Butler, Octavia - Kindred

“I don’t know,” I said. I went over and sat beside her. “I think she did it to herself. Hung herself. I just took her down.”

“He did it!” she hissed. “Even if he didn’t put the rope on her, he drove her to it. He sold her babies!”

I frowned. Sarah had spoken clearly enough, loudly enough, but for a moment, I didn’t understand. “Joe and Hagar? His children?”

“What he care ’bout that?”

“But … he did care. He was going to … Why would he do such a thing?”

“She run off.” Sarah faced me. “You must have known she was goin’. You and her was like sisters.”

I didn’t need the reminder. I got up, feeling that I had to move around, distract myself, or I would cry again.

“You sure fought like sisters,” said Sarah. “Always fussin’ at each other, stompin’ away from each other, comin’ back. Right after you left, she knocked the devil out of a field hand who was runnin’ you down.”

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KINDRED

Had she? She would. Insulting me was her prerogative. No trespassing. I paced from the table to the hearth to a small work table. Back to Sarah.

“Dana, where is she?” “In the barn.”

“He’ll give her a big funeral.” Sarah shook her head. “It’s funny. I thought she was finally settlin’ down with him—getting not to mind so much.”

“If she was, I don’t think she could have forgiven herself for it.” Sarah shrugged.

“When she ran … did he beat her?”

“Not much. ’Bout much as old Marse Tom whipped you that time.” That gentle spanking, yes.

“The whipping didn’t matter much. But when he took away her chil- dren, I thought she was go’ die right there. She was screaming and cry- ing and carrying on. Then she got sick and I had to take care of her.” Sarah was silent for a moment. “I didn’t want to even be close to her. When Marse Tom sold my babies, I just wanted to lay down and die. See- ing her like she was brought all that back.”

Carrie came in then, her face wet with tears. She came up to me with- out surprise, and hugged me.

“You know?” I asked.

She nodded, then made her sign for white people and pushed me toward the door. I went.

I found Rufus at his desk in the library fondling a hand gun.

He looked up and saw me just as I was about to withdraw. It had occurred to me suddenly, certainly, that this was where he had been head- ing when he called me. What had his call been, then? A subconscious desire for me to stop him from shooting himself ?

“Come in, Dana.” His voice sounded empty and dead.

I pulled my old Windsor chair up to his desk and sat down. “How could you do it, Rufe?”

He didn’t answer.

“Your son and your daughter … How could you sell them?” “I didn’t.”

That stopped me. I had been prepared for almost any other answer—

or no answer. But a denial … “But … but …” “She ran away.”

“I know.”

THE ROPE 251

“We were getting along. You know. You were here. It was good. Once, when you were gone, she came to my room. She came on her own.”

“Rufe …?”

“Everything was all right. I even went on with Joe’s lessons. Me! I told her I would free both of them.”

“She didn’t believe you. You wouldn’t put anything into writing.” “I would have.”

I shrugged. “Where are the children, Rufe?” “In Baltimore with my mother’s sister.”

“But … why?”

“To punish her, scare her. To make her see what could happen if she didn’t … if she tried to leave me.”

“Oh God! But you could have at least brought them back when she got sick.”

“I wish I had.” “Why didn’t you?” “I don’t know.”

I turned away from him in disgust. “You killed her. Just as though you had put that gun to her head and fired.”

He looked at the gun, put it down quickly. “What are you going to do now?”

“Nigel’s gone to get a coffin. A decent one, not just a homemade box. And he’ll hire a minister to come out tomorrow.”

“I mean what are you going to do for your son and your daughter?” He looked at me helplessly.

“Two certificates of freedom,” I said. “You owe them that, at least. You’ve deprived them of their mother.”

“Damn you, Dana! Stop saying that! Stop saying I killed her.” I just looked at him.

“Why did you leave me! If you hadn’t gone, she might not have run away!”

I rubbed my face where he had hit me when I begged him not to sell

Sam.

“You didn’t have to go!”

“You were turning into something I didn’t want to stay near.” Silence.

“Two certificates of freedom, Rufe, all legal. Raise them free. That’s the least you can do.”

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4

There was an outdoor funeral the next day. Everyone attended—field hands, house servants, even the indifferent Evan Fowler.

The minister was a tall coal-black deep-voiced freedman with a face that reminded me of a picture I had of my father who had died before I was old enough to know him. The minister was literate. He held a Bible in his huge hands and read from Job and Ecclesiastes until I could hardly stand to listen. I had shrugged off my aunt and uncle’s strict Baptist teachings years before. But even now, especially now, the bitter melan- choly words of Job could still reach me. “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not …”

I kept quiet somehow, wiped away silent tears, beat away flies and mosquitoes, heard the whispers.

“She gone to hell! Don’t you know folks kills theyself goes to hell!” “Shut your mouth! Marse Rufe’ll make you think you down there with

her!” Silence.

They buried her.

There was a big dinner afterward. My relatives at home had dinners after funerals too. I had never thought about how far back the custom might go.

I ate a little, then went away to the library where I could be alone, where I would write. Sometimes I wrote things because I couldn’t say them, couldn’t sort out my feelings about them, couldn’t keep them bot- tled up inside me. It was a kind of writing I always destroyed afterward. It was for no one else. Not even Kevin.

Rufus came in later when I was nearly written out. He came to the desk, sat down in my old Windsor—I was in his chair—and put his head down. We didn’t say anything, but we sat together for a while.

The next day, he took me to town with him, took me to the old brick Court House, and let me watch while he had certificates of freedom drawn up for his children.

“If I bring them back,” he said on the ride home, “will you take care

of them?”

THE ROPE 253

I shook my head. “It wouldn’t be good for them, Rufe. This isn’t my home. They’d get used to me, then I’d be gone.”

“Who, then?”

“Carrie. Sarah will help her.” He nodded listlessly.

Early one morning a few days later, he left for Easton Point where he could catch a steamboat to Baltimore. I offered to go with him to help with the children, but all that got me was a look of suspicion—a look I couldn’t help understanding.

“Rufe, I don’t have to go to Baltimore to escape from you. I really want to help.”

“Just stay here,” he said. And he went out to talk to Evan Fowler before he left. He knew how I had gone home last. He had asked me, and I had told him.

“But why?” he had demanded. “You could have killed yourself.” “There’re worse things than being dead,” I had said.

He had turned and walked away from me.

Now he watched more than he had before. He couldn’t watch me all the time, of course, and unless he wanted to keep me chained, he couldn’t prevent me from taking one route or another out of his world if that was what I wanted to do. He couldn’t control me. That clearly both- ered him.