Horrible Harvest

A preacher approached me. He was dressed in the vestiges of his trade, long in beard, short, gnarled hair, potbelly with a swayback. His eyes was familiar to me, but I couldn’t place him for the life of me.

“Augustus,” he said, sounding weary. Like he was walking up on lit dynamite.

“I know you, friend?”

He give me a half-smile. “Once. Long ago, but we weren’t friends.”

I know’d the voice but still, I couldn’t place him. Opium had stripped my mind of a host of anchors that tethered me to the past. “We were enemies, then?”

“We never liked each other enough to be enemies, brother.”

I cocked an eyebrow and studied him closer.

“And by brother, I mean we are brothers in Christ and brothers by half.”

I chuckled as I was about to correct him and tell him I weren’t no Christian, but the phrase “brothers by half” hit me like a kick in the gut. “Douglas?”

He smiled and wrapped me in a bearhug, my arms pinned to my side. I felt an eager need to weep, but I fought it with all my might, feeling nothing but a building lump in my throat.

“What are you – Douglas?”

“Yes, Augustus. Douglas.” He released me from the hug but kept his hands at my elbows.

“You are – What are you doing here?”

“Spreading the good Word.”

“Word? What word?”

He looped a finger under his clerical collar and said, “The Word, brother.”

I was stunned dumb.

“I know – I know – I am the last person you’d expect to see singing the praises of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

“I am – That would be me – The last person I’d expect to take such an idiotic turn, but I’ll be damned if I wouldn’t put you up there as a close second.”

He laughed. “This may be wrong for me to say, but I am glad to hear you haven’t lost your grasp on blasphemy.”

“Is this real – This isn’t real – ”

“It’s real.”

“How? Why?”

“The War – Some of us run to God. Others run from him.” His face turnt sour. “Actually, it wasn’t long after – That night in the woods – You know – When we last parted ways. I caught a fever – Got turned around. Ended up wandering the banks along some creek. I passed out – Face first into the mud. This gal found me – Brought her daddy and brothers to fetch me. They carried me twelve miles to their church and nursed me back to health.

“I was so corrupted by fever I didn’t know a one of them when I got my senses back about a week after they found me. They’d been by my side the entire time, but I didn’t have idea one who they were or how I’d ended up under their care.

“I was mostly offended and outraged that they was all coloreds. I wanted to throttle every last one of them for daring to lay hands on me – For having the pluck to pray over me – I didn’t want nothing to do with their God – I didn’t have much use for God to begin with, but I damn sure didn’t want to owe a debt to no negro God.

“I tell you as sure as I’m standing here that I was so mad I would’a shot every last one of them if I hadn’t lost my gun in my fever-hazed travels.

“But I tell you the truest of trues, a mad like that – Something breaks inside of you. It tears you down. I got lost in the froth of my own hate, and in that dark nothingness, I heard the Lord speak to me, Augustus. He said, – The Lord did – He said, Douglas I am Love. I am the Divine. I am all. I am you. I am them. We are God. They are love. They are the Divine. They are all. They are you.”

Can’t say why, but I felt a chill. The words –It felt wrong – All of it – Coming from him. Ain’t never heard Douglas come close to uttering such sentiment before. I didn’t find comfort in his turn. Instead, I felt unsettled by it. Suspicious of it.

“I have found the Lord, Augustus. Truly I have, and he has brought me here to this city. To minister to the wretched and unwashed. I am here to save the souls of the lost. I take all guidance from He that is most high, and brother, He has brought me here – On this street – In New Orleans – In the French Quarter – Standing in front of you – Brother, I have been brought to you to save you – That can be the only meaning of this – This – Chance meeting.”

“Ain’t interested.”

He smiled. “No one who needs saving is interested in being saved.”

I slowly shook my head and said, “I live in a world where shit just happens. We met up because we met up. Ain’t nothing more to it.”

“And I live in the world where they occur at the direction of Christ the Lord.”

“The others,” I said, wanting to change the topic. “Mr. Miller, Mr. Stockton – Charles – Where are they?”

He shrugged. “I’ve only heard rumors. I can’t say for sure.”

“What rumors?

“I wouldn’t put no stock in any of it.”

“Still.” 

He give a sigh. “Heard this and that. For one, I heard they was up in the Dakotas. Mr. Miller – He ain’t as rich as he once was – Lost a good bit financing his own way through the war, but he’s still got a mountain of treasure. More than most. Rumor is, he’s gone completely off – Caught something from all the tainted ladies he bedded.”

“I’m guessing it’s the other way around.”

“Could be. Could be. Most definitely. Come from somewhere is all I know. Itch in the crotch turned into an itch in the head. He’s said to have twenty thousand acres or so, and he rules over it with fist and sword. Anyone who crosses into his land is treated with high suspicions. He’s killed – Or Mr. Stockton has – Or maybe even Charles has killed a trespasser or two – Or dozens – without cause. Rumors get worse from there.”

“How so?”

“Not worth repeating, really.”

“Pretend that it is.”

He give his head a shake. “They say he’s – Now, I don’t put no stock in this at all, you understand – I’m just repeating the nonsense that’s being passed off as facts by all the old Miller men who broke off from that disastrous regiment.”

“What nonsense?”

“Well, they say he’s gone so crazy that he’s turned cannibal. They say he’s turned everyone in his employ to such practices.”

I stared at him wide-eyed.

“I told you it was just nonsense.”

“Let’s hope – Who are your sources?”

“Told you. Former Miller men I run into here and there – A good number have filtered back to Charleston. They’ve visited my ministry.”

“Your ministry is in Charleston?”

“Why does that surprise you?”

I didn’t know how to respond. I just thought the last place you’d ever find a Tennyson boy is in Charleston.

“Your mother worries about you.”

I looked at him, eager and terrified by his statement. I wanted to hear news of Momma, but I was sure as shit my heart’d turn to dust if’n she’d come into calamity in any way. “You’ve talked to Momma?”

“She’s the first person I sought out when I returned to Charleston. I had spent so much of my youth rejecting her. I felt moved to embrace her, to thank her for – Surviving – Daddy, me, Mr. Miller – The life that’d been put upon her. She didn’t deserve any of it, and I wanted her to know – I wanted her to know that when darkness seeks me out – I look for the strength she wielded all those years ago. I’m able to win the day because of what she taught me by Godly example.”

I turned from him. Shame come over me.

“She prays for you. Every Sunday. In my little Church.”

“Prays? Momma doesn’t – She’s turned to – religion.”

“You sound concerned that she’d take such a path?”

I was, but I didn’t say it.

He laughed. “Don’t worry. She ain’t turned to Christ. Despite my efforts to invite her to do so. She prays because she has faith in you, Augustus. And she needs to put a voice to that faith. For others to hear. So, the message might reach you – Some way, somehow.” He chuckled. “And today it has. He truly does work in mysterious ways.”

“She’s cared for?” Just asking the question filled me with more shame. I should be the one caring for her.

“She is. Tate keeps watch over her. Employs her. He’s given her a home.”

“Tate?”

“Yes, Tate. He’s done quite well for himself. He and a group of negro businessmen, they’ve joined forces, and they’ve managed to find a number of successes in all sorts of industry throughout the peninsula. They’re even talking of building a railroad. Tate says the financing is already in place – ”

“Lord, there you are,” a black woman said, marching up the street.

I looked over my shoulder to see if she was addressing someone behind me, but there weren’t a soul in sight.

“I thought you’d been kilt.”

Douglas turnt to her. “I found a miracle, dear. An honest to goodness miracle.”

I give him a narrow gaze. He was speaking to her in the familiar.

“You’re gonna find my hands throttling your neck if you make me worry like that again.” She reached out her hand, and he grasped it lovingly.

“Augustus, this here is Gladys Tennyson – My woman – My wife – In the Lord’s eyes.”

I couldn’t hide my surprise. My mouth fell so wide open a bird could’ve flew in and built a nest.

She chuckled and gently touched the palm of her hand to my cheek. Normally, I’d recoil from such a thing. Feeling the touch of another gives me unease, but I didn’t so much as flinch from hers. Instead, I nearly melted into a puddle from it. Her being was bright and uplifting. I found myself hoping she’d never part her hand from my face “Goodness. The Lord done made all the Tennyson boys handsome and strong – All the ones I’ve met, anyhow.”

She blushed. “I apologize – I shouldn’t take such liberties, but Douglas has spoken so often about you, I feel as though I’m meeting someone I have always known. And your mother – Lord, your mother goes on and on about you. I can tell you without pause, you were her lamplight in the storm that was that poor woman’s life. Her favorite son.” She playfully nudged Douglas in the ribs. “This one – He tormented that saintly woman. He was a bad one.” She wrapped her arms around him at the waist. “But he come around – He did – He found the Lord, and the Lord has taught him to rejoice and bring peace to all, including that good woman who is your mother – ” She clapped her hands and grinned. “This is a miracle – It truly is. Augustus, you must come home with us. We leave in three days. You must travel with us.”

I near vomited from her request. “I can’t. I’m working.”

“Working?”

“Yes. I’m here on business.”

Douglas grinned. “I knew this one would not let the world out duel him. He was the smartest one – Of anyone I’ve ever met. What are you teaching at the university? Or have you taken up law? You must be using that brain of yours for something.”

“I’m with a firm. Business and the like. We deal in finance. I am the head of security.”

He grabbed me at the back of the arm and squeezed. “A finer man, they could not have as their head of security.”

He was a stranger to me. A kind stranger. I didn’t know how to feel about such a thing. My life entire he was Horace Tennyson’s shadow. Like Daddy but darker. The man before me, the killer turned Christ follower, the race hater devoted to a black woman, the brother by half warmer to me than my full brother. I was undone by the strangeness of it, while also finding a speck of hope that it weren’t an act. That he weren’t just another conman selling fear to line his pockets. That he wasn’t like me.