Chase The Wild Pigeons

by John J. Gschwend

  Peter saw that Cluck was some kind of boss. The boys lowered their heads as they put the meat away.

  “Foolish young niggers,” Cluck muttered.

  When they went into the brick building, Peter discovered it was a large kitchen—the whole building. The fireplace was enormous with an arsenal of pots and pans hanging all over it. There was a long table with benches on both sides and a couple of smaller tables. Skillets, tongs, saws, forks, many sizes of spoons, a paddle, and many other implements for cooking were everywhere; they hung on pegs, sat on shelves, and even hung from the rafters. The floor was made of long flat bricks.

  A big Negro woman was busy at the pots when they walked in. She had a blue rag around her head and a towel over her shoulder. Her big rear seemed to be charging in all directions as she moved around the fireplace. Peter felt guilty for his bad thoughts, but her rear reminded him of the two tomcats Joe had tied in a sack.

  “Bessie, is you got any of them biscuits left from this morning?” Cluck asked. He sat on a bench at the long table and told Peter to sit on the other side.

  Bessie turned from her pots and studied Peter for a long spell. He was embarrassed at her staring.

  “I don’t feed no coloreds from this here kitchen til dinner or supper, lessen they’s house servants, or else Missus say so.” She eyed Peter with suspicion.

  “Oh, no, this here ain’t your average colored slave. This here bees a free man. The little white marster with him say so,” Cluck said with pride, as if he had a stake in Peter. “Ain’t that the truth, Peter?”

  Peter hesitated for a second, “That is correct; I’m a free Negro.”

  “Did you hear that, Bessie?” Cluck slapped his leg. “A free Negro.”

  Bessie waddled over to Peter. “Is you really free?”

  Peter squirmed on the bench. “I have my papers,” he said as if he were talking to a paddy roller, but immediately felt foolish.

  A giant grin blossomed across her face. “Ooh, Lawd, a free nigger.” She sheepishly looked around as if someone else were in the room. “I means to say, ‘a free darky.’”

  She scooted Peter over on the bench and sat beside him. The bench creaked—Peter just knew it would break, but somehow it held the strain.

  Her face reminded Peter of a bulldog, and he noticed she had a tooth missing in front, on the top.

  “What it like?” she asked.

  “Ma’am?”

  She tapped Peter with her towel. “Listen at him call me Ma’am like I’s white folk,” she said to Cluck.

  Cluck laughed and shook his head, then clucked his tongue.

  So that’s where he got his unusual name, Peter reasoned.

  “Now you tell me what it like to be free,” she said.

  “I don’t know any different,” Peter said. “I was born free. I’ve always been free.”

  The smile fell from her face, and she looked down at a big wooden spoon she held. She studied it absently. “Always been free,” she whispered.

  Suddenly, Cluck slammed his hand flat on the table, frightening both Bessie and Peter. “Goodness sake, wife, get this here boy something to eat. Missus say fo to tend to him.”

  With a great effort, she rose from the bench and went to one of the small tables, covered with a cloth. She pulled the cloth off and retrieved a platter of biscuits. After sitting the plate in front of Peter, she went to a shelf and fetched a jug of molasses. She placed it on the table, gave him a weak smile, then went back to her pots.

  Peter bowed his head and blessed the food with Cluck looking on. He gawked at Peter as if he had come from the moon.

  As Peter poured molasses on his plate, the door swung open and a Negro girl strolled in. “Missus want something to eat fo the visiting young marster.”

  Cluck snatched the platter from in front of Peter. “Here girl, take this.”

  Holding the platter, she shyly looked at Peter, then at Bessie.

  She looked to be about Peter’s age, and pretty as a sunflower. She was a dark tan, but she appeared to have the features of a white person, slender nose, small lips, and straight hair.

  “Go on, Lou,” Bessie said softly. “Take that there food to the young marster.”

  She slipped from the room, but her eyes met Peter’s, and he felt an unusual flutter inside—it was nice.

  After she shut the door, Cluck said to Bessie, “Fetch Peter some more of them biscuits.”

  “That was the last.”

  “Is she white?” Peter asked absently, still looking at the door.

  “Don’t talk on that, boy,” Cluck snapped. “Don’t ever talk on that while you is here.”

  Peter started to ask why, but the firm look on Cluck’s face changed his mind.

  “I’ll fix you up something else to eat,” Bessie said. “I can rustle something up fo you can jump.”

  Cluck’s face flipped to a smile in an instant. “Bess can sho do it.” He clucked his tongue. “She the bestest cook in Mississippi.”

  ***

  A tall, black man in fancy clothes placed the platter at the end of a long mahogany table, bowed, and left the big dining room. Shortly he returned with a pitcher of milk and a glass. “Do Missus need anything else?” the man asked.

  “No, John; that will do.”

  He bowed and left the room again.

  “Sit down Joe, and enjoy a late breakfast,” Mrs. Donner said. “I hope you don’t mind my home. As you can tell, the war has impeded its completion.”

  Joe saw some of the house, indeed, wasn’t finished, but said nothing. He plopped down in the chair and dragged a biscuit through the molasses. While pouring milk, he said through a full mouth, “This is a capital biscuit.”

  “Indeed, my Bessie is the finest cook around.”

  Joe polished off the first biscuit and attacked another. He soon had a milk ring around his mouth and crumbs down his shirt.

  Mrs. Donner handed him a napkin.

  “I venture to guess there was no shortage of flour in Helena,” Mrs. Donner said.

  “No Ma’am. With the Yankees there, we had everything.”

  “It has not always been so here,” she said.

  Joe immediately felt guilty. He knew the Confederacy was suffering because of the blockade. He set the second biscuit back on the platter.

  She placed a tender hand on his. “Oh, no, Joe, I was not implying that we have a shortage of flour.” She smiled sweetly. “Just the opposite. We have plenty, and salt, too.”

  Joe sopped the biscuit in the molasses. With a mouthful and molasses running down his face, he asked, “How do y’all get flour and salt?” Joe felt the molasses and smeared at it with a napkin.

  “Let me just say we have ways, and Memphis is not so very far.”

  Joe saw something out the large window and hopped up to investigate. Slaves were coming from the woods with the animals: horses, mules, geese, pigs, and the like. Mrs. Donner stood beside Joe.

  “What are they doing?” Joe asked.

  “We had a spy at the lake.”

  “The little piccaninny!”

  She looked disapprovingly at Joe.

  “I mean the little darky...a...Carl.”

  “That is right. When he spotted you and Peter, he quickly gave the alarm. My people hastily hid the animals, food, and valuables.”

  Joe thought about it for a minute. He calculated the time it took to get there from the lake.

  “Ma’am, Yankee cavalry would have went right through that lake. There would not have been time to hide anything.”

  “To be sure. We really didn’t expect the Yankees to come from that direction, but we have our ways to be on guard.”

  “What about other roads? Do you have spies down them, too?”

  “There is only the one road coming from the east, and we have ways to know in advance of an arriving party from that direction.”

  Ways? What did she have, a telegraph?

  “Are there anymore white people on the plantation?”

 
“No, I’m the only one.”

  “No one? No overseer or nothing?”

  “I don’t require an overseer. I have Cluck.”

  Joe found it hard to believe she would let an old darky run the big plantation. He had always heard that Negroes would steal you blind, and then run off if not properly managed—or worse: kill you in your sleep.

  “How many slaves do you have?”

  “I have ninety-five servants.”

  “Where is Mr. Donner?”

  “My, don’t we ask a lot of questions? He was killed at Pittsburg Landing, along with two brothers.”

  “You mean to say no white folks will be coming home after the war?”

  “My brother lives with me, but he is away at the present. He is a Partisan Ranger.”

  A bushwhacker, Joe thought.

  Mrs. Donner took Joe by the hand. “Come, let us go out to the veranda.”

  Joe followed, his legs brushing her round hoop-skirt. She seemed to glide across the floor. She smelled like flowers, and her hair was as gold as ripe wheat. Her hand was softer than any hand he had ever touched before—small wrists, too. She made him feel tickly.

  The double-layered veranda ran the length of the house with a pretty, white swing by the big front door. However, they sat on benches with fancy cushions.

  From that spot, Joe had a grand view of the plantation. The fields stretched out far in every direction until they stopped at a line of woods. It was like a huge canyon or maybe a lake without water. The road, running east to west, cut the plantation in half. Little field roads crossed it here and there, like streets cross a pike. She owned all of this—just one woman.

  A girl came upon the veranda and began slowly fanning Mrs. Donner with a big leaf. Joe saw she was an expert.

  “How long have you lived here?” Joe asked.

  “My husband began burning and clearing five years ago. As you saw, the house is still not finished. We are still breaking new ground every year.”

  How much more land could a woman need? He reckoned there were a thousand acres farmed now.

  “Oh, it will be a grand plantation,” she said. She smiled and held her hand across her breast. She appeared to be dreaming or thinking of something far away. “I shall require more servants, for I plan to plant more and more cotton.”

  “Can the Mississippi flood all of this?” Joe asked.

  “My husband was an engineer, and he put the plantation on a rise. When the Yankees cut the levee on this side of the river down below, we only got a little water to the south.”

  Joe knew about the cut levee. It seemed Grant was going to try to get to Vicksburg by going through Moon Lake and eventually up the Yazoo. That way he wouldn’t have to run the Mississippi River past the big guns at Vicksburg, but it didn’t work. In the end, it didn’t matter—he captured the town anyhow.

  Another little girl came running from beside the house and stopped at the dooryard in front of the veranda. “Missus—Missus, some mo eggs done hatched and us got some mo babies!”

  A grown Negro woman caught up to the little girl and grabbed her by the arm. “Child, I done told you, don’t bother the missus.” She curtseyed to Mrs. Donner. “Missus, I’s sorry about May bothering you and the young marster, but she get so excited when them new babies comes. She juss plain don’t know no better.”

  “Indeed, Ann, you must teach the young one to respect white people.”

  “Yessum, you sho right. Please forgive me.”

  Joe watched the hard frown melt away from Mrs. Donner.

  “We shall let it pass this time. There is something to be said for a person taking so much pride in a new job.”

  “Thank you, Missus,” Ann said. “Lawd, bless you.”

  Mrs. Donner stood. “Come Joe, let us go observe May’s new babies.”

  As they descended the sprawling steps, Mrs. Donner took little May’s hand. Joe noticed the contrast, one hand creamy-white and the other dark brown.

  They rounded the big house and passed the kitchen house. Through the window, Joe saw Peter’s back; he was sitting at a table eating.

  Two young men walked by, and they bowed to Mrs. Donner as if she were royalty.

  May tugged Mrs. Donner’s hand and led her impatiently to a huge barn. There were two fine horses in big stalls. They appeared to be worth a lot of money because they were sleek and shiny—nothing like any horses Joe had ever seen.

  May let go of Mrs. Donner’s hand and ran inside to the back of the barn. “Come see, Missus!”

  A big coop of some sort was attached to the back wall, about chest level, two feet tall, and around twelve feet long, divided into four sections—full of pigeons.

  May stood on a crate in the far corner peering into the cage.

  Ann opened the door, and a pigeon chopped at her three or four times with its wing. Ann gently nudged the angry hen from her nest, revealing two yellow, feather balls. They were ugly, with long beaks, too big for their heads.

  “Oh, how precious,” Mrs. Donner said, patting them with a finger.

  “Yessum,” May said, “and I’s gonna train them real good.” She looked up at Ann. “I means, me and Mammy is gonna train them.”

  Joe examined the coop. It had a one-foot square door cut in the wall of the barn. Little wooden pegs, spaced about an inch apart, hung from the top of the opening.

  Joe pointed to it. “Is that a door or window?”

  “Tell him about the door, Ann,” Mrs. Donner said.

  “Yessum. Them little sticks hanging swings in, but they don’t swings back out. The pigeons can come in, but they can’t get theyself back out.”

  “They’re homing pigeons.” Joe said.

  “Yessuh, they is.”

  May screamed.

  Joe whirled around. May was looking in a barrel next to the wall.

  Mrs. Donner put her hand over her breasts and gasped.

  Ann grabbed May’s shoulder. “I done told you and told you not to scream when you see one of them rats in the feed barrel.” She turned to Mrs. Donner. “I sho is sorry for the child scaring you.”

  Joe looked in the barrel. It contained corn, wheat, and some other grains. The barrel was almost empty, and the rat couldn’t climb or jump out. He squealed and leaped, but he couldn’t reach the top.

  “I’s sorry, Missus,” Ann said. “Them ole rats always finds a way to get in the pigeon feed barrel.”

  “You must keep the lid secured, Ann,” Mrs. Donner said.

  Ann grabbed a stick from behind the barrel. Joe reasoned it was the “rat stick.” She began whopping at the rat. The rat squealed and tried to leap to the top of the barrel.

  “Oh, Ann, you shall get blood on the grain, and I can’t bear that dreadful squealing,” Mrs. Donner said.

  “Let me get that ole rat,” Joe said.

  He took the stick. It was around three-feet long, a small fork on one end. Joe looked in the barrel, waited until the rat settled down, aimed the stick as he had done with his fishing spear, and stabbed the stick at the rat. The fork caught the vermin behind the head; the rat scratched and pawed, but he was pinned. Joe eased his hand in, grabbed the rat behind the head with one hand, and stretched the tail with the other. He brought the rat out, and it appeared even bigger when it cleared the barrel.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Mrs. Donner declared, putting both hands over her mouth.

  “Ann, I need your help,” Joe said, as he walked from the barn. Joe stretched the rat out on the ground, careful not to let go with either hand. “Take the tomahawk from my belt,” he nodded toward the hatchet. “Now, just ease it in front of my fingers and put weight on it.”

  As the wedge slowly came down on the rat, it squealed. Ann quickly applied more weigh and cut the rat’s head off.

  When Joe and Ann reentered the barn, Mrs. Donner and May were waiting. “How dreadful,” Mrs. Donner said.

  Joe looked closely at the pigeons. “Do they really come home?”

  Mrs. Donner bent down eye-level with May
. “Go tell Cluck that we shall let one pigeon go for the young master.” May darted from the barn.

  Ann pulled a big blue pigeon from the coop. The rat was soon forgotten. To Joe’s surprise, the bird didn’t resist. Six-inch ribbons were tied to nails on the barn wall: red, blue, black, and white. Ann tied a white one to the pigeon’s leg and placed him in a covered straw basket.

  Joe started to ask, “What is the rib—”

  Cluck entered the barn followed by Peter. “Missus Donner, Ole Cluck don’t think it bees a good idea to let the bird go.” He took the basket from Ann.

  “We have tied the white ribbon, Cluck,” Mrs. Donner said.

  “That don’t make no never mind.”

  Joe had never heard a slave talk to his owner in such a manner.

  Mrs. Donner slowly walked over to Cluck and held her hand out.

  “Missus, you say you ain’t gonna interfere with Ole Cluck.”

  “We have tied the white ribbon,” she said evenly. “Now hand me the basket. The young master wishes to see the pigeon fly.”

  Cluck turned on his heels and headed for the door. “Oh, I takes it myself.”

  “Cluck,” Mrs. Donner said softly.

  Cluck turned and looked at Mrs. Donner for a long minute, then he turned to Joe. “If the young marster want to see the pigeon fly, Ole Cluck bees glad to oblige.” With that, he disappeared from the barn and yelled to someone. “Put those mules to that wagon. We’s going down the road a piece to let this here bird fly.”

  ***

  Joe and Peter watched the wagon disappear into the woods about a mile away.

  Mrs. Donner sat on the porch in the swing, her hands in her lap. She sure was a handsome woman. If Joe was old enough, he would marry her for sure. However, he was only twelve, and she must be at least twenty-five. Joe stared at her. Her dress bellowed around her like a queen, and her smile melted him.

  “Look, Joseph, here it comes!” Peter said, pointing to the sky.

  Joe searched and there it was, coming like a bullet. It circled the house three times. Joe could plainly see the white ribbon fluttering under and behind the pigeon.

  “Come on!” Joe said, as he ran for the barn. When they dashed inside, May was already standing at the coop on her crate. They ran to the coop and frightened the pigeons—they shuffled and scurried around inside the coop.