Come Juneteenth (9 page)

He knew what he was asking. "With my people, if you wish," she answered.

"Your people are us. Will you stand with us?"

"Yes, sir."

"Will you wear that blue cloak and stand beside my daughter when she wears hers?"

"It's warm for a cloak," she said.

"Just the same," he asked.

She could refuse him nothing. She said yes and repeated the conversation to me while we were dressing and putting on our twin blue cloaks. "He sees me as one of you," she said wonderingly.

"And why not? Aren't you practically wed to Gabe?"

She sobered.

"I know you spent the last night of his leave in March with him in the log house," I told her. "Edom told me."

She bit her lower lip. "There are some things I can't tell you, though you are my sister," she said. "Please understand that. There will always be secrets between Gabe and me."

I nodded. "Are there more, then?" I asked.

"I've told you all I can for now," she promised.

I believed her.

I
AND
M
AMA
and Sis Goose stood with Pa on the front steps of the big house and all the slaves, summoned by Sam, came to stand in the drive below.

Pa read the freedom papers. Sis Goose held my hand, and I saw some of their eyes go over us in the identical blue coats. Mercy Love was one of these. Her eyes saw us standing there and her eyes saw all.

They knew Sis Goose, knew she lived in the house with us, was tutored with me, was indeed one of us. But they still seemed surprised that she was not standing with them.

I saw what Pa was doing, placing her with us, showing us as sisters. He was telling them how well she'd been treated, reminding them of how well he'd treated them all. Good food, adequate clothing, no whippings, care when they were sick, all of it. He hoped they'd remember.

Pa told them they were free. General Gorden Granger had said so. He had marched into Galveston yesterday, the nineteenth, to establish the sovereignty of the United
States and the Yankee troops marching into Texas over the defeated Confederates.

Our slaves drowned out his other words with their whoops and hollers and hugs. They jumped up and down. They danced, they held each other. They pulled up grass and threw stones, they yelled in the air, much the same as Grandpa Holcomb had done when he claimed his property.

"Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" they yelled. They knelt down on the ground and thanked the Lord. Finally they quieted down.

"I don't know what plans you have, but I see that some of you were prepared for this announcement," Pa said, pointing at old carpetbags and bundles of things some of them had at their feet. "I see some of you are planning to leave. But think. Where will you go? I have no more financial responsibility for you. But if you wish to stay on, if this place has become your home, and if you will agree to continue working for us, I'll continue to give you shelter, food, clothing, everything you've always had, plus either a share of the crops or a small wage. I'll bring in a tutor to educate you, so you can read and write. That's the best I can do for now."

Pa's voice broke. He turned to go into the house. Mercy Love raised a hand and gestured toward Pa.

I prayed she would say nothing about knowing they'd been free for over two years now. She didn't. "Bless you, sir," she yelled to Pa. "I's be stayin'."

A few others called out the same thing. They moved together, to the side, in one group. I noticed, thankfully, that Old Pepper Apron, the white-haired buxom cook, was one of them. "Nobody gettin' in my kitchen," she said.

A group of field hands moved forward and murmured that they would stay. "Leastways 'til the crops is in, boss," one said. And the others agreed in a chorus of "yeahs."

By the time Pa went through the front door, he was weeping.

The Yankees came two days later.

W
E FIRST SAW
them as if in a dream, Sis Goose and I. We had just returned from doing a tour of the ranch, something the boys did when they were home, to inform Pa if there were any fences down, any trees in need of tending, and even how the wild buffalo clover was in abundance as were other colorful flowers. That the creeks were full and flowing, that there seemed to be no pestilence in the planted crops.

We saw them in a cloud of dust that soon cleared and showed a whole bevy of fine-looking horses and blue-uniformed men with shiny brass buttons.

"What kind of soldiers have brass buttons so shiny?" I asked Sis Goose.

"I don't know. But we're too close to them if you can see that," she returned. "Let's go tell your pa they're here."

We galloped back toward the house and I wondered
how Pa had known they were coming. More secret connections, I supposed. Anyway, the last time Granville was home, which had been the end of May, before Granger came to Texas with his announcement of freedom for the slaves, Pa had sent a wagonload of goods back with my brother, to be shipped by boat to Bagdad, Mexico.

Mama's good silverware, tea set, and dinnerware went. So did her crystal punch bowl, her beautiful rugs, and some very special gowns and jewelry she'd been saving. A goodly portion of Pa's and the boys' books and Pa's genuine Brown Bess rifle from the Revolutionary War, along with some of his other prize guns, were loaded up.

Three good Thoroughbred horses had been tethered along the back of the wagon. Family portraits were inside it. And some special mirrors, carefully wrapped.

Mama had looked like she was about to cry, overseeing the loading of the loot, but she didn't. Granville had promised to see it all to a warehouse in Bagdad himself. The jewelry and dresses he would consign to the wife of a good friend of his in that town.

Yes, Pa had known they were coming. It was just a matter of when.

We wondered about Glen Eden and Aunt Sophie and Uncle Garland and how they would fare. But they were away in Europe, this time with my sister Amelia and her husband. "Don't worry about Glen Eden," Aunt Sophie had told Pa when he paid her a visit before she left. "Our negroes are all faithful and I've given instructions to the
household women that the Yankees are to be wined and dined. A good social atmosphere does wonders. We still are all human beings," she told Pa. "And they're away from home."

Pa grumbled and told her she was daft. "They'll sit at your table and eat your meat," he told her. "Then they'll muddy your carpets, shoot your Thoroughbreds, and rip your draperies from the windows."

She would not listen, so he gave up on her.

"The only trouble," Pa concluded, "is that she's got my daughter and my fool son-in-law thinking just like her."

"P
A, THE
Y
ANKEES
are here!" We burst in on his study without knocking.

He did not seem surprised. "All right. We'll greet them on the porch. You girls run and put on your blue cloaks."

He sure was fixated on those cloaks, like they could work some magic. But he was determined to put a good face on things.

We followed him outside. There were about twenty of them. Was that all it took? They carried their colors, the old Stars and Stripes, and a regimental flag.

On a closer look, their leader, looking up at us from his horse, was dusty and worn looking. "Name's Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey N. Heffernan III," he said. "I and my men here aim to occupy this land for a while. Who's in charge?"

"I'm the owner," Pa said. "This here's my wife and daughters."

I saw Heffernan's gaze go over Sis Goose. His smile was a sneer, nothing less.

"My men are thirsty and hungry. You have anybody who can rustle them up some grub?"

"My servants are in the kitchen now," Pa said. "My wife'll see to it."

Heffernan dismounted and handed his reins to a slave boy. He looked at the boy, then at Old Pepper Apron in the doorway, her turbaned head, her spotless white apron. He looked into other dark faces that peered up at him.

"You free your slaves yet?" he asked Pa.

"Yes," Pa said. "These you see here chose to stay."

"You payin' 'em?"

"In accordance with government law," Pa told him. "I am."

He shot several other questions at Pa, who answered them without getting ruffled. Then he took off his gloves, slapped them against his thigh, and came up the stairs to the house. Again he looked around at the porch, the grounds, the cool interior that must have beckoned. "This'll do," he said.

"For what?" Pa asked.

Heffernan looked at Pa as if he'd taken leave of his senses. "For living," he said. "Me and my men will, henceforth, occupy this house. You and your family can move into the log house out there." He gestured across the yard.
"Looks accommodating enough. You have any problems with that?"

Pa knew when to speak and when to hold a still tongue in his head. "No, my father built that house. Likely it's stronger than this one."

"Good. Have the servants move your family out today. From here on, this place is under the command of the federal government. Go on, get moving, old man."

I started forward, toward Heffernan. To do what, I didn't know. My anger would tell me. Pa grabbed my arm just in time, but Heffernan saw my actions and gave that sneering grin of his. "What's this? A fiery little piece, I see. What's your name, little cutie?"

"Trouble," I told him. "And don't call my pa old man."

"Luli, mind yourself," Pa said. Then to Heffernan, "I ask that you respect my daughters."

Heffernan looked from me to Sis Goose. "And this little missy? She your
daughter,
too?" He emphasized the word daughter.

"She's our adopted daughter, yes. Been with us since a babe."

"A high-yellow beauty, I'd say. What can she do in the house?"

"She helps my wife all the time," Pa said.

"Good. Then she can become part of my household. My personal servant. What did you say your name is, sweetie?"

"I didn't," Sis Goose said.

"I do love the accents," Heffernan told us. "What's her name?" He looked at me.

"Rose," I said.

"Come on. I know they all have nicknames. You people have an absolute talent for giving your negroes nicknames."

"She isn't our negro," I protested. "She belongs to the family."

"Exactly.
Belongs
is the word we need. I said, what's her name?"

Sis Goose saw we were at each other's throats and interrupted. "They call me Sis Goose," she told him. "My pa named me that."

"Your pa, hey? He allow you to call him that?" he questioned.

"Her father's a steamboat captain," I told him. "And he'd kill you on sight if he knew you were making advances to his daughter. And if you hurt her in any way, I'll tell him and he'll come and kill you. Yes he will!"

I was crying by then and ashamed of myself for breaking down. The idea of this filthy Yankee living in our house tore into me.

"Men!" he called out. "Help these people move their things. You." And he pointed to Old Pepper Apron. "You're the cook. I've been on enough of these plantations to know that by now. Get in the kitchen and rustle up some grub for me and my men. Half a dozen chickens
should do. And a side of beef. Potatoes and corn and whatever sweet you got on this place." He lowered his voice. "Besides these sweet little girls, that is. Sis-whatever-they-call-you, come with me. I'm in need of some drink and fruit and cheese."

He looked at Pa, who stood there helplessly. How I wished I had my gun, but it was hidden by the corn crib. Why did Pa stand for it so? How I wished Gabe and Granville were here.

"Remember," he said to us as he went through the front door. "The war is over. You're all my prisoners. The South is on its knees. See that you imitate her posture."

T
HOUGH
I'
D
brought many a meal to Edom in the log house, I never thought about what it would mean to live there. Always it had seemed so empty, so echoing, with its bare wood floors and fireplaces of native stone.

It was made of cottonwood logs, hewn as smooth as glass, with round holes every so often to shoot a rifle out of at attacking Indians. Downstairs was a large hallway, with two large rooms on either side. The back gallery connected to the kitchen. Upstairs were two more large rooms, and soon all the place was filled up with whatever furniture Colonel Heffernan allowed us to take out of the main house.

He would allow us women only one mirror, two mule chests, and each of us one bed. Edom, who had always lived in a small back room, walked around mumbling and talking to Grandpa Holcomb as if the man were still alive.

"Good thing you're dead, Gabriel," he said to Grandpa's ghost. "Or this would kill you fer sure."

But as old as he was, he was a help in moving Pa's books into one of the downstairs rooms, and in making a study come into being.

He was free now, with all the other slaves, Edom was. But for the last ten years he hadn't lifted a finger on the place, except to sit outside and tell stories to the little negro children. Pa had been caring for him all the while.

We had nothing to cook on but the old iron skillets and pots that hung in the hearth in the kitchen. Colonel Heffernan wouldn't allow us to have Mama's brass pans or kettles. As for servants, he allowed us only Melindy and Molly and kept Old Pepper Apron and others to cook and clean for him.

Sis Goose and I wanted to cry at first, but Mama made a game of it. "Your grandpa and grandmother lived in this house under worse circumstances. At least we don't have Indians. At least we have bread and salt. Let's see if we can be as brave as they were."

But soon we had more to worry about. While Sis Goose was allowed to sleep and live with us, she was, on Heffernan's orders, to stay in the big house to be at his beck and call during the day.

She was to wait on his table. Serve him his tot of rum every afternoon on the front porch, along with cheese from the buttery and fresh plums and peaches and pomegranates from the small orchard Mama kept in front of the house.

That orchard was Mama's pride and joy. And so was Sis Goose.

And the first night of her indenture Sis Goose came home crying.