CHAPTER 1
Jay Fox — that's what the slaves called him — seemed frustrated as usual, standing by the weigh-in machine, watching the sixty-five black cotton pickers slowly approaching with heavy cotton sacks on their backs. Their eyes were inflamed from the piping-hot, smothering sun, and their tacky clothes clung to sweat-soaked, smelling bodies.
It was shortly after the six o'clock quitting time, and the overcast was fast filling up with dark gray cumulus clouds, bellowing out like giant puffy fingers scattering eastward. Still the atmosphere rained brimstone of impurity and heat against the smothering earth.
Big Bill was not of this group. He was a gardener slave who kept the big yard at the Karmans' plantation.
Exhausted and sweating profusely, he shot an acquisitive eye up at the blistering sky and retied the old rag around his forehead to check the flow of sweat dripping down into his eyes. Then he decided to check on ninety-five-year-old Miss Kate, with only her little mutt for comfort. A sudden stir of wind swatted him in the face with a foul odor. Big Bill stopped in his tracks, and his dark eyes dashed about the thickets. He knew that sickening smell. He had smelled that odor before. A dead body was nearby. Around the bend, he discovered a male slave who was shot dead and lying facedown in the gully leading down to Blackwater Creek. The sight of the dead man with maggots and blowflies crawling over his head pricked Big Bill in his heart. His strength failed him, and his bones felt disconnected. Sickened, Big Bill staggered backward, and he looked hunchbacked, almost crippled, as he turned from the dead man and headed for old Miss Kate's hut. He could smell her freshly brewed tea as he stepped inside the neatly swept dirt floor. He waved for her to remain seated as she rose to greet him, and he complimented her on the crochet that she had made that covered the trunk she used as her table. He drew in a deep breath as his eyes flashed about the room; his eyes caught hers again as a slow smile creased his lips. "It's good to see you, Miss Kate," he said, giving her a big tight hug. "This heat made me afraid for you."
"Same here, big boy." She grinned. "Big Bill, you like a son I never had. Son, I miss you every day."
"You like a mother to me, Miss Kate. My mother is dead now, but you bridged the gap," he said as he looked away. He was afraid to tell her about the incident, fearing the shock might cause the old woman to drop dead of a heart attack and there would be another body to be put into the ground.
Big Bill would have drunk another cup of Miss Kate's pine top tea, but it was time to leave, so he stood up and hugged her again and headed for the door.
"Big Bill, you take that bag hanging on that string by the door. It's catnip. It's good for one's nerves, you know. I'm an old woman, Big Bill. I can sense things. I love you, Big Bill, and I will send up my prayer for you. The Big Man upstairs named Jesus, well, he has not forgotten us, you know."
At the end of her path leading to Black Water Road, Big Bill looked back, and there was Miss Kate standing in the door, waving.
In spite of those horrible sights, those unthinkable brutalities, it did not deter Big Bill's quest for freedom. Such horrible experiences caused him to be wise without help from books. His hunger for deliverance made him religious without pages from the Bible. He seemed to know a little bit about everything, and yet in some ways, this big hunk of a man was as helpless as a newborn. Big Bill knew the dead man for only a short time. The slave was Dell Jones, a handsome tall black man. He was passing through and had stopped by the plantation to ask for work and scraps of food. Now his body awaits an overseer's order to have him cremated or to be buried in Harper's Cemetery.
Being tall, good-looking, and husky, Big Bill knew better not to look into any faces of white women as they stared sensuously back at him. Big Bill was feared among the overseers because they felt uneasy around him and spied on him day and night. At six foot four in his bare feet, which was mostly covered in red clay mud and specks of green grass, he had suspicious and shifty black eyes like a jungle ape. He was always pondering, shuffling, and glancing. His job at the plantation was raw and harsh — woodcutting, hoeing, cotton picking, and ditch digging — until Mr. Karman, the master of the plantation, discovered that Big Bill had this knack for sculpture and assigned him to the big yard, which he soon turned into a sculpture paradise. Big Bill stopped clipping the hedge swan and blotted the sweat from his forehead. His smoky black eyes raced quickly along the green lawn spread out like heavy carpets winding around white marble statues, the gold fishpond, and water fountains. A variety of sweet-scented roses tossing in the midday July breeze jerked out like octopus tentacles over white fenced gates.
Big Bill was both proud and vengeful to have created such an enchanted garden — vengeful because he could not claim a single red rose for Neva without casting an eye over his shoulder for an overseer. Those bastards were like bloodsucking leeches. They were everywhere. The dirty rag was already soaked when he ran it over his face again. His eyes traveled up the trunk of the four-hundred-year-old oak tree with branches like mountain peaks thrusting heavenward, strengthened by heavy rain and years of hot summer sun. Unknown to the suffering man, God had already answered his prayer, and like that great oak tree, there was still hope for him. Oh, he couldn't see his victory yet, but he sure as hell was hoping. His breathing was audible now, sort of wheezing, his black body drenched in the ninety-eight-degree temperature, and he restlessly returned his attention back to the hedge swan. A deep groan escaped from Big Bill's dry lips, bloating up from the depth of his belly.
Since 1864, hundreds of slaves escaped from both the North and South Carolina fields. Two young males in their midteens, the taller one shot and slightly bleeding, escaped one night with only a crescent moon guiding them as they weaved through horrible snake-infested creeks, struggling to hold on to their makeshift craft. In the distance they could hear the high-pitched howls from bloodthirsty hounds tracking urgently, nose pointed to the ground, lapping up their fleeing scent. In the still night, bullets echoed, ripping through the air from long-barrel rifles splitting off barks from tree trunks close to their frantic heads. Slowly a body would emerge up from the cold, chilly water, floating like alligators, drawing air into deflated lungs, eyes wet and burning, gazing urgently for the North Star. Suddenly the lead dog leaped into the water, heading straight toward them as they clung to the roots of a dead pine tree. As the dog turned to warn the hunters, the younger guy grabbed the injured one and held him underwater. A few minutes later, they could hear the hunters as they made their way away from them, heading west.
Exhausted and panicked, young mothers were forced to send away their young children, not knowing their fate, with total strangers who had promised to help them. Mothers were left only with heavy hearts and teary eyes, hoping to see their children again one day. Heartbroken mothers tried not to show fear before their children, to keep them calm, hiding them out in wagons under bales of cotton, stacks of hay, or tobacco leaves. The children's eyes were red from fear and dust, breathing heavy from lack of oxygen.
Soon afterward, stressed slaves, tired of getting ass whipped for runaway slaves, suddenly went berserk. They conspired and snitched to the overseers, spied on one another, and turned each other in at twenty-five cents a head.
Still the urge for freedom seized Big Bill like a mad dog. He got carried away one afternoon in a hullabaloo feeling, singing that spiritual Negro song about a better day tomorrow, his head thrown back, eyes looking heavenward, when suddenly his voice waned like a soft breeze through his nostrils. Out the corner of his left eye, he glanced an overseer watching him, beating a big stick against his open palm, grinning wickedly.
Those were horrible days filled with frightening and unforeseen danger — danger of being killed or vanishing suddenly, never to be seen again. Big Bill shed many hot tears over those painful twenty years. Still those harsh aggressive times enforced his will for freedom that it vibrated within each cell of his tall black frame, and he kept right on scheming as he had schemed and planned for fifteen hellish long years to escape this detestable environment.
"Hey, you there! Yo-hoo, you big boy!"
Big Bill dropped to his knees and listened.
There was silence.
"boy!"
It was Pete Abet, the fine-looking butler, standing midway the yard. Pete was one smart Negro who could read better than any plantation owner.
"I know you heard me, boy!" he yelled. His voice was filled with sarcasm. Big Bill could feel the resentment deep in his belly.
Why can't that bastard call me Big Bill like everybody else? Huh, blacks and whites, they all call me Big Bill, but this yellow nigger here, calling me a boy. Hummm, that sho'nuff seemed childish coming from such an educated fool. Huh, it shows his ignorance.
Big Bill spit on the ground as he eyed Pete through the thick hedges. He always had this gut feeling that this yellow bastard was kin to the old master somewhere down the line, maybe as close as his own damn son. Why wasn't he sold off like most of the other half-white Negro slaves? He didn't look anything like his master either — more like a handsome Southern redneck. Big Bill drew in a deep breath and felt anger building up inside him; he chewed on his bottom lip as his eyes stayed upon the flamboyant butler decked out in his black suit with a stiff white ruffled collar. Pete was near fifty now, born and raised in his master's twenty-one-room mansion. Six huge columns supported the second-floor porch, where ladies in fancy hats and flowing lace dresses stood looking down at their husbands and landowners indulging in the business of buying and selling of slaves. Pete had never spoken of his mother. Big Bill felt that maybe she was killed off after his birth, he being so white from a jet-black field-worker, one reason why Pete might have been so harsh on women. He demanded that the maids place fresh flowers in each room. The brocade brought elegance and grace to his master's mansion. The windows and chandeliers were kept crystal clear by the houseboys. It was his law that the maids keep quiet in their quarters in the basement at night. Motormouthed Nina was most talkative though. She was tall, and at six foot one, she was very good-looking, but it was Lear at just four foot eight who called the shots. Lear was brown skinned, with small almond eyes, but her tongue was sharp and bitter as an asp. The overseers stayed clear of her because she made them feel shame as men, shame as human beings.
"I'm a woman just like your own mother!" Lear would lash out and yell at the top of her lungs, letting each word roll slowly off her tongue. "Why under this black skin, I have you to know that I'm just as white as she, your own mother." She could see them studying her, trying to see if what she was saying was somewhat true. Lear would deepen her voice then, at those skeptical moments. Oh yes, she would say, "even whiter, much whiter than you white folks, and you need to show a little respect to all your mothers and me." She would raise her arms high over her head and thrust it out toward them, and she would yell in a tone that often made them flinch, but she could also hear them cussing under their nasty tobacco breaths. Once she heard a bullet sail past her head while she was out in her vegetable garden. She was mad as hell, but she knew that those overseers would never shoot her, only try to scare her, to keep her humble and under control. She was the Karmans' main cook, and great cooks like her often come before their own kids in those grand Southern mansions.
Ella Mae was of medium height, with a round pretty face. Outside of flirting with Big Bill, she stayed very close to Lear. Bobbie was somewhat shy; she looked scared all the time, scared of everything and everybody. She wore her wavy brown hair pulled back into one plait, which hung down to her waist. Lula was light skinned, soft spoken, and with almost purple eyes. She was the first to jump the broom, and she was automatically released from the premises and given a little hut by Blackwater Creek. In spite of a husband and the ideal condition of having their own offspring, a maid often felt dejected when leaving such a splendid residence. It meant that she would have to work the hot smothering fields or perform other laboring tasks.
Pete stood with his hands locked behind his back, bouncing his 220 pounds up and down on his shoe heels, staring where he first heard the clipping, angrily twisting his mouth from side to side.
"I'm not coming any closer, boy!" he shouted. "Mrs. Karman wants your black ass in the parlor right away, so hurry."
That flamboyant fagot. Big Bill shook his head, his forehead wrinkling into furrows. Never in a thousand years did Big Bill think he would be addressing another Negro talking to him in such a degrading manner, calling a grown man like him a boy, as if Pete was one of those rednecks. Big Bill felt victimized by the high yellow butler, and he was careful not to stir the hedge, which could be a dead giveaway, as he was perched on the ground behind it. Pete was a handsome devil, and he flaunted it proudly. His silver-gray eyes speckled with gold and his pinkish white skin made your heart beat out of rhythm. His exotic eyes drew people to him like bloodthirsty mosquitoes. For years the Karman's thirty-one-year-old unmarried daughter, Judy, pursued him, and if they rumba together once in a while, whose business was it, as long as it was consensual. Still the danger of death hung like a heavy fog above them. It was painfully hard for Pete to ignore the temptation and contain his sanity when her arms were tight around his neck, her legs clutching his sides. Pete never seemed to succumb to the fear of getting caught, though, with his master's daughter. Miss Judy thought that she was careful in her wheeling and dealing where he was concerned. She felt that she knew all the right places and all the right times. But in sensual, hot explicit moments, the flaming heat knows no bounds, and neither does it know any safe place nor time. Still that what if was deeply rooted in the back of Pete's head in spite of Miss Judy's insatiable love, which might save him from the hangman's noose. Pete laughed at the incident now, but he had to admit that the fear of hanging from a noose wore him like a wet blanket the day he accompanied Miss Judy on a delegate trip to Baltimore — the night he stayed in her hotel room registered as her husband — when rumors of a war were raging.
CHAPTER 2
The celebration of Miss Judy's forthcoming birthday was posted in the Clove International Newspaper one month in advance. Guests were expected as far away as Texas, Mississippi, and Baltimore. The Karmans hoped the festivity might entice a marriageable gent. Miss Judy was indeed beautiful, the glamour of Fairmount County — blue eyes, golden hair, high cheek bones — and above all had money to burn — but Miss Judy Karman was addicted to sex. Disgusted and angered that their pretty daughter had lowered her standard to a bitch in heat, Mr. Karman watched red-faced whenever he saw Miss Judy glow as she came in contact with the butler. They watched how Judy's hand would gently touch or caress his behind when she thought they were out of view. The Karmans would have banished the butler like a puff of hot air or displaced him elsewhere, but Miss Judy would gravely embarrass her family and the surrounding neighborhood by shamelessly seeking until she found her lover. Pete was well-known and liked, far and near. If any harm should befall him suspiciously, it might cause some dangerous occurrence, especially some chaos among the slaves. There was always a butler in waiting, but Pete seemed indispensable to the Karman family. He ran the big house like a freight train in motion. Without him, the house would be in chaos. Still, the Karmans talked in secret about how to eliminate the situation outside of hanging Pete.
