Song Yet Sung

by James McBride

  He listened, trying to make out words, but their words had no meaning to him. It did not matter. It was not their words that interested him. It was the child. And he was going to snatch him, this day, at this moment, just as his own son was snatched, and the colored had better not get in the way or he would put him to sleep forever.

  Standing at the end of a row of corn, Amber thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye move in the grove of pine trees to the right of the barn, not more than fifteen yards off, but Jeff Boy said something and distracted him. When he looked again, he saw nothing. He was jumpy. Jeff ’s pitter-patter, which Amber usually considered an irritant, was a welcome distraction, though the child’s words went right over his head. He was rattled. He’d been relieved when Miss Kathleen sent him to the cornfield with Jeff Boy, away from her prying gaze. There were some white people, he knew, who could not be fooled easily, and missus was one of them. She smelled a rat, and that was trouble enough.

  But the Dreamer troubled him even more. She had rattled him beyond the point of being able to think clearly. She was beautiful, to be sure, but beautiful enough for him to risk his life by harboring her? He was not sure. It was her dreams that did it. They were powerful, he had to admit. They troubled him deeply. Anyone who had such dreams, he was sure, had a purpose. Or many purposes. What kind, evil or good, he was not sure, for both God and the Devil never seemed to show themselves clearly to him.

  He turned and laid his hoe to the dirt, silently brooding, the little boy walking in front of him, the two of them working their way down the row, the boy ahead tossing seeds and chatting away, his words disappearing in Amber’s head with the same ease with which Amber brushed dirt over the boy’s seeds to cover them. Jeff Boy was a talker, like his father. Amber loved him for that, his innocence, his purity and wondering. The boy was still years away from learning the arrogance and impudence of being white. That would come soon enough, Amber thought bitterly. He hoped to be long gone by then.

  From the barrage of words the little boy tossed skyward, Amber thought he heard the boy utter a question. He woke from his reverie, hoe raised, and turned to Jeff Boy.

  —Say what? he said.

  —I said, Did you ever trap a fox before? Jeff Boy asked.

  —Plenty of times, Amber said. You ain’t seeding right. Hand me that basket.

  Jeff Boy happily complied, freeing his hands, which he thrust into his pockets, shifting back and forth in the cold, crisp spring air.

  Amber dropped the hoe, grabbed the basket of seeds, slung it across his hip, and seeded the row, happy to move fast, the boy following him, chatting happily. He blocked the boy’s chatter out of his head as he tried to beat back the demons of his own fear, which these days seemed to gallop forward on their own. He had his own plan of escape, hatched long before the Dreamer entered his life. There was a woman, a great woman named Moses, from Bucktown, several miles southwest, who could free any Negro who had the courage. Like most Negroes, he didn’t know what Moses looked like, nor even her real name, if she had one. But he’d met a colored soul, a free colored man who called himself Wanderer, and when Wanderer discovered Amber was an experienced waterman, Wanderer told him, Come on. I can get you on the gospel train.

  But Amber had delayed. It was Wiley who held him up. The boy had pined for freedom from the time he became aware of himself. Amber had waited for Wiley to grow big enough to bear the hardship of the gospel train because, his contact had told him, the gospel train is a hard ride. Once you’re on, he said, you can’t get off. Moses got a pistol sleeping in her pocket, and if you squawk ’bout getting off, she’ll pull the trigger and tell the hammer to hurry and leave you to the fishes. She won’t leave you behind to tell tales.

  So Amber had waited for a year and a half, eighteen full months, until Wiley was nearly sixteen, the boy shooting up four inches and broadening at the shoulders like his pa Nate, who, Amber was sure, knew nothing of the plan—and Amber wasn’t telling. Nate would never approve. Neither would Mary. Amber had planned it carefully, meticulously. He would let the boy deal with his parents later.

  Just before they broke for freedom, Nate, Wiley’s pa, disappeared on the Chesapeake with Massa Boyd, never to return.

  The explosion of grief and guilt had cost him six more months. Nate wouldn’t have wanted his son to run. Neither did his widow, Mary. And now that her husband was dead, Amber could scarcely bear the thought of stealing his nephew from his heartbroken sister. But Wiley’s thirst for freedom only grew after his father passed away. He’d begged Amber, so Amber fought through the grief and guilt and waited another precious six months in silence. That was long enough. He had recently given the signal to the contact: We are ready to go. All he needed now was to hear that Moses had arrived to run her train north. He had no plans on marrying and starting a family and hanging himself up on the eastern shore for the rest of his life. Neither did he plan on shucking Missus Kathleen. His heart felt heavy for the missus. The Sullivans were the kindest family in Dorchester County as far as he was concerned, and when he got to where he was going, wherever that was, he planned to get a job and save enough money to buy himself from Miss Kathleen free and clear. He had his sister to contend with, after all. Mary, he knew, would never leave. She spent too many mornings as Miss Kathleen did, standing out in front of the cabin facing the bay, watching the horizon, hoping the ragged mutton-leg sail of Mr. Boyd’s boat would appear. Her sad foolishness, her belief that Nate would return, her willingness to wait for a miracle just like Miss Kathleen, made Amber furious. But then again, he had never allowed himself to love before, never felt that urgent pull that he’d seen drive women mad, drove men to drink, and drove the colored to rope themselves into a lifetime of servitude with freedom only eighty miles away. Love, he knew, was a powerful force, a tender trap, to keep a man in servitude—to someone or something—until he was dead as a piece of wood and turned against his own interest. He suspected, with no small amount of disgust, that if his sister knew he was planning to break north with her son, she’d turn him in. Turn in her own flesh and blood. The thought made him angry and want to run even more.

  But he’d waited too long now. Circumstances had piled against his door of opportunity. His unwillingness to court and marry over the past year had brought too much suspicion on him. He was twenty-three. Miss Kathleen was not stupid. She had thought enough about it to bring up the unspeakable today, to ask him point-blank, to his face, about running. If she could air out the most forbidden subject between whites and coloreds—that of running away—there was no doubt she was considering selling him. She was hard pressed for cash, living day to day. They all knew it. She could not afford to lose him and gain nothing if he ran off. She’d have to sell him at the greatest possible profit, which meant selling him to a trader from the Deep South, from which escape was nearly impossible. He had to move soon.

  But the Dreamer had crimped his plans. He had stolen off to see her during the day, several times now, at the old Indian burial ground where he’d hidden her. He’d provided her with food and medicine to heal her head wound. She had been grateful, and what’s more, her beauty, her humility, her depth, and her innocence regarding her startling gift was, he had to confess, magnetic. Her slender arms, long neck, doe eyes—which, as her wounded face healed, took on more and more of what he could see was a stunning natural beauty as she viewed her surroundings with a kind of peaceful resignation—sent a tremble into his chest. The Dreamer awakened in him a deep craving, an ache that he’d long since dismissed and fought to bury within himself: his own loneliness. How lonely he was! He’d trained himself so hard to crush those kinds of feelings. He’d seen it happen too often. A Negro man meets a woman. He falls in love, follows nature’s course, starts a family, then the moment his master needs money, he bears the crushing hurt of watching his wife whipped, his children sold, his family separated, all for the price of a horse or the cost of putting on a new roof. He’d long ago decided that no part of nature’s calli
ng would deter him from freedom; he’d resolved to take his own life before he let love make him weak.

  But the Dreamer made his stomach dance with excitement. The sound of her voice made the birds’ songs more noticeable and the sunshine brighter than he had ever noticed it could be. It was not her beauty that drew him; it was her thoughts, her convictions, her dreams, her sense of understanding about tomorrow, her curiosity. She was, in a word, magical.

  Yet, she did not want to ride the gospel train. He had made the offer several times and she’d refused it.

  That made her suspicious, and possibly a witch.

  Like most watermen, Amber was deeply superstitious, and lately he’d seen a number of bad tokens—signs of bad luck. Two days earlier, after returning from handing off a few supplies to the Dreamer, he found a black walnut near the doorway of his cabin. That was a token. The next morning his sister Mary woke up whistling. That was bad luck. The night previous, one of Miss Kathleen’s hens crowed at night. Another bad token. And the day before, Wiley had taken a bath during a rainstorm. That was extreme bad luck. But all the bad tokens were nothing compared to the puzzlement of this woman’s dreams. He had never heard anything like them before: Fat colored children who sang songs of murder and sat in front of glowing boxes with moving pictures—he had never seen a fat colored child his entire life! Young colored men who yelled at white people while riding in giant horseless chariots. Coloreds and whites riding in the same car? With coloreds yelling at whites? Impossible! Colored boys shooting rifles out the windows of horseless chariots at other colored boys? Colored women with fake blue eyes; white children who ran from books like they were poison. The ideas sounded ridiculous. Like most Negroes, he had no idea of what the outside world was like. No one who had gone north had returned to tell him of the unknown world that lay beyond Maryland’s eastern shore, and no white man he knew could be trusted to tell it honestly. The coloreds claimed the North was all pancakes and syrup. The whites claimed it was hell on earth, a place where coloreds were starved to death and turned out to the cold and ice. He was unsure who to believe, yet he knew that wherever he fled, even if he was a stranger in a strange land, it had to be better than where he was. That was the problem with the Dreamer’s vision: Trouble in his own time he could handle. Trouble in tomorrow, however, he could not.

  She had said the North wasn’t worth running to. What did that mean? He had a million questions for her but never the time to ask them, for when he arrived at the old Indian burial ground, he could never stay more than a few minutes without attracting suspicion. He wasn’t sure if he should ask the questions anyway. After all, she was a woman, wasn’t she? How much asking is a man allowed? She was weak, was she not? And young, younger than he was. Certainly she was too physically fragile, given her wound, to survive by herself. He needed to protect her, not the other way around. But then again, she’d made it this far alone, and had sprung fourteen people besides! Maybe she was a witch. He was at times so confused that he was sorry he’d met her. Nothing good, he suspected, would come of it.

  He was lost in thought, the little boy’s words warbling in, cutting through the fog of his thinking, when he heard the Sullivans’ dog bark and heard the boy cry out.

  —Lucky’s onto something!

  He blinked out of his fog to see the dog trot towards the grove of pine trees, barking and howling.

  Amber rose and looked into the grove of pine trees.

  —Maybe it’s a fox back there, he said.

  He dropped the basket of seeds, picked up his hoe, and strode to-wards the grove of pines, keeping several yards behind the dog. The dog ran towards a spot in the pine trees and dug at it. Amber approached the spot, then heard a rustle of bushes and branches from behind him and turned to a grove of pine trees to see three figures emerge from the thickly wooded area.

  They appeared like ghosts from the thick woods and thickets that ran alongside Sinking Creek, which lay to the west side of the grove of pines. There was an old timber trail back there that ran along the creek, rarely used and overgrown, too thick in many places to ride on horseback; but when the three figures burst through to the clearing, it was obvious that they had taken that trail, for he noted that they were thick with thistles and on foot leading their horses.

  As soon as they stepped into the clearing, the three mounted their horses and galloped past him to the front of the house. Miss Kathleen heard the sound of their approach and came out to greet them.

  Amber, Jeff, and the dog left the cornfield and trotted behind them just as Miss Kathleen stepped outside.

  —Morning, Miss Kathleen said.

  The visitors were no smiles and no-nonsense. A tall, sharp-featured woman in a wide-brim hat with two men. All of them armed. The woman, he noticed, was attractive, with long dark hair and dark eyes that sucked in everything around her like a sponge. She sat atop her mount with the poise and skill of a seasoned rider and, despite her good looks, wore her hat like a man, tipped steeply over her face.

  She pointed at him and spoke to Miss Kathleen.

  —That yours?

  —In this part of the Neck, we say good morning before we ask people their personal business, Miss Kathleen said.

  —Excuse me, the woman said. Mary Wright is the name. We’re looking for some escaped niggers.

  —I heard of it.

  —We’re a posse from Cambridge City trying to ride them down. One of them’s a woman. A killer. The other is a big, giant Negro from these parts.

  —I know Linus, Miss Kathleen said. We ain’t seen him here. You ought to check with John Gables. John owned him and passed him on to a trader, who sold him. They’re the next farm over. ’Bout seven miles back.

  —We’re going there next, Patty said. Just thought we’d check here first.

  —The Gables are east of here, Kathleen said. You coming from the west, which is my land. How you get there?

  —We rode through.

  —If you hunting Negroes on my land, I’d like to know it, Kathleen said.

  Amber saw a flash of anger cross the tall woman rider’s face, then calm.

  —Runaway niggers don’t stop and ask permission where to go, miss. I would think we are doing you a favor, checking the back trail by the creek there.

  —There ain’t nothing back there, Miss Kathleen said.

  —He was back there, Patty said, pointing to Amber.

  Kathleen’s eyes flashed angrily and Amber felt himself shake. He had a terrible feeling about this woman rider. He initially had no idea who she was, but now, standing here, watching her broad shoulders, her confident manner, the flat singsong voice, which Negroes from far and wide said was a dead giveaway—her voice is flat as buzzard grease, they said—he had an idea, and he fought the panic that edged its way up his throat.

  —He was planting corn by the edge of the woods, was what he was doing, Miss Kathleen said.

  —Mind if I talk to him? the woman rider asked.

  —I certainly do mind it.

  —He got something to hide?

  —He ain’t got nothing to hide. He belongs to me, that’s what.

  —If he’s harboring runaway niggers, you’re liable to the law, Patty said.

  —You a lawman?

  —I already told you who I am. I ain’t got to tell you twice. You gonna let me talk with that nigger or not?

  Amber watched Miss Kathleen bite her lip, in deep thought.

  —All right, she said finally.

  Amber’s heart sank.

  —I got two more coloreds inside, Kathleen said. Lemme go on and get the other two. You can talk to all three of them together and be done with it.

  She spoke tersely to her son: Jeff Boy, come on in here.

  She went inside the house, leading Jeff by the hand. Amber stood stiffly where he was, trying to keep the fear off his face, running a litany of lies through his mind. Which to tell first? He was not counting on any of this. He had no idea where Wiley was. Was he in town? He was supposed to be. Di
d Wiley, who found the Dreamer, tell someone? Mary, inside with Miss Kathleen’s other two children, he was sure, knew nothing about the Dreamer. Yet, if Amber confessed to the Dreamer’s whereabouts, Mary would be in trouble too.

  He stood uncomfortably, hands at his side, sandwiched between the three riders, who sat patiently looking at him and saying nothing. The four of them watched the house door close behind Miss Kathleen.

  Seconds later the door opened with a bang, as Miss Kathleen had yanked it hard and strode outside, bearing a rifle, pointed at the woman rider.

  To his surprise, the woman rider smiled at Kathleen, grim and calm.

  —What we done wrong, miss?

  —I know every posse out of Cambridge City, Kathleen said, and you ain’t in any of ’em.

  Amber watched in horror as the two riders next to the woman slowly lowered their hands towards their side arms. Their woman leader, however, shook her head at them.

  —You ain’t got to get all lathered about it, miss, she said.

  —I know who you are, Miss Patty, Kathleen said.

  —I got no hank with you, Patty said. You can check with the constable. I’m riding the patrols. We are providing a service.

  —Your service is stealing niggers.

  Amber saw the color rise into Patty’s face, the lines in her face tightening.

  —Them niggers was my property, she said.

  —And these here is mine, Miss Kathleen said.

  —I got no hank with your niggers, Patty said. Just want to talk to ’em.

  —You do your talking at somebody else’s coloreds. I’ll thank you to leave now.

  Patty shrugged.

  —Have it your way, she said. But if that big nigger Linus rides in on you, don’t say we didn’t tell you.

  Patty took a long look around: at the deserted barn, the empty shed, the empty port where Massa Boyd’s bungy was missing. She picked up her reins, then motioned for the other two men to move out. The two spun their big horses around, but Patty stayed put.