The Prophets(68)
“You gon’ have to go to the well now,” Isaiah said. He pressed his forehead against Samuel’s.
“Now?” Samuel asked.
“When, then?” Isaiah closed his eyes.
“In the morning.” Samuel said, his lips pressed against Isaiah’s eyelids.
“And what we gon’ do if we thirsty before then?” Isaiah opened his eyes, but only partly.
Samuel took a deep breath. “All right, then.” He softly moved Isaiah aside. He got up and grabbed the bucket. Isaiah got up, too.
“I go with you.”
Isaiah kissed Samuel, then he walked on ahead.
Samuel watched him from behind. He shook his head and continued to walk at a steady pace. As he reached the door, he looked over to the wall. The tools hung on rusty nails, but they were there. Just within reach. He looked at the ground and spit before jogging after Isaiah.
Maccabees
He called for me,” Samuel said, almost mumbling while filling the trough with slop. He shook it thoughtlessly out of the pail. Steam rose off of it. The hogs were squealing and pushing one another out of the way to get to it. The flies gathered around.
Isaiah froze, but only momentarily. Then he returned to shoveling the manure out of the pen and into a pile on the other side of the fence.
“I know you heard me,” Samuel said, placing the pail down before picking up another.
Isaiah stopped shoveling.
“Yes. And there ain’t nothing for me to say. You ain’t got no choice. Just like I ain’t have one.”
“You wrong ’bout both those things.”
Isaiah looked at Samuel as he emptied the last pail.
“Don’t say that,” Isaiah whispered, wanting to tell Samuel that he had already surrendered. The battle was over. There was no longer a need. Retreat. Retreat.
“There is choices. There is always choices. You just make wrong ones.”
Isaiah felt that, just like it had been the fist that Samuel never raised at him, not the palm that had just before caressed his face after some coaxing. The rough-hewn but somehow still delicate hand that led down to the sinewy left arm, which was the protector of that troubled heart. Sometimes capable of such kindness—never forget the water carrier. But also, time had passed and no matter how hard you tried, this place crawled to a safe space inside you, leaving behind not just marks, but hatchlings to be warmed against your will by your own life’s blood. And it didn’t even give you the respect of telling you when they might hatch or if, when they did, the pain of it might show itself in the way you regarded a lover. Or, rather, in the way you allowed a lover to regard you.
Before Isaiah could protest, in his way, not in the pointed way that was Samuel’s, they saw Maggie coming down the path. Despite her limp, Maggie always seemed to walk with purpose. Even if she was just passing by on her way to the river or to go see Essie, she had the stern face and upright character of a woman with a message. They only saw her smile a handful of times, but when she did, it was contagious. She wasn’t a woman of big laughter like Be Auntie, but the small sounds that came from her mouth and the way her shoulders jerked when she was amused seemed to magnify the joy of anyone around. When Maggie was happy, all of Empty had reason to be. And when she wasn’t? Well.
Isaiah dropped his shovel and ran to open the gate for her. When she walked through the opening, she pinched her dress in her fingers and raised it so its edge fluttered just above her ankles.
“Good morning, Miss Maggie,” Isaiah said as he closed the gate behind her.
She nodded. She had a cloth in her hand, undoubtedly some meal she had managed to smuggle out of the Big House. She walked right up to Samuel.
“Good morning, Miss Maggie.”
“Here,” she said.
Maggie could be like that. She didn’t seem to have the time for pleasantries. It was as though something inside of her needed to get to the heart of matters quickly, needed the truth to be laid bare as soon as it was able. Yet, with Samuel, it seemed that the particular truth sought always had some kindness attached. Maggie’s kindness was prickly and thorned, but it was also beautiful to see coming from someone who had every reason to bristle at the very idea of kindness and hock-spit on it.
Samuel eyed the bundle suspiciously. He had never done that before.
“I ain’t gon’ eat no more of they food,” he said, trying to dampen his tone so that it didn’t come off as disrespectful to Maggie.
She laughed. “So you telling me you gon’ starve to death? Ain’t not a lick of nothing on this here plantation not they’s—whether I hand it to you or not. Might as well take the best of it.”
“Oh, I finna do just that, Miss Maggie.”
“What now?”
“Miss Maggie, don’t pay him no mind,” Isaiah said with a frown.
“What’s the matter?” Maggie raised an eyebrow as though she could sense that there was too much heat—or rather, not enough—coming off both of them. “Is this got to do with Amos’s foolishness? Essie told me he sent her to bring a peace.”
Neither of them replied.
“I know I just asked y’all a question.”
“We can handle Amos,” Samuel said.
“My foot,” Maggie said and gave Samuel a suspicious look.
Samuel reminded her of someone she hadn’t seen in a long, long while. Someone she had the good sense to put out of her mind and shut it so they couldn’t come back in no matter how politely they asked. But yes, Samuel’s face had a forgotten character: shiny skin whose source was its own light, eyelashes like a doe or something, eyes as big and oval as almonds, and heavy lips because the bottom one drooped like a studying infant taking in all of nature because it was all still new.