Washington and Caesar - Christian Cameron

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because the chance of a decent fox was low, and because Cedar Grove was not represented in the field today and none of the Cedar Grove people seemed disposed to offer hounds. Washington knew why, but his neighbor’s relative financial troubles didn’t matter to him, except that he would eventually be asked to help them and he would. It was certainly nothing he would think to discuss. And young Lee had insisted on joining the small hunt, despite the fact that he would be the only young sprig in it. Washington watched him with remote tolerance. The boy was already better behaved than he had been on that distant December morning.

      Beyond young Lee was Caesar, helping French’s John sort the dogs and send the select pack with the huntsman. He was good, and Washington knew it—knew with satisfaction that several neighbors envied him his luck in finding the boy. He’d won a footrace at a fair, and a small purse with it, and more for his master in wagers than he had cost in Jamaica. But Washington couldn’t warm to him, or to the Ashanti airs that the boy seemed to have. Too arrogant by half, and his habit of standing with a hand on his hip like a classical statue irked him, as he must have learned it on the plantation. He never liked to see the scars above the eyes that seemed to deny any possibility of civilization in the boy. Washington winced inwardly at his unfairness, as he had never minded scars on Indians, but then, he was used to seeing Indians in their own deep woods, not on his plantation.

      The boy was above himself. It went against the order of things. Why couldn’t the boy smile like other blacks when he was addressed? Why did he so seldom laugh?

      Mason rode past the estate wall and up the drive, head still bobbing, and as he approached Washington, the latter’s worst fears were confirmed. Mason wasn’t here to hunt at all. He was ready to travel. Washington was a burgess as much as Mason, but he was holding his return to Williamsburg and the cares of government back a day to enjoy his farms; he knew that Mason would intrude some bill, and despite his warmth for the man, resentment mounted before Mason had closed the distance.

      “Scarcely dressed to hunt, Mr. Mason?”

      “Colonel, good day. Mr. Lee, Mr. French. Servant, ma’am. Gentlemen, I rode directly to inform you that Government has ordered the closure of the Port of Boston.”

      Mercer, dismounted near the house and struggling with a new and complex cavalry-style girth, missed the gist and almost lost his saddle trying to get it from Mrs. French. The others murmured, but Washington struck his saddle viciously with his whip, enough to make Nelson, usually the calmest of horses, start. Washington soothed him, annoyed at his own burst of temper, but such news put the whole party out of sorts. It had been hard enough to gather them, and the closure of the Port of Boston was a direct attack on the liberties of every man in the colonies. He said as much.

      “I had hoped you would all feel that way. I should like to have the House debate something on the subject—perhaps a censure.”

      Half of the huntsmen were burgesses. They looked about them, each considering bills up for consideration that would vanish if the governor prorogued them after they attempted to censure the Parliament in London. Washington thought of lingering details of the Great Dismal and the settlement for his officers on the Ohio frontier and cursed, but the matter could not be allowed to drop.

      “Mr. Mason, it is no pleasure to hear such tidings, but I thank you for the warning. It remains my intention, however, despite this difficult news, to hunt. What says the company?”

      Perhaps, if Washington’s views had not been so plain, some would have abandoned the hunt and started back for the capital immediately. Such had been Mason’s plan, no doubt. But so committed was Washington to his hunt, and so formidable did he appear astride his charger, that no one said a word. Mason went inside for refreshment, and the hunt went out.

      But Washington’s mood was foul.

      

      They raised a scent soon enough, and the fox took them up Dogue Run beyond the new mill, up into the marshy country near the eastern bounds of Rose Hill and into relatively unfamiliar country before they lost the quarry in a quagmire. The dogs got muddy to no purpose and both handlers were filthy by the time they had the dogs in order and off on a second scent. It all smacked of incompetence to Washington. He had not been riding right forward with the hounds where he liked to be, and he felt the burden of the lost fox on his shoulders and was sure the field blamed him for the loss. Mrs. French, a very Artemis-like woman but a witch for gossip, was regaling Mercer with some unnecessary tale, doubtless exploring the debt problems of the Posey family, or some such. But he heard her say “Muse” in a suggestive way, and he heard Hugh Mercer laugh a certain laugh, and his resentment at the day reached a new height. What were they saying about Muse, that coward? Muse had not even responded to his letter. Was he up to some new calumny? Washington fumed while the dogs searched for a new scent, casting wider and wider back toward the Rose Hill barns. The country above the marsh was relatively unknown to Washington; he had been over it often enough, but never at speed. And when the pack began to move, he was not really minding the ground or his mount.

      Nelson shied at something. Washington felt the shift of weight for the jump and raised himself for it, but as the back legs pressed him forward, he rolled his barrel to avoid the snake, and Washington, angry and bemused, felt the unthinkable—the gradual change of weight that told him he was going to lose his seat. He wasn’t thrown quickly—that would have been a mercy. He fell with great slowness, and indeed for a few seconds he was sure he was going to save the jump and regain his seat. He lost a stirrup at the first, and the uneven landing cost him the second, but he had a toe back in his left stirrup when Nelson gave a little twist and he slumped past the regained stirrup. He couldn’t quite get a leg down to dismount, and his hunting sword caught on a buckle of the girth and turned him around so that he fell only the last few feet. Nelson was barely moving at the time, which made it worse; it looked like Virginia’s best horseman had just fallen off a standing horse.

      He had to roll off his sword, which had punched him in the side on landing. The ivory of the hilt was cracked, the copper-green dye showing white. Mrs. French was laughing in the distance; closer up, young Lee was hiding his guffaw in his sleeve and trying to look anywhere else. And Caesar, the dogs boy, was grinning broadly as he held out a hand to help his master up.

      Washington ignored the suggestion that he needed help to rise and rose to his feet only to find his swordbelt had come down around his knees, and he stumbled badly before he caught himself. The movement was so comical that it finished both Lee and Caesar, who lost themselves in laughter. Washington fumbled with the lion’s-head buckle for a moment before settling the ruined sword back on his hip. Dogs were barking, pandemonium reigned, and Nelson was sidling away uncaught. He had torn his scarlet coat in the fall—the thrust of his shoulders had been enough to tear the seam under the arm.

      He had not been a laughing stock since before he went away to the war, and it didn’t suit him, but he strove to cover his feelings. He couldn’t blame Nelson, the most reliable of mounts.

      “Master yourself, Mr. Lee,” he said in a tone so dark that Lee went pale.

      Caesar continued to laugh while he ran ahead of Nelson, brought him to a stand by a fence, offered him a carrot, and caught him. He couldn’t stop laughing. Old John, Mr. French’s John, thought of stepping in, but he could tell that the boy was doomed; no fake attack by another black man could save him, and besides, he preferred Queeny a little freer with her favors. He stood and watched, and Caesar laughed, and the world changed.

       5

       Great Dismal Swamp, September 1774

      The trees were larger than anything he had seen since he had left Africa, and the swamp smelled a little like the land by the great river where he had been born. But any notion of home, any similarity that might have recalled a better time and made the place bearable, was instantly erased by the crushing weight of the work.

      He was back in the barracoon, locked down at night with chains, sweating to move great clods of mud all day. No woman lay beside him; he did not have

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