Black Angels (10 page)

Caswell whispered, “Luke, you know any more stories? Gran Susie used to tell me stories. She used to tell about the mud turtle and about the rabbit.” He had stretched out on his coat on his stomach.

“Don't know no mud turtle,” Luke muttered.

“I can't sleep,” Caswell whined. “Sweetbriar could tell stories too,” he said wistfully. His eyes filled with tears, and he wiped his face with the back of his hand and left a streak of dirt on his cheek.

“All right, don't tune up,” said Luke. “Guess what? I knew a story about a White slave boy once had pink eyes and white skin. You don't wanna hear it though—you be scared.” Luke's long legs stretched out toward the fire, and he scratched an itch on his elbow.

“I won't,” Caswell retorted.

“Aw, shoot, Caswell, you be scared if I tell you that out here in the dark.”

“I won't be!” Caswell answered. He sat up on his coat. “If he's White, he can't be a slave. I know better. You just try me. Tell it, Luke; I wanna hear it.”

“Well,” Luke started, “was a boy on the place.”

Daylily turned and coughed again in her sleep.

Luke looked quickly in her direction before continuing. “Boy on the place I come from? Us called him Pink Eye. Say his mama was a cat cause-a them eyes.” Luke looked at Caswell's face.

Caswell was paying very close attention.

“Everybody say his mama was a cat, cause he didn't have no mama that us knew about. Pink Eye lived with Buster and Jim Jim in they cabin long as I know him. And you know what?”

“What?” Caswell said, leaning forward.

“He's white as you and he's a slave,” said Luke. “I swear it's the truth. White, white skin, and yaller nappy hair. And far's I know that ole Pink Eye's a slave today.”

“I knew somebody like that,” Caswell said. “His name is Michael. He
looked
like a White boy, but he was really Black. I know cause my daddy sold him, and you can't sell White people. There aren't any White slaves, are there? You must be joshing me, aren't you, Luke? And nobody has a cat for a mama!”

Daylily coughed a little louder.

Luke looked over at her. “He still a slave,” Luke said. “Massa Higsaw sold him down the river to New Orleans. Slave trader say he buying freaks for a freak show. Gon show him as a nigger boy with a white cat for a mama. Ole Pink Eye. Now go on to sleep. That's all my story. Be quiet. Us got to listen for bears.”

At the mention of bears, Caswell lay down wide awake. Luke stretched out as near as he could to the fire, with one hand on the rifle. He tried very hard to keep his eyes open, but he kept losing the struggle. After a few minutes they all dozed. All through the night Luke would nod and wake up, and nod and wake up.

Daylily's cough got more and more frequent and more and more rough. Once in the middle of the night she sat up and looked around wildly, and then fell back into sleep. Luke woke up all the way, suddenly startled. Then he realized what had awakened him. It was Daylily's cough. He remembered hearing sick folks in the quarters when they got the croup. That's the way it sounded. He remembered his mama told him Miss Barbara's baby had died of the croup. Aunt Eugenia said that was when Luke was a baby, died in twenty-four hours.

Luke got up and felt Daylily's head like Aunt Eugenia used to do when he was sick. He knew that if it was hot, that was bad. Daylily had thrown back his coat and was exposed to the dew in only her shirtwaist and bloomers. She was crying out in little yelps and squeaks. “No,” she said, and “no” again.

Luke didn't know much about doctoring folks, but he knew she was really bad off. Her face was as hot as his got from the fire's heat, only now the fire was just smoldering coals. He pulled the coat around her again. She should have some tea, some soup, something to drink.

He had watched Aunt Eugenia tend to folks enough to know that. She used to grind up some kind of leaves to make a tea. He set himself the task of finding something that looked like the herbs he had seen his aunt use. In the firelight he could just barely see that creecy greens were growing wild a few feet from them.

Luke looked for his canteen and poured a little water in the cup. He tore a few of the greens into small pieces and put them in as well, and put the cup on the hot coals. Then he woke Caswell up and sent him to gather twigs to build up the fire. In a few minutes the tea was warm, pieces of the leaves floating in it.

“Come on, gal,” he coaxed, “you got to eat somethin.” Her face was damp. She smelled like sickness to him. “Just a little somethin; come on now.”

Daylily's eyes opened slightly; she turned her head away from Luke's face. “Granny,” she mumbled.

“Now come on,” he insisted, feeling desperate and forcing her head around to the cup. She knocked the cup onto the ground. Her tangled hair was wet with sweat, and her dark brown eyes were ringed with darker circles.

“Now see what you done,” Luke chided. “You more stubborn sick than you is well.” He wanted to cry. The fish from yesterday was all gone, she had wasted the drink he had made and he couldn't get anything much into her mouth from his canteen. It kept dribbling down her chest. She had lost her canteen cup when she fell in the water. And her hat too. At least her dress had dried in front of the fire. “We got to get this dress over her head,” he said to Caswell. She was still making little noises and flinging her arms around. “Stop looking so scared, Caswell, and come over here and help me.”

Caswell was almost frozen with fear. His mouth was open, but nothing was coming out.

“Just set up now,” Luke said, trying to calm her. “Got to put on your dress. Us ain't goin to hurt you.” Luke raised her up gently. She seemed almost asleep, but she wouldn't be still. He motioned again to Caswell to come nearer, and together they stretched the little cotton frock over her head and pulled it down as far as they could.

Then Luke had an idea. He took the carved figurine, his mam's mojo, that he was wearing, and laid it gently over her head and around her neck. He thought it would be all right with his mam, and maybe it would help Daylily.

Caswell looked at the wooden carving on her neck. “You oughtn't to put that devil's charm on her,” he said to Luke. Before he could get any more words out of his mouth, Luke had grabbed his arm and dragged him a few feet away from the sleeping girl.

“You hurting me, Luke,” he whimpered. “Let me go!” He tried to pull his arm away from Luke.

“What you callin a devil's charm was my mam's mojo.” Luke's voice was low and deadly serious. His words came out like they were squeezed through his teeth. He held on to Caswell's shoulder. “You try to take it off or even touch it, I'll fix you so you can't see or talk, ever. You hear me? All I got to do is pray over that mojo and you be ‘fixed.' So you keep your mouth shut about my mam. You hear me? Now I got to try to get some water into that gal.” He went to get his canteen and left Caswell standing in silence, afraid to argue or even move from that spot.

 

At dawn, Luke tried again to get a few drops of water into Daylily's mouth from her canteen. All that hot and muggy day he fed her drops of water and tried to keep the bugs off her. Mosquitoes were the worst, and she was sweating from her fever. She would lick the water from around her mouth and cry out for Granny.

Just when he couldn't stand it any more, he remembered sassafras. That's what he needed. Something that would cure the shaking and burning up of fever. If only he could remember what it looked like.

He called Caswell to watch her and went looking for the herbs again. He had to find them before night came. “Call out for me if she tries anything,” he ordered. “And don't you move a muscle from her. Try to keep her cool, and fan her with your hand, like this.” He showed Caswell what to do and headed into the wooded area.

Luke thought he might know it if he saw it, but he couldn't get too far from the others. He made a wide circle around them, never out of earshot. “Poison oak in these woods,” he mumbled to himself. “That's all I been seeing, more and more poison oak, and wild strawberries.” He picked some of them, thinking that they might be good for her too.

First all he could find was dandelion, and he knew they could eat those leaves. But one of them healing plants, he thought, had purple flowers with yellow in the center. Purple cornflower, Aunt Eugenia called it. But sassafras was the one she liked better. What did it look like? Then he remembered. The mitten, the mitten leaves. That's what she said was good for sickness. If he could just find some!

When he heard Daylily cough, he was about to give up and go back when he looked straight ahead. He was standing right in front of it. Green mitten leaves! He grabbed some leaves and peeled a small piece of bark. Now he could get her well, he thought. Now she'd be all right. He made some sassafras tea, warming the leaves in his cup, and gave her a sip.

Luke could feel himself getting very hungry. They had to have more fish because they had to eat. Even if she died, he reckoned they had to eat even though he didn't want to say it even to himself. “Caswell,” he said, “you got to dig for some bait. You know what that is?”

Caswell seemed to be glad to help. “I used to go fishing with Daniel,” he said. “I can dig for worms.”

Luke needed the line and hook they had made. Oh, God, let it be in her pocket, he thought, and not at the bottom of the river. He stopped feeding Daylily tea long enough to look inside her coat pocket. The inside of the pocket was still damp, but he felt something sharp. The pin she had bent stuck him. He had never been so glad to prick his finger on anything.

Caswell took the bayonet and dug in the soft dirt near the water. Normally digging for worms might have been fun, but now it was just something he had to do.

“Got one,” he said in a minute or two, holding up a wiggling worm.

“Good, give it here,” Luke said, intent on catching fish.

Luke caught two small fish and cooked them. They ate, and then he made some more sassafras tea and gave Daylily sip after sip. But she seemed to get worse, talking out loud about things they didn't understand, and she tried to sing something about “angels Black like me.”

Once, she tried to take off her coat, and once, she vomited up her tea. Then she tried to get up, and they had to hold her down. Luke was close to tears and Caswell was already crying. She was sweating and her eyes were big and bright, too bright, Luke thought.

“Naw, gal, naw,” Luke pleaded desperately. “Look, I'll sing to you, how bout that? I'll sing you a song about Heaven, about tryin to make Heaven my home.” Through his tears, Caswell said, “I know that one! Gran Susie sings that to me!”

“See, see? Even Caswell know that one, don't you, Caswell?”

Caswell nodded. And so they sang a few words, and hummed to her because they forgot all the words they were taught, except for “I am a poor pilgrim of sorrow; I'm tossed on this wide world alone; I've heard of a city called Heaven; I've started to make it my home.” And they sang that over and over, until she got quiet.

They held her in their arms, one of them on each side of her. Finally, Daylily quieted down and closed her eyes, and it seemed they had sung her back to sleep.

“Oh, Lordy,” Luke sighed when they could finally rest. He stretched out on his stomach by the fire and put his head down in his arms. Caswell sat down next to him.

“Luke,” Caswell said, looking into the fire, “is she gonna die?”

He didn't answer for several seconds. Caswell had to repeat the question, his eyes bewildered and terrified. “Is she gonna die, Luke? Luke?”

“Maybe,” the older boy whispered, almost to himself. He didn't raise his head.

Caswell whimpered.

“Shut up!” Luke hissed, finally looking at Caswell. “Can't nobody deal with you cryin at a time like this. Maybe so, maybe not! Just shut up!”

Look like that mojo should be working better than this, Luke thought. For a while there was silence except for animal sounds and the crackling of the fire. He guessed he could pray some. He thought about Preacher Brown in the quarters back home. He would know how to pray for Daylily. Luke bowed his head and prayed the best way he could. Mostly he whispered, “Oh, Lord, please make Daylily well” over and over.

 

That night wore on forever. Luke was so scared and so tired that he finally asked Caswell if he wanted to hear another story, just to pass the time, so that for a few minutes, he wouldn't have to think about Daylily over there coughing, maybe dying, but Caswell had dropped off to sleep. Luke gave her some more tea, then pulled the almost-dried-out and smelly soldier's coat around himself and dropped down close enough to her to grab her if she tried to get up during the night. Finally, his exhaustion took over, and as hard as he tried to stay awake, he couldn't, and he slept.

 

 

He woke up sweating in his coat and felt for his mojo, but it was gone. For a minute he didn't know where it was, and his heartbeats fluttered like leaves in a storm. Then he remembered he had put it on Daylily. He sat up fully awake, scared that maybe she was dead, and maybe that was why he had had that dream again.