The Good Lord Bird

by James McBride

  “Where’s he at?”

  “Who?”

  “Stop fooling. You know who I’m talking about.”

  Herbert glanced up, then back down at his flowers. “There’s posses from here to Lawrence combing this whole country for him. They say he throwed the life spark outta ten white fellers up near Osawatomie. Knocked their heads clean off with swords. Any nigger that mentions his name’ll be shipped outta this territory in pieces. So git away from me. And send that girl home and run on home to your wife.”

  “She belongs to the Captain.”

  That changed things, and Herbert’s hands stopped a moment as he considered it, still looking down at the dirt, then he started digging again. “What that got to do with me?” Herbert said.

  “She’s Captain’s property. He’s running her out this country, outta bondage.”

  The old man stopped his work for a minute, glancing at me. “Well, she can suck her thumb at his funeral, then. Git. Both of y’all.”

  “That’s a hell of a way to treat your third cousin.”

  “Fourth cousin.”

  “Third, Herbert.”

  “How’s that?”

  “My Aunt Stella and your Uncle Beall shared a second cousin named Melly, remember? She was Jamie’s daughter, second cousin to Odgin. That was Uncle Beall’s nephew by his first marriage to your Mom’s sister Stella, who got sold last year. Stella was my cousin Melly’s second cousin. So that makes Melly your third cousin, which puts your Uncle Jim in the back behind my uncles Fergus, Cook, and Doris, but before Lucas and Kurt, who was your first cousin. That means Uncle Beall and Aunt Stella was first cousins, which makes me and you third cousins. You would treat your third cousin this way?”

  “I don’t care if you is Jesus Christ and my son together,” Herbert snapped. “I don’t know nothing ’bout no Captain. ’Specially in front of her,” he said, nodding at me.

  “What you gettin’ in a knot over her for? She’s just a child.”

  “That’s just it,” Herbert said. “I ain’t gonna eat tar and feathers over that high-yellow thing there who I don’t even know. She don’t look nothing like the Old Man, whatever he do look like.”

  “I didn’t say she was his kin.”

  “Whatever she is, she don’t belong with you, a married man.”

  “You ought to check yourself, cousin.”

  He turned to me. “Is you colored or white, miss, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “What difference do it make?” Bob snapped. “We got to find the Captain. This little girl is rolling with him.”

  “Is she colored or not?”

  “Course she’s colored. Can’t you see?”

  The old man stopped his digging to stare at me a moment, then started digging again, and snorted, “If I didn’t know no better, I’d say she was kin to old Gus Shackleford, who they say got his spark blowed out on account of talking to John Brown in Dutch’s Tavern four days past, bless his soul. But Gus had a boy, that trifling Henry. He worried Gus to devilment, that one. Acting white and all. He needs a good spanking. I ever catch that little gamecock nigger outside Dutch’s I’ll warm his little buns with a switch so hard, he’ll crow like a rooster. I expect his devilment is what sent his Pa to his rewards, for he was as lazy as the devil. Children these days is just going to hell, Bob. Can’t tell ’em nothing.”

  “Is you done?” Bob said.

  “Done what?”

  “Fluffling your feathers and wasting time,” Bob snapped. “Where’s the Captain? Do you know or not?”

  “Well, Bob. A jar of peaches’ll go far in this kind of weather.”

  “I ain’t got no peaches, Herbert.”

  Herbert straightened. “You work your mouth awful good for a feller who never gived his cousin a penny in this world. Driving ’round in your high-siddity wagon with your high master. My marse is a poor man, like me. Go find yourself a bigger fool.”

  He turned away and dug more dirt into his flower bed.

  “If you won’t tell it, cousin,” Bob said, “I’ll go inside and ask your marse. He’s a Free Stater, ain’t he?”

  The old man glanced back at the cabin. “I don’t know what he is,” he said dryly. “He come out to this country Free State, but them rebels is changing these white folks’ mind fast.”

  “I’ll tell you this, cousin. This here girl do belong to John Brown. And he’s looking for her. And if he do find her, and she tells him you was pushing the waters against him, he’s liable to ride down here and place his broadsword on your back. And if he sets his mind to that kind of blood frolic, nothing’ll stop him. Who’s gonna look after you then?”

  That done it. The old man grimaced a bit, glanced up at the woods beyond the cabin behind him, then returned to digging his flowers. He talked with his face to the ground. “Circle ’round the cabin and move straight back into the woods, past the second birch tree beyond the corn field yonder,” he said. “You’ll find an old whiskey bottle stuck between two low branches on that tree. Follow the mouth of that bottle due north two miles, just the way the mouth is pointed. Keep the sun on your left shoulder. You’ll run into an old rock wall somebody built and left behind. Follow that wall to a camp. Make some noise ’fore you roll in there, though. The Old Man’s got lookouts. They’ll pull the trigger and tell the hammer to hurry.”

  “You all right, cousin.”

  “Git outta here ’fore you get me kilt. Old Brown ain’t fooling. They say he roasted the skulls of the ones he kilt. That’s the Wilkersons, the Fords, the Doyles, and several folks on the Missouri side. Ate their eyeballs like they was grapes. Fried the brains like chitlins. Used the scalps for wick lamps. He’s the devil. I ain’t never seen white folks so scared,” he said.

  That’s the thing about the Old Man back in them days. If he done a thing, it got whipped up into a heap of lies five minutes past breakfast.

  Herbert covered his mouth and chortled, licking his lips. “I want my jar of peaches, cousin. Don’t forget me.”

  “You’ll git ’em.”

  We bid leave of him and headed toward the woods. When we reached them, Bob stopped. “Little brother,” he said, “I got to cut you loose here. I’d like to go, but I’m getting shaky. Being that Old John Brown has chopped off eyeballs and heads and all, I don’t think I can make it. I’m fond of my head, since it do cover the top of my body. Plus, I got a family and can’t leave ’em just yet, not unless they has safe passage. Good luck, for you is going to need it. Stay a girl and go with it till the Old Man’s dead. Don’t worry ’bout old Nigger Bob here. I’ll catch up to you later.”

  Well, I couldn’t assure him of nothing about whether or not the Old Man would take his head or be deadened, but there weren’t nothing to do but take my leave of him. I followed old Herbert’s directions, walking through the tall pines and thickets. A short while later, I recognized a piece of the rock wall—that was the same wall the Old Man had leaned on to follow the map when he first kidnapped me, but the camp was gone. I followed that wall along till I seen smoke from a fire. I went behind the wall, on the far side, intending to go behind the Old Man and holler at him and his men so they’d recognize me. I made a wide circle, snaking through trees and thickets, and after I was sure I was far back off ’em, I rose up, stepped behind a wide oak, and sat down to gather myself. I didn’t know what kind of excuse I would cook up for ’em and needed time to think of one. Before I knew it, I fell asleep, for all that trekking and running around in the woods got me exhausted.

  When I woke, the first thing I saw was a pair of worn boots with several toes sticking out of them. I knowed them toes, for just two days previous, I’d seen Fred throw a needle and thread at them things as we set by the fire salting peanuts. From where I lay, them toes was looking none too friendly.

  I looked up into the barrel of two seven-shooters, and behind Frederick was Owen and s
everal more of the Old Man’s army, and none was looking too happy.

  “Where’s Pa’s horse?” Fred asked.

  —

  Well, they brung me to the Old Man and it was like I hadn’t gone no place. The Old Man greeted me like I had just come back from an errand to the general store. He didn’t mention the missing horse, me running off, or none of them things. Old Brown never cared about the details of his army. I seen fellers walk off from his army one day, stay away a year, and a year later walk back into his camp and set down by the fire and eat like they had just come back from hunting that morning, and the Old Man wouldn’t say a word. His abolitionist Pottawatomie Rifles was all volunteers. They came and went just as they pleased. In fact, the Old Man never gave orders unless they was in a firefight. Mostly he’d say, “I’m going this way,” and his sons would say, “Me too,” and the rest would say, “Me too,” and off they went. But as far as giving orders and checking attendance and all, the abolitionist army was a come-one, come-all outfit.

  He was standing over a campfire in his shirtsleeves, roasting a pig, when I walked up. He glanced up and seen me.

  “Evening, Onion,” he said. “You hungry?”

  I allowed that I was, and he nodded and said, “Come hither and chat whilst I roast this pig. Afterward, you can join me in praying to our Redeemer to give thanks for our great victory to free your people.” Then he added, “Half your people, since on account of your fair complexion, I reckon you is one half white or thereabouts. Which in and of itself, makes this world even more treacherous for you, sweet dear Onion, for you has to fight within yourself and outside yourself, too, being half a loaf on one side and half the other. Don’t worry. The Lord don’t have no contention with your condition, for Luke twelve, five says, ‘Take not the breast of not just thine own mother into thy hand, but of both thy parents.’”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about, course, but figured I’d better explain about his horse. “Captain,” I said. “I got scared and run and lost your horse.”

  “You ain’t the only one that run.” He shrugged, working that pig expertly. “There’s several ’round here who’s shy to putting God’s philosophy into action.” He glanced around at the men, several of whom looked away, embarrassed.

  By now the Old Man’s army had gotten bigger. There were at least twenty men setting about. Piles of arms and broadswords were leaned up against trees. The small lean-to tent I first saw was gone. In its place was a real tent, which, like everything there, was stolen for it was painted in the front with a sign that read Knox’s Fishing, Tackle, and Mining Tools. Out near the edge of camp, I counted fourteen horses, two wagons, a cannon, three woodstoves, enough swords to supply at least fifty men, and a box marked Thimbles. The men looked exhausted, but the Old Man looked fresh as a daisy. A week’s worth of white beard had growed on his chin, bringing it closer down to his chest. His clothes were soiled and torn worse than ever, and his toes protruded so far from his boots, they looked like slippers. But he moved spry and sprite as a spring creek.

  “The killing of our enemies was ordained,” he said aloud, to no one in particular. “If folks ’round here read the Good Book, they wouldn’t lose heart so easily when pressing forth in the Lord’s purpose. Psalms seventy-two, four, says, ‘He shall judge the poor of the people, and save the children of the needy, and break into pieces the oppressor.’ And that, Little Onion,” he said sternly, pulling off the fire the pig that was now roasted clean through, and glancing around at the men who looked away, “tells you all you need to know. Gather ’round a moment as I pray, men, then my brave Little Onion here will help me serve this ragged army.”

  Owen stepped forward. “Let me pray, Pa,” he said, for the men looked to be starving, and I reckoned they couldn’t stand an hour of the Captain doodling at the Almighty. The Old Man grumbled but agreed, and after we prayed and ate, he huddled with the others around his map, while Fred and I stayed away from them and cleaned up.

  Fred, short as he was in his head, was terrific glad to see me. But he seemed worried. “We done a bad thing,” he said.

  “I know it,” I said.

  “My brother John who run off, we never found him. My brother Jason, too. We can’t find neither.”

  “Where you think they gone?”

  “Wherever they are,” he said glumly. “We gonna fetch ’em.”

  “Do we got to?”

  He glanced furtively at his Pa, then sighed and looked away. “I missed you, Little Onion. Where’d you run off to?”

  I was about to tell him when a horse and rider charged into camp. The rider cornered the Old Man and spoke to him, and a few moments later, the Captain called us to order, standing in the middle of the camp by the fire while the men gathered around.

  “Good news, men. My old enemy Captain Pate has a posse raiding homes on the Santa Fe Road and planning to attack Lawrence. He got Jason and John with him. They are likely to drop ’em at Fort Leavenworth for imprisonment. We going after them.”

  “How big is his army?” Owen asked.

  “A hundred fifty to two hundred, I’m told,” Old Man Brown said.

  I looked around. I counted twenty-three among us, including me.

  “We only got ammo for a day’s fight,” Owen said.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “What we gonna use when we run out? Harsh language?”

  But the Old Man was already movin’, grabbing his saddlebags. “Lord’s riding on high, men! Remember the army of Zion! Mount up!”

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday, Father,” Owen said.

  “So what?”

  “What say we wait till Monday and catch Pate then. He’s likely headed to Lawrence. He won’t attack Lawrence on a Sunday.”

  “In fact, that’s exactly when he’ll attack,” the Old Man said, “knowing I’m a God-fearing man and likely to rest on the Lord’s day. We’ll ride up by way of Prairie City and cut him off at Black Jack. Let’s pray, men.”

  Well, there weren’t no stopping him. The men gathered around him in a circle. The Old Man dropped to his knees, stretched out his hands, palms toward the sky, looking like Moses of old, his beard angling down like a bird’s nest. He commenced to praying.

  Thirty minutes later Fred lay on the ground snoring, Owen stared into space, and the others milled about, smoking and doodling with saddlebags and scrawling letters home while the Old Man carried on, hollering up to the Anointed One with his eyes closed, till Owen finally piped out, “Pa, we got to ride! Jason and John is prisoner and headed to Fort Leavenworth, remember?”

  That broke the spell. The Old Man, still on his knees, opened his eyes, irritated. “Every time I gets to the balance of my words of thanks to my Savior, I gets interrupted,” he grumbled, getting to his feet. “But I expect the God of Gods has understanding about the patience of the young, who don’t favors Him to the necessary ends so as to give Him proper thanks for blessings which He giveth so freely.”

  With that, we saddled up and rode due north, to meet Captain Pate and his posse, and I was full-blown back in his army and the business of being a girl again.

  7

  Black Jack

  Like most things the Old Man planned out, the attack against Captain Pate’s Sharpshooters didn’t work out the way he drawed it up. For one thing, the Old Man always got bad information. We rode out against Captain Pate on a Saturday in October. Come December, we still hadn’t found him . . . Everywhere we went, the story changed. We’d roll toward Palmyra and a settler on the trail would holler, “There’s a fight with the rebels yonder in Lawrence,” and off we’d go toward Lawrence, only to find the fight two days past and the rebels gone. A few days later a woman on her porch would exclaim, “I seen Captain Pate over near Fort Leavenworth,” and the Old Man would say, “We have him now! Go men!” and off we’d bust out again, full of pluck, riding two days, only to find out it weren’t t
rue. Back and forth we went, till the men was plumb wore out. We went like that all the way into February, the Old Man spoiling for a fight, and getting none.

  We picked up another dozen or so Free Staters this way though, wandering around southern Kansas near the Missouri border, till we growed to about thirty men. We was feared, but the truth is, the Pottawatomie Rifles weren’t nothing but a bunch of hungry boys with big ideas running ’round looking for boiled grits and sour bread to stuff their faces with in late February. Winter come full on then, and it growed too cold to fight. Snow blanketed the prairie. Ice formed eighteen inches deep. Water froze in pitchers overnight. Huge trees, covered with icicles, crackled like giant skeletons. Those in the Old Man’s army who could stand it stayed in camp, huddled under the tent. The rest, including me and the Old Man and his sons, spent the winter keeping warm wherever we could. It’s one thing to say you’s an abolitionist, but riding for weeks on the plains in winter, with no spare victuals, you weeding a bad hoe for satisfaction to test a man’s principles that way. Some of the Old Man’s men was turned toward slavery by the time winter was over.

  But truth be to tell it, it weren’t killing me to be with the Old Man. Lazy slob that I was, I growed used to being outside, riding the plains looking for ruffians, stealing from Pro Slavers, and not having no exact job, for the Old Man changed the rules for girls in his army after he seen how I’d been put to scrubbing back and forth. He announced, “Henceforth every man in his company has to shift for himself. Wash your own shirts. Do your own mending. Fix your own plate.” He made it clear that every man was there to fight slavery, not get his washing done by the only girl in the outfit who happened to be colored. Fighting slavery is easy when you ain’t got that load. Fact is, it was pretty easy altogether, unless you was the slave, course, for you mostly rode around and talked up how wrong the whole deal was, then you stole whatever you could from the Pro Slavers, and off you went. You weren’t waking up regular to cart the same water, chop the same wood, shine the same boots, and hear the same stories every day. Slave fighting makes you a hero, a legend in your own mind, and after a while the thought of going back to Dutch’s to be sold down to New Orleans, and barbering and shining shoes and my skin smacking against that rough old potato sack I wore versus the nice soft, warm wool dress I had begun to favor, not to mention the various buffalo hides I covered myself with, growed less and less sweet. I weren’t for being a girl, mind you. But there was certain advantages, like not having to lift nothing heavy, and not having to carry a pistol or rifle, and fellers admiring you for being tough as a boy, and figuring you is tired when you is not, and just general niceness in the way folks render you. Course in them days colored girls had to work harder than white girls, but that was by normal white folks’ standards. In Old Brown’s camp, everyone around him worked, colored or white, and fact is, he busied all of us so much that at times slavery seemed no different than being free, for we was all on a schedule: The Old Man woke everyone at four a.m. to pray and mumble and blubber over the Bible for an hour. Then he put Owen on me to teach me letters. Then he throwed Fred on me to teach me the way of the woods, then he throwed me back to Owen again, who showed me how to throw a bullet into a breechloader and fire it. “Every soul has got to learn to defend God’s word,” the Old Man said. “And these is all defenses of it. Letters, defense, survival. Man, woman, girl, boy, colored or white, and Indians, needs to know these things.” He teached me himself how to make baskets and bottom chairs. How you do it is simple: You take white oak, split it, and then it’s just a manner of folding. Inside a month I could make any kind of basket you wanted: musket basket, clothes basket, feed basket, fish basket—I caught catfish big and wide across as your hand. On long afternoons while we waited for the enemy to cross the trail, Fred and I went and made sorghum syrup from sugar maple trees. There weren’t nothing to it. You sap it out the tree, pour it in a pan, fire it over a fire, skim them skimmings off the top with a stick or fork, and you done. Most of your job is to put the syrup away from the skimmings on the top. When you cook it right, you got the best sugar there is.