If Serpents Envious
     a Joseph Fisher Colonial America Mystery
                 by Clayton Emery

Seagulls flapped and pecked around an iron cage
hanging from a post. The gray-white birds were
frustrated by something black that fouled their
beaks. Joseph Fisher stopped and the birds flapped
away. The cage was a gibbet. Propped inside was a
dead man, neck elongated by hanging, body coated
with tar. Joseph reached with a bony finger, touched
a black foot. Tar pulled loose in a string.
"Hurl'd headlong... to bottomless perdition, there to
dwell in adamantine chains and penal fire, who durst
defy th' Omnipotent to arms,'" murmured the
student. Wiping his finger, he trudged into Newport.
What the Narragansett Indians had called
Aquidneck, "Isle of Peace".
The road was dusty and deeply rutted, almost
impassible even dry, and wandered between stone
walls and pastures and maple trees that nodded
great green heads uneasily. Seeking food and
escape from the blistering sun, Joseph aimed for the
first store.
On a narrow porch of warped unpainted boards
blackened by salt hunched an Indian, face slack and
cracked from drinking, in a filthy shirt with
breechclout and leggins. At the feel of footsteps he
extended a shaking hand, begging for anything but
mostly rum. The stuporous Indian blinked when the
young white man addressed him in Algonquin tangy
as pine sap. "Seek you the woods, brother, and
drink the water that flows from the headlands."
The shop had two ends. The front, anchored to the
road, bore farm implements -- singletrees, harness,
grain buckets, feedbags, horse liniments. The rear
hung over the harbor on pilings with a dock below,
contained chandler's supplies: boathooks, cordage,
buckets of tar and oakum, fishhooks, oars. The
store was hot, any loafers dispersed. The lonely
proprietor in a cocked hat and flour-dusty apron of
green baize braided something from rope and
codline. From a back pantry came the squawling of
a baby.
The storekeeper ran his eye over Joseph, peered
into his pockets. The student was not tall and thin,
shabby in a brown waistcoat and breeches with
small pewter buttons, tattered hose and broken
shoes. A blanket roll and and chunky satchel marked
him as a traveller, yet he wore no hat and let his
long brown hair fall free. His complexion was
fish-belly white with deep-sunk burning eyes. A man
not long for the world, who sought day-old bread
and green cheese that wept in the heat.
With pennies in the till, the shopkeeper talked as he
knotted. Where was Joseph from, where bound,
what the news? Boston, just travelling, new blue
laws heaped on sinful heads by the Massachusetts
Legislature. Out loud, the Scottish Presbyterian
thanked God he lived in godless Rhode Island.
Joseph munched bread and sipped cider. The baby
screamed on and on, and he wondered idly where
its mother had gone. Instead he asked what the
storekeeper braided.
"Nigger whip." Codline wrapped a rope handle that
split into seven thick strands ending in overhand
knots. The owner slapped the scarred counter like
pistol shots. "Had three in stock and sold 'em this
morning. The old sailor who made 'em took to
selling 'em on the street, damn his eyes, so I must
fashion my own. But t'ain't hard. Not fancy like a
horse whip: you shouldn't never hit a horse. Just
stiff enough to smart but not break the skin. Say,
you wouldn't care to buy a baby?"
"A baby?" Joseph choked on crumbs, racking and
hacking, so badly the shopkeeper splashed rum into
his cider from a jug under the counter.
"No charge. Here, I'll show you."
The shopkeeper fetched the shrilling infant, toting it
by the ankles. He spread a bloodstained butcher's
sheet and laid out the child like a smoked ham.
Naked and dusky, the boy had black hair flat and
straight above a purple face. It clenched its fists and
screamed.
"He's mostly nigger. Got some Indian in him, but
that'll help him tolerate the winters. Good lungs,
good grip, good size. Stick it on a wetnurse and in
three, four years, it could help around the house
and dooryard. Raise it right, don't spare the rod,
and it'll suit better than any scrawny bound boy off
the ship from London."
Numbly Joseph regarded the screaming infant. It
kicked and thrashed, too young to even roll off the
counter. "Where is its mother?"
The shopkeeper prevaricated, finally sighed. "In jail.
She's to be burned at the stake tomorrow. That's
her mate ripening out there." He nodded towards
the distant gibbet. "That's why I'm stuck with this
brat. Their goods was forfeit, and the mistress bade
me take them all, including this'n. No one wants it,
reckon it's bad luck. But I don't hold with that."
Joseph nodded absently. Only Negroes were burned
at the stake, and he could guess the couple's crime.
"They killed their master?"
"Aye. You must'a heard. They fed him a snake in his
sleep. A timber rattler. Bit his insides and poisoned
him. He screamed from dawn till dusk. But it's an ill
wind. Lots of folks've never seen a burning, so
they'll flock in from all over the colony. And
everyone's beating their niggers for fear of an
uprising, so I'm clean out of whips."
He had to speak over the baby's squawling. He tried
slapping the child's face lightly, then harder to stun
it, but the infant only howled louder. Finally he
pulled the jug from under the counter, soaked a bar
rag to squeeze rum into the baby's mouth. "Some
Mother's Mercy might --"
His hand was arrested by Joseph's, slim and cold
but surprisingly strong. "I'll buy the child."
"Well, now, that's mighty fine." A broad smile. "I'd
say it's worth --"
"Two shillings."
"Oh no, I don't think so. A bonny bairn like this --"
"Two and six, and a swaddling cloth."
The shopkeeper shrugged in largesse and fetched a
rag crusted with pine pitch and shavings. "You won't
be sorry. Raise 'em right and they're loyal as
puppies. I'm glad you took him. I'd'a strangled it for
the dogs or pitched it off the wharf for the crabs."
The shopkeeper wrapped the baby neatly and
handed it to Joseph. "There, enjoy it. You're a good
Christian, son."
"`Christ, conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the
Virgin Mary: suffered under Pontius Pilate, was
crucified, dead, and buried.'" But Joseph quoted in
Aramaic, and the shopkeeper only looked puzzled.
Shouldering his blanket roll and book satchel,
hugging the screaming baby to his chest, the
student stepped into the hammer of summer sun.
The wasted Indian by the door stuck out his palsied
hand. Angry with the world, Joseph snapped, "Fly to
the wilderness, far from this Gehenna, where
backsliders sacrifice children to Moloch and Baal!"
Aware only that he got nothing, the Indian slouched
against the wall. Joseph stalked into Newport. The
child's crying brought seagulls keening overhead as
if in sympathy, but in fact seeking a meal at the
source of distress.
                   &&&&&-----&&&&&
At the first stream that cut the road, Joseph
squatted and dipped his finger. Immediately the
child stopped bawling to suck. Spooning more,
Joseph traced a cross on the child's forehead. "I
never completed my studies, child, and am more
French than English regarding baptism, but I reckon
you need succor, spiritual and corporeal."
Thirst slaked, the child's hunger set it crying loud as
before. The student tucked the baby close and
steered down the widest street. Newport jammed a
narrow spit jutting into Narragansett Bay, which
itself was hemmed by bluffs of purple- and red-gray
granite before reaching the ocean in the south.
Some hundred white gambrels with barns made up
the town. Warehouses encroached on the water,
and half a hundred wharves pointed to a forest of
masts in the harbor: sailing ships returned from
Europe and the Caribbean and Africa, fishing smacks
no bigger than a wagon. Heat made people veer for
shade. Joseph hailed a black girl in a head scarf and
patched apron who carried a basket of blue crabs.
She told of a Negro wetnurse named Maroca who
lived along Butcher's Brook.
Blanket and satchel chafed his sweaty shoulders and
the baby cried in his ear as he trailed the Sakonnet
River. He found a rocky defile split by the brook,
then a shack made from tarred and barnacled
lumber salvaged from shipwrecks. A large black
woman washed clothes in the stream while a brood
of dark children worked in the shade or splashed in
the brook.
The infant's crying made the woman abandon her
washing. Her face stayed blank as a slate, but her
yellow eyes quickened as she took the baby and
tugged open her bodice. Joseph glimpsed a pink Y
branded on her right breast as she cradled the child
to nurse.
"You know this child?" asked Joseph.
"Yea, mon. He be the boy-child of Cuffy and Hazel,
and an orphan both ways soon." Her voice dripped
with molasses from the Sugar Islands. She wore a
claret-colored skirt and bodice like any English
woman, but a yellow turban covered her head above
big gold hoop earrings. "How'd'joo get him?"
"I bought him for two shillings sixpence."
"Bought him? You be a bad bargainer, white man.
Black babies dey give away like puppies. Storeman
should'a paid you to take him." Irony rang bitter.
"Poor unfortunate, but not as unfortunate as his
parents be."
"These parents who murdered their master by
making him swallow a snake?"
"Yea, mon." The large woman swung towards her
shack, the baby gurgling at her breast. "They
'ministered a snake to Marsa' Pearson, or snake
poison. Caught red-handed. 'Course, she had good
reason, de way she was used so ill. But she'll return
to Ah-frica soon, lay her burden down."
Joseph trailed her across the river-rounded rocks of
the defile. "When she dies, you mean."
"Yea, mon. Cuffy, don't know where he'll end up,
but it be to glory somewhere. He was a gen'le man
and no two ways 'bout it. 'Course, no one knows de
human heart. I can't keeps dis child, you knows."
"Eh?" Shuffling ideas in his head, Joseph found
himself surrounded by children with brown-white
features and kinky red-brown hair. "No, I expect
you can't."
The shack had no windows. Summer glare through
the doorway showed a room fitted like a ship's
forecastle with bunks along the walls and a table
that hinged down. The floor was dirt strewn with
cattails. Nursing with one arm, Maroca shooed
children hither and thither to wash their hands,
sweep the table, lay out wooden bowls and spoons.
"I'se a freewoman. My husband's white. He sails on
de slavers. He fancied me and bought me. My
chillun was born free, and we'll stay that way, long's
as we stay close to home where ever'body knows
us. We journeys elsewhere, we likely collect a chain
on our laig." Introduced, she fixed Joseph with
bulging yellow eyes.
"Um, I am called Joseph Fisher. I was captured
young in the late warÝ, raised by Penobscots,
trained by Jesuits in Quebec. Peace returned me to
the English sphere, and they sent to Harvard to be a
missionary to Indians. Lately I... wander."
-------------------------
Ý The first French & Indian war, King William's War
of 1689 - 1697.
-------------------------
"I'm not surprised," Maroca snorted. "You been
blown 'bout so much, you almost a black white man.
'Stead's you red and white. You ever think dem
Penobscots what raised you might'a killed your
folks?"
A boy fished in Joseph's pockets, caught a rap on
the skull from his mother. "I have meditated upon
that. But I was young and they were kind. They
called me Monminowis, Silver Cat."
"I call you to supper. You care for one of ours, you
share our food." Maroca nodded to the table. The
children hopped to their places, packed as herring,
hands clasped, eager to see Grace done. "And since
you comes from Hahvard, you say de blessing."
There was only fishhead chowder, pickled sorrel,
and ship's biscuit. As the children devoured their
portions, Joseph settled for a biscuit and spring
water. Maroca nursed the child, which wouldn't get
a proper name until its first birthday: it was just "the
baby". Supper was quiet, the children shy before a
stranger. Joseph absently gazed about the room. A
fat-bellied grotesque on a shelf was adorned with
chicken feathers: a voodoo fetish.
Abruptly Joseph said, "Do you believe a man could
be forced to swallow a snake?"
Maroca's thoughts and emotions were sealed like
brandy in a dark brown bottle, but she shrugged.
"De man died. He was all swoll up, dey said, like
when you gets bit. And he screamed 'bout snakes,
and tried to claw his own belly open till they had to
tie his han's. Dere's timber rattlers here'bouts. Men'll
dig a cellar, come back de next day, de hole
swarmin' wid 'em, have to kill dem with shovels. You
should have a snake charm you'self. Hang four
buttons around your neck, ward off de
consumptionÝ."
----------------------
Ý Tuberculosis.
----------------------
Joseph nodded, half-hearing. "Did anyone actually
see the snake? Did anyone think to -- open him?"
Even Maroca, who'd seen everything, blinked at the
idea of dissection. But she nodded. "Dere was a
snake. De mistress seen Cuffy wid it in his own
han'." Sweat ran off her round face in the evening
heat, the droplets splashing the baby's flat black
hair.
"`Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen,'" Joseph murmured.
"Do you know aught of the murdered man?"
Another shrug of round black shoulders. "Marsa'
Pearson was a merchant-man. Dey's the richest in
Newpoht. Owns a fine house and warehouse and
ships and docks and six slaves -- four now. His
ships travel all over de world, dey say. Includin'
Gambia." In the six years since the British
Parliament had legalized the slave trade, Newport
had boomed. Gambia on the Ivory Coast was its
chief port of call.
"So a man who lived by slavery died by it, eh?"
"Mebbe so. But Cuffy, he was a gen'le man, good in
the heart. He plied cures on all de colored folk
here'bouts. Learned dem from his mother. But I
don't wants to be talkin' about de dead. Nor 'bout
Hazel, neither, poh thing. And poh thing you." She
bobbed the near-orphan at her breast.
"Hazel..." Joseph pictured a slave woman alone in a
oven-hot cell, fearing the flames that would lick her
thighs the next day. "Has a minister attended her?"
"No minister for colored folk. We stand at the back
of the church, behind a curtain, is all."
Suddenly animated, Joseph reached for his clumsy
satchel, extracted a King James Bible, its black
leather cover worn white. "'There is no salvation
outside the church.' Will someone show me the jail,
please?"
Maroca ducked her head to peer out the door.
"Evenin' comin' on."
Slaves were not allowed out after dark, Joseph
knew. But "I thought you were freemen."
"Freedom's for white folk, and not all of dem."
"I'll show you. I can help." The eldest, a womanly
girl, Quamino spoke with only a trace of brown
sugar. Her mother opened her mouth to object,
then sighed and nodded.
Toting his heavy bible, Joseph stroked the baby's
head for luck. Black girl and white man passed into
the gathering gloom.
                  &&&&&-----&&&&&
At the last corner, Quamino hung back in the
shadows, so Joseph went on alone. Newport's jail
was near the waterfront, handy for rowdy sailors or
captive pirates. The old wooden building tilted
alarmingly over the street. A torch-lit crowd watched
the oak-barred windows of the second floor for a
glimpse of the murderess. All were white, many
drunk, faces sweat-shiny under tricorn hats and
mob caps. "We'll burn your hide blacker tomorrow,
witch!" "Fat's gonna be in the fire!" "Stuff an apple in
your mouth before the pigroast!"
Daining the crowd, Bible in hand, Joseph glided
nose-high towards the jail like a Harvard don. Not
recognizing him, the crowd nudged one another.
Ducking inside the cockeyed doorway, the student
almost collided with a jailkeeper and two lackeys
who crowded a small stifling hall. The keeper of the
keys perched on a three-legged stool with a noggin
of ale. Obviously they guarded against the villainess
being seized and lynched before her appointed time
-- and a proper crowd.
The jailkeeper barked blearily. "What the hell are
you about? Get out!"
The two lackeys unfolded arms and iron-tipped
batons, but Joseph stood firm with the Bible in his
hands. "I would see the slave woman Hazel. Despite
her heinous crime, she has yet a chance to enter
into a personal covenant with God, to grasp at the
keys to the kingdom of Heaven. To save her soul."
The lackeys looked to their boss, who stared at
Joseph. "Uh... She ain't allowed any visitors.
Besides, nigger ain't got no souls. They're animals,
like."
Pompously, Joseph snapped open the Bible where
his finger marked. "You would block God's work?
You would contradict the Bible, breathed by God,
therefore infallible and stamped with God's own
authority? Consider the parable of the sheep and the
goats. `I was in prison, and ye came unto me. And
the King shall answer, inasmuch as ye have done it
unto the least of my brethren, ye have done it unto
me.' Else, 'Depart from me, ye cursed, into
everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his
angels. Everlasting punishment!'"
Threats of doom made the tipsy jailkeeper squirm.
"All right. T'ain't no harm, I suppose. Take him up,
John, but watch him. Don't let 'im slip her a knife to
end it early." Joseph fought down a grin as he
marched up the lopsided stairs.
The second floor had four cells with stout oak doors
broken by thick slats. In the last cell huddled a black
figure wrapped in a bodice and gown so faded they
had no color at all. African-black, the woman's skin
glistened like an oiled whetstone in the heat, yet she
shivered uncontrollably as she rocked on her knees.
Bloodshot eyes, stark white in her black face, stared
at the corner.
Joseph leaned on the oaken bars. "Hazel. Child." He
called her name repeatedly without result. "Hazel,
please listen. Your baby is safe. He's with Maroca.
She'll care for him."
The white eyes flickered, and Joseph pressed.
"Hazel, for the sake of your child, can you tell me
why -- your husband -- had the snake? What did he
intend with it? He was a gentle man, we know, and
wouldn't kill Master Pearson. But what was the
snake for?"
Hazel whispered, a shuddery hiss like a teakettle
come to a boil. "Cuffy, he -- he had a dream. 'Bout a
snake. A snake read his -- heart. Snake tole him,
someone'd kill him. Did kill him..." Choking on sobs,
she curled into a black ball of misery.
"Dreamt of a snake?" Joseph was electrified. He
called, "Bear up, Hazel. God is many things, but
above all, love, patience, and mercy."
He barely heard the turnkey's order to leave, or the
crowd's questions. He walked into the hot night in a
daze, muttering, "... The baby has straight hair.
Straight hair."
Quamino hissed and he slipped into an alley beside
her. "Why didn't you tell me Cuffy had Indian
blood?" In his excitement, he named the dead man.
He felt the girl shrug. "He didn't look it, hardly. His
mama was a red woman."
"It shows in his child. One-quarter Indian, it has
lank hair, not kinked like an African's. I couldn't see
the dead man's features for the tar, yet the
storekeeper mentioned it... Can you show me
Master Pearson's house, please?"
The girl squeaked. "That's a hoodoo place! Mama
said Mars'er Pearson's death'll fetch all his slaves
with him. Like the cannibal kings in Dahomey what
files their teeth and takes a thousand slaves to their
graves. What d'you want there?"
"I want to rifle a king's midden."
                 &&&&&-----&&&&&
It felt strange to Joseph, a child of two cultures, to
see through the eyes of a third, the African slaves of
New England who remained unseen until
summoned. For instead of walking the thoroughfare,
Quamino led a torturous path through dooryards
and gardens that reeked of garbage and privies and
apple trees that gave off a winey perfume in the
summer night. The third time Joseph tripped over a
sleeping pig, he opined, "I dislike this. Pigs have a
passion for snakes." Quamino said nothing, though
her white eyes were large and luminous.
Threading apple trees and gardens and outbuildings,
she approached the back of a tall square mansion,
pressed her ear to a window, rapped an erratic
tattoo.
A bar slid aside, and a young black in a shirt and
bony knees stuck his head out. He'd obviously been
sleeping on a pallet in the corner. "Quammy!
What'choo doing here? You wanna -- eh?" He froze
upon spotting Joseph's wan face, skeletal in the
summer night.
"Hush up, Prosper! This here Indian gots a order for
you! So you do it or he'll tomahawk that wooly poll
a'yours and hang it for the crows to peck! Fetch the
spade you uses to turn the midden! Gittup!"
Agitated, Prosper blundered down the stairs,
remembered he wore only a shirt, stumbled back
and grabbed his shabby breeches and ancient
shoes, fumbled into the barn where horses nickered.
Fetching a punched-tin lantern and a spade, he
threaded a small orchard. Silky leaves rustled at
either hand.
Prosper moaned, "I din't wish you'd make me work
the night long too, Quammy. I works enough durin'
the day. At night, I'd a thought you'd come for
somethin' else."
"Day I needs what you gimme is the day I die,"
snapped the girl. "Hush up."
The back of the property was screened by a
woven-wicker fence. Prosper stopped at a baulk of
half-rotten timber and thumped his shovel on it.
Quamino slapped his shoulder for silence. The girl
struck the candle alight, then lifted her skirt and set
the lantern between her ankles to obscure the glow.
The silhouette of her legs and hips distracted the
men, but Joseph tipped up the flat cover of wood. A
sour reek fermented by summer sun gushed up in a
wave.
Gasping, Joseph asked, "Why this baulk?"
"Mistress don't like pigs in the garbage, not hers nor
nobody else's. Say if she's eat pork, she'll know
what the pig's et first. Our pigs stays in the crib. Eat
better'n me, most days."
"Serves you right for wasting your substance with
riotous living, and devouring thy living with harlots,"
quipped Joseph. Prosper just stared at the
cadaverous white man who came in the dark to pick
at rubbish. "Tell me. Have you seen a dead snake in
the past days?"
"T'was a snake killed Master Pearson," whispered
the boy.
"If so, and I doubt it, that snake was interred with
Master Pearson." Since ashes went into a hopper for
potash, vegetable and table scraps to the pigs, and
bones to the dogs, the trash was mostly dried stalks
and fish bones and lobster shells. And fragments of
glass, expensively cut. "What is this crystal?"
"Master Pearson took sick at the table. He fell out of
his chair, kicking and yelling and clawing his belly.
He pulled down the tablecloth and broke some
goblets. I would'a got whupped for it, 'cause I sets
the table, but Mistress Pearson was so upset I din't.
I's always getting whupped for no reason a'tall."
"You hush up or I'll flatten your thick head with that
spade," spat Quamino. "I never saw such a whiney
--"
"Eureka!" Joseph's hand stabbed down, plucked up
a snake. Scarcely a foot long, dark green with long
yellow stripes, lacking a head, it resembled a thick
bracelet. "Cuffy discarded this, didn't he?"
Prosper shook. "I dunno, I dunno. He catched it in
the garden, under the hubbard squash --"
"After your master took sick, no?" Excited, Joseph's
French intruded. "He plied this snake on Master
Pearson --"
"No sir! Beg pardon, but he plied it to hisself! T'was
t'other snake he voodooed on Mas'er Pearson!"
"What? What other snake?" Joseph's deepsunk eyes
glittered like a skull on a spike. "No, there couldn't
be another snake."
"There was! I seen it! Cuffy took sick, and he
catched that snake and drank the blood!"
Now everyone was confused. Joseph persisted, "No,
he gave the blood to Master Pearson!"
"No, he drunk it himself! He was crazy! I stayed
clear'a him!"
"Oh!" Quamino blinked. "He's right! Cuffy came to
see my mama! He had the stomach cramps, and
she dosed him with hellebore. He puked the night
long, kep' all the chillun awake!"
"Cuffy took sick? When was this?"
Quamino didn't hesitate. Reared in oral tradition,
Africans had phenomenal memories. "Monday last,
day after meetin'."
Joseph rolled the flaccid snake in his fingers as if
hunting a hidden message. "But this is fresh, a day
or two. So there must be two snakes... Hazel could
attest, but... Oh, Lord, I see! Cuffy was seen
bleeding a snake, and someone assumed he
poisoned the master with the snake!"
"Tha's what happened, master, 'xactly!" breathed
Prosper. "Mistress seen the snake in Cuffy's hand
and screamed to wake the dead! She were
screaming, crying Cuffy had to get out, then she
flung herself out the door with the chillun afore her!
Us niggers was huddling close, trying not to get
whipped! Sheriff's men came and they beat Cuffy so
bad he couldn't stand, and when he tried to talk
they smashed his mouth with clubs! And Hazel they
kicked in the stummick, and tooken her babe away
and her shriekin' --" The boy stopped, his voice
shuddery.
"Fie on people with short sight!" rasped Joseph.
"But if Cuffy... How?.."
Unknowingly, Joseph stroked his chin with the dead
garter snake. He hunkered, silent, so long that
Quamino gave an experimental push to his shoulder.
Roused, he shielded his eyes from the lantern light
and looked east. "Dawn not two hours off, and
Hazel to be burned at noon." Coiling the dead snake
in his coat pocket, he took the lantern.
Prosper tipped the baulk over the midden. "Please
don't tell no one I was out here, sir. The mistress
she'd have the bulls take off my hide a strip at a
time --"
Quamino chopped the air, imitating a tomahawk.
Prosper peeked at Joseph's back and felt his head.
"Scalped, whipped, an' all. Be lucky if'n I don't go to
the stake 'longside poor Hazel too."
                 &&&&&-----&&&&&
Trinity Church perched on a hill that it might
overlook Newport. Behind it stood the parsonage, a
solid, fresh-painted, proud building connoting the
congregation had money to spend. Joseph found the
church empty, the front door of the parsonage
unresponsive, the kitchen open to the morning heat.
In the back yard a black woman plied a
long-handled paddle to turn baking bread in a
beehive oven. Joseph waited patiently by the picket
fence. There was no seawind this morning, and heat
lay like a wool blanket higher than his head. Still,
rather than clog his lungs with consumption, as was
thought hereabouts, the warm salt air seemed to
bake his lungs and clear the phlegm, as water is
baked from a clay jug by a kiln. Yet Joseph had been
up all night, pacing and thinking, and felt tired both
inside and out.
His reverie was interrupted by a brusque, "What do
you want?"
The slave flung the picket gate open as if to bat
Joseph away. Her dark eyes ranged over his shabby
clothes and shoes, marked him for a mechanic or
beggar, and a diseased one at that.
But Joseph introduced himself as a divinity student
to see the parson. "Please. Maroca thought I should
pay him a visit."
"You know Maroca?" No trace of African or
Caribbean accent here: a blind man would think her
an English housewife born in Sussex.
"Yes. I'm a guest in her house."
That raised an eyebrow. "How's her son faring?"
"You mean Zingo, with the cast in one eye? He's
been croupey all week, but dosings of sweet-fern
tea have tamed it."
"That's good." Warming, the woman started over.
"Reverend and Mistress Treat attend a gentleman
who only takes callers in the morning." From four to
eight. "They'll return soon. You're welcome to await
them. I can feed you."
"That's most gracious of you." Ten minutes later
Joseph was seated at the kitchen table, and heaped
before him was ham, hasty pudding with maple
syrup, pickled cabbage, baked beans, cranberry
tarts. Identified as an upright member of the lowest
class, the slave gossiped as if they were old friends.
Her name was Jin, "like an old she-mule". Inevitably
she came to the morbid death of Master Francis
Pearson from swallowing a snake. Although her talk
circled around blame, Joseph understood Master
Pearson had been a cruel and callous man, and it
was high time someone murdered him. But to see
poor Cuffy, the kindest colored man in Newport,
hanging as crowbait, and to think of "poor suffering
Hazel" going into flames at midday was a shame.
Even as she talked, the woman packed a basket: a
picnic for a burning.
Time slipping away made Joseph fidgety. He
interjected, "I've heard it said time and again that
poor Hazel was misused, but --"
A voice carolled from the front of the house. Wiping
his mouth, Jin hustled Joseph through a closed door
into a house smelling of book leather and ink. It
gave him a flutter of nostalgia, and a wish to be
somewhere else, if only he knew where.
The parson was a dark-browed thick-haired man not
much older than Joseph, his wife a plain thing in a
gown and bodice of burgundy and a sunbonnet with
a matching ribbon: clothes considered scandalous in
Boston were demure in free-and-easy Newport.
Both frowned at the shabby guest.
"A divinity student, eh? Belike." The young parson
still aped the pedantic speech of his teachers. In
Latin he quoted, "`Of making many books there is
no end: much study is a weariness of the flesh.'"
Joseph completed the passage in the same
language. "`Let us hear the conclusion of the whole
matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for
this is the whole duty of man.'"
The young man's face lit up, banishing his feigned
dotage as if throwing off a heavy cloak. Plunking his
fellow scholar in his study, Reverend Treat called for
wine and water. As Jin delivered and left, the
reverend said, "I don't hold with slavery, myself,
but, uh, Jin came with the house." Out in the hall,
the slave woman snorted.
The reverend poured Joseph madeira, red wine from
Portugal, then offered well water after local custom.
Joseph took more water than wine: he needed a
clear head. Coming out of heat and a dusty road,
the minister gulped his portion and poured more.
"So, Joseph, what brings you to `Rogue's Island'?
Have you lost your faith? Reverend Doctor Mather
tells us, 'If a man were to lose his religion, he'd be
sure to find it in Newport.'" He chuckled.
Joseph did not. Time flew. "Reverend, I've come
about this burning."
The man's enthusiasm slipped. "Ah, yes, a dolorous
business. I'm opposed to burning, myself. An
invention of Catholics and Episcopalians. Hanging is
quicker and less messy. But the gentry are set on a
gruesome punishment to deter other slaves from
considering assassination. There's no way I can
intervene. It wouldn't be, uh, prudent." Not for an
upstart paid by the congregation.
"But suppose she's innocent, and Cuffy were too?
You could intercede then, surely."
"Well, uh, surely there's no way to prove her
innocence. Cuffy was found, uh, administering a
snake to the, uh, deceased."
To the reverend's amazement, Joseph pulled a
headless snake from his pocket. "I found this. A
garter snake, entirely harmless. They don't even
have teeth, but crunch crickets and spiders. Cuffy
was half-Indian, I've learned. Half Wampanoag. He
spoke the words of Passaconaway, an Indian
powahee, a prophet of the last century, who made
snow burn and trees dance. Passaconaway said that
a snake can read your heart, and see the future, and
know if an enemy conspires to kill you."
"God cursed the snake," interrupted the parson.
"Genesis 3:14."
"Nonetheless, Indians revere snakes. Mohawks
consider At-o-sis the mother of their race. Snake
blood is a nostrum for women in childbirth: even a
spoonful will deliver a healthy baby in a trice. Cuffy
learned the cure from his mother, and tried to
administer the potion to Master Pearson. He'd tried
to cure himself of a stomach ailment just the week
before. But the woman of the house saw the snake
and concluded Pearson died of snake poisoning, or
ingesting a snake even."
"He died in agony, screaming. The venom --"
Joseph shook his head, made his brown hair ripple.
"Only pit vipers have venom, only timber rattlers
around here. Garter snakes have none."
"Then what killed him?"
"Some other poison, I suspect. I don't know which.
There are so many."
"An Indian root? One Cuffy might know?"
Joseph shrugged like a Frenchmen. "There are roots
will sicken a man, but few that kill. Snakeroot from
the Carolinas is so potent that should a cow even
eat it, children can die drinking her milk. But Master
Pearson might have had a crabÝ in his stomach, too.
Whatever the cause, a physician should have found
it. And given that Cuffy tried to cure his master, we
must err with mercy."
-------------------------
Ý Cancer.
-------------------------
"Negroes are notorious poisoners," Treat insisted.
"Everyone here in Newport is careful. They make the
slaves eat from the pot first. Masters hold the cellar
keys and open their own bottles."
For answer, Joseph held up his goblet. Treat
reached to pour more wine, then got the message.
"Oh. Yes, I see... But Jin has served this parsonage
since she was a girl, and..." He set down his goblet
carefully. "I suppose we better talk to the sheriff. He
oversees the execution, but the Pearsons pay the
piper, so they call the tune. Yes, I suppose we best
see the Pearsons." He sighed at the prospect of
disrupting his parishioners -- and employers.
                  &&&&&----&&&&&
The Pearson family, friends, and parlor were draped
in black for mourning. Joseph thought they looked
more like Quakers than the normally-gay citizens of
sinful Newport, yet an incongruous festive air
permeated the crowd, for outside Negroes waited
with carriages to ferry them to the field where Hazel
would be burned.
Reverend Treat was welcomed quietly, shaking
hands all around. People peered at motheaten
Joseph, "a travelling divinity student." The white
Indian glimpsed a black face at the kitchen door:
Prosper, wide-eyed and appalled that someone who
associated with servants should be received
cordially in the parlor.
Joseph accepted more madeira with water while the
Pearsons took theirs straight from deep goblets.
Mistress Pearson -- so far not "Widow" -- bore finery
and a plumpness that bespoke a rich merchant's
wife. Pearson brothers George and Chad matched a
black-draped portrait of the late Francis: a curly
head, lips like a mink trap. John Williams was
Pearson's business partner. Despite open windows
and high ceilings, the room was roasting.
The Reverend Treat, having again donned his eldery
persona, made consoling noises. "Gone to God... In
the bosom of the Lord..." Joseph fidgeted. In an
hour Hazel would be tied to a stake and committed
to flames while all of Newport bore witness. The
student had come to beg a stay of execution, but
was unsure how to begin -- especially since he'd
need to accuse someone else of murder.
Wine-sodden talk buzzed angrily. All present were
slave owners. "Burning's the best thing we can do!
Put the fear of God into 'em!" "We've been too
sparin' of the whip hand and now Francis's paid for
it!" "Too familiar, that's what they're getting!"
"But what if Hazel's not guilty?"
Joseph's mild outburst stunned the room. Wine
sloshed in goblets as all eyes turned. Reverend
Treat sidled away as if from contagion.
"Why," blistered Mistress Pearson, "would you think
her innocent? She's a slut! A filthy lying trollop who
deserves to die!"
"You must be mad to come here and insult us so!"
chorused a brother. "Treat, who is this dimwit?"
"Negroes are notorious poisoners!" added another
brother. "There's none we trust with our lives!"
"Even if she were innocent, it's time we burned a
nigger to teach the others a lesson!"
Amidst a hail of angry remarks, a heavy hand
clamped around Joseph's elbow. The sheriff hoicked
the student from the room as if gigging a frog,
towed him across the kitchen, and pitched him
down the back stairs. Joseph clambered up,
shedding dirt and clam shell crumbs, only to receive
a jab in the belly from an iron-shod baton that
doubled him over, set him coughing.
"I'm warning you out, rascal! Hie back to
Massachusetts and your tight-arse Puritans! Now
get!" A rap on Joseph's elbow sent electric pain
rippling up and down his arm. Joseph was dragged
to the street, obviously to be frog-marched clear to
the town limits and flung over the line.
Yet rounding the corner, they almost collided with
Reverend Treat, who stumbled down the front
steps, apologies spilling from his lips. Prosper
slammed the front doors. The stunned Treat whirled
as Joseph gasped, "I'm a guest -- of the reverend."
The sheriff halted at Joseph's rapid rise in status. "Is
'at true, sir?"
"No!" snapped Treat. "Oh, dash it all, yes. I brought
him. I'll be responsible." The sheriff reluctantly
ceded control of the miscreant, but added his orders
still applied.
Joseph stumbled after Treat, who flipped his hand
as if to banish the Devil. "Why, why, why did you
say that? Why intimate that Cuffy and Hazel don't
deserve to die? You can't imagine the ruckus you've
stirred up! You dandisprat! You hog-rubber! Those
people trusted me, and there you jabber like a
Barbary ape! How dare you --"
"I dare," Joseph rubbed his stomach, "because
Cuffy was innocent of any crime and Hazel is still!
Yet these mugwumps will see her burned to death,
shrieking to Almighty God, because it's convenient
to punish her! `The judge is condemned when the
criminal is absolved!'" The last in Latin.
"There's your downfall!" retorted the reverend.
"Steeping your mind in classics, clouding your
judgement with pagan passions when you should
study Holy Writ instead!"
"`Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee' then!'
`They sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for
a pair of shoes!' `The faces of all of them gather
blackness!' `Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings,
and desperate men!' He had to stop, out of breath.
"`Judge not according to appearance!'" Then a
sneer. "`Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh
away the sin of the world!'"
"`For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the
knowledge of God more than burnt offerings!'"
Treat merely stamped harder down the dusty road.
Joseph stumped alongside, alternately rubbing his
stomach and elbow. After they'd gone a hundred
yards, the student asked quietly, "`Can two walk
together, except they are agreed?'"
"I don't know what you expect of me!" rapped the
preacher. "Or God either! You should be gone
hence! You're not wanted!"
"I'll go an hour after midday. I'll go then as did Lot.
Nor shall I look back."
Treat stopped dead in the middle of the road and
glared at Joseph. But the student's pale,
hollow-eyed stare was like something dead, and the
parson looked away. In the silence came a
foot-slapping, a man half-trotting to catch up. Chad
Pearson, the dead man's brother. "Hold up!
Reverend, you!"
The two clergymen waited in the hot dusty street
while Chad Pearson clopped to a stop. Yet having
caught up, the man only hemmed and loosened his
stock. "I, uh, wanted to say. This, uh, whole affair.
It's deuced bad."
Joseph waited, staring, as did Treat.
Reddening, and not from heat, Pearson went on.
"Um, I'm sorry you were ejected that way. We
don't, uh, usually have the sheriff in --"
"Why does Mistress Pearson hate Hazel so?" shot
Joseph.
"Oh, uh. You can't believe everything she says. You
know how women are..."
"Why?"
Treat cleared his throat. "There's no need to be
rude."
Chad Pearson looked up and down the street. "It's
damned difficult to explain. It's easier if you're
drunk. It's just that, well, Sister didn't like having
Hazel around -- Hey!"
Joseph grabbed the man by the lapels, and only
Treat's imploring hands kept Chad Pearson from
being rattled like a dice cup. The student rapped,
"Tell me and be quick!"
"All right!" Chad backstepped, smoothed his coat.
"Francis would -- We'd be drinking and he'd -- spice
up the betting. George and I don't have any nigger
women, you see. No good-looking ones, anyway.
So he'd, uh, bet her --"
Joseph chopped off his maundering. "You'd hand
her around the table. Whoever trumped slept with
her."
Chad turned redder. Joseph whirled to Reverend
Treat. "Why didn't you tell me this?"
"I didn't know! That's not the sort of thing they'd tell
a minister! Sometimes I don't know anything my
parishioners are doing!"
"`Haste thee, escape thither,'" quoted Joseph.
"Sodom and Gomorrah are rebuilt in the new Israel,
and not even Lot's family shall escape this time...
This news wounds our cause. What could Cuffy
think seeing his wife steered to bed at the behest of
his master? It's enough to kill for. How know his
child is even of his blood?"
"He couldn't complain much," insisted Chad
Pearson. "Francis gave Hazel to him for a wife,
bought her special. Cuffy should have been
grateful..." His voice trailed off at Joseph's black
look.
Growling, the student went on. "Worse yet. Hazel
herself might have poisoned her master. But so
could any of you Pearsons be guilty."
"What?"
"All of you stand to inherit, and anyone could have
poisoned his food or spirits! And his partner too!..
Wait. You import slaves from the Sugar Islands,
yes? And own ships, and warehouses? Ships in
tropical waters suffer from toredo worms, do they
not? The warehouse, have you the keys? Good!"
Bedazzled by this babble, Pearson and Treat were
taken in tow as Joseph plowed like a frigate under
full sail for the docks.
                  &&&&&----&&&&&
Chad Pearson fumbled to unlock the side door of the
warehouse. Seagulls banked and keened, hungry for
scraps, but the wharfs were oddly deserted, for
most everyone had trekked to the burning field. As
Joseph waited, he noticed tucked behind a narrow
two-story building of stone with iron-barred
windows: the slave hut into which "black gold" was
herded by midnight moons. He shook his head, tried
to ignore the sun striking his shoulders, the ache in
his skull.
It was no relief to step into the stifling warehouse.
Among crates and bolts of cloth stood pyramids of
small casks, called butts, branded in Portugese. The
hot air reeked of wine and spices and tar and cedar
and turpentine.
Joseph stopped short. "Wine. The best way to
introduce the stuff. Yes... We know the wine was
adulterated because Cuffy fell victim also."
"We do?" asked Pearson and Treat. "He did?"
"Yes. A week before Francis Pearson died, Cuffy
suffered a stomach ailment that he tried to treat
with his own snake potion, then Maroca's potions.
Nothing worked -- a potion can't undo poison -- but
he recovered. From this we infer that one of those
times when Master Pearson had been dosed, Cuffy,
in clearing the table, drained Pearson's glass: all
servants will when they can. He got the poison
intended for Pearson: the stuff is heavy and it
sinks."
"But Francis didn't drink that much madeira because
of his gout," insisted Chad. "He took it with water
always."
"Wait. What stuff?" asked Reverend Treat.
"I'll show you. Where is your paint locker?"
The paint locker jutted under the eaves of an
addition, with a boarded wall and door that could
shut and lock, though no lock was in sight. Joseph
stepped into the sharp stink of turpentine. By the
light of a tiny window he hunted, under a table
found a small cask with a wooden cover. Lifting the
cover showed a gray-white powder and a wooden
scoop.
"This stuff. Arsenic." Joseph took down a dry paint
pot and scooped. "It's used to kill pigs and rats, but
is also mixed into red-lead bottom paint to kill
toredo worms that riddle hulls so fiercely in the
Caribbean, even white oak. There's enough arsenic
here to kill half of Newport."
"What?" Brushed by death, Chad Pearson touched
his breast.
Treat shook his dark head. "It makes no sense. Only
Master Pearson was poisoned, but everyone drank
madeira and other wines. You haven't been troubled
by stomach cramps, have you, Chad?"
"What? No, never!" The man felt his throat now.
"Perhaps it was meant the whole family to succumb,
and something went wrong. Perhaps everyone else
was immune." Joseph mused, not believing it
himself.
Abruptly he turned to a pyramid of casks, grabbed
up a cracked one that had leaked its contents.
Joseph rapped a knuckle on the oak bung, peered
inside at the wider end. "These bungs are
hammered from the inside, then the casks are filled
and sealed in the Canary Islands. When broached,
the bung falls inside the cask. I see no way a man
could remove a bung, poison the wine, then replace
it. It would be impossible to tamper with these
casks and not have someone notice."
"Of course not," snapped Chad Pearson. Fright was
giving way to anger. "But someone did poison my
brother, you say. Who? How?"
Joseph paced, passing the pot of arsenic from hand
to hand, juggling possibilities in his head until he
was dizzy. The oven-heat of the warehouse made
him dizzy too, and he stepped outside. The sun was
like a hammer, so he moved against the building.
The shady strip was a popular place this blistering
summer, and posted along the wooden wall were
notices announcing auctions or the sale of pirated
goods.
Unintentionally, the student read the broadsides, as
he read everything that came before his eyes. One
poster announced a forthcoming auction conducted
by Pearson and Co. "Prime Likely Negroes, both
Male and Female, from Ten years of age to Twenty,
imported the Last Week from Nevis, and were
Brought from Guinea. Seasoned against Smallpox.
Also a House Servant, able to Read, trained to
Table, raised from a Boy --" The rest was obliterated
by the black word CANCELLED. The holder's sudden
death had thrown his estate into limbo.
Chad Pearson's jaw and fists were knotted. He
looked ready to smite the wall, or Joseph. "You
haven't told me yet! Who killed my brother? Who?"
Joseph shrugged his shoulders like some Quebecois.
"I don't know! Too many could want him dead! The
puzzle needs sorting, wheat from chaff! It's best, I
don't know... It's best to ask, which single person
would most prosper from his death?"
Pearson growled, Treat sighed, while Joseph rubbed
his temple. Something nagged him, buzzed in his
brain like a rattlesnake's warning. Stock still, he
waited for the idea to settle and take root.
Yet Chad Pearson, furious, grabbed Joseph's
shoulder and spun him around. "I demand --"
Joseph gazed over the man's shoulder at the auction
broadside. Slowly he breathed in Latin, "`I do not
distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which is the
proper judge of a man.'"
"Eh?" asked the parson and merchant.
Joseph pointed at the poster, turned without a word
and ran up the street, careful not to spill the arsenic.
"We must make the field! We must stop the
burning!"
"What?" called Pearson. "Come back here!"
"What can you say?" objected Treat. "They won't
like it!"
But Joseph was gone, running flat out.
                  &&&&&-----&&&&&
All of Newport filled a pasture near where the tarred
Cuffy hung in his "iron suit". Children grabbed the
bottom of the cage and squealed to be swung.
Adults jammed the shade along the stone walls or
else sat on horse blankets under parasols. In the full
glare of the sun, a stake was surrounded by pine
shavings from a mill and branches culled from
nearby orchards: applewood burned so hot it would
melt andirons in a winter. Against the stake was
propped a four-legged stool with a cracked seat. In
the seat sat Hazel, feet amidst the fagots, chains on
her wrists and ankles. A noose around her neck
bound her to the stake, half-throttling so she sat
bolt upright. At four corners of the pyre, men with
batons keep gawkers at bay. The sheriff talked to a
large man sweating in a purple coat, gesturing to
the pyre with a birchbark torch. Foremost on
blankets the Pearsons sipped madeira proferred by
the house servant Prosper. Far back in sun stood
the colony's few free Negroes, including Maroca's
brood. The onlookers droned like cicadas.
The buzz deepened when Joseph hopped the stone
wall, Chad Pearson and Reverend Treat trotting
behind. The sheriff cursed Joseph in round tones,
Reverend Treat and Chad Pearson shouted him
down. Joseph held his chest, breath rattling and
sobbing. He held up the tin, but the sheriff slapped it
out of his hand so white powder dusted everyone.
"What the hell's that?"
"Your 'snake'!" gulped the student. "Arsenic! It kills
by stomach cramps, making a man swell up and
suffer terrible thirst, so he drinks more and poisons
himself further! But it wasn't stirred into the
madeira, because no one else fell sick. Pearson
suffered from gout. Straight madeira was too rich
for his blood, so he took his wine watered, the only
family member to do so. And who fetched him the
water? It wasn't poor Cuffy yonder! He fell sick with
stomach cramps himself, rest his soul, and a man
would hardly drink wine he'd poisoned. But there
was another in the household who might prosper by
Pearson's death!"
Joseph's rasping was quiet, but everyone heard. "At
the bottom of a broadside for a slave auction,
Master Pearson advertised for sale a house servant
raised from a boy, trained to table, able to read. A
young servant who ran errands to the docks, where
he could read an auction notice, and lay hand to
arsenic. Rather than be sold, this young slave
poisoned his master's water. Pearson's sudden
death froze his assets and stalled the slave's own
sale."
The stunned crowd swivelled to stare where the
Pearsons sat in the place of honor. The family
members drew back, open-mouthed, until the house
slave Prosper stood alone. His dark face went gray
as smoke.
A muttering, then a howl rose. Men broke from the
crowd, shoved the Pearsons aside, grabbed the
terrified slave. At the stake, the sheriff's men loosed
the rope throttling Hazel and hurled her off the stool
to make room for Prosper, who shrieked and
blubbered as a score of hard hands banged him in
the seat. A chant rose. "Burn him! Burn him! Burn
him!"
Joseph caught Hazel's chains and led her into the
sturdy arms of Maroca. Hazel was more dead than
alive with fright and shock, shambling like a statue
of ebony wood, chains clinking. Yet she enfolded her
son, kissed the head of flat black hair.
Prosper screamed, prayed, begged as he was lashed
with rope, swaddled like a mummy. Men slapped his
head, kicked fagots under his feet. Cries went up for
a torch.
Keeping his back to the morbid scene, Joseph
pushed amidst the Pearsons to fix the mistress with
a deep burning stare. "Hazel has suffered much in
her innocence, being damned and incarcerated and
near-burned after losing her husband. She'd have
precious worth in your household now. Will you give
her to me? As a fee for uncovering the true
murderer?"
The merchant's wife ran a rapid calculation in her
head, then discarded it. "Yes, yes, you may have
her. She wasn't good for much anyway. Only to my
husband and brothers-in-law," she flared.
"You are all witnesses, eh?" Excited, Joseph's
French mannerisms surfaced. "She belongs to me.
Then witness, too, I set her free and charge her to
the care of Maroca, a freewoman."
He turned to go, but Chad Pearson caught his
sleeve. "Wait. Prosper poisoned Francis to stay in
our household? That makes no sense! What
difference the master?"
The student shrugged. "What does a slave own?
Nothing, not even himself. Only his station, the only
life he knew. Think on Cuffy, who despite seeing his
wife abused, fought to save his beloved master with
a snake panacea. `The slave loves the whip.' And
remember this: `Master, be good to your slaves, for
know that you have a master in Heaven.'"
A sheriff's man had unlocked Hazel's manacles.
Sweeping his arms wide, Joseph gathered in Maroca
and her children and Hazel and her baby, urged
them, pushed them, hurried them down the dusty
road towards Newport and home. He had to drag
Quamino, who stood stricken. Tears spilled down
her cheeks, the first tears he'd seen on any black.
"Quickly, apace!"
They weren't fast enough. Prosper screamed as
flames licked his legs. To cover the noise, Joseph
thought to recite. But all he could quote was, "`If
poisonous minerals, and if that tree, whose fruit
threw death on else-immortal us, if lecherous goats,
if serpents envious cannot be damn'd; why should I
be?'"
                        END