The March (29 page)

And now, seeing the enormous encampment this was, with no end to it in the fields, for across the road it went on, and up to the edge of a forest, Pearl felt as helpless as she had ever felt on the plantation, and all the comforts and satisfactions of her working life in the Union army seemed now a terrible scandal, a way of looking out for herself and no one else that was no better than her selfish slave-owning pap. So that what she took from his color as a white girl was the worst of him, and all these wretched people around her were the people she had ignored and left to themselves just as they said General Sherman had left them after setting them free to go on by themselves in a land that still was not theirs. And what had it got her except some shelter from the storm, like she was some house slave looking out from the window at the field niggers and forgetting she, too, was owned.

EARLIER THAT NIGHT
Hugh Pryce had told the boy David that he would find him a place with his own people, and the minute he said that, David, not satisfied to hold his hand, had clung to his leg, so that the Englishman limped around the black encampment as if a ball and chain were attached to him. How awkward, how embarrassing.

Pryce had got them to Fayetteville on the little mule and found himself severely tried with a child to look after. David was underdressed for the weather, and Pryce took off his pullover and belted the sweater with rope to make a coat for him. The child was constantly hungry. Pryce, with his casual British bonhomie, was usually able to cadge rations. But with a Negro boy in tow it was as if he had lost his gift—the bummers exacted money for everything.

He was by now more annoyed with himself than moved by the child’s dash to freedom. It was not his responsibility to free the slaves—was it?—yet he had lifted the boy to the saddle. A rash act, in violation of the imperative to be a strictly neutral observer. Somehow, without thinking too clearly, he had assumed he would be relieved of the burden—that the authorities in Fayetteville would take David off his hands. But what authorities? The city was in chaos. The army was everywhere, and life had become unnatural for the inhabitants. No one seemed to know anything. In London there were established asylums for orphans, a fact of which the lower classes took advantage by happily depositing their newborns on the doorstep for society to raise. Of course, these were white foundlings, but how, war or no war, was it wrong to assume that every civilized society would have homes for its unwanted children even if they were black?

Worst of all, it was impossible to be taken seriously as a professional journalist with this appendage hanging on to him. He was losing out on the stories. He had heard a rumor that the secessionists were finally gathering an army the equal of Sherman’s. Where it was and how big and where it would make a stand were important questions. He had gone to Sherman’s busy headquarters, and one imperious frown from Sherman’s wing commander, General Howard—a sweeping glance from man to boy—was enough for an adjutant to come forward and tell Pryce he had no business being there. Yet milling about were his competition—men from the
Herald Tribune,
the London
Telegraph,
the
Baltimore Sun.
Here was the biggest story of the campaign in the making and Hugh Pryce felt it getting away from him.

But there were stories no one could deny him. This afternoon he had hurried David up the hill to the site of the Fayetteville Arsenal, where the soldiers were demolishing buildings and setting them on fire. It was weirdly festive, squads of men running battering rams into brick walls, twelve and fourteen horse and mule teams pulling away foundations. Crowds had gathered to watch, and now and then had to back away from the flames and the chunks of fire flying everywhere. David yanked Pryce’s sleeve. Don’t like it, he kept saying, don’t like it. And then one of the buildings was detonated with a monstrous roar, collapsing in an inferno of fire and smoke, and perhaps fusing their relationship forever in the mind of this child, for from that moment David, who had been a stouthearted little fellow, became tearful and querulous and clinging. Nor was he any better in his mind this night, as Pryce brought him to the encampment of the freed slaves and told him it was time for him to find a place with his own people.

CERTAINLY THERE WERE
enough of them, and a poorer, more bedraggled mass of humanity Pryce had never looked upon. A majority were women, more old than young, and there were numerous old men, but only here and there a man in his prime. Pryce, used to the outdoors himself, saw no pathos in this encampment where the sky was the only roof and the only home was the space around the fire. People had lived this way from time immemorial. But the state of these beings, so many crippled and bent, withered and worn, all of them with a history of having been kept, as horses or mules were kept, sent a fine moment’s rage into his breast. Yet he needed one of them now for the service she could supply—he needed a woman with strong maternal instincts, someone still with the strength to take on a child, or another child, without thinking twice about it. He needed someone healthy, with an apron and a kerchief around her head and good, strong arms. Pryce smiled. I need a mammy.

Just hold Hugh’s hand, David, he said. Don’t worry, he won’t let you go.

This was still fairly early in the evening, and it was difficult for him to understand the nature of the gatherings—whether people were camped according to the plantations they had come from or had simply plunked themselves down hither and yon, like bathers on a beach. He found himself at the edge of a large group listening to an elderly man who stood on a box. The man had a scraggly white beard, very biblical he looked, a distinguished ancient, though he was dressed in rags and leaned on a stick. We are the sable brethren, he said in a soft deep voice, and finer in our natures and nobler in our forbearance than these European Americans who have chained us and whipped us and sent us into the fields. For we know our God, who has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth. And if we are freed by this General, still, is he not one of them? The worship of this Sherman is blasphemy, for he is not your God. This Sherman has his own purposes, his own reasons. The Hebrews setting forth on their exodus did not ask an Egyptian general to lead them. Those Hebrews, they followed their own, as we must do now, for we are an army in ourselves. We have no weapons—no cannon and no muskets—but are an army of the free and righteous who make their own path, and find their own way by the grace of God.

A woman called out, And who be you, old man—is you Moses? There was laughter, but the man said, No, sister. I am a poor old field slave free now to die like a man. But the Lord our God knows I speak the truth. If you long for the General to protect you, you are still unfree. Freedom should fill your heart and lift your spirit. Let you not look to white mortals for your food and shelter and salvation. Look to your own and God will provide, and God will show us the way. We have been in the wilderness far more than forty years. It is the promised land now. Be fruitful and multiply and make it your own.

Amen, came the cry from several, and some hoots of disparagement from others. Hugh Pryce foresaw himself cabling a story describing seditious sentiments among the Negroes. But first he had to deal with his problem. Wandering on, he could see no one he could reasonably approach. With David, whom he had regularly to pry from his leg, he went among the blacks until he finally saw a possibility for him—a woman and two children eating their supper by a fire. The woman had fried some cornmeal cakes, and she looked at David and then at Pryce and then at David.

You lost, son? she said.

No’m, David said, his eyes on the fritters in the frying pan.

What’s your name?

This is David, Pryce said. He’s an orphan. He needs someone to take him in.

Is that right? If you ain’t lost, who this? the woman said to David. This your daddy talkin?

Yes’m, David said.

I am not the child’s father. My name is Hugh Pryce. I’m with the London
Times.

Not the father?

No. Surely that should be obvious.

The woman laughed. Not to me, she said. No tellin by now what color a chile will come with.

My good woman—

Vengeance is mine—ain’t that what the Lord said? And she laughed again.

Do you actually think—

She appraised Pryce. Favors you. Got his mama’s skin but his daddy’s eyes. And lookit his hands and feet. Gonna be a tall man, like you.

That’s nonsense. I’ll give you money.

What money? She frowned.

Federal greenbacks.

My, my. She wrapped her hand in a cloth, lifted the frying pan off the fire, and slid a fritter onto a folded sheet of newspaper. Still hot, she said to David. Leave it cool a minute.

Well?

The woman with effort raised herself from the ground, pushing off on one knee with a groan. She brushed her skirt and put one hand to her brow and peered in several directions. I need a Union soldier, she said. I got to get someone to come an arrest you.

Arrest me?

The slave trade over and done, din’t you hear? Can’t buy nor sell people no more.

I’m not selling anyone. I’m giving you money to take care of this boy.

Oh, sure. He older, you would ast me to pay for ’im. He too little to be much use, so you payin. Either way is outside the law of e-mancipation, ifn you ain’t heard.

I merely mean to provide means for his keep. I see you already have two of your own and I understand the responsibility this entails.

Here, David, the woman said. She bent down and made a cone out of the paper holding the fritter and handed it to the child. Take this now, and get along with your daddy before I puts him in jail. An I ain’t sayin nothin ’bout a man meanin to sell off his own chile, she said to Pryce.

She folded her hands and looked up into the night sky. Dear Lord, she said, fill this white man’s heart with shame. Fill him with your glory. Let him repent and give thanks to you, God, for the blessin of this fine boy David. I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

WHY DID YOU
lie, Pryce said some minutes later, don’t you know lying is wrong? Don’t you know that? He was practically shouting. But David, having finished his fritter, held Pryce’s hand and chose not to answer. He marched along in calm anticipation of what lay ahead. It was as if Pryce were the child and David the adult who forbore to indulge his childish outbursts. Good God, Pryce thought, whomever I approach, what’s to prevent his doing it again? He’ll say I’m his father and that’ll be the end of it.

With the realization that he’d been outwitted, Pryce felt his face turn hot. The child had a slave’s cunning. And his instinctive dash to freedom—was it really that? How foolish to think so. More likely the wretched boy was merely running from the whip. In my arms he would avoid a beating. Yes, of course, that was all it was. He probably deserved what he was about to get.

Pryce felt the child’s hand in his as something glued to him. The imposition had become intolerable. But I’m bigger and older and stronger and smarter than you, my good man. Your father elect won’t make the same mistake twice.

The child who is taken up, Pryce thought, is the child found alone.

AND SO IT
was that later that night Pearl, wandering in her distressed state through the encampment, came upon the crowd around the boy, who had torn his clothes off. Nobody could touch him. He sat there cross-legged in the mud, beating his fists against his thighs and sobbing. If someone approached him the sobs became screeches. People, seeing Pearl in her nurse’s uniform, stepped aside. She knelt in front of the child. The moonlight washed the warmth out of his color and made him a beautiful blue-black. And in the brief moment he stopped crying to study her, his expression was calm enough for her to see that he was a handsome little boy. She thought he might be six or seven years old. Pearl nodded as if to say she understood that he had every right to cry, and she smiled sympathetically. She put her hand out, and though he jerked his head back, she did touch his forehead, and he let her. She thought he felt hot. His eyes, swollen from crying, looked like sick eyes to her. How long had he been sitting here? Her own bare feet had long since gone numb from the cold, and she thought his sitting there on the wet ground for no matter how long couldn’t be doing him much good. She picked up his clothing—all of it was wet and muddy.

Whose child is this? she called out. Don’t nobody claim this child?

Several voices assured her that he belonged to no one that they could see.

You all standin around lookin on—this ain’t a raree show, Pearl said. Somebody fetch me somethin to cover him.

Are you lost, boy? Pearl said.

He shook his head no.

You got a mama somewhere lookin for you?

He shook his head no.

Pearl accepted a blanket, and when she turned back to David he was staring at her, his sobs having gone into spasmic snuffings, and with the back of his hand he wiped his nose.

Moments later she was carrying him, all wrapped in a blanket, back through the encampment the way she had come. He was heavier than he looked, and shivering now and knuckling his teeth. Pearl was feeling defiant. I will keep this one with us on the march, she said to herself. And if Stephen Walsh means to marry me, he will understan that, white as she is, Pearl could someday bear him a tar baby for his trouble.

IV

T
HEY WERE UP ON THE ARSENAL PLATEAU IN FRONT
of the one building still standing amid all the rubble. It had been used as a temporary headquarters. Some of the remaining troops were loading crates and files into army wagons. Others were rolling barrels of powder up a ramp they had laid over the front steps.

If you didn’t drag your feet, Arly said, I would be riding behind General Sherman, wherever he is. Now how am I to know with the columns separating down there across the river? Look from here like one blue snake breeding into two.