Song Yet Sung

by James McBride

  As they parried, the Woolman carefully parrying with the knife and missing, Denwood sensed that the Woolman was tired enough to take down, and made the mistake of reaching for the Woolman’s legs. His own legs, particularly his damaged one, were not what they once were, and the move was slow and clumsy. His adversary overturned him and pinned him with his strong, thick thighs, and with a swift, smooth motion lifted his knife to plunge it into his neck.

  Denwood managed to twist as the blade came down. It missed his throat but struck his head, and he felt blood flowing from his jaw to his ear. He snatched a handful of mud and plunged it in his assailant’s face, pushing his head back and trying to gouge his eyes with it. He tried to spin on his stomach so that he could rise, but the Woolman moved too quickly. Denwood saw the knife held high again, but his hand got free this time and he grabbed the wrist holding the blade. His arms were always his strongest weapon, but his adversary’s arm was stronger, bending Denwood’s arm back as it plunged the knife into his shoulder. Denwood roared in agony, furious beyond thinking, still unable to squirm from beneath the legs that held him, vise-like. The Woolman drove his knife down again and missed, burying it in the muddy earth up to its handle. He yanked it once, twice, but could not pull it free, giving Denwood time to swing his right hand up wildly towards his attacker’s face and strike the Woolman’s wounded arm instead. The man grunted in pain and Denwood struck again. The legs loosened, giving Denwood room to twist his upper body, nearly freeing himself.

  But now the Woolman dislodged the knife and with a swift motion, instead of raising it high, slid it over the ground towards Denwood’s left side, towards his rib cage and heart. Denwood quickly bent to his right side to avoid it, but knew it was coming.

  This one, he thought bitterly, I’m taking for my son, for the wrong I done him…

  The Woolman drew his arm back and drove the knife home once more, calmly sliding it over the the ground.

  This one, Denwood thought, I’m taking for my wife, for all the wrong I done her…

  He felt himself cooling, slipping, weakening, and as the Woolman’s knife rose high in the downpour for the final kill, water running off his face and dripping off his thick, matted hair, Denwood grabbed his arm at the height of its arc and struggled again in vain, roaring in fury at the top of his voice. All I done for you! he cried. All them things I done for you colored bastards. All the kindness I showed. I ain’t sorry, neither! ’Cause you’re slaves! All of you! Slaves to an idea! Which I ain’t!

  He felt the arm coming down and closed his eyes and waited for the last sound, the one he’d waited five years for, the one that would cancel the noise and ease his suffering, the sound of his heart making one final bump, but instead he heard the boom of the Paterson, and then a sob from the Woolman. He opened his eyes as the magnificently muscled body sank sideways off him onto the muddy beach, resting on his back, proud chin pointed skyward, forehead facing upwards, the face just inches from his own.

  Denwood was too weak to move. He saw a colored foot splash into the mud between himself and the Woolman. Then the Paterson, its barrel still smoking, fell from the Dreamer’s hand to the muddy ground and her face appeared, kneeling over his adversary.

  He had never seen her close-up before. Her eyes moved about the fallen Negro like a soft, forgotten melody. Her hands moved slowly over the Woolman’s knotted chest. Her worn-out clothing draped her shoulders with the carefree glory of gold silk on the back of a queen. She had a face, he thought, as smooth as ice cream, as powerful as a thousand drums, a dark, quiet beauty roaring out of her eyes, which were filled with tears.

  She placed her face close to the Woolman’s chest, listening. The man was still alive and breathing rapidly. He turned his head, gazed at Denwood, puzzled innocence pouring out of his eyes as fast as the blood that pulsed busily out of his chest and into the wet, sandy ground upon which they lay. He turned to gaze up at the Dreamer, whose face was close to his. She held his head and placed her ear to his lips, her eyes on Denwood. The Woolman grunted something unintelligible.

  —Yes, I’m magic, Liz sobbed. I’m magic and I release you now, she said. You’re free, Mr. Woolman. G’wan home. Your tomorrows is all better. I dreamed it. G’wan home.

  showdown

  Patty had waited. She had sat on her mount on the outcropping of rock, thirty feet above, watching the action on the sandy beach below, her wounded arm burning with pain. She let the matter resolve itself. She saw the Dreamer sobbing over the nigger beast, saw the Gimp laid out, injured and weak. She turned to Stanton and said simply, Let’s ride in and get our money.

  They galloped down a rock ledge to where the dead nigger and the Gimp lay, their blood mixing in the sandy ground beneath them.

  The two rode up slowly. Stanton drew his gun. Patty held her reins with her one good hand, her gun still holstered.

  —Howdy, Gimp, she said brightly. Her arm was killing her, but she refused to show an ounce of discomfort with the Gimp watching.

  Denwood looked up and smiled grimly. Patty, you look like Apple Mary this morning, he said, younger every time I see you.

  —Thank you, Gimp.

  She nodded at Amber and the Dreamer.

  —These niggers here is friends of yours?

  —I don’t dislike ’em that much. Say, I beat you to the spot again. Just like Lloyd’s Landing. You hurt yourself, Patty. Your arm there—you feel okay?

  Patty carefully swung herself off her horse, unholstered her pistol, and aimed it towards Liz and Amber. She smiled coldly at them, then looked down at Denwood. I’m feeling right skippy, Gimp, she said. Thanks for asking. Then she stepped over to him and kicked him. How you feeling? she asked.

  —Not too bad.

  She kicked him again and he groaned. She gazed at the sky overhead and out into the bay. Rain’s stopped, she said. Good. I know wet weather bothers that leg of yours.

  She kicked him again.

  Denwood grimaced and said, Patty, I’m feeling a little game right now, but I gets your understanding.

  —No you don’t, she said icily.

  She leaned down and whispered in his ear: You killed my Joe.

  —He drawed on me, Denwood said. This boy here’s seen it. He nodded at Amber, who watched, terrified, with Stanton’s pistol trained on him.

  Patty glanced at Amber. I’ll get to him in a minute, she said. First you.

  She pointed her pistol to Denwood’s ear.

  —Go on, then, he said. I’ll be shoeing mules in hell when you get there.

  —I thought you don’t believe in God, Gimp.

  —I don’t. But I hear if you believes in Him, He believes in you back.

  She chuckled icily, turned to Stanton, and said, How do you like that corn, Stanton? Ol’ Gimp’s got religion. I wonder where he got it from?

  She stepped up to Liz, barrel up, smiling bitterly. You the one that killed my Little George. I reckon I don’t mind you killing him too much. He was a bother. But I lost a boot running you down. That goddamn boot cost me near forty dollars. Damn wench.

  Denwood, lying on his back, called out, Patty, for Christ’s sake. Take your money and go.

  —I come to even things out first.

  —You can’t do that here. There’s too many eyeballs watching.

  Patty chuckled and said, Gimp, I count three white folks, and three fifths of two and a half niggers. Something like that. Court figured it all out. Niggers is about three fourths or two fifths of a white man. And me and Stanton ain’t really here. So that don’t count. Which leaves just you.

  —There’s somebody else, Denwood said. A boy. In that cabin there. White boy.

  He pointed weakly to the Woolman’s cabin, about fifty yards from them, the door shut tight.

  Patty turned to Stanton, her face deadly calm.

  —Go in there and bring whoever’s in there out.

  Stanton blanched.

  —I ain’t going in there by myself, he said. I don’t know who the hell’s in ther
e.

  Patty pointed her pistol square at Stanton’s face and fired. Stanton dropped like a sack of beans.

  Denwood hastily tried to sit up and could not.

  —Christ Almighty, woman! he spluttered. Has you lost your buttons?

  Patty knelt and rifled through Stanton’s pockets, pulling out his money, his knife, and his gun. The prayer beads she tossed at Denwood.

  —I never liked him, she said defensively. And this is my money. I gave him two weeks’ advance. He wasn’t worth a pinch of tobacco.

  —You aim to have no witnesses to your killing? Denwood asked.

  —I ain’t ride all this way to go to church and say hello to two-headed niggers, Patty said.

  —For God’s sake, Denwood said, put your heater to me then, and ride on. Don’t fuss with that little boy in the house there. He ain’t seen nothing.

  —I don’t believe he’s in there, Patty said.

  —You’re right, Denwood said, trying to keep the desperation out his voice. Ain’t nothing in there. Go on, then. Get it done. Collect the coloreds here. Take your money and leave. Nobody’s seen nothing. These two—he nodded at Amber and Liz—you can have ’em on the next schooner south. Ship’s coming in Thursday, I heard. That’s two days from now.

  —You’re right about that, Patty said, but she peered at the house, eyes narrowed, suspicious now. She called out in a sweet voice: C’mon out, honey, it’s all safe now. You in there, honey?

  The door to the cabin opened a sliver, and from the darkness inside, a tiny red-haired head peeked out.

  —Christ, she murmured. Gimp, you’s a shitbag. She motioned to Jeff Boy.

  —C’mere, son, she said gently. Ain’t no harm gonna come to you now.

  The boy gingerly stepped out into the daylight, squinting, and began walking toward the gathering, still not close enough to make out who they were.

  From behind him Denwood heard Amber call out, Don’t do it, Jeff Boy! Run!

  He saw the little boy freeze.

  —Run!

  The boy’s eyes darted around, unsure.

  Patty swung her pistol towards Amber.

  —Patty, that’s twelve hundred dollars you aiming to put down, Denwood said. Can you afford it? Twelve hundred chips?

  Patty swung her gun back towards the little boy, then placed her knee on Denwood’s chest to take aim. Denwood tried to rise, but Patty’s knee was pressing against his lung as she took aim.

  He closed his eyes and prayed.

  Lord, he said silently, if you let me get up from where I am and make my hands work, I will do whatever you ask me for the rest of my life.

  He was lying on his back. He felt a great power lift his hand up. Felt his arm, deadened by the Woolman’s knife, rise and grab the hot barrel of Patty’s pistol even as Patty cursed and swung the pistol towards his chest. He heard the terrible bang of a one-shot Winchester, opened his eyes, and saw Patty sway, a look of shock and disbelief sliding across her face.

  She fell across him, landing on the Woolman’s chest, her booted feet making a lazy, flopping sound as they struck the ground.

  She was face down and with great effort rolled onto her back. She stared in desperation at the two Negroes standing over her, both of them looking up at the figure atop the outcropping of rock above them. What you looking at? she cried. Get me up from here.

  The two didn’t move.

  —I said get me up, she gasped. Help me up. I can’t die laying across this nigger.

  The two Negroes didn’t move but instead continued to stare upward. Denwood followed their gazes up to the rocky outcrop. It appeared, from a distance, to be a tiny man in an oilskin jacket and hat. The figure pulled the hat off and a roll of dark hair fell out. He heard a woman’s voice call out a boy’s name, a mother calling to her son, a voice that he recognized, and the tiny ache in his heart became a pounding in his ears, growing and growing until the rage—the white noise that had drowned his hearing as a young man and carried him from one end of the nation to the other to destroy all that was within him that did not work—dissipated, and he was filled with the sweet song of that beautiful voice. Just the lovely fullness of that voice. A mother calling her son. A woman calling her own. And he closed his eyes to sleep the slumber of the eternal, to dream the dreams of forever, the voice calling out to him as well.

  epilogue

  Spring came slowly to Johnson’s Crossing that year, as it did to all of Maryland’s eastern shore. The freezing downpours and chilly winter winds frosted the ground hard—too hard to plant. Entire crops failed. Mules and cattle died for lack of feed. Even simple garden vegetables didn’t cut the earth. A dense fog lowered its heavy hand over the eastern shore well into June.

  At the edge of Johnson’s Crossing, near Ewells Creek, the old place known as Joe’s Tavern, up for sale, sat silent and dark; a hulking old house, empty since the day six weeks before when Patty Cannon, her son-in-law, Joe, and her crew disappeared to Dorchester County to retrieve their stolen property, who’d been set loose by a colored demon, so it was said. Patty had stolen enough coloreds to start a nigger farm, the neighbors muttered, but she’d stolen one too many this time. That last one was Satan’s sister, they snickered. A real witch. She hoo-dooed and hexed Patty’s ass to hell in a packing crate, and good riddance—to Patty—and that damned house.

  No one wanted to buy the place. There were a few nibblers, all of whom took one look at the place and vanished, save one. A slave trader from Mississippi came by, took a few halting steps onto the tavern’s porch, promised to come back the following summer to look at the inside, stepped off the porch, and was never seen again. The residents steered clear of him even as he departed. If he’s fool enough to bale hay with the Devil, they said, then God help him. Nobody even bothered to tell him about the garden behind the tavern, for that was the real story of Johnson’s Crossing, the one that neither the slave trader nor most other outsiders knew about.

  The garden behind Joe’s Tavern was the only one on the eastern shore that yielded crops that spring. It grew by itself, like a jungle. The once barren furrows, which hadn’t been seeded for years, yielded wonderful, sweet ears of yellow corn. The hard earth that once clustered around the steps behind the tavern’s back door sprouted scrumptious white mushrooms and cabbage. Farther beyond the cornfield, near the smokehouse, peas, watermelon, and tomatoes reached for the sky. And most curiously, a giant peach tree, which hunched over the barn comatose for years, suddenly raised itself up tall and straight, showering huge, delicious-looking peaches all over the yard. It was, the starving locals murmured among themselves, quite a sight.

  Yet, not one soul from Johnson’s Crossing ventured into the yard of Joe’s Tavern to help himself to the wealth of foodstuffs that were available that spring. Despite the scarcity of food brought on by the long, hard eastern shore winter, the residents of Johnson’s Crossing steered clear. Oystermen who sailed down nearby Ewells Creek said a prayer and gripped their tongs in terror when they floated past. Residents walking past the house crossed the road when they went by. Children held hands and fled as if their feet were on fire. The house was said to be haunted, corpses buried in the yard, ghosts living in the attic.

  So no one noticed, that clear spring dawn, just a month after Woolman and Denwood slid into eternity, a single-sail, twelve-foot dory boat, bearing three adults and a child, tacking expertly up the Choptank and pulling into the shoreline of Ewells Creek behind the house. A tall colored man got out, pulled the boat to the bank, and tied it to a tree. Next, a tiny white woman in a blue skirt hopped into the water, dropped the sail on the boat, and pulled the stern to the shoreline. Next came the child, a thin Negro boy of about eight years, looking uncomfortable in a thin frock coat. Together, the three of them lifted out the fourth passenger, a colored woman, and laid her gently on the bank.

  —Is this it? Amber asked.

  Liz raised her head and slowly peered around at the stars, the creek, and the house over her shoulder.


  —Close enough, she said.

  She gazed at the darkened tavern behind her, the boarded windows staring vacantly at the creek, just yards away. The back of Joe’s Tavern sat like a corpse, dark and skeletal, its blank windows frowning. Lit by the moon, its lush garden lay like a dripping jungle, full of fat fruit, ghosts, and full shadows, just yards from the water’s edge.

  Kathleen Sullivan frowned at Amber and said, Are you sure this is it?

  —Surely am, Amber said.

  Kathleen shuddered. Why here? she asked. Of all places. Why not across the creek on the other side?

  —This is what she wants, Amber said. Friend of hers met the Lord here. That’s what she wants to do.

  —All right, then, Kathleen said softly. You want me to wait?

  Amber shook his head. Naw, Missus, he said. The pass and maps you gived me, they’ll do fine.

  —Well then. Kathleen looked down at the prone figure. I’ll say good-bye here. Good-bye, Amber.

  —Yes ma’am, Amber said. God bless you.

  Kathleen smiled and reached out her hand. Liz, unable to speak, raised her hand weakly, and Kathleen swallowed, cleared her throat and reached out, grabbing the frail, cold hand in her own. She smiled at the little boy, but he was obviously uncomfortable in his clothing, uncertain in his movements. He did not smile back, though he managed a nod.

  She turned, untied the dory boat, rowed to the middle of the creek, and raised the sail. It filled quickly, and she pointed the bow towards Joya’s Neck. It would be a good ride. She’d sold a piece of her property—a newfound piece near the Choptank River, never surveyed, discovered when the Woolman was found—to an oystering outfit from Baltimore for a considerable amount, which had brought her more than enough money to pay for Amber’s freedom and to buy the Woolman’s son from the county, for the boy was unclaimed property. Amber was bound, to Philadelphia to start, to raise the Woolman’s boy as his own and earn enough to repay Kathleen. Amber seemed convinced that the boy had some kind of special power, something the Dreamer had told him about, some kind of ability to dream. It was as wild and as unconventional as anything Kathleen had heard, but the colored were always so superstitious, and believed in so much mythical this and that, it could not be helped. Still, even to her doubting ears, the story sounded wonderful, and even if it was just a fable, you had to give the girl Liz—the Dreamer, the colored called her—credit for dreaming it up. It was, at least in her mind, original: a colored boy, many years from now, descended from the Woolman’s son, who would one day dream as the Dreamer did, but with even greater power, with a power to change the world.