Black Angels

by Linda Beatrice Brown

  CHAPTER 28

  SUMMER FAREWELL

  Luke could see the river flowing along peacefully as if the hours he had just lived through were not real, as if there had been no Black man in the cornfield, no soldiers and no battle. During the walk back to Betty’s cabin he felt different. He didn’t believe he would be scared of anything as long as he lived.

  He reached Betty’s cabin sometime after what his stomach told him was past time to eat, and he was starving. He hadn’t eaten since last night in the cornfield. Suddenly, he just couldn’t go another step, and he was terribly thirsty and shaking. “Hey there, hey y’all!” he cried out. But he didn’t see anybody. “Hey, Miz Betty! Hey, Caswell, Daylily, I’m home!”

  Betty’s door opened slowly. She held up her hand as if to stop his coming. “Don’t come near, Luke,” she yelled. “Don’t come in here no farther. Smallpox is here. I’m sure now. This man’s got it!”

  “Where’s everybody?” he yelled.

  “They in the woods,” she called back. “In the cave where you left them. You call out and they’ll come.” She pointed him in the right direction.

  “Betty?” he yelled. “Betty, I did my job, Betty!”

  She smiled. It was the first time he remembered Betty smiling a real smile. “That’s one for the Union, Luke!” she said from across the yard.

  The cave was easy to find, and he called out to his friends like the returning soldier he was. Daylily and Caswell were on him like puppies welcoming their owner, full of questions and excitement.

  All Luke wanted to do was eat and sleep. Betty made squirrel stew and brought it to them, and Luke stuffed himself, all the while telling them what had happened. And then he slept like a dead person. Betty wouldn’t get too close or let them touch her, and though she let them alone tonight because of Luke’s homecoming, she knew they’d have to leave very soon, maybe tomorrow. Smallpox was just too dangerous. Besides, she had put them all in danger by stabbing that ruffian and taking the horse and wagon, and tomorrow would make the third day since she had been captured.

  She went into the cabin, her mind so occupied with the children that she forgot she needed to stop at the pump for some water. She needed to fill her bucket. She lifted her lantern and took it with her. Out back, the pump creaked and water trickled out. She was squatting at the pump for better traction. But the sound of the water was not the only sound she heard.

  She heard Cetto, the mother rattler. Betty had not forgotten seeing the snake just before the children came to her. She froze. In the light thrown by the lantern, she could make out the huge brown snake in the shadows as it slid out of the woodpile. She didn’t dare turn her head, but she could see out of the corner of her eye; the snake was watching her.

  The rattle sounded its dreadful warning. Mother Cetto rose up and looked at Betty. And then quietly changing her mind, she lowered her head and slithered away silently.

  A few seconds passed. Betty stood up very slowly, very quietly. She was sure now. It was time for them to go. As hard as it was to do, she was doing the right thing.

  On her way back to the house, she looked up at the sky. Clouds moved and covered the new moon, and somewhere something rumbled. Guns, she thought, or thunder, and she was sure hoping it wasn’t thunder, because she hated to send those children out in rain. Maybe two days longer, maybe then was soon enough. “Does it ever come easy?” she asked the gathering clouds. “Does it ever come easy to let go of somebody you love?”

  The wind blew a leaf into her face. The November chill had really settled in now, and as she went inside to tend to her sick guest, the tears were running down her face. Just as well, she thought. Just as well I cry now instead of having them see me cry when they go. No more warm weather. Now Indian summer was gone for sure.

  CHAPTER 29

  FOLLOW THE RIVER

  It had been half an hour since they’d left Betty Strong Foot, and nobody could say anything. All Luke heard was Daylily sniffling, and Caswell sobbing, and he was wiping his own tears away so he could see where they were going. The rain had left the woods dripping, but at least the sun was out good and strong.

  “I don’t care, it’s cold out here,” Caswell said all of a sudden. “I’m going back.” He had on a pair of moccasins Betty had made when she made the shirts and pants and jackets for all of them. Even colder weather would be here soon, she’d said, and they needed things for the night.

  Daylily carried a small quilt rolled up and strapped to her back. Betty had said it should take them three or four days to get to Harper’s Ferry, where they could find some people who could help them. She said she couldn’t spy any more, and that would mean they wouldn’t have enough food.

  Luke thought there would be some grown folks who’d be sure to send them back to where the rebs could get at them and split them up. And maybe they’d never see each other again. He didn’t say it out loud because he didn’t want to scare the others, but he knew Daylily was thinking of that too, and just wasn’t saying it.

  “Naw,” Luke said to Caswell, “you can’t go back there. Betty says we’ll get the smallpox and die.”

  “How come she won’t die?” Caswell looked at Luke.

  With that long hair, he did look like a little Indian, Luke thought, he was so browned from the sun.

  “Cause she ain’t!” Luke answered. “Cause she say so. She got ways. Anyway, we got to keep movin forward. It’s danger in these parts. I ought know. I sho nuff been in it.”

  Daylily was way ahead of them now. She called back over her shoulder. “She got to move on, long as the war lasts, so she won’t git kilt! And hang from a tree! So come on! Both of y’all.”

  The shadows were long now, and they stopped walking as if they had reached a silent agreement.

  “Guess we should eat some of this Betty give us,” said Daylily. “She said it was enough for four days.” Daylily divided up Caswell’s bread and dried fish into four parts and gave him back one part.

  They sat down and ate in silence, everyone sad and afraid to say how much they hurt. The unthinkable had happened. They were looking for a home again, alone, and it was almost worse than before because they had lost Betty. They gathered wood for a fire, but their hearts were not in it. They were slow and listless.

  “When I get to where we’s goin, I ain’t never gon leave home again, whatever home is,” Daylily said between her bites. “What’s that place, Harper’s Terry?”

  “Harper’s Ferry,” Luke answered.

  “Well, what’s that anyway?” said Caswell. “I bet it won’t be half as good as Betty’s place.”

  “It’s a town,” Luke said. “That’s all I know about it.”

  Daylily looked up from her meal, which was all but gone. “Is it any colored folks there?”

  “I spect it’s colored folks everywhere,” Luke said. “Don’t you?”

  “Not in Heaven,” said Caswell.

  Luke turned, suddenly and fiercely, and faced Caswell. “I done already tole you. My mama is there,” he said quietly, “and don’t you never say that again.” He lay facedown on his jacket.

  “Luke, it’s just cause . . . cause, well, how come I never seen a picture of a Black angel? They’re always White in our Sunday school Bible. Mamadear had White angels on her wall and . . . I’m really sorry, Luke . . . I just . . .”

  “Just shut up, OK? Just shut up.”

  “Anyway, we ain’t goin to no Heaven,” said Daylily quickly, looking sideways at Luke. “We goin to that town, Harper’s Ferry, and it’s plenty colored folks there, I bet.”

  Caswell looked at Luke, but Luke had turned his head away. Daylily refilled the canteen with river water and offered some to Luke. After a few minutes, he seemed to feel better, and they settled into their all-too-familiar routine of making a campfire.

  “What you gon do in Harper’s Ferry, Luke?” said Daylily. “Do you reckon we’s gonna get put in jail or somethin bad for runnin away?”

  “Don’t know.” He shrugged
his thin shoulders. “Depends on the war, I reckon. On rebs and Union. Massa Higsaw was about dead when I left, sick and drunk all the time; you ain’t got no people no more at your place, and Caswell, his mama dead. They got to find his daddy, if he ain’t kilt in the war, you know. I might join up with the Union if I can find some soldiers when us gets to Harper’s Ferry.”

  “You mean fight? Like a soldier? You get killed, Luke, sure as huntin dogs holler. You get killed, and then I ain’t got a friend in the world. And Caswell gon be with some White folks, that’s for sure. I done heard you say it before, but that was before we was friends, you know.” She poked in the dirt with a twig.

  Luke was silent, and kept gathering twigs. He didn’t know what to say about Daylily’s gloomy picture of the future, but maybe he could just work around the camps. A lot had happened to him, and he was still alive. Maybe she was right and he would only be killed in the war.

  He didn’t care what Caswell said, his mam was in Heaven and she was an angel. He bet there were other Black angels there too. And if he got killed, he’d see his mam again in her right mind.

  “My daddy ain’t dead,” Caswell insisted. “He’ll come and get me.”

  Nobody answered him.

  “What you gon do when we get to Harper’s Ferry, Daylily?” Luke asked. He was curious about what a girl would say.

  “Work, I reckon. Like I always been doin.” She was very quiet after that; for a long time they only listened to the fire and cracked twigs with their fingers.

  Finally, Luke said what he had been thinking. “You reckon us could find a way to be together?”

  “Maybe,” she said, “if you don’t get shot up in the war. Maybe us could work on a Harper’s Ferry plantation.”

  “Maybe they don’t have plantations there. Aunt Eugenia, she say in a town, it be lots of houses and buildings, more’n you ever saw. Lots of people in these buildings, and maybe us work in one of those White folks’ houses. When the Yankees win, we gonna be free and get paid to work.”

  “Maybe,” whispered Daylily.

  “My papa find me, I bet,” said Caswell. “I just bet he will.”

  Luke knew it was time to go to sleep if they were going to make good time in the morning, but he wasn’t sleepy for some reason. Daylily was also wide awake. They stretched out on their quilt, using their army coats for some protection against the dampness. It was warm close to the fire, and they both looked straight up through the darkness. They were close enough to the river to hear the water lapping against the bank, and they could smell the damp moss and mold of decaying leaves. The sky was very clear of clouds.

  “I wonder what gon happen to us for real,” Daylily whispered.

  “Me too,” Luke echoed. “Two more days good walkin and we be there. Sure is a big Heaven up there. Look at all them stars.”

  “It’s big, that’s a fact. Big as this here woods, I reckon.” Daylily looked over at Caswell, who had fallen fast asleep. “Then Caswell’s mama be up there too. Could be right next to your mama lookin down on us. They be up there with my granny. Three of them up there together, three of us down here together.”

  They were quiet for a minute or two, thinking about what she had said. “Luke, if you go to fight in the war, how you gonna find us? We best friends. We like brother and sister.”

  “I thought you said I be dead.”

  “Well, maybe you ain’t kilt. And if you ain’t kilt, how you gon find us? And Caswell, God only know where the White folks’ll take him.” Daylily’s voice got very small then. “And Luke, if they sells us away, we won’t never be able to see each other again. You, me, Caswell, we’s like family. How’m I gonna find you all in this big world?”

  “We got to have a pact. That’s it. Like folks do when they runnin away to freedom. We got to have a plan. We got to remember to meet up when we get grown. To meet up like I was tryin to meet up with Unc Steph and Gustavus and Junior Boy to go to the war. I had a plan, only they wasn’t there at the tree, or else I was late. I don know. But that’s what we gotta do. Now this here year is eighteen hundred and sixty-four. So in ten more summers we meet up.”

  “Suppose we ain’t free? Suppose the rebs win the war? Then we be runnin away from the massa.”

  “You be grown up,” Luke said. “It’ll be easier. And anyway, the Union gonna win this war. I just know they is. And you be free. You can go anywhere you want then.”

  Daylily turned over on her stomach and took her favorite position, her head on her fists. “Where us gon meet though? Us could meet at Betty’s house. When us get to Harper’s Ferry, we see where the river goes, and just turn around and go back to Betty’s. Can you count on your fingers, Luke? I can count. Granny learned me that too. Count it on your fingers—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. That’s a lot of summers, ain’t it, Luke? Luke?”

  He had fallen into a dream while she was counting to ten. In his sleep he could hear her counting, only he was counting stars, and when he got to the tenth one, he heard his mother’s gentle voice, and saw her face shining from the light of the star, and she said, “You done good, Luke. You done brought these children through. You done real good.”

  As she finally drifted into sleep, Daylily whispered, “Two more days good walking, and then what we gon do?”

  CHAPTER 30

  THE MADISONS

  Long before they got to the town, they could tell it was going to be different from what they were used to. Harper’s Ferry was like nothing they had ever seen before. There were more houses, small farms, animals in the fields and more people than they had seen in a long time.

  Daylily had been away from the Riversons’ place only to go to other plantations and country houses with her missus. Caswell had never seen a town either. Only Luke had some idea what it might look like from stories people who had been away from the plantation told him. People who had been sold to Massa Higsaw from far away, places like Charleston and Atlanta, told him there were more houses in towns and cities than all the cabins in the quarters and all the outbuildings, kitchens, stables, smokehouses and tobacco sheds put together.

  Luke was sure they were close to the town when they started seeing people in wagons. As they saw more and more people, they walked slower and slower. Nobody seemed to notice them. A small White boy in one of the farmyards said, “Hey, y’all.” They all spoke back, but they didn’t stop.

  “How you know we goin the right way?” Daylily asked. “Let’s stop and eat something.” She sighed and sat down by the side of the road where there was a vacant field. The two boys sat down with her. They were eating the last of the bread Betty had given them.

  When they had finished their bread, they walked another half mile. There were times they had to walk up and down the hills, and then there was another farmhouse, and another across the road, and then another. And then they saw a girl about thirteen, hoeing potatoes.

  “This here Harper’s Ferry?” Luke called out to her.

  “Yeah,” she called back. “Straight ahead. Y’all not from round here?”

  Daylily and Caswell started to say no, but Luke said, “Yeah, we from down the road a piece, other side of the river.” And he said it very loud so she couldn’t hear Daylily’s and Caswell’s “no.”

  Her skin was light brown. She had on a washed gingham dress that used to be red and an old man’s jacket over that. Her head was wrapped in a kerchief, and she was barefoot.

  “Just keep goin a spell,” she nodded. Then she looked at them a little more carefully. “Y’all look real tired. Can I help you to a drink? Mammy’s got biscuits from breakfast. That’s all we got. What with the war we ain’t got much, but y’all just wait a minute. I’ll get you some water.”

  Before Luke could say no, Daylily and Caswell had answered “yes,” and she ran off down the path to a whitewashed house with a stone chimney, not too far from where they were standing. Daylily noticed a chopping block.

  “I wonder if they got chickens,” she said,
her mouth watering.

  Luke said quickly, “Come on, y’all, let’s go.”

  “No,” the younger ones answered together. “We thirsty,” said Caswell.

  “And hungry,” Daylily said and shook her head. “I ain’t goin nowhere. So they catch us. They gonna catch us anyway when we gets to that town, and I’s tired of runnin.”

  Luke looked at them, and then back at the little house. “Caswell,” he said, “when she come back here, you don’t say nothin bout where we from, you hear? And don’t tell her no names.”

  The girl was coming out the door by that time with a jug and something in her hands. Two younger boys came out of the door to stare at the strangers. Luke didn’t see any soldiers or White men, so he felt better.

  “My Mam say come in and rest a spell,” she said, passing out three little biscuits. “That’s all we got to offer y’all. Y’all free or slave?”

  Caswell said, “Free,” Daylily said, “Slave,” and Luke said, “Naw, we just tryin to get to Harper’s Ferry. We got people there.”

  “Oh,” she said, knowing not to ask any more questions. She looked a little longer at Caswell, and then turned her head away.

  “We’s free,” she said. “My pappy bought us fore he died in the factory makin guns. My name Gracey.”

  “What’s it like,” said Daylily, “bein free?”

  “Not much different,” she said. “Cept we can go where we want to and don’t have to carry a pass or nothin. So if we don’t make White folks mad or nothin, they leaves us alone. Sides, they say we all free now. Ain’t y’all heard of mancipation? Massa Lincoln’s paper sayin we’s free.”

  “Who tole you that?” said Luke. “That ain’t true, is it?” He thought of Massa Higsaw.

  “Sure is,” said Gracey.

  Luke grinned.

  “Can we put some of your water in our canteen? We got to go.” Freedom sounded good if it was true, but how could he be sure she knew what she was talking about? This girl was making him more and more nervous. Soon she’d start asking more questions about them. She might get them into trouble.