Washington and Caesar

The third and fourth mornings, Gordon sent one of the new whites, Keller, to unlock the barracoon, and himself stood well back with a long fowler across his arm; the next morning he did not appear at all. Keller was unarmed, except for a large knife. He was surly, and Caesar could feel his fear of the blacks, which put him on his guard. The other men ignored his curses, took their tools, and went to work, tensions easing only when they were at the heads of their trenches into the swamp, hacking their ditches a little deeper. But something was different; Gordon hadn’t watched them go out, and on a spur of impulse, Caesar stayed with Virgil’s party rather than going out with his own. The sullen boy said nothing; he didn’t even know the slaves apart yet.

Caesar cut at the roots of a large tree for almost an hour, working his hands into steadiness, cracking the knuckles where he had to force them to respond. The knuckles were getting more swollen every day; they had never looked like this before, even early in his service in the Indies. The black blood around the edges of his calluses made him queasy. He was not a weak man, but his hands looked as if they would never again be adept at anything. Even swinging the pick had become a matter of fine judgment. He tried not to look, then looked again, with the vanity of a handsome man who sees his body being ruined.

He wondered if the plan to kill the overseer had been betrayed. He was sure of Virgil, less sure of Lark. Lark was new. Old Ben would never; he was too old to care one way or the other. The cook boy, perhaps. He stayed all day at the barracoon, cleaning and cooking; perhaps his loyalty was with the whites. But if Gordon knew the plan, what was he waiting for?

Suddenly, Caesar decided it was time to act. The decision came suddenly; it didn’t seem to result from conscious thought. It was there. Time to go. He had assumed that the attack should come at the morning or perhaps at the evening, because they were all together; but what entered his mind now was the idea that there was little to be gained from involving the other slaves.

He sank the head of the pick into a root on purpose, tested it to be sure that it wouldn’t come out easily, and crept off into the swamp. If discovered, he could say he was looking for another man with an ax or mattock to help him cut the pick free. He climbed a short ridge to his left and followed a game trail along it, then moved as quietly as he could through the undergrowth, parallel to the line of workers. He had to know where Gordon was. He was not going to lie sleepless another night and be disappointed. Freedom was no longer something he wanted in the future; his hands and his maimed leg demanded it immediately.

He came abreast of Virgil, who was working silently. All the singing had stopped; they had figured that it could be used to track the location of their work, and that if it stopped on the day they went for the overseers, it might warn them. No one questioned the end of the songs. Very few of the men knew why they stopped. Virgil hefted his ax and slipped a fascine knife from behind a tuft of brush. He handed it to Caesar.

“Now?”

“I’m goin’ to fin’ him. Find him.”

“And?”

“And then we take him, you an’ me.”

“What about Lark?”

“Just you and me, Virgil.”

“I’m with you.” Virgil didn’t sound calm, but he was clearly resolved. It lifted Caesar’s spirits.

If Virgil wanted to question why Lark had ceased to enjoy Caesar’s confidence, he didn’t. Caesar slipped back into the brush, the heavy fascine knife held in his left hand. It had a vicious hook and an ax blade on the back, meant for cutting brush. This one was painted bright red, to make it easier to find when a careless man left it on the ground.

Caesar’s heart began to beat faster. He moved easily now, the sun having warmed his aching bones but not yet sapped his strength. Virgil made considerably more noise. Caesar stopped and pointed. They were past their own gang, back toward the barracoon, the cabins, and the tilled fields. Keller was relieving himself into their ditch. He had the large knife at his belt and no other weapon. Caesar looked at Virgil, whose lips were a little pale, and he nodded. Caesar moved warily into the open to a patch of cat-tails, making the dry winter grass rustle, but Keller didn’t move, still splashing the ditch with his urine and grunting a little, as if pleased with himself. Caesar made it to the reeds. He stood very still, hidden only by the man’s position and the merest fringe of green, and breathed slowly through his mouth, spreading his hands wide for balance. He had practiced with his brothers, but his one experience of combat had not prepared him for this. His hands ached as if maimed. He took one long delicate step into the reeds that stood between him and his prey, placing his weight gradually down on a rotting stump that supported the little patch of dry ground. Keller began to button the flap of his breeches, his little grunts odd and faintly disgusting.

Caesar could smell his urine and his fetid breath. He waited until he heard the boy exhale and he leaned out carefully and pounced, his hand gripping Keller’s throat like a band of iron. The boy’s eyes were huge. Only now did Caesar really see how young he was, but he ripped the big knife free and stabbed, upwards as he had been taught, through the vitals and into the heart, pressing the boy back against his own chest and twisting the knife while his other hand kept the wind from the boy’s lungs. Virgil appeared in front of him and his ax shattered the boy’s skull.

There was no end to the blood from the head and from the heart. It stained all the water in the ditch in a moment. The boy was dead; he hadn’t made a noise, and already the flies were coming. Caesar took a deep breath and stripped the boy’s shirt, slave cotton, as poorly made as his own, over the corpse’s head. It was soaked with blood, but he used the back to mop his hands and face. He threw it to Virgil, who was still standing, shocked, by the corpse, staring at the ruin he had made of the boy’s head. Caesar ripped some ferns from the ground and used them to wipe the blade of the knife. It was a better knife than he had expected, a heavy blade with fine decoration on the backbone and a riveted wood grip. It reminded him of trade knives in Africa, a little heavier, but much the same.

“Come on, Virgil.”

Virgil just stood. He wasn’t whimpering, but his breath was loud and the sharp edges of his face were pale.

“Come on, if you’re comin’.” Caesar grabbed his arm. At first the ax came up, but the mad gleam in Virgil’s eyes faded in a heartbeat and the big man nodded dully and followed him.

They headed back toward the cabins. It was almost a mile to the clearing, and they moved along steadily, Virgil starting at every forest noise. Caesar had started to breathe freely. The killing had shocked him. He regretted the age of the boy, but he was old enough to be a warrior anywhere Caesar had been, and he carried a weapon. Virgil had it worse. Somehow, Virgil’s continued reaction helped to steady Caesar. He put his hand on the older man’s shoulder.

“Halfway home.”

“Never killed nobody.”

“Just stay with me.”

There was a horse in the paddock with the saddle still on, and a man in a greatcoat talking to Gordon in the yard of the cabin. Chickens clucked around their feet. The man in the greatcoat wasn’t large, but he looked fit, and his complexion was burned red even this early in the year. He and Gordon seemed to be arguing, though they were sharing a jug of corn liquor. His greatcoat had a velvet collar and silver buttons, and his fine hat and top boots, even covered in spring swamp mud, made Gordon’s work smock look drab and poor.

A few drops of rain began to fall, although the sun still cast a pale light over the dooryard. Caesar slipped closer to the cabin, aiming to use it as cover. He could hear their voices but not what they were saying. Virgil was still behind him. Caesar sank to his knees at the edge of the clearing and waited, as rain could only help them. It came, harder and harder, and Caesar waited patiently.

“What you doin? I can’ jes’ wait here!” Virgil was quiet, but urgent. He had the need for action on him, something that Caesar had seen before in men, a reaction to danger.

“We just wait a while, Virgil. Be still.”

Before long the April rain fell in sheets, the watery sun was gone, and so too were the men’s voices. The horse walked about the paddock, dejected and puzzled that her saddle was still on. The men were in the one-room cabin. Caesar could hear them through the thin walls of the mud-and-stick chimney. He had helped lay the chimney; he knew how flimsy it was.

“We nevah take that cabin with they inside,” Virgil said, his voice rising.

“Don’t you move, Virgil. You stay right heah. Here.” He slipped out of the mire, up the bank to the high ground, and along the rail fence of the paddock to the horse. The cabin had no windows. Unless one of the men put an eye to one of the many chinks he was safe. He put a hand in front of the horse’s nose and breathed on it. The horse made a soft noise. He ran his other hand back along the neck to the top of the saddle and felt in the holster. A pistol. Rather than drag it into the rain he felt for the buckle to the holsters and found it, unbuckled the pair of pistols, and moved back to the edge of the swamp.

“Ever shoot a gun before, Virgil?”

“Nevah.”

“This ain’t your day to learn, then.” The pistols weren’t fine, like some he had seen; these were local made and had heavy locks. The priming was sound in one, damp in the other. He recharged it from the flask in the holster. Something didn’t look right, but his experience with firearms was entirely through observing other men with them. He knew he would have to pull the cocks back to full before he pulled the trigger, and he carefully did so now. The cock came back and there was a soft click, almost pleasant. It made the piece look more dangerous. He examined it for a moment, then opened the pan and let out the priming and held the cock as he pulled the trigger. It forced forward a little against his thumb, and he lowered it into the pan and then pulled it back one click, then the other. Half cock, full cock. He had heard both terms. Now he knew the feel. He did it over and over again until he was sure of the feeling, and then he replaced the priming and put both pistols on half cock. An unlucky drip from the trees hit the lock of the second before he had it stowed away in its fur-covered horse-holster, and he had to open the pan, clear it of the black mud that formed there, and refill the pan with powder. He didn’t trust the piece, though; he had heard masters say that once a gun was wet, it stayed wet.

Virgil was silent through the whole performance, and he looked miserable.

“Soon, man, soon,” Caesar reassured him, quietly, but the words seemed to go right past him.

Caesar felt more alive than he had in months, indeed, since Mount Vernon. He felt sure of himself; he was balanced pleasurably on the edge of danger. He smiled at Virgil, a smile that shocked him because of its sheer happiness, and moved across the edge of the paddock to the back of the cabin, his steps covered by the sound of rain. Virgil set his jaw and followed, clearly terrified but determined. His face was a mask of tension, and Caesar became apprehensive that Virgil would do something rash.

Caesar stood under the eaves of the cabin and put the fascine knife under the rope that held his trousers at the back. He drew the wet pistol with his left hand and the dry one with his right. The men inside were making a bargain; Caesar could hear them huckstering. It struck Caesar that Gordon was selling some of the slaves, perhaps in preference to killing them, although he didn’t care. He moved to the long porch, where the roof protruded forward beyond the front of the cabin, and made it there with both pistols dry, cocking them with his thumbs as he crossed the step. The door was open a crack.

“Who’s there?” Gordon’s voice. Caesar didn’t hesitate, although he’d hoped to wait and ambush them when they emerged. He shouldered the door, which swung inward. The stranger in the greatcoat rose and turned and Caesar raised his left hand and pulled the trigger. The cock fell and there wasn’t even a spark. Caesar pointed the second pistol and it fired into the man’s face. The man catapulted back across the crude table, dead.

Gordon pulled a pistol from his belt and snapped it in one motion, but his prime was wet from the rain as well. He flung the big gun at Virgil and stunned him, then dove off his seat for the fowler in a corner. The cabin was full of smoke from the bad fire and the one shot, but Caesar stayed on the man, hurdling the table without thought, drawing the big fascine knife so fast that it cut his back. Gordon raised the fowler, his thumb on the cock, and Caesar cut his right hand off at the wrist with one hatefilled blow. The blood from the arm sprayed him, and the painted handle slipped in his hand and dropped to the floor. He pushed Gordon with his numb hand, as hard as he could, and the wounded man fell back across the fireplace, his back bursting through the mud and sticks even as his legs began to burn. He screamed, clearly past fighting, and Virgil’s ax finished him.

Caesar wanted to rest, even to sleep; but the shot had been loud, even in the cabin.

“Not done yet,” he said. He was almost unhurt and had killed three men. They had killed Gordon.

He smiled, and though his hands shook, he set about loading the pistol that had fired. Virgil was sick.

“You done?” he asked, when the noises stopped.

Virgil muttered something. Caesar found a leather pail of water and drank half of it, surprised that his mouth was so dry. He passed the rest to Virgil, who finished it.

“They other white boys be coming,” Virgil said, looking over the rim of the bucket.

“If they heard the shots, I expec’ they would.”

“We gon’ kill them too?”

Caesar recognized that Virgil was done. It was something he knew instinctively, that the man could not handle further violence just then. Caesar considered their position. He moved through the cabin, collecting a side of bacon and a bag of meal, a hunting pouch with a horn for the fowler, the blankets. He searched both the dead men’s bodies. The wealthy one had a fancy clasp knife, a watch, and two English guineas; Caesar kept them all, and a little pocket glass that the man had. Gordon had less, some shillings, another clasp knife, and a pocket tinder kit. Virgil leaned in the doorframe, watching the yard. He was still trembling at the knees.

“Search the horse, Virgil. We need any food she got, and the man’s blanket.”

Virgil nodded and stumbled out. As soon as he was gone, Caesar began to strip the dead men. It was miserable, gruesome work: the bodies were clumsy and flaccid; Gordon had soiled himself as he died. For that reason, Caesar left him his breeches. But he needed their shoes. The slender man’s boots fit him near enough, and he took the man’s stockings, as well. He had no illusions about walking barefoot any great distance in the Great Dismal.

When he was done, he took the piles of useful goods out to the yard and added them to the spoil from the horse. He expected it to be late afternoon in the yard, somehow; he walked out into mid-morning and realized that little time had passed since the rain.

“Go get the others.”

Virgil looked at him.

“What if they don’ wan’ come?”

“Then they can stay and get hung.”

Virgil frowned.

“I don’ like this. Too many killing. It won’ lead to no good.”

Caesar smiled, a hard smile with no humor in it that hid his teeth—Washington’s smile.

“I doubt this will be the last of the killing, my friend. But let’s run. We’ll have a long start.”

It took an hour—an hour that frayed Caesar’s nerves and made him lash out several times at the other men. He had to explain what had happened over and over; many did not like the sharing of equipment; and some simply stood slack and looked at the blood in the cabin. If the white men had returned, they could have taken the lot, Caesar suspected, but they didn’t. Caesar didn’t know how distant they were or what they were doing, but if they heard the shots, they either hid in fear or fled. At the end of the hour, Caesar’s party was finally ready to move: Caesar at the head, followed by Old Ben; three men he barely knew, carrying an iron pot and most of the food; the cook boy; Tom and Virgil closing the file. Lark was nowhere to be seen. The other slaves were huddled in groups, some eating their share of the cabin’s provisions, others already drunk on the corn liquor. Caesar had tried talk and he balked at force, but it angered him to leave them to face the wrath of the whites. He looked around the clearing; then, moved by an impulse, he walked back into the cabin, drew the little tinderbox, got a spark on charred linen, and blew it to light on some tow. He lit a tallow candle and some fatwood with the tow, and made it a bundle. Then he kicked a hole in the wattle and mud chimney and set the sticks of it on fire with his fatwood. He threw another stick into the marsh straw of the roof for good measure, and in a moment it went up with a rush. He took the bundle of tallow and wood out and threw it on the straw in the barracoon. Then he took the long sharp knife he had gained from the first boy and killed the horse. The others watched him, stunned, as he moved purposefully through the clearing, destroying the corn crib and every other structure.

“Stay if you want, you Ebo fools.” The cabin was starting to burn in earnest. “Stay and be slaves, or hang!”

They watched him; a few actually ran from him. He thought a few might follow his group when they went. He was too inexperienced to realize that, just then, most of them were more scared of him than of the hazy and uncertain future.

“You gonna die!” shouted one man, backlit by the fires.

Caesar shrugged wearily, too tired to argue, and he led his group into the swamp. Behind him, the cabin roof and the barracoon both caught, and a pillar of smoke rose slowly into the sky. But he thought, as they left the line of drains and plunged into the real wilderness, that today, at last, he was not a slave.

2

Mount Vernon, Virginia, May 3, 1775

It was a curious gathering, and Washington thought that the men who graced his house on the eve of his departure for the second Continental Congress could not have been more unalike. What brought them together was a desire to profit by his patronage; they were friends, most of them, but every one of them wanted something. It was a role to which he was used in a small way, but it was heady, nonetheless.

Major Gates, a half-pay retired officer who had served with Washington under Braddock and had a depth of military experience unrivaled in the colonies except for Washington’s own, desired a command if the Continental Congress should see fit to raise an army. Washington smiled; he knew Gates, and knew the man felt himself Washington’s superior in the art of war. Washington had never precisely warmed to him and had always feared his ambition; and he had odd, overly ingratiating manners, the product of too many years as an inferior officer in an inferior independent company. But he would need every skilled soldier he could find if Virginia went to war.

Richard Henry Lee wanted a commission in the militia; he had proposed to raise another independent company of horse for his son Henry. He was traveling with his brother Thomas, who wanted nothing but news. Charles Carter wanted the Continental Congress to enact land legislation that Parliament in London had refused, and young Henry Lee seemed pleased to sit with the gentlemen after dinner and sip from his share of one of Washington’s famous pipes of Madeira.

“Will Dunmore fight?” asked the elder Carter.

Washington shook his head. “He took the powder from Williamsburg to rob us of the means to violence, not to provoke it. He is a careful, thoughtful man, perhaps even a devious one.”

“Thomas Gage never had the repute of a hothead, sir, and I believe he has led the way to a greater act of violence than any seen in these colonies.” Gates looked particularly satisfied that Gage had blundered. There was some history there—had Gage refused Gates a commission when he raised his Light Armed Regiment for frontier service? Washington couldn’t remember whether that was a fact or a rumor.

“The attack was utterly unprovoked. ’Tis in the express. They marched out of Boston to take powder and stores in Concord, and the Massachusetts men gave them a drubbing.”

“While we let Dunmore take our powder and then sit on our hands and take no action!” cried Henry Lee. “All the horsed militia are formed and ready at Fredericksburg.”

“And they refused to say the words ‘God save the King!’ and insisted on ‘God save the liberties of America’,” interjected Richard Lee. “Exciting times, Colonel. Is this the time for Virginia’s foremost military son to travel to Philadelphia?”

“Dunmore has nothing but a half-company of marines and some sailors. We could take the palace tomorrow and hold him until they bring the powder off the ships.” Henry Lee was excited at the prospect.

“On what grounds, gentlemen?” Thomas leaned forward in the big library chair. “I misdoubt this talk of open rebellion. If we must show our mettle to preserve our freedoms, then let’s to it and no more debate. But attack the king’s appointed governor in his palace, with the only cause that he seized powder that’s legally his? I stand with Peyton Randolph and other moderate men on this; he’ll give it up without violence. Ben, I know you admire the spirit of those Massachusetts men, but they have taken a step that may lead us, God forbid, to civil war. And war’s an ugly thing.”

Washington nodded. His thoughts were far away; Virginia had not seen fit to offer him the command of her militia, and he had responded by moving his duties to the Continental Congress to the forefront of his mind.

“It is in my mind, gentlemen, that we have left my lady alone far too long. As she has no other ladies to support her, I think it only courteous that we restore the conversation to her.”

“Hear, hear,” said Thomas, who had not relished the conversation. It was becoming harder to be a moderate.

“I should never have thought to be so inconsiderate,” said Gates, as if searching Washington’s words for a hidden insult.

But when they were all abed, Martha smiled at him and chided him firmly.

“That’s a lonely way to spend my last evening with you.”

“I’ll be back soon, like as not.”

“You won’t, though. They’ll give you the command.”

He looked at her, surprised to have his innermost secret thought divined.

“I had not thought…” The words came perilously close to a lie, and he bit his lip and looked at her.

“I have waited for you to open your mind to me, husband. It is plain as the eyes on my face that the Virginia Convention is sending you to the Philadelphia Congress as a soldier. Why else do you not have the command of the militia?”

“It would be unmannerly of me to expect such a command, and villainous to hope for such a thing that could portend such dire consequences.”

She turned her head on the pillow and looked him in the eye, hers glinting with humor.

“But you do. Is it hard, husband, for one vessel to hold so much honor and so much ambition?”

“You still possess the power to mortify me, madam.”

“None of your other friends dare. Your careful silence does not fool me, sir. I know you.”

“True enough. What can I fetch you from Philadelphia?”

“You can arrange that the clever fellow who manages all my estates and has so suddenly become a man of the first consequence be returned to me with all his limbs.”

“You honor me with your commands.”

“Do you remember promising me to leave the army, sir?”