The Good Lord Bird (27 page)

“I don't know where I am,” I said.

“You are where you is,” she said.

“I'm just looking to get the lay of the land.”

“It lay before you,” she said.

We wasn't getting nowhere, so I said, “I'm wondering if you knowed anybody who wants to know their letters.”

A nervous look shot across her face. She glanced over her shoulder at the big house, and kept that rake working.

“Why would somebody want to learn how to do that? Niggers got no cause to read.”

“Some do,” I said.

“I don't know nothing 'bout that,” she said, still working that rake.

“Well, miss, I'm looking for a job.”

“Learning how to read? That ain't no job. That's trouble.”

“I knows how to read. I'm looking to teach someone
else
how to read. For money.”

She didn't say another blooming word. She lifted that rake off the ground and showed me the back of her head. She plain walked off.

I didn't wait. I got outta sight. Jumped into the thickets right then and there, set tight, thinking she'd gone into the house to squeal to the overseer boss or, even worse, her master. I waited a few minutes, and just as I was 'bout to light out, a coach wagon driven by four huge horses dashed from the back of the house and drove hard toward the gate. That thing was movin'. Up front was a Negro driver, dressed in a fine coach jacket, a top hat, and white gloves. The wagon busted through the front gate and the Negro halted it on a dime just outside the gate where I was.

He hopped down and looked around into the thickets. Looked right at 'bout where I was. I knowed he couldn't see me, for the foliage was thick and I crouched low. “Anybody there?” he asked.

“Ain't nobody here but us chickens,” I said.

“C'mon out here,” he snapped. “I seen you from the window.”

I done like he said. He was a thick-sprouted, broad-chested man. Close up, he looked even more splendid in tails and coachman's costume than he did from afar. His shoulders was broad, and though he was short, his face was bright and sharp, and his gloves shone in the afternoon sun. He stared at me, frowning. “The Blacksmith send you?”

“Who?”

“The Blacksmith.”

“Don't know no Blacksmith.”

“What's the word?”

“I can't think of none.”

“What song you singing, then? ‘We Can Break Bread Together'? That's the song, ain't it?”

“Got no song. I only know them Dixie songs like ‘Old Coon Callaway Come On Home.'”

He looked at me, puzzled. “What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“You on the gospel train?”

“The what?”

“The railroad.”

“What railroad?”

He glanced behind him at the house. “You run off? You a runaway?”

“No. Not yet. Not exactly.”

“Them's three answers, child,” he snapped. “Which of 'em is it?”

“Pick any one you want, sir.”

“I ain't got time for fooling. State your business quick. You in thick lard already, out here prowling the Colonel Washington's road without permission. You bet' not be here when he comes back. I got to fetch him in town in thirty minutes.”

“Would that town be Harpers Ferry?”

He pointed down the mountain at the town. “Do that look like Philadelphia down there, child? Course that's Harpers Ferry. Every day of the week. Where else would it be?”

“Well, I come to warn you,” I said. “Something's 'bout to kick off there.”

“Something's always 'bout to kick off someplace.”

“I mean with the white folks.”

“White folks always got the kick, to everything and everybody. They got the mojo and say-so, too. What else is new? By the way, is you a sissy? You look mighty queer, child.”

I ignored that, for I had work to do. “If I was to tell you that something big's coming,” I said, “something very big, would you be akin to rousing the hive?”

“Rousing the what?”

“Helping me. Rouse the hive. Gather the colored people up.”

“Girl, you weeding a bad hoe for satisfaction, talking that way. If you was my child, I'd warm your two little cakes with my switch and send you hooting and hollering down that road, just for popping off to my wife 'bout reading. You'll get every nigger 'round here throwed in hot water talking that way. She ain't with the cause, y'know.”

“The what?”

“The cause, the gospel train, she ain't with it. Don't know nothing 'bout it. Don't wanna know. Can't know. Can't be trusted to know, you get my drift?”

“I don't know what you're talking 'bout.”

“G'wan down the road, then, with your foolish self.”

He climbed up on his wagon and readied up to har up his horses.

“I got news. Important news!”

“Big head, big wit. Little head, not a bit. That's you, child. You got a condition.” He lifted his traces to har up his horses. “Good day.”

“Old John Brown's coming,” I blurted out.

That got him. Stopped him dead. There weren't a colored person east of the Mississippi who hadn't heard of John Brown. Why, he was just a saint. Magic to the colored.

He stared down at me, holding his reins still in his hands. “I ought to whip you something scandalous just for standing there and lying like you is. Spouting dangerous lies, too.”

“I swear 'fore God, he's coming.”

The Coachman glanced at the house. He swung the wagon 'round and faced it so that the far side of the coach door was blocked from the view of the house. “Git in there and lay down low on the floor. If you pop your head up before I tell you to, I'mma ride you straight to the deputy and say you was a stowaway and let him have you.”

I done as he said. He harred up them horses, and we rode.

—

Ten minutes later the wagon halted, and the Coachman climbed down. “Git out,” he said. He said it before the door was halfway open. He was done with me. I climbed out. We was on a mountain road in thick woods, high above Harpers Ferry, on a deserted stretch of trail.

He climbed up on the wagon and pointed behind him. “This here is the road to Chambersburg,” he said. “It's 'bout twenty miles yonder. Go up there and see Henry Watson. He's a barber. Tell 'em the Coachman sent you. He'll tell you what to do next. Stay off the road and in the thickets.”

“But I ain't a runaway.”

“I don't know who you is, child, but git gone,” the Coachman said. “You sporting trouble, popping up out of nowhere and running your talking hole full steam 'bout Old John Brown and knowing your letters and all. Old Brown's dead. One of the greatest helpers to the Negro in the world, deader than yesterday's love. You ain't worthy to speak his name, child.”

“He ain't dead!”

“Dead in Kansas Territory,” the Coachman said. He seemed certain. “We got a man here who reads. I was in the church the day he read that newspaper to us. I heard it myself. Old Brown was out west and had militia chasing him and the U.S. Cavalry hot on his tail and everybody and his brother, for there was a reward on him. They say he outshot 'em all, he did, but they caught him after a while and drowned him. God bless him. My master hates him. Now git.”

“I can prove he ain't dead.”

“How so?”

“'Cause I seen him. I knows him. I'll take you to him when he comes.”

The Coachman smirked, grabbing his reins. “Why, if I was your Pa, I'd put my boot so far up your arse you'd cough out my big toe, standing there lyin'! What the devil is wrong with you, to stand there and lie like that in God's hearing? What's the great John Brown want with a little nigger sissy like you? Now put your foot in the road 'fore I warm your two little brown buns! And don't tell nobody you know me. I'm 'bout filled up with that damn gospel train today! And tell the Blacksmith if you see him, don't send me no more packages.”

“Packages?”

“Packages,” he said. “Yes! No more packages.”

“What kind of packages?”

“Is you thick, child? Git along.”

“I don't know what you're talking 'bout.”

He glared down at me. “Is you on the underground or not?” he said.

“What underground?”

I was confused, and he stared down at me, hot. “Git on up the road to Chambersburg 'fore I kick you up there!”

“I can't go there. I'm staying at the Kennedy farm.”

“See!” the Coachman snorted. “Caught you in another lie. Old man Kennedy drawed his last breath last year 'bout this time.”

“One of Brown's men rented the house from his widow. I come to this country with him.”

That cooled him some. “You mean that new chatty white feller running 'round town? The one sporting 'round with fat Miss Mary, the blond maid who lives up the road from there?”

“Him.”

“He's with Old John Brown?”

“Yes sir.”

“Why's he running 'round with her then? That silly nag's been boarded more than the B&O railroad.”

“I don't know.”

The Coachman frowned. “My brother told me to quit fooling with runaways,” he grumbled. “You can't tell the straight truth from a crooked lie with 'em.” He sighed. “I reckon if I was sleeping in the cold under the sky I'd be talking cockeyed too.” He groused some more, then fished in his pocket and pulled out a bunch of coins. “How much you need? All's I got is eight cents.” He held it out. “Take this and git. G'wan now. Off with you. G'wan to Chambersburg.”

I growed a little warm then. “Sir, I ain't here for your money,” I said. “And I ain't here to go to nobody's Chambersburg. I come to warn you Old John Brown's coming. With an army. He's planning to take Harpers Ferry and start an insurrection. He told me to ‘hive the bees.' That's his instruction. Said, ‘Onion, you tell all the colored that I'm coming and to hive 'em up. Hive the bees.' So I'm tellin' you. And I ain't tellin' nobody no more, for it ain't worth the trouble.”

With that, I turned and started down the mountain road toward Harpers Ferry, for he had rode me a ways out.

He called out to me, “Chambersburg's the other direction.”

“I knows where I'm going,” I said.

His coach was pointed toward Chambersburg, too, up the mountain, away from me. He harred up his horses and galloped up the mountain trail. It took him several minutes to get up the road and find a place to turn around, for he had those four horses drawing it. He got it done in a snap, and brought them horses banging down the mountain behind me at a full trot. When he reached me, he pulled them beasts to a dead stop. Stopped 'em on a dime. He could drive the shit outta that coach. He stared down at me.

“I don't know you,” he said. “I don't know who you are or where you come from. But I know you ain't from this country, so your word ain't worth a pinch of snuff. But lemme ask you: If I was to ask at old Kennedy's farm 'bout you, would they know you?”

“Ain't but one feller there now. That feller I told you 'bout. His name is Mr. Cook. The Old Man sent him to spy on the town ahead of his coming, but he ought not to have sent him, for he talks too much. He's likely done spread the word to every white man in town 'bout the Captain.”

“Good God, you surely fib like a winner,” the Coachman said. He sat for a long moment. Then he looked around to see if the way was clear and nobody was coming. “I'mma test you,” he said. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled-up piece of paper. “You say you know your letters?”

“I do.”

“Well read that,” he said. Sitting up in the driver's seat, he handed it down to me.

I took the paper and read it aloud. “It says,
‘Dear Rufus, please give my coachman Jim four ladles and two spoons from your store and make sure he don't eat any more store-bought biscuits from you, which is charged to my account. That nigger is fat enough as it is.'
”

I handed it back to him. “It's signed, ‘Col. Lewis F. Washington,'” I said. “That's your master?”

“God damn that elephant-faced old bugger,” he muttered. “Never drew a short breath in his life. Never done a day's work. And feeding me boiled grits and sour biscuits. What's he expect?”

“Say what?”

He shoved the paper in his pocket. “If you
was
speaking the truth, it'd be hard to tell it,” he said. “Why would the great John Brown send a sissy to do a man's job?”

“You can ask him yourself when he comes,” I said, “for you is full of insults and nothing more.” I started down the mountain, for there was no convincing him.

“Wait a minute.”

“Nope. You been told, sir. You been warned. G'wan 'round to the Kennedy farm and see if you don't find Mr. Cook setting there talking in ways he shouldn't.”

“What 'bout Miss Mary? She working with Old John Brown too?”

“No. He just made her acquaintance.”

“Sheesh, he couldn't do no better than that? That woman's face could stop a clock. What manner of man is your Mr. Cook that he runs behind her?”

“The rest of his army don't act in the manner of Mr. Cook,” I said. “They coming to shoot men, not chase women. They is dangerous. They coming all the way from Iowa and they got more hardware than you ever saw, and when they load their breachloaders they drop the hammer and tell it to hurry. That's a fact, sir.”

That got him, and for the first time I seen the doubt move off his face a little. “Your story is fetching, but it sounds like a lie,” he said. “Still, ain't no harm in me sending somebody by old man Kennedy's farm, if that's where you say you living, to check on your fibbing. In the meantime, I reckon you ain't dumb enough to mention me or the Blacksmith or Henry Watson to nobody in town. You liable to end up on the cooling board if you do. Them two is as bad as they get. They'd bust a charge into your head and feed you to the pigs if they thunk you gived away their doings.”