Washington and Caesar

“Cause they don’ really thank you fo’ it, Caesa’. If’n they nice o’ if’n they nasty, you still a slave.”

“You know ‘bout Somerset, though?”

“I know I hear fools say we all be free. He one man. Good fo’ him, I say. He free. I ain’ free.”

Cese looked at the ground a minute, and kept his thoughts to himself.

Today, I am a slave.

Washington rode easily, one leg cocked up over the pintle of his saddle. He had almost reached his own land and had nothing but pleasure ahead of him. He looked forward to a release from politics for a few days, because the incessant clamor against the home country could be fairly shrill. In darker moments, he wondered that they dared. In others, he suspected that they were simply grumbling like soldiers on a long march. Soon enough, the debts from the Great War would be paid, and surely then the politics would return to something like normalcy.

Jacka was up on a new bay behind him, riding out in circles when the ground allowed to try to work the friskiness out of the big horse. Washington looked at him and grunted in approval. As he looked, his gaze was caught by something well to the east over Jacka’s shoulder and he sat up, tacked his free foot back in the stirrup, and put his spurs to his horse. Jacka, caught off guard, was well behind him in an instant.

There was a man, a big man, taking crabs from the river in a little punt. Two black women and another man were building a fire on the bank. Washington rode up to the big man, already angry.

“What are you about, sir!” he called.

“Takin’ crabs, squire,” said the man. His tone was insolent. “They’re God’s crabs, I think.”

Washington dismounted and walked along the bank until he was opposite the little boat.

“What’s your name, then?”

The man was as big as Washington or even bigger, with a strong, even brutal, face and a squint. He was dressed in an old overshirt and filthy linen.

“I’m Hector Bludner, squire. I was in the Virginny regiment, I was.” He chuckled, clearly sure that such a point would clear him of any wrongdoing. “I know you, too, Colonel.”

“All right, Mr. Bludner. Bring that punt back in here and get off my land.”

Bludner looked at him as if genuinely offended. Perhaps he was.

“This ain’t England, squire. This is Amerikay. You don’ own the crabs!”

Washington stooped and lifted a rock the size of a man’s fist. He cocked his arm and threw it at the boat. It went right through the flimsy timber, and in a moment, Bludner was splashing and cursing in the shallow water.

“Bastard!” he yelled.

While he was floundering about, Washington turned on the little man and the two women. One was a black girl of perhaps sixteen with a fine face marred only by a collection of bruises. The other was older, perhaps her mother. She moved slowly and Washington could see she had a broken leg, badly reset.

He addressed the smaller white man.

“Get off my land this instant, or I’ll arrest you all as vagrants. What do you do?”

The little man scratched his head a moment.

“We take slaves for folk.”

Washington spat. “I have no use for your kind. My slaves don’t run.”

Jacka caught that remark coming up late, but if he thought anything of it, he kept it to himself.

Bludner was ashore now, soaked and raging. He struck the young woman hard, so that the impact sounded like a pistol shot. The little man just got out of his way and began to load a pony. His attack on the woman enraged Washington, who stood his ground, waiting for Bludner to approach him. Bludner spent a moment getting his blood up, cursing.

“Your kind is why we need to spill some blood in these parts, by damn. No ‘nobles’ in Amerikay!”

Washington watched him with calm ferocity.

“You’re a coward and a pimp.”

Nothing spurs hatred in a man like the memory of admiration, and Bludner had once sought Washington’s approval through a whole summer as a soldier. He took his time making his move, talking a great deal, so that when he finally shifted his weight he almost caught Washington off guard. But Washington had wrestled Indians and Virginians all his life. He sidestepped and sent a blow from his fist into Bludner’s head that staggered him. Then he struck him again, stepping inside his long-armed blows and pounding a fist up under the man’s arm, knocking the wind out of him, then hammering the man’s face and chest until he fell. Then he kicked the man twice without compunction. Jacka watched with a smile, while the little man just kept loading the group’s goods on two ponies. Washington could see the butt of an unexpectedly fine rifle standing up from one pony.

He nodded at Bludner on the ground, and at their camp.

“Take any crabs you already have ashore—I won’t have them go to waste. Then get you gone. If I see you in the country, I’ll have you taken up on a charge.”

The little man merely nodded.

Jacka was watching the pretty girl. She was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen—prettier than Queeny—with her almond eyes and pouty lips. She met his eye boldly.

“What’s you’ name?” he asked.

“I’m Sally,” she said, tossing her head despite a new and spreading bruise on her cheek. Clearly mere beatings couldn’t break her spirit.

Washington mounted again and rode a little apart, watching them, his easy mood of the road broken. He handed Jacka a pistol.

“See they get clear of my land.”

Jacka nodded.

Mr. Bailey wanted a great reception for Colonel Washington, and he intended to line the drive with the servants and slaves, some old retainers, and a few friends at the top, nearest the house, standing well back to be discrete and different from the lower orders on the drive. In the meantime, fires were lit throughout the house, everything was cleaned to a fare-thee-well, and the beds were turned down in the master bedroom. They posted a boy well up the road to give them the signal.

When the boy came dashing back, Mr. Bailey gave the signal, ringing his hand bell, and men and women came running from the nearest farms and outbuildings. Mr. Bailey was appalled to see his master riding up without a coat, with one hand swollen and bleeding and his breeches all muddy. He stood at the great horse’s head and welcomed the colonel, and all the servants and slaves stood silently as Washington reviewed them and nodded. He rarely praised, and in his current mood, although he was aware that a special effort had been made and that something was called for, he merely grunted to Bailey as he completed his review.

He saw new slaves, and he didn’t know them. The tallest of them, a well-built lad, had tiny ridges of scars over his eyes. He’d never seen the like, and it did nothing to improve his mood, as it was a disfigurement on a noble-looking man, and meant he was fresh from Africa. He didn’t like Africans. He’d said so often enough.

“Let me see to your poor hand,” said Mrs. Bailey, and he let himself be dragged inside.

Two chimes of his French watch later, he was dressed in proper clothes, the dust of the road and the dirt of the fight washed clean, and the knuckles of his hands well bandaged. He had taken a glass of rum and mint, cool from the back house, and followed Bailey out on to the lawn to inspect the front walk.

“What’s the bricklayer’s name?”

“Jemmy, sir.”

“He’s done some good work here, Bailey. But the men don’t think much of him. They’ve spoiled the mortar in a few places.”

“Yes, sir. I tried to watch them, Colonel. I made two men replace the gravel. They left holes in the work.”

“I see.”