Antebellum (27 page)

“I...I try...to...stop him...ma'am...”

“Chile, you ain't gotta tell me! Don' no woman return from da other side of da field lookin' like you 'less she been in a fight....”

“Don't...I don't know why he...?”

“Ain't no use in askin' what you can't answer. You hush now, girl. Lemme clean you up...”

For almost the next hour, I listened to the saddest song I'd ever heard. Nessie kept sobbing as she was being cleaned, but Aunt Sarah began humming a low, drawn out tune behind Nessie's sounds of sadness. Together they made a ballad that reached up to heaven and made the angels gasp. When my heart could take no more, I shed a tear through my closed eyes and felt it run down the side of my face and form a tiny puddle by my earlobe.

Apparently, I also moaned.

Nessie jumped up from the bed and Aunt Sarah from her seat. They ran over to me just as my eyes began to flutter.

“My Lawd!” Aunt Sarah exclaimed as she placed her hand on my forehead. “Boy, can you hear me?”

I moved my lips to speak.

“Yyyyyyeeeeee...yyyyyyeeeeee...” My voice came out as a series of hoarse chokes.

I still couldn't speak clearly, but Aunt Sarah got the point. Before she could say anything else, Bennie and Liza popped through the door. Liza spoke first, with Bennie as her backup.

“We jus' comin' to check and see...”

“Get yourselves in here! Boy's wakin' up!”

It took the ladies a split second to let Aunt Sarah's message sink in, and then they were tripping over themselves trying to get back in the room. They each stood around my bed in anticipation.

When I opened my eyes, I saw the four ladies looking down at me with smiles on their faces. I thought, just for a second, that maybe I had just been born and these three women were midwives of some sort.

“Can you nod yo head, son?” Aunt Sarah asked me in a voice so soft I wondered if she thought her tone would hurt me. I tried to nod with the little energy I had, but was unable. My neck lay stiff and tight on the bed. I took a breath and concentrated my energy. It was bad enough I couldn't talk right. I needed to be able to do this.

Focusing solely on the muscles in my neck, I was able to slowly raise my chin. It felt as though I was lifting a barbell with my neck, but I managed to get my chin up as far as it could go and bring it back down again before letting my head fall to the pillow in exhaustion.

“That's it...that's it...good, son. You done real good. Now, let's see what else you can do...”

Aunt Sarah's soft voice disappeared, replaced by a harder, more dictatorial tone. After she realized I was conscious and improving, she made it her business to learn what she needed to do to get me back to where I was when she'd first seen me.

Over the next few hours, Aunt Sarah and the ladies found out everything that was wrong with me. Because I was now awake and responsive, they told me everything they found out. My jaw was still healing and my vocal cords had been shocked, which is why I couldn't talk right. With some practice, and continued healing, Aunt Sarah believed I'd be talking in the next few days. The rest of my body wasn't so cut and dry. My arms and legs had been broken in numerous different places during my time in the cage. I could raise both my forearms high enough off of the bed to wave hello to someone, but that required more pain than I thought it was worth. The rest of my arm and shoulder I couldn't move at all. Even though it hurt, I'd turn my head as far as it could go and look at my arms. They both looked like a little child had broken them apart and tried to put them back together again. My makeshift physician said it was because the bones had been broken and hadn't healed correctly. From what I could see of my legs, they looked the same way. I could wiggle my toes and lift my legs up about an inch, but no more than that. When Liza tried to bend my legs at the knees, it felt as if someone was trying to convince the ligaments to emancipate themselves from my leg altogether. Aunt Sarah explained that it was the same problem—broken bones that hadn't healed correctly.

“I can try and fix 'im, but ain't gonna be pretty doin' it,” she said after she explained the condition of my mangled limbs.

I wanted to grab her and scream out to do whatever she had to
do to get me well again. I was forced to settle for a mumble and a head nod.

I slept off and on for the next three days, continuing to feel myself get stronger. Every day I was able to keep my eyes open longer than before, and I grew familiar with my surroundings. I felt safe, which I would later discover was because I hadn't seen a white person since I'd been brought into Aunt Sarah's triage space. At times I felt as if I had forgotten something important—as if I had started to watch a movie from the middle and had forgotten about how the film started. But I was safe, and I was being cared for, and considering what I'd gone through with Bradley, that was more than enough for me.

I later found out that Mr. Talbert, Bradley, and Reverend Lewis had been by the hut numerous times since I was first brought here. Aunt Sarah, with all her wit, made up a tale of a disease that niggers could stand, but God forbid any good, pure white folk came across it, because they would surely die. The three white men, not wanting to endanger their lives, decided to stay outside the quarantine zone until they received an okay from the expert, who had already decided to keep up the façade until the last possible moment.

On my fourth day of recovery, I was able to stay awake the entire day. My pain seemed to grow with my energy, but I used Nessie, Bennie, and Liza as my medicine. They came and went, and I made sure to give them all smiles as they bathed and pampered me. Roka would come in and periodically check on me as well. He would never speak, just stare down at me as if he was trying to solve a puzzle written on my chest. I couldn't talk to him yet either, and so his visits became staring contests that he inevitably won. When he was done, he would turn his head abruptly and walk out of the space without making a sound.

On the fifth day, Aunt Sarah and her girls gingerly walked up to me after I had awakened. I was scared before either of them opened their mouths.

“It's time dat we get to fixin' your bones, son,” Aunt Sarah began. “We goes any longer and you be bent down the rest of your life...”

I nodded my head in agreement. If anyone could fix my bones, Aunt Sarah could.

“We gots to break 'em again for them to heal good. We gots to break 'em and set 'em straight.”

I started to nod my head again, and stopped. She had just said that she was going to break my bones again. I shook my head like a wet dog.

“I knows you scared, son, but dis da only way we can get you back up. It's da only way. You gotta decide whether you wanna stay like you is, or let me fix you.”

I bent my head down again and looked at my mangled legs and arms. I'd never be any good to anyone, much less myself, if I stayed like I was. Slowly, I looked back up at Aunt Sarah and nodded my head.

“Gots me a special root. Brought it here long time ago, when I gots here. Can't give it to you till after, if you can hang on. You take it, and it be no pain. Take you somewheres only da spirits know about. When you get back in dis here world, your bones be healed. But, if you get yourself stuck dere, you gotta stay. Dey won't letcha leave. It's da only thing I gots for what you gots to go through.”

“If be stuck?” Roka had come into the room while Aunt Sarah was talking, and responded to what he heard. It was my first time hearing Roka speak. I was shocked at the concern in his monstrous voice.

“If da spirits make 'im stay, dey take his soul and keeps it there. He die here.”

“No,” Roka responded, and his one word seemed to be final. He stared straight at Aunt Sarah as he spoke, and expected nothing said in return. She stared back at him, her face soft but determined. The power of their gazes began to send shock waves through the air, and I was sure that where their stares met each other would be the epicenter of some huge explosion if they kept it up much longer.

Finally, Aunt Sarah spoke. Her hesitation was as shocking as Roka's concern.

“Roka, listen here, son...we gots to break da boy's bones to get 'em back right. He gettin' stronger, Roka, but a far cry from bein' perfect. Gots tons mo' healing to do. We puts 'im through dat kinda pain nows, and I can't promise he gon' make it. It's just too much when he so far from a full health. Least these here roots gives 'im a chance.”

Roka didn't respond, but his face softened a bit.

“Anyways you cuts it, he gon' have to fight. 'Is body ain't ready for it. Gotta take 'is chances on how strong he be on da inside. 'Sides, if he be who we's all hope, den he gotta come back, huh?”

I could see the uncertainty on Roka's face. No one said anything, but everyone's eyes bore into his wrinkled brows, and I knew the final decision was his. After some time contemplating, he turned his eyes back to Aunt Sarah.

“If he dead—”

Aunt Sarah gently cut him off.

“'Lieves me, Roka, I knows what's at stake. Dis da best way to get 'im back right again.”

“But don know.”

“Naw, only Jesus knowed what gon' happen. I knows dis be da
best thing fo' 'im, and I do everything I can to help 'im. It's all I can promise.”

Roka took a deep breath and shut his eyes tight, whispering some kind of prayer as he exhaled. When he opened his eyes again, he turned back to Aunt Sarah and nodded.

I had all sorts of questions. What exactly would this root do to me? How did they plan to break my bones? How could they be sure I would heal the way they wanted me to? Why did I have to risk death in order to get better? Didn't Aunt Sarah have any Tylenol?

My thoughts stopped abruptly.

Tylenol...why does that sound familiar...

An alarm went off in my brain, and I felt a spotlight shift from a clearing fog back to the fact that I was getting ready to have my bones broken. I opened my mouth to protest. I needed my questions answered before I let anyone touch me.

“Drrrrrrrrriiiiiiiivvvvvvvvvppppppp...mmmmmmaaaaaazzzzzzzoooop...!”

Defeated, I let my head fall to the side. I couldn't talk and could barely move. This decision wouldn't be up to me.

Roka heard my incoherent protest, and walked up to the side of my bed. Without warning he placed one hand on my forehead and the other on my stomach, and spoke for several minutes in a language I could not understand. When he finished, he looked at me with the same wrinkled brow that he'd presented to Aunt Sarah.

“You...must...live.”

He spoke each word deliberately, as if each syllable were a sermon.

“You...must...live.”

He pushed his hands onto my forehead and stomach with enough pressure to cause me to wince, and then snatched them off as if
my skin was on fire. Then he nodded and walked back over to Aunt Sarah. She whispered something to him, making sure that he understood everything she was saying. When she was done, he gave her a brief nod, and quickly left the room.

Aunt Sarah walked back over to her table and began rummaging through all of her roots. Normally she would hum as she worked, but this time she moved with a focus that I could hear in her footsteps....

Nessie, Bennie, and Liza remained by my side. They tried to talk and soothe me, but their voices betrayed them. Whatever was coming was bad enough to alter the melody of their beautiful voices, and every wrong chord made me more nervous.

After about an hour, four slave men walked through the door. Aunt Sarah had been working so intently at her desk that I'd almost forgotten she was there. She jumped up when the men came through the door and immediately began telling them what to do. Two of them came over to the head of the bed and stood over me. They tried not to look down, but couldn't help themselves. I was so intriguing they couldn't help visually dissecting me. The other two stood at my feet, and as far as I could tell, they did the same thing.

The medicine woman walked up beside my bed with a small bowl in her hand. She couldn't hide her worry anymore. She spoke like a woman who was sending her child to surgery.

“Dis here is da roots I tol' you 'bout. Can't give 'em to you till you at da worse, dat's when your spirit be open da most. It's gone be bad, real bad, but dis here take it all away. You jus' gots to fight. Y'stands me?”

My face was decorated with lines of panic, but I nodded anyway. She leaned down close to my ear, so that I couldn't see her face, and she spoke again with a cracked voice.

“I don't know wheres you goin', but you gots to come back. Promise me you comin' back...”

Aunt Sarah's fear began to break me, and I felt my body begin to shake as I nodded my head. She stood and looked at me with glistening eyes. I stared back with terrified pupils, and tried to convey the promise that I would be back.

She looked away from me and blinked her eyes repeatedly, refusing to let a tear drop. Then she looked at the two men at the foot of the bed and nodded. They grabbed hold of my feet and held them firmly in place.

Roka seemed to come out of the shadows. I hadn't even seen him come in. He stepped up to the bed and swung something above his head. There was no way I could know how thick or how hard that long piece of wood was, and if I had, it wouldn't have made much of a difference. Roka's body seemed as though it was made of elastic as his back arched, and he sprang forward with the log in his hand like a catapult.

The log came down on my lower legs, forcing the bone in both of my shins to pop out of my flesh. It seemed to happen in slow motion. It seemed unreal.

But then my face began to react to a pain that I hadn't yet comprehended. My eyes went bloodshot red and expanded to twice their normal size. My teeth ground against each other as my mouth opened around them, showing my bleeding gums. The skin of my face grew tight enough to rip itself, and my entire body began to twitch. I hadn't made a sound yet, but even Roka stopped when he looked down and saw who was staring back at him. He looked hesitantly at Aunt Sarah.