Song Yet Sung

by James McBride

  Joe, breathing heavily, holstered his Paterson. Denwood did the same. Joe turned his horse slightly, faced the Negro, and said, Don’t you move.

  As Joe’s horse spun around, Denwood noted that beneath Joe’s saddle blanket, nearly hidden by Joe’s left leg, was the long barrel of a Colt Walker, a huge saddle pistol. Joe faced him.

  —Now listen, Joe, Denwood said. This colored belongs to that lady on the farm at the end of this trail. He ain’t lying. Constable Travis and a bunch of watermen are up there running up and down Blackwater Creek, looking for him.

  —If he’s a runaway, then I’ll collect on him, Joe said.

  —They ain’t looking for him. Boy’s gone missing up there. A white boy ’bout eight years old. You seen him?

  —You think I’m setting out here strangling a bottle of wine? Joe grumbled. You trying to take my money from me. There ain’t no white boy out in these woods.

  —I ain’t got no interest in lyin’ on that, Joe. Where’d you get this colored from, anyway?

  —Gathered him up from town.

  —Wasn’t no white boy with him?

  —Hell no, I got this one coming out the blacksmith’s. Just a lonely nigger all by hisself. We was doing fine. Till you come along.

  Denwood cursed silently. He was too late. Probably this colored had already dropped the Dreamer off there.

  —Then who was that just came busting past here on a horse?

  —That was the other nigger that rode up on me and tried to kill me, Joe said.

  —That ain’t true, Amber blurted out. That was my nephew, Wiley.

  Joe grimaced angrily and hissed, Shush up, nigger!

  —Calm down, Joe, Denwood said. He turned to the young colored. Your nephew got a horse? Denwood asked.

  —Naw.

  —Your missus got one?

  —Naw.

  —Then whose horse was it? Denwood asked.

  Amber didn’t reply. Joe looked away, realized that Denwood was staring at him, and shrugged. Don’t ask me: I didn’t get a good look, he said.

  —Why not? You was right on him.

  —I didn’t eyeball him for the simple reason these two niggers was trying to kill me, Joe said.

  Denwood peered down the logging trail where Wiley had disappeared.

  —Well, it looked like a gelding to me, he said. White and brown.

  Joe’s eyes darted to the woods around him. Denwood noticed and his own eyes narrowed.

  —Joe, you sure you don’t know whose horse that is?

  —Surely don’t, he said.

  —If I recall correctly, back at Lloyd’s Landing, a short-necked fella in your crew—fella named Odgin, I think—he rode a white and brown gelding favored to that one.

  —I don’t know what Odgin rides.

  —I wanna take this fella to his missus, Denwood said, nodding at Amber. His nephew done probably told his missus an interesting story or two.

  —He ain’t going no place, Gimp.

  —He ain’t yours, Joe.

  —Yours, neither! Since when you in the abolition business? He’s a runaway. I’ll collect on him.

  —I’m taking him to his missus with you, then. We’ll go together.

  —Like hell we are, Joe said.

  Joe’s face reddened and he drew his Paterson again, his lips pursed. He aimed the barrel at Denwood.

  —Now, what’s it to you, Joe, running him out here for nothing, Denwood said calmly. Ain’t but one way off this neck by land. If you bust a cap in me here, how you gonna get away? You gonna swing for murder. I ain’t drawn my heater. It’s put up. See?

  —I ’bout had it with you, you crippled, meddlin’ pester!

  Denwood felt the rage noise rising in his ears and fought it down.

  —All right, then. I’m sorry, Joe. You keep him. I ain’t getting aired out over no colored. Call it even. For Lloyd’s Landing. I’ll be on my way. But next time you pull a cap buster on me, or even loose your mouth in my direction, throw out your fuckin’ fishing plans. I’m getting sick of you.

  Denwood turned and limped towards his horse, sensing Joe’s Paterson trained on his neck.

  —I’m tired of the friendship too, Joe said softly.

  Denwood stood facing his horse and closed his eyes. He waited to hear the last boom of his life, the big one, the one he’d wanted, welcomed, waited for all these years; the one he’d wanted since his son died. He wanted relief from the rage that constantly consumed him, the money worries, the anxiety, the memory of his wife, the regrets for the hundreds of things said and left unsaid between them. He wanted what the coloreds hollered for so fervently all the time: a release, all things being equaled out, to the promised land, where all things and all people were equal. He was tired of chasing them, anyway. This was, he realized, his last job. Noticing Amber standing terrified on the other side of his horse, watching him and Joe play this death game, his life in the balance, Denwood suddenly realized that it was he, not the coloreds, who was the real runaway. Running from himself, from what he was and what he should have been: a waterman like his father. The old man had died coughing from consumption after living off pennies, so poor that his only dream of going whole hog on a steamer to Baltimore died with him; but at least his father had died having stood for something. The old man had refused to participate in the Trade, even though several of his fellow watermen gave up dredging oysters for the relative prosperity of chasing human chattel up and down the highways of the eastern shore, shepherding their weeping charges to piers in Cambridge City, where they were loaded onto huge schooners that took them to points south while the watermen turned slave catchers collected smooth dollars as fast as they could, the Devil keeping score. Instead, the old man lived dirt poor, drinking moonshine from a jar and stacking his meager oyster catch on the same piers where his friends docked their massive dories, cackling gleefully over their wealth and good fortune. Frustrated by his poverty, the elder Long had whipped his young son Denwood nearly blind for the most trivial offenses, and Denwood had resented it: he let the old man know it, too, once he’d gotten fat as a slave catcher himself. By then the old man was too broke and old to oyster and needed Denwood’s help, yet refused it, delivering the most crippling blow of all just before he died, saying, Son, you’ve made money trading cash for blood, and I don’t want a penny of what you got. I’d rather starve to death than feed myself from your pocket. At least I know who I am.

  That curse alone had kept Denwood running for years. He knew now, as Joe aimed his Paterson at his neck, that his father had been right: he had a debt to pay, and now was as good a time as any to pay it.

  He waited for the boom but instead heard the sound of metal striking meat, like the sound of a knife striking a herring or a bristle brush smacking the side of a pig. It was followed by the blast of Joe’s Paterson discharging near his ear, causing him to crouch and wince in pain from the noise. But when the roar of the heater died and he straightened up, he found, to his amazement, that he was unmarked. Denwood turned to see Joe’s horse reeling in a half circle, a hatchet stuck in Joe’s shoulder, then whipped around to see the Negro prisoner with his back to him, staring at what appeared to be a wave of leaves rolling towards a thick stand of cypress trees, moving so fast that it appeared that the wind had picked them up and pushed them along.

  The patch of leaves swept past no more than five feet away, just over the Negro prisoner’s shoulder, yet it was a full five seconds before Denwood realized he was staring at the back of a tall, long-limbed colored man, blood running down his back from a wound of some kind. The man cut through the swamp so fast that Denwood thought he was dreaming, and had he not glimpsed a huge, muscular calf silhouetted against the bark of a white oak that had grown among the dark cypress trees, he would have thought he’d imagined him completely. Before Denwood could blink, the ebony man had vanished into the thickets, the woods closing behind him with the finality of a door slamming shut.

  —Joe, when the Devil invites you to a party, h
e brings every one of his friends, Denwood said. What the hell was that?

  But Joe wasn’t listening. His horse spun about as his free right hand grappled desperately with a hatchet embedded in his left shoulder, while his face twisted in rage and agony.

  —You ambushed me, you bastard! I weren’t going to shoot. You had somebody lying to!

  —That’s a lie, Joe, Denwood said. It ain’t my fault this swamp is lousy with goose shit and stray niggers!

  Joe dropped the spent Paterson into the mud, and with his right hand reached across his hips for the Colt Walker in the saddle blanket on his left side. But with the hatchet still buried in his shoulder, it was slow going. Finally he was able to push the saddle blanket aside and draw the gun towards him, but the gun barrel was so long that he could not pull the weapon completely free of its holster. Moreover, his horse kept reeling, slowing Joe’s progress and giving Denwood time to back away and pull out his pepperbox. Denwood stepped behind a tree just a few feet away and aimed the pepperbox from his hip.

  —You pull that Walker, Joe, and I’m gonna dust you.

  —I ain’t gonna do nothing, Joe said, as he continued to fumble with the Colt, nearly out of its holster now.

  —Then why you pulling at it? Let it alone.

  —I’m just checking it, you nigger-loving bastard. I got a right to protect myself out here. ’Specially with you ambushing me with extra niggers.

  —I never seen that man in my life, Joe.

  Joe struggled with the Walker, its long barrel finally free of the holster, the gun so heavy Joe seemed to have trouble swinging the barrel up.

  —I’ll get that hatchet out of your shoulder, you stop moving round, Denwood said, stepping forward to reach for the handle of the hatchet and trying to keep the alarm out of his voice.

  But Joe had the gun barrel up now, albeit shakily, and tried to maneuver his horse around to angle for a shot. Denwood grabbed the horse’s reins and pulled hard, nearly throwing Joe.

  —Git off from me, you devilin’ mousy bastard, Joe said.

  —You gonna shoot me? Denwood said, backing away, his hand on the pepperbox.

  —Won’t do no such thing, Joe said, but as he righted himself he spun towards Denwood, swinging the barrel of the heavy revolver towards him, and Denwood let loose with the pepperbox.

  The tiny pistol roared twice.

  Sitting on his horse, Joe stared at the hole in his shirt, then slowly raised his head and looked at Denwood in surprise.

  —You can’t kill me, Gimp, I own a tavern. It’s paid for.

  He fell half off his horse, one foot caught in the stirrup, his head splashing into the swamp water beneath the horse’s feet.

  The Negro stared at Joe, wide-eyed. Denwood stood where he was until his breathing slowed. The scorched barrel of the pepperbox in his hand was burning, forcing him to drop it. One barrel had blown completely open. The gun was useless.

  Joe’s horse moved nervously, swishing Joe’s head back and forth in the swamp.

  Denwood closed his eyes for a moment, trying to focus. This thing had gone all the way out of control. The Negro eyed him nervously.

  —You seen it. He pulled on me.

  The Negro nodded silently.

  Denwood glanced at the woods behind Amber where the Woolman had disappeared.

  —God damn, whatever that was, it was fast, he said. He blinked quickly, trying to clear his head, then said, Get Joe off that horse and git on it. We ain’t got a lot of time before whoever Joe was riding with comes round. You know that nigger?

  —Don’t know him and don’t wanna know him. Can I go home now?

  —We ain’t going no place but to where that girl is.

  —She ain’t out here, Amber said.

  —Why was you taking him here, then?

  —I didn’t want him to get aholt of her, so I was taking him to the old Indian burial ground.

  —Where’s that?

  —It ain’t far from here, Amber said. Just the other side of Sinking Creek. But she ain’t there.

  —I ’bout had enough of everybody telling me this, that, and the other, Denwood said. Tell you what: We’re here now. We’ll have a look-see.

  Amber gazed fearfully into the cypress swamp where the Woolman had vanished.

  —But the burial ground’s that way, he protested. Right where that devil was headed! We ain’t got to follow that wild nigger, do we?

  —Be quiet and mount up, Denwood said. I don’t know who to believe no more. Help me move him first.

  Without another word, Amber undid Joe’s foot from the stirrup. He helped Denwood drag the body into the thicket, out of sight of the trail, then mounted Joe’s horse. He watched Denwood pocket Joe’s Paterson, pull several paper cartridge charges from Joe’s saddlebag, and then step into the thicket to pull out his own horse, which Denwood mounted and pointed down the logging trail towards Sinking Creek and the old Indian burial ground.

  finding the woolman

  The evening fog had already rolled in, and Constable Travis’s posse had called it quits by the time Wiley made it to the clearing of the Sullivan farm. They were gathered around the kitchen table when he burst in the door with Patty Cannon’s pistol in his hand, amid screams of relief and delight by his mother and the Sullivan children. But the rigid countenance of Kathleen Sullivan muted the celebration, and Wiley cast a long glance at the floor before he spoke.

  —Well? Kathleen asked.

  —It was a colored man, Wiley said. He runs faster than I ever seen a person run. I chased him past Sinking Creek all the way past the Indian burial ground. Seemed like he was headed out towards Cook’s Point, Missus. Just when I got to Sinking Creek, I got struck across the face by a white lady.

  Kathleen’s face reddened and she looked earthward, composing herself, then at Wiley again.

  —What happened exactly?

  —Just like I said. This white missus knocked me ’cross the face. Her and two other fellas, they took me ’long with them. God ’a mercy, there’s so much going on, I don’t understand it. They had Amber out there, too, some kind of way. A white feller had him. He tried to throw his pistol on me but Amber throwed him off that job. I don’t know what all’s going, but there’s trouble all about, Missus. Devilment everyplace.

  —What about Jeff Boy?

  —I tried to tell ’em, Wiley said, but they wouldn’t believe me. I told ’em a devil done snatched Jeff Boy. But they made me come with them. Every time I opened my mouth on it they said shut up, and finally they got so they tied me to a horse and pulled me along. She let him get away! he cried. He burst into tears.

  There was silence in the room, broken only by Wiley’s sobs, which quickly slowed to sniffles. He stood and moved backward to the door, leaning on it, weak with exhaustion and terror. Kathleen pulled up a chair and pushed him into it. He sat heavily with his head back. She knelt by him.

  She was afraid to ask it, but she had to.

  —Was he alive? Was my Jeffrey alive when you saw him?

  Wiley, his head turned upwards to the ceiling, straightened up and looked directly at her for first time, then lowered his eyes to the dusty floorboards.

  —Last I seen him, he was very much alive, Missus. He was yelling to beat the band. It broke my heart to hear him yelling, but he was alive, surely. He weren’t hurt.

  He wiped a tear from his face. I’m sorry, Missus, Wiley said.

  Kathleen nodded at Wiley’s shaking hand. In his lap, still held tightly in his grip, was Patty Cannon’s pistol.

  —How’d you get that? she asked.

  Wiley looked down. He seemed surprised to see the gun in his hand.

  —I musta took it from one of them, he said. That colored fella come on back for more and them white folks gived it to him. He killed one of them outright. The other white man, he seen that black devil and he runned off. The white lady, why, she gived that wild man all the fight he wanted. As God is my savior, she fought like a man, Missus. They was terrible, Lord. The dev
il! Both of ’em. I reckon I picked this off the ground while they was fightin’. Take this thing, Missus. I don’t want it.

  Kathleen stared at the gun, undecided about what to do, then gently removed it from Wiley’s hand. She checked to see if was loaded, then turned to Mary.

  —Mary, stick some biscuits and oysters in that stove and feed him till he comes to himself, she instructed. Clean him up, then put him in my bed and put the children to sleep on the floor here with you.

  She rose and reached for her husband’s oilskin jacket and hat, which hung on a hook next to the door. I’m going to look for Jeff myself, she said grimly.

  Wiley sat up straight. They’re killers, Missus, he said. The whole lot of ’em. You’d best wait till morning and the constable comes back. Or let me come with you, then. They got Amber, too, in some kind of fashion.

  —You’ll stay here with your mother. If Amber’s out there, I got all the help I need. If I can find him…

  She looked at Mary. Kathleen carefully slipped the pistol gently into Mary’s dress pocket.

  —Anybody comes in here—so help me God, I’m naming my sin here, Mary—anybody comes to this door looking sideways, I want you to send that thing to barking without asking.

  Mary stared at the missus intently.

  —Let me come, Mary said softly. We don’t need two people to set round here guarding this house.

  Kathleen shook her head. These children is put to your charge till I get back or my pa gets here from Ocean City, she said.

  —You want me to send for him, Missus?

  —Not yet. He ain’t allowed to fish around in my business unless I’m dead.

  Mary gazed at the floor, thinking of the dreadful future if the unimaginable happened. Miss Kathleen’s pa had tried several times to get the missus to sell off her coloreds and move down to Ocean City with him. What if…? It was a terrible notion, the thought of Kathleen not making it back. She turned to Wiley.

  —Git your rags together and go with Missus.

  —Leave him be, Kathleen said. It was an order. She strode to the cupboard of the kitchen, retrieved her Winchester rifle, powder, minié balls, a hunting knife, several pieces of bread, and a few pieces of salted pork. She wrapped the food in a calico blanket, slung it across her back, and marched to the door. She opened it and saw the large gelding that Wiley had ridden in on. She turned to see Wiley and Mary staring at her.