Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson Page B

other horses came up, whickering into my little field of vision, one of them dragging one leg. I heard white men hollering far away. The back door slammed downstairs, and Deihl hopped into sight like a chicken, pulling on his filthy old pants, grabbing at the horses. It was like a scene from Hell. The ambush had been ambushed, and the horses had come home. Six men had been killed and twice as many wounded. The two Tidewater gentlemen rode in on one mount, one of them shot in the arm but not excited about it, I’ll grant him that: those Virginia slavers were cool customers to the end. I worked at cleaning up the horses while Deihl shot two. I always wondered why he spared me that, but not the gruesome work with the boys. It must have been hard on him. Through the day the news got worse and worse as the wounded came back. Worse for them, the whites, that is. I looked at black folks with a different eye by the evening of that long and bloody day, bloodier for Deihl since he lost four horses—two of which, ironically, the U.S. government still owes me for, since Mama was freed before she died and left her half to me. I was excited. It was clear that the raiders on the mountain had more friends—and more effective friends—than me. I delivered a plate of cornbread and side meat and beans to Mr. Pleasance up at the Planters Hotel that night, and instead of cuffing me, as he did when he was mean drunk, or giving me a nickel as when he was generous drunk, he had me set it outside the door. Then he slid a nickel under the crack. For me that nickel sliding was the true beginning of the war.

    Laura May Bewley Jenks Hunter was a tiny little woman like a china figurine: bone-white, covered with a web of fine wrinkles like crazing. She must be ninety, Yasmin thought, although she knew she was a poor judge: white people looked old to her at sixty. The old woman peered at her through huge glasses, then touched her hand. Satisfied that this visitor was real (as if perhaps she had plenty of the other kind) she settled back into her wheelchair and smiled. When she smiled, powder cracked from her face and fell into her lap like snow from a shaken tree.
    Yasmin told her how much she’d appreciated reading the letters. It would have seemed rude to have said ‘enjoyed.’
    Mrs. Hunter explained that her mother had been the sister of Dr. Hunter. All the letters had come from her, since Dr. Hunter had left no heirs. Yasmin had figured out that much; her question was, how had she gotten hold of the ‘Emily’ letters? Even though it had all taken place a hundred years ago, Yasmin was reluctant to ask. It seemed like prying.
    “My father was a Bewley, of the Lynchburg Bewleys, and my husband was a Jenks, you know, but when he died I changed my name back to Hunter. The Bewleys were nobody in particular, and the Jenkses were nobody at all. You know when you get old, dear,” the old woman said, “the past seems closer than the present.” Black folks called you ‘honey,’ and white folks called you ‘dear’: Yasmin had noticed that as a child, and it still was true. She herself had called Harriet ‘honey’ last night when she had told her she was going to have a baby brother. Brother? Had she really said ‘brother’? Did she really think that? Did her subconscious know some secret her body hadn’t yet revealed?
    “Now looky here.”
    The old woman was opening a little cedar box she held on her lap; she pulled out an ancient, browned tintype.
    “Here’s my mother, Laura Sue Hunter, as a girl with her brother, Thomas Hunter, who wrote the letters. He left no heirs, you know.”
    She handed the photo to Yasmin, who studied it, looking for some sign of the young man who had heard Douglass thundering at Bethel Church; whose best friend was a Jacobin; who was in love (did he even realize it?) with a Yankee bluestocking. But the picture was too posed and dim: a Southern belle standing next to a Virginia gentleman, both completely