47

The ravens cried out and took wing at the sound of that

man's call.

All of us slaves, and Master Tobias too, turned to see a grand white man on a towering chestnut mare. He had great black mustachios and he wore a black suit with a white shirt. His hat was black with a small round crown

and a wide brim.

"Mr. Pike!" Tobias yelled. "What brings you to our neck

of the woods?"

Even though my hands were hurting me and my mind was hoping that Ned had been good enough to be allowed to slave in heaven, I was still indignant that somebody would interrupt a funeral and that the orator would stop his eulogy in order to enter into small talk with some acquaintance, regardless of his race.

"I was hoping that you could help me, Mr. Tobias," the

well-dressed stranger said.

"Why you dressed in Sunday best?" Tobias asked.

"I like my fine clothes," Pike answered in an arrogant tone. He moved his head around, exhibiting an unmistakable show of pride. His eyes opened wide while he did this and I could swear that for a moment his eyes were like

bright rainbows.

As almost two hundred pair of Negro eyes watched, the fancy white man dismounted his mare and sauntered toward Tobias. As he did so he let his eyes wander across the mass of black humanity.

"I lost a slave," Pike said.

"And you think he run the thirty-five miles from your plantation to mine?"

"I don't know," the man said. "Could be. The boy is called Lemuel. He's young, maybe fourteen, and a strange brown color. My wife wants him back. She thinks that he's a healer. But I think that he's just a shiftless ungrateful cur. Et my food and then run like a thief in the night."

"Well, if I see someone like that I'll tell you," Tobias said. "Now if you don't mind these slaves here is hungry and I have a sermon to finish."

Mr. Pike didn't seem too happy with being cut off for the benefit of a mob of black folk. He stood there for a moment too long, staring at Tobias. But he finally got the point and turned away. He climbed up on his magnificent mare and shouted for her to gallop off. With all of that noise Tobias had to wait until the rude visitor was out of earshot before he could continue with the sermon.

"Where was I?" Tobias asked. But we knew it wasn't for us to answer him. "Oh yeah. Slim was a good boy…" He called him boy but Ned was nearly as old as Mud Albert. "… better than some white men. Take that no good lowlife Andrew Pike. From the looks of him you'd think that he was better than any nigger. But it ain't so. That man right there sold me a horse that he said could work pullin' a plow or a carriage. He took two good slaves for it but it wasn't four days before Dr. Boggs told me that the horse had heartworm. When I complained, Pike didn't

even apologize. Took my niggers and left it for me to put his horse down.

"Ned, you can go up to heaven knowin' that you were a better man than that."

Tobias slapped his hands together as if he had dug the grave himself, or maybe it was that he felt dirty having to speak at a slave's burial. Anyway he walked away from the grave and up to his mansion. He left Mr. Stewart and nine or ten men armed with rifles to guard us while we sang over the death of our fellow man and friend.

Seeing those armed men was the first time I ever entertained the notion that white people were afraid of us. As I said, there were plenty of black folk at that burial. We could have overrun those few white riflemen and killed the Master and his plantation boss. We could have taken the Corinthian Plantation for our own.

For a moment I imagined screaming black men and women overru

I knew it was a sin to have these thoughts and it scared me to the bone. I started shivering, fearful that someone could see the blasphemy in my eyes. And if they did, and they told Master, I'd be in Mr. Stewart's killin' shack quicker than they could call my number.

"Are you all right, babychile?" Mama Flore asked.

She had come up beside me while I was having my evil thoughts and while all the other slaves were singing.

"Fine," I said, letting my head hang down and holding my wounded hands behind my back.

"Mud Albert told me that that dog Pritchard knocked you down and branded you," she said.

"It's okay. Albert put some lard on it and it hardly even hurt except if I move." I shifted around, making sure to keep my hands behind me.

"What's wrong with yo hands, sugah?"

"I got to go back to the cabin," I said. "Mud Albert said that he wanted me to clean out from under his bed."

Most of the slaves were singing "Blessed Soul." Flore reached out for me but I moved away and she only grazed my cheek with her finger. She called after me but I just ran, crying bitterly at my sad fate and for the soul of the slave they called Nigger Ned.

5.

Nobody tried to stop me when I ran away from the funeral. That's because I was so small that I was still seen as a plantation child and not of an age to try and escape. And neither did I consider flight because where would I run? There was nothing but plantations for hundreds of miles and if ever a white man saw me he was bound by law to catch me and beat me and return me to my owner.

My hands were hurting and so was my heart as I walked through the piney path that led from the colored graveyard to the slave quarters. The sun was setting and birds were singing all around. Big fat lazy bugs were floating in the air on waxen wings, and a slight breeze cooled my brow. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that times like that were magic and if you looked hard enough you might just see some fairy or saint in amongst the trees. And laying eyes on such a magical creature would change everything in your life.

But that was the first day of my transition from childhood to maturity. Between the death of Ned and the callous ma

It was then that I noticed a sound that no bird or insect could have made. It was a thrashing in the woods. It could have been a badger or an armadillo, but it might also have been a boar or bear or wildcat. I was small enough that a fearsome creature like that could see me as prey and so, even though I had just been contemplating my death, I became afraid for my life.

The fast-moving sound of crashing was over to my right. I decided not to go off the path because I wouldn't be able to move as fast as a wild animal through the underbrush. I lit out at a run down the path and as soon as I did I heard the creature moving quicker still, and in my direction. I ran even harder and shouted once. Off to the side I could see the bushes being disturbed by the animal chasing me. I ran harder but the beast was catching up to me. Then he was still in the woods but ahead of me. I decided to run back the way I had come but when I tried to stop I was moving too fast and tripped over my own feet.

The creature stopped ru