Black Angels

by Linda Beatrice Brown

  Daylily started to giggle. She picked up the hats. It seemed a relief for her to laugh at something. She grinned and showed her two dimples. “You sure is a sight,” she said. “You is a sight with all them geehaws on you!”

  Even Caswell had started to smile. He was fascinated by the canteens and kept touching the bayonet Luke had found. Finally he tried to take it out of Luke’s hand.

  Luke shook Caswell off and glared at the two of them. “Just you take these coats and hurry up about it. This ain’t no time for lollygaggin now.” They scrambled into their coats, and he hung a canteen around each of their necks, tying the straps together that he had cut off the dead soldiers. “Here, these your shoes,” he said to Daylily.

  She looked at him and wrinkled up her mouth.

  “How I’m gon wear these? They way too big.”

  “Just keep em,” he ordered. “You never know how far we is got to walk. Caswell’s feet be fine. He got them good White folks’ shoes on. Sides, his feet be way too small. Les go. Hurry up.”

  “I want to carry the sword,” Caswell said, eyeing the bayonet.

  Daylily carried her contraband shoes by the laces, and everybody had a hat on.

  “Naw, you way too little,” Luke said. “Anyway, it ain’t no real sword. It just part of a sword broken off a gun. It be too heavy for you, and sides, you might stab me and run away.”

  Caswell’s eyes began to fill up. He took Daylily’s hand. “I want to carry the sword,” he said again. And then slowly, “Please, Luke.”

  Luke gave in. “Oh, come on then, les go!” He handed Caswell the bayonet.

  Caswell held the bayonet as if he had his very own precious treasure.

  Luke was nervous. “They getting closer. Us got to hustle! And be quiet too. Don’t you think I ain’t watching you, Caswell.”

  Caswell looked straight ahead and turned away from the Burwell place as they passed it. His soldier’s coat dragged the ground. Luke was as tense as a deer, watching and listening for Confederate soldiers. They made a little battalion of their own, moving north into the trees, the sun coming up full in the east.

  They had been walking for an hour with their own thoughts. Nobody had had much to say.

  Finally Daylily broke the silence with a sneeze. “Lordy, ah’m hungry,” she sighed.

  Luke stopped walking. “We need us a fish line,” he said to her. He looked in all their pockets for string they could tie to a pole. In one of the pockets there was something that looked like a wire.

  “Catgut,” Daylily said. “That’s what they use to string a banjo. That soldier must have played the banjo and stuffed the extra strings in the pocket of his jacket.” She searched for the right tree branch to use for a pole and tied the catgut strings together to make one long string.

  She felt more peaceful today, like it didn’t much matter what happened to them now. Digging in the mud with Luke’s knife, she thought about Granny’s kitchen garden, and the greens she used to be so proud of.

  Luke and Caswell just watched her. They both sat down on the banks of the river. Luke brushed aside some twigs and got comfortable.

  “You know what you doin, gal?” he said.

  “It good night crawlers in here.” She ignored his put-down. “Us got to find a hook, y’all.” She moved a few feet away, looking for a good place to throw in the line.

  “You find it, I’m plum wore out,” Luke answered.

  “I’ll be mighty glad to eat all my fish myself,” she said, busy with her pole and her worms. She took the knife and made a groove on the pole so the string wouldn’t slip off.

  Luke looked in his pocket.

  “Ain’t no hooks gonna be in this pocket,” said Luke. He shook his head, as if to say she was on a fool’s errand. Then he saw the medal pinned to his coat. “Look like we in luck,” he called to her. “Come get this pin.”

  “If you can’t get up,” she shouted, “I’m eatin this fish myself. Me and Caswell. Caswell, bring me the hook.”

  Caswell was gazing into the water, a million miles into the past.

  “Wait now, wait. I got to fix it for you,” said Luke, all business all of a sudden. “Girl, you don’t even know what to do with this here pin.” He broke off the hook on the back of the medal and put it back in his pocket. “Here, now, mind you don’t lose it, you know how you gals is.”

  Daylily looked at the little pin from the medal and then at him. “You got to bend it, boy,” she said. “You don’t have no sense sometimes. You got to bend it for the crawler and the string.” She handed it back to him.

  Luke worked with the hook until he had it shaped for a worm. “Mind you put that hook on the string good,” he said. “It’s the onliest one we got. Some big ole fish swallow it and it be gone.”

  “You just make a fire,” she said, stretching out her brown legs and leaning against a tree, “and leave me be to catch us some dinner.”

  Daylily’s fishing was a triumph and a lifesaver. She put the hook and line very carefully into her pocket. Their stomachs filled again, with a fish left over, Luke wrapped the little cooked sunfish in his handkerchief and they kept moving.

  CHAPTER 9

  MUNDA AND THE THREE-LEGGED DOG

  It was now their fifth day in the woods. The day before, Luke had shot a squirrel, but it made a thin meal for them.

  Ever since he had learned about his Mamadear, Caswell’s eyes followed Daylily everywhere. When she washed her hands in the river, he’d wait, nervous until she came back. When she disappeared behind the trees for privacy, he’d wait impatiently until she reappeared.

  He constantly followed her with his eyes, except when they were around the fire at night. Then he watched the flames with wide-open eyes that had great circles under them that made his face look as pale as a winter sky.

  Luke was holding a rabbit between his knees that he had just shot for their supper.

  Daylily watched Caswell watching the fire. She poked at Luke softly and motioned that he should look at Caswell too. It worried her, this thing that happened to him around the fire, and it worried her that he watched her all the time.

  “He bout right in the head, you reckon?” she whispered to Luke. “You reckon he take it into his head to run?” They were sitting on part of a fallen pecan tree. Daylily was next to Luke and Luke was next to Caswell. They had stopped there because they saw a few pecans on the ground, but it was too early in the season, and the nuts weren’t good. They were still green.

  “Naw, he all right.” Luke seemed confident.

  Still Daylily watched Caswell carefully and tried to talk to him. She had an idea, and she moved around Luke and sat next to Caswell on the end of the pecan log.

  “I tell you what we could do,” she said, putting her arm around him. “We could tell stories to pass the time. Would you like that?”

  Caswell didn’t answer, but she kept on talking anyway. “I know,” she said brightly. “You can tell us about your home place. What was it like where you live?” Then Daylily grimaced slightly, realizing that she had made a mistake. He would be remembering his Mamadear.

  Caswell blinked and looked right at Daylily. “They killed Daniel!” he said. “They killed Daniel!”

  His outburst startled Daylily. She shook him slightly. “Caswell, don’t fret yourself!” she said quickly, but he kept talking, and then he told them all about the fire that burned up his house and how he came to be in the woods. After that he seemed to want to hear them talk, and he wanted to hear about their lives back home.

  Luke said, “I ain’t telling him no stories.”

  But Daylily didn’t mind. “Please, Luke, it keep him from starin like that,” she said.

  Luke peered at Caswell. “Y’all go head,” he said, because it was starting to give him the creeps watching Caswell look at the fire like he was going to jump into it.

  Kicking at the green pecans that were on the ground, Luke sighed. “Y’all can start the stories. Ain’t nobody gonna fix this rabbit I done cau
ght for us, so I reckon I better get started. I’ll tell mine after we eat.”

  Daylily shook her head. “I hope I don’t never see another rabbit in my whole life, when us gets to wherever we goin,” she said.

  While Luke was skinning the rabbit, and Daylily was keeping the fire going, Caswell suddenly blurted out, “My Mamadear’s name is Miss Loddy. What’s your mama’s name, Luke?”

  Luke looked away from them into the trees. He sighed. “Was Lucymae. She dead.”

  “What’s your mama’s name, Daylily?” Caswell persisted.

  “Granny,” she said. “She raise me. She ain’t my real mama though. Don’t have no real mama, just have Granny.”

  “Granny what?” Caswell screwed up his forehead as if he was confused.

  “Just Granny.” Daylily was drawing a little design in the dust with a stick. She turned the corners of her mouth down. She was drawing a quilt pattern she was learning from Granny. The flying geese pattern. Granny said it was a secret code for slaves to get free.

  She was going to make it with some scraps from Missus’ old dresses. Now she guessed she’d never make it. She threw the stick down in the dust.

  “What happened to your real mama?” Caswell said.

  “She was sold from the place, I reckon, or dead. Don’t know. Time to eat now, don’t ask me no more.”

  After he nibbled a little bit of meat, Caswell lay on his side and closed his eyes. Daylily sure hoped he would go on to sleep. She looked at Caswell and noticed he had a large scar on his ear. For a minute, she wondered how he got that scar, but then she didn’t think about it any more. She had her own worries.

  Now it was her turn to look into the fire. She didn’t like to think about home, about Granny and Buttercup and Mary lyn and all the rest of them. It was too hard. And her chest hurt when she thought about it. The fire crackled and sang with the popping wood. Sparks flew out into the purple darkness. Daylily coughed. She felt kind of sick. Maybe she had the miseries comin, like Granny used to say. It would soon be night again, and she felt lower and lower.

  “Ain’t you got no stories you can tell, Luke?” Daylily said. She kept trying to braid her hair, but it wasn’t much use without a comb. Luke sat over next to her.

  “Well, maybe,” he said. He didn’t want to think much about home or about anybody he loved, but maybe he could tell something that was exciting and keep them from being so sad.

  Luke and Daylily whispered along with the dogwood and pecan trees that were in this part of the woods. The cool was coming on with the night. Luke looked up at the night sky. He was searching for the drinking gourd, but he didn’t see it.

  Luke was now as worried as Daylily about Caswell staring into the fire. There was no telling what he’d do, and Luke didn’t feel like fishing anybody out of the fire. And what if he burned himself? Then what would they do to help him? Back there after he saw the dead soldiers, Luke realized all they had was each other, so they all had to stay alive and they had to take care of each other.

  Luke tried to get comfortable on the ground. It seemed as hard as that anvil he had seen Elijah the blacksmith using to shoe horses. He didn’t have much fat left to spare him the rocks and roots. “Lemme see,” he said as he threw some pine-cones out of his way.

  He could smell the pine needles and hear the crickets and squirrels scurrying around. He thought about that dog at the home place named Black Nigger. Massa Higsaw named him that, and every time he called out “Black Nigger” to the dog, somebody on the place would jump to see was he calling them. Then Massa Higsaw would laugh like it was the best joke he’d ever heard. He thought that was real funny. Luke shook his head. He used to laugh too. Now it didn’t seem so funny.

  “Come on, Luke, please,” Daylily coaxed. “I can’t sleep noway.”

  “All right, I’m just doing this so you leave me alone,” Luke said. He turned over on his side and leaned on his elbow.

  “Was a three-legged dog on the place,” he said to Daylily. “Name Black Nigger. Dog took to some and hated some. Folks say Black Nigger was trained to kill if Massa Higsaw ordered him to. I never did know if this was true, but us knew he was meaner than the devil.

  “Some say if he looked you straight in the eye, it meant you was gonna die soon, cause he was a devil dog. Us knew he just as soon take a bite out your leg as look at you, and the darker you was, the worse that dog hated you.

  “He was trained by Massa Higsaw to hate Black. Saw him bite a man once. Was a terrible thing. Almost clean through his leg. Didn’t let loose till Massa told him to let go. Folks say this man smart-mouthed Massa Higsaw.

  “Unc Steph say that dog was sent from hell just to give niggers trials and tribulation. Was a big ole ugly dog, you know, slobbering and growling. I reckon I was more scared-a him than anything with two legs.”

  Daylily was wondering why she’d ever asked for a story, but still it was better than crying about home, or thinking about who or what was out there in those dark trees. She wrapped her coat around her tightly and held her arms together, afraid to look anywhere but into the fire.

  “Munda was a field hand on the place, Massa Higsaw had a wager about Munda. Folks say Munda tried to get some of his own back with Black Nigger. Folks say Munda died on purpose and almost took Black Nigger along for the ride to hell. Only Black Nigger didn’t die. He come out the wager with three legs and it messed up his huntin nose, so Massa lost his prize dog and his prize nigger all at the same time.”

  Daylily shifted and lay down with her head propped up on her arms.

  “Unc Steph don tole me how it happened. One day, one fine and fair day, Massa say he want to prove to his friends that Munda could plow more fields in a single day than Massa Johnstoner’s prize nigger Tommy, so they had a wager, you know?”

  Daylily wasn’t sure what a wager was. She shook her head.

  “It’s a way mens see who’s best,” said Luke with a slightly superior tone. “They uses money and who wins, gets the money. Massa Higsaw had lotsa wagers. He gambled with cards mostly, so he owed Massa Johnstoner lots of money. So, Massa Johnstoner wagered his Tommy gainst Munda. Said he’d forgive the debt if Munda wins, and if Tommy win, he’d take Munda instead of money. Cause Munda worth so much money, Massa Higsaw real nervous about the wager, but he also don’t want to pay all that money back to Massa Johnstoner.

  “He tell Munda he better win, or else he be sorry. Course that didn’t scare Munda much cause if he lost, he be owned by Massa Johnstoner.

  “He already strong as a mule and meaner than a rattlesnake being bit by a mad dog, but Munda, he wanna leave the place. He hate Massa Higsaw worse’n anything, and he figger Massa Johnstoner a better man and maybe he could buy out his freedom, which he heard tell of folks doin over there. They say Massa Johnstoner was a fair man as White folks go. So Munda, he bound and determined to lose this here wager.

  “Tommy was plowing that field like a man gone mad. Up one row and down the other. Up and down, pushing that mule, wearing one out and calling for another, and Munda was pushing up and down the other side of the field, but he was going slower than he could have, letting Tommy take the lead. Ole Munda was on his way to winning a better life by losing; that’s what he thought.

  “Now the thing is, he hate this other nigger Arkansas even worser than he hate Massa Higsaw, and don’t nobody know why for sho, but Arkansas give Munda the evil eye every day in the field and Munda threaten to beat him up every night when dark come, and so they just spoiling for a fight some kinda way. Maybe over a woman, that’s what Gustavus say.

  “Unc Steph saw the whole thing. In the middle of plowing a row, Munda happened to look up and saw Arkansas out of the corner of his eye, taking pure advantage of the contest to cut and run. Way over in the distance, he was working his way through the trees, quiet-like, from tree to tree. Didn’t nobody else notice cause all us cheering and watchin, and that included Overseer Dugun, who wasn’t too smart anyway, plus Massa Higsaw, Massa Johnstoner and Black Nigger. All u
s watching to see who would win the plowing. We ain’t seen nobody was missing and we sure ain’t lookin into the trees.

  “When Munda spy Arkansas, he just stop plowing, and he look Black Nigger straight in the eye and holler, ‘Black Nigger! . . . Sic em, Nigger!’ and he point to the woods. Black Nigger let loose runnin like a wild animal, clamp his teeth on Arkansas’ leg and drag him out of the trees. He be yelling and screaming, blood everywhere, and Munda, he saw he done lost the contest cause Tommy just kept on plowin. He wasn’t lookin at no devil dog.

  “Munda just standing there grinning, not even tryin to win, just glad he lost the race and Arkansas got caught. Massa got so mad that he bout to lose his best worker to Massa Johnstoner, and that Arkansas’ leg was tore up, he haul off and shoot at Munda. Munda take off running. Then Massa put Black Nigger on his tail, and Black Nigger like to tore off Munda’s leg, and Massa shoot again. This time he kill Munda and hit Black Nigger in the leg so bad they had to cut it off. And that’s how Massa Higsaw lost his best nigger and a good hunting dog over one wager. And that’s how Munda lost his life for too much hate.

  “Unc Steph say to me, ‘Boy, don’t you never let hate take you over that way. It ain’t no right way to live, and you’ll die in the worship of hate. That Munda was a fool.’”

  Luke looked at Daylily. “I’s just a little boy when it happened. I heard all the yelling and hollering and shooting, but I couldn’t see nothin. Gustavus say after that, Black Nigger act like he ain’t really living, just a ghost dog, and he lookin for his leg. Say he be digging up places all over the farm, lookin for his leg, and don’t nobody know where he might be at any time. That Black Nigger dog sure hated niggers, I tell you what.”

  “What happened to Arkansas?” Daylily asked, turning over to go to sleep under her coat.

  “Oh, he never was no good no more. He got whupped for trying to run. And he just sit and stare like a dead man most times. He have a little garden and he just sit. He dead now, bout a year ago at Christmastime. Aunt Eugenia put up a marker for him in the quarters.”