Across the room, Handful strode into the glowing debris on the rug, bent and picked up the stone. I watched as she turned it over in her hands, knowing I would leave this place yet again. I would return north to make what life I could.
Handful
The day of retribution passed without a musket ball getting fired, without a fuse being lit, without any of us getting free, but not one white person would look at us ever again and think we were harmless.
I didn’t know who was arrested and who wasn’t. I didn’t know if Denmark was safe or sorry, or both. Sarah said it was best to stay off the streets, but by Wednesday, I couldn’t wait anymore. I found Nina and told her I needed a pass to get some molasses. She wrote it out and said, “Be careful.”
Denmark was in the bedroom of his house, stuffing clothes and money in a knapsack. Susan led me back there, her eyes bloodshot with crying. I stood in the doorway and breathed the heavy air, and thought, It all came to nothing, but he’s still here.
There was an iron bed against the wall covered with the quilt I’d made to hide the list of names. The black triangles were laid out perfect on the red squares, but they looked sad to me now. Like a bird funeral.
I said to him, “So, where’re you going?”
Susan started to cry, and he said, “Woman, if you’re going to make all that noise, do it somewhere else.”
She pushed past me through the door, sniffling, saying, “Go on to your other wife then.”
I said, “You leaving for another wife?”
The curtain had been yanked closed on the window, leaving a crack on the side where a piece of brightness came in. It pointed at him like a sundial. “It’s a matter of time before they come looking for me here,” he said. “Yesterday they picked up Ned, Rolla, and Peter. The three of them are in the Work House, and I don’t doubt their fortitude, but they’ll be tortured till they name names. If our plans live to see another day, I have to go.”
Dread slid down my back. I said, “What about my name? Will they say my name for stealing the bullet mold?”
He sat down on the bed, on top of the dead blackbird wings, with his arms dangling by his knees. When the recruits used to come to the house, he’d shout, The Lord has spoken to me, and he’d look stern and mighty as the Lord himself, but now he just looked cast down. “Don’t worry,” he said, “they’re after the leader—that’s me. Nobody will say your name.”
I hated to ask him the question, but I needed to know. “What happened to the plans?”
He shook his head. “The thing I worried about was the house slaves who can’t tell where they end and their owners begin. We got betrayed, that’s what happened. One of them betrayed us, and the Guard put spies out there.”
His jaw tightened, and he pushed off the bed. “The day we were set to strike, the troops were built up so heavy our couriers couldn’t get out of the city to spread the call. We couldn’t light the fuses or retrieve the weapons.” He picked up a tin plate with a candle stuck to it and hurled it at the wall. “Goddamn them. Goddamn them to hell. God—” His face twisted.
I didn’t move till his shoulders dropped and I felt the torment leave him. I said, “You did what you could. Nobody will forget that.”
“Yeah, they will. They’ll forget.” He peeled the quilt off the bed and draped it in my arms. “Here, you take this with you and burn the list. Burn it straightaway. I don’t have time.”
“Where will you be?”
“I’m a free black man. I’ll be where I’ll be,” he said, being careful in case Rolla and them said my name after all, and the white men came to torture me.