American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  Foller da drinkin’ gord.

  Sleep in der holler ’til da daylight’s gone,

  Foller da drinkin’ gord.

  Singing gave her a little hope. She picked up Calebia and began to walk again.

  “Norf… keep goin’ norf,” she said. “Dat’s where we’s boun’. We jes’ foller dat dere star.”

  Broan and Rebecca followed as Lucindy continued to sing, gathering more courage with every step. The faint sound of the children’s voices now joined in.

  Think I hears da angels say,

  Foller da drinkin’ gord.

  Stars in da heabens gwinter show me da way,

  Foller da drinkin’ gord.

  Foller dat riber ’til da clouds roll by,

  Foller da drinkin’ gord.

  Keep on er movin,’an’ lookin’ ter da sky,

  Foller da drinkin’ gord.

  We’s gwinter foller da drinkin’ gord,

  We’s gwinter foller da drinkin’ gord.

  Keep on travelin’ dat muddy road ter freedom,

  Foller da drinkin’ gord.

  “Lor’,” said Lucindy as she finished and looked up into the night sky again, “You dun brought us dis far an’ we ain’t gwine ter go back no how. Eben effen I don’ know how ter pray, I’d rather be on dis road wif my chilluns an’ maybe die tryin’ ter git ter Caleb an’ freedom den ter go back ter da whip an’ dose chains ob Master Crawford. Whoeber you are, you be da one dat put dat drinkin’ gord up dere in da sky like dat as a sign fo’ folks like me. So we’s gwine ter foller it till sumfin happens. Cum on, chulluns,” she said to Broan and Rebecca, “we’s goin’ on—jes’ keep lookin’ up at dem stars, dey’ll show us da way ter go.”

  They walked north all that night until the stars began to give way to the kind of darkness that precedes the dawn. Finally they sat down and huddled together near a clump of trees to wait.

  “I’s hungry, Mama,” said Rebecca.

  “We’s all a mite hungry, chil’. But sumfin good’s gwine happen by’n by. We’ll git sum sleep now an’ dream ’bout dat good stew we dun eat at dat las’ station—y’all member, where you played wif dem nice w’ite chilluns dere.”

  When the sun came up the children still slept. Lucindy sat up, rubbing her eyes and staring at their surroundings. A barn and farmhouse sat only a stone’s throw away. A rooster crowed, then was joined by another as they set about trying to awaken the rest of the place. They were lucky not to have been discovered already! In the darkness they had nearly blundered right into a farmyard!

  As Lucindy turned to wake the children and move farther out of sight, a woman dressed in gray stepped onto the porch and went to empty a chamber pot in the outhouse. Lucindy remained still and watched. When the woman came out and walked back toward the house, Lucindy shook Broan awake.

  “’Member all dose nice w’ite folks at da stations?” she whispered.

  Broan nodded sleepily.

  “See dat lady yonder,” she went on. “I think she might be one er dem. I’s want you ter go ax her effen she cud spare sum food fer sum train trab’lers. Don’ be feared. Effen she say no, den you walk ’round da barn and cum back ter me. If she say yes, den you tell her you ain’t alone an cum back an’ git yo’ little sister. Now go on—don’t be feared. She be dressed like sum ob dem other station folks dat took care ob us.”

  Too sleepy to be afraid, and his stomach too empty to argue, Broan left the cover of the trees, glanced back only once at his mother and sister, then continued on toward the house.

  Forty-three

  It had been almost three years since the visit to the Waters’s home of the three friends of her mother. But Cherity Waters had not forgotten her father’s words from that day: Your mother was very faithful to church… you are free to go anytime you like.

  She had been thinking about her mother a lot lately. She was the kind of girl who made the best of what life gave her with as optimistic a spirit as possible. But it was difficult growing up without a mother. As much as she loved her father, and hadn’t a regret in the world about anything to do with him, there was a lonely corner of her heart that he alone couldn’t satisfy.

  She had been thinking about her mother ever since that day in her room at school. The desire had grown in recent weeks to know what her mother had found at church and in her black Bible that had given her life meaning. Cherity could not know her mother’s heart. But perhaps there she could in some way draw into closer contact with her spirit.

  “Daddy, what church did you and Mama used to go to?” asked Cherity one Friday morning as she and her father were seated together at the breakfast table. “You know—the one those three ladies who came to visit were from?”

  “The Congregational Baptist Alliance Church,” replied her father. “Why… are you thinking of going?”

  “I am. Would you like to come with me?”

  “Thank you, but no. I had my fill. I think you would perhaps be able to respond more personally without me there anyway. If you find something you like, I won’t be the one to discourage you. Your mother went every Sunday. It certainly meant something to her… and I thought it did to me,” he added with a peculiar expression.

  “I know, Daddy—you’ve told me that,” replied Cherity. “I guess maybe it’s time I found out what it is.”

  Two days later, at about ten minutes before eleven o’clock on a Sunday of late October, Cherity Waters—against her natural predisposition as it might have been, wearing a bright pink and yellow dress and matching hat—made her way through the doors of the Congregational Baptist Alliance Church on the heels of a man and woman who had walked up seconds before. She cast one last glance back to her father’s buggy disappearing down the street, then continued the rest of the way inside.

  Cherity was both nervous, and curious to see how this church would differ from chapel at the boarding school. Odd incongruous images of what to expect crowded her imagination. Mostly she envisioned dowdy old people wearing black clothes and solemn expressions, stiff-backed seats, lifeless songs, organ music, flies buzzing about, boring sermons, stained-glass windows, and mingled ever and anon with these mental pictures clung the faint aroma of mildew that, in its spiritual rather than corporeal sense, seemed to hover about the memory of the three ladies who had called at her home. Her father was so interesting and gay. She imagined her mother the same. How could such musty specimens have been her mother’s friends? Maybe today’s experience would help her discover the answer.

  She followed the elderly couple inside, through a darkened vestibule where a few people were gathered speaking in hushed tones, and on into a large room of high-vaulted ceiling and open beams. Organ music was playing softly and reverently.

  Cherity paused to get her bearings, then continued following the man and woman down one of the aisles, the floor creaking beneath their feet. As she went she slowly took in her surroundings. There were the colored windows behind the organ where a lady sat pumping her feet as she played. The black clothes and solemn expressions were in ample evidence too, as she noted from glances to her right and left. There were no chairs, only long pews with upright backs that stretched from aisle to aisle.

  The man and woman turned into one of the rows and made their way to the center. She followed and sat down beside the man. For the first time he seemed to notice her and gave a slight nod. Finally seated, she could relax. She glanced about for any sign of the three ladies who had known her mother. She thought the back of one head several rows in front could be one of them. But from where she sat it was hard to tell.

  Ten minutes later the organ music stopped. A slight commotion in front turned her attention to the door of a side entrance. Through it a man walked expressionless, very tall, balding, and dressed in black nearly from head to foot. He took a place in front of a giant lectern. Slowly he lifted both hands. As if on command, everyone in the church stood. Without an idea what had been about to happen, Cherity was still sitting on the pew when suddenly she found everyone
else in the place standing. She leapt to her feet as a great blast from the organ shook the building. A scuffling followed, from somewhere books were produced, and around her everyone began to sing. About halfway through the hymn the man at her side noticed her still standing with hands at her side. He nodded with his head, then pointed to her left, where at last she realized a book like she saw in everyone else’s hands was located in a wooden tray attached to the pew in front of her. She smiled at the man, then took the book and opened it, but soon realized she had no idea where to turn. She tried in vain to sneak a glance to her left, or between the two ladies in front of her to catch a glimpse of the page to which their book was opened—the man beside her was too tall, held his book too high, and apparently felt that one good deed for the day was enough. The hymn concluded with a rousing “Amen” before she had been successful in finding the page.

  The pastor now raised his hands again, then ceremoniously and slowly lowered them. Not realizing the opposite signal had been given, and at that moment distractedly taking in some of the people around her, Cherity suddenly found herself the only person, save the black-clad man in front, in the entire church still on her feet. Quickly she sat, pink rising to her cheeks. A few heads turned in her direction, then slowly returned forward.

  Now that she had survived a rising, a sitting, and the first hymn, Cherity had drawn two very important conclusions that would enable her to get through the rest of the hour without calling further undue attention to herself:

  One—everyone acted in unison. If she did what they did, she would not stand out.

  Two—there were cues to these uniform actions, such as the raising and lowering of the minister’s arms. She must be on her toes to watch for them.

  Little did Cherity Waters realize that within five minutes of entering the church, she had laid hold of the mighty truth of religious conformity, a principle so pervasive and potent that it dictated not only matters of correct behavior in nearly every Christian community in the land, but also of what comprised correct theology. Deviation and individuality were the great sins such modes of conformity, and many like them, were designed to combat. One must never stand when others sat, or sit when others stood. And one must always recite—whether hymn, reading, doctrine, or creed—ever and always… in unison. Conformity must be preserved at all costs.

  Cherity thus got through the service without further gaffes. However, she could decipher not the slightest meaning out of the sermon, which comprised the final thirty-five minutes of the hour—during which she indeed found the pew back straight and its bottom hard. The man conducting the soliloquy was speaking in English. She heard individual words she recognized. But he somehow managed to string them together in such a way as to utterly obfuscate any hope she had of gaining whatever meaning he might have been trying to convey.

  Recognizing the cues by now well enough, and aided by a loud benediction which could have served no salient function other than to punctuate with dignified finality the closing of the service, Cherity turned with everyone else toward the aisle. Following the lead of those in front of her, she began inching her way toward the rear of the church amid the slow-shuffling crowd of fellow worshippers.

  She had not quite reached the door when she felt a tug at her elbow and heard her name.

  “Cherity, my dear,” said a woman’s voice, “I hardly recognized you!”

  She turned to see the woman whose head she had been staring at throughout the service. “You look lovely, my dear—I am Harriet Filtore, one of your mother’s friends… we called on your father some time ago.”

  “Yes, ma’am—hello,” said Cherity.

  “Come with me, please, dear—I want you to see the others too! Oh, this is just too exciting!”

  She tugged Cherity along against the flow of the human stream. “You have grown so, my dear,” said Mrs. Filtore as they went. “You’ve turned into a lady. And a lovely one. I am so glad. Mabel, Sarah… you’ll never guess who I found in our congregation! Look, it’s Kathleen’s daughter Cherity!”

  “Oh, my goodness!” exclaimed Mrs. Foxe. “And in a dress! Cherity… how good of you to come.”

  “Hello, Cherity,” said the third member of the trio, Mabel Bledsoe. “I am so delighted to see you!”

  “Let’s go sit down somewhere and have a nice talk,” said Mrs. Foxe.

  “Do you suppose pastor would let us use his study, Sarah?” asked Mrs. Filtore.

  “Or one of the Sunday school rooms?” suggested Mrs. Bledsoe.

  “We will find a suitable place where we can be alone,” said Mrs. Foxe. “Come, Cherity, dear—we shall get away from all this bustle. We want to find out how you have been!”

  Without much opportunity to do otherwise, Cherity smiled and followed. She soon found herself seated in a small musty room smelling vaguely of children, mothballs, damp plaster, chalk, and week-old stew. The faces of the three women stared eagerly into hers with smiles of mingled delight and anticipation to find Kathleen Waters’s daughter temporarily free from the clutches of her backslidden father. They might not have another opportunity like this to win her soul, and they intended to make the most of it. Whether the Spirit was moving in anyone’s heart in the room they did not pause to inquire… they intended to move and do so with vigor. They meant to insure that this girl did not leave the building until the Spirit had gotten off his haunches and done his business and had brought salvation to this poor lost soul.

  Slowly the smiles faded and the tone became serious.

  “Cherity, my dear,” began Mrs. Foxe, “we believe the Lord brought you here today so that you might find faith in him. Tell me, Cherity—do you know what sin is?”

  Having no idea his daughter was about to undergo the spiritual grilling of her life, James Waters had stopped into one of his favorite haunts in Boston, which sat not far from the church, to pass the hour while enjoying a cup of tea and the Sunday New York Times, the only edition of the Globe’s competition he allowed himself, chiefly for the purpose of the crossword puzzle. Strangely, he found himself unable to concentrate. His thoughts kept wandering to what Cherity might be hearing back within the hallowed walls of Baptist Alliance. He knew the pastor had changed two or three times since his days of spiritual activity with wife and older daughters.

  His feelings concerning Cherity’s church visit were oddly mixed. For one with such marked personal antagonism to what he now considered the humbug of ritual, dogma, and pat answer, he was strangely neutral concerning how his daughter might respond. There lingered love and fond memories of his wife such that, in spite of the harsh words he had spoken to Richmond Davidson concerning his own thoughts about God, if their daughter was able to find any solace or meaning in the church, out of respect for Kathleen, he would have been glad. It might serve as a bond, however slight, between mother and daughter, and he would have welcomed it… so long as nothing involving what he would consider outright falsehood were involved.

  After forty minutes or so, he rose and returned to his buggy outside.

  Even as the intense interview involving the daughter of James Waters was taking place, four hundred fifty miles to the southwest another equally unexpected, though far briefer, interview was about to take place at the Virginia plantation called Oakbriar, where a knocker had just sounded on the front door.

  Denton Beaumont was sick of his overseer’s assistant, Leon Riggs, pussyfooting it around his slaves. Riggs hadn’t been his old self ever since Nate Gibbons’s disappearance. Beaumont harbored more than half a suspicion that Leon had had a hand in the affair somehow, though not the slightest evidence had ever come to his attention and nothing had been seen or heard of Nate again. Now more than ever the slaves needed an iron hand, not a velvet glove. He himself tried to maintain a bravado around his men, assuring them that Nate was dead and “good riddance to bad rubbish.” He knew well enough what was going to happen to him, and he had crawled off like the coward he was to die alone in some cave.

  But he knew the slave
s didn’t believe it. They all thought Nate had escaped and was now free in the North somewhere. Whether they possessed any reliable information to corroborate their hope, he had no idea. But they believed it. And Gibbons’s successful flight made them all tense and jittery. He knew the single black men especially were looking for their chance to follow him. Now was no time for Riggs to turn soft.

  Meanwhile, downstairs, his daughter had just answered the front door. She had run to it eagerly with a gleam in her eye, hoping she would find Seth on the other side of it.

  There stood the hugest black man she had ever seen in her life.

  The gleam faded from her eye as soon as she saw that he was black. Yet the fact that he did not appear too many years older than herself kept the hint of a playful smile on her lips. She had been trying to wile and seduce young men for so long with her subtle use of beguiling expression that she could no longer help herself. It came out whether she was conscious of it or not.

  “Hello,” she said coyly.

  “You Miss Bowmont?” said the black man.

  “That’s right.” She inched a little closer and let her eyes flutter a few times.

  “I come to see yo’ daddy. He here?”

  “Maybe…”

  “Veronica, honey,” said Lady Daphne, approaching the door behind her, “who is—”

  She stopped in midsentence and gasped in terrified astonishment.

  “Goodness!” she exclaimed under her breath, “he is a big one….

  Jarvis!” she called behind her.

  Even as upstairs Denton Beaumont’s thoughts were brooding on Leon Riggs’s incompetence, his black butler appeared at the door to his study.

  “Massa Bowmont, suh,” he said softly. “Dere be a man downstairs come fo’ to see you, suh.”

  Beaumont glanced up irritably. “What kind of man, Jarvis?” he said. “Who is he?”

  “Don’ know his name, Massa Bowmont. He didn’t say. He’s be a colored man, suh.”