47 (14 page)

After a long while lying in the mud I waded out into the
water to wash my skin and rough blouse. When we were ready to go John looked up at the sky and scowled.

"Clouds," he said. "We may have to find shelter."

Him saying the word
shelter
reminded me of something.

"How did you know where that tree trunk where we sat
down on was?" I asked. "I mean you walked right to it just
like you knew it was there."

"You see, Forty-seven?" he said as if I had just proven a
point. "You notice things and you don't only notice but you
ask why. Those are only two of the reasons why you are
destined to become a great hero."

"You ain't answered my question, John."

"I've been hanging around the plantation for almost a week," he said. "Looking for you."

"Me?"

"I could sense you, hear your music among all of the
music that men make with their blood."

"Music in they blood?" I said, suddenly afraid that John
might be some kind of devil that drinks men's blood.

"Yes," he said with a smile. "Every living being has
their own song thrilling through the strings that hold them
together. I knew your song. I just had to make sure I really
heard it playing in amongst the others. And once I knew
you were here I had to meet you to make sure that you
were up to the task."

"What task?"

"Saving the universe."

"Where's that?"

"Everywhere," he said, "all over the world and up to
the stars."

"Like a ocean?"

"Something like that," John said.

"If you was free an' lookin' fo' me den why'd you let
'em make you into a slave?" I asked.

"Because of a creature named Wall," John said seri
ously.

"Who's that?"

"He's the one who might destroy everything unless we
stop him. He found out that I had been on the Red Clay
Plantation
"

"What was you doin' there?"

"Looking for you. All I have done for the past three
thousand years is look for you. That's because I knew
that
you would be but I didn't exactly know
where
and
when.
That's why I was on the Red Clay Plantation, because some
one with a song almost like yours was there. But when I re
alized that it wasn't you I ran away. After I left Wall caught
my scent and he took over Andrew Pike's body and came
looking for me."

"And so Andrew Pike is under a spell?"

"Pike is dead and Wall walks the earth in his flesh."

"And who is this Wall?"

"He is, as far as you are concerned, the devil."

These words shook me to my soul. I didn't want to ask
any more questions. I didn't want John to tell me any more.

Again he looked at the sky.

Again he said, "Clouds."

"Maybe it'll rain," I said, grateful for mundane conver
sation. "That'll be good for the gardens."

"But I can't carry you if the sun isn't out."

"Why not?"

"Because my powers, such as they are, are derived from solar energy. My body is like a battery that converts power of the sun into action. If I were to attempt to carry us home
without the sun shining my energy would run out and I might even die."

"How far is we from Corinthian?" I asked.

"Sixty miles at least."

Before I could voice my dismay John grabbed me by
the wrist and we took off. We ran for a short time and fi
nally came to one of the big trees we'd passed earlier. Fat
raindrops had started to fall and the sky was dark with rain
clouds.

"We'll have to stay here until the sun comes out again,"
John said.

"What if it don't come out?" I asked.

"Then we will have to wait until morning."

"Mastuh'll kill us we do that," I wailed.

"As long as you see him as master he may very well,"
John said. "But if you see that you and he are equals and
you realize that he needs you more than you need him
then, just maybe, you will be reprieved."

My heart was beating fast and my guts were churning.

"Let's try to run back," I cried.

"It's at least thirty miles away, Forty-seven, maybe
forty. We would never make it in time."

"But he'll kill us."

"Kill us and he kills his precious Eloise."

I wanted to beat the smug slave's face in. Here he had
shown me the best time of my whole life and now he was going to get me killed. Why did I ever go with him?

The rains came down hard but the thick foliage of the an
cient tree kept us mostly dry. The ground was mulched
pretty well by dead leaves and so the space was like a big,
carpeted room. When the night came on it became very

dark. John and I leaned against the bark, shoulder to shoul
der. The dark and the sound of the rain, and maybe the
fear of Tobias, made me very tired. I nodded and almost
fell asleep.

"Do you want to see where I'm from?" I thought I
heard him say.

"Might as well," I said, "seein' as it'll prob'ly be the last
story I hear 'fore Mastuh tie me to that wagon wheel an' have 'em whip me till
I'm
dead."

I turned on my side and I'm pretty sure that I fell
asleep.

I opened my eyes on a beautiful day in some far-off and
wonderful place. Not only was I awake but I was running
down an open road.

Somewhere in my mind I worried that I might be seen
by some white man who would beat me like the slave laws
demanded. I worried, but the road was broad and straight
so I figured that if I saw somebody coming that I could run
away before they could catch me and bring me back to the plantation.

But when I looked around I realized that I didn't need
to worry. The plants on the side of the road were red and
purple, without leaves, not at all like proper trees. And the sky was pink and red and the road was paved with something like glass, and there was no sun in the sky but it was
still bright and clear.

"This is where I am from," a voice said.

I stopped running and turned to see my friend was
standing there next to me.

It was John and then again it wasn't. He had the same

voice and his eyes were deep and kind as they had been on
the Corinthian Plantation. But in this new place he was a
head taller, quite a bit thinner, and his skin was more or
ange than brown. And above his head I could see a shim
mering light that moved when he did.

You can imagine that I was amazed by the events un
folding around me. The last thing I remembered was be
ing under a tree in a rainstorm. Now all of a sudden I was
in a strange new land and my friend had grown a foot and
changed colors on me.

"What the hell you doin' to me, niggah?" I said.

He pointed at me and said, "Neither master nor nig
ger be."

In this new place his words took on a new meaning.
They brought about a vision: I saw Tobias and the cowering Pritchard in my mind. The slave master was holding a
whip and the abject slave was writhing on the ground, beg
ging our master for mercy.

I didn't want to be either one of them. I reached out
in my imagination and pushed their images away. Then I turned my attention back to Taller John and his lecturing
finger.

"That's right, Forty-seven," John said as if he knew
what had been going on in my head, as if he saw the
tableau of master and slave in my mind.

"Go beyond it," John continued. "Just because they
treat you like that doesn't mean that you have to believe in
them."

As the images faded from my mind I was once again aware of the strange land around me.

"You live here?" I asked.

"No," Tall John, the orange being from beyond Africa,
said.

"But you were born here?"

"Yes," he said. "My ancestors were born here many mil
lions of years ago. It is a planet called Elle and it is so far
from Earth that it is as if it doesn't really exist."

"Far beyond the dirt?" I asked. The only time I had
heard anyone use the word
earth
they were talking about
the soil beneath our feet.

"Earth," he said again. "It is the planet you come from.
Like the moon only larger and crowded with life."

"An' this place
"

"My planet
Elle," he interjected.

"Yeah. This place Elle is a earth too but so far away that
you cain't get there?"

Tall John nodded and smiled. He was even taller now
and his orange skin was tinged with purple. The light
above his head brightened and I was beginning to think
that he wasn't a boy at all.

"An' why couldn't we bring our real bodies here?" I
asked.

"Because if I spent the rest of my life trying to get here
I would hardly be any closer than I am now under that tree
in my sleep."

"You as far from yo home as I am from my freedom," I
said, surprising myself with the thought.

John smiled and nodded. He put his hand on my shoul
der and we walked on in the strange landscape.

As we walked he spoke to me in his commanding tone.

"But I could bring us here because all I have to do is re
member and the great mind delivers me."

"Like if I remembered the river you brought me to?" I
asked. "I could go there just by rememberin' it?"

"Yes," John said. "Behind all of existence there is one
great mind. And every single living, thinking being is a
part of that mind. Once you learn to connect with it you can
always return to a place or a thought that you once had."

"Like make-believe?" I asked.

"No. We are really here at this moment but as wraiths."

"Ghosts?"

"Someone ignorant of the Great Mind might see us as ghosts but no one on Elle would make that mistake."

As we walked the red and purple forest gave way to a
wide plain made up of what looked like piles of stones.
The stacks of rock were gray and red-brown and none
were piled higher than a man. The piles were all shivering.
They looked like rock-studded cocoons ready to release
their butterflies.

"That's right," John said as if he could hear my thoughts.
"They are living things, creatures of the Calash."

"These are your people?" I asked.

"No," the taller and taller boy said. "Not really. I mean,
once we were all one people but that was so long ago that
there are very few records that survive to document our re
lationship."