The Blood of Heaven (16 page)

And it was at such times that Morrel would come and make his prophecies of me; take me out of one world and into another. The wording often changed, but the soul of it remained the same and I was always lost in faith and wonder and pride at what he said.

Who cares if we kick holes in something that’s rotten, he said. Listen to them all crying and singing up there—we have a dominion of faith in our hands, and if we help them to Grace we can help ourselves to them when they deserve it. Listen to me and learn by me. I see you being known in all the land. And you’ll have the sword so that the heathen may know you. And you will hew a nation from this rotten country. But you cannot fail God, nor me.

He’d go on, saying things that made me swell with willingness to live even more for God and gain. Once he was spent, the Reverend’s face would be clenched in the sternness of his prophecy, and when he’d leave I’d lay awake a while prying apart his words and hunting them for truth.

I found them always utterly golden, and my purpose was nightly confirmed.

Slaves to Whomever We Obey

Morrel seemed to bring out of me things that had been there all along. I became surer at the pulpit; I hardened to the wildness of the revival days and by July, with a trail of scorched stages behind me, had the endurance for it down and had learned his kind of pity for the lot of blacks.

Black skin called out to the Reverend as much as horseflesh, or the gold that either would yield. Between revivals that season he couldn’t restrain himself if he saw one or a few Negroes bent to some task at the lonesome edge of a plantation. These were generally older family retainers who could be trusted out of sight of master and seer. And with one falling under his eyes or the eyes of one of his scouts, Morrel would gather to him some of the friendlier-looking fellows and ride out to meet his quarry.

He bore a malicious pity for the nigger-man. And he was always prepared for such a dubious blessing as an unsupervised slave. If we came upon one such as that, we were to hush and hide the misshapens—who without fail would stick out their heads, legs, and claws to ask why we’d stopped—have them put away their offending limbs, hide our own armaments, and, as Morrel said it, put on our Christly faces.

When Brother Zach was first sighted we were just outside Wilkinson, a settlement named for the General of the Armies of the United States, of whom it was said even then among the rabble in Morrel’s train that he was a rotten creature who’d put rebellious laborers to the sword in Natchez in ’99, and that he presently plotted for the Spanish to take Mississippi in exchange for paltry silver. So I suppose it was a fitting place for graft and sin. Samuel rode back to Morrel and the others while I made my check of the Blessed in their carts. Johnny Crabbe reached out a claw, giggling, saying, It’s nigger time! Yes, sir! Good old dirt-dumb nigger time! I told him to shut the hell up and went on to the next, where Thorny Rose was sitting spread-legged in the gun-chair, hitching up her dress in mock temptation. I tried to keep my eyes from where her cleft and thorn were bared out to the sunlight. I told her to cover up.

The nigger’s way out there, she said. And besides, it’s you I want to look.

I’ve seen, I said.

No preacher should be scared of a bush, said Thorny Rose. And if you want to pick this flower, you’ll have to catch a prick.

The harelips within the cart were sputtering laughter, when she said, Aw, now. Don’t be scared.

I said I wasn’t.

You might need be, she said. What I’ve got’s like nothing you’ve ever seen.

I’ve been to Natchez, I said. I’ve known plenty.

Not like this, yellow-head. I might just curl that pretty hair of yours.

When I caught up to the outriders, Samuel was leaning in among them and the men were laughing and giving jokes about the Negroe’s fate. All except Morrel, who seemed not to hear a thing and kept his eyes on the dark figure beneath the oak, offering a wave of the hand that the old black did not return. So we all got down from our horses and followed the Reverend across the field, for as Morrel said, often as not niggers would take off running at the sight of white men on horseback. As we approached, the old man kept looking over his shoulder at us, Morrel in the lead, waving and smiling all the way.

Nearing, the Reverend made for his prize with arms out as though to embrace him, which he did, wrapping the black bones tight and holding him close to his chest—for Morrel was a head taller than his quarry—while the slave remained immobile, watching us.

They exchanged names and Morrel talked as though he already knew him, saying, Brother Zach, I’d give you some good light clothes, rather than all that winter wool, but I know surely as you’ve got a master who’d send a man out to work this steaming day all weighted down by his Christmas suit, he’d also whoop you for bringing in new cotton clothes.

The old man’s eyes were on us and he said, He do. He think I stole it.

And you wouldn’t have—the clothes would be a gift from one friend to another; they don’t even feel like you’re wearing clothes. The cotton’s from the islands. My suit’s made of it and you don’t see me sweating.

A nod of the black head. He says we not to take off shirts or pants. That it’s wicked to do. Even if it’s hot as thunder.

Your suffering in life will be rewarded in Heaven, my friend, said the Reverend, who’d yet to let him go.

I pray for it. I pray all day.

Good, said the Reverend. But that doesn’t mean you can’t help yourself here on earth.

Ain’t no helping it, said Brother Zach.

Can I offer you the help of a little sweet rum? Morrel held out his silver flask, which, as was the case with most of his belongings, bore the name of another man, and began unscrewing the cap.

I can’t.

I insist, said the Reverend, holding the flask gleaming even in the shadow of the oak before Brother Zach’s face, now tucked up under the crook of Morrel’s arm like a bosom barroom friend.

Brother Zach shook his head again, but Morrel held out the flask like a beacon to his eyes. It’s an awful sweltering day, he said. And a touch of this will make you feel like it’s first snow.

When Brother Zach took Morrel’s offering, then tipped down his throat for so long that his gullet bobbed, the men all congratulated him and I did the same. Brother Zach’s thanks were all raspy coughs while the Reverend made sure the black saw him take that same flask to his own white lips without wiping and drink.

I can’t say whether it was this act of goodwill that did it or Morrel’s words or his steady embrace or the course of rum now running in him, but Brother Zach suddenly looked on the Reverend Morrel with lovesome awe.

What keeps a good man like you here with such a wicked master? the Reverend asked.

He keeps me, said Brother Zach. They’s nowhere else.

There is, though—up to the free and clear North. And I can take you there. I am a man of God, and we’re going to be traveling up that way soon. Do you see the wagons yonder? We can take you in secret and spirit you away to freedom. No more work, no more toil, no more cruelty. Would you want that?

O, Rev, I want it. I want it terrible.

Morrel hugged him harder and both looked near to weeping. Good man, he said. You are a good man, Brother Zach. But listen. I’ve done this many times before with many of your brothers and sisters, and what you’ll need when you get up there is money. A little something to set yourself up right. Free or not, money’s the thing.

Money, said Brother Zach, the word itself falling from his blue gums like a silver coin dropped to a tabletop.

Yes, and the way you can have your money and your freedom is if you come with me—and as we go along I’ll sell you a time or two, then come and rescue you from your new masters. Each time I’ll give you half the money.

Brother Zach nodded so gravely deep that his head touched the Reverend’s chest.

Now, said the Reverend. I haven’t done my work so far south. So could you tell me, Brother, how far I’d have to go for you to be unknown? For your master to have no friends?

O, said Brother Zach. I only know the names of where he goes.

Of course, good man, said the Reverend. Tell me which those are.

Fort Adams, he said. Sometimes Natchez and New Orleans. Woodville, Sakeum.

All right, then we’ll avoid those places, won’t we. Now, do you have any family here? Anyone you’d want to bring?

No, Rev.

Is your house close enough to hear me fire a pistol on this road?

Plenty close. I’ll hear it. I’d hear it if I was drowned.

Good man. But don’t be overeager and make your dash for freedom before you hear my pistol speak. We don’t want any of your fellows following and betraying you, or worse, your master or one of his men.

They won’t hear me. Nobody’s gonna even see me.

Good. Then wait for the pistol-shot and come to meet me out on the road where it faces the tree.

Jesus I’ll be running.

And so went the Reverend Morrel’s acquisitions. They were always easy on the front end and I never saw him fail. We’d ride on far enough and meanwhile the Reverend would wait alone at the road, and would sound off with his pistol and soon enough there would appear one like Brother Zach. Those black faces—wide-eyed and giddy with the freedom Morrel had given them—haunted our caravan all throughout our way south. God, could they take suffering with a smile. Standing up on the block in some little village in Mississippi, or even at the very border of the country where he would be sold to a West Florida planter, Brother Zach looked like he had not a care in the world, beaming white teeth while his fellow slaves, sold and unsold, sulked all around him.

When he escaped the first time, Morrel got Brother Zach drunk and let him palm half his worth in silver for a night, before taking it back for safekeeping. But while he had the money in his hands, old Zach held it like a talisman and wept. He talked about his woman and his children, who’d been sold off years before.

Morrel would occasion to take off his shirt and show him the scars from his lashing, saying, I know the sting of the whip, my friend. And Brother Zach would go on weeping.

It was on the third of Brother Zach’s escapes that Morrel entrusted Samuel and me to hide in wait and give the signal. It took so long for old Zach to come that I thought he was caught, but he came loping out the trees and into the roadway, blessing us in whispers. He didn’t know that if we were caught by militia or master we were instructed to tell them that we’d seen the slave escaping and had caught him, then to demand a reward. There were no other parties on the road, and we came to the first of the scouts, a man named Jasper, who was supposed to ride with us back to camp, but was bent over the corpse of a man who’d happened upon him earlier in the night. He was holding a plank up to the moonlight, trying to write his name in blood on it. Jasper dribbled at the wood with a switch which he dipped continuously at the well of the dead man’s wound. It took us a moment to take stock of the situation, Brother Zach behind me going, Jesus, Jesus, while Jasper dabbed and scratched with his switch.

I’ll smash that board over your God-damned head, said Samuel, if you don’t get moving.

Jasper whipped his switch. Eat shit, preacher-boy. I got myself a name to make.

You’ll have on with the Reverend for all this bullshit, I said.

Fuck you, said Jasper, switch a-popping. You know what? I’m putting my mark on you, boy! I’m putting my mark on you and him!

Jasper was pointing his switch back and forth from Samuel to me, and I don’t know if it was that I felt the blood from its tip flecking me in the eyes and face, if it was that I was sick to death of nigger misery, or if it was something I had wanted to do always and deeply, but I drew my pistol from my coat and I shot him through the head. Jasper fell and red-washed his name from the plank. He was the first man I knew for sure I’d killed.

Jesus Christ our Lord, said Brother Zach from my horse.

God knows what Morrel’ll do, said Samuel once we’d dragged Jasper and the man he’d killed from the road.

He won’t do a thing when I tell him what that fool was doing, I said.

True, said Brother Zach. That boy’d gone wild.

Back at camp I told Morrel that Jasper had been gunning for posterity and I’d written his name in the Book of Life. The Reverend made no bones about it, said I’d done the proper thing. I knew it myself, for the feeling in me was one of awesome glory. I sat with the Reverend Morrel and he gave me a brief sermon on murder.

You can be the wine cup of God’s fury, overfull and brimming. But don’t let it spill on just anyone. Reserve yourself. Don’t make this a habit.

Meanwhile, old Zach held his silver, wept some more, and was given rum. There would be no fourth escape. The Reverend sold him to the West Floridian planter and he may have spent out his years waiting for the sounds of pistol-fire from a distant roadway, mistaking the gunshots of hunting parties and running out to find an empty path.

You had to be drunk to bear it, and it remains that way for me. There were times when I wanted to squall along with Brother Zach or whoever we held that week. And it was harder than any killing or robbery. Kill a man and you don’t carry his corpse along with you so that each day you witness his putrification; you dispatch him and your guilt with the same killing shot. Even if you have to fill up his belly with sand and sink him in a river—which we learned to do also in those days with Morrel—he is gone soon enough and stolen gold mixes in your pockets and is soon passed to pay for other sins. But this was to live with a breathing, talking, crying corpse that ate breakfast with you of a morning, beaming about being free.