A Perilous Proposal

by Michael Phillips

  “Where?” asked Jake.

  “Don’t rightly know, son. North of Charlotte sumplace.”

  “In da city?”

  “Don’t think so, young feller. Some town north er there. He was in a livery too, as I recolleck.”

  Jake was on the road again the next day, passed through Charlotte, where he worked for another week to earn money for food, then began walking from town to town as he moved out of the city to the north. He stayed for a week or two in every town of any size, picking up what work he could and asking the blacks he encountered if they knew a man called Patterson. As soon as he was satisfied there was nothing more to learn in one place, he moved on to another.

  Increasingly reminded that he had forgotten what his father looked like played tricks on Jake’s mind.

  Thoughts and memories and images began to haunt him with more regularity. He did not seek them, but could not prevent them. The face of his mother was now with him always—smiling, loving, but watching . . . a gentle sadness in her eyes. She was sad because she saw the anger in the heart of her son. She was in a place now where he could hide nothing from her. She knew. But reaching out from the grave into his memory, she was powerless to heal his bitterness and make it go away.

  With images of her came also unbidden images of his father, vague and shadowy and distant—smiles and laughter, and loving caresses from a father’s hand. But when they came in his dreams, Jake pushed them away, silently rejecting the very touch of love he so desperately longed for.

  Jake Patterson was a soul in torment. Yet whenever Micah Duff’s words returned in his brain along with his mother’s, he forced them away.

  He began to dream horrible dreams of the man attacking his mother, and always they ended the same, with her cries for help. But Jake was not there to answer them. Then again came Micah’s words—“You’re full of anger deep inside. You’re trying to run from it, trying to hide from the light. But you can’t escape it.”

  Sometimes he awoke screaming out terrible curses in the night, as if to banish his inner demons of anger and guilt by sheer force of will.

  But deep inside he knew he was living a lie. His own words to Micah returned to haunt him too—“She’s dead because of him!”

  But it was all a lie. He was blaming his father when he had no one to blame but himself.He had caused her to die. Not his father. There was no one else to blame . . . only him. But to admit it would be to relinquish the object of his anger. And that he was not yet ready to do.

  The spring of 1865 gradually warmed and gave way to summer. Jake turned seventeen, and a look of dawning manhood had come to his eyes and cheeks. But it was a hard look. He rarely smiled now. And he still had to face manhood’s greatest challenge—discovering who he was, and what he was going to do about it.

  In North Carolina he made inquiries in every town he came to. By June he had gone through a dozen or more towns without learning a thing. Finally he came to a small town some twenty miles from Charlotte. Walking through it for the first time, he was used to the stares and looks as he asked if anyone knew where a black man might find work.

  Some whites ignored him, some answered rudely or cursed at him, some spit at his feet. The more respectable merely turned up their noses and moved as far away from him as circumstances would allow. But here and there one answer might lead to another. The fellow blacks he met were always friendly.

  Eventually, it seemed, something always turned up.

  FATEFUL DISCOVERY

  26

  IT WAS ABOUT A WEEK LATER THAT JAKE GLANCED UP from where he was loading some boxes onto the back of a wagon in front of the hotel.

  He had heard a delivery wagon clattering along the street but had hardly paid it any attention. As he looked toward the street he saw that its driver had reined in his team. A white man on the buckboard was staring down at him. A hot sun beat down and Jake’s chest was dripping with sweat. It was the first week of July.

  “Don’t think I’ve seen you around here before, have I, son?” the man asked.

  “No, suh.”

  “How long you been here?”

  “Jes’ a few days, suh.”

  “Just passing through looking for work?”

  “Dat’s right, suh.”

  “How long you figure to be working for the hotel here?” he asked, cocking his head toward the building behind Jake.

  “Don’t know, suh—likely anudder day er two.”

  “Would you like some steady work? I pay a fair wage to black or white.”

  “Dat I wud, suh. Effen you’s got work, I kin do it.”

  “Then you come see me, son,” said the man on the wagon. “I’m in the next town west of here—about four miles. Ask anyone where to find me. The name’s Watson—what’s your name, son?”

  “Jake, suh.”

  “Well, I hope you’ll come see me, Jake,” he added, then slapped the reins and yelled his team back into motion.

  Three days later, after asking directions from the hotel manager who had hired him for a few day’s work, Jake was on his way to the next town in his long trek.

  As he entered it, the town looked like any of thirty other towns Jake had been in during the last few years. He had grown into a man moving from place to place, and in many towns just like this one. This was the first time he was going to see a white man who had actually come to him asking if he needed a job.

  “I’s lookin’ fo Mr. Watson,” he said to the first person he saw.

  Within an hour, he was hard at work loading sacks of grain into a wagon for a delivery to be made that same afternoon.

  He worked several days, mostly inside a grain mill, loading and unloading. Then came a day without any deliveries.

  “I don’t have much for you to do today, Jake,” said Mr. Watson. “I’ve arranged for you to work at the livery up the street. The owner’s a friend of mine. Go up the street and see the black man there. He’s expecting you. He’ll put you to work.”

  Jake did so. The older man handed him a pitchfork, showed him where to dump the manure and straw from the stables, then disappeared for several hours. When he returned, a wagonload of various supplies stood in the street in front and they set about unloading it. As they worked, little was said between them, though several times Jake caught sight of the lanky Negro man gazing at him with an odd look of perplexity. Something about the man’s voice sounded strangely nostalgic in Jake’s ear. He couldn’t quite lay his finger on the reason. But whenever the man spoke, strange sensations filled him as from a far-off dream, whose disappearing fragments he could not quite catch as wakefulness returned to his brain. And, like fleeting dreams, the harder he tried to grab on to them, the more quickly they retreated into forgetfulness.

  He returned to Mr. Watson’s at day’s end feeling strangely uneasy. Yet at the same time a strange and quiet melody of peacefulness played distantly at the edges of his consciousness. That night he passed in Mr. Watson’s storage barn as he had the last several nights. But he slept little. The melody of peace was drowned out while he was tossed about by many strident and undefined emotions flitting through his brain.

  Back at work the next day for Mr. Watson, though tired from his restless night, Jake managed to lose himself in his work.

  Another day passed. Then one of Mr. Watson’s men was laid up by an injury to his hand. The owner summoned Jake.

  “I’ve got to take this delivery out to one of the plantations myself, Jake,” he said. “I want you to come with me to help unload it.”

  They made the delivery, then started on the hour-long return drive. On the way back to town, Jake spoke up. It was the first day he and the mill owner had been alone together.

  “You min’ ef I ax you a question, Mr. Watson?” Jake asked.

  “Not at all,” the man replied.

  “You make deliveries all roun’ ’bout here, so’s you must know jes’ ’bout everybody.”

  “I suppose I do, Jake,” laughed Mr. Watson.

  “You eb
er hear ob a black man called Hank Patterson?”

  Mr. Watson stared back at him. “What kind of a question is that?” he said.

  “I meant nuthin’, Mr. Watson. I’d jes’ like ter know, dat’s all.”

  “Sure I know him, Jake.”

  “You know him!”

  “Of course. You spent a whole day working with him up at the livery last week.”

  “Dat black man . . . dat’s Hank Patterson!”

  Watson nodded. “I’ve known him for years.”

  Jake was silent the rest of the way back to town. When they arrived at the mill, he jumped down from the wagon and ran up the street.

  He flew into the livery stable in a flurry of emotions. There stood the black man. He glanced up and saw fire gleaming in Jake’s eyes.

  “Mr. Watson tells me yo name’s Hank Patterson,” Jake said in a demanding tone.

  “Dat’s so, all right. Though folks round here call me Henry.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “Well, I been lookin’ fo you.”

  “You lookin’ fo me—why dat?”

  “’Cause my name’s Jake . . . Jake Patterson.”

  The older man’s eyes filled with tears. Slowly he approached and began to open his arms to embrace the son he thought he had lost forever.

  “Don’t you touch me,” Jake said angrily, stepping back.

  Stunned, his father stopped. His loving eyes were full of confusion. “What is it . . . son?” he said. “What you talkin’ ’bout?”

  All the pent-up anger of the years suddenly exploded to the surface like a long-smoldering volcano.

  “Don’t you call me yo son!” said Jake heatedly. “You lef’ us alone an’ you said awful things ’bout me. You neber loved me. You cared more ’bout dat white boy Johnny Clarkson den me. You neber cared ’bout me an’ den you lef’ Mama an’ me. You lef’ her t’ die, an’ it’s cuz ob you!”

  “Yo . . . yo mama’s . . . dead?” said Jake’s father in a halting voice. His eyes filled with tears.

  “Yes, she’s dead, an’ it’s cuz er you. Effen you’d been dere an’ hadn’t axed Massa Clarkson ter sell you an’ lef’ us all alone like you dun, maybe she’d still be alive!”

  The poor man crumpled on a bale of straw, buried his face in his hands, and wept bitterly. But Jake was too young to be moved by such a display. He had not yet shed the tears of manhood. He did not yet know that there are no tears that pull with greater anguish at the heart than the honest tears of a quiet man’s love.

  Jake turned and stormed out of the livery, leaving the broken man who shared his name alone with his heartache, his tears, and his loss.

  ACCUSATION AND AGONY

  27

  TWENTY OR THIRTY MINUTES LATER, JAKE WALKED back into the cool shadows of the livery stable. Hank Patterson, the man whose name he had so long sought without thinking what he would do if he one day actually stood face to face with him, was still seated where he had so cruelly left him.

  Jake’s spirit had calmed, but his countenance remained dark and ominous. Clouds of cold, smoldering anger still brooded across his forehead and in his eyes.

  He sat down and stared at the floor.

  “I reckon you got a right ter hab yo say too,” said Jake after a few long seconds. He thought himself wiser and more fair-minded than he really was by such a statement. He was not really ready to listen. He just wanted to be eased somewhat from the brief pangs of guilt for storming out as he had. But he was ready to lash out with more of the same should his anger boil to the surface again.

  Like most boys his age, humility had not yet begun to change his certainty that his own ideas were more reliable than anyone else’s. He was especially not about to listen to anything his father might say. His own resentments, based on images of incidents either misunderstood, remembered inaccurately, or that had never happened at all, were absolutely real in his brain. No amount of logic or reason, especially from his father, and certainly not his own father’s tears, could dislodge them.

  Gloomily Jake waited. Unconsciously in his pocket, his fingers turned the little carved horse over and over that had come with him so far. But he was not thinking about his mother right then, only himself.

  “But . . . but you’s got it all wrong, son,” said his father at last. His voice was barely above a whisper.

  “Says who . . . says you?” retorted Jake.

  “Says one who wuz dere, son.”

  “An’ I shud believe anythin’ you say ’bout it?”

  “It might be dat you shud believe one who knows what happened better’n a small boy who must hab got some parful wrong noshuns in his head sumhow.”

  “So . . . a boy can’t see da truf ’bout his daddy?” said Jake. His anger was rising again.

  “Not ef he’s wrong, son. Chilluns don’t ushally recollect things altogether da right way. De’re too young, and sometimes too selfish ter see things da way dey really is. Da truf is, son, you’s wrong ’bout all you said.”

  “Well, maybe it’s you dat’s wrong!” Jake shot back. “Maybe it’s you dat don’t remember what really happened back den.”

  The older man sighed. His grief to hear his grown son speak so was almost more overpowering than his tender heart could take.

  “I do remember it, son,” he said softly. “I wuz a growed man. You wuz jes’ a boy. Dat’s why I recollect it right, da way it really wuz. You’s rememberin’ it wrong, son. It didn’t happen da way you think at all.”

  “Yeah . . . well, maybe I don’t believe you! I think you jes’ don’t want ter face what a cruel man you wuz.”

  “You kin believe da truf, or you kin believe a lie, son. But dat don’t change what da truf really is.”

  “An’ you know what’s true an’ I don’t?”

  “Dat’s right, son,” said Mr. Patterson softly.

  “I kin see dis wuz a mistake, thinkin’ I cud talk t’ you,” said Jake angrily. “Yo mind’s made up. You’s not gwine listen ter nuthin’ I gots ter say. You jes’ won’t see dat what you done ter me wuz wrong!”

  Jake jumped up and began to storm off again.

  “I thought you said I had a right ter my say too,” said the voice of his father behind him.

  Jake stopped. The words hit him hard. The man was right.

  “Seems ter me dat you’s da one not wantin’ ter listen,” added his father. “I’m sittin’ here calm-like wiffout raisin’ my voice an’ jes’ axin’ you ter let me tell you what happened, an’ you’s da one rantin’ an’ stormin’ round angrier den a hungry bull dog when you ain’t got as much cause ter be angry wiff me as you think. Where dat anger come from, son, I don’t know. But you’s a mighty angry young man. So you kin storm off effen you want, or you kin listen to sum truf dat you’s got all twisted up in dat brain er yourn.”

  He stopped. Jake sat down again and waited. It was silent a long while.

  “Dere came a day in my life,” began Hank Patterson at length, “when ef I’d hab wanted ter become a hatin’ man I’d look back on dat day as when hate cud hab entered my soul an’ neber lef’ it. I ain’t sayin’ dere ain’t been bitterness an’ sum anger on account er it. But thank God I kep’ hate from consumin’ me. An’ I pray I’m still learnin’ ter forgive fo dat black day dat destroyed a thing dat’s precious in God’s sight, a family.

  “It wuz da day w’en Mr. Clarkson come ter me in da fields an’ took me an’ said he was sendin’ me up ter his brudder’s plantation fo a spell ter help wiff da horse trainin’. I started ter walk back tards da slave village an’ he yelled after me, ‘Where you think you’s goin’, Patterson?’ he says. An’ I said dat I wuz goin’ back ter tell my wife an’ ter say good-bye ter my son an’ tell him dat I loved him. ‘You ain’t goin’ nowhere, Patterson,’ he says back. ‘You’s leabin’ fo Carolina right now.’ An’ den one er his men took me ter da train, an’ afore I knowed it I was on my way wiff him.

  “An’ I done my work up he
re in Carolina fo a few munfs, an’ den Mr. Clarkson’s brudder, he sent me back home. An’ what shud I fin’ when I git dere but dat you an’ yo mama’d been sol’, an’ Mr. Clarkson jes’ laughed when I axed him where you wuz. He wudn’t tell me, an’ nobody’d tell me, an’ I don’t think none ob da other slaves eben knew, on account er Mr. Clarkson keepin’ it from dem ter punish me cuz I wudn’t call him Master.

  “My heart wuz like ter break in two. I cried mysel’ ter sleep many er night fo love ob you an’ yo mama, but dere weren’t nuthin’ I cud do ter fin’ where he’d sol’ you to. Nobody knowed, or effen dey did, dey wudn’t tell me. But ol’ Beulah up t’ da big house, she tol’ me dat she’d oberheard Mister an’ Mistress Clarkson talkin’ ’bout me one day an’ ’bout Carolina. She didn’t know dey’d jes’ sen’ me dere for a spell, an’ she thought dey’d sol’ me an’ dat I wuz a slave on some plantashun in Carolina an’ she tol’ me she’d tol’ yo mama dat I wuz in Carolina. An’ dat tore at my heart all da more, knowin’ dat she didn’t know dat I wuz back right dere an’ dat you might er been jes’ a few miles away but dat I cudn’t fin’ you.”

  He stopped and wiped at his eyes and face, tears pouring down his rough black cheeks to live the memory all over again.

  “Den came anudder day when everythin’ changed agin,” he struggled to go on. “Mr. Clarkson, he had him a partickerly ornery horse dat no one cud break. He wuz a cruel man an’ he took delight in watchin’ dat animal hurt whoever tried ter ride it. One day came when he an’ anudder plantashun owner had been drinkin’ more den dey shud, an’ Mr. Clarkson started talkin’ big ter da men gathered roun’ an’ den he shouted out ter his slaves, more showin’ off ter his friend den anythin’. He said, ‘Whoever kin break dis horse, I’ll gib you yo freedom.’ He figgered we wuz all so scared ob dat horse, none ob us wud try, or, effen we did, we’d git trampled ter death an’ he wudn’t have cared. But I’d been watchin’ dat horse’s habits an’ by den I knowed everythin’ I needed to ’bout dat wild beast, an’ I wuzn’t scared ob what it might do.