The Gospel Truth
Page 9
But he’s wrong. I’m not all Duncan.
I am my mother’s daughter, too.
“Daddy,” I say, “I can read the papers.
Men pay close to two thousand for a girl like Phoebe.”
I pause.
“A fancy girl.”
Daddy’s mouth opens, but he doesn’t speak.
I suppose it’s news to him
that his baby knows the way of things.
He clears his throat. Shuffles papers.
“I told your mother
nothing good comes out of women reading.”
“Four maids for the price of one,” I say,
appealing to his business side.
“Give me one good reason
why I shouldn’t sell her?”
And I know by the way he blusters and shuffles,
he can’t.
according to Phoebe
M a s t e r ’ s M o o d
After dinner, I clear the table
and bring Master his cigar box,
like always.
Only this time, he just wave me away,
like he annoyed I brought it.
And when I gets his whiskey,
like always,
he get up and leave
without taking no sip
or saying no word to nobody.
Even Old Sam look at me funny.
Master in some kind of mood tonight.
I wonder what got him so riled.
Whatever it is,
Missus and Miss Tessa know.
That’s why they’s still
gloating.
according to Phoebe
S t u d y
Miss Tessa shut me out,
say she can dress herself for bed.
That true. But in all our long years together,
she never done it once.
Maybe she know I seen her running from Birdman’s room.
Maybe she embarrassed.
Bea tell me to snuff the lantern in the study,
But Master ain’t abed—
he passed out in his leather chair.
Whiskey, by the smell of it.
I fetch Old Sam and together we heave him to his feet.
“Ruth?” Master say, his eyes and words all blurry.
“I’m sorry, Ruth.” He grip my hand. “I’m so sorry.”
He start crying then.
“Master,” Sam say like he talking to a child,
“Ruth gone ten years now, remember?
Sold away.”
But it don’t help none.
In fact it make him worse.
“But I don’t want to sell her,” Master say,
squeezing my hand like he never gonna let go.
“I promised I wouldn’t. I promised, Sam. She’s mine.”
“Come on, sir.”
Sam put Master’s arm around his shoulders,
ease him away from me.
“Time for bed.
Everything gonna look better in the morning.
It always does.”
according to Phoebe
F o u r L e t t e r s
Master’s red leather book lie where he left it on his desk
spread to some middle page,
but not just any page—
Momma’s page.
Wasn’t he just thinking about the day he sold her,
wishing he hadn’t?
I glance at the door.
And lean over the book,
running my finger run down long rows of letters,
looking for four: r-u-t-h
My heart stop.
April 10, 1847 Ruth. Sold to John Scott, North Carolina
I did it, Momma.
I watched. I learned. I saved up words
and finally found where you went.
But now what?
So what if I can read
her name
or where she sold?
She ten years gone now.
Maybe even sold again and again since then.
I slump in the chair.
What good it do—to read, to know, to hope?
It don’t change nothing.
Momma’s still gone.
according to Phoebe
O n e L e t t e r
Finding those four letters don’t change nothing, really.
But then I sees one letter that do.
It drying on his desk
ink wet with what he wrote.
The page tremble in my hands,
but it nothing to the trembling inside
as I sound out word by word:
for sale
16-year-old
Mu-la-tto maid.
Hard wor-king
mute.
Young and like-ly.
Suit-able bree-der,
La-dy’s maid,
or fan-cy girl.
Goes by “Phoe-be.”
$1500.
And just like how letters make words,
it all come together:
Why Master crying.
Why Missus gloating.
Why Tessa shut me out.
Even as he sold my momma away,
Master musta promised her he’d never sell me.
After all,
what kind of man sell his own child?
Just goes to show,
you can’t never trust
a white man’s word.
according to Shad
D r y W o o d
“Fetch me some firewood, boy,” Bea say.
Like I’s fresh from the field
and not the Master’s
right-hand man’s right hand.
“Dry wood, you hear?” she nag.
Like I don’t know.
“And don’t skimp, neither.”
Like I do.
Ax in the wagon, I grumble deep in the forest,
kicking deadwood along the trail.
Most logs and limbs laying in the damp grass
too wet to burn.
But my mind as sharp as this here blade,
’cause straightaways it cut to where I seen
perfect firewood:
a tall hollow husk of it,
enough to fill this whole wagon.
And it just waiting for me
in the clearing.
according to Shad
N u t s a n d S e e d s
Squirrels know
a hollow tree
got enough hidey holes to hold
their secret stash
of nuts and seeds.
But as that old stump in the clearing
crack and split
beneath my blade,
what spill out
ain’t acorns.
And no squirrel I ever seen
keep nuts in a jar,
or notes in a book,
or a burlap bag of tools.
Looks like somebody
been squirreling away
seeds of trouble.
Looks like squirrels
ain’t the only ones with
autumn plans.
according to Bea
D a y o f R e s t
Sunday is a day of rest, Master always says.
My slaves don’t work.
Well, not in the fields, anyhow.
On Sunday, field hands
mend clothes;
clean cabins;
hoe collard;
pick peas and taters
outta their secret gardens.
They get ready for the week,
beating hominy in the pot;
grinding corn for hoecakes;
fishing;
fetching turtles;
hunting rabbit, coon, or possum.
Even I got more work on a Sunday,
making pies and pastries,
roasting like that big old bird in the oven
while I make Master’s Sunday dinner.
No. Slaves get no rest.
Sunday just like any o
ther day—they all the same.
Except, of course, for Saturday nights. They’s our own.
according to Phoebe
M o s t S a t u r d a y N i g h t s
Most Saturday nights,
couples go courting in the Quarter.
Girls tie on a ribbon,
if they got one,
give it to their sweetheart,
if they got one.
Most Saturday nights,
everyone, young and old, come
to dance on dirt floors,
to forget the week of work behind
and before us.
Most Saturday nights,
Levi play the fiddle,
Will beat the pans,
Ella Mae tap the tambourine,
and Shad slap his thighs and stomp his feet,
brag he patting juba better than anyone else.
Most Saturday nights,
Bea and me go down to the Quarter.
I clap. And smile.
And dance with Shad.
But tonight be different
than most.
Come midnight, those boys are gonna run.
Come tomorrow, they be gone.
Come next Saturday, I be sold.
And I can’t do nothing about it.
according to Phoebe
M y B e s t F r i e n d
Smiling,
Shad take me in his arms,
and spin me ’round the floor,
but his eye on Will.
Shad is my best friend, I think.
Maybe I should tell him
this be the last time
he hear his brother sing,
the last time
we dance.
But I don’t.
Shad can’t do nothing neither.
So I let him dance and have his fun,
I let him think this is just like
most Saturday nights
because
Shad
is my best friend.
according to Shad
A S l i v e r o f H o p e
Under the sliver moon,
Phoebe and I walk back to the Big House.
The secret I’s carrying so heavy on my shoulders,
I can’t bear it no more.
But if anyone can keep it,
my Phoebe can.
“I think Will gonna run again,” I whisper.
She stop, look at me, eyes wide in the dark.
“I found a bag hidden in the hollow tree,
and a knife, money, a brass dial, and a gun.
Someone’s planning to run, Phoebe,” I say.
“It’s gotta be Will.”
She shake her head.
She can’t believe it neither.
“I won’t let him leave me.” My jaw tightens.
“So I hid the bag in the barn,
in an empty Gold Leaf barrel.
But I gave Master the book of writing.
I can’t read it—but he sure will.”
Phoebe grip my arm then.
I can tell she terrified.
“Don’t worry,” I say, hand on her shoulder.
“I took care of it. Will won’t run without his things.
Meanwhile Master gonna find out
who been leading my brother astray.”
I breathe a sigh of relief.
It feels good to get it out,
to know I did the right thing,
to have a sliver of hope.
My hand brushes down Phoebe’s arm
across a thick scab.
She winces and pulls away.
I ask: “What happened—”
but she’s already gone,
running in the shadows.
according to Phoebe
T r u t h
I run until my heart bursting.
Until my head spinning.
Until I can’t run no more.
But it don’t change nothing.
You can’t run from the truth.
Shad know about Will’s secret.
He might even tell Master.
And Master know:
someone been reading and writing,
someone hiding it from him,
someone about to get peeled and pickled.
He might even know that someone
is me.
Master smart. He gonna know them words is mine.
He knows my secret.
I can’t run from truth.
But the truth is,
now that it’s out,
running might be the only choice.
according to Tessa
B o l d
“Tessa,” Daddy asks, barging into my room, “is this yours?”
He thrusts the notebook at me,
the one I tossed in the trash two tutors ago.
My bold protest.
“Daddy, that was a long time—”
“Is this your writing?” he asks.
I take it, flip through the first pages of my early scrawls,
stopping at a new hand.
“It’s my book—but those aren’t my words.”
The writing is faint, childish at first,
strengthening as the pages progress
from letters to words.
a - b - c
cat
cook
momma
warbler
I turn the page and glance at Daddy.
I know why he’s riled.
He should be.
“I didn’t write this,” I say, “but I know who did.”
I point to one word
printed over and over and over,
its line growing
strong
and bold:
feebee
according to Shad
W h o l e T r u t h
Master still up when I get in.
“Tell me again where you found this?” he say.
So I do.
But I don’t say nothing about the bag.
Or Will.
“One of my slaves is keeping secrets from me,
learning to read and write,” he say.
“I don’t suppose you know anything about it?”
“No, sir,” I say. “I found it and brought it to you
straightaways.
I can’t read, Master. That’s against the law.”
He eyeball me,
size me up like a bundle of ’baccy.
Sussing if I telling true.
And I can hold his eye, ’cause I am.
Shad always speaks the truth,
Just not all of it.
“You know who it is?” I ask.
I need to know who in cahoots with Will.
He nod, but he don’t speak the name.
Still it don’t matter none.
Come morning, I’ll know. We all will.
When Brutus strap that sorry slave to the post
and gather us ’round,
we all gonna see who been bad
and Will finally gonna see sense.
That broken body coulda been his, but it ain’t
because of me.
“Go on, then. Get some sleep,” Master finally say.
“In the morning, I’ll deal with Phoebe.”
My stomach drop.
That Phoebe’s book?
My Phoebe’s reading and writing?
Why didn’t she tell me?
Why didn’t she trust me?
It hurts me to know the truth she shared with me
ain’t whole neither.
But it kills me to think that broken body gonna be hers,
because of me.
according to Phoebe
W h a t I K n o w
When the house dark, I tiptoe in the back door,
sure my thumping heart gonna wake them.
But the kitchen empty.
Bea ain’t here to protect me,
Miss Tessa ain’t here to command me,
And Shad ain
’t here to distract me
from what I gotta do.
Only I don’t know what that is,
just yet.
My pallet wait upstairs outside Miss Tessa’s door.
It would be so easy to lie down, like always,
waiting ’til someone tells me what I gotta do.
But I think of Will and the boys.
Will gonna see the tree and bag gone,
and his hopes with them.
He already tried running without a compass
and he didn’t get very far.
And if Master learn they’s running,
that knife and gun might be what save them
from the hounds’ teeth.
And only I knows how to get it to them.
according to Phoebe
K e e p i n g H e r
There’s one more thing I gotta do,
in case the next thing be the last.
I sneak into the dining room,
carry Yellowbird’s cage to the kitchen counter.
It don’t matter that I keep her food coming
and her cage clean,
or that I keep her safe from Rufus.
Sure, I keep her alive,
but I’s keeping her
from living like a yellow bird should.
Unlatching the metal door, I reach in,
but she don’t tremble,
don’t fuss and flutter,
even in my cupped hands.
Miss Tessa said the bird is tame.
Tame just another word for broke.
Her wing is long healed.
But numbed by what life she knows behind those bars,
Yellowbird stopped hoping for one beyond them.
Truth is,
that cage is hurting her in ways I can’t fix.
I keep her alive,
but she’s living half-dead.
And it just ain’t right.
I know it in my bones.
I carry Yellowbird to the back stoop,
but even when I open my hands,
she don’t fly into that unknown.
Like her momma,
I know she ain’t mine to keep.
So, like her momma,
I toss her out.
Against everything in me that say not to—
I throw her at the dark and all its dangers.
She fall and swoop, a streak of yellow in the night,