The Life and Times of Persimmon Wilson
Page 19
“Yassuh,” Sedge said. He raised his head and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I reckon I’s free now.”
“That right. You free now. You deserve to be free.”
As I watched Mo comfort Sedge I made my decision about whether or not I would strike out on my own again or follow along to the Traveling S Ranch. It was not a hard decision. It was easy to see that these men were good men, and that I would be in good hands. I would follow.
We buried Miss Doreen that morning. The land and the air felt scrubbed clean by the storm. I dug a grave while Sedge built a casket out of some of the siding we had ripped off the barn. We buried her next to her husband. Next to him were the two children, and off in the plains somewhere, perhaps living with the Indians, perhaps dead, were the other two.
BEFORE WE LEFT, Mo told us to take whatever we wanted. “Long as it don’t slow us down,” he said. “Ain’t stealin’. I reckon Mizz Doreen owe Sedge back pay anyway. We jest evenin’ the score.”
“Yassuh,” Sedge answered, but he only took two things of value if you don’t count the horses: Mister Hill’s rifle, which he had been hunting game with all along, and the lamp from Miss Doreen’s bedside table. Sedge wrapped the lamp and its globe in a torn coverlet and packed them into a wooden box, which he wedged between the lumber and the walls of the wagon bed.
Mo shook his head. “Lamp gonna break all to pieces befo’ we get there.”
“Yassuh,” Sedge answered, but he made no move to take it out of the wagon.
Of the three of us, Mo took the most: saddles and tack, lariats and blankets, a kettle, a lantern, a jug of kerosene. After having sent me up onto the swaying barn in order to dismantle it, and after having carefully sorted and stacked the boards, Mo had me remove them all from the wagon bed and then he sorted through them again, tossing some to the side and handing me others, saying, “This’ll do. Set it in the wagon, Persy.”
I took the boards and angrily slid them into place. “Why’d you risk my life up on that damn barn if we aren’t taking the wood?”
“We takin’ the wood, Persy. What you think I handin’ to you? ’Sides, climbin’ up on that barn ain’t nothin’ ’pared to the risk you ’bout to take. We headin’ to the frontier, case you don’t ’member. Might get catched by the Indians. Ain’t too late to change yo’ mind, Persy.”
I shook my head.
“You ain’t no quitter. That what I like ’bout you. You gonna find that gal of yo’s.” He handed me the bucket of bent nails. “Load these up too.” Mo stretched his back. “We take the extra wagon empty,” he said. “Supply up in Drunken Bride. Feel good to be gettin’ on. But first things first, I reckon you bein’ a curious sort and all is wantin’ to know why we takin’ bent nails.”
“No sir.”
“That good. We get out there on the frontier, won’t be doin’ no good to be askin’ why all the time. Get yo’sef a haircut that way.”
I was too anxious to get under way to remind Mo I’d heard from someone that the Indians did not like nigger hair. I wanted to move on from the Double H Ranch, where I knew Chloe was not, to Drunken Bride, where I hoped to gain news of her. As for plundering and pillaging Miss Doreen’s possessions, I cared not for anything until Sedge showed me a small trunk full of books.
“Mizz Doreen a schoolteacher befo’ she come here,” Sedge told me. “You take ’em, Persy. They a slate and chalk too. You teach me readin’ and writin’.”
I hefted the trunk into the back of the spare wagon, against Mo’s protests of course. Too heavy, he said. Slow us down. “Waste of time, readin’,” Mo said, punctuating his displeasure with a well-aimed spit landing just short of my boot.
We began the first leg of our journey with Mo and I each driving a wagon, and Sedge riding Spring Dance, bringing along the string of horses. We angled north, along the edge of the prairie. The grassland seemed alive in the August wind, stretching all the way to the horizon, and the sky above it like an inverse lake, which witnessed everything, and dominated everything, and could take on different personalities minute by minute by minute. Sometimes the sky was raging red. Other times, soft and golden. It could contain clouds that looked like dark boulders ready to drop onto our heads. Or it could be like a solid thing, a quilt turned inside out and spread on top of the world. Or it could be endless blue, weak or dark or brilliant, with no clouds at all, only the beating sun.
By the time we camped each night, I only wanted food and sleep, but Sedge always insisted on his lesson, and I would open the trunk of books and pull out one of Miss Doreen’s Blue-Backed Spellers, the slate and chalk, and hand them to him. By the light of the campfire we went over the alphabet. I sometimes reached across Sedge and guided his hand into making the proper shapes. We said each letter as he wrote it, and then we repeated the sounds of that letter. Mo spat and grumbled about how we were wasting our time, but this did not keep him from getting up and peering over Sedge’s shoulder at the marks on the slate.
After I had guided Sedge through a proper capital G several times, Mo said, “Listen here, Sedge. You gettin’ it all wrong. It like this.” Mo picked up a stick and traced a perfect G in the dirt. “You always wuz thickheaded,” he said, and he tossed the stick onto the fire and sat down again, spitting and feigning disinterest. But every night it was the same thing, Sedge having trouble with some letter, letters in fact that he’d previously had no trouble with at all, and Mo sighing and coming to peer over his shoulder as I traced the letter once again. Then Mo would berate Sedge for being thickheaded and draw the letter in the dirt, break his stick, and toss it in the fire.
After some time I caught Mo drawing letters in the dirt off to his side, and one day as I doused the fire I noticed the letters M and O side by side where his bedroll had been. By the time we reached Drunken Bride, after having traveled ten days, Mo willingly joined us in our lessons. He reckoned he ought to, he said, seeing as how Sedge needed all the help he could get, and, seeing as how I wasn’t much of a teacher, seeing as how we were both so damn thickheaded it wouldn’t hurt to help out none. “We gotta stick together,” Mo said, and then he changed the subject. “Now when we get close to Drunken Bride, you stay on the edge of town,” he told Sedge. “Make us a camp. Guard the horses. Me and Persy . . .”
“Persy and I,” I corrected him.
“Shit.” Mo spat my way. “Persy and I . . .” He held one pinkie up in the air. “Gonna have high tea.” He spat again in my direction and looked at me. “Me and Persy gonna take the wagon into town and supply up. He get a chance to ask round ’bout that gal of his. He gonna find her. I feel it, I tell you. I jest feel it. She close by, Persy. That what ol’ Mo think. She close by.”
I would enter the town of Drunken Bride only three times in my life. The second time was with a raiding party of Comanche. The third time was for my trial. This was the first time, and it was as sorry a town as I had ever seen. One wide street bore through the town’s center, with squat, crumbling buildings on either side. Mud-caked boardwalks ran along both sides of the road, and the few people who were out ceased whatever they were doing and glared at us as we rattled in. “These people don’t seem too friendly,” I commented.
“They prob’ly ’bout as friendly as any other Texans. But I might as well tell you, watch yo’sef here. Town founded by a messa folk fleein’ the Yankees, what I hear. They prob’ly still got a hair up they ass over losin’ the war.”
“Most folks do,” I observed, and then added, “You told me you didn’t know anything about Drunken Bride.”
“I tol’ you I didn’t know how they got that name. Still don’t. Don’t make no damn sense, if you ask me. Hold the mules, Persy.”
We stopped at a storefront with a few lanterns and rakes haphazardly displayed along the walkway. A pile of hides, I could not tell from what animal, was stacked next to a post. Mo pulled the brake on the wagon and we both jumped down. I stood in the street stroking the mules’ noses while Mo went inside to purchase supplies.
One of the mules huffed and nudged its nose into my armpit. “Steady, now,” I said. Then I saw him, a short man, looking down at his feet as he churned his way along the boardwalk toward me. His broadcloth suit was wrinkled and dirty, and a large black hat rested on his head. As he drew closer I saw his mouth move, as though in conversation, although no one was near him.
A familiar chill came over me. The spirit I had so often felt in Master Wilson’s presence pressed its cold silvery fingers into my back, nudging me forward. I left the mules and stepped onto the boardwalk into his path. “Master Wilson,” I said.
He stopped, looked at me. “I don’t know you, nigger.” He moved to get by me, and I sidestepped to block him.
“You know me, sir.”
“I don’t. Now get the hell out of my way.”
“I’m Persy, sir.” He stared at me blankly. “Persimmon Wilson. I used to work on Sweetmore.”
He squinted his eyes. A cloud of recognition crossed his face, yet he stood perfectly still, staring. At last he spoke. “Persy.” He slapped me on the shoulder and I winced. “Persy. I thought you were dead. Fell in the river is what I remember.”
Behind me I heard jingling spurs and the hollow thump of the sheriff’s boot heels against the boardwalk. “Joseph,” the sheriff said as he passed by. He tipped his hat, and then he settled on a bench outside the store and watched us.
I took a deep breath. I would not be intimidated. I only wanted news of Chloe. Nothing more. “You remember correctly, sir, but I did not die.”
“Well now, listen to you. You must have got yourself an education. I hear the niggers all wanting to read and write now. You learned fast, I reckon. The thing is, I don’t really recall you being a fast learner. Well, what brings you to Texas, Persy?”
I was strangely calm as Master Wilson delivered this charade. It was as though that spirit that had always run between us held my anger in reins with cold, unruffled hands. It was as though that spirit whispered to me, “He is the master of nothing here. He is nothing but a dingy little man living in a dingy little town with the sheriff looking on.”
I remained polite. I only wanted to know one thing, and then I need never see Master Wilson again.
“I am looking for Chloe, sir. Do you know where she is?”
“Chloe?” he asked.
“Yes sir.”
“Well now.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I had so many niggers I can’t remember all their names.” He tapped his fingers against his lips. “Chloe, Chloe, Chloe.”
Still I was calm. I was closer to finding her than I had ever been before. Only this pathetic little display of power stood in my way.
“Oh, yes. Chloe,” Master Wilson said at last, as though he now recalled a vague memory of someone who mattered little to him. He removed his tapping fingers from his lips. “I recall now,” Wilson said. “House nigger. Took good care of my wife in her final days. Pretty little wench, for a nigger. Loyal.”
“Yes sir,” I said. Inside, I laughed at him. I thought that there was nothing he could do to hurt me anymore. “I am looking for her,” I said again.
“Loyal,” Wilson repeated. “Very loyal to me. A credit to her race. A shame though, Chloe died along the trail.”
Master Wilson reached out and laid his hand on my shoulder.
“You had a little spark for her, didn’t you? I recall she didn’t care for you though. But I reckon it doesn’t matter now. Well”—he laughed—“except that you came all the way to Drunken Bride to find her.” He removed his hand from my shoulder. The sheriff crossed his legs and his spurs jingled.
Wilson’s words swam in my head. Died. Along the trail. Loyal. Spark. The words took turns nipping at me, just like the fish in the river had done.
“Oh dear,” I heard Wilson say. His voice was vaporous now and far away, even though I saw that he still stood just before me. “I hope you’ve not come all this way looking to me for employment. You do have work, don’t you?”
I did not answer. The spirit left and it became hot. I saw Master Wilson smile. And then I heard my voice unpinning itself from my throat. “Yes sir, I have work.” Through the window of the store I saw Mo moving about, pointing at this and that as the storekeep fetched things.
Master Wilson followed my gaze. “You’re working for that man?”
I nodded. “Ranch work.”
“Good. I can see that you’re still strong.” He reached out to feel my biceps. My mind snapped to attention at his touch, and I jerked his hand off me.
“Joseph,” the sheriff said. “You needing help?”
“No,” Wilson answered. He turned to look at the sheriff. His back was to me briefly, his pink neck exposed beneath the brim of his hat. “Just one of my niggers come to see me.”
The sheriff leaned back against the wall of the store. Wilson turned back to me.
“How?” I asked. “How did Chloe die?”
“Well now, let me see.” He pretended to ponder again. “Died on the trail. Several of them did, you know. I’m not sure exactly why. Travel might have been too hard. We were hurting for food sometimes. You know, times were hard, Persy. Leaving Sweetmore was very hard on me. I don’t know if you realize that.”
“Where?”
“Where did she die? I don’t know. It was Texas, I know that.”
“Did you bury her?”
“Of course we buried her. What kind of man do you take me for?”
I did not tell him what kind of man I took him for. “Did you mark the grave?”
“With a rock. Didn’t exactly have time to carve a pretty little cross. We were running for our lives from the Yankees, you know.” He let out a hoarse laugh. “Leaving my home, leaving Sweetmore, leaving all that I’d worked so hard to build was very hard on me. You niggers don’t seem to understand that.”
“You didn’t cover the grave with rocks?”
“Didn’t have a lot of rocks, and y’all were feeling pretty mutinous by then. You’d traveled a long ways.”
It crossed my mind to correct him, to remind him that I had not been along on this journey, that I had in fact been shot and left in the river to drown, but in the face of Chloe’s death the words felt too complicated, the thoughts would not emit into language. I continued to stand there and the sheriff continued to watch and Master Wilson continued to talk.
“I am sorry to be the one to tell you about Chloe, Persy. I know you had a spark for her. I still don’t recall her caring for you though. I need to get on now.” He brushed aside and walked away, and I stood staring at the space where he had been. One of the mules snorted and blew its breath out, and I stepped back to them and stroked its nose. The sheriff stood and hitched his pants up and walked back the way he’d come. Through the store window I saw Mo continue to move around and point, the merchant continue to fetch. I felt my breath become uneven. It emerged from my throat in small huffs and then it occurred to me that I was crying.
I heard the clop of a horse coming nearby and looked up to see Master Wilson riding my way. He stopped at the wagon. “Persy,” he said gently. “I was just thinking what a big mistake I made back at Sweetmore. You were a good worker. Strong and industrious.” I nodded. “I should have been more thoughtful. With your strength and Chloe’s loyalty, I should have bred you two.” He grinned and laughed and reeled his horse away from me, thundering off before I could respond.
Mo came out of the store. “Help me load up, Persy.”
I stepped up onto the boardwalk and began hefting sacks of flour and beans into the wagon bed, and then I picked up a sack of coffee, and I smelt it
s rich aroma, and I recalled the scent of coffee in Chloe’s soft hair as she leaned against me in the barn of Lidgewood.
I THINK MYSELF a fool now for believing Master Wilson, but everything he said was plausible. All those years, five years since I had last seen Chloe, I did not know where she was, and in my darkest moments, I had imagined her dead.
After Master Wilson thundered off on his horse, I could think of nothing but the fact that Chloe had died along the trail without me, nothing but her grave not properly covered with rocks, nothing but her body dug up and gnawed on by some animal.
I told Mo and Sedge in our camp outside of Drunken Bride, and then I spread my bedroll away from the fire and lay alone on the prairie, apart from my companions. There was a meteor shower that night. Stars shot across the sky, leaving trails of light in their wake. I rolled over away from the stars, and I touched the button at my throat and I sobbed. I am sure that Mo and Sedge heard me, but they did not come to me, for which I was grateful.
The next day, and many days thereafter, Mo spoke to me about Chloe. He tried to lift my spirits, tried to make me see that I might meet someone yet and fall in love again. He meant well. I know that now. Around the fire each night, he spat and poked another stick into the flames and said, “At least you know, Persy. At least you can quit her. Find yo’sef a new gal. You young yet.”
I listened and nodded.
“I cain’t get over it though,” Mo said, shaking his head. “I sho you gonna find her. I felt it.” He thumped his hand against his chest. “I felt it right here.” Then he started up on trying to comfort me again. “You ain’t as bad-lookin’ as I tol’ you befo’, Persy. I believe some gal might take a likin’ to you yet.”
I gave him a weak smile and tore a bit of meat off whatever we’d cooked that night and jammed it into my mouth.