“To do what, if I may ask?” What could be a greater consolation or reward than the ministry?
Barnaby’s face clouded with trepidation. But he was an honest fellow, and he told me:
“He wants to write books. Novels, sir. Like Mr. Dickens.”
I WENT UP THE STAIRS with a candle of my own. Seeing naught but sorrow in the world. Twas on the landing I first heard the weeping.
Coming from above it was, from somewhere along the hall, the sound of a child crying. As I helped my bad leg up with my cane, the sobbing grew worse with each step. It was not loud, but it echoed in the great house. It almost could have been a mourning ghost. Surprised I was that no one but me seemed to hear it. For every door was shut and no one stirred.
I decided it must be the girl. Paddycakes. Maybe she was left to her devices by night as she was by day. A wounded, wandering creature, free to come and go, but never at rest. I felt the child must want some bit of comfort, so I scraped my way along the midnight hall, listening at each door.
The weeping seemed to come from the last room. At the very end of the hall.
I knocked. Ever so gently. Barely touching the wood with the tip of my cane.
No one answered, and the sobbing continued. As if my careful knock had gone unnoticed.
I tapped again.
The poor girl was a simple thing and might not have sufficient wit to answer. Or perhaps I had frightened her more.
I set the candle down and tried the door.
It was not locked. I pushed it open and put a foot just after.
The door swung into emptiness. Twas the unfinished wing of the house, a mere skeleton of beams. My heel was in pure air where the floor should have been.
Had my cane not found a lip of wood, I would have tumbled down. And broken half my bones, if not my neck.
I caught my balance, gasping, and saw the stars beyond the ribs of the roof. A sea of lights looked down from a velvet span. The stars are like our sun, they tell me, only farther off. They say it proves that Heaven can’t exist. But Providence was with me in that instant. Twas a greater hand than mine that held me back.
I caught my breath and eased away from the abyss. Carefully. Releasing the latch, I let the door swing wide. Seething with sweat I was, and cold in the bowels. My hand shook on my cane.
And it was dark within, for the fresh air had blown out the candle. Twas brighter by thrice outside than it was in the hallway gloom, though a wash of starlight flowed back toward the stairs. As if a goodly spirit meant to lead me away from my doings.
But the sobbing come clear as could be now, off to my left. Calling from behind an adjacent door, in the finished wing.
I did not see how I could have made such an error. It was not like me, for I have good ears and a soldier’s senses. Perhaps I had been addled by events. Or by my fears.
The house seemed eerie, and wrong. I would say haunted, except that I will not believe in such like. Still, I sensed it was an ill-starred place, and that its walls led men and women wrong.
Twas no place for the girl to be meandering, and we must look after those weaker than ourselves. That, too, is a duty. I put myself back in my proper order, and this time I knocked upon the proper door.
The sobbing broke off.
Perhaps, I thought, I had frightened the poor child worse. Still a bit unsteady, I went in.
Twas a closet the size of a room, crammed with women’s gowns and other fancies. By the light from a silver candlestick, I saw Captain Barclay. He was rubbing a satin dress across his nakedness.
I never saw such terror on a face.
ELEVEN
THEY CAME FOR ME IN THE DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN. Hollering like children poorly raised. I may have been the first to wake. Once a soldier, all your life you jump from sleep when someone calls your name. I dressed me quick.
They called me “Major,” and they called me “Brother.” They shouted for me to come out and have a talk. They made no threats, but I belted on my Colt.
I did not start a candle but moved in the night gloom, testing the stairs with my cane as I went down. When voices hail us in darkness, he who bears a light will help their aim.
Samson beat me to the porch, half-dressed and bearing a lantern. From upstairs, Captain Barclay called his name, but the slave seemed not to hear. Then Raines stepped out, in trousers and a shirt.
Two of them there were, out past the hedge. They lolled in their saddles, faces ghostly vague. Songbirds chipped the silence. Calling daybreak.
“What do you want?” I shouted.
Behind me, Raines clicked back his pistol’s hammer. He did not know his doings and stood too close to the lantern. His face was tense and fair. I feared the boy would not survive the war, for he was drawn to the light, and light brings death.
I kept my distance from the lantern’s cast.
“You Jones? The praying Yankee?” a melodic voice inquired.
“I am Major Abel Jones, U.S. Volunteers, sir.”
“Praise the Lord! You done been called to Beersheba, Brother. Rev Hitchens sent us to fetch you back, if you’s the fella studying them murders.”
“You can’t go with those Negroes,” Raines insisted. His voice was low and furious. Such anger is the way we mask our fear.
“Who are you?” I called. Wanting a moment to think.
When I looked at Samson, his eyes were on me, not on the intruders. The night before he had suggested that such an opportunity might come my way. But I had listened poorly, vain of my own concerns.
He had told me they would come and pressed me to go with them.
Stranded up in his bed, Captain Barclay cursed to fright the Devil. Raging at his incapability, at Samson’s absence from his side, and at the world. Had he been by us, I am certain guns would have spoken.
“Well, now,” the fellow with the musical voice said, “I’m Roland. I’m the talking man. This here ugly pilgrim’s name of Cupid. Cupid’s the deciding man. Us come to bring you to the preaching ground, if you wants to go. But ain’t no trouble doing if you don’t. This here ain’t nothing but your grabbing chance, Brother. Us don’t want no shooting trouble, and no talking trouble, neither.”
“And why should I go with you?” I asked. “How do I know I can trust you?”
A huge form slipped back through the trees, fleet as a prowling Pushtoon. Twas Barnaby with a long-barreled gun. The Negroes did not see the fellow.
“Brother, you just gots to have the abiding faith. Rev Hitchens say he got the doing will to find them killing people, but not the doing means. If you got the doing means and the doing will, Rev hope to talk to you about that. I expects he’s praying on it right now.”
Barnaby had gotten behind them, face pale as a flower in the trees. His gun was up, waiting for his moment.
“I have to saddle my horse,” I said.
“Your riding horse been saddled, Brother. Waiting on you in the barn.”
“You can’t go with them,” Raines hissed, in a voice only Samson and I might hear. “I forbid it.”
“Do you now?” I turned on him. He looked so pale and earnest in the lamplight. His pistol gleamed.
“And if either one of them makes a move, I’ll have Mr. B. drop him,” Raines continued.
“Well, I am going. For I will follow where this business goes. That is what I have been sent to do, and do it I will.”
“You can’t go, Jones.”
“And why is that, Lieutenant?”
“You gave your word. To General Beauregard. You accepted me as your escort. You’re here on the general’s parole. You can’t go anywhere without me.”
There was true. I had forgot. A promise is a troubling thing at times. Made lightly, it may change the course of lives.
Twas Samson who spoke next. At risk and out of turn. Still ignoring his master’s outraged calls.
“Forgive my interference, sir,” he said to Raines, “but perhaps you could accompany the major? If your purpose is to discover the identity
of the killers? I would not judge these Negroes to be harmful.”
“For all we know, they might be the damned killers themselves,” Raines said. “Renegades. Or outlaws.”
Samson did not speak again. But I did. Twas clear to me all this had been arranged, that Samson knew these men, that word had been sent. I did not believe the servant meant us ill. And if my horse was saddled, he had done it.
I did a shameful thing, though in a good cause. I played upon this Southron sense of honor.
“Perhaps these fellows would take you along, as well? Unless . . . unless you are afraid, Lieutenant?”
He did not answer me. Beyond the lantern, his face clenched like a fist. Had we been on a battlefield that moment, he would have shot me without hesitation.
“Gentlemen,” I called to the riders, “there is a problem, see. For I have made a pledge to do all things together with Lieutenant Raines here. I gave my word and cannot go without him. Might he come with us, then?”
The Negroes conferred. To the east, the raven night turned pigeon gray.
Roland, the one given to speech, cast a thinner silhouette than his companion. “He can come along on his riding horse. But not with that shooting gun of his. You can bring yours, that’s all right, cause you got the Lincum manners on you. But he don’t bring no Jeff Davis gun. And you both goes blindfold. All the way. Cause Beersheba’s a keeping secret and ain’t no white folks got the knowledge of the lying-out places or the preaching ground.”
“That’s outrageous,” Raines said.
“Well, we can stay,” I said. “And you may drink your old friend’s whisky to your heart’s content, Lieutenant. But chances lost may be chances lost forever. I leave it to you to see your duty.”
He was a brave young man in a tottering world.
“Put up that cannon of yours, Mr. B.,” he called in disgust. “And saddle up my horse while I get dressed.”
ROBBED OF MY SIGHT by the blindfold, my balance failed me, too. I strained to brace off the stirrups, swaying like a boat caught in a monsoon. Our path turned from the road to a broken trail and my stomach heaved. I jerked and jolted, clutching the saddle where my groin pounded. I did not know if I would spurn my dinner first, or go tumbling at a lurch. The first would crack my pride, the second my skull.
We were off to a challenging start.
Then the Negroes spared me, sudden as grace. One of the fellows tugged at the knot he had made at the back of my head and the rag fell from my eyes.
Twas day. The sun was up, although its light fell soft. A big grin met my bewilderment, with a finger laid from lip to lip to quiet me.
They did not take the blindfold from poor Raines.
Deep in the woods, the stouter of my guides began to sing. Jordan was a far river to cross, but he was going over. He was unsightly, pockmarked and cut thick, but his voice belonged to an angel militant. The morning air chilled the flesh, but he warmed the glens with devotion. I did not know the hymn or I would have joined him.
Cupid. Twas sad the singer was cursed with such a name, for it was mockery. His form was low and his skin was pitch. He was the sort that cruel men draw upon to belittle the Negro, to tie him to the ape instead of man. Holding the reins of my escort’s horse, he guided the beast with skill as the trail meandered. He had a confidence to his doings that matched the strength of his voice and the big dragoon pistol on his hip. But we live in a world of appearances, and he would never be judged quite as a man.
The other fellow, Roland, formed his opposite. No darker than milk coffee, he was sleek. Almost pretty, but for the bobbing smallness of his head, he looked the sort who will always reach the corner and slide around it out of trouble’s grasp. His range of moods ran from a smile to a grin. Now and then, he shook his head at nothing.
We rode until the warmth come up, and then we rode some more. I thought I recognized a marsh by a brook as one we had passed earlier. An hour later, when we crossed the stream for the third time, I realized we were making circles for the benefit of Raines.
As if to keep my mind from too much mischief, Roland turned in the saddle.
“Brother Jones?” he said. “Folks ever explained to you how come Jesus was a Negro? They know about that up North there?”
The query took me aback. As it would you. Now I had no wish to offend the simple fellow, but could not let such blatant folly pass.
“I believe,” I said gently but firmly, “that Jesus was born in the land of the Jews. So the Gospels tell us. And Jews are not Negroes.”
He laughed and slapped his leg. “Who said they was? I only said how Jesus was a Negro. I can prove it, too.”
“How’s that, sir?” Alarmed I was by his ignorance, where reverence was due.
“Well, first proof you needs is how they got us Negroes over there in that land of the Jews. Just like here. Yes, sir, that’s a true enough thing. Cause somebody got to do the work so’s the white folks don’t starve. Who you think do the plowing and the picking while the rest of them folks is off phariseeing all the time? I expects there’s Negroes just about everywhere there’s eating folks.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but got no chance.
“Next off,” Roland said, “look how little Jesus got hisself born in a stable. Ain’t no white folks put up with truck like that. And even afore that, Mary done gone to Joseph saying how she got a little baby coming. And Joseph knows how it ain’t been none of his doings. No, sir. He done kept his hands off that sweet little gal, cause he been saving it all up for the big day. Then that Mary go telling him how the little baby come from the Holy Ghost. White man shoot her dead for saying a thing like that and making him a fool. Cause the white man ain’t got no faith. Next thing, he going to get out them dooley pistols and start looking around for the blame person.” Roland shook his head in mock despair. “No, sir, missy ain’t going to get away with telling young marse no Holy Ghost give her a chile. But the Negro got the faith. And even when he don’t, he make the best of things.”
“The verse implies that Joseph had doubts at first, but—”
“And you just look how Jesus done gone ever place on his walking feet. White man get him a riding horse, or least a mule. And the white man don’t just go straying ever where. No, sir. If Jesus been a white man, he would of thinked on things a time, then he would of wrote him some letters, saying, ‘Cousin Herod, I’m coming up your way and I’d be beholding to stay at your big house with you, and give them regards to Missus Herod from me,’ and then he going to write ‘Brother Pilate, I got me big business down there in Jerusalem, and I sure would like to rest myself a few days in that pretty house you gots in town, and you tell Missus Pilate hello from me and Cousin James.’ But Jesus just went walking on his way, like he don’t care a lick. He don’t worry none. No, sir. Cause he know wherever he go some Auntie Mary or Auntie Martha going to feed him off the back porch.”
“That’s a fact,” Cupid said over his shoulder.
“And study that old miracle over to Cana now. White man turn the water into wine, he going to want him a money payment. Ain’t no white man turning no water into wine for free. No, sir. No more than he going to go healing folks for nothing. He gets around to healing, he going to get him a buggy and a big black bag and call hisself a doctor. And study that there Sermon on the Mount. If Jesus was white folks, he would of charged least a nickel to come in, like at the fair. And all that ’nointing with the precious oil on the feet. Jesus see the beauty of the thing, how it nothing but a kindness and meant all sweet. But white folks wouldn’t hold still for them doings, cause they ain’t going to waste nothing like that on no preacher’s walking handles. They going to put that precious oil in the chest and lock it up. Same thing with that Mary Magdalene. White folks don’t want no truck with that kind unless it’s after dark and they thinks nobody looking. But she come up on Jesus and what that preaching man tell her? He say, ‘Sister, everything all right, cause I knows how you fell down under that great big temptation. I knows how the
brothers done you wrong. You just gets up now and dry them eyes, cause you be forgiven. You get on back down them quarters and sin no more.’ White folks set her in the county jail she even step near a preacher man.”
“Hah!” Cupid said. “Ain’t that the jelly on the biscuit?”
“And study about them disciples. Jesus just done scooped ’em up where he found ’em. He didn’t care if they was high-borns. No, sir. Just come up on ’em while they’s fishing in the creek of Galilee. But if Jesus was white folks, he would of started off asking all about their families and if they’s respectable and who’s whose cousin and how many acres they got. No, sir. Jesus done even moved over and made space on the bench for a low nigger like Judas who couldn’t wait to go tattling to the white folks.”
“That’s a fact,” Cupid said. “That Judas was one woofing nigger.”
We paused at the stream we had passed several times and let the horses drink. Raines sat upright, shut against a world he found disjointed. Beneath the eye rag, his lips were locked and dry. Doubtless, he shared my moral alarm at this misapprehension of the Gospels. Twas only pity constrained my tongue from scolding. The Negroes are a simple, suffering folk, and we must not expect too much of them.
“But all that ain’t nothing,” Roland picked back up. “Big proof, that’s what they done with Jesus when he come up to Jerusalem. Stripped him down and whupped him. Cut him to the bone with the cat-o’-nine-tails. And that Pilate didn’t find no fault with Jesus, cause that manchild ain’t done nothing wrong to speak of. But the town folks was in a mood. So they killed him anyhow, just like they do any black man makes ’em feel unsettled.”
Roland’s constant smile had faded at last, for he had talked himself deep into sorrow, as a child might do. He come-upped his horse and we began riding again, always through the backwoods and the glades. After a while, he said:
“Jesus done made him one great big mistake. That done killed him sure. Time he went turning over them money tables in the temple, that done sealed his fate. You can trouble white folks about a fair amount of things, but they gets serious you starts fooling with their money. Black man can go preaching all he wants, long’s he watch what he say around the white man. Only a white-trash fool get riled if the preacher dip the brother and the sister in the river and sing, ‘Hallelujah.’ But money trouble set the white man to killing.”
Call Each River Jordan Page 23