Black Angels (18 page)

“Now,” she said. “Listen good, Luke. You go back to the house where they caught me, only don't go all the way. Stop at the cornfield before the house. It'll be an old cornfield gone to seed. You know the difference between right and left?”

Luke nodded.

“Put out your right hand.” Luke did as he was told.

“Now put out your left hand. That's it. The old cornfield on the left hand. Now come outside a minute.”

Betty pointed to a tree at the edge of the yard. “You see that tree? This old house about from here to that tree. Is gonna be a man there at sundown tonight in the cornfield. Old Black man, white hair, and beard, tall. He gonna whistle ‘John Brown's Body.' You know that song?”

Luke shook his head. “I'm not sure, Betty.”

“I'll hum it for you,” she said.

As she sang the song for him, he seemed to remember it and began to hum along. He said Unc Steph used to hum it under his breath, but he had never heard anybody but Betty sing the words.

“Sing it for me,” Betty said. And she hummed it again, so he could follow. When she thought he had it, she said, “When you hear the song, you say the words. Now what are they? Tell me again.”

Luke repeated the “red is dead” message.

“Don't say these words to
nobody
else, you hear?
Nobody!
If you do, they tie you up and take you to jail, or worse. If you see somebody else sides the old man, you hide, and hightail it back here soon as you can. I can't go cause they know me now. They caught me. Folks be on the lookout for me. We just gotta get this message there. It'll save a lot of lives on both sides, I hope. You gotta leave now. You just got time.”

“Betty, I's just wonderin, is it Union or reb this message is for?”

“For both. We's trying to stop a battle. One way or nother, it don't matter to me.”

But Luke was stubborn, and he knew right from wrong even at his age.

But Betty knew he wasn't old enough to know that right and wrong could sometimes get so they looked like they were all mixed up, even if they weren't. He wasn't old enough to know folks could lose their faith in most everything and just decide to live the best way they could and the devil take the rest. He was not old enough to know bitterness.

“But Miz Betty, it got to matter. Don't you see? It got to! I don't wanna be helpin no rebs. They hate my kind. They treat us like dogs! Don't you see? It ain't right! It ain't right!”

Daylily and Caswell were stirring from their naps. They had heard most of the conversation between Betty and Luke, and sat up on the quilt, a little confused but knowing Luke was going somewhere without them. Betty could see the fear on Daylily's face.

“Where he goin, Miz Betty? You can't send him away. He got to go to Harper's Ferry with us. We can't make it without him! And we got to stay out here in this cave by ourselves!”

Caswell nodded, knowing that at least what Daylily said was true. They couldn't make it without Luke.

Betty patted Daylily's shoulder to soothe her. “Shh, you gon be fine,” she said quietly. She was just praying he'd make it back. So many lives depended on this one little boy doing a job she should have done if she just hadn't been captured!

“Shh,” she said, trying to put their fears to rest. “He comin back, tonight! And I gonna be looking in on you all night. Don't you worry; you and Caswell be fine. Luke just goin for a little while.”

Luke was crying now, but he wiped his face with an angry swipe of his sleeve.

“Hush now, Luke, husha bye,” Betty said, taking his hand. “I know you got eagle medicine in you, aiming for the sky, ain't that so? It's all right. This for Union. Betty sees the sky you be flyin in, Little Blue Eagle.”

Luke nodded that he understood. At least Betty seemed to know why he couldn't be a spy for the rebs.

“You go now. Time movin too fast already. The Great Spirit hold you up and Betty will sing you there and back.”

“Bye, Luke,” Daylily said, talking barely above a whisper. “You got your mama's mojo?”

“Yeah, course I do.”

“Bye, Luke,” echoed Caswell. “You got your rifle?”

“You my brother now, Caswell, don't you forget,” Luke answered.

“Sho nuff, Luke.”

“Yeah, that's a fact,” answered Luke. He needed to hurry up and go before he got to crying again. He wanted to be proud and tall, and act like a man, even though he felt more like a child leaving his mama.

“Be there by sundown,” Betty called out to him as he vanished into the woods. “Remember, the eagle is always nearby and the Great Spirit be by your side.”

CHAPTER 25

CLARENCE OLMSTEAD

During that evening while Luke was gone, Betty didn't even try to sleep. She kept walking to the cave and back to check on Daylily and Caswell. Worry kept knocking at the door of her mind. Where was Luke, how was he doing, was he on his way back by now? Full night came, and no Luke. She really did have to be brave now, for the sake of the younger children. Daylily was restless. Once she woke up calling for Betty while Betty was standing over her to make sure she was covered with the quilt. “I'm here, Little Bear,” she said. “Don't you fret yourself. Betty ain't gonna let nothing happen to you all. Luke be back soon. You rest now.” Daylily lay back again and Betty tucked the quilt tighter around her.

She went back to the cabin and tried to work on a special blanket that she was weaving, with images of the wolf, the bear and the eagle, but she couldn't concentrate. The last thing she wanted to do was leave them alone with a sick and maybe dying man to go looking for Luke. No telling if other soldiers or that trash was looking for her, and to add to everything else, Clarence Olmstead seemed to be even worse. He was sweating so. His whole face was wet. He was talking out of his head. She took pity on him and dragged him into the house as far away from their beds as possible.

It was hard work, but it was a good thing he was so skinny and Betty was strong, because he was almost dead weight. Betty listened to his ravings to see if she could hear anything about the troops, and where he'd come from.

Suddenly he opened his eyes like he was staring at a vision; he muttered something about his boy. “My son,” he kept saying, “my only son, dead by a rebel bullet, twelve years old, and dead . . .” and then he sank back into his fever.

Betty looked around for a rag she could throw away later. She went to wet it under the pump out back, and came back to wipe the sweat off his face. He must have sensed her standing over him, and he started and opened his eyes, yelling out “David, David!”

“Just you rest now,” she said aloud.

But Clarence Olmstead fell back in a stupor again.

Poor man, Betty thought. Lost his son. The longer she sat there, the more she thought of Luke and what danger he might be in. “I must be ailing in my mind,” she said to herself, “to send him into such danger.”

And he said he wouldn't mind if it meant something, if it meant something to the others he had loved. He had more sense than she had, more than she ever had. He really was an eagle, flying up there close to God. She had named him without even knowing how right she was. Betty sat up straight in her rocking chair. She wiped the man's forehead, and thought of this poor man and his son and Luke.

If she sent Luke, whom she loved like he was her own child, to be murdered by some no-count dirty dogs, it had to be for something, something that really mattered like breaking slavery chains, setting free all the suffering people who were tortured and murdered, treated like animals or worse. She didn't know about that life firsthand because God had blessed her with a life of freedom, but she knew from her papa how terrible it would be to have somebody own you. Why didn't I see, she thought, why didn't I see until now?

“Oh, Lord, oh, God, oh, Great Spirit,” she prayed, “send my chile home to me.” She sat by Olmstead all night and rocked and chanted in her mama's words for Luke's safe homecoming. And she knew, she knew now for sure. There would be no more spying for the rebs, not from her, not ever again.

Rocking and rocking and wiping her tears, she said, finally, “It's all right, Luke, it's all right. And Lord, just get him back here so I can tell him I know. I know what he was cryin about. He wanted me to know that we gotta be strong and stand up for right. Oh, Great Spirit, if you really listening to Betty Strong Foot, send him back to us so's I can tell him Betty knows, we got to stand, we got to stand till all our people be free.”

CHAPTER 26

RED IS DEAD. SUNRISE ON THE LEFT.

Help me, Jesus,” he said over and over as he trudged down the road. Once he got out of sight of Betty and his friends, it was easier. He could concentrate on the river. “Follow the river, that's all I have to do,” he said to himself. “It'll be easy and I'll be there in two shakes.” He looked up at the sun, and it was on its way toward night, but he would make it. He just couldn't stop and rest. If Caswell could find his way all alone, he could sure do it.

“Red is dead. Sunrise on the left,” he kept saying to himself. He practiced it as many different ways as he could imagine it. How would it sound if President Lincoln said it to the soldiers? How would it sound if Robert E. Lee said it to his troops? Would he be sad cause it'd mean they had lost? And wouldn't Unc Steph be proud of him for being a spy for the Union? He couldn't have done this much for freedom if he had gone to fight. That thought made him shiver. Like as not he would have ended up like some of them dead soldiers he'd seen.

River turns kinda right, here soon, he thought, and I'll be maybe halfway. Something moved along the riverbank, and a brown snake showed its head. Luke edged around it slowly and kept moving, but he picked up a big stick just in case, and patted his rifle. The snake moved on. Lots more smells of autumn now than when he ran away from Massa Higsaw. That seemed like a whole year ago, he thought.

Locusts whined their early evening song. Getting late, Luke thought. He pulled out some of Betty's corn bread and chewed it while he walked. Then he began to notice something different. He couldn't quite pin it down at first. Something . . . a smell . . . It was a smell.

Then he heard something that he hadn't heard when they came home early this afternoon. It was sounds of people. He would have sworn it was people, but he couldn't see anybody anywhere. It was just a low hum, buzzing around, wagon wheels, men's voices, horses neighing. Something has happened since first light this mornin, he thought. He believed it before he could see it. The sounds got clearer and clearer, and he smelled the mixture of smoke, horse manure and unwashed men very distinctly.

“Oh, Lordy,” whispered Luke. He wrapped his fingers around his mojo, saying whatever prayers came to his mind. He felt his rifle for comfort. He thought they were really close. A whole passel of soldiers. Would they be Union or reb? He started to sweat with fear. It ran down his forehead. He wiped it with his arm and kept moving. His feet were really hurting, and he wanted to rest, but the sun was very low now. He wondered if Betty knew about the soldiers moving in. Maybe she did, maybe not. And would the old bearded man still meet him in the cornfield?

I can't fail, he thought, I can't let folks down. He had been so distracted by the soldiers that it took him by surprise. There it was, the farmhouse up ahead and the cornfield on the left. “Red is dead, red is dead, sunrise, sunrise . . . sunrise, sunrise . . . on the left,” he repeated to himself. His mind was blank except for that.

He didn't see a soul. What if nobody came? Or somebody else came instead? Here he was standing by a cornfield with nothing but a big stick and a rifle. They could shoot him down without so much as a howdy-do.

Suddenly Luke heard a scream, but it came from above him. He looked up into the darkening sky, afraid for his life. A black shadow circled high over his head. What he saw he would never forget. It was a huge bird, and he realized it was an eagle. Betty said I was an eagle, he thought. She said I ain't afraid of nothing. She said I am like the eagle, strong, and close to Spirit, and I ain't afraid of nothing. The eagle circled a minute or two, and then it flew off into the distance. He knew then that the eagle had come to help him get through this, to tell him he would be all right.

He calmed down some, and he heard the voices of soldiers, some drilling and some yelling. They must be right around here real close, he thought. The sun was leaning on the horizon now. Then he heard rustling, and something rose out of the corn like a haint rising from the dead. His legs would not move. He was frozen to the spot. And his breath was so caught in his nose and mouth that it nearly choked him. The thing was tall, and thin, and it looked all black like him, like a spirit from the other side, until he saw the white beard.