by Daniel Black
“I don’t know what they gon do, chile,” Miss Mary said, pacing the barn floor. “But we got to keep our head. And trust in de Lawd.” She grabbed Sarah Jane and Chop simultaneously. “Now help me git dese chillen in de house so we can think.”
All four held hands, like childhood playmates, and ran into the house, taking their respective places at the kitchen table.
“Git me Jeremiah’s shotgun off de wall there,” Miss Mary told Ella Mae. “Let ’em try takin’ somebody else ’way from my house! We’ll have some mo’ to bury!”
Miss Mary’s clarity and determination strengthened Ella Mae, who retrieved Enoch’s gun and convinced herself again that, if necessary, she, too, would kill and God would forgive.
Jeremiah and Enoch were about to approach another sharecropping shack when Enoch heard Ray Ray’s faint voice crying, “Daddy! Daddy!” At first, he doubted his paternal instinct, but the next “Daddy!” was too pronounced to be denied. Enoch looked down the winding dirt road and squinted as far as he could see. Ray Ray’s long, lanky, swinging arms confirmed that Enoch had heard the voice of his firstborn son.
“Daddy!” Enoch screamed in fear.
Jeremiah turned and Enoch ran to meet Ray Ray.
“What’s de matter, boy?” Enoch yelled, gripping Ray Ray’s shoulder with his left hand.
Ray Ray had run so hard and fast that, now, he was out of breath. “They took”—he panted—“Clement.”
“What? Who?” Jeremiah hollered.
Enoch stomped and screeched, “No!”
“Mr. Billy Ray and some otha white men,” Ray Ray huffed. “They busted in the barn and said they’d kill all of us”—breath—“if somebody didn’t tell them who disrespected Miss Cuthbert.” Ray Ray was half–bent over, with his hands resting on his kneecaps. “Clement gave hisself up.”
“Gave hisself up? What chu mean, boy?” Jeremiah inquired.
Ray Ray stood erect, took a deep breath, and explained more cogently. “We wuz up in de loft like you told us to be and de white men busted through the door and Sarah Jane screamed out, and Momma and Grandma come runnin’ out to de barn and the men tied them up. Dat’s when they looked up in de loft and started threatenin’ to kill all of us if somebody didn’t tell them somethin’. I was gonna say it was me, but then Clement jumped up and said it wuz him.”
Jeremiah and Enoch were confused, frustrated, and enraged. They questioned Ray Ray until he confused himself, then Jeremiah said, “Where did they take him? Did they say?”
“No, sir. They didn’t say. But they promised not to hurt him.” The words now sounded ridiculous, even to Ray Ray.
“Did they hurt Momma or Ella Mae?” Enoch burbled.
Ray Ray paused, trying diligently to reconstruct the correct sequence of events. He marveled that, although everything had occurred only moments earlier, now he seemed to be recalling details of a time long gone. He was still panting. “Like I said, the white men tied up Momma and Grandma when they come runnin’ into de barn.”
“I’ma kill dem crackers—”
“It’s gon be all right, son,” Jeremiah comforted.
Ray Ray went on: “They didn’t hurt them though. They jes tied ’em to de post holdin’ up de barn and stuffed they mouth with some rags.”
“What about Sarah Jane and Chop?” Jeremiah asked.
“They fine,” Ray Ray said. “The white men jes wanted Clement. And they wouldn’t even o’ known which one o’ us was Clement if—”
“Don’t worry ’bout dat now, son,” Jeremiah soothed. “We jes got to find Clement. Come on.”
The three generations of Johnson men walked alongside one another, each with a vengeance and purpose all his own. The precision of their steps gave them the look of a battle infantry whose one hope was to taste the blood of the enemy. Because they walked in penetrating silence, each mind was given the opportunity to imagine what might become of the Johnson family and, indeed, colored folks throughout Mississippi.
Jeremiah had dreamed of this day as a child longs for Christmas. He wanted, finally and simply, to count. He had gotten tired of burying colored folks whose names evoked nothing in succeeding generations. Deep in his heart, his only desire was to live out what he believed in. Yet it had taken him more than seventy years to prepare for the mission. Better late than never, he told himself.
Enoch couldn’t get Jerry and Billie Faye out of his head. The more he thought of them, the more incensed he became. He had never really forgiven white folks for murdering—as he called it—his brother and sister-in-law. Actually, he never thought he was supposed to. Typically, colored folks just bury the dead and move on, so, until now, Enoch had not considered that he had the right to fight white folks for their treatment of his people. As he, Jeremiah, and Ray Ray marched on, the desire to scream “Fuck this!” grew stronger in his throat until a cough overpowered what would have been more verbal defiance than he had ever manifested. In his frustration, Enoch wanted to hit somebody, to whip enough white asses to let the world know that Black silence was over. He suppressed this desire, however, as he thought about his children and the price they’d have to pay once white folks killed him. Only in that moment did he understand, finally, why it had taken his father so long to be courageous.
Aunt Possum gon be mad, Ray Ray thought, imagining how everything might transpire. She was rambunctious, folks always said, and stories about her suggested that she had never been one to take things easily. She had left Mississippi precisely because she refused to submit to sharecropping culture, Jeremiah had explained, and now she would be forced to return. Ray Ray dreaded seeing his aunt under such adverse circumstances, but now it seemed unavoidable. What would he tell her? How would he explain that he, the oldest, had let those white men take his cousin? She would call him a sorry, worthless colored boy, Ray Ray feared, and never would he regain his dignity. Now, even more than before, he wished he had volunteered to go with the pink, rosy-colored men. He knew the land, the people, and the places to hide. He could outrun Clement, he assumed, and once he got away from the men, he’d be back home in a flash. “Damn,” he mumbled inaudibly.
When they reached home, the menfolks marched into the house in chronological order. Their own shotguns greeted them.
“Enoch!” Ella Mae blurted and ran into his outstretched arms. “They took Clement! What we gon do?”
“I know, baby, I know,” Enoch responded. “Ray Ray told us everything. They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
“Naw, we ain’t hurt. But we gotta find Clement!” Ella Mae screamed.
“Jes calm down now, daughter,” Jeremiah commanded. “We gotta think this thang through. Everybody sit down.” The family gathered at the kitchen table. “I can’t tell y’all what’s ’bout to happen, but I can tell you it ain’t gon be pretty,” Jeremiah began. “Colored people ’round hyeah shoulda done somethin’ ’bout this years ago, but we wuz too scared. I ain’t scert no mo.”
Everybody looked at Jeremiah skeptically, but he knew they were on his side.
“ … and you can’t be scert neither. We got to fight this battle. We gon win it if we stick together. Some folks ain’t gon stand with us ’cause they think they got too much to lose. They think food won’t grow out de ground if white folks don’t plant it, so I ain’t lookin’ for ’em to stand. But a lotta other colored people ’round hyeah tired jes like we is o’ always buryin’ our own folks ’cause white folks don’t like somethin’ ’bout ’em. I ain’t doin’ dat no mo!” Jeremiah’s shout frightened Sarah Jane and Chop.
“Here’s what we ain’t gon do. We ain’t gon rush over to no white folks place all by ourselves. That’s exactly what Billy and dem other white boys wants us to do. They waitin’ right now to blow our heads off. Dat’s what happened to Elijah and Martha Redfield. You ’member dat, Mary?”
“Un-huh,” Miss Mary mumbled.
“Somebody hung their son Joshua, and Elijah and Martha went cross de railroad tracks questionin’ white folks, and they shot ’
em down in de middle of the road. So, naw, we ain’t gon fall in dat trap. We gon outthink ’em this time.”
Jeremiah tried hard not to let his emotions lead him. “Now, here’s what we gon do. First, we gon pray. God done brung us this far, and we ain’t goin’ nowhere without Him. Then, Enoch, you and Ray Ray gon snoop ’round and see if you can find out where dey mighta took Clement. We ain’t got to be scared now ’cause if they wanted more than one o’ us, dey woulda took ya. I can’t figure out why they didn’t. They must be plannin’ somethin’ terrible.” He paused, looked up, and said, “Lord, please let dat boy be all right.”
“Momma, you and Ella Mae guard dis house jes like y’all wuz already doin’. Don’t be scert to shoot neither.”
Miss Mary’s expression assured Jeremiah that her ability to kill was solid. He had never seen her hold a gun, much less shoot it, yet something in her eyes confirmed that the other children would be well protected.
“Sarah Jane, you and Chop gon sit here ’til we meet tonight and mind de womenfolks. If anything happens to ’em, y’all take dem shotguns and blow de head off o’ any white man try to bother you. Y’all understand me?”
“Yessir!” Chop declared. He had never been entrusted with such responsibility before, and he promised himself to make his granddaddy proud if given the opportunity.
Sarah Jane nodded although she hoped she wouldn’t have to kill. She had seen what happened to colored people who kill white men—regardless of the reason—and now she couldn’t imagine that the outcome would be different.
“If otha folks come by, don’t tell ’em nothin’. We’ll talk about everything tonight at de meetin’.” Jeremiah looked at Enoch and nodded toward the door. “You and Ray Ray go ’head on.”
They left hurriedly.
“What chu gon do, man?” Miss Mary asked Jeremiah on his way out the door.
“Don’t worry ’bout me, Momma. I’ll be back by meetin’ time.”
Nine
JEREMIAH HADN’T GONE TO THE SACRED PLACE IN YEARS. ONCE Billie Faye died he resolved to leave the space to her and Jerry. But the day the white men took Clement, he found himself pressing through the woods in search of something untainted by man’s hands. He needed a moment to think things through, and he needed a place where he wouldn’t be disturbed. He also needed a space wherein God dwelled so that, as he always put it, “God could tell me where my thinkin’ ain’t right.” So Jeremiah stepped carefully back into The Sacred Place, walking like one on holy ground.
Much to his surprise, it looked exactly the same. He had expected the grass to be scorched by the relentless Mississippi summer sun, but it was so green he bent and touched it to make sure it was real. Jonquils, wild roses, and little white flowers whose name he didn’t know decorated The Sacred Place, and the cool breeze made him close his eyes and think, This has got to be heaven.
“Wow,” Jeremiah murmured, looking around. Maybe the place was even more beautiful now, he thought. When Jerry and Billie Faye married, he remembered green grass, but nothing so verdant that it looked artificial. He remembered flowers, too, but not so many that, everywhere he trod, he discovered a new one. The lone deer, standing idle in the middle of the grass, confirmed the majesty of The Sacred Place, for, even after noticing Jeremiah’s presence, it never moved. He walked the circumference of the area, and neither rabbits, opposums, nor squirrels feared him. Back where he began, Jeremiah shook his head at the splendor and glory of The Sacred Place. Perhaps the few times he had visited, after Jerry and Billie Faye married, he had come at the wrong time of year. Or maybe he never came enough. Whatever it was, Jeremiah was saddened that only now he saw what his son must have seen years ago. He felt embarrassed that Jerry had beheld the face of God as a child while, after seventy-odd years, he was still longing for a glimpse.
The tree, which once held Jerry’s lifeless form, was broader now and waved its limbs freely with the moderate evening breeze. Even the limb from which Jerry had hanged himself jutted out farther from the tree, like an index finger pointing a traveler in a particular direction. It was larger than the other limbs, as though over the years it had taken an unfair portion of the tree’s nutrients. At the place where the limb met the trunk, a nest rested wherein Jeremiah watched a mother bird feed worms to her ravenous chicks. The mother’s eyes met his own and made him feel warm and welcome. He wished she would land somewhere close to him and tell him the secrets of The Sacred Place, but, instead, she flapped her wings and soared away in carefree ecstasy.
Jeremiah sat on a nearby stump. He didn’t know if his plan was going to work, but with Clement gone, he needed to believe in something.
“I’m sorry, son,” he said aloud in his scratchy baritone. “I loved you. You knowed dat, didn’t you?” Jeremiah looked around nostalgically.
“Yes, Daddy, I knew.”
“What?” he murmured in surprise. “Who wuz dat?” Cold chills ran up Jeremiah’s arms like flames in a dry hay barn. He stood quickly, searching to the right and left for the voice he was sure he had heard.
“Jerry?” he asked cautiously, trembling with both fear and anticipation. His eyes were easily quarter size.
“Yes, Daddy?”
“Is d—d—dat you, son?” Jeremiah asked, frightened.
“Yes. I am here.”
Jeremiah didn’t know what to say or ask. He examined The Sacred Place thoroughly, but saw no one.
“Don’t be scared,” Jerry sang soothingly.
Jeremiah’s breathing calmed a bit, and he resumed his place on the tree stump. His right hand brushed over his salt-and-pepper hair—what was left of it—and he struggled hard not to be afraid.
“I, um, don’t know wh—wh—what to say. I thought you wuz dead.” Jeremiah’s words hadn’t come out right, but he didn’t know how to fix them.
“I will always be with you, Daddy. Dead don’t mean gone,” Jerry chuckled.
Jeremiah smiled at the familiar sound of his son’s rare laughter. He had come to The Sacred Place for clarity and understanding, and now he delighted in God’s method of meeting his needs.
“I woulda come sooner, son, if I had knowed.”
“No need to explain. I understand.”
He wanted to ask Jerry a million questions, but he settled on, “I guess you know what happened to Clement?”
“Yessir, I know. What y’all gon do?”
“I don’t know,” Jeremiah confessed in honest exasperation. “I shot some white men who came—”
Jerry interrupted. “I know. I saw everything. I was real proud of you.”
“Huh?” Jeremiah inquired, confused.
“You did what you thought was right, Daddy. That’s what you gotta keep on doin’.”
Jeremiah didn’t know how to take his son’s affirmation, so he simply asked, “What should I do now?”
“That’s up to you. You have to decide for yourself. But don’t be afraid of what you decide.”
“We gon meet tonight in de barn … well, you know everything already.” Jeremiah waved his hands lightly, remembering to whom he was speaking.
“Yes, I know that. But what are you going to do, Daddy?”
Jeremiah picked up a twig and began to strip it bare with his fingernails. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do know. You’re just afraid.”
“I’d like to shoot all dem bastards and be done with the whole thing,” Jeremiah stated, half-jokingly. “But I guess dat wouldn’t be right.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
Jeremiah grimaced. “Well, I jes thought … that God or … angels … or … y’all … might not like that.”
“Daddy, the question you have to answer is what do you believe? That’s what we want—for you to live out the truth of what you believe.”
“But what I b’lieve right now don’t seem … holy, son. Dese devils been killin’ colored folks for years and ain’t nobody said nothin’ ’bout it. They don’t respect nobody—and I mean nobody—and they always want colo
red folks to kiss they behinds. I’m sick o’ dat and I ain’t doin’ it no mo’.” Jeremiah’s confidence had returned.
“Good, Daddy. Be clear ’bout what you think and why, and don’t be scared to stand on it when the day comes.”
“Today is the day, huh?” Jeremiah giggled in awe.
“Yessir, it is.”
“I jes want my grandson home and my family safe. Is that too much to ask for?”
“Nothing is too much to ask for if you’re willing to make it happen. That’s the job of the living—to make the seemingly impossible come to pass. I’ll be right next to you, Daddy, every step of the way.”
“Then I know what I’m gon do,” Jeremiah announced as he rose to leave.
“Fine. Do it good, old man.”
“Can I come see you any time I want to, son?” Jeremiah looked into the treetops, hoping for a physical sign of this metaphysical moment.
“I am with you always, Daddy. Even until the end.”
Water gathered in Jeremiah’s eyes and escaped through routes of wrinkles down his dusty brown cheeks. He walked slowly throughout The Sacred Place, singing both the call and the response to “Father I stretch my hand to Thee, no other help I know.” His rich, Black-Baptist-church-deacon voice purged his soul of innumerable and unspeakable fears he once thought to be the inheritance of every Black man. Truth be known, he had convinced himself, for the last seventy years, that his pitiful state was God’s doing. He was relieved now to know that it had been his own.
As he sang, he picked flowers and made a bouquet of mauve, white, red, and violet and placed the offering at the base of Jerry’s tree.
“I’m ready now, son,” he whispered. “Thank you. I’m sorry it took me so long, but I promise not to let you down this time.”
Jeremiah didn’t need a response. He left The Sacred Place surer than ever of what he was going to do. Jerry’s words had convinced him that God was waiting on him to act, and Jerry’s voice alone had reminded him of his unfinished business with whites in Money. Now he would bring it all to closure.