He was wearing a rumpled white suit without a cravat, riding boots, and an oversized planter’s hat that squashed his red hair into a clump above his eyebrows. The sight of him was like a door slamming in my face. I even heard the catch of the latch, though perhaps it was only Sarah’s baby swallowing hard. Sarah had made a paste of corn bread in her palm and was feeding the child from her fingertips. The creature couldn’t seem to get enough of it. I noticed two white teeth coming in to its lower jaw. As I watched, it smacked its lips and gave me an absurdly cheerful grin. It would find little to be happy about in being weaned, I thought, and Sarah’s long face told me she thought so too.
The driver reined in the horses and the rocking of the carriage smoothed out as they slowed to a walk. We were close enough for my husband to take off his hat and wave it at us. “I just want to turn around and go back,” I said to no one. Sarah stuffed a last bit of paste into the baby’s mouth and brushed the remains off over the side of the carriage. We came to a halt, the driver leaped from his seat, and in a moment we stood in the dirt facing one another. The welcome-home scene. Only let it be brief, I thought.
“Thank heaven you are safe,” my husband exclaimed, relieving me of my traveling case. “I have been worried half to death.” Sarah pulled down the sack of Mother’s linens and slipped past us into the house. The slave’s blessing, I thought, forever exempt from the duties of greeting. “I’m safe enough,” I said to my husband. “But I’m very tired. If you don’t mind, I’ll go straight to my room and rest until supper.”
“Of course,” he said, shadowing me up the steps and through the door in a kind of anxious, ridiculous dance. “But I must inform you of the report I have just received from Mr. Sutter. A group of runaways has organized at Pass Manchac. Their plan is to march downriver picking up recruits along the way. They mean to join another group at Donaldsonville. They have called in the militia there. I’m surprised you weren’t warned by patrols on the road. Mr. Sutter said a slave at Overton informed the overseer of the plot yesterday. The revolt is planned for this very night.”
“And this informer is a free man today,” I snapped. “Doesn’t it ever occur to anyone that these plots only exist in the brains of malcontents who have realized they can get their freedom by scaring us out of our wits!”
This silenced him long enough for me to get to the stairs. I went up to my room without further comment and found Sarah unpacking, the baby already asleep in its crate. “Leave that,” I said. “Go and tell Delphine to make me a tisane; my head is splitting.” As she went out, I collapsed in the rocking chair. I fell to thinking of my husband’s remark about the militia. Indeed we had seen no patrols, no other carriage to speak of. We saw one negro riding a mule and another leading a goat by a bit of rope. The epidemic was over in the city, the weather was fine, yet mile after mile the river road was empty and still. Had this rumor so engaged the population that they were afraid to move?
If there really was a conspiracy north of us, and they intended to meet up with cohorts in Donaldsonville, they would have to cross the river. And how would they do this? The narrowest stretch and the most reliable ferry was just south of our property. Did they plan to commandeer the ferry?
Sarah came in with the tray, which she set on the side table. I watched her back as she poured out the tea and stirred in the sugar. It struck me that she knew more about this story than I did, that she and Delphine could probably name the informer as well as the leader of the runaways. When she brought me the cup, I studied her face, her lowered eyes, her expressionless mouth. She was feeling sullen, I concluded.
“He’ll be locking us up tonight, I gather,” I said, taking the cup, my eyes still on her face. She gave me a sudden penetrating look, then turned away. I drank my tea. A blade of anxiety sliced through the pain in my head, laying it open and raw. In Sarah’s look I had read the same question I had in my own mind: How much do you know?
WHAT DID WE eat that night? It seems a place to start. There was a gumbo, but what kind? It was the last pleasurable moment; Sarah lifting the lid of the tureen, and the delicious aroma filling the room. My aunt’s cook, Ines, had served it often enough in the town, but in my opinion, no one made it better than Delphine. Was it chicken? After that there was another course and another, but what?
My husband droned on about the crop, as he thought it unwise to discuss the threat of a revolt before the servants, though there was only Sarah. He must have pictured Sarah telling Delphine or Rose, who would tell some passing hand, and thus it would make its way to the quarter, as if every negro in fifty miles didn’t already know all about it.