Song Yet Sung

by James McBride

—I figured what all you been through, it would be a good change for you, Tolley said.

  Denwood’s stare hardened. So that was it.

  —You heard about my boy?

  —I growed up here. But I ain’t superstitious, Tolley said quickly.

  Denwood glared at him, feeling the calm, silent rage, the old fury that had once lifted him up like a tornado and sent his fists busting into faces and knocking souls through tavern windows from Kansas to Canada, flooding him. He resisted the urge to pull out his pepperbox and part Tolley’s face with it. His boy had been dead nearly a year. Dead at the age of six, cursed by a local preacher. A six-legged dog had been born on the island and kept in a wicker basket by a tavern owner who charged the locals a penny apiece to gape at it. Denwood walked into the tavern one afternoon with his son just in time to hear a local preacher declare that dog meant the end of days was coming. Denwood had laughed at the man and said, I don’t believe in God.

  If you don’t believe in God, the old preacher said, I’d like to see you set your child in that basket with that mongrel there.

  Denwood, smirking, had done so, without incident.

  Six days later the boy got suddenly sick with fever and died.

  On an isolated island of superstitious watermen, the fate of Denwood’s son had roared through Hooper’s Island like a tornado. The preacher instantly vanished, afraid for his life. Local opinion swayed back and forth. Everyone had expected Denwood, a feared slave catcher and notoriously cruel bar fighter, to retaliate. Instead he had retreated into himself as the rumor mills churned. His wife left him, saying, You perished our boy. She slipped off to Virginia with another oysterman. The island gossipmongers roared in response. Look at what he’s done, they said. The fool left our land and learned the ways of the Devil, came back, drove off his wife, insulted a preacher, and killed his son with his disbelieving ways. He is cursed like the sons of Ham. He should have never left here, they muttered among themselves. Still, none spoke the matter to his face. He was, after all, one of them, and a feared one at that. So nothing was said. Yet, too much about him was known and believed. He was marked as bad luck and avoided.

  As he stared at Tolley, Denwood decided that what the man offered was not an insult but rather an act of kindness. Tolley was, after all, an islander. Denwood fingered his oilskin hat and waited for the rage that hissed through his ears, that once ruled him, to wind back down.

  Tolley, for his part, felt as if he were being scorched by the hot sun. No wonder, Tolley thought. No wonder they leave him alone. He felt Denwood’s eyes boring at him; they seemed to reach down to the bottom of his spine and yank it towards the vicinity of his mouth. He’d heard of the Gimp for years. The Gimp was one of the few islanders who’d ever left Hooper’s Island to venture to the rest of America and come back to talk of the outside world. Tolley had wanted badly to win favor with the Gimp by pulling him on this job, to hear of his travels in the world beyond, for it was rumored that the Gimp had torn up half the saloons in Kansas and the Nebraska territories, and he’d heard it from several different places and did not doubt its veracity. Besides, there was truly no one better suited to catch a runaway in Dorchester County than the Gimp. Everyone knew it. They were simply afraid to approach him. And now, with the Gimp staring holes into his face, Tolley realized he knew why. He couldn’t believe he’d somehow uttered a word about the Gimp’s dead son. He made a pact with himself to curry and season his thoughts inside his head before opening his mouth to utter them.

  —Where’d you grow up round here? Denwood asked.

  —Lower Island. I’m overseer for the captain now, Tolley stammered. Don’t like it a bit.

  —You want a piece of the action, is that it?

  —I don’t want a piece of nothing, Tolley said. I’d like to see you…get past things…move on, is all. With this kind of money, you can. Ain’t nobody else gonna take this job anyway.

  There. Now it was out. And Tolley shifted uncomfortably.

  —That door’s closed, Denwood said. Ain’t no sense opening it no more. Though that is a lot of coin being offered up.

  He felt the outrage leaving him, the roaring in his ears slowly receding.

  —It is indeed, Tolley said.

  Denwood gazed out over the bay. The storm was closing in. He could see the sky over Dorchester County starting to turn purple. He turned to Tolley.

  —What’s the catch? he asked.

  —This nigger’s smart. Can read and write. Got out from under Patty Cannon. You know how Patty is.

  A flash of cautious tension sparked across Denwood’s jaw.

  —I got no quarrel with Patty Cannon, he said.

  —Like I said, that’s why the man’s paying long dollar.

  —Who’s the nigger? Denwood asked. I caught most of the troublesome coloreds in this county. Mingo, Jim Bob, Miss Helena’s boy. Caught some of ’em two and three times. Captain can save his money by leaving word with the colored that I’m coming. Word’ll spread, and whoever ran off will likely come on in.

  —That ain’t gonna work, Tolley said.

  —Why not?

  Tolley’s horse stirred, sniffing the wind, and Tolley, atop the skittish mount, anxiously glanced at the mounting clouds, which were no longer stirring in the distance but now nearly overhead. The storm was starting to show itself. He saw a flash of lightning. He spun his horse around and pointed its nose towards the ferry dock.

  —This one’s a girl, he said. A conjurer. She throws bad luck round like it’s lunch. Even today. Looky here.

  He pointed to the storm clouds approaching.

  —Was bright as day when I started out this morning, wasn’t it?

  —That don’t mean nothing.

  —Say what you want, Tolley said. She’s a witch, all right. Morris Neefe, slave catcher from Bucktown, he and his son ran her down near Ewells Creek and shot her in the face. Morris said she rose up out of the water dead as a doornail. She killed his dog and disappeared into the water again. When he went downstream to check further, she had turned into a horse and rode off with a dark-skinned nigger riding her like the Devil, and that nigger shot at Morris and damn near killed him. She’s a devil, all right. Can change herself into anything she wants. A bird. A horse. How she turned up at Patty’s tavern, nobody knows, but she’s said to have killed three or four of Patty’s niggers. She’s a rabble-rouser, for sure. She can control niggers with her mind, they say. Don’t need to say nary a word: just looks at ’em and they’ll attack a white man. She can make even a child do her bidding.

  Denwood was silent, watching the water.

  —What’s the captain want her back for, then, if she’s that much trouble?

  —I don’t ask no questions on him. She’s easy on the eyes, I reckon. Fella like him, with a lot of chips in his pocket, he don’t care about suffering the Devil.

  Denwood shook his head. No nigger’s got that kind of power, he said.

  Tolley reached down towards Denwood and handed him a rolled up flier.

  —There’s the information, he said. Captain’ll pay you up front. You can take the job or not. But you ain’t gonna catch her.

  With that, he spurred his horse towards the ferry and rode as fast as he could.

  the woolman

  The other escaped slaves from Patty Cannon’s attic slipped across the creek and vanished into the high grass on the other side, running in different directions. Liz watched them leave, trotting silently, only the tops of their heads visible, bobbing up and down in the high marshy grass until they disappeared. She tried to follow Big Linus for a while as the giant lumbered along the bank of the creek on her side, but the giant noticed her following and quickened his pace, disappearing into thickets that lay behind the marshy bank. After several minutes she gave up chasing him and sat down, feeling hungry.

  She slaked her thirst at the creek and took stock of her surroundings. She had no idea where she was. It was afternoon now, and while the gentle breeze and warm sunshine were wel
coming at the moment, she knew they would not last. The frigid March frost would kiss the black creeks and bite her face and back as soon as evening came. Sleep, if it came at all, without shelter, would be a cold and difficult affair.

  She stood up and peered across the creek to the opposite bank. The marshy grass on that side was thick and tall. She crossed the creek and pushed through the high, thick grass, her head still throbbing. Weeks of running told her that it would not be long before whoever owned Little George would be coming and they would not be slow about it. There was no place to hide. She could not outrun them. Patrols, constables, sheriffs, slave hunters, money prospectors all, would hunt her with money and murder on their minds. The thought made her push forward faster.

  The high grass surrounding her thickened into swamp and the murky water at her feet deepened. Her dress was torn into nearly rags, and the sharp thistles and vines scratched her shoulders and neck. Her face, though healing, was still swollen, her body still weak from recuperating. She quickly grew exhausted and found a high, dry spot of land near a cypress tree and sat. She noticed a few berries growing out of the side of a bush. She pulled them out and bit them, munching slowly. They were tangy and bitter. They only made her more hungry. She leaned her back against the tree trunk and peered out towards the swamp. She watched a thick flock of wood ducks flutter and rise above the bog like a cloud. They circled slowly in the air and descended towards her. She closed her eyes, expectant, waiting to feel them flapping about her, but instead she fell asleep and dreamed again.

  She dreamed of Negroes eating in taverns, thousands of them; huge, fat Negroes, gorging themselves with more food than she ever seen: giant portions of pig, pie, steak, fried potatoes, laughing heartily as they ate, holding their stomachs as they gorged themselves. She saw Negro children with bulging faces, strutting about in undergarments as if they were the finest clothing: undershirts, undershorts, nightshirts, and sleeping caps. She saw other children sitting in great dining halls before plates piled high with food, desserts, pies, meats, cakes—so much food that it seemed impossible for a child to eat. Yet, even as the children ate, gorging themselves with pounds of food and washing it down with sweet, colored water, they cried out of hunger and starvation, weeping bitterly as they ate.

  The last image awoke her with a start, for she realized she was starving. It was late afternoon. She had to find something to eat. She rose and walked frantically, with purpose now, desperately looking for something to eat, stumbling over logs and splashing through ankle-deep mud. Every sound she made, every splash, every cracking leaf and snapping twig, made her feel as if she were walking in the loudest swamp God ever placed on this natural earth. The mourning doves overhead cooed so loudly that she suppressed the impulse to cover her ears. The earthly things that floated into her vision, the old logs that floated past, the discarded pines she fell over, the burping frogs and colorful snakes that slithered about in the stinking, decaying bog in which she’d suddenly found herself, seemed to point her in a specific direction, as if to say, Here, this way. She was changing inside in some kind of way, she was certain. She was not sure if that was a good thing, but despite an aching, pounding pain in her head, she seemed to be able to hear better, to see better, to smell more. She decided she was delirious.

  The patch of swampy woods ended at a clearing of marsh with shrubbery and forestation that had grown tall, past her head, and ended at another creek, this one as wide as a river. She stood at the bank and watched a sudden gale blow at the stinking mire hard enough to whip the high grass around and bend it low, sending the black river water heaving up on itself, as if it were yelling for mercy from the afternoon wind, which had suddenly grown relentless and now threatened storm, the wind pushing the black water into waves whose angry white tongues lapped greedily at the shoreline, the wind dancing and roaring above the tossing waves.

  She considered trying to swim across the river but decided not to. On the other side, the woods were fronted by marshy grass and swamp. It was a good mile or two through that muck to the safety of that thick forest. She’d have to swim across the river, then wade through the muck and high grass of the marsh in open daylight to get to that safe cover.

  She turned back and worked her way into the forest behind her, sinking up to her ankles in the muddy swamp until her feet hit solid earth. She was exhausted now and could move no farther, so she found a thicket of branches and lay down again among them. This time she fought sleep, afraid to dream, knowing that night was coming soon and that would be the time to move if she could, but her fatigue was so great she could not resist, and she closed her eyes again.

  When she did, she heard the sound of moaning.

  She was not sure if she was dreaming or not, for she didn’t trust her mind anymore. Lying on her right side, shivering with cold and feeling feverish, she turned on her other side, her eyes squeezed tightly closed.

  —Two-headed or not, she said aloud, I will put this out of my mind.

  She heard the moaning again.

  —G’wan now, she said.

  Then felt, rather than saw, the image in her mind of someone deeply troubled.

  She sat up.

  —Lord God, I’m starving, she said aloud. I’m hearing what I ain’t supposed to hear. I’m seeing what I ain’t supposed to see. Help me, God.

  She heard the moaning again.

  She looked around. Then listened again.

  Sure enough, it was real. A thin, weak cry.

  She crawled on her hands and knees and followed the sound deeper into the tiny patch of thicket. She peered through the thicket and saw, in the fading sunlight that sliced through the thick branches, a thin black boy of about seven years.

  He was lying on his side, his ankle and foot clamped in some kind of muskrat trap chained to a tree. His foot, she saw, was blistered and swollen almost beyond recognition. He was nearly naked, save for a flinty calico sack worn as a kind of dress that covered his middle. He was soaking wet, having obviously been there for at least a day or two. He had the wildest crop of hair she had ever seen, matted and thick, growing in every direction. He appeared to be dying.

  The sight of him made her draw in her breath.

  —I can’t help you, she said to him. I can’t help myself.

  She rose to leave but could not. She dropped on all fours next to the boy and looked at the device.

  The trap was metal and wood, a crude clamp of some kind, made to trap muskrats. The boy had obviously wandered into it somehow. She gently lifted it from the ground and tried to twist open the jaws. The device would not give.

  —Lord, she said aloud, but that I would have the strength of a man to pull this thing free.

  The boy gazed straight ahead, his eyes staring horizontally at the ground, not moving, moaning softly.

  She pulled at the device harder but could not free him. She rested. She was exhausted. She tried again for several minutes, yanking and pulling at the conglomeration of springs, wood, and metal, but the device was a newfangled creation that would not come loose. Finally she collapsed from the effort and lay there, her hands clasping the device, and closed her eyes, resting.

  As she did, she had a vision of the future again, but this time not of men but of machines, mighty machines that lifted great objects high into the air, machines that could spin windmills powerful enough to spray water at forces and speeds beyond anything she had ever seen; machines with long rubber snout-like metal pipes that twisted steel and bent iron—pipes that were flexible so that they coiled like snakes, loosing great energy, pushing water through pipes, spinning wheels with enough force to throw a horse against a wall, making rigid things flexible, bending giant items in ways beyond what seemed imaginable; machines that worked like a force of God.

  She awoke with a start. This was something new: a dream with an answer. She rose, searched among the thickets for an elm tree that had thick, twine-like branches. She pulled off two live stout ones, grabbed some smaller branches, and fastened a flexibl
e one to a thick one, spinning one around the other, round and round until the thick branch coiled like a snake, then uncoiled by itself. She placed the thick branch under the teeth of the device and the coiled branch beneath it. She bent the branch back, and when she released it, the teeth of the trap opened slightly, just enough so that she could place another branch between the teeth, and yank the child’s foot out.

  The boy roared in pain, the sound of his cries echoing off the trees and into the dank, shrouded forest beyond where her eyes could see.

  —Shush now, she said nervously, looking around. Shush. You’ll give us up.

  The boy howled and howled, the sound of his pitiful cries connecting to each other like locking rings, clanging through the swamp like a brass band, the howls bouncing from tree to tree, vine to vine, rousting birds from their nests, unfurling muskrats from their holes, sending clouds of angry mosquitoes buzzing up from standing water; whippoorwills joined in, ospreys, ducks, geese, mallards fluttered into the air; the wading birds, sandpipers, sanderling, willet, black-bellied plover, ruddy turnstone, dowitcher, and glossy ibis appeared, splashed in and out of the water as they galloped away. The entire swamp roared to life around them, as if his cries had summoned all living creatures of the Chesapeake into action.

  Liz frantically cast about for something, anything to calm him. She hastily dashed around the marsh, wandering several hundred yards away, until she found a sassafras bush. She dropped to her knees, dug at the bottom of it, clawing with her fingers, pulled out several roots, and hastily washed them off in the creek. The child continued to howl loudly. Even at the creek, a distance of several hundred yards away, it sounded close at hand, pressing the immediacy of the child’s agony on everything.

  She trotted back to the thicket. She approached the howling boy, gently lifted his head, and thrust the tangy, bitter-tasting root into his mouth. The boy bit down and choked a bit, then chewed, mercifully silent. His big eyes locked in on hers. She grasped his hand and stroked his forehead. His tiny fingers clung to her hand tightly. He stared at her with deep gratefulness.