Andersonville (116 page)

For the last time, I tell you it is nonsense, nigger nonsense, you hear? You couldn’t find your way to Savannah! How will you feed Extra and the children, where will you put them at night?

Reckon we sleep out by a fire.

And it rains, it blows, you’re all drenched, you have no roof over you, nothing to eat!

But when we
gets
to Savannah—

This is his illusion, try to take it from him, you can’t, he adheres to it like a seed in a boll. The shiny table is spread with dollars, dimes, quarters, gold. Linkum or Linkum’s ghost or deputy sits behind the table and calls the roll. He says, What your name? and Jonas say Jonas, and Extra say Extra. Yes, Jonas. Certainly, Extra. I got all this hard money here for you! Clinkety-clink in the money bag. Whole great big bagful money you got now, and never have to work no more. Now you walk in town like white folks, go in the store where once white folks bought Christmas for the black people— But now you are just like white folks, and Freedom done come, this the day of Freedom, Jubilee time! Now you just like white folks, got great big bagful dimes and solid gold, you buy Christmas for yourself any day you wish—

There was nothing left but prayer. Ira heard himself telling the glistening stubborn brown face, I shall go into the house and pray that you do not go. I have appealed to you to no avail. I’ll appeal to the Lord.

He did go into the house and immediately encountered Lucy, who was smiling wanly and gesturing with her finger toward her lips; and this reminded Ira of Veronica, naturally, although Lucy did not much resemble her mother in appearance. Poppy, let’s be still as mice. My dear Harry is asleep on your sofa. He just came in, and I put him there—and soothed him— Praise be, he’s fast asleep! Nineteen hours at a single ssstretch— On this last word her voice was shaking.

Lucy, the Yankees will soon be taken away.

But do the Federals know that many sick are still here?

Of course, child, of course they know. They’ll be along soon.

He told her of Jonas and Extra, the weird belief which tempted them. Lucy’s eyes snapped and she went flying out across the yard; but when she came back much more slowly, and with heavier steps, she said that it was no use, the people were packing their duds. Extra had clung to her and wet her old gown with tears, but it was no use; these two dreamers were free, they were bound to go dreaming along the byways.

When do they go? At once?

I persuaded them to wait until the morning. I told them they should have baskets of food to tote along. It seemed that, if they slept on it— Don’t you think, Poppy, if they slept on it—?

I fear tis no earthly use.

Later Ira had a thought that Leander might prevail upon his daughter Extra to prevail in turn upon her husband— This was senseless: Leander had not enough strength left to persuade or adjure. He had been ailing for years, declining for months, Cousin Harry guessed that he suffered enlargement of the spleen, for the old creature wore an uncomfortable protuberance like pregnancy.

Harry Elkins allayed Ira’s perplexity if not his doubts for Jonas and Extra and the two children. Late in the evening the young man awoke from exhausted slumber, and Lucy fed him cold bacon and cabbage salad, and warmed up a pot of soup over blazing twigs in the library’s fireplace (no longer was there a drop of oil on the plantation, so she might not use her little lamp). Ira came in from a limping plunging walk; he had watched the crescent moon go down, had wandered nearly to the place where Veronica had babbled in slime; then Ira turned back in sadness if not in terror. He thought that there was no terror left. Of what might he now be afraid?

Daughter Lucy told you of my people, Coz?

She did.

Ah, that stupid Jonas!

You know, came Harrell Elkins’s mild grating words, I believe I know why he’s bound and determined to leave.

Ira bent closer, frowning. Then tell me.

Because he’s the only soul upon the place who’s smart enough to realize that he is free! He and Extra, perhaps. She was Lucy’s playmate, sometimes even her confidante; think you not that it’s possible that her association with Lucy has developed her imagination more than the other wenches’? And often I’ve heard you say that Jonas was smart as tacks. On certain subjects, pertaining—say—to husbandry? Then, you see—

Elkins’s head swayed forward and Lucy pressed her shoulder against his to sustain him.

You see, he
knows
that he is free. The two of them know it. They have—you might say, graduated—into a state of rapture without bound. Thus they may see sights, hear sounds, tread among visions never glimpsed or heard or trod among by the other blacks. The notion of Linkum and the money to be given away— They don’t believe it actually. They but pretend to.

Harry was silent for a while, so were Ira and Lucy. It serves as an excuse for this seeming descent into starvation and homelessness, said Elkins at last.

Ira gazed long at the young pair through candlelight. If what you say is true, there might be a hope for the future.

Hope? echoed Lucy. For whom?

For black people. All of them, in every place. I mean education. I had not thought of it in that way before; and regarded folks who preached such education as either vicious or demented. But if our slaves are to be set adrift, might it not be wiser and safer for all—for them, for ourselves—to develop their minds, to aid them in developing whatever power might lie within them? Suddenly I feel that it might.

Ira considered this revolutionary departure until he slept belatedly. He thought of it in many phases and ramifications. Would the National Government establish schools quickly for these dogged capricious beasts now designated as humans? The Government should. Our Government, he said very nearly aloud. No longer is it Their Government. What’s in a possessive pronoun? Should I assemble the remaining people tomorrow and set them letters upon slates, and bid them copy? His last conscious thought was a thanks given to Cousin Harry. Son-in-law or not, Ira would always think of him as Cousin Harry.

Some two hours after sunrise Jonas and his family presented themselves at the rear yard gate to speak farewells. Elkins was off to the hospital an hour earlier, but Lucy and Ira came down and stood to receive embraces and handclasps while the rest moaned and muttered beyond the palings.

You will be delayed a trifle, Jonas, in departing.

Jonas’s eyes widened and his nostrils twitched. You could see that he rose instantly to the willingness for rebellion.

For you are to harness Tiger to the cart. The two-wheeler which little Bun drives about his work.

Mastah? came the guttural shudder of the Negro’s voice.

For you are to take Tiger with you. I’m lending him to you, with the cart. I shan’t have children trudging, stone-bruising themselves over the miles. . . .

Also Ira had prepared a paper, he had risen in gray light to prepare it. To Whom It May Concern: This will certify that I, Ira Claffey, citizen of Sumter County, Georgia, in recognizance of the laws of the United States of America now prevailing since the recent surrenders by Confederate States’ commanders, have given permission to my former slave, Jonas, now a freedman, to proceed with his wife Extra and children Buncombe and Gracious, also formerly my slaves and now freed, to a destination of their own choosing. Warning is given herewith that no person shall interfere with Jonas and his family so long as they proceed peaceably, or attempt to arrest or persecute them, or offer them bodily harm or threat, under penalty of such retaliation as I shall assuredly bring within a court of law, or, if necessary, outside the law. These people have the protection of whatever law now applies to the State of Georgia, and have my own protection as well. The mule and cart in their possession are my property and must be treated as such. Signed by me on the first day of May, 1865. Ira Claffey. Witness: Harrell Elkins, Surgeon, P.A.C.S.

The paper was folded, pinned within the pocket of Jonas’s shirt, and baskets of food were put aboard the cart. Ira gave Jonas an old tobacco bag with strings drawn tight, containing dimes and quarters. He thought that Confederate scrip might suddenly be of no value whatsoever, but feared to have Jonas exhibiting dollars in some wayside store; quickly he might be robbed, indeed probably he would be robbed sooner or later. So goodbye to the Tiger mule and the cart as well. But could Ira sit down to a midday meal and think of these people wandering with empty bellies, the children wailing? No, no, his arm must reach to feed them over whatever distance it could reach, his wheels and hoofs should bear them forward.

Bear them to what place? They went squeaking down the lane, the blacks waved and jigged and shouted, Coffee announced that he knew which side of his bread had the grease on it, he wasn’t going Savannah or no such place. Orphan Dick tried to run after the cart, and was brought back by Pet and jailed; but still he screamed; he thought that Extra was his mother, he remembered no other mother. . . . Bear them to a gaunt freedom wherein the free were never fed, wherein the free suffered a captivity worse than the worst of slavery itself? Again Ira thought of slums in long-ago New York, he was forced to close his eyes against the thought, fling it out of his brain.

Man in blue coat, he got gold buttons on he coat, ha, ha, ha; he got that jubilee money for every day we slaves. Mistuh Soldier Man, you tell me where I find Linkum, like folks say? Please, Mistuh White Man, sir, this here road take us Savannah? . . . No, I ain’t run off—I
walk
off—my own mastah, he Mistuh Ira Claffey, I got paper say so right here.

What protection, what interest, what provender? The storm of May might rage . . . but where would they be when June thunders came booming?

I try not to think of them, said Lucy.

But they would go.

Shouldn’t you have held them here?

How?

Of course you could not. . . . Extra tattled to Ninny, Poppy. She told her that if they found short commons, they’d be back. She’d counseled Jonas so.

And would they find the way?

Poppy, let me work with you today. There’s much to do within doors as always; but somehow I just naturally can’t direct Ninny and Pet and Naomi today. Are you killing plum beetles again? Let me put on my old gown and help you.

Very well. I shall save the fattest
Conotrachelus Nenuphar
for you.

Ugh.

And mind, Miss—excuse me,
Mrs.
—Florence Nightmare, you’re not to doctor wounded weevils.

Oh, Poppy, I’ll
squash
them.

The sudden departure of his daughter Extra was the finish of Old Leander. He mumbled gloomily about it, refused food, tried to walk down the road in his shirt-tail, was helped back tottering and soon lay unconscious. He died quickly. They buried him in the slaves’ plot adjoining the Claffey graveyard, the first free Negro to lie there.

 LIX 

C
aptain Ox Puckett gone, everybody gone; the engines of passing trains operated by strangers who did not know the Widow Tebbs, who sent no jovial whistle toots piercing in salutation through walls of the house. Hulsey gone, Quillian gone, Wingo gone, Camp gone, Isbell gone, all the Confederate soldiers paroled and gone off to their homes. The memory of the Widow Tebbs was confused but it was thronged, her past was a pushing active mingling of male feet kicking high, thin or fleshy male arms gripping, some of them hurting her (her standard objection and warning to such customers as these was, Now, Mister, you please to take it more easy. You’re a-hurting me, and if you don’t quit a-hurting me I’m a-going to kick you, and I surely do know where to kick). She did remember how she used to call Isbell Is-a-belle; it was a joke between them, a small joke which her small mind could enjoy. Middlebrooks gone, Deadwyler gone, Strozier gone, Judge gone. The nameless gone, the ones she addressed merely as Bob, Jo, Fat, Bully, Baby, Frankie, Freck, Goose, Pop, Dick (he liked to have her call him Dick, but she did so with reluctance because the use of the name reminded her of her long-dead husband, Dickwood Tebbs, and she had no jolly memories of Dick Tebbs). Gone and paroled, trudged off with tattered haversacks swinging, gone away gun-less, saying that it was a hundred and seventy miles to Home and by God they surely did wish they could catch a ride on a wagon. Defeat and emptiness and neglect and loneliness and defeat and improvidence and defeat and defeat pounded hard against the ragged landscape, no matter how porcelain blue the sky on some fair days, how tender green the pines.

Listlessly Marget Tebbs stirred at her pot of stockpeas, and she felt a drudgery in even the simple unrewarding task of searching bare or littered shelves, hunting for salt, finding no salt.

I do wish, she said to Coral.

Huh?

Wish we had a chunk of meat to put into this mess of peas. Misfortune that we ate up all the chickens already.

Coral was out on the porch, Flory was gone to the depot to try to beg tobacco from passing Unionists. Flory had learned to chew while he was with the Reserves; now he had no tobacco, and there was no money in the house. Zoral was playing train in the yard. Coral came clump, step, thud, step, clump across the warped flooring and halted in the doorway.

You mean to say all that there fat-back is gone?

Twasn’t much left, sonny. Flory and I had it to our breakfast.

Whilst I was a-hunting, and you didn’t save me a smidgin!

I did trust, Coral, that you’d fetch home some game.

God damn, I never met up with no game.

I smell something awful, the widow said, wrinkling her plump little nose.

By gum, so do I. Coral went outside to investigate and a moment later hooted with rage and disgust, and there sounded a scream from Zoral. Coral shouted, I’m throwing it over behind them bushes, and don’t you dast bring it back! Zoral crawled to his den under the house and lay kicking in fury.

He had him an old possum, Coral reported when he came back. Like he’s always hauling them dead chickens around, playing like they’re cars and he’s a engineer.

Dead possum? The widow clucked, angry yells still rose through the floor boards, and finally she was compelled to stamp heavily to claim the child’s attention. You Zoral! You stop that caterwauling right this minute or I’ll throw water on you like I done the other day.

Zoral stopped.

Dead
possum! Hell, he was fat as a skinned horse two days in the sun. Wish I could have met up with a live possum.

Well, said Mag in resignation, least the meat would be stringy at this season.

Coral said, I swear he’s Satan cut to size.

Who, sonny? That there possum?

Possum, hell! That blame Zoral of your’n. Know what he done this very morning? I come out: there he was, big as life, standing on the well-curb, peeing down the well. I give him a lick he won’t forget.

Oh, sonny! The widow added musingly, but I’m truly glad you done it, for he might have fell in and drownded himself.

I wasn’t agonizing about that no way! I just don’t want to drink no Zoral pee.

The Widow Tebbs sighed. Guess we can’t blame poor little Zoral too much. You know, sonny, the gentleman caller I always took to be his daddy— He was a queer piece sure enough. I don’t mind his name now, but he tolt me he used to work in a circus; and first off I liked that, count of all the red and spangles and solid gold carriages and truck. But guess what he done. He said he bit the heads right off of chickens. It fair to turned my stomach, but he just laughed.

She found a few splintery scraps of cinnamon on a high shelf where they had lain long forgotten behind a dusty bottle half full of castor oil and another of coal oil. She stirred cinnamon among the bubbling cowpeas, it would give the vegetables flavor of a sort.

This was not a fair day, clouds were solid above but creased and rolled, turning from tannish to ugly brown beyond the somber tree-swept horizon. Coral returned to the door and sniffed the breeze darkly. Dad burn, I just fear for a whirlwind, day like this.

Don’t talk so, sonny. I mind how a hurricane took the roof plumb off our house when I was a girl.

I said whirlwind. Hain’t no hurricanes in Maytime.

Well, maybe twas a whirlwind. I wasn’t more’n six at the time.

Hadn’t never lain with your first man, said Coral in good humor. Not till you was seven.

Coral, that hain’t no way for a young man to address his Ma!

Well, maybe not till you was eight. He said suddenly and in a strictly different tone, Reckon I’ll walk over Claffey way.

He loved to say, I’ll walk, walk here, walk there. The meager squeezed but determined face of Naz Stricker rose before him each time he said the word
walk
. He thought of Naz Stricker, laboring doggedly off into black space, into the sky itself, into strange Northern cities and villages, walking solitary on a homeward path past overhanging barns. Maybe one day Naz would write him a letter, and Coral could read a little, maybe he could read the letter. If not, maybe his mother could spell it out for him. If she couldn’t, Mr. Claffey would read the letter.

Why you going over to Claffeys’, Coral?

Oh, I want to talk some business. I been pondering it.

The widow said, My, I just don’t cipher no way what business you could be speaking to Mr. Ira Claffey.

There was a note like eagerness in Coral’s voice, that tone usually so disapproving, grim, strung with bitterness. Might as well tell you what I got on my mind. Some of Mr. Claffey’s niggers have gone off already, though they might come back; but that leaves him short of hands. And you know Old Leander died, for I tolt you I walked past whilst they was a-burying him. Well. Mr. Claffey’s got all that big garden in, like he always has planted, with just plain oceans of collards and carrots and onions and yams and Christ knows what all.

Mag smiled happily at the mere mention of these delectable things. You mean maybe you might ask him for a mite of garden truck?

God damn, old lady, did you hear me say
ask
? By God I’m a man, and by God I hain’t no beggar like that little Joe-Brown’s-Pet-Snot-Nosed Flory of your’n. I can work for what I fetch home.

Coral! You mean—work on his land? Like one of his niggers been doing all the while?

Reckon I could wield a hoe if’n he showed me what he wanted hoed up or down. And lots of raising of garden truck you got to do hunched on your marrow-bones.

I never! Just like a nigger—

Plenty white folks got to get out and dig, these days. I seen that nephew of the old Biles a-raking and a-digging, and he was a officer in Cobb’s Legion.

Mag imagined a good stew, vegetables bouncing and turning in broth, and plenty of salt and pepper; and she thought of vinegar to put on greens, too, for she despised greens without vinegar. You know, Coral, we been faring just like them Yankees what was in the stockade, ever since the soldiers was sent away. Scarcely nothing to bite nor break.

Well I know, old lady.

He sighed, he thought of days of plenty, winter days, he thought of ham. So I reckon I’ll walk over and put it to him boldly.

You might even be keeping us—

She sighed. Stead of me a-keeping us. Putting victuals on our table for us, Coral! And Zoral’s so puny all the while, just punier and punier.

Mag added brightly, You know, Mr. Ira Claffey is a real gentleman and kindly too. If’n it struck his fancy he might give you a mite of meat to go along with what garden truck you earnt.

If I go to doing a nigger’s work on the Claffey place, said Coral ominously, that God damn Flory is going to perform his share of toil. I don’t aim to feed him free out of hand.

Reckon Flory’d be willing. But you’d have to set him to the task and keep him to it.

By God. The boy spoke with relish. I’d admire to do that.

He went clump-stepping across the porch, stepping across the yard. Mag stiffened when he was near the railway, for sound of his whistling came floating back to her. Vaguely she was amazed, she thought a stranger must be there, she was not accustomed to hearing Coral whistle. He had whistled constantly, with little birdy warbles, before he went to war. He had whistled a time or two in the winter, when she thought he was keeping a black girl in the woods. She thought, I do love pretty music, and had a wish to go to The Crib and turn on the music box; then she remembered sadly that the music box was broken at last.

Pursley gone, Carden gone, Almond gone, Swancey gone. Mag owned a soiled cloth purse decorated with glass beads and dried melon seeds strung together in a manner she thought beautiful. In this purse she had kept money, hiding the purse in various places about the house during those seasons when she possessed greenbacks and scrip. But the ragged bauble mocked her now, empty and cast aside beneath a bed, Zoral had played with it, the beads and seeds were coming off. It was not solely empty purse and destitution which taunted. It was the loneliness, the rust of the machine in which she was dressed, the bones and tissues and fluids surrounding her spirit, the body—so active and abused by over-employment. Yet abuse became a long necessity, and Mag had thrived on the juices (clean or tainted, and so all the clean were tainted eventually) poured within her.

She looked through the open door and saw her youngest child streaking across the yard. Cunningly he had come out from under the house and sought to retrieve the dead possum and resume his freighting, his imaginary railroad play, once Coral was departed. Either Coral was returning without ever having reached the Claffey place, or else a stranger approached; nothing else could have caused Zoral to scoot to refuge with such celerity.

Mag stepped into open air and saw not one stranger but two. They were in uniform, they wore blue pants with yellow stripes, short jackets piped with yellow. They sauntered between wheel ruts, glancing up at threatening clouds; one man was smoking his pipe, one carried a tough green weed in his hand and flicked this switch idly against his leg as he strolled.

The widow wished that she were properly dressed. She wished that she was wearing her poplin gown, her blue one, she wished even that she was wearing her wrapper with torn ribbon bows. Hastily she touched her hair.

Howdy, she said from the doorway when the soldiers were a rod away and still coming closer.

Hello, lady. . . . Good day. . . .

It does look like rain. Maybe like we might get a whirlwind?

The taller of the two was chuckling. He said, Guess we scairt your little boy, lady. He went under your house, hot blocks, minute he saw us coming.

They were slender, tight belted, they were young but not too young, caps were worn at jaunty angles on the close trimmed brown head and the longer-haired yellow head, the men walked with the leisurely grace of assured people enjoying a moment of holiday. They were well fed, well booted, the great flaps of their holsters curled beside their belts, one wore a haversack slung from his shoulder, he had a wide sliced scar on his cheekbone and bending down into his neck, the other man affected a well brushed mustache, they were young, not too young.