All God's Dangers (17 page)

I drove four mules to a four-mule dray: Rallie and Rollie was my wheel mules, Rollie was a mare mule and was my saddle mule on top of that; Pigeon and Queen, two black mules, was my lead mules. I took over them mules and started to haulin logs and in two or three days, not over three, Mr. Sharp stopped John complete; put him at the mill. Put Mr. Manny's team in the lot. And he had a road team too, to haul the lumber to the railroad every day. And sometime, his brother Manny's mules, if they was needed for the road, owin to how much lumber was called for, he'd put them mules on the road.

He was payin us by the week, but it was so much a day no matter how much or how little work you done. I was givin him full satisfaction. Must have undoubtedly been worth the money that I was earnin—they made more money off me than I made off myself.

All right. Come home every other week on the weekend. We shacked down there at the mill camp. I was way away from home—home was up here on the old Wheeler place where my daddy was livin. Well, I was buildin myself up to prove a man, workin down in the low country. The money I earned, I'd come home—I didn't
bring
it to my daddy but he got part of it. He'd put up a pitiful mouth; didn't just ask me how I wanted to give it to him, he'd always be in a tight someway, he needed money, he owed this and he owed that and he owed the other. I'd give him what he called for and sometime it was more and sometime it was less. And I'd give my stepmother, TJ's mother, a dollar every time I come home, I weren't there regular and she cookin and washin and ironin for me, but when I'd leave out from my daddy's house on Monday mornin, she'd see I had clean clothes—that was all she had to do for me. And I'd give her a dollar, I didn't miss givin her a dollar, just for a present. Gived my daddy more than that. I looked at it this way. If I gived my daddy more than one dollar, they was eatin it up, him and his wife and children was all eatin up everything I'd give him—if they didn't they should have been. So, thinkin that I was a support for his family, I gived him freely. And I gived his wife a dollar, hit or miss, just tryin to prove to her that I thought as much of her as I did, as a stepmother.

So, when I'd leave home Monday mornin to catch the train
in Apafalya, there was two or three of my daddy's girls, my half-sisters, that stayed there at that time, and they was there every night—that was Tessie and Amy. Both of em was grown-sized girls, they knowed what I was givin their mother. So they commenced a tellin me—I'm just cuttin loose all the strings—“Brother Nate”—they called me “Brother”; I was only their half-brother—“when you give Mama any money and you leave, Papa makes her give it to him.”

O good God that just fired me up. I knowed my daddy was seein everything out of me he could and knowin too that he knowed I was givin her a little divvy. And he'd wait till I leave home, make her give it to him. I found it out—but I didn't stop givin her a dollar and I didn't say nothin to my daddy about it. As long as I worked at Stillwell on that job, kept givin my stepmother a dollar. I knowed it'd a been a devil of a twist-out. I was buckin up as a grown man then, I was paddlin my own boat and helpin him, and he takin that dollar I gived my stepmother and puttin it in his pocket—my poor daddy's dead and gone, but I should not hold up anybody in their wrong. She didn't tell me what she did with the money; she knowed at that time I mighta raised up at it and he'd a found out that I come in the knowledge—he'd a beat the fool out of some of em and made em tell who told it, he'd a beat em up unmerciful. So I just rested quiet about it on the outside. He mighta beat her up too, and she was a good woman, remarkably good to we motherless children.

A
LL
the work I done after Mr. Barbour let me go, except one week work tryin to cut cross-ties in the neighborhood of home—the balance of my time I put in right there at Sharp's sawmill, haulin logs for Mr. Frank Sharp. One day, I drove up to the mill with a load of logs, and I come to know anything, old man Jim Flint was pullin that lever to saw lumber. I looked at him—I didn't know he was down there. Well, didn't worry about it, weren't none of my business, I just tryin to keep myself clear. Found who was the sawyer—never did say nothin to me, no way, shape, form, or fashion.

So, I drove in there, had a load of logs; I unblocked the bolts into the bolsters, unchained the load, and doggone it, every one of them logs fell off of there. One, about the last log that fell off, it
run down on that log ramp towards the carriage leadin to the saw—looma-looma-looma-looma-looma—got overbalanced and flew up, one end dropped on the ground. Old man Flint was standin there lookin at me. Mr. Sharp too, the boss man, owner of the mill, he was standin there lookin at me. I didn't look around at that log, I weren't studyin it. Plenty of hands there to ramp them logs and straighten em out. Jumped on that dray and blocked up the corners of my bolsters and wrapped my chain up, stuck my boom in the hounds and crawled in the saddle, off I went.

Well, the boys at the sawmill, all of em knowed me, all of em was from up there around Apafalya; they told me, some of em, that old man Flint told Mr. Frank Sharp, “You oughta made that damn nigger get that log up off the ground, you oughta made that damn nigger get it up.”

The boys heard him; I come back to the shack that night and they told me. I said, “O, well, he don't like me nohow. He comes from up yonder right at my home. Him and my daddy lives close together—” I didn't tell em what it was all about. I said, “He don't like me nohow, no wonder he said that. What did Mr. Sharp say?”

Said, “Mr. Sharp never said nothin that we could catch. He didn't seem to take none of his talk bout that log at all.”

Well, lingered along, lingered along, and right up close to Christmas, Mr. Sharp paid off all of we boys and shut the mill down; lumber was gettin
too
plentiful, more than he could sell, so he shut the mill down. I went home; John Thomas went home; Flint quit and he come on home, too.

A few days after that, Mr. Flint met me on the road one day— and he had a brother, Warren Flint, had married a sister of Mr. Sharp. Warren Flint stayed here in Calusa until he lost his first wife; then he went out south from Calusa in there through Stillwell, goin round amongst the women of that country. Well, he was a settle-aged man and he got in touch with one of Mr. Sharp's sisters and he married her. Durin the time when the sawmill was goin on and I was there, Mr. Warren Flint, Mr. Sharp's brother-in-law, which was old man Jim Flint's brother, he was livin there on Mr. Sharp's place where his wife—Frank Sharp's sister—had a interest. When old man Jim Flint come out from down there the last day on the job, he left his watch with his brother. I seed his watch many a time, seed him pull it out—it was a Elgin watch, expensive watch, good watch.

Met me on the road and he said, “You goin back down to the sawmill to get the balance of your pay?”

Mr. Sharp had done paid me down to five dollars, owed me five dollars.

I told him, “Yes sir, I'm goin down there.”

That's the first words he ever said to me after that cow trouble come up, first words.

He said, “I come off from down there and left my gold watch at my brother's. If you go back down there I'll pay half your railroad fare if you'll go up to my brother's”—I knowed em all—“and bring my watch back with you.”

He talked just like he weren't goin back there for no cause no more. In other words, he wanted his watch and I was goin back down there. He knowed I was trustworthy. I didn't hold nothin in my heart against the man.

So I went back down there on a Thursday night. Mr. Sharp paid me but I couldn't get away. Had a call for a little lumber all of a sudden and he wanted me to haul logs Friday and Saturday till dinner. Well, I had a round trip ticket and due to come home Friday night, at least. I told him I couldn't stay and handle logs. He put in and begged me and he begged me clean out of the notion of leavin and got me to haul logs for him Friday and Saturday and paid me in full for the two days I worked and what balance I was due. Then I went up to Mr. Sharp's sister's house and got old man Flint's watch from Warren Flint. Put it in my pocket, took special care.

Luke Milliken, Flint's nigger, he was in Apafalya that Saturday evenin when I come in there on the train and we started out to the country together from town, home. I wouldn't let Luke have the watch until we come to the forks in the road and Luke due to turn off and go to Flint's where his mother was. I pulled the watch out of my pocket and give it to Luke, told him, “Take care of it now and give it to Mr. Flint.”

A few days after that I stopped in Mr. Flint's yard. He come out the house and I asked him, “Did Luke bring your watch back safe and sound?”

Told me, “Yes, just like it always is, perfect all right.”

Then I asked him to pay me fifty cents on my trip, half the fare to Stillwell. I was a poor boy, colored too, and I wanted the little money he'd promised me.

Told me, “Pay you nothin, pay you nothin.”

Well, he chopped me down right there. What did that amount to? Just his old hatred, a old man's hatred. It burned in him a slow fire.

I pushed myself to save enough money off that Stillwell job to marry. When I went to Beaufort to get my license, I had eleven dollars and thirty-somethin cents in my pocket, and I wouldn't have had that if I'd a paid attention to my daddy.

Just before Christmas when we were supposed to marry, the girl asked me, “Have you ever said anything to Mama and Papa definite about my and your marriage? When it's comin off or anything about it at all?”

I said, “No, I haven't said anything about it.”

She smiled and said, “When we get ready to marry, if you want to we'll just go off and marry.”

I said, “Uh-uh, I wouldn't trick your mother and father like that, by no means. I mean to marry you, I mean for us to marry, but I'm goin to consult them in a nice way. They seems to recognize me in full as your company keeper. We've got along good up till now and I want to keep it that way.”

One night me and her was settin in her livin room talkin, the subject come up again. I said, “Well, I'm goin to talk with your mama and papa some over my and your agreement.”

Good God almighty, it looked like she would just faint away. But I got up and went to the room where her parents was and I consulted with em. I first spoke to her father, talked with him. He had no objections, said, “That's up to you all. You two must decide.”

Then I approached her mother. She settin there listenin, didn't say nothin when I was talkin to him. Got into it then: how did I get into it when I approached her? He had gived me full satisfaction and then I asked her how did she feel about it? What were her desires? I got a big eye-sheddin off of them questions. She dropped her head in her lap and shed her tears over it. But when she got straightened out she agreed that it was the best thing for her daughter. That was her main girl. That was her foreman in the business. If the mother had got sick, Hannah would become the head woman in the house. She had a pretty good education and she transacted my business after me and her married. So, I got their consent;
everything was agreeable. Her mother just shed her tears because she hated to see her go.

I left home one Saturday evenin along the last of December and went over to Hannah's. We set down in a room by ourselves, as usual, and we talked. I told her, “Well, our marriage is near at hand. I got to go to Beaufort and get out a license. I don't know how I'll get there but I got to go, I'm goin to get there.”

She said, “Yes, Mr. Shaw, you need a way to travel. Papa's goin to Beaufort Monday to pay his tax—” She'd found that out. He was goin to pay the tax on his land and any personal property he had such as cows, mules—“Papa's got to go on Monday, I'm sure; you can ride with him to Beaufort.”

It suited me any way I could get there; if I could go with her father it was all right to me.

I said, “I'll speak to your father then. Monday's my day to go get the license bindin us to marry.”

I talked with her awhile and went on in to her father and mother's room and I consulted with him. He said, “Yes, I'm goin to Beaufort and I'd appreciate your company.”

Monday mornin I went over there after breakfast and he pulled his buggy out from under the shed, hitched his mule to it and me and him got in there and went on out to Beaufort, headquarters for Tukabahchee County. Got up there—weren't but twenty-somethin miles to Beaufort—and first thing I seed my daddy walkin the streets. I said to myself, ‘He's up here to pay his tax'—he had a little old place to pay on at that time, forty acres—‘and up here to get him some whiskey, too.'

Well, they went in to pay their tax at the same time, my daddy and the father of the girl I was goin to marry. I lingered along with em—they went before the tax assessor and the tax collector and paid their tax. I went straight on from there to the probate judge's office and get what I come for. They seed where I was headin—the girl's daddy definitely knowed. My daddy—I had never woke him up to my plot that mornin. My daddy had married old man Waldo Ramsey's sister after my mother died. So Hannah had become a family connection, but I knowed that didn't cut no figure with my daddy: him marryin her daddy's sister and me marryin the daughter.

So I walked on and they followed me, walkin along and talkin behind me as I went into the probate judge's office. The judge was
sittin at his desk; I walked up to him and said, “Good mornin, Judge.”

“Good mornin, young fella.”

He smelt a mouse. Anybody that's on a job and used to young folks walkin up, chattin with him, he knows it's liable to be for some papers.

He said, “Well, young fella, what are you huntin this mornin?”

I said, “Judge, I'm huntin some papers.”