Some looked worried, others unreadable. Men’s eyes shaded by fraying straw brims. Women’s heads bound in plain or checked cloth. He told off their names under his breath, his lips just barely moving. But for a couple, he could call their names true. They all seemed to sway from the ground, like rushes.
“The war’s agin slavery, that’s what they claim. If the Yankees whup it, they’ll set ye all free. That’s right. You heard me right. They ain’t studied on what’s to be done with ye after that but they aim to set the lot of y’all free.”
At that there was a swell among the slaves and they turned to one another and murmured. He let that happen for close on a minute, then raised up his palm and they fell still.
“I’ve jined up already to fight for the South,” he told them. “Y’all most of ye’ve known me fer quite some time. Have ye ever seen me to take a whuppen?”
Nawsuh, we ain’t. Don’t spec we will.
“Well then. If the South whups it, we’ll still have slavery in this country. And that’s the side I’m fighten fer. I’ll tell ye that straight out and no doubt about it. I don’t mean to have nobody waltz in from somewhar’s else and start in a-tellen me what to do and not do—”
Forrest could feel the blood beating hard in his temples now. He stopped a minute, fanned himself with the hat.
“Now here’s what I come down to say to ye. War ain’t just a-comen, it’s done already started. I aim to fight for the side I jest said. That’s all they is to it. But any man among ye wants to fight alongside of me—when the war once gits over with, I will set that man free.”
In the silence that followed he could hear a late-rising rooster crowing back behind him in the quarters. He thought he could hear water trickling in the creek a quarter-mile away.
“What about the women,” Zebulon said.
“Huh.” Forrest put his hat back on. He actually hadn’t thought about the women. “Now that’s a right reasonable question. Here’s what I say. If ye want to carry a gal free with ye, be shore ye step over the broom with her afore ye go to the fight. And not more’n one to a customer, mind.”
At that there was a little laughter and a louder rustle of whispering. Young Alma came up on her toes to say something deep into Zebulon’s ear. Forrest raised his voice a little.
“Ye can’t hardly lose with this proposition,” he said. “The Yankees win and ye go free thataway. Fight with me and I’ll set ye free.”
“And effen we gets kilt?” Benjamin said.
“Then ye’ll be dead.” Forrest looked at him, not especially hard. Benjamin held the gaze this time, till Forrest told him, “Don’t nobody live forever.”
ZEBULON HAD SAVED a long section of gut from last fall’s hog-killing, rescued it from the iron rim of the chitlin pot. He’d cleaned it and cut it into long thin strips and laid the strips to dry across the railing of the tiny porch that Benjamin had built onto the front of his cabin. He had softened the strips again and rolled them into slender, milky cords, then coiled them carefully to store away in a clean rag.
When he saw Ben coming through the twilight he went into the cabin and came out carrying the rag full of strings in one hand and the mostly finished banjo in the other. Alma set a chair for Ben, one of the two that they had in the cabin. There was just room for the two men on the little lean-to porch. Alma settled on a chunk of stone outside the rail and bent her head to a pair of britches she was mending.
As he stepped up, Ben took five pegs from his bib pocket and rattled them in his hand. With a smile Sap pointed to the empty chair and handed him the banjo. Ben had made it mostly himself, but all to Zebulon’s directions; it was the only instrument he had ever made. He set the drum of it on his knee and held the walnut neck up vertical. He’d made the headstock into a horse’s head, improving on the abstract form of fiddleheads he had seen. Little chips of white cow bone were wedged in for the eyes.
The banjo drum was a cedar hoop, with half a big gourd for a resonator. Ben had put all the