“Yessir,” she said in a soft voice.

“If the federal government keeps sticking their nose in places it doesn’t belong,” said Tip, “then the Fugitive Slave Law won’t make any difference whatsoever. We’ve got to protect our own interests. Who are they to tell me, a God-fearing man, how to run my business affairs?”

Lizzie had heard about this law. That was one reason she was scared of Mawu’s plan. She had tried to explain that to the other slaves, but they didn’t seem to care. They were used to slave patrols, they said. A northern dog was no different than a Southern dog, they said.

“All you got to do is make the reward money high enough. That’ll catch a slave, for sure,” Tip continued.

“I’m not worried about anybody ending slavery anytime soon.” Drayle stared directly at the northerner. “This country has been built by men like us.”

The bumpy-faced servant refilled the men’s glasses with wine.

Sir returned and Reenie searched his face.

The manager beckoned to Sir from the doorway again, and he stood once more. They discussed something heatedly for a moment. Then Sir called Reenie over.

Reenie’s napkin fell to the floor as she got up from the table. Sir took her by the elbow and a loud “no” erupted from her.

“What’s going on?” Mawu asked no one in particular.

The dessert plates sat untouched. Reenie and Sir’s voices drifted over to the table.

“Naw, naw, naw.”

“Shut up woman and do as I say.”

“I ain’t doing it. Sir, please!”

Lizzie pushed back her chair, but Drayle grabbed the loose fabric of her dress.

Sir pushed Reenie into the hallway, and she pushed back. The manager stood looking up at her, for now that she was standing next to him, it was clear she was the taller of the two.

Mawu managed to escape Tip and made her way over to the struggling couple.

“Let her go.” Mawu grabbed Reenie’s other arm.

“You stay out of this and mind your business,” the manager said. When he turned his head and the light caught his profile, Lizzie and Sweet could see that he was sweating.

“Let her go, let her go, let her go,” Mawu said, pulling and breathing heavily.

“Drayle,” Lizzie whispered. Drayle took a sip of his wine.

Sweet whimpered and started to cry. Her master rubbed her back.

Lizzie watched as Reenie’s body went limp, as if breathing out its last bit of energy into the darkened room. The soft sound of her false teeth clicking together ebbed until there was silence. Sir and Mawu let go of her.

The manager raised his head. “There, there now,” he said to Reenie. Lizzie could see Reenie’s face clearly now. She had the look. The look of a woman who is done fighting. The look of a woman months after her children have been sold from her. The look of a slave who has decided it is better not to feel. All three of the women recognized what they saw on her face.

Reenie followed the manager into the corridor and they disappeared. Lizzie watched the gaping hole, the space where Reenie had just stood.

“How could you?” Mawu said to Sir.

He cracked his hand across her cheek.

“Don’t you ever come between me and my slave woman again, you hear me?”

Tip rose out of his seat. “Goddamnit, that’s my property!”

Mawu felt her face where the still-fresh scar had just been opened up again. She examined the blood on her fingers as if it weren’t her own. Sir returned to the table and a servant slipped through the side door and passed him a wet cloth to wipe the blood from his hands.

“Now, what’s this y’all are saying about a one-eyed horse?” Sir curled his lips into a grin. The servant returned with a bottle of wine. Sir took it from him and drank a long swallow directly from the lip of the bottle.

Lizzie looked at the light twisting through her empty glass. She couldn’t drink or eat another bite. The music and the sound of the men’s voices faded. She let the silence take her. When she finally looked up, the seat beside her was empty and Mawu was nowhere to be seen. Her master Tip was gone also.

But across from Lizzie, in the place where Reenie was supposed to be sitting, was a yellow-haired white woman with red-rouged cheeks. Sir had his face in her neck.

EIGHT

Reenie and Lizzie were told to pluck and prepare the birds the men brought back from their hunting trip. The two women sat on the ground and spread the dozen or so birds out. The evening sun was behind them and the half moons in their armpits had dried. Each woman took a bird, dipped it in a washtub of hot water, and pulled out the feathers in handfuls, their hands slick against the warmed skin. Once they had established an easy, quiet rhythm, they spoke in hushed tones.

“Tell me your story, Reenie.”

Reenie looked up at her younger friend sharply. Stories didn’t get told unless they had to. Stories were for remembering, and none of the women wanted to tell how they had gotten there. When they told their stories, they preferred to tell the ones about that faraway place. They preferred to tell ones they had patched together in their heads, hundreds of oral remnants whispered in dark slave cabins.

This was what Lizzie knew about Reenie: She lived on a plantation not far from Lizzie in Tennessee. They hadn’t known each other before visiting Tawawa, but when they spoke about it, they thought they might be kin. Two of Reenie’s cousins had been hired out the previous winter to work where Lizzie lived, and she had gotten to know them well. The first summer at Tawawa, Lizzie and Reenie had spent hours exchanging names, searching for a real connection and the fact that they hadn’t discovered any blood didn’t lessen the affection between them.

Reenie had an extended family on her plantation, and though some had been sold off over the years, they were remarkable for the numbers that remained. In fact, her plantation was made up of several families. The way Reenie told it, each of these families did their work together, and if one member fell ill, the others took up the slack. If a new slave was bought, the families would meet to decide which “family” he would join. Sometimes, according to Reenie, there was even a bit of friendly competition between families. This was different from Lizzie’s plantation, where the slaves toiled each for himself, suffering their individual punishments if they failed to complete a day’s work.

“Why you asking?”

Lizzie shrugged. “Wondering is all.” She did not say she had been worried about Reenie ever since the older woman had begun her nightly visits to the manager’s suite in the hotel.

Reenie stuck her finger in a hole on the bare skin and dug out the bird shot. She tossed it to the side and continued to pull feathers, more slowly and deliberately than before.

“He my brother,” she said, her voice low and flat.

Lizzie almost dropped the bird she was dipping into the tub. “Who’s your brother?”

She wiped at her runny eye with the back of her arm. “Sir.”

Lizzie tried to digest the news. She had heard about such things.

“So your daughter, the one that got sold off…”

“Sho. She my daughter and my niece.” now Reenie was yanking the feathers out, one by one. Her dark forehead shone in the red dusk.

“So I fixed myself,” Reenie said. “I fixed myself so he couldn’t make no more childrens. My family helped me. All the womens and mens gathered round me and prayed over me. All night, they went right on praying. Then right before the sun started to gather herself up, us fixed it so it wouldn’t happen no more.”

Lizzie heard the crack of a rifle in the distance.

“Wasn’t the first time the womens had done it. But I was a youngun. Fourteen and my baby was still nursing. I was still peering in her face near about every day wondering when God was gone strike his fury on her.” The dead bird lay limp, belly up in her lap, its head cradled in the crook of her groin. “But didn’t nothing happen. She just got prettier and prettier. And smaaaaaart, too. No sooner than her teeth start to growed, and she was walking and talking.”