Known World (2004 Pulitzer Prize), The - Edward P. Jones [27]
Moses scratched his whiskers again, and things were so quiet beyond the crackle of the fire in his hearth that someone passing in the lane could have heard his fingers going over his whiskers. Right then, Elias came out of his cabin next door, carrying an empty water bucket. He nodded “Morning” to the people in Moses’s doorway, but no words were spoken by anyone. Loretta nodded “Morning” to Elias; she depended on Moses to tell him about the death of Henry.
“Moses,” Loretta said after Elias had passed, “just about everything can wait till Henry is safe in his grave, till we put the master down. You hear what I’m sayin?”
“I hear you,” Moses said. “I hear you good.”
Loretta said, “Is there any trouble down here from anyone? Is there any trouble from somebody that might spoil that man’s trip to the grave?”
“You best tell her bout Stamford,” Priscilla said. Stamford was forty years old, desperate for any young woman he could get a hold of. A man had told Stamford when he was no more than twelve that the way for a man to survive slavery was to always have a young woman, “young stuff” was how the man put it. Without “young stuff,” a man was destined to die a horrible death in slavery. “Don’t you be like that, Stamford,” the man had said more than once. “Keep your young stuff close by.”
“Whas the problem with Stamford?” Loretta said, her eyes on the top of Priscilla’s head, which was now just about all she could see of her. “Is it Gloria again?” Gloria was Stamford’s latest young stuff.
Moses said, “That might be finished. I think she kicked him out day fore yestiddy. Stamford probably out there with nobody and he ain’t a happy man when that happens.”
“Please check him, Moses,” Loretta said. “Don’t let him start up somethin. We can deal with Stamford after the funeral. I don’t want a lot of Who-Shot-John when we start puttin Henry in the ground.”
“I’ll check him,” Moses said, “or I’ll break him in two tryin.”
“No breakin, Moses.” Loretta looked down the lane to where a little girl was standing with her hands on her hips, staring at her. Loretta knew her name, had helped the girl into the world. Say good mornin to me, honey chile. Say good mornin to Loretta. “No breakin, just checkin. And I hope you ain’t wrong about what trouble Stamford is, the way you was wrong bout Elias.”
“Elias still trouble to my way a thinkin,” Moses said.
Loretta looked from the girl and said to Moses, “Mistress Caldonia and Miss Fern want you get evbody to come out front maybe in another hour, after breakfast,” and she looked to find that the little girl was gone. Where the girl had stood was where the sun would first come over the horizon. “Go tell em Henry dead.” He nodded. He was barefoot. They both knew where he was on the pole of who was and was not important on the Townsend plantation, so he did not tarry when she told him to do something. Once, not long after Henry had purchased her for his bride, Loretta had spent weeks thinking Moses might make a good man for her, a tolerable match, but one morning she had awakened to hear him out somewhere screaming at someone or something. A scream so loud all the morning birds quieted down. He went on screaming until Henry came out and told him to hush. That morning he screamed was so cold she hurt her hand cracking the water in the face basin. And as she put on her clothes, wishing for warmth, she knew that he would not do. Loretta turned from Moses and Priscilla now and stepped away from their door.
Heading back to the house, she met Elias, carrying a bucket of