"You sound just like Uncle Will," Nellie said, laughing through the tears she'd tried so hard not to shed. "And that's just right..."
"'Cause worryin' a thing to death won't bring it back to life."
They shared a laugh, mother and daughter, both understanding the wisdom inherent in the sayings of the old man. Big Si called him pigheaded and mule-stubborn, but nobody ever called him wrong about anything. He refused to even think about going to Belle City for any reason, but it was he who insisted, ever since Beau and Eubie left, that they all go monthly to get news of the war—and of the world—and he took more pleasure than any of them in the notion of hospitals and banks and colleges and big, painted-white homes owned by "used-to-be slaves," and the newspapers and magazines they brought back. "Just look-a-here," he'd exclaim, turning pages and studying photographs of the men and women making names for themselves in the world. "Just look at all these fine Colored people. No wonder white folks miss slavery so hard. They don't want to be seein' no Colored folks look like these here."
The old man kept the newspapers and magazines beside him all the time, periodically opening them to look at the images, but sometimes just to hold them, caress them, and smile a secret smile of pride and satisfaction, even when he'd been told that the stories were not all about success and accomplishment—indeed most were not. A little more than fifty years since the end of slavery and most Colored people still lived meager, marginal lives, dictated by the whims of white people who resented their freedom. But it was that freedom that mattered to Uncle Will and First Freeman and all those like them: Freedom was all that mattered.
"Come Christmas-time, all the pictures in here gon' be Colored soldiers comin' home from that War," he said one evening in late October after a family trip to Belle City." They all looked at him, and nobody said a word, but five people were thinking the same thing: How do you know that? "'Cause Maisy Cooper told me," he said, answering the unasked question. "Y'all know Maisy's a conjure woman, right? She sees things, and she sees the war over by Christmas."
Everybody was smiling now, willing to accept the conjure woman's vision because they wanted it to be true. "She see my boys' pictures in them papers?" Nellie asked, her smile slowly fading as the old man closed and folded the papers and put them on the floor, leaving that question unanswered.
Maisy Cooper was right on both counts, but nobody remembered her predictions when the Armistice was signed on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, ending the War to End All Wars, and when, shortly thereafter, the soldiers began returning home, first in a trickle, and then wave after wave of them. Nobody was surprised that the white soldiers got to come home first because everybody was used to Colored being last, but it meant that Nellie would have to wait for her boys at home instead of in Belle City, which is what she wanted to do. "Don't nobody know when they comin,' Nellie, and you can't just be settin' 'round in Belle City waitin' on the gov'ment," Big Si told his wife, sounding grumpier than he intended; he was as anxious as she to have his sons back home and safe and would gladly have waited in Belle City as long as it took were it not for the fact of the farm needing his attention—and hers. "Don't worry, Nellie," he'd said, patting her gently on the back, "Mr. First gon' bring our boys to us soon as they get to Belle City—he promised."
"But...but..." Nellie sputtered in a rare display of confused uncertainty. "How they gon' find Freeman? How Freeman gon' find them?"
In his own rare—at least publicly—display, Silas Thatcher hugged his wife and kissed the top of her head. "We wrote 'em a letter and told 'em, Nellie. Leastways that professor did. Told 'em to run everything through the people at the college and First Freeman. 'Member?"
Nellie nodded; she remembered, though she didn't like having—needing—to route such a crucial aspect of her family's life through third parties. "I just hope it's soon. I want my boys back home where they belong. We won't have no Thanksgiving nor Christmas till they home."
"No Thanksgiving?" Little Si asked, thinking of feast that wouldn't happen.
"No Christmas?" Tobias asked, thinking of the new shotgun he was hoping could happen.
Nellie shook her head. "Not until Beau and Eubie come home. Then we'll have one big celebration, Thanksgiving and Christmas all together at one time."
***
– 1919 –
Children all over Georgia, whether they lived on a farm or not, knew not to complain about the rain because the farmers always needed rain. However, the rainfall in the waning days of January caused even the farmers to complain: It was, quite simply, too much of a good thing. It had rained for three days and nights. True, it was a slow, steady, soaking rain, the kind that would find and feed the deepest roots of the oldest and most noble trees, and therefore better than the hard, driving rain that would carry away the topsoil like some huge shovel. Still, enough was enough, especially when Carrie's Creek was lapping at her banks and starting to behave more like a river than a creek, running swiftly, with visible currents west, toward the big river that she fed. First thing in the morning, several times during the day, and last thing at night, the creek was checked, the water level monitored, and by the end of the third day, as night fell, anybody and everybody who knew Carrie's Creek, knew that unless the rain stopped that very minute, trouble was upon them. Since the second day of rain they'd been preparing themselves for the need to run to higher ground—stacking fire wood, furniture and clothes, and jars of food in attics and packing necessary items they'd take if—when—the time came to run.
"Get up, y'all! Get up!" Big Si was running and yelling—he had to yell to be heard over the pounding, driving rain. No longer slow and steady, it was coming down torrentially, fanned and fueled by a cold and furious wind blowing from the northwest. If it had been in the fall of the year instead of the winter, they'd have thought it was tail-end of one of the hurricanes that blew up the Atlantic coast every year, felling trees and dumping water by the bucketful.
Nellie lit a lantern while all of them simultaneously pulled on clothes and shoes, nobody saying or asking anything. If Big Si told them to get up in the middle of the night, it could only be because it was time to run from the creek.
"Where's the water?" Uncle Will asked.
"Outside the door," Big Si answered, not attempting to hide the fear he felt. "Y'all grab what you gon' carry and let's go."
"What about the animals?" Nellie said.
"We'll take the mule and the wagon, but we'll have to carry things to it—can't bring 'em here to the house. The water's too high. The dogs'll follow us to high ground."
"The chickens," Nellie said, almost plaintively. "What about the chickens?"
Big Si looked as miserable as he felt and he shook his head. "We just have to hope and pray the water don't rise that high 'cause we can't carry no chickens."
"Lord have mercy," Uncle Will said, and he said it again, over and over. Nellie took his arm and then hugged him tight and close until he quieted. Then she told Tobias to help the old man gather his things, but Tobias did the gathering alone: Uncle Will was frozen in place at the front window, looking out into the storm, muttering under his breath.
The family worked fast and efficiently, and in just a few moments, burlap bags filled with as much food as they could carry and the best of the clothes and shoes they owned were loaded on their backs. "Come on, y'all, we got to go now." Big Si stood at the front door, ready to open it. "Tobias, you go first. Carry what you can and head straight for the barn, get the mule hitched up and ready."
"Yessir," Tobias said as Big Si opened the door.
"And y'all—watch out for snakes. The water's up and they looking for higher ground too." He was yelling and the wind and water were blowing in his face as he struggled to shut the door. "Nellie, you and Ruthie go next. Take the lights and candles with you, and try to keep the matches dry; we really gon' need 'em. Tobias oughta have the barn door open by the time y'all get there." He wrapped them in tight, brief embrace, helped them secu
re the bags and rolls they carried, opened the door, and steadied them as they descended the steps—steps that now were covered by water, ending all their unspoken hopes that their home might be spared.
"Pa..." Little Si saw the water rising even as they stood there.
"You go now, Son, and keep close on your ma and sister."
"Pa?"
"I'm comin', Son, don't worry. I'm gon' get Uncle Will, and we'll be right behind you. Go on now. Hurry up!" And he pushed his youngest boy out into the wild weather, not bothering this time to close the door—the water was already making its way in. He grabbed his uncle's arm and it felt like a twig. This big, strong man whom he called Uncle but who was the father to him that he'd never had—this man looked into the storm and wept like a little child.
"Lordhavemercylordhavemercylordhavemercylordhavemercy..."
"Come on, Uncle Will, we got to go. Come on." And when the old man didn't—or could not—move, Big Si got behind him and pushed, holding him tightly around the waist, until they descended the steps, and stayed behind him, pushing, as they sloshed through the dark, swift-moving water. Only the flicker of the kerosene lantern in the barn, blowing back and forth in the strong wind, was their guide to safety, for the rain was coming down in sheets, obscuring any landmark, and the ground was a raging river.
Hands and arms reached out to grab them as they reached the barn door, pulling them in for a brief moment's respite from the storm.
"He's shaking like a leaf." Nellie wrapped her arms around Uncle Will and murmured to him as if her were one of her children, and there was fear in the look that she shared with her husband: Would the old man survive this?
"Where we goin', Pa?" Ruthie asked.
"To the highest ground that's also safe ground."
"You think we got to worry 'bout white people now?"
"They got to get to high ground too, Little Sister," Tobias said, answering for his father, sounding like his father, "and they likely not to be none too happy to share it with us."
"Then where we goin'?" Little Si asked, looking down at the two inches of water he was standing in.
Big Si looked at his wife. "Maisy Cooper's place, I think," Nellie said.
Big Si nodded. Maisy Cooper's place would be perfect: She had a barn big enough for all of them—including the animals and the wagon—to take shelter in; but more importantly, she and her people were in touch with First Freeman and would let him know not to worry. She also would help them soothe and comfort Uncle Will. She was, like him, a former slave, and therefore would know what he was thinking and feeling. In fact, Big Si and Nellie had the simultaneous but independent thought that they should have consulted Maisy months ago about Uncle Will's behavior; he hadn't been himself since the night Carney Thatcher came back home and died.
"Si, you drive the wagon," Big Si said. "Me and Tobias gon' walk in front and guide it. Can't hardly see the road and Lord knows we don't need a mule with a broke leg. Nellie, you and Ruthie keep Uncle Will between you. Hold him tight. And put the dogs up there too. They can't keep their feet in this water and mud."
Closing the barn door felt as useless and foolish an effort as closing the door to the house had been: The water was coming and no door could stop it, and yet the act was necessary. This was their home and not one of them had spent a night away from it, either since being born in it or since moving into it or, in Uncle Will's case, since it was constructed, and Nellie knew that whatever trouble had taken hold of the old man in the last few months would be made worse by this night. As if to prove her correct, he began to moan and sway back and forth; Nellie and Ruthie held him tightly. Then he began a wordless moan that turned into a high wail and finally into a single-word keening:
"Carrie! Carrie! CA-REEE! CA-REEE!"
He was still rocking and wailing when they pulled into Maisy Cooper's yard more than an hour later—an hour that felt to all of them like a week or a month—a journey that should have taken less than half the time. There was a light on in Maisy's barn; she knew the rising water would send people to her and she was waiting, but it was the barking of her dogs that told her when to turn up the lanterns and open the barn door because she could hear no sound beyond the howling wind slamming rain against every surface in creation.
Not only was it dry in Maisy's barn, it was warm, too. She had laid several layers of burlap bags over piles of paper and rags just inside the door, and that's where she stopped the wagon and, after closing and locking the door, told them to drop their wet clothes where they stood, to unhitch the mule and "put 'im back yonder in that last stall, and y'all go stand 'round them buckets," for she'd filled a dozen metal receptacles of varying shapes and sizes with coal and wood chunks and set them ablaze and it was like having that many small cook stoves in the barn. Big Si, Little Si and Tobias obeyed immediately and gratefully. Maisy looked questioningly at Nellie and Ruthie, still sitting in the wagon, then she peered closely at Uncle Will.
"Oh, good God in heaven." And the old woman, as old as Will himself, clambered up into the wagon and cupped her friend's face in her hands. "Willie Thatcher. You hear me talkin' to you, Willie Thatcher? Look at me."
He opened his eyes and tried to focus them. "Carrie's out there and I got to go find her, Maize," he said, struggling now to free himself from the women's embrace and climb down out of the wagon.
"Let him get down," Maisy said, then, calling out, "Silas! Y'all come here quick-like!"
Big Si and his sons grabbed Uncle Will before he could open the barn door and, with Maisy directing, they rid him of soaking wet clothes, got him dressed in dry clothes and covered in blankets and seated in a chair surrounded by buckets of warmth and sipping "some special tea, guaranteed to warm up your insides." Maisy had thought of and prepared for everything: There were roasted yams and biscuits to go with the tea and enough chunks of wood and coal to keep the mini-stoves going all night and more than enough straw-filled pallets for every body to sleep "up off the hard ground."
"We truly thank you, Miss Maisy," Nellie said, hugging the old woman, who waved off the thanks.
"We all fam'ly 'round here; leastways, that's how I feel," and she looked at Uncle Will who seemed to be looking at people and places only he could see. "Let's see if he'll eat a little bit more, then get him laid down to sleep."
"Carrie? Is that you, Carrie?"
"It's me, Maisy, Willie. Here's a biscuit with some molasses and butter on it."
He took the biscuit, ate it, and nodded thanks. "I got to go find Carrie," he said, suddenly standing up and seeming to regain all of his physical strength.
"We found her, Willie. We already found her," Maisy said. "You need to get some sleep now, so you'll be fit come the morning."
"You found Carrie?"
With the women speaking soothingly to him and the men all but wrestling him down and onto a pallet, Uncle Will finally settled, though the screaming of the wind and the rain pounding the barn on all sides didn't help matters. He was exhausted—spent emotionally as well as physically—and he slept almost immediately, to the immense relief of all of them.
"I didn't know he was took so bad," Maisy exclaimed.
"He ain't like this all the time," Big Si said in defense of his uncle. "It was all this rain, brought it on real bad, like you see him. He ain't like this all the time."
Maisy nodded her understanding, sympathy and sadness turning her deep-set, dark eyes into seemingly bottomless pools. "We hoped not to see rain like this again, hoped not to see the creek up this high again." She sighed deeply and, like Uncle Will and First Freeman, seemed to sink in on herself, seemed to disappear into another dimension. No longer straight and strong, the old ones seemed to wither and become ancient, to become slaves again. They all understood this transformation and the reason for it, but Ruthie, especially, disliked it.
"Miss Maisy," Nellie said, speaking as gently as she did to Uncle Will and Mr. First. "Miss Maisy," she said again, successfully returning the old woman to the present and to her
conversation as if there'd been no break in her thought.
"Y'all know 'bout the last time the water got this high? Must be, oh, almost forty years ago, I reckon. That little, bitty creek ran like a river, knocking down and taking away everything got in its way: Crops, trees, barns...people." Maisy looked at Big Si. "Carrie. Willie's baby sister. Your Ma. You knowed all about that?"
Big Si nodded. "Yes, ma'am. Uncle Will told me."
"That's why he keeps on calling for Carrie—he's back there in his mind. Even after all these years, I don't think Willie ever got over losing Carrie. Not like she went."
"He's been...different...ever since Juneteenth," Nellie said and was startled by Maisy's reaction: The old woman began walking around in circles and muttering to herself. "Miss Maisy. What's wrong with you? What I say to upset you like that?"
"Juneteenth! You say Willie been troubled in his mind since back then? Now, here come all this rain. Carney Thatcher. That's what it is."
"What Carney Thatcher got to do with the rain?" Nellie and Big Si asked together.
"Poor Willie. No wonder his mind been took." She walked in circles for a while as they watched her, wondering and waiting. "Carrie got drowned down by the old Belle City Road. Y'all know where I mean? And two men was down there, scooping fish up out the creek with a net—that's how thick they was in the water—and then here come Carrie, riding along in the water with the fish. She was trying to grab hold of tree limbs, anything she could to save herself, and when she saw the men on the bank she screamed and hollered for them to save her."
"But they didn't," Ruthie said.
"They let her get drowned," Tobias said.
"Uncle Will and some men went looking for her," Little Si said.
Maisy nodded. "That's right, Chil'ren. My 'Zekiel was one of the men went with Willie. All night they was out, till they found Carrie...oh, Lord." She wiped her eyes. "One of them men on the bank, one of them men that day—one of 'em was Carney Thatcher."
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