Virginia Hamilton (4 page)

“
Gwoin
'
meet Jesus in the middle of the air, I thank Gawd ah'mfree at last!
” Mamaw finished, and sat down.

In a moment she caught her
breath. “Oh, Anthony!” She drew him to her. “I pray that one day you be in the church. You preach for all us, from the Bible.”

“Yay, Mamaw, I do it. Soon's I larn readin'.”

“I pray that,” she said, and held him close. She whispered, “You still a-huntin' and gatherin' the scraps?”

“What I can find,” he said. “I pick up and keep 'em.”

“Don't let Sister's chil'ren or anyone know, Anthony. Not even when it's all gathered and done.”

“I won't, Mamaw. I keep all it by me close.”

“You a good chile,” Her voice trembled. She held him so tight, it hurt him. He knew she feared for him, but he didn't know why. Was it because Mars John was gone now?

That was how he and Mamaw had been just a short time ago in the kitchen of the good house. Now young Anthony lay in the dark in the cabin with his head on his pillow rester. He squeezed it between his hands, listening to it rustle. Among the leaves and grasses of its filling were hidden the scraps of paper he had found with writing and printing on them. He had a whole collection of scraps now. Some had marks that were just alike. He knew a number of the markings. And someday he'd know what they said. Once he could read the markings, he figured he could read the Bible. For the Bible had the same kind of markings. Then Mamaw would be very pleased with him.

All reading was secret
—he didn't know why yet. Mamaw gave him thrown-away pieces of letters and printing from the good house. And all such scraps he saved inside his pillow, to look over when he could snatch a moment alone. His pillow grew softer, fuller over time.

“Never let the buckras know what you got there,” Mamaw had told him.

“Not he Mars?”

“No.”

“Not she Missy?”

“Lord, no!”

Now it was deep in the dark night. He'd fed the children and they slept again. He must've dozed. Suddenly he was wide awake, lifting his head to listen. He stayed half alert even when he was dreaming. What he'd first heard he now heard again. A slight sound, a creaking, like a cabin door closing.

Don't let Walker hear it! he thought.

There was silence again. He waited for what seemed forever. Looked all around him. No other child stirred. Carefully, Anthony reached out and opened the door just enough so he could peek.

Dark night. It made him shiver, but it was exciting, too.

“Go out,” he told himself.

Then he heard it. Not far. A cabin down the row, closer to the woods.

He got up and carefully opened the door so it was just big enough for him to slip through. Night slid in around him and poured its inky black over him. It covered him, made him unseen. He was out with the dark. There was no breeze. He followed the shapes
of cabins against the night. He was so small, with eager eyes hidden by dark.

All the houses of the row were the same crude dwellings. Dirt floors. Chinks of windows between the logs and mud daubings, with burlap and tree bark over the chinks. Some entrances had only holey blankets for doors. He could make out the men's cabin and the old men's cabin. Next was the women's cabin and the breeder women's cabin—in the same row but separated by a stand of trees. Breeder women's cabin was where Mamaw and Sister Janety lived with babies under five years old.

Slight sounds almost hidden in the noise of insects led him beyond the row.

All at once he stopped dead in the dark. Waiting, listening. Somebody was coming. A mighty strength rushed by him, never seeing Anthony so small, hugging a cabin front for safety.

Trembling, Anthony made himself move on to the place where the row ended. Here began the forest surrounding all of he Mars John Suttle's place. Here was the forbidden land of terrifying sounds and pungent smells of piney wood. Pine-tar fumes made Anthony's eyes tear. This was where the wind lived. It stole forth, Mamaw said, making the cabins shrink close in icy winter daylight.

In the deep, dark forest dwelled wild animals and giant creatures that fed upon slaves who would run. So he and all the children were warned by she Missy. And they believed it.

Never run away. Hear tell of running, tell she Missy. Never enter the forest, else you will get eated up. Wolves will sink teeth in your insides
, and shake and swallow them. Your guts will steam out on the cold ground.

Tell, tell Missy.

In front of Anthony, up against the forest on slightly higher ground, was Big Walker's cabin. It was away from the row, as if Walker's back was against the forest. As if he was to guard the winding path from one place to another, guard against the cabin folk.

Anthony couldn't believe he had come so far all by himself in the dark. It had to be Big Walker's creaking door he'd heard opening and closing. Big Walker, rushing by Anthony on his way to home, late from hard labor in he Mars's stone quarry.

Somebody walkin' right in Walker's place, Anthony thought. A lot of somebodys.

He saw light, movement. There. Door opening, creaking its sound, and closing again. Anthony moved, more afraid standing still than moving. Just see the light in Walker's place, he thought. Go on up there. Stay low. Chinks there to see.

He saw through a chink. He eyes grew big. So many folks there, sitting close. Some swayed in the light of a tallow candle. They hummed such a soft sound. Comfort in humming together.

“
And din't it rain?
” Mumbly sounds in a rush of whispers. He knew that sound of sorrow meant trouble was near.

Candlelight flickered. Pale yellow, tallow light. Nobody had such light except in she Missy's good house. Mamaw must've got it. Walker couldn't get such tallow by himself. There—Mamaw!

Mamaw, in Walker's house?

Big Walker, moving around
. Touching everybody—a shoulder here, bowed head there. Walker, bending over them like he cared about everybody.

Anthony looked on in awe. Big Walker! Actin' like he some all right. He some the same as we be.

Walker made his way over to the fire. He crouched low beside Mamaw. She laid her head on his shoulder, and Anthony went cold inside. Big Walker held Mamaw's hand and put his arm around her. They rocked together, back and forth.

Mamaw? Big Walker? Folks going to them and holding both them.

“Mamaaaw!” Anthony cried in agony at what he was seeing. Before he knew what was happening, the cabin door creaked and somebody got him. Lifted him and carried him inside. “It's Anthony.” He was put down.

“Anthony!” Mamaw called. She held out her arms to him. He rushed to her. “Oh, Anthony.”

“Better that he do hear. That he know everything now,” Big Walker said.

Anthony began to cry, he was so confused. He could feel the sadness all around the room. “Hush, hush, now,” Mamaw told him.

Mamaw began talking. She held his head against her, had his ears in her palms. He buried his face in her neck.

“Say she gone do it,” Mamaw said, low in her throat. “She say she gone sell him away far away.”

“
And din't it rain, my Jesus!
” somebody moaned.

Another simply started to cry,
softly.

“Mamaaaw,” Anthony cried again.

“I say to her, ‘Oh, no, Missy,' ” his mamaw went on, “ ‘don't take my baby away. Don't you do that to me. Mars John, he never want you to sell my Anthony. Please, don't sell my baby. I do anythin' fer ya. Just don't do that, oh, please, Missy.'

“So she say she sell me, for Anthony. She gone send me off for two year, anyway. She movin' all us and her and everythin' to that Acquia town. And I got to go on myself someplace for two year. And she won't let me take my baby. Oh, Anthony! Who will see you all right?”

“It be hard, but don't you worry,” Big Walker told her. “I watch out him like I allus do.” He reached to comfort Anthony.

“Naw!” Anthony hollered, and pushed Walker's hand away.

“Anthony, hush up,” Mamaw said. “He not gwoin' hurt you.”

“He bein' Driver,” Anthony cried.

“True, but he leader of quarry, too,” Mamaw said. “He do for Mars John everythin' as long as Mars be. But Mars done gone oveh now, and Walker through bein' quarry, make him cough so. Anthony, he don't mean to pain you. What little he hurt you was to keep Mars John from painin' you more.”

“Wha … what?” Anthony whispered.

“Walker not hurt you,” Mamaw went on. “He your own great big papa, too. No more hidin' the truth. He your own paw!”

“Huh?”

“Mars John said you belong
him, but it's a lie—I'm tellin' you so.”

“Quit it, now,” Big Walker said. “The boy don't have to hear all that.”

“My own me don't belong to me nohow,” Mamaw cried, between racking sobs. “Say who come to my bed,” she moaned. “Say who sleep-a-me where. That why that Missy hate me and mine so.”

“It over now,” Walker said. “I ain't havin' no more no way. We gwoin' to run is what I say.”

“You gwoin' to go?” All spoke at once.

“Oh, don't go. Lawd, don't go!”

“You gwoin' do that?”

“They ketch you. They do the dogs on you.”

“They ain't ketch nothin',” Big Walker said. “Before we move to that Acquia, we gwoin' lose some us in these woods. She not find us, that Missy Suttle, not no her or he Mars son, Mars Charles, find us neither. Nobody ever find us.” All of a sudden Walker commenced coughing so hard, he had to sit down in a corner. Someone brought him a dipper of water.

“Ain't gwoin' nowhere,” Anthony whispered to Mamaw. “Me too scared of all bad wolfs.”

“Huh, baby, we go where your paw wants us,” Mamaw said.

“He the Big Walker. He ain't no my paw,” Anthony said.

“He is—now hush.”

5
May 25, 1854

THE WEIGHT OF
the past and the darkness of its night
enclosed Anthony until slowly, with the growing light of day, he returned to the present.

The windows of the jury room where he was kept under guard were covered with iron bars that seemed to break the day into welts of pain. If he could somehow keep his eyes from those bright stripes, he might keep his suffering at bay. But it was no use.

Here I be! he despaired. Caught, I am, and no longer a man. Father, protect me!

He tried retreating again into the past, but all that would come to him was the time of sadness in Mamaw's cabin. With him these many years was the same question, born out of that night. “Who am I?” For the thousandth time he asked himself, “Be I the slave owner's own boy or the slave driver's son? He Mars John's or Big Walker's?”

Again, he lifted his good hand, as he had so many times before. Held it close to his eyes to see it better. There was no denying his skin was light brown. Big Walker had been a dark man, his mamaw a very black woman.

It had been whispered about the
plantation that Big Walker Burns was once a freeman. That he had been tricked, caught, and brought down South. But Anthony never knew for certain if this was true, nor did any other of Mars John's black folks. Big Walker never said anything about it directly.

What matter any of it now? Anthony thought. Here I be, like a starved dog in his pen.

Anthony's stomach ached him, he was so hungry. He hadn't eaten since sometime in the dayclean before this. The room stank from the odor of stale ale and sweat. Anthony felt dizzy, then sick to his stomach from the stench. He would have to have something to eat and soon, or he would faint dead away.

Presently the heavy door to the jury room swung open. A man entered. He went over to Asa Butman. “Get him ready,” he said. “We have to take him down now.”

He came over to Anthony. “Deputy Marshal Riley,” he said, introducing himself. “You are going to court now, Anthony. Go with Asa here. He will see that you fix yourself up a bit.”

Anthony did as he was told. In a small room off to the side he washed his face and smoothed his hair. There was no comb or brush for him. He straightened his clothing. He took a tin cup of cold water that Asa offered him, but that was all he was given. When he and Butman came out again, Deputy Riley ordered irons closed around his wrists.

Anthony went numb into himself. He moved down the steps like a sleepwalker. When he entered the room set aside in this state Court House as a
Federal courtroom, he made no response to seeing Colonel Suttle and William Brent there flanked by men he had never seen before— their lawyers. Also present was the one called Marshal Freeman. Some ten of his men, deputies, were with him.

Anthony took the prisoner's seat across from the judge's bench as he was directed by Asa.

“I'm makin' no promises, Tony,” Colonel Suttle said to him calmly as he seated himself, “and I'm makin' no threats.”

Anthony heard what Suttle said but could give no answer. He was aware of all that went on around him, but it was hard now for him to keep his mind on any one thing for long. His head felt light. He wanted so much just to lie down. The wrist irons and the chain that connected them grew heavier by the minute. Anthony couldn't find the strength or will to lift a finger even to scratch his nose, which itched him. The itching became a dull aching. It in turn spread into a throbbing loneliness throughout his body. He felt miserably hot in his shoulders and deathly cold in his legs.

Anthony bowed his head. For the rest of the time he sat as if hypnotized.

Asa Butman and one of his men took their seats on either side of Anthony. Also present and seated was the U.S. Attorney for the Federal Government, District of Massachusetts, Benjamin Hallett. Hallett was a politician who believed his position as U.S. District Attorney gave him the right to oversee the government's policy of rigidly executing the Fugitive Slave Act. He agreed with that policy, in fact. He and the other officials present
hoped that the examination would be completed as soon as possible. There had been no inkling of a fugitive arrest in the morning papers. Reporters knew nothing yet about what was going on. Colonel Suttle and Mr. Brent intended to take the prisoner out of Boston and down South before the dreaded Boston “radicals” knew about his capture. Ben Hallett hoped they would, too. For if the abolitionists found out, they had a hundred ways in which they might come to Burns's defense. They might try to mob Colonel Suttle or even have him prosecuted for kidnapping.