"Previously on Underground..." "Rosalee's got her head in a vice and you want to talk about your sad feelings?" "Maybe she running 'cause of what you done to her, Momma?" "You ever think about that?" "I got word on where this Harriet Tubman may be." "Why shouldn't I be writing the book about her?" "Focus on what you got to do now." "They call her the Black Rose." "And that girl seemed to know Harriet." "Retrieve my Black Rose." ""I could work as much and eat as much as a man..." ""when I could get it..." "and bear the lash as well." ""And ain't I a woman?" ""I have borne 13 children," ""and seen most all sold off to slavery," ""and when I cried out with my mother's grief," ""none but Jesus heard me." "And ain't I a woman?"" "Black folks up there talking like that?" " That's what this says." " To whole crowds of white folks?" "What else does it say she say?" "You know, part of it's missing." " Some of it's smudged." " Well, read what you can." ""He says women can't have as much rights as men," ""'cause Christ wasn't a woman." ""Where did your Christ come from?" ""From God and a woman." "Man had nothing to do with Him..."" "What does she mean by that?" "Daddy." "It means you strong, not just in your body, but in your mind, too." "I thought you promised Massa Tom was the last one." "Hey!" "Where the hell you been?" "You supposed to be working!" "You hear me?" "Where the hell you been?" " Answer me!" " Sorry, sir." "Sorry, sir." " S-she been sick, all morning." " Ain't no excuse." "You right, you right, you right!" "T-This my fault." "I-I told her she could get some rest." "Now, I only said that 'cause you got me going to play music for Massa Matthew later, and I thought she could do some singing." "Y'all get your asses back to work!" "Yes, sir." "What in the hell wrong with you?" "Been covering your ass all morning and you walk around the quarters like a..." "Ain't nobody ask you to save me." "You mad about that girl?" "She ain't mean nothing." "You best be ready to sing for Massa Matthew later." "Yeah, she washed up here." "Lost a lot of blood while doing it." "Some of the more industrious runaways have been known to stuff turkey feathers in their clothes to stop buckshot." "Didn't quite work against my long-range rifle though, huh?" "Your aim must have been off." "Looks like this Black Rose is still alive." "Patty don't miss." "Well, it is widely believed in some scientific circles that the negro woman has an almost supernatural ability to bear pain." "Perhaps that came into play." "She's only good to us alive, Mr. Donahue." "Now we've broke her into some pieces." "And some of those pieces are on the ground here." "And some of them are over that way." "My "aim" is follow those pieces all the way back to Harriet Tubman." "All right!" "Let's move out!" "Aah!" "Mary." "It's time for your piano lesson." "Get up on that bed." "I can't." "Come on, now." "Come on, jump!" "Higher, higher, higher." "This life be hard and unfair." "You gonna know pain, and ain't much I can do about that." "But every once in a while, we can steal moments like this one." "If you can hold onto them, it'll help you through the hard times." "Understand?" "Good." "Now make this bed up better than you ever have, or I'm gonna sic Patty Cannon on you." " Who shares this shame?" " Speak, girl!" "Who was the father?" "The ancestors took your child for your sin, for his sin." "Tell us, who lay with the unwed?" "Speak!" "Speak now!" " Who is the father?" " One belong to another?" " Speak, girl!" " Who was the father?" "Who shares this shame?" "Look here!" "How long that buckra been watching?" "Is that Massa Roe?" " Too young." " Could be his son." "What he doing so far from the great house?" "Daughter." "Me know this tradition feel harsh." "But you're being shamed because you should feel shame." "What you done disgraced all of we." "But we gonna help you carry your burden." "Speak so that you can be free." "We ain't gonna give up on you." "You tell we." "And we will heal this here wound together." " That's right." "Mm-hmm." " Yeah." "Who shares this shame?" "Speak, girl." "Who the father?" "Ancestors took your child for your sin, for his sin." "Tell we." "Who lay with the unwed?" " Speak!" "Speak, girl!" " Who the father?" "Solomon." "That's what we name him." "What you think, huh?" " You a Solomon?" " Solomon." "No." "It don't feel right." "How about Sam?" "Ah, come on now." "Solomon's a good name." "It's a strong name." "He was the wisest man that ever lived." "I think he was King David's first born son..." "I's sorry." "All right?" "Sorry." "You can tell me about it." "Look here." "I ain't gonna let them take this one from you." "Okay?" "It be a girl..." "I like Rosalee." "Want to know what this here tree mean?" "What it's purpose." "Don't know why you'd want to trap spirits after they die." "Seems to me they finally free." "You let 'em fester, them evil spirits will eat away at everything good and whole in this life." "They follow you into the next." "Ain't no freedom in that." "I don't believe in your spirits." "Hmm." "That a shame." "'Cause they seem to believe in you." "And them poisons you're taking, they ain't gonna get rid of 'em." "And what will?" "Your rituals?" "Maybe the Bible." "No." "Ain't none of us been from Africa for a long time." "Your spirits don't matter here." "They certainly didn't protect your daughter." "And that white man's Bible is just that, for white men." "This pain you're feeling ain't new." "It thrives on isolation." "We ancestors teach we that." "That we ain't in this alone." "Will you do this for me, Momma?" "Well, there's less blood, but it's looking like she crossed here." "Well, then go on in after her." "That water is cold as hell." "I ain't getting in there." "Saw a crested bank a half-mile that way where we can cross." "No, that's where we're gonna cross." "You, however, are going to cross here so that we don't lose her trail." "What about Smoke?" " What about Smoke?" " He should go." " No, he should not." " And why the hell not?" "Because I am going to bed Smoke later, and I don't want to catch a cold." "Patty, listen..." "Take off your clothes, and get in the damn water, Jack." "Oh... $10 pants..." "All right." "Oh, God!" "Ah!" "Whoo!" "Mm." "Massa Matthew don't know what he in for." "Once he hears that voice of yours..." "Maybe lay off it a bit, yeah?" "Seeing as how we're going to the big house." "More reason not to." "Why you look like... you're going to a funeral?" "Who you trying to fool?" "Massa's house, that's home." "That's where you're at your best." "I was at my best when I was his whore?" "Be better if that's all it was, but what you and massa had, that was... that was more." "No, it wasn't." "Then what about Rosalee?" "Security." "Little James?" "An accident." "And I made sure I wouldn't have any more of those." "But you was his way more than you were my momma." "19 years he owned you." "I said when." "I said where." "Always." "You controlled nothing." "You protected nothing." "All you did was fatten me up for the slaughter." "I did the best that I could." "Fed me all their lies." "Told me if I stayed in line..." ""Yes, sir." "No, sir." "Thank you." "Thank you, massa"... that I'd be safe." "I was massa's most exceptional nigger, just like you taught me." "And all it did was give me the length of a rope." "And-and... and you went right on back to being one of his whores." "His fingerprints all over you." "And you ain't never sang for nobody the way you sang for him." "That one there." "The more you do this, it'll harden your muscles." "Keep you strong for the task at hand." "I's ain't never seen a woman know about this kind of work." "My daddy was a lumber inspector." "He worked most of his life under God's roof for Massa Stewart." "How he settling in to his new life?" "He don't know what to do with himself." "He say them Canada trees feel different." "Suppose he right." "He'll get used to it." "What if I can't make my momma run with me?" "She pretty settled in her ways." "So was mine." "She was meant to wait out her bondage." "She was always telling us how we was term slaves." "We be free at 45." "When I was younger," "I thought that made us special." "The promise of freedom if you just work harder." "That's how they get you." "My brother believed in that." "And when the lie was exposed, and she learnt she was meant to be a slave forever," "by that time, well, it was too late for her to take the journey by foot." "But I, I put her on a carriage up north anyway, and I tell you, that woman, she grumbled the whole way." ""Hard and unfair," is how my momma used to call it." "For her, it was about making the best life inside the pain." "She'd do anything to protect her chillun." "Looking at you, swinging that axe, she doing something right." "This whole island really going to be yours someday?" " Unfortunately." " Hot damn." "To the South!" "And its follies." "To the South!" "This is not meant to be a party." "So you got kicked out of the academy." "Who cares?" "Look around." "You don't have to go to war for a legacy like the rest of us." "I'm not staying." "I'm just here until I figure out what to do next." "It would be more accurate to say you're hiding out from your father." "I suppose if you're gonna be a terrible host," "I'll be forced to drink with your niggers." "They ain't mine." "Thank you, sir." "That a boy." "Be forced to drink for your sorry excuse as a master as well." "This is exactly what I was talking about right here, what this island does to you." "What?" "Makes you drink with the help?" "No, it changes you." "My stepmother, she was a farmer's daughter on a little piece of land near Charleston." "Sweet as apple pie." "When she first moved here," "I remember she was uncomfortable being waited on hand and foot." "Then her hand was okay with it, then her foot." "By the time I left, she spent most of her time hollering at the house girls, calling them incompetent, beating them with a switch." "What are you going on about?" "In New York, I remember hearing it called "bondage,"" "and the word, well, it always stuck with me." "Slavery is such a one-sided term for it all." "Bondage suggests a duality, that it affects us, too." "Brings out the worst." "It's akin to, I don't know, root rot." "Well, that's it for me." "None of you are worth a salt, except this one here." "What's your name?" "Hicks, sir." "Hicks." "You'll drink with me, right?" "Uh... why-why don't we hear some singing?" "Yes, maybe that'll bring Matthew out of his foul mood." "Hold it." "Be still." "Still now." "Just... just a bit." "Don't move, don't move." "All done." "Send his body back to his family." "He ain't got any." "Well, then dig a grave." "Yeah." "Let's get this equipment up and move out." "Based on the state of our poor friend, Jack, she couldn't have crawled far." "Mr. Donahue, hold up." "How about this for a caption?" ""One of three Patty Cannon gang members" ""murdered in cold blood by the notorious slave stealer, the Black Rose."" "I think your caption murders veracity in cold blood." "Well, you can't make a legend out of the truth." "At least, not one worth publishing." "Elaborate." "What was the most interesting story you heard about me?" "Before you decided to write the book." "The baby over the fire?" "All right." "Recite it back to me, as you heard it." "As I heard it, you and your men were on the trail of a runaway named Banjo, who killed his master and hightailed it north." "Sounds like a fairly ordinary day." "You came upon a small shack in Braintree occupied by a young, black couple with a three-year-old boy." "You suspected that this couple had recently harbored Mr. Banjo, so you held the head of their baby over the fire until the young couple gave up the man's plan." "And do you think that story is true?" "And does it matter if it isn't?" "'Cause it's a good one." "Whether folks are telling it or hearing it, they feel the fire, they hear the screams, and they think of their own babies." "It's sensational." "And that's what this story's going to be." "We build up the Black Rose so that when you catch her and she leads you to Moses, your place in history is assured, is that it?" "And you, my friend, get a best seller." "Yes?" "You're not worried you'll build up the legend, and then fail to catch her?" "I like a good story, too, Mr. Donahue, but it's really money that gets my attention." "Do you know the average price on a runaway's head?" "Five hundred?" "A few months back, there were seven runaways worth a thousand each." "A few of my men lost their lives trying to collect that reward." "Something tells me that this Black Rose is connected." ""Negro girl named Rosalee." ""Mulatto, delicate nature, well made." "Wearing fancy dress upon escape."" "Hmm." "You lucky massa ain't sic the overseer on you." "All you had to do was look pretty and sing." "It's your fault." " You know I didn't want to go up there." " You ain't tell me nothing." "You know how I got these stripes on my back." "Yeah, you mess up at the great house and then you get sent out in the field." "What kind of crazy you is to do that?" "You want to be the massa's bitch, you go ahead, but you leave me out of it." "You don't talk to me like that." "Come on!" "Do it!" "Do it!" "Why you do this?" "You know I ain't trying to hurt you." "I love you, Stine." "I love you." "I heard you done helped some of the girls around here." "You ain't with child." "I ain't." "I don't want to be... not ever." "I seen't you parading up at the big house like you on a cake walk." "Fishing for the massa's eye." "Seem like growing a little, yellow weed exactly what you want." "Get you a nice, comfy bed next to massa." "I'd still be a slave, no matter where I sleep." "I don't want the massa, but that's what I get." "And it's not just him." "Them overseers." "Some of them others in that field, too." "Anybody who think they could take a piece of me." "I'm trying to protect myself, the only one trying." "So I'm-a use what I got." "You sad, pretty, little thing." "You can't protect nothing." "You control nothing." "Your body ain't never been yours and never will be." "But looks is all you got, so I suppose you better use 'em." "You cut out your insides." "That's the only way." "You, too, of the massa seed." "They blood is in you, and it seep to the bone." "Ain't no running from it." "Your kin done sold you an old and terrible lie." "That you can survive this." "Oh..." "Mm." "Mr. Donahue?" "Go, go, go!" "We got you, we got you." "We got you." "Come on, come on!" "We got you." "Come on." "Come on!" "We got you, we got you." "We got you, we got you, we got you." "We got you, we got you." "Jack... his death." "How does it affect you?" "Did it affect you?" "Of course." "You didn't seem to like him." "I liked him." "Not sure I respected him." "He lacked critical thinking, for sure, and manners, most of the time, but I can give those a pass." "The only thing I need from my men is loyalty." "That is non-negotiable." "Yet you and Jack were always in a state of negotiation." "Mm." "Exactly." "Didn't surprise me when Smoke told me he had no family." "I mean, he could fail me, not get paid, pass out in a alley, and there's nothing there to motivate him to do any better." "So family men are ideal, in terms of motivation." "Sure." "But you know what's better?" "My nigger catchers." "They're motivated." "The ones that were slaves themselves don't want to go back, and the free ones, the ones with brains anyhow, know that I can send them into it anew," " they piss me off enough." " Hey!" "Hold up, now!" "So is that the plan for the Black Rose?" "Turn her brethren on her?" "I can do better in this unique circumstance." "What makes this circumstance unique?" "There's one man I know more motivated than anyone to pluck the petals off the Black Rose."