Homegoing(31)

That first night, they walked so long, so far, that the cracked soles of Ness’s feet opened up. She bled on the leaves, and hoped for rain so that the dogs that were surely coming wouldn’t be able to catch her scent. When the sun came up, they climbed the trees. Ness hadn’t done it since childhood, but the skill came back to her quickly. She wrapped Jo around her back with cloth and reached for the highest branch. When he cried, she smothered him against her chest. Sometimes, after she had done this, he would get so still, she would worry, long for his cries. But they were all practicing stillness there, stillness like the kind Esi used to talk about in her stories about the Big Boat. Stillness like death.

Days passed this way, the four of them playing trees in the woods or grass in the fields, but soon Ness could feel a heat rising from the earth, and she knew, the way a person knew air or love just by feeling, that the Devil was after them.

“Would you take Kojo tonight?” Ness asked Aku while Sam and the boy had wandered off in search of water to drink. “Just fo’ tonight. My back can’t take much more of him.”

Aku nodded, giving her a strange look, but Ness knew what she wanted and she wouldn’t change her mind.

That morning the dogs came, their panting heavy and labored as their paws slapped against the tree where Ness hid.

From afar there was a whistle, an old Dixie tune that lifted from the ground before the sound could be attached to a body. “I know you’re here somewhere,” the Devil said. “And I’m glad to wait you out.”

In broken Twi, Ness called to Aku, who was further up in the distance, holding baby Jo. “Don’t come down, whatever you do,” Ness said.

The Devil continued approaching, his hum low and patient. Ness knew he would wait there forever and soon the baby would cry, need food. She looked over at the tree Sam was in and hoped he would forgive her for all that she was about to bring upon them, and then she climbed down the tree. She was on the ground before she realized that Sam had done the same.

“Where’s the boy?” the Devil asked while his men tied the two of them up.



“Dead,” Ness said, and she hoped her eyes had that look in them, that look that mothers got sometimes when they came back from running, having killed their children to set them free.

The Devil raised one eyebrow and laughed a slow laugh. “It’s a shame, really. I thought I mighta had me some trustworthy niggers. Just goes to show.”

He marched Ness and Sam back to Hell.

Once they got there, all of the slaves were called out to the whipping post. He stripped them both bare, tied Sam so tight he couldn’t even wiggle his fingers, and made him watch as Ness earned the stripes that would make her too ugly to work in a house ever again. By the end of it, Ness was on the ground, dust covering her sores. She could not lift her head, so the Devil lifted it for her. He made her watch. He made them all watch: the rope come out, the tree branch bend, the head snap free from body.

And so this day, while Ness waited to see what punishment Tom Allen had in store for her, she couldn’t help but remember that day. Sam’s head. Sam’s head tilted to the left and swinging.

Pinky carried water up to the porch where Tom Allen sat, waiting. When the little girl turned back around, her eyes caught Ness’s, but Ness didn’t hold her gaze for long. She just continued to pick cotton. She thought of the act of cotton picking as she had since the day she saw Sam’s head, like a prayer. With the bend, she said, “Lord forgive me my sins.” With the pluck, she said, “Deliver us from evil.” And with the lift, she said, “And protect my son, wherever he may be.”





James





OUTSIDE, THE SMALL CHILDREN were singing “Eh-say, shame-ma-mu” and dancing around the fire, their smooth, naked bellies glistening like little balls catching light. They were singing because word had arrived—the Asantes had Governor Charles MacCarthy’s head. They were keeping it on a stick outside the Asante king’s palace as a warning to the British: this is what happens to those who defy us.

“Eh, small children, do you not know that if the Asantes defeat the British they will come for us Fantes next?” James asked. He lunged at one of the little girls and tickled her until all of the children were giggling and begging for mercy. He released the girl and then put on a somber face, continuing his lecture. “You will be safe here in this village because my family is royal. Do not forget that.”

“Yes, James,” they said.

Down the road, James’s father was approaching with one of the white men from the Castle. He motioned to James to follow them into the compound.

“Should the boy hear this, Quey?” the white man asked, glancing quickly at James.

“He is a man, not a boy. He will take over my responsibilities here when I’ve finished. Whatever you say to me, you may also say to him.”

The white man nodded, and looked at James carefully as he spoke. “Your mother’s father, Osei Bonsu, has died. The Asantes are saying we killed their king to avenge Governor MacCarthy’s death.”



“And did you?” James asked, returning the man’s stare with force, anger beginning to boil up in his veins. The white man looked away. James knew the British had been inciting tribal wars for years, knowing that whatever captives were taken from these wars would be sold to them for trade. His mother always said that the Gold Coast was like a pot of groundnut soup. Her people, the Asantes, were the broth, and his father’s people, the Fantes, were the groundnuts, and the many other nations that began at the edge of the Atlantic and moved up through the bushland into the North made up the meat and pepper and vegetables. This pot was already full to the brim before the white men came and added fire. Now it was all the Gold Coast people could do to keep from boiling over again and again and again. James wouldn’t be surprised if the British had killed his grandfather as a way to raise the heat. Ever since his mother had been stolen and married to his father, his village had been swelteringly hot.