by Nancy Rawles
You hold that on your eye. I gonna make you something.
He take that little piece from his hat. Jonnies tooth wrap up in there. He take it out and kiss it. Then he put the tooth in my hand.
I watching him work. Holding the rag to my eye and watching him real careful. He aint young no more. Got a beard now. Got marks on his arms where they chain him. Pants too big. Hands like a old man.
He take my knife and poke two little holes in the hat piece. Then he take a string from his pocket. Lick it real good till it small. Push it through the holes.
I takes off the poultice so he can put on my patch. Then he kiss my eye.
I starts to shake. He hold my hand and rub it. We sits there.
He take a little tobacco leaf from his pocket. Stuff it in the pipe. Pick up a stick and put it to the fire. Hand me the pipe to smoke.
But I aint wants no tobacco. Smell make me feel sick. He smoke and I watch him.
Old Finns boy give me this pipe he say. The one they say I kills. His name Huckleberry. Huckleberry Finn.
When Jim say the name I remembers. I seen that boy one day in town. I remembers him cause he aint wearing nothing but a shirt. Like all the slave children. He just a little boy then. Look like he aint belong to nobody. Miss Watson seen me looking at him. Thats Huckleberry she say. Folks call him that cause he live off the wild huckleberry bushes. And scraps people throw they dogs. A shame how some folks live she say. Child aint even got a proper name.
All that a long time ago.
Day after Jim come they put me in a gang to go downriver. We chained together. They march us onto the steamer. We one sad group of niggers.
This white lady on the steamer look at us with big sorrowful eyes. I thinks maybe she one of them abolition ladies. Maybe she gonna say something to me. But she never say nothing. I sees her looking at my eye patch. She shake her head and look down.
Folks aint want to look at me no more. I use to be something to look at. Mama always tell me you easy on the eye Sadie. You the devil to deal with but you easy on the eye. Time I could of got any man I wants. White or colored. But I only wants the one.
He standing on the waterfront. Standing in a new green hat. When I last seen my Jim on the levee in St. Louis he tip his hat to me. Thats how I still sees him. Tipping his hat.
Jobacco
Jobacco soft and need care like a person. Doing things gentle so as not to hurt the leaf. Picking off worms like picking off chiggers. Taking care with the leaf. Using it to heal.
Cane dont heal nothing. Sound it make the sound of dryness. Feel like chopping down a straw man. I grabs his throat and slices him up with my long curve blade. Buries his body so it grow back again. Dry body aint got no spirit.
Cane workers got they spirits of cane. Dropping with the heat and tired like stalks of dust. Hard sun beating them down. Overseer yelling sing so nobody want to sing.
I remembers the songs from my tobacco days and I sings them quiet to myself. Deep river. River always the same. Rich black soil along the river banks. Poor black hands turning it over. Sorrow flowing from one end to the other. Juice from the tobacco sorrow and juice from the cane sorrow. Different colors sorrow.
I never likes the taste of cane.
By the time I gets to Louisiana I so dry. Cant feels nothing. All I wants some tobacco. I cries and begs for it. Wants somebody to lay the leaves over me. Wants somebodys hands on me.
I leaves the New Orleans slave mart as the new property of Old Man Cyprien. He the owner of a big sugar plantation in New Roads. Only need one good eye to cut cane. My first day working cane they put me in a gang with a gal bout to drop her baby. She stop and look me full in the face.
That my Sadie she say. She scream.
It Gwen. The friend I never forgets from Clear Creek. The one so good to me after my mama die. We takes up as friends again like we still girls. When her baby come I cuts the cord.
Sometimes you find what you think gone forever.
Old Man Cyprien got bout ninety slaves chopping cane. Half of them talking French. Half of them talking English. Some of them talking Wolof Bambara Ibo Choctaw Spanish. Three of them talking German. Everybody talking Creole. Nobody trust nobody. I aint knows any of the songs they singing. I loss till Gwen claim me.
She show me round. Thats where the sugar process. Thats where they keep the hogsheads. That building the sickhouse. Over there the blacksmith shop. This for the cooper. Here the kitchen. That the laundry. There the nursery. The store at the end of the road. You go there for your rations.
Even in New Roads I still feels tobacco tar sticking to my hands. Cant wash off that feeling even after years. My mama birth me in the shadow of a curing barn and I going to my grave in a blaze of boiling sugarcane. I aint never knows why colored folks scared of hellfire.
They got lots of slave drivers on Old Man Cypriens place. Sitting on horses watching us work. I seen one of them chase a man down till he fall under the horses feet and it crush his head.
We eats rice and beans and cornbread. They feeds us all at the same time when the sun too hot for the drivers. They got us living four to a cabin. They puts me with the Germans.
The Germans each got two sheets and a straw hat and a bag of coffee beans. They sends me to the store for mine.
And thats how I ends up with your mama. The man at the plantation store can tell I the new gal. So he take me in the back and have his way with me. When I sees I gots a child inside me I goes to Gwen for help. There aint no woods anywhere I can sees. Only rows and rows of sugarcane.
Gwen say Old Man Cyprien wont have no womens try to do away with they babies. Say he got spies in the cabins checking for roots and leaves. Last gal try to kill her baby got her hand chop off. Aint nothing to do but have it. You aint even gots to love it. Mas gonna take it away soon as it born and put it in the nursery. He dont like to lose no babies. He want all the nigger babies strong. Thats why he buy you Sadie. He only buy us gals good for having babies. He gonna give you some ginger candy when your time come. Then he gonna want you to have another one.
I sick to my stomach every day I carries your mama. I gives birth the following summer. Two midwifes come and tend me. They give me something but I dont knows what. It make the baby come rushing out.
Mas say her name gonna be Elise. I hardly ever sees her till she a big girl ready for the fields. Gwen got a daughter round her age and they friends. They work in the laundry and kitchen till they come to the fields.
Old Man Cyprien like to see a new crop of babies every year. He tell the children he father to all of them. You born on the Cyprien place he say. You from good breeding. You proud to belong to Cyprien.
Mas keep a slave name of Andrew. Andrew got more babies than anybody on the place. He one the Wolof people. He got his own cabin. After Elise Mas put me in with Andrew every fall. He talk to me in Creole. Vien. Reste. Fini. Alle. Thats all he ever say. I has four boys by him. They names Jake Theo Roy Guy. That last one almost kill me.
Andrew keep bout his business but he dont father no babies after Guy. He aint got no more power. Folks say Guy the one take it. He the strongest baby of all. Up on his feet fore we knows it. Even Cyprien notice him. Say he gonna follow his father.
Soon after that Andrew loss his cabin to another man. I sees him in the fields and hears how the other mens taunt him. I feels sorry for him. I lets him sleep with me. He just want to rest his head on my chest and tell me his secrets. Say he only ever love one person. A boy name of Lemuel.
Me and Andrew we works and sweats and suffers in the heat. When the war come everything change. Old Man Cyprien aint want no more babies. He trying to sell off the ones he got. He sell my Jake and Theo.
All day and night we labors in the fields. Working for the war. Word come with the soldiers returning from battle. We sees them go marching off and we sees them come limping home. We hears the widows crying. Whole time we working the cane.
We free fore the war over. All us sugar workers up and down the riv
er. We the first ones come under the Union. Troops go from place to place emancipating. Sometimes burning as they go. All us scatters. Sugar fields empty. No more cutting and boiling. No more hogsheads for Old Man Cyprien.
Folks say the world turn upside down when the troops come. White grieving and colored rejoicing. But world turn upside down and we still on the bottom. Guess I gots to keep living just to see when things gonna change.
When freedom finally come I aint feels it right away. They call us up to the house. Troops at the house. Mas in New Orleans. Colored soldier read us a letter bout freedom. Say those of us wants to stay on can stay on for pay. Andrew aint want to hear nothing bout staying. He got a brother live along the Red River. They can gets them a place to farm and work for theyselves. We leaving soon as we wakes up in the morning.
We packs up some food and water and joins the lines moving north. We walks and walks. None of us gots no money to ride the steamer we used to ride as slaves. We free so we gots to walk.
Folks think freedom gonna look one way but it look all kind of ways. Sometime it look like slavery. Folks think freedom something like a button or a tooth. Something you can hold onto aint gonna break. But you can break a button with a tooth and break a tooth with a button. And both of them real easy to lose. Even when you know right where they drop you still gonna look and cant find them. If freedom a place its a place you pass through.
On our walk north we sees all kind of folks worse off than us. Everybody looking for they loss relatives. Everybody looking for work and food. We takes whatever we finds. We been stole away from Africa so we takes what we finds to pay the debt. But thats one debt all the mas can never pay. None of us thinking bout working no more. We through working for the mas. If we goes back to the fields gonna be on land we work for ourself. But that aint the way it turn out.
Me and Andrew and your mama and the two boys start walking north along the river. All the fields sitting idle. Roy and Guy still little. They want to play in the cane. Andrew mad at them but they cant know whats going on. Stay out of them fields he say. You aint a nigger now. They find you by yourself in them fields they think you a orphan. Walk where we can sees you.
Me and your mama aint really knows each other. Now she hold fast to my hand. Shaking like a jackrabbit farther we gets from home. Plantation only home she know. Freedom aint taste like freedom to her. She got to leave her friends. She only have to work the fields during the war. She aint understand what it mean to be own. So she cry when I beats her. She never know hunger till she free. Thats why she wear her freedom like a burden. It scare her more than anything. Most us niggers be happy but scared too. Just roaming round looking for work.
Cept we aint niggers no more. Aint no such thing as niggers now. Nothing but nigger ghosts. Some white folks still call us nigger. Ones cant abide theyselves. They choking on they own filth and still trying to cover us in it. In slavery time we all covered in they filth. But aint no niggers without a mas and no mas without niggers. If you colored you a slave and all colored slaves a nigger thats the world we born into. We still colored but we aint niggers no more. Whites gonna find them some new niggers but aint gonna be us.
You cant trust nobody then. Colored folks as likely to rob you as help you. Some them troops no better. They spose to be protecting us and they whip us like horses. We mostly walking on the road but sometime we goes looking for food. Some the plantations got soldiers guarding they fields. We gots to fish the rivers. When we comes closer north we comes to the woods.
Andrew aint know the woods. His mama talk bout woods in Africa. She living in a village in the woods when slavers come and cut down the trees and steal them away. But Andrew only know the swamp and the cane fields. He know the swamp cause he try to run away to the swamp. He wearing the memory of his capture on his back.
I knows the woods from Missouri. I all the way feels free in the woods when I holding my mamas hand and she telling me the plants. But now I scared in the woods. I scared the dogs will find me there and chase me back into bondage.
But something bout the green like a balm to my soul. Nobody ever tell me but I believes Congo must be green. Not dry like the cane fields green like tobacco leaf. Green like the woods run longside the river. I tells Andrew we needs to leave the road and walk through the woods. That way we finds plenty to eat. Andrew scared but he say yes. He got hisself a gun with only three shots. We eats rabbit that first day. Your mama settle down in the dark and cool of the woods. Andrew find a little stream. We all so thirsty from walking for days in the sun. Andrew dont let us stop and beg for water.
Just when we starts to feeling lucky we runs into trouble. We runs into a slave out hunting. Trying to shoot something for his mas. Them planters taken to the woods. They got they camps set up in there. And they still got they slaves with them. He tell us we better hightail it outta there. Fore they take us captive and make us work.
We leaves the woods and walks along the Black River going north. We makes our way to Catahoula and over to the lake. We aint gots no food so Andrew leave his gun with me and walk up the road to the first farm he see. He talk to a colored man who tell him the boss looking for a stable hand. They call him boss not mas. He give us a contract for a years labor. Me in the mill and Andrew in the stables. It feel just like slave days working from sunup to sundown but the boss aint beat us. He just take away our rations if our work dont please him. We gots us a big garden out back the shack and the boss let us raise chickens. All in all a better life than the cane fields. But when the war over and we gots a chance to work for our ownselves we leaves Catahoula and joins the colored farmers at Smithfield Quarter. Thats where you born.
Best place I ever been. We gots a whole town of colored there. We works hard to make our way in the world. But in the end we aint amounts to much.
Your mama love a boy from Coushatta. Name of Joseph. She meet him in school. Boy with hair red like the river. She say he the smartest one in the school. I never really knows your daddy. He quiet like you. Smart too. Can hears him thinking. Them wheels turning round in his head.
Your mama love school more than anything else but you the end of school for her. Your daddy stay in school. He gonna make something of hisself. Might of been one of them Negro lawyers if he aint in the courthouse that day it burn down. Might be up north now.
You from people love learning. Thats why you this way. Your mama give you all her learning. She learn to read and write in the freedom school. Thats why she aint got no choice but to leave here. White folks cant stand for colored to know they letters. Aint safe for her to stay. Aint safe for you neither. Dont help a little colored gal like you to be too smart. One day they catch up to you and make you pay for your learning. Gotta stay one step ahead of them.
You just a little girl the spring Red River overflow with the blood of one hundred men. Go to Colfax today and you still hear they souls screaming in the flames. Your daddy and Andrew both trap in the courthouse when they lit it on fire. Easter Sunday morning.
The rebels riding high and hollering. Trying to chase away the Republicans. They give us guns to hold off the rebels. Tell us we gots to fight to save Reconstruction.
All us black folks scared. They kill a farmer fixing his fence and we knows they gonna kill us all. We leaves the farms and run to town. Me and Andrew your mama and daddy and your uncles Roy and Guy. We camps near the courthouse. Us and all the other colored families from the countryside. We hoping some law or justice gonna come and protect us. But the courthouse one time a stable. And we nothing but animals running for our lives.
The men send us away fore the fighting start. We hides in the woods but we hears everything. We hears they screams. The horses chasing them to the river. And the ones trap in the courthouse.
Your daddy one the ones run out from the fire. They find his body laying in front the courthouse. Your uncles steal him away in the night and bury him in the woods. He been shot so many times they carry him in a blanket to keep him from falling apart. Andrew we
never find no part of. We leaves him in the ashes and runs north. Thats how we gets to Shreveport.
Time I comes to Shreveport I glad to be away from the Mississippi. But this here Red River aint no better. Red with the blood of coloreds and Indians.
For more than a year we lives in the woods outside of town. Some folks scared the whole time. But I finds calm in the woods. I tends the sick ones with leaves and roots. I cares for Papa Duban after he fall sick with the fever. And I saves you from the snakebite. You never cry back then. Just hold your breath. When the troops come back you walk out the woods holding my hand. Papa Duban come out the woods with us. Thats when we starts being a family. We settles in the shanty town once the Union troops come back.
I keeps my things with me. When we living in the woods I hides them in a tree. I takes my power from them. Time I wants to lay down they keep me going. They my shoes. When I gets to heaven gonna put on our shoes. They protects me in this world.
After the war us colored aint wants our children in the fields we wants them in school like the white children. After your mama start to school she aint never want to hear tell bout slavery life. They got to pay us now she say. We aint slaves no more. Them teachers from the north learn her that in school.
But they aint gonna let you get what they aint gonna let you get. Nothing more to it. Even when the coloreds get schools they aint lets us do nothing.
So after all the troops gone home and nothing left but the White League and the Klan your mama decide to leave.
She join a cart of church folks heading west. Say she coming back for you. You cry and reach out for her dress. I turns my head away. Aint used to the sound of you crying. At first I aint knows the sound. Every day you wait for your mama. Round sundown when the workers coming in from the fields you look to see if your mama with them.
Your mama coming back. Just cause you cant sees a person aint mean nothing. They still there. You worry you never gonna find your mama but she gonna come to you. Close your eyes. I bets you see her good.