Catfish

by Madelyn Bennett Edwards

  “You mean the Civil War, Cat?” I asked.

  “Yeah. We call it the war between the states. You know my granddaddy didn’t go fight in the war, and Mr. Van stay home, him too. They was afraid all the time the Yankees would come kill them and burn down the plantation. Fact is, the Yanks never found Shadowland, it being tucked in all these trees where you can’t see it from none of the roads, and all.

  “You know, my granddaddy, named my daddy for hisself, Samuel the second. But they called my daddy, Sammy. He had two younger brothers, my daddy did, Simon and Jacob. I guess they were my uncles, but I never met them. My daddy, he talked about them a lot. Simon, he was born in 1877 and Jacob, he came the next year. My daddy told me a story about the night those boys almost got kilt.

  “Seems this particular story, the one I’m fixin to tell you, happened when the boys was young. Daddy was, hmmm—maybe five—and Simon, he was about three. That would make Jacob, two.”

  “You never told me about them, Granddaddy.”

  “Well, chile, you just in time.

  *

  Boy Troubles

  1880

  “Anna Lee, that was my grandmother. I called her Granny. Well, Granny gave birth to two more boys after my daddy, like I said. Then in 1880 when she birthed Benjamin, she bout bled to death. The baby and Granny was both in trouble. My granddaddy paced back and forth in the kitchen while the women cared for my Granny and the new baby in the front room. Sammy, that’s what they called my daddy—did I already tell you that—well, anyways, my daddy and his two little brothers, played in the dirt in the back yard, right here, on this very ground.

  ‘I’m hungry’ Jacob said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Simon.

  ‘We don’ t got nothing to eat out here,’ Sammy told them.

  ‘Can you get us something?’ Simon asked his big bother.

  ‘Pop told us not to go inside,’ Sammy said. ‘I don’t want to get whipped.’

  ‘But we’s hungry,’ Jacob started to cry.

  Sammy got hisself up, dusted his pants with his hands, and climbed the three steps onto this very back porch. He could see his daddy through the window, pacing back and forth in that room behind me. That was before we added the front room, so this here room served as kitchen and family room,” Catfish said. “The family slept together in what is now my sitting room.

  My daddy, Sammy, remember he was only bout five, opened the screen door slowly so it wouldn’t creak and slipped into the overly warm kitchen. A kerosene lantern sat in the center of the wooden table and lit the room. It smelled like urine and dried blood in the house, and there was water in pans laid out on every surface. Sammy noticed a pile of red-stained sheets in the corner.

  He stood just inside the door, his hands holding each other behind his back while he waited to be noticed.

  ‘They’s both in trouble,’ Bessie said to Granddaddy when she rushed into the room to ask him to put some more water on the fire in the hearth. ‘The boy’s not breathing good and Anna-Lee, well, she just keeps bleeding. We need more sheets and towels and you needs to boil those soiled ones in the corner ...’

  She noticed my daddy standing next to the screen door. Granddaddy’s eyes followed hers and he saw the boy, too.

  ‘What you doing in here, boy,’ Granddaddy barked. ‘I told you boys not to come inside.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Pappy,’ my daddy whispered. ‘The boys is hungry. What you want I do?’

  ‘Go look in the field for some potatoes and corn, boy,’ Granddaddy said. ‘You big enough to figure out how to feed the young ones. Now git!’

  My daddy backed out of the room and onto the back porch. He had heard Bessie say that his mama and baby were, ‘in trouble.’ He wondered what that meant.

  He grabbed a burlap sack from under the porch and headed to the fields. The little boys followed and tried to keep up, but the five-year-old’s strides were too much for their little legs and soon they got left behind. Daddy said he could hear Jacob whimpering and Simon consoling him.

  Daddy dug a few potatoes with his bare hands and found some stalks of corn that looked like they were grown enough to eat. Instead of retracing his steps back to the cabin, he headed to the barn. As often as he sat and watched his dad milk the cow, he had never tried it hisself and wasn’t sure whether his hands had the strength to pull on the teats hard enough to bleed the milk out, but he found a small bucket and sat on the stool his dad used.

  He had no luck at first, but he said the cow stood still, as if it wanted someone to drain the liquid that built up inside her belly. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what his pappy’s hands looked like when they were pulling on the pink udders that sent milk squirting into the bucket.

  He put both of his little hands at the top of the cow’s teat, the backs of his hands touching her stomach. With his thumbs and the crook that they formed with his index fingers, he began to squeeze and pull downward at the same time. Success! The milk dripped into the bucket. The more he squeezed and pulled, the stronger the stream of milk became and, finally, he picked up a rhythm that sent squirts of the creamy fluid into the container parked under Daisy.

  Daddy said his fingers grew tired and began to cramp so he picked up the half-filled bucket and the sack of corn and potatoes and headed home. By now it was dark, but he knew his way blindfolded. When he got home his brothers weren’t in the back yard. He eased inside the house to look for the boys but his dad sent him scampering out the door. Outside he started to call for them while he walked towards the cornfield. He heard the crickets singing to the birds that tweeted back, but nothing from his brothers. He felt responsible for those boys. After all, he was the big brother.

  He retraced his steps back to the field, through the potato patch and into the rows of corn stalks, then he started to walk towards the barn on Mr. Van’s property. He kept whistling and calling the boys.

  He heard a dog bark. He stopped to listen. The barking continued and became more intense. More barks joined in and it sounded like a pack of angry dogs that found their prey. Against his better judgment, he walked toward the noise. He hid behind an oak tree and spied the herd of dogs and five or six men on horses behind them. They carried guns aimed at a pecan tree in Mr. Van’s orchard.

  Daddy said he thought hard. Then he silently ran towards the plantation house. His bare feet pounded the hard earth and his slim body slipped through the cornrows as if they were invisible. When he got to the back door of the big house, he banged with both hands until Lizzie stomped through the kitchen and swung the door open. The other women were attending his Mama so Lizzie was the only worker in the house, and she was busy.

  ‘Who’s there,’ she shouted into the wind.

  ‘It’s me, Miss Lizzie,’ he said. She looked down to see the child standing on the stoop, eyes wide, panting.

  ‘You been running, boy?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, Ma’am,’ he said. ‘I needs to see Mr. Van. It be a mergency.’

  Something in my daddy’s voice made her take him seriously and she turned and walked quickly out of the kitchen into the main house. She said none of Samuel’s children had ever come to ask for Mr. Van. Samuel, himself, had never done that. Lizzie knew Anna Lee was in labor, something must be wrong.

  Mr. Van followed Lizzie from his study, down the long hall, into the dining room and through the swinging door to the kitchen. She opened the back door but not the screen door. Sammy was standing on the back porch, his hands deep in his pockets, his eyes staring at bare feet oozing blood in places from the brambles and stickers he ran through to get to the plantation house.

  “‘What you need, boy?’ Mr. Van barked. ‘You’re disturbing my family.’

  “‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Sammy stuttered, then he got hold of himself. He stood up straight, shoulders back, proud like his daddy taught him and reached out to shake hands with the big man who peered at him from behind the screen door, as if for protection. Mr. Van was taken aback,
thought for a moment, swung the screen door opened and stepped onto the porch. He shook hands with the boy and remembered this child at two or three, who performed the same brave, mature gesture in the middle of the barn.

  ‘Mr. Van, Sir,’ Sammy said. He looked Mr. Van in the eye and spoke clearly. He tried not to let his voice to quiver with the fear he felt. ‘They’s some men on horses with fire on poles. They got dogs and guns aimed at a tree on your property. My brothers is missing and they might be in that tree. Something or someone in that tree, for sure, sir.’

  ‘Follow me,’ Van said and bolted towards the barn. ‘George, where are you?’

  George peeked his head out of the barn,

  ‘Here, sir.’

  ‘Get my horse saddled, NOW!’ he said. He picked up the boy who trailed behind, unable to keep up with the man’s long strides.

  Mr. Van carried Daddy into the barn where several buckets of water were lined up for the horses once they ate the oats George had just given them. The big man lowered Daddy’s feet into one of the buckets, knelt on one knee, the other bent—a bench for the boy’s rump. Mr. Van used his big hands to massage the bloody, swollen feet and toes while George saddled the sorrel.

  He pulled my five-year-old daddy up and swung him round his back.

  ‘Hold on to my neck, boy,’ he said. Daddy wrapped his legs around the man’s waist and held on tight while Mr. Van put one foot in the stirrup and swung his other leg around the back of the saddle.

  ‘Okay, boy,’ Mr. Van said. ‘Put your legs on either side of the horse and your arms around my waist.’ Sammy was barely situated when Mr. Van snapped the reins, tapped the heels of his boots against the horse’s flanks and the Sorrel exited the barn in a gallop.

  Daddy said he couldn’t see much from behind the big man but he noticed the sky lit up ahead. Something’s on fire, he thought and the horse flew through the field.

  ‘Hey,’ Mr. Van hollered as they got closer to the fire. ‘Hey, what you guys up to? Hey! Who’s there? This is my property. What you doing here?’ Daddy could feel the heat from the fire and hear a crackling sound when, suddenly, Mr. Van stopped the horse and jumped onto the ground.

  ‘Stay there, boy!’ he commanded without looking back. He moved quickly towards the men who held flaming sticks, like huge matches that stayed lit. The dogs barked so loud the men couldn’t hear Mr. Van, who screamed at them as he approached on foot, long strides that moved as fast as if he ran.

  ‘Hey, you men!’ Mr. Van yelled when he was close enough to grab the leg of one of the horsemen. ‘What the hell you doing?’

  ‘Hey, Van,’ the man said. He looked at the grip on his ankle and said, ‘What the hell you doing. Turn me loose!’

  ‘Not until someone here explains what the hell you men are doing on my property with torches and dogs and guns!’ Mr. Van screamed, loud enough for the other four to hear. They all turned their heads towards him. One of the men barked a command and the dogs stopped barking.

  ‘Who’s in charge of this atrocity?’ Van asked.

  The man next to the one in Van’s grip said, ‘We just having a little fun, Van. Leave us be.’

  ‘This is my property!’ Van yelled. ‘You have no right to be here without permission. I don’t care how much fun you fools are looking for.’

  ‘Come on, man,’ the guy whose ankle Van still held. ‘We just chased a couple little niggers up that tree and we having some fun watching them mess their pants cause they’s so scared.’

  Mr. Van yanked the man’s ankle so hard he pulled him out of his saddle and onto the ground.

  ‘You sons-a-bitches!’ Van screamed. He grabbed the man’s gun as he fell to the ground. In one quick motion he placed his boot on the man’s neck as he lay on the ground, cocked the rifle and aimed it at the others.

  The man’s torch rolled towards Daddy who still sat on the back of the Sorrel. He slid quietly off the horse and picked up the torch before it set anything afire, and stood beside the horse, silent, the torch in front of him so the men could not make out his little figure.

  ‘You,’ Mr. Van said. He pointed the gun at the man who had spoken. The other three sat still, the fifth one was on the ground under Mr. Van’s boot. ‘You and the others. Get those children out of the tree. NOW!’

  ‘Wait a minute, Van,’ the man on the third horse said. ‘You don’t expect us to climb that tree and handle some niggers with messy pants.’

  ‘Not only do I expect you to do it, but if you don’t get off those horses and start climbing that tree, I’m going to start shooting me some dogs. When I get through with the dogs, I’m going to shoot me some horses. When I’m done with the horses, I’m going to shoot me some men. Now! Get moving!’

  The man on the ground squirmed. Mr. Van shoved his boot in the man’s neck and pressed so hard the man choked.

  ‘If you want your friend to breathe again, you better get going,’ Van said. He waited a few seconds. The men didn’t move. Van shot the gun in the air, cocked it and aimed it at the biggest dog.

  ‘He’s next!’ The men slid off their horses.

  ‘Buddy,’ the man who was riding the third horse said. ‘You hold these torches. Me and Slim will go up the tree to get those niggers.’ They handed their torches to the tall, skinny man who wore a cowboy hat and had a light brown mustache.

  Slim made a stirrup out of his hands and boosted the other man into the tree. The man grabbed the highest branch he could reach and pulled himself up. Sammy could see his boots climb from one limb to the next until they were out of sight. He could hear the man trying to coax the boys down.

  ‘Come on, you dumb-ass niggers,’ he barked. ‘We going to get you down. I said come here! I’m not going to hurt you, just climb down so’s we can get you out this tree.’ The boys moved higher up the tree.

  ‘Hey, Van, ‘ the man in the tree shouted. ‘They won’t budge. Fact is, they climbing higher to get away from me.’

  ‘Come here, Sammy,’ Mr. Van said. He motioned to my daddy without releasing the tension of his foot on the man’s neck. Sammy obediently walked towards Mr. Van.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the boy said. He looked directly at Van and stood erect.

  ‘You go under that tree and tell your brothers to let that man bring them down.’

  ‘With all due respect, sir,’ my daddy said. ‘They not coming down with that white man. If you just get them men to leave, Mr. Van, I can get them boys out of the tree myself. That is, if you could hold a torch for me to see.’

  ‘You sure, boy?’ Van asked.

  ‘Yes sir,’ he answered. ‘I’s sure, sir.’

  ‘Get out that tree, Dave,’ Mr. Van bellowed. Now!’

  Dave scrambled out the tree. The two men stood under the tree in front of Van, who aimed the rifle slightly above their heads. The two others sat in their saddles holding torches. The fifth was on the ground under Van’s boot.

  ‘Get up, Corky,’ Van said and removed his foot from the man’s neck. Corky bounced up and almost ran past Van to stand with the others, both his hands massaging his neck. ‘Now, all of you, get your asses off my property and don’t you ever let me see you here again,’ Van howled. ‘Nobody fools with my niggers, you hear?’

  The men nodded.

  ‘I’m going to keep this gun aimed at your backs till you’re gone,’ Van said. ‘If you want your gun back, Corky, you can come up to the house with an apology. Otherwise, I just got me a rifle. Now, GET!’

  The men climbed on their horses and took off before their legs cleared the saddles. The dogs followed, barking. When they was out of sight and almost out of earshot Mr. Van took the torch from Daddy and followed him to the tree. He scrambled up the big oak without help and was with his brothers in seconds.

  “You okay?’ my daddy asked Jacob and Simon. They shook like leaves in a brisk breeze, and they smelled something terrible. ‘Come on. Simon, you go first. Jacob, hold me around the neck and I’ll take you down, okay?’

/>   It didn’t take long for the boys to climb down from the tree. When each reached the lowest branch, they jumped to the ground and landed on their feet, even though the branch was at least two times higher off the ground than Mr. Van.

  Mr. Van hoisted the two younger boys onto the saddle of the Sorrel. Sammy walked beside the tall white man and moved his feet and legs as fast as he could to keep up with Mr. Van’s long strides as they made their way to the Quarters.

  While they walked side-by-side Sammy explained to Van that his mama was fighting for her life and the life of her newborn.

  ‘I’s not supposed to know,’ Sammy said. ‘But my brothers was hungry, so I went inside to get them something to eat. I overheard Miss Bessie tell my daddy about Mama and the baby. I think it’s another boy.’

  ‘Daddy told me to go dig some potatoes and break some corn in the field to feed the boys, but I didn’t come right home, so it’s my fault what happened. I went to your barn to get some milk from Daisy. I guess the boys followed me and got lost when the dark came.’

  My daddy said he stopped walking. When Mr. Van noticed he was no longer beside him, the big man turned around and paced about six strides back to where the boy stood, erect, stationary.

  ‘I knew I couldn’t get Pappy to come help when I saw them white men and dogs. I wasn’t sure it was the boys in the tree, but I feared it might be.’ My daddy looked up at the intimidating figure of that white man, while fat tears made their way down his five-year-old dusty cheeks and became drops of mud when they fell to the ground.

  ‘You did the right thing, boy,’ Mr. Van said. He patted Daddy’s head. ‘Next time you and your brothers are hungry, go to my house and ask Bessie or Lizzie to fix you something. Let’s not lose your brothers in the field again.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Daddy said. ‘I’m much beholden to you for your help. Those men might of shot my daddy.’