47 (17 page)

"What else do you have to do?" Tobias asked warily.

"I can only show you," said the slave in the voice of a free man.

I could see the two feelings in the slave master's face. He had never had a Negro speak to him thus. For such a
slight he was duty-bound to punish the offender. But on
the other hand he loved his daughter more than anything-
I could see all that in Tobias's visage as plainly as I could
see the fingers on my own hand.

Finally Tobias said, "Go on then."

"Come, Forty-seven," he said to me. "This is the hard
est part."

Together we went back to the girl's side.

John leaned close to me and whispered, "You have to show her the way back."

Before I could ask him what he meant he took a step
back and held out one hand to me while placing the other
on the girl's brow.

The moment I took John's hand I was no longer in
Eloise's room. Instead I found myself in a field of yellow
flowers. I was naked standing next to the girl. She was
naked too.

It was broad daylight above us but at the horizon (which
seemed to be very far away) night had already fallen. Just at
the place where the land touches the sky there hung a beau
tiful crescent moon. Eloise was staring at that moon. I real
ized that she had been gazing in that direction even in her
bed. Her face was turned fully toward the eerie lunar glow.

She took a step toward the horizon.

I took a closer look at the moon, and in the dark harbor
of its arc I saw the grinning skull of Death. I knew then that
Eloise had been so close to dying that she had almost com
pleted her journey when Tall John gave her the medicine.

I realized that it was my job to keep her from going toward the darkness under that moon.

But there was a serious problem. I was a black slave
while she was the white-skinned daughter of the Master. I
wasn't supposed to touch her even with clothes on. I wasn't
even supposed to speak in her presence. I was afraid that if
she became aware of me she'd scream and her father would
slaughter me for molesting his child.

She took another step.

"What should I do, John?" I called out, half hoping that Eloise would hear.

But John didn't answer and Eloise moved another step
toward the darkness.

The horizon seemed much closer now. Eloise was no more than a dozen paces from her death.

"Miss Eloise," I said softly.

She made no sign that she heard.

She took another step.

"Miss Eloise," I said boldly.

But still she didn't hear.

"Miss Eloise!"

She took two steps, moving faster now.

She was beginning to run toward the night.

I knew then that there was nothing else I could do. I
ran after her and grabbed her by her pale shoulders. She
struggled against me but I used all of the strength in my
young limbs to drag her back toward the sunlit field of yel
low flowers.

"Let me aloose," she cried.

But I didn't stop until we were in the light again, until there was no darkness or crescent moon anywhere to be
seen.

Still she gazed toward the place where the skull-face of

Death had loomed, but I stood in front of her, blocking her
line of vision.

She noticed me and then looked down at the flowers
around her feet.

When her gaze came back to me she asked, "You're one
of pap's niggers ain't you, boy?" she asked me. "The one
that was spyin' on me from the barn."

She didn't seem concerned about our lack of clothes.
Actually she didn't even seem to notice.

"Neither master nor nigger be," I said fearfully. I had to
say it but I felt that even though the sky was clear I'd be
struck down by a bolt from the white man's God.

"Where are we?" Eloise asked.

"You sick, miss," I said. "Me'n my friend Number
Twelve is tryin' to make you bettah. You was walkin' in a deathly direction but I grabbed you an' dragged you back."

"Are you usin' slave magic?" she asked.

"I reckon we is," I said. "It sho seem like it."

"I hear Nola cryin'," Eloise said, cocking her ear.

I could hear it too. The soft sobs were coming from
nowhere it seemed.

"Back in yo bedroom ma'am," I said. "She's back there
worried that you about to expire."

"But I won't die?"

"I don't think so. Not today anyway."

"So you saved my life," she said, staring into my eyes.

"I s'pose so. You were strayin' toward Death an' we
brung you back home."

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Forty-seven."

"Thank you, Forty-seven. Thank you for savin' my life."

I appreciated her gratitude but there was something
else that was even more important to me. I really
had
saved
her life. I had used my mind and my courage to brave
Death and Master Tobias to do what I thought was right.
These actions made me a man, and a real man, I knew,
could never be a slave.

From that moment on I never thought of myself as a
slave again.

Suddenly I was back in Eloise's bedroom. She was awake
and staring into my eyes. She smiled and I knew that she
was going to live.

"Is she gonna live, Number Twelve?" Tobias asked in a
loud voice.

"Yes, sir, I believe she is."

"All right then. Mr. Stewart?"

"Yes, boss?"

"Take these two filthy niggers and throw them in the
Tomb."

I felt rough hands grab me by the shoulders. Two white
men ran in and knocked John to the floor.

John had a look of terror and shock on his face.

"What are you doing, Tobias Turner?" he asked with a
crack in his voice.

"What I should'a done the minute you stood up an

called me by my name," Tobias said. "This is no house of
abolitionists. You will pay for your crimes."

"But I saved your daughter," John said. I could hear the pain and confusion in his words.

"God saved my child," Tobias said. "And now I shall do
his will by punishing you."

One of the white men hit John in the face and he fell
unconscious.

"Check his pockets to see what else he stole from me," Tobias told them.

The only thing they found was the cigar-shaped sleep
inducing device. Tobias took that and put it in his pocket.
Then the white men dragged John from the room.

I was deeply shocked by this brutality. After all, I had
just come from a bright field of beauty and saving the Mas
ter's child. But those men didn't care how I felt. The men who held me battered me around the shoulders and head
and dragged me from the room.

Flore yelled out, "babychile!" and I called out for her,
but to no avail.

The Tomb was a tiny shack that had once been an out
house. It sat in the middle of the yard and Mr. Stewart
used it to punish slaves without permanently damaging
them. It was no bigger than a deep coffin on the inside
with just enough room for a male slave
or two smaller
boy slaves, as we found out.

Mr. Stewart chained us hand and foot and tied us to
gether. Then he locked the door behind us. It was dark in
there and filled with biting maggots and ticks. As the sun bore down on the yard the heat rose in there until it was
hotter than I had ever known.

"Are you all right, Forty-seven?"

"No," I answered petulantly. "Here I am in the jail
when I should be free all'acause you had to go talkin' to that white man like he was a babychile."

"But we saved his daughter," John said in the darkness,
where I was sure we'd die.

"But you a niggah, man," I cried. "An' ain't no niggah
gonna ever speak to a white man wit'out givin' him his
proper due."

"Neither master nor nigger be," he said in the darkness.

I wanted to strangle those words out of his throat but I
knew that he was just ignorant of our ways. It had been less
than a day since we had shared the dream of his land with
his tiny, rainbow-colored people. But a lot had happened since then. Part of me thought that his land of Elle on the
ocean named Universe was just a dream. But I knew in my
heart that it wasn't, that Tall John was really from beyond
Africa and had to be forgiven for not knowing that he was
inferior to the slave master's power.

"Listen, Forty-seven," John said. "That's the reason I
need you. I've lived among your people for many years but
I've never understood their brutality. I was always on the outside
passing through."

"But you been a slave," I argued.

"I always had the power to shrug off my chains and es
cape. I never really paid all that much attention to the people
I met along the way because I was looking for you. I sup
pose that I always looked down on everyone I met and
therefore never realized how they felt. Not until now when
all of my power has been drained off to save the girl Eloise."

"That's why you need me?" I asked. "To understand
how slaves feel?"

"No. Wall is coming."

"That's Mr. Pike?"

"Yes. He is a great power among his people. Much
greater than I. You know how to survive against forces
much greater than you. You are the teacher and I am the
dunce. Without you there can be no future for anyone."

And even there, in my greatest danger, I felt the ur
gency in John's words.

"Deep under the ground in your world there is a kind of
metal," John continued. "It looks like green powder but
when it is spun at a great speed it starts spinning on its own
and goes even faster. It picks up speed more and more un
til finally it goes so fast that it tears apart the glue that holds
the universe in place."

"And Andrew Pike want that green powder?"

"Yes. He wants to make it spin and blow up everything."

"Why would somebody wanna do sumpin' like that?"

"Because," John said, "in another place beyond the
world where we see and breathe there is a river of con
sciousness
"

"That's what you said before. But what do the count
esses river got to do with green powder?"

"Not countess but consciousness
psi what thoughts
and dreams are made of," John explained. "You and I and
all of my people and all of yours "

"You mean Champ and Mama Flore too?" I asked.

"And Tobias and Eloise," John added.

I didn't say anything but I was surprised that John saw
Tobias and me as belonging to the same people
as if we