The Known World - Edward P. Jones [155]
Moses could feel that the world had changed even before he came to his feet the next morning. When he opened the door they were all waiting for him to lead them off to the fields. Celeste and Elias were not there, as Loretta had told Elias to stay with his wife and that Zeddie would bring them food. The slaves of the field were murmuring, like they did on any other day, but he knew it was all different and felt a dryness throughout his mouth.
He went up to the back door at about eight that evening and Loretta was there and told him their mistress was not up to hearing him that evening. “Tomorrow’ll do,” she said and raised the pistol so that it was inches from his face.
“I got plenty to say to her,” he said. “I got somethin to say.”
“It’ll wait. Where’s it goin?” she said and Bennett came up behind her. “It ain’t goin nowhere.”
He left and stood where he had the evening before, waiting for the life in the lane to quiet so he could go home. Being in the woods did not cross his mind. Being out there was good only when he could come back to something that was not pain every second. It had been more than a whole day since he had eaten, he realized, but he was not hungry. And this thought came to him at about the same time as Celeste was standing over her husband as he fluffed the straw in their pallet. Their children were now sleeping and the hearth was throwing out the last of the day’s light and heat. They, the entire family, had gone earlier for the first time to the new grave of the baby Lucinda, and they were all weighed down by the agony of the visit. When Elias was finished with the pallet, he reached up to his wife’s hand and put it to his cheek and then helped settle her on their bed. “I wonder,” she said for the first time ever, “I wonder if Moses done ate yet.”
He could hear them gathering out in the lane before the first rooster crowed. Someone knocked once at his door and called his name, but he did not answer. He was sitting with his back against the door, just as he had the first night. And, as with that night, he sat there not to bar anyone but because that was as far as he went once he entered the cabin. Someone called him again. A woman sang:
Come on outa there, Mr. Moses man
Come on out and lead us to the Promise Land
People laughed, even the children. “Mr. Overseer, is you here? Mr. Overseer, is you there?” The woman sang again. Moses thought, Could anyone plant a row of cotton with that song? “Leave him be,” a man said. He thought it might be Elias but the more he considered it, the more Moses realized it could be any of the men. Then he could hear them walk away to the fields, the first morning in a year that he had not been among them. Would they know that that bottomland had to be left alone for at least another five days? He had eaten a good pinch of the dirt two days ago and it just wasn’t ready yet; a good rain was what it really needed, and then you could go at it all you want. But not now, not today . . . “I’m countin on you to run this place,” Henry had told him after the plantation had four slaves and three more were due to arrive any day from the neighboring county. “You be the boss of this place. There’s my word, then my wife’s word, and then there’s your word.” “Yessir, Marse Henry.” His master had opened the big book one day to make some notation and pointed at some words in it, saying, “Thas you, Moses. That says, ‘Overseer Moses Townsend.’ ”
There was quiet. This, he thought, is what this place be soundin like when not a soul be around. He got up and peed into the fireless hearth. He sat again at the door. His cabin was dark except for the thick line of light at the bottom of the door, the line broken in the middle by his body. Priscilla had had a time keeping the wind from getting under that door. “It’s a wonder we don’t all freeze to death, Moses. Can’t you get me some more rags for that door?” Priscilla hadn’t been such