Chase The Wild Pigeons

by John J. Gschwend

  “Oh, the young marster ain’t pose to scare the pigeons,” May said.

  Joe heard a fluttering outside, then the blue pigeon poked his head through the pegs, stood there for a minute, then pushed the pegs forward and dropped into the coop.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Peter said.

  Ann came into the barn and took the ribbon from the pigeon’s leg. “Would the young marster like this here ribbon?”

  “Thank you, Ann.” Joe looked at the pigeon. “Ain’t that something?” He crammed the ribbon in his pocket. “Ain’t that something, Peter?”

  Chapter 8

  The rooster woke Peter before daylight. Soon after, a bell rang six or seven times—he remembered the bell in front of the big house. He sat up and brushed hay from his hair; he had elected to sleep in the barn, didn’t want to intrude on the servants. Joe had better accommodations; he slept in the big house.

  Peter heard voices, so he climbed down from the loft, had stood all of that comfort he could stand for one night. He went outside into an already warm morning, stretched. The eastern sky was beginning to glow pink as a distant owl hooted its farewell to the night, and chickens purred and clucked in the henhouse.

  The slave quarters were already lit, and fires had been kindled, no doubt for breakfast. There were no lights in the big house, yet.

  Trace chains jingled, and cowbells softly tinkled. The morning was alive, but soft as stockings on a wood floor.

  A few feet away someone was gathering eggs. Evidently, they had been there for a time, and he hadn’t noticed.

  “Did you sleep in that ole barn?” asked a sweet voice.

  Peter remembered the voice: Lou.

  “I rested fine; thank you for asking.”

  She came closer, hugging the basket, her hair tied in a red cloth. He could barely see her pretty face in the soft dawning light, but he remembered it well.

  “You sho do use fancy talk for a darky,” she said.

  “It’s just the way I was raised.”

  “I hear you is free.” She looked down at the basket, and then cut her eyes up to him.

  “Yes, I am.” He wanted to say something clever, couldn’t think of anything.

  “You come from Helena, too, I hear.”

  Peter nodded like a dumb animal. The right words eluded him.

  “I hear they is a lot of darkies there what done run off from they marsters.”

  “I’ve been to the camps where they are gathered.”

  A pig squealed at the slave quarters. Peter turned to the sound, but it was still too dark to see; he turned back.

  “You reckon them Yankees will ever come free us?”

  Peter started to answer, but Cluck came out of nowhere before he found the first word. “Lou, you get them eggs over to Bessie and be quick! The white folk gonna be wanting they breakfast when they wakes up.”

  Lou scurried away with her head down without saying another word.

  Cluck walked up close to Peter. “I know you is a free nigger and all that there, but you has to be careful what you says here.”

  “I didn’t say anything out of the way.”

  “You don’t say nothing about Helena and them Yankees. You don’t say nothing about escaping. You don’t say nothing about free niggers. Does you understand me?” He looked toward the big house. “Things is just like the missus want them to be, and if she happy, us niggers is right happy, too. I’s seen times when it was bad; I don’t want to see them no mo.”

  Peter wanted to say he meant no harm, but Cluck left before he could say anything. If there was a doubt about Cluck being in charge, it was gone now.

  It grew lighter, and Peter watched more people spill out of the log cabins. Some loaded things into the wagons; others herded children to the biggest cabin—probably to be looked after by a woman too old to go to the fields. Soon all able hands would be working: hoeing, chopping, cutting timber, and all of the other hard work it took to keep a big plantation going.

  What must it be like to be a slave? No freedoms. No freedom forever. Peter tried to think about it, but it was too big to understand. How could any free man know slavery? Peter was black, sure, but he belonged to no man. You could witness a slave toil and sweat; you could see him laugh and cry. You could observe the flesh of the being, but you could never see his soul—never know his heart. When slavery ends—and some day it will end, Peter prayed—the heart of the slave will be lost. Historians will never really know the soul of a person in bondage. Generations will pass, and with it, understanding will fade like paint in the sun. Peter thought on this. He looked at his hands—free hands. He was deprived sometimes, indeed, and he endured being black in a white man’s world, but he was not in bondage. The Almighty had saved him from the wickedness of that horrible institution. “Thank you, Jesus.”

  “Put those mules to that wagon,” Cluck called out in the distance. “You boys load up. It gonna be a long day.”

  Peter studied his hands again. He felt guilty being among these people. He had done nothing wrong. He owned no slaves, and he belittled no one, but he was a Negro, and he had not suffered slavery. He put his hands in his pockets. Maybe he could help somewhere until Joe awoke, show his worth to the rest of the blacks. He had helped in the kitchen all his life. He would go there.

  ***

  Joe strolled out onto the veranda, his belly full of eggs and ham. That Mrs. Donner sure did have a good cook. The sun was already above the distant tree line, like a red ball. He saw a couple of wagons way across the field next to the woods, and he faintly heard the whacking of an ax. A cart, pulled by an ox, stirred up dust as it headed across the field. Chickens and ducks pecked around the dooryard, and a little piccaninny rushed in front of the steps chasing a goose with a stick. It looked like fun and made Joe want to chase after the goose.

  This was, indeed, a fine plantation. It would be nice to live on such a place. Joe thought on it a minute—he changed his mind. The Shenandoah Valley beat it hands down. Besides, it took too many slaves to run this place, and everybody knows how much trouble they can be.

  And speaking of trouble, where was Peter. They needed to make plans. Joe remembered seeing him in the kitchen house yesterday. Might as well look there first.

  ***

  Peter was helping a big Negro woman knead dough when Joe entered the kitchen. The place smelled good, like a pan of bread. There was something bubbling in a kettle. Darkies always had something cooking in a pot.

  “Smells mighty fine, Aunt,” Joe said.

  “Thank you, Young Marster.” Bessie dipped in with a big wooden spoon. “Would Marster likes a taste?”

  He was full, but what would one little taste hurt? It was beans, and as he suspected, it was capital. After he thanked the cook, he and Peter went outside.

  “We’re fixing to have to leave, I reckon,” Joe said.

  “Bessie there has already packed us some food,” Peter said.

  Joe had not thought about food. He was too full to think about it. He reckoned he wouldn’t have thought about it until his belly started growling. Bringing Peter along was starting to pay off already.

  “I reckon we need to get our bags, and I want to thank Mrs. Donner for her hospitality,” Joe said.

  Joe was going out the door when he heard shouting.

  “Bird! Bird!”

  Joe spotted a boy perched in some type of crow’s nest atop the barn. He hadn’t noticed it before. The boy scrambled down the ladder and ran around the barn. Ann and May ran to the front yard and looked to the sky where two pigeons circled.

  “Red ribbon, Missus, red ribbon!” Ann shouted.

  Joe and Peter hurried to the front yard and found Mrs. Donner standing on the veranda watching the circling pigeons.

  The birds circled several times, then one lit on the barn while the other went to the coop. Soon the one on the barn followed the other to the coop.

  “Double bell, Ann,” Mrs. Donner said.

  “Yessum.” Ann went to the large bell by
the veranda and pulled on the rope, making the bell ring twice. After a long pause, she rang it twice more, and repeated the process several times.

  Cluck galloped up on a gray horse. “Ours, Missus?”

  “Yes, Confederate,” she said.

  Some of the slaves ran in from the fields. Yet, others continued working.

  “Hide the good horses!” Cluck yelled, as he walked toward the barn. “Take the bestest hams from the smokehouse. Take them good mules to the woods.” Cluck was just going through the motions. Joe saw his orders were already being carried out automatically.

  “They have a system,” Peter said to Joe.

  “That is correct, Peter,” Mrs. Donner said, walking down from the veranda. “A red ribbon tied to a pigeon means our boys, a blue one, Yankees, and black, just strangers.”

  “White means no alarm,” Joe said.

  “Very good, Joe,” she said. “You are very observant.”

  “But why are you hiding your property from our soldiers?” Joe asked.

  “I only hide the fat.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “If our boys see that we are doing well, they will take things. They will take meat from the smokehouse. They are always after horses and mules.”

  Some of the slaves were hauling items to the woods behind the house. There were even boys with big brooms sweeping the barnyard, hiding tracks. Eight milk cows were being led away—that left four. Mules and horses were taken from the barn and fields, but the sorry-looking ones were left along with the oxen. Joe saw the smarts in the plan.

  Mrs. Donner addressed the boys, “Now you two don’t let on about any of this.”

  This was too good. Joe wasn’t going to say a word. What a plan. Not only was this lady pretty—she was smart.

  In minutes, the plan was fully executed, with little evidence to tell the real story, just a slave grooming an old nag by the barn, four or five chickens, and a few ducks still pecked in the yard. The smokehouse door was shut tight. The little boy was chasing the goose with the stick again, and slaves were still working all around the plantation in wide-open view. The plan was perfect.

  “Here they come, Missus,” Cluck said. Then he led the horse to the barn.

  Joe had heard the rumbling before, and he had seen the smoky dust cloud. No one had to tell him that they were coming.

  “Maybe we should hide,” Peter said.

  “From Confederates?” Joe said. “I ain’t hiding from nobody, and I sure ain’t hiding from our own.”

  The front of the column stopped at the gate. The troops soon found the watering troughs. When the dust settled, Joe saw they were a ragged bunch. Some wore gray, some butternut, some even blue, but most were a mix. “Bushwhackers,” Joe whispered.

  It was hard to tell rank, but the first one to the gate was a captain. He was tall with long black hair and a droopy mustache. He stopped at the gate, took his gloves off, and handed them to a soldier behind him.

  “Put these in my left saddlebag.” He swaggered to the veranda. “How do, Ma’am.” He pulled his hat off, revealing hair molded the shape of the hat.

  “I am well, Colonel,” Mrs. Donner said with a teasing smile.

  The man looked back toward his troops, then back to Mrs. Donner. “I’m a captain—Captain Rowland.”

  “I’ve never seen you before, Captain. I know most of the officers from this area.”

  “We’ve come up from the south. Come to give General Chalmers a hand.” He pulled at his mustache and studied Mrs. Donner. “Not much going on down in our neck of the woods, so we come here.”

  “I see. So what can I do for you, Captain?”

  “I need to speak with the head of this here plantation.”

  “I am the owner—Mrs. Hampton Donner. I am a widow.”

  The captain looked back at his men again, then back to Mrs. Donner.

  The soldiers tied their horses and began spreading out around the place. Some headed to the barn and others started for the slave quarters. One grabbed the goose and slung it under his arm. The bird raised a ruckus.

  “Captain, please ask your men not to disturb my property.”

  “I’m afraid we will have to take some of your horses and mules,” the captain said.

  “Certainly that soldier can’t ride the goose,” she said, smiling.

  The captain grinned and turned to the soldier. “Put the goose down, Phillips.”

  “But, Captain,” the soldier said.

  “Put the goose down, now!”

  The goose hit the ground honking and running with his wings fanned, and the little boy with the stick in its wake. The soldiers laughed. Mrs. Donner laughed, too. Joe didn’t.

  “Now, Captain, please ask your men not to disturb my property until we have discussed the matter,” she said, still smiling.

  She was being too friendly to these bushwhackers. She should demand they leave, Joe thought.

  “Ma’am, there ain’t nothing to discuss,” the captain said. “The top and bottom of it is this: we have to have those animals.”

  “Please, Captain, just step inside my home—we can talk...in private.”

  “Mrs. Donner, don’t you bargain with that bushwhacker,” Joe said. Joe had enough of this. The Confederates were supposed to protect the women of the South, not steal from them.

  “Now Joe, you watch your tongue,” Mrs. Donner said. “These fine soldiers are here to protect us.” She smiled sweetly at the captain. “Please excuse the young boy. He is just passing through and doesn’t know our ways. Now please step inside.” She turned and went in before he could refuse.

  The captain turned to his troops. “Sergeant, y’all just hold up here in the front yard while I discuss things with the lady.”

  A fat gray-haired man still on his horse said, “Sure Captain, discuss all you like.” He laughed and the other soldiers laughed with him.

  Joe shot up the steps. Peter tried to stop him, but he pulled free. He had to talk sense to Mrs. Donner.

  The captain grabbed him by the shirt. “The little boy with the big mouth. What you doing with that Yankee cap on?”

  “I would not let it concern you.”

  He slapped Joe, knocking his kepi off.

  Peter ran for the steps, but two soldiers pulled their revolvers.

  “Captain!” the sergeant yelled. “He’s just a boy.”

  “Shut up, Sergeant!” The captain grabbed Joe by the collar and lifted him up until only the toes of his shoes touched the porch. “Boy, I’m going in here to see about this woman, and if you step through that door, I’ll kill you.” He shoved Joe off the veranda. He hit the ground hard. The captain shut the door behind him.

  Peter helped Joe to his feet. Joe’s top lip was bleeding. Peter picked Joe’s kepi from the ground and placed it back on Joe’s head.

  The sergeant climbed down from his horse. “Are you all right, boy? You didn’t fall on that ax, did you?”

  Joe felt his bottom lip quiver as Peter dusted the dirt from his clothes.

  “That damn arrogant captain, some day he will get what’s coming to him,” the sergeant said. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at Joe’s lip.

  Joe pulled free from Peter and the sergeant. He wiped his lip on his shirtsleeve and smeared at his moist eyes with his fingertips. That captain would get his coming-ups sure enough and right now. Joe headed to the barn. Peter followed.

  “Where are you going?” Peter asked.

  Joe paid him no mind and went to the barn. He jerked the lid from the pigeon feed barrel, looked inside. Across the barn were four more barrels. He noticed the pigeon coop—all of the pigeons were gone. The blacks had hid everything, smart, very smart. Joe snatched a lid from another barrel—it was full of corn, another one half-full. The last barrel was a quarter full of some kind of beans. It also had what Joe was looking for: two fat rats.

  Joe grabbed up the forked stick, jabbed at one of the rats. He missed; the rat shot up the stick and onto Joe’s arm. He yelped a
nd flung the rat. Joe looked at Peter. Peter grinned. Joe took better aim at the second rat. With a quick thrust, he caught the rat behind the head.

  He marched to the front yard with the rat stretched out in front of him. The soldiers were puzzled, but said nothing. Joe took the rat to the captain’s horse. Peter stopped beside the veranda. Joe tried to lift the flap of the left saddlebag with his teeth. Suddenly the flap flew up. Joe turned to see the sergeant. He smiled at Joe, but said nothing. Joe carefully dropped the rat inside, and the sergeant dropped the flap. The soldiers laughed, but not one tried to stop him.

  Peter handed Joe his carpetbag. Joe looked back toward the big house. The door was still shut, and the house servants were all standing on the veranda. Mrs. Donner was not such a nice lady after all.

  “I think we should leave before the captain comes out,” Peter said.

  Joe looked around at the slaves in the fields. He looked again at the house servants stationed on the veranda. Everyone was at their post. They were doing their duty, playing their part, including Mrs. Donner. It was a great deception—so was Mrs. Donner. Now that Joe thought on it, she wasn’t so pretty after all. “Yeah, Peter, we best go.” Joe knew they didn’t have a part to play at the Donner Plantation.

  ***

  They had walked for miles, and Peter’s feet were sore. The country was different from the land around Helena and Western Mississippi, no giant oaks here, no grand plantations, just small farms, red earth, not black as it was closer to the Mississippi River. Peter liked the look of the area, and he reckoned Joe did, too, since he had been playing his harmonica for hours, happy as a lark.

  “Shenandoah is a pretty song,” Peter said.

  Joe nodded.

  “Do you know the words?”

  “Naw, just learned the song when Mr. Von from the Valley gave me the Hohner. He was a sailor, and he learned to play it while on ship. He may have known the words, but he just taught me to play it.”

  Joe went ahead of Peter and started playing again. He had to be in the lead. If it made him happy, it was fine by Peter, better to keep an eye on him.

  Peter looked back over his shoulder. The sun had set, and the western sky was just an orange smear. Peter had hoped they would make it to the town of Sardis before night, but he now saw that wasn’t possible.