Song of Slaves in the Desert - Alan Cheuse [176]
“Massa Jonathan?” Isaac called out.
“Yes?”
“Shoot the gun!”
“What do you say?”
“Shoot the gun in the air!”
Jonathan obliged, bringing off a loud report and watching, along with Isaac, as the carrion birds scattered into the air with a sound like wet canvas flapping in the wind.
Isaac then dismounted and kneeled beside the bodies.
“Langerhans!” he called out to Jonathan. “It is Langerhans!”
“And the other two?”
“Patrollers, like him. I don’t know their names…”
Jonathan watched him as he leaned closer, pulling apart the trio of tangled bodies. After a moment or two he stood up, holding one of the patrollers’ pistols in his hand.
Jonathan urged his horse a step or two closer.
“What happened here?” he said.
Isaac shook his head.
“I don’t know how she do it! Killed one or two, the other killed the other. Guess it happened in the dark, only this lamp here—” he kicked at the lamp lying nearby—“to see by.”
“How do you know Liza shot them?”
“Massa Nate, he wouldn’t shoot.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He’s a good man.”
“He would not do it to help Liza run?”
Isaac stared up at him, noticing that Jonathan had raised his gun.
“Naw, I don’t think so. Look, Massa Jonathan, he came back. Liza, she kept on going. Maybe she even kept her gun on him to keep him with her.”
Isaac was staring at the gun.
“You think she did that?”
“Could be. I dunno.”
The large birds flapped their wings, making a sound unlike anything Jonathan had ever heard before, a cross between a beating heart and wet laundry set out to dry in a strong wind.
Isaac saw that he was staring at them.
“Don’t be worried about those birds,” he said. “They won’t come down when we’re standing here.”
“Good, good,” Jonathan said.
“Now this little thing,” Isaac said, holding up the patrollers’ pistol, “it couldn’t keep—”
Jonathan aimed his weapon at Isaac and pulled the trigger. His horse gave a little dance as the blast knocked Isaac off his feet. The vultures started into the air and then settled back in the tree.
“You killed those patrollers,” Jonathan said, leaning over his horse. “Not Liza. She’s just a runaway.”
Isaac, lying on his back on top of the body of Langerhans, blinked and blinked, making small noises all the while blood bubbled up from his chest.
“Did you know that you are my brother?”
Isaac said something, but Jonathan could not make it out.
Jonathan shot him again.
In that instant his soul surged with rage upon his already murderous rage as out of the corner of his eye he saw the young black boy from New Jersey, apparently having tied me to the horse and slapped the animal into making his lazy way back to The Oaks on his own, tearing out across the fields in the direction of the swamp.
Chapter Eighty-three
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A Conflagration
Jonathan’s return to The Oaks was not a happy one, he explained to me. A number of slaves had seen him ride out with Isaac, but saw no Isaac with him on his return.
He has stayed behind with the bodies, he rehearsed to himself. But he did not have to explain. There was no one to explain anything to but himself.
Or perhaps to yours truly.
Which is what he began to do when he came through the door, the smoking remains of his father’s will in his hand, and the currents of smoke floating up the stairs behind him.
When he had finished he said, “Now I must go, and I suggest you do the same.”
I coughed on the wafting of the rising smoke and stood up tall again, still feeling rather faint.
“Goodbye, Cousin,” Jonathan said. “I am going to put this place in order and expect that I will write to you for your reply.”
“Y-yes,” I said, “yes,” trying to understand him correctly and make a plan even as I stumbled weakly to the door.
My last glimpse of cousin Jonathan came as I reached the ground floor and saw him through the rear windows running, weapon in hand, toward the burning barn.
Precious Sally came up behind me and touched my arm.
“A horse out front for you, Massa Nate,” she said.
I thanked