Juneteenth (25 page)

“Those horses moved, Bliss. Zip, and we’re through the land and passing through a damp place like a swamp, then up a hill through a burst of heat. And all the time, Bliss …”

The voice had ceased. Then the Senator heard, “Bliss, are you there, boy?”

“Still here,” the Senator said from far away. “Don’t stop. I hear.”

Then through his blurring eyes he saw the dark shape come closer, and now the voice sounded small, as though Hickman stood on a hill somewhere inside his head.

“I say, Bliss, that all the time I should have been praying for you, back there all torn up inside by those women’s hands. Because, after all, a lot of prayer and sweat and dedication had gone into that buggy along with the money-greed and show-off pride. Because it held together through all that rough ride even though its wheels were humming like guitar strings, and it took me and Sister Bearmasher to jail and a pretty hot time before they let us go. So there between a baby, a buggy, and a burning barn I prayed the wrong prayer. I left you out, Bliss, and I guess right then and there you started to wander. But you, I left you in some of the sisters’ hands and you misbehaved. Bliss, you was the one who needed praying for and I neglected you.…”

Hickman leaned closer now, gazing into the quiet face.

The Senator slept.

CHAPTER 9

Aaaaaaaayeeeee …!
It ripped his ears in a rising curve, choked and bubbling like the shout of a convert who had started screaming while Daddy Hickman was still raising his head from beneath the baptismal waters.… 
Aaaaaaaaayeeeeee!
and he could feel it coming in sharp, shrill bursts but the redheaded woman was holding him so fiercely that he could not tell if they came from her heaving body or his own. Arms and hands were flying and he was plunging toward the coffin, catching sight of Teddy sprawled in the sawdust—only to be snatched up again, feeling a pain burning its way straight up his back as she screamed
He’s mine! He’s
—her head snapping back and the scream becoming the sound of Daddy Hickman’s trombone and he saw the white sleeve of a tall sister’s arm flash red, hearing, “Y’all leave her to me now,” and thinking
Blood
as they whirled him around and her arms tightening and thinking That’s flying
bloody blare of horn she’s bleeding—
feeling himself being ripped completely away from her now, the sisters with faces hard and
masklike coming on and twisting him from her arms like a lamb bone popped out of its socket, holding him kicking high and passing him between them as he looked wildly for the flowing blood….

Catch him!
someone shouted, and he then felt himself hanging by his heels and they were grabbing and slapping him across his burning back, lifting, and his head came up into a confusion of voices, hearing,
Here, let me take him. Let’s get the poor child out of here
, seeing Sister Wilhite and another sister was saying
Better give him to Sister Mary
, holding her broad hand against his stomach,
Sister Mary’s home, she’s got kids of her own
, and another voice saying,
No, she’s too crowded and lives too close to here….
and
Then who?
Sister Wilhite was saying and long smooth fingers were reaching for him saying,
Me, Sister Wilhite, let me have him
and Sister Wilhite looking intensely at the young woman, her eyes sparkling,
You?
and the smooth Elberta peach brown face with curly hair covering her ears saying,
Let me, Sister Wilhite, I live far and I got no husband and I know my way through these woods like a rabbit….
And Sister Wilhite turning her head, saying,
What you all think?
and he tried to open his mouth but she shook him—Hush,
Revern’ Bliss—
and someone said,
She’s right. Give him to Sister Georgia, only get him out of here
. And he was leaning forward, hearing Sister Wilhite’s
Here, sister, take him
, and he began again,
I want Daddy Hickman
, and Sister Wilhite saying,
And you hurry
. He was being handed over once more and he said,
I want Daddy Hickman
, hearing,
Hush Revern’ Bliss, honey
, in the hot blast of Sister Georgia’s breath against his cheek.
You’re going with me ’cause this ain’t no place for you to be—not right now it ain’t
. Then she turned and he caught sight of Daddy Hickman climbing down from the platform. Then he recognized the little slant-shouldered sister’s deep voice—
Will y’all sisters get out of the woman’s way?
she said—and the others were pushing and shoving and Sister Georgia was pushing him against them and the little sister said with her head on Sister Georgia’s shoulder
Go with the speed of angels, love. Madame Herod done come, Mister Herod be coming soon; the snake! So take that child and let ’em diga my grave….

And already Sister Georgia was rushing him along with her quick, swinging-from-side-to-side walk, away from the screaming white woman and the angry deaconesses in their ruffled baby caps, going straight through the strangely silent members, stepping over fallen folding chairs, lunch baskets and scattered hymnbooks, past the slanting tent ropes and a smoking flare, into the open. Beginning to run now as though someone was chasing them, on out across the sawdust-covered earth of the clearing, through the big trees into the bushes in the dark. She was saying baby words to him as she ran and he twisted around to see behind them, hearing,
“Hold still now, honey,”
as he looked back to the moiling within the yellow light of the tent. The woman was screaming again and a team of mules was pitching in their harness rising up and breaking toward the light, then plunging off into the shadow. Then Deacon Wilhite’s voice was leading some of the members to singing and the sound rose up strong, causing the woman’s screams to sound like red sparks shooting through a cloud of thick black smoke. Sister Georgia stumbled sending them jolting forward and he could hear her grunt and her breath coming hard and fast as she balanced herself, causing him to sway back and forth in her arms and his back to burn like fire.

“It’s all right now, Revern’ Bliss,” she said as he began to cry.

“I want Daddy Hickman,” he cried. “I want to go back.”

“Not now, Revern’ Bliss, darling, Right now he’s got his hands full with that awful woman.”

“But I hurt,” he cried. “I hurt bad.”

“Hurt? What’s hurting you, Revern’ Bliss?”

“I hurt all over. They scratched me. Please take me back.”

“But the meeting’s all over for tonight,” she said. “That woman broke it up. Lord help us, but she
really
wrecked it. I hope the Lord makes her suffer for it too. Doing such an awful thing, and we supposed to act Christian toward them. Knocking over your coffin and everything …”

He thought,
I want Teddy and my Bible
. Then, remembering the look on the woman’s face when she picked him up, he was silent. It was like a dream. He had been in the coffin, ready to rise up, and all of a sudden there she was, screaming. Now it was like a picture he was looking at in a book or in a dream—even as he watched the tear-sparkling tent falling rapidly away. And in the up-and-down swaying of the sister’s movement he could no longer tell one member from another; he couldn’t even see Daddy Hickman.
She was really one of them
passed through his mind, then the road was dipping swiftly down a hill in the dark and he was being taken where he could no longer see the peak shape of the tent rising white above the yellow light. Only the sound of singing came to him now and fading.

They were moving through low-branched trees where he could smell the sticky little blossoms which the honeybees and flea-flies loved so well; then the branches grew higher up on the trunks of the trees and the trees were taller and they were dropping down a slope. “Hold tight, Revern’ Bliss,” she said. “We have to cross over somewhere along here.”

“Over water?” he said.

“That’s right.”

“Deep water?”

“Not very. You don’t have to be afraid. Hush now, we be there in a minute.”

“I’m not afraid of any water,” he said.

She was moving carefully and he looked down, hearing the quiet
swirl of the stream somewhere ahead before he could see its smoothly glinting flow. And she said, “Hold tight, honey, hold real tight, we got to cross this log,” and was balancing and carrying him rapidly along a narrow tree trunk that lay across the stream, then breathing hard up the steep slope of a hill into the bushes. He could hear twigs snapping and plucking at her dress and raised his arm to keep the limbs from his face as she climbed. She was breathing hard and he could feel her softness sweating through the cloth of his full dress jacket and the heat of her body rising to him. And he could hear himself thinking just as Body would have said,
She’s starting to smell kinda funky
, and was ashamed. Body said that ladies could smell a
good
funky and a
bad
funky but men just smelled like funky bears. But this was a good smell although it wasn’t supposed to be and the sister was good to be carrying him so gently and she was nice and soft. Her pace slowed again now and suddenly they were out of the dusty bushes and he sneezed. They were moving along a sandy road.

“Wheew!” she said. “That was
some
thicket, Revern’ Bliss, and you went through it like a natural man. You all right now?”

“Yes, mam,” he said. “But I want to go back to Daddy Hickman.”

“Oh, he’ll be coming to get you soon, Revern’ Bliss. He knows where you’ll be. You’re not afraid of me are you?”

“No, mam, but I have to go back and help him.”

“I guess we can rest now,” she said, bending, and he felt the sand give beneath his feet. She was breathing hard. Her white dress made it easier to see in the dark, just as his white suit did. She was younger than Sister Wilhite and the others. And he thought,
We are like ghosts on this road
.

“Of course you want to help, Revern’,” she said, “and as much as I’d like to have a little boy as smart as you, I know you’re a minister and not meant to be mine or anybody else’s. So don’t worry, Revern’ Bliss, because as soon as Revern’ gets through he’ll be
coming after you. That woman needs a good beating for doing this to you….”

She was breathing easier now and looking up and down the dark road.

“She called me a funny name,” he said.

“I could hear her yelling something when she broke in. What’d she call you?”

“Cudworth …”

“
Cudworth
—Revern’ Bliss, are you sure?”

“I think so,” he said.

“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised. Doing what she done it’s a wonder she didn’t call you Lazarus … or Peter Wheatstraw … even Shorty George,” and she laughed. “The old heifer. They always slapping us with some name that don’t have nothing to do with us. The freckle-faced cow! You think you can walk now, Revern’ Bliss? My house is just up the road behind those trees up yonder. See, up there.”

“Yes, mam, I can walk,” he said. But he couldn’t see her house, only a dark line of bushes and trees.
This is a deep black night
, he thought.
She’s got eyes like a cat
.

“Walk over here on the side,” she said. “It’s firmer.”

“She made the members afraid,” he heard himself saying.

“Afraid? Now where’d you get that idea, Revern’ Bliss? As outraged as those sisters was and you talking about them being
afraid?
Were
you
afraid?”

“Yes, mam,” he said, “but the sisters were hurting me. They were afraid too. I could smell them….”

“
Smell
them? Well did I ever!” She stopped, her hands on her hips, looking down into his face. “Revern’ Bliss, what are you talking about? You must be tired and near-half asleep, talking about
smelling
folks. Give me your hand so I can get you to bed.”

She was annoyed now and he could feel the tug on his shoulder as she pulled him rapidly along.
She doesn’t want me to know it
, he thought,
but they were afraid
.

“Revern’ Bliss, you are
something
,” she said.

They went along a path through the trees; then they were climbing, and suddenly there was the house on a hill in the dark. He could smell orange blossoms as she led him up to it; then they were going across the porch up to a doorway.

“Stand right here a minute while I light the lamp,” she said. Then the room was lighted and she said, “Welcome to my house, Revern’ Bliss,” and he went in. She was fanning herself with a handkerchief and sighing. “Lord, what a hot evening, and it had been going so good too—Revern’ Bliss, would you like a piece of cold watermelon before you go to bed?”

“Yes, mam, thank you, mam,” he said. And he was glad that she wasn’t angry anymore.

“You don’t think it’ll make you have to get up in the night, do you?”

“Oh no, mam. Daddy Hickman lets me have watermelon at night all the time.”