Belle City

by Penny Mickelbury

  "There's some things I need to tell y'all, then there's something I need y'all to do for me."

  "We'll do anything you want, Uncle Will," Big Si said, "if you let me stay here with you."

  Ruthie jumped to her feet. "No, Pa, no!"

  "Lissen, y'all!" Uncle Will actually raised his voice. "Lissen!" He raised his hands and silence descended in the flickering darkness, the candle close to burning itself out. "Y'all know how we got this land, Carrie and me? Old Carney Thatcher, Zeb's Pa, gave it to us 'cause he needed somebody to farm his land 'cause everybody else, soon as they heard about The 'Mancipation, they took off. Well, that's only part of the story. The rest of it is this: Old Carney, he was our Pa, too, me and Carrie. Zeb's our brother, and that's why he hates me so, and why he wants this land back. See, Old Carney always claimed us, me and Carrie, like he was proud of what he'd done. Zeb would scream and holler that no niggers was any kin to him, but that was a lie and everybody knew it."

  Nobody said anything because nobody knew what to say, though everybody was working to find words that would express their feelings. None of them was surprised at the fact of white ancestry—it was as common among Colored as Indian blood. They were just surprised that not only was it a fact for them, but at how close that connection was. Finally Ruthie said, "I wonder if Jonas knows."

  "Lord, no," Uncle Will said. "Zeb never woulda told anybody that. Only people what know are those who lived back in those times, and ain't nobody left to know but me and Zeb." He cackled again, then quieted and sobered. "One more thing I got to tell you, and it's why, Silas, you got to go tonight with the chil'ren…"

  "I cain't leave you, Uncle Will. I just cain't. I won't."

  "Lissen to me, Silas. Just lissen." He inhaled deeply. "I know you think on me like your Pa and I raised you like you was my son. You were Carrie's boy and that made you mine. But you got a Pa, Silas. First Freeman is your Pa, and he's these chil'ren's Grandpa."

  Big Si made a noise. He was trying to speak but he ended up choking. Mack and Little Si slapped him on the back until he was breathing properly, though still unable to form the words that he sought. Uncle Will answered the unasked questions.

  "Don't blame First. It was my fault. He wanted Carrie, wanted to take her with him to Belle City, but I didn't want her to go. Just like I didn't want Nellie to go and take y'all. If it hadn't been for me, Carrie might still be living, and Nellie surely would. First Freeman is a good man. Always has been. He wanted to do right by you and Carrie, but I got in the way."

  Only Mack's brain was capable of clear thinking in that moment, and he wondered how many more secrets this old man had buried inside himself, wondered how he'd managed to live so long with all that knowledge and not tell it. He touched Ruth's arm—a signal that they needed to go. Then he put a hand on Little Si's shoulder and squeezed, sending the same message. Then he said, "What is it you wanted us to help you do, Uncle Will?"

  "I want y'all to put everything you ain't takin' with you in the barn—furniture, clothes, pots and pans, food—everything."

  "Why, Uncle Will?" Little Si asked.

  "'Cause I'm gon set fire to it. Them sheet wearers like fire and burnin' things, so I'm gon' give 'em a fire. I'm not gon' let 'em burn me out. I'm gon' be the one doin' the burnin' here."

  "You're going to burn down the barn?" Ruthie finally retrieved her voice, if not her ability to think clearly. "Why?"

  "To let Zeb know he's still not in charge over me, that's why. I ain't no slave no more. It's my barn and I can burn it down if I want to. He might get my house, but I don't want him sittin' on my chairs or eatin' at my table off my plates."

  "Uncle Will." Big Si spoke, but just barely. "After you set the fire, then what?"

  Uncle Will sighed deeply. "I'm sick, y'all, ain't got much time left…"

  This was too much for them. As one, their voices raised in shock, sadness, even a touch of anger: Why had he not told them? They loved him! How could he keep such secrets from them?

  "Lissen to me! Lissen! I got some tea Maisy give me to drink to help me sleep, and to take when the pain gets too bad. That's why I sleep so hard at night, and why y'all cain't wake me up."

  They all remembered how well Miss Maisy's brew worked for Nellie, how she refused to allow any of them to prepare the tea because the slightest error in preparation would have resulted in a permanent sleep. Uncle Will had a supply of this tea, had had it for—how long?

  "So, I'm gon' light my fire, drink my tea, and lay down. Now, y'all get everything put in the barn. Go 'long, now, and do like I ask you."

  They did, and when they were finished, Uncle Will already was drowsy. He'd lit a kerosene lantern and was weaving his way to the barn with it. Ruthie and Little Si hurried to him. Ruthie took the lantern and Si wrapped his arms around the old man to help him walk. He could have picked him up and carried him, so little did he weigh. How did they not realize that he must have been ill to have wasted away so? They sat him on the parlor couch, which now resided in a corner of the barn, but he wouldn't let them make him comfortable. He could not, he said, go to sleep just yet. They had to leave first. He insisted. So, after tears and hugs and declarations of love, the man William Thatcher had raised as his son, that man's daughter, son and son-in-law got into their automobile and drove away from Carrie's Crossing for the last time. They drove in silence, their thoughts and feelings too big and too heavy to share, even with each other. Each of them first tried to picture Uncle Will in his final act of defiance, but the image was too painful, so they replayed in their memories his final words to them: "Y'all go over yonder to Belle City and live like free Colored people who ain't never been slaves. Get educated and educate your chil'ren. And, please, tell First Freeman I said thank you. And tell Maisy—tell her I said I'm sorry."

  Jonas watched the car disappear into the darkness that was deepest just before the dawn. He knew that the rising sun would light the final few miles of their journey, and he pictured the early morning streets as they'd come to life in the Colored section of Belle City where Mr. First lived. He would, he thought, never again see his friends, and the thought hurt him like a mule kick to the chest, but it was nothing compared to the pounding in his head brought on by what he'd heard as he crouched beneath the window of the Thatcher's house. He chastised himself for spying on them again, and promised that it would be the last time. Of course it would, you ninny! his brain said to him—they were gone. But if he hadn't been spying, he wouldn't know that his Pa and Ruthie and Si's Uncle Will were brothers. More than being just friends with them, he was kin to them: Cousins! Beau was his cousin too! No wonder we all like each other so much, he thought. And he understood, in a small way, why his Pa hated the Colored Thatchers so much: Not only were they related to him, they were, in a way, better than him, even though they were Colored. He wanted to talk to Pa about all this, but he knew he could not, not ever. He could never tell anyone what he knew. It would be his secret, and he was good at keeping secrets. Just like Uncle Will! he thought.

  At that moment, he remembered where Uncle Will was, and why, and the first whiff of smoke blew his way, and he hurried toward the barn. He could see the flames inside, curling and rising—and growing. He considered what he should do. Pa and his Klan friends would be arriving in less than an hour. He could wait for them, tell them what he'd heard and what he knew, but that would just make Pa madder than he already was going to be at the sight of the burning barn. Uncle Will couldn't have known it, but Pa had plans for that barn: It was going to be the storeroom so that he could re-claim his bar. It was true that they needed a larger storage space, but Pa surely did not need to open another bar. Did he really think that just because Chief Fordham wore a sheet he'd let somebody—Zeb Thatcher—sell whiskey in his town? Zeb might have property and money but it was Doc Gray and the preachers and lawyers that pulled the chief's strings, the people who had education to go with their money.

  Jonas watched as the first flames burst through the roof of the barn, ma
king a noise like both thunder and lightning. Pa was going to be hopping mad, and Jonas decided he wanted to see that, so he found another place from which to spy. His first thought was to take refuge in the tree from which he'd watched the Thatchers when he was a kid, which he'd still climbed until last year when Mr. First Freeman made him promise to stop. That promise, though, is not what stopped him this night; rather, it was the realization that in the dark, he couldn't see what snakes and other dangers the huge tree might be harboring. With his brain still whirling and reeling from what he'd overheard, he was unable to think clearly about what to do, or where.

  He wandered around the yard, to the front of the house, where the front door was wide open, around the side nearest the woods, and toward the back, where he could feel the heat now from the burning barn. He had refused to allow himself to think of the burning barn as a funeral pyre, had refused to picture Ruthie and Si's beloved Uncle Will becoming ash, for surely, given how hot and hard the fire was burning, that's what was happening to him. Then, he thought—remembered—My Uncle Will, too.

  Sound snatched him back to the place where he again was wary, his senses on alert. He stood still and listened, straining to hear the sound that had overridden, for an instant, the roar and crackle of the burning barn. He heard it again and knew what it was. He sprinted for the little building that was the Colored school house, rushed in, and dropped to the floor. The light from the fire threw huge, frightening shadows against the empty space. Everything that had been in here now was in the barn, burning. He crawled to the door and looked out and what he saw was terrifying: Half a dozen men in white hoods and sheets carrying burning torches were running toward the barn. He could hear their voices raised in angry curses. He remembered what Uncle Will said about the Klan liking to burn things. He also remembered what one of the sheeted men at the table had said about how the very sight of them in their robes, carrying their torches, frightened the Colored. And now, angry because there was nobody to frighten here, angry because the Colored had escaped, but not before setting their own barn alight, they set off up the road, toward the next destination. They left, all but Zeb.

  When they were gone, Jonas emerged from the school building and walked slowly toward his Pa, who didn't hear him approach over the roar of the fire. "Why, Pa?"

  Zeb whirled around, his eyes glittering with rage. "I shoulda knowed. Ev'rybody wanted to know how them niggers knew to run, how they knew we was comin' and I didn't want to know, but I shoulda knowed."

  "Why, Pa?" Jonas asked again.

  Zeb reached into the top pocket of his overalls and withdrew a piece of paper. "This is why."

  "What is that?"

  "The deed to my land, that's what it is. The deed to all this, includin' that burnt up piece of barn. It's mine now, like it always shoulda been."

  "You've got the deed already?"

  "Got it when I paid the taxes that were due. The taxes the niggers didn't pay. It's my land now, just like the law says."

  "You stole this land."

  Zeb slapped him. "You shame me. My only son left and he got to be a nigger lover. You wanted to go over younder to Belle City to go to some dam' fool college? Then go on. Get outta here 'cause you ain't no kin to me."

  Jonas wanted to hit him back, to knock him down, but there was a better way to hurt him, and more than anything, Jonas wanted to hurt his Pa. "If you could steal from your own brother, I guess it's easy for you to send me away."

  Zeb's eyes emptied and his face went slack. "Say what, Boy?"

  "The people who lived in this house were your kin.Your brother and sister, your nephew..."

  Zeb raised up his shotgun and slid in a load of buckshot, but Jonas grabbed it away before the old man could fire, and the look in his eyes told Jonas that had he not taken the gun, he'd be dead now. "That's a lie!"

  "It's the truth and you know it. These were good people you ran from their home tonight."

  "If I'da had my way, it woulda been sooner, but that fella from up yonder in Spencerville just never showed up. Shoulda knowed he wouldn't 'cause he was ginger haired, and your Ma taught me never to trust a man with red hair, just like I shoulda knowed you'd betray your own."

  "What are you talking about?" Jonas knew what his Pa was talking about but he didn't want it to be the truth. "What fella with red hair?"

  "We had us a fella last year was s'posed to come over here and help us get our Klaven fixed up right, but he just never showed up."

  The man who killed Nellie Thatcher. The man Nellie Thatcher killed. Jonas looked at the barn, burned now nearly to the ground, Uncle Will burned with it. "Why did you have to do this, Pa?" Jonas raised the shotgun, leveled it at his Pa, and emptied both barrels. Almost without thinking about it, Jonas grabbed his Pa's arms and began dragging the dead body of his father toward the burning barn. There wasn't much of the structure remaining, but there still was plenty of fire, and Jonas began rolling the body into the flames. He stopped suddenly, cursing himself for a fool. He reached into Zeb's top overall pocket and withdrew the land deed. By the time the sun was fully up, nothing would remain of the barn but a huge pile of smoldering ashes, and Jonas doubted that anybody would be interested enough to look for two sets of bones.

  Mack drove as fast as the car would go on the road to Belle City, not worried about being stopped: No police officer or sheriff would expect Colored people to be driving a new motorcar in the middle of the night. He slowed and drove with caution, though, upon entering the Belle City limits. Colored people with motorcars were all too familiar a sight here, one that white people neither liked nor appreciated, and until they reached the Colored section of town, they were in danger. They exhaled as one as they turned on to Auburn Avenue in the Fourth Ward, the East Side Colored section of Belle City.

  Though the sun was barely up, Auburn Avenue was already awake and bustling with street cars, horse and mule-drawn carts, motorcars, and with people who had worked all night and were now heading home and those on their way to work. The places that sold meals were doing a brisk business, whether café or restaurant with tables and chairs, or the slot in the back door of someone's kitchen. It was busy and it was noisy and every person in the slow-moving vehicle that had just out-run horror in their hometown reveled in the sights and sounds because all were generated by Colored people and as long as that was the case, they were relatively safe.

  Mack drove slowly through the Fourth Ward, mentally plotting the route he would take to get them to the West Side and home. The most direct route was not the safest route. There was no way to avoid traversing a white section, but it was imperative that he steer clear of the poor white trash part of town. Going through downtown was dangerous too but only if they crossed paths with a policeman. Nobody in the car spoke so as not to distract Mack—they knew what he was thinking. Ruthie squeezed his arm in a gesture of support and their exhaled breath became a cheer when they crossed Northside Drive. They officially were in the Colored section of Belle City on the West Side, though any white person or any policeman could stop them for any reason. It just was not as likely to happen here.

  "We should go to Beau's before we go to Mr. F…" Ruthie stopped herself from calling him what they'd always called him; nobody had said out loud the truth as they now knew it: He was Little Si and Ruthie's Grandpa; he was Big Si's Pa.

  "That's right, we should go tell Beau first," Big Si said.

  When they turned the corner on to the street where TOBY AND BELLE'S BARBER AND BEAUTY SALON was housed, and where Beau lived, a cheer of joy and relief went up, and Ruthie couldn't stifle the sob that had been lodged in her throat since they left Carrie's Crossing. Mack parked beside Beau's truck and Little Si jumped from the car. Instead of going around the corner to access the alleyway that ran behind Toby and Belle's place, Little Si squeezed into the space between the two wooden buildings and then ran up the stairs that led to Beau's top floor apartment. His knock was answered immediately and when Beau saw who was at his door, the mix of emotions tha
t crossed his face would have been comical if the final one hadn't been fear. Beau grabbed his arms so hard it hurt. "What, Si? What?"

  Si told him quickly, just the major points. Beau, who already was dressed for work, grabbed his cap, pulled his door shut, grabbed his baby brother by the arm, and propelled them so fast down the stairs that they were running when they hit the ground, and kept running until Beau was beside Mack's car, leaning in, looking in, looking for some sign that his brother had been wrong about the absence of Uncle Will on this journey. Beau squeezed his father's arm and touched his baby sister's cheek and patted his brother-in-law on the shoulder, all the while gazing inside the car, front to back, back to front, looking for the one who wasn't there. "Y'all follow me," he finally said, turning from the escape vehicle to his own. Little Si went with his brother and the two-car caravan slowly made its way through the West Side Colored section of Belle City, to tell First Freeman—everything.

  Because he was expecting Beau, the old man had the back gate open and was waiting for him, but when he saw the second car, recognized its passengers, the breath caught in his chest in a painful spasm. Everybody saw the fear in his face and they all rushed to him, embracing him, as they told the story. They waited for him to express a feeling—sadness, pain, anger—but when he gave a small smile and nodded his head, they all were confused. Until he said, "Good for him. Good for Will'am. He left outta here the way he wanted to go. He didn't come to this life a free man, but he left here that way." He smiled again, and nodded again. "Good for Will'am."

  They stood together quiet and solemn for a few moments, if not praying the same prayer then certainly having similar, if not the same, thoughts: That life as they'd known it was over. A new life began for each of them this day.

  Big Si cleared his throat, then touched his daughter's face. "You and Mack go on over to your house. That's your home now. First, though, go see Big Mack and Clara, tell 'em what's happened, tell 'em how things…" He couldn't finish; Ruthie finished for him.