A Perilous Proposal

by Michael Phillips

  “So I steps up an’ I looked Mr. Clarkson right in his eyes an’ I says, ‘ You gib me yo word on dat?’ He wuz half drunk, but Mr. Clarkson laughed an’ looked ober at his frien’ an’ den said he did. I don’t figger he dreamed dat anythin’ wud come ob it ’cept maybe dat I’d git trampled.

  “‘How much you figger a trained horse like dis be worth?’ I axed. ‘ As much as a man-slave?’ ‘ I always say a good horse is worth twice as much as a slave!’ said Clarkson, lookin’ at his frien’ an’ laughing.

  “‘So I got yo word dat if I deliver dis horse ter you trained, it be worth my freedom?’ I said.

  “‘Sure, whatever you say, Patterson!’ He laughed agin.

  “So I walked inter dat corral an’ I start talkin’ real soft like I duz wiff horses. An’ I reckon dey wuz a mite amazed when dat wild thing wuz lettin’ Mr. Clarkson himsel’ ride him before dat day wuz done. Mr. Clarkson wuz furious wiff rage, thinkin’ dat I’d duped him wiff some trick. But because he’d gib his word in front ob his neighbor, he had no choice but ter gib me my freedom. I begged him ter tell me where you an’ yo mama wuz. But by den he hated me all da more, an’ he jes’ laughed in my face an’ tol’ me ter git off his property wiff my paper er freedom.

  “After dat, I traveled roun’, gittin’ what work I cud, but when da war started dat wuz hard enuff. All I wanted wuz ter put enuff food in my stomach ter keep me alive so dat I could fin’ you an’ yo mama. I searched everywhere. I must hab axed a thousand people effen dey’d seen or heard ob a slave lady called Elmira Patterson dat had da bes’ little son she could hab. But I neber met anyone dat had heard or seen hide er hair ob you. Den I thought ter myself, effen ol’ Beulah tol’ Elmira dat I wuz in Carolina, maybe dat’s where she might go. Dat’s when I first thought dat maybe she an’ you wuz lookin’ for me jes’ like I’d been lookin’ fo you. An’ all dose years I held da thought ob yo face in my min’, da mos’ precious an’ beautiful face a father has got ter think ’bout, da face ob his own son dat he loves more den he eben loves himself.

  “So I gradually made my way up dis way. An’ I been lookin’ for you eber since.”

  He could say no more but looked away, quietly weeping.

  MEETING

  28

  JAKE STUMBLED OUT, A HURRICANE OF CONFUSING thoughts exploding within him.

  Could he really have been . . . so wrong all these years? Had his father truly loved him, and yet he had harbored such anger and bitterness toward him?

  Could his years of anger all been based on misperceptions, on things that his childish eyes had seen twisted and contorted from what had really happened? Had the anger originated within him more than from anything his father had actually done?

  The questions were too huge. He could not face them. They probed too deep into his youthful pride. He had lived so long by feeding off his anger toward his father. Suddenly he hardly knew who he was. Was he willing to find out what kind of person he might be . . . if somehow the anger in his heart was gone?

  He halfway came to himself standing on the street. Suddenly he remembered Mr. Watson. He broke into a run back to the mill where he was supposed to be working.

  He found Mr. Watson growing a little perturbed at his lengthy disappearance.

  “I’s sorry, Mr. Watson,” he said. “I didn’t eben stop ter think after you said dat name.”

  “I am afraid I don’t understand what it’s all about,” said Mr. Watson.

  “Dat man up at da livery, Hank Patterson—he’s my pa,” said Jake. “I been lookin’ fo him. I had no idea where he wuz till I axed you.”

  “If that don’t beat all!” said Mr. Watson with a smile. “I’ve heard him mention you!”

  “He talked ’bout me?”

  “Not too often. But I knew he’d been keeping an eye out for his son for years. Every time he’d start to say something, a look of pain came over his face and I figured I oughtn’t to ask any questions.”

  He shook his head again. “I just had no idea!”

  “Neither did I, Mr. Watson.”

  “Then I think this calls for a celebration. You take the rest of the day off, Jake. Go be with your pa. Come back to work tomorrow.”

  “Dat’s right kind ob you, Mr. Watson. Kin I still sleep in yo barn out yonder?”

  “Of course, Jake.”

  Jake left the mill and walked slowly back in the direction of the livery, full of many thoughts. Suddenly his life had been turned upside down, though he wasn’t quite sure how. His father was standing at the entrance waiting for him.

  Neither spoke, but as he approached, Jake extended his hand and looked into his father’s face. They shook hands.

  It was a beginning. All relationships take time. Sometimes the ones closest take the most time of all.

  “I been workin’ at Mr. Watson’s fo a spell,” said Jake. “I ran down ter tell him why I lef’ him so sudden.”

  “You need ter git back ter work?” asked the older man.

  “He said I cud come back tomorrow,” answered Jake. “I tol’ him what happened—’bout you an’ me.”

  As they spoke, they began walking along the street, no destination in mind. They were just walking as they talked.

  “Mr. Watson’s a fine man. How you’d happen ter be workin’ fo him?”

  “He saw me at anudder town a few miles away. He axed ef I needed work an’ I tol’ him I did. So he tol’ me ter come see him, an’ I did.”

  Down the street a wagon was coming toward them. Two girls were seated on it. As Jake glanced toward it, he thought they looked a little young to be wielding a big wagon and team of horses by themselves.

  “By the way,” said Jake’s father, “duz you min’ ef I call you by yo real name dat me an’ yo mama gib you?”

  Momentarily Jake bristled at the negative memories the name had held for so many years. But the reminder of his mother softened his reply.

  “I reckon not,” he shrugged. “Ain’t nobody called me dat in years.”

  “It’d mean a lot ter me, son. It’d remin’ me ob yo mama.”

  The wagon coming down the street drew closer. Henry looked toward it, then paused and tipped his hat to the two girls. Jake could now see that one of the girls was white and the other was colored. He thought it strange that both were sitting on the seat together. Usually black folks bounced along in the back of a wagon.

  “Mo’nin’ to you, Miz Kathleen,” Henry called out.

  “Hello, Henry,” said the white girl, pulling back on the reins.

  Henry walked toward the wagon and spoke to the white girl for a few minutes. That in itself seemed unusual to Jake—if not dangerous. His father seemed mighty familiar with her, more so than with the colored girl sitting beside her.

  “How’s yo mama, Miz Kathleen?” his father asked.

  “Uh . . . everything’s just fine, Henry.”

  Jake noticed that the girl didn’t answer the question directly. And from the funny expression on his father’s face, he had noticed it too. Jake felt the eyes of the colored girl on him. He glanced up at her, but she quickly glanced away. Jake guessed she was about his own age, or maybe a year or two younger.

  The white girl turned to look at her as well.

  “This is Mayme,” she said. “She’s going to . . . to be working for us.”

  Jake heard the hesitation in her voice and wondered what that meant.

  “Dat right nice,” said Henry. “How’do, Miz Mayme. Ah’s pleased ter make yo ’quaintance.”

  Henry glanced toward Jake and then back to the two girls. “I don’ bleeve you two ladies has eber made ’quaintance wiff my son Jeremiah.—Jeremiah, say hello ter Miz Kathleen an’ Miz Mayme.”

  Jake took off his hat and looked down at the ground, feeling suddenly embarrassed. Despite himself, he liked the way his full name sounded when his father said it.

  “How do,” he said, trying to smile up at the girls. “Glad t’ know you both.”

  “I never knew you had a son, Henry,�
�� said Kathleen.

  “I neber talked about him much,” replied Henry. “It hurt too much ter ’member him. ’Twas all I could do ter keep from cryin’ downright like er baby when I thought ’bout it. Him an’ his mama, dey wuz sol’ away from me when he was jes’ a young’un. An’ after I got my freedom, I search high an’ low ter fin’ ’em, but I neber foun’ so much as a tiny noshun where dey might hab git to. But Jeremiah come alookin’ fer me. It took him a heap er years, but his mama’d tol’ him enuff where fer him ter come all dis way here ter Greens Crossing, an’ he dun foun’ me jes’ a little while ago.”

  Once or twice while his father was talking, Jake stole another glance at the girl named Mayme from the corner of his eye. Her hair was covered in a kerchief, but he thought her face was real pretty. Her skin was lighter than his own, and her hands, held stiff in her lap, were rough from hard work. She glanced up and saw him looking at her, then quickly looked away again. Her eyes were nice too, he decided. But from then on, she kept those nice eyes of hers on her lap.

  “Is your wife here too?” asked Kathleen.

  “I’m sorry t’ say she ain’t, Miz Kathleen. She din’t make it through da war.”

  “Oh . . . I’m sorry.”

  “Dat’s right kind er you t’ say, Miz Kathleen.—Say, hit seems ter me dat bridle er yers is frayin’ an’ ’bout ter break. You don’ want ter hab no horse runnin’ loose wiffout a good bit in his mouf. Why don’ you two come ter da livery an’ let me an’ Jeremiah put on a new piece er leather? Won’ take but er jiffy.”

  “Uh, we don’t have time just now. We’ve got to get back. Well . . . good-bye, Henry,” said Kathleen, giving the horses a swat with the reins.

  The two girls went on their way. Father and son watched them go, each intrigued for his own reasons.

  One of those girls was me. My name’s Mayme. Mayme Jukes. And that was the first time I had ever laid eyes on Jeremiah Patterson.

  I had seen Henry a time or two before that day but had never been introduced to him. My friend and I—well, she was more than just a friend, but that part of the story I’ll have to tell you later—we had come into town and had just left the general store when Henry greeted us from across the street. She had known Henry for years. My friend’s name was Kathleen Clairborne, or Katie for short. She was white. I was colored.

  As Katie spoke with the man named Henry, I couldn’t help looking at the black boy a year or so older than me who was standing beside him. And once or twice while Henry was talking, I could tell that Jeremiah was looking at me out of the corner of his eye too. I felt my neck and face getting hot all over, but I tried to keep staring down at my lap and pretend I didn’t notice.

  As we rode away down the street, I was dying to glance back, and almost did too. But I didn’t, because I could feel their eyes watching us ride away.

  “Did you notice that look on that fellow Henry’s face?” I asked. “He didn’t seem too altogether pleased with your answer after he asked about your mama.”

  “He’s always been nice to me,” Katie said, “nicer than just about anyone. But I didn’t really notice Henry too much with his son standing there. I can’t believe it. And to think that they haven’t seen each other in all those years.”

  I didn’t reply. I didn’t know what to say about Henry’s son.

  As Katie and I rode away, both of us were quiet, lost in our own thoughts. Katie likely thinking of how she had fooled that nosy ol’ Mrs. Hammond at the general store and me thinking about the all-too inquisitive look in Henry’s eyes—and about his son. I have to admit, I couldn’t help thinking about the boy called Jeremiah for the rest of the day. In the eyes of a fifteen-year-old colored girl, he was just about the best-looking boy I’d ever seen.

  So that’s how Jeremiah and I met. Now that you know how Jeremiah—or Jake, as he used to go by—came to be in Greens Crossing that day and about his search for his papa, I reckon I’d better tell you a little about Katie and me and what we were doing there.

  REMEMBERING

  29

  Katie and I met by accident a couple of months before that, right about the time the War Between the States had ended. In those days right after the war, things were a mite different than they became later. But in another way of looking at it, I don’t reckon things really are ever all that different. People are still people and they still have to live together and get along. People of different skin still have trouble sharing this old world together. Kinda funny, it’s always seemed to me. You’d figure folks would enjoy their differences and wouldn’t all want to be the same. But strange to say, that’s not how it is. All through history, I suppose, people haven’t liked those who were different from them. You might say that’s just about been at the root of all the world’s problems. I don’t understand it myself, but then that’s the way it seems to be.

  When it comes to the differences between people of white skin and people of what you’d call colored skin, that’s where the differences and disputes and conflicts seem to be worst of all.

  After the war, slaves like Jake and me had been freed from slavery, but we hadn’t been freed from the white man’s feelings against black people. In a way I reckon you might say those feelings had even gotten worse since freedom had come to us. Before that, colored folks were more or less just taken for granted in lots of ways. As a race, I don’t think whites figured colored folks were worth hating. We were just stupid in their eyes, so why bother hating us?

  But after the War Between the States and the Emancipation Proclamation, hatred started to grow between whites and coloreds. And while nothing is as bad as slavery, we weren’t really “free,” because hatred and prejudice creates an invisible bondage of its own, just as sure as had the chains of the white masters.

  I know what both kinds of bondage are like, ’cause like Jeremiah I used to be a slave too—I’m only half colored, but in the eyes of whites that makes you what people now call “black,” though my skin isn’t anywhere close to that. My skin’s brown. That’s about the best way to put it.

  Now in one way I don’t reckon Katie and me were so unusual. We were just two girls that circumstances happened to throw together. But the fact that we became such good friends—one of us white, the other black—was one of the reasons we always considered our friendship so precious—because we were different, not because we were the same. In fact I think our differences made us closer than we would have been otherwise.

  Katie and me were different in more ways than just the color of our skin and her blond hair and my black hair. We were different people inside, with different personalities and different ways of looking at things. Those differences were what made our friendship stronger.

  Katie and I grew up to be women together during those years when white people were looking at colored people in different ways. Some white folks were looking at them and realizing that they were people too, just like them in many ways, and learning to care about them and even love them. Other white folks were looking at colored people and beginning to hate them.

  During our years as young girls, Katie and I never knew each other. In fact, we’d never so much as laid eyes on one another, even though the plantations where we grew up were only a few miles apart.

  The war between the North and the South came in 1861, but it didn’t change things in my life as it did Katie’s. Slaves kept right on working like before. For a colored girl like me, who was only eleven when the war broke out, I hardly even knew what the fighting was all about. None of us knew at first when Northern president Mr. Lincoln freed all the slaves, ’cause most Southern slave owners ignored his proclamation anyway. The South had declared itself a separate country, so why did they need to pay any attention to what Mr. Lincoln said? For us slaves, life just went on day after day as it always had. But as I turned twelve and then thirteen and then fourteen, I began to wonder what would happen to me. It’s God’s mercy I was skinny as a rail and nothing much to look at, and that kept anything too bad from happeni
ng to me—except for an occasional whipping by Master McSimmons or one of his sons.

  But for Katie, it was different. The war changed everything about her life. Until then, her life had been pretty calm and pleasant. She had been able to grow up in the kind of luxury that daughters of plantation owners enjoyed all over the South. Then suddenly the war came and her daddy and brothers left to fight, and Katie’s mama had to run the plantation all by herself. As Katie got older, her mama depended on Katie for help and the hard work was new for her.

  Then came a terrible day just after the war ended when Katie’s and my lives would change forever. A band of bad men called Bilsby’s marauders rampaged through the region and killed all the rest of Katie’s family, and everyone at the slave village on the plantation where I lived except for me. We were both left all alone in the world—at least we thought so at the time—on the same day. I set out from home mainly just to get away from anyone who might want to hurt me. I didn’t have any idea where I was going. Eventually I wound up at Katie’s house.

  Those were awful days, getting used to being alone, remembering the killing, burying Katie’s family. We were a fifteen-year-old black girl and a fourteen-year-old white girl who didn’t know each other. But we survived and became friends.

  A little while later another slave from the Mc-Simmons plantation wound up living at Rosewood too. Her name was Emma and she was a tall, scatterbrained colored girl. She was real good-looking—so good-looking, in fact, that she’d got herself pregnant by Mr. McSimmons, who was now looking for her and trying to kill her and her little baby called William.

  So besides keeping ourselves alive after our families were killed, Katie and me were trying to protect Emma and William from anything bad happening to them.

  During our time together, Katie showed me books and helped me learn to read better. And I taught her how to do things like milk cows and chop wood and sing slave songs. She read me stories from books and I told her stories I’d heard and made up. And it didn’t take long before Katie was doing all kinds of things for herself. Even though I was older, and Katie was always telling me that she wouldn’t have Rosewood anymore if it weren’t for me, if anybody could have been said to be in charge around the place, it was Katie.