“I’ll arrest you if I have to,” Judge Fuggett said, “for that business needs doing.” Several men nodded with him. Miss Abby took a backseat then. She backed off, fuming, while the judge took the center of the room and told the others. I lingered with my face behind a post and listened as he told it: There was a planned insurrection. It involved the Negroes from the pen, at least a couple dozen of ’em. They was planning on killing white families by the hundreds, including the town minister, who loved the Negro and preached against slavery. Several pen Negroes, some that belonged to Miss Abby and several others—for slave owners who come to town to do business often parked their Negroes in the yard—was all arrested. Nine was found out. The judge was planning to try all nine the next morning. Four of ’em was Miss Abby’s.
I run back upstairs to Pie’s room and busted in the door. “There’s big trouble,” I blurted out, and told her what I heard.
For the rest of my life, I would remember her response. She was setting on the bed as I told it, and when I was done, she didn’t say a word. She got up from her bed, walked to the window, and stared down at the slave pen, which was empty. Then she said over her shoulder, “That’s all? Only nine?”
“That’s a lot.”
“They should hang ’em all. Every one of them low-down, no-count niggers.”
I reckon she saw my face, for she said, “Just be calm. This don’t involve you and me. It’ll pass. But I can’t be seen talking to you right now. Two of us is a crowd. Git out and listen around. Come up when it’s safe and tell me what you hear.”
“But I ain’t done nothing,” I said, for I was worried about my own tail.
“Ain’t nothing gonna happen to you. I already fixed it with Miss Abby for me and you. Just be quiet and listen to what’s said. Tell me what you hear. Now get out. And don’t be seen talking to any niggers. Nary a one. Lay low and listen. Find out who them nine is, and when it’s safe, slip back in here and tell me.”
She shoved me out the door. I ventured down to the saloon, slipped into the kitchen, and listened in as the judge told Miss Abby and the others what was to come. What I heard about made me nervous.
The judge revealed that he and his men questioned every slave in the yard. The coloreds denied the insurrection plans, but one colored was tricked into confessing or just told it some way or other, I reckon. Somehow they’d got the information about them nine coloreds from somebody, and they snatched them nine from the yard and throwed them in the jailhouse. The judge further explained that he and his men knowed who the leader of the whole thing was, but the leader weren’t talking. They aimed to fix that problem straightaway, which was the reason for all the men and various town folks setting up shop in the saloon, armed to the gizzards, shouting down Miss Abby. For the leader of the insurrection was one of Miss Abby’s slaves, the judge said, downright dangerous, and when they brung Sibonia in twenty minutes later wearing chains on her ankles and feet, I weren’t surprised.
Sibonia looked worn out, tired, and thin. Her hair was a mess. Her face was puffy and swollen, and her skin shiny. But her eyes shone calm. That was the same face I’d seen in the pen. She was calm as an egg. They slammed her into a chair before Judge Fuggett, and the men surrounded her. Several stood before her, cursing, as the Judge pulled up a chair before her. A table was throwed in front of him, and a drink was set before him. Somebody handed him a cigar. He settled himself behind the table and lit it, puffing and sipping his drink slowly. He weren’t in a hurry, and neither was Sibonia, who sat there silent as the moon, even as several men around her cussed her up and down.
Finally Judge Fuggett spoke up and shushed everybody. He turned to Sibonia and said, “Sibby, we aims to find out about this murderous plot. We know you is the leader. Several people has said it. So don’t deny it.”
Sibonia was calm as a blade of grass. She looked straight at the judge and looked neither sideways nor over his head. “I am the woman,” she said, “and I am not ashamed or afraid to confess it.”
The way she spoke, talking straight at him, in a room crowded full of drunk rebels, that just floored me.
Judge Fuggett asked her, “Who else is involved?”
“Me and my sister, Libby, and I ain’t confessing to no other.”
“We got ways of getting you to tell it if you want.”
“Do your wants, then, Judge.”
Well that blowed his top. He went low-grade then, he got so hot it was a pity. He threatened to beat her, whip her, tar and feather her, but she said, “Go ahead. You can even get Darg if you want. But it can’t be whipped out of me nor coerced in any way. I am the woman. I done it. And if I had the chance, I would do it again.”
