And If I Die

by John Aubrey Anderson

  It was the best news Mose ever heard, but he wasn’t ready to smile yet. “I’m obliged to you, boss.”

  “It was a hard thing you did.”

  “Yessuh,” the boy agreed. “It wasn’t what I wanted.”

  Parker nodded. “I know.”

  Preacher heard something in the boy’s words Parker missed. The old man touched Mose’s shoulder and said, “I don’t understand.”

  “I was gonna try to knock his knife loose ’cause I reckon I couldn’t bring myself to kill a man over a dog.” He touched his best friend and sighed. “Not even Lady.”

  Preacher nodded. “But you changed your mind.”

  “Yessuh.” Mose held on to the dog with a trembling hand and looked at the ground, stirring grass blades with his toes. “When he was holdin’ Lady in the dirt an’ laughin’, that man looked at M’Virginia an’ said, ‘I got somethin’ special waitin’ for you.’ ” The little black boy’s eyes brimmed over with tears when he looked up at Parker. “I tol’ you at the gin we was in a battle, but you said you was too busy to fight. You tol’ me if I got the chance, to throw in a good lick for you. When that man said them words, I know’d that’s what I had to do.”

  Parker opened his mouth, but no words came out. After a long moment, he took his hat off and stood without moving, unable to take his eyes off Mose. When his first tear came, he wiped his cheek and knelt in front of the boy.

  It was a struggle, but the man managed to croak, “I appreciate that, Mose.” He wanted to say more, but the words were trapped behind his emotions. Finally, he shook his head, stood up, and walked back to the big house.

  Pap put his arm on Mose’s shoulders and started for home with their mule and the dog. When they got to the middle of the Cat Lake bridge, Pap stopped.

  He looked down at his boy and said, “You done a good thing, Mose.”

  “Yessuh.”

  “Mr. R. D. just told me his wife’s gonna have a baby. I figure you saved ’em both.”

  Mose nodded. “Yessuh.”

  “I hate to tell you this, boy, but you need to go see yo’ momma for a while.”

  “My momma? How come?”

  “Boy, the good Lord knows you done a needed thing when you hit that white man in the head, but them sorry Pommers won’t see it that way. Folks might remember that you were in that set-to at the gin today, an’ they might get to blabbin’ about it. We need to give ’em time to forget.”

  Mose couldn’t remember a time when he talked back to the man. “I ain’t wantin’ to go, Pap.”

  Preacher knelt in the dust on the bridge and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “The good Lord knows I don’t want it either, son, but we ain’t got a choice. Me an’ you will pray every day for God to bring you back home soon, but in the mornin’ we gonna be on that southbound Yellow Dog.”

  “How long you reckon I’ll be gone?”

  “The Lord’ll decide that, boy.”

  Mose dropped to his knees by the man. “Lord, Jesus, I’m obliged to You for protectin’ me an’ them other folks today. I ain’t wantin’ to be away from Pap, Lord, but if I got to be gone, I ask that You’d keep me mindful of You. If You’d see fit, I’d ’preciate it if You’d bring me home right soon. Amen.”

  Pap said, “Amen.”

  True to the man’s word, Preacher and his boy were on the train to south Mississippi the next morning. Lady traveled in the baggage car.

  They rode for two hours through the Delta, stopping at every little town they came to. When they got to Yazoo City the train started up the first hill. They changed trains in Jackson, and five hours later they were standing on the station platform in Purvis, Mississippi.

  The boy stood still and held on to his dog while Pap talked to his momma. The sky was a deep blue, but it was hard to see because there were so many trees.

  When Pap’s train was ready to leave, he knelt by the boy and said, “I’ll be prayin’ for you.”

  “Yes, sir. Me, too.”

  “I want you to be brave.”

  “I will, Pap.”

  They say Ced Pommer turned up missing sometime during the fall of ’07.

  Nobody cared.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Purvis, Mississippi . . . mid-April . . . 1908.

  Still, hot air surrounded a desperate struggle.

  Three white boys were piled on top of a black one—all three trying to cuss, beat, and kick him at the same time; so far, the cussing was the only thing they were managing to do effectively. A young white girl stood at the edge of the conflict, her eyes squeezed shut, her head bowed over tightly clasped hands. Grunts and harsh words coming from the tumbling boys conspired with thick dust in the street to muffle the sounds of an approaching horse.

  The white boys were on the verge of getting their attack organized when the air above the miniature battle was rent by a harsh Sweesh! punctuated by a sharp Whap!—the sounds of fast-moving leather meeting denim-covered flesh. The biggest white boy squealed and abandoned the fight; his two cronies rolled over to see what had happened to their leader and came to rest squinting up at the sole of a man’s riding boot.

  “Would someone care to tell me what’s going on here?” The answer to the girl’s prayer was a slender man riding a bay mare. He sat straight in the saddle, his right fist resting on his leg— on the hottest day they’d seen, he was wearing a starched, collarless shirt, buttoned at the neck.

  The white boys got to their feet and became interested in their bare toes. All three boys wore their hair long; the biggest boy’s hung over his eyes.

  When no one answered him, the rider rested his quirt on the tallest boy’s shoulder and drawled, “Would you be the oldest?”

  Every facet of the man, from his steel-rimmed spectacles to the pistol on his belt, spoke of severity. The stout thirteen-year-old pushed back his hair and eyed his companions first, then peered over his shoulder as if wishing for someone to rescue him from any coming wrath. The quick search informed him he was on his own. He rubbed the material on the seat of his overalls up and down while he answered, “Yes, sir, I reckon.”

  Cold gray eyes appraised the boy; the impatient quirt began to tap the side of the rider’s boot. “Then answer my question.”

  The boy moved back in an effort to distance himself from the whip’s reach and jerked his head at the black youngster. “We was just teachin’ this here nigger some manners, Mr. Gilmer.”

  The colored boy had rolled over and made it to a kneeling position before stopping to catch his breath. He looked to be four or five years younger than his adversaries.

  “Mm-hmm.” Gilmer let the whip dangle from its wrist strap and stepped off the horse to watch the black child get to his feet. A trickle of blood came from the small boy’s nose and he had a cut under his left eye, but he had given as good as he got.

  “How about that, boy?” The man didn’t smile. “Are you in need of a lesson in manners from three fine gentlemen who outweigh you by thirty pounds apiece?”

  The black boy was eight years old and hadn’t spent much time around white folks. This white man had a face like a hawk—quick and hard—but his words sounded fair. He recovered enough of his breath to straighten. “I don’t reckon, boss, an’ I’m obliged to you for steppin’ in.”

  Gilmer nodded. “What’s your name?”

  “Moses Lincoln Washington, boss. Folks calls me Mose.”

  “Well, Mose, if you don’t need a lesson in manners, who might?”

  If he told the truth, the white boys would catch him when the white man wasn’t around and exact their revenge, but his great-granddaddy told him a million times, It’s no matter if he’s black or white, boy—if a man ain’t got honor, he ain’t got nothin’. He took another deep breath and nodded toward the surly white boys. “Them three was sayin’ unseemly things an’ pluckin’ at that lady’s dress.”

  Harley Crawford forgot about the hot spot on his backside and yelled, “He’s a bald-face liar!” The other white boys chimed in on
the chorus and started shouting accusations against Mose.

  Jacob Gilmer held up his arm and Mose noticed for the first time that the man’s cuff was sewn together at the wrist. The white man was missing his left hand, but none of his sway; at his signal, the mouths of the three white boys clamped shut.

  The man turned to the girl and spoke too crisply. “Well, miss.”

  The frightened girl flinched at his words. Her hands were intertwined tightly at her chest, her head bowed. Her thin cotton dress was faded but clean; the hem trembled in time with her shoulders. She looked to be eleven or twelve.

  “Yes, sir?” As she spoke, she moved one foot back slowly and let her knees bend in a small curtsy—a simple gesture steeped in natural charm.

  The girl’s ladylike deference startled the man and opened the gates of his memory to thoughts of yesteryears— of gracious ladies in sweeping gowns, attended by men who valued honor above life. His cheeks turned a deep pink, and he reached up and removed his hat. “It appears that I have forgotten myself. Speaking harsh words to a lady is too close to being a sin, ma’am, and I apologize. If you would be kind enough to forgive me, I would be long in your debt.”

  The earnest quality of his words and the change in tone attracted the girl’s gaze to the man’s face. A full mustache, dark red sprinkled with white, accentuated a naturally stern expression, but the gray eyes had softened. He stood relaxed, holding the white Panama hat under his shortened arm, waiting patiently for her response. Her whispered words were as grace-filled as her curtsy. “I forgive you.”

  “Then I am, as I said, in your debt.” All four boys stared as the man saluted her with a shallow bow. “Would it suit you to tell me what happened here?”

  Her eyes went from the man to the three boys. Harley Crawford had started in on her at recess that day—and he had the worst reputation of any boy in town. The other two, Roscoe Weems and Dee Henry, weren’t too bad when they weren’t with Crawford. “I don’t want to get in any trouble.”

  Gilmer’s eyes followed hers to the boys. “I can assure you, ma’am, there will be no trouble. Ever.” His last word sounded like the prelude to a death sentence.

  The girl’s thin chest rose and fell. “It was like that colored boy said—they were waitin’ here in the street when I was comin’ home from school. I tried to run, but they caught me an’ started in to . . . uh . . . pester me.”

  Gilmer shifted so that he was facing the three white boys. “Pester you?”

  Dee Henry, the smallest of the three white boys, paled and his lower lip began to tremble.

  “Yes, sir.” A slender finger escaped the twisted hands at her chest and pointed at Mose. “That one came along an’ told ’em to stop, an’ when they didn’t, he picked up a stick”—the finger moved to point at Crawford—“an’ jumped on that one.”

  The Crawford boy stepped close and sneered, “Why, she ain’t nuthin’ but trash. An’ besides that, she—”

  In his haste to defend himself, the boy forgot what he should’ve remembered about Mr. Gilmer. Harley Crawford was on his back in the dust before his senses told him that the back of the man’s hand had put him there.

  In the fall of 1863, Jacob Gilmer was serving in the Army of the Confederacy—a thin, bookish-looking, nineteen-year-old lieutenant in Walthall’s Mississippians. At the Battle of Chickamauga, during a bitter fight near Reed’s Bridge Road, a Yankee minnie ball cut a wicked groove across his palm. Compared to the carnage around him, the wound was insignificant. The lieutenant tied his scarf around his hand and carried on, but the wound continued to bleed. An hour later another bullet cut his scalp. In due course, exhaustion and blood loss took his consciousness, and a drunk surgeon took his hand. When he returned home after the war, the citizens of Purvis found that—along with the hand he left in Georgia—the austere young officer had buried any disposition to suffer fools.

  Gilmer stepped close to the boy in the dirt, planted a polished boot in the center of his chest, and leaned over him. “Be good enough to tell me your name, sir.”

  “Harley Crawford, sir.”

  “And you are how old?”

  Tears cut the dust at the corners of Crawford’s eyes. “Near fourteen, Mr. Gilmer.”

  “And, decidedly, too old for nonsense of this sort.” He stepped back. “On your feet.”

  Crawford wiped his hand across his cheek and looked to see if his fingers had blood on them. The blow apparently dazed him because his next words found no root in reason or wisdom. “My momma don’t take to other folks layin’ their hands on me.”

  When Crawford’s companions heard their leader’s words, the pair backed to the edge of the street and tried to stand stock-still; they were certain that Gilmer would be dealing out retribution and were praying earnestly that he might somehow overlook them. In spite of Dee Henry’s intense desire to secrete himself against the landscape of houses and trees, his body was shaking and his teeth were beginning to chatter.

  Gilmer was distracted by a sound and looked over his shoulder. The black boy was walking to the opposite edge of the street. He picked up a cloth-wrapped packet and dusted it off.

  “Is that yours, boy?”

  “It’s my Bible, boss.”

  “Your Bible?” Crawford was momentarily forgotten. “Why do you have it with you?”

  “My Pap, boss—my great-granddaddy—he gave it to me when I was just a tad.”

  “And why do you have it with you now?”

  “I take it back and forth to school with me, boss, so I can read in it. I laid it there when I was called to step up for the lady.”

  “You can read?”

  “Yessuh, boss. My Pap says I talk too much like the field hands. Pap says the Book’ll teach me how to talk—an’ how to walk.”

  More thoughts—memories of words long forgotten— came to the man. He stared at the Book—remembering and thinking—then murmured, “My own great-grandfather told me much the same thing.” When he faced Crawford again, he sounded distracted. “Tell your father I will be stoppin’ by this evenin’ to visit with him about what happened here.”

  Crawford was getting his senses back. He said, “Yessuh, I’ll tell ’im.”

  “And Crawford”—Gilmer rested his hand on the boy’s shoulder and spoke almost as gently as he had to the girl—“tell him, when he says his prayers tonight, to thank a gracious God that I chose not to hang you, because you came near.”

  The words emptied Crawford’s lungs and his vision blurred.

  A gentle man by nature, the former lieutenant was willing to be harsh when confronting those who would commit flagrant evil—in the years since the war, Jacob Gilmer had killed four men; two were shot to death, two hung. The number of dead might’ve been greater were it not for the fact that bad folks made sure to give the soft-spoken man a wide berth.

  The man looked at Mose. “What would you say the Bible says about your actions today?”

  Mose was on solid ground. “It says real clear that men got the job of standin’ up for them that can’t stand up for themselves.”

  “Excellent commentary.” Gilmer turned to the young lady. “May I ask, ma’am, if you have any brothers at home?”

  “No, sir.” The girl shook her head. “It’s just me an’ Momma.”

  Gilmer almost smiled. “Then it would seem that providence has favored you. You now have three faithful champions—bodyguards, if you will—at your service. These young gentlemen”—waving his quirt at the white boys—“will see to it that any man who crosses your path grants to you the honor that befits a lady.”

  The three boys looked at the man, the girl, and each other. The girl stared at the man.

  Weems raised a tentative hand. “Uh, Mr. Gilmer? Body-guards?”

  “Precisely. You three have earned the right to protect this lady. In so doing, it is conceivable that you will learn—as has this colored gentleman—to embrace the privilege God granted to men in the Garden. If you give your life defending this lady, or any oth
er worthy soul, you will have died a noble death. Should God allow you to live out your natural lives, your reward at the end of the day will be the assurance that you lived as true men. In the meantime, until this young lady chooses her husband, you will gain a reputation as the men who stand between her and any casual or indecent act or word by man or boy.”

  It took the last reserves of Dee Henry’s strength to hold his hand up. “What if he’s bigger’n us?” he whispered.

  Gilmer looked at Harley Crawford. “Would you care to answer that?”

  “Yes, sir.” The thirteen-year-old had what it took to be a good man, and he had matured appreciably in the few moments since he heard the reference to a hanging. He met the man’s eyes and said, “It means we do whatever it takes to get the coon.”

  “Well said.” Gilmer nodded. “But mark this . . . you are not ruffians, and you are not a gang. You are gentlemen. You shall resort to violence only on those occasions when diplomacy fails to turn distress from the lady’s path. If it takes more than one of you to do the job, then you join forces. Do you understand?”

  Dee Henry wasn’t sure. All three boys nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”

  The stakes were high, and it was important to Crawford that he begin his new job well. He tried to look at the girl, but his eyes dropped. He chewed on his lip before asking, “What do we do first, Mr. Gilmer?”

  Gilmer looked deliberately at Mose, then back at Crawford. “Were I you, I would find a man who values honor above his own well-being, and I would seek his counsel.”

  Crawford studied the black boy. “Yes, sir.”

  “That should do it, then.” Gilmer settled the Panama in place and swung his leg over the mare’s saddle. The horse backed a step and Gilmer touched his hat brim. “By your leave, ma’am.” The gentleman reined the horse around and touched her with his heels.

  The three white boys were looking at Mose. The girl was looking at the horseman. Mose found his stick and moved to stand between the boys and the girl.