HeartFire Page 0,123

Margaret to bear. She had already seen them herself, in the blazing heartfires of angry slaves. What Gullah Joe imagined, she had seen down ten thousand paths into the future. Until Calvin tore up the name-strings, that future hadn't shown up anywhere. She couldn't predict it. Calvin had the power to change everything without warning. Margaret was unaccustomed to surprise. She didn't know how to deal with a situation that she hadn't had time to watch and think about.

She walked away, into a corner of the room. She began to pray.

But she couldn't keep her mind on the words of her prayer. She kept thinking of Calvin. As if she didn't have enough to worry about. Wasn't it just like Cal? Set loose forces that could cause the deaths of thousands of people, and he was going to lie there dying through it all.

As for Gullah Joe and Denmark, she hadn't the heart to tell them, but the likeliest future, whether the slave revolt happened or not, was that the King and his men would be looking for the person who planned the revolt. It had to be a conspiracy. It couldn't be mere chance that in the morning the entire slave population of Camelot was docile, and suddenly by nightfall they were keening and howling in every house. There had to be a plot. There had to be a signal given. It wasn't hard to find slaves who, under torture, would mention the taker of names. And others who would point him out. The mastermind of the conspiracy, that's what they'd call him. They'd call it Denmark Vesey's War, as if it was war to have families murdered in their sleep, and then every third slave in Camelot hanged in retribution, while Denmark Vesey himself would be drawn and quartered, and the pieces of him hung on poles in Blacktown, lest anyone forget.

She hadn't the heart to tell him that. Nor did it matter, in the end, for one thing was certain in Denmark's heartfire: If this happened to him, he would believe that he deserved it, for the sake of what he did to his woman.

Calvin. Again he kept intruding in her thoughts. Something about Calvin. What? He can't heal himself, so what is he good for?

For something that he does know how to do.

Margaret got up from her prayer and rushed to Gullah Joe. "You've done this before, Gullah Joe. I've heard the stories, I've seen them in the slaves' memories, legends of the zombi, the walking dead."

"I no do that," said Gullah Joe.

"I know, you don't do it on purpose, but there he is, dead but alive. There must be something you have, something in your tools, your powders, that can wake him up. Just for a little while."

"Wake him up, then he die faster," said Gullah Joe.

"I need him. To save the people he did this to."

"He no heal him own body," said Gullah Joe scornfully.

"Because he doesn't know how. But he can do something."

Gullah Joe got up and went to his jars. Soon he had a mixture - a dangerous one, to judge from the way he never let any of the powders touch his skin and looked away when mixing so as not to breathe in any of the dust. When it was mixed, he poured it through a hole in a small bellows, then plugged the hole tightly. Even at that, he wetted down cloths for the rest of them to breathe through, in case any dust got loose in the air.

Then he took the bellows, put the end in one of Calvin's nostrils, then waxed the other nostril closed. "You," he said to Denmark. "Hold him mouth closed."

"No," said Denmark. "I can't do that. That too much like drowning him."

"I'll do it," said Margaret.

"What you tell husband then, this go bad?"

"It's my fault anyway," said Margaret. "I told you to do it."

"I do it, ma'am," said Fishy. "I do this."

Margaret stepped back. Fishy got one hand under Calvin's jaw and the other atop his head.

"I say go, you close him tight the mouth," said Gullah Joe.

Fishy nodded.

"Go."

She clamped Calvin's mouth shut. Calvin feebly resisted, desperate for breath. Nothing came in except a thin stream of air around the nipple of the bellows. Gullah Joe slammed the bellows together just as Calvin inhaled desperately. A cloud of dust emerged from around the bellows. Gullah Joe was ready for it. He picked up a bucket of water and doused Calvin with it,