Diann Ducharme (34 page)

T
HE EVENING AIR WAS STAGNANT IN THE SCHOOLHOUSE
. The Day’s temperature had reached nearly a hundred degrees, and the room still
bore the aftereffects, smelling powerfully of body odor, mine included.

But the students were oblivious to everything except the work at hand. I now knew how to harness the power of literature. I had begun
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
, at Elijah’s request. He had handed his own copy to me, with both hands, as if handing me a dead loved one’s personal effects. The day after he gave it to me I read it through from cover to cover, with a sticky pit in my stomach. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t a popular book in Edenton when I was growing up.

Winnie, or I should say Asha, was enjoying the novel when I read it at the end of the lessons. I watched her more than I watched anyone else. She was easy to find in the sea of brown faces, for she still wore her white head scarf.

Already twice tonight I had called her Winnie. Everyone turned about, wondering who it was that I had called on. And Winnie refused to even look up until I called her Asha. Then she would laugh.

To begin the night lessons, Elijah led the students in a spiritual, the same kind of songs they sang in their church. Luella told me that their singing and chanting were more subdued in the schoolhouse. She said that everyone really let loose in church, and I had a hard time featuring it.

It was a beautiful song. Dark night on the water, lanterns pushed out, hopeful people looking for the promised land before Satan lured them away. The students repeated the simple song over and over, clapping and stamping their feet.

Elijah sang last. His soulful tenor caused many of the students to stand and sway, eyes closed and hands in the air. I stood, too, and Ben. We looked at each other and smiled at ourselves, standing in this extraordinary place.

With a final ruckus of feet on the floor as we drew out “shore” on the last verse, the rickety door to the schoolhouse, already propped open with a brick to bring in the coolish night air, smacked all the way back against the wall. I thought perhaps it was a student, running late.

But when I turned to see who it was, I gasped in confusion. Two broad men wearing costumes and sandy boots clomped in. Long red robes that buttoned up the front covered their bodies up to their necks, and their masks looked to be dark red cloth painted with grotesque white noses and mouths. They both had pointed horns twisted atop their heads. And they each carried a long rifle.

The students jumped up in panic and scattered to the walls, but all I could do was stand at my post in the front of the room. I looked over to where Ben stood, but he remained queerly motionless, almost as if he had been expecting them.

The squattier devil said, “Well, well. Lookie what we have here. A schoolhouse full of niggers. Never thought to see that in my lifetime. But here it sits. Sure does reek in here, though. Reeks like niggers.”

He walked around the front of the room, breaking pieces of chalk and throwing books and Bibles to the floor. He smashed two of the oil lamps, casting the room into almost complete darkness.

The other devil looked to me. “And a white schoolmarm, to boot. She must be a Yankee transplant.”

The short one walked over to me and sneered, “What’s your story, gal? Why you learning these darkies?”

Ben hollered out from the back of the room, “She’s got nothing to say to you! Leave her be!”

He drawled, “What do we have here? You her beau or something? Ain’t that sweet.” He walked over to Ben, reared the rifle back casually, and hit him in the gut with the butt. I watched in shock as Ben slumped to the floor, coughing in pain and holding his stomach.

I squeaked out a “no” through my fingers. The taller, less vicious man standing next to me peered into my face through the darkness. “You look familiar to me,” he said.

The short one snickered. “After a few minutes outside, I’ll
make
her familiar.”

“Lay a hand on her, you bastards, and you’ll live to regret it!” cried Ben from the floor.

The squat devil cocked his head back and hollered, “I thought I told you to quit your ballin’!”

The other man looked at me again. “No, I’ve seen her before, I’m positive of it. What’s your name, darlin’?”

I couldn’t speak. My eyes started squeezing out tears but my body was as immobile as a tree buried in sand. I didn’t understand what was happening. The stewing apprehension I’d dragged around during the war felt like a silly game compared to the hot fear I now felt.

He placed his hand on my arm and squeezed. “I won’t ask you again.”

“Abigail. Abigail Sinclair.” I had no control over my voice. It was much louder than I meant it to be. And it trembled like a gull’s wing in the wind.

“Dear God,” he said flatly. The devils looked at each and backed out the door. I heard them murmuring anxiously to someone outside.

Then the door banged again, and another masked man walked in,
stooping a bit to get through the door. I could see his shiny leather boots peeking out from the bottom of his red robe.

The man took one look at me and stopped short. He rasped, “Abigail?”

And I recognized his voice. It resounded through my entire body. My mouth said, “Daddy?” even though it still didn’t make sense to my head.

He spoke through the cloth over his face. His voice sounded strangled. “What in God’s name are you doing here?”

The other two men skulked in the doorway, watching. I reached out for the wall, to brace myself. For the briefest of moments I questioned what I was doing here. Seeing myself through Daddy’s eyes, I made no sense at all. I was a traitor to the Southern force. But the moment passed, with the wave of pride I now felt.

I said calmly, “I’m teaching the freedmen.”

He was silent for a while, as he regarded me. He was terrifying in that costume, in the flickering darkness. He shook his head back and forth, waggling the horns.

He began pacing. “Who did this? Who put you up to this?”

Ben was standing up now, one hand gripping his torso. He said, “I did, Mr. Sinclair. I brought her over here.”

Daddy turned toward the voice and barked, “Ben? What in the sam hell is going on here?”

“It’s all my doing. I talked her into coming here—”

I interrupted, “No. That’s not true.” I looked at the cowering horde of people in the room, at the weeping children. I couldn’t see Luella or her mother, or even Asha.

I said, “I want to be here. These people deserve an education.”

Daddy started laughing, a whiskey-laden snicker I had heard many times before. His horns jiggled with amusement. The other two men started snorting along with him. “I can’t believe what I’m
hearing. My own daughter, a teacher of the darkies! What ever happened to Little Red Reb? What would your uncle Jack say?”

I responded angrily, “He’d likely ask you what you’re doing here, dressed like that. And carrying a gun.”

He looked directly over to Elijah, who was standing quietly in the back of the room with two of the children who had lost their parents in the war. “We came for Elijah Bondfield. Or Elijah Africa, as you know him.”

We all looked at Elijah with fear in our eyes. Then the students cried out and rushed to him, blocking him from view. I could name each of them, both their first and last names. But I still could see how they must look to Daddy and the men. Black, and in the way.

One of the devils let a shot out of his rifle. The bullet blasted through the thin wooden ceiling with a crack, scaring everyone into silence.

Daddy warned, “Back away from the reverend. He’s coming with us. Anyone in the way gets a bullet to the brain.”

But no one moved an inch.

I cried, “Why are you taking Elijah? He’s a good man! He’s not the one you’re looking for, I’m sure of it. Daddy, please!”

Daddy said bluntly, “Abigail, you aren’t as smart as you think you are. It’s time to keep your mouth shut now.” He turned to speak to the entire group. “Your good Reverend Elijah here is nothing more than a murderer. Took us a good long while to find him, but we tracked him down eventually. He was easier to locate when he started getting uppity. And don’t you all forget that.” He pointed his index finger around the room. “See, we never forget cold-blooded killings in North Carolina. The coward killed his master and mistress in their sleep and took their money when he left. He can’t deny it now, being a man of God like he is. Why don’t you tell them, Elijah?”

Elijah looked straight ahead at no one in particular when he
said, “It’s the truth. I killed the Bondfields, but I stopped calling them my master and mistress long before that. They were cruel—no respect for humanity whatsoever. They weren’t fit to live on God’s Earth. And as for thievery, I took what was owed me, for my labors.”

The tall man raised his rifle and pointed it evenly at Elijah, but Daddy whispered something into his ear, and he lowered it reluctantly.

Daddy said sharply, “Now, listen up good. This is no longer a place for ’freedmen.’ This island belongs to us now. You’re going to pack up your things, all your voodoo dollies and drums and Africa herbs, and get off this island. If you don’t, you’re going to be seeing an awful lot of us. All over your sorry little streets, up inside your rotten shacks and churches. And if you think we look spooky tonight, you’re going to know what hell is if you breathe a word of this to anyone. You forget the name of your teacher here”—he looked over to me with utter disapproval in his cut-cloth eyes—“or we’ll hunt you down like turkeys.”

I had never seen Daddy so angry before. My God, he used to be such a strong man, so prideful, so important. He had been a pillar of Edenton society. Now his pride had molded into hate, foully putrid. He had sunk so low he wore a costume to hide himself.

The men tried to get to Elijah, but the crowd refused to part for them. They screamed, “No, don’t let them through! Not the reverend!” The devil men started butting people’s heads with their guns, and Daddy stood looking on, fingering the trigger on his rifle. The same rifle that he used to kill wild animals.

I was vaguely aware of Ben striding through the room to us. His face was filmed in sweat. He pleaded, “Don’t do this, Mister Sinclair. Turn him over to the authorities.”

Daddy gripped the back of Ben’s neck with his large hand and said
quietly, “You, son, are a disappointment. Why would you bring my daughter here, knowing what was going to happen to the reverend? Why the hell would you put her directly in harm’s way?”

“What is he talking about?” I asked both of them.

Ben wouldn’t meet my eyes. He said bluntly, “With all respect, Mister Sinclair, your daughter is a good teacher. Fact, you were the one who hooked us up, remember? And
these
folks happened to be in dire need of a teacher. How was I to know you were going to ambush a schoolhouse? There’s little children here, for God’s sake. Innocent people.”

He snorted. “Abigail is my daughter, and I say what she does and where she goes and who she sees.”

“I reckon we knew what you’d say about her coming out here,” Ben said. He went stubbornly on. “Elijah’s a good man to be around. He lifts you up, you know.
Those
kind of men are in short supply these days.”

Daddy nodded thoughtfully, then looked to me with malice in his eyes. “Ben’s not as sweet and simple as he’d like you to think. He’s been helping me this summer, above and beyond his guide work. I can’t imagine how, but he identified the brand on Elijah’s back. Made our lives a lot easier.”

I shook my head. I whispered, “I can’t believe that.”

Daddy shrugged dramatically. “He couldn’t turn down a government job.”

Ben put his hands over his face and moaned softly.

“Is this true?”

Ben nodded slowly, with his fingers over his face. My head pounded in shock, and I felt my heart wilt inside my chest, brown and jagged as an old apple core.

But I couldn’t even think anything through, with Elijah’s voice booming through the room. “It’s all right, people. Move away. I’ve
been expecting them, although I will say I wasn’t expecting men in costumes. Know that I’ve made peace with God for my actions. I’m ready to go.”

The weeping students moved away, slowly, reluctantly, revealing the reverend, who had never looked as imposing as he did now.

As the men moved to grab him, though, Asha stepped out from the crowd to stand in their path. “You should be ashamed,” she said through a clenched jaw.

“Good God in heaven, what next? The circus come to town?” Daddy barked, his chest heaving. “Abigail, you better have a damned good reason for dragging Winnifred out here, and behind your poor mama’s back, too!”

I breathed in deeply, then said, “She came for an education, obviously.”