Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
getting started
birthday
dreaming
sundays
voting
grandma sara
lighting up the woods
sidewalk
daddy’s suggestion
blood memory
walking
fort robinson, nebraska
ninth cavalryman
buffalo soldier
the florida blockade
philippines
two prayers from luzon
the logan and captain young
a prayer at sea
parade
woman at crissy field
lombard gate
trail hazards
relaxing at a bar in raymond
on patrol
blood memory
cocked pistol
leaving anger
hetch hetchy
right there at heaven’s gate
campfires
horse heaven
when blackness came to yosemite
prayers from a high country
blood memory
private property
uzumati
letter from Yosemite
down to the valley
getting done
Acknowledgements
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Copyright Page
To the memory of my father, James O. Johnson, Jr.,
and my grandparents Anna Mae and Gilbert Yancy.
To my mother, Shirley Johnson;
my brother, James, and his children;
my Aunt Marna; my son, Langston;
and especially my wife, Roxann.
And to the spirits of those buffalo soldiers
who found in me their voice.
Do Lord, oh do Lord
Do remember me
Do Lord, oh do Lord
Do remember me
Do Lord, oh do Lord
Do remember me
Goin way beyond the blue
I got a home in Gloryland
That outshines the sun
I got a home in Gloryland
That outshines the sun
I got a home in Gloryland
That outshines the sun
Goin way beyond the blue
Spiritual
Instruction to Mount without Saddle, and to Saddle Manner of Vaulting
Seize the mane with the left hand, hold the reins of the snaffle in
the right hand, and place it on the withers, the thumb to the left, the
fingers to the right; raise yourself by a spring on the two wrists, the
body straight; pass the right leg extended over the croup of the horse,
without touching him, and seat yourself on his back.
from Cavalry Tactics: or Regulations for the Instruction, Formations,
and Movements of the Cavalry of the Army and Volunteers of the United
States. Prepared under the Direction of the War Department,
and Authorized and Adopted by the Secretary of War,
by Philip St. Geo. Cooke, Brig. Gen. U.S. Army.
getting started
Some things you remember. Some things you can’t forget. It’s like Big Creek beside my family’s home. Sometimes there’s water, sometimes not. In the spring it’s flowing fast and hard, muddy and furious. In the fall it’s almost not there at all. “No Creek” is a better name round then.
In the fall when you come up to Big Creek for a drink, you open your hands wide, reach down into what’s left of that cool, and try to carry it to your lips, but all you do is wet your hands, the sleeves of your coat, and your pants. Hardly any gets past your lips to soothe your throat. What finally gets into you is what you remember.
In the early summer, when the weather’s hot and Big Creek’s still big, you reach down like always, but you’re a little too eager, a little too parched, so you get too close and before you know it, what you were reaching down to has grabbed hold of you, and you’re turning in the air and falling into all that red water, red as clay. So instead of you getting the creek, the creek has got you, and you ain’t where you were just a moment before. You’re moving downstream, but the only way you can tell is on account of how quick the land is rushing by—well, that’s what you can’t forget.
Most of what you try to remember goes right between your fingers and all it does is get them wet, but you, you’re just as thirsty as before, and angry too. What you can’t forget is something so big, bigger than Big Creek, that it got its own mind and decides where you’re going inside, and it takes you, and you ain’t got no control of where that current’s going to flow. You just got to ride it and hope you can keep your head above water, and that you got strength left to make it back to dry land.
What you’re about to read is not all I remember, but it is most definitely what I can’t forget. So if it seems violent and unsteady and turns back on itself for no reason, well, that’s the way my mind works, just like Big Creek in the spring. Later, when that creek goes dry and I look down where it used to be, I can see it’s different every year, what it done to the earth, always different, so maybe that water is just being remembered by the ground.
I don’t think I know any more about myself than Big Creek knows about the ground, but I been moving for a long time too. Not as long as that creek, but maybe just as hazy as to where I been headed and just as confused along the way, wondering what’s round the next bend.
You can learn a lot about yourself, about the world, by just watching water when it moves and when it’s still. Still water’s rare on a creek, but it’s only then that you can see yourself in it. Only then can you see your reflection in something that’s got a life of its own but still got the grace to show you to yourself.
The Horse’s Paces Walk, Trot, and Canter
Before moving forward, the horse should be light in hand, the head
brought home, (not with the nose stuck out,) the neck arched, and
he should stand evenly on both hind legs.
from Cavalry Tactics
birthday
It was warm and dark, and Grandma Sara was talking.
I knew it was her even before I knew her, and I knew Daddy too.
“Why you comin now?” she asked. “What you goin to do when you get here?”
There was quiet then, and Daddy whispered, “Maybe she’s just here to help us.”
“Daniel, it ain’t a girl in there but a boy,” Grandma Sara said. “He’s come for a reason, everybody here for a reason, and I think I know what it is.”
I wasn’t alone. There were other people in there. All those who came before me were there. People that knew me from the beginning, people I would know at the end. So many folks in such a small space, it should’ve been uncomfortable, but it wasn’t.
It was so quiet, so easy to be there in the place that was my mother. I didn’t want to go anywhere, but I could feel something pushing me away from what I was holding on to.
“Elijah!” I heard Grandma Sara call.
Her voice sounded close yet very far away.
“Elijah,” she spoke again. “Your name’s Elijah. That’s what we’ll call you, but you’ll have another name, a name only the Creator knows. That’s the name you’ll answer to when it calls you in your sleep. The name you had before. The name you’ll have after.” And I heard that name in my mind as loud as if it had been shouted, and I knew who I was, who I really was.
“You’ll bring us to the old ones,” Grandma whispered. “You’ll take us home, and it won’t be in no chariot of fire, no need for that. We’ll walk just fine.”
It got quiet again, felt so heavy, the quiet.
I finally let
go, and it hurt to not hold and not be held.
Light came out of my mouth, my nose, went back inside. I could see it with my eyes, which had never opened before, could hear it with my ears, which had never listened before. I could see fire that was water, hear water that was fire. Where I was going was a dark place, but something was burning that had to be my heart. I drifted round with my eyes closed to the brightness. My hands, my fingers opened up, then closed round a damp shine that was everywhere.
And that’s all I remember of the time before I was born.
My name’s Elijah Yancy, and I was born on the first day of January 1863 in a cabin outside of Spartanburg, South Carolina. You might recall that President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on the very same day. That’s right, the day freedom came, or at least news of it. Mostly it was just rumor, cause slaves round here were only free if there were Union soldiers nearby. Union soldiers wore blue uniforms. On the day I was born there weren’t no one round wearing such a thing, which meant that white folks in Spartanburg County didn’t get the word that we were free.
My daddy’s name was Daniel Yancy, but I never called him that cause I had a nice smile, and I was sure to lose it if I started calling my daddy “Daniel,” so I didn’t. I just called him “Sir,” and after a while I thought that was his name. And my mama’s name’s Lucinda, but I thought her name was “Ma’am,” cause that’s what I had to call her. Anyway, Daddy called the emancipation “paper freedom” cause the only place you could find freedom was on that piece of paper. You sure couldn’t find it in Spartanburg. My daddy’d been all over the county, and if he’d ever run into freedom I know he would’ve come home and told us about it.
As I got older, I noticed colored people were having parties on my birthday, and that was interesting cause they never invited me to those parties. And yet I’d be walking along those red country roads and I’d pass by the Joneses’ place, and they’d be fiddling and laughing and having a good time, and I’d say to myself, How they know it’s my birthday? And then I’d hear the same sort of commotion coming from the Washingtons’, who I didn’t really know that well, so I couldn’t figure out why they’d be cheering for my birthday. It took a while for me to realize that they were excited about freedom, about the Emancipation Proclamation, which had nothing to do with my birthday!
I was taken down a bit when I realized that, but the damage had already been done. By the time I was seven or eight I had an attitude that was bound for trouble. That’s what my mama told me. She talked a lot about my attitude, in a way that made it seem like it was something separate from me. I can clearly remember her saying, “Elijah, you can stay here as long as you want, boy, but that attitude of yours got to go!”
Like my attitude could rise in the morning, get dressed, put on shoes, open the door, and walk up the road. Sometimes I felt like my parents only saw me in pieces. There were pieces they liked and pieces they didn’t like. What they didn’t care for was always encouraged to “find a home elsewhere.”
All of this came about cause I was born on the day freedom came, or was supposed to come. I came into the world on that day, and like it or not, freedom came with me. I’ve thought a lot about freedom, particularly when I was walking behind a plow, and the plow was peeling back dirt behind a mule, and the mule was leading the way across a field at sunup. I’d be thinking about freedom, but all I could see was the butt and the stiff-legged gait of that animal working so hard and going nowhere. From time to time its tail would go up just to get my attention, and the mule would drop a reminder to not think of freedom too much, or I might regret it.
My father used to say about the Emancipation Proclamation, “Elijah, the only difference between the day before emancipation and the day after is about forty-eight hours.”
Before emancipation we were slaves, and after we were sharecroppers. If there’s someone reading this who knows the difference between a slave and a sharecropper, please send a message to the colored folks in Spartanburg, cause I’m sure they’d be interested, but good news is a lame mule walking toward South Carolina, while bad news is the fastest thoroughbred in the county. Maybe that’s why those parties got quieter and quieter. Colored people began to realize that freedom hadn’t come, so there was nothing to celebrate.
Patrol report on Yosemite Park stationery
The Adjutant,
Camp A. E. Wood,
Yosemite Natl. Park, Cal.
Little Jackass Meadows,
3rd July, 1903
Sir: I have the honor to report in accordance to instructions received from you that I found on reaching this camp eleven sacks of Barley.
Very respectfully,
John H. Mitchell
Sergt., troop “L”, 9th Cavalry
Commanding Detachment
dreaming
Freedom. It stays in your head and won’t bust out or slip away like tears. I’ve had enough of freedom and I ain’t ever had it. When I sleep, there’s freedom. I can be whatever I want to be and no one tells me anything different. I ain’t no sharecropper when I’m asleep. I don’t know what I am, but it’s got nothing to do with rice or sorghum or indigo or anything but the light of the sun rising over a place that never heard the word nigger.
Maybe it’s cause I was born on Emancipation Day, maybe that’s why I am what I am. Born the day freedom was supposed to come. That’d change anybody. Maybe it’s cause my Grandma Sara is Seminole. Daddy told me the Seminoles were a runaway band of Creek Indians who went down into Florida. That’s why the Spanish called them cimarron, which means runaway. There were also slaves and free Africans who ran off from South Carolina and Georgia round the same time, down into Florida. They were runaways too. The English called them maroons, which is another word hiding in the word cimarron, like cimarron was giving it shelter. I like that. Africans and Indians, trying to find something better, found each other, found some shelter, and began calling themselves Seminoles. Together they found something they couldn’t get on their own.
Somewhere along the way they stopped running from something and began running to something: freedom. They found it in Spanish Florida, for a while. Then the English offered the Seminoles freedom if they’d fight America in the Revolutionary War. Good trade.
Maybe that’s where I got such a bad attitude, from those runaway ancestors. My attitude is spoilt like a pail of milk stuck out too long in the sun and gone bad.
I remember Daddy saying to me, “Boy, be easy round Grandma Sara, you know she’s Seminole. She’s a proud woman, and too much pride is as bad as too little. She’s all bunched up inside with it, who she is and what’s been done to her and how she come through it, you understand me, boy?”
And I said, “Yessir.” I didn’t understand, but it was always safer to say “yessir” and not “nossir” when I was talking to Daddy, so that’s what I said all the time even if I didn’t know what he was saying.
He looked at me then, with the sun shining on the left side of his face from the hole in the wall, which would have been a window someplace else, and he tried again. He said, “Elijah, your grandma is Seminole, and they a proud people, and the government don’t like all that pride in colored folks, so they sent the army down into Florida to get at the Seminole on account of they so full of themselves. They kept sendin more soldiers down into those hot swamps that’d suck the boots right off your feet, and it didn’t end there, no, they sent even more white boys into that misery.
“After a bit the government noticed that no soldiers ever come out of those swamps, not a single one. It took some time for them to notice, but they did, and somebody decided it might be better to just leave all those Indians alone, cause the government had no use for a swamp. So the Seminole figure they beat the army, they beat America. It kinda got into they heads that they won, and victory, well, it’s like drinkin too much whiskey. You get drunk on it, it blurs your vision, and that’s Grandma Sara, she sees the U.S. Army beaten and America beaten, and she’s proud. Proud of wh
o she is and who her people are or were. Now you understand what I’m sayin, boy?”
“Yessir, yessir, I understand. You sayin Grandma Sara’s mean cause she Seminole, is that right?” I asked.
Daddy looked up to heaven, cuffed me upside my head, and then rubbed my scalp like he was sorry. Through the light of the busted sun I was seeing, he said, “No, boy, you ain’t listenin at all. Grandma Sara’s just mean, you hear me? She’s mean entirely through, and it ain’t got nothin to do with her bein Seminole. It’s got to do with what’s been done to her on account of her bein Indian.”
Well, I was confused, cause folks said I took after my grandmother, and I thought that’s where my attitude came from, knowing that Grandma Sara’s people held off the army. But here’s Daddy saying meanness don’t come from being Seminole but from being treated like you’re Seminole, being treated poorly, that it’s got nothing to do with who you are on the inside and more with what you look like on the outside. I’m part Seminole and can feel it on the inside, but I look more African than Indian.
Feeling something on the inside that you can’t find anywhere on the outside can’t be good for a person. Feeling something on the outside that you can’t find anywhere inside will make you just as sick. Someone takes a whip to you, you can explain why you’re raw and bleeding, but what if they beat you up on the inside? Who’s gonna know that you’re hurting? How do you dress a wound you can’t see?
Born the day freedom came. Grandchild of some people who wouldn’t let freedom be taken away. No wonder I got attitude. I got so much I could sell most of it off and no one would notice. You need attitude if you’re colored in Spartanburg. You need it to get up in the morning, just to open your eyes, but too much attitude in the South will put you down by nightfall. It’ll close your eyes for sure.
My dreaming began round this time, when Daddy tried to tell me how Grandma Sara got the way she was. It wasn’t so much dreams in my sleep, I just started thinking I could be whatever I wanted to be. I could be an engineer or a doctor cause I liked the idea of fixing what’s broken, whether it’s a plow or something alive. Yeah, a doctor, that’d be better than sharecropping. I thought this at night in a warm wind like God breathing on me, in bed where I felt the most safe. And the thinking turned to dreaming, and it got scary to be dreaming about who I could be.
Gloryland Page 1
