Butler, Octavia - Kindred

I made myself shrug. “You’ll say yourself what you did if they ask you right. So will the woman.”

“What are you going to say?”

“Not a word if I can help it. But … I’m asking you not to kill him.” “You belong to him?”

“No. It’s just that he might know where my husband is. And I might be able to get him to tell me.”

“Your husband …?” He looked me over from head to foot. “Why you go ’round dressed like a man?”

I said nothing. I was so tired of answering that question that I wished I had risked going out to buy a long dress. I looked down at Rufus’s bloody face and said, “If you leave him here now, it will be a long while before he can send anyone after you. You’ll have time to get away.”

“You think you’d want him alive if you was her?” He gestured toward the woman.

“Is she your wife?” “Yeah.”

He was like Sarah, holding himself back, not killing in spite of anger I could only imagine. A lifetime of conditioning could be overcome, but not easily. I looked at the woman. “Do you want your husband to kill this

man?”

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She shook her head and I saw that her face was swollen on one side. “’While ago, I could have killed him myself,” she said. “Now … Isaac, let’s just get away!”

“Get away and leave her here?” He stared at me, suspicious and hos- tile. “She sure don’t talk like no nigger I ever heard. Talks like she been mighty close with the white folks—for a long time.”

“She talks like that ’cause she comes from a long way off,” said the girl.

I looked at her in surprise. Tall and slender and dark, she was. A little like me. Maybe a lot like me.

“You’re Dana, aren’t you?” she asked. “Yes … how did you know?”

“He told me about you.” She nudged Rufus with her foot. “He used to talk about you all the time. And I saw you once, when I was little.”

I nodded. “You’re Alice, then. I thought so.”

She nodded and rubbed her swollen face. “I’m Alice.” And she looked at the black man with pride. “Alice Jackson now.”

I tried to see her again as the thin, frightened child I remembered—the child I had seen only two months before. It was impossible. But I should have been used to the impossible by now—just as I should have been used to white men preying on black women. I had Weylin as my exam- ple, after all. But somehow, I had hoped for better from Rufus. I won- dered whether the girl was pregnant with Hagar already.

“My name was Greenwood when you saw me last,” Alice continued. “I married Isaac last year … just before Mama died.”

“She died then?” I caught myself visualizing a woman my age dying, even though I knew that was wrong. But still, the woman must have died fairly young. “I’m sorry,” I said. “She tried to help me.”

“She helped lot of folks,” said Isaac. “She used to treat this little no- good bastard better than his own people treated him.” He kicked Rufus hard in the side.

I winced and wished I could move Rufus out of his reach. “Alice,” I said, “wasn’t Rufus a friend of yours? I mean … did he just grow out of the friendship or what?”

“Got to where he wanted to be more friendly than I did,” she said. “He tried to get Judge Holman to sell Isaac South to keep me from marrying him.”

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“You’re a slave?” I said to Isaac, surprised. “My God, you’d better get out of here.”

Isaac gave Alice a look that said very clearly, You talk too much . Alice answered the look.

“Isaac, she’s all right. She got a whipping once for teaching a slave how to read. Tom Weylin was the one whipped her.”

“I want to know what she’s going to do when we leave,” said Isaac. “I’m going to stay with Rufus,” I told him. “When he comes to, I’m

going to help him home—as slowly as possible. I’m not going to tell him where you went because I won’t know.”

Isaac looked at Alice, and she tugged at his arm. “Let’s go!” she urged. “But …”

“You can’t whip everybody! Let’s go!”

He seemed on the verge of going when I said, “Isaac, if you want me to, I can write you a pass. It doesn’t have to be to where you’re really going, but it might help you if you’re stopped.”

He looked at me with no trust at all, then turned and walked away without answering.

Alice hesitated, spoke softly to me. “Your man went away,” she said. “He waited a long time for you, then he left.”

“Where did he go?”

“Somewhere North. I don’t know. Mister Rufe knows. You got to be careful, though. Mister Rufe gets mighty crazy sometimes.”

“Thank you.”

She turned and followed Isaac, leaving me alone with the unconscious Rufus—alone to wonder where she and Isaac would go. North to Penn- sylvania? I hoped so. And where had Kevin gone? Why had he gone any- where? What if Rufus wouldn’t help me find him? Or what if I didn’t stay in this time long enough to find him? Why couldn’t he have waited …?

4

I knelt down beside Rufus and rolled him over onto his back. His nose was bleeding. His split lip was bleeding. I thought he had probably lost a few teeth, but I didn’t look closely enough to be sure. His face was a

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lumpy mess, and he would be looking out of a couple of black eyes for a while. All in all, though, he probably looked worse off than he was. No doubt he had some bruises that I couldn’t see without undressing him, but I didn’t think he was badly hurt. He would be in some pain when he came to, but he had earned that.

I sat on my knees, watching him, first wishing he would hurry and regain consciousness, then wanting him to stay unconscious so that Alice and her husband could get a good start. I looked at the stream, thinking that a little cold water might bring him around faster. But I stayed where I was. Isaac’s life was at stake. If Rufus was vindictive enough, he could surely have the man killed. A slave had no rights, and certainly no excuse for striking a white man.

If it was possible, if Rufus was in any way still the boy I had known, I would try to keep him from going after Isaac at all. He looked about eighteen or nineteen now. I would be able to bluff and bully him a little. It shouldn’t take him long to realize that he and I needed each other. We would be taking turns helping each other now. Neither of us would want the other to hesitate. We would have to learn to co-operate with each other—to make compromises.

“Who’s there?” said Rufus suddenly. His voice was weak, barely audible.

“It’s Dana, Rufe.”

“Dana?” He opened his swollen eyes a little wider. “You came back!” “You keep trying to get yourself killed. I keep coming back.” “Where’s Alice?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know where we are. I’ll help you get home, though, if you’ll point the way.”

“Where did she go?” “I don’t know, Rufe.”

He tried to sit up, managed to raise himself about six inches before he fell back, groaning. “Where’s Isaac?” he muttered. “That’s the son-of-a- bitch I want to catch up with.”

“Rest awhile,” I said. “Get your strength back. You couldn’t catch him now if he was standing next to you.”

He moaned and felt his side gingerly. “He’s going to pay!” I got up and walked toward the stream.

“Where are you going?” he called. I didn’t answer.

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“Dana? Come back here! Dana!”

I could hear his increasing desperation. He was hurt and alone except for me. He couldn’t even get up, and I seemed to be abandoning him. I wanted him to experience a little of that fear.

“ Dana! ”