Black Angels (14 page)

He didn't get a chance for another two days. Betty woke him up, stirring around the cabin. He knew it was far into the night. The fire was low. He lay very still and thought maybe she was going outside to pee. Daylily turned over, sound asleep. She was right next to him on their pallet. Betty hesitated as if she was afraid she'd made too much noise. Luke didn't dare move. He opened his eyes just a crack. Over the little lump that Daylily made, he could see Betty in the orange glow, and his breathing almost stopped. She was dressed in a uniform, a rebel uniform, with pants and boots, and she was carrying a rifle! As he watched her, she wound her hair around her head and pulled a large hat down around her face. Then she blew out the lamp, tiptoed out silently and pulled the door shut behind her.

Luke didn't take a deep breath until he thought she had to be far away. He was listening so hard, he could hear the leaves rustling in the breeze. He heard the logs shifting and sputtering in the fireplace, and then he eased himself up, trying not to wake Caswell and Daylily.

He would need some light. The oil lamp was on the table. He turned the wick low and lit it with a piece of twig from the pile that he had to stick into the fire. The boxes were in the dark corner opposite the fireplace and next to the big loom. Luke pulled off the heavy quilt. He kneeled down in order to see better. When he realized he'd never get them open, his heart sank. He needed a crowbar.

Then he looked again, and saw she'd opened one of them herself. A wooden slat had been pried loose. Luke pulled the loose piece of wood as far back as he could, and stuck his hand inside the box. First he felt sawdust. And then he felt the unmistakable barrel of a rifle. The long cold steel, the trigger, he knew too well what it was. Luke stayed on his knees.

Oh, Lordy, now that he knew what was in the boxes, what did it all mean? The rifles, the rebel uniform, her sneaking out in the middle of the night? These boxes didn't say “U.S.,” they said something else, a longer word. He couldn't begin to guess what that meant.

A bird called out in the night. Something rustled in the leaves near the side of the house. He blew the lantern out quickly and threw the quilt over the boxes and got very still. Nothing happened. It must have been some kind of animal, he thought. Luke hurried across the dark room and slid into his spot without disturbing his friends, confused and unhappy about what he had seen, but not a minute too soon. As soon as he pulled up the covers, Betty opened the door. For a long time he was afraid to move. He tried breathing like he was asleep. He had that feeling that scared him. A feeling they would have to leave Betty soon. In a few minutes he was asleep.

CHAPTER 18

SECRETS

We have to know what them bags and boxes say!” Luke whispered to Daylily. They were outside, gathering wood for Betty's fire. It had been two more days before he had a chance to tell her what he had seen, and they were both scared.

Daylily especially looked distracted. “I don't want to know,” she said, thinking of all the warm meals and the safety of Betty's house. “She ain't bad, you know. She just strange. She treat us real good. Real good. Let's just stay, Luke. Where we gon go anyway? We don't even know where we is! We get out there and get killed by some of them soldiers for sho!”

Luke shook his head. “You a stubborn gal. You know what? It can't be OK to be sneakin around dressed like a man and havin boxes of rifles in the cabin. It ain't right! What she need with all them guns? Maybe one or two, but all them boxes? And a woman supposed to wear skirts! And we gon be in trouble sho nuff if we stays here much longer. Somebody gon come lookin for her and find us. She stealin, that's what I think. You know what they do to niggers what steal! And we gon be hauled up fore the White man and be strung up for stealin!” A breeze ruffled leaves over their heads.

Daylily looked up at the sky. “Luke, the trees have started losing their leaves. We can't go now. How about if we leave in the spring? What we gon do? Caswell get cold in the woods, and maybe sick like I did? He too little.”

She shivered even though Betty had given her a heavy shirt to wear. All three of them were dressed in the gray and blue clothes she made out of old uniforms that Betty said someone gave her.

Caswell was about twenty feet away, making popping noises with a stick rifle, playing soldier. His hair had grown a lot. He ran in and out of the cabin every few minutes, said something to Betty about his game and ran back out again. Betty had tied his hair back Indian-style. She had laughed and laughed at Luke, whose black, curly hair was wild and uncontrollable, and standing all over his head now. But it was clean, at least. She made them wash themselves regularly.

“Did you see her this morning?” said Luke, looking back to make sure Betty was still in the house. “She was all scratched up. Look like she'd been in a scrap, and she don't look good, like she been hurtin. Somethin happened, I tell you, and she almost got caught stealin. That's what I believe, and I say we should light out.”

“Shh,” Daylily whispered. “She comin out the door. I got somethin to tell you. I'll tell it later.”

They didn't have another chance to talk until late that night while Betty was gone. They were both restless and waiting for her to change clothes and leave. Only she didn't dress up. She just left in her own clothes with a basket on her arm. It was close to dawn when she silently opened the door and left.

The basket had a loaf of light bread, or something in it that was soft. Daylily was sure of that. She had peeked with one eye and saw her covering it with a napkin.

Luke wanted to look at the rifles again. He was rarin to show Daylily what he'd found.

When they leaned over the boxes in the corner, Daylily told him, “I got to tell you somethin, Luke.”

“What? Hurry up! She might come back. Lemme show you what I found!”

“No, wait! I gotta tell you,” she whispered. “I knows what these words are. I can read. I reckon it's safe to tell you now.”

“What? This ain't no time to be funnin me, gal. You can't read. You tellin a big ole lie. This here's important, and we got to figure out what to do.”

“Naw, I ain't, Luke. I ain't funnin you. Look-a here. This say ‘U.S.' and this say ‘Union Pro-vi-si-on.'” Luke's mouth stood open while he realized what this could mean.

“How you get learnin?” he asked her.

“Granny. She knowed how, and she learnt me,” she explained, a sly smile on her round face.

“What's that pro-vi-si-on?” Luke asked. Daylily shrugged. “And look-a here,” he said, his whisper careless and loud. “What's this mean? This long one?”

“Con-fed-er . . .”

“—ate!” Luke finished the word he had heard so many times. “The rebs! She stole them from the rebs!”

Too late to move a muscle, they were both aware of someone standing right behind them. They heard Betty's low and very calm voice, speaking a language they didn't understand. And then she said, “Betty Strong Foot is not a thief. But you, you steal something from me cause you put your nose where it does not belong. Would you like to know what happens to the noses of thieves?”

CHAPTER 19

CAUGHT

Daylily and Luke were too scared to answer as she grabbed both their noses and dragged them into the middle of the floor. They each gasped for breath. “Betty Strong Foot works for food. She has never been a thief!” She shook them by the nose and let them go so suddenly, they lost their balance and fell down. “You want to know what I do? I am a spy! I am spy for the stupid men who killed my man. I carry secrets for the Union, and I carry secrets for the rebels because I hate them both, because they kill and they are too stupid to catch me! And now you know what you should not know. Now you must stay with Betty. If you get caught, you get scared, and you tell. You stay till the war is over. I am not happy, you know. Now, get the little one up. You go and wash. Bah! It's over. Get up, time we all eat. It's morning now.”

It was a long day. Luke and Daylily were now afraid to make Betty mad, and they could only make signs to each other when she was in the cabin. Daylily spent all day rubbing her sore nose, and wondering what secrets Betty carried, and what
pro-vi-si-ons
meant. A couple of times Luke tried to think how he could say he was sorry. Only Caswell seemed to be content.

Luke knew a little about what spies did. There had been talk on Massa Higsaw's place about spies. He knew they were shot or strung up if they got caught, that he was sure of.

What did she mean, she hated them both? Luke asked himself. The South and the North? How could she say that? Everybody was on either one side or the other. The South hated the North, even though they were both White. The North hated the South because the rebs was against President Lincoln. And the rebs hated colored folks worse'n anybody at all, and didn't want colored to be free.

Was Betty Strong Foot for colored or White? Luke wanted to ask her but he didn't dare. She said she was free. She said her Daddy was colored, and she had White folks hair, but that didn't mean nothin cause so did Pecola back home, and she sure was one of Massa Higsaw's niggers same as he was. She said her mama was Indian. Betty's skin was as dark as his almost.

He knew one thing though, spying sure wasn't safe, and if she was in danger, they were in danger. Still it was good being with her and like Daylily said, they knew right enough what danger was out there on the road. He thought about the field full of dead bodies, and Daylily almost dying and the mountain lion, and being hungry enough to steal, and soon Luke convinced himself that they should stay put. She was real good to them. They had hot meals and even treats once in a while, and they all felt like family.

CHAPTER 20

LITTLE BEAR

It was a warm afternoon, even for early November. Locusts were crying. But the smell of fall hit them as they stepped out into the yard. With their stomachs full of Betty's biscuits and molasses they had plenty of energy to play until the darkness hit. They had been at work all day.

“First we clean the cabin,” Betty had told them, “then we weed. Then maybe we eat something, if you good.”

“You not gonna feed us if we not good?” said Caswell, looking very worried and wrinkling up his nose.

Betty kept her face very straight. “Nope.”

Luke grinned at Daylily and they all laughed at Caswell's face. They had to get the garden weeded. She had to set out sweet potatoes and they had to help. Only Caswell didn't know how to work, because he had never worked a day in his life.

“Boy, you don't know nothing,” said Luke. “You ain't never lifted a finger!”

“Have too,” said Caswell, only he couldn't think of anything he knew how to do. Betty said to quit fussin; they had to weed lima beans and late squash all afternoon, so they were more than ready for an all-out romp when they finished. It had been a day when none of them thought much about what tomorrow might bring, or what yesterday had done.

It had been a day when Daylily didn't think about Buttercup, not one time. A day after a night when the bad dream didn't come.

One bad morning Betty looked her real hard in the face and said, “Come with me, we gotta talk,” and they walked around the cabin not too far away, but too far away for the boys to hear what they were really saying.

She asked Daylily to tell her what was in the dream, and Daylily told her how she thought her hands was cut off.

Betty said, “Come on now, you know what you gonna do.”

Daylily said, “We gonna ask the angels to take it . . .”

“Take it away,” Betty said for her, “cause it happened in the past and it's gone away and it ain't coming back.”

Once Daylily asked, “Are the angels Black?”

“The Great Spirit don't care if they Black, White or Red, or they got no color. They still angels. Just like you can call Him Great Spirit or God, and He don't care bout that,” Betty said. “Just like these trees and flowers, all of em be angels.”

The next time she dreamed, she told Betty about it.

“The angels had Black faces” she said, “and they wore long blue dresses. That's the color I like best.”

But last night the dream didn't come, and today she was thinking only about what Betty might have for supper, and finding some blue wildflowers to put on the table in a cup, and how pretty that would look, blue cornflowers, false pen nyroyal, and chicory. So she asked Betty if she could go looking for flowers.

Betty said, “Ok, only don't be gone so long.”

“Y'all hide, and I'll be it,” Luke said, ready to take the lead as usual.

Daylily didn't even care that he had beat her to it. She didn't really want to play. She was off to find flowers and be alone. These days, she felt free like the birds, like the chickadee with the black cap of feathers on its head, like the mockingbird. Sometimes it felt so good it was scary to her. Nobody was coming to tell you to pick crops faster. Nobody was crying about hurting arms and legs. Nobody dying and nobody being sold away.

 

It was kind of nice being in the quiet by herself. She was never left by herself here at Betty's, and she never remembered being by herself back at home. She was always with Granny or with the pickers.

She found some spiderwort and remembered that Betty had made her some tea out of that when she had a stomachache. She would put the blue flowers on the table and they would thank the Great Spirit, cause Betty would make them, and they would eat molasses and biscuits and salt pork and butter beans. She wandered a little farther, farther than she would have if she had been worried about her dream that day.