that anyone who sees me
will know I know.
Brutus already up
sounding his horn,
calling the workers to the field.
So I sneak ’round the far side to the well.
The knife cut is bleeding pretty bad,
dripping down my forearm and fingers.
It should sting something awful,
but my mind so numb from all I heard
I barely feel it.
Can Birdman be trusted? He white.
Why he wanna help slaves? He could get killed for that.
Unless the Master already know.
Maybe he and the Master just
testing big Will.
Seeing if he take the bait.
Will he?
Seems the more answers I get—the less I knows.
I stop at the well
and wash my forearm with a bucket of water.
Take off my blue head scarf and bind it tight.
It deep, that cut,
bleeding through blue.
Blood on my skirts, too.
Beet-red drops dripped down the front.
There, now, forever.
Everyone carry secrets inside,
but once they spilled
there ain’t no taking them back.
And just like blood,
everyone that secret touches
be stained.
according to Shad
C o n n e c t i n g t h e D o t s
Early morning
the best time for hunting dove.
I’s out with my slingshot and sack,
sure I’ll get four, maybe five.
But then I sees a drop of blood
still wet on a leaf
and another up ahead.
I follows them deep into the wood,
hoping they lead me to a wounded deer.
I can just see they faces when I come home with it
draped across my shoulders.
Oh, they gonna love Shad then!
I lose the trail a couple times,
worry this light rain
gonna wash it away
before I reach the end.
But I’s a tracker. I is.
Nothing gets past Shad.
The last drop leads me to the clearing
away in the woods,
where I kissed my Phoebe.
I ring ’round the tree trunk
but there’s no sign of deer, or rabbit,
not even one crippled dove.
I scratch my head,
walk in circles
as the rain start lashing.
Then slowly head for home
with nothing to show for my morning’s hunt
but an empty wet sack.
according to Bea
S e e p i n g O u t
Phoebe come all frazzled and frizzy
through the back door,
looking like something Rufus drag in.
“Where’s your kerchief?” I scold.
She never goes without her headscarf.
It ain’t allowed.
Missus don’t like seeing Phoebe’s hair.
She hate them soft, loose curls.
Then I see it wrapped ’round her arm,
seeping red.
“Is that blood?”
I wring a rag, wipe her weary face
before I start on her forearm.
“Don’t worry about them plates,” I say. “I took care of that.
Did you cut yourself on one?”
She bite her lip, look away, and nod.
“Don’t you worry about Ella Mae, neither,” I say,
untying the scarf.
“She’s not welcome in my kitchen.”
I stop.
The cut’s deep.
And not from no china shard.
“This got anything to do with that Doctor?” I ask.
She don’t move,
but I can tell by her eyes it do.
“Did you see him last night?”
I can tell by her eyes, she did.
“Did he … did he hurt you, girl?”
She shake her head,
seep them silent tears.
No, it ain’t what I feared.
Not yet.
Still, she keeping something from me.
But then,
ain’t I been doing the same all these years?
Truth gonna seep out.
“Phoebe, girl,” I sigh. Put down my rag.
“I think it time we had a talk.”
according to Bea
D i f f e r e n t
“Do you know why Ella Mae hate you?
Why she call you ‘Yellagirl’?
Why she say you different?”
Phoebe shrug.
“Don’t you see?
Your hair,
it’s softer, more brown than black,
your eyes,
like honey in sunshine,
and your skin,
lighter than most us slaves,
and not just field hands.”
Phoebe shrug.
“You do look like your momma.”
She smile a bit.
“Slender and slight, like her.
Ruthie was beautiful.
But she dark-skinned, like me.”
I take Phoebe’s hand
and she look at our fingers meshed together,
black-and-tan-and-black-and-tan
She stare like she never seen them before.
Like she trying not to hear what I gotta tell her next.
“Truth is, you is different, Phoebe,” I say.
“You different because your daddy
is a white man.”
according to Phoebe
T o K n o w
My head pounding with my heart
to hear Ella’s words
coming outta Bea’s mouth:
You is different
to know it true,
to know some white man force himself on my momma,
to know
what I ain’t:
not black,
not white,
to wonder
what I is,
and if that is why
Momma left me.
according to Bea
R e m i n d e r s
“I been protecting you for ten years now.
But I see I can’t protect you from everything,” I say.
“’Specially not the truth.
It’s time you know.
“Missus and Ruthie real close once.
They grew up together, just like you and Miss Tessa.
Missus only started hating Ruthie after you was born.
Seven long years she make Ruthie’s life hell,
until she finally convinced Master
to sell your momma.
“Missus hate you
’cause you remind her
of your momma.
But she hate you more because
your soft hair,
your light skin,
your honey-eyes,
they remind her
of who your daddy is.”
I pause.
“Of what her husband did.”
Phoebe’s eyes grow wide.
“It’s time you know the truth.” I hold her hands
even as she raise them to her ears
and shake her head.
“Phoebe,” I say, “your daddy
is Master Duncan.”
according to Phoebe
White Lies
“You’s still Phoebe.
You’s still my little chicken.
You’s still Miss Tessa’s maid,
and a darn good one,” Bea say.
“And you still the apple of Shad’s eye.”
She smile.
“Nothing changed,
except now you know.”
But she wrong.
I’s different.
Ever
ything’s different.
“I tell you all this now,” she say,
“’cause I know that doctor interested in you.”
My face burns hot with secrets.
“If he ain’t tried something yet,
he will.”
Bea grab my shoulders,
make me look her in the eye.
“Listen to me, now.
I been around long enough
to hear a million white lies,
to know:
White men do what they want,
with who they want,
whenever they want.
Never trust a white man, Phoebe.
Stay well away.
They’s all want and nothing but trouble.”
according to Shad
H e a d s o r T a i l s
I tell Charlie about the blood drops leading to the clearing.
“And I can’t make head nor tail of it.”
“Maybe it a rabbit,” he say.
“And it drag its bloody self by its two front teeth
to die in its hole.”
Maybe. But I ain’t seen no burrow.
“Or maybe it a bird.
And the trail end when it fly away. Or a huge hawk eat it.”
Maybe. But that too far for an injured bird to hop.
Besides, there were no feathers.
“Maybe it the ghost of that snake charmer,” he whisper.
“Folk say he died from the fangs of his five snakes,
and he wander the wood at night
seeking his revenge.”
“Sound to me, he don’t even know
one end of the snake from the other,”
I say, laughing.
“Besides, they’s just stories
to keep the little ones from roaming after dark.
You know that, right?”
Charlie shrug, annoyed.
I know he scared to go out at night.
He fold his arms.
“Sound to me,” he say, all sulk and mutter,
“like maybe you don’t know
one end from the other.”
And it hit me:
maybe the ending is the start.
“Charlie,” I say, heading for the woods, “you’s pretty smart
for a fool.”
according to Shad
S m o k e a n d F i r e
I’s all set to suss that trail again,
when Master see me running by.
“Boy,” he say, “get to the barn and replace Ben.”
“Yessir, Master,” I say
even though I never worked the curing fire before.
But my Master know potential when he see it.
“Mind you keep up with the wood,” Benjamin say
before he leave.
Like I don’t know how to tend a fire.
My eyes wander the rafters bursting with bundled leaves,
a huge haul of tobacco
just a curing away from going to market.
Green gold, that is.
And Shadrach here be in charge of it.
Master gonna thank me for doing such a great job.
I add log after log
and I watch that flickering flame real close
as the rain tip-tapping on the roof.
I musta close my eyes.
They stinging so bad.
I musta lay down,
where the air ain’t so hot or smokey.
Not long or nothing.
But that fire musta gone out.
I throws a log in,
but it won’t catch what embers is left.
Shadrach, I say.
You got yourself in a heap o’ horseshit now.
If there ain’t no fire, then there ain’t no smoke.
And if there ain’t no smoke, then there ain’t no curing.
And nobody gonna buy half-baked ’baccy.
And how you think Master gonna thank Shadrach for that?
according to Shad
C o u n t o n i t
I ain’t one to sit around feeling sorry. No, sir.
Alls I need is fire.
I hoof it over to blacksmith’s barn,
take a cartload of coal.
It ain’t stealing, not really.
I’s just moving it from one place to another.
Sweat drip down my face, hiss in the fire pit, as I shovel.
Then I get low
and blow
and blow
and blow.
If that fire dead,
I sure is, too.
And I ain’t never giving up.
What kinda waste would that be
with all that potential
just sitting in me,
like a barn full of green bundles?
And just when I’s about ready to keel over,
red tongues start licking at that coal.
I stay awake all the rest of that night,
heaping on the coal.
’Cause when Shadrach say he gonna do something,
you can count on it.
according to Shad
O p t i o n s
“What did you do, fool?” Brutus shout,
pulling down a bundle of yellowish leaves.
“You’ve ruined it. The whole lot!
It ain’t s’posed to be yellow!”
He slap me to the ground.
Brutus kick me hard
and go for Master Duncan,
tobacco in hand.
I gots a sickly feeling in my gut
and it ain’t from the toe of Brutus’s boot.
Now, I admit,
it cross my mind to run for the swamp.
Not forever. Not like Will.
I ain’t no fool.
But I get to thinking
maybe Master going to need some time.
I knows where men hide in the mossy glade.
I seen them.
Surely they’d let me stay there
’til Master calmed down.
Head spinning,
stomach churning,
I spends so long kneeling where I fell,
thinking ’bout my options,
that by the time I gets to acting,
Brutus dragging me by the scruff.
And now my only option is
the whipping post.
according to Phoebe
M o r n i n g L e s s o n
Brutus strip Shad to the waist,
tie his skinny arms around the post,
and walk back a ways,
flexing his muscles,
flicking his whip.
It barely morning,
he only just sound the horn waking workers,
but he gather us round.
’Cause if he teaching someone a lesson,
Brutus want everyone
to watch
and learn.
according to Shad
T h e F i r s t L a s h
My hands shaking.
My legs all weak.
I want to be strong,
like Will.
He been whipped three times.
But this is my first.
I want to grit my teeth
and show them all how brave I is.
They watching me.
Phoebe watching me.
But when that whizz-crack come
cross my shoulders,
licking fire down my back,
I cry out
and wet myself.
Like the baby I is.
according to Phoebe
F o u r S t r i p e s
Shad got four stripes.
He s’posed to get fifty
only Master himself come into the yard,
tell Brutus to stop.
Poor Shad just dangling from his wrists,
blood dripping down his back
from where the whip bit
crisscross his body
in a W.
The way he cry out,
Brutus whipping him like a man.
“What did you do, boy?” Master ask.
Shad raise his eyes. I never seen him look so sorrowful.
Master grab his face.
“What did you do to the fire to make the leaves yellow?”
“I’s sorry, Master.” Shad crying.
“I musta fall asleep and … and the fire went low.”
“Yes, yes, but what did you do next?”
I never seen Master so riled.
Shad quiet for minute.
“I took some of your coal,” he say.
“From the blacksmith’s.”
I bite my lip. Now he done it.
Stealing, too?
according to Phoebe
S a m e
Master look the same as always:
red hair rimming his freckled head,
vest tight round his barrel belly,
white shirt sleeves rolled and ready for what he gotta do.
He drop Shad’s face
and talk to Brutus
while we slaves wait for his word,
or whip—
fearful
like always.
I’s glad to see Master look
the same as always.
Nothing
about him seem
anything
like my daddy.
And nothing
about me ever gonna be
anything
like him.
according to Phoebe
C r a z y M a n
“Coal!” Master say, “Don’t you see? That’s it—coal!”
He whoop and holler like a crazy man.
Even Missus look concerned
when he run to the fire pit nearby,
set the tip of that leaf ablaze,
wave it under her nose.
“Smell it, Maggie, smell it!” Master shout,
as she cough and wave her hand.
“That, my dear, is the smell of success!”
But it just burnt tobacco,
if you ask me.
according to Master
I n v e s t o r s M e e t i n g
Gentlemen, I give you: Whitehaven Gold Leaf Tobacco.
The cream of our crop.
Our last hope.
A charcoal-cured tobacco, like nothing you’ve ever seen.
The Gospel Truth Page 7