Black Angels

by Linda Beatrice Brown

  “What you doing here then?” said Luke. “You done cut out?”

  “Yankees done come, folks clear out, and Granny dead,” she answered all at once. “Granny took sick, died, lef me with Buttercup, and Yankee soldiers done killed her and her babies and here I be.”

  “Whew,” Luke whistled. “Lawd-a mercy.” It sounded terrible, but mostly it was confusing. He couldn’t think of anything else to say except, “What you doing here with this White chile? And who you say got killed?”

  “Buttercup and her babies. Got killed right over there not too far behind that honeysuckle. He ain’t been here when all that done happened. I don’t know how he come to be here,” she said. “Reckon we should wake him up?”

  They both turned toward Caswell, who was sleeping like a baby full of milk. Caswell’s cheeks had reddened where his face was pressing against his arm.

  “He wake up soon enough. Sun be shining on him and it’s gonna be a hot day. It’s past noon directly. You ain’t got nobody now?” Luke asked her.

  Daylily shook her head and looked past him at the trees. She couldn’t get the words out. “You?” she said.

  “Naw,” said Luke. “Eugenia back at the kitchen. She the onliest family I got. I be lookin for some mens from the Higsaw place. Spose to meet them to join up with the Union, only I reckon the rain done scared em off. I’ll find em. Sure, I’ll find em soon enough.” He could see the sun breaking through the trees and his stomach growled.

  Caswell was finally awake. He sat up, his light brown hair was all messed up, and he thought he was dreaming, and then he remembered his mama. He had to find her and it was already late in the day. His clothes were full of brown mud. Then he saw the other two. His eyes were wide as a fawn’s.

  “Hey, chile,” said Luke.

  “My name’s Caswell,” he said. “Master Caswell to you.”

  “I ain’t your nigger, Caswell,” Luke reported, “and I ain’t got to call you nothin I don’t want to. Yankees done changed all that, Caswell.”

  “Smart-mouth niggers get whipped, boy.” Caswell stood up, squaring his shoulders. “And I said my name is Master Caswell to you.” His babyish voice sounded thin and scared.

  “Ain’t you the big man,” Luke said, grinning at him. “And what you gon whup me with? I don’t see nothin but your muddy drawers and your snotty nose or is I wrong? Is you got a whup hid somewhere behind you?” Luke ran around Caswell in circles. “Is you got it here, or here?”

  Caswell turned around and around, trying to find a place to stand his ground. “My daddy will kill you soon’s he come back from the war. He’ll kill you just like he’s killing them Yankees,” he shouted.

  Luke now knew that Caswell was probably alone and unprotected. “So your daddy’s fighting the Yankees? Do tell! Then what you doing here? Why ain’t you helping your daddy, you such a big man?” Luke had almost backed Caswell into a large tree trunk. “Why ain’t you with your mama?”

  “You can’t make me answer,” Caswell said. “None of your business. I’ve got to go. Get out of my way, nigger.”

  “How about you call me Luke, and then I move outta your way? You know, ‘Luke’ like they teach you in the White man’s church? Luke and John and them other mens?”

  Caswell tried ducking under Luke’s arm. Luke grabbed him like a jackrabbit and held on to his shirt.

  “You ain’t called me Luke yet,” he said, holding on to Caswell’s arm.

  “What we gonna do with him?” Luke said to Daylily.

  “What you mean?”

  “I mean what we gonna do? We can’t let him go back where he come from; they be sending the dogs on us, saying we took him. You know how these rich White folks is. Besides, I run off, and I ain’t taking no chances on being caught and being punished.”

  “They ain’t sending no dogs on me,” Daylily said. “I ain’t run off. Marse Riverson say we be free to go. Folks just started running every which-a-way, and the last thing I know, we in the wagon leaving.”

  “Don’t sound like you can go back,” Luke said. “Anyway we got to keep him.”

  “You keep him,” she said. “I don’t want no parts of him.”

  “You ain’t going nowhere, Caswell. You got to go with us. We’s all going together. You get that through your little White head.” He looked at Caswell’s eyes, which were now filling up with tears.

  I won’t cry, Caswell thought. And then he said it out loud. “I won’t cry. And I won’t be kept by a nigger boy.” He looked at Daylily as if she might help him, but she sat still, curious but silent.

  Luke half dragged Caswell over to where Daylily sat. “See this rifle, boy? This mine. I took it from Massa Higsaw, and I do know how to shoot it, cause Unc Steph, he taught me to kill rabbits. And rifles kills peoples just as easy as they does rabbits. So you just set right here, rest your little behind right here, cause you ain’t movin till us decides what to do with you.”

  Luke sat facing Daylily and Caswell, the gun across his knees. They were all quiet for a minute or two. Daylily was afraid to move; Caswell’s big tears wet his chin.

  “Well,” said Luke, putting both his hands on his knees with all the authority he could muster, “look like I got to decide somethin.”

  They sat in silence for another full minute, Caswell sniffing up his tears and Daylily peering at Luke through eyes swollen with crying.

  Finally Daylily couldn’t stand it any more. “Stupid boy, you don’t even know what to decide, do you? You don’t know nothin. Bet you as scared as us is!”

  Luke picked up his gun and dug the butt of it into the soil. “Awright! Awright!” he said. “This what us gon do. Us got to eat. Else we starve out here.”

  “See,” said Daylily. “You so smart, what we gon eat? Grass? Ha! Grass!”

  “Naw, you just like a gal. Don wait for nobody to finish. We gon eat rabbit and some squirrel and maybe some fish. You think you smart enough to catch us a fish?”

  “Course I can,” Daylily said. “I’m nine years old. I been knowing how to fish.”

  Caswell started, “My daddy said . . .”

  “Hush up! Don’t nobody wanna know what your daddy say,” said Luke. “You just hush before I shoot your ear off. I gotta think.” He thought very seriously. “Now, this what us gonna do. This gal here, what your name, gal?”

  She looked at Luke like he was the devil’s grandson. “Daylily,” she said with her teeth closed.

  “Daylily,” Luke said, “you in charge of Caswell here.” He grinned in triumph at the little boy. “Hold on to his trousers.” Luke picked up a big rock off the ground. “Now, he get outta line, you whomp him upside his head with this here rock.”

  He was right, Daylily thought. They’d set the dogs on them and she’d be caught. They wouldn’t care about Buttercup. They’d take Luke back to the Higsaw place, and maybe she’d be left alone again, and maybe those soldiers would come back and maybe not, but she didn’t want to be alone again in these woods ever.

  “Don’t you move,” she said to Caswell. Daylily hated Luke right then. She hated his orders, and she hated that he was right. She hated that he wasn’t as scared as she was, at least he didn’t act it. And she hated that she had to do what he said, or she’d be in the woods with no way out and no food. “Wait a minute,” she said. “What you say your name was, boy?”

  “Luke,” he said over his shoulder. “Like in the Bible! I’m gon find us some food. Watch that White chile!”

  When he walked off, there was an uncomfortable silence, and suddenly her fear grabbed at her again. She wished he’d come back even if she did hate him. She glanced at Caswell, gripping his wrist with one hand and the rock with the other. “Don’t you move,” she said, “or I’ll hit you upside your head with this rock.” She tried to look her meanest. He did look like he was afraid of her.

  And so they sat for a half hour. Buzzards circled overhead. Daylily knew why, but she couldn’t bear to think about it. She just wanted Luke to hurry up.


  It was hot. Quiet in the woods. Gnats and mosquitoes bothered them. “I have to relieve myself,” Caswell said.

  “No, you ain’t moving,” Daylily said. “Not till Luke come back.”

  “But I have to go now,” he whined. They sat another five minutes. Caswell began to wiggle.

  “OK then,” she said. “We’ll walk over to them trees.” They got up as if bonded together, the two of them and the rock. Daylily marched him over to the trees. Caswell stood there wiggling and waiting. “Do it then!” she ordered.

  “Turn around,” he said. “I ain’t letting no nigger gal see me. Only Gran Susie can do that.”

  She turned away, still gripping his wrist and her rock. She could hear him trying to get his pants unbuttoned with his left hand.

  “Wait,” he said. “Can’t get em down.”

  They switched hands. “Hurry up.” She heard the water hit the leaves. “Hurry up!” she said again, feeling like she ought to help him; he was like the little ones she helped Granny with. But she had to make sure he knew she was the boss.

  They made it back to where they had been sitting and plopped down. Daylily had to go too, but she wasn’t about to do it while some stray White child watched her.

  Ten minutes later they heard a loud shot.

  “Whooee,” Luke hollered. “Got em!” In a minute he was there holding a rabbit by the feet. “Lookee what I got,” he said, grinning from one side of his face to the other. “First shot! Dinner.” He took Aunt Eugenia’s knife out of his overalls pocket. “Now we got to skin it and start up a fire. Oh man, rabbit meat!”

  Daylily said, “Who gon watch him?” She pointed at Caswell. “I got to go do somethin.”

  Luke looked away from her face. He pointed his gun at Caswell. “Go on. I got him covered,” he said, glaring at the little boy.

  Daylily scrambled up. Her bottom hurt from the long wait, but she flew into the woods, trying to get away from them so they wouldn’t hear her pee trickling down on the leaves. Then she got a long drink from the river, careful not to go anywhere she knew she’d find the dead bodies.

  She washed her face and hands, and scrubbed her cinnamon skin, and tried to braid her hair. It was matted with mud. She’d have to wash it in the river later.

  “Where you been, gal?” Luke said when she returned. “I got to skin this rabbit so we can eat. Here, hold this rifle on this boy. Can you shoot? You sho look a heap better.”

  “Course I can,” she said, even though she had never held a rifle before. “You ain’t too clean yourself, you know.”

  He ignored her remark. “Well, watch him, cause we gon eat in a little while,” he said, beginning to work on the rabbit.

  Luke slit and skinned the rabbit just like Unc Steph had taught him. He put it on a stick, and piled up his firewood. He took out Massa Higsaw’s flint and steel to strike a spark.

  “Tomorrow us gon have fish?” Luke said, looking at Daylily with a sly grin. He didn’t believe she knew how to fish at all.

  She hadn’t thought about tomorrow. Was there a tomorrow? Would they ever see anybody else, or would they just be in the woods forever? And where was everybody she knew? Where was little Bubba, and Marylynn, and Andrew, and all the rest of them? Were they all dead like Granny and Buttercup and her babies?

  Caswell sat a few feet from Daylily and thought about his Mamadear having dinner at the Burwell plantation. Tomorrow he’d find a way to escape, as soon as he had some rabbit to eat.

  The rabbit looked a nice brown color as Luke turned it around and around on the stick. “Y’all better come on,” he said finally. “It sure is ready now!” His eyes sparkled even more as Daylily started to get up.

  “Wait, we got to do this right,” Luke said. “I’ll eat first cause I shot that rabbit, and then I’ll watch him and you eat,” he said to Daylily. “And he’ll eat last cause we in charge-a him.”

  In Aunt Eugenia’s kitchen Luke could never eat till all the White folks had seconds, then thirds, and then all the food was cleared from the table. He tore off a large piece of meat while Daylily and Caswell looked on. “Y’all just don’t know,” he blurted out with a full mouth, “how good that was!” He shook his head from side to side and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Think I’ll have me another little piece,” he said, pretending to reach for the rest of the meat.

  Daylily turned toward him with the gun in her hand, and Luke fell back laughing with delight. She grabbed her share and pushed the gun at him.

  “Here, you watch him, you crazy boy,” she said, tearing into the rabbit.

  “Man, you sho is hungry,” he said. “You is sho serious about that rabbit!”

  After his meal, Caswell demanded a drink from the river, and they all flopped down next to the river, watching the leaves and the clouds drifting up above. It was quiet until Luke said, “I smell something funny.”

  Daylily had smelled it too.

  “Where you say your friend, you know, Butter . . .”

  “They’s over there,” she said in a whisper. Luke turned and looked where she had pointed.

  “They’s over there,” she said again in a whisper. The good rabbit rose in her throat.

  Luke’s mouth opened as if to say something. He blinked. “Naw,” he said. “Naw, it ain’t this close, is it?”

  She nodded furiously.

  “Les move then,” he said, gathering up his knife and rifle and stamping out the fire. The afternoon was on its way. “Les move out. We got to go. Somebody else sure to smell em soon. Soldiers thinking they’s needing to bury the dead. That smell be strong and then somebody find us. We got to walk away from here as fast as we can.”

  He felt his mam’s mojo around his neck. Folks that was murdered and dead before their time didn’t rest easy. He knew that.

  “I ain’t goin,” Caswell said all of a sudden. He hadn’t spoken in an hour.

  “You is goin,” said Luke. “You don’t, I’ll go upside yo skinny head! Get over here.”

  “I ain’t. I’m goin to run away to the Burwell place. That’s where my Mamadear is and you can’t stop me!”

  Luke grabbed him by the arm, and the younger boy struggled to get free, but he was too small to give Luke much of a problem.

  “Now you march, you,” Luke said, “cause I ain’t gonna end up like them three over there on the ground, and Daylily neither.”

  Caswell was suddenly attentive. “What three?” he said, standing still.

  “Them three dead people, that’s what. Didn’t you hear that gal talkin bout Yankee soldiers killing Buttercup and her babies? Well, you run away like you want to, only you be sure you run in that direction toward them honeysuckle bushes.”

  Luke stuck out his arm in the direction none of them wanted to go. “You run right over there and look behind them bushes at them bodies and see does you want to be in these woods by yourself. Dead peoples be in these woods, that’s what, and Yankees done killed them. You still want to be goin to the Burwell plantation by yourself?”

  Caswell was speechless with fear. Dead people were worse than live Yankees and niggers put together, so he gave in, and they marched on along the riverbank, Luke trying to put as much distance between himself and the dead as possible, Daylily thinking how she didn’t want to think about buzzards, and Caswell howling into the failing afternoon sun.

  CHAPTER 6

  TREASURE

  It was early September and so the heat was fickle, some nights warm and some bringing a slight chill. Last night’s rain had broken the heat, at least for now. They walked in silence once Caswell was tired of crying and Luke was tired of yelling at him to shut up. Up hill and down. It would be sunset soon. Luke started looking for a place to sleep.

  Straight ahead the river road split. In the distance was what looked like an abandoned shed, but Luke didn’t want to risk being found, and the road looked like it was curving away from the river. The river made a slight turn here and got much wider.

  Daylily was gazing over toward the l
eft. Luke thought she was watching the sunset. A gray haze spread out over part of the sky.

  “Smells like smoke,” she said. For a moment, she was silent. Then she said, “We should go this way,” and pointed opposite the orange and lavender sky so beautiful and distant.

  Luke turned toward the shack, more than a little apprehensive but too tired to think what else to do. He was starting to feel responsible for the younger children. Caswell lagged behind, taking smaller and smaller steps. Finally, Daylily went back and took him by the hand. Luke felt his powder bag. “Wait,” he said, as he got closer and closer to the shelter. “Lemme see is it safe.”

  It was a small place, but he could tell it was the back of an old farmhouse. There were fields going to seed; a half-burned house in the distant twilight shadows, its chimneys poking up into the purple sky; a plow and wagon left behind. All he could hear were a few crickets and mosquitoes buzzing. “Must have been terrible,” he muttered to himself, and then waved his hand to the others to come ahead.

  A hawk flew overhead into the black trees. There was no door on the shed, but it would give them somewhere to be out of the cool at night. They saw that someone else had been there. An old wool jacket and a rusty knife and fork were on the floor.

  Caswell curled up on the raggedy jacket and was asleep in a few minutes.

  Daylily leaned her back against the wall of the tiny place. “He ain’t gon find his mama,” she whispered to Luke, who had collapsed beside her.

  “Who care?” Luke moaned. “You think maybe we should let him go try?”

  “No, I mean, he ain’t,” she repeated. She leaned over very close to Luke’s ear. “Burwell place be burned down. I saw it from the river road. Ain’t no Burwell place no more.”

  “You mean you knowed that all along?” Luke said.