Black Angels (5 page)

Straight ahead the river road split. In the distance was what looked like an abandoned shed, but Luke didn't want to risk being found, and the road looked like it was curving away from the river. The river made a slight turn here and got much wider.

Daylily was gazing over toward the left. Luke thought she was watching the sunset. A gray haze spread out over part of the sky.

“Smells like smoke,” she said. For a moment, she was silent. Then she said, “We should go this way,” and pointed opposite the orange and lavender sky so beautiful and distant.

Luke turned toward the shack, more than a little apprehensive but too tired to think what else to do. He was starting to feel responsible for the younger children. Caswell lagged behind, taking smaller and smaller steps. Finally, Daylily went back and took him by the hand. Luke felt his powder bag. “Wait,” he said, as he got closer and closer to the shelter. “Lemme see is it safe.”

It was a small place, but he could tell it was the back of an old farmhouse. There were fields going to seed; a half-burned house in the distant twilight shadows, its chimneys poking up into the purple sky; a plow and wagon left behind. All he could hear were a few crickets and mosquitoes buzzing. “Must have been terrible,” he muttered to himself, and then waved his hand to the others to come ahead.

A hawk flew overhead into the black trees. There was no door on the shed, but it would give them somewhere to be out of the cool at night. They saw that someone else had been there. An old wool jacket and a rusty knife and fork were on the floor.

Caswell curled up on the raggedy jacket and was asleep in a few minutes.

Daylily leaned her back against the wall of the tiny place. “He ain't gon find his mama,” she whispered to Luke, who had collapsed beside her.

“Who care?” Luke moaned. “You think maybe we should let him go try?”

“No, I mean, he ain't,” she repeated. She leaned over very close to Luke's ear. “Burwell place be burned down. I saw it from the river road. Ain't no Burwell place no more.”

“You mean you knowed that all along?” Luke said.

“No, I saw it from the road up there just now when I said we should go this way. I know where Burwells' is. I been there once. Us went to help Missus dress at a big party and spend the night. All I see tonight is smoke. He just too little to see over them trees and bushes, and he don't know where he is nohow. So we stuck with him. He ain't got nowhere to go and maybe his mammy dead too.”

Luke shook his head and put his arms across his forehead. He was worn out. Still, he couldn't get to sleep right away. He thought this must have been the longest day in his life. Being in the woods with this strange girl and this little White boy. All kind of pictures in his head. Daylily say her granny died, say she belong to Massa Riverson. Something about a woman who was killed in the woods with her two babies by some Yankee soldiers, and she left alone, and then they find this White chile sleeping under a tree who was hollering about finding his Mamadear and his daddy killing Yankees and maybe killing them too.

And only God knew where this White boy's Mamadear was at. Yankee soldiers could-a killed her too. It was a whole lot to think on, a terrible lot to think on. Then there was Aunt Eugenia. She would be worried sick by now, wondering where he was, and he out in this woods, which was far as he got looking for Unc Steph. He wanted to find the Union soldiers.

Maybe Daylily was wrong and them soldiers who killed that woman and her babies wasn't Yankee. Girls didn't know nothing. He knew he could fight, even if he was just a boy. Somebody needed to fight. Folks losing they families and all. He knew about that.

Luke felt his eyes tearing up under his arm. He didn't want to cry, but nobody could see him in the dark. He sniffed up the tears and remembered that Unc Steph said when things get too bad, go to sleep. Always look better in the morning time. Maybe that's why the good Lord made sleep.

Morning came, but it came noisy and frightening. It came with sounds of guns and battle in their ears. They heard it almost all at once.

“Lord-a mercy what is it?” Daylily gasped, sitting straight up, her eyes wide open as they could get.

“Guns,” said Luke. “Hush, they's mighty near.”

Caswell almost got through the door before Daylily grabbed the seat of his pants.

“Don't you know nothin, boy? You get yourself killed!” she said.

In the midst of the noise, Caswell yelled something about runnin off and killin Yankees and findin his daddy, and they pulled him down and held him still.

“Now you look-a here,” Luke said fiercely. “You run out there and you gets killed. They'll shoot you cause you so little they won't see you and then they come lookin and they finds us. And another thing . . .” Daylily shot Luke a look and shook her head.

“Just be quiet,” he told the boy, understanding her. “We got to stay here and pray to the Lord they don't find us.”

Caswell glared at Luke but sat still. The noise went on all day, it seemed. Screams of victory and agony all mixed together. It was happening over in the next gully, but it was so loud they sometimes had to hold their ears. All they could see from the doorway was a cloud of smoke, and then the whole thing stopped, it seemed, as suddenly as it had started. There was the uneasy quiet that comes after a fury has been let loose.

In the deep silence, the three of them didn't speak.

Finally, Daylily sighed. “What us gon do? Us can't sit here forever.”

Still they waited, all of them afraid to move. The shock of the noise, the fear and the silence had them hypnotized.

“Us got to eat sometime today. You reckon it safe to move?” she whispered.

Luke said nothing. He was concentrating on what he knew he had to do. Guns meant fighting and danger, and he sure wished he didn't have to go out there.

“I seen blackberries over there, Luke,” she said, trying again.

“Can't get no berries till I check,” Luke said. “Watch him. I got to see can we move from here.”

He was scared. Anybody'd be scared to go out there. And what if somebody grabbed him? The younger ones looked at Luke as if he should know what to do. Daylily held on to Caswell's hand, and he didn't even struggle this time.

Luke ran his hand over his face. If only Unc Steph was with him now. He sighed twice and pulled on his pants as if to jack them up. “Don't y'all move,” he said. “I'll be right back,” and he stepped out into the afternoon sunlight quietly.

Luke moved straight ahead, looking from side to side as he padded up a small hill. The afternoon sun shone on every blade of grass. Goldenrod blew softly in the breeze.

But what he saw on the other side of the hill made him close his eyes and clap his hands over them. He just stood there in the grass, a young boy growing old second by second. He saw it all at once. It was like a dream, and he knew he'd never forget it. Before him was a field, a harvest of death, a sea of arms and legs, cotton and wool and metal, dead horses, and everywhere black and red stains spreading their fingers, spreading over what once were heads, hands, and private parts.

Luke fell back as if pushed by a force he couldn't see. When he came to himself, he was retching on what little was in his stomach, his nut-brown face a gray cast. He sat very still. So this was what he had left home for. This was war. Unc Steph and the others, they could be out there. What did God mean, letting such things happen? He had run away from the master for this?

He slammed his fist into the ground, and it was only his hand that felt it, not the hard-packed dirt, or even the butterfly that had found its way to a pink clover blossom next to him and fluttered off. Luke slammed his fist again and again, until he had made a dent in the earth. Tears covered his chin, and he choked on them. Then he remembered the others.

I can't let them see me crying like an old woman, he thought. If he didn't get back, they would be coming to find him before long. He couldn't let them see this, a girl, and a little White boy who was already spooked about his mama. They needed water too, he remembered, feeling his throat tighten.

He looked straight ahead into the field and suddenly began to get angry. He didn't like that this could happen and people could be there one day and gone the next. He thought about Aunt Eugenia and the others he cared about. They wouldn't want him to give up. If nobody but Daylily and Caswell knew he was alive, then they would have to be his friends. He was the oldest, he thought, swallowing hard, and he would just have to be the one who saved them. Luke stared at the mass of bodies. He remembered his mojo only when he grabbed his shirt to wipe his face and felt it.

His nostrils went rigid with determination. He inched his way toward the hellhole in front of him, closer and closer to the bodies of soldiers, some not much older than him. He was looking for three coats, and canteens and some more gunpowder and pellets. He would have to touch them, pull off their coats and look in their pockets, look into their eyes.

He avoided bodies that had no arms and legs, turning his head, reaching out timidly and then snatching back his hands. The dead were already beginning to stink. He wanted to do it without looking at them, but there was no way to miss them, no place to walk without seeing.

Only one jacket came off easily. He would always remember the ragged limbs, the feel of the stiff bloodstains on the coat. The soldier's arms were pulled back, and his coat was unbuttoned. Luke cut the strap holding the powder sack and the canteen with his own knife. With one done, he felt a kind of triumph over this awful work. He could do what he was doing and not die himself. After that their faces became just a blur of flesh.

Finally, he had taken more than he could carry. Three coats, canteens, a pocket New Testament, gunpowder, hats, knives and even a few letters and coins, two pairs of shoes and most wonderful of all, a bayonet. He had to drop some things at the top of the hill and make two trips.

There was no way to tell what color some of the uniforms had been or how many of each. A few of the men had worn farm shirts and overalls. If the rebs won, he reasoned, it'd be dangerous to stick around. If it was Union soldiers who won, would they keep him or kill him?

He knew some Black folks followed the soldiers for food. So much had shaken his confidence. The world had turned itself around on him, and he was no longer sure how anything would work. Better to keep on the run and be far away from this battleground before he trusted anybody.

He found Daylily and Caswell asleep from exhaustion. They had given out from hunger and the fear of not knowing what had happened to him. The sun was low in the sky.

Luke decided to surprise them with blackberries. He took the three Confederate hats he had found, and filled them with blackberries to present with his other gifts.

When he got back to the shed, the others were still asleep. Luke tried to stay awake to make sure Caswell didn't sneak off. Finally, he put his head down on his folded arms. Maybe he should just go on home. He thought about his mam again. Whenever he'd ask Aunt Eugenia why they killed his mam, she'd say because she was too much trouble.

Aunt Eugenia would wipe her eyes quick on her apron and say something about onions making her eyes water, so he wouldn't know she was crying, but he knew.

She'd say, “She was just sick at heart was all. Your mama was just sick at heart,” and then she'd say, “Go long now, don't ask me no more.”

Maybe his mam could see him up in Heaven. He could feel himself getting sleepy and he was glad. He was tired of thinking of Aunt Eugenia, Unc Steph, the dead men blown apart, all of it, over and over. As he drifted off, pictures of his mam's face floated through his mind. Her name was Lucymae. He missed her.

 

When she woke up from her nap, Luke was sitting there chewing.

“Ooh, what are you eating?” Daylily asked. “You got berries. I can see your mouth all blue round your lips. You got berries. Gimme some!”

Luke shook his head. “Nope. They mine.”

Daylily protested. “That ain't fair!”

By this time Caswell was awake. “I want some,” he whined. “I should have some too.”

“You don't even know what I got,” Luke said. He was hiding the berries under the coat he'd just found a few hours before. He uncovered the rest of the berries with a flourish. “There! I brought y'all a surprise! We got berries for supper!”

Daylily looked at the berries in the hats. “Where you get these hats, Luke?”

“Found em, on the ground. Eat them berries and say thank you.”

She was already licking the juice off her lips.

CHAPTER 7

GOOD-BYE