Darkness
Chapter 21

May 12, 1812

Natchez

Nadine

Gregor has had every seamstress in town working on the uniform vests since the blue fabric came in a few weeks ago. I’ve been helping in my spare time. We’ve fitted all the members of the crew so that each of them has a vest that is comfortable and fits well. They all look very fine, wearing the sky blue vests, both the men and the women, moving about town and working Under-the-Hill, marked quite definitively as members of the steamboat crew.

I am clearing away the dishes from breakfast, getting ready to go to work, and Kenneth pauses next to the little pile of blue fabric that I have on the side table next to the front door. “This one of those vests?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say, even though it obviously is. If he had been paying the slightest attention last night, he would have seen me stitching it after supper.

“Who’s this one for?” he asks.

“Charley,” I say.

“On the crew?”

I stop and look at him. “Of course.” What is this about?

“Is he one of the black fellows?”

“Well, yes, but that doesn’t matter. Everyone on the crew gets the same vest.”

He huffs and turns away.

“What is wrong now?” I ask, aggravated. More and more we seem to be aggravated with each other.

He shrugs and sits down to start putting on his work boots.

“No, tell me,” I say. “Don’t just huff and then leave without saying why.”

“Fine,” he says, lacing up a boot. “I’m not sure it’s fitting to have everyone wearing the same thing. The black folks and the white folks, all the same? Pastor Colbert says people should stay in their proper place.”

I regret making him tell me. I should have known. Who could have predicted that my husband would replace religion this late in life? And the pastor’s version of religion is not at all the type that I believe. It seems less about sharing the love of Christ, and more about excluding some people from it. “The proper place for each person on the crew is exactly where they are, and what they are doing,” I tell him, “and these vests only show everyone who is on it. I don’t see any problem with it.”

“I know you don’t,” he mutters, then stands and picks up his tool belt. “See you tonight.”

I sigh, try to re-focus my feelings, and put down the dish towel. I go over to him before he can get out the door, and reach up to give him a kiss. It seems to surprise him a little, and he puts his belt back down and wraps his arms around me. We hold each other for a moment, and I enjoy the barrel-chested feeling of his body, and the strength in his leatherworker’s arms. Despite everything, this is the man I have lived with and loved for decades, the father of my children, my partner in life. Marriage is a long series of compromises, and I can’t forget how much we have shared over the years.

“I love you,” I tell him. It’s really all that matters.

He plants one last kiss upon my forehead before we part for the day. “I love you too, Nadine.”

Gregor

“Come on Tiger.” He follows me out the back door, leaving behind the sanctuary of our house, the one place where nobody stares at me strangely. Where nobody cringes away from me like I am preposterously somehow intimidating. Or worse, gazes worshipfully at me - except upon occasion Rosalind, but the way she does it, in bed at night, is the only good way. Everyone here kids me and teases me and helps me and loves me. Sometimes I hate to leave it and go Under-the-Hill.

Tiger and I walk through town, and I try to smile and greet everyone I pass. Some people return my greetings, even if it seems a bit forced. But some people just stare at me. A few cross to the other side of the street.

I think it’s getting worse, and although I understand why, I hate that it is happening. I had thought that after a couple of months everyone would have forgotten all about that stupid whipping episode, and things would get back to normal.

But circumstances are conspiring against me. Wolk has told me that the Guardians continue to observe me, almost obsessively, even though they can no longer hear our thoughts or see the aura that proves I am a Seer. Drat their perfect memories. There’s no way they are going to forget what happened, and they seem just as fixated on me as apparently the Guardians were during my first few decades of life, when nothing was hidden from them. It was uncomfortable then and it is uncomfortable now. I think it is a little worse now, because of the circumstances under which I was revealed to them. Who knew that Guardians could be traumatized? Apparently realizing that I’m a Seer right in the middle of me getting whipped half to death was very troubling to them. The Guardians’ reaction to me rubs off on their humans, which contributes to their own unpleasant memories of that day.

Also, I had no idea that my emotions were pummeling everyone around me while it happened. I didn’t know that the shield had slipped, that everything I was feeling was spilling out onto everyone else. If I had known I suppose I might have tried to calm myself, but I doubt it would have worked under the circumstances.

So when I walk around town now, many people are reminded not only of how horrible they felt watching everything unfold, but their Guardians’ interest in me is keeping the memory fresh in their minds.

That isn’t all, though. Pastor Colbert’s sermons have become wildly popular among certain segments of the town’s population, to the point that he is holding additional services on Sunday and Wednesday evenings, just to accommodate the crowds of people who want to come and hear him spew his hateful teachings. Nobody seems to recall the original message of the gospel, the lessons of love and forgiveness and inclusion. No, Colbert constantly lectures about how society should be divided, how everyone should stay in their place as he puts it, how the system of slavery is a just and righteous way for people to live. His message is repugnant yet somehow deeply appealing to many people.

I have never gone back to the church, but Wolk listens to each speech and summarizes it for me. Colbert doesn’t hide his criticism of those who would disobey the word of God as he interprets it. He makes frequent thinly veiled references to me, talking about how I repudiated the lesson that I should have learned when the holy spirit came to witness my punishment. He cites examples about how God wants us to live, painting stories of strong masters with obedient slaves in a positive light. Then he intones disapprovingly the tales of free black people being allowed to work alongside white people as though they are equals. He is masterful at manipulating the message so that his followers are firmly convinced that any effort to bring equality to the town is literally the work of the devil.

The slave patrol had been quiet for a week or two after they whipped me, having been disturbed by the event as much as anyone else in the crowd, but Colbert fixed that. They have redoubled their efforts, and stride around bullying and interfering with the daily lives of any black people in town, slave or free.

I am so relieved that we have gotten the vests made, so that at least as my crew moves about Natchez there is no way for the slave patrol to accost them by pretending to think they are slaves. We all wear the vest, me included, mine worn under my coat as a waistcoat. Then when I’m at the dock I shed the coat and my sky blue vest blends in with everyone else’s.

I can’t blend in entirely, though. Even my crew, even the people who are very happy working for me, continue to often feel awkward in my presence. Not all of them feel this way, thank goodness. David and Charley and about half of the others are treating me as though nothing ever happened. But enough of them are uncomfortable that it would be unkind to constantly inflict my company on them.

So I have gotten out of the habit of joining them for their physical labors, as they work on the construction project at the boarding house. I miss the work, wishing I was out there toting boards and hammering nails, but I have decided that it is best to leave the management to the foreman, and leave the crew be as they work.

I spend most of my days inside my office with my dog. Tiger has become my constant companion. I suppose that having a giant dog loping along beside me everywhere I go isn’t helping alleviate my image as a very peculiar and possibly creepy man. But I enjoy his company too much to forgo it. He accepts me utterly, and this is a balm to my feelings of rejection that I constantly experience from many of the townsfolk.

I am immersed in paperwork by mid-morning, listening to David conversing with customers who come to the ticket window, and to Wolk eavesdropping for me on the people around town. He interrupts his description of a funny dispute going on in the Kentucky Tavern nearby to say, “The steamboat is returning.”

“Right on time,” I think to him. The schedule is becoming more reliable with each turn of the route, and I had told the crew to expect the boat to return at some point today.

I mark my spot in the papers I am reviewing, stand, put my coat back on but leave it opened to show my vest, and head out to start gathering the crew. I always like to have them ready and waiting when the boat pulls in. Nobody has ever questioned how I know the timing. Most of them simply assume that there is a schedule that I am aware of that the boat is following.

Tiger is thumping his tail energetically as we stand alongside the dock, behind the crew members, all of our blue vests forming a visible welcoming sign to the approaching steamboat. He’s looking forward to seeing Abigail and Baker as much as I am. They weren’t here when the incident happened, and they have continued treating me just as always, and it is delightfully refreshing.

And something that I see as they draw near delights me as well. I believe that every member of the crew on the boat is also wearing blue vests to match ours. A true smile is on my face as I wave to the Bakers at the prow of the ship.