The Prophets(7)

“’Zay! Come on over here and see this.” Samuel pointed out toward the woods.

Isaiah ran up beside Samuel. “Ain’t you gon’ apologize for what you said to me?”

“I did that. You just ain’t hear me. But look. There. That there. Moving.”

“The trees?” Isaiah was quick with those words, distracted, wanting to discuss the other thing.

“No, no. That thing there. Don’t know what . . . a shadow?”

Isaiah squinted and he saw a flutter.

“I don’t . . .”

“You saw it?”

“Yeah. Don’t know what it is.”

“Let’s go see.”

“And get whupped for being near the edge?”

“Bah,” Samuel said, but he also didn’t budge.

As they both peered into the edge, what had at first been black became white as James the overseer emerged from the army of trees. He was followed by three of the toubab in his charge.

“You think they found somebody?” Samuel said, oddly relieved that it was James and not the shadow.

“They say you can tell by they ears,” Isaiah replied, looking at James and his men. “By how the bottom part hang. But I can’t see from here.”

“Maybe they just patrolling. Ain’t it time for the call to the field?”

“Uh huh.”

Neither of them moved as they watched the men work their way across bush and weed, still walking along the perimeter toward the cotton field, which stretched to the horizon and sometimes looked as though its clouds touched the ones in the sky.

Empty began to show signs of life as other people emerged from their shacks to look the light in the face. Samuel and Isaiah waited to see who, if anyone, would acknowledge them. These days, only Maggie and a few others had kept them in their graces, for some reason.

The sound of the horn startled Isaiah. “I ain’t never gon’ get used to that,” he said.

Samuel turned to him. “If you right-minded, you don’t have to.”

Isaiah sucked his teeth.

“Oh, you happy here, ’Zay?”

“Sometimes,” Isaiah said, looking into Samuel’s eyes. “Remember the water?”

Samuel found himself smiling even though he didn’t want to.

“And one gotta think and not just do to be happy,” Isaiah said, returning to the question Samuel asked.

“I reckon we should get to thinking, then.”

The horn sounded again. Samuel looked toward the sound, over by the field. His eyes narrowed. Then he felt Isaiah’s hand on his back. Isaiah held it there, calm and steady, the heat from it not making things worse. A moment, which would pass too quickly and yet couldn’t pass quickly enough. It was almost as if Isaiah were holding him up, pushing him forward, giving him something to lean on when the legs got a little weary.

Still, Samuel said, “Not in the light.”

Still, Isaiah kept his hand there for a moment more. He then started to hum. He would do that sometimes while stroking Samuel’s hair as they lay together in the dead of night and that would make Samuel’s sleep a bit easier.

Samuel wore an expression that said, Enough now! But in his head, etched across his mind, in bright shining voice, was: Isaiah soothing. He always a soothing thing.





Maggie

She woke.

She yawned.

A burial place. This be a fucking burial place, Maggie whispered, before it was time to go to the other room, the kitchen that she was chained to even though not a single link could be seen. But yes, there it was, snapped around her ankle, clinking nevertheless.

She mumbled the curse to herself, but it was meant for other people. She learned to do that, whisper low enough in her throat that an insult could be thrown and the target would be none the wiser. It became her secret language, living just below the audible one, deeper behind her tongue.

The sky was still dark, but she lay in her hay pallet an extra moment, knowing it could cost her. The Halifaxes each had their own way of communicating their displeasure, some less cruel than others. She could tell you stories.

She climbed out off of the pallet and rolled her eyes at the hounds that lay on the floor by her feet. Oh, she slept on the back porch with the animals. Not her choice. Though it was enclosed and provided views out onto Ruth Halifax’s garden. Beyond it, a field of wildflowers bursting with every color, but the blues were the ones that were perfect enough to hurt feelings. Several rows of trees marked the end of the field and gave way to sandy ground that opened onto the bank of the Yazoo River. There, the people, when permitted, would scrub themselves down in the sometimes muddy water under the watchful gaze of the man whose name Maggie stopped saying for a reason. On the other side of the river, which seemed farther away than it was, a mess of trees stood so close together that no matter how hard she squinted, she couldn’t see past the first row.

She wanted to hate the fact that she was made to sleep there on the porch, low to the ground on some makeshift bed she piled together herself from the hay she got from Samuel and Isaiah, whom she referred to as The Two of Them. But so often the smell of the field calmed her and if she had to be in the damn Big House with Paul and his family, then it was best she was in the space farthest from them.

The hounds were Paul’s choice. Six of them that got to know every living soul on the plantation in case any of those souls tried to drift. She had seen it before: the beasts chased people into the sky and managed to snatch them down no matter how high they thought they could float. Them dogs: ears just a-flopping, woofing in that gloomy way they do, sad eyes and everything. You almost felt sorry for them until they got ahold of your ass and bit it all the way back to the cotton field—or the chopping block, one.