The Prophets

by Robert Jones, Jr.

  “What?”

  “Save yourself. Go on. I find another way.”

  “Sarah, they might kill you.”

  “They had plenty chances already.”

  “But . . .”

  “On the other side of that river, you finally have a chance.”

  “For what?”

  Sarah grabbed Puah by both of her hands and kissed her on the cheek.

  “To see yourself.”

  Puah shook her head.

  “Fool chile. If you can make it ’cross the river, when you come up on that other side, you ain’t gon’ have no other choice.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can. Go. Swim, sister,” she said to Puah, pushing her gently forward. “Swim.”

  Puah pulled off her dress and tied it around her waist. She crept lightly, sinking slowly beneath the water’s skin. A dragonfly zipped past her and she turned toward the sound. She was neck-deep, then she disappeared.

  1:9

  Sarah held her breath, waiting to see Puah’s head or a braid or a stroking arm—anything. She waited. Not even a bubble came up to glide on the surface and burst quietly. Did the down-deep catch hold of her legs? Some errant spirit mistake her body for its own? Fingers pulling every which way and downward for company?

  She had sent Puah to her death. How needless. How sloppy of her to push when she should have pulled. Then she heard a splash. And then another. And another. In the darkness, silver flashed and she caught sight of an arm, graceful, shimmering. She was gliding. Puah was gliding across the river as though the forever mamas had laid hands to buoy her. Sarah panted her excitement quietly, to herself. Too bad she couldn’t stay longer to watch her friend-girl fly. But there were jaws everywhere, and flicking tongues.

  Puah had asked Sarah where she would go, and Sarah had no idea. I find my way, she had said. She had long given up on safe space but would settle for a living one, where at least a small piece of her soul could sparkle without having mud kicked at it.

  Sarah remembered climbing on top once, up where there might have been safety if the world was right sided, and she saw, off in the distance, women as black as caves raising their hands to acknowledge her, beckoning her, telling her that she had an infinite number of mothers who, themselves, were the mothers of infinity. They were the first to give birth to the last, to give life to the woman who is also a man who is also neither, who will gather all of creation, tree and wolf alike, in perfect submission to peace. What had no start would have no finish. And this was the congress of dreams. It is a circle, you see, a wheel in the sky, spinning; bubbles in the sea-foam; a ring of hands joined in the deep, holding mercies in the middle and witnesses on the perimeter, laughing, knowing. These are those of the land that does not eat its young. Ask your blood. For it will tell you.

  “You know where I ain’t never been?” she said aloud to all of creation.

  She ran over to the cotton field. Between the loosed cows, she went near the edges, until she made it to the other side. She emerged to see the rows of abandoned shacks, lit faintly by Samuel’s light. She walked past them slowly, delighted by the colors they became under scrutiny. She looked to the woods just beyond.

  “I ain’t never been this-a-way,” she said out loud.

  She meant south. She had never been south because Paul and others had spoken of the Choctaw as though they were the living vengeance anxious to gobble up lost black flesh. But hadn’t they also said that about the infinity mothers, likewise slandered their grace as though they were no longer around to lay waste to those deceits? Nah, if the Choctaw were monsters to Paul and them, they could only be reprieve to her. Whatever lay over there, beyond these new woods, in that other darkness—well, shit. Nightmares walked here. Gobbled up was better than having another set of pasty hands try to pry her knees apart.

  “Ain’t that right, Mary?” she asked the darkness in front of her.

  But beating behind her heart was the most recent in a long line of women who kept razor blades hidden in the warmth of their mouths. Let toubab try if they wanted to. She tucked in the loose end of her head wrap and grabbed her dress between her legs so that it clung to her thighs like pants. She stomped into the woods, brushing aside branches and bushes with her free hand. Just as she got to a clear spot, there they were, standing in her way: a posse. Some of them ragged and toothless. Some of them tall and thin. All of them lined up like spikes on a pitchfork, waiting to make their jaggedness known.

  When they approached, she had figured out something that had been like a splinter in her foot: the easy thing to believe was that toubab were monsters, their crimes exceptional. Harder, however, and even more frightening was the truth: there was no such thing as monsters. Every travesty that had ever been committed had been committed by plain people and every person had it in them, that fetching, bejeweled thing just beneath the breast that could be removed at will and smashed over another’s head before it was returned to its beating place. The splinter pushed out, she could walk evenly, though cautiously, whether the ground was level or not.

  She smirked at them. They had already removed her name from all of the monuments and replaced it with the titles of men, thoughtless, violent, cowardly men who were at once afraid of and captivated by the womb that gestated creation—in other words, the cosmos. They had already pulled the goddesses out of the sky and buried them in the deep, hidden away from all but the most gracious. Now what they wanted to do was wipe her face from the record, scatter her remains so that they would never be found again.

  She balled her right hand into a fist and with her left, she reached into her jaw and pulled her weapon from where it rested against the interior of her cheek. It didn’t matter what fires were started or how much timber had fueled them. Nah. She wasn’t going to be anyone’s sacrifice but her own.

  She swayed with the cotton plants in the distance behind her. The wind danced between her legs. She held a fist out in front of her and her other hand pulled back like a viper before the strike, a fang glistening in its mouth. Delighted by the potential shock that would overcome their faces as she took at least two of them down with her into the places her people thrived—hot places, thick with ruin—she braced herself:

  “Come on with it, then!”

  1:10

  Amos walked to the very center and raised his hands.

  “Be calm! This is the dawning of the Lord’s day!” he shouted, his voice mixing with the tumult but not rising above it.

  What they didn’t know was that out yonder, tragedy would be plentiful beyond any that could be imagined here at Empty. They knew of course what that fence, long and wide, had confined them to; there was no need to enumerate what was already plain on the flesh. But what it protected them from was what they couldn’t reckon with. Amos knew, though. There was nothing more frightening than patrolling toubab boys, whom some toubab woman’s tears had nourished, gussying themselves up for a ride into the woods to find a gaggle of niggers hidden in some quiet cove or tucked in the branches of a solemn tree.

  They had known what it was to be hungry, but what they didn’t know were the miles between that and starvation because they hadn’t yet seen a man poison himself, picking the wrong leaf to chew and satiate the pain that tore at the gut after five days when not even raccoon meat was forthcoming.

  To be without a working well was the worst. The river water was full of salt and upset the belly. And rain couldn’t be counted on because this land was fickle like that. And at most, you could catch a handful before the pouring stopped for no reason other than spite. Never mind the wolves and the snakes and the gators, all teeth and all waiting for a fool to stumble. And what about the babies? How can you bring along a baby into this and muffle its cries when the milk runs dry because the mother’s belly is empty?

  No, Empty wasn’t in no ways safe, but it was reliable. And what all could a people who had nothing�
�and would never have nothing so long as toubab remade the world in their own lonesome image—hope for except to know the who, what, when, why, where, and how of their misery?

  I ain’t rotten fruit; I a man.

  “Come, be safe in my arms.”

  No need to fear, no need, he thought to say to the bodies living and dead. Some of the living would respond to his call because if in the untoward night someone held up a light, however dim, evincing arms open for embrace, where if those arms could not protect, they could at least offer that you wouldn’t die alone, there was, at last, a direction. But neither Essie nor Be Auntie was among them and that pierced him in places hidden and in plain sight.

  Amos stood next to Paul’s body, and the people gathered there, encircling them both. That was the safest place to be: weeping around the body of the master of land, while all the others ran wild and free. When the cavalry arrived—and trust: they would be a-coming—he would give them all of their names. Starting with hers.

  “All we wanted was a little quiet, huh. Massa, can you manage that for us? A little quiet, and maybe . . . some peace?” When he received no answer: “We stay here with you. We stay.”

  He was certain the shots wouldn’t come near because he had seen and already been touched by the Blood. He looked up and saw Maggie. He stood there, in the middle of everything, looking downcast at Maggie, though she herself seemed to be rising up the slope from the tree to the Big House, but he still chose to look at her downward. Their eyes met. Only he had tears in his. He raised his hand slowly, pointing at her. Accusing her. Of what? She would understand and only she. That was why she smiled and turned her back to him. Still, he needed to say it aloud, for the benefit of witnesses. It didn’t matter that it would simply land at her heels.

  “They was putting us in danger. All I was trying to do was keep us safe.”

  1:11

  In the middle of nothing, there was music.

  Maggie stood above everything, facing east; the light from far off couldn’t reach her yet, but she knew it was coming. She bent and snatched up the torch that James used to cook her baby, the only one who remained and who she thought was better off not knowing, but she saw, with her own eyes, that he had found something good in this life that would make his short time here bearable. She gathered up the torch and limped quickly back to the Big House.

  It was dark inside, and even if the torch had not lit her way, she knew every inch of the house better than she knew the slim curves of her body. This was the place where she was damned, so its contours and boundaries, even its most secret crevices, were all known to her, known and committed viciously to memory. Each spot had a story. The cotton-filled chair was where she was made to stand for hours on a bad hip as the Halifaxes entertained their guests. The fireplace that almost consumed her when Paul pushed her too close. She could have fell down the fucking stairs—and she called them that for good reason—if not for her quick reflexes. And those bitter mirrors. Oh! The house was lawless.

  She walked through it anyway because what choice did she have? Up the stairs and into Massa Paul’s room to start at the core, as fire should cleanse from the inside out. She held the torch to the bed and only looked long enough to see it ignite. Then she went back outside, torch in hand, and headed to the fields.

  How she despised those rows! Each so very neat in their appearance, all of them methodical and rigid, but also offering up the kind of softness that claimed lives. She walked up and down, quicker even than her injury would allow, possessed as she felt by something very old beside her, running in unison, spears pointed forward. She thought, What it look like if it were them, for once? If they had been split from their children; if they had to toil for no wages and meager sustenance; if they backs had been mangled for the slightest offense or none at all; if they fingers were stripped to the bone picking and picking and, damn it, picking; if it was they heads that had been placed haphazardly on spikes for a stretch of miles. How it feel if they were under? They might not know soon, but eventually, they would know. And they knew, too. That was why they cradled guns like offspring.

  With a gentle motion, she began to burn the plants as she walked by them. The sizzle filled the air, and hearing it gave her over to herself, made her feel that her body was, finally, her own. As each bush became a torch, she looked back at the Big House, and in an upper window, inside an upper room, she saw a figure just . . . standing there. Standing there looking, maybe at her, maybe at the people in the distance as they swarmed and reclaimed their dignity with the swiftness that comes when it’s long overdue. But the figure didn’t move. It became just another window dressing, and that was how she knew it was Missy Ruth.

  They could have been sisters if Missy Ruth didn’t believe the same deception that men did. Oh, but the deceit was so alluring, sweet on the tongue like cane. There weren’t many who could spit it out.

  Nothing compelled Maggie to shout to her or signal that the flames would soon reach her, giving her the chance to flee. Where would she go? Out in the woods like she always did, probably. Or into town. Or find some place of worship to give shelter. There were traps everywhere, sure, but, too, there was no shortage of people who would spring them and endanger themselves to spare a toubab woman grief.

  Maggie just stared at her, remembering the dress. Then she held up the torch and for whatever reason, a tear streamed down her face. Maggie decided not to question where it came from or why it came, but was certain that it, alone, was enough.

  She wasn’t standing on a hill, but that’s what it seemed like. It was as if the smoke were, instead, clouds, and the ashes—some of the flakes could have very well been her own child’s, mixed in with how far Empty was about to fall thanks to her, yes her, it should be known and remembered, but it won’t be—the ashes could have been the starry heavens because they, too, were remnants of dead things.

  No one would remember her name, but she had become a larger spirit now: head bigger, hips wider, and whatever the hurt. All of the ones who had come before her simply pumping through her heart and they had found a place to be in the caverns of her throat. There, she recalled her voice.

  With both her hands in the air, she cast her last spell:

  “Look! We lined up in a row, stretched damn near across the whole place.” The people, crying some of them, looked over toward Maggie and scurried nearer. “Make a circle. We need a circle because both ends need to be closed up. A snake. A snake eating its own damn tail. Don’t that just beat all? What matter do it make if you are seen? You are here!”

  She took a moment to look at each of them. “All you done seen. All you done touched. And you let something as small as a ocean part you? Ain’t you shamed?”

  As the knowing rose upon their faces, Maggie smiled. Finally: “A wisdom!”

  Only one question: What to do when the cavalry arrives? Only one thing to do:

  With every drop of blood:

  Rebel!

  Isaiah

  Be a stone. Please be a stone.

  That was what some rocks said to some feathers, to the dandelion-wishes that floated about minding their own business before coming down slowly to land in some meadow and, after a time, take root. They wanted soft things to harden, for their own good, for their own good. But that left no consideration for the traveler who had to walk barefoot over the terrain, left them no comfortable place to step. And Isaiah wanted to be that for Samuel.

  But comfort for travelers wasn’t the point. Because wonderful for them that they had some place to rest their feet, weary as they might be, but what about all the soft things beneath them?

  Yes, I know. But I can’t be what I can’t be.

  Open fields, then, where the blues were heartbreak and the black-eyed Susans were high in their conceit. Isaiah laid down both sword and shield way before he even got to the river. Whatever was ahead would be the hell toubab feared, unless it also came with a pr
omise: the tip of Samuel’s trembling tongue at the edge of Isaiah’s impatient nipple. That was the thing to make the head roll back and the face worship sky. That was the thing to unfurl itself, a delicate bloom holding on to dew like joy. That was the thing to cause the many waters to rush toward calm and therefore to harbor. Yes. That was the thing.

  And all the while he babbled in their covered intimacies, making Samuel ask him why he liked to talk so much; where was the quiet and could they have it for themselves, if just for a time? “Sleep is quiet enough,” Isaiah had told him. “When we awake, I wanna make sure you hear me. Inside you, I want you to hear me.” Samuel looked away. He understood it, but he couldn’t hold it. Elusive, like trying to catch a wish when a stone was easier to grasp.

  But Isaiah couldn’t be a stone, especially not now, unless he wanted to sink to the bottom deep.

  I be your stone for you.

  How would Samuel get across the river with that weight on him? He, too, had nearly succumbed. No one would ever know how close he came to betraying everything, even himself in exchange for a tender name.

  “Why they hate us?”

  “The answer plum right in front you, ’Zay. Because Amos told them to. And Massa told Amos to.”

  They could deal with stares and whispers. But the cleaving? That was what pushed Isaiah into the night waters, where who knows what was liable to have at him. No, he couldn’t be a sinking stone, for he needed, now, to float. Nameless because Isaiah wasn’t the name given to him by those he truly belonged to. Thus he walked about wearing an insult like castoffs. He answered to disrespect every time he was called, whether the caller adored him or not. Yes indeed, nearly a stone.

  He took all of that, every single piece of that, and carried it on his back when he shot into the dark river water not knowing what abyss could be below. They had said that his people were afraid of water and couldn’t swim. He had heard the stories of the elders who leaped into the sea rather than make it to these bitter shores and how easy they went down. He thought maybe it was true then, that his people were made of stones, and the minute he thought he could make it across, he would sink to the bottom and drown.