Devil's Dream - Madison Smartt Bell [74]
Forrest looked at him so sharply Anderson had to harden himself not to flinch.
“I ain’t never done no sech of a thing,” he said.
“I know it,” Anderson said. “Well then, I don’t need to tell you, the most of them aren’t going off to Mexico. Maybe John Morton and a few of the hotheads, but most won’t run off and leave all their folks and they need you to show them—”
“How to lose,” Forrest said.
“Just … how to do.” Anderson said. “Like you always have done.”
“Well, you’re right.” Forrest removed his hat to shake off some water, then put it back on. “I reckon I known it all along. I don’t mean to leave my folks neither. Men nor women. White nor black. All I own I’ll own up to.”
“Then what do you say we get out of this rain?”
“All right, Charles.” There was a touch of the old warmth now in Forrest’s bearded grin. “Let’s find us a dry spot and spell out what to say to’m.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
April 1858
FORREST RODE down the Memphis waterfront on the black stallion he’d named Satan. Mary Ann didn’t care for that name but he’d felt that none other would suit. Between his knees the animal boiled with a dark energy, stepping high and wanting to run. Forrest held the horse in with his left hand, leaving enough give in the reins that Satan wouldn’t harden his mouth on the bit, and kept his right hand free for tipping his hat, for once he turned from the river into Beale Street he knew most of the merchants and tradesmen whose establishments lined the western blocks. An acquaintance hailed him with news of a boatload of slaves out of Virginia that had just come downriver, and Forrest raised a finger to signify that he’d look in on his return.
At the corner of Causey Street a blind black man sat on an empty packing case, plucking a long-necked banjo slowly: a short repetitive cycle of notes. The strings were tuned down and the skin head was slack and the hollow slipperiness of the tune connected with an unquiet sensation Forrest had in his entrails. What he might feel at the start of a hunt or the brink of a fight or when he came to a gaming table and felt the first clicking of dice bones in the hollow of his hand.
The banjo faded as he walked the black horse south. In these few blocks of one- and two-room clapboard houses it was quieter than on Beale Street, and he needn’t tip his hat, though most of the blacks who peopled this quarter probably knew Mister Forrest by sight. A woman looked up from the wash pots in her swept yard with a flash of frank curiosity in her face, in the instant before she ducked her kerchiefed head away. Forrest felt his stomach settle. Here he came in broad daylight, bang down the middle of the street, riding the finest horse that he owned, head held high and his hat square on top of it.
The house he was bound for was built some stouter than most, with a waist-high stake fence around the yard and a gate with iron hinges and latch. Left of the gate was a hitching post and to the left of that, Jerry sat on the box of his wagon, his big hands lying loose on his knees, eyes hidden in the shade of his cap, still as a lizard soaking in the warmth of the afternoon sun. In the wagon bed behind, the boy sat facing the other way, stiff as a post, a bundle and stick tucked under his heels and his wrists and ankles sticking a little too far from the cuffs of his clothing.
Forrest dismounted and hitched his horse. “Matthew,” he said. “Why ain’t you gone inside?”
The boy looked past him, his eyes lighting up when they fell upon Satan. When the eyes returned to Forrest they were vacant. Forrest shook his head and turned toward the house, laying his hand on the top rail of the gate. Two railroad tie steps led up to a shallow plank stoop under the overhang of the roof. There on a puncheon stool sat Catharine, nursing the new baby under a light cotton shawl. Her chin was up and her eyes didn’t lower. Two proud women, Forrest thought, and wondered again if south of Beale Street would be far south enough. He felt as if the unglazed windows of the several houses behind him were all drilling