Paradise Sky

Colonel Hatch was an all-right fellow, by the way, and always treated us fair and square, if a little rough. He had faith in us and was a good soldier and polite in his own way. I had seen him leave the circle of the fire to walk off in the dark and fart. You can’t say that about just anyone. Ma

The rest of the country, unlike Colonel Hatch, saw us as a little suspicious. I even read about it here and there in the newspapers that come our way, many of them being weeks and months old, a few of them smelling like long-dead fish. They said how we was an experiment. The government had its worries about us, too, and seemed to figure we was just a bunch of ignorant niggers who might at any moment have a watermelon relapse and take to getting drunk and shooting each other. They had already made up their mind who we was, and every day we had to prove we wasn’t that and hadn’t never been.

Our hopes of showing folks we was prime and ready didn’t seem to have any chance of coming to be. We hadn’t seen any action, unless you want to count the morning Rutherford got into it with Prickly Pear—I didn’t name him; that come from his mother—and they fought over the last biscuit, which was due to the Former House Nigger actually cooking a good batch for a change. It was a hell of a fight. I have never seen fists thrown as fast or so much biting. Colonel Hatch, either to teach a lesson or out of hunger, come over and ate that biscuit while they was scuffling, so it was a wasted bout.

But then there came a morning when things changed. We was given an assignment. Our orders was to go out to a nice run of creek water branching off the Colorado River and stop there. Some trees grew near the creek, and there was frequent dead wood. We was to pick that up and cut down some of the scrubby trees for firewood, giving room for the other trees to grow. That way we’d have a regular woodlot.

It took us most of the day to get to it, the twelve or so of us assigned to the job. It was near nightfall when we showed up. The white lieutenant, Scufford, was leading us, and we had Tornado with us, too. He was Top Soldier among the colored troops, though he didn’t always ride out with us, having duties to attend to for Colonel Hatch, like fly tossing and such.

Now, I don’t know why I done it that day, as I’d mostly left my Winchester under my bunk along with my pistols for the time I was a soldier, but it occurred to me on that dark and early morning to take them along with me to supplement my army Spencer and pistol. You wasn’t supposed to do that, but I done it anyway. I can’t put any reason on my choosing to do it, but I did.

The horses, except for mine, was all tuckered out by the time we got to the creek. We strung the horses on a long rope like catfish, and cut down some greenery to let them eat, but not so much they’d get the serious squirts. The wind blowing through the leaves was pleasant, though the tops of the trees wasn’t all that high above us. Fact was, after living in East Texas, I thought they seemed right scrawny. But they was trees, and you didn’t see many out there, so I was glad to be among them. The night came down and the moon rose up and the wind was cool.

We built a good fire on account of we wasn’t sneaking from no Indians, cause we didn’t think there was any, least not within our range. The lieutenant wasn’t worried anyway, as we had a good position along the creek and in the trees, and there was twelve of us, counting him, and we was well armed. He stationed some of the men as guards, and the rest of us sat around the fire until one of us was called to replace them. The fire was mostly old, dead mesquite, and it crackled as it burned and the smell from it was rich and smoky and made my nose itch.

The Former House Nigger did his best meal, grits and biscuits, and as we sat there eating, talk started up about this and another, horses and women, who among us had the biggest pecker, and then the Former House Nigger went into praising them that had owned him, talking about the men they was and how they had fought nobly for the Confederacy and so on. I don’t know what brought him to that, but his carrying on about their nobility was to the rest of the troops like a mouthful of dirt.

Prickly Pear, who was low to the ground, wide in the shoulders, and dull in the face, and who usually had little more to say than “I’m hungry” or “I’m go

Prickly Pear took off his shirt then, turned his back to the firelight. The scars was plentiful and looked like dark ropes across his back. He put his shirt back on, said, “He done it now and again to make sure niggers knowed who they belonged to. Once a couple slaves slipped off to another plantation and stole a ham and some wine, and he had no bother about that long as they didn’t get caught and he got part of it. But they did get caught. They was ham bones and bottles in they hut, and they hadn’t shared it none, and he called them out, and with the owner of that ham and wine standing right there with him, he took one of them bottles and beat them two men, giving that other man, the one got thieved, his chance to swing the bottle. He swung until it broke. Then master got him a bat he made for just that sort of thing, and went to work on them men, who was tied and on their knees and had no way to fight back—whupped on them until they was coming apart, they heads busted up like squash. Beat them until they was dead, making us all stand there and watch, mens, womens, and chillun screamin’ and moanin’ and carryin’ on about what they was seeing. And when the master told them all to shut up, they did, cause they knew they didn’t, that bloody bat would be on they heads next. That’s my kind of learning with masters and white folk.”

“Not everyone was like that,” said the Former House Nigger.

“No, some was worse,” said Prickly Pear, “and I guess some was better, but one don’t weight out t’other. You owned, you owned, it don’t matter if you being beat or you up in the master’s house humping him in the ass and him reaching between his legs to fondle your nuts. You owned, and you doin’ what he wants, cause you don’t, he sell you off, trade you, kill you, cause you ain’t as good as a dog, which he treats better, feeds good, lets lay up on the porch. Me, I be in the fields all the time, and when I was freed I left out of that Southern country so fast the hat on my head spun around. You can paint over it any way you likes, but it don’t make them old times good.

“Tell you one thing, though. Heard the old master died, and I went back and found his grave one night. He had been buried for a time, but I dug him up and busted open his coffin, took the money off his eyes, dragged his rotting body out in a clearing, pieces falling off the bones, went all over his stinking self with a switch, like he felt it. I let him lay that night, and I settled down under a tree, watched the next morning till buzzards gathered on him, thick as seed ticks, and when they was eating good, I left out of there and I ain’t never gone back and ain’t got no mind to. I bet them ole buzzards choked to death on him.”