My Jim (2 page)

PART TWO

Ladie Watson

Knife

Knife got blood on it. You look close you see blood. You see blood going back fore me to my mama. She take that knife when she leave Virginia and I brings it from Missouri all the way to Louisiana. Thats her knife she use for doctoring. Just like the white doctors knife but aint got no hook on it. Kind of knife proper white children use for they fruit. Mama always say she from a proper Virginia plantation with rich important whites and poor important niggers. A rich tobacco place with rolling hills and white houses. She cry to leave it. Come to Missouri as a girl carrying her mamas Congo bowl and a knife she steal from her mistress.

Knife so small I sews it in my dress. I makes a pocket with a patch of indigo and sews my things inside. I knows Mas Stevens bout to sell me. I already loss my family. Now I scared to lose my things. Dress so old and tore. Nothing but brown rags and blue patches. If I bends the wrong way I feels that knife gainst my leg. And me so thin like a stalk of cane.

They push me onto the steamer. They shove me so hard I falls down. That knife cut right into my thigh. I aint cries though. Just stuffs my skirt tween my legs to stay the blood. And bites down hard on my lip to turn my mind. Hands chain together. Rope round my waist fix me to the one in front and the one behind. Heart hurt so. Aint no salve.

My Jim standing on the levee watching them take me. Nothing he can do bout it. Just stand there and curse Mas for selling me.

Fore we parts he ask can he keep my scarf. He unwind it from my head and tear it. Then he tie it round his waist. Bind me to him with a red knot. Thats why I cant lets him go from my mind. Long years later I still believes we one day finds each other.

He try to buy me out the pen. Mas Stevens wont sell me. Aint gonna sell me to Jim or nobody in Hannibal. Cant stand the idea I might goes to my husband. I gots to be punish. Worse punishment for a nigger being sold downriver. You all the way loss then. Down south they work the life out you. Let the cane and cotton kill you then buy theyselves another.

Jim a free man then but that aint mean nothing in Missouri. Not since they make that fugitive slave law. Any no count patroller come snatch you and sell you to slavers no matter how many papers you got. Lots of folks run off never live to tell the tale. But my Jim a seer. Thats how he make it back alive.

White folks in Hannibal favor Jim cause he find the one boy everybody believe dead and he keep the other boy from bleeding to death. White folks think Jim got power for good.

They never say that bout me. My power from the devil. I the one cause Jim to run off. Sadie she got the power over him. Wherever she go she call him to her. Put a spell on him when he still too young to know it. Black folks say it too.

But aint no spell. I buries his cord thats all. Thats the cord calling him not me. I helps him come in to this world so he mine from birth and I aint needs no spell. Your first catch all the way belong to you. Thats what my mama say.

When Jim born I aint no higher than a barrel. Still too little to work tobacco. Jim come in summer when all hands in the fields for the first picking. Tobacco leaf starting to curl and spot.

Jim the first slave born in Clear Creek so Mas Watson say he bring good luck. Jim born right after Mas Watsons second daughter. He gonna be her present when she need somebody to play with.

Everybody say Jim favor his daddy. Fore Jim born his daddy disappear. Went with one of them Murrell gang promise to take him to Quincy. Aint nothing but a gang of thieves going round promising slaves they freedom. They sell him then they kill him. Leave his body in the road.

All the time Jims mama carrying him she crazy with grief. Aint want to give Mas that baby. She do everything she can to stop Jim coming. My own mama give her the roots and the leaves but her belly get bigger all the time. She fight with Mas and the driver. Trying to get them to beat that baby out of her. Thats what my mama say. But Mas make them dig a hole for her belly. So they can beat her without killing that baby.

Baby get ready to come and all the womens busy with the picking. So Jims mama got to drag herself back to the cabins with nobody to help. She aint make it all the way. Just sit down under that white oak in the graveyard and push the baby out right there between them stones.

I hears Aunt Cora calling my name. Sadie she say go see who crying out that way. I leaves the yard and runs toward the fields. Thats when I hears Jims mama moaning with the going down pains. I finds her in the graveyard but I scared to go near. I runs back to Cora and tells her what I seen.

Lead me to where she lay Cora say. But first go bring me your mamas knife. I does what Aunt Cora tell me. I takes her by the hand and leads her to the graveyard. We leaves the children playing in the dirt.

By the time we gets there the baby already come. I cries when I sees the blood. What you crying for Cora say. All babies come in the world cover in blood. Thats the way you come too. Life a bloody business gal. Better get use to it.

Cora cant see good but she feel that baby wrap inside the cord. He aint crying or nothing. Just laying on his mamas leg. Cora feel for the cord and hold it out for me to cut. Jims mama just stare at the baby like he some kind of rag and she cant find no use for him. But Cora pick him up and put her breath inside him. She try to comfort his mama. This baby might buy your freedom one day.

If you leave him lone he be free now his mama say. She reach out to take the baby from Cora. Her hands all gummed up with juice from the tobacco leaf. Now the baby got the juice on him. He covered in blood and tar. Cora take him back from his mama. She tell me to bring her some water.

I glad for a job I can do. I aint so strong but I can tote water big as me. Us children brings the food and water to the workers in the fields. Me I mostly totes round the cabins for Cora and the sick ones. I does that and empties the slop.

So I goes gets the water like Cora tell me. When I comes back Jims mama trying to cut herself with my mamas knife. I screams when I sees the look in her eyes. I drops the water and tells Cora she got the knife. Cora hand me the baby. Then she start slapping Jims mama hard with two hands beating her all bout the head till she drop the knife and sob.

I looks at the baby but he aint moving aint making no sound. We gonna bury him right here Cora say. Next to his mama. She gonna bawl till she dead. But both of them live. Jims mama back in the field the next week and he asleep on Coras dirt floor. My mama take me to bury the cord under the white oak tree.

Jims mama must of been hoping he die cause she aint give him no name for months. All that time the fire burning in the smokehouse make the baby cough. His mama got to keep the fire going and she all the time smell like smoke. She blow smoke on her baby cause she aint want him to live. But he find a way.

Mas Watson say the baby need a name so he can write it in his book. Jims mama look him dead in the face. I names him after his daddy run away she say. Mas look upset but he go on and write Jim in his book. This ones a good boy he say. Make up for that other one. He wait for Jims mamas cuts to heal then he sell her down river. He say that sugar cane gonna take care of her. But she die fore the boat make St. Louis.

Jim nurse at Coras tit. She the only mama he know. Cora aint got no children but she take care of everybody elses children. Her own children all die young.

She got other orphan babies in there with her. When they older they gonna work the fields. Long as Cora keep them alive till then.

Me I takes care of Jim like a sister. When he start to walk he try to follow me to the fields. Mostly I sees him at night in Coras cabin. Time Jim born I gots a baby sister name of Jenny. I only seen her once since we was small.

I the first of my mamas children and the only one Mas let her keep. Everybody say its cause Mas Watson my daddy. But they say he Jennys daddy too and he sell her off soon as she can sweep up behind the chickens. Mas say she old enough to hold a baby and pluck a chicken she old enough to go to a family in town.

He dress her up and take her hisself. She happy cause she going for a ride. Mas take Jennys hand and she wave to us. He sit her on his lap.

Me and Jenny born in Cape Girardeau. We little girls when Mas move everybody to the place at Clear Creek near Hannibal. Missouri just become a state and Mas stake hisself a claim.

We aint never been in a boat fore that and we scared the river gods gonna get us. Me and Jenny we holds onto Mama and Cora. Mas Watson sit in front with his wife and baby. He marry right after I born and the baby come right after that. She old as me and older than Jenny but she still a baby. Cant do nothing but play and sleep and eat. Me and Jenny already know how to wash and sew.

Mas find slaves can pole a keelboat upstream in angry water. Boat pile high with people and furniture. I scared of the river all the boats and people but the polemens singing calm me down. Me and Jenny we hides when the steamboat pass. It make so much noise like the end of the world. Mama and Cora scared too. Mas Watson laugh and wave.

Our last day in the river baby reach out the boat for a dragonfly. I sees her fall in. The river sweep her downstream fore her folks realize she gone. One of them polemens catch her by the foot and pull her out the water. We come to Hannibal soon after that.

Mama take up with the man save Little Miss. She bear three more babies for him. One die of swine fever but the other two grow to be boys. Mas hire them out to the tobacco factory in town. We only sees them at Christmas. I aint knows them if I sees them again.

Jim become my brother. He stand up and walk early so he can follow me round the yard. I gives him corn to feed the chickens. He pretty like a girl. The white of his eye blue like a birds egg. Eyelashes all curl up. One fall in his eye you think he being beat he holler so loud.

All us children runs round in clothes so bare we might as well wears nothing. Jim wear clothes his mistress give him. The others aint like to see him in his clothes. They push him down in the dirt and tear them off him. I aint tries to stop them. I covets his clothes too.

Mama say Jim aint regular. He got that double sight she say. Looking forward and backward at the same time.

I cant sees what she talking bout. Jim dont want to do nothing but play. Look to me like he mighty regular that way. Specially when it come to working. Aint got no talent I can sees but running round singing a teasing song. You tell him do something he dont want to do and he fix you with a stare that can run you right through. Cora got to switch him just to make him tote water. He get the bucket and forget the water. I finds him standing on the upturn bucket reaching for some blackberries. He want the ones all the way at the top.

Jim a good size fore he come to the fields. Mas use him round the house serving and fetching. He dont know what to do in the fields. I tries to show him how to find the worms and pick them off the tobacco plants.

Emma the crew leader. She lead the work songs. She make a little song for Jim bout a boy scared of a snake getting in his pants. Emma say least Jim can sing. Thats my Jim I says. Folks laughing at him.

Mas Watson got a slave driver name of Tailor. When he still young Mas hire him out to the tailor in town. He work hard and make Mas good money. Every year Mas get a little more for his labor. But Mas got trouble keeping drivers. Last driver drink hisself to death and Mas say he never gonna hire no white driver again. He call back Tailor to drive us. Tailor drive us harder than the whites. He mad bout being call back from town. Folks say he got a wife in town. Free woman gonna buy him. But she never buy Tailor and he die a slave just like the day he born.

Mas Watson send Jim to the fields cause one of the mens sick with the gout. Tailor go hard on Jim cause he spoilt. Jim get whip if he cant keep up. Tailor work him harder than the other children. Make him run the rows carrying water on his head. Beat him if he spill any.

One day Jim aint come when they ring the bell.

Tailor say where your boy.

I pretends I aint knows who he talking bout. We been working for weeks with no break. They push us into the fields before dawn. We moves heavy like shadows. Only a string of light showing itself in the sky. Aint barely lay down and time to get up.

What boy I says.

The one you give birth to. Tailor laugh. Some the other mens laugh too. Ever since I starts to fill out they like to tease me. Mama tell them leave me be.

Jim sick she tell Tailor.

He aint sick Tailor say. He lazy. You go and tell him to tote his black ass out here.

He cant work now Mama say. He take with the fever in the night. You wait till he cure.

Mama aint look at Tailor. Just keep walking down the tobacco road.

I gonna cure him Tailor say. This gonna cure him.

He crack his whip over Mamas back. She bend down low but aint let out a sound. Everybody else keep walking. Mama get back up and start walking too. Everybody walk but me.

I tries to move fore Tailor notice me standing there. But my feet chain to the ground.

What you looking at. Tailor fix his eyes on me. You go and get your boy. You run and fetch your Jim. So I can cures him real good.