"That's right," John said as if he could hear my thoughts. "They are living things, creatures of the Calash."
"These are your people?" I asked.
"No," the taller and taller boy said. "Not really. I mean, once we were all one people but that was so long ago that there are very few records that survive to document our relationship."
As he spoke one of the shivering piles of stones exploded outward, disgorging an albino creature that was made up of a great head, from which hung a dozen limbs that seemed to work as both legs and arms. The creature (which was about the size of a wild boar) climbed to the top of a nearby pile and shook itself, throwing off the water of its birth. Then it moved its head around until great blue wings sprouted from the back. The beautiful creature let out a terrible scream and then flew aloft on its blue wings.
"Where's it goin?" I asked as my friend and I watched the winged thing fade into the pink-and-red horizon.
"To seek the God-Mind and kill it," he said. "To rend the universe open and feast on its heart."
Up until that moment I wasn't truly troubled by the sights I beheld. Even the physical changes to John's body didn't seem so strange to me. I already knew he was different on the inside from the way he talked. But John's words about destruction set off a deep agitation in my heart. I had no idea what a God-Mind was but I had heard the word God before and I knew that killing was bad no matter who it happened to.
The stacks of birthing stones spread out as far as the eyes could see. Here and there albino members of the
+7
Calash race were rising up from their cocoons and taking flight.
"There must be more of'em than Mud Albert could count," I said.
"They are as plentiful as the stars," John agreed, "and yet there is but one."
"What's that mean?" I asked. "You will see," he said.
Another stack of stones burst open nearer to us. The big-headed white creature with its dozen limbs crawled out and shifted and turned until it had wings. But this one, rather than gliding off into the sky, turned its one great black eye upon my friend and me. The creature screamed as did the previous newborn, but instead of leaving he dove at us. John and I ducked down to keep from being battered by those blue wings. As we arose the eerie bird-like thing wheeled in the sky, obviously intent on attacking again.
"Let's skip this part," John said.
He waved his orange and purple hand through the air and suddenly we were standing on a black platform in a wide, glassy sphere. There was no sky above or ground below us, only thousands of small black platforms that jutted out from the sides of the globe. When I looked around the sphere I realized that we were in the largest place that I had ever been, even larger than that valley where I saw the she-bear and first imagined being free.
While I watched, a small creature walked out up the ledge nearest my eye. He was no larger than a baby chick but the same proportions as tall, lean John. He was bright yellow in color and when he saw my face he smiled and nodded. The light above his head lengthened like a candle reaching its highest flame.
"Hello, hero," he said.
"My name ain't hero, it's Forty-seven, but hello to you too, little yellah man."
As I spoke these words I noticed tiny little men and women were climbing out onto the thousands of ledges around me. They were every different color of the rainbow and all of them so bright that the big sphere got as clear as midday.
"Who are all these little people?" I asked.
"They are my people," Tall John said in my ear.
I turned to ask how we got from one place to the other. But as I did so I found myself facing another small ledge, and on that ledge I saw a tiny little Tall John standing there and smiling.
"Is this what you really look like?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"And is this your home?"
"This is Talam the primal hive," small Tall John said. "It is where we fled when the Calash tried to steal our technology and use it to tear open the fabric of the world."
I had no idea what his words meant but I knew that it couldn't be good.
"As I told you before, there is a higher place," John said.
"The Great Mind," I added.
"That's right. It is the place where all mind resides. You are there and I am too, but we are also in the physical world with our bodies and with each other. In the physical world every being is different, but there, in the higher place, we are all the same."
I didn't know what he meant by all that. It sounded like when Brother Bob would deliver a sermon but here there was no podium or cross. Without those things to secure my eyes I realized that I had never understood those sermons.
"And so you and them Calash things are really the same?" I asked.
"Yes," my diminutive friend said, "and no. In the upper reality we are all the same, flowing in one direction, with one eternal plan. But here in the material world the Calash believe that they can break the barrier between mind and matter and feast upon the pure energy of the God-Mind."
"And that's bad?"
"They will never succeed, but in trying to do so they could throw the whole universe into turmoil. They will never be able to conquer the walls of heaven as they wish, but they can destroy all life and therefore strangle the spirit until it is warped out of all understanding."
All around me thousands of thousands of tiny bright-colored men and women began to weep.
"What do you want me to do?" I asked, intent upon helping those wee folk if I could.
It was the most important decision of my long life and I didn't even stop to think about it. Tall John, my first true friend, said that there was a battle brewing between him and the wing-heads called the Calash. Well, then, I would do what I could to defend my friend and the universe whatever that might be.
There came a tittering among the uncountable elfin citizens of the great hive. Then they all cheered. They had small voices but there were so many of them that the sound came like a roar.
"I told you," John said, addressing the unlikely congress of elves. "I told you that he was the one."
"But will he have the ability to stand against Wall?" a thousand voices asked.
"Victory can never be assured," John replied. "But at least he is willing."
"You could destroy the planet," a thousand thousand voices bellowed. "Destroy Earth and Wall will die."
"How would we be able to distinguish ourselves from the Calash if I were to do such a thing?" John's single voice asked. "There are plants and fish and insects ..." at each mention of a life form the image appeared before the great congregation. And every time the little people beheld the beauty of life on Earth they tittered and cooed. ". . . there are men and bears and eagles flying," John continued, "and we will not end them because that would mean that we would be doing the Calash's work for them."
"N'Clect is right!" a thousand thousand thousand voices proclaimed. "Let the one called Forty-seven go forward and do battle with Wall. Let us put our faith in Life."
And there I was, a small slave boy from the Corinthian Plantation, being cheered by a number that added up to a billion. And even though I couldn't count nearly that high I was loved and applauded by them. John leaped on my shoulder and shouted out my name. And then the name Forty-seven was on the lips of the whole hive.
I didn't know it at the time but N'Clect was John's real Talamish name.
14.
Sunlight glittering through the leaves roused me. I sat up, rubbed the sand out of, my eyes, and realized that I was alone. Looking around for my friend I saw that there was a young doe at the edge of the empty space created by the tree. Timidly it looked at me. It was equally afraid and curious and so moved forward and back, keeping its place but at the same time still ready to flee. A mother deer emerged from the bushes then. She cast a wary eye on me and then nuzzled her little fawn. Instantly the young deer calmed down. I could see that there was a berry bush where the two stood. They were eating the sweet fruit
and so dared the danger that I represented.
Even though I was afraid of being alone and scared of what Tobias would do when he caught me, I was still enthralled by those deer. I wondered what it would have been like if my mother, Psalma, had lived. Would she have stood over me, protecting me while we ate sweet berries?
While I lamented the loss of my mother Tall John strode
into view. Not the tiny orange and violet John with flames above his head but the colored slave boy with the skinny chest and coppery skin. I wondered then if my dream was real. He stepped in between the mother and child, stroking their flanks and saying something I couldn't hear. They pressed their snouts against him in a friendly way and then went back to eating. John then turned toward me.
In his right hand he carried the napkin that Flore had wrapped my cookies with. He held the big handkerchief by the corners like it was a sack.
"Good morning, Forty-seven," he said upon reaching me. "Did you sleep well?"
"They gonna kill us, Numbah Twelve," I replied.
"Would you like to flee to the north?" he asked.
"I ain't jokin' wit' you, fool."
"I'm not telling a joke," he said. "If you wish we can head north right now. By day after tomorrow we'll be in a place that doesn't have slavery and doesn't return slaves."
"Ain't no sucha place," I said.
"There are many lands that don't have slaves, Forty-seven. Canada, Vermont."
I could tell that he was serious, that he was willing, with no more than a shrug and a nod, to take me away from all the chains and chiggers and cotton. All I had to do was say yes and the misery of my daily existence would have fallen away.
"What you got in that napkin?" I asked him.
"I went back to my bag in the tree and got a chemical that will kill the virus in Eloise's brain. I also collected various fungi that will carry the serum through her blood."
"So if we run away she'll die?"
"Probably."
"But if we wait and run away later can we take Flore and Champ and Mud Albert with us?"
"No," John said. "Only you."
If I ran Miss Eloise would die, and my friends would remain slaves no matter what I did. I couldn't imagine a life where Eloise was dead and where I'd never lay eyes on Big Mama Flore again. The only choice I had was to go back to Corinthian, and I knew that I would at least get bull-whipped for running away.
I could feel the lash on my back even as I stood there in that primal paradise. Fear of the whip brought tears to my eyes. But the thought of leaving my friends and the thought of the Master's daughter dying was too much for me.
That was the way it was for the short while that I knew Tall John from beyond Africa. Everything he said to me was both a test and a lesson. Being his friend was my first experience with the responsibilities of freedom.
"We bettah get back," I said.
"But you said that they would kill us," John argued. "Wouldn't it be better to run?"
"But that girl is dyin'."
"But she's related to people that make Negroes into
slaves. Wouldn't it be better to let her die? Wouldn't it be better for Tobias to feel like you do about the suffering of your people? Anyway, Flore and Mud Albert will be slaves if you go back or not."
I looked up at the strange boy who had befriended me. At first I thought that he was making fun of me. But when I looked into his face I saw that he really expected me to have no feelings for Eloise and even the other slaves.
"No," I said. "I wanna run. An' I sho nuff don' wanna die. But I'd be lonely without my friends in Canaland and I don't blame Miss Eloise for my sufferin'."
"One day you will have to leave the plantation, Forty-seven. Your destiny is far from here."
"Come on," I said. "Let's get back before I change my mind about runnin'."
The sun was out and John was able to move fast again. So it wasn't too very long before we got to the plantation. I wanted to go right out in the fields and start working, pretending that nothing had happened. But John ran us right up to the front porch of the Master's home and knocked on his door.
Fred Chocolate answered. I knew we were in trouble when a worried look came into his sour face. I knew we were dead.
"Run," Fred said. "Run away from here you stupid niggers. Run."
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teen
"I've come to see Tobias," John said.
"Tell this soft-headed fool to run from here," Fred said to me.
I grabbed John's arm but his feet were planted like tree roots. There was no moving him.
"Bring Tobias Turner to me," John said in a stern tone.
Fred fell back a step and then a voice came from somewhere in the house.
"Who is that you're talkin' to, Fred Chocolate?" It was Master Tobias.
My guts turned to water and my knees were no sturdier than blades of grass. Tobias came to the door, pushing the butler aside.
"What's this?" he cried. "The runaways. Call Mr. Stewart, Fred. I will have these boys whipped in front of all the slaves out here. Whipped until their backs is bloody and their heads hang down dead."
"No!" Big Mama Flore cried.
I saw her run into the big sitting room behind our enraged Master.
"They just boys, Master Tobias," Fred said.
And even though I was afraid for my life I was amazed that the snooty house Negro would have stood up for two pieces of field trash like us.
"Mr. Stewart!" Tobias cried.
"You can kill us, Tobias Turner," John said in a voice that could not be ignored. "But will you allow us save your daughter's life before you do?"
The russet-hued lad held up his napkin-sack of medicine.
"What are you sayin', Number Twelve?" the Master asked.
"You sent us to find medicine," my friend said proudly. "We've done that. We had to go far away and we got stuck in the rain. I couldn't let the herbs we carried get wet and so we had to hide until the rain stopped."
"The rain quit late last night, nigger!" Mr. Stewart said from behind us.
He had just gained the porch in answer to Tobias's call. I could feel the stamping of his hard boots on the wood beneath our feet. Every time his shod feet hit the planks I imagined him trampling on my bones.
"We fell asleep," John said to Tobias. "We were tired from searching for the medicines your girl needed."
"You can break her fever?" Tobias asked. His voice was lower now. I could hear the sorrow and exhaustion in his words.
"Yes, sir," John said, as serious as a hangman.
"Then come on upstairs before it's too late," Tobias said.
"Number Forty-seven has to come with me," John told Tobias, and I really wished he hadn't. All I wanted to do was to get back out in the cotton fields; back to where I was just a slave and nobody white talked to me or worried about my whereabouts.
"I can't let two filthy niggers in my little girl's room."
"You'd rather let her die?" John asked.
He was no longer acting like a downtrodden slave. Tall
John was talking to Tobias in just the same way he spoke to me. As a matter of fact I believed that everything John was doing and saying was for my benefit. He wasn't worried about the Master or the plantation boss or stuffy Fred Chocolate. He was showing me something. And maybe I would have understood his lesson if I wasn't scared down to the wood beneath my bare feet.
Tobias was shivering with rage at the impudent slave and also in fear for his daughter's life. If John would have listened to me I could have told him that the slave master held a grudge longer than he'd remember any good deed. I could have told John that talking like a white man to a white man was the quickest way for a slave to meet the Lord.
"Come on!" Tobias shouted.
He ran back into the mansion and John followed. I fell back, hoping that I could get away, back to the cotton fields, but Mr. Stewart pushed against my shoulder and I was thrown into the doorway of the big house.
We ran along throug
h the sitting room, with its posh couches and chairs. My dirty bare feet scuttled over the soft carpeting. And even though I was soothed by the feel of the fabric beneath my feet I thought that it was not nearly so elegant as the bed of leaves beneath that great tree where I slept the night before.
We ran up the stairs: Mr. Stewart, Master Tobias, Tall John, Flore, Fred Chocolate, and I. There we came to a big double door that was open. The walls of that room were
lined with large windows and everything was covered with yellow lace. The curtains were lace and also the canopy over the bed, even the walls were painted like the creamy material.
Under the canopy, in the center of the room, in the oversized bed, lay the girl-child Eloise. She looked frail and pale with her eyes closed and sounds of distress coming from her lips.
"The fever is taking her brain," John said in an offhanded manner. "She will not live out the morning unless she is treated."
Next to the bed was Eloise's light-skinned maid, Nola. Nola was hardly older than I. She had freckles and greenish eyes and crinkly reddish-brown hair. It was general knowledge among the slaves that Nola was Tobias's daughter by a slave named Patrice who had died some years before.
Nola was crying over her white half-sister's agony. It was plain to see that she loved Eloise as much as I did.
Many slaves loved their masters. Looking back on it now it seems odd loving someone that keeps you in chains and runs roughshod over your life. But back then the only rule we knew was the white Masters' rule, and so if the Master were ever kind many of us felt grateful because we didn't know any better. And if somebody like Eloise, who never said a harsh word, was somewhere for us to catch a glimpse of now and again, we felt a swelling in our hearts, hoping that such a kind soul would somehow ease our sufferings. That's because the human heart is always filled with hope and the need to love.
So Nola loved Eloise. She would have happily died in her stead.
"Shall I save your daughter, Tobias?" John asked arrogantly.
"Out of the way, Nola," the defeated slave master said.
"No!" Nola shouted.
Mama Flore took the unwilling girl by the shoulders and pulled her away from the dying white girl's bed.
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