I do say. Run ‘long, now.”
Caesar headed down the hill, the little stranger trying to worm his way back to his own pack for a few moments. Caesar prevented him, though not without some fellow feeling; the young dog was alone, and he felt for it. But the Rose Hill pup did not care, for soon enough he ran with the Vernon pack as if born to them.
“It was the fastest chase, gentlemen—a young fox, and a fast one. But we kept him in view, and he never turned, just ran till the hounds had him by the heels.” Lee held his horse through a little curvet, done deliberately to show his horsemanship.
“You split the pack, Mr. Lee.”
“At least I caught a fox.”
“Perhaps we’ll leave you to hunt on your own in the future, then, Mr. Lee. Clearly the company of your elders oppresses you.”
Lee had expected praise, and the dashing of his hopes and his second rebuff in a day from Colonel Washington was more than he could bear. He tried to meet Washington’s eyes and fight, but failed, and his shoulders slumped. His horse felt the change and sidled a little until he curbed her with a vicious jerk at the reins, and then he turned on his dog handler.
“Didn’t you see the pack was split, Hussy?”
The boy stood paralyzed. Lee’s tone held the threat of violence—adolescent humiliation that couldn’t be borne.
“Why did you let the dogs run off, Hussy?”
Washington thought it likely that the master had run off and the dogs boy followed, but it didn’t matter now; the lad was in for a thrashing. Lee never thrashed heavy, anyway; his father had a humane reputation, and the son was thought overfriendly with his blacks.
He saw Lee let the lash fall free from the stock of his whip and then slash with it, a blow quick as the strike of a cat’s claw, and his dogs boy cowered away with blood welling between his fingers where they clutched his face. The other members of the field took pulls on their flasks or headed for the house, distancing themselves from young Lee.
Old John from Rose Hill came running down the long slope from the north. Washington had missed him; he was widely known as the best and most knowledgeable of the dog handlers in the neighborhood, and Washington valued his opinion of young Caesar. But the man had his whole attention fixed on the Stratford Hall boy with a look of hatred.
“Stupid Negra!” John threw himself on the boy, pulling him to the ground and pushing his face in the dirt. The dogs ran in circles, yelping. Most of the white audience had gone, but Lee was poised above the struggling pair, his arm cocked back for another blow with his deadly whip.
Caesar was shocked by the sudden violence, and the more shocked by Old John’s sudden attack on Lee’s slave. Caesar didn’t even know him, except as the slower of the running boys, and one without shoes. John appeared to be beating him savagely, and Lee hovered over them, his mare stepping carefully to avoid treading on the pair.
“Get clear, you bastard!” said Lee, raising the whip again. Washington’s hand seized his wrist and pulled his whip clear of his hand, disarming him so quickly and easily that it looked as if the two men had planned the whole thing.
“Never strike another man’s slave, young Lee.”
Lee looked at him with something like loathing for a moment.
“Come into the house and have a little uncustomed brandy, Master Lee.” Washington spoke in an even tone, as if nothing had happened and he didn’t have Lee’s whip in his hand.
“He’s useless!”
“Come along.” Washington thought of other men he had known whose admonitions he had heard and accepted, or resented in his own youth: Lord Fairfax, General Braddock, his brother Lawrence. All had the touch, the ability to admonish with the most result and least pain. He knew himself cold and distant—perhaps too distant for this sort of thing—but someone had to bring young Lee into line with responsibility, and today God had ordained that he be the gentleman to try.
As they rode away, Caesar could hear his master speaking softly to the violent young man, and then they reached the gravel path and turned into the outbuildings and were gone. John sat up in a moment. Caesar had the dogs under control, his own, the Lee dogs, and the remnants of several other packs and partial packs.
“They gone?”
“Yea, John. They gone.” John was Ebo, through and through. Smart, though, and with a winning smile. The hint of duplicity was pure Ebo, and that he had seen a thousand times. The man winked at him and rose to his feet, dusted his fine black cloth breeches and helped the other boy to his feet. The whip had left a bright mark on his cheek, and a deep cut, but no gash, and the blood was slowing. The boy was weeping through the mud and blood.
“Why’d you hit him, John?”
“Keep that white boy’s whip off’n him, I think. Li’l whip like’n that one, it can take an eye or split you nose.” Caesar was still a little shocked by the violence of it, so different from battle because there was no resisting the hand that held the whip.
“I didn’ huht him none, did I, boy? Jus’ roll roun’ atop him.”
Caesar looked the boy over. He was weeping so hard he couldn’t speak.
“He’ll live.”
“Bettah get you home wi’ they dogs, boy. Get cleah ‘fo Missuh Lee get on you ‘gain.”
The boy nodded, still sobbing.
“Le’s get they dogs settled, see what the black folks get to eat. Massa French say I can be heah to eat.” He winked at Caesar again.
“You done good, boy. I see you have mah pup theyah.” He whistled and the pup betrayed his new allegiance and ran to the older man’s heel.
“You like the hunt, boy?”
“I liked it fine, suh.”
The man laughed. “No one calls a black man suh. Not heah.”
Caesar opened the gate into the kennel yard and shook his head to himself, savoring the moment on the grass when he and the tall master had spotted the fox together. Then he shook his head again, as if embarrassed at his own thoughts.
The wind continued to rise, and it dished the outdoor festivities. The slaves did dance, but it was in the cart shed. Jacka played his fiddle, and played it well, and some of the house servants came. Old John danced with every girl who would have him, smiled on all, ate well, drank better, and took his leave early and with a good grace. Caesar knew the reels that he had learned in the Indies, and the Mount Vernon women took it upon themselves to show him other dances—country dances they learned from the whites, and variations on their own dances, from Africa and from the Indies. Queeny showed him steps he’d seen whites do, the complicated steps and minuets that she made into excuses to show her legs. Food came down from the House. The scraps from the hunt breakfast were scarcely a feast, but they made a change, and Mrs. Bailey passed a ration of meat and some eggs to enrich the supper. It was better than the fish and corn that they ate every day. And the estate’s corn liquor flowed.
The ties that bound the house and field staff and the gulfs that kept them separate were too complex to be taken in at a single social meeting, but Caesar had begun to see them. It was plain to the simplest understanding that Nelly, the house seamstress, was attached to the white servant, Bishop; they fought and simpered in too meaningful a manner. Billy Lee, Washington’s personal slave and the only slave he knew who had a surname, was seldom seen with the other blacks, but he came down for a mug of liquor and Caesar saw instantly that he wasn’t so much aloof as he was a leader. He singled Caesar out.
“You were very good today,” he said.
Caesar warmed to the praise. He would have kept Billy to discuss the field, but Billy was gone, first talking to Queeny and then passing through the others with a word for each.
Caesar had learned that there were other farms, other blacks on them, all satellites of Mount Vernon. The men and women who lived in the Greenhouse and the cabins behind it were the elite: house slaves, trusted hands, skilled men and women. He was lucky to be included, but with his share of the estate’s corn liquor in him, he didn’t feel so lucky. Billy’s praise had cheered him at first, but it soured.
Queeny seemed to dance without a care in the world; Old Tom from the house could jab his pipe at Billy Lee and laugh. The carpenters and the bricklayers were telling tall tales of their activities and their value.
What he resented the most was their proprietary notions. When Old Tom said Mount Vernon was the “fines’ gentleman’s estate on the rivah”, he said it with relish, as if the estate were his own. The house girls were the same. Cook spoke of meals as if she ate them, and the sewing crew were filled with pride at their ability to alter the finest English gowns. It all sickened him because none of it was theirs or ever would be. Every pull from the jug seemed to add to his resentment.
But the hunt had been something, a challenge that he had enjoyed. The fox had never fooled him, and the run had been worth the effort. Caesar was open enough to understand that his triumph at the day’s hunt might be of the same order as that of the sewing crew over an English gown. The thought that he himself was sinking into the same proprietary habit of thought made him sad, because he wasn’t even sure that Washington had noticed his success, and it made him angry and sad that he wanted the master’s praise.
He didn’t realize that he was pounding the doorframe of the carriage house with his hand until it hurt, and there were Queeny’s hands on his arms, and her mouth on his, pulling him into the dark.
“If you jes’ goin’ to get drunk like a fool, I got bettah plans.”
She was wearing stays and a gown that made her waist even smaller than usual; it excited him. She stayed just out of his reach, flitting in to kiss him and away.
“Sho’ you ain’t too drunk?” she taunted.
He swayed drunkenly to mislead her, shifted his weight against the great horse barn’s wall and caught her effortlessly with both hands around her slim waist, lifted her a moment and stepped through the stable door.
“Only the horse boys ‘lowed in heah,” she whispered, but his hand was running up her naked leg under her petticoat and he wasn’t drunk at all, though his mouth tasted of pipe smoke and corn liquor. He settled a saddlecloth under her with a consideration for her best clothes that would never have occurred to most men, and he did it without pausing in his other attentions. A fondness for him entered into her, and then she was lost in other matters.
