Dominion (27 page)

It was Monday, at Dani’s. Between loads from the moving van, Geneva and Clarence crossed the street to see Mrs. Burns.

“Thanks for taking care of the kids, Hattie,” Geneva said.

“Happy to. Always told Dani that. Lordy, Lordy I miss that girl. I want you to know I’ll be here for these children. You ever need help, ever need someone to watch ’em, you call on ol’ Hattie, you hear me now?”

“We really appreciate that,” Geneva said.

“Celeste is quiet, maybe too quiet,” Hattie said. “She misses her mama and her sister somethin’ terrible. I’ve been teachin’ her to bake, and she seems to like it. Don’t know how much help I can be for the boy. He needs a strong hand. Needs a man to show him the way. I’m scared for him. The school called a few days ago. He’s not doin’ his homework, skippin’ classes, doesn’t seem to care.”

“Ty’s a four-point student,” Clarence said.

“Used to be. Won’t be this year. I think you better talk to him. I tried but he gave me that look boys have nowadays. Like what do I know about life and why should they listen to me.”

“I’ll call the school first chance,” Clarence said. “Thanks again, Hattie.”

“Well, my door’s always open to you, hear me? We got to stick together here. It’s our only chance.”

The next morning Clarence stared at the headline on the front page of Metro. “Hispanic Gang Members Suspected in Murder.” He read the article by Barry Davis.

The fatal shooting of Dani Rawls and her daughter Felicia that stunned a north Portland neighborhood two weeks ago took on a new twist this week. A witness has come forward indicating that a car speeding away from the murder scene was a gold, late seventies Chevrolet Impala or Caprice. The driver and passenger were both young Hispanic males, perhaps in their early twenties, each wearing a white T-shirt.

While refusing to identify the witness, police spokesperson Lieutenant W. C. Jannsen said, “The shooting had the earmarks of gang warfare.” When asked if this is another example of growing racial tension in the greater Portland area, Jannsen replied, “Hopefully it was just an isolated incident.”

“The new eyewitness information confirms the shooting was probably racially motivated,” Councilman Reginald Nor-coast stated. “I have personally talked with the chief of police and asked that the department’s hate crimes division take a closer look at this. I remind the community that the reward still stands, $10,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killers. I believe in this so strongly that my wife and I contributed the first $1,000 ourselves.”

Clarence threw down the paper.

I’ve never known anyone to get more mileage out of a thousand dollars.

“In the next phase of your studies you’ll learn about your family history,” Torel said to Dani. “Your great-grandfather will be your guide.”

Zeke beamed, champing at the bit to get started.

“I knew my grandfather was a sharecropper,” Dani said, “that his mama was born a slave and her name was Ruth. But that’s about all I knew.”

“Ruth was our daughter,” Zeke said. “Nancy and I served the same massa three years, then we jumped the broom together.”

A time portal opened and Dani watched the ceremony, just as it happened in old Kentucky.

“You literally jumped over a broom?”

“Yes’m! It was a combination of African and American wedding ritual. They wouldn’t give us a Christian ceremony, but jumpin’ the broom married us before God and the church.”

“The church?”

“Well,” Zeke laughed, “back then the church was just any of the slaves who loved Jesus and that was most of them. See those folks there?” He pointed to the portal. “That was Sam and Darla. They was good friends.”

“And that little boy dancin’ next to them,” Dani said, “is that theirs?”

“Yeah, that was little Sam. The massas called him Sambo. They didn’t want two slaves hassin’ the same name. Said it was confusin’.”

“He’s so cute. And lanky.”

“Sam and Darla loved little Sam,” Zeke said. “Used to talk about their dreams for that boy. But then Massa Collins sold him. He sold away their only son.”

A look of horror swept across Dani’s face.

“Darla was never the same. Shriveled up after that. And ol’ Sam, he heard his boy was at a farm outside Lexington, just a few hundred miles away. After two years he couldn’t stand it no more, so he rans off to find him. Didn’t get but forty miles ’fore they found him. Beat him, then cut off both his big toes so he wouldn’t run again. He did run again. Just didn’t get very far.” Zeke’s eyes misted up.

“I’m sorry,” Dani said. “I didn’t mean to cause you pain, Great-Granddaddy. I didn’t think—”

“That there was pain here? Well, it’s funny with that. You know, the promise is that God will wipe away the tears from every eye. But that doesn’t happen until after the ol’ devil’s throwed in that ol’ fiery lake. There’s so much more laughter and joy here than tears—you seen that I reckon. But the joy isn’t in forgetting what happened. It’s in remembering and seeing the hand of God and how he sustains and heals.”

“And if you didn’t remember the bad things,” Dani offered, “you couldn’t experience God’s comfort for them. Tell me about my grandmother.”

“Well, ’bout a year after Nancy and I jumped the broom we had a boy. Named him Abraham. Then another year later Ruth was born. And…” Tears flowed again. “She was the most beautiful little girl on God’s green earth.”

No sooner had he said it than the portal showed the girl in her mother’s arms, with proud young Zeke doting over her.

“Now look at her. Was I just braggin’ or was I right?”

Dani was instantly taken with how much this child looked like her own baby pictures. “You were right, Great-Grandpa,” she said, putting her arms around him and squeezing. He reminded her so much of her daddy. She could hardly wait to introduce them to each other.

“We had some happy years together, Nancy and me and Abraham and Ruth. Not easy years but happy ones ’cause we was free inside and we had each other. See, I hears people say in the Shadowlands that Christianity enslaved blacks. No, it was just the opposite. Knowin’ the one true Master gave us dignity, that God made us, that Jesus died for us, that God gave us the same rights as other men even if nobody acted like it. We knew we had a home in heaven and we could keep our heads high even when our backs was beaten till our shirts stuck to them from the blood.

“Your great-grandma, bless her, rubbed on lard to grease my back, and it felt so good—see her doin’ it right there now? The overseers was cruel, though our master was kinder than most. Still, ownin’ slaves did somethin’ to a man’s soul and mistreatin’ them did somethin’ more, shriveled up that soul like an orange drained of its juice. But God kept the juice in our family, I’m here to tell you, Great-Granddaughter. And Abe and little Ruth, they was our pride and joy.”

“And then?” Dani asked.

“Well, then it was the same ol’ story. Mr. Collins had promised he’d never separate our family ’cause I was the hardest worker he had, and he was gonna do right by me. Then times turned hard and somebody wanted a field hand and house help. They had some older hands that could train younger ones to do it right, so they wanted chillens. Abraham and Ruth was nine and eight, and in those days you could do a lot of work by that age. So this man inspected the slaves and when he was lookin’ at my little ones I could tell what he was thinkin’. Nancy stole them away into our shack and stayed with them, huddled up in the corner. She was so scared.”

Dani saw it as it happened, the terrified look in Nancy’s eyes, the frightened children clinging to their mother and each other in the dark far corner of the shack.

“I kept tellin’ Nancy that Mr. Collins had promised us he’d never do that, and she reminded me what he did to little Sam and how Darla was never the same and big Sam’s toes got cut off and I said, ‘Mr. Collins made some mistakes, but he a Christian man. He gonna keep his promises.’”

Dani looked at him, anxious yet afraid to hear the rest of the story.

“Finally Mr. Collins tells me he’s sorry, but he’s gonna has to sell our babies. And I tells him, No sir, you can’t.’ He never heard me talk like that. Didn’t slap me, just stared at me, tryin’ to measure if there was a line you could cross even with a po’ nigger. Well, he’d crossed that line. Finally he gave us a choice. He’d sell two of our family. But we could choose which two. So we gots one day to decide, and we wept all that day. We cried out to God Almighty and asked him to help us. We begged him to let our family be together.”

“But…he didn’t answer?” Dani said.

“Oh, yes he did, chile, he surely did.”

“But—”

“Sure enough, we’s all here together, just like we prayed for, now ain’t we? You hasn’t met Abe and Ruth yet, they been busy since you came, but they’s here all right. What better place than this one? Now, the answer to my prayer took a tad bit longer than I wanted. But Elyon doesn’t always do it our way, now does he?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Dani said. “So Mr. Collins sold off part of your family?”

“We chose to have Nancy and Ruth stay at the Collins place, because they’d be safer, I thought. At least nobody was rapin’ the slave women there. Abraham and I was hauled off to an old plantation outside Louisville. Them peoples didn’t seem to care much ’bout how us slaves grieved when they split up our families.”

Dani watched Zeke and Nancy and Abraham and Ruth torn out of each other’s arms and the man and boy pushed into the back of a wagon. It rode off leaving a trail of dust covering a weeping Nancy on her knees, huddling next to little Ruth.

“Knowin’ we’d be parted,” Zeke said, “we set up a meeting place not far from the Collins plantation. I told Nancy that one year later to the day I’d do anything to get me and Abe there.”

“Did you make it?”

“Well, we made it to a different meetin’ place. But it wasn’t a year later I came, it was six. And then it was fifteen more years after that before Nancy made it. She always was one to run late!” Zeke laughed uproariously.

“You met again…here?”

“Yes’m, we surely did. Can you imagine a better place? And Abe and Ruthie met us too, in their own time.” Zeke stared toward the throne on which the Carpenter sat. The liberated slave’s eyes gleamed just like Dani’s father’s. “Come with me, Dani. I’s gonna take you to meets some folk. For starters, Darla and Big Sam and Little Sam.”

“And then?”

“Well, I think she’s comin’ back soon from Elyon’s mission. And soon as she does, I’m gonna introduce you to somebody who looks a lot like you. Your grandma, my precious darlin’ Ruth.”