Jackson smiled, distantly, drowsily. The Doc was good. It was almost like the man was there himself, simultaneously living Jackson's past life. But Jackson had described this scene so well, it was seared so deeply into his subconsciousness, that it was no wonder Dr. Edelhart could almost watch it like a movie.
Part of Jackson knew he was half-dreaming, that he was actually sitting in a chair in a Charlotte high rise. But the image was vivid, the farm spread out around him, the boots heavy on his feet, the smell of horses drifting from the barn, a cool draft on his neck from the creek. This wasn't real, but it was. He was this farmer, edging along the fence line, poking along the rim of the cornfield.
Past visits to this past life had made it familiar.
He was Dell Bedford, Southern gentleman, landowner, a colonel in the Tryon militia. Because they all knew Lincoln and them Federalist hogwashers were going to try to muscle the South back into the Union. But what Lincoln and his boot-licker McLellan didn't figure on was that the Confederate States of America might have other plans.
The nerve of that Lincoln, telling them what to do with their niggers.
Jackson swallowed hard, back in the modern padded chair, sweat ringing his scalp line. This part bothered him. He wasn't a racist, not anymore, not now. He'd voted against Jesse Helms, he supported illegal immigrants. He even saw a black therapist. He was cool with it all, brotherhood of man, harmony of one people.
But he had no proof that he hadn't once been Dell Bedford, slave master and arrogant white swine. How could he deny the word "nigger" that sat on his tongue, ready to be spat over and over again, a sick well of hate that never ran dry? He was Dell, or had been, or…
"Are you there, Jeffrey?" came Dr. Edelhart's voice. Decades away, yet right on the plantation with him, like a bee hovering around his ear.
"Yep," Jackson/Bedford said. "Corn's come in, gone to yeller on top. If I can round me up some niggers, might get an ear or two in before first frost."
"Those slaves. Always causing you problems, aren't they? Building up stress, making your chest burn with rage." Dr. Edelhart's voice was nigger-rich with sympathy.
"Damned right." Jackson/Bedford felt the muscles in his neck go rigid. He thrashed at the corn, then hollered. "Claybo!"
The shout scurried across the stalks of corn, rattled the corners of Dr. Edelhart's office. "Never can find that Claybo when you need him, can you?" said the doctor.
Bedford left Jackson, had no use for him, just as well let him sit in a chair and talk to a dandified free boy. Bedford had chores to get done. And there was only one way to get them done. Work the niggers.
"Claybo," he shouted again.
Sweat ran down the back of his neck, the brim of his hat serving hell for shade. Bedford hurried into the field, leather coiled in his taut right hand. His oldest son was on horseback in a far meadow, galloping toward the Johnson place to scramble hay with one of Johnson's bucolic daughters. Bedford gritted his teeth and waded into the corn.
"Claybo, if I ever get my hands on you…"
"Then what, Dell?" It was the dandy nigger. Dell shook his head. A damned voice from nowhere. The nerve of an invisible nigger to mess in a white man's business. A white man’s dreams.
"Then I'll kick his uppity ass. What else can you do with a sorry nigger?"
"He's not in the cornfield, Dell. You know that, don't you? We've already been through this."
"Shut up, nigger." Bedford tore through the corn, knocking over stalks, heading toward the thin stand of pines where the slaves were quartered. "Bet that damned good-for-nothing Claybo is taking himself a little snooze. And the sun ain't even barely touched the trees yet."
"That Claybo. He's nothing but trouble. Probably even learning to read. Bet he's got a spelling book under his strawtick."
"Niggers. Don’t let ‘em read. The first word they teach each other is 'no.' Well, I know how to drive the book-learning out of them." Bedford let the whip play out as he ran, jerked his wrist so that the length of leather undulated like a snake.
"That's it, Bedford,” came the easy voice. “Feel the anger. Embrace it. Breathe it."
Bedford scratched at his ear and ran on. He burst from the cornrows and crossed the bare patch of dirt that served as nigger-town square. Six cabins of rough logs and mud squatted under the spindly pines. A little pickaninnie sat in front of one of them, playing with a rag doll. She'd be able to walk soon, and finally be able to work for her keep.
Bedford went to the last cabin and kicked at the door. It fell open, and Bedford shouted into the dark. Then he saw them, three pairs of white eyes. There was nothing quite like a nigger in the dark. Hell, he didn't even mind when his neighbors had runaways, because they were so much fun to hunt.
"Tell me what you see," said the distant voice. Smooth-talking nigger, like one of them Yankee preachers that come down once in a while to rub in their faces that, up North, niggers were free. How Northern niggers owned all kinds of land, while Bedford had only thirty hardscrabble acres of Carolina clay.
"What the hell you think I see? You were here with me last time I done this." Bedford was nearly as mad at the invisible nigger as he was at Claybo. He hurried into the cramped dark.
"Don't hurt me, Mar's Bedford," Claybo pleaded. Like a little sissy girl who was going to get a hickory switch across the bloomers. "My baby's took sick. I swear, I was going to go back and work. I just had to come look in-"
“Shut up, nigger.” Bedford's eyes had adjusted now, and he could make their outlines. The woman on the bed, holding the infant, both of them slick with sweat. Claybo kneeling beside the bed, hands lifted up like Bedford was Jesus Christ the Holy Savior, but Claybo should know that Jesus never helped niggers, only good, holy whites.
The woman wailed, then the baby started crying. Bedford's blood coursed hot through his veins, his pulse was a hammer against the anvil of his temples, his head was a powder keg with a beeswax fuse.
"You're right to feel anger," whispered the educated nigger, the one that was so far away. "You've been wounded. This is where your soul bleeds, Jeffrey."
Bedford wondered who the hell Jeffrey was, but that didn’t matter, that was another world and another worry. He grabbed Claybo by the shirt and tugged him toward the door. As much as he would have loved to stripe the nigger in front of his woman, the cabin didn't allow for good elbow room. Claybo only half resisted, dead weight. He didn't dare struggle too much. Because the nigger knew if he did, his woman would be next.
Bedford's anger settled lower, took a turn, became something warm and light in his stomach.
Joy.
He loved beating a nigger.
He pushed Claybo to the ground, tore at the big man's shirt. He gave the nigger a kick in the ribs to get the juices flowing. The whip handle almost throbbed in his hand, as if it had a turgid life of its own.
"Seize the fragment," came that confounded, invisible nigger, the one in his head. "Look at yourself, Jeffrey. You're splintered, apart from the world. Outside the circle of your own soul."
"My fragment." Bedford grunted through clenched teeth.
"These are the traumatic emotions and body sensations that have tracked you through the years. This is where your pain comes from. This is your unfinished business. This is your wound."
Bedford tried to ignore the nigger-talk. He stepped back, hefted the whip, sensed the graceful leather unfurling, rolled his arm in an easy motion, sent the knotted tip into Claybo's broad back. The ebony flesh split like a dropped melon.
A sweet pleasure surged through Bedford, a fever that was better than what he found between his wife's legs, even between the nigger cook's, a honey-hot heaven. He whisked the whip back to deliver another blow-