Song Yet Sung (15 page)

—Evening, you black bastards.

With a quick motion he kicked the lamp away, grabbed Liz by the hand, and pulled her over the wall, pressing her onto her stomach, both of them lying flat. The thud of horses' hooves approached and he heard more than saw the three horses leap over the wall, so close that they could feel the whoosh of their bodies. The horses galloped wildly across the field, the riders swinging lanterns as they went.

The two leaped back over the wall in the direction from which the riders had come and quickly walked along it in pitch blackness, blind, Amber leading Liz, feeling with his hand along the wall, not running, for he knew the sound of their feet splashing in the muddy puddles would create noise. He simply walked briskly, fear creasing his chest, running its hand along his spine. He gently ran his hand along the top contours of the wall until he found a break in it, then peeled off to the left towards the thicket that led to the bog and the logging road that led back to the house. Once he got to that logging road, there was a path off it he knew that led to Sinking Creek where he'd left Miss Kathleen's bungy. It was the long way, but their only chance. They would not survive a straight run.

The three lamps swung in wider and wider arcs in the field behind them, circling each other as the riders searched for them. Amber looked over his shoulder and saw the three lights reach the edge of the field where the woods met the other side. They had searched the entire field on that side and now swung back and charged the wall towards them to search the field on their side.

Liz tried to run, but Amber pulled her back. Running would only create noise. He walked at a fast pace, but not fast enough for their bare feet to make noise. The lanterns rose up in the air and down again as the horses took the wall, and now they circled again, wider and wider, the horses at a fast trot, the circles of light growing wider, until a horse swept near them, the lantern light barely missing them. The horse circled again and approached, the light coming closer now.

The two broke into a run.

Three steps and they were in the thickets, crashing through brambles, the woods too thick for a horse to follow. Footsteps behind them gave chase, but Amber knew where he was now. He ran left, towards the bog, splashing into the tiny creek and out the other side, trotting now, feeling his way through the trees and undergrowth, through another small bog area, and finally to Sinking Creek, where the boat waited. They clambered in. Amber shoved off and let the current take them just as the three pursuers arrived at the bank, Patty holding a lantern, which shined eerily, illuminating the bottom of her dress, revealing her ankles and feet, one foot clad in a boot, the other foot bare. He saw the feet lose their footing in the mud and fall back a moment, the dress kick up wildly, then regain their footing, the bare white ankle and the boot standing ankle-deep in the mud, its owner staring into the darkness as the skiff, only twenty feet away now, invisible to all, slowly, silently made its way downstream, carried by the current.

Amber could hear them panting but knew they were unable to continue the chase, for the banks on either side of them were too steep and thick with woods and rocks for them to follow. He hoped for the love of God that Patty was as cheap as he'd heard—indeed, their lives were dependent on it—for most experienced slave traders would not draw iron and fire at a Negro, no matter how enraged they became, for a dead Negro was worthless. On the other hand, Patty was not just any slave trader.

Through a cone of silence, Amber heard Patty call out.

—You niggers made me lose one of my boots.

From the bank, he heard the sound of two men laughing.

T
he rain had come to the Land just when the Woolman had expected it would. All the signs had been there. Two days ago there were two stars within the circle around the moon. That indicated two days before bad weather arrived. He burned the time hunting, fishing, gathering supplies to fight, and sharpening his knives on stones. On the morning of the second day he departed the Land. By afternoon he'd reached the white man's land to begin his war.

Even as he approached he could sense the white man was on the alert. The Land screamed its warning, every smell, tree branch, sound, and birdcall indicating that alarm was in the air. At the old Indian burial ground, he discovered fresh horse tracks all over the Indian field, even at the hollowed-out oak, where he'd watched the colored girl hiding. He had tracked her there easily when she first arrived but had not bothered with her. He was actually a little frightened of her. She had helped his son, surely, but she had magic, a power that was unseen, and for that he feared her. It did not escape him that she might put forth her powerful magic against the white man, or perhaps even use it to his favor. But like most things in the wild, she was, he decided, not entirely predictable. Besides, she was gone. The human footprints in the swampy field around the giant oak tree indicated that someone had moved around the hollow in haste. Perhaps the white man laid a trap for her there.

He did not need to check the field further, to lightly finger and sniff the white man's tracks along the wall and at the burial mounds to know the white man was present. He moved out of the Indian burial grounds towards Sinking Creek and spotted them almost instantly, from a distance: three people on horses, one of them a woman, perhaps the same three who had surprised him at the farm. They moved as all white men did, loudly and in packs, with their horses struggling through the bog, the horses up to their knees in swamp and muck, gingerly picking their way through the mud to find dry land upon which to lay their feet, the horses leading the men rather than the other way around. The Woolman watched them at a safe distance, satisfied. Out here on the bog, the tables would be turned. The fight would be fair. They had their shooting rifles and sniffing dogs and horses. But horses were useless in the fog that laid its hand gently across the Land each evening, and dogs could not follow in the tight, high grass of the marshes where he poled his skiff through five-foot-high grass without being seen; the bullets of their guns could not bend around the twisting tree branches and thick woods where he'd plant himself. He would overpower them one at a time. Their number made no difference to him.

He watched them for several minutes, then backed away from the bushes and headed east. They were of no immediate concern. His trail and an easy jog would take him past them in minutes. He planned to strike elsewhere.

Several months ago he'd watched a white man of the Sullivan farm sail off in heavy weather past Cook's Point with a colored slave in tow. He'd read the dark, angry clouds that hung over the bay as the oyster boat disappeared. He'd huddled in his lair later that afternoon as the terrible squall roared overland. He watched for several days, and as expected, the white man and his slave never returned. Like most things he witnessed, watching in silence and without judgment, the Woolman felt neither sympathy nor anger at their misfortune. If the white man wanted to oyster in that kind of weather, that was his business. Life was neither fair nor unfair, neither cruel nor uncruel. Rather it was a tangible, real thing, precious, and not easily affordable. To waste it needlessly, the Woolman thought, was foolish. After all, the man had a son.

Three of them.

The colored slave and the dog at the farm where he'd nearly been caught two days ago had been a hindrance. But the colored man was gone—he'd watched him leave by bungy—and he had brought a special gift for the dog. The boy from the farm would be his, and perhaps his mother too. And when the white man came to ask for their return, he would somehow say, Give me back what is mine, and I will return what is yours.

He was not worried about the two Negroes who were left behind to protect the white family, the nearly man-size Negro boy and his mother. The Woolman had never met a Negro who was not afraid of him. That was something his mother had taught him long ago. They can't stand freedom, she said. It blinds their eyes. If you open the gate and show yourself, the first one will run and the rest will follow. He expected the Negroes at the white man's farm to do likewise when he came to wage war. If not, he would deal with them harshly.

The rain had stopped by the time he arrived at the edge of the cornfield, and the sun had finally peeked out from behind the clouds to give a halfhearted nod to the western sky before going to bed. He stood amid the thick woods behind the grove of pine trees near the cornfield and surveyed the farm below. Evening was coming. Avoiding the three white people on horses had used precious time. The sun that had finally peeked out from behind the clouds had already begun its downward descent, and the warm April breezes had the sting of winter's edge still on their breath. It was going to be a cold night. Already he could see smoke curling out of the cabin's chimney. He considered turning back and trying again the next day, but as he watched the white man's cabin he spotted one of the remaining Negroes in the house, the man-size boy, emerge and disappear on the far side of the house on the Blackwater Creek side, out of sight. He crouched and waited.

He did not have to wait long. A few moments later the white boy and his dog stepped out from the cabin. The boy and dog entered the tool shed, then came out, the boy holding a hoe. They headed towards the cornfield.

The Woolman crept back again to the thicket, carefully moved to his spot in the grove of pine trees, and burrowed himself in his hole again, covering himself with pines, branches, and leaves. Moments later the boy walked through the gate to the cornfield, followed by the dog, which suddenly halted in the gateway.

The dog turned its head and lifted its nose.

The Woolman, lying flat on his belly, his eyes perpendicular to the ground, frozen in place, watched closely as the dog turned its long face to the wind, sniffing.

The dog veered away from the cornfield and trotted up the slope towards the Woolman. The Woolman stayed where he was, motionless, his eyes not blinking, staring straight ahead at the dog's feet as the animal approached.

He waited until the dog was right in front of him, then slowly raised his silent, unblinking gaze to meet it. The dog barked once. The Woolman slowly reached out, holding a piece of muskrat. The dog ventured closer and sniffed it. The Woolman held the meat out a bit farther.

The dog took a tentative bite and Woolman had him by the neck. He pulled the dog's head into the hole towards his own face.

Out in the cornfield, Jeff Boy heard Lucky bark, looked up the slope towards the grove of pines, and saw the dog disappear into what appeared to be a rabbit hole, his tail wagging, then suddenly out of sight.

—Lucky! he called out.

The boy trotted towards the grove, took a tentative step towards the spot where the dog had disappeared, and watched in shock as the earth rose and what appeared to be a hideous piece of earth, tree, hair, and arms charged him.

The boy's bloodcurdling shriek lasted no more than a few seconds, but the cries were so piercing and frightful that they echoed over the calm trickling waters of the Blackwater Creek and the rocks and crevices that abounded nearby, so that everyone within the house and outside of it stopped what they were doing.

Wiley was whittling a piece of timber on the bank of Blackwater behind the house when he heard it. He dropped his knife, stood up, trotted to the side of the house, and walked towards the cornfield. The sun was making its final descent into the bay beyond and shone directly in his face. He walked briskly, his hand over his face, shielding his eyes, peering into the field and beyond it, but saw nothing. As he passed the front door of the house, his mother, Mary, and Miss Kathleen ran out the front door, their heads turning in all directions, followed by Miss Kathleen's two smaller boys.

Kathleen saw Wiley striding quickly towards the cornfield, then breaking into a trot. She followed him, walking briskly.

—Where's that coming from? she asked, her face creased with alarm.

But Wiley was gone, running full speed now for the cornfield, sprinting like a madman, leaving the women, who broke into a run far behind him.

Wiley got there before Kathleen and Mary had even cleared the front yard. He ran directly into the pine grove behind the cornfield, then into the thickets and bog that lay behind it. Kathleen cut into the cornfield, panic blowing into her lungs now. Mary fanned in the other direction towards the creek.

Kathleen stomped through the corn, breaking the stalks as she went.

—Jeff? Jeff Boy? she called.

She stopped at the end of the row when she saw the hoe lying on the ground, then looked up at the grove of pine trees where Wiley had ascended. She watched him crash into the thicket out of sight. She ran to the spot where he had just disappeared into the thicket and was about to push into the thicket herself when she looked down.

What she saw made her gasp.

There was a hole in the earth. A big one. Man-size, where someone had obviously lain in wait. Two dead muskrats lay at the edge of it, along with Jeff 's dog Lucky, his throat slit. Around the hole were several thick pine branches, which someone had obviously used to camouflage himself. She collapsed to her knees, pushed the dead dog aside, then, kneeling on all fours, dug at the hole with her hands, as if the boy would turn up beneath it.

She dug for a few seconds, came to her senses, leaped to her feet, and ran to the north side of the grove, smashing into the north side of the thicket, knowing Wiley had gone in on the west side. Whoever fled west would certainly run out of land that way and hit Sinking Creek, she knew. Wiley, she hoped, would cut off that route for anyone going that way. She heard him call out Jeff Boy's name several times, and in the cone of confusion she could hear someone else screaming hysterically and yowling like a coyote, and only after several minutes of running through the thick swamp, the stinking quagmire of mud and yellow earth pulling at her feet and hands, did she realize that the screams and yells were coming from her own throat. She tripped over a large root near a small swampy pond, fell into it, choked on black water as it gurgled down her throat, then rose again, climbed out, and ran until she hit Sinking Creek. She waded into the creek until the water reached her chest. She scanned both banks, then backed out of the water until it was knee-deep and ran parallel to the bank, the world a spinning morass of blinding, grabbing, gnarled roots and cypress tree inefficiency. There was no time, she sensed, but the swamp in its dripping, weepy confusion would not let her move faster. She staggered on, blinded with panic and rage, until exhaustion took over, and she hurtled to earth, only to feel a pair of strong hands pick her up.

It was Wiley. He appeared badly shaken.

—You seen him? she said.

—I'll git him, Wiley said. You go on back to the house and get some help.

—What could it be?

—Might be a bear that snatched him, is all I can think of.

—God Almighty. Wiley, ain't no bears out here!

But Wiley was already splashing across the creek now, his back to her. He trotted into a deep grove of thickets, which swallowed him for a second, then he reappeared on the other side. He yelled over his shoulder through the vegetation, G'wan for help, missus! We ain't got time for hollering!

—Where's Amber? she called out, then realized she was alone, for she'd sent Amber to town, and the sound of Wiley's running feet had already disappeared into the bushes.

Wiley plunged through the underbrush and pushed towards the Indian burial ground and the smaller parts of the Blackwater Creek that led towards Sinking Creek and Cook's Point beyond it. He did not know where Amber was, but he knew one thing: if he ever got out of this, he would never speak to Amber again. His whole life, he felt, had gone to pot in five minutes. He was terrified, not just for Jeff Boy, but for himself. The wrath of the white man was about to drop down on them like a hammer because of what was unfolding here—he knew that for certain—and there would be nothing Miss Kathleen could do to help him. It was Amber's fault, monkeying around with the gospel train and the Dreamer, whom Amber had confessed he'd harbored out by the Indian graveyard for five days now. The Dreamer had called the Devil into Amber's head, and now they'd all suffer. It was a mistake, he realized, to introduce her to him. He should have left her on the road.

The sight of Jeff Boy's dog dead had sent him into a state of frenzied, shocked panic. He was so frightened, he could barely keep his breath. He was afraid to stop running lest he turn around and run right into the deepest part of the Blackwater and drown himself in it. It wasn't just the matter of the dead dog that terrified him, either. It was what he'd seen in the grove of pine trees.

It was only a glimpse, but it was enough: He saw a man, a colored man, tall, muscular, dark, wild-looking, more like an Indian than a Negro, nearly naked, with treetops pinned into his burgeoning, wild hair, who ran faster through the bog than he'd ever seen a man run. Wiley was sixteen, lithe and strong like his late father. He was one of the fastest teenage boys in Cambridge City. In town he often ran races against other boys his age and could beat even the fastest ones just by running what was for him an easy gait. But he could not run like this man, who tore along with the speed of a flying ghost; his feet sprang across the marsh as if they didn't touch the ground. He moved as if he were flying, zipping through the trees and bushes like a breath of wind, his arms and legs flickering like butterfly wings as he leaped and dodged across the uneven swampland, leaping through the tiny creeks, muddy puddles, and thick cypresses like an antelope. He was a good distance ahead of Wiley, several hundred yards, gaining ground at each step, but he slowed at a creek where the embankment was too steep for him to easily maneuver, and Wiley, running and tumbling through the marsh at top speed, gained ground for a moment and got a good look at the man before he leaped out of sight.