Black Angels Read online

  CHAPTER 10

  GRAN SUSIE’S MICHAEL

  The next day Caswell woke up before the others. He was scared to run off now. He was scared all the time. When he was talking to Luke and Daylily, he was scared. When he was staring into the fire, he was scared. Scared of Luke, and scared he’d never see anybody he belonged to again, and scared this girl called Daylily wasn’t really nice like she seemed to be. But sometimes, he liked Luke too, except when Luke shouted at him, and then he was scared all over again.

  His Mamadear was somewhere else. She wasn’t in the fire like that girl said. He didn’t believe it. Every day, he felt sick to his stomach. Every night, he cried when nobody was looking, when they thought he was asleep. Sometimes he didn’t go to sleep at all. Sometimes he was remembering things, good things that made him get sad and cry. Or bad things that scared him when he thought about it too much, like Michael. Sometimes they told stories, but he couldn’t tell this story to Luke and Daylily. He was scared to. They might get mad.

  Michael was a slave. Somebody White who was a slave. Mamadear said he was Papa’s flesh and blood. He heard her say this behind the library door one day, but he wasn’t sure what that meant.

  There were things White people could do and things Negras were supposed to do. And there were things Negras were not supposed to do, and things White people were not supposed to do, and sometimes he got them mixed up. His papa told him these were the rules. But Luke acted like he didn’t know any of the rules. Luke would have been in trouble back home, and Caswell would have been punished for liking Luke and Daylily the way he did.

  He felt bad about going against Papa, so he tried not to like them so much, but he couldn’t help it. He was afraid, and they were the only friends he had.

  Maybe sometime, he’d ask Luke about Michael. Michael looked like a White boy. Michael couldn’t be White though, cause Papa sold him, even though he looked White. He was Gran Susie’s boy, he knew that. And Gran Susie was Black. She was a slave. He knew Michael didn’t have a daddy.

  He remembered standing in the hallway. The hallway had just been waxed by one of the girls. The floors were brown and shiny, and it smelled like wax. If he closed his eyes, he could still smell it. There was a tin bucket sitting there with some wax still in it.

  He remembered hearing Papa talking to Gran Susie. Words like investment he didn’t understand, and Gran Susie said, “Yessuh, yessuh, but he my only chile.” And Papa said, “investment” and “business” again, and then Gran Susie came out crying fit to bust and ran to the kitchen.

  Before he could move, Mamadear came down the steps and into the library and shut the door, and then it was quiet.

  Then he heard Papa say, “Loddy, this is how business works.”

  And Mamadear said, “Your own flesh and blood! Everybody knows Gran Susie tried to kill herself once. Do you want that to happen?” and something about “going to hell.”

  Papa said, “those dresses and carpets you love” and “business.”

  Mamadear said, “Gran Susie’s son, Gran Susie’s son,” louder and louder.

  Papa said “hysterical” and “Niggers don’t love, they . . .” and then he said a word Caswell didn’t understand.

  “How dare you speak to me like that!” Mamadear said. “Your wife! Is that how you talk to your Negra women? How many slave wenches do you have? How many?” she shouted.

  Then there was a big crash in the room like something broke. And Mamadear was crying and she said, “How many others and which ones?” And then something else broke, and she ran out of the room and back upstairs. And that’s when he fell and cut his ear on the tin bucket.

  He was scared and he wanted to run up to his Mamadear, but he knew he wasn’t supposed to be listening under the stairs. So he ran into the kitchen. He was crying and holding his ear, cause it was bleeding and it hurt bad. Gran Susie was in the kitchen. He didn’t want Gran Susie to die. He loved Gran Susie.

  Later that night, his Mamadear let him sleep on a pallet in her room, because he had hurt himself, and she asked Gran Susie to sit up with her till she went to sleep because she was upset and didn’t want to sleep in the dark alone.

  Papa was downstairs smoking cigars. Caswell smelled the cigar smell. Papa never came upstairs till late. Sometimes Caswell would wake up in the night and hear him walking down the long hall.

  There was no story or anything that night. And then Mamadear started crying, and she asked Gran Susie to stay with her and not go down to the kitchen where her pallet was. Gran Susie sat in the rocker.

  Mamadear said, “You know I know who Michael is.” And she said, “How many other girls are there, and who are they?” Mamadear said again louder, “Who are they?” Caswell couldn’t see because he was supposed to be asleep, but he heard Gran Susie’s rocker squeak three times, and Mamadear said, “Don’t make me make you tell.”

  Gran Susie was whispering then, and she said, “Three that ah knows of, ma’am.”

  And then Mamadear was quiet, and she cried some more, and then she said, “And who are they and what are their names?”

  And Gran Susie rocked some more and she said, “Please, Miz Loddy.”

  Mamadear said, “I can make you tell me, you know. I can get Overseer Aycock to make you.”

  And Gran Susie said real low, “Annie, Amelia Ray, and Cestina.”

  And then Gran Susie’s chair was still and Mamadear was crying, and she turned over and cried and cried, and that’s all he remembered except he never saw those Negra girls again.

  Maybe he’d tell Luke and Daylily about it someday, and ask what it meant, “flesh and blood.” His Mamadear said Michael was Papa’s “flesh and blood.” Did it mean somebody you loved? And if it did, did Papa love Michael? And why did Michael have to go away from Gran Susie because he was her only child? Maybe Papa was right and Negras didn’t love.

  CHAPTER 11

  LIFE IS BIG

  Luke kept at them if they complained of being tired. All he knew was that they had to keep heading north or they’d starve soon. But after a long morning walking, all they wanted to do was sit, Luke included. It was the middle of the day. The sun was high in the sky. Luke stopped and plopped down, and the others followed.

  Nobody said anything. Caswell was about to go to sleep, and Luke was thinking. It was a warm day, and the sky was entirely blue. They were resting under the biggest oak tree they had ever seen. It was too hot to sit in the sun. Daylily coughed roughly.

  Luke looked at her out of the corner of his eye. This was the third time he had heard her cough, he thought. He thought he had noticed it yesterday.

  Luke looked up to the leaves high above them where the sunlight was blinding. It seemed to slide off the leaves of the poplar trees next to Luke and then onto the ground. Luke saw two or three red berries in the brown layers of leaves close to his hand. He checked to see if it was something they could eat, but he didn’t recognize the berries. Could be poison, he thought.

  Though they had been in the woods for only six days, it felt like forever to him. What worried him most was that he could see little edges of brown just beginning to creep onto a few of the leaves. The hot weather was only Indian summer, Aunt Eugenia used to say.

  He knew it could be getting cold now without warning. Unc Steph had taught him to read the weather signs. Fat caterpillars, and fat squirrels looking to save nuts meant fall was here. The smell of rotting leaves that had already fallen off the trees was everywhere. It still seemed like summer if you didn’t know, but he knew.

  All around them were pine, mulberry, poplar and sycamore trees. There were a few large oaks like this one they were sitting under. Except for the meadow in the hot sun up ahead, there were trees as far as they could see. He’d give up his two arms for a cabin with some colored folks in it, a fire, a blanket, and a hot biscuit with some molasses on it.

  He’d forgotten what it felt like to be full. They hadn’t seen a rabbit since yesterday. He had missed one of the two squirrels he saw,
and they hadn’t even seen a house or a barn where there might be some food since they’d left the burnt-out Burwell place.

  He just hoped they were going the right way. On one or two nights he had seen the drinking gourd, but when he got turned around, he couldn’t find anything in the sky he could name. He rubbed his sore belly and his thoughts went from one hurting thing to another. He didn’t want to think about home. In a minute he was afraid he’d be crying. “Somebody say something,” he said.

  Daylily made an effort. “Y’all know, back at home, I had lotsa dreams when I got poorly.”

  “You poorly now,” Luke answered, “coughin and wheezin all the time.”

  She coughed and spit out what came up, and then she leaned against the tree again. “I’m wore out, Luke,” she said. “Just plum wore out. That’s what Granny would say.” She paused and then started again. “I could tell you stories about home,” she said. “Bout my folks who took care-a me, to pass the time.”

  Luke was quiet. Let her talk, he thought. Maybe he wouldn’t think so much about biscuits and molasses. He moved around, trying to get comfortable on the ground.

  As a soft wind blew, she closed her eyes. Luke knew she was closing her eyes so she could think herself back at the quarters with her granny. He did that too.

  In a few seconds, she opened her eyes. “Granny told me lotsa stories. Bout when she was young and pretty. Said she had five husbands. They all dead and left her. One die cause he run away from the massa and she didn’t know where he got to, so he gone. She used to pray for him cause she said, ‘Every good-bye ain’t gone,’ but then he never come back, and when she dream he was floating in a river, she know he dead.

  “One die from consumption and fever, and one die cause his heart give out from lifting and hauling, one got sold off and one die cause he was in the uprising and he be hanged. Finally, when she left with no husbands the last time, she just say, ‘No thank you, Massa, no more. I done had enough of mens dying on me.’ And then Granny laugh.

  “Granny teach me things too.” Daylily stopped, remembering something, and then she said, “Good things.”

  She had a secret Granny told her never to tell. She sat thinking about the times she and Granny would be up in the nighttime, and Granny would scratch her letters in the dirt floor with a stick. Granny had a little book too, a book she took from Massa’s house. She remembered Granny saying, “This here’s the Testament. It talk about Master Jesus and how He gon save us Black people from slavery.”

  But Daylily couldn’t tell Luke and Caswell about this. It was a secret.

  Granny said they beat her real bad for learning how to read. “See these here scars,” she said, and she lifted up her shift. In the firelight, Daylily could see big welts on Granny’s old back. “Got these cause Miz Jane teach me to read, and then I got caught learning other folks too.”

  They would be up most of the night. Granny said she could trust Daylily, and said another beating would kill her for sure. So Daylily never told.

  One night Granny whispered to her, “Daylily, reading is like Heaven. Reading will save us Black people one day, you’ll see. Words be God’s voice. You got to carry on the learning when I’m dead and gone. You keep it going when I’m gone, you hear?”

  Daylily’s eyes filled up, remembering Granny’s voice. “Tell folks life is big. It bigger than this here place. White folks try to keep it secret. That’s why they don want us to read. Words make you strong. Words be God’s voice. You’ll see.”

  CHAPTER 12

  LION

  The darkness was coming down so fast it caught them by the nape of the neck. They hadn’t collected their wood for the night, they hadn’t looked for a safe spot from the rain that might come back in the dark. The last time they had filled their canteens was the night before. There was a little bit of rabbit left from yesterday, and a few pieces of biscuit they had stolen from a farmhouse today.

  The biscuits had been sitting in a pan in the window, and they were there for the taking. Luke had inched up to the window, not knowing whether or not someone was in the house. It was a sure thing soldiers had not been there lately, because they would have taken any food left around.

  “Look, y’all,” said Caswell, “apples.” They were all hungry and almost anything looked good. A solitary apple tree near the house had been stripped of all its ripe apples. Just one or two remained, some rotted on the ground, some with worms. Caswell inspected the apples on the ground and bit into one. It was almost too sour to eat.

  Daylily was squeamish about eating food that didn’t belong to her. Luke whispered that if she was too scared to eat stolen biscuits, she could starve, so she finally took one, and then she stared at it some more as if she couldn’t make up her mind.

  “Think about it,” he said. “Those folks got they kitchens. They can make some more bread. We can’t. Tomorrow it be seven days since we been out here. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungrier than I ever been.”

  After that, she gobbled up her share. The dry, crusty bread reminded them all of home.

  There was a chopping block near the left side of the house with an ax still stuck in it. “If they ain’t here,” said Luke, stuffing his mouth, “they be back soon. Nobody would leave a good ax like that out in the weather to rust.” They ate in silence and in a hurry, finishing off with sour apples from the tree in the yard.

  “Y’all, save some for later,” Daylily said. She put two biscuits in her coat pocket, and one in Luke’s pocket. Luke was thinking he’d use their well to get water when he looked in the window.

  At first he didn’t see anyone. “Us better not stay here,” he said. “Those folks coming back. Everything in there is as neat as a pin. They close round here somewhere.” He looked in the window again. This time he saw a White man asleep on a chair in the shadows.

  Just as he said that, the man stirred and stood up. He moved and looked toward the window. Just in time, Luke ducked his head below the windowsill and opened his mouth as if to say, “Run y’all!” But then the man sat down again.

  Luke grimaced and waved them away from the window silently. “Whew, that was close,” he whispered. “Be real quiet, y’all. Somebody is home. And he’s a White man. No telling if he’s a reb or Union.”

  They tiptoed away as carefully as they could and then broke into a run. When they thought it was safe again, they slowed to a walk.

  “See, I don tole you,” Daylily exclaimed. “We shouldn’t have stole that man’s biscuits!”

  “Never mind, you ate em,” Luke exclaimed.

  “Well . . . yeah” was all Daylily said.

  “Got to find us a dry spot,” Luke said, breaking into the quiet. There seemed to be mile after mile of trees and flat ground here. No rocks, no caves, nothing to keep out the rain, except the trees. They were in the last few miles before the hills began. He had seen them up ahead this afternoon and knew the hills would lead to the mountains. He had heard the men at home talking about running away, and he knew it was always hills first and then mountains. But here it was all flat, and there was nowhere to hide.

  He sat down, worn out, discouraged and hungry, always hungry. He was tired of running, tired of thinking, tired of catching food and stealing food. He wanted Aunt Eugenia, and her warm kitchen, and even her fussing at him. Maybe he should never have left the place after all. Maybe he’d never catch up with anybody he could fight with.

  Maybe if he was just by himself, he’d be better off. He could leave, be on his own. He’d have a better chance of finding some Union soldiers if he was without this boy and girl to look after. But then he thought, What would they do without him? Get lost, that’s what, and probably die out here.

  Daylily could see something was wrong. “Come on, Luke,” she said brightly. “Us got to plan for the night. It coming on night fast.”

  “You plan,” he said. “I’s tired and I’s gonna sleep right here.” And he spread out his old jacket on the leaves.

  She didn’t want t
o upset him. She didn’t want to make him mad at her. She couldn’t stand to think about being alone.

  Caswell sat nearby, looking sleepy and about to fall over under a tree. She went and took him by the hand. “You need to do something?” she said.

  He shook his head.

  “Don’t be wetting your trousers,” she told him. “You been good so far. And you ain’t got no more. If you wet your pants, you be cold over in the night.”

  He shook his head again as if to say, no, I won’t.

  She led him over to Luke, put both their coats down and said, “Lie down. Sleep time.” Caswell obeyed. She put herself down next to him and pulled her coat over both of them.

  Around midnight, Luke stirred. He sat up, realizing that he had not made a fire. They were in the deepest darkness he could imagine. He shivered and wrapped his coat more tightly around his legs.

  They just had to run into some Union soldiers soon. He was so homesick for Aunt Eugenia that he had dreamed about her. And, he had been dreaming about his mama. He could feel her face bending over him, smell her as if she was really there, but he didn’t see her face in his dreams ever.

  He remembered the creek she told him about when he was little. The creek where she went to bathe and where she felt like a lady. That was before his mam went bad in the head.

  Aunt Eugenia had told him something about a plan some folks had to run away, and then Massa killed his mam cause somebody told him she was gonna take her boy and run. Aunt Eugenia said it was not right for friends to tell on each other. They were supposed to look out for each other. He tried to remember the story. It would help him to stay awake. He was terribly sleepy, and his head bobbed every few minutes.

  Then he’d be awake and look around, afraid of wild things, afraid of soldiers too, or stragglers. He heard a rustle in the leaves. Some mouse or possum on the prowl, he thought.

  He should get some wood to make a fire. But that would mean leaving Daylily and Caswell alone. He was scared to move, and scared not to move. He tried to think himself into a warm piece of fatback and greens from the pot. And then that hurt his stomach and he couldn’t think of food anymore. Mam was better. He’d try to remember her face.