“Are you Mister Leland?”
“Yes, sir.”
As if this in itself was worthy of reward, the Negro reached out of the car pushing his index and middle fingers toward the boy. Pinched between them was a five dollar bill. Mister Leland took it timidly, wondering why the money had been bestowed, a slow fear beginning deep within him because now the Negro’s face had taken on an almost savage expression, as if just by being Mister Leland was not only worthy of reward but at the same time evil.
“I’ve been led to believe, Mister Leland, that you were well acquainted with a Negro, Tucker Caliban. Is that true?”
“Yes, sir.” Mister Leland still held the five dollars gingerly in his hand, as if it had been given him only to hold, as he would hold a sample being passed around his classroom by the teacher. He stood, backing up so he was almost leaning against his father, gained security from the hand his father placed on his shoulder. Around them, he noticed the other men, lining the car’s curbside, peering through the windows, though not touching the car, as if it was moulten hot. Only Bobby-Joe seemed more than just curious; he squinted as if in pain or wanting to inflict pain.
Still the Negro ignored all but him. “In that case, Mister Leland, would you be so kind as to tell me all you saw yesterday?”
Mister Leland was not certain he should do this, so tilted his head almost straight back, and, upside down, saw his father nodding Yes. He looked at the Negro again. “Well, first of all there was this coal—”
The Negro did not let him finish, but finally acknowledged his father’s presence. “You’re the boy’s father, I presume.”
His father nodded.
“In that case, I wonder if I might request that you permit him to show me where this farm is?”
“You mean I can ride in that car?” Mister Leland had ridden in a bus several times, but never in a car.
His father said nothing, stood staring at the Negro.
Mister Leland looked upwards at his father again. “Papa, can I?”
His father looked thoughtful, more thoughtful than just trying to decide whether the boy could go, trying to think why the Negro wanted him to go, what was in his mind.
The Negro watched his father for a short while, then reached into his inside breast pocket, produced a wallet, a large one, took out ten dollars and handed it to his father. “Here,” and he chuckled as if something was very funny, “let me buy him from you for a short time.” He leaned out with his arm extended, but unlike Mister Leland, his father did not reach out for it, made no sign of acceptance, stared deep into the blue glass protecting the Negro’s eyes.
“Not sufficient?” The Negro added another ten. Mister Leland was thinking that he could pull ten dollar bills out of his wallet all day. He could see the wallet choked with money. This was only a fleeting thought; his main concern was riding in the car. “Papa, can I?”
Still his father did nothing, finally turned his head the slightest bit toward Mister Harper, who had wheeled to the edge of the porch. Mister Harper nodded just once. His father turned back to the Negro. “When’ll you bring him back?” At the same time, he reached out and took the money. Someone behind them let out an involuntary whistle.
“In approximately one hour. We’re simply going to Caliban’s farm.”
The boy felt his father ruffle his hair. “Harold, you want to go?”
Certain of wanting to ride in the car, he was not at all certain he liked the Negro, who was not like Tucker Caliban, really friendly although you did not think so at first. Still, he must ride in the car. “Yes, Papa.”
His father let fall his hand to the back of his neck, and gave him a gentle push. “Come over here.” They went a short distance from the men, the car, and the Negro; Mister Leland led, his father directed, then stopped him, turned him around, his hands now on the boy’s shoulders.
“Harold, remember what I said to you this morning? About something starting?”
“Yes, sir.” Staring deeply into his father’s eyes, he could see them serious and large, shaded under the brim of his hat, but bright and gentle too.
“Well, it’s started, son, and this Negro knows it. So you remember EVERYTHING he says.” He paused. “Everything, exactly the way he says it even if you can’t understand the words. Don’t worry about that; I can’t understand half of what he says neither, but Mister Harper can.”
“Yes, Papa.”
“You ain’t scared, are you?”
He was not sure, but he wanted to ride in the car. “No, sir.”
“All right then. Now be good, on your best manners, and remember everything he says.” He stopped and looked toward the car, then turned back. “For me.”
“Yes, Papa.” Mister Leland felt like a spy. They went back to the car. The Negro opened the door so he could see the inside of it as soft as a bed. The Negro slid over on the seat and he climbed in and saw his father grasp the handle and close the door. He sat in the corner, and then suddenly felt himself pushed, by an invisible force, deeper into the seat, although he heard no roaring motor. There were rugs on the floor; the windows made everything outside green, ghastly. Music was coming from somewhere behind him. When he turned around to wave good-by to his father and the men, the town had already disappeared.
“Now, Mister Leland, tell me what happened, won’t you?”
He opened his mouth and a slight fear propelled the story out furiously. “First we seen the coal truck coming down off the Ridge, all black and going as fast as anything. It was carrying salt, and the driver said he wanted to take it to the Caliban place; and asked us where that was, and my papa told him and he went away. And then later, Mister Stewart come in and he said Tucker was putting the salt on his field, and so we all went out there, all of us on the porch and some Negroes too, and watched him all afternoon. He made the field so it looked all white like he put fertilizer on it, but it weren’t that, it was salt. And then he went in the house and come out with his rifle and his ax and sat on the fence of his corral and first he shot the horse and the blood squirted out like as if you stuck a pin in a balloon filled with blood, and the cow was a-running and screaming and he shot her too, and she turned around and you could see the hole in her head like she was dead but didn’t know it at all, and then she died for real. And then he picked up the ax and chopped down the tree in his yard where the General used to ride out in old times because he liked that tree best of all, and then went in the house and set it on fire and come out and walked away.” He stopped abruptly. He would not tell the Negro what Tucker had said to him. The Negro did not know Tucker. That would be like telling a special secret that Tucker had told to him.
“Was there anything else?” The Negro was looking at him through the sunglasses.
“No, sir. Not about Tucker Caliban.” He lied, then modified it. “There was more happened this morning when my papa and me come into town.”
“And what was that?”
“Well, first a ni—gro named Wallace Bedlow come with a suitcase and good clothes what ain’t used for working and flimsy pants that blow in the breeze and he said he wasn’t ever coming back to Sutton, and waited for the bus and got on it and went away. And there was more Negroes too, and they all had suitcases and good clothes and got on the buses and went away.”
He heard the Negro exhale sharply, almost angrily. “How many would you say, Mister Leland?”
“Maybe fifty that I seen, but them was only Negroes what didn’t have cars; there’s some that got cars and went that way.”
“Just as I suspected.” The Negro was talking to himself.
When they arrived at Tucker Caliban’s farm or what was left of it, it seemed the same as it had been the night before, but in some ways different. It looked as though it could not have been only yesterday that Tucker destroyed and left it, but a long time before, for already the ashes had settled into a kind of paste, and
the place looked as run down as if long abandoned, like farms back in the hills his father had showed him one time they went fishing early in the morning. The field was not as white—the dew had melted some of the salt—and had driven it further into the ground so that now the field was more gray, ashen, than white and glistening. The sky above the corral was black with flies, and already the meat of the animals had begun to smell sweet like the oppressive odor of a candy shop.
The Negro’s chauffeur parked the car in front of where the front door had stood and Mister Leland hopped out, followed by the Negro, who the boy noticed was a bit paunchy around the waist, though his arms and shoulders seemed quite thin. As he bent over to step out, his cross dangled and glittered.
They walked slowly around the farm until, in the middle of the yard, the Negro found the remains of the clock, a pile of iron, brass, little wheels, and springs, bits of finely polished wood. “What’s this, Mister Leland?”
He had forgotten about the clock and told the Negro what it had been.
“What happened to it?”
“It was after he chopped the tree down, he brung the clock into the yard. My papa told me about it on the way home. He says it was a clock what the General hisself—you know who the General is? That’s General Dewey Willson of the Army. He—”
The Negro had begun to laugh.
“Sir?” The boy walked closer.
“I was just laughing at what you said. There were two armies, young man.”
“Sir?”
“It’s not at all important. Don’t worry yourself about it. Go on.”
Puzzled for an instant, he looked at the Negro, but decided it was, after all, not very important, although he did feel it was rude of the Negro to laugh at him. “Well, the General give it to Tucker’s great-great…great-great-great…great-great-grandfather and it was Tucker’s and he chopped it to pieces. He—”
“Isn’t that gloriously primitive!” It was not a question. Mister Leland did not know what it meant, but remembered it anyway for his father.
“Well, that seems to be about all, doesn’t it, Mister Leland.” The Negro started toward the car. “Unless, you’ve remembered something else.” He looked down, it seemed, suspiciously.
Mister Leland wondered if the Negro knew he had not told everything about Tucker. After all, the Negro had known his name and whoever had told him that perhaps told him Mister Leland had talked to Tucker. The Negro might get angry and tell his father he had lied. “Well, there was one thing…but Tucker told it to me and I don’t know if I should tell you because…”
“Suit yourself, young man. I would never persuade you to betray a confidence.”
“Sir?”
“Oh yes, of course.” Then miraculously, the Negro began to talk almost like Wallace Bedlow or Tucker himself would have talked. “I won’t make you tell no tales out-a school, Mister Leland. What your friends tells you in secret is supposen to stay secret.” He paused and added, “Don’t you reckon that’s so, Mister Leland?”
The boy was surprised; someone else’s voice was coming out of the man’s body. “Yes, sir. Well, maybe…well, you give me the money to tell you all about yesterday and that wouldn’t be honest if I was to…well, Tucker said…I run after him when he left and he said…that I was young and ain’t lost nothing yet and I didn’t understand what he meant when he said that and he made me go back.” He tilted his head and looked the Negro in the eye and found him smiling more warmly than he had smiled since first Mister Leland had seen him. He hesitated, then asked, “You know what he meant by that?”
“I think he meant that he had been robbed of something but had never known it because he never even knew he owned what had been taken from him. Do you understand that?” The boy realized his face must have been revealing his thoughts. “No, I don’t think you do. No, well, it’s of no importance to you now, Mister Leland; when you grow a bit older, you’ll understand perfectly enough.” They had reached the car. “I’ll get in first, all right?”
“Yes, sir.” He was still thinking about what the Negro had said, and continued to think about it, as the car nosed toward town on quiet wheels, as the Negro sat beside him deep in thought staring ahead over the chauffeur’s shoulder and far down the road…If Tucker lost something but didn’t know he had it, he couldn’t know he lost it. That’s silly. You got to know you got something to know you lost it, unless, when you lost it, you go to look for it and find it ain’t where you left it, but then if you left it somewhere you must-a knowed that you had it, so that ain’t the same thing. Maybe it’s like if somebody give you something at night when you’re sleeping, but before you find it in the morning, somebody like Walter comes in and sneaks it out, and plays with it in the woods and leaves it there so you won’t never find it, and then next day the person what left it for you comes in and says, “Harold, did you find what I left for you?” And you says, “No.” And he says, “Well, I left it right in plain sight on the dresser so how come you didn’t find it this morning?” And you says, “I don’t know.” And then you think on it and says, “Walter, he must-a took it before I woke up. I’ll go beat the tar out-a him.” And Walter says that he left it in the woods and don’t know where and so you lost it and never even had it in the first place, but know you lost it all right. Maybe it’s like that….
By that time they had pulled into town and stopped across the street from Mister Thomason’s.
The Negro rolled down the window, and Mister Leland peered across the street and saw his father resting on his post, then straighten up, saw Bobby-Joe spit into the street, and Mister Harper leaning forward.
“Thank you and God keep you, sir.” The Negro called to his father, then turned to him. “Thank you too, Mister Leland. You’re a fine young man, and if ever you should come North, do pay me a visit.” He reached into a tiny pocket in his vest and produced a card. Mister Leland took it, running his fingers across the raised surface of the letters, not looking at it. The Negro reached over and they shook hands—his hand was soft and flabby like a fat woman’s—then opened the door and Mister Leland hopped out. By the time he reached the porch, the car was halfway up to Harmon’s Draw.
He handed the card to his father, who in turn handed it, without reading it, to Mister Harper, who read it aloud to all the men. “THE REVEREND B. T. BRADSHAW. THE RESURRECTED CHURCH OF THE BLACK JESUS CHRIST OF AMERICA, INC., NEW YORK CITY.”
Mister Thomason brought out a chair and motioned for his father to sit down, and when he had done so, his father pulled Mister Leland onto his lap. Mister Harper wheeled up to him and leaned deeply toward him where he could smell the old man’s old breath, and questioned him. He told all he knew, all he could remember; he had remembered everything. Mister Harper made no comments until he had told about the clock and the Negro saying: “Isn’t that gloriously primitive!” and then only nodded his head and almost sighed: “Yes, yes, he’s right there.” But that was all. And the other men simply listened.
It was not quite four in the afternoon, but when he had finished, his father looked down at him gravely. “Well, let’s get on home.”
His father did not speak to him again until they were just turning into their own road, and Mister Leland could hear the horse’s hoofs as they left the asphalt and began to chomp in the dirt. “Harold, don’t tell your ma about going with the Negro.” He paused for a second. “She might not like it.”
“Yes, Papa.”
He did not turn, but did lean back so he was resting his head against his father’s chest and could hear the man’s large heart beating, and his voice, hollow and far away, rumbling. “It ain’t that it’s bad, you understand. It ain’t like yesterday when you had to tell a lie to keep me out of trouble. This is to save her worry because she don’t like you going off with strangers and since it’s done and nothing happened to you, ain’t no need to worry her about it. You understand?”
He nodd
ed, feeling the back of his head rubbing the cloth of his father’s shirt.
“Look.” He took one hand off the reins and Mister Leland could feel it behind him going through his father’s pockets and then coming out again, heard then tissue paper sizzling and then his father’s hand was coming out from behind him, reaching over his shoulder and he saw the package. “Open it; I want you to see it.” Mister Leland took it, undid the paper, and saw a scarf of yellow silk—somehow he knew it was silk because it was finer, smoother, more delicate than any cloth he had ever seen—with a tiny sewn border like a tube. He held it up and felt it even lighter than the slight wind blowing; it flew bravely, elegantly in that wind. “Yellow’s her favorite color and she likes nice things. I bought it with some of that twenty dollars. Say, you want me to hold that five you got?” And then he added, “You don’t have to give it to me if you ain’t a mind to. It’s yours.” But Mister Leland had already gone into his overall pocket, pulled out the money, and handed it to his father. “I’ll save it for you so you’ll have plenty when the circus comes to New Marsails.” The boy nodded.
His father told his mother he had made twenty dollars fixing a rich tourist’s flat tire, then gave her the scarf. She cried into it, and kissed it and wore it at supper. She looked prettier than Mister Leland had ever seen her.
* * *
—
SATURDAY they did not go into town. Mister Leland thought they might, that there might be more to see, but when he asked whether they were going, his father answered, “No; chances are all we’d see would be more Negroes with suitcases going away, and besides, we left your ma here alone for two days, and I figure it’d be a good idea if we stuck around and did everything she asks us, else she might get a little testy and mean. And she’d be right when you think on it, seeing as she been doing all the things we should-a been doing and that weren’t very kind of us. I reckon we’ll stay home today.”
So Mister Leland played with Walter most of the day. He tried to recount everything he had seen in the past days, but Walter could only understand the animals being shot and blood squirting out of them like water out of balloons. He wished he had seen that. Mister Leland assured him it had been something to see all right. Of course, Walter wanted his brother to take him over to see the animals—he must have been secretly hoping their blood was still squirting out—and Tucker’s burned-down house. Mister Leland said he was too little to go. And Walter said he was not too little at all, but proved that he was by starting to jump up and down and fume and cry and carry on. Finally, because he really wanted to go himself, Mister Leland took him. They went back through the woods, along the smooth, narrow dirt paths, and came out in the back of the gray field, and could see, far across, the jagged bits of house timber jutting up like burned cotton stalks, and the dark, fly-filled sky above the corral. They were halfway across the field when a white man pedaled up the Highway from the direction of town on a bicycle. It was an old American bike, had once been cream and the red color of bricks, but use and weather had transformed those colors into a dark gray rust. Its fenders were gone; its headlight broken. The man pulled off the road, lay down the bicycle, and stood staring around him. Then he saw the two boys. “You’re Harry Leland’s boys, aren’t you?”
A Different Drummer Page 7