Free Sweetsmoke by David Fuller Page A

snow falling on the roof over their heads, that he felt his
confidence grow as he became fluent.
        On
returning to Sweetsmoke, Cassius walked down the lane of the quarters. Snow
melted, a trickle glinting down the Suetsmoke gully under a cover of lacy
snowpack. He returned to his cabin on the lane, where it had stood empty for
weeks. He stopped in the doorway and took in the large room with the cold
hearth barely discolored with soot. He walked around to the back, to what
remained of Marriah's garden, blanketed by snow that was unblemished. His shoes
crunched through the icy top layer. Black sprigs of a sapling poked through a
drift; he had planted it to coincide with the birth of his son. He dug his
fingers down in the snow to secure the narrow trunk and wrenched it out of the
earth. He threw it aside, where it remained as the snow melted beneath it,
until someone sometime later took it away.
        The
only excuse for a tree or garden was to invest in the future. No future
existed. His heart was as cold as his fingers and knuckles had been on that day
when he had wrenched out the sapling. He hated Jacob for what he had done, but
it was not unusual or unexpected—he hated Hoke more, for protecting his planter
son and for the three days in the tobacco shed.
        
        
        He
rose from his pallet fully awake, his legs sore from running in his sleep. He
found the cigar that he had hand-rolled earlier in the day, and a Lucifer
friction match, and put them both into his pouch and went outside.
        The
last of the fires sizzled. Wooden crosses surrounded him, dark and erect, fresh
bulbous candles dangling off their arms. The smoke had cleared, a few crickets
persisted in the night air and the dew cooled his bare feet. Mr. Nettle would
have made his final pass down the lane hours ago. Cassius considered going into
the woods, but it would be a slow and tedious journey to his traps in the dark.
He had decided to go to town on Saturday night. Friday was the Fourth, and
there would be celebrations, but Saturday would still see many hands traveling
to their abroad husbands or wives. The patrollers would soon tire of checking
passes by lantern light for the second straight night, and he could utilize the
whole night, as Sunday was free. The Big-To-Do was Sunday at Edensong, the
Jarvis plantation, and not even Hoke would dare take that away from his
"family," not even for hornworms.
        He
ran his finger over the piece of string he had tied around the end of the
cigar, an inch from the lip end, a personal habit and his alone, then brought
the cigar between his teeth and dug for the match. Unable to find it in his
pouch, he ducked under the arms of a cross and pushed the other end of the
cigar into a banked fire. He stood slowly, drawing in the smoke, thinking that
he would have to see if his pouch had developed a hole and if it could be
mended. He looked back at the pale dry shapes made by his bare feet in the
dew-covered dust where he had walked from his cabin. He smoked awhile standing
there, and after many minutes had passed, he saw her in the cleared space
beside his cabin. She sat on a log under a tree, and she hadn't moved. His
heart raced, thinking her a spirit or an illusion, but when she smiled, he knew
she was real and had been staring at him. He walked over to her. As he got
closer, she seemed to duck away, and Cassius knew that she had not wanted him
to see her. He considered that, and thought that it had to do with her being
perceived as a jinx.
        Quashee
is an unusual name, said Cassius.
        Not
for an African.
        You
born in Africa?
        No, I
was born here.
        Your
name got a meaning?
        What
make you say that? she said.
        Something
I was told, African names got meanings, and you didn't get Quashee from a white
master.
        No. My
father gave it to me. Quashee's a girl born on Sunday.
        Ah.
So what day were you born? said