“No, marster. Not very far.”
Silence fell again. They turned a horn of land, all delicate, flowering shrubs, and ran beneath a towering, verdurous bank that rained down odours. It laid, too, upon the river, a dark, far-reaching shadow.
The younger negro spoke with suddenness. “I belongs to Cape Jessamine.”
Edward turned. “Do you?—Why were you up the river and on the other side?”
“Hit ain’t safe any mo’ at Cape Jessamine. But I ain’t no runaway, sah. Miss Désirée done tol’ us to go.” He felt in his shirt, took out a piece of bandanna, and unwrapped from it a piece of paper which he held out to Edward. “Dar’s my pass, all right, sah! She done tol’ us to go, an’ she say she don’ know that she’ll ever call us back. She say she mighty fond of us, too, but all things er-comin’ down an’ er-changin’ an’ er-changin’! Hit ain’t never any more gwine be lak hit was.”
“How many have gone?”
“Mos’ everybody, sah. Yankees come an’ tek de cattle an’ de meal, an’ dar wa’n’t much to eat. An’ ef er man or er yaller gal step in er rain puddle dey wuz took with er shakin’-fit, cryin’ out dat de river was er-comin’! She say we better go. De Fusilier place—way back an’ crosst the bayou where de river couldn’t never git—she done sont de women an’ chillen dar, an’ Madam Fusilier she say she tek care ob dem des ez long ez dar’s anything in de smokehouse an’ de meal ain’ stolen—”
“The overseer—did he get well?”
“No, sah. He hurt he hip, an’ ole Brer Fever come er-long an’ he died.”
“Then who is at Cape Jessamine with—?”