A Perilous Proposal

by Michael Phillips

  “I reckon dat’s so, all right. But it’s jes’ what happens when da sun comes up.”

  “It’s more than that, Jake. Everything has meaning.”

  “So what dis light mean?”

  “The light is just like God.”

  “How dat?”

  “That’s what God does too—chases darkness away . . . defeats the darkness in us, just like the sun coming up over the horizon, so that we can be more full of light.”

  He paused a second or two.

  “You know what I think of, Jake,” he added, “whenever I sit here like this and watch the sunrise?”

  “What?”

  “I think of the light that God’s trying to get inside us, sending little shoots and arrows and rays to chase away all the shadows and clear out all the dark corners of our hearts, so that we can be full of light. I can’t think of anything I want more than to be clean and clear and pure and full of light inside.”

  Micah paused and drew in a deep breath of satisfaction and wonder. There was a long silence before he spoke again.

  “When are you going to let the light all the way inside your heart, Jake?” he said in a soft but serious tone.

  “What you talkin’ ’bout?” said Jake.

  “When are you going to let it shine into those dark spots that are keeping you from being clean and whole?”

  “I don’t know wha’chu mean.”

  “I think you do, Jake. You’re an angry young man. I can see it in your eyes. That anger is like a darkness inside you that you haven’t let the sun reach yet.”

  “What kind er fool talk is dat?”

  “You’re full of anger inside. I think you know it. You’re trying to run from it, trying to hide from the light. But you can’t escape it, Jake.”

  “You’d be angry too effen you’d been a slave, ef you’d been whupped like I hab.”

  “So it’s anger against whites, against your owner? You’re angry because you were a slave?”

  Jake was silent. Micah’s unexpected questions irritated him.

  “It’s more than that, isn’t it, Jake? It’s got to do with your father, hasn’t it?”

  “Maybe dat ain’ none ob yo affair,” Jake snapped back.

  “You’re right,” said Micah. “It isn’t. But you are. God put you and me together for me to do my best for you. I wouldn’t be doing that if I didn’t do my best to try to shine light on what’s keeping you twisted up inside.”

  “You always preachin’ at me like he wuz,” Jake snapped. “I didn’t ax you ter do none ob dat!”

  “No you didn’t, Jake. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s anger that’s making you grow crooked. That’s why you gotta let the light in so you can look at it and let the light chase it away. Maybe you don’t like me saying it. But what kind of a friend would I be if I didn’t?”

  Another moody silence followed.

  “Why are you angry at your pa, Jake?” Micah asked.

  “He run away from us, dat’s why! He didn’t care nuthin’ ’bout me!”

  Saying the words stung Jake’s heart like a hot knife. With them came the memory of the overseer’s cruel laughter: “Dat boy ob mine’s jes’ too ugly an’ I can’t stan’ sight er him no mo. I be despert ter git away from dat boy.” He felt tears trying to rise in his eyes. They were the tears of boyhood anguish and a father’s rejection. But he forced them away.

  Other memories flooded him. But Jake could not face them. The guilt and confusion were too overpowering.

  “He lef’ me an’ my mama!” he said, angrily now. “He lef’ her alone jes’ like he lef’ me an’ called me names. He lef’ her to die! Now she’s dead because of him!”

  Jake jumped to his feet and paced about. He was obviously agitated.

  Micah took in his heated words calmly. He said nothing for a long while. When he glanced up, Jake was gone. Micah sighed and rose to his feet, made a fire, then put the water on for coffee. Before long the camp was bustling with weary soldiers getting ready for the day.

  Jake was silent and moody for the rest of the morning. As they rode along beside each other, midway through the afternoon, Micah ventured to bring the subject up again.

  “You know, Jake, nobody’s got a perfect daddy,” he said. “That’s because no daddy can possibly be perfect. They weren’t supposed to be. They make mistakes ’cause they’re just men like the rest of us. But they gave us life. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be here at all. No matter what they may have done, and no matter what we may think they have done, they deserve our love and honor for that alone.”

  “Why you know so much ’bout fathers?” said Jake irritably. “What makes you think you kin preach ter me like all dis?”

  A look of pain passed over Micah’s face.

  “I know nothing about my own pa, Jake. I never saw him, never knew who he was. I still don’t. Not having a father at all teaches you a lot about how precious a thing a pa is. So I’ve probably thought about it more than you have. I can’t even realize what having a pa is, and what memories of feeling a father’s touch must be like, even if he wasn’t a perfect pa. I can’t realize it because I don’t have those memories, and I never will. You’ve got them, Jake. But instead of being thankful for them, you’re angry about them. I’d give anything to have memories of a pa like you’ve got, Jake. I’d give anything even to have a pa that left me. I wouldn’t even mind a pa that beat me or was mean to me . . . just to have a pa at all. But I never had one, Jake. That’s why I know what a precious thing a pa is.”

  HARD WORDS

  19

  THE WAR WAS ALL AROUND THEM, AND JAKE PATTERSON saw things no one ought ever to have to see. But as long as men were determined to fight other men, and as long as neither side was willing to back down, there would be war. And as long as there was war, there would be bloodshed, and there would be killing, and there would be heartache.

  As the war began to turn more and more toward the North after the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg in July of 1863, the Confederates they encountered fought all the harder to keep hold of their dying dream. As the year 1864 arrived and warmed into spring, Jake, now sixteen, had seen more than his share of bloodshed.

  He and Micah were dressing wounds of several of the company’s horses. Micah had just returned from having to put a mare down who had broken two legs in the battle of the previous day. He was more somber for hours afterward as they went about their unpleasant work.

  “That was hard, Jake,” he said finally with a weary sigh. “There’s nothing worse than having to shoot a horse. I loved that animal.”

  Jake had nothing to say. It was quiet a long time.

  “That was a mighty brave thing you did yesterday, Jake,” said Micah after a while, “—running in when the captain went down, getting his horse’s reins and then pulling them both out of there. When I saw you at first with all that gun and cannon fire, I was sure I’d see you going down splattered in your own blood. But you did it. You proved you got one kind of courage, all right.”

  Jake glanced up, a look of bewilderment on his face. But he didn’t say anything, and neither did Micah. But Micah’s statement stuck with him for days.

  “Wha’chu mean da other day,” said Jake several days later, “’bout me havin’ one kin’ ob courage?”

  “Just what I said,” replied Micah, “that you did a brave thing.”

  “But dere’s sum other kin’ er courage dat I ain’t got?”

  “I don’t know whether you’ve got it or not, Jake.”

  “What is dat other kin’ er courage?”

  “The courage to be a man, to look inside yourself and see what you’re made of. It takes a different kind of courage.”

  “How you mean?”

  “It’s easy enough to be brave when you’re facing something outside yourself, even something terrifying like death, like you did that day when you pulled the captain out of the battle. You probably saved his life. But when you’re facing something inside you
rself—that’s what takes real courage. That’s when you have to find out if you’re really a man.”

  “You had ter do dat, Duff?”

  “I’ve had to a few times. Nothing’s harder than facing your own doubts, fears . . . your past. That’s where the greatest courage comes from—when what you have to battle against is yourself. It takes a man to do that.”

  “What ’bout da kind er bravery on da battlefield? You said dat took courage, what I done.”

  “It did. It showed you’ve got guts, Jake. There’s men doing brave things all around us every day. But any fool can go out and get his head blown off, or fight and show how tough he is. Sometimes the men who talk the most about being tough are the biggest fools of all. Any fool can act brave if all he wants is to prove he’s tougher than someone else. Don’t get me wrong—I was proud of what you did the other day. Putting yourself in danger for someone else took real courage. All I’m saying is that by itself, that kind of courage can’t make a man of you.”

  “So what kin make a man er me, Duff?”

  “That you’ve got to find out for yourself, Jake. And I’m thinking it’s just about time you did.”

  “Wha’chu mean by dat?”

  “I’m just wondering if it’s not about time you took a look inside yourself about that anger that’s eating away there.”

  “Dere you go agin—you gwine start preachin’ at me agin!”

  “You just tell me to shut up if you want, Jake, and I won’t say another word. You asked what I meant by courage, so I figured I’d try to tell you.”

  Jake looked away but said nothing.

  “So what do you want, Jake?” said Micah. “You want me to shut up? Or are you brave enough to hear what I’ve got to say?”

  Jake shrugged and muttered something Micah didn’t hear.

  “I didn’t catch what you said, Jake.”

  “Aw, go on an’ say whateber you want . . . dat’s what I said.”

  Again they rode on for a while in silence.

  “All I’m saying, Jake,” said Micah after a while, “is nothing more than I’ve had to do myself—look inside and own up to things that were wrong there, to look at my crooked places and get them straightened around. That’s the thing that I say takes a kind of courage that most men don’t learn soon enough in life. Some never learn it at all. That’s where the real fearsome kinds of things are—inside us. Most men go through life trying to prove that they’re men in all the wrong ways. They try to prove that they can take care of themselves and that they don’t need anybody else. That’s what the man I was telling you about helped me see. But I decided I didn’t want to be that kind of man. I decided I wanted to be a real man, the kind of man with courage to face what’s inside, to face those places in me that no one else had ever seen.”

  Micah glanced at Jake, but he was just looking ahead.

  “That’s not an easy thing to do, Jake,” Micah continued. “Growing into a man with that kind of courage is a hard thing. But it’s the only way to be a whole man. Otherwise, you’ll only be half a man. As many brave things as you might do, you’ll still only be half a man. That’s why I’ve been trying to get you to take an honest look at the anger that’s inside you, Jake—because I want you to be a whole man.”

  Micah paused again. Jake was still staring at the saddle horn in front of him, showing nothing by his expression of what he thought.

  “Who knows where anger comes from, Jake,” Micah went on. “But lots of men have it deep down inside them. Most folks have got some kind of anger inside them toward either their ma or their pa. Kind of a mystery, it’s always seemed to me, that the folks that gave them life are the ones folks get angriest at. But that anger toward your pa will kill you, Jake, if you don’t someday summon the courage to face it. All of us have got to learn to forgive. It takes courage. It takes humility to forgive. But no one can be a whole man without being able to do both.”

  Micah stopped. He had said what he had to say. Now it was Jake’s turn. Micah Duff knew that Jake’s future was now in his own hands.

  AWAY

  20

  THAT NIGHT JAKE LAY AWAKE LONG AFTER EVERYONE else was asleep. He couldn’t have admitted it to him, but Micah’s words had hit him hard.

  He didn’t like them.

  And as he lay fussing and fuming and turning them over and back in his mind, the slow anger in his heart grew.

  He was a man, he said to himself. He was sixteen. But Micah was treating him like a boy, always preaching at him and lecturing him about everything that was wrong with him. All that nonsense about courage and looking inside yourself.

  He didn’t need it!

  What business was it of Micah Duff’s anyway? His insides were his own business, nobody else’s.

  He’d had enough of it!

  But try as he might, he couldn’t stop the many words that Micah had spoken during their three years together.

  “Anger’s not a pretty thing. It makes people miserable inside. . . .”

  The longer he lay awake the more agitated he became. Agitated and angry.

  “When we fall in with how God means us to be, that’s when our grain grows straight and true. . . .”

  He couldn’t stop the plaguing voice.

  “When are you going to let the light all the way inside your heart, Jake? . . .”

  Finally he couldn’t stand it another minute. He got up out of his bedroll. There was enough of a moon to see by and he walked a little way off from the camp. He paced back and forth on the other side of the roped-off horse corral that he and Micah had strung up that afternoon. But still the words hounded him.

  “You’re full of anger. . . . You’re trying to run from it, trying to hide from the light. But you can’t escape it. . . .”

  He was in a sweat now and pacing more rapidly, trying desperately to escape the one thing no one can ever escape—his own thoughts.

  He continued to get more and more stirred up. Suddenly burst out from inside him—though in the blackness of night the words exploded silently in his own mind:

  Heck wiff you, Micah Duff. . . ! I don’t need none ob yo blamed preachin’ no mo! I don’t need you neither. I don’t need nobody! I kin take care ob mysel’. I don’t need you meddlin’ wiff me, carryin’ on all ’bout darkness an’ courage an’ da like. I don’t need it, Duff!

  When Jake came to himself, he was standing over Micah Duff’s bedroll, listening to the quiet rhythmic breathing of his sleeping companion. For two or three minutes he stood, just staring down at the indistinct form in the darkness.

  Then slowly he returned to where he had himself been sleeping. He stooped down and picked up the few things he could call his own. Finally he rolled up a single blanket of the Union Army he hoped they wouldn’t mind if he took, and again left the camp.

  This time he did not turn back.

  HAUNTED BY A MOTHER’S WORDS

  21

  THOUGH THERE WAS ENOUGH OF A MOON TO SEE BY, Jake knew that he had to choose his steps with care. He was pretty sure the Confederate Army they had engaged two days before had retreated toward the east. He did his best to follow what he thought was a northerly course, though he wasn’t altogether sure which way that was.

  He managed to avoid any encampments or farms or stray dogs. He changed his direction so many times, by the time he collapsed in sleepy exhaustion several hours later, he had no idea whether he had been walking north or south or east or west.

  When he woke the sun was high in the sky. Whichever way he had been going, he was miles away and could not have hoped to find Captain Taylor’s Illinois company now had he tried.

  For the first time since his flight from the Winegaard plantation, Jake Patterson was again alone.

  Though there had been a lot of talk lately that the war might not last much longer, he knew that traveling in the South still meant danger. Even though he might be free as a result of President Lincoln’s proclamation, he knew that there was danger everywhere for a black like him.


  For the first time in years, his mother’s words from the past began to return to him as he went.

  “You fin’ yer papa, Jake . . . you fin’ Carolina . . . I know dat sumday you’ll see dat freedom me an’ yer papa prayed ter see. So w’en you’s free, you fin’ him . . . you fin’ him . . . you fin’ Carolina, Jake.”

  After all that Micah Duff had said to him, he had no interest in finding his father. Yet he was alone in the world again. He had nothing else to cling to but his mother’s words.

  With a vague mingling of many conflicting emotions, he made his way like before. He found food and gradually encountered other blacks on the move like himself. And as he did, he began asking, “Which way ter Carolina?”

  Not consciously even forming the idea in his brain that he had set upon a journey to search for his father, Find Carolina became the underlying impulse guiding his movements. He could not have said why. Drawn to the memory of his mother, and racked by the gnawing torment of guilt that he was responsible for her death, images of her face and the sound of her voice haunted the long nights of his sojourning loneliness. For reasons he could not himself define, he could do nothing else but obey her dying wish. The two words of his mother became the vague notion of his calling and present destiny. He had failed her in life. He could not fail her in death. He little realized in what ways his own life and future would be marked by footsteps that now set themselves to carry out her final charge from mother to son.

  He had no idea where he was. But in time he learned that he had left his Union regiment near Fort Donelson in northwestern Tennessee and that Carolina lay east. And he knew enough from listening to Micah Duff talk about the sunrise to know that every morning the sun pointed him afresh in the direction he was compelled to follow. He was now walking toward the sunrise every day—though not exactly spiritually yet. As he went he did not realize how close he had returned to where he had been before. After traveling with the company throughout Missouri, Arkansas, and Mississippi, he was again near the very spot where Micah Duff had first rescued him and where he had spent his first days with Captain Taylor’s small detachment.