Horrible Harvest

Trigger warning: Dehumanizing language and disturbing imagery.

I sat down smack dab in the middle of the path Davidson always traveled around our property. Cross-legged, I stared in the direction he’d be approaching. I just knew he’d be on his way anytime. He just had to be. If there was a God, a claim in which I put little stock, he would ordain Davidson to make his way through our property any second.

My eyelids drooped as they went heavy with sleep. They dropped, and I’d raise them with a start. Dropped and raised with a start. Dropped and the right one raised with a flutter. Dropped and I was plum unable to open my eyes. I couldn’t fight it no more. I laid over on my side and told myself I’d just rest for a wee bit. I wouldn’t sleep. No, sir. I’d just give myself time to relax, so I could sit watch for Davidson for however long it took.  

Sleep smothered me.

I don’t know how long I’d been out – mainly because I wasn’t even aware I’d found sleep – when I felt a hand on my shoulder shaking me awake.

“Mr. Augustus, Wha-choo doing, boy?”

I opened my left eye just a slit wide. “Davidson?”

“Why you sleeping in the bosom of the woods like this?”

“I’m – I’m not,” I said. “I mean, I don’t mean to be. I knew you’d come back this way today. I just knew it.”

“How could you know a thing like that? I didn’t even know it my own self.”

“Mr. Stephens said you were overdue.”

“You talked to Master Stephens? He come looking for me?”

“Nah. We ran fresh chicken litter his way.” I stood with some effort and stretched out my back. The sleep was heavy, but the ground was hard. I was refreshed and stiff all at once. “Mrs. Stephens said the boat was probably late.”

“She said that, did she?”

I got my first real good look at him. His eyes was bruised and there was dried blood caked on his left ear. “What happened to you?”

“Met up with some trouble?”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Of my own making. I tell you one thing true, I sure do wish Mrs. Stephens was right. I wish to be overdue on account of the boat being late, but I run into a mess of stupid, and the mess was all mine.”

“What happened?”

“Can’t say.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t think you’re old enough to hear. Wha-choo covered in?”

“Pluff mud. Dried on me. Fell while broadcasting,” I stopped mid-sentence. “I need your help.”

He started back down the trail with an urgent pace. “I ain’t got time to help you, boy. I’m gonna get my neck wrung unless I can get back quick as a cat with a story that don’t get me fitted for a grave box.”

“But you don’t understand.”

“I understand plenty. That’s why I’m in such a damned hurry.”

“But…”

“But nothing, boy. Now, I am sorry, but I can’t pay you heed this trip. Trouble is most likely on my heels.”

“Davidson, stop.”

“Boy, you’re gonna make me tell you, ain’t you? Fine. I took up with a white woman in town. Married to boot. Her husband don’t pay her no mind and stays gone for days on end. She ain’t et in two days when I met her. I brung her food, and we worked out her paying me in ways I can’t explain to a boy of ten. Husband come home and took to beating us both. She beat on me just to win favor with him. Claimed I got after her without her desire. I been hiding and sneaking about ever since. They got a whole mob of white squalor hunting me down. I figure I can make it home and Master Stephens will handle the mess for me. If I put up claim it wasn’t me, he’ll believe me. He hates crackers more than anything.”

“But I got need of your help.”

“Boy, did you not just hear me?”

“I did. Every word, and I’ll back you up with Mr. Stephens if need be, or I’ll tell him every word you just spilled.”

He stopped and smirked. “Boy, you white as they come.” He yanked the bowler hat from his head and threw it to the ground. “Ain’t nobody to be trusted. Wha-choo need help with?”

“A girl.”

“A girl? Boy, you just heard my story, didn’t you. You want my thoughts on all females, especially crackers, steer clear of this girl of yours.”

“No. It ain’t that. She’s a runaway.”

“Wha-choo mean runaway?”

“From a coffle…”

“What?!” He placed his hands on his knees. “Lord almighty! I don’t want nothing to do with no nigger on the run!”

“But she ain’t got nowhere to go. She’s scared…”

“She should be scared. A runaway like her. Done stole money from her own master, she did. Ain’t nothing rich white folks like worse than getting stole from. Don’t matter if it’s a dollar or a gold bar.”

“I gotta get her north. You said that’s where they have freedmen.”

“I cannot get into this mess on top of the mess that’s running me down.”

“I need your help. She needs your help.”

“Point her north and set her to walking. Or throw her to the moon for all I care. I got my own worries.”

“She isn’t but seven or eight, far as I can tell. She’s not going to make it on her own.”

Davidson straightened to his full height and punched the air in frustration. “What’s a girl of seven or eight doing running?”

“She felt bad for a woman with her. They give her baby away in their travels because it wouldn’t stop crying.”

He sighed and dropped his chin to his chest. “Lord, you sure have cooked up a cruel world.” He put his bowler on. “All right. Take me to this girl. Let me get a look at what I gotta deal with.”

My heart nearly exploded with joy. I ran ahead of him with a smile so big it must’ve spread past my ears. I heard his heavy footfalls give chase behind me. We wound round the pig pen and tiny barn and reached the knoll when Douglas suddenly appeared. He descended the mound, and I could see that he was dripping wet. Davidson grabbed hold of me and yanked me behind a cluster of cottonwood trees.

“What’re you doing?” I said. “It’s just Douglas. I’ll vouch for you.”

“That ain’t just Douglas,” he said.

“It is so. I know my own brother.”

“It’s your brother, all right. But the Devil’s got into him. I seen that look enough to know.”

I zeroed in on Douglas’s face. His eyes was dark as I’ve ever seen a set. His breathing was heavy and his nostrils was flaring.

Davidson and I stayed hid until Douglas disappeared into the barn. In a matter of seconds, we were over the knoll and standing underneath the willows. I was sure Douglas hadn’t found her, or he would’ve been hauling her to the house so Daddy could deal with her.

“Virginia,” I said in a loud whisper. “He come. Davidson. He’s here like I told you he would. I just knew it. For true, I knew it.”

I hadn’t give notice that Davidson had turned away and walked to the edge of the riverbank. He crouched and scanned the marsh and then stood. “Boy.”

“Virginia. You can come out. It’s okay.”

“Mr. Augustus.”

“She’s just scared. Cautious. Virginia.”

“She ain’t coming, son.”

I turned to him. He’d never called me son before. It rolled off his tongue, measured and mournful. Past him, in the marsh, I saw two tiny legs floating in the water. I felt the world turn and then bolted towards her. Davidson scooped me off my feet before I reached the water.

“Let her be.”

“Virginia,” I cried.

He put his hand over my mouth. “Don’t draw attention. This ain’t gonna go good if you get your folks down here.”

I kicked and tried to wiggle my way free, but he was too strong.

“Augustus, listen to me. She run from a coffle. This was always the way it was gonna end for her. Better it happen now than ten year from now when all those minutes of horrible would have picked her soul apart little by little. Torture was to be her life. I can’t tell you no planer than that.”

I continued to struggle.

 He whispered in my ear. “I know you got a good heart, son. I know you do. God love you for that. You see a poor little girl floating in that water. You think they was possibilities for her in the life that got took from her. You think there’d come a day when she’d be free to make things better for herself. When the hard days would be behind her. You’re thinking white, boy. You gotta know she ain’t nothing but a dead nigger runt who was bought up to birth out other nigger runts to stick in coffles and march from one plantation to the next.”

I relaxed in Davidson’s arms and then wrapped him in a hug. My throat ached from straining to hold back a wailful cry. He squeezed me harder and said, “You keep that good heart of yours, Mr. Augustus. The world ever steals it from you, you steal it back and lock it down.”

He set me on the ground, and we both sobbed silently. My breathing was heavy, and snot ran from my nose. We stood on the bank for a while and watched the gentle waves move Virginia further into the marsh.

When I could gather myself enough to speak, I said with my world burning with hate, “Douglas did this to her.”

Davidson put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Being born black in a white man’s world done this to her, boy.”