The Soldier's Lady

by Michael Phillips

  “Just like you did mine,” said Jeremiah.

  “I reckon so,” nodded Micah. “And knowing that, I realized I could trust him. And once you learn to trust someone, everything changes. When I realized that he wanted only good for me and was willing to do anything, even make sacrifices for me, for my good—that turned my whole life around. I realized that he cared about me, even loved me. He treated me like a son, even though he was white and I was black. He became like a father to me. Since I never knew my own father and since my mother was dead, I had no one else. I suppose I became a little like him. Even as I talked to you, Jake, I found myself saying some of the very things he had told me.

  “He taught me about God, about how God works in our lives, about who God is. He taught me to understand myself and to understand people. He taught me to speak intelligently, taught me to read, to write, even to read whole books, something I would never have dreamed of doing as long as I was stuck in that life I was in. He gave me not only an education about God and reading and writing, but mostly about life and choices and deciding what kind of man I wanted to be. He always put choice in front of me. For Hawk, everything is always reduced to the two Cs—choice and character. He always said that light and darkness are before us at every moment—the two paths of life, he called them, and how we allow God to make better people of us.

  “And after that, ever since, I have been intrigued by the character and growth of the people I’ve met. Hawk taught me to look beneath the surface for a person’s true character. I saw that people weren’t always what they seemed. It made me think a lot about what kind of person I wanted to be myself. If you’re observing people for the wrong reasons, it will only lead to judgment. But for the right reasons it helps you grow yourself. That’s what Hawk helped me to see . . . both in others and in myself. He helped me decide what kind of person I wanted to be, just like I told you when we first met, Jake.”

  “What waz dat light you seen when dat man come out an’ stood dere when you wuz runnin’?” asked Emma.

  Micah smiled. “I don’t know, Emma. I’ve often wondered if I had a momentary vision. For a time I wondered if Hawk was an angel. I don’t know. Sometimes God does things we do not understand to get our attention and to tell us it’s time to look to the light and find out who and what He wants us to be. That was such a moment for me. I can’t explain it. God wanted to speak to me. He used Hawk to say what He had to say.”

  “Does you think God will eber speak ter me, Mr. Duff?”

  “God speaks to everybody, Emma. But He uses different ways to speak to us all. We have to be listening when His voice comes, even though we might not know what it’s going to be like. God’s voice came to me through Hawk. For you it will be different.”

  “Will I see me a vishun, Mr. Duff?”

  “Probably not, Emma. Most people don’t. But God always speaks, if we’re listening.”

  “Where is Hawk now?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” answered Micah with a sad smile. “I’ve wanted for years to see him again so that I could thank him for all he did for me. He always talked about going west, about living off the land. He was fascinated with the high desert. I never quite understood why. He never really seemed like a city man. If anyone could live off the land, it was Hawk. He was remarkable in more ways than just knowing things about God that most folks never discover. But I joined the army and traveled around a lot. Then the war came. I wanted to get back to Chicago to see if I could track him down. But I doubt he’s still there. Besides that, he would be getting to be an old man by now. I don’t know . . . something tells me he made it out west, and may still be there, for all I know.”

  It grew quiet and suddenly we were all aware that the rain had stopped. Almost immediately the whole cabin brightened as sunlight streamed in through the window.

  Micah’s story had been so interesting and moving. But it left me feeling strangely melancholy. I didn’t know why.

  Maybe it wasn’t his story at all but all of us being here together like we were, listening to everyone else talk about their lives. But I hadn’t shared much at all about mine the whole time. All of a sudden it struck me why.

  I was different from the rest of them—different from Micah and Henry and Josepha and Emma and Jeremiah. Even though I had been a slave too, my father was white. That set me apart from them. And the realization made me feel very, very strange.

  But I hardly had the chance to think about what it meant. All at once the door opened and there stood Katie.

  “So this is where you all disappeared to,” she said. “We got home and there was nobody to be found!”

  I smiled as Katie came in. She was smiling and exuberant as she looked around at us seated in chairs and on the floor, her hair wet looking as if she’d been caught in the rainstorm too. But I was still feeling funny.

  “What have you all been doing?” asked Katie.

  “Sleepin’!” William announced.

  We all looked over at the bed, not realizing the little boy had woken up. The others laughed and Emma scooped William from the bed and held him in her arms.

  “We been tellin’ stories, Miz Katie,” Emma said.

  We continued to talk and tell Katie everything we’d been talking about. But even the sound of their happy voices couldn’t shake off the peculiar mood that had come over me.

  Strange as it is to say it, even though I was surrounded by so many people, a wave of loneliness swept over me.

  I got up. The voices and everyone’s talk and laughter faded behind me, and I walked out the door Katie had left open. Slowly I wandered away from the cabin.

  CONFUSING THOUGHTS

  19

  It was so wet the water was running in tiny little streams through the grooves of every path and road and at the edges of the fields. There were puddles everywhere and every inch of the ground and every blade and leaf of the crops and the trees was glistening in the sunlight from millions of raindrops everywhere.

  I walked away from the cabins, still hearing the voices of those I loved so much behind me but feeling, for some strange reason, very alone. I wasn’t even sure what exactly I was feeling. I walked slowly, and it was so muddy that I had to pick my way so I wouldn’t step in any puddles. I suppose I was feeling sorry for myself. Not only was I not totally colored like the others, I think for the first time I was realizing that I couldn’t take Katie all the way into my world, and that I would always be separated, too, from Katie’s world. None of the others back in Jeremiah’s cabin could fully understand how I felt either, because I was half white. I was caught between the two worlds of white and black but not fully a part of either.

  I hadn’t gone that far from the cabin when I heard steps behind me. I assumed it was probably Katie. I turned and there was Micah Duff walking after me.

  I tried to force a smile, but I don’t think it was very convincing.

  “You look like someone carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders,” he said. “Would you like to talk about it?”

  “How did you know?” I said as we began walking slowly together.

  “I suppose another thing Hawk taught me was how to read what people are feeling. Well . . . not know what they are feeling exactly, but perhaps know when they need to talk . . . or need a friend.”

  “I guess I’m not very good at hiding it, am I?” I said, smiling again.

  “Let’s just say I could tell something was on your mind. I hope nothing I said in there—”

  “Oh no, it’s not that at all,” I said. “It’s just that I—”

  I looked away. My eyes were suddenly filled with tears. Micah waited patiently.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said, sniffling and wiping at my eyes, “I just . . . in there—all of us, only us coloreds like we were talking—all of a sudden I realized that I wasn’t like the rest of you at all. I am half black, half white. I have a white father. I don’t know why, it made me feel like . . . I don’t know—where do I fit? Am I colored . . . or w
hite? I’m neither.”

  My eyes filled again. I looked over and Micah gave me the most tender smile I think I’d ever seen.

  “You are who God made you,” he said. “You are His beautiful child. You are exactly the young lady He wants you to be. Do you think the color of your skin matters to God?”

  “No,” I said, hardly able to keep from weeping at his words.

  “Your mother loved you,” Micah went on. “It is obvious your father loves you—God loves you, all these people here, Mayme—they adore you. None of that is because of the color of your skin. It is because of the person you are.”

  “Thank you,” I said, wiping at my eyes again.

  Micah nodded with one last smile, then turned and walked back to the cabin. Even as he went I saw Katie coming toward me. She and Micah passed, slowed, exchanged some words I couldn’t hear, then Katie joined me and we continued on toward the house together.

  Neither of us said a word for a minute or two. When Katie finally spoke, her words were not what I had expected.

  “Jeremiah and Emma were watching the two of you through the window,” she said.

  I turned toward her. “Did Jeremiah say anything?” I asked.

  “No, they were just watching. We’ve all been watching, Mayme.”

  “Watching what?”

  “What do you think . . . you and Micah.”

  “But, Katie,” I said, “it’s nothing.”

  “Is it, Mayme? Are you sure?”

  I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure I knew the answer.

  “What were you and he talking about?” Katie asked.

  “He saw that I was sad and asked me about it, that’s all.”

  “I’m sorry, Mayme—why are you sad?”

  “I don’t know . . . I was just feeling funny about being half white and half black. Sometimes I feel strange around the others calling Papa Papa, with him white and them black. I’m not like them, I’m not like you. It made me wonder who I am at all. I don’t fit in anywhere.”

  Again I felt myself starting to cry.

  Katie took my hand and squeezed it. “We may be different, Mayme,” she said. “But we are sisters, remember . . . cousins. Nothing can ever take that away from us.”

  I nodded.

  “What did Micah say?” asked Katie.

  “He said some nice things . . . mostly that God loves me exactly as I am. He always seems to know just the right thing to say. He is the most amazing person. I can’t imagine him as an angry street thief.”

  “What!” said Katie.

  “He was telling us about it when you were in town. That’s what he used to be. Can you imagine it? It hardly seems possible.”

  Katie looked at me with the oddest expression.

  “Mayme . . . you’re not in love with him . . . are you?” she asked.

  I looked at her in astonishment.

  “My papa asked me the same thing,” I said. “No—of course not.”

  While Katie and Mayme were talking and continuing toward the house, Micah made his way back where the others all slowly emerged from Henry and Jeremiah’s cabin. He reached Emma and William, then paused and stooped down.

  “William,” he said, “I want to have a little talk with your mother. You don’t mind, do you? Why don’t you run up to the house and she will join you in a minute.”

  “Okay, Mister Duff,” said William and scampered off with Josepha hurrying after him, though not with his energy or speed.

  “That’s quite a boy you have,” said Micah as they walked slowly away from the others. Emma did not reply and her nervousness at finding herself suddenly alone with Micah Duff was obvious.

  “I am going to have to have a talk with you one of these days, Emma,” Micah said, “about some of those things you said about yourself in there.”

  “What about dem?” said Emma.

  “About how you think of yourself, Emma,” replied Micah. “Sometimes it takes someone else to help us see the good in ourselves.”

  “Dere ain’t no good in me.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Emma. There is good in everyone.”

  “Maybe in people like Mayme and Miz Katie but—”

  “Emma,” interrupted Micah; then he turned and stared straight into her eyes. “God wouldn’t have created you just as you are if He didn’t think you were worth creating. He looks at you with even more love in His heart than you feel when you look at William. I’ve seen how you look at your child and the love that is in your eyes.”

  “When you see dat?”

  “I’ve seen it since the day I arrived here. You love him, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Mister Duff. But . . . you been watching me?”

  “I have, Emma. And I see a lovely child of God that He cares for very much.”

  “You sure you mean me, Mister Duff?”

  “I am telling you what I see when I look inside you, Emma. And I am going to pray that you begin to see it too.”

  Micah turned and walked away, leaving Emma more speechless than she had ever been in her life.

  Later that night, Katie came over and sat on my bed. We didn’t have as many times to share alone like we once had. I smiled and took her hand.

  “I love it with everyone else here,” I said, “but you and I don’t have so many special times as we once did.”

  Katie was quiet a minute. Was she thinking some of the same things I had been earlier, realizing that as much as we loved each other, we couldn’t help the fact that we were different.

  “But we wouldn’t go back, would we?” said Katie.

  I shook my head.

  “What’s going to become of us, Mayme? The world doesn’t see whites and blacks the same.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But at least here, in the midst of our differences, we all love and accept each other.”

  “Maybe that’s more important than anything,” smiled Katie.

  STORIES, DANCES, AND MEMORIES

  20

  Something about the rainstorm and everybody sharing about their lives seemed to fill us all with good feelings and happiness from realizing how good our lives were at Rosewood. A few nights later, we gathered in the living room after supper like we usually did.

  “You gwine read ter us, Miz Katie?” asked Emma.

  “If you’d like,” Katie replied.

  “I wish you wud. I likes it when you reads.”

  “I’ve been waiting to hear something from that book we got in Charlotte that you’ve had your nose in ever since,” said my papa.

  “The Grimm’s Fairy Tales?” said Katie.

  “Read us something from it, Katie,” I said.

  Katie got up, went to the bookshelf and got the book. She sat back down and thumbed through it a minute.

  “Here’s one,” she said, “that I just read last night. It’s called ‘The Town Musicians of Bremen.’ It’s about a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster.”

  “What’s Bremen?” asked Micah.

  “It’s a town in Europe,” said Katie. “It was known for its freedom, so the four animals left their masters and went to Bremen to live together without having any owners. They came to a house with thieves inside and they drove them out of the house at first by making a terrible racket. That’s why they were called musicians. Then they frightened them so much that the thieves fled, and the animals took their house for themselves.”

  “Just like us, ain’t it?” said Jeremiah. “We ain’t slaves no more either.”

  Laughter broke out over the room. Gradually it quieted and Katie began to read.

  “Once upon a time,” she began, “a man had a donkey which for many years carried sacks to the mill without tiring. At last, however, its strength was worn out. It was no longer of any use for work. Accordingly its master began to ponder as to how best to cut down its keep. But the donkey, seeing there was mischief in the air, ran away and started on the road to Bremen. . . .”

  All around the room the rest of us listened. Even William
was caught up in the story and he sat on Emma’s lap, eyes wide open, without making so much as a peep.

  “Finding all quiet, the thief went into the kitchen to kindle a light, and taking the cat’s glowing, fiery eyes for live coals, he held a match close to them so as to light it. But the cat would stand no nonsense. It flew at his face, spat and scratched. He was terribly frightened and ran away.

  “He tried to get out by the back door, but the dog, who was lying there, jumped up and bit his leg. As he ran across the manure heap in front of the house, the donkey gave him a good sound kick with his hind legs, while the rooster, who had awoken at the uproar quite fresh and gay, cried out from his perch: ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo.’ Thereupon the robber ran back as fast as he could to his chief, and said: ‘There is a gruesome witch in the house, who breathed on me and scratched me with her long fingers. Behind the door there stands a man with a knife who stabbed me,while in the yard lies a black monster,who hit me with a club, and upon the roof the judge is seated, and he called out, “Bring the rogue here,” so I hurried away as fast as I could.’

  “Thenceforward the robbers did not venture again to the house, which, however, pleased the four Bremen musicians so much that they never wished to leave it again.”

  Katie stopped and we all sat a few seconds.

  “Dat’s jes’ like you done wif dem bad men, ain’t it?” said Emma after a minute. “You an’ Mayme fooled dem an’ chased dem away, din’t you, an’ dey neber knowed who you really wuz.”

  Katie and I looked at each other and began to smile.

  “You’re right, Emma,” said Katie.

  “That was some pumpkins!” I laughed. “I’d almost forgotten. How did we ever get away with it!”

  “But we did fool them,” said Katie.

  “What is all this?” now said Micah, looking back and forth between us with an expression of humorous bewilderment on his face. “This sounds better than the fairy tale.”