All God's Dangers (9 page)

Hired me to Mr. Jack Knowland, 1904. And I always—not boastin or braggin—but I always was a apt little kid, and I was willin. I knowed I had to be willin under my daddy. Mr Knowland had two more hands hired besides me—Tyler Fox, old lady Silvy Turpin's grandchild; we was born and raised up together. Old lady Silvy's oldest daughter, Inez Turpin, was Tyler's mother. And Luke Milliken—my stepmother was Luke Milliken's auntie. Mr. Knowland hired me from my daddy, hired Tyler Fox from his grandmother and hired Luke Milliken—Luke was older than we was, he was runnin his own business kind of, and he hired himself to Mr. Knowland. All three of we colored boys was there workin for the white man.

Mr. Knowland put me to plowin his buggy horse, Henry. And he was a hard road horse. You throwed a saddle on Henry and Henry would carry you anywhere you wanted to go. Hitch him to that Barnville buggy Mr. Knowland had and he was travelin sport. He could single-foot, pace, give you any sort of gait you wanted. Mr. Knowland would hitch him to the buggy, “Go along, Henry. Go along, sir.” He gone! And he put me to plowin that horse.

Tyler Fox plowed a little old crooked-necked mule; his neck had been hurt when he was a colt but he was a thoroughgoin little old mule, he'd plow like a horse and quick, quick like a horse. His name was Tom and he'd a weighed about seven, eight hundred pounds. Tyler Fox plowed Tom. Luke Milliken plowed old Bob, big old bay horse woulda weighed between twelve hundred and fourteen hundred pounds. He was a kind of slow horse but Bob and that buggy horse I plowed done all the haulin on that place.

Many a mornin Mr. Knowland would come out of his house, fixed up nice, his coat on his arm, and he'd walk four and five miles any way he wanted to go, buyin cattle. He was a cow buyin man, he dealt with cows. And he'd take em when he had enough to suit him, fatten em up and huddle em in the road and put we boys to drivin em. Drive em way down to Tuskegee, through the low country and sell em at Tuskegee Normal School. He'd be drivin Bob and Henry to his wagon and when one boy got tired drivin them cows he could get up on the wagon and rest; and when he rested up there awhile, Mr. Knowland would have him to get back on the cow drivin job, followin that huddle of cattle into Tuskegee.

His wife's name was Lottie. I knowed who she was before Mr. Knowland married her. She was Mr. Sam Reed, in Apafalya,'s sister.
She was a Reed, Lottie Reed. Her and Mr. Knowland never did have no children. He was a man that had right smart money but no children. They moved to Apafalya after so many years and he bought him a store and she died before he did. And after she died he broke up storekeepin and commenced a travelin out in the country amongst his people.

So he found out I was apt and dutiful—and he'd dress, leave home, off huntin cattle to buy, tell Miss Lottie before he left, “Lottie—”

He was a white gentleman that when he'd tell you a thing he'd say it a heap of times twice. He come by the field where we was plowin before he left: “Nate, Nate, I told Lottie before I left the house, that when a certain hour comes this evenin, for her to tap the bell for you, and I thought I'd tell you, too. When you hear that bell tap, you take Henry out of the field and hitch him to the buggy and come after me.”

When I heard that bell tone—had a big dinner bell they'd ring—right there I stopped and taken Henry to the house. I'd pull that Barnville buggy out from under the shed and hitch Henry to it, then gone to pick up Mr. Knowland.

I was his foreman, in a way of speakin; he'd leave his farmin all to me, see after it and keep it goin. I just saw that he was givin me a responsibility he weren't givin the other boys. That was a three-horse farm to look after too, and had more land than that under cultivation. He had his sister livin there on his place and her two daughters and one son and he give her a little crop. And when he hired we three boys to plow we just plowed her crop and his'n too. Of course, she paid him to have her plowin done. Her little boy, Jeffers, he weren't big enough to plow. But her two girls was old enough to receive boy company.

Nine dollars a month he gave my daddy. Nine dollars a month for me. And he didn't give as much for them other boys as he give for me because I was apt and he soon learnt he could trust his business over to my hands.

Do you know what that white man done? I was just nineteen years old. Knowed nothin bout haulin no logs, but he believed that I could haul logs. He went to Tuskegee and bought six steers, six head. And he bought a dray somewhere, a good dray. That gived him steers for three yokes and a dray. Put a yoke to the wheel, put a yoke to the lead, and add a yoke in between, two cows to the yoke.
That white man put me to haulin logs after the crop was laid by. “Nate, Nate, I want you to haul logs.”

Well, I knowed nothin bout haulin logs, had never hauled no logs; but put me at anything, I made a success. One mornin I got out and he'd left home, went on off and left me to rule. I went to the lot—and them yokes was heavy. I called them cows together and I laid a yoke across two that I got in a pair, side by side; I laid that yoke across their neck and got that bore and stuck it up there and keyed it down until I yoked up six head. I set the biggest cows to the wheel and the next biggest in the swing and then the third yoke was the lead cows'. I went and picked up that dray tongue—it was heavy as the devil—and hitched them wheel cows up. Then I went and put a big chain in there to the end of that yoke and hitched them swing cows in there. Then I went back and got them lead cows and swung their chain to the swing cows' yoke. Mr. Knowland had me a big rawhide whip, handle bout as long as my hand. I called them cows—and I drove em bout a half a mile from Mr. Knowland's house and I hit a scope of woods on his place. I went down in there, cut me some skids to set side the wheels, dray wheels and back wheels. Cut notches in them skids and propped the wheels against em—I seed enough logs hauled to understand how to start. Take that big long chain, unwrap it where it's fastened to the hounds over the front wheels, straighten it out and lay it out there, stretch it out. Then get my can-hook and roll them logs up one by one. Get my lead steers, pull their chain back and hitch it to the log chain and drive them cows on out through the woods. That log is on the log chain and when the cows pull it up on that dray, it got to roll up and hit the dray almost square before I go back and get another. When I had em all snaked up and loaded I was ready to go to the sawmill.

Now at that time, Mr. Knowland was havin em hauled to the sawmill down on Sitimachas Creek, right next to Clay's mill, where I'd worked the year before. All them mills workin off that creek—gin house, grist mill, sawmill. Grist mill had separators would grind flour all sorts of ways. Gin house ginned folks' cotton—there's not one of them mills operatin today. Gone out of business, every one of em; left the country, I reckon. You can still find a trace of the buildins where there used to be a foundation. But the buildins is actually destroyed and it's like you lookin at a shadow.

I hauled logs for Mr. Knowland, drove his cows and his dray
up to that sawmill and dropped off my load. Then I drove em back to the woods as many trips as it taken to load up all the logs there was cut to be hauled that Mr. Knowland wanted to sell that day. So I learnt to haul logs under the white man's administration and it soon become known through all the country that I was a apt log haulin man.

1904, I nearly banged in Luke Milliken's head. I liked to kill Luke one night—that's true facts. Luke Milliken was a woman's son that was a half-sister to my stepmother, TJ's mother. And what it come up about that night, in a white man's house too—how come they was there in that white man's house? Luke's mammy was Jim Flint's—he weren't married, never had been married—Luke's mammy was his woman.

That year me and Tyler Fox and Luke Milliken all worked together every day. Eventually, at the period of time when me and Luke got into it, Luke had quit workin for Mr. Knowland. And durin of me and Tyler Fox goin home, averagely bout once a week, at night, we'd go by Mr. Flint's house. Luke's mammy's brother, half-brother, he lived there in part of the house with the white man; white man in one part, him in the other. And this here woman, Luke's mammy, her and Luke stayed in a little house out the edge of the yard. At night, nobody there, no tellin where they slept at, the way they runned it when night come.

So one night me and Tyler went by there goin home, and stopped. We walked in, as usual, and the fireplace to the white man's room was on the left side of the house as you walked in the door, and his bed was back there too. He was layin up there that night asleep when we walked in. Luke and his mammy and her half-brother, old man Frank Milliken—he weren't no old man, he was settle-aged, but he could get up and work, outwork a cooter, and he was a good cook, too; very often he helped fix old man Flint's meals, he was as good a cook as the woman was—and they all stayed there in a combined, jumbled up way.

So that night me and Tyler stopped there and walked in, and we all set there at the foot of Flint's bed, to the fire, and that white man asleep. Settin there, laughin and talkin as usual and after a while—Luke's mammy was sittin in a half-turned position toward the fire but back away from it. I was sittin close up to the fire with
my head down. And I seed a great big old black long-legged spider run out from between that woman's feet and run across that fireplace into the far corner. Some of the rest of em discovered the spider at that time. I jumped up, not thinkin nothin, and I called Aunt Polly—that was her name, Polly—I said, “Aunt Polly, that spider come right out from between your feet.”

She jumped up and looked at me, got mean about me sayin that. I was lookin at the spider when it runned out from between her feet, took off across the fireplace and went into that far corner. O, she got red hot about it, mad as the devil at me. All right. Luke set up there, her old boy, and he swelled up about it. And she just commenced a hollerin, “You're a liar, you're a liar. That spider didn't run out from about my feet.”

Well, me a fool, just stuck to it. I knowed what I seed and I weren't goin to give back on it. Didn't make no difference how mad she was—I was nineteen years old then. But I didn't know my words had touched Luke that bad until I seed his act. He reached over there in the corner—he was sittin over there on the other side of the fireplace, and Tyler Fox sittin right about the center of the fireplace—and he got him a flat larded splinter bout two foot long and he stuck it in the ashes, turned it over and over, and just as soon as he done that it got hot and he beat the ashes off it and stuck it to the blaze. Whoop! Just like kerosene.

In this country, they used a larded limb, pine timber with fat on it, that if the fire ever got on it, it would burn till it burned clean up. He beat the ashes off it and stuck it in the fire—whoop! Then he jumped up, walked on out the house and here's the words he spoke: he was good and mad as the devil because he thought I'd insulted his mother, but it wasn't nothin to insult her about. God knows I never said a harmful word to the woman. He got heartily mad. He lit that splinter and walked out the door, right by old man Flint's bed, and he said, “Come on, Mama, come on, Mama, let's go to the house and go to bed.”

She wouldn't pay no attention to him; she just kept gnarlin at me. Well, we set there a minute or two. I decided me and Tyler Fox just as well to go. I got up and told Tyler, “Let's go.”

We went on out the house and Uncle Frank went out ahead of us. That old wench followed me to the door—I say wench, she weren't nothin but a outlaw—then on out the house. I didn't quit walkin till I stepped down on the last step—the house stood three
or four steps high off the ground. I didn't have one more step to step or I'd a stepped right on the ground, clear away from the house. And as I done that, before I stopped, she come right up to the top of the steps, right behind me, standin over me, just raisin the devil. Luke was standin out there at the door of the house they stayed at, their home place where they was supposed to live. Standin there, fumblin around, and she had the door locked and he couldn't get in; he standin there waitin for her to bring the key out.

“Come on, Mama, and bring the key.”

She didn't pay him a bit of attention; she just kept gnarlin at me. I reckon Luke was gettin madder and madder. All at once he just whirled away from the door, comin right straight to the doorsteps where we was; weren't sayin a word, comin right straight. Got about halfway to us, he laid his lamp-light on the ground, just kept a walkin. He walked up and I was standin there yet on that last step, next step would have been on the ground. And before I knowed anythin—he just never quit walkin till he walked right up to me and he runned his hand between my arm and my side—had a knife in his hand and he throwed it into the center of my back and split my coat—good coat—split it clean through to the linin, just a rake. And as God would have it, he never split the linin nowhere, just split the coat
to
the linin. I dropped my hands down good then and he just cuttin at me fast as a cat. Pulled his hand back—I discovered what he was tryin to do, tryin to cut my heart out. I closed my arms down and he hit me in the center of the back again and split that coat until it got to my arm and he raked on across that arm and split the sleeve and come on around and split the front of the coat. Good God almighty, what he do that for? Didn't touch the flesh noway.

So I discovered all that—whooooo, if I didn't jump, I jumped ever so high, jumped to runnin, goin around that house like a wounded fox. When I done that they decided I was cut heavily and I was runnin off—old lady Polly thought it and Uncle Frank and Tyler all thought it. But that weren't the commode. He'd done touched my blood through a mad spell and I was aimin to kill Luke Milliken then, God knows I didn't mean nothin but kill him.

Round the house I went, runned just like I was cut up and scared to death, but I was only mad. And believe me—the old place was rocky there and the rocks was what I was dearly after; I wanted
to get me a couple, just a couple, and I was goin to run right back around there close enough to him to bust his brains out. I hunted for rocks around there several minutes, couldn't find the rock I wanted to save my life. Looked like God kept the rocks out of my hands, as rocky as that place was, I especially hunted rocks and couldn't find one. So I didn't know what to do. I just made up my mind right quick to go back around there and die with him, with my natural hands. Back around that house from behind it in the dark, around the corner I come. Just as I got to the corner I runned over a piece of four-inch sealin bout five foot long. I just swept it off the ground, gathered it runnin, looked like I never broke my gait. And he looked and seed me. His light was layin out there in the yard and he could see. And old man Frank Milliken and Tyler Fox and old lady Polly, all of em seed me comin in full force.