Grace. Natashia Deon
yard sometimes, waiting for a glimpse of her. And when he get one, his expression turn to mush.
Josey’s legs are splayed open now like a boy. But she’s covered and sitting next to Ada Mae and near the other negro children. From here, she looks like a white watermelon seed among the black ones. Frail-looking and out of place.
She sings a made-up song and pulls without looking, belting out another note now, the longest that ever was, and Ada Mae looks to the sky for mercy.
Across the field, Slavedriver Nelson stands in the dirt with his steed and no hat on letting the sun beat down on his blood-orange face. His lashes shade his pale-blue eyes as he squints through the sunlight to see his negroes in the field. When the light hits his eyes directly, their color disappears, then reappears when the full shadow of his towering horse passes over him. I float around ’em both, watching how Nelson runs his fingers through her mane like he’s petting a dog. Calls her Maybelle.
The offbeat trot of another horse draws our attention. Up the road, I can see the rider coming closer. It’s George. He bobbles on top of his horse seeming lightweight and as small as a ten-year-old. His bobble becomes quick ticks when his horse picks up speed, jerking George this way and that. Like George cain’t control it. He’s headed right this way in a hurry.
Nelson yells, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” But it don’t slow.
Maybelle neighs. And again.
George jolts awake and pulls the reins late. He’s laughing when it stops in front of Maybelle. “You shoulda saw the look on your face. You thought I was going to run y’all over.”
“You had me, sir, Mr. George. Didn’t know if you was well or sleep or . . .”
George’s eyes draw closed, falling asleep, the musk of alcohol rises from under his clothes. “Are you saying I drink too much?” George say with his eyes still closed. “Are you my sister now, boy?” He calls Nelson “boy” even though Nelson’s an old man. Still, Nelson don’t flinch at it.
“Naw, sir, Mr. George.”
“Well then. I did it ’cause its funny. That’s funny, ain’t it, boy?”
Nelson say, “Maybelle can spook easy, is all. Didn’t want her running off.”
George falls off the side of his horse, sliding in an almost split. Nelson tries to catch him but it’s too late. George lie on the ground like he dead this time. Nelson goes to lift him. “Get away from me,” George say, brushing hisself off and pushing up to a stand. His knees give out again and Nelson reaches his hand out to him. George gags. Covers his mouth. Gags again like his tongue is pushed all the way down his throat. He throws up, keeps throwing up, spraying warm mud made of runny food, alcohol, and dirt on his shoes. “That’s what I get for eating second,” he say, dry heaving now.
Nelson gives him a mug of fresh water and a cloth that George runs around his face. He swallows a gulp of water, then swishes the next around and spits it. Behind him is a hay bale that’s twice as tall as he is. He leans back on it and catches his breath. “I bought my first horse when I was eight. A saddlebred mare, died just before I got sent away the first time. Broke my heart.” He reaches under his coat, pulls out a silver flask, puts it to his lips. A gust of wind sweeps his eye and pushes a tear out.
Nelson watches it roll down George’s cheek. Nelson say, “I know how hard it is to lose one, sir. I can tell you bonded with her, let her get you on the inside, made the magic happen.” Maybelle nudges Nelson with her nose, blows quick snorts. Nelson tugs her closer.
“When I look at my Maybelle,” Nelson say, “I know she could trample me at any second if she wanted, out muscle me, but on the road she let me control her every move. I’m her master. We understand each other. Me and Maybelle connected.” A low tone rolls from Maybelle’s belly. He trades her affection with a rub along her neck. “I love her more than I like most people.”
“You are one sick bastard,” George say. “It wasn’t the damn horse that broke me, it was getting sent away. And how in the hell could you love a goddamn horse?”
George bends down and picks up a small rock, hurls it at a squirrel in the road that was twitching to break a nut. When he misses, he throws his mug at it, too, tries to chase after the squirrel and sends it up a tree. George bends over gagging and breathing hard but no throw-up come this time. He looks over his shoulder, say, “I reckon if that squirrel rubbed your leg, you’d move it in your house, call it best friend.”
Nelson only mumbles under his breath, shimmies the saddle ’round Maybelle. Don’t talk to her this time. Don’t stroke her, either. Don’t show no care. He climbs up on her and just sits.
George shuffles hisself to the center of the road where he staggers back and forth in a circle, looking for something out in the field where Josey is. He say to Nelson, “Where’s that washed-out negro girl that’s supposed to be working?”
“You got a few that look like that, sir.”
“I mean, the one that looks like you.”
“Beg pardon?” Nelson say sharp. “Ain’t one drop of me nigger!” George don’t pay him no mind, staggering in a circle again, working on keeping his head the right way ’round.
Nelson say, “All of ’em out there working, sir. None missin. I flog the stragglers.”
“The children?”
“I do my job, Boss. Don’t need no nigger setting his mind to mischief, five or fifty-five. Let one get away wit something, they all start. I only got one whip.”
George reaches back to his horse and unlatches a large cloth bag. It falls to the ground from inattention, tumbling white shirts and woolen trousers to the dirt. He say to Nelson with a newfound joy in his tone, “I’m here to distribute the negroes’ clothes. Came from England on Monday’s shipment. Give ’em each two shirts and a pair of trousers for the year.”
George unlatches a pine hoop from the side of his horse. From the ground the hoop stands to his waist. He unties a matching pine stick, too. It’s about the length of three middle fingers high. He starts to the field with ’em.
“I wouldn’t go favorin’ none of ’em,” Nelson say. “They get jealous, making more work for me.”
George keeps in Josey’s direction, walking like an old man or like one leg is shorter than the other. He uses the hoop as a walking stick over the moist and uneven ground. I get beside him, follow him in.
He stops in front of Ada Mae and Josey. They get to looking busier than ever like they don’t see him. He slaps the hoop on Ada Mae’s closed bag ’til the bag blossoms open and shows its brown, dying weeds.
“Massa George?” Ada Mae say. “We was workin so fast, we didn’t see you come up.”
“That’s good work y’all doin there,” he say to Ada Mae, pretending not to notice Josey. He dabs his throw-up rag on his fo’head, clearing the sweat. He talks to the air around Josey. “I got this here wheel. It’s a game, see, a toy called a rolling hoop.” He taps the hoop on the ground in front of Josey with it. “You push it with this stick, make it go.”
Ada Mae sits up but Josey keeps her eyes low, working, and only say, “Yes, suh.”
“I was looking for some good worker to reward. Any idea who deserves it?”
“No, suh,” Josey say.
“Yes, suh,” Ada Mae say.
“Nobody?” he say to Josey, nudging her with the hoop, then dropping it down in front of her.
“Don’t think it be right for you to give it to me, suh,” Josey say. “We all work hard.”
George’s face flushes red and he grabs the hoop, “It wasn’t for you no how!”
“Yes’sa,” Josey say, keeping to her work, her head down.
“I