I’m checking under beds, in closets and calling ‘a, “Coley!” fast as I can. Every window I pass I see them robes, them torches, them rifles and they horses. I see the other niggers with they large eyes holding each other, when I peak out the window for Coley.
When I get to the gambling room, Coley behind the counter, balled up holding ‘a dress. She the only one don’t know the rules. If they have to come in here and get ‘a, specially a nigga woman, they gone have ‘a fore they go.
“I see a nigger don’t believe fat meat greasy!” A torch come in the window and Coley scream.
“Come on,” I say and grab ‘a hand.
She pulling away from me.
“We got to get out there or they gone burn the house down!” I snatch ‘a from the floor. The curtains catch fire.
“Don’t say nothing. Don’t open ya mouth.” I drag ‘a like a child’s wagon behind me, snatching ‘a cause if they catch us in the house we be fun fore they hang us.
Bum! The back door kicked in and the Klansman standing there turn his gun down when he see me coming.
“Get on outside, nigga! Fore you get burned up in here.”
I pull Coley out the house with me and down the stairs. We run to get in the pack with the rest of the niggas.
“We looking for that nigger named Henry Meriwether. Come on out here boy or we gone burn Lucius place down and hang every nigger we don’t know,” a Klansman order.
Coley scream, crying.
So I bury ‘a head under my arm so she cain’t breathe, so she cain’t scream. It be better for ‘a to fall out than to scream. She ain from here. They be done hung ‘a, too.
The man speaking start wielding his rifle round in all our direction. People scream and move to get out of its aim.
“Come out here boy!” one of the Klansmen order, pointing his rifle at a man Iain never seen before, and motioning for him to come out the crowd.
The man step forward, weak on his feet.
“Get over there boy,” the Klansman aim at an open space, where won’t nobody be behind him.
Coley push forward to look to see if it’s Hank.
“Any of yall recognize this nigger?”
“Iain never seen this nigger before,” another Klansman agree.
“My name ain’t Henry, suh.” The man gag out the words, his eyes wild, looking at all them, us, then in the barrel of the rifle, trembling.
Bang!.. Bang… Bang… Bang they shoot him. Even after he fall, and stop shaking, they keep shooting in his body. All of ’em hollering, shouting, and cheering, going round trying to hold they horses at bay.
Coley hold on to me, crying. Now she see how serious all this is. I’m glad they ain hang him. I’m glad they shot him right off and ain’t torture him.
“Come on now! We know there’s a recruiter here in Zion! Yall niggers know who the hell Henry is! We could do this all night.”
The man with red stripes on his sleeves, lean on his horse, resting and looking at all us. Then he say, “You niggas know you ain’t allowed to leave unless the council done approved it.
“What you leaving for? Got good jobs here. Got your family here. Most of you in Zion got your own land. Why would you give up everything to go up north?”
I recognize his voice, and I know that’s my real father, Hunter Beaumont.
“Henry Meriwether, you bring yo black nigger ass out here. You ain gone be taking our damn field niggers and not paying. We don’t take kindly to-”
“You recognize this nigger?” another Klansman aim at another man with his rifle, interrupting Mr. Beaumont. This time it’s Bessie Smith’s piano player.
“Nah, cain’t say I do. Come on out here, boy,” Mr. Beaumont order him to stand where the other man laying dead.
“Puh-please,” the man pleading, looking the Klansman in the eyes with his hands up begging for his life, and looking over at the dead man. “I’m a piano player, sir. Iain no recruiter and my name ain’t Henry, sir. I’m here with Ma and Pa Rainey, doing a show, sir, just passing through. Please don’t kill me.” He crying and begging, his face wet with tears and we all scared for ’im.
Showing he scared and bowing might save ’im, then again, it might not. I close my eyes, frowning, I cain’t watch no more. I squeeze Coley even more, and the fire crackling in the silence enough to make you pee on yourself, waiting for Mr. Beaumont to make a judgment.
“I’m Henry Meriwether!” I hear from behind us. Then the crowd part. Hank walk out strong, taking big strides. His eyes wild, and my heart beating for ’im.
“No Hank!” Coley scream, reaching in his direction. I hold her back, but she still fighting in my arms, begging, “Please!”
I grab ‘a face, and look ‘a in the eyes. Squeezing ‘a face, shaking ‘a and jerking ‘a, trying to force ‘a mouth close. I shush in ‘a mouth shaking my head ‘no.’ “You ain from here, they’ll hang you, too,” I whisper.
The other niggas round us whispering, “Thank you Jesus,” and “Praise God.”
“Get me a rope!” Mr. Beaumont call, and I realize he the head of the Klan with them red stripes on his arm.
Bang! Somebody shoot and Hank fall to the side, shot in the leg. He don’t cry. He take deep breaths, rubbing where the bullet hit, looking over at the tree where they setting up for ’im to hang.
Two of the men get off they horse, come punch him in the face then drag ’im over to the tree. They start to beat him, and I wish I had a gun to shoot ’im in the head so he wouldn’t have to suffer.
So many men round Hank, kicking and punching I cain’t see ’im. All I see is the dirt rising. They pointy white hats moving round so fast, going up and down.
“Aaaah,” Hank scream, and I know they stabbing him, cutting him and cutting off parts. Then I smell the gas.
I’m hurt and angry they can just come and do this to us anytime they wont, and ain’t nobody to save us.
Hank start to scream and gargle, and I figure they done cut his throat, or making him drink the gas. I hear them torches crackling, and it’s silent cept for the screaming of cuss words over Hank on the ground.
Then all the Klansmen start moving back, and Hank is lifted up by his neck, bloody, broken and silent. I pray he already dead.
“Don’t look,” I whisper in Coley’s ear, tears filling my own eyes. Then they put that torch to ’im.
Chapter Forty-Four
RITUALS
The men pull a wagon under the oak tree. Hank’s body is gently pushed in position over it. Pieces fall from him, his clothes, his skin. Pieces of him are missing; ears, fingers and toes.
Some folks stare, others look away. I just hold Coley much as I can, and watch. Coley throwing up, crying and screaming like a child. People watch ‘a silently, too.
The Klan gone. They brought so much fear, fire and wind it seems quiet and dark when things are almost as they should be. Coley screaming disturb the night.
The smell of ’im burning ain’t bad as the bodies we done found hanging from our trees over the years. It’s probly covered up some by the barbeque and fish.
When I said nobody in Zion been hung in a long while, don’t mean they ain been hanging poor niggas from our trees. Hank ain’t from here, and the man they shot ain’t from here. Way it be told, they still ain’t kilt nobody from Zion.
If they hang one person from a family here, the whole family liable to leave after the funeral. They don’t wont us leaving, they need us. Travelling news say, a whole Colored town left out of some part of Mississippi, or was it Tennessee, after Ida B Wells started ‘a crusade against lynching. I cain’t even imagine it, but all the niggas just packed up and left them white farmers to tend they own land.
White folks scared one day all of Zion might get wise and go. They watching our newspapers, and getting weekly reports on what’s going on round here. Specially with so many young folks leaving, they thinking one day it’s gone be hard to find good hands to work round here during planting and harvesting season.
I cover Coley’s mouth, then bury ‘a face in my chest and hold ‘a there. In the dark, Eudora voice calls, and some people sing the lines right behind ‘a as Hank is cut down. His body still hot so they touching him easy. The Klan done watched him burn til he burned out. Water would make his body a mess. We done learned.
Tonight, tomorrow and as we lay Hank and the other man to rest, I’ll be hearing this song. I’ve never known its name, still I know all the words by heart. I’ve heard it enough times. I always called it the “Hang and Surrender Song.” I wonder if anybody else knows its name. Or if they just like me, done heard it so much they know it by heart, too.
Don’t fight for me
Don’t die for me
Don’t even cry for me
What is done
Is
Already done
Now that I’m gone
I’m safe from harm
In my savior’s arms
Cain’t take me
Fore my time
Less it be
His will
I should die
This life
What’n never mine
I was living on
Borrowed time
So I go
With peace of mind
God has called me
Home tonight
Let me go
With peace of mind
I’m safe now
Home with Christ
This ain’t forever
Just a time
We’ll meet again
On the other side.
Chapter Forty-Five
GUILT
“Something wrong?” I ask Coley, looking at ‘a, feeling ‘a out, after watching ‘a staring off and pushing food round in ‘a plate. She get like this sometimes now, every since Hank was killed. For a while, it was hard to get ‘a to eat anything. She so weighed down with guilt. She done got so small.
For the first few days afterwards, I had to bathe ‘a, and there wasn’t no school. Then after a week passed, Reverend’s wife and even ol Prudence had to hold class.
“You know, when I first arrived,” she speak slow and think.
I don’t wait for ‘a words no more, sometimes they never come. Sometimes it be best I don’t pry, or remind ‘a what she said last, I’ve learned. I eat looking at ‘a, worried.
“I thought I’d gotten in over my head. Still I had signed a contract for a year. I told myself it was just a year. I told myself, adversity builds character. Plus, I haven’t always made the best choices. I haven’t always kept my word. So I was determined to fulfill this commitment.”
Lately, there’s always a punch or a kick when it comes to Coley, so I don’t tell ‘a how good it is she kept ‘a word. She might start crying, and it go from being bout one thing, to being bout something else Iain even see coming. So I just let ‘a talk and wait, for the punch, or kick.
“When I first started teaching here, I didn’t tell you how challenging it was. Trying to reach girls ready to be married, who thought they knew everything. Or trying to get through to boys, who were more concerned about earning enough to live and buy land, so they could afford marriage to one of those girls.
“All the teens thought they’d already learned enough. The girls were constantly challenging my authority. The boys would hardly show up. For days I was trying to think of ways to reach them, and make learning appealing.
“Then there were the babies, who were so behind for their ages. Some of them didn’t even recognize their alphabet, didn’t know sounds, and others weren’t reading. I had so many children. They were on so many different levels, even in the same age groups.
“I knew I’d have to do separate assignments for almost every child. They all needed tutoring in some shape or form. Then I didn’t have the supplies I needed. For two months I was overwhelmed.
“You were telling me I needed to work at home, and I was falling asleep making lessons for all these different students. Then I asked the girls to help me with the little ones. They didn’t want to tell me what they didn’t understand, so they started teaching themselves and learning to help.
“I told the older boys something you told me, about how a man has to know more than his wife so he can protect his family. I told them one day their children would come home with homework, the boys, and who would help them? We all became teachers. We were all learning. I finally got things running smooth.
“Then there was a new challenge. I learned the kids would have half days during planting and harvesting season. Even worse, some of them wouldn’t be coming at all. Not to mention, I needed to excuse their absences, and go on as if nothing had changed or as if nothing was wrong. How were they going to retain anything? How was I suppose to move forward educating them?
“All my hard work seemed in vain, but they were smarter than I expected,” she explains and smiles. “I sent them home with little books, and they read. Some of them even started teaching their parents, and even their grandparents how to read. Then I knew I’d found my place.
“I’d found a way to make learning fun. They were so happy, and their confidence was growing as they understood things. I started to feel like I’d finally found my calling. I saw how I could help my people. I couldn’t wait to see what the youngest generation of my students would become. They gave my life hope. Every time they screamed, ‘I got it!’, I felt like I’d accomplished something.
“They weren’t concerned about my skin, my hair, or my clothes. They just loved me unconditionally. Sometimes they’d just burst and hug me. They wanted to hold my hand and help me with things. Even the older kids, who were getting ready to leave and become adults themselves, really wanted me to approve of them. They put a lot of weight on my opinions. They would bring all kinds of problems to me for advice.
“I was starting to think, I loved Zion. I loved how people worked together. I loved how their parents brought me little meals, fruit, or whatever they thought would help. Sometimes the mothers would come sit in to see what had their children excited. Then they’d come back to help, and some people asked me to help them learn to read, or add.
“I planned to start an adult class a few nights a week, with homework and all. I wanted to help people who fell off somewhere during school, get to a place where they could read comprehensively, count and add.
“Teaching is the first thing I’ve done well and that people really appreciated. This is the first time I’ve felt so loved and proud. I was so content, here.
“Hank was my student. He had a hard time with word problems in math, his reading comprehension wasn’t the best at first. Still he was determined, and he wasn’t ashamed to ask for help. He wasn’t ashamed to try. He worked harder than other students to barely pass. When he graduated from college, it was a real accomplishment. I was so proud of him. Part of me felt like I’d earned that degree, too.
“I just wanted to help the people of Zion. I wanted them to know there was something other than here. I wanted them to know what it was like not to live in fear. I wanted them to know what it was like not to struggle.
“Some of the stories my students would tell me about not eating, and their parents being too prideful to tell others… would break my heart. Some of the boys were talking about looking for work outside of here to help. I just wanted to help when I sent Hank that letter. Now Hank is gone.”
I’m silent, exhausted. I don’t know what else to tell Coley.
“It’s just so much death here. I don’t know… how much longer I can do this. I don’t know how you do it.”
“Death is part of life.”
“Not the life I came from. People weren’t always dying or being killed in New York. I don’t even remember the last time someone close to me died. I’ve only
been here a little over a year, and some women won’t officially name their babies until they get to be five. Babies and their mother’s dying is a common thing, around here.
“We’re all walking around on our tiptoes scared somebody is going to hang or rape one of us. That’s no way to live.
“Then you’re shooting pigs all the time, and killing chickens. How are you even eating this meat?”
“Would you feel better not knowing where the meat you eating come from?” I take a bite of bacon, and it seem dryer now that we talking bout killing to eat.
Shaking ‘a head, Coley say, “I just don’t know how you can eat something you killed. I don’t understand how you can go on killing all the time.”
“Death is part of life, we all dying. We all changing, getting older. It’s yo destiny to die. From the day we born, we dying.”
“That’s a sad way to think about things.”
“Ain’t sad at all. What’s sad is worrying bout things cain’t be changed. Maybe if you accepted you was gone die, too, you could think about what really matters. What are you gone do while you alive? Live? Just exist?
“Doing what other folks want or expect is existing. I watched Miemay die, so Iain afraid of death. If death is the worst thing you can think of, Iain afraid of nothing really when I think about it. I sometimes wonder what else is out there.
“Living in fear is existing. Iain afraid despite how Zion might seem to you. I grew up here and people being hung is part of life. It ain’t something you get use to, you cain’t never get use to a thing like that.
“We got rules. When we follow those rules, things are alright. White folks ain’t been my problem, my own family has. Living my life how I want to live been my biggest problem. I worry bout my daddy speaking to me more than I think about being hung. I think about how I’m gone stay close to people I love, when they don’t agree with my choices, and I done rubbed them the wrong way.
“Then I think about how Miemay ain never do what folks wanted or expected. She did what sat right with ‘a own spirit. She raised more children and helped more folks than anybody else I know. She tended to other folks like it was ‘a business.
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