by Diane Munier
He and I shook hands, but we said no more. Each of us readied ourselves and headed home in different directions.
“Oh glory,” I said low to Addie, but she said nothing. I took a quick look back at Rosie, and she held onto Josiah and rested her face in the crook of his very brown neck. Johnny sat his side of the bench, and he tapped me and motioned I should turn around and drive this rig.
Well, the women and children were in charge it seemed as I headed that rig home. And in that world babies could pick out their mothers and all of the rules folded into a bird sent soaring into fairyland. But it didn’t work that way. This land was scarred and bleeding red and we were not yet healed and mayhap we never would be for now there was freedom and we had no unity on what that might mean. But it did not extend to a white Ma and Pa raising a Negro son. That much I knew.
But on the other hand, William was my brother and I didn’t mean it in some sick type of slogan, I meant it for real. We had shared like brothers. And I had fought for him, just him. And no one would tell me different.
Well, there was always a way but God as my witness it would not be easy.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Twenty-Eight
All that ride home we did not speak too much. Rosie had put her hand on Addie’s shoulder a time or two and Addie had placed her hand atop it and they held on to each other. But that little one seemed to sleep like the dead on Rosie, and she never eased her hold.
Johnny slept most the time. Janey too, upon Addie’s lap. Her and I would look at each other time to time, and she would smile at me, and I would smile at her, but I was some troubled pondering it all, the river that had routed itself to the doors of the Negro families already free. William’s humility, for I could call it none else. His simple declaration of having been privileged, and there not a drop of spoiled in him.
Then I thought of Cousin, those gloves of his, his fancy clothes. He helped with Seth. Not that we needed it. Well, I couldn’t say that. He had gotten Seth into seminary. No one got by on their own. No one. But what might Cousin do? What about Lavinia?
Burns and hunger and mess and worms. I looked eager at Janey. I thanked God for her flesh, her cheeks so fat they quivered with the rig’s movement.
Addie looked a question at me, but I couldn’t say it. To be sold…well I couldn’t go there. I never had and didn’t want to. I figured God allowed. That’s all I knew. He let things go on sometimes but judgment came, and we’d had the war and we’d lost how many sons, how many Isaac’s upon that altar? Now how wrong could we get it from here on out?
Oh God, I didn’t know. I just wanted to farm. I had nearly died…I had done my part. They came from far away, those slaves. I’d seen plenty, liberated them and them joyful and afraid and hopeful and I never wanted to be a part of it, not the sorrow, not the joy, I hardened myself like it was not mine. It was the south’s. And I’d come home and scraped my boots now.
I couldn’t fix everything. But William…he was trying. I should of given him my share of the money but I didn’t know he’d end up being some kind of saint. He’d seen this before…we’d seen so much…we come on dead children…we’d killed children for those rebs sometimes looked to be about that, it was gray like the river. Swift and muddied. I wanted past it. Would it never let me go? And now it was here…well I’d been cleaning up from it…ever since we mustered out. I wanted my house and barn and my family, I was clawing forward now, but this could turn a man to a pillar of salt and hold him useless with grief. I hated slavery and slaves truth be told. We had to harden ourselves. It tore at a man…I hated it all and it wouldn’t go away. We had to harden and keep to our duty. But now we were home. We were human. We loved. We had names. We had sons and daughters.
Well, what had Pa taught me? Do something. Start with one thing. Reach out your hand. What can you touch? What is right there? That’s what he taught us. If a problem was big, study it down to the smallest thing you could do. If I put out my arm…I could touch Rosie. I could touch Josiah. I couldn’t save everyone. I didn’t have it in me. But there was one thing…one small brown sleeping innocent. Just an arm’s span.
Oh Lord, I had to be making this up. This was my own imaginings. You are not in this, it can’t be, I’ve worked like a mule, I’ve been faithful and good you cannot possibly be asking this of me after all I done. Well, I was mad.
We pulled up to Ma and Pa’s some later, sun dipping. Rosie’s pup went crazy. Gaylin came right out, pulling his suspenders in place, his face all happy and my heart moved.
Well, he spotted Rosie’s burden straight away. He stepped to the carriage, and puzzled he took the boy she handed over. While he held this before his face, the little one not protesting, arms and legs hanging limp, him staring at Gaylin, Rosie got herself out easy. She landed beside him and said, “This is Josiah.” Well, Josiah wanted Rosie then and she took him.
Gaylin was looking at her, his face that patient mask he always wore with her. It was genuine. Ever since I’d seen him watching her swing, it had never changed. She was his sunrise.
“I brought him home so you could meet him. Someone left him on William and Lenora’s porch,” she said.
“Yes,” Gaylin said patient, like she should go on.
“And…it’s like we just took to each other.”
Gaylin looked at me then. I was out and had come around. “How’s Pa?” I said.
“He’s awake,” Gaylin moved his head direction of the house like I should go in and say howdy.
“Well, we want to get on,” I said, for I did need to milk.
I told Addie I would just run in. Johnny was awake and he was asking if he could come and I said, real quick.
We went in and Ma hugged him. She had been looking out the window. “What is this?” she said meaning Josiah I was sure.
“Rosie will say,” I said.
“She has a new son,” Johnny said filling his mouth with a biscuit Ma had handed him.
“This is her son?” Ma asked. “But….”
“No,” I said, swatting my hat at Johnny. “She’ll tell you about it. I wanted to give Pa a howdy.”
Ma gestured toward the bedroom. Pa lay there reading when I went in. “Pa,” I said.
“Oh,” said he, putting the paper down enough to shake my hand.
“Have to get to milking,” I said, “but wanted to look in.”
“Still here,” he said. “Get on home then.”
“I’ll try to get around this week,” I said.
“I’m well,” he said. “Get that hay cut?”
“Working on it,” I said.
When Johnny and I went out, Rosie sat on the porch still holding Josiah and Gaylin sat beside her, one of his fingers gripped by the boy. He looked at me, and he seemed to be engulfed in what Rosie was saying. There was no anger, just an overwhelmed face like he’d been listening in earnest, a face like at that wash-pot the day in Iris’s yard when I touched his neck.
“We best be going,” I said. “Goodnight.”
I expected him to stop me, to yell after, mayhap to come at me like that day in the barn, but he did not, and last I saw she was talking away and he was bent toward her taking it in.
“Lord and glory,” I muttered, clearing the yard. “That went pretty well,” I said to Addie.
She smiled sad but did not reply. For we had seen the wound now, the wound in Rosie and Josiah, the wound in the others, we had seen it, in Lenora, in William, in ourselves, in us all.
We cut hay all the day after. William came riding after dinner, Gaylin beside. So we sat in the shade and after we discussed crops we got to it.
“She has not set that boy aside for more than a few hours when he did sleep fitful. I do not know what to do,” Gaylin said. “It makes me no mind to keep him. If it’s what she wants so desperately…there is nothing I wouldn’t do for her.” He wiped over his face.
“Lenora is against it but truth is…our cup feels mighty full,” William said.
“It would be lo
oked on harsh,” I said. “It is not done, not outright.”
“Then what, let him live under the porch? Then what?” Gaylin said.
“Did you ask Pa?” I said.
“I hoped to handle it and not take it to him,” Gaylin said.
“He mayhap will see something,” I said.
“But Rosie is there and she will start to fight,” Gaylin said.
“It has to be you,” I said. “You are the only one to reason with her.”
Gaylin looked at me. “If it was Addie….”
“It’s not like Jane or Johnny. They are hers. This one just came to you yesterday. It’s emotion, sure, but it’s not the same.”
“And if it is that way in her mind?” Gaylin said.
“Then her mind is…taken in sentiment. She is not seeing the clear path,” I said.
“And if she thinks she is? You do not know her,” he said.
“You have to be strong for her,” I said.
“I am being strong,” he said, his voice rising. “Do you think it’s easy? Any of it?”
I put my hand on him and he shrugged me off. “I am being strong,” he said again. “My head tells me the sure-fire thing. But then I have never followed that with her.”
“You’re supposed to lead.” I said. Well that was the common thought of it, though I knew the ins and outs of man and wife, how it was gray as the river.
“You telling me you lead like Addie don’t matter? Man you are driven by her. It is for sure,” he said.
“You have to protect her from what she wants. I did that when Cousin came around,” I said, though I knew I had just put my boot in stinking shit to bring this up. I looked behind me to make sure Addie wasn’t hiding in the bushes to hear this. For I realized I was as curious to see how I’d fashion this as William and Gaylin seemed to be.
“Truth is…there was a time…well I don’t think she meant it…but I had that time when she thought…well she did say….”
“She was going to marry Quinton,” Gaylin said to help me out.
“Well now…we don’t know that exactly…,” I said, troubled, more troubled than I realized to use this whole thing as an example.
“Tom…we got enough right here,” William said.
“I mean sometimes you got to be forceful and state your case!” I said, the log-jam breaking up. “Have you done that? Have you tried to reason?”
“Yes,” he pretty much yelled back. “She won’t hear me!”
“Then you have to try again…bring her some flowers and ask her to walk out…leave that little one with Ma….”
“Tom…it is more convoluted than that! My wife’s heart is breaking! And I will go down with her and God help the one who stands in my way!” he yelled.
That is just what I would say, just what I would do. If Addie could not be moved I would take my stand with her, I knew I would and it was a dreadful thing to know about myself, but my manhood would rise up as I stood against my own kind and God help the one who crossed us.
Well, I had said my piece and I was with him. I took hold of him less he did not know. “But Ma and Pa…they must have a say if you are to stay on the place. Ma loves Rosie. And now Pa down….”
“I know all that,” he said. “You don’t need to press your worries on my own…they are the same.”
“It has been one day,” I said. “What can happen in one day?” And then my life flashed quick, William showing hungry day we crossed in the woods, Garrett in my arms, Johnny in the field, Addie in the church, Addie on the porch, Janey in my hands, and on and on, could things change in a day and never go back? Hell fire, that is how everything came…in a moment…that is how it went…let there be light…and everything changed.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Mose came next day. Gaylin sent one of the hands with a missive to fetch me. I rode over and brought Addie. We even left the baby so we could assist. Missive said Rosie was hard put.
Well, Addie still wore her apron, me my straw hat, chaff against my shirt. Mose’s big mule was there hitched to William’s rig. I ain’t got time for this, I thought. I got a hundred things. But you couldn’t of kept me away.
We went in Ma’s house and Lenora holding Susan and Mose in a suit like usual, sat at table. William stood against the wall. Even Pa had been brought out, his leg extended, propped on a wash bucket, him in his chair. Rosie sat other side of the table holding Josiah. Gaylin stood behind her, a little bent over, his hands on the back of Rosie’s chair. Ma was at the stove, but she was only posted there, not cooking, hands still at her sides.
You could feel it when you went in, see it on their faces, not a smile there and burned words hanging like smoke.
I nodded, and kept my hand on Addie’s arm. They looked at me, everyone.
“What is it?” I said.
Addie moved around me to Rosie then, running her hand over that one’s hair and bending to kiss her temple. Gaylin stood back a little.
“They say I’ve got to let him go,” Rosie blurted to Addie.
Addie said, “Let me take him out so he won’t get upset.” I couldn’t believe it when Rosie let Addie have him. Addie shot me a quick look and I hustled to get the doors. She carried Josiah outside.
Well, it wasn’t hard to figure how it was. Mose said no, Lenora no, William gray, Gaylin guarding Rosie, Rosie a yes, Pa and Ma I didn’t know.
“Closest thing we got in Scripture,” Mose said, “is Moses being raised by Pharoah’s daughter and the mother coming in as nursemaid, hiding her true tie to him. I prayed over this. There are children in each of the homes we have started down south…who could pass for white.”
We all stared at him. “Father,” Lenora said.
He put his hand up. “Hear me out. There are children there with blond hair. They are using some to advertise the needs. They are putting their pictures on cards and selling them for twenty-five cents. They are trying to stir compassion in the white folks.
“We have children…too many for what we can take…though we have turned none away and because of that…we are pushed to desperate measures. Do I hate what I am trying to do here? Well…there are things I hate more. A child who can pass makes room for one who can’t. Truth is you think you can protect Josiah but you cannot. Mostly…I need to protect him from your good intentions. Let me take him. I shall bring another with me…for you to keep. I shall bring you two or three. And they will look white as you and it is the truth we shall keep for their good just like Jochebed hid Moses.”
“Now you barter him…you,” Rosie said with much force. Her hair was a wreck, her clothes stained, her face war torn. Well, I’d seen that on women in the south…as I said…days we took their tattered lives apart.
“Rosie,” Gaylin said sharp. Both of his hands were on her shoulders. He held her in that chair for it looked like she was ready to go over the table at Mose.
“No,” she yelled, knocking off his hands. “I was owned once. I was used. I couldn’t get away. I said I could…but until Gaylin…I didn’t know. And he came and Tom…and they got me out. I couldn’t do it…I needed help.”
Well, I always thought as much. She had told me different…but that Tulley…well I knew it. This damn woman was dangerous.
“If that child stays with us we could all go down, Rosie,” Pa said. “What you are wanting isn’t done.”
“How did you take on William?” Gaylin said.
“It was different with William,” Pa said. “Folks knew the way of it. William knew how to get through. Then you boys…he fit with it and he was safe. I went to the church and talked it, about how he kept us in fresh game and how I had not known a harder worker and Mother and I wanted to guide him and not let him become a hapless youth who could come back on us all. And his love of God and with us he would get churched.
“Yes, you may take offense, but this was me fighting for him. I talked about William as a human being. I held up every virtue he had and created a few he didn’t qui
te have yet. Time I was through they thought it was their idea to save this boy. He was theirs. His good fortune was theirs, too. They give themselves a hand for the man he is today.
“William needs the freedom to take in the boys he has opened his home to. But if we act too fast…we put in peril what he is trying to do. If we draw the wrong kind of notice, the whole notion of taking in these children will come up for scrutiny.
“Same with Mose. They are open to Mose. He has won their trust by years of hard virtuous work. Many children are benefiting. Many families are benefiting. One wrong move the goods and monies they are giving will cease with a thunderous clap and the struggling Negro community here and down south will suffer.
“Well, there is the good and fair ideal and there is the hard truth we live in. Hard truth is not turned on a row. Hard truth is turned in inches and parts of inches and they are bloody. We have fought a war to say we will stick as one. And we are barely over the loss. Slavery is ended. But things are not settled in the way.
“I have had little to do lately but catch up on the papers and I tell you there is little sympathy for the Negro in this moment. There will always be war…but war on top of war is a hard thing to chew on. Mayhap we need time to rebuild for a spell. Let folks settle.”
“Isn’t that fear?” Rosie said.
“Fear is the beginning of wisdom, my girl. Only a fool speaks without a look at what there is to fear. Well, it is not for myself. But so many others in this. Johnny will feel it first. Then it will come from all corners and we will not be able to prepare again’ it and we have many we hire and children growing. I say let’s be reasonable. You can help him like Mose said…from a distance. We are your family, Rosie. All we have is yours. God has brought the cause to our door and we must pay attention. But we must consider the good of all,” Pa said.
Rosie stared hard at Pa, but this was the first sign of listening I had seen in her.
“And you Ma?” she said.
Ma fumbled her hands in her apron. “I would speak to you private,” she said.