Butler, Octavia - Kindred

200

“Yes, sir.” “Well!”

KINDRED

“For me, it’s only been a few hours.” I thought Rufus and Kevin had probably told him enough to enable him to understand, whether he believed or not. And perhaps he did understand. He seemed to get angrier.

“Who in hell ever said you were an educated nigger? You can’t even tell a decent lie. Six years for me is six years for you!”

“Yes, sir,” Why did he bother to ask me questions? Why did I bother to answer them?

He sat down again and leaned forward, one hand resting on his cane. His voice was softer, though, when he spoke. “That Franklin get back home all right?”

“Yes, sir.” What would happen if I asked him where he thought that home was? But no, he had done at least one decent thing for Kevin and me, no matter what he was. I met his eyes for a moment. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t do it for you.”

My temper flared suddenly. “I don’t give a damn why you did it! I’m just telling you, one human being to another, that I’m grateful. Why can’t you leave it at that!”

The old man’s face went pale. “You want a good whipping!” he said. “You must not have had one for a while.”

I said nothing. I realized then, though, that if he ever hit me again, I

would break his scrawny neck. I would not endure it again.

Weylin leaned back in his chair. “Rufus always said you didn’t know your place any better than a wild animal,” he muttered. “I always said you were just another crazy nigger.”

I stood watching him.

“Why’d you help my son again?” he asked.

I settled down a little, shrugged. “Nobody ought to die the way he would have—lying in a ditch, drowning in mud and whiskey and his own vomit.”

“Stop it!” Weylin shouted. “I’ll take the cowhide to you myself! I’ll

…” He fell silent, gasped for breath. His face was still dead white. He’d make himself really sick if he didn’t regain some of his old control.

I dropped back into indifference. “Yes, sir.”

After a moment he had control of himself. In fact, he sounded per- fectly calm again. “You and Rufus had some trouble when you saw him

last.”

THE ST ORM 201

“Yes, sir.” Having Rufus try to shoot me had been troublesome.

“I hoped you would go on helping him. You know there’s always a home for you here if you do.”

I smiled a little in spite of myself. “Bad nigger that I am, eh?” “Is that the way you think of yourself ?”

I laughed bitterly. “No. I don’t kid myself much. Your son is still alive, isn’t he?”

“You’re bad enough. I don’t know any other white man who would put up with you.”

“If you can manage to put up with me a little more humanely, I’ll go on doing what I can for Mister Rufus.”

He frowned. “Now what are you talking about?”

“I’m saying the day I’m beaten just once more, your son is on his own.”

His eyes widened, perhaps in surprise. Then he began to tremble. I had never before seen a man literally trembling with anger. “You’re threat- ening him!” he stammered. “By God, you are crazy!”

“Crazy or sane, I mean what I say.” My back and side ached as though to warn me, but for the moment, I wasn’t afraid. He loved his son no mat- ter how he behaved toward him, and he knew I could do as I threatened. “At the rate Mister Rufus has accidents,” I said, “he might live another six or seven years without me. I wouldn’t count on more than that.”

“You damned black bitch!” He shook his cane at me like an extended forefinger. “If you think you can get away with making threats … giving orders …” He ran out of breath and began gasping again. I watched with- out sympathy, wondering whether he was already sick. “Get out!” he gasped. “Go to Rufus. Take care of him. If anything happens to him, I’ll flay you alive!”

My aunt used to say things like that to me when I was little and did something to annoy her—“Girl, I’m going to skin you alive!” And she’d get my uncle’s belt and use it on me. But it had never occurred to me that anyone could make such a threat and mean it literally as Weylin meant it now. I turned and left him before he could see that my courage had vanished. He could get help from his neighbors, from the patrollers, probably even from whatever police officials the area had. He could do anything he wanted to to me, and I had no enforceable rights. None at all.

202

KINDRED

3

Rufus was sick again. When I reached his room I found him lying in bed shaking violently while Nigel tried to keep him wrapped in blankets.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked.

“Nothing,” said Nigel. “Got the ague again, I guess.” “Ague?”

“Yeah, he’s had it before. He’ll be all right.”

He didn’t look all right to me. “Has anyone gone for the doctor?” “Marse Tom don’t hardly get Doc West for ague. He says all the doc

knows is bleeding and blistering and purging and puking and making folks sicker than they was to start.”

I swallowed, remembered the pompous little man I had disliked so. “Is the doctor really that bad, Nigel?”

“He gave me some stuff once, nearly killed me. From then on, I just let Sarah doctor me when I’m sick. ’Least she don’t dose niggers like they was horses or mules.”

I shook my head and went close to Rufus’s bed. He looked miserable, seemed to be in pain. I tried to think what the ague might be; the word was familiar, but I couldn’t remember what I’d heard or read about it.

Rufus looked up at me, red-eyed, and tried to smile, though the gri- mace he managed was far from pleasant. To my surprise, his attempt touched me. I hadn’t expected to still care about him except for my own and my family’s sake. I didn’t want to care.

“Idiot,” I muttered down at him. He managed to look hurt.

I looked at Nigel, wondered whether the disease could be as unimpor- tant as he thought. Would he think it was important if he had been the one on his back shaking?

Nigel was busy plucking his wet shirt away from his skin. No one had given him a chance to change his clothes, I realized.

“Nigel, I’ll stay here if you want to go dry off,” I said.

He looked up, smiled at me. “You go away for six years,” he said, “then come back and fit right in. It’s like you never left.”

“Every time I go I keep hoping I’ll never come back.”

THE ST ORM 203

He nodded. “But at least you get some time of freedom.”

I looked away, feeling strangely guilty that, yes, I did get some time of freedom. Not enough, but probably more than Nigel would ever know. I didn’t like feeling guilty about it. Then something bit me on my ear and I forgot my guilt. As I slapped at my ear, I remembered, finally, what the ague was.

Malaria.

I wondered dully whether the mosquito that had just bitten me was car- rying the disease. In my reading I’d come across a lot of information on malaria and none of it led me to believe the disease was as harmless as Nigel seemed to think. It might not kill, but it weakened and it recurred and it could lower one’s resistance to other diseases. Also, with Rufus lying exposed as he was to new mosquito attacks, the disease could be spread over the plantation and beyond.

“Nigel, is there anything we can hang up to keep the mosquitoes off him?”

“Mosquitoes! He wouldn’t feel it if twenty mosquitoes bit him now.” “No, but the rest of us would be feeling it eventually.”

“What do you mean?”

“Does anyone else have it now?”

“Don’t think so. Some of the children are sick, but I think they have something wrong with their faces—one side all swollen up.”