Let the Circle Be Unbroken (22 page)

He looked at Papa as if expecting him to agree that that indeed was what it was. When Papa made no comment, he turned to go, with Mr. Peck close behind. A few steps away he stopped again. “By the way, David, y’all know a fella name of Willis? Jake Willis, I believe his name is. Knifed another colored boy in a card game last night, and I figure I better put him in jail a few days. I ain’t gonna have a lotta niggers cutting themselves up ’round here.”

Uncle Hammer straightened, pulling away from the hoe. The movement was not lost on the sheriff, who looked over at him. Papa glanced at Uncle Hammer and said flatly, without emotion, “Name ain’t familiar.”

The moment lingered as the sheriff and Uncle Hammer kept their eyes on each other. Then the sheriff nodded at Papa and without another word went back across the field with Mr. Peck. As the two drove away, Papa said, “What’d
you say that fella’s name was at church got on your wrong side?”

Uncle Hammer smiled. “Jake Willis.”

“That’s what I thought. By the way, I been thinkin’ ’bout maybe letting Morris Wheeler have his meeting here. What you think?”

Uncle Hammer took a moment, pursed his lips, and said, “You sure you wanna do that?”

“Figure it won’t hurt to listen.”

“Well, they have to meet someplace. But I was you, I’d choose the folks to come.”

Papa nodded and turned back to his planting.

*   *   *

The meeting was held two nights later and the people who came were all people we knew very well—the Laniers, the Averys, the Ellises and Mrs. Lee Annie, and the Shorters. They came all in one wagon or by foot, so that anyone passing by would not be prompted to wonder about several wagons dotting the drive. When they arrived, they slipped quietly in to listen to Morris Wheeler and John Moses, while outside Mr. Morrison stood guard in case someone came along who shouldn’t.

As the meeting got underway, the boys and I were sent off to another room, but we soon cracked opened the door to listen, and though both Mama and Papa saw us, they did not make us close it. The union men spoke in more detail about the union they proposed, what they planned to achieve, and how they planned to achieve it. Once they had said all they had come to say and all the questions people were willing to put to them had been asked and answered, they left. But the others stayed awhile longer talking into the night about all that had been said, and from what I could gather, mostly
everyone thought the union to be a good thing. The drawback, however, was the risk involved and the fact that no one could bring themselves to trust the white farmers of the area, or even Morris Wheeler. There had been too many years of distrust, too many years of humiliations and beatings and lynchings and inequalities. They would wait, they decided, and see what happened.

*   *   *

A few days before Uncle Hammer was to leave, Papa leaned against a back porch post, his eyes on the newly plowed field. Christopher-John and I, finishing up the supper dishes, watched him standing there, and when Mama came to join him, we grew silent. We knew something had been bothering Papa, and although no one had spoken of it, we all knew what it was.

“You’re going back to the railroad, aren’t you?” Mama said.

Stacey came in from the dining room and, hearing Mama’s question, stopped to listen as well.

Papa turned to her. The answer was on his face.

“I knew it.”

“Mary, what you want me to do? I been to every place I can think of and there ain’t been no work—”

“They say there’ll be work when they start building at the hospital—”

“Baby, we can’t count on that. You know we can’t take a chance of coming up short come tax time. I got a job I can go to, then I gotta go.”

Mama’s voice rose. “And what about next year and the year after that? The children are growing fast and they need you here. Look at Stacey, nearly fourteen. He needs you, David. They all need you.”

Papa spoke sharply. “And don’t you think I know that?

But they need other things too. They need this land. Long as we’ve got this land, we’ve got something, something most folks ain’t, and we can’t risk losing it.”

“David, just don’t go this year. We’ll find another way to get the money.”

“Well, you tell me what other way there is.”

“Hammer put in twenty dollars—”

“Most likely went without just to give it to us.”

“We’ll figure it all out again. See if there’s something we can’t do without . . . sell . . .”

Papa sighed wearily. “We’ve done that already.”

Mama was silent a long time. Then quietly she said, “Maybe you like being a single man on the railroad.”

“Mary—”

Mama moved away from Papa and started down the porch. Papa stopped her, turning her to him. “Mary, now you know that ain’t so.”

“I know,” she said, just as quietly as before. There was a pause. “When are you going?”

“Figured to leave Saturday with Hammer.”

Mama looked toward the drive. “I think I’ll go walk down to the pond.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No . . . David, I know you’re doing what you think’s best, but I can’t help how I feel. I just can’t help it.” Her eyes lingered on Papa a moment longer, then she turned and walked along the giant stepping stones leading to the drive.

Stacey turned abruptly and left through the dining room. Big Ma, who had been mixing bread dough at the dining room table, brought the dough into the kitchen and plopped it into a waiting bowl. She covered the bowl with a damp towel, wiped her hands, and went out to the porch.

“Son,” she said, touching Papa’s arm. “Son, now you
know I ain’t never come messin’ in nothin’ ’tween you and Mary and I ain’t wantin’ to do it now. But you knows I loves Mary much as I do you, and me bein’ a woman, I understands how she feels. You been leaving her a lot these here last few years to bring them children up by herself and take care of this place. I know you ain’t wantin’ to do it and Mary, she knows it too, but she got a right to ’spect you to be here.”

“Now, Mama,” Papa said, his voice sounding tired, “don’t you start in on me too.”

“I ain’t gonna start in on ya! All I’m sayin’ is you gotta understand how she feel, and maybe you can try and make it up to her some way, like comin’ home more times than you done before. That’d make her feel better. Sho’ would me. And you jus’ ’member how special she is—”

Christopher-John dropped a spoon on the floor and Big Ma looked over her shoulder. Realizing that we were listening to every word, she took Papa’s arm and walked with him out into the yard to the old bench under the walnut tree. As they crossed the yard, Christopher-John said, “You s’pose Papa gonna ever be able to stay?”

I shrugged. “Maybe . . . someday.”

Christopher-John took a plate from the rinsewater and slowly dried it.

“Cassie . . . know what?”

I looked at him.

“I don’t think I can wait that long. . . .”

*   *   *

Saturday was a lonely day. The boys and I stuck close to Papa and Uncle Hammer for most of the morning, but in the afternoon when Papa and Mr. Morrison and the boys went down to see about Dynamite, I stayed behind sitting on the back porch steps, staring out across the pasture, wondering
if the time would ever come when Papa would not have to go away.

“Now what you doing sitting out here all by yourself?”

I looked around. Uncle Hammer was standing in the kitchen doorway.

“I—I was just thinking.”

He closed the door and crossed the porch to the water pail hanging on a rafter nail. Filling the dipper with water, he drank slowly, then walked over to where I was sitting and leaned against the post.

“I imagine you most likely thinking ’bout your papa leaving—that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

He didn’t say anything else for several minutes, and I figured that he was lost in his own thoughts, forgetting I was even there. I wanted to move to another place, for I felt uncomfortable with Uncle Hammer standing there. But I couldn’t just get up and walk away without saying something, and since I couldn’t think of anything to say, I just sat there.

“You know,” he said finally, making me start at the sound of his voice, “I recall one time when my papa went off for a spell—not as long as your papa has to go off for—but it was long enough. He was doing some lumbering up near the Natchez Trace, and David and me, we was fit to be tied, we missed him so. Him and our oldest brother, your Uncle Mitchell, was up there trying to get money together to get themselves a horse and pay on this place. Couldn’t wait for them to get back here.”

He smiled at the remembrance, then stood and waved toward the horseshoe stake out in the yard. “How ’bout a game of horseshoes with me?”

I looked at him, then went to get the horseshoes from
where they were hooked over a spike at the other end of the porch.

“You know, I used to be right good at this,” he said, walking to the pitching line. “Your papa and me, we was two of the best shots at Great Faith when we was boys.”

We tossed a round and Uncle Hammer won. I started the second round with a shot that nicely zinged around the stake and stayed put. Uncle Hammer held his shoe, but didn’t throw it. “Ya know, Cassie, you ain’t had much to say to me this time since I been here.”

He was sure right about that. I glanced up at Uncle Hammer and, finding his eyes on me, immediately looked away again. I had made it a point not to say much to him. In fact, I had stayed out of his way as much as possible, for I wasn’t about to put myself in the path of his anger again. One thing I wasn’t was stupid.

“Your papa told me he thought you was kinda upset with me. That right?”

I kept my eyes riveted on the horseshoe I had successfully thrown and didn’t answer.

“Cassie?”

I was afraid Uncle Hammer would hear my heart beating. I looked up at him.

“Look here, sugar, don’t you know you got no need to ever be scared of me?” He paused, gazing softly down at me. Again, I looked away.

“I know I ain’t the easiest person to get along with. Maybe sometimes I speak too rough to y’all. But don’t you know I wouldn’t never do nothin’ to hurt you, and I wouldn’t never tell you nothin’ I didn’t think was right? You know that, don’t you?”

He waited patiently, expecting me to answer.

“Y-yes, sir.”

Uncle Hammer glanced at his horseshoe and tossed it. It landed squarely on top of mine. He wasn’t looking at me when he spoke again. “Ain’t got no children of my own. Probably never will have. But even if I did, I couldn’t love ’em no more than I love you, Christopher-John, Little Man, and Stacey. Y’all ever need me, y’all know there ain’t nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for y’all that I thought was right. Nothin’. Y’all . . . y’all like my own children to me. . . .”

Neither of us looked at the other; our eyes were on the stake. I wanted to throw my arms around Uncle Hammer and hug him, but that wasn’t the way it was between Uncle Hammer and me. I hugged him when he arrived and hugged him when he left. Hugging him at any other time would have been awkward, even now. Instead, I threw another horseshoe and Uncle Hammer threw his. He said no more about what had happened between us or about his feelings, but he didn’t need to. He had said enough.

*   *   *

After dinner Papa and Uncle Hammer prepared to go. Big Ma, who had spent a good part of the morning frying chicken and sweet potato turnovers for them to take, took the lunch boxes to the car and placed them gently on the backseat. By the time she came out, the boys and I were already standing with Uncle Hammer and Mr. Morrison near the barn, the coming loneliness already hanging over us. A few minutes later Papa and Mama came out and the good-byes began. Once Uncle Hammer had shaken Mr. Morrison’s hand and hugged the rest of us, he neatly folded his suit jacket across the middle of the front seat and got in the car. Papa, having hugged us all, kissed Mama one last
time and followed, but before he closed the door, Little Man, with huge tears swelling in his eyes, tugged at his arm. “P-Papa, do you gotta go?”

Every year the question was the same; every year Papa had to explain once again.

Papa looked softly at Little Man, then, cupping his thin face in his large, rough hands, said: “Now, son, I’m afraid I do or how else we gonna pay these taxes and keep this land? You know I ain’t wanting to leave, don’t you?” Little Man nodded. “We all got a job to do. My job is to go see ’bout getting back on the railroad and try to get us some cash money. Your job is to grow strong and help your mama and Big Ma and Mr. Morrison here while I’m gone. Now I’m gonna be counting on you to do that . . . you think you can?”

With a sniffle which he tried to conceal, Little Man said he could, then Papa held him close, smiled sadly at the rest of us, and with a wave closed the door.

“Y’all take care of y’allselves now,” Big Ma called as the Ford pulled away. “And drive careful!”

Before the car had turned into the road, Little Man fled up the drive to the barn to hide his tears. Mama started to go after him, but Mr. Morrison stopped her. “Let me, Miz Logan,” he said. As Mr. Morrison went up the drive, Big Ma followed, the spring suddenly gone out of her steps with both her sons gone. But Mama, Stacey, Christopher-John, and I remained by the road watching the car until we could see it no longer. As the swirls of red dust settled back to the earth, we crossed the lawn and headed for the house, still hearing the hum of the Ford’s motor, faint, distant, too far away. Papa and Uncle Hammer were really gone now. It would be too long before they came again.

*   *   *

“I thinks I wants to vote,” announced Mrs. Lee Annie one rainy afternoon in mid-April as she sat with Big Ma and me in front of the fire finishing a patchwork quilt started in winter.

Big Ma looked sharply across at her old friend. “Say what?”

“You heard me. Said I was gon’ vote.”

Big Ma’s fingers moved deftly over the patch that had once been a part of Little Man’s trousers to make sure it hadn’t puckered. “Lord-a-mercy, Lee Annie, you gone foolish in yo’ old age?”

“Naw . . . I just wants to vote. Done made up my mind.”

“But Miz Lee Annie, you said you didn’t wanna vote,” I reminded her as I took this opportunity to put aside the quilting which had been forced upon me by Big Ma as one of those things young ladies needed to learn. “You said you just wanted to read that constitution.”