The Prophets(101)

Trying to find where Ruth could be, he walked through the darkness as rock and weed crunched beneath his boots. The only song was the click of crickets backed by the river’s rush. He was listening for other footsteps, looking for other imprints, sniffing for perfume, but detected nothing. He slipped on the mud of the bank and caught a glimpse of a figure in the periphery. He turned quickly only to see the frilled edge of a gown pass by a tree. He followed it.

He walked along the bank and then through the trees. His lantern flickered and then from behind him, a voice.

“Late for a swim.”

He couldn’t see her face even when he held up the lantern because she wore the shadows like something given to her by an old friend.

“Impolite not to speak.”

He wanted to, but she had caught him by surprise.

“You must be the one who stole the moon, eh?” he said finally.

She smiled. He intentionally denied himself the opportunity to.

They walked across the plantation, neither of them speaking. He was amazed by her ability to go out in the darkness without stumbling, without uncertainty, without a lantern. He tried to provide her the benefit of his light, but she refused it, retreated into the thickness, laughed at the mere suggestion. And he wanted so badly to see her face.

“What you creeping around for, Ruth?” he asked, hoping to draw her out.

She twirled in her nightgown, praising the coolness that rushed underneath it, and hummed a melody. By the time they reached the fence, she was already under it and skipping up the stairs to his cabin.

He thought her a puzzle missing more than a few pieces. But maybe those were the best kind. Those were the ones that required a bit more from those putting them together: a bit more time, a bit more patience, a bit more imagination. The last was the most fertile of grounds, where mastery was sown, and he had planned to patiently await what might grow.

She walked into the cabin and danced around it.

“This place is a mess,” she finally said. “Nobody ever taught you to keep house? You need to get hitched, maybe.”

He smiled. He thought she might have, too. He put the lantern down on a small table with only one chair tucked under it. It was the first time he had ever even given that any consideration—Me? A wife? Who would? My manner ain’t exactly roomy for another. He was distracted, though, because her hair was fire.

Ruth turned and went toward the door. He didn’t want her to leave.

“I hope your cousin comes home soon. He’s going to sell those niggers that looked at me, you know.”

“I know.”

He looked at her as she walked past him. “Ruth, ain’t safe for you to be wandering the plantation at night. You should get back home, you hear?”

“Why should I be scared of what’s mine?” She looked at him, puzzled.

He removed his hat for the first time in her presence. As he had said before, his manner wasn’t roomy. He leaned his head to the side. “If only it was yours.” He held his hat to his chest to express respect and sincerity.

Ruth chuckled and then she left. When he went to the door to see which direction she was traveling, she was already gone, swallowed up by a night she felt comfort in, which he didn’t understand. He saw four overseers off in the distance, talking to Zeke, Malachi, and Jonathan as the shift exchange began.

James went back into his cabin. He sat down on his bed but didn’t remove his shoes. Eaten through as they were, it really didn’t matter if they were on or off. He threw his hat onto the floor. He reclined. He put his rifle next to him, in the place where his wife would have slept had he the inclination or the space. He put both of his hands behind his head and looked up at the ceiling. The lantern glowed and the flame made things in the dark move, but it also made James not want to. Heavy as his eyelids had gotten, he just let them do what they were asking.

When he entered the dreaming, he was in the field and the niggers were picking cotton. But the cotton was alive and shrieked with every pluck. Then suddenly, the slaves stopped, all of them, at once. Like a flock of birds, they turned in unison. They raised themselves from their prostrate positions. Old and young, they all faced him. None of them had eyes, but somehow they could still see. And there was a noise coming from in between their legs: the sound of something moving, buzzing; listen closer: voices: beating. And the niggers started toward him and he had his gun, but there were too many of them and each of them had a pitchfork in his hands. He opened his eyes just as the first points were coming toward his forehead.

He swung his legs around to the side of his bed and kicked over the spittoon.

“Goddamnit.”

He got up and surveyed the room for a rag. He avoided the mirror. The plank wood walls closed in on him. Four walls, blank, darker at the tops and at the bottoms, dyed black by mildew and fungus. The low ceiling sloped upward but granted no room to breathe, stretch, or stand tall. Just one room and very little furniture: a bed, a small table, and, yes, only one chair; atop the table the lantern still alight. Over in the corner: a washbasin, and next to it an extinguished fireplace with a small black pot hanging within.

He found a used rag on the floor by the window. The glass reflected the flickering flame of the lantern. Outside was blackness, but still, shapes: the trees, the Big House, the barn, the nigger shacks on one side, and twelve or so others on the other side of the field. His own cabin was only a smidgen larger. How dare they do that. Give him a cabin that small. Let the niggers build ones almost as large. And on the other side of the fence. The fence that he couldn’t even see the shape of because it was so close. The fuckers. All of them: the propertied, their niggers, and the chasers.