The Good Lord Bird

by James McBride

  I come to enjoy that first winter with the Old Man’s army, especially with Fred. He was as good a friend as a feller—or a girl who was really a feller—could want. He was more like a child than a man, which meant we fit together well. We never run short on playthings. The Old Man’s army stole everything from the Pro Slavers a child could want: fiddles, saltshakers, mirrors, tin cups, a wooden rocking horse. What we couldn’t keep, we used for target practice and blasted up. It weren’t a bad life, and I growed used to it and forgot all about running off.

  Spring came on like it always did, and one morning the Old Man went out scouting by himself, looking for Pate’s Sharpshooters, and come back driving a big schooner wagon instead. I was setting by the campfire, making a fish basket when he rolled in. I looked up at the wagon as it rolled past and saw it had a busted-up back wheel with the hardwood brake shorn off. I said, “I knows that wagon,” and no sooner had I said it than Nigger Bob and five Negroes tumbled out the back.

  He seen me right off, and while the rest tumbled out to follow the Old Man to the campfire to eat, he cornered me.

  “I see you is still working your show,” he said.

  I had changed over the winter. I had been out some. Seen a little bit. And I weren’t the meek little thing he had seen the fall before. “I thought you said you weren’t going to join this army,” I said.

  “I come to live large like you,” he said happily. He glanced ’round, seen nobody was close, and then whispered, “Do they know you’re . . . ?” and he done his hand in a wiggly way.

  “They don’t know nothing,” I said.

  “I won’t tell,” he said. But I didn’t like him having that on me.

  “You plan on riding with us?” I asked.

  “Not hardly. The Captain said he had but a few things to do and then we’s gone to freedom.”

  “He’s riding against Captain Pate’s Sharpshooters.”

  That floored Bob. “Shit. When?”

  “Whenever he finds ’em.”

  “Count me out. There’s two hundred in Pate’s army. Probably more. Pate got so many rebels wanting to join you’d think he was selling Calpurnia’s flapjacks. He’s turning ’em away. I thought Old Brown was working the freedom train. Riding north. Ain’t that what you said last fall?”

  “I don’t know what I said then. I don’t remember.”

  “That’s what you said. Said he was riding for freedom. Gosh darnit. What other surprises is around here? What’s his plan?”

  “I don’t know. He don’t tell me. Whyn’t you ask him?”

  “He favors you. You ought to ask.”

  “I ain’t gonna ask him them things,” I said.

  “Ain’t you angling on freedom? What you routin’ ’round here for then?”

  I didn’t know. Up till then, escaping back to Dutch’s was in my plans. Once that changed, it was day-to-day living. I never was one to look too far past angling meat and gravy and biscuits down my throat. Bob, on the other hand, mostly had a family to consider, I reckon, and he had his mind on the freedom line, which weren’t my problem. I growed used to the Old Man and his sons. “I reckon being practiced on a sword and a pistol is what I been learning ’round here,” I said. “And reading the Bible. They do lots of that, too.”

  “I ain’t come here to read nobody’s Bible and fight nobody’s slavery,” Bob said. “I come to get myself out from under it.” He looked at me and frowned. “I guess you don’t have to worry about it, the way you playing it, being a girl and all.”

  “You the one that told me to do it.”

  “I ain’t tell you to get me kilt!”

  “You come here ’cause of me?”

  “I come here ’cause you said the word ‘freedom.’ Sheesh!” He was mad. “My wife and children’s still in bondage. How I’m gonna plan on earning money to buy them if he’s monkeying ’round, fighting the Missourians?”

  “You didn’t ask him?”

  “There weren’t no asking,” Bob said. “My marse and I was rolling to town. I heard a noise. Next thing I know, he stepped out the woods holding a rifle in marse’s face. He said, ‘I’m taking your wagon and freeing your colored man.’ He didn’t ask me if I wanted to be free. Course I come along ’cause I had to. But I thought he was gonna free me to the north. Nobody said nothing about fighting nobody.”

  That was the thing. The Old Man done the same to me. He reckoned every colored wanted to fight for his freedom. It never occurred to him that they would feel any other way.

  Bob stood there, fuming. He was hot. “I done gone from the frying pan to the fire. Captain Pate’s rebels is gonna burn us up!”

  “Maybe the Captain’ll find somebody else to fight. He ain’t the only abolitionist ’round these parts.”

  “He’s the only one that counts. Cousin Herbert said there’s two companies of U.S. dragoons combing this country, looking for this outfit. That’s U.S. Army, I’m talking. From back east. That ain’t no posse. They gonna blame us for whatever he does when he’s caught, you can bet on it.”

  “What we done wrong?”

  “We here, ain’t we? If we’s caught, you can bet whatever they do to him, they’ll double the potion on the niggers. We’ll be in deep grease. You never thunk that, did you?”

  “You didn’t sing that song when you told me to run with him.”

  “You didn’t ask it,” Bob said. He got up, looking toward the campfire, where the smell of food beckoned. “Fight for freedom,” he said, sucking his teeth. “Sheesh.” He turned and spotted the bevy of stolen horses tied to the outer barrier, where several scouts stood. Looked to be at least twenty horses there and a couple of wagons to boot.

  He looked at them and back to me. “Whose horses is those?”

  “He always got a bunch of stolen horses around.”

  “I aim to take one of them and get gone. You can come if you want.”

  “Where to?”

  “Jump across the Missouri, then find Tabor, Iowa. They say there’s a gospel train there. Underground Railroad. That’ll run you north to Canada. Distant country.”

  “You can’t run a horse that far.”

  “We’ll take two, then. The Old Man won’t mind one or two missing.”

  “I wouldn’t snatch a horse from him.”

  “He ain’t gonna live long, child. He’s crazy. He thinks the nigger’s equal to the white man. He showed that on the way here. Calling the coloreds in the wagon ‘mister’ and ‘missus’ and so forth.”

  “So what? He does that all the time.”

  “They gonna kill him for being so dumb. He ain’t right in his mind. Ain’t you seen that?”

  Well, he had a point, for the Old Man weren’t normal. For one thing, he rarely ate, and he seemed to sleep mostly atop his horse. He was old compared to his men, wrinkled and wiry, but nearly as strong as every one of them except Fred. He marched for hours without stopping, his shoes full of holes, and was overall gruff and hard generally. But at night he seemed to soften some. He’d pass Frederick sleeping in his roll, lean over, and tuck the giant’s blanket roll tightly with the gentleness of a woman. There weren’t a dumb beast under God’s creation—cow, ox, goat, mule, or sheep—that he couldn’t calm or tame to touch. He had nicknames for everything. Table was “floor tacker,” walking was “tricking.” Good was “dowdy.” And I was “the Onion.” He sprinkled most of his conversation with Bible talk, “thees” and “thous” and “takest” and so forth. He mangled the Bible more than any man I ever knowed, including my Pa, but with a bigger purpose, ’cause he knowed more words. Only when he got hot did the Old Man quote the Bible exact to the letter, and then it was trouble, for it meant someone was about to walk to the quit line. He was a lot to deal with, Old Brown.

  “Maybe we ought to warn him,” I said.

  “’Bout what?” Bob said. “About dying for nigg
ers? He made that choice. I ain’t getting into no hank with no rebels about slavery. We’ll be colored when the day’s done, no matter how the cut comes or goes. These fellers can go back to being Pro Slavers anytime they want.”

  “If you stealing from the Old Man, I don’t want to know about it,” I said.

  “Just keep shut ’bout me,” he said, “and I’ll keep quiet ’bout you.” And with that he got up and headed over to the campfire to eat.

  —

  I decided to warn the Old Man about Bob the next morning, but no sooner did I consider it than he marched into the middle of camp and shouted, “We found ’em boys! We found Pate! He’s close by. Mount up! On to Black Jack!”

  The men tumbled out of their rolls, grabbed their weapons, and staggered to their horses, tripping over pots and pans and junk, getting ready to roll outta camp, but the Old Man halted ’em and said, “Wait a minute. I got to pray.”

  He done it quick—twenty minutes, which was fast for him, sawing away at God for His goodwill, advice, benefit, and so forth, while the men stood around, jumping on one foot to keep warm, which gived Bob a chance to prowl the camp and arm himself with every little bit of foodstuff that was left, which weren’t much. I seen him on the outside of the circle, nobody bothering him, for the Old Man’s camp was full of every abolitionist and colored who needed a gun or a hot meal. The Captain didn’t mind it a bit, for while he was big on stealing swords, guns, pikes, and horses from Pro Slavers, he didn’t mind anyone in his camp helping themselves to one of them things, so long as they was all for the good cause of the abolitionists. Still, Bob rooting around a bunch of rifles lined against a tree while everyone else was looking for food perked his interest, for he thought Bob wanted to arm himself. After his prayer, while the men broke camp and placed pikes, Sharps rifles, and broadswords in a wagon, the Captain marched over to Bob and said, “Good sir, I see you is ready to strike a blow for your own freedom!”

  That hemmed Bob up. He pointed to the rifles and said, “Sir, I don’t have no knowledge of how to use them things.”

  The Captain thrust a sword into Bob’s hands. “Swinging this high is all the knowledge you need,” he grunted. “Come now. Onward. Freedom!”

  He hopped into the rear of an open-back wagon driven by Owen, and poor Bob had to follow. He looked downright unsettled, and set there, quiet as a mouse, while we rode. After a few minutes, he uttered, “Lord, I’m feeling weak. Help me, Jesus. I need the Lord is what I need. I need the blood of Jesus!”

  This the Old Man took as a sign of friendship, for he grabbed Bob’s hands in his and jumped into a roaring prayer about the Almighty in the book of Genesis, then washed it down with several more verses from the Old Testament, then throwed some New Testament in there, and tossed that about for a good while. A half hour later Bob was dead asleep and the Old Man was still prattling on. “The blood of Jesus binds us as brothers! The Good Book says, ‘Hold thine own hand to the blood of Christ and you will see the coming of thine own intervention.’ Onward, Christian soldiers! Glorious redemption!”

  He got just plain joy hollering out the Bible, and the closer we got to the battlefield, the more redeemed he got, and his words made my insides quiver, for he had prayed like that at Osawatomie when he knocked them fellers’ heads off. I weren’t for no fighting, and neither was some of his army. As we drawed closer to Black Jack, his herd, which had growed to nearly fifty by that time, thinned out just like they done at Osawatomie. This one had a sick child, that one had to tend crops. Several in the column on their horses let their mounts slow-trot till they faded to the back of the column, then turned around and scooted. By the time we got to Black Jack, about only twenty remained. And them twenty was exhausted from the Old Man’s prayer, which he throwed out to full effect en route, and them mutterings had a way of putting a man to sleep on his feet, which meant the only person awake and fired by the time we reached Black Jack was the Old Man himself.

  Black Jack was a boggy swamp with a ravine cutting through it and woods sheltering either side. When we reached it, we proceeded to a ridge outside the village, where it sheered off the trail and cut straight into the woods. The Old Man waked the troops in the wagon and ordered the rest on horse to dismount. “Follow my orders, men. And no talking.”

  It was hot and broad daylight. Early morning. No night charge here. We proceeded on foot for about ten minutes to a clearing, then he crawled up a ridge to look over the crest to the valley of Black Jack below to see where Pate’s Sharpshooters was. When he come back off the ridge he said, “We’re in a good position, men. Take a look.”

  We crawled to the edge of the ridge and looked over into the town.

  By God, there was three hundred men swilling around on the other side of the ravine if there was one. Several dozen had lined up as shooters, laying on the ridge that defended the town. The ridge overlooked a creek in a ravine with a small river. Beyond it was the town. Since they was beneath us, Pate’s shooters hadn’t seen us yet, for we was hidden by the thickets above them. But they was ready, sure enough.

  After reconnoitering the enemy, we headed back to where the horses were tied, whereupon the Old Man’s sons began to wrangle about what came next. None of it sounded pleasant. The Old Man was keen for a frontal attack by coming down one of the ridges, for they was protected by rocks and the slope of the land. His boys preferred a sneak surprise attack at night.

  I walked off from ’em a bit, for I was nervous. I walked out and down the trail a bit, heard the sound of hoofbeats, and found myself staring at another Free State rifle company that galloped past me and into our clearing. There were about fifty, in clean uniforms, all spit and shine. Their captain rode up in a smartly dressed military outfit, leaped off his horse, and approached the Old Man.

  The Old Man, who always kept himself deep in the woods, away from his horses and wagon lest a surprise attack come, popped out the woods to greet them. With his wild hair, beard, and chewed-up clothes, he looked like a mop dressed in rags compared to this captain, who was all shined up from his buttons to his boots. He marched up to the Old Man and said, “I’m Captain Shore. Since I got fifty men, I’ll command. We can go straight at them from the ravine.”

  The Old Man weren’t keen on taking orders from nobody. “That won’t do,” he said. “You’re wide open that way. The ravine circles them all the way around. Let’s work our way to the side and kill off their supply line.”

  “I come here to kill ’em, not starve ’em,” Captain Shore said. “You can work your way ’round the side all you want, but I ain’t got all day.” With that he mounted up, turned to his men, and said, “Let’s take them,” and sent his fifty men on their horses straight down the ravine toward the enemy.

  They hadn’t got five steps down that ravine before Pate’s Sharpshooters met them with a hail of bullets. Knocked five or six clean off their mounts and diced, sliced, and chopped every one of the rest that was stupid enough to follow their captain down that ridge. The rest that could make off their mounts hotfooted it up that ridge fast as the devil on foot, with their captain running behind them. Shore collapsed at the top and took cover, but the remainder of his men that got up there kept going, right past their captain, taking off down the road.

  That Old Man watched ’em, irritated. “I knew it,” he said. He ordered me and Bob to guard the horses, sent a few men to a distant hill to take aim at the enemy’s horses, then sent a few more to the far edge of the ravine to block the enemy’s escape. To the rest he said, “Follow me.”

  Now, yours truly weren’t following him no place. I was happy to guard the horses, but a few of Pate’s men decided to fire on our horses, which put me and Bob in the hothouse. Shooting suddenly erupted everywhere on the ridge where we was, and the Old Man’s army broke apart. Truth be to tell it, much of the grapeshot whistling past my ears was from our side as come from the enemy, for neither side was coolheaded about what they was doi
ng, loading and firing fast as they could, the devil keeping score. You had as much chance getting killed by your neighbor blowing your face off in them days as you did the enemy hitting you from a hundred yards distant. A bullet’s a bullet, and there was so many of ’em snapping and pinging against the trees and limbs, there weren’t no place to hide. Bob cowered under the horses, which was heavy taking fire and rearing in panic, and staying with them didn’t seem safe to me, so I followed the Old Man down the hill. He seemed the safest bet.