The Emancipation of Robert Sadler (9 page)

Miss Ceily calmed me on the matter.

“Honey, you is washed clean jes for the astin,” she told me. “When yoll ast Jesus to forgive yor sins, He does it. That means you is washed clean from yor sins. Don't mean no color of yor
skin
; it mean the color of yor
soul
. Sin make the soul full of darkness. Full of the shadowy substance. But when the love of Jesus come through and you gits forgiveness from yor sins, then you is washed clean—yor
soul
is white as snow.”

“Uh. But a colored person ain't got no soul.”

Miss Ceily reeled on her heels. “Lissen to me, chile, don't you lissen to them lies, you hear me?
Don't you lissen to them lies!
When the white man tell you them lies, yoll jes wag yor head, ‘Yes'm, Nossuh, Yes'm,' but don't you pay them no mind. They's a-lyin to you!”

“Yes, Ma'am.”

Ceily explained to me that God loved me and cared about me. It was very hard to understand, and I didn't grasp most of what she told me. She prayed over me and asked God to show me that He cared about this “poor lil ole nigger chile.”

In the shanty farthest down the line, behind a clump of trees, a party was in full swing. I could hear the music and the singing and the slapping of feet on the dirt floor. When I left Miss Ceily, I walked toward the bleached wooden shack where the party was going on. Somebody had a homemade banjo, somebody else played the sticks, and there was a drum made out of a piece of tree trunk with a skin stretched across it, and above it all were the loud, exuberant sounds of singing.

I stood in the doorway and peered into the shack lit only by one kerosene lamp. I watched as the men and women stomped and danced together, laughing and hooting. Children were lined along the walls, too, as well as outside the shanty. The air was thick with the smells of whiskey, tobacco, and sweat. I stood riveted in place watching the bodies of the men and women twirl and whirl and strut and jump in the dim light of the room. I felt a thrill inside like I'd never felt. I couldn't help but dance, too.

There was a formal kind of dance that had to be learned when we “set the floor.” It was done with a glass of water on the head. Then we'd do another dance inside a circle trying not to go outside the lines. I forgot all time and stayed until way past midnight learning the dances and feeling myself let loose.

The next morning I asked Big Mac if I could go to the little church that the slaves attended. He wasn't too happy about my leaving the house. He made it very clear I had to be back before Master and the family returned from the church they attended, which was only about a mile down the road.

I scrubbed my face and put on my only clothes. Harriet had shown me how to clean myself and wash my teeth with salt. I washed my clothes about once a month, and I bathed without soap whenever I went to the creek.

I walked to the meeting place with Miss Ceily and her sons, John Henry, Isaiah, Jerry-Ben, Fred, and Boot. We walked slowly and silently in the morning sun. The smell of honeysuckle was thick and sweet, and insects sang their loud earth songs along the path as though heralding us on our way. Miss Ceily wore a black dress with a worn, lacy collar. The boys wore clean overalls and tow shirts. All of us were barefoot.

The church was a shack made out of logs with hay and mud stuffed in the cracks. There were two openings for windows with wooden boards that pulled across them when they needed to be closed. Inside were wooden benches to sit on and a pulpit for the preacher. Because it was such a lovely day, the door this morning was closed and we filed by, following a path leading to the narrow creek that flowed into the Savannah River.

There was a cluster of people already gathered by the little creek in a shaded clearing when we arrived. There were many warm greetings and embraces. The meeting began with singing. The singing went on and on. I felt elevated in the music, lifted far beyond anything I had ever experienced. Even better than the music last night.

There were songs filled with ecstasy and joy, songs that were lamenting and sad. They were a part of me, a part of everything I felt and knew. In the dark and untapped places of my mind that day, I began to understand who I was and what I was made of.

There might have been a hundred of us there, I didn't know: maybe ten, twenty. I only knew the joy of belonging and the closeness of the God Miss Ceily had been telling me about.

I didn't get back to the Big House until afternoon. Big Mac was angry. “Massuh's been back for two hours! Chile, I ought to whup you!”

The excitement of the morning faded as I went to find Anna and begin my work around the Big House. I wanted to tell Big Mac all about the meeting in the woods. I wanted to tell him how the Negro preacher had told us that one day we wouldn't have any more troubles and that Jesus would take all our troubles from us. One day. He told us that God would help us be strong and He was with us through all our trials. I guessed that if Master Beal knew that the Negro preacher was telling us things like that, he'd have him strung up high on a tree. I prayed that the Lord wouldn't allow that to happen. And then I prayed something very strange. I prayed that the Lord would forgive Master Beal.

In 1921 I turned ten years old. On a starry Saturday night in September, the Beals were invited to a party at another plantation. Master Beal was now the proud owner of a new automobile.

That Saturday night when I saw Buck Moore walk through the kitchen door of the Big House, I jumped with surprise.

“Buck!”

“Hello, Robert.”

“What you doin here?”

“I is Massuh Beal's chauffeur now. He done come down and give me this new job. Even give us a cabin closer to the house so's I can be right near when he need me.”

Buck and Corrie near the house! That night he chauffeured the Beals to their party. I watched from the parlor window as they drove off, and I trembled with excitement. I had never seen such a fine automobile, and to see Buck sitting up so clean and slick driving it made me very proud. He was wearing clean overalls, and he looked young and strong.

While Master Beal was at the party, Tennessee escaped from the plantation. She ran off with John Henry and the baby.

Master Beal didn't realize she was gone until late Sunday afternoon. He went crazy when he found out. The hounds were sent out after them, and he hollered for Buck to drive him to the train station in town. His friends rallied together, and the search was on. I prayed with all my heart that they wouldn't catch them.

“Please, please, can I go to Miss Ceily?” I begged Big Mac.

“Yoll ain't goin no place,” Big Mac exclaimed, his jaw tight, and I knew it was a dangerous time for all of us, and we'd all have to lay low and wait for news of Tennessee and John Henry.

The hours went by. Juanita and Virginia, the Beals' daughters, played tea party on the lawn beside the summer porch. Their laughter, like high-pitched bells, could be heard above the oppressive silence in the house. Mary Webb was overly busy in the kitchen preparing sweet potato pies and baking a ham for the white folks' supper, and Harriet had run down to the quarter to be with her children. Big Mac sat in the shadows of the kitchen porch by the well rolling Master's cigarettes.

If Tennessee and John Henry were to make it to freedom safely, it would be a victory for every slave on the plantation. We would each know a little greatness for a time. But if they were captured, their torture would belong to all of us, and we would moan on our pallets sharing their defeat. Sweat rolled down my body as I waited by the window in the children's bedroom while Miss Anna took her afternoon nap.

Evening came and Mistress Beal ate the sweet potato pie and baked ham with her children without Master. There was no word at all. Mistress behaved oddly, and I heard Mary Webb say she was drunk. When they had finished eating, she took the children into the music room, and we heard the piano playing simple two-part melodies. I knew Juanita was performing. She played haltingly, studying the music every time the position of her fingers changed.

Nightfall came. Juanita played on and on. The stop-and-start sounds wore on everyone's nerves, especially Mistress Beal's. She paced the floor of the parlor like a cat. I dressed Anna in her soft cotton nightgown and held her on my lap before putting her into her bed for the night.

“Robert,” she cooed, snuggling her face against my chest, “Robert, when I get big—”

“Yes, Miz Anna?”

“When I get big, will you marry me?”

I laughed until tears came. I was afraid I might burst into sobbing and so I lifted her from my lap, set her down firmly on the floor, and said without courage, “I declare, chile!”

“Don't you love me, Robert?”

“Well, I 'spect I do.”

“Then we can get married!”

I didn't answer her, and she bubbled on. “I'll have to have a pretty dress and pretty white shoes, you know. Then I'll tell my chillren to be very, very quiet and you kin kiss me, too.”

“Uhm.”

“I love you, my Robert. I love you bestest in all the world. You's my honey baby.”

It was after midnight when the sound of horses' hooves woke me. I sat upright, listening. The other children didn't stir. I slid out of my bed and walked across the bare floor to the window. I could see nothing. I tiptoed out of the room and down the hall to the dining room. The room smelled of stale smoke and liquor. From the window I could see the driveway plainly in the moonlight.

There were at least ten horses. The moon was full and shone on the forms on the horses. My heart pounded in my chest when I saw the riders. They looked like monsters from hell, like ghosts, apparitions of the dead. I held my breath for fear one of them might see me through the window and slay me with one evil look. They were all in white, like sails of ships that I had seen in the children's books. Their faces were covered with hoods, and they all carried rifles and sticks. It could have been the end of the world, and I wouldn't have been more terrified. So this is what I had heard about and never seen—this was the Ku Klux—the devil himself.

Shaking, I held on to the edge of the curtain. They were shouting back and forth. One of the apparitions descended from his horse and strode to the front door. I froze where I was. The knocker sounded. It was loud and unmistakable. I didn't move from where I was. Who would answer the door? Mistress surely wouldn't. Big Mac was sleeping in the back of the house. I was the only servant around.

The knocking continued. “Sam!” a voice shouted. “Sam Beal!”

Then I heard a sound behind me. My heart stopped. I turned slowly, without breathing. A man was sitting across the room from me in a straight-backed chair with his elbows on the dining room table. It was Master Beal! He must have been there when I crept in to watch out the window.

“Answer the door, boy,” he said in a growling whisper.

“Yessuh, Massuh Beal, suh.”

I hurried to the door and, with shaking hands, opened it.

“Whey the boss man?” asked the robed form before me. Speechless, I simply pointed toward the dining room. The form marched into the house.

“Ain't you got no lights here?” the creature asked.

“Light the lamp, boy,” Master said.

I scrambled for the kerosene lamp by the door. My fingers were trembling, and I could hardly hold the match.

Seeing Sam Beal, the figure announced, “We got the man down by the hollow.”

“What about the girl?”

“Nah. Jes him. You want to hang him tonight or tomorrow?”

“Tonight! Hang the devil tonight!”

I could hardly keep myself from crying out. Caught! Lord, no!

I was so frightened I nearly fainted. I wanted to scream, to protest, but it would have been useless.

“I want that nigger dead,” Master Beal said quietly.

When they left the house, Master Beal could hardly walk. He stumbled over his own feet in a drunken attempt to move quickly.

“We'll take my car!”

Somewhere between the house and the hollow where poor John Henry awaited his fate, Master Beal donned his white Ku Klux regalia. I ran to the back of the house to rouse Big Mac. I cried out to God for mercy and clung to Big Mac, trying not to sob. When the sound of the horses and the engine of the car died in the distance, I flew out of the house, down the driveway, around the yard, and onto the path leading to the quarter. When I arrived at Miss Ceily's cabin, I found her on her knees in front of the hearth. Her face was drawn and wet with tears. She had not stopped praying since John Henry and Tennessee had fled.

She didn't know he had been captured.

“Miz Ceily! Oh, Miz Ceily!” I cried when I found her.

She turned and opened her arms to me. The other boys were fast asleep, and the cabin was still. I ran to her, crying.

She held me in her long, hard arms and said, “Son, the Lord hisself jes spoke to me. He tole me John Henry will be all right.”

I began to sob uncontrollably. Poor Miss Ceily. The noise awakened the other boys.

“Is John Henry all right?” Isaiah asked, frightened.

“Yes, son, yes,” answered Ceily. “The Lord has jes tole me he is all right.”

I cried so hard, the other boys were suspicious. “Has you heard something?” Isaiah asked finally, drawing near to me and kneeling down where I was sitting on the floor.

Between sobs, I explained that they had caught John Henry and had him down in the hollow.

“They's gonna hang him tonight!” I cried.

Miss Ceily's face did not move a tick.

Isaiah pounded his fist on the dirt floor. There was nothing any of us could do. There was nobody to turn to for help.

Except One.

“The Lord has done said John Henry is all right,” Miss Ceily repeated. “Until they carry a dead man through this door and lay him at my feet and tell me, ‘This is yor son, John Henry,' ah am gonna believe God!”

I stayed for about an hour; then Isaiah insisted I go back to the Big House. “It's dangerous for you to be here,” he told me. “Theys killin in the air!” He was right. If I got caught between the house and the quarter, they could justify anything by saying I was trying to escape or I was stealing or conspiring.

I fell into a fitful sleep when the dawn was just beginning to brush across the tops of the trees outside the children's bedroom window. I slept only a few moments before it was time to rise and begin the day's work. I hurried through my tasks. The overseers marched in for breakfast in their dining room, and I hung around near the door to hear their conversation. Surely they would talk about the hanging last night. They didn't talk at all this morning, though, and the only sounds I heard were forks scraping plates, lips smacking, chewing and gulping.

When they left for the fields, I was confused. Why didn't they talk about the hanging? Surely they knew!

Finally, we heard the master's car pull into the drive. Master Beal wasn't driving. Buck was. Big Mac hurried around the car, opened the door, and stood looking inside. I watched from the porch steps.

“He's passed out,” Buck told Big Mac. “Here, help me get him upstairs.” Together the two men lifted the drunk form of Master Beal out of the car and carried him inside. When Buck and Big Mac came to the kitchen, there was nobody there but Mary Webb and me.

“Set yourself down,” Big Mac told Buck. We went to the slaves' table and bench. “This story you jes ain't gonna believe,” Buck began. “You jes ain't gonna believe it. The likes of it ain't never happened in this here world.”

“What is it?” Mary brought the men hot cups of coffee.

Buck wagged his head and then began. “Las night the master and the Kluxes went down to the hollow to string up John Henry. See, they found him jes outside of Belton walkin along the railroad track. Tennessee had got on the train and was far gone.” He took a swallow of the coffee.

“They was no way of catchin up with her. John Henry, he had only nuff money to buy one ticket, so he put Tennessee and her baby on the train, and he took to walkin.”

He held the cup with both hands and shook his head. “Guess Massuh knowed they'd try to get on a train, so he went to the stations right off. Well, when they picked up John Henry, they beat him and tole him they was gonna kill him. They carried him to the hollow over by Savannah River to hang him.”

He paused. “And so I spect we knows the rest,” Mary Webb said.

“But here's the part you ain't gonna believe,” Buck said, his voice going lower. “Ah declare, I never see'd nothin like it.”

“Come on, man, tell us!” Big Mac's face said he wasn't sure he wanted to hear what Buck had to say, but he might as well say it and get it done with.

Buck took another swallow of coffee and licked his lips. “How it went was, Massuh come back home to get some whiskey or somethin or another, and then he come an wake me up an tell me to drive the car to the hollow. Wal, we gits to the hollow, and I sees John Henry lyin there on the ground. They done beat him all right, and he ain't making no sound; he is jes lyin there, quiet-like. I'm thinking mebbe he daid already. Massah, he actin crazy. He holler at John Henry lyin there. ‘
Where she go? Where she at?
' I stay in the car, shut my eyes. I don't want to see him beat on John Henry no more.”

I started to feel sick to my stomach. Buck shook his head again and gave a sigh. “So Massuh sez, he sez he don't want to hang him here; he sez, ‘We'll hang him on the hill by my horse barn. That way all my other niggers will see him.' So he tells his friends to throw John Henry in the trunk of his car. They throws John Henry in the trunk of the car, and then they gits on their horses and ride off.

“Massuh tells me to drive, and so I starts drivin. ‘Faster! Faster!' he yells at me, so I drives faster. ‘Can't you make this devil go no faster?' he yells, and so I say ‘Yessuh,' and I come down on the pedal hard. ‘Faster! Faster!' Massuh yells, and we jes rippin up the road. I don't know where he's havin me drive to because we long past his farm. But we go faster and faster and he yellin and cursin and pullin on his whiskey. Then he tells me to git back, and so I turn and we rip back to the farm for to hang John Henry.”

Big Mac's face had turned grey in the early morning light.

“You ain't gonna believe this now,” Buck went on. “We gits out of the car. The other men are waiting in those white sheets of theirs. They open the trunk and look inside the trunk—and they ain't no John Henry!”

“Wal
now
!” Big Mac exclaimed. Mary Webb slapped her hips.

“Thet John Henry is jes plumb gone outa that trunk! Look like it opened while we was ripping along, and John Henry he musta roll on out. We went back to look for him, but he be long gone now.”

I hooted with joy. “Hallelujah!” I shouted. “John Henry be a free man!”

“An' I reckon he'll stay free this time,” Big Mac said, pounding his knee with a cackle.

“If'n he got to town, he'll be all right. No hounds'll pick him up there.”

“I declare,” Big Mac sighed. “I do declare, God hisself musta come an open that there trunk and let that boy out.”