Edward Jones - The Known World

“I live and die with Stennis,” Darcy said. “Harvey, you don’t know what all he’s done for me.”

“Marse,” Stennis said, “we could stand fifty dollars but I don’t think we could stand much more.”

Travis shouted, “Seventy-five dollars. For the sake of God in his heaven, Darcy. Don’t let your nigger cheat me. Don’t let a nigger do white folks’ business.”

“Then fifty dollars it is,” said Darcy, and he sniffed on the beaver feet again.

“Shit! Then ten dollars for the mule,” Travis said.

“What mule?” Darcy said.

“That one right there.” Someone in the back of the large wagon shifted and Augustus heard the chains move. The child coughed again.

“You can give me that for free, Harvey. I don’t think that’s much of a mule. Does he sing and dance in the moonlight?”

“Don’t pee on me that way,” Travis said. “You can say like you done in the past that I don’t know nigger flesh. I’ll leave you safe with that one, but I do know my mules and horses. I do know them, Darcy. I want ten dollars. I deserve ten dollars.”

“All right, Harvey. But that mule had better hold up. He’d better be worth every penny, cause if he ain’t I’m gonna sic the law on you.” Darcy laughed and right away he was joined in the laughter by Stennis. Then Travis laughed, followed by Oden. Stennis reached down between his knees to the floor of the wagon and brought up a strongbox. He unlocked it with a key on a string around his neck, took out some coins and put them in a tiny sack and tossed the sack to Travis.

Darcy told Augustus to get down from the wagon and Augustus said no. “I’m a free man, mister.”

“Yes yes yes. Happy Christmas happy Christmas. Now get down from there.”

Augustus said he would not.

“Stennis,” Darcy said, “why are we threatened on all sides by the incorrigible? Why do they threaten us every which way we turn? Have we displeased our God in some fashion?”

“I don’t know, Marse. I done studied it and studied it and I still don’t know.”

“But, Stennis, you would agree that we are threatened on all sides?”

“Thas a true statement of what you talkin bout,” Stennis said.

Travis holstered his pistol and dismounted and then Oden dismounted, still pointing the gun at Augustus. But before either of them was well settled on the ground, Stennis had jumped down from the wagon and over to Augustus in one effortless motion. He pulled Augustus from the wagon and began pummeling him.

“Don’t bruise my fruit,” Darcy said. Stennis and Travis dragged Augustus around to the back of Darcy’s wagon and soon he was chained to the black man nearest the end of the wagon. Augustus wanted to say again that he was a free man, but he was in too much pain, and the words would not have come through anyway because his mouth was full of blood and no sooner had he spat some out, his mouth filled up again.

Stennis unharnessed Augustus’s mule and tied it to the back of the wagon.

“I will now,” Darcy said to Travis when he and Oden were back on their horses and Stennis was back on the wagon beside him, “I will now allow the wind to take me and mine away.” Darcy pulled the pelts tighter around his neck. “Oh, to be in Tennessee. That is my dream, Stennis.” “Thas mine, too.” “I call on God to grant me my dream, Stennis.” Their wagon had two horses and Stennis took up the reins and without a word the horses started going and the mule came along and as quick as anything the wagon had disappeared.

It was nearing eleven o’clock. Barnum looked down to where Augustus had gone and said, “You oughtna done that, Harvey. You know you shouldna. You know that and I know that.” He turned to Oden. “Even Oden know that.”

“I don’t know no such thing,” Oden said.

“Then you should. Both yall shouldna done that. Why?”

“That is not it,” Travis said to Barnum. “It is not why he and I are doin it, but why you aren’t doin it. That is the question for all time. Why a man, even somethin worthless like you, sees what is right and still refuses to do it.” Travis hawked and spat in the road. He said, “That is all the question we ever need to ask.” He was silent for a few moments. Then he said, “All right now,” and he handed a $20 gold piece to Barnum and tossed another $20 piece to Oden, who had holstered his gun after getting back on his horse and was able to catch the money with both hands.

“I don’t want it,” Barnum said. “I won’t have it.” He handed the gold piece back to Travis.

“You’ll take it and you’ll like it,” Travis said, taking out his pistol and again aiming it at Barnum. “You takin the nigger side now? Is that it? You steppin away from the white man and takin the nigger side? Thas what it is?”

“Yeah, thas what it is,” Oden said. “Takin the nigger side against the white man?”

“I just don’t want it, is all,” Barnum said.

Travis rode up beside Barnum, heading south while Barnum was heading north. They were so close their thighs touched and the horses, uncomfortable being so close, began to twitch. Travis put his pistol to Barnum’s temple. “I said you’ll take it and like it.” He put the money inside Barnum’s shirt. “Happy Christmas happy Christmas,” he said.

Barnum rode away.

“And not a word a thanks, huh, Barnum?” Travis shouted after him. “I should report you to Skiffington for not carryin your patrollin duties through to the end. Not a word a thanks, Oden.”

“No,” Oden said, “and not a good night either.”

“We may as well shut the night down,” Travis said. “We have found, tried and punished the one criminal out here tonight. The one true runaway out and about. We may as well shut down the night, Oden.”

“May as well,” and then Oden started up. “Give a greetin to Zara and the chaps for me, willya? Say I’m thinkin bout em.”

“Yes. And a greetin to Tassock and them chaps for me,” Travis said. “I’ll see to the nigger’s wagon. Good night.”

Oden said, “Good night.”

Travis watched him go away and after a few minutes he dismounted and used the fire from Augustus’s lantern to set ablaze the straw in the back of the wagon that cushioned furniture on its way to new owners. When the fire was good and strong, Travis picked up kindling from the side of the road and threw it into the wagon. Then he mounted again and looked at the fire and did not move. He was determined to see the fire through to the end. The horse backed away as the fire grew hotter and Travis let him do it. After nearly an hour, Travis got off the animal, and walking with the reins in his hand, he stood at the fire. His horse was slightly uncomfortable but he turned and reassured it that everything was good and the animal calmed. It was the smartest beast he had ever known. He had taught it to back away when he said the word “Fire.” And at the word “Water” it knew to come forward again. Now the horse stood silent behind him and Travis thought he could hear its heart beating in the quiet with just the crackling of the fire and the insects communicating with one another as the only other sounds in the world. Every now and again the breath of the horse would blow Travis’s hair all about.

He stayed to the end with the fire, watched as the metal on the wagon dropped as all the supporting wood gave way. About one that morning, the fire began to fail, then, nearly an hour later, it went to its dying side, with just a few strong embers here and there. He dropped the reins and took up dirt from the road and poured it over what was left of the fire. Smoke rose, gray, feeble, almost pointless because it went up only a foot or so and then dissipated.

He had first come to know Augustus Townsend many years ago through a chair Augustus had made for a white man in the town of Manchester. The man weighed more than 400 pounds. “Over twenty-seven stones” was how the man put it. He was a bachelor, but that had nothing to do with his weight. Harvey Travis had gone to see the man one day about a woodcutting job. In the man’s parlor was Augustus’s chair, plain, not even painted, but smooth to the touch, and when the man sat in it, the chair did not complain, not one squeak. It just held up and did its job, waiting for the man to put on another 300 pounds. When the man left the room to get Travis’s money, Travis examined the chair, looked all about it trying to discover its secret. The chair gave nothing. It was a very good chair. It was a chair worth stealing.