Louella’s eyes popped open as William used his finger to trace the lines of the welts on her back.
“Don’t do that. You know I don’t like it.” Getting out of bed exposed the curve of her belly. She and William had been married a little over five months and had a baby coming in the spring.
“I’m sorry,” William said as she washed herself at the basin.
“Nothing for you to be sorry about. If that white devil hadn’t scarred my back, I wouldn’t have a problem with you touching me there.” The tapestry of her body was a mix of joy and pain. She could share the joy of the swell of her belly with her husband and the other parts that gave him pleasure. But the patterns of the welts were her burden to bear alone.
Louella pulled on a black woolen dress, which was too heavy for the warm October day, but she could no longer fit into her brown cotton dress.
“Where you going?”
“Foraging. Mama Sue’s rheumatism still bothering her something terrible, and since I have the day off, might as well make myself useful.”
Louella took the basket she had weaved from straw and set out for a walk on the back side of the plantation where a lot of the foliage was. This area was thick with ginger plants. Louella had reseeded the ground with them as often as she could. She also reseeded another plant. Her mother had never told her the name of it, but it mixed well with the ginger. Louella named it the pain-free plant.
“Pay attention, Louella. Folks on my father’s side are healers. I’m gon’ teach you what I know so’s you can help our people when they’s feeling poorly.”
“Okay, Mama. I’m listening.”
“That’s my girl.”
Louella was four years old the first time Brenda took her to the back side of the plantation to teach her about plants and healing.
“God put everything we need in these here plants.” Brenda clipped off a piece of the green leafy plant, then pulled up the root. Showed it to Louella. “When the old folks’ fingers get to crimping and aching, make a paste out of the leaves and the root and rub it on their hands.”
A grayish-green plant caught Louella’s eye. She pointed to it. “What kind of plant is that?”
Brenda smiled. “That’s catnip.” She pulled a few of the leaves and let Louella touch them. “See the jagged, heart-shaped leaves?”
Louella nodded as she traced her fingers around it.
“Feel the fuzzy hairs on it.”
Louella giggled. “Fuzzy.”
“You ’member this plant. When somebody gets sick with a cold, come get some of this, then warm some water and give it to them in a cup of tea.”
Louella scrunched her nose. “Nobody’s gon’ want leaves for tea.”
“It tastes like mint. They’ll drink it.”
Her mother’s words proved to be true. As folks took ill, Louella would always get the catnip plant. They drank it down without complaint. But she wasn’t in search of catnip today.
She pulled the root of the ginger plant out of the ground and picked some leaves from the pain-free plant. Louella took her basket of plants and her supplies to her grandmother’s house to begin making her mixture.
But along the way, she passed by the Bailey Plantation, which couldn’t really be described as a plantation no more. They had rented out houses and sectioned off land for the Negroes who’d once been enslaved to do sharecropping. Louella wished that Mr. Montgomery had done the same thing with his plantation, rather than promising them monthly payments. They’d been working for the Montgomerys for five months now but had received only two of the promised payments.
As she passed by, she saw Gary out plowing the field. When they had spare change, William purchased potatoes and corn from Gary. She was getting ready to wave at him when she saw Lester Bailey ride up, angry as a bear disturbed from his winter’s slumber. He held on to the horse’s reins with one hand and a rifle with the other.
“Mr. Bailey.” Gary tipped his hat to the man.
The frown on Bailey’s face turned into a snarl. “Boy, didn’t I tell you to get off my property?”
Gary let go of the plow, but he didn’t raise his head. Didn’t look Mr. Bailey in the eye. He stepped backward, keeping his head slightly lowered. “Now, now, Mr. Bailey, I’m working the land as we contracted. Not doing nothing wrong.”
“You haven’t turned over your crop, so you’re in breach of that contract.”
“I’m still waiting on payment. I farmed the land, deserve my fair share of them crops is all.”
Louella was elated that Gary stood up for himself. Colored folks ’round here had been taking all the devilment thrown their way and then saying “Yes, sir” and “Thank you, sir” for everything that was dumped on ’em.
But then Lester Bailey lifted his rifle and trained it on Gary. “I said get.”
Gary nearly fell as he turned and started running. Bailey cocked the rifle and then pushed back on the trigger. Louella screamed as the bullet narrowly missed Gary’s head. Lester Bailey turned and narrowed his green eyes on her. “This is none of your concern. Get out of here before you get one of these bullets too.”
Louella had a baby growing in her stomach, so she wasn’t getting in the middle of no disputes. She prayed that Gary was able to run fast enough to get away from Bailey’s rifle. Clara, Gary’s wife, was her friend, so Louella sent up some prayers for her as well while she headed on up the road, hearing Bailey yell at Gary, “You bet not come back ’round here or I’m gon’ grind you in the dust!”
It wasn’t right . . . wasn’t right. Heart racing, Louella ran the whole mile up the road to get back to the Montgomery Plantation.
She prayed that Bailey wouldn’t turn his anger on her and come gallivanting down the road. But thankfully, he didn’t bother with her.
When she was near the former quarters of the enslaved on the Montgomery Plantation, she stopped running. Sweat dripped down her face. Heart beat so fast, death would surely claim her if she didn’t calm down. Panting, she heaved in and out, in and out, until her heart rate settled a bit.
“You all right, Mrs. Louella?” Woodrow, the cobbler, asked as he came upon her.
She nodded, still trying to catch her breath. “I’m fine. Saw Lester Bailey shooting at Gary.”
“That Lester Bailey’s been cheating him out of his earnings since he signed the contract,” Woodrow told her.
“And now that Gary tilled the land, he put him off of it so he can get that crop for free.” Louella shook her head.
She and Woodrow parted ways. She continued to Mama Sue’s house.
Mirabel and Ruby were sitting on the porch with Mama Sue when Louella arrived. “Why y’all sitting out here looking like you got rocks in your jowls?”
As she rubbed her aching knuckles, Mama Sue said, “Miss Mary say she ain’t paying us today.”
Ruby harrumphed. “Said my housekeeping done got sloppy since we been emancipated, but ain’t a speck of dust to be found in that house.”
Louella put a hand on Ruby’s frail shoulder. The seventy-year-old woman had been cleaning the big house for fifty years without complaint. Miss Mary had been married to Mr. Montgomery for only a year, and suddenly, things weren’t good enough for her. “I know you do your best to keep that house clean. I help you clean it four days a week, so I see it with my own eyes.”
William normally brought her pay home when she had a day off, but if Ruby didn’t get paid, Louella doubted there’d be any pay for her either. Two months ago, Mr. Montgomery had been short and asked them to hold on. Promised to pay what he could. But things wasn’t getting no better.
Mirabel put her hands over her face and started crying. “I need my money. My Hank broke his hand plowing the field. He hasn’t been able to work in over a month. I don’t know what we gon’ do for food if I don’t get my pay.”
“You work in the kitchen. Take your pay in food.” Mama Sue laughed at her words.
Mirabel shook her head. “That hateful Mary would have me arrested if I took so much as a piece of bread from that house. She keeps count of the potatoes and the weight of the cornmeal bag.”
Mama Sue waved her arm toward the front door. “We don’t need to be worrying you about Miss Mary’s penny-pinching. You go on in the house, sit down at the table, and rest your feet a spell.”
Louella rolled her eyes heavenward. “I’m pregnant, Mama Sue. I’m not helpless.” She did as she was told anyway and went into the house and started working on her herbal mixture.
But the more she pounded and crushed the leaves together, the more her mind kept running back what the ladies had said. Did Miss Mary really think she could work them like they were still enslaved? During slavery, the master at least fed and clothed them. The doing of that now fell on them, but how with no money?
How on God’s green earth could they take care of themselves if they weren’t getting paid? That was the exact question she asked William when she got back home and discovered that neither of them had been paid either.
“You’ve got to understand, Louella. The war put Mr. Montgomery in dire straits. He wants to keep all of us on the plantation, but he can’t afford to pay right now.”
“So is that Lester Bailey’s problem too? He don’t have no money, so he’d rather kill Gary than pay him for his sharecropping?”
William’s eyebrow lifted and his head tilted slightly, like what she was saying was news to him.
“I saw it happen. I was passing by Gary’s land when Bailey swooped down on him with that big rifle of his.”
“Haven’t I warned you about being on that side of the plantation?” William paced the floor, then stopped and wagged a finger at her. “There’re people in Mississippi who’re still spitting mad about the outcome of the war. No sense riling them up.”
The look on his face clamped her mouth shut. No way was she telling him how mean old Lester Bailey scared her away. “I needed to pick from my plants on that side of the plantation.”
“We have a child on the way. I can’t protect you if you insist on going off, doing as you please.”
Louella put a hand on her slightly swollen belly. “What are we supposed to do without any money? We do need to feed this child you speak of, and the Montgomerys aren’t coming through with the pay.”
“That might be true, but I have more to consider than our family alone.”
Louella put her hands on her hips and stood flat-footed in front of William. “My child will not live the life of enslaved people just without the shackles.”
Lifting his hand, he said, “I had nothing to do with nobody getting paid today. Mr. Montgomery is traveling this month, and I guess he didn’t leave Miss Mary with the money to pay the staff, so she started going through the house making up reasons not to pay people. She didn’t even pay me.”
Arms across her chest, she blew out hot air. “Your loyalty has been trampled on for far too long.”
He nodded, looked like he was beginning to see things her way. “Let’s get ready for church. I’d love for you to sing something uplifting tonight. Think the congregation could use some encouragement.”
“I’d rather sing ‘Wade in the Water’ ’cause we need to get out of here without leaving a trail for old Montgomery to sniff out.”
Despite her anger, Louella went to the church house that night with William. But when she stood before the congregation of about forty people, nothing uplifting came to mind. Her soul pulled her toward another spiritual. So she opened her mouth and sang, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen . . . Nobody knows my sorrow.”
Those words touched deep down into her very soul. God had lifted their heads out of slavery, yet she was still in a land where she didn’t belong. She might’ve been born in Mississippi, but this place would never be home to her.
She shouted, danced, and cried out to God and then sang, “Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down . . . oh yes, Lord, sometimes I’m almost to the groun’.”
She was overcome with sadness as two of the sisters helped her sit down and then used their hands to fan and cool her off.
She wiped the tears from her eyes and then looked over to her husband as he stood behind the pulpit. She hoped that her outburst and tears hadn’t brought shame to him.
Woodrow stood. With a fist pumping the air, he shouted, “I’m tired of being low to the ground too! Anything has to be better than being here, dying of hunger.”
Mirabel stood. “Miss Mary’s cheating us out of our pay. We’ve got to do something, Reverend.”
Before long, half the congregation was on their feet shouting and complaining about life after emancipation.
“We should’ve stayed enslaved if things wasn’t gon’ be no better,” Ruby declared.
“Seems to me this land is being rebuilt on the backs of our free labor, and I’m tired of working for people who don’t care if I live or die,” Jerome, Mirabel’s oldest son, said.
William lifted his hands, then did a downward motion. “Let’s all calm down a bit. I understand where everyone is coming from, but we need to think things through before making any rash decisions.”
“I haven’t been paid in two months. My chillun going hungry,” another complained.
Louella could see weariness settling on William’s shoulders, and she was sorry that she’d brought this trouble to him when all she had to do was sing something uplifting without getting so overwrought.
She lifted herself from the chair and stood next to William. Then she put her hand in his and whispered in his ear, “You’re our leader. Speak to the people.”
He closed his eyes. For a minute, he looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here. But then he sighed deeply and turned back to the congregation. “What we need to do now is pray. God made a way for us and loosed the shackles, so now we need to go to God and figure out our way forward.”