Elijah of Buxton Read online

  It was Friday evening and I finished my lessons at school and started walking to the stable to do my chores. I was gonna have to work faster than I do most days ’cause a bunch of people were counting on me to bring ’em some fish.

  Mr. Segee was next to the barn raking through his truck patch.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Segee.”

  “Why, ’lo there, ’Lijah. I always can tell when you on your way, Old Flapjack get worked up ’bout fifteen minutes ’fore you gets here.”

  “I don’t know why people say horses and mules are dull, Mr. Segee, ’specially Old Flapjack. He’s gotta be the smartest mule ever.”

  Mr. Segee snorted like he thought I’d lost my mind.

  “Well, it’s good you here, boy. Now go on in, them animals is waiting on you.”

  I separate my chores at the stable into two parts, the working part and the enjoying part. The working part is doing the things you wouldn’t do ’less you were forced to. I get them done first. Things like cleaning the stalls and shoveling manure and taking it to the fertilizer pile, and feeding and watering the animals. This takes a considerable good ’mount of time.

  The second part of my chores, the enjoying part, is divided into brushing the animals, tending to their hoofs, and my favourite part, helping make ’em comforted by keeping the horseflies off of ’em.

  It waren’t just for their good that this was my favouritest job, I was getting something out of it too. I was getting flies to use for bait. I figured out that this chore fit right in with the Buxton Settlement Creed: “One helping one to uplift all.” It’s the way all us in the Settlement look out for one the ’nother. We don’t expect nothing in return, but if we see someone that needs a hand, we rush to give it. Good things always come from that.

  I got my fly swah, pulled a milking stool next to Old Flapjack, and waited. It waren’t long afore a good-size fly lit just above his rear hoof.

  Crack!

  “Blang it all!”

  I ain’t the type to make the mistake of cursing out loud like that, but sometimes swear words’ll jump out of you afore you have a chance to remember they ain’t proper. Those words came out of me from being frustrated. I waren’t swatting flies just for the sake of killing ’em, and sometimes I got a little too strong.

  I’d been swatting horseflies for so many years that I could tell by the sound the fly swah made once it hit if I was gonna be able to use the fly for fishing or not. And crack was a sound that most times waren’t too good.

  I looked under Old Flapjack and I was right. The fly was in the dust and nothing was moving on him ’cept for the green guts that were leaking out of his bust-up back end.

  I picked him up by his wings, blew him off, and dropped him in the “dead” pouch.

  Two more horseflies landed on Old Flapjack’s flank and it was a chance to make up for the mistake I’d just made. I mean the hitting-the-fly-too-hard mistake, not the swearing mistake. Mr. Travis tells us that swearing’s the kind of mistake that once you do it, there ain’t no way to make up for it.

  I studied the two horseflies that had landed on Old Flap real careful. When a couple of ’em land close together like this, it ain’t long afore they take notice of one the ’nother and quit seeing anything else. It’s kind of like they put a spell or a conjure on each other and, truth told, once they do, it’s easier to hit two at once than it is to hit one.

  The two flies saw each other at near the same time and frozed their moving, trying to see which one was toughest.

  This waren’t the right thing to do, ’cause waren’t neither one of ’em tough as my fly swah and it was ’bout to do a whole lot more bad to ’em than any other horsefly ever could!

  Pah-dop!

  Now that was a good sound! That meant I hadn’t hit ’em hard enough to break no fly bones or nothing, but I had hit ’em so’s they were gonna be a little dumbstruck. Most likely they wouldn’t be doing no more flying but they should still be alive and kicking.

  I looked under the mule again and there they were, wings still a-buzzing and each one of ’em spinning in circles on the ground, raising up two little clouds of dust.

  I quick snatched ’em up and put ’em in the “live” pouch with the other ones that I was gonna use for big-fish bait.

  The Preacher’ll tell anyone that listens that the biggest, most ornery horseflies in the world live right here in Buxton. Mostly he tells the new-free slaves that come here ’cause he don’t love nothing more than letting ’em know how amazing him and the rest of us folks in Buxton are. But, truth told, it’s mostly how amazing he is.

  One time, seven free slaves came into the Settlement all at once and the Preacher took it on hisself to welcome ’em. This was afore the Elders found out what he was doing and quick made sure it didn’t happen again.

  He told those seven new-free people ’bout what difficult days were ahead.

  “Winters!” he shouted at ’em. “In your worst nightmares you can’t imagine how bad the winters up here are!

  “Got so cold during the winter of ’fifty-three that flames on candles froze solid! Even the sun was frozen in place halfway across the sky! It didn’t thaw out and commence moving again till the summer of ’fifty-four! Seven months of nothing but sunlight. Which explains why the horseflies up here are unnaturally large and ornery, since they had two growing seasons instead of the usual one.”

  The Preacher liked waving his arms ’round whilst he was talking, and he was really going at it to try to impress these new folks. “I was out in the field plowing with my mule that summer …” he said, which should’ve let on that this was gonna be a powerful stretching of the truth, ’cause don’t no one ’round here ever recall seeing the reins of a mule nor any other kind of working tool in the Preacher’s hands, “… when suddenly these two horseflies start buzzing overhead and one asks the other, ‘What do you think, should we eat that mule here or drag him into the woods and polish him off?’ The second fly says, ‘Let’s eat him here. If we take him to the woods the full-grown horseflies will snatch him away from us.’”

  I ain’t seen no signs of horseflies that big ’round here but it could be true, the Preacher’s a mighty smart man. I only know that the fish at Old Flapjack’s lake sure do think these horseflies are the best eating they’ve ever done.

  Once I’d got enough flies and checked ’round the stable to make sure I’d done everything, I went back out to Mr. Segee.

  “Everything’s done, Mr. Segee.”

  “’Lijah, when you says everything’s done, ain’t no need for me to check. Ain’t none the other children look after that stable the way you do. When’s your next day?”

  “Monday, sir.”

  “Well, then, see you on Monday.”

  “Yes, sir. Sir, is it gonna be all right if I take Old Flapjack out for a spell?”

  It was the same thing every Friday, and he never said no, but Ma and Pa always say it’s polite and proper to ask and not to make no assumptions.

  “Why, let me think a second, boy, is it all right for you to take that old mule out?”

  Mr. Segee leaned on the rake he was using and kind of stared up into the clouds. Then he said, “I think they done called off the horse racing for this evening, Elijah. Seem like all them horses, even Jingle Boy and Conqueror, done pulled out once they got wind Ol’ Flapjack was running again, figure they ain’t got no chance at whupping that mule. So it don’t seem like you taking him is gunn be a problem.”

  Mr. Segee came up from Mississippi only a year ago, and Ma says we got to give him some allowance for the kind of things he thinks is funny, so I give him a little laugh every time he makes one n’em bad jokes.

  I could tell Flapjack was raring to go, but ’less you knowed what to look for, you might not see it. His raring-to- go look’s a powerful lot like his not-wanting-to-move look.

  Soon’s I led him out of the stable he started off on the road that runs through the main part of the Settlement. I knowed there waren’t no r
ush to catch him, I knowed exactly where he was going. Once he got out of the stable he’d head straight down the road afore he cut off into the woods heading for the lake he first took me to ’bout a year ago.

  I had plenty of time to put away the tools and the wheelbarrow and gather up my fly pouches and my chunking stones and my net-basket and the strings that I use for holding the fish I catch.

  When I got done, I cut through some fields and caught Old Flapjack just as he passed Miss Carolina’s house. I jumped up on his back and let him carry me to our secret lake.

  Most folks say it’s wrong, but if I had my druthers, I’d ride a mule over a horse any day. Horses do too much shaking of your insides when you ride ’em and they’re a long way up if you lose your grip and fall.

  Mules don’t jar nothing when they walk, they like slow and easy travel. They have a way of rocking you gentle like a baby in a crib. If you don’t fall asleep first, you get a chance to think ’bout things when you ride a mule. With a horse, you don’t get to think ’bout nothing but hoping you don’t fall off and get coldcocked by their hoofs. If you fall off a mule, you’re already close to the ground and got plenty of time to roll outta the way of their feet. Slow as Old Flapjack is, if you fell off him you’d have time enough to take a nap afore you had to worry ’bout him stomping on you.

  Flapjack left the road and turned off into the woods just after we crossed out of the Settlement and passed the Preacher’s house. It didn’t look like the Preacher was home. Not that I’d’ve stopped and called on him, it’s just that lately, since he’s seen Jesus has been giving me gifts, he lets me come with him and watch when he practices shooting off his mystery pistol.

  It just was last month that the Preacher snucked up on me whilst I was out in the Atlas Clearing chunking rocks. He came out from behind a tree and said, “Did I see what I think I saw or are my eyes deceiving me?”

  He sounded so surprised that I looked ’round the clearing expecting something peculiar to be going on.

  “What did you see, sir?”

  The Preacher said, “I saw you, Elijah. I saw what you were doing, and I’m afraid it has the look of conjuring to it.”

  I couldn’t understand what he was talking ’bout. I was sure I hadn’t done nothing that no one could claim was conjuring.

  I said, “No, sir, I wouldn’t never do nothing like conjuring. I waren’t doing nothing but chunking stones.”

  He said, “That’s what I’m talking about. I’ve never seen a soul throw a rock like you do and, Elijah, I have to tell you, I’m quite concerned. I have to do some serious pondering on this to see if it’s the work of the Devil. You do know that being left-handed is one of the sure signs of being in Satan’s clutches, don’t you?”

  I said, “No, sir!”

  He said, “Keep that in mind. Come on with me, I’m going a little deeper in the woods to practice-shoot. And bring some of those rocks you have there.”

  I’d told Ma I waren’t gonna go no farther than the Atlas Clearing, but since I was gonna be with the Preacher I figured it’d be all right if I followed him. ’Sides, if it meant I’d get to see him shooting off his mystery pistol, waren’t nothing gonna stop me!

  I’d spent lots of time sneaking through the woods, mostly at night, but I didn’t recognize the way the Preacher started leading me. All I knowed for sure was that it was where me and Cooter’d been warned not to go, off toward the way where some of the white people that didn’t like us lived. Pa’d told us it was a way full up with black bears and bats and, worst of all, millions of rattling-snakes!

  I sure was glad the Preacher had his gun ’cause, truth told, whilst I knowed I wouldn’t have no trouble chunking a rattling-snake with my rocks, I caint say for sure if I could stop one of those black bears.

  Me and the Preacher must’ve walked for half a hour, but I couldn’t be sure, when you don’t know where you’re heading, time don’t seem to run by like it normal do. But with every step we took I was getting more and more disappointed in this new area.

  From the way Pa had warned me, I’d always pictured these woods as having so many bears hanging out of the trees that the sunlight would’ve been blocked off from hitting the ground! I’d always pictured that there’d be so many rattling-snakes hissing and shaking in these parts that you’d near ’bout go deaf from the racket they made. But we’d been walking a good long time and there was still plenty of sunlight and I hadn’t heard rattle the first. We hadn’t even seen one bat.

  Finally we got to another clearing and the Preacher said, “I’m going to give you some tests, Elijah, and I’m hoping that they prove you haven’t been conjuring, because if you have, it’s my responsibility to let the word be spread.”

  I waren’t sure what he meant by that, but I knowed it waren’t good.

  He said, “I’m going to set these pieces of wood up at about twenty paces and I want to see how many of them you can hit.”

  I started thinking this over. Hitting something from twenty paces waren’t nothing, but I wondered if I should miss one or two of ’em on purpose so’s the Preacher wouldn’t see no signs of conjuring.

  But this was the Preacher, and he was so smart it’d be hard to fool him. He was always telling me he’d forgot more than I ever knowed, which don’t make a lot of sense, but it was probably gonna be best on me if I chunked for real and didn’t hold back.

  The Preacher walked off twenty steps and set up five hunks of wood ’bout three feet apart one from the ’nother.

  He came back and told me, “Let me see how many of them you can hit before I count five.”

  I put two stones in my right hand and three in my left.

  The Preacher raised a eyebrow like he hadn’t never seen nothing like this and said, “Set! Go! One …”

  I throwed left, right, left, right, left.

  The Preacher’d only counted to three afore I had all five of those wood hunks flying through the air.

  He looked at me in a way that told me he thought for sure I was a-conjuring.

  He didn’t say nothing but he walked back the twenty paces and this time set up ten pieces of wood.

  He came back and drawed his mystery pistol out of its fancy holster and said, “When I say ‘go,’ you hit the five on the right and I’m going to hit the five on the left.”

  I got my rocks ready.

  “Go!”

  The loud way the pistol exploded right next to me throwed me off and I missed the first piece of wood but quick knocked down the others. By the time I’d finished, the Preacher had only shot three of the wood hunks and was sighting in on number four.

  He stopped and looked at me like he’s puzzling, then said, “I’m going to have to do some more contemplating over this. On the one hand this might be an act of conjuration.” He put his right hand out like he’s expecting something to drop in it. “On the other hand …” His left hand came up. “… we might be witnessing a gift from Jesus Himself!”

  He brung his hands together like he was fixing to pray. “I’m not ready to come right out and say whether this is conjuring or the Lord, but whatever it is, it sure is unnatural for a boy to be tossing stones like that.”

  A few days later, the Preacher let me and other folks know it had been showed to him that my rock chunking was gave tome as a gift from Jesus!

  He told folks my arm and my eye were so true that I could knock the spots off a ladybug without harming her atall if I took the notion to do so.

  He said what happened to a stone after I chunked it was like a ball shot out one n’em old muzzle-loader rifles. It waren’t the quickest thing getting to where it was aimed, but once it got there, all sorts of who-struck-John busted loose.

  I believed the Preacher when he told me what I got was a gift from the Lord, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have no doubts ’bout it from time to time. I’d been meaning to ask our Sabbath school teacher, Mr. Travis, if it was blaspheming to say this, but seemed to me if this rock chunking really was a gift from Jesu
s, it would be the sort of thing that would be there forever, and for me it waren’t atall. This was a gift that needed lots of practicing else it went away.

  Ma and Pa waren’t too impressed by the Preacher saying these things neither. When I told Pa what got showed to the Preacher, he asked, “How come Jesus only choose certain folk to talk di-rect to? And how come they’s always the ones what ain’t got nothing atall in common with the Bible?”

  Maybe I’d started dozing, I was surprised when Old Flapjack slowed down and I felt sticker bushes snatching at my brogans. He’d started picking his way through some blackberries and I knowed we’d just ’bout reached our secret lake.

  It was these bushes that Old Flap spent all his time in whilst I fished.

  I hopped off his back and walked down to the water. I went clean over to the other side of the lake and laid down my two pouches and my tote sack and net-basket and pulled off my brogans and all my clothes.

  I divide this lake into two parts. First there’s the fishing part, which was on the side where I came in at, by all the cattails and lily pads. Then there was the swimming part, which was where I’d walked to now.

  I jumped in and let all the sweat from choring and riding Flapjack float off of me. I don’t know how long I spent bathing, but after ’while I saw splashes and waves coming from the other side of the lake and I knowed the fish had started feeding.

  I pulled my clothes back on, ’cepting for my brogans and stockings, picked up my sack and two pouches and net-basket, and walked back over to the fishing side of the lake, right near where Old Flapjack was still eating blackberries. I could hear him snorting and chawing and going at ’em pretty good.

  There was a perfect spot for rock fishing just afore where the cattails got thick.

  I opened the “dead” fly pouch and picked out ’bout four of ’em that had a good amount of juices leaked out and I tossed ’em right into the spot near the cattails. This would get the little fish riled up, they’d bump at the flies and try to pull ’em under and would raise a ruckus that’d make the big fish wonder what the commotion was for.