Devil's Dream by Madison Smartt Bell

neck: a half-hickory nut he’d whittled just a little bit, to improve its natural resemblance to a barn owl.
    “Be still, now,” Ben told her. “What got into you?” He looked at Forrest with the hint of a half-smile. “She act like she think you the booger-man.”
    “Hattie,” Forrest said. The name had come to him when she turned her little round face his way. She stared at him a moment, then wildly shook her head.
    Benjamin set her on the ground and gave her a tap on the bottom. “Get on back to yo momma then,” he said. “Effen you don’t want to act like folks.”
    Hattie dodged around Forrest’s left leg and bolted back toward the quarters. He glanced after her for a second, watched the pale dusty soles of her feet flying up. When he turned back, Ben was just straightening. The zigzag scar came out of the close-cropped hair above his temple and down by his ear like a lightning bolt.
    “Reckon she don’t see too many big ole bushy black beards round here,” Ben said. “Cep’n when you comes to see us.”
    A couple of the middle-sized boys had stopped pulling their crosscut saw when Forrest arrived at the shed, but now, when he glanced at them, they went back to it. The one with the best feel for the work was coming twelve probably; he had a pair of big soft ears, shaped like handles of a jug. Forrest ran his over the board Benjamin had been planing. Smooth grain and more than two hands wide.
    “Doen a fine job with this lumber,” he said.
    “Mmm-hmm.”
    “Might need to put this job off a while though,” Forrest said. “Why don’t you walk over to the field with me a minute.”
    Ben’s eye’s flicked over him, quick a snake’s tongue, then went out to the horizon.
    “No, I ain’t senden ye to chop no cotton,” Forrest said. “Not even studyen that. Hit’s a piece of news and the men need to hear it, that’s all.”
    He turned and stepped out from under the shed roof. Ben pulled on a shirt and followed him along the curving, rutted path toward the first cotton field. They were about halfway to the rise that concealed the field hands when Forrest heard the saw teeth stop pulling through the wood. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the two half-grown boys trailing after them at what they must consider a safe distance. Well, let’m come on then.
    “What news,” Ben said.
    Forrest tried to catch his eye. “What d’ye hear?”
    “Trouble aplenty,” Ben said after a pause. “Even white folks can get some now.”
    He looked at Ben hard; Ben was facing him head-on but somehow their eyes still just didn’t meet. By damn that was a sassy remark … but it was true too, and Forrest thought he’d as well let itgo. No telling what kind of wild tales might be going round the quarters and if he didn’t want a smart answer he’d have done better not to have asked.
    “Let’s git on,” he said shortly, pulling down his hat brim. Ben followed him to the top of the rise.
    Thirty-some slaves were thinning cotton, fanned out over the long black furrows. The plants had come a good four inches high. Forrest turned left and walked along the outside of the split rail fence to a point where he could see down to the pocket by the tree line and the creek, where another handful of slaves was working. He cupped his hands and hallooed to them, and while he waited for them to come he stooped and broke a clod of the black earth with his fingers.
    “Mmm-hmm,” Ben said again, at his back.
    A blue-veined earthworm slipped over his thumb and burrowed back in the loosened dirt. Rich land it was. He had bought most of it three years ago. He’d take a thousand bales off it this year, if not for the war. In spite of the war, if they all pulled together.
    Slaves had straightened from the work and were shading their eyes to look at him. But they seemed uncertain if they should come. The day in the field had barely got started. Forrest turned, looked over his shoulder. A big iron bell stood on a post left of