“Rats, fire ants, who knows what down there,” Sam says. “Best left alone.”
Lucy takes the twine and several burlap sacks, leaves the men in the storeroom, and joins Polly. They clean for three hours, hauling out filth and garbage and dumping it behind the courthouse. They subdue the worst of the odors with vinegar and water, but for all their effort, the courthouse still hangs on to some of its stench.
Polly was wrong. Seeing the courthouse close up doesn’t calm Lucy at all, has not punctured the bubble of fear growing steadily larger within her chest, fear for Israel and the rest of the colored Colfax men.
Chapter
4
N oby Smith shivers on the damp front porch of Isaac McCullen’s house in Smithfield Quarter, waiting for his father to round the curve of the dirt road leading from the center of town, from Colfax. He has been waiting since before dawn. If Noby were home now, he would be foraging for kindling outside in the semidarkness near their shack in The Bottom, or toting an armful of oak or pine split logs for the fireplace so his mother could set the water to boil for breakfast. Noby blows into his hands and tucks them under his armpits to stay warm, aware of the moist staleness of his skin under his thin shirt. He is slightly numb, not because of the nip to the air, so typical of the Louisiana run-up to spring, but because of the possibility his father won’t show. What if he doesn’t come this morning as he did yesterday? As he did the day before? The only way to see his father alone is before he enters this unfamiliar house crammed full with too many people, before Israel Smith disappears into the attentions of his wife and other children. Before he is pulled by Smiths and McCullens, young and old, to produce the latest news from the courthouse.
The roosters have crowed, and Noby hears serious stirrings from inside the house, announcing the early risers are up, yawns and throat clearings and bare feet slipped into unlaced shoes for the trip to the backyard outhouse. Just as Noby begins to think his chance is lost, Israel Smith comes into view carrying a rifle, walking fast down the road, his hat pulled low over a tangle of black kinky hair. Israel’s eyes dart, right and left, on alert for unusual movement, and he holds himself rigid. Noby runs to intercept him before he turns onto the dusty path to the house.
“Papa,” Noby says.
Just saying the name out loud is a relief until he looks into his father’s face, and at the familiarity of the old curved scar just under his right eye. Noby has seen his father in all of his moods, his temperament fueled by nervousness of one flavor or another. His father is afraid.
“Noby,” Israel says, distracted. He looks back over his shoulder but never slows his pace.
Noby trots behind to keep up. “Papa, I want to come to the courthouse. To help.”
Israel focuses on his son, anger replacing preoccupation. He puts a heavy hand on Noby’s shoulder and shakes him hard. “Stay away and out of trouble. You not even ten yet. Hear me, boy?”
Israel leaves Noby standing in the path and hurries into the house. By the time Noby catches up, his father has found Lucy amid the dense mass of sleeping bodies and pulled her outside behind the back sleeping porch. There are so many adults and children of all ages squeezed into the small rooms, awake and asleep, McCullens and Smiths, so many eyes and ears, outdoors is the only place to attempt privacy.
Noby trails behind them and hides himself behind the door to the sleeping porch.
“White men gathering at Summerfield Springs today,” Israel says to Lucy in a whisper. “We don’t know what they planning.”
“Yesterday you say Sheriff Nash captured and locked away at the sugarhouse.” Noby can tell by the rise in his mother’s voice that she too is afraid. “They don’t got no leader. And we got the law.”
“It what we counting on, Lucy. But still no sign of the Federal troops.”
Noby creeps away before they see him, and goes back to the front porch. He wants to be a citizen too, like his father said when he first took Noby to the courthouse. He wants to be a part of what the colored Colfax men are doing. If his father can step up, so can he. Noby knows where Summerfield Springs is, and a nine-year-old colored boy by himself can slip in and out of places none of the men in the courthouse can.
Despite the warm promises of spring everywhere else, the deep woods rimming Colfax remain damp and dark. Noby follows the coastline of Red River as long as possible instead of heading inland, preferring a route where at least he can feel the sun on his face while he walks. He keeps close to the banks of the river, northward, the easiest part of the trip. First up the river, cut inland to the twisting curves of Bayou Grappe, and along the banks of the bayou until Summerfield Springs. Noby has always been good at course-plotting, as his father taught him, interpreting the clues offered by the sun, stars, or moon, observing wildlife and vegetation, monitoring where moss grows on trees or how the mistletoe drapes. His sense of direction is keen and specific, and once he travels a path, the most obscure landmark is implanted in his head from that day forward.
Noby knows two ways to get to Summerfield Springs. Just three months before, he made the same trip from The Bottom with Sam Tademy, taking different routes coming and going. The possibility of buying a healthy mule for Mr. Swafford from a white farmer in the piney woods presented itself, and Mr. Tademy asked permission from Israel for Noby to accompany him on the buying expedition to Aloha, an hour of walking past Summerfield Springs. Noby and Mr. Tademy and his two oldest sons took the water route to get to Aloha, following the Red River and cutting inland on the bayous; but coming back, leading the newly purchased mule, they traveled the entire distance through different sections of the deep woods.
There is no trick at all to the first ninety minutes of walking, merely following the Red River north. It is only a couple of hours after dawn, so early and cold-damp that Noby sees his exhaled breath outlined in the air. There isn’t much river traffic. Only two skiffs float past, both crudely made, one going upstream and the other down. The first dugout heads slowly toward Colfax, gliding dangerously low in the water. A small, thin colored woman with a scarf tied around her head pulls resolutely at both oars from the back bench seat, holding one sleeping child in her lap, while three other children, none older than Noby, hold on to the sides in the front. Noby waves to them, and they all wave back, although no one smiles. Later, the second skiff floats past holding five occupants, headed north toward Montgomery. A white farmer rows this boat, weighted down with supplies, while his wife sits rigidly and quietly toward the front with their three children. The farmer has a shotgun at his side, propped up in the boat with the barrel pointed skyward. No one waves.
Noby continues on until he recognizes the markings of the spot where he needs to turn inland toward Bayou Grappe. He feels confident along the river, but there is no getting around the shadows of the woods if he is going to make it to Summerfield Springs. He reaches his hand to the small of his back, and through the rough cloth of his homespun shirt, for courage, he runs his fingers along the stiff binding of Sheldon’s Primer, tucked into the waistband of his trousers.
The woods aren’t quite so dark as Noby had feared, but they are still a brooding place, giant virgin pine trees with trunks grown so close that there are places a full-grown man would have trouble squeezing through, the tree-branch canopies twenty feet overhead so dense and tightly interlaced it seems they conspire to keep out any real view of the sky. Noby walks faster, east this time, while he recites in his head one of the book lessons from the primer.
The terrain changes abruptly, a thinning of the trees and a swampier feel to the ground, pine trees giving way to cypress. Noby remembers this exact spot from his trip with Sam Tademy, a point where they had to make a decision. Directly ahead are the meandering, twisting marshes of Bayou Grappe; to the left is the footpath leading west that will take him to the town of Aloha; and through the woods to his right, a more direct route to Summerfield Springs.
Noby is still trying to decide which path to take when a horseman appears on the footp
ath from the direction of Aloha. The white man seems enormous, wide around the middle, his girth almost ridiculous in proportion to the smallish mare underneath him. The thinning beard that hangs from his fleshy jowls is more salt than pepper. His slouch hat is cocked low over his ears, but not down far enough to hide his muttonchop sideburns. The man is about Noby’s father’s age.
“Say, boy,” the white man calls.
Noby stops. “Yes, sir,” he says.
“You know where Summerfield Springs is?”
Noby points north. “That way, sir.”
“What about a clearing by Bayou Grappe?”
Bayou Grappe is the route Noby favored to take himself. “I don’t know nothing about a clearing, but this the start of Bayou Grappe here, sir,” Noby says.
“Mr. Narcisse Fredieu,” the man says.
“Beg pardon, sir, Mr. Fredieu, sir.”
Noby feels the watery, piercing eyes of this man sizing him up in a way most white men don’t bother, as if he is figuring a troublesome puzzle. “Any your people mixed up in that courthouse ruckus in Colfax?” Narcisse Fredieu asks.
“No, sir, Mr. Fredieu,” Noby answers, quick. For emphasis, he says it again. “No, sir.”
“Better not be. Bad business. Can’t be allowed to drag on.” Abruptly, he pulls rein on his horse and heads off in the direction Noby pointed.
Noby is certain he has been handed an essential piece of information. The meeting will be held in a clearing in Summerfield Springs, just off Bayou Grappe. This morning when he set out, he hadn’t thought much beyond simply getting himself to Summerfield Springs, but if he travels the winding bayou path by foot, it will take him an extra hour to get there. He decides to cut through the woods and hope he can find both the clearing and a hiding place.
At a point not far from the second bend of the bayou, the terrain changes from marshy swampland to a wide clearing off to the north. Noby keeps close to the undergrowth as he works his way along the bank, and angles to get a better view. A small hill rises up at the far end, and Noby freezes. He hears a high-pitched whinny from a horse in the distance, and the unmistakable sounds of men talking. He dares to lift his head for a better look. There are four white men gathered in the clearing already, relaxed and sitting in a semicircle, talking casually. Their horses are just as lackadaisical, nibbling at the grass in the clearing, their reins dragging the ground.
The men’s voices are low and mostly indistinct. As Noby strains to catch their words, the topics drift from a recitation of a difficult calf’s birth to remedies for the weevil infestation that has plagued Colfax farmers for the last month. One man, impatient, grumbles about when the meeting will start. Noby is sure he is in the right place.
Noby moves more cautiously now. The banks are sodden and slippery, not so firm as they will become in just a few weeks, when the weather settles and turns warm for good. The damp, siltlike mud oozes between his toes as he struggles to keep his balance. He finds a good resting point at the edge of the bayou, but the long, jutting clumps of grass that keep him hidden are damp. He loosens the rope belt around his trousers and gently removes the slim, stiff-spine book loaned to him by Sam Tademy, held in place at the hollow of his back. His skin is clammy under his shirt from walking, and the book feels damp. He chooses a saw-palmetto leaf just bigger than his two hands together, rubs at the wet with his shirt until the book feels dry, then wraps it in the leaf before returning it to its hiding place at the small of his back. Noby reties the rope belt and gives his pants one more reassuring tug to make sure that the book is secure.
“They gonna bring him directly here, and then we figure what’s next,” someone in the clearing says. Noby doesn’t know who they are talking about. The white men aren’t in a hurry, and Noby is bored.
Again he takes out the book, unwrapping it from the waterproof leaf covering he has fashioned. Borrow-time with the book is precious; he must return it tomorrow. After Hansom Brisco first taught him to recognize each individual letter of the alphabet in its separate box on the first page, Noby devoted himself to the task of understanding how those letters came together in different ways to form distinct words. It didn’t take long to master This is a fat cat on a mat, once he saw the trick of changing just one of the memorized letters and making a whole new meaning. For a long time, all that Noby understood of the primer’s cover was the chubby white girl sitting on an overstuffed pillow. In one hand, she clutched a doll, a miniature golden-haired replica of the girl herself, and with the other hand, she waved, although it was not clear whom she was so happy to see. The picture upset Noby. An open book was carelessly placed at the white girl’s feet, and she wasn’t even trying to read it, as though she knew the book would always be there if she wanted it. By the time Noby learned enough for Hansom Brisco to teach him the words on the cover, the little white girl’s lack of appreciation didn’t bother him anymore. None of the words started out as familiar, but with Hansom Brisco’s teaching, he memorized all of them. Sheldon’s Primer. Scribner Armstrong & Co. New York.
Figure 3. Sheldon’s Primer, 1871
Noby turns to page 37, his favorite section, letting his mouth fill silently with the words he finds there:
Dan has a cod-fish in a pan.
The pan is a tin pan.
This is a big cod-fish.
Dan has a mop in his hand.
Dan will mop the wet step.
The mop Dan has, is a rag mop.
Noby has gone through every page of the book many times, and it is the only picture with a person in it who looks a little bit like him, not like the uninterested girl on the cover or the man he met on the road who asked him questions about the courthouse. Not a single adult in the book resembles any of the colored men in the town, not his father or Mr. McCullen or Mr. Tademy. Noby repeats his favorite passage over and over. The sun is warm, and in the background the white men in the clearing smoke and tell lazy fish stories. Noby drifts toward sleep to the quiet whispers of the birds in the trees and the loud croaking of toads along the river. Even from just a few feet away, he looks like an insignificant curl spot in the tall grass.
Noby wakes of a sudden and, for a moment, doesn’t know where he is. The book is pressed against his small chest but is undamaged. He could never face Sam Tademy if he ruined the primer, a teaching book meant for everybody, too important to be his alone. He knows better than to rise up and show himself or make any sound. An uncomfortable dampness chills him through his clothes as he sifts through the sounds of the white men’s voices. There are more of them now than before, and their voices are louder, with a dangerous edge. They no longer talk crops. Noby doesn’t know how much he has missed.
“Without the carpetbaggers, our colored gonna fall back in line,” someone says.
Noby wants to lift up his head to see who is talking, but he is trapped. He remembers one of the lessons in the book, a picture of serious white men under the open sky discussing important matters, and he envisions that image as he listens.
Ten men sat on a den.
The men had on vests and hats.
The ten men had ten vests.
The ten men had ten hats.
Ned and Ben sat on the den.
Ben has on a vest and a hat.
White men with vests and hats.
“Why wait?” someone interrupts. “I say run them to ground, sooner the better.”
“Taking care of a few upstart coloreds and politicians and tangling with the Federals two different things.”
“We shoulda took care of this the first week they took over the courthouse.”
“I agree with Smokin’ Jimmy. More colored coming to Colfax to join the rabble-rousers each day. We wait too long, who knows what the carpetbaggers able to get our boys to do? Must be hundreds of them in town now.”
There are at least four men talking, and maybe more who haven’t spoken. Noby hears one of the horses nearby, foraging, coming closer to his hiding spot. He is tempted to try to ease down the bank of the bayou
and slip away, but he isn’t sure his body will obey his mental commands. This is exactly what he has come this far to do, and he wills himself steady. He keeps still and listens hard, trying to remember every word.
“Nothing we can’t handle if we get more men.”
“What about the Federals, Hadnot?”
“If they not here by now, maybe they won’t come up this far from New Orleans.”
“But maybe they will. There’s middle ground. We can talk these boys into going back to their crops. We don’t want to go up against troops.” Noby recognizes the voice of the man he met on the road.
“You sound like a Negro-loving Republican, Narcisse.” Noby starts to place a few voices. This last, Smokin’ Jimmy Hadnot, does most of the talking. “You sure you found the right camp? We got our own ways on Red River, different than how you carry on in Cane River.” There is contempt in his tone. “Democrat by day and Republican by night, seem to me.”
“We not talking my personal business here,” Narcisse says sharply. “Any fool with common sense knows to be careful with the Federals.”
“We need to clean out the courthouse and worry about Federals later,” Smokin’ Jimmy Hadnot says.
Noby waits for Narcisse Fredieu to respond, but he doesn’t.
“It’s up to us to teach the black sons of Canaan a lesson. ’Specially the black radicals. We got to string them up.”
“There’s more to this than getting back at some colored boys because they turned a few of you back from town, Hadnot.”
Noby doesn’t recognize this speaker. His voice is soft-edged but commanding.
“My cousin can collect men over to Catahoula Parish. And those Sicily Island boys know how to stop a thing like this cold. White men from Winn, Rapides, Natchitoches, Sabine, Tensas, and Caddo parishes all turn out for us.”
Red River Page 6
