Christian Cameron - Washington and Caesar

“Why’d the white folks here run off?”

“Afeared! An’ of you, I reckon. You hurt that mean little fella bad. He los’ an eye an’ I’m not too sure but he’ll die. That othuh one, that big fella…He was beat! Lef’ heah like a whipped cur. Said there was twenny of yous, an’ you was right behin’ him. The Man, he jus packed his mule and tol’ us to stay put an’ lef. But we heard othuh tales from Sally, too.”

The old woman’s head shot around. “What othuh tales, missuh? What you heah fro’ that gal that I don’ heah?”

“You don’ know everythin’, now do you, Sukey?”

“I don’ take gals fo’ no rides in the hay now, do I? An’ that gal young enough to be my granddaughter? I imagine she said things under her shift that she don’ say to no ol’ woman with a hoe.”

The old man just shook his head and chuckled.

“I think you tryin’ to flatter me, woman.” He looked at Caesar. “Sally says that they’s rumors that the governor in Virginny is gon’ free the slaves to fight for him agin’ the farmers. You know ‘bout that?”

“We heard something like that back some months.”

“Yeah, well now seems to be fo’ sho. Sally said they was gon’ have a proclamation in Williamsburg. I ask her how she know and she jus’ rolls that bottom and smiles.”

“They slave-takers came heah fro’ Richmond. They knew a few things, too.”

“They said they came to take the bounty ‘cause all the militia is gettin’ ready to go aftuh the governor.”

Caesar tried to assimilate all this. He tried to sound the old man out on the sides forming up in this war, but to the old man it was just the governor and his soldiers against the back-country farmers.

“Same thin’ happen a few years back,” he said, leaning forward over the hearth to light a pipe. The night was dark and the cabin completely without light except the little betty lamp burning a scrap of rag in the fat above the fire’s last coals. It was deadly hot in the cabin, but no one seemed to want to leave it for the cooler outdoors, at least not while there was well water, tobacco, and bacon to be had.

“Farmers down south decided not to pay the Carolina Assembly taxes. They got an army together. Then Tryon, he the governor, he gets an army loyal to the assembly an’ kicks they tails right back into the mountains. He threatened to arm the slaves, too. But he didn’.”

“Will Dunmore do it? Will he free an’ arm the slaves?”

“I don’ know him that well, boy!”

Tom laughed in the half-darkness on the other side of the hearth.

“Virgil? Tom? What do you say?”

“Say to what?”

“That we get us going up to Williamsburg an’ see if we can join Governor Dunmore?”

Tom laughed his cynical laugh. “Then we can be the militia an’ hunt white boys in the swamp! We’d be good at it, too.”

Virgil was less assured.

“Long way to Williamsburg. Lot o’ bad men between heah and theah.”

The old man’s face showed for a moment in the dark as he sucked on his pipe and the coal glowed.

“You jus’ go quiet, you be all right, I reckon. If all the white folks is as scared as these,” he waved his pipe toward the larger cabin, “an you take care, you ought to get theah.”

“Don’ have to decide tonight,” Caesar said, walking to the door in search of a breeze. But he had already made up his mind.

“You jus’ wan’ go an’ follow that gal!” Long Tom’s head hurt and he was not happy that they were heading straight off in the morning, away from what he saw as free food and an easy life.

Virgil so obviously wanted to follow the girl that it was pointless to argue. Caesar left them to it and went to the white cabin, where he lifted the latch and went in. There wasn’t much left but the furniture and some food, although he got enough powder in a keg to fill his horn and the little mermaid horn as well. And he took the man’s clothes. They didn’t fit him well, and the breeches were almost like trousers, the man had been so tall. He hadn’t left any shoes, and he’d taken his greatcoat. There was a small woman’s cloak, and Caesar took it. Virgil hoisted out a side of bacon and cut it in half with a sharp little ax he found, and gave the half of it to the old black couple.

“Tell ’em we held you at gunpoint.” Tom laughed. “Stand and deliver the bacon!”

Young Jim picked up a shovel and an old pack, which they filled with corn meal and made him carry. With the corn meal and the bacon, they were good for five days, more if they skimped, though Caesar doubted that they would. He had them on the road before the sun was very high, walking quickly as the shadows shortened and the bugs came out. Somehow the stinging ones seemed thicker on the little one-hump trail than in their own heart of the swamp. Jim, used to moving unencumbered along the trails of the swamp, thought he was going to drop under the burden of the pack and the torment of the bugs.

Every time they heard a sound they melted into the woods, turning ankles on roots in their hurry to clear the road, but they never saw another soul, and by the end of the long day they were too tired and footsore to care. None of them had even a scrap of shoe left, but the swamp had not hardened their feet even enough to deal with the soft mud that made the road for most of its length, as it still had rocks and pebbles and gravel where farmers had filled the wettest spots.

They passed six farms, most of them new. All were abandoned. One farmer had left his slaves, but they were as scared of Caesar’s runaways as they were of whites and wouldn’t unbar their doors. At the last empty farm, they tried the door but found the bar across, and slept well in the barn. An early winter rain on the shingles woke them, but they were dry. Jim built a little fire that barely smoked the rafters and made bacon, and they wasted the day. Caesar encouraged it; they were as safe as they ever might be again, and dry and well fed, and he needed the rest. They had come a long way the first day. They had a very long way to go.

The third morning they moved on again. Their track was punctuated with crossroads and bypaths that confused them more and more. When the road forked or offered a branch, Tom or Virgil would run off down it a bit and come back and describe what he had seen. Then they would all decide, although Caesar’s vote began to hold more and more weight as he was proven correct. He wasn’t infallible, and one of his choices came to a dead end in a clearing with a tiny plot of vegetables and the start of a cabin. It had been abandoned, and wasted them a mile of walking, but it was well off the road and safe, and he decided that they would make camp there. They built a big fire and piled brush over the cabin’s base to make a hut. Caesar got two rabbits with as many shots-a poor use of powder, but he had enough for the moment and refused to worry overmuch. The shots were loud in the wild silence and somehow made him tense, but he was tired of the bacon and wanted to make it last. They were wandering lost at the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp, and until they got clear, he would be worried about the food and the threat of pursuit.

It wasn’t a good night, but it wasn’t impossible to sleep, although Caesar’s new breeches had chafed him unmercifully and he couldn’t find a way to lie easy. They didn’t fit at the crotch at all. None of them had a needle and thread, either; that was all gone with Old Ben. They talked about him and Lolly, and even Fetch-all their dead. Caesar worried a little about Jim; he was seeing too much death for his age. He wouldn’t be right, later. But the boy seemed cheerful enough, delighted with the notion that he was going to be a soldier. It was a cold night, and they had no blankets. They all huddled in a ball together and slept by turns, those on the outside too cold to sleep, those on the inside warm but crushed.