Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [236]
Her face was twisted, tear-streaked. “Sheriff an’ massa talkin’ to Kizzy!” she squealed.
The words numbed him. For a moment he just stared disbelievingly at her, but then violently seizing and shaking her, he demanded, “What he want?”
Her voice rising, choking, breaking, she managed to tell him that the sheriff was scarcely in the house before the massa had yelled for Kizzy to come from tidying his room upstairs. “When I heared him holler at her from de kitchen, I flew to git in de drawin’ room hallway where I always listens from, but I couldn’t make out nothin’ clear ’cept he was mighty mad—” Bell gasped and swallowed. “Den heared massa ringin’ my bell, an’ I run back to look like I was comin’ from de cookhouse. But massa was a-waitin’ in de do’way, wid his han’ holdin’ de knob behin’ him. Ain’t never seed ’im look like he did at me. He tol’ me col’ as ice to git out’n de house an’ stay out ’til I’m sent for!” Bell moved to the small window, staring at the big house, unable to believe that what she had just said had really happened. “Lawd Gawd, what in de worl’ sheriff want wid my chile?” she asked incredulously.
Kunta’s mind was clawing desperately for something to do. Could he rush out to the fields, at lease to alert those who were chopping there? But his instincts said that anything could happen with him gone.
As Bell went through the curtains, into their bedroom, beseeching Jesus at the top of her lungs, he could barely restrain himself from raging in and yelling that she must see now what he had been trying to tell her for nearly forty rains about being so gullible, deluded, and deceived about the goodness of the massa—or any other toubob.
“Gwine back in dere!” cried Bell suddenly. She came charging through the curtain and out the door.
Kunta watched as she disappeared inside the kitchen. What was she going to do? He ran out after her and peered in through the screen door. The kitchen was empty and the inside door was swinging shut. He went inside, silencing the screen door as it closed, and tiptoed across the kitchen. Standing there with one hand on the door, the other clenched, he strained his ears for the slightest sound—but all he could hear was his own labored breathing.
Then he heard: “Massa?” Bell had called softly. There was no answer.
“Massa?” she called again, louder, sharply.
He heard the drawing room dooor open.
“Where my Kizzy, Massa?”
“She’s in my safekeeping,” he said stonily. “We’re not having another one running off.”
“I jes’ don’t understan’ you, Massa.” Bell spoke so softly that Kunta could hardly hear her. “De chile ain’t been out’n yo’ yard, hardly.”
The massa started to say something, then stopped. “It’s possible you really don’t know what she’s done,” he said. “The boy Noah has been captured, but not before severely knifing the two road patrolmen who challenged a false traveling pass he was carrying. After being subdued by force, he finally confessed that the pass had been written not by me but by your daughter. She has admitted it to the sheriff.”
There was silence for a long, agonizing moment, then Kunta heard a scream and running footsteps. As he whipped open the door, Bell came bolting past him—shoving him aside with the force of a man—and out the back door. The hall was empty, the drawing room door shut. He ran out after her, catching up with her at the cabin door.
“Massa gon’ sell Kizzy, I knows it!” Bell started screaming, and inside him something snapped. “Gwine git ’er!” he choked out, cripping back toward the big house and into the kitchen as fast as he could go, with Bell not far behind. Wild with fury, he snatched open the inside door and went changing down the unspeakably forbidden hallway.
The massa and the sheriff spun with disbelieving faces as the drawing room door came jerking open. Kunta halted there abruptly, his eyes burning with murder. Bell screamed from behind him, “Where our baby at? We come to git ’er!”
Kunta saw the sheriff’s right hand sliding toward his holstered gun as the