Free Washington and Caesar by Christian Cameron

whip off’n him, I think. Li’l whiplike’n that one, it can take an eye or split you nose.” Caesar was still a little shocked by the violence of it, so different from battle because there was no resisting the hand that held the whip.
    “I didn’ huht him none, did I, boy? Jus’ roll roun’ atop him.”
    Caesar looked the boy over. He was weeping so hard he couldn’t speak.
    “He’ll live.”
    “Bettah get you home wi’ they dogs, boy. Get cleah ‘fo Missuh Lee get on you ‘gain.”
    The boy nodded, still sobbing.
    “Le’s get they dogs settled, see what the black folks get to eat. Massa French say I can be heah to eat.” He winked at Caesar again.
    “You done good, boy. I see you have mah pup theyah.” He whistled and the pup betrayed his new allegiance and ran to the older man’s heel.
    “You like the hunt, boy?”
    “I liked it fine, suh.”
    The man laughed. “No one calls a black man suh. Not heah.”
    Caesar opened the gate into the kennel yard and shook his head to himself, savoring the moment on the grass when he and the tall master had spotted the fox together. Then he shook his head again, as if embarrassed at his own thoughts.
    The wind continued to rise, and it dished the outdoor festivities. The slaves did dance, but it was in the cart shed. Jacka played his fiddle, and played it well, and some of the house servants came. Old John danced with every girl who would have him, smiled on all, ate well, drank better, and took his leave early and with a good grace. Caesar knew the reels that he had learned in the Indies, and the Mount Vernon women took it upon themselves to show him otherdances—country dances they learned from the whites, and variations on their own dances, from Africa and from the Indies. Queeny showed him steps he’d seen whites do, the complicated steps and minuets that she made into excuses to show her legs. Food came down from the House. The scraps from the hunt breakfast were scarcely a feast, but they made a change, and Mrs. Bailey passed a ration of meat and some eggs to enrich the supper. It was better than the fish and corn that they ate every day. And the estate’s corn liquor flowed.
    The ties that bound the house and field staff and the gulfs that kept them separate were too complex to be taken in at a single social meeting, but Caesar had begun to see them. It was plain to the simplest understanding that Nelly, the house seamstress, was attached to the white servant, Bishop; they fought and simpered in too meaningful a manner. Billy Lee, Washington’s personal slave and the only slave he knew who had a surname, was seldom seen with the other blacks, but he came down for a mug of liquor and Caesar saw instantly that he wasn’t so much aloof as he was a leader. He singled Caesar out.
    “You were very good today,” he said.
    Caesar warmed to the praise. He would have kept Billy to discuss the field, but Billy was gone, first talking to Queeny and then passing through the others with a word for each.
    Caesar had learned that there were other farms, other blacks on them, all satellites of Mount Vernon. The men and women who lived in the Greenhouse and the cabins behind it were the elite: house slaves, trusted hands, skilled men and women. He was lucky to be included, but with his share of the estate’s corn liquor in him, he didn’t feel so lucky. Billy’s praise had cheered him at first, but it soured.
    Queeny seemed to dance without a care in the world; Old Tom from the house could jab his pipe at Billy Lee andlaugh. The carpenters and the bricklayers were telling tall tales of their activities and their value.
    What he resented the most was their proprietary notions. When Old Tom said Mount Vernon was the “fines’ gentleman’s estate on the rivah”, he said it with relish, as if the estate were his own. The house girls were the same. Cook spoke of meals as if she ate them, and the sewing crew were filled with pride at their ability to alter the finest