Let the Circle Be Unbroken

by Mildred D. Taylor

  There was an unexpected harshness to Mama’s voice, and Papa noticed it as we all did. “Some . . . but ones we did talk to claimed they wouldn’t’ve known if they’d carried Stacey or not, since they don’t keep any lists. Then, too, they said that jus’ ’bout anybody with a truck for hire could take up the business of trucking people to the fields. It’d be near to impossible finding them all.”

  “’Sides that,” added Uncle Hammer, “sometimes they keep the workers moving, taking them from plantation to plantation, chopping cane.”

  Mama accepted this in silence. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she looked at Papa. “When are you going out again?”

  Uncle Hammer glanced over at Papa. Papa met the glance, then put his hand over Mama’s. “Honey, you got any idea how many people grow cane?”

  “You saying it matters how many?”

  “It’s gonna have to matter—”

  “Well, I don’t care how many there are. I want Stacey back in this house.”

  “Mary—”

  “When, David?”

  “Right now, I don’t see much point—”

  “Much point? Your son is out there somewhere—”

  “Don’t you think I know that? But we don’t know where to look. I figure we may do better just to wait for some word from Stacey. Leastways, we’ll know by the postmark ’bout where he is.”

  Mama pulled away from him. “You don’t want to go looking for him, I will.”

  “Mary, use some sense—”

  “He’s been gone too long, David, and I’m not going to rest till he’s back in this house.” A look of accusation was in Mama’s eyes. Saying nothing else, she rose abruptly and left the room.

  Big Ma patted Papa’s arm. “You gonna have to be patient with her, son. It’s hard on her.”

  “She think it ain’t hard on me?”

  “She be all right. I’ll go talk to her.” Then Big Ma, too, got up.

  Papa watched her leave, shook his head, and sighed.

  * * *

  It was late when I heard their voices. Unable to sleep, I had left my pallet and sat in a chair by the open window. As I stared out into the blackness listening to the sounds of the crickets and the katydids, I heard the door to Mama and Papa’s room open and close and, shortly afterward, the opening and closing of the door to the boys’ room.

  “Thought I heard you out here,” Uncle Hammer said in a low voice.

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Me either.”

  There was silence, then Uncle Hammer said, “David, I’m gonna leave my car here.”

  “What?”

  “Gonna leave my car. That way, you find out anything, you can go see ’bout it.”

  “Man, what I’m gonna hear? I tell you, Hammer, I don’t know how much to fault myself and how much to fault Stacey and how much to fault the times. But I’ll tell ya something else. Much as I love Stacey and want him home, I can’t help feeling sometimes like he was old enough to go off by himself, he’s old enough to get back here by himself.”

  “Maybe that’s just how it’ll have to be.”

  “He oughta know we was gonna worry. When I think . . . I get real angry sometimes at that boy, and I know I oughtn’t—”

  “And why oughtn’t you? He went off. Ain’t told you where. Ain’t sent no word—”

  “Now that’s what’s really got me worried. Maybe he can’t send no word. . . .” Papa’s voice trailed off and in its place came a sound I had not expected to hear. It was a strange, muffled sound, one I knew but had never heard from Papa. I trembled, frightened; for Papa, who was always so strong, was crying. Suddenly the crickets and the katydids seemed louder and the pounding of my heart louder than both.

  Uncle Hammer said nothing.

  Finally Papa cleared his throat and was silent. After a long while he spoke once more. “Lord, Hammer, I wish I knew where he was.”

  “I can stay and we can go searching again.”

  “What ’bout your job?”

  “It don’t matter.”

  “Naw . . . naw, I still feel the same way. It’s better to wait and try to get some information first ’fore I start running ’round out there again, not knowing where I’m going. I figure to ask some questions, find out more ’bout them plantations.” There was a break in his words, and when he spoke again, I could hardly hear him. “I tell myself he’s near fifteen and that a lotta boys have to make it on their own time they’re his age. Then I think ’bout all he don’t know yet and I get scared . . . real scared.”

  “David, I ’spect you got a right to be scared, but you gotta remember you and Mary, y’all taught Stacey good. He’s smart and he’s got good sense. I figure he’ll be all right. ’Sides, maybe he just had to learn on his own what this life business is all about.”

  “Had hoped he wouldn’t have to this soon.”

  “Well, that was his choice.”

  “Perhaps . . . but maybe he wouldn’t’ve made it, I’d’ve been here for him to talk to. Mary blames me, you know, ’bout him leaving, and I can’t blame her either. She told me over and over not to go ’way.”

  “Mary’s upset.”

  “I know, but if I’d’ve stayed—”

  “Look here, David, don’t go faulting yourself and don’t let Mary wear at you. You two, y’all got something special here, and Stacey going ought not spoil that. There’s still Cassie, Christopher-John, and Little Man to think ’bout. Now I ain’t much good in talking ’bout stuff like this, seeing I ain’t never even had a wife, but I know y’all got too much to go laying blame. What I heard Mary say this afternoon wasn’t coming from Mary. That was coming from a woman all torn apart with worry and fear. You listen to me, David, and get this here thing straightened out between y’all. You hear me now?”

  “I hear.”

  “And David, you need me to come go looking again, you just call. Remember that.”

  “. . . I’ll remember.”

  At breakfast the next morning Papa looked tired, as if he had not slept at all. He and Mama said nothing to each other during the entire meal. When breakfast was over and I had finished the dishes, I sat absently swinging on the front porch thinking of the silence between them. As I stared out at the field, soggy with the day’s continuing drizzle, Christopher-John and Little Man rounded the house from the drive and joined me.

  “What you doing?” Little Man asked, disrupting the rhythm of the swing as he and Christopher-John sat down.

  “What it look like I’m doing?”

  Little Man chose not to comment on this. “Papa and Mama, they was fighting in the barn.”

  “They wasn’t either fighting,” objected Christopher-John. “They was just discussing.”

  “Well, seem like fighting to me.”

  I looked at Little Man. “What they fighting ’bout?”

  “Well, me and Christopher-John was down by the smokehouse and we heard ’em. Mama, she said if Papa didn’t go back to look for Stacey, then she was gonna go her own self. But Papa, he said that was crazy. Wasn’t no way she gonna find Stacey less’n she went to near every cane field in the South. Then Mama, she said if Papa hadn’t’ve gone back to the railroad, Stacey, he wouldn’t’ve left looking for no job.”

  “She said that?”

  “She didn’t mean it though,” contended Christopher-John. “She jus’ upset, that’s all. When she seen us and seen we’d heard, she looked real sorry.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “Told us to come back to the house.”

  I sighed and looked out at the forest.

  “I don’t like it when Mama and Papa fight that way,” said Little Man.

  Christopher-John turned on him irritably. “How many times I gotta tell you they wasn’t fighting?”

  Little Man allowed the question to hang a moment in the misty air before repeating, “Well, sho’ seemed like fighting to me.”

  “Ah, there y’all are!” Papa came across the stepping stones from t
he drive and climbed the steps. “I was wondering where y’all’d gotten off to.” He leaned against a post and immediately Christopher-John hopped up.

  “Papa, you wanna sit down?”

  “No, thank you, son. This here post’s fine enough.” As if to show it was fine enough for him too, Christopher-John took up a similar position at the post opposite Papa.

  “Papa,” I said, “you really ain’t goin’ back to look for Stacey?”

  “Baby, if I had any idea where Stacey was, I’d go get him . . . this very minute. But I ain’t. I got no idea at all ’cepting he’s working the cane fields somewhere. Now much as I hate it, we may just have to wait till we hear from him, and seems to me, him knowing we’ll be worried, he oughta be writing soon.”

  None of us spoke and he said, “You think I don’t know how y’all feel?”

  We looked at him without answering.

  “Got a great big empty spot that aches all the time and can’t nothing fill it ’cept for Stacey to come home? Well, I know it ’cause I got it myself. We all got it. We all part of one body in this family, and with Stacey gone, we just ain’t whole. I know that. But till he do come back, we just gonna have to keep on being strong and we gonna have to support each other and stick together in this thing, ’cause we all going through the same hurt and worry.”

  “But, Papa,” I said, “what if we don’t hear from Stacey?”

  Papa hesitated, as if he did not want to answer my question. “Just gonna have to have faith, Cassie . . . that’s all I can say. Faith Stacey’s all right and faith he’s gonna come home. Lord willing, that’s the way it’ll be. Now it’s gonna be hard livin’ without him till he do come back, but we just gonna have to try. Gonna have to try hard.”

  I had never heard Papa sound so tired. “Papa, don’t you think you oughta get some sleep? You said you didn’t sleep so good last night.”

  “I will, Cassie girl, I will.” But he didn’t move from the porch. He stood there for some time sharing the aching pain of loneliness with us, and when he finally did go, it was not into the house, but across the lawn to the road, where he went into the forest alone.

  That night, I cried.

  11

  “Maybe he’s dead,” said Mary Lou Wellever. “Maybe they’re both dead.”

  I laid into Mary Lou with all I had, hitting her so ferociously that she fell whimpering upon the ground, her thin arms over her face to protect herself from my fury. Son-Boy and Maynard tried to pull me off.

  “Cassie, ya gonna hurt her bad, ya keep it up!” hollered Maynard as I beat at her cowering form.

  “He ain’t dead, ya hear me? He ain’t! So you keep your filthy mouth to yourself!”

  “Let her go, Cassie!” Son-Boy yelled, taking hold of my arm. “Cassie!”

  Maynard grabbed my other arm, and together he and Son-Boy pulled me away. Mary Lou continued to cringe on the ground, too paralyzed with fear to move. As tears slipped down my cheeks, I shrieked wildly at her, trying to get at her again, but Maynard and Son-Boy’s hold was too strong.

  “Cassie Logan!”

  I looked up just as Miss Daisy Crocker stepped from the crowd and grabbed my arm. Son-Boy and Maynard released me with a helpless shrug, then looked on sympathetically as Miss Crocker led me away. I hollered back at Mary Lou one last time. Miss Crocker gave me a jerk. “Now, that’s enough of that,” she said.

  She led me to her empty classroom, ordered me to sit, and left. I waited for her return trembling with anger and fear, a fear not of Miss Crocker or anything she could do, but of Mary Lou’s words. It was mid-November and Stacey had been gone nearly eight weeks now. In all that time, there had been no word of him, no word from him or Moe, and inside me I was scared all the time as the knot of fear swelled with the passing days, eating at my ebbing faith that he was all right.

  A few minutes later when Miss Crocker returned, Suzella was with her. “Now I know that life is not easy for you right now, Cassie,” said Miss Crocker in her familiar, brusque way, “but even when times are hard, we cannot go around taking out our frustrations on others. That’s just not the Christian way. Suzella, now I want you to talk to her, and afterward I’ll take her to see Mr. Wellever. Sorrow or not, we just cannot tolerate fighting here at Great Faith.”

  Suzella agreed wholeheartedly with Miss Crocker, and then said if Miss Crocker didn’t mind, she would like to talk to me alone. Miss Crocker looked somewhat askance at both of us, as if we were taking advantage of her sympathetic gesture, and agreed. “But only a few minutes. Class will be starting promptly at one, and I want Mr. Wellever to see her before then.”

  After she had gone, Suzella sat sideways at the desk in front of me, her eyes on me, but for a while saying nothing. Finally she spoke. “Well, what were you fighting about?”

  “Didn’t she tell ya?” I asked, still angry.

  “She said she thought it was something about Stacey. Was it?”

  “That devilish Mary Lou! Said he was dead!”

  Suzella was silent a long time. Then she stood. “Come on.”

  “Where?”

  “Outside. I want to go for a walk.”

  “But Miz Crocker told you—”

  “I’ll worry about Miss Crocker.”

  “Mr. Wellever too?”

  “Him too. Come on.” She walked out, not waiting to see if I would follow. I waited several moments, thinking on it, and went after her. Suzella was headed for the trail leading into the forest. “You know, Cassie,” she said when I had caught up, “I know you might not think so, but there are some ways we’re alike.”

  I stared at her. “What’s that?”

  “What we love, we love very deeply. I understand why you jumped on Mary Lou.”

  “Would you have?”

  She looked back at me and was honest. “I don’t think so. Maybe I would’ve liked to, but I don’t think I would’ve. It’s just not me.” We walked in silence until she spoke again. “I’ve wished a lot of times, though, I were more . . . more hot-tempered and could just say what I think.”

  “You’d just be getting yourself into trouble. You jus’ keep staying near to perfect like you are and you’ll do better,” I advised.

  Suzella stopped and laughed. “Near to perfect?”

  “That’s what you try to be, ain’t it?”

  “Not really.”

  “Seem that way.”

  “Well, maybe I do . . . sometimes.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  She looked away, then back at me. “Maybe I should try being more like you,” she teased.

  “Maybe,” I said and the two of us walked on.

  We came to the fallen tree where I had played my last game of marbles. It seemed so long ago. We sat down and talked, mostly about Stacey.

  “I swear to God, Suzella, he ever come back, I won’t ever do anything to make him mad again. He wanna go off by himself, I’ll let him be. He wanna keep changing, he can do that too. I won’t say nothin’. He wanna— What you laughing ’bout?”

  “Because you couldn’t do it, Cassie.”

  “Yes, I could.”

  She shook her head. “It wouldn’t be like you. Besides, as much as you might get on his nerves sometimes, Stacey would want you to be you.” Her eyes twinkled. “He wouldn’t know you otherwise.”

  When the bell rang, we did not go back. There was no rush, Suzella said.

  “You gonna get in trouble.”

  “You want to go back then?”

  “No,” I decided. “’Sides, I think trouble’ll look good on you for a change.”

  She laughed. “Not too good, I hope.”

  After school Christopher-John, Little Man, and I sat with Little Willie and a group of other friends by the well waiting for Suzella, who was still inside explaining to both Mr. Wellever and Miss Crocker why she had been late for her class. I had already gotten a stern lecture from Mr. Wellever for fighting with Mary Lou and had been dismissed. But they had kept Suzella.

  �
��Ain’t heard nothin’? Not a word?” questioned Little Willie, as he did practically every day even though he knew we would have told him if we had.

  “I still can’t get over them leavin’ in the first place,” said Clarence.

  Don Shorter leaned against the well. “Wish they’d’ve let me in on it. I’d’ve gone with ’em.”

  Clarence looked over at him. “Wouldja?”

  “Sure. Me and Ron.”

  “Well, when they get back,” said Little Willie, “I’m gonna sho’ get on them. Not even sayin’ nothin’ to me ’bout this thing.”

  “Umph!” Ron said. “They must be havin’ some kinda good time.”

  Little Willie looked at him as if he were crazy. “Working the cane fields?”

  “Naw, that ain’t what I meant. Meant off seeing the country. Taking care of themselves.”

  “Oh.” Little Willie did not sound convinced. There was silence around the well. Then, with a shake of his head, he mumbled, “Shoot! Wish they’d come on back. I miss them scounds!”

  “Well, least one thing,” said Don.

  “What’s that?”

  “They ain’t gotta be bothered with no Stuart Walker where they are.” He nodded toward a car coming onto the school grounds. “Look there.”

  The black Hudson pulled in front of the well and Stuart stepped out. He looked out over the car’s hood at us, taking his time before speaking. He knew he already had our attention. Finally, he said, “Y’all younguns know a nigger by the name of Dubé Cross?”

  Dubé, who had been sitting quietly on the ground with his back against the well, looked up in surprise. Fear welled in his eyes and he said nothing. But our eyes had automatically shifted to him when his name was mentioned, and now Stuart looked at him too.

  “You, boy, what’s your name?”

  “M-me, suh?”

  Stuart waited, saying nothing else.

  Dubé leapt to his feet. “D-D-Dubé, M-Mr. W-W-Walker, sir. Dubé C-Cross.”

  Stuart studied him. “Heard you was helping them union men when they was here.”

  Dubé trembled. He kept his eyes on the ground and did not look at Stuart.

  “Heard now that Morris Wheeler been seen near this way over by Pine Wood Ridge. You seen him?”