Horrible Harvest

We stepped off the platform in Sioux City.  Bent up and soar from the long ass train ride. “First things first,” Douglas said. “I need the privy.” He hobbled away while Tate and I went to gather up the horses.

“That boy,” I said. “The one you kilt. The one you told me about on the train.”

He turnt to me as we walked to the horse car. “What about him?”

“I done worse.”

“Is that right?”

“It is, and I need to tell you about it. If’n I don’t, it ain’t gonna mean anything. They ain’t gonna mean anything.”

“They?”

“I killed – Folks – Like you, Tate. Contraband.”

In an instant, his eyes went bloodshot.

“They was in a barn – Twenty or so – Sick – They was. Bluebellies were moving them North – To freedom. I slit a girl’s throat – White girl – Hold no quarter – That was the order. My company – We run them through with our blades, and set the barn on fire – They screamed – They begged for mercy – We showed none.”

A silent beat near suffocated us both.

“I did that. I am that. Time will not change that. Lies will hide it, but not a thing can be done to undo it. That monster – The one you claim to be, it lurks in me, too.”

“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here,” he said.

I give a chuckle.

“What’re laughing at?”

“You. Quoting Shakespeare at me cause you can’t speak for your ownself. You can’t tell me what a shit I am. You can’t admit how much you hate me.”

“Here we go. Let’s lay it all out on the table. I’m not a religious man.”

“I ain’t neither.”

“Forgiveness is not a thing I seek or provide.”

“Me neither.”

“Redemption is not a spiritual commodity doled out by a bearded old white man sitting in the clouds – It comes from within – It’s hard earned – ”

“For fuck sake – Say what you want to say –”

He stepped to me with fury in his eyes. “I am not your confessor. Your sins are yours to bear. You’ve done what you’ve done. I can’t fix that.

“You seek clemency – You don’t know it – You won’t confess it – You can’t see it – You’re blind to your self-condemnation. You’ve sentenced yourself to a life filled with atrocious acts, and you pretend they haven’t broken you – That you aren’t weaker for it.

“You want to change? Change. Don’t look to me to beat it into you. I was born a slave. Lived the life of a slave – Yoked, shackled, whipped, branded, deformed – And I was made to serve the men who committed hell on me in a war fought to keep me hell bound – But then I found opportunity, picked up a sword and sliced my masters to pieces. I raged into freedom. It was not gifted to me by my birth. I tore it from my slaver’s hands –

“I was a black man – An adult – Into the middle of my ages – I found freedom as a toddler finds his first steps – Awkward, unsteady, frightening – I fell and questioned my desire to stand and take another step – But nature was on my side because freedom is my right – No, more than that, it is my responsibility. It came to me because I worked for my freedom – I worked at it. I found my stride.”

“Is this fucking speech for me or for you?”

“Find your own stride. Work at it. I can’t forgive you for what you’ve done. Putting that on me isn’t fair – ”

“I didn’t ask for your forgiveness. Got no plans to.”

“I can’t believe that. I won’t believe that because that’s what any decent human being would do. It would be wrong, but it would be intended in the purest. You are in there, Augustus. Trapped inside this thing – This hardened soul of yours – You’re in there looking for a way out. Looking for redemption for all the things you’ve done and all the things you didn’t do – Ask me.”

“What?”

“Ask me.”

“Ask you what?”

“Ask me.”

“I don’t know what you want me to ask, goddamn it.”

“Ask me for forgiveness. I can’t give it to you, but the least you could do is ask me. Let me know you’re in there. Let me know you’re your mother’s son.”

I clamped my mouth shut and glared at him.

He give me a slap. “Don’t come at me with your darkness, boy. I’m not calling on that. I want Augustus to come out. I want the boy I once knew – The curious boy, the bright, intelligent boy. Bring him out. Let me talk to him. That boy – He’s good-hearted. He wants forgiveness. He deserves my love. He deserves your mother’s love.”

I stepped back from him and fought like the devil not to give him what he wanted. I fought the urge to punch him, to hug him, to show him anything but hate for trying to unmake me. I was made entire and permanent. There was no rebuilding to be done. I was a fortress of hatred and wrath, and that’s all I’d ever be. “I weren’t never that boy.”