The Prophets(93)

Isaiah moved slowly toward Samuel and put an arm around his waist. He pushed against him. Samuel threw an arm around Isaiah’s neck. They pressed their faces together. For long moments, they breathed heavily into each other. One of them coughed. The other choked. A sob and its refusal. They rubbed their foreheads together. Finally, Isaiah put his hand on Samuel’s jaw and they looked each other in the eyes. They kissed. It was neither gentle nor rough, but it was full. Something had been exchanged.

When they released each other, Samuel wiped Isaiah’s face. Isaiah moved away. He bent down, feeling around for the lantern. He touched the top of it and grabbed it. He walked over to the tool wall, retrieved a flint, and lit it. He handed the lantern to Samuel.

“Across the river,” Isaiah said.

“Just keep swimming. Even if we can’t see each other in the water. We meet on the other side, deep in the trees. Climb up them if we have to,” Samuel said. “If I ain’t right behind you . . .”

“Maybe another way . . .”

“Need something sharp,” Samuel insisted.

Isaiah sighed. “I got my wits.”

“How you outwit a gun?”

“Ax no better.”

Samuel felt it then, stiff against his back, not unlike a lover, unyielding, too close, obliging or deadly depending on the wielder’s intention. He stowed it away when Isaiah was elsewhere in preparation, but somehow Isaiah still knew. Knew him, more like it. It was things like this that endeared Isaiah to him: the knowing, the touching, the seeing. They were different, though, but somehow it was okay. It felt natural.

Fine, then. Take nothing. Not a single thing from this place. Not even a memory. Too heavy, I guess. Might as well shoulder the burden for the both of us. Always been like that anyway.

Isaiah stopped. He leaned back a bit, sizing Samuel up. “You fixing to be vex even now?”

“Good a time as any,” Samuel said. He turned from Isaiah and looked out of the barn. It vexed him, indeed, how lush the plantation could be: a deep green where reds, yellows, or even purples could pop up any and everywhere without warning. The birds would fly about, swoop and dart in arcs and circles, dodging or crashing into the rays of sunlight, singing songs from the treetops that no one had the right to hear. How dare nature continue on as though his suffering didn’t even make a dent, like the bloodshed and the bodies laid were ordinary, to be reduced to fertilizer by insects and sucked up by crops. No more than cow dung in the grand scheme. Same color, too.

The rain also came down, regardless, right upon the face only to obscure tears, mingle with them, wash them away, yet leave, still, the pain untouched; if anything, it ensured that the pain continued to gleam. The universe would have to pay for its indifference. Or somebody would.

It was creeping up inside him, the thought that peace might have lasted a bit longer had they listened to Amos. Maybe not, though, because you never knew with toubab. They made a lot of ceremony about their treaties, but those pieces of parchment meant nothing other than Be careful. Amos had abandoned them too quickly, yes, but Samuel also felt like Isaiah had been too resolute and forced Samuel to also be that way. What could it have hurt to be a comfort to Puah just once? Isaiah should have known, as he had given Essie hers. Why didn’t Isaiah tell him about that? He talked and talked, and asked and asked, but never word one about what went on with Essie.

Maybe we not nothing better than the people, Samuel thought. Who we to think that because when we lie together it feel like water and moonbeam that we far away from danger? And who come close we put in danger, too. Where this courage come from that we choose beat over quiet? Look at where we at now. Now we might be dead. Yeah. We might be dead.

Samuel headed for the door. He turned back to look at Isaiah. The dead he felt inside didn’t move in Isaiah’s direction. No, there he felt something move and kick. There he felt something tremble and yawn. He had tried to look away from it, but it called to him. It called his name and he was anxious, stumbling over himself to say, “Yes, I’m here!”

It was almost happening. Almost happening in his eyes. Go away, mist! Don’t descend yourself here.

“I don’t wanna,” Isaiah said. He walked up to Samuel and grabbed his hand.

Samuel looked down at their clasp of fingers. He squeezed tightly. “Run,” he said, looking deep into Isaiah, this time without fear. Then he darted into the night, his lantern the only evidence that he was there.



* * *



—

EMPTY WAS ALL Samuel had ever known. His first memory was lying on a blanket, being surrounded by cotton plants, and hearing voices moan out a song. Suddenly, he was at someone’s breast and she was smiling. Then he was among a bunch of children and they took some of the other children away and he was left there with a few to carry water back and forth from the well to the field. Soon, he would carry the food—first for people, then for animals. And all the days ran together, weren’t worth delineating until that boy came, the one with the dry lips and skin as black as the sun could make it. Samuel gave him some water and Isaiah peeked into his soul. It shocked Samuel’s eyes wide open to feel something touch him from the inside, like a song unfolding in his gut. It tickled. He figured that was the day he was truly born, that was his birthday if he ever had one.

How many midnights had they between them? An audience of animals, kinder than toubab, who could keep what they knew to themselves. He and Isaiah had stumbled into something he had never exactly seen before. There was someone called Henry once who would only answer to Emma, but that was different. She wasn’t a man and everybody except toubab knew it. But that wasn’t the same. No one cared much about Isaiah and Samuel, either, until a person thought he could also be a toubab and the two simply couldn’t coexist.