Black Angels Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1 - LUKE THE EAGLE

  CHAPTER 2 - LEFT BEHIND

  CHAPTER 3 - DAYLILY THE BEAR

  CHAPTER 4 - CASWELL THE WOLF

  CHAPTER 5 - RABBIT

  CHAPTER 6 - TREASURE

  CHAPTER 7 - GOOD-BYE

  CHAPTER 8 - FISHING FOR DINNER

  CHAPTER 9 - MUNDA AND THE THREE-LEGGED DOG

  CHAPTER 10 - GRAN SUSIE’S MICHAEL

  CHAPTER 11 - LIFE IS BIG

  CHAPTER 12 - LION

  CHAPTER 13 - FEVER

  CHAPTER 14 - A CURVE IN THE ROAD

  CHAPTER 15 - PROMISE AND APPLE PIE

  CHAPTER 16 - YONA

  CHAPTER 17 - MYSTERIES

  CHAPTER 18 - SECRETS

  CHAPTER 19 - CAUGHT

  CHAPTER 20 - LITTLE BEAR

  CHAPTER 21 - DISGUISE

  CHAPTER 22 - FAMILY

  CHAPTER 23 - RESCUE

  CHAPTER 24 - SMALLPOX

  CHAPTER 25 - CLARENCE OLMSTEAD

  CHAPTER 26 - RED IS DEAD. SUNRISE ON THE LEFT.

  CHAPTER 27 - JOHN BROWN’S BODY

  CHAPTER 28 - SUMMER FAREWELL

  CHAPTER 29 - FOLLOW THE RIVER

  CHAPTER 30 - THE MADISONS

  CHAPTER 31 - DANGER ON THE STREETS

  CHAPTER 32 - PLAYING SCHOOL

  CHAPTER 33 - JAMES JR.

  CHAPTER 34 - A DEATH IN THE FAMILY

  CHAPTER 35 - BOSTON

  CHAPTER 36 - VICTORY

  CHAPTER 37 - SCHOOL

  CHAPTER 38 - HIDING OUT

  CHAPTER 39 - STEPMOTHER

  CHAPTER 40 - FOUND

  CHAPTER 41 - TO BE A WHITE MAN

  CHAPTER 42 - DECISION 1874

  CHAPTER 43 - RUNAWAY

  CHAPTER 44 - THE TENTH SUMMER, 1874

  CHAPTER 45 - BEFORE THE FIRST FROST, 1874

  CHAPTER 46 - REUNION

  CHAPTER 47 - HARVEST

  Acknowledgements

  BY THE AUTHOR OF

  Crossing Over Jordan

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  A division of Penguin Young Readers Group.

  Published by The Penguin Group.

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3,

  Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.).

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England.

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.).

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd).

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd).

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,

  Johannesburg 2196, South Africa.

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England.

  Copyright © 2009 by Linda Beatrice Brown

  eISBN : 978-1-101-13381-1

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To My Mother, Edith Brown

  1907-1999

  Who Taught Me to Love the Imagination

  and

  To My Father, Raymond Brown

  1907-1998

  Who Taught Me to Love Freedom

  CHAPTER 1

  LUKE THE EAGLE

  Luke took the key out of the sideboard drawer in the dining room, took a rifle and put the key back very carefully. The drawer stuck so he couldn’t get it closed. It squeaked slightly. If he forced it, it would jar the whole rifle case. He breathed short, shallow breaths and felt his heartbeat shaking his entire chest. How would he ever get the drawer shut without being heard? If they saw it open, they’d notice the missing gun for sure.

  He pushed gently. The sideboard rattled. The drawer still wouldn’t give. Lord, someone would be hearing him. He pushed one more time, and the drawer went in with a click that was as loud as a gunshot to him. But he had the rifle! The powder bag was in his pocket.

  He hung Massa’s tin box with its flint and steel for making fires around his neck in its little bag. Massa had already eaten. He’d be sleeping it off now, gone in early for the night. And Eugenia would be fixing their supper. They always had to wait and eat whatever was left over.

  Luke would eat supper and pretend everything was normal. Then he’d wait until it got good and late before he left. By the time he was missed, it would be morning and they wouldn’t know where to start looking. If he could just make his way out of the house tonight without being seen.

  Supper was butter beans and corn and a little piece of pork chop Aunt Eugenia had saved for him. Massa always said he was fattening Luke up for special work. He’d be special and never have to fear being sold away. Luke didn’t really taste his food though. He could hardly stand the excitement, knowing it was his last meal at that kitchen table; he might never see Aunt Eugenia again. His stomach was jumping like a wild thing, but he tried hard to act normal because Aunt Eugenia could smell mischief a mile away.

  He wiped grease out from under his lip. She made him clean his plate and wash it at the pump, looking at him sideways with her forehead wrinkled up, like she knew he was up to something. When he came back in, the one kerosene lamp was shining on her dark brown face. The way she licked her lips, he knew what was coming.

  Finally she said it. “Ain’t no sense you thinking bout running.”

  Luke jumped.

  “Them Yankees have you snatched up in a minute. Eat you alive.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Luke said. But he thought, Old ladies always scared. Yankees can’t be that bad.

  “And go get me some wood for the stove, and put them rakes away fore too late. Us got a early morning comin. Need to get to bed. Missus want a big breakfast for company. Don’t know what they spect me to use for provisions. Us running outta everything. Dadblast Yankees anyhow. They ain’t no better’n any other White folks. Lord, she want light bread. Got to get up fore day in morning.” She groaned and slid back her chair. “Blow out the lamp after you lays that fire for mornin, Luke, I’m dead.” Tired, she slammed the kitchen door and walked off into the gloom toward her cabin. It was close to the kitchen so she could be called during the night.

  Luke couldn’t believe his luck. She had left him alone to finish up. She’d never done that before. She must have been really worn out. Now he could find some food to take with him. He finished his chores and looked around the kitchen. There was some corn bread left, but that was all. He’d have to find more than that.

  A streak of lightning lit up the northern sky. He went to his pallet in the fruit cellar next to the kitchen where he slept. He guessed a little rest would be good before he started on the road north, but he dozed fitfully. He kept falling asleep and waking up, and finally he couldn’t stand it any longer, so he sat up listening for sounds.

  Something creaked. A rumble of thunder far away. He guessed the others must have left by now.

  Luke opened the door a crack. No moon. It was completely dark. He reckoned it would take him an hour to get to the place. They were set to meet at the place where three big trees were growing together. It was called the haints’ place. Luke knew what that meant, that spirits were there. He didn’t like that, but he thought it’d be all right. By then the moon would be up and they’d be together. Him and Gustavus, Unc Steph and Junior Boy. He couldn�
��t let them see him coming. They weren’t taking children under fifteen. But if he met them, they’d have no choice but to take him along.

  Unc Steph would be right proud of him. He had him a prize too. One of Massa’s rifles! “My man,” that’s what Unc Steph would say. “That’s what I call a right grown man!”

  Luke would be twelve on his next birthday. Or that’s what he counted up. Nobody knew for sure how long ago he’d been born.

  Luke looked around the fruit cellar. There was only a dim light cast from the kitchen fireplace. It threw a glow onto the dried apples for pies, and peppers on a string. He’d heard Eugenia talking about hiding food yesterday, so they wouldn’t starve if the Yankees come. He decided to take apples and raisins, and from the bread box, more of yesterday’s corn bread. He wrapped it in a napkin and stuffed it in his shirt, then saw a knife on the windowsill that Aunt Eugenia had forgot to put away. He stared at it, thought “yes,” finally, and grabbed it.

  Luke stepped out of the back door into the night. He wiped his hand across his eyes. There was no way he could have told her good-bye. She would have stopped him sure enough. He wished he didn’t care. He wished he didn’t love nobody. Always somebody to say good-bye to.

  Crickets whined, and it was so humid you could feel damp on your skin. Hot and damp. September summer.

  Something fluttered in the dark and startled him. Maybe it was a bat. He walked quickly around to the side porch, carefully stepping over branches that would crack. The rifle was there, under the porch where he’d hidden it, half wrapped in the buckram. He tucked it tightly under his arm. Now he had to make it off the place without Massa’s three-legged hunting dog, Black Nigger, turning up, or worse. He could go through the trees to the back pasture and over the fence to the road. Frogs sang. They sounded louder to him than he’d ever heard them.

  He climbed the pasture fence easily, dropping down softly on the other side. The road to the river should be very close. As he neared the road, a loud thunderclap surprised him, and Luke turned to see the brilliant streak of light in the sky. It was right over Massa’s house. In the bright flash he saw the rocking chairs on the wraparound porch sway a little in the breeze and the two old pecan trees in the yard where he had picked up so many buckets of pecans for Aunt Eugenia’s pies. The trees were tall, old and gnarled, but they grew lots of pecans. In the distance, he could just barely see the cabins where the field hands lived. The rain had finally started. Luke adjusted his food bundle to keep it dry and was on his way.

  CHAPTER 2

  LEFT BEHIND

  It drizzled just a little at first, white flashes of light overhead, and a few drops. Luke padded along quickly on the muddy road. It had wagon ruts in it where water was collecting from the rain. Soon he left the road and crossed what he thought was Black Ankle Creek. The creek was supposed to be good luck, that’s what Gustavus had told him. Black ankles crossing the creek meant you were on your way north.

  He was moving faster now. It wouldn’t do to be caught. He was more afraid of that than he was of being out here in the woods at night, or rebs or Yankees or anything.

  Massa Higsaw was bad with runaways, and he had been in a bad mood what with the war he said “messin up his life.” It wouldn’t do to be caught, not at all. War or no war, proclamation or no proclamation. Massa Higsaw didn’t care what Lincoln said.

  Suddenly the rain came on hard and fast. Luke was trying to see his way clear to the place where haints came out at night—that’s where they were meeting—but it was hard going with the rain beating down on him. In a few minutes, he was soaking wet. The soles of his shoes were soggy, and his bread and fruit would be too wet now. He’d have to give in and stop, find a place to stay until it let up some.

  Luke had been this far away before, hunting with Massa, and he thought he knew of a place near here where a big boulder formed a kind of shelter. He’d have to go a little deeper into the woods to find it. But things looked strange in the darkness. If he could find it, he could get under the edge of the boulder and stay dry for a while.

  It was winter when he was here before. Now the trees were thick with leaves. He was looking for a big crooked rock that stuck out from the hill. It had scrubby plants around it. The mud and leaves were almost covering his feet. He was ready to give up when he turned to the right and saw the place. It was pretty dry under there.

  This wasn’t good; he hadn’t counted on rain. What if they had decided to go another night on account of the rain? It kept up lightning and thundering. Luke shuddered. He wished he had a quilt, but that was too much to be dragging along. He was not sure he could catch up with the others now, especially if they didn’t stop for the rain.

  Gradually the rain slowed down, the thunder moved off. Luke got to his feet. Which way now, which way to the haints’ place? He looked around, trying to be sure he was walking in the right direction. It all looked the same in the dark, as if the leaves had closed behind him. He thought he had been more than halfway there before he stopped. But the more he looked, the more he didn’t know for sure.

  It was darker than the devil’s mouth. When the moon broke through the clouds, he knew how late it was. He chose left, and set out through the wet underbrush, praying he was going the right way. Soon he saw the river again, and he knew he was right. But he didn’t see nobody. This was the place. The river water was as shiny as Miz Higsaw’s black silk dress. He could see little squints of light where the moon touched the water. The river was full of all that rain that had come down. And the big trees stood there like giant soldiers.

  This was the place where haints was “subject to fix” you unless you had your mojo. Luke wore one around his neck. It was his mam’s charm. Where could they be? He made the dove’s sound, a signal from slave to slave on the run. Maybe they couldn’t hear him over the sound of the river. Maybe they were hiding. And maybe he was just too late.

  He made the sound again. Nothing. Ain’t nobody here, he thought finally. They done left me. All there is to it. They done left me at the place where the haints get you. Tears filled his eyes and spilled over. He didn’t care. Nobody here to see him crying.

  Rain dripped off the trees. It was still coming down a bit. He heard an owl, and the moon outlined the footprints he had made in the mud. He had stuck the butt of his rifle in the muck, buckram and all, and he leaned on it, wiping his eyes with his wet sleeve. His stomach growled and turned inside out. But he didn’t feel hungry, not even a little bit.

  They were going north, he knew that. He ought to try to figure out which way was north by the stars. He’d follow the river away from home. This was North Carolina, and the river should take him to Virginia. He knew about that from Unc Steph. Owls hooted, but he didn’t hear any sounds people would make. He was sure to be in these woods alone.

  He’d have to work his way back to the road. It was close; he’d just have to turn the right way, and he’d see the road soon. Leaves were mushy under his feet. He had goose bumps from the cold. His shirt stuck to him. It was very dark for a while when the moon went under the clouds. Finally the trees thinned and he was back on the muddy road. His heart lifted a little. Maybe he didn’t need the others anyway.

  Luke walked until dawn. At least he could see where he was going. The damp air was much cooler than it was last night. He heard birds calling to each other from the trees. If the sun came out, it would warm him up, and maybe he could dry out a little bit. He knew his gunpowder might not be dry, but he was too tired to think about it. He walked until the sun was up far enough for him to know it would be a nice day.

  Up ahead was a big old pine with branches that reached out and hung down, almost to the ground. It was off the road, and he could curl up on the east side of the tree and be easily missed by a passerby. Pine needles make a soft bed, he thought. Maybe it wouldn’t be too wet under the tree. It was the best he could do. Maybe he’d be safe here. He slept heavy, wet and all.

  “You seven,” she said. “Seven big years old, and you stil
l with me. Ain’t lost you yet. I ain’t had my baby sold away all these seven years. That be good luck, Luke, good luck. Seven a good number.” He couldn’t see her face, only her hands and her apron, blue and white flowers. Her voice made him feel good though. He liked it, but something about it hurt him too . . . and then it was another voice, saying, “Please, Massa, no, Massa, please, it ain’t for me, Massa, spare my boy, Massa, he just a innocent chile, ain’t planned no escape, only us’n, spare my baby, he don’t know nothing” . . . and the voice he heard hurt him, hurt him so bad, like a terrible knife in his ears it hurt him, and there was just awful loud screaming, a whip crack and screaming . . . , and then the voice stopped, and he saw his mama’s red back in the dust.

  Luke sat straight up with the sun in his face. He had that dream a lot, and he hated it. He guessed the devil was after him with that dream. Luke felt for his rifle and heard his stomach growl. He thought about Aunt Eugenia’s biscuits and molasses. Maybe he should go back. But then he thought about being whipped for running away. Whatever happened, it couldn’t be as bad as the whipping. Even Yankees couldn’t be that bad. Luke searched in his shirt for the food he had wrapped in the napkin. It was soggy, but he ate it anyway, and set out to go north, on the river road.

  CHAPTER 3

  DAYLILY THE BEAR

  Daylily couldn’t feel her hands. They were there and then they were gone. She didn’t know where. There was just cold where she thought her hands should be. They cut Buttercup’s babies. Did they cut off her hands too? She didn’t remember. Daylily started to shake. Maybe she’d never stop shaking.

  Buttercup wasn’t shaking any more. Daylily thought, if she stopped shaking, maybe she would be like Buttercup; she’d be dead. Maybe she’d go to Heaven if she died. Maybe she’d have a home in the kingdom like the preacher said.

  She couldn’t shut her eyes; she knew that. If she shut them, she’d see it again. Those big men with the whiskers. And Buttercup’s arms and legs kicking like a scared chicken. And the babies screaming. She’d see it all over again, and then she’d pee in her drawers again. There was only dark in front of her eyes now; those men had gone away a long time ago.