“HOW OLD ARE YOU now?” Anthony asked the boy.
“Almost seven.”
“Ah, yes,” Anthony said. “John Suttle dies all a-sudden about this time. That was the last pony ride you’ll ever have.”
“I love pony rides,” said the boy. “When I’m good, he Mars let me hold the reins.”
“Missy Suttle will have charge of Mars John’s slaves now,” Anthony told him. “She’s not so kind. Beatings and threats! She’ll sell some of your brothers and sisters to pay off debts.”
The child of seven sat by a stream, fishing. He had a swaddled new baby among the leaves next to him. It was his sister’s newborn infant. What Anthony said frightened him.
Then, soon after, came another time of childhood. It was night, after the children had stumbled home in the dark from their labor. Anthony had given them water, sourdough bread with a little bacon and grease, and black molasses to sop the bread in. He’d taken the food from Mamaw’s kitchen in the good house—his own name for he Mars and she Missy’s place. He remembered what Mamaw had told him when he’d asked for sweets and cake.
“Things change,” she had said. Tears were in her eyes.
“Somebody sick?” he’d asked.
“Yay-ah, somebody. Was,” Mamaw answered. And he knew. It came to him suddenly that he had not seen he Mars John Suttle for some time. That was both good and bad. It meant that Big Walker wouldn’t be around so much. But it was bad that he never rode he Mars’s pony now.
“He Mars gone away?”
“Mars gone an’ set beside King Jesus. You ’member Jesus, Anthony, in church.”
“A little talk wid Jesus make it right.” Softly, he sang part of a hymn Mamaw had taught him.
His mamaw took up another melody. “Way down yonder in the graveyard walk, I thank Gawd ah’m free at last!” All at once she grabbed up the hems of her long skirts and commenced to sidestep and sway. “Me and m’Jesus gwoin’ meet an’ talk, I thank Gawd ah’m free at last!” She pranced forward and back.
Young Anthony laughed, joining in. Dancing in praise of the Lord was the way of the cabin row. “You lookin’ like a gobbler with she feathers held low!” he told Mamaw.
She smiled. Three times she had jumped the broom, a custom in marriage, and had thirteen children. Life was hard, but it was still life. “Some o’ these mornins, bright an’ fair—come on, Anthony!”
“Comin’.” He stepped and pranced. Thumbs hooked to his sides, he kept his elbows back and his chest out. It wasn’t easy keeping time with Mamaw. “I thank Gawd ah’m free at last!” he sang.
“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.”