Black Angels Read online

  She wanted a drink so much her tongue stuck to the inside of her mouth. Granny used to give her water from a dipper. Granny was dead.

  Them soldiers was comin. Yankee soldiers. Everybody say they was gon be free. She remembered everybody was hollering and some running. Clearing out fore the Yankees come. Yankees be burning things, taking what they wanted. Then Granny died. Buttercup died. No, the bad soldiers killed her. Missus was right. She say Yankees from the devil. They do bad things and they kill. She reckoned the ones who killed Buttercup were Yankees. But maybe they was just bad mens.

  It started raining and they said some bad words, and then they took the mules and wagon and cut out. There was no light out here. If the moon came out, Daylily would see. Buttercup was lying over there. She hoped the moon didn’t come out.

  But if the moon did come out, she could make her way to the water and not fall on Buttercup. She could see snakes too if they wasn’t asleep in the leaves. They was probably asleep. Maybe it was the wrong time of year for snakes to be out. Maybe they’d be sleep. Maybe.

  Daylily was afraid. Granny said, “Sing, can’t be afraid if you sing.” But the sickness came and got Granny. Her eyes was open too. Rolled back in her head like two glass balls. Her arm twitched.

  Granny had said, “Sing, gal. It keep you strong. Sing bout them angels in the White folks’ church. They be flyin roun. Us Black folks, we don’t fly nowhere, we just work till we die. Preacher say we gon have wings too. Well, we’ll see. You go on now, gal, you fly away. You be free for Granny.”

  Maybe Granny was right. If she would sing, maybe she wouldn’t be so afraid. She tried to make a noise come out. Then she felt the hard roots of the big tree under her behind, and that broke something she had been holding on to.

  She shifted her weight. Her body hurt everywhere. The clouds had moved too, and the moonlight finally broke into the woods. Her mouth opened just a little. She wouldn’t turn her head though. Buttercup was there. Right there.

  “Mama, are there angels . . . ,” she tried to sing, but no sound came out.

  Daylily thought it silently in her head, the way Granny used to sing it. “Mama, are there any angels Black like . . . Black like me? I’ve been as good as any little girl can be. If I hide my face, do you think they will see? Mama, are there any angels Black like me?”

  The leaves rustled a little in the wind. Buttercup was there, right by the water. You can’t be scared if you sing. In her head she could hear the tune just a little. The song came out a tiny bit like a sick kitten she’d seen once down by the big house, mewing for its mama. And then more of it came out. She sang, “I have been as good as any little girl can be . . .”

  The moon was shining on the running creek. Maybe they’d come back. They’d stuck Buttercup with a knife like she was a pig, and left her dead. Daylily’s throat hurt. She was so thirsty. She could tell by the quiet of the woods that it would soon be morning. Soon be day. And she’d have to see her, even if she didn’t go get some water. And she’d have to remember it all.

  It was there in her head. The big men and the wagon they took. She could hear it. She could still hear the babies screaming for they mama. She started singing to cover up the sound in her head. “If I hide my face, do you think they will see . . .” But she remembered Buttercup’s face was all twisted. Buttercup tried to hide herself. She tried, but they tore off her dress anyway; the babies was dead then.

  Daylily guessed one man covered them up with his big hands so they couldn’t holler and couldn’t breathe, and they was dead, and Buttercup was all full of blood and spread open like a hog, like a brown and red hog on the ground.

  They didn’t know Daylily was hiding, right there where she still was, cause Buttercup fell to fighting so hard. When they wasn’t looking, Daylily got up from the wagon bed and stole away. But she saw it behind a bunch of blackberry bushes and honeysuckle vines all knotted up. It was getting on to dark fast, but she saw it. One had red hair. A big beard.

  When they left the home place, Buttercup was going to find her man. Two plantations to the north, she said. War done come. They was free, she said. Her man was free. Was they flying around free now? Daylily wondered. Was Buttercup and her babies free angels?

  “Are there any angels Black like me?” the song said. Her small, high voice took up very little space. “I have been as good as any little girl can be.” She could feel her hands now. They were tingling. She could see the water move in the gray light. “If I hide my face, do you think they will see? Mama, are there any angels Black like me?”

  Just one or two steps and she’d be there. She’d step over the other way, away from where she knew Buttercup was left by the bad men, and she wouldn’t turn her head. Just a drink. A swallow.

  She was there and she bent over on her knees and drank. It was a cold, dark feeling, but it was good.

  She turned around, not really seeing anything clearly, but heading away from the water some, and as far away from the bodies as she could manage. She was already half asleep, and damp with last night’s rain. She was very, very sleepy, and she closed her eyes tight, feeling the crying come on her.

  She heard a wood thrush in a tree somewhere. Its partner answered. A squirrel stirred and buzzards circled overhead. It tasted like salt water was running down her face and under her chin. Dew formed its tiny bubbles. It would be a fine September morning.

  CHAPTER 4

  CASWELL THE WOLF

  He only had to find her. He only had to reach the Burwell place and she would be there. It was late afternoon now. Daniel taught him about the sun and how to read it. Before he got to the Burwell place, he’d have to wash his face. He was a big boy, seven years old. He had no business crying. Mamadear would die if she knew how filthy he was. He thought his face was probably black with grime and his trousers looked like niggers’ trousers, covered with mud and dust.

  His papa was away fighting Yankees, a brave and true son of the Confederacy, and he had no business crying like a girl. Not ever. No excuse for it. Caswell wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Now he was on the river road. He knew that he was right because he knew the river road ran down to the Burwell place. He was on the river road cause he had to find his Mamadear.

  When Papa went off to war, Caswell remembered he could not cry, and so he ran off down near the pond to wash his face quick, and Sweetbriar saw him and said, “Yo daddy whup you for blubberin, Marse Caswell?”

  “Shut up, you nigger, you just shut up,” he told Sweetbriar.

  It was summertime when Papa left. Magnolias were out full, and tobacco was high and green, and Mama was big in the stomach. She was bigger than he’d ever seen her, and Sweetbriar said, “Them’s two melons your mama got in her belly. She get small again, you see. And then you have two little bundles in your house.”

  And then Sweetbriar had to go cause Gran Susie called him to fetch her water, but Caswell’s mama didn’t ever get small again, and Papa went off to fight.

  Now he was by himself. But he knew he was going the right way because his papa had taken him to the Burwell place. They got in the buggy and General Brown drove them there behind Blue Sam and Soldier Boy, Papa’s new geldings. He wanted to show Colonel Burwell his new horses, he said. Show him what a real gentleman would have. They went on a long time in the buggy, and he heard Papa say, “General Brown, how far you reckon Burwell’s is?”

  General Brown said, “Bout ten miles, Marse Washington.”

  “Nonsense,” Papa said. “It’s no ten miles. Seven at the most. You boys just don’t have a head for these things.” Papa laughed.

  “Yessuh,” General Brown said, like he always did. And clucked the horses to speed up.

  Papa said General Brown wasn’t really a general, but he gave him that name because he liked to joke with his friends when they visited that he had a retired general on the place, and then he’d call General Brown in to serve the drinks and they’d all laugh.

  At the Burwell place they’d talk about how
brave Caswell was and call him a little man. He felt bad though. Papa said he had to be the man on the place, and he’d let Papa down. He couldn’t stop the burning. He’d let Mamadear down too. All her beautiful things were gone.

  If he could just find a way to wash his face, so they wouldn’t know he had cried. He gazed at the riverbank. It looked pretty steep to him. He could wash his face in the river, but he might slip and fall and then his pants would get all wet and muddy. Maybe he’d try later.

  Mama had swooned the day Papa marched off to war. Ladies did those things. She had cried all morning. She had wiped her eyes and lay down with a sick headache and took camphor all day. Then they came for Papa, and she got up and went downstairs to see him off, leaning on Gran Susie’s arm.

  Papa kissed her on the cheek so it’d be seemly and marched off with the Thirty-first. So she was standing in front of the gate when she swooned, and everybody ran to pick her up off the ground. Gran Susie yelled to get her salts and a cool cloth and water, and she said, “You, Daniel, carry the missus to her room!”

  Papa had on a gray uniform, and he said the Thirty-first was a grand group of men. Caswell was going to join them when he grew up, he knew that. But then after Papa marched away, he ran off cause he was a coward who had to cry.

  His face hurt now and his feet too. He was awfully tired of the river road, and it was hard to remember where he was. He had walked two miles at least. But he didn’t see any houses or any people or lights. It was dark enough to see lights now. He was hungry, really hungry. Maybe he should stop and eat the bread he had brought with him.

  They’d have food at the Burwells’. Lots of good food like before. Chicken and jams, jellies and ice cream. He could eat some more when he got there.

  He wanted his Mamadear. He wanted his bed. He wanted Gran Susie. He’d lie down, that’s what. He’d been out here for so long. He could leave the river road just long enough to rest a few minutes. He wanted his bread now.

  Caswell walked a few more minutes into the woods, and then he fell forward on his knees, taking the bread out of his shirt. He remembered that Mamadear fell down too. She had come out into the yard where he was. She was sweating. He had never seen her sweat before. Only niggers sweated, she said. But then she did, and she fell down on her knees, and said over and over, “Call someone, Caswell, be a good boy and call someone. Get Gran Susie. The baby’s comin.”

  He didn’t know what to do and he didn’t know where Gran Susie was, or where General Brown was, so he went off to find Daniel. He couldn’t even find Sweetbriar, and then he began to cry, before he heard the hoofbeats.

  He remembered a rider coming, and there was dust everywhere, and he stopped in front of their yard looking wild and saying something about Yankee soldiers burning, on the way, and niggers on the loose, get out now. And then he said, “My God, what’s going on?”

  Mama said real weak-like, “Get me to the Burwell place, they got protection.”

  The rider said, “Don’t you have a nigger?”

  “I don’t know. I guess they are all out back. My husband is off at the war,” Mama shouted.

  “I’ve got to water my horse, ma’am or he’ll die; I been whupping him to death,” the rider said.

  Then Mama screamed. “Get somebody!” she said.

  So Caswell ran down to the barn looking for Gran Susie, who wasn’t in the house or anywhere else he could find. He remembered it all now.

  The bread Daniel found was good. Gran Susie’s bread was always good. She was gone though. Daniel said, “They’s all gone, Marse Caswell.” So he ran back to the house as fast as he could with Daniel limping behind him. And when Caswell got back to the house, Mamadear was not there and he couldn’t find her.

  That was yesterday. Now he was lost in the woods. He wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t be such a baby. When the rider left, and Mamadear was gone and General Brown and Gran Susie, it was just him and Daniel on the whole place.

  He had to find Mamadear. Sweetbriar could have helped. He was good at some things even if he was a nigger. Papa would whip him for leaving, and Gran Susie, who Mamadear said was her best friend, even if she was black as a swamp. Papa would whip them good when he came back. He was right, you had to keep niggers in line.

  He wanted a knife. No, a sword would be better, like the one his daddy said General Robert E. Lee carried. The one he saw in the picture book. The bread he had eaten made a heavy lump in his stomach. He wanted a drink. Then he wanted to relieve himself. It took a long time for him to unbutton his pants. He looked around. It was almost completely dark. He went a few feet from the clearing where he had stopped, and squatted. In his mind he saw his Mamadear kneeling on the ground. It made him feel awfully bad. He stood, up careful to kick some leaves over the place, and pulled up his pants.

  Before the house started burning, the rider said he had to warn people the Yankees was fast coming. But where was Mamadear? They didn’t even have a home now. He knew it was all gone. He could still smell the fire. The curtains, the beds, the rooms, his toy soldiers.

  Slowly, he buttoned his pants all the way up and sat down in the pine needles. But then his stomach hurt so much he couldn’t get comfortable. Gran Susie would have sung him a song. They were nigger songs, but he liked them. She would sing about trying to make Heaven my home, and steal away to Jesus, and he would go to sleep.

  Daniel was with him when they came, and they hid in the swampy part of the pine stand. “We gots to hide, Marse Caswell,” he said. “Get us some food and hide. Worry bout your mama later.”

  They were headed toward the kitchen, all the time knowing the Yankees were coming down the road. They found two loaves of Gran Susie’s light bread, and then they heard the Yankees coming into the house, coming right into the house, walking on Mamadear’s rugs and breaking up her things.

  Daniel said, “Don’t you let out a peep now,” and they opened the back door and ran for the stand of pine trees near the house with the bread under their shirts, Daniel limping as fast as a jackrabbit. Daniel said he got his lame foot from a bad overseer in Virginia. “We’ll wait till they gets what they wants, Marse Caswell, and then we’ll go back to the house,” he said. “They wants money, silver and food to fill their bellies. We gots to hide now.”

  So they waited a long time, and then Daniel left him to see was the coast clear, and he didn’t come back. Caswell smelled fire and heard screaming and saw the firelight in the sky, and he knew Daniel was dead, and he knew the Yankee soldiers had done it. He didn’t dare go to the house and see it burning. There was nothing he could do to stop them. He didn’t have a knife, so he just ran toward the river road.

  He would get to the Burwell place as soon as it was light. He would find his Mamadear, and he knew she would know he had tried, but everybody had left him. He had to go to sleep now. Somehow, he had to go to sleep. If he could just find a good place.

  He looked straight ahead. A little past the pine trees the ground dipped a little and there was a pine grove. He didn’t know this place at all. There were frightening signs of rain, the rumbling of thunder and lightning streaks in the sky.

  Caswell stumbled down an incline and stretched out at a place where the trees made a kind of shelter from the rain. It was starting to sprinkle, but it was less wet under there.

  Then it started to rain harder and he had to try not to get too wet. He rested his head on his folded arms and curled up. He wouldn’t think about snakes, and he would find his Mamadear as soon as he woke up.

  CHAPTER 5

  RABBIT

  Daylily stirred a little, still exhausted in her sleep, and whimpered softly. Then her deep sleep was gradually broken by rustling—quiet at first, and then louder. She was all the way awake in seconds, her heart pounding. It was the soldiers coming back to get her; she knew it was.

  She lay as still as she could, but her heart shook her whole body. The rustling turned into footsteps, and she heard somebody say, “What y’all doing here?” Her blood stopped. Didn�
�t sound like a soldier; didn’t sound like a White man.

  Luke walked around to face her. “Hey, y’all sleeping?”

  Daylily looked at the ground between her knees. At first she didn’t move, but when she looked up and saw the tall, thin boy, she started to cry. Still, she was very glad it was a boy who had brown skin like her own and not a man. His eyes were big and bright.

  “What you cryin bout, gal?” he said softly. Luke sat down next to her. He was tired and he was so hungry, his stomach was trying to touch his backbone.

  “Who’s this White chile here?”

  Caswell was asleep about twelve feet away. “Don know,” she said in a whisper. She was thinking about Buttercup and her babies just on the other side of the honeysuckle bushes where she had been hiding before she got up to get her drink. She didn’t care about no White chile and how he come to be in the woods. She wiped her eyes and nose with her hands.

  “Got to go home,” she said. “Got to go. Granny be lookin for me.” She tried to get up but fell back, dizzy. And then she remembered. Granny was dead. And more tears welled up in her eyes.

  “Hey, gal, I said what you cryin bout, and what you doing here in these woods? You done cut out?” Luke shook her softly by the shoulders.

  She knocked his hands off. Her shoulders stiffened. “Don’t touch me,” she said through her tears. “You ain’t never seen me before. You don’t even know my name.”

  “OK, OK,” Luke said. He wished he had a rag to give her to wipe her face. “Look,” he said after some silence, “I from the Higsaw place. Where you from?”

  Daylily looked into the trees. Maybe he could help her get home. But maybe nobody was at home. She didn’t know what she was going to do. She almost wished they had killed her like they killed them babies, then she wouldn’t be here in these woods with this boy and that sleeping White chile. She couldn’t keep her face dry, and she tried to use her shirt for a handkerchief and buried her face in her knees. “I b’long Massa Riverson,” she told him softly.