The Crystal City Page 0,69

couldn't be taught to read because their brains wasn't big enough or they got baked in the sun or some such theory, and they're proving him wrong at this moment."

"You were busy out there," said Rien.

"I'm a sick and dying woman," said Ruth. "It's cruel of you to do this to me in the last weeks of my life."

Arthur looked at her and smiled. "And how many weeks of freedom were you going to give any of your slaves, before they died?"

"We treat our servants well, thank you!" said Ruth.

As if in answer to her, Old Bart came into the room. He didn't walk slowly now. His stride was bold and quick, and he walked up to Ruth and spat in her lap. At once Roy leapt up from his chair, but Old Bart turned to him and slapped him so hard across the face that he fell to the floor.

"No!" cried Mary, and her mother also cried out, "Non!"

"We don't hit nobody," said La Tia softly. "And no spitting, neither."

Old Bart turned to her. "The folks out back, they all wanted to do it, but I said, Let me do it just the once for all of us. And they chose me for the job. You know this boy already done had his way with two of the girls, and one of them not even got her womanlies yet."

"That's a lie!" shouted Roy.

"My son is not capable of-"

"Don't you try to tell black folks what white folks is capable of," said Arthur Stuart. "But we're done with all that now. We ain't come here, sir, to bring vengeance or justice. Just freedom."

"You bring me freedom, and then say I can't use it?" said Old Bart.

"I know what you doing," said La Tia. "You a house slave, you try make them field slave forget you sleep indoors on a bed, you."

Old Bart glared at her. "Every day I got them treating me like dirt, they in my face all the time, you think a indoor bed make up for that? I hate them more than anybody. Me slapping him stead of killing him, that what mercy look like."

Arthur Stuart nodded. "I got respect for your feelings, sir. But right now I don't care about justice nor mercy neither. I care about getting five thousand people safe to the Mizzippy.

And I don't need to have the whole country stirred up by a bunch of stories about slaves slapping the children of their former masters."

"They ain't gonna tell no slapping story," said Old Bart. "They gonna tell that we killed this white boy and raped that white woman, and cut that stupid teacher all up. So as long as they gonna tell it, why not do a little of it?"

Ruth gasped.

"You already done all you gonna do," said Arthur Stuart. "I told you why. So if you raise a hand against anybody else while we're here, sir, I'll have to stop you."

Old Bart smiled patronizingly at Arthur Stuart. "I'd like to see you try."

"No you wouldn't," said Arthur.

Mary tried to defuse the situation. She rose from her chair and approached Ruth Cottoner. "Please give me your hand," she said.

"Don't touch me!" cried Ruth. "I won't give my hand to an invader and a looter!"

"I know something about disease," said Mary. "I know more than your doctor."

"In Barcy," said Arthur Stuart, "everybody came to her to know if they was gonna get better when they was sick."

"I'll do no harm," said Mary. "And I'll tell you the truth of what I see. Your son will know if I'm lying."

Slowly the woman raised her hand and put it in Mary's.

Mary felt the woman's body as if it became part of her own, and at once knew where the cancer was. Centered in her womb, but spread out, too, eating away at her inside. "It's bad," she said. "It started in your womb, but it's everywhere now. The pain must be terrible."

Ruth closed her eyes.

"Mama," said Roy.

Mary turned to Arthur Stuart. "Can you ...?"

"Not me," said Arthur Stuart. "It's too much for me."

"But Alvin, don't you think he-"

"You can ask him," said Arthur Stuart. "It might be too much for him, too, you know. He ain't no miracle worker."

"You have some kind of healer with you?" said Ruth bitterly. "I've had healers come before, the charlatans."

"He ain't mostly a healer," said Arthur Stuart. "He only does it kind of, you know, when he runs into somebody who needs it."

Mary let go of the woman's hand