But you can’t live on a feeling. Can’t light a fire with it. Can’t eat it. Come the morning our bellies was emptier than ever and we didn’t have nothing to put in them.
There wasn’t a scrap left to eat on the place. Someone had already dug up what been left in the ground. But hey! There’s the woods and there’s the river. Amos goes off to set some snares, see what he can catch. Things is gonna turn out fine. I’m singing when me and Cookie set off gathering firewood.
I forgot the whole county was already crawling with folks who had nothing. All the fences been torn down, taken away. Was a miracle that cabin been left. Wasn’t a stick of timber on the place. We didn’t find more than a heap of damp branches. When Amos come back at sunset he had one small fish for the three of us to share, that was all. Seemed there wasn’t no possums left in the woods. There wasn’t hardly no fish in the river neither.
We survived that winter grubbing around in the dirt like hogs for whatever we could find. I don’t care to recall what we ate. Some things is best forgotten.
By the time spring come, our clothes was hanging off us. We was little more than skin and bone but one afternoon Amos come home – empty-handed, but smiling.
Now, we didn’t see nobody but ourselves from one week’s end to the next – news was months old before we got to hear it. But that particular day Amos had run into a man who been trying to fish down along the river who told him we been declared free.
“I thought we was already,” I says.
But no – it turned out there was a difference between President Lincoln proclaiming something and them fine gentlemen in Washington agreeing he could do it. They been arguing back and forward all this time. Amos says now they passed the Thirteenth Amendment. The Constitution been changed. Slavery is dead.
Well, I was way past trying to make sense of what white folks did. I didn’t understand any of them big words. Couldn’t see what difference it made: we was still starving.
But what Amos said next made my jaw drop wide open. Seemed them Confederates had surrendered. It taken four long years but the war was done. Over with. Finished.
“Ain’t no more North and South! No more Yankees and Confederates! No more slaves and masters.” Amos is grinning so much his face is split in two. He squeezing Cookie so tight he gonna bust her ribs for sure. “We all one now. We the United States of America!”
Well, that did make a difference. As a matter of fact, that changed everything. I figured we could take ourselves into town. Find ourselves some work. Start to live like regular folks. How did regular folks live, anyhow? I was itching to find out.
7.
I guess I was around about fourteen, fifteen when we finally went walking into town. I wanted to try that word “freedom” on for size, see how it fit. Amos and Cookie had took some persuading to come along with me. I been on at them for days. They was for keeping their heads down, lying low on the Delaney place. So they wasn’t saying much but I was whistling through the gap in my teeth all the way there, telling myself things was gonna be fine and dandy from now on in. We’re free! Ain’t we reached the Promised Land?
A whole way of life been blown away. Didn’t no one know what was coming around the corner now. To me the air seemed full of hope. This was a new start, wasn’t it? We could make the world the way we wanted it. I was busting to get going.
What I didn’t know was how deep down sore the white folks was about having the rug pulled out from under them. Guess they was scared too, and it seems scared white folks is mean white folks. Scared is dangerous.
As we walked on into town they was watching the three of us. Men, women, children. Rich gentlemen right the way down to poor trash, all staring as we go on by. After a while that multitude of eyes weigh heavy on my skin. I stop whistling and start worrying. Didn’t none of them folks look ready to stroll on up, shake us by the hand and offer a fair day’s pay for an honest day’s work. Wasn’t nothing for us to do but keep right on walking. But it didn’t feel like we was the Israelites entering the Land of Milk and Honey no more. It felt like we was the Egyptians who followed Moses into the Red Sea. Like there was walls of water standing high on both sides. And we wasn’t gonna make it to land before them walls come tumbling down.
Ain’t none of us never looked for work before. Didn’t know where to begin. Who to ask. We’re walking, wondering, when a voice call, “Hey, brother.” He skinny as a rake and his clothes is hanging off him in ribbons, but he seem friendly enough.
“Hey.” Amos give him a nod.
“You looking for the bureau?”
“The what?”
“Freedmen’s Bureau. It down there on the sidewalk, see? They help you.”
Amos give him another nod and we set off towards it. But we don’t never get that far.
We was going along the sidewalk when we see this piece of trash coming towards us. She wearing a new silk dress. Scarlet. It so bright I damn near have to shade my eyes. Her face is painted like she a china doll sitting on a sideboard. The word “whore” is written in the air over her head in letters about a mile high. She’s hanging on the arm of some man.
He don’t even glance our way. His head is cocked on one side listening to something his lady friend is telling him. They powering along the sidewalk straight at us.
Now we was free. Abraham Lincoln said so, and them fine gentlemen in Washington agreed. It’s official. Amos and Cookie been repeating it over and over like a prayer, like they was finding it hard to believe they finally got what they been wishing for all these years. And I guess deep down in their hearts they didn’t truly believe it. Soon as Amos and Cookie seen them white folks coming, they step off the sidewalk and into the mud. Keep their eyes lowered, like it the master and Miss Louellen coming at us. Like they still someone’s property.
Amos and Cookie. I see the two of them, standing there together, arm in arm. Pressed close, shoulder to shoulder. A wedded couple. Leaving me out of it. Always the third. The extra. The spare. Always in the way.
That knife twists in my belly. It’s like I’m a child again. Mad as hell. They’re slipping in the mud, but I ain’t moving. I ain’t going nowhere! I figure, if I’m free, ain’t I got a right to be on that sidewalk? I’m staying put. And I sure ain’t lowering my eyes to the floor.
Now that sidewalk was wide enough for all of us. If them white folks had turned a little itty bit, they’d have got past, sure enough. Didn’t have to be no problem about nothing. But they walk on like I’m not there. Like I’m made of glass. Like I’m invisible to the naked eye. I stand still. I ain’t going nowhere. As they draw level, that man look at me. His eyes meet mine.
Next thing I know, that whore lady has banged her big old hooped skirt into me so hard it’s risen right up and the whole town gets an eyeful of her pantalettes.
Well, a woman don’t show nothing of what’s beneath her skirt but an inch of slipper. Leastways, not in public, not even if she’s a whore. What I seen of that woman’s legs was downright indecent. Made me gasp loud enough for them both to hear. After that she’s clutching her chest, reaching for her smelling salts like she’s going to swoon clean away. The man is holding her arm, fanning her, but all the time he’s looking just about ready to strangle me with his bare hands. Folks is gathering round us and every single one of them pink and ivory faces look mean as mean can be. I ain’t simply been uppity – I done insult a white woman. And I’m just about scared witless at the thought of what might happen next.
But nothing did happen. Not there. Not then. A Yankee officer come out of the Bureau. He seen a crowd gathering and come to find out what the fuss was. Folks melted away like snow in sunshine. The three of us walks out of town real quick. We head back to the Delaney place, checking over our shoulders the whole way to see we ain’t followed.
No one had come after us. Well, not that we could see. Didn’t mean we felt safe. Amos and Cookie was too scared even to be mad at me. We sat in that cabin, avoiding each other’s eyes, not talking, twitch
ing every time the wind rustle the leaves or a bird fly up sudden. Amos was whittling a piece of wood down to nothing until it got too dark to see. We didn’t light no fire.
I was out of my mind with fear, but I still fell asleep. Guess Cookie didn’t. In the dead of night she heard the sound of horses coming hard and fast up the drive. I hadn’t gone looking for trouble. But she know right away that trouble had come looking for us.
Cookie grab my shoulders and push me down into the yam cellar. One second I’m sound asleep and snoring, the next I’m crammed in a hole in the dirt floor no bigger than a tar barrel and twice as dark. She’s hushing me and telling me not to make no sound. She lay the boards over my back. So I hear what happens even though I can’t see none of it.
Amos figured the Lord would protect him and Cookie. They ain’t done nothing wrong, after all: they stepped down into the street. And Amos always was a praying man. He starts singing. Couple of verses of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and he figures they’ll be safe. His voice rises up and Cookie’s joins it, twining around his like honeysuckle. They singing like a pair of angels but down in that cellar I’m wishing they’d turn tail and run.
Because it turned out them white folks was a whole lot scareder and meaner and more dangerous than any of us could have imagined. Didn’t care who they lynched. White woman been insulted? Hell, some nigger’s got to pay! Wasn’t long before they had Amos strung up to a tree. When that was done they turned their attention on Cookie.
While Amos is choking, he’s listening to his wife’s raping. While they raping Cookie, she’s listening to her husband choking. And I’m listening to it all, and I can hear them men whooping and yelling and laughing. Laughing. Laughing. I know their eyes is popping with the thrill, and there ain’t nothing I can do about none of it. They having her right there, right there above me. There’s animal sounds – grunts, squeals – the stink of men. Mating. Sweat. Whisky.
But that ain’t the worst part. That ain’t the worst part. The worst part is that I know one of them. I know that voice. I know that whoop, that whistle. I ain’t got no idea what he been doing all these years. I ain’t got no idea why he come back. But that him all right: that’s Jonas. Ain’t no mistaking his laugh, his squeal, high-pitched as a hog’s. His smell.
It in my nose, down my throat, it choking me. It filling my head and I got my fists in my mouth to stop from sobbing and I’m praying and praying for it to stop. The words of all Amos’s songs are whirling round and I’m begging Moses to come, begging for that band of angels and that sweet chariot to carry us all away. But I guess the good Lord ain’t listening. Or else he got a strange way of helping folks who ask him for it. Turned out it ain’t enough just raping Cookie. When them gentlemen done finish they string her up alongside of Amos. Then they torch the cabin.
Given a choice between staying quiet and burning or getting out and getting raped and lynched I chose to burn. Not that I had any kinda choice. Truth is, I was too much of a goddamned coward to move. I was so deep down terrified I passed out. When that first torch come flying into the cabin – when I hear Jonas cry, “Got ya!” – I fell somewhere so dark I might of been dead.
8.
I lived, which was lucky – or not – depending which way you look at it. The walls and roof of that old cabin were damp. They didn’t catch good. Fire had died not long after I passed out. When I woke my back was aching and my head was hurting like hellfire but that was all. Wasn’t a scratch on me.
I come out of that yam cellar like a rabbit out of his hole. First thing I saw was Amos and Cookie twisting in the breeze like they was dancing, real slow. Their faces was all wrong. There was this silence. Just the creaking of the tree and the scratching of ropes against the bark.
Well, when you see a sight like that you gonna do one of two things. Either you gonna lay down and die. Or you gonna carry on living. You gonna survive.
Don’t get me wrong. I ain’t no hero. I tried the laying down and dying option first. I was so scared and sorrowing, so eaten alive with guilt at what I brung to Amos and Cookie’s door that I lay me down and hollered till I couldn’t make no more noise. I yelled for the Almighty to strike me dead. I prayed for the good Lord to fetch back that band of angels and that sweet chariot and carry me away from there like He done Cookie and Amos. I wanted to go right along with them. But He didn’t send me nothing. Seemed I didn’t have no choice but go on living. After a while I stood up again, sucked in a deep breath, and wondered what in the hell I was gonna do next.
Amos’s whittling knife was still in his belt. They’d grabbed him so quick he’d never had time to fetch it out. Besides, what use would a blade that size be against a gang of men fired up on whisky?
I cut them both down. Took a while. Ain’t ashamed to say I couldn’t see sometimes for crying. Was hoping all them things Amos said about heaven was right. Hoped they was together someplace a whole lot better than this. Singing, right along with the angels.
I picked up the shovel. Couldn’t dig more than a shallow grave in the plot behind the cabin but I done it. I rolled Cookie in. Covered her over. But before I done the same for Amos I took off his shirt and britches.
What kind of a girl steals the clothes off a dead man’s back? A desperate one, that’s who. Them things covered me good. I figured if a mob come looking, I’d get lynched. But if I was wearing these then maybe, just maybe, they’d skip the raping part. By the time I walked off of that godforsaken plantation, I’d become a man.
I took Amos’s knife too. Wasn’t much of a weapon but I wanted to have something sharp in my hand. Felt safer that way. I turned my back to home. Was bent on getting about as far from it as my two feet would carry me.
I don’t rightly know exactly what happened after that. Was just a whole heap of empty days and lonesome nights. I was hurting real bad inside. The only thing that stopped the sorrow swallowing me whole was that I was mad too. I was burning mad with Cookie. Flaming mad with Amos. Raging mad with the both of them for standing there singing when they should have been running; for thinking the Lord would protect them; for going off to heaven together and leaving me down here all alone. I was raving at the two of them, and I was raving at Jonas and every white man had ever walked the earth, but mostly I was raving at myself. And so long as I was doing that I was staying alive.
I didn’t pay attention to no one. Walked along with anyone travelling in the same direction. There was a whole bunch of freed slaves who was off their plantations. Most of them was field hands who didn’t know nothing but planting and picking. After a few weeks of wandering they was heading back to where they come from because there wasn’t no work to be had nowhere else. Was a stream of faces I can’t recall. They was shadows in a bad dream. Remember one thing though: they all looked at me kindly. They shared what food they had – if they had any – and talked nice. But after they’d spent a night by the roadside in my company they was glad to see the back of me.
See, I’d drift off to sleep, then straight away I’d start dreaming I’m back in that yam cellar. Only this time I ain’t passed out. This time I don’t stay hid. I’m curled there and someone’s pulling back the planks, real slow, and I’m so scared I shit myself. He’s holding a flaming torch in my face. The heat’s crackling my skin like pork. I can’t see no more than his outline. A halo of golden curls dancing in the firelight. But I can hear his voice. And I can feel the rope around my neck. Rough against my skin. Tightening.
Every night I woke up screaming. Drifted off again, dreamed the same dream again, screamed again. Over and over. Kept it up until sunrise. Wasn’t no getting away from it. Each and every time I dreamed that dream it ended with my feet dangling, kicking against the empty air while Jonas Beecher stood watching. Laughing.
9.
They tangled themselves together – dream and memory – until I didn’t hardly know which was which. I couldn’t tell whether I was alive or dead. Seemed most likely I was a ghost, that I’d be wandering for all eternity.
> There was times I’d try telling myself that I hadn’t seen Jonas. Hadn’t seen any of that lynch mob. I’d been face down in that cellar, eyes tight shut. I’d tell myself it couldn’t have been him. His pa went away. Whole family was gone soon as the war begun. He just couldn’t have come back. Cookie would have yelled out his name. Pleaded with him. Said something. Besides, he wouldn’t have done that to her. Not to her! He grown up right there on the Delaney place. He couldn’t have done something like that. He just couldn’t have been with them men: my mind been playing tricks on me!
But I kept walking.
One time I fell in with a family with a broke-down wagon and an even more broke-down mule. Never did know their names – never asked them – but they was good to me. They heard on the grapevine there was pay and lodgings to be had working in the mines. And if there wasn’t, there was factories in the North. So I went along with them.
Didn’t occur to me till I saw them mines that they was underground. Since them men come calling I’d gotten real scared of the dark. The notion of being underground all day give me the shakes. And I ain’t never seen nothing so bad as them miners’ cabins. Slave quarters was bad back on the plantation but at least the air been clean. At least there been woods to snare possum and rivers to catch fish. If I had me a choice I’d prefer to be a field hand. Cotton picking was real hard labour but it was out in the open.
I looked about me and figured that if that mine was bad then maybe them factories was even worse. That family was looking at me sideways. And all of a sudden I was tired of being a burden. Tired of weighing heavy on other folks. I’d gone and got Amos and Cookie killed. Maybe I was better alone.
Buffalo Soldier Page 4