Zeely

by Virginia Hamilton

  Uncle Ross didn’t say hello and neither did Toeboy. Toeboy never had to say anything to Uncle Ross if he didn’t want to. That was why he liked him so much. He could sit beside Uncle Ross forever and a Sunday and Uncle Ross would never make him talk. Sometimes, Uncle Ross would talk out loud and often he would tell about things Toeboy had never heard of.

  “Old oak tables,” Uncle Ross said quietly. “Round, with maybe a hundred years of people using them.” His hand swept in and out of the light. “They are like old people,” he said. “They need a care and a handling that is gentle, the way my mother used to stir a little love into her cooking.” Uncle Ross chuckled and fell silent again. The table gleamed with polish but still his arm swept around and around.

  “You don’t think a night traveller would ever come inside a body’s house, do you, Uncle Ross?” Toeboy asked. “I mean, when he was sleeping, when all the doors were locked?”

  “The doors of this house are never locked,” Uncle Ross said, “and what are you talking about in the first place?”

  “I’m talking about night travellers,” Toeboy said.

  “You first must tell me what night travellers are,” Uncle Ross said.

  Toeboy was silent, surprised that Uncle Ross didn’t know. Maybe he had forgotten. “Geeder says that dark roads are walked by night travellers late at night.”

  “Geeder says, does she?” Uncle Ross said. “Well, then, it must be so. Let me think about it for just a minute.”

  Toeboy absently pressed his fingers on the smooth table. Seeing his fingerprints there in the wax, he jerked his hand away.

  “It’s all right,” Uncle Ross said. “That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

  “But it marks it all up,” Toeboy said.

  “What do you think folks did a long time ago,” Uncle Ross said, “when there was maybe a whole family of eight or ten sitting around this table? They would laugh and talk, joke and tell tales.” Uncle Ross smiled to himself. “They’d smooth their palms over a table like this every day, three times a day. Maybe they’d sit at the table all day long in the winter when there wasn’t any other heat but what came from the cook-stove in the kitchen. After some years had caught the wind, that table would shine and it would shine from the oil out of their hands.”

  “Uncle Ross, is that a true story?” Toeboy asked.

  “It is,” Uncle Ross said.

  They were silent. Uncle Ross switched hands. Toeboy crossed his arms on the table and rested his chin on them. Uncle Ross’ hand swept close to Toeboy’s face in a steady rhythm.

  “Night travellers, you say?” Uncle Ross said. “Night travellin’.”

  He began to hum under his breath. It was a throaty sound. Soon, he began to sing in a voice that had all but forgotten such work.

  “Night travellin’, Night travellin’

  I step my feet down strong,

  I’m Night travellin’ ”

  As he began to recall the words, his voice grew stronger and the deep tones of the song caught the rhythm of his hand upon the table.

  “That’s a tune!” Toeboy said. “That’s about night travellers!”

  “Slaves used to sing that,” Uncle Ross said. “That was how they told one another in the fields that they planned to get away from slavery.”

  “Are there other songs like that?” Toeboy wanted to know.

  Uncle Ross nodded. “There’s the song about the drinking gourd,” he said. “Slaves called the Big Dipper the drinking gourd so folks wouldn’t know what they were talking about. The Big Dipper stars lay in the north sky and the slaves would follow them out of the south to Canada.”

  “How does it go?” Toeboy asked.

  “Well,” Uncle Ross said, clearing his throat, “It tells about this man with a wooden leg. The slaves never saw him but they’d follow the mark of his wooden leg through forest trails and along riverbanks—

  “There’s a river runs between two trees

  There’s another river on the other side

  Left foot, peg foot, travel along,

  Follow the drinking gourd.”

  “And there’s still another one,” Uncle Ross said. “I’m just a poor, wayfarin’ stranger,” he sang, “travellin’ through this land of woe. There’s the ‘Long John’ song. Prison men used to sing that one. It told about Long John, how he was going to run.

  “I’m Long John, I’m long gone

  Like a turkey through the corn

  With my long clothes on

  I’m Long John, I’m long gone, I’m gone gone.”

  “Then a night traveller is a slave or a prison man?” Toeboy asked. He reached out, placing his hand over Uncle Ross’. Their hands moved together through the many lights reflected on the table, Toeboy’s smooth and small and Uncle Ross’ creased with summer and fall and many new years.

  “I believe,” Uncle Ross began, “a night traveller must be somebody who wants to walk tall. And to walk tall, you most certainly must have to run free. Yes,” he said, “it is the free spirit in any of us breaking loose.”

  “I saw a night traveller,” Toeboy said, softly. “It was late at night, after the big bonfire at Bennie Green’s. It came down the road just like a ghost. I thought it was Miss Zeely Tayber.”

  Uncle Ross smiled. “Zeely Tayber comes down the road at night to check on those hogs. You most likely saw her.”

  “Geeder took your flashlight,” Toeboy said. “She doesn’t know I know but I saw it in her room. I bet she’s seen the night traveller, too, and means to shine the flashlight on it. And when she does, I bet it won’t be Zeely Taber, no sir!”

  “So,” Uncle Ross said, “let thy little light shine on the lonesome traveller and the night—” He chuckled and let the thought go.

  He and Toeboy leaned together on one side of the big oak table. The light fell fully on them, leaving the rest of the room in growing shadow. They were there, full of the warmth of tales and talk, when two hands floated out of the darkness. The fingertips came to rest on the gleaming table. They could have been hewn from stone.

  Uncle Ross’ hand jerked to a halt. Toeboy gasped, feeling Uncle Ross’ arm tense as strong and hard as a plank of wood. Their eyes were glued to the hands without arms across the table. Toeboy tried to cry out but his voice was gone. It was the traveller come to get him, for what but the traveller could have come so quickly out of the dark?

  “And the night?” a small voice said, “and the night?” repeating the last words Uncle Ross had spoken.

  The lone hands had arms. Geeder sat down at the table.

  Uncle Ross sighed. “And the night,” he said, “as dark as the color of thy skin, will unveil itself less black.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Geeder. She was silent a moment. “I’ve been listening,” she said. “I was standing there a long time.”

  “I thought you were the night traveller come to get me,” Toeboy said. Timidly, he looked around, not quite certain of the shadows.

  “For a moment there, I thought it had come to get us both,” Uncle Ross said.

  Geeder tried to smile but she was thinking and didn’t have time to be amused at having frightened Toeboy and Uncle Ross.

  “Maybe it’s Zeely Tayber,” she said. “Maybe she and the night traveller are the same thing.” She blurted it out all at once.

  “But she’s not a slave or a prison man,” Toeboy said.

  Uncle Ross put his hand on Toeboy’s shoulder and Toeboy was quiet. “Maybe it is,” he said to Geeder. “Zeely Tayber comes every night with extra feed to check on the hogs.”

  “I don’t think she has to come at all,” Geeder said.

  “No,” said Uncle Ross.

  “Then, why does she come?” Geeder asked.

  “Well . . .” Uncle Ross said. He put away the cloth and the wax and prepared the table for the evening meal. The good smell of food cooking in the kitchen hung in the air, along with the careful sound of the last word he had said. Geeder waited.

  “You could ask Zeely
Tayber why she comes down the road,” Uncle Ross said.

  “She wouldn’t talk to me,” Geeder said. She remembered the hog run and the fact that Miss Zeely hadn’t said a word to her.

  “She came by here in her own car just to see you today,” Uncle Ross said.

  There was a stunned silence at the table. Geeder’s unhappy expression changed to astonishment. “The green coupe!” she said. “It was Miss Zeely!”

  “What green coupe?” Toeboy said.

  “Zeely Tayber has a little car,” Uncle Ross said. “She drove up here this afternoon just to see Geeder. Geeder was out by the field, so she asked me to give her a message.”

  Uncle Ross brought food from the kitchen. It steamed up in the light but neither Geeder nor Toeboy touched any of it.

  “What kind of message?” Geeder whispered at last.

  “Zeely asked that tomorrow you meet her at the entrance to the catalpa forest. She wants to talk to you,” Uncle Ross said. “I think she’s heard some of the stories you’ve been telling about her.”

  Geeder sat quite still. She had expected something to happen. During the short time she had slept upstairs, before she found Uncle Ross and Toeboy talking, she had had the feeling of movement. Not dreaming, exactly, for she saw no pictures, but the feeling that there was something beyond her vision trying to catch up with her.

  “Did she say whether Toeboy could come to the meeting?” she asked Uncle Ross. She turned toward Toeboy but did not look at him.

  “Zeely Tayber didn’t mention Toeboy,” Uncle Ross said.

  “She said she wanted to see you.”

  “I promised Bennie Green I would help work on his tree house,” Toeboy said.

  “I’ll have to go by myself,” said Geeder. The thought at once pleased and frightened her.

  After they had eaten, and all night long, Geeder had a feeling that was a mixture of happiness and dread. She didn’t sleep much because of it. By the following day, she was shaking with excitement. Her meeting was for two o’clock, but by one, she was ready to meet Miss Zeely.

  Dressed for her meeting, Geeder wore shorts and a blouse with four strands of beads. One necklace was of painted and matched seeds from Haiti. The second consisted of large bloodstones and agates from India. The last two were selected from the glass beads she’d worn the night of the bonfire. Before leaving her room, Geeder looked closely at the photograph of the Watutsi woman.

  “Is Zeely a queen?” she asked herself. “Did I make the whole thing up?”

  The photograph was creased from handling but the form of the woman shone true as ever. Geeder took a deep breath. There wasn’t any doubt in her mind that Zeely Tayber looked the same as the girl in the picture, and there wasn’t any doubt that Zeely Tayber was a queen.

  Geeder left the house at one thirty and walked toward the catalpa forest. The day was warm, with an unclouded, glazed sky. In the distance, there was haze, but around her, trees and road, bushes and fields, were crystal clear. The color of the catalpa trees was nearly black, with a tone of warm green somewhere deep within.

  Geeder spoke out loud as she walked. “All the time with the hogs,” she said, “she didn’t once say anything, not a word. Who would have thought she’d want me to be with her now!”

  Near the forest, an outgrowth of catalpas spread out on both sides of Leadback Road. They leaned high above Geeder, making a tunnel of branches and leaves. She entered the tunnel and the air turned cool. There was a hush of dampness and shade. The quiet of such great old trees made Geeder cautious, although they didn’t frighten her. She respected the green worms on the leaves by keeping an eye on them as she walked. When she neared the entrance of the forest, she saw a green coupe parked close by the trees. At first, she hadn’t seen it, for it was the exact color of the leaves. Standing in the entrance of the forest was Zeely Tayber. And Geeder, coming upon her all of a sudden, was shocked anew by her incredible height.

  13

  GEEDER STOOD IN AMAZEMENT. Never had she seen Zeely dressed in such a way. She wore a length of varicolored silk wound around her delicate body and draped over her left shoulder. Around her head was a band of green silk, brilliant against her black hair. The long garment was beautiful and strange but the band around Zeely’s hair was what held Geeder’s attention. In her mind, she saw the picture of the Watutsi woman, the picture which right now she had hidden in her blouse. The Watutsi woman had worn such a headband.

  “I’m glad you’ve come,” Zeely said. Her voice was quiet, hardly above a whisper, and yet, it was perfectly clear. She smiled, adding, “Please follow me.” She turned and led the way into the forest. Geeder, still unable to speak, followed.

  Zeely plunged through stinging nettles. Often, she stamped them down for Geeder or stopped to hold a bramble aside. At such times, Geeder forced herself to look up at Zeely; always, when she did so, she felt awfully small.

  They stumbled into a clearing. Sprawling berry bushes grew in one dusty-green mesh that covered every foot of ground. Hedge trees surrounded the clearing in a perfect, enormous rectangle.

  Geeder looked up at the sky. The sun beat down fiercely, almost blinding her. Now Zeely carefully inched through the bushes to the great shade trees bordering them.

  “You must be careful,” Zeely said, so suddenly she startled Geeder. “There may be caterpillars on the leaves. I believe they like to drop on people.”

  Bees and dragonflies moved and sung a monotonous humdrum. The smell of decay and life was so strong that Geeder felt unable to breathe. But the bad feeling passed by the time she and Zeely reached the border trees. They sat down under low branches. For a moment, there was a stir of wind high up in the leaves.

  Geeder stared about at the berries which had grown ripe and then rotted and dried up on the bushes. “I didn’t know all this was here,” she said. “I don’t know where we are.”

  “We are near the road,” Zeely said, “but far away from where we entered.”

  They were silent for a time. Geeder didn’t want to stare at Zeely so she played with her necklaces. When she grew tired of that, she picked long blades of grass to play with. By stretching the grass between her two thumbs, she created a fine instrument. She blew her breath against her thumbs; the blades vibrated. After a few tries, she was able to make two pure notes of sound. All the time she played this way, her mind raced with thoughts of Zeely. She was proud to be so near her again, proud and scared and unable to think of anything to say.

  Zeely Tayber didn’t seem to mind the silence between herself and Geeder. She was relaxed, serene. As she viewed Geeder from head to foot, her eyes were full of a strange light and dark.

  Geeder sat across from Zeely. When Zeely began to stare at her hard, she became watchful and held herself more like a lady. She could not read Zeely’s eyes, nor could she fathom why Zeely was looking at her that way.

  What does she see? she wondered. What is it?

  “Your many beads are pretty,” Zeely said suddenly. “You have a lot of clothes?” She spoke as if Geeder were someone she had known for years. But her voice was halting, the way a person might speak when he hadn’t had anyone to talk to for a long, long time.

  Geeder was so startled by Zeely’s question, her mind went empty. “Why, I don’t know!” she said at last. “I’ve a dress to go to a party. I’ve got clothes for school. Mother buys them every fall and Christmas.” She felt ashamed that she hadn’t worn long pants instead of shorts to her meeting with Zeely.

  “A girl should have clothes,” Zeely said.

  “Miss Zeely, I think your dress is about the most pretty one I’ve ever seen,” Geeder said, shyly.

  Zeely touched the bodice of her robe with her long fingers. Geeder could tell she was pleased by the compliment.

  “I’ve had it a long time,” Zeely said. “Twice a year, I hang it in the sun so that the colors will catch and hold the light.” Very delicately, she gathered the skirt and smoothed it evenly about her feet. The colors leaped and glowed.

/>   Geeder didn’t know why they had started talking about clothes. Since they had begun to speak, she was bursting to ask Zeely about herself.

  “Miss Zeely, do you come from Tallahassee?” she blurted out. “I think somebody told me you came from there.”

  “No,” said Zeely, “we come from far to the north, from Canada.”

  “Canada!” Geeder said. The thought that Zeely came from such a place excited her. “I’ve never been there,” she said. “Was it cold?”

  “Where we were, it was cold,” Zeely said. “It snowed and there was not much summer.”

  “Did you have hogs there, too?” Geeder asked. She entwined her fingers, eager to talk.

  “We always have hogs,” Zeely said. “We sell the best. We eat the meat of those that are left.” She looked away from Geeder. “It’s by them that we live.”

  The way Zeely spoke about the hogs made Geeder feel she had said something wrong. She grew uneasy. “Well,” she said, “I just thought it was maybe Tallahassee you came from. I remember someone told me that.”

  “The same someone who says I am a queen?” Zeely asked. Her eyes held to Geeder’s.

  Geeder’s hands flew to her face. “I didn’t mean anything bad!” she cried. “Miss Zeely? Here!” She fumbled in her blouse and her hand shook as she gave Zeely the photograph of the Watutsi woman.

  Zeely looked at the photograph. She smiled, vaguely, as though she didn’t know she smiled. Finally, she gave the picture back to Geeder. She sat stiff and still. She could have been carved out of the trees, so dark was she seated there. Then, the rigid mask of her face melted, as if it were made of wax. A smile parted her lips. From deep in her throat came a warm, sweet giggle. She threw back her head and laughed and laughed. It was to Geeder a delicious, soft sound.

  Geeder was so happy, she began to laugh, too, and got up to sit next to Zeely. All at once, they were side by side, just the way Geeder had dreamed it.

  “You are very much the way I was at your age,” Zeely said.