Song Yet Sung

by James McBride

  —You ought to check yourself before you give me thanks, she said. You ain’t in no better shape now than you was five minutes ago.

  The boy whimpered in muted pain, both hands locked around her arm now, his tiny, pitiful hands not large enough to encircle her arm. She gently pulled him closer and he locked his arms around her neck. He smelled terrible.

  —Good God, she said. I can’t stand you.

  With a grunt, she stood, holding his thin body, and staggered over to the nearby creek. She sat at the bank, formed a cup shape with her hands, and made him drink. He lapped like a dog, expertly, from her hands. She cleansed his wounded foot and he howled again. She placed a finger to her mouth to shush him and the boy did not obey, so she covered his mouth with her hand to silence him. He seemed to understand.

  —That’s better, she said. She gently lowered him into the water so that the creek flowed over him. She washed him as he cried softly, bitterly, and then regarded his foot closely. It was badly mangled. You need a doctor or some kind of healer woman, she said. I can’t do much with this.

  With great effort, she lifted him and took him back into the thicket, out of sight. She sat down, Indian fashion, cradling his head, drying him with a portion of her ragged skirt. She was exhausted and hungry, the effort of bathing him having taken what little strength she had left. Now that he was clean, he howled again, pitifully, his cries echoing into the treetops around them.

  —You got to shush, she said, placing his head to her chest and rocking him. What’s your name?

  The boy looked at her, said something unintelligible, then placed his head into her breast, whimpering softly.

  She cradled him gently.

  —You’s of talking age, I expect, she said. Is you thick-minded? Is that it? I don’t think so. Why, if you was thick-minded, you wouldn’t have sense enou—

  She felt the movement rather than heard it. A presence. A frightening one. She froze. They were surrounded by thickets and gnarled thick vines. From her kneeling position, she looked directly up at the thick bushes and cypresses in front of her.

  Whatever it was, it was right there. Silent; peering at her through a thicket of bushes not more than five feet off. At first she thought it was a shadow, for the sunlight was fast disappearing over the edge of the bay, and the dank afternoon light grimly hung on, dissipating slowly, descending, and bowing to the blackness of the bog, tossing shadows everywhere. But then the shadow seemed to move with the last slivers of afternoon sun that sliced through the slits in the trees, and she saw it move against the sway of the trees again, independently. She stared at it, petrified.

  A small piece of the thicket moved and then she saw—or thought she saw—just feet from her face, what appeared to be the outline of a face and a tall, dark, muscular black man. He had a mass of outrageous, thick wild hair as well, gorgeous in its wildness, frightening in its freedom and abandon. He stood among the dark thick vines, branches, and leaves with the patience and steady resolve of a tree, swaying slightly with the leaves as they swayed. When the wind moved the leaves and branches left, he moved left. When the wind swayed them right, he moved right, each movement ever so slight, so eased and crafted, it seemed as if he were magic and his feet did not touch the earth. Even as the branches and leaves moved up and down, so he moved up and down with them, swaying with the trees, vines, and foliage around him as if he and the forest were one. He didn’t speak, just stared silently.

  She stared back, wide-eyed.

  She could tell by his wide shoulders, wild hair, and broad nose that he was likely the father of this child, and though she could not see his face clearly, she imagined he was not pleased.

  She slowly released the child from her lap, gently laid his head on the ground, and stared into the thicket.

  —I meant no harm, she said.

  He was so still, and it grew so eerily quiet, that after a few moments of staring at the thicket, she was not sure if she was seeing the man or not. The gentle wind died. Darkness began to press itself on the swamp. The bushes and thickets she stared at suddenly refused to move. The air seemed suddenly devoid of sound and of thickness. Only seconds had passed, and yet, as she stared at the thicket just feet away, it seemed like years had gone by and come back again. The figure seemed to slowly dissipate into the leaves and vines as she watched it, and to her disbelieving eyes she began to wonder whether she had seen a man there or not. His eyes were lost in the thicket. She could not make them out anymore. She was staring at them and not staring at them. They were following her and not following her. He seemed to have melted into the thicket and disappeared.

  Every hair on her neck still stood on end, as if she had seen a ghost.

  —Don’t you know the places I been, she said.

  She slowly rose, staring at the empty space where the ghost had been.

  With a sudden motion, the thicket she was staring at moved twice—tick—tick—and a tiny bird flew out of it.

  She turned and ran.

  She bounded off trees, crashing through the thick swamp, confused, exhausted, frightened, running and running, the marsh pulling at her feet, sharp branches tearing at her legs, until she collapsed at the trunk of a thick, vine-covered oak and closed her eyes, terrified, waiting for the sound of footsteps to crash through the marsh behind her.

  But they did not come.

  Instead a kind of foggy unconsciousness took hold, and after a few minutes her body shut down. She slept where she sat, legs sprawled, her back against the tree, unsure if anything she had seen or done was real. She slept hard, but this time she did not dream. In her sleep she heard the lap and flow of the river, the cry of the herons and whippoorwills, the burping of the frogs, the bird calls of the orioles, the buzzing of the beetles and night crawlers that took over the swamp at night. In her sleep she sounded the forest, and in sounding the forest, in taking its pulse, she felt its fear, its cries for mercy, felt its harboring for its terrible future when it would one day be gone and in its place would be concrete and mortar, and she knew then, if she had ever been uncertain about it before, that the old woman with no name was right. She was two-headed. Beyond two-headed. She was two-minded. And she had to keep running. Keep living. Until the land, or God, told her why.

  It ain’t the song, but the singer of it, the woman had said.

  She awoke still seated at the bottom of the oak with her back to it. She heard the bird call of a belted kingfisher. She looked up and followed the sound of the bird and saw just above her head, tethered firmly to a low-hanging branch, a large woolen potato sack tied oddly with a rope that bore five knots in it. She rose, climbed the tree easily, and retrieved the sack. Inside were two dead muskrats, several ears of corn, a flint, a man’s jacket, and a crude pair of shoes. All left there, she was sure, by the father of the child she had met. She cracked open the corn and chewed it gratefully.

  She had met the Woolman.

  big linus

  Four miles from where Liz sat, at Sitchmas Cove, near the town of New Market, Big Linus peered across the wooded cove at a sole cabin that sat by itself behind a ragged jetty. The sun was just settling past the treetops of the cove, shining directly into the woods where he stood, less than five hundred yards from the cabin. Linus’s huge head could clearly be seen by any ready eye.

  Louie Hughes, a slave, stood on the pier in front of his master’s house and peered into the woods across the cove. Staring intently, Louie saw what appeared to be a small tree moving. He set his basket of oysters down and squinted across the cove, peering at the woods on the other side. Then he spoke to his wife, who was loading oysters next to him.

  —Sarah, is that Woolman out there?

  Sarah, a stout, well-proportioned woman wearing a head wrap, her hands gritty and slick with fish oil, sat on the pier dangling her legs over the edge into the water, shucking oysters into a woven basket. She glanced at the master and missus seated at the door of the cabin, both busily grinding grain by hand, then back to her worn fingers. Sh
e never looked into the cove.

  —I don’t see nothing, she said.

  Louie watched Big Linus’s head slowly sink down into the bushes out of sight.

  —Damn ghost, is what I saw, he said. Must be.

  Sarah sighed and blew through her cheeks.

  —Surely you did, she said.

  Louie frowned. He knew what was going on now.

  —Marse’s gonna start counting these oysters, we keep coming up short.

  —Who said we short? Sarah said.

  —You been feeding that Woolman, or whoever that nigger is out there, ain’t ya?

  Sarah looked at him sideways smirking, her hands still shucking oysters.

  —I’m just asking, he said.

  He strained to see across the cove into the woods again, then remarked to his wife, That’s a lotta nigger to feed there, if that is the Woolman.

  —Ain’t no Woolman there, she said.

  —Maybe it’s the one that run off from Patty Cannon’s house. They say he’s under the power of a colored witch.

  —That’s just your cousin roasting ear worms, gossiping ’bout nothing.

  Louie’s face tightened. He glanced back at the master and the missus, who were deeply engaged in conversation.

  —I’m ’bout done with you feeding every nigger who come through here holding sixes and sevens and nothing to their name, he said.

  Sarah looked up at him calmly, the lines in her face straight with the derision and familiarity of long years of marriage. He was, she knew, a limited man.

  —Whyn’t you carry that basket of oysters over to the house before Marse comes out here, she said. I’ll take the last one in.

  Louie shot a hot glance at his wife, then glanced at the master and the missus.

  —I’ll thank you to risk your own neck and keep mine’s off the block, he grumbled.

  —I wonder if somebody up the road didn’t say that when our Drew was on the run, Sarah said evenly, still shucking oysters.

  —Drew’s dead, he said.

  Sarah wanted to leap to her feet and slap him where he stood, but resisted. Instead she shucked oysters and spoke at him again, calmly.

  —G’wan in the house. Maybe Marse’ll let you play big in there.

  Louie snatched a basket and left in a huff, stomping off the pier towards the house just a few yards away. She watched him disappear inside, then called out to her youngest son, Gilbert, who was nearby cutting firewood.

  The boy, a lanky lad of about ten, trotted over. Over his shoulder, she noticed the master and his wife pause to watch, then turn back to their work, out of earshot.

  Sarah slid to the edge of the pier and dropped into the waist-high water. She gathered the netting that hung off the sides of the tiny fishing bungy, wrapping it up to place it inside the boat. As she did so, she spoke calmly to her son, standing above her on the pier.

  —Roll up your pants leg. The left one. Nice and easy like always.

  —Why I got to do this all the time? the boy asked.

  Sarah stopped rolling up the net a moment, her face hardened. She stared up at him.

  —You open your mouth that way again, I’ll roast your backside with a gummed tree switch big as my hand. You want that?

  He shook his head no, fearfully.

  —Watch how I tie this, she said.

  She grasped the rope hanging off the boat’s bow and tied five eye-splice knots in it nonchalantly, placing a collar beneath each knot by wrapping the rope three times from right to left, in the same direction as the sun, from east to west. She did it so carelessly and nonchalantly, that to anyone watching, it looked as if she was doing it halfheartedly. Then, blocked out of sight from the shore by the boat, she carefully slipped several oysters into the boat’s bottom, looping them into the netting, leaving them scattered beneath the inner lip of the boat, so it would appear they’d fallen there and been left by accident. She then looped the netting around into a circular pattern, tossed it into the boat, and tied the boat to the pier with the five-knotted rope, using the last eye splice, a loop, to fasten it to the pilings on the pier.

  —You see that? she asked her son.

  —Yes’m.

  —Now help me out this water.

  The boy reached up and helped pull her onto the pier. Sarah rolled down her dress and straightened her head wrap. She peered at the shore, where the master and his wife were grinding up the last of their grain. She spoke to her boy as she stared straight ahead at them. She saw them glance at her and continue to look. She picked up an oyster and held it before her son, the master watching, out of earshot. From a distance, it appeared as if she were showing him how to shuck it.

  She carefully tried to pry open the oyster. It slammed shut.

  —See that? she said. Every creature under God’s creation learns how to protect itself.

  She nodded to the rope.

  —Five knots, she said. North, south, east, west, and free. Button your collar and keep God on your shoulder. Your God shoulder’s your right one. Loop your rope from left to right means you facing northward.

  —Yes’m.

  Staring at the oyster in her hands, she continued.

  —Life out here’s done made me hard, she said. And I’m too old to break for freedom now. But you gonna learn the code, just like your brother did, if it’s the last thing you do. Either that or I’ll kill you myself, y’hear?

  —Yes’m.

  She cracked the oyster shell open, took out the tender meat, tossed it in a pail, and tossed the oyster shell in the water.

  —Now come inside, she said. And don’t tell your pa nothin’.

  The boy followed her into the house.

  From the woods, Big Linus watched the boy and woman disappear into the house. He was starving and in no mood to wait for night, though he knew he had no choice in the matter. Two nights ago he heard the baying of hounds behind him and had barely managed to get away. Only by lying in swamp water up to his neck as dogs barked and howled nearby had he slipped out of the fingers of whoever was closing in on him. However, the magic that had protected him was gone. The old Woman with No Name from the attic was dead. He would have carried her to kingdom come, but she’d told him to leave her by the bank, and he had done as she’d asked. Now he was out of good fortune, for she was gone and he could not hear her voice in his head anymore.

  He watched the house for three hours, until the sun disappeared over the western skyline, then made his way around the cove for the boat. He knew he should wait until the deep dead of night to fetch the gittins the kind colored woman had left out for him, but his stomach ruled him now. He could not bear to wait another moment. Besides, the Woman with No Name was gone. It was she who taught him patience. She had preached that in Patty’s attic almost daily. Patience, she said, patience will pay off. She had taught him the code too. Five knots, wrapped with a collar at the bottom looped towards the setting sun. That meant go. If wrapped the other way, against the setting sun, it meant the coast wasn’t clear and to hold tight. Left leg trousers rolled up. Everything to the left, left, left and in fives. And not to kill, for to do so was to raise your hand against God and become a sheep of the Devil. She had been kinder to him in those awful weeks in Patty’s attic than anyone had been to him his entire life. He’d tried hard to remember her lessons, but the instant he got his hands on Little George, they vanished from him like air hissing out of a balloon. He had waited, thirsted, longed to settle with Little George.

  For as long as he could remember, the white man’s cruelty had always been a confusing mass of dos and don’ts for Big Linus, because of his size, their terror of him, the seemingly random acts of kindness and cruelty that found their way to him, not to mention the prison of his own fears—the terrors, spooks, haints, beliefs, and superstitions that had been part of his upbringing. But there was no mistaking about Little George.

  Little George had tricked him. Little George had fed him, sheltered him, amused him with stories, made him laugh, and pro
mised him freedom, then led him to Patty’s tavern. And once Linus was caught, Little George taunted him about his foolishness and preyed on his deepest fears, because Big Linus had confessed to Little George that he was afraid of haints and witches. Little George had convinced him that Patty was a witch with eyes in every corner of her house, so that the chains that held the giant man were not necessary. Big Linus had cowered in the corner of Patty’s attic like an infant, until the old Woman with No Name arrived and awakened the man in him. It was she who convinced him that the code held the power of God, and that the power of the Lord was greater than the power of ten witches. She’d proved it. She’d promised them all a sign of freedom would come and it did. The two-headed girl had come and told them of tomorrow. Big Linus admired the Dreamer. He thought she was beautiful. But he had been trained from a small child that he was too big, too strong, too ugly to touch beautiful things which were considered like china and eminently breakable; he actually feared them, for to mar anything of beauty with his great size usually brought on the wrath of man, usually several men, white men, and beneath all his size and muscle, Big Linus was a fearful soul. He’d been afraid of the Dreamer and left her behind. That, too, had been a mistake. He’d never felt more alone.

  He eased himself out of the woods into the clear bank of the cove and worked his way around to the house. The full moon peeked in and out of the clouds overhead, and each time it appeared, he could make out the house and the outline of the shore. Thinking there might be a dog in the house, he ventured out into the water as he neared the dwelling, stepping past the sharp rocks at the bank, careful not to wedge his feet in the rocks beneath the water. He walked slowly, carefully, so as not to disturb the waters too much. Overhead, turkey buzzards circled above the pines lazily, riding the air on motionless wings. Beneath him, beetles and worms busily circled on the waters of the cove. As he approached the tiny bungy, he heard the flap of the turkey buzzards’ wings as they settled on the bungy, pecking away at the netting, marking it for him. He saw the outline of the tiny boat in the darkness, and as he approached, the thought of those delicious oysters made him lose his head momentarily and he forgot all about keeping quiet. He splashed forward noisily the last few steps to the boat and reached inside.