The Known World - Edward P. Jones [113]
The white man on the left sounded to Counsel like someone who had some sense, despite the foolishness that had come out of his mouth. “I just wanna be on my way.” Had he said that only an hour ago? A few days ago? Or was it the remnant of a conversation from a dream?
“We hold nobody back,” the Mexican woman said and followed the black man.
“Not on purpose anyway,” the white man behind her said.
Counsel started forward and people and their horses made way. He had underestimated the amount of people by half and as he moved on, he thought their numbers, with their horses and wagons, would never end. He turned around at one point and looked in the back of one wagon and saw two pregnant women, one white, one black, sitting up and staring at him. The black woman waved at him, but the white woman had a pout on her face; she had on a light green bonnet and one of the strings was in her mouth. He had seen a dark old man driving the wagon, not really a Negro, not really from any race that was recorded in any of the books in his destroyed library. As he looked between the pregnant women he saw a tiny blond-haired boy standing with his arms around the dark man’s neck, hanging on for support. The boy turned and looked at him. Counsel wondered if the authorities knew about all these people. There was something wrong here and the government of Texas should be doing something about it.
When he turned from the wagon with the pregnant women, a boy smiling with perfect teeth was facing him. He knew the origins of this one from another of the destroyed books—someone from the Orient. It might be China, if the book had been telling him the truth. The boy was no more than fifteen, and his long and thick pigtail lay over his left shoulder with the ease of a coveted pet. The boy was in his way and Counsel stopped. The boy, his hand out, shifted slightly to the right side and Counsel continued, and as he passed, the boy’s hand, never threatening, never harsh, paused at the ear of Counsel’s horse and moved down the horse’s neck, along Counsel’s saddle and thigh and on out past the horse’s rump, finally taking a gentle hold of the tail before letting horse and man go on. The boy had never stopped smiling, and the smile, more than the touch, was chilling to Counsel.
The people of one color or another and their horses flowed on past him, the ground thundering and the dappled sun coming down on them all. In the end, it did not seem that he and his horse were moving but were simply being carried forward by some counterforce the horses and wagons and people were creating as they went past him. He was in a river of them and he had no say in it. He closed his eyes.
“Better open your eyes or you’ll fall off Texas.” Counsel opened his eyes and saw a red-haired white woman looking at him. Beyond her he could see what he thought was the end of it all.
“I remember when you did that and fell off into Mississippi from Alabama.” A blond-haired man appeared beside her. The hair seemed similar to that of the boy holding the nigger in the wagon, and Counsel, trying to make some sense of everything, thought the man might be father to that boy. The man and the woman were on black horses, though the woman’s horse seemed to be turning blue as seconds went by.
“I did not,” the woman said and gave a kick to the man’s leg. “That was Jenny and her one eye.” They were now in Counsel’s way and he stopped again.
“You going farther into Texas?” the man asked Counsel.
“I have that plan.” He felt that everything behind him, horses and people and wagons, had now stopped as if what he and the white woman and man were saying was more important than wherever they were going.
“Hmm,” the woman said, “I’ve seen the rest of Texas and now I’ve seen you, and I don’t think the