47

For Sally McCartin
W.M.

P
reface

The story you are about to read concerns certain events
that occurred in the early days of my life. It all happened
over a hundred and seventy years ago. For many of you it
might sound like a tall tale because I am no older today
than I was back there in the year 1832. But this is no whop
per I'm telling; it is a story about my boyhood as a slave and my fated encounter with the amazing Tall John from
beyond Africa, who could read dreams, fly between gal
axies, and make friends with any animal no matter how wild.

There are many things in the world that most people
don't know about. For instance, when I was young nobody
ever dreamed that there would be radios and televisions
and powerful jet planes that could fly across the ocean in
only a few hours. But all of those things were possible back
then even though nobody knew it.

My story is like that. It's about science that seems like
magic even today and about the barbaric practice of slavery
that so many of our ancestors had to endure.

I'm putting down these words because I'm the only one
left alive who remembers what it was like to be a slave in the land of the free, the United States, and I think that it is
important for other people to understand what this experi
ence was like.

I made an oath all those years ago not to inform the gen
eral population about the science I was exposed to back then, but I don't think that by telling this tale I will be
breaking my vow because most people who read these
words won't believe in the incredible inventions that were revealed to me by Tall John.

You have to have quite an imagination to believe in his
Sun Ship or his power over dreams.

I hope that you will enjoy this tale of adventure and
derring-do. But even as you thrill to the dangers and valiant
trials of the heroes that lived back then, I hope you will get
a little understanding of what it was like to live as a slave at
that time. Slavery might be the most unbelievable part of
this whole story but I assure you
it really happened.

1

I lived as a slave on the Corinthian Plantation my whole
life up to the time that Tall John ran out of the back woods
and into my life. I have no idea exactly how long the time
before Tall John might have been, but I was most likely
about fourteen years old at that time. Slaves didn't have birthday parties like the white children of Master or the white folk that either worked for Master or lived on the
larder of his home.

Slaves didn't have birthday parties and so they didn't
have ages like the white people did. Big Mama Flore al
ways said that "White peoples gots as many ages as you can
count but slaves on'y gots four ages. That's babychile, boy
or girl, old boy or old girl, an' dead."

I loved Big Mama Flore. She was round and soft and al
ways gave me a big hug in the morning. She was one of the
only ones who ever showed me kindness when I was little.

My mother died when I was too young to remember her
face. Big Mama told me that my mother, her name was
Psalma, had a boyfriend over at the Williams Plantation
but she would never tell anybody who he was because she
didn't want him getting into trouble for sneaking out to see
her in the big house at night.

Flore also told me that that man nobody knew was my
father.

"She didn't even tell you his name, Big Mama?" I asked
when she would tell me the sad story of Psalma Turner when
I was still too little to have to work in the cotton fields.

"No, babychile," Big Mama said. "Master Tobias would'a
give a Christmas ham to the nigger tole who had fathered
his wife's favorite maid's baby. He'd walk through the slave
quarters at night sayin' that he would give the man who
looked like Psalma's baby to Mr. Stewart for punishment.
So if some slave knew who it was that yo' mama was seein' he would'a done hisself a big favor by tellin' Master Tobias his name. An' onceit Tobias knowed who that slave was he
was sure to end up in Mr. Stewart's shack."

Tobias Turner was Master's name and Mr. Stewart was
his overseer. The overseer made sure that all us slaves
worked hard and didn't cause any ruckus or break the
Rules. The Rules were that you did as you were told, didn't
talk back, never complained, and stayed in your place.

Mr. Stewart had a shack that stood out in the middle of
a stand of live oaks behind the slave quarters. And if you
were ever unlucky enough to get sent back there then you
were in serious trouble. Many a slave never returned from

Mr. Stewart's
killin shack.
And those that did come back
were never the same.

I hadn't seen Mr. Stewart's torture chamber at that time but I knew about it because I had heard stories from those
few souls that survived his torments. They said that he had
a pine table that was twice as long as a tall man is tall and
that there were leather straps on both ends that he would
tie to a slave's wrists and ankles. The straps were attached
to baskets filled with heavy stones that would stretch a
poor soul's legs and arms out so far from their sockets that
afterward the slave could hardly even lift his feet off the
ground to walk and he would have to use both of his hands
just to get the food to his mouth to eat.

"Yes, sir," Big Mama Flore would say in the backyard
under the big magnolia tree that Una Turner's great grand
father planted when he settled the land back before any
living slave, even Mud Albert, could remember. "Yes in-deedy. If Master Tobias knowed who your father was that man wouldn'ta stood a nigger's chance on the main road at
midday."

I was brokenhearted when Big Mama would tell the
story about my mother and her sad end. When Psalma died
giving birth to me, Una Turner told Master Tobias that I
was to remain on her family's plantation for as long as I lived as a remembrance to my mother.

Una loved my mother because of her voice. It was said
that Psalma Turner had the most beautiful voice that anyone
on Corinthian Plantation had ever heard. Miss Una had a
weak constitution and bad nerves and when she would have
an attack it was only my mother's singing that would keep her from despair.

Miss Una loved my mother so much, Big Mama Flore
said, that she would have been sure to keep me up in the
big house with her
if she had lived. But three years after
my mother died Miss Una had one of her attacks and with
out Psalma's singing she succumbed to the malady and
passed over to the Upper Level and back to the place that
all life comes from.

Some time after Miss Una died Master Tobias named
me Forty-seven and told Big Mama that when I was big
enough I was meant to live out in the slave quarters and
work in the cotton fields with all the other slaves. Master
Tobias didn't like me because he blamed my mother for
getting pregnant and stealing herself from his property by
dying. But he didn't want to sell me off because it was Miss
Una's dying wish to keep me on her plantation near my
mother's grave.

Until I grew Master Tobias made me live in the barn, feeding and grooming the horses and running any errands
that the house slaves had for me. I made myself pretty
scarce out there because whenever Master saw me he'd re
member my mother and then he'd get mad and look to see
if I'd done something wrong. And if there was one straw
out of place he would tell Big Mama Flore to get her razor

strap and whip my backside. Big Mama didn't want to beat
me but she did anyway because Tobias was watching.

After these beatings, when Master was gone, Big Mama
would fold me in her arms and apologize.

"I sorry, babychile, but if'n I didn't make you cry he would'a took the strap," she'd say, "and whip you hard
enough to draw blood."

"Why he hate me so much, Big Mama?" I'd whine.
"He blame you for his wife dyin'," she'd say. "He just
hurt so much inside an' you the on'y one left alive that he
could blame."

"But I din't do nuthin'."

"Shhh, baby. You just stay outta Tobias's way. Don't
look up when he's around an' always do all your work an' more than that so you don't give him no reason to have me
beat you."

We both knew that when I got big enough to work in the
fields he'd give me over to Mr. Stewart when he got mad.
And Mr. Stewart would use a bullwhip on my bare back. He might even stretch my bones until I was dead.

We both knew that I was safe from Mr. Stewart until I
grew big enough to pick cotton, so Mama Flore didn't feed
me meat or milk so that I'd stay small and not have to go to
work in the cotton fields.

I wasn't allowed in the big house. The only times I was ever there was when Big Mama sneaked me in so I could
see how grand the white peoples' lives were.

So I lived in the barn my whole life until just before
Tall John came to the plantation. In that time Big Mama
Flore made my acquaintance with Mud Albert and Champ Noland. Mud Albert was the oldest slave on the plantation
and Champ was the strongest. Champ once carried a full-
grown mule across the yard in front of the mansion. Albert
and Champ loved Big Mama and so they told her that they
would take me under their wings when I had to go out in the
slave quarters and live with the rough element out there.

I spent most of my time working hard and avoiding Master's angry attention. But it wasn't all hard work and beat
ings. The barn was very large and it had a little window at
the very top for ventilation. When nobody was looking I used to climb up to that window and pretend that I was in the crow's nest of some great ship coming from Europe or
Africa. I had heard about these ships from some of the
slaves that had been brought in chains from across the seas
and from some of the house slaves who had seen pictures of the great three-mast sailboats in books from Master's
library.

I'd sit up there at the end of the day, watching while the slaves picked cotton in the fields, pretending that I was the
lookout put up there to tell the captain when there was
some island paradise where we could drop our anchor.

And sometimes, if I was very lucky, I would catch a glimpse of Miss Eloise
Tobias's daughter.

Eloise. She was dainty and white as a china plate. Her

pale red hair and green eyes were startling. In my mind she
was the most beautiful creature in all of Georgia.

When Eloise would come out to play I'd squeeze down
behind the sill of the open window and watch. Even when she was alone she laughed while she played, swinging on her swing chair or eating sweets on the veranda.

Every time I saw her in the yard behind the Master's
mansion I got a funny feeling all over. I wanted to go down
there and be happy with her but I knew that a nigger like
me wasn't allowed even to look at someone like Miss Eloise.

One day, when Eloise was sitting in her swing chair
alone, I stuck my head out to see what she was doing. But I didn't realize that the sun was at my back and that it cast the shadow of my head down into Miss Eloise's lap.

She looked up, squinting at the sun, and said, "Who's
up there?"