by Joyce Hansen
“Obi,” she said, nervously spooning the food onto his plate, “when you go in to see Buka, try and make he eat.”
Obi had been eating his lunch each day in the cabin with Buka. Buka ate little, usually drinking something Mariah made from molasses, vinegar, and water. He rarely left the cabin. Sometimes in the evening, when the heat inside was unbearable, he’d sit on the porch with Obi.
A few others, including Daniel, would occasionally join them and talk to Buka.
“He not eatin’ at all?” Obi asked Mariah.
“No, not even he grits in the mornin’. Maybe he eat some of this,” she said, placing an extra spoonful of peas and rice on Obi’s plate.
Obi walked quickly to the cabin. Buka, lying on a straw mattress near the entrance, smiled weakly as Obi helped him sit up. He was glad that Buka was awake. Some days he slept the whole time Obi was there. “How you today, Obi?”
“I fine.” Obi sat cross-legged in front of him on a mat that Mariah had woven to cover the dirt floor. “Buka, Mariah tell me you ain’t been eatin’.” He rested his plate on the floor and, taking a spoonful of rice, put it up to Buka’s lips. “Here, let me feed you this.”
Buka lay back down and shook his head. “No. I don’t eat noon meal.”
“You don’t eat no meal. Come outside and sit. Take some air.”
He closed his eyes. “Tomorrow—I sit out tomorrow.”
“You need to eat. You get your strength and we cross the river.”
“Not hungry,” he said.
“We have to go to the island. You help me find Lorena.”
“I goin’ pass that river and pass that island.” He turned slowly on his side and watched Obi. “Lorena was a long time ago. You have to move on.”
Obi didn’t understand. “I know, then you an’ me an’ Easter, we go on to Mexico.”
Buka patted Obi’s knee with his wrinkled hand. “You born a man, not a slave—that the thing to remember. You got to learn which way freedom be. It here first,” he said, touching his own creased forehead. “In you own mind.”
Obi stared blankly at his old friend.
“This a time for joy. The ancestors call me an’ I go see them. Think hard an’ you find a way to get to the island. My time done.” He closed his eyes.
Obi touched Buka’s feverish forehead gently. “Buka, how I find a way without you?”
Buka opened his eyes slowly—like the sun fighting to rise over thick clouds. “You find a way,” he said, gazing a the top of Obi’s bent head.
“You know, my real name Baako. It mean ‘firstborn’. Over the years people say the name wrong, so I known as Buk now. You as much my firstborn as if you was made from my flesh. You know which way freedom be now. You leave one master—you find a way to leave this soldier master too.”
Obi nodded, not able to speak. Buka coughed and when he caught his breath, Obi could barely hear him.
“Let me rest.”
Buka closed his eyes for the last time, and Obi watched the life seep out of him. He was still staring at Buka when Daniel rushed into the cabin.
“Jameson lookin’ for you!”
Obi knocked over the plate of food as he jumped to his feet. Daniel started to say something else but stopped short when he saw Buka lying on the floor. He peered closely at the old man and then bent down and took Buka’s wrist. “He dead,” he whispered. “I get the boys to come bury him.”
“He have to get a right burial,” Obi told him. “I makin’ a coffin an’ he be bury proper.”
“You crazy? You think these soldier let you use they wood an’ time to make a coffin?”
Pushing Daniel aside, Obi left the cabin. No one—not even the colonel himself—was going to stop him from making Buka’s coffin.
He went to the shed, where Mariah was washing plates in a large tin tub. “Buka dead,” he announced.
Mariah looked at Obi calmly. “I prepare the body,” she said.
Obi ran to the clearing where several of the black laborers were stacking wood. Daniel dashed behind him, breathing heavily.
“Obi, Jameson gettin’ angry.”
Ignoring him, Obi pulled out a piece of wood large enough for one of the sides of the coffin. “I makin’ Buka’s coffin.”
“Wait till tonight,” Daniel said, “an’ I help you.”
“Can’t wait,” Obi answered and continued to search for more wood.
“Then I start makin’ the coffin for you. Jameson ain’t gonna say nothin’ to me. I tell he I makin’ a trap for huntin’. You go back so he see you there workin’. When he leave, then you come back here an’ finish the coffin.”
“Thank you, Daniel,” Obi said quietly and returned to the breastworks at the riverbank.
They buried Buka that night under a cypress tree where the woods behind the slave cabins began. Mariah and Gabriel quietly sang a wailing, high-pitched funeral dirge that reminded Obi of the mock funeral they’d attended only a few months ago. The single pine torch cast a dim light on their small circle.
Besides Daniel, some of the other blacks in the camp were there to pay their last respects to the old African. They were those who sat in front of Mariah and Gabriel shack sometimes.
When the grave was covered over, Mariah said the Twenty-third Psalm while Easter placed a cross she’d woven out of the dried grass on the mound of dirt to mark the gravesite. Obi wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeves as he thought about Buka and him fishing together and hunting small game.
They trudged back to the cabin. Easter walked next to Obi. “Why you didn’t tell me that he dead?” she asked. “Daniel have to bring the news.”
“I didn’t think you care about Buka dyin’. Didn’t think you was comin’ to he funeral.”
“Why? He suppose to be my grandfather too!” she said angrily. “I not mad at he. The old man die helpin’ us. He know he too old an’ sick to make this trip to the river. But he come anyway. For us—for you.”
She paused a moment. “It’s you, Obi. You act like you care for nothin’ but you self. Even if you try a little to go back for Jason, you act like you care nothin’ about he.”
Obi was glad that the night hid the shame in his eyes. “Easter,” Obi whispered, “I promise you we find Jason, and all three of us be together again. I see to that.”
A few days after Buka’s burial, Obi, Daniel, and the others still worked on the wall. Daniel turned his gaze away from the river and watched a group of slaves carrying shovels, going into the woods.
“These soldier busy, Obi. We go dig pit in the wood. I hear Jameson say the Yankee tryin’ to get to Charleston and gonna come through here to do it.” He leaned close to Obi. “The first Yankee I see, I runnin’ to them. I have to go back to the island.”
“Don’t think you better run to no Yankee,” Obi said. He told him about Jeremiah.
When Obi finished, Daniel picked up his hammer. “I been hearin’ different story, Obi. Slave been runnin’ to the Yankee camps like thunder follow lightnin’.”
“I want to get ’cross that river too,” Obi whispered. Then he told Daniel about his dream of finding his mother. “An’ after I find her we goin’ to Mexico.”
“What about your brother?” Daniel asked. “He goin’ with you?” He studied Obi with a knowing look in his eyes.
“Yes, he goin’ too,” Obi mumbled, avoiding Daniel’s eyes. He went back to work.
Daniel cleared his throat. “Your brother ain’t really your brother, is he? Ezra a girl.”
Obi nodded and stared at Daniel. “Don’t tell no one.”
“I won’t. Some of these men an’ soldiers trouble her if they know.” He smiled. “I suspect for a long time. Don’t worry. I watch out for she too.”
That evening, as Obi, Gabriel, Mariah, and Daniel sat in the cabin, Obi felt as if Buka were still there with them.
“I bring your pallet inside tonight, Obi. You sleep in here with me an’ Gabriel,” Mariah said.
“It be gettin’ cold, you know, Obi,” G
abriel added. “When them rain come an’ the storm blow in from the ocean, you can’t sleep outside.”
“Seven of us piled into that shack I in, an’ it still be cold. Have to get some clay an’ fill in them cracks,” Daniel said.
The cabin door opened and Easter walked in. “What you cook for the Colonel tonight?” Daniel asked. “Bring us anything?”
Easter placed a neatly wrapped package of corn bread and slices of ham on the table. “Keep that hole in your face shut, Daniel. Can’t talk whiles you eat,” she smiled.
Obi reached for the package first. “Don’t tell he that. Think the whole thing for him.”
“Next time we catch some rabbit, Easter, I bring one for you to cook. You ’bout the best cook—beside Mariah an’ my Minna—that I come ’cross in a long time.” Daniel grinned and bit into a piece of ham.
“You just like to keep you belly full,” Mariah grumbled.
“You ain’t learn yet that slave never get enough to eat.”
Easter knelt down at the fire and warmed herself, rubbing her hands together. Then she picked up several blades of dried grass that Mariah had spread out to one side of the fireplace. She took a palmetto frond and started coiling it around the blades of grass.
Mariah had been teaching her how to coil the leaves and grasses, and she was about to make her first basket. Obi left the table and sat next to her so he could watch. “Don’t tell me you weavin’ basket too, Obi?” Daniel chuckled.
“No,” Obi said seriously. “I go weave me a boat.”
Ten
After old Ned got such a terrible beatin’ for
prayin’ for freedom, he slipped off and went to
de North to join de Union Army.
Mingo White, ex-slave
From Voices from Slavery
October 1861
Everyone except Gabriel stared at him as if he were crazy. Mariah spoke first. “There a kind of root to make a tea to calm mad people. I lookin’ for some of that root for you tomorrow, Obi.”
Obi stood up. “Gabriel, what you think the length an’ width should be to hold four or five people?”
“Don’t put me an’ Gabriel in them numbers,” Mariah said as she joined Easter by the fire.
Daniel, laughing, stretched across the bench. “Lord have mercy. We goin’ to ride a basket to freedom.”
Gabriel thought a moment. “You could make a boat out of the grasses. Make one the length an’ breadth of a big cabin—not a shack like this. Like so—” He strode from the fireplace to the door. “Twelve paces.” Then he pointed from the bed to the other side of the room. “Now if this shack stretch about eight more steps, that give twenty paces. That be just right for a boat to get you ’cross the river. If you want to go ’cross the ocean, now that a different thing.”
Mariah peered up at her husband. “You as fool as the boy is,” she said.
“My father a African man. He tell me about boats made from reeds,” Gabriel said.
Daniel got off the bench and fingered the rug on the floor. “You know, this be strong.”
Obi turned to Daniel. “We make it in the cove where the grass tall,” he said.
Daniel touched the rug again. “The cove a good place to hide it too. No one go there. We hide it in the grass.”
“Then,” Obi mused, “when we finish, we take it to that inlet that lead to the river.”
“How you sailin’ ’cross that river with them gun pointing at you?” Mariah asked. “They only allow the boats carryin the rice sheaves and the Confederate ships on the river.”
“We leave at night,” Obi told her. He was watching Easter make her basket.
Easter looked up from her work. “I hear the Colonel tell he aide that they expect a fight. Say the Yankee go try an’ take the island. Then they take over this side an’ head for Charleston.”
“This boat thing a stupid idea.” Mariah sucked her teeth. “So when the Yankee an’ the slavers fight, the three of you gonna be in the middle of the river?”
Obi stood up. “I been hearin’ about Yankee attack since I been here,” he said. “Gabriel, how long it take to make the boat?”
“About a month.”
“I ain’t goin’,” Mariah said. “I like it here away from Master and Mistress on the island. Mistress be in my face all the time givin’ me work.” She picked up a handful of grass. “I do my task, then the soldier leave me alone. It a foolish idea. You go die on that river.”
“But Mariah,” Obi said, resting his hand on her bon shoulder, “the island so near. How long it take to get ’cross the river?”
“It not near enough. Them big gun at the river boom you right out ’fore you leave the shore good.”
Daniel and Obi looked at each other. “I goin’,” Daniel said, his round face unsmiling and determined.
“An’ I goin’ too,” Obi said firmly.
Easter deftly coiled a palm frond around the blades of grass and said nothing.
Yet, in spite of her protests, Mariah helped them, teaching Obi and Daniel how to coil the leaves around the grasses. She worked with them each evening. Every chance Easter got, she collected the grasses and palm fronds.
When October drew to a close, Obi and Daniel could work almost as swiftly and skillfully as Mariah and Easter. They’d sneak to the cove in the evenings and work on the boat by the light of a lantern. Gabriel kept watch to warn them if anyone came upon them unexpectedly.
By November, the mornings and evenings had a touch of winter chill, but the afternoons were still warm with a kind of golden, orange glow. There was little farming left to be done, and a few of the slaves had already been sent to build fortifications, dig trenches, and clear campground elsewhere.
Toward the end of November, they’d almost finished the boat. One night, Obi, Mariah, Easter, and Daniel worked together. Only a small section was left to complete.
“I glad Jameson ain’t worry me with no huntin’ tonight,” Daniel said.
Easter nodded. “The Colonel ask me where I be till twelve. I tell him we have prayer meetin’.”
“Nobody find us,” Obi said. “We finish soon.”
Daniel nudged Mariah, who worked next to him. “There be room for you, Mariah.”
“I stayin’ here. Be here too when the soldier bring y’all back.”
“Someone bring a message to the Colonel today. Say there be a Yankee attack here soon,” Easter said.
Daniel smiled. “That’s when we get free of this camp. When them white men fight each other.”
Suddenly Gabriel rushed over to them. “Someone’s comin’!” he whispered.
They quickly hid the boat among the tall blades of grass. Mariah started singing a song that sounded to Obi like the dirge she sang for Buka. The rest of them clapped in time and closed their eyes as if deep in prayer.
“What y’all doin’?” It was Jameson, weaving slightly.
“Nothin’, suh,” Daniel said. “Just a prayer meetin’.”
Jameson stared at each one. “Now, that’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. Why y’all out here prayin’ and singin’?
“Sometime the spirit make us shout. Don’t want to disturb nobody, suh,” Gabriel said, making himself sound meek.
“Since when was you so religious, Daniel? I was lookin’ for you to do some huntin’,” he said.
“I pray every day the Lord send,” Daniel said loudly trying to distract him.
Obi’s hands were sweating and he felt as if he had a tight band around his forehead.
Jameson faced Daniel and Obi. “Tomorrow y’all bein’ sent to another camp.”
Obi’s head reeled. They’d have to finish the boat and leave that night.
Daniel showed no emotion. “Where we goin’, suh?” he asked calmly.
“I don’t know, and it ain’t none of your business no way.” He pulled on his beard. “Tried to get the Colonel to let you stay. You a good hunter. Gone miss you, boy.”
He stumbled away from them, and when he was gone Ob
i pulled the boat out of the grass. “Mariah, you an’ Gabriel go back to the cabin, an’ Easter, you go on to the Colonel, ’fore he come lookin’ for you.”
“I stay a little longer,” she offered.
“No, don’t want nobody else comin’ here. The Colonel might look for you, and if he come here, he ain’t gonna be drunk like Jameson. He snoop around and find the boat.”
“We come an’ get you when we ready to leave,” Daniel told her.
Obi and Daniel worked together until light appeared on the horizon and the gulls began their cries to the dawn. The boat was complete.
Standing up, Obi rubbed his tired fingers. He was exhausted. “I go get Easter now.”
Daniel’s face was weary and drawn. “Be careful. I wish we had finish this thing before it get light. Everybody gettin’ up now.”
“I go ’round to the back of the house. Easter be in the kitchen.”
Obi walked quickly away from the cove. As he neared the cooking shed, Gabriel headed toward him.
“I just comin’ for you!” he said excitedly. “You can’t leave now. They’s a Yankee gunboat in the river! The soldiers here is fixin’ to fire them big guns.”
Obi towered over the old man. “This the only chance we have,” he said desperately.
“It foolhardy to get in that river now. You be blown out the water!”
“I have to, Gabriel. I goin’ to get Easter.”
Gabriel embraced him and shook his head sadly. “God go with you.”
Obi left him and ran to the colonel’s house. It had started to drizzle. The soldiers were manning the artillery at the shore. Others took positions behind the breastworks and in the trenches. No one noticed Obi dashing to the back of the house. When he reached the door that led to the kitchen, Easter came out. “Come to the woodshed,” she whispered. Her eyes were frightened as they ran to the nearby shed.
“We leavin’ now,” Obi said nervously, holding her arms as they entered the shed. She felt small and delicate under her rough man’s shirt.
Easter buried her face in his chest. He held her close to him and rested his face in her hair. “What’s wrong, Easter?”