The Life and Times of Persimmon Wilson

by Nancy Peacock

  “You think I can’t find her,” I said.

  “I didn’t say that. You might find her. You might find her, and she might still be wantin’ you. Y’all might get married and have babies and yo’ son become the prezdent of the United States.”

  I nearly spat my swig of liquor out laughing. “I doubt a nigger’s going to be president of the United States, Mr. Tilly.”

  “Naw, I reckon not, but that ain’t the pint. The pint is you gonna get yo’sef kilt wanderin’ round out here. Like I say, it a wonder you ain’t dead yet. It plain to see you ain’t got no sense. You got to have yo’sef a plan.”

  “No plan is perfect,” I answered, thinking of the way I had stalled Chloe at Sweetmore.

  “Didn’t say it was. But some plan better than no plan. ’Specially out here. No plan’ll get you kilt.”

  “And what sort of plan ought I to have, Mr. Tilly? Texas is a big place. Everyone tells me that. What am I supposed to do? Give up? Make it smaller?”

  “Ain’t no need to get testy. By god, you talk to every white man the way you talkin’ to me, you gonna get yo’sef hanged. Not everybody in Texas enlightened as I am.” He pulled another swig on the jug and jammed in the cork. Then he stood up, all four and a half feet of him, lifted the rabbit off the fire and dropped it onto a tin plate that sat between us. Mo Tilly sat back down again and ripped a leg off the steaming rabbit and began eating. “Hot, hot, hot,” he said. “Help yo’sef, Persy.”

  I did so, tearing at the meat and blowing on it to cool.

  “Now like I was sayin’,” Mo Tilly continued. “You need yo’sef a base of op’rations. You gonna need you a job, Persy. You gonna need you some money. It ain’t jest findin’ her you got to think on. What if you do find her? You cain’t be askin’ her to wander round Texas eatin’ rabbits and bugs.”

  “How’d you know I ate bugs?”

  “Everyone starvin’ eats bugs. One of the things I like ’bout you. I can see you resourceful. Besides, you tol’ me. Now listen here, how you gonna set her up, once you find her? What you got to offer?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “Exactly right. And there she might be havin’ some other fella champin’ at the bit to marry her, and he offerin’ her somethin’ and you there offerin’ her nothin’. Which you think she gonna choose? You ain’t that good-lookin’, Persy, so you better have you somethin’ to offer.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “You sign up with me. You come to the ranch and winter over with me. Help build the place back up. Come spring, you work the longhorns. You any good on a wild horse?”

  “I haven’t had much occasion to find out.”

  “Well, you talk like a learned man, maybe you can learn to break horses. You be worth yo’ weight in gold, you break horses. White men look up to a nigger can break a horse. You gonna need you a skill.”

  “Where is this ranch?”

  “Well now, you gonna think that be a problem, but it ain’t no problem. People gonna come through there all the time, been everywhere. You ask ’em ’bout Chloe. Let the travelin’ come to you, ’stead a you doin’ the travelin’.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Yep, folk gonna come through all the time,” he said. “Soldiers be nearby. I think we can sell beeves to the fort there. That what I tol’ Mistah Spencer. We take the beeves to market and you can ask them soldiers. They goin’ everywhere lookin’ fo’ Indians.”

  “Where is this ranch?’ I asked again.

  “Well now, I don’t think it much fo’ you to worry ’bout, Persy. Indians don’t like nigger hair. They be lookin’ fo’ white hair.” He reached back and flipped his greasy hank of hair like an angry squirrel’s tail. “Flows purty on they shields, you see.”

  “You haven’t told me where it is.”

  “Now, I knew you’d be fixated on that. You jest a damn greenhorn, Persy. You need me. You may not think so, but Texas . . .”

  I finished the sentence with him. “. . . is a big place.”

  “All right. The frontier be where we goin’. The Travelin’ S Ranch.”

  “Close to what town?”

  Mo Tilly ripped another hunk of meat off the rabbit and started gnawing on it. “You so damn green, Persy. Frontier. You deef or somethin’? Frontier mean they ain’t no town nearby. Well now, that ain’t exactly true. It depend on what you call a town. Ain’t no town like Austin or Galveston or Santone, but they’s a little settlement called Drunken Bride sprung up at the edge of the prairie, ’long the Colorado River. They some fellas there tryin’ they hands at farmin’ and ranchin’ and such.”

  I laughed. “Who would name a town Drunken Bride?”

  Mo Tilly shook his head and leaned back. “Don’t rightly know the story round that.” He reached into his haversack, pulled his knife from his belt, and shaved a chaw off his block of “tombaccer.”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out my piece of map, unfolded it and placed it on the ground between us.

  “Well now, looky here, ain’t you come prepared?” Mo Tilly laid another stick on the fire for light and then leaned over and peered at the map. “This here Walker’s Creek,” he said, pointing to the water we were camped next to. “It be ’bout here.” He stabbed his stubby finger on the map above San Antonio, then traced west and then north, and stopped uncomfortably close to that word Comanche. “Fort Concho ’bout here. Concho gonna be a brand-new fort ’long the North Concho River. We goin’ ’bout here.” He punched his finger to an empty spot east of Concho. “Mo’ or less,” Mo Tilly added. “The ranch be ’bout fifty miles east of the fort. We gonna sell the beeves to ’em. They be needin’ meat. But first we gotta get down here.” He trailed his finger to the bottom of Texas, southeast of San Antonio.

  “That’s got to be a hundred miles from here,” I said.

  “Eh. Seventy, eighty, ninety maybe.”

  “Why should I do this?” I asked.

  “I done tol’ you why. You need you a plan. I jest tryin’ to help. You gonna get kilt wanderin’ out here by yo’sef. You damn lucky I the one came ’long and pick you up. You jest a greenhorn nigger, Persy. You might of been somethin’ out there in them cane fields, but here you ain’t shit.”

  “I wasn’t anything in the cane fields but another slave.”

  “And now you jest another ex-slave. That don’t buy you nothin’ in Texas.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Then I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’ you don’t already know. Finish off that rabbit, Persy.”

  I reached over and picked up the carcass, pulling off the meat with my teeth. Mo crammed the tobacco into his mouth and started chewing and, soon enough, spitting. I could sense he was waiting for an answer from me.

  Everything he said was true. I was free now, but I had been free for two years and what had it gotten me but traveling secretively and furtively, going only where other freedmen said it might be safe.

  I gnawed on the rabbit and pitched the bones off into the weeds, and Mo Tilly spat and the fire guttered and the shadows danced and neither of us talked until finally he said, “Pay thirteen dollars a month. Payday don’t come till after we sell the beeves. You ain’t the only nigger gonna be there. I got one other hand, name of Sedge, gonna be workin’ fo’ me. He break wild horses. I’m on my way to pick him up. He teach you that skill, you have work in Texas fo’ as long as you hang on to yo’ bones. You make you some money, Persy. Plenty wild horses out there. Take care of that gal, Chloe. I believe you gonna find her. I believe you gonna find her and get married and have you a mess of little Persys runnin’ round. By then you be done fo’got ’bout yo’ ol’ friend, Mo Tilly.”

  I had known Mo Tilly for less than a day. That he should refer to himself as my old friend astounded me. Yet I had told him everything there was to say about my life. I turned to look at him. He spat and wiped his sleeve across his mouth. Then he took his plug out, pitched it into the woods, and lay down, pulling the blanket over him and punching his h
at into a pillow. I put another stick on the fire and folded my map and returned it to my pocket before rolling into my own blanket. I could hear by his breathing that he was not yet asleep. “Have you ever been married?” I asked.

  “Once,” he said.

  I stared at his back, at his lank tail of dirty blond hair spilling over the edge of his blanket.

  “You wouldn’t be bunkin’ with the white hands,” he said, “if that what you worried ’bout. You and Sedge be bunkin’ with me. I already got it set up. That the only way Sedge agree to come.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

  Mo rolled back to face me. “You worried ’bout yo’ hair? I tell you, Persy. Them redskins don’t like nigger hair. I got mo’ to worry ’bout than you.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m worried I won’t find Chloe.”

  “That gonna be yo’ worry wherever you go.”

  “What happened to your wife?” I asked.

  “She died.” He rolled over and faced away from me again.

  The next morning I unfolded my piece of map and looked at it. Mo took one look at the map, then walked off to hitch the mules to the wagon. When he was done he came back over and picked up his haversack, a plug of tobacco already moiling around in his mouth. He spat. “I doubt she be in the plains,” he said. “They’s nothin’ there ’cept that settlement I tol’ you ’bout, a few ranches, and them red devils.”

  “Then why would I sign up with you?”

  “ ’Cause I the only friend you got in Texas, Persy.”

  I COMMITTED TO nothing more than riding with Mo Tilly to Sedge’s place, a journey of seven days. From there, if I chose to join them, we would travel two hundred miles north to the Traveling S Ranch, abandoned for five years now, and unseen by Mo or its new owner.

  “This country almost tame befo’ the war,” Mo Tilly said. “Rangers ’bout had the Indians licked, then all the fightin’ men leave. I reckon the Indians give that rancher some trouble, so that why he leave too. He damn lucky Mistah Spencer be willin’ to buy that ranch, and Mistah Spencer damn lucky to have me.

  “Spencer a damn fool, Persy. He say he ain’t scairt of no backwards, primitive people. He say folks in Texas jest overreactin’ to the Indian trouble. Jest a bunch of pussies out here. He say that to me.” Mo thumped his thumb against his chest. “To me,” he repeated, and then spat twice and shook his head. “Long as he stay outta my way and let me do my job I reckon we get along. But I ain’t got much ’spect fo’ a man say the Indians ain’t no trouble out here. He ain’t seed what I seed.

  “Now, Persy, like I say, I don’t think you got nothin’ to worry ’bout. Indians don’t like nigger hair. No offense to you, but it ain’t purty on they shields.”

  “None taken,” I assured him.

  “But they’s some things you ought to know jest in case we have us a run-in. First, you don’t want to be taken alive. Kill yo’sef befo’ you let ’em get to you.”

  “Kill myself how?”

  “Save a bullet fo’ yo’sef. That rule number one.” He held up one gloved digit.

  “I don’t have a gun, Mr. Tilly.”

  “I getcha a gun, Persy. I won’t be leadin’ you out there without no gun. Now, rule number two, if you do get taken alive, they gonna torture you. And when they do, you jest take it, you hear? Don’t be callin’ out fo’ yo’ mama. Don’t be callin’ out fo’ yo’ god. You jest buck up and take it, whatever they do. You hear?”

  “What are they likely to do?”

  “Well now, like I say, I don’t think you got much to worry ’bout. They don’t care fo’ yo’ hair. But they admire courage. So if you get captured, jest don’t be screamin’ and hollerin’. Jest take it and they might ease up on you. I knowed a rancher once got captured and he so brave they let him go. Jest let him go, that how much they admire courage.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He quit the frontier. Couldn’t take it no mo’. Went back east.”

  “No, I mean what did the Indians do to him?”

  Mo leveled a long look at me. “They devils, Persy. They likely do anythin’ they think of. Break yo’ fingers. Cut you little bit at a time till you bleed out. Saw yo’ limbs off, startin’ with yo’ dick and endin’ with yo’ nose. If you ain’t dead yet, they might drag you behind a horse. Burn you. Pull you apart. I seed it. Corpses burnt slap up. Tied to wagon wheels and pulled apart.

  “They cut up the dead, Persy, enemy dead. I seed it. Legs and arms hangin’ in the trees. Heads rollin’ round like cannonballs. Torsos like stumps on the ground. Ain’t so bad if you dead, I reckon. Hell of a thing if you alive though. Jest ’member rule number one, kill yo’sef first.

  “Now, in Texas,” Mo Tilly went on, “the main tribe causin’ all the trouble be the Comanche.”

  “I read their name on the map,” I said.

  “Ye did, did ye? Well, that right. Comanche. And some Kiowa. Some Apache. Comanche and Kiowa rides together sometimes. They steals chirren.”

  “Some got captured down near Castell,” I said. “And Gillespie County, along with a woman.”

  “I heard that too. That woman utterly degraded now. Rurnt. Some men, if they wife get captured by Indians and then returned back to civilization, they won’t even take her back.”

  “I’d take Chloe back, no matter what.”

  “Yeah, well, you and me, we enlightened. Most men ain’t, you know.”

  “Would you take your wife back?”

  He paused and then answered quietly, “I would. I sho would.”

  We rattled on in silence for a while and then Mo spoke again, shaking his head. “Them chirren. Folks won’t never see ’em again prob’ly. They do, they wish they hadn’t. Kids be heathens by then. Hate everythin’ ’bout white folk. I seed it. Little gal name of Cynthia Ann Parker kidnapped back in ’36, rescued in ’60. Never was right after that. Had a little Indian daughter, name of Prairie Flower, died a few years back. Tore Cynthia Ann up, what I hear. She livin’ with relatives now, but she ain’t never been right after livin’ with them heathens. She run off all the time. They brung her back. She sleep on the floor ’stead of a bed. She don’t even know she white anymo’. She with them Comanche”—Mo Tilly spat—“how many years it be?”

  “Twenty-four,” I provided.

  “Twenty-fo’,” he repeated, shaking his head. “She mo’ Comanche than white now.”

  “Why doesn’t she go back to the Indians?” I asked.

  “She white, Persy. It ain’t right fo’ no white woman to be livin’ with them heathens. ’Course now she rurnt, like I say. Ain’t no man gonna want Cynthia Ann after bein’, well . . .” He stopped off delicately. “Hands as big as paddles I hear. From all that work they make her do, besides bein’ . . .” Again he cut off his remark, and then finished under his breath. “Utterly degraded.”

  “Why didn’t the Indians kill her?”

  “She jest a youngun when she captured. They don’t kill younguns. They raise ’em up, turn ’em into Indians.”

  “Then she’s an Indian.”

  “Goddamn it, Persy, you ’bout thickheaded.” Mo Tilly spat off to the side. “She white. White, white, white. She jest don’t know she white and she refuse to learn it, but all the same, that what she be. She ought to be grateful to be back with her own people.”

  “Even though her own people don’t want her anymore?”

  “They want her.”

  “But not the men. Not for a wife.”

  Mo Tilly ignored this. He jumped back in to telling me how to behave should I ever be captured. “Now, listen, here somethin’ else to know, jest in case it ever reach this far. If the Indians ever offer you somethin’ to eat, you take the raw meat, you hear? I hear they likes raw meat. They might like it if you do too. Cain’t hurt to try. They think you part Indian maybe. ’Course by the time they sittin’ down to dinner, you prob’ly be the dinner. Ha.”

  Sometimes I rode in the back of the wagon, rolled in a blanket,
pretending to sleep, just to avoid Mo Tilly’s constant chin-wag. Sometimes I walked just to feel the earth beneath my feet. Sometimes I rode next to him and endured his endless tutelage. Thrice more I mentioned Mo’s wife, asking about her: how long they were married, where they had met, how long he had been a widower. Each time he turned away and spat, wiped his sleeve on his mouth, and handed me the reins, jumping off the moving wagon with his rifle to go hunt. By the time we reached Sedge’s place I was sure that I’d heard every story and opinion Mo Tilly had to offer, including all the things he claimed to have “seed,” but I had not heard this one, his story and opinion of the woman he was once married to.

  The Double H Ranch, where Sedge lived, was a tumbling, destitute-looking place down in the flat, scrubby land of southern Texas, not far from the border of Mexico. The barns, three of them built in a row, looked as if they were heading toward imminent collapse. Each one leaned in a different direction as if they were a trio of old sots, holding each other up as they crossed the street. The house was not much better, a small frame structure with windows so insignificant they barely glanced the Texas sun off their panes. The only things the Double H seemed to have of any value were several well-built corrals full of sleek and spirited horses, and its only worker, Sedge himself.

  Sedge was a sinewy, dark-skinned man, arms like ropes of muscle, and legs as springy as a jackrabbit’s. “Mistah Tilly,” he hollered, bounding toward us as the wagon rattled into the yard, “ ’bout time you got here. What you do? Whore yo’ way ’cross Texas?”

  “You know better than that,” Mo said. He pulled the mules to a halt and handed the reins to me before jumping down. The two men slapped each other on the back, clouds of dust rising off each of them before being blown away in the wind. “This here Persy,” Mo said.