Part 16

Once or twice as Brudge passed Breeze and Cæsar, he looked at the old mule and giggled. Then he called out, “Breeze is plowin’ a spring puppy!” When he had gone a little way past he looked back and said something that made the plow-hands laugh out. But Sherry stopped Clara short in her tracks.

“You better shut you’ mouth, Brudge!” he warned. “You gits too big for your breeches sometimes. Breeze can’ lick you, but I kin an’ I will.”

Breeze couldn’t hear Brudge’s answer, but he caught up in time to hear the end of Brudge’s outburst of abuse of Sherry. The other men went on plowing, except one of the older ones, who stopped to shame Brudge for the vile words he had used.

“What de matter ail yunnuh?” April called.

Nobody answered, so he started walking leisurely toward them.

Sherry stuck his plow’s point deep in the earth, dropped his plow lines on the ground, then undid the trace-chains and hung them up on Clara’s collar.

Brudge stood looking at him, then back at April. “I ain’ botherin’ you, Sherry. You better left me ’lone,” he whined.

If Sherry heard him he gave no sign, but stepped lightly over the furrows toward Brudge, who gave an outcry and started to run. Sherry’s long arm reached out and caught him, drew him up close, held him fast, while Sherry’s words fell fast and hard as fire-heated rocks.

“I ain’ gwine butt you fo’ what you called me. No. I’m gwine crack you’ skull for dat what you call my mammy.” Sherry tilted his head back, and Brudge gave a shrill yell.

“Don’ butt me, Sherry!” The words were scarcely out when Sherry’s slender powerful body swayed lightly forward from the hips, and his forehead crashed down right on Brudge’s skull.

For a second or two after the terrible blow fell home, Brudge made no sound. Sherry turned him loose, and he staggered a few paces and fell, screaming at the top of his lungs. Sherry had killed him! His head was broken to pieces. Prone on the soft plowed ground Brudge twisted and writhed, like a fish out of water.

Sherry paid no attention to him at all, but went back to Clara, hitched the trace-chains, took up the rope lines, and clicked his tongue. “Git up, Clara!” he said quietly, and the mule stepped off.

To Breeze, April was the very greatest man on earth, but all of a sudden Sherry seemed to grow. His limbs became taller, straighter, his shoulders broader, his supple waist slenderer. His eyes were terrible when they flashed at Brudge, ashine with furious light, and his strong white teeth ground together as if they could bite Brudge’s body in two.

April was coming toward them. A little faster now. What would he say when he got there? The plow-hands stopped and waited. One shamed Brudge for his lack of manners, then turned his head away and spat on the ground with disgust.

April’s long legs strode leisurely across the soft new furrows, his stout hickory stick stepping lightly beside him. When his eyes looked at Brudge there on the ground, holding his head in both hands, rolling up his body and rocking it back and forth, then falling on the ground again, howling with pain and shame and anger, April’s lips curled up from his big yellow teeth in a scornful smile.

“What kind o’ plow-hand is you, Brudge? Is dat de way you does a man’s work?”

“Sherry butt me!--E broke my skull!--I got a bad headache!”

“Do shut you’ mouth, an’ git up off de ground! Unhitch you’ mule an’ go on home to Leah. Baby!”

Brudge got up slowly, and moaning low but steadily did what he was told. With April, he was very humble. His trembling fingers fumbled at the lines and trace-chains, but he kept up a furious sobbing all the time he worked at knots and links.

“Help him, Breeze!” April’s order cracked out like the snap of a whip.

Breeze hurried forward obediently, not that April had ever mistreated him, or even scolded him, but because he knew that April ruled everybody and everything on the plantation with a heavy hand. People, beasts, even plants and insects, had to bend to his stubborn will, or suffer.

“Hey, Sherry!” April called. “Come dis way! Left Clara whe’ e is! Git a move on you, too!”

April was rarely unjust, and sometimes he was almost gentle, but now his voice stung the air. Sherry had better not vex him further, or there’d be trouble.

Although Sherry walked without hurry, he was out of breath when he reached April. His hands shook a little as men do when a chill is about to seize them.

“How come you butt Brudge?” April asked him coldly.

“You ought to be glad I butt em. Brudge is a no-manners scoundrel.”

“If he done wrong, whyn’ you tell me?”

“I ain’ no news carrier.”

April’s eyes glittered as he shifted his hickory stick from one hand to the other.

“You ain’ Brudge’s daddy, you know?”

“No.” And Sherry smiled. “I ain’ nobody’s daddy, not yet.”

“Wha’ you mean by dat?” April’s voice rose, and in a sudden burst of anger he seized Sherry by the shoulder. “You can’ sass me, Sherry! You know it too! If you wanted to butt somebody, whyn’ you come try my head, instead o’ mashin’ up a li’l’ half-grown boy like Brudge? I got a mind to make mush out o’ you’ brains right now. You ever was a’ impudent black devil!”

Sherry’s eyes gleamed, his fists clenched, and he drew closer to April. “I didn’ had no cause to butt you, dat’s why! But I just as soon butt you as anybody else.”

April smiled. “I hate to kill you, Sherry. You’s a good plow-hand, an’ I need you.”

Sherry’s answer didn’t lag one iota, and he met April’s eyes with a steadfast look. “Come try me! Just stick you’ neck out! One time! Just one time! You t’ink you’s de onliest man got a skull on dis whole plantation. I got a bone in my head, too. Come try em! I’ll butt you’ brains out same as if you wasn’ my daddy!” Sherry’s eyes glared, his head crouched between his shoulders, he came forward with a rush. But April jerked him clear up off his feet, and his big head came down on Sherry’s forehead with a butt that brought the blood streaming from both men’s nostrils.

Sherry staggered back a step, then leaped forward, but April’s powerful outstretched arms hurled him toward the plow-hands, who caught him and held him fast, for April warned them.

“Yunnuh hold dat boy. If e comes back at me I’ll kill em. An’ we ain’ got time to be diggin’ a grave, not till de cotton’s all plowed under.”

“You mens lemme go, I tell you! I ain’ scared o’ April. Lemme go!”

“Yunnuh ain’ to fight! Great Gawd! Yunnuh’d kill one anudder. You can’ git loose, Sherry. No, suh!”

Sherry struggled fruitlessly. Then he stood still. April wiped his nose on his shirt-sleeve, picked his ragged hat up off the ground, set it straight on his head, then quietly buttoned up the neck of his shirt, for a sudden gust of wind came up cool from the rice-fields.

Casting his eyes up at the sky where a flock of small ragged clouds hung high and white, he said calmly, “Yunnuh better git back to plowin’. It’s gwine rain in a few days an’ we must git dis big field finished befo’ den.”

He tried to speak coolly. Quietly. To hold up his head triumphantly. But his shoulders had a dejected droop, as he turned his back and went toward the woods.

After a few steps, he turned around, “Sherry, you an’ me can’ live on de same place. Not no mo’. I’ll kill you sho’ as we try it. For a little I’d kill you now. You git on off. I don’ care whe’ you go, just so I don’ see you, not no mo’! Git outen de field! Right now, too.”

Breeze felt hot, then cold. The blood rose in his throat and choked him. If he could only help Sherry kill April! But he stood shaking, shivering, with lips twitching, until April asked, “What is you cryin’ about?” And Breeze stammered weakly, in a thin reedy voice, “I ain’ cryin’, suh.” The glare April gave him made him dizzy like a blow between his eyes.

“Den git at you’ work! Don’ be wastin’ good time on a mawnin’ like dis!”

Sherry held up his head and fastened his look on April, but the tears that ran down his cheeks belied his hard reckless smile. In a voice broken by hate and fury he cried out:

“You stinkin’ ugly devil---- Quit scarin’ dat li’l’ boy! You’s got a coward-heart even if you’ head is too tough fo’ Hell! I hope Gawd’ll rot all two o’ you feets off! I hope E will----” Sherry stretched out a fist and shook it helplessly, then broke into sobs.

“Hush, Sherry! You better left April alone now. You done said enough,” warned one of the men, but April strode away. If he heard Sherry’s cursing he made no sign of it. And Sherry walked across the field to Clara, who stood, still hitched to the plow, waiting for him to come back. He patted her nose. “Good ol’ Clara. I’m gwine. Breeze’ll take you to de barnyard, won’t you, Breeze?”

Breeze tried to answer a loud “Yes, Sherry!” but a dumb sob shook his words.

“Good-by, mens!”

“Good-by, Sherry!”

That was all. Sherry walked away toward the Quarters. As Breeze watched him go the sunshiny noon grew dim. The plows went on cutting down stalks, burying them, but the men were silent as death. Birds kept singing in the forest trees, but their notes had a doleful sorrowful sound. The day had paled. The rice-fields meeting the sky yonder, so far away, were hazy and sad. The wind itself wept through the trees. A flock of crows passed overhead, croaking out lonesome words to one another.

The field lay dark. Dismal. Its rich earth changed to dry barren land. The men who plowed it walked in a distressful silence.

Sherry was gone. Zeda’s Sherry. The most promising young man on the whole plantation. April’s big-doings bullying had run him off. April would pay for it. He’d poison cotton by himself next summer. He could make the men do almost anything else, but he’d never get them to poison boll-weevils. They knew better than to fight Providence. April wasn’t God. No.

From the Quarters a scream rose and swelled until its long, weird, melancholy note went into a death-cry! Zeda’s grieving! Breeze had to clench his teeth to keep from bursting out crying himself. Suppose April got mad with him some time, and butted him? What would he do? He couldn’t do anything but stand still and take it and die.

He went on plowing, side by side with the rest in the painful silence that hung on stubbornly. The soft flat-footed pattering of the men’s bare feet, the dead flat thudding of mule steps, the sullen waving of the branches in the wind, the low murmuring of the water, all fell together into a dull batch of doleful sound.

Flocks of field larks rose up and cried out plaintively as their feeding-ground was turned under. Old Louder chased them in a slow trot, sniffed at them, then at some smell in the earth. Coming up to Breeze, he rubbed against his legs and whined. Breeze gave him nothing in return, only a low word or two, and a furtive pat on the head, so he trotted off to one side, and sat on his haunches, watching the plowmen with sorrowful eyes. He missed Sherry too.

When the bell rang for noon, Breeze was near the rice-fields side. His mule stopped short and seized a mouthful of grass, as he gazed toward Sandy Island. It was far away to-day. The haze had every sign of it hidden. A broad sheet of water sparkled and glittered, as bright reflections of white clouds floated softly, silently on its shining surface. All the channels were buried. What was his mother doing now? And Sis? He swallowed a sob and turned the mule’s head toward home, and saw Big Sue waddling across the field. She didn’t follow any path, but came on straight toward him, over the soft plowed earth. Why was she coming to the field at noon? He had his breakfast long ago, and he always went home for dinner. Maybe she wanted to talk about Sherry. She stopped and said a few words to April but she came on to Breeze.

She gave Breeze a hand-wave as she got nearer, but her face was solemn, without any show of a smile. “April says you kin come straight on home, Breeze. Somebody else’ll take de mules to de lot.”

Giving his shoulder a gentle pat, she drew Breeze up to her with a little hug. She didn’t say a word, and her eyes looked wet.

April was waiting at the path, and he walked on home beside them. Tall, solid as a tree, rugged, tough-sinewed, double-jointed, yet the cruel look in his deep-sunk eyes that blazed out when they looked at Sherry, had given way to something else. They glowed bright as he turned back and looked across the rice-fields toward Sandy Island, and said gently:

“Sandy Island is way back behind de clouds to-day.” His anger with Sherry had passed.

His voice sounded unsteady, his features were haggard and ashy.

Big Sue looked at him, then at Breeze. “You break de news to Breeze, April. I ain’ got de heart.”

April shook his head. “Me neither.”

Big Sue’s small eyes blinked. “Son,” she hesitated strangely, and laid a hot fat hand gently on his shoulder, “you t’ink you got a mammy, enty?”

Of course Breeze thought so. He was so sure of it. What on earth was Big Sue aiming at?

“No, son.” She shook her head slowly. “You ain’ got none. You’ mammy went out on de tide befo’ day dis mawnin’.”

What did Big Sue mean? Breeze felt confused. Where had his mother gone on that before-day-tide? He didn’t understand what Big Sue was talking about.

Marsh-hens cackled gaily out in the rice-fields. A crane croaked. A fish-hawk circled high, then halted to poise himself for a swoop.

Taking Breeze by the hand Big Sue led him on through the greenish shade cast by the live-oaks over the road and the cabin’s yard. Her bright cold eyes peeped out sidewise at him now and then. She was trying to be kind. Once she said, “I’se gwine to be you’ mammy now, since you’ own mammy’s dead and gone.”

Breeze felt as if he was in a dream, walking in his sleep. His legs were numb and heavy.

“Hurry up, son! You must walk faster. We got to dress an’ go to de buryin’, cross de river in a boat. April’ll let Sherry take we across de river in de boat, enty, April?”

“No, not Sherry. Somebody else’ll take you. Sherry’s done gone off. To stay.”

“Wha’ dat you say, April? Sherry’s gone?”

“I run em off de place a while ago.”

“Great Gawd! What is dis! April, don’t you know Zeda’s gwine kill you? Man! I’m glad I ain’t you. You might be strong, but you ain’ strong as dat conjure Zeda’s gwine put on you.”

Louder had followed them from the field, and now sat on his hind quarters, listening, watching, snapping at a fly now and then. As a squirrel ran down the trunk of a tree and across the yard, he jumped up and ran a few paces, then came back and sat down again, as though he had done his duty.

“Come on in de house an’ dress, Breeze. I don’ believe you got it straight in you’ head yet. You’ ma is dead, son! Dead! De people is gwine put em in a grave soon as dis same sun goes down.”

Breeze looked up at each of the grown people. He felt hurt, as if his mother had abandoned him just when he wanted to see her most, to go back home to her. Sherry was gone away. She was dead. Nobody was left, but Uncle Bill. Leaning toward Big Sue he hid his face in the folds of her skirt and wept.

“Don’ cry, son,” she soothed him. “Come on an’ eat some dinner. You got to go wid me to de buryin’. Enty, April?”

She led him inside and made him sit in a chair beside April, while she fried links of sausage to eat with the bread and cups full of sweetened water. The sausage had a savory smell, and Breeze bit into it and chewed it a long time, but he could scarcely swallow it for the choking lump in his throat. His mother was dead. She was no longer yonder at Sandy Island with Sis and the other children. She had flown up into the sky, where Heaven was, and Jesus and all the angels. April washed his food down with great swallows of water. How dumb he was.

“Lawd!” Big Sue grunted as she came out of the shed-room with her Sunday dress on her arm. “Ain’ it awful to die in sin? It pure scares me half to death when I think on Breeze’s mammy a hoppin’ in Hell right now! Great Gawd! Wid fire a scorchin’ em!”

“How you know?” April thundered out.

“How I know? I know e was a’ awful sinner. You know so too. E got dis same Breeze right here at Blue Brook whilst a revival meetin’ was gwine on. You don’ call dat sin?”

April didn’t so much as crack his teeth, and she looked at him with narrowed eyes.

“You an’ her all two better had got religion dat summer.”

“You better keep you’ mouth shut, now, Big Sue. You’s a-talkin’ out o’ turn. Better help Breeze dress. E’s a settin’ yonder on de floor wid jaws hangin’ open! Boy, you’s gwine swallow a fly if you don’ mind.”

Breeze was trying to think. His mother, his dear, kind, good mother, was hopping in Hell. Burning in a fire nine times hotter than the fire on earth!

“April!” Big Sue called out, “you ought to buy Breeze a nice pair o’ shoes an’ stockin’s to wear to de buryin’.”

“Brudge is got a pair Breeze kin borrow an’ wear. I ain’ got time to go to de sto’ now.”

“Please go git ’em fo’ me.”

April got up stiffly and walked away. In a little while Brudge came bringing a pair of Leah’s shoes. He had lost one of his own, but Leah sent her slippers instead. April said they would do. They were low-cut and shiny, with high heels and a strap across the instep. Breeze made such a poor out at walking in them, Big Sue couldn’t help laughing, although she declared she was not making sport of him.

“Take ’em off, son. Tote ’em in you’ hand till we git to Sandy Island,” she suggested, and Breeze did.

Uncle Bill rowed the boat that took them to Sandy Island, and although he pulled hard with his oars, the sun was almost down when they reached the cabin up on the hill above the river.

Mules and oxen hitched to carts filled the yard, and the house was crowded with people.

Big Sue made Breeze sit down on the ground and put on Brudge’s stockings and Leah’s shoes. They made his feet stumble about miserably, but Big Sue said that made no difference, since they looked nice.

He was terribly excited, but as he walked hand in hand with Big Sue up the steep path into the yard he could hear people say:

“Lawd, Breeze is grow fo’ true. Looka e fine clothes!”

Seeing his old home made him forget to be polite.

Big Sue whispered, “When de ladies an’ gentlemens speaks to you, bow an’ pull you’ foot an’ say, ‘Good evening.’ Don’ grin at ’em like a chessy-cat! Be mannersable!”

When Sis came to the door Breeze broke away from Big Sue’s hand and ran, half falling up the steps. Sis grabbed him and held him tight. He put his arms around her and squeezed her, and they laughed and cried together. Poor Sis! Her body felt like a pack of bones! Where was the baby? Where were all the other children? Sis whispered they’d been sent off to a neighbor’s house until after the burying was over. She didn’t have time to feed them and look after everything else.

Big Sue interrupted the tight hug Breeze was giving Sis: “Come on in, boy, an’ look at you’ ma. Dey’s ready to put em in de box.”

The cabin was full of a queer smell. Breeze hated to go inside, but Big Sue held him fast by the arm and drew him toward the shed-room door. The room was dim, for the one wooden shutter was closed so that very little light could filter through. Breeze saw only a few solemn-looking black women standing around the bed. He couldn’t bear to go any farther. But Big Sue’s firm hand urged him on, its strong jerks making it useless to draw back.

“Don’t you cut no crazy capers wid me, Breeze. You got to come look at you’ ma. I want de people to see I raised you to have respect fo’ you’ parents. Open de window, Sis!”

The small room looked even smaller on account of the low ceiling, and the bed, the only piece of furniture, was pushed out from the wall leaving a narrow way all around it.

Sis undid the window latch and flung the shutter back. The sun flooded the white bed with blood-red light, and marked a long slim thing under a sheet. One of the black women turned the sheet slowly down and exposed a pinched face. A chin bound with a white cloth. Two bony black hands crossed on a sunken breast. Two feet whose black skin showed through thin white stockings. The feet were still, not hopping.

That strange stiffness could not be his mother! Breeze shut his eyes tight to keep from seeing it.

“Open you’ eyes, Breeze. Stand ’side you’ ma an’ look at em good fo’ de last time. You ain’ never gwine see em no mo’.”

“No! No! Cun Big Sue! Don’ make me look at em! Please, Cun Big Sue!”

Breeze began screaming in spite of himself. He wanted to be good. To please Big Sue. To have manners. But that thing on the bed was too fearful.

He felt himself lifted in Big Sue’s strong arms. Her hot breath puffed on him as she bore him close to the bed. The terrible scent filling the house rose in his nostrils. Screams split his throat. He couldn’t hold them in to save his life. Although his eyelids squeezed tighter shut, tears poured through them.

Big Sue’s determined fingers tugged at them, pulling them apart, until his eyes, naked, except for tears, were held over his mother’s face. Her two dead eyes peeped out from half-closed lids, her black lips cracked open over a grin of cold white teeth. He strove wildly to get away, but Big Sue held him until a soft darkness swallowed everything.

When Breeze came to himself he was flat on the ground, so near the cape jessamine bush that a cool clean blossom touched his cheek.

Where were Big Sue and Sis?