The Prophets(94)

During his endless chatter, Isaiah whined and whined about chains and who held what, but that was nothing but a coward’s deal. Scared men always had silver tongues, and that was Isaiah’s flaw. Still, Samuel would curl into himself only for Isaiah. He had the marks on the inside to prove it. When they were finally beyond this place and out in the world, some place far away where animals were said to run like thunder, he would teach Isaiah how to speak not in metals, but in flesh.

“You don’t never get tired, ’Zay? Tired of begging for your life? Everything you do—the way you smile, the way you walk, where you look and don’t look—just another way of begging for your life. You don’t never get tired?”

He had meant to convey that just with his eyes, but the mouth would have its say.

Isaiah sat down on a pile of hay. He leaned back and then immediately sat up again. He brought his knees up to his chest and hugged them. Then he rubbed his head.

“I get tired. But I wanna live,” he said.

See? That was where Isaiah had faltered. To survive in this place, you had to want to die. That was the way of the world as remade by toubab, and Samuel’s list of grievances was long: They pushed people into the mud and then called them filthy. They forbade people from accessing any knowledge of the world and then called them simple. They worked people until their empty hands were twisted, bleeding, and could do no more, then called them lazy. They forced people to eat innards from troughs and then called them uncivilized. They kidnapped babies and shattered families and then called them incapable of love. They raped and lynched and cut up people into parts, and then called the pieces savage. They stepped on people’s throats with all their might and asked why the people couldn’t breathe. And then, when people made an attempt to break the foot, or cut it off one, they screamed “CHAOS!” and claimed that mass murder was the only way to restore order.

They praised every daisy and then called every blackberry a stain. They bled the color from God’s face, gave it a dangle between its legs, and called it holy. Then, when they were done breaking things, they pointed at the sky and called the color of the universe itself a sin. And the whole world believed them, even some of Samuel’s people. Especially some of Samuel’s people. This was untoward and made it hard to open your heart, to feel a sense of loyalty that wasn’t a strategy. It was easier to just seal yourself up and rock yourself to sleep.

But Isaiah.

Isaiah had widened him, given him another body to rely upon, made him dream that a dance wasn’t merely possible, but something they could do together, would do together, the minute they were free. A dreadful thing to get a man’s hopes up that way. Hope made him feel chest-open, unsheltered in a way that could let anything, including failure, make its home inside, become seed and take root, curl its vines around that which is vital and squeeze until the only option was to spit up your innards before choking on them. Foolish Isaiah.

But how tender his affection.

When Samuel reached the Big House, it was dark. There wasn’t even a single candle lit. The back porch door was open just like Timothy said it would be. Maggie was on a pallet in a small side room just off the porch. Her fists were tightly balled and pressed against her chest like she was ready for something.

“He told me leave this door open. Why I ain’t lock it I don’t know,” she whispered.

Samuel was only half surprised that she was still awake. He moved closer to her with his lantern held up in front of him. Her face was screwed into distrust. Samuel loved her for it. She would be the one he missed most.

“You warm,” Samuel said, which made Maggie smile. “I go this-a-way?” he asked, pointing toward the kitchen.

“You need to go that-a-way,” Maggie replied, pointing outside, toward the river.

“You sound like Isaiah,” he grunted.

“Sound like Isaiah got sense. Where your’n?”

“I got sense, Miss Maggie. Just this one last thing and then I heed you.”

“You listen to me, now,” Maggie said softly. She held on to a nearby wall and lifted herself up. Samuel extended a hand to help her, but she refused it. “You in this place, but you ain’t of it. You hear what I telling you? Neither you or Isaiah—what you call him, ’Zay?—ain’t neither one of you belong here in this place. Now, I ain’t saying that you ain’t welcome. No. What I saying is there be a whole better place for you, maybe not somewhere, but sometime. Whether that particular time is in front or behind, I ain’t got the power no more to tell. When you don’t use a thing, you lose a thing, you know. But I know for true it ain’t this time. So you gotta make a place to find the time where you belong. That’s what they tell me.”

“That what who tell you?”

Maggie pointed outside, and Samuel saw a shadow flash.

“Uh huh. You seen it, too. I can tell by your eyes,” she said. “That mean you got it.”

Samuel was still looking outside, but that shadow had already passed. “Got what?”

“The favor. It something that get passed down. Sometimes skip a generation, but you got it anyhow.”

Samuel looked at Maggie. “Where I get it from?”

Maggie looked outside. “From them, I reckon.”

Samuel didn’t understand. His gaze returned to the outdoors. He had hoped that by now Isaiah was halfway across the river. There was only a beat in between patrols.