Nowhere Is a Place (19 page)

“Ooooh, Scratch, you done found me,” Willie whispered, his mind already failing him. And he squeezed his eyes tightly shut and mumbled words he’d heard the old women whisper on Sunday mornings.

“Baaa-aaaa,” responded the creature.

Willie, perplexed, slowly opened one eye and then the other.

“Goat? A goddamn goat?” he said out loud to the pink eyes that blinked back at him.

Broad daylight, and Willie walking right out into the open found himself surrounded by twenty goats grazing on the dead grass.

Some looked at him and scurried a few feet away, switching their tails as they went.

Willie propped his hands on his hips and laughed. “Goats!”

* * *

More scurrying and pink eyes watchful as Willie walks slowly toward a kid whose mother has allowed fear to force her more than ten yards away from it.

Willie bends toward it, extends an empty hand, and begins making kissing sounds with his mouth.

The kid’s tail switches nervously and it skips closer to its mother.

Willie can wait. He looks at the sky, and the sun promises him at least three more hours of light. Willie peers down the road, listens hard for hooves, and hears nothing. He can wait. Patience, he knows, is a virtue.

An hour of just sitting as still as a stone until the goats wander back toward him, skittish though, hunger outweighing their fear, and they drop their heads and attention away from Willie and begin chomping at the dead grass again.

Another hour, the light fading fast, and Willie’s heartbeat is so slow, it can’t be felt in his chest or heard in his ears, and his toes are frozen—those and his hands—and he prays that his fingers won’t fail him when it comes time to act on the plan he’s put together in his mind.

Another thirty minutes and a kid close to Willie’s shoe is sniffing at the sole, licking at the leather before it takes its first nibble of the worn hide.

Willie’s mind says,
Now!
but his body takes its sweet time, and it’s a full minute before his hands spring out and grab hold of the kid’s neck.

The snapping sound sends the other goats scrambling toward a mound of dirt that Willie thought must be a beautiful sight in the spring, carpeted in green and bursting with color. He smiles and pulls from his pocket small knife, which he uses to slice open the goat’s belly.

Steam rushes out of the open carcass and turns misty in the cold air; then Willie shoves both of his hands into the kid’s bloody, hot organs and sighs with relief.

Hands warm now, his hunger jumps up and kicks him in the gut and, God help him, Willie bends his head and dines on the intestines, the heart, and the liver like the animal his slave master had constantly reminded him he was.

Little good it does him—the blood, the taste of the flesh, the very act alone makes him puke up every bite he’s taken in. Not to mention the “Whoa!” from close by and the “Hey, nigger, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” along with the bullet that cuts the dirt by his shoe and sends Willie running.

Now here he is, looking back on four days of walking, goat’s blood stiff on his clothes and flaking off of his hands, hunger beating at his stomach. Frigid cold tearing at his skin, stealing all the feeling out of him, and death somewhere close by watching and waiting to pounce.

Willie is aware of all of these things but not the curl of smoke coming from the chimney of a small house to his left.

Not aware of or even imagined before his eyes flutter closed and he falls face forward to the ground.

* * *

Waking to warmth made him think of hell, and he knew he would die another death if he opened his eyes and saw the devil looking down at him. The murmuring he heard could be words, but Willie didn’t know what language was spoken in hell and so he concentrated on the smells that
s
wirled around him: beans, salt pork, fried bread.

He couldn’t tell where his hands were, if he even had hands, and what of
his feet? His head hurt and
his mouth pulsed. His eyes remained shut.

“Suce, heat up some water and let me get at these here feet again.”

“Yessum.”

Kindling being stirred in a hearth. A woman’s voice, words he knew.

Heaven, maybe?

A door opens and a rush of cold air passes over him.

“He a sight, ain’t he?”

A man’s voice.

“Sure is.”

“Them his shoes?”

“Yep.”

“Look like he walked clear ’cross the country in them.”

“Seem so.”

“Gotta name?

“He was passed out cold ’long the road.”

“Who found him?”

“Spin.”

“What he doing out? I thought he had the fever.”

“Can’t say. Fever left him days ago.”

“Hmmm.”

Willie chances it. He understands the words, smells the beans and
salt pork, feels the warmth. He opens his eyes.

Two faces, both lined and dark.

The man wears a beaten, wide-brimmed straw hat. Big man, broad nose.

The woman is small and old, time chipping away at her spine, leaving her stooped. Head-tied and pink-lipped, she looks down on him with wary eyes.

“You got a name, boy?” The man touches the woman’s shoulder and she disappears behind him.

Simple space. A tin roof; Willie supposes that it points, slopes, and then goes flat for four or more feet.

He opens his mouth, but only squeaks.

“Get him some water.”

Willie hears the footfalls off to his left. Sturdy floor, he thinks. The wood plank walls end in sharp corners. A saltbox house. He’d helped build one of these when he was on the plantation. His eyes flutter with the memory.

“Here.” The man’s big hands are gentle as they ease Willie up and help him to drink the water. The first few sips burn his throat, but then a whole desert comes to light in his gut and he has three more glasses before he gives his name.

“Willie.”

“Where you all come from?”

“Kentucky.”

“Where you all headed?”

“Myanmar.”

“Myanmar? What for?”

“Don’t know, got an inkling about it.”

Eyes swing.

“You sure that’s where you headed?”

Willie nods his head.

They’d heard stories about Myanmar. Niggers being whipped in the street, strung from trees, burned alive. The devil and his disciples lived in Myanmar.

“Niggers ain’t welcome there,” the woman says, and has to untwine his fingers from the glass in order to take it.

“You ain’t got no business there,” the man says.

Young, soft, black eyes peer at him from behind the big man. Willie strains his neck and the eyes disappear behind the back of the old woman whose eyes swing and then slant.

“Here, neither,” she says. And then, “Go in the bedroom, chile.”

A soundless agreement, shuffling feet. Willie catches sight of the swinging material of a skirt before it disappears around the corner.

“You running?” The question is sudden.

Willie ponders this. He is, in some respect. Running from his past, from death, running toward his future.

“I guess.”

Eyes blink.

“You made it all the way from Kentucky and ain’t run into no paddy rollers?”

Willie’s mouth twitches. “Ain’t no need for them no more,” he says slowly.

“What you saying, boy?”

Willie cocks his head and stares hard at the faces that look down on him before he speaks again. “War over, slavery done.”

Faces go blank with confusion.

“What’s that?”

“Lincoln freed all of us niggers.”

Faces unfold and then the lips smile unbelievingly. The old woman waves a hand at him. “You must got fever, boy,” she mutters.

“No ma’am; feeling weak, but not feverish.”

Fire burning in the hearth, crackling, sending off flaming bits of ash that curl and fade on the floor.

“Foolish, then,” the big man whispers, but leans in closer. “You crazy, right?” he says, but Willie can hear in his voice that he hopes he’s not.

“Nah, sir,” Willie says, shaking his head. “I got all my senses.” He uses his index finger to press against his temple.

The big man glances at the old woman. There’s shuffling of feet, muttering, and soft sighs.

“You sure?”

“Ay-yuh,” Willie says, astonished at their ignorance. “You didn’t know?”

“How long?” the big man barks at him.

Willie flinches. “Since June.”

An hour passes, maybe two, and the grilling continues. Willie’s throat goes dry as he recounts his story, but the old woman refuses to give him more water, or can’t; she seems frozen by his words.

The big man removes his hat and fans his face with the brim. “My Lord,” he utters, and looks down at his feet.

When the old woman finally gives him another cup of water, her hand trembles as she passes it off to him and most of it ends up on Willie’s chest.

Then she turns questioning eyes to the big man, who seems to be void of answers.

The silence is long and stiff. They all remain in their places, pondering something that they can’t just yet share with Willie. He remains silent, empty tin cup in hand, eyes floating over everything and everyone.

A grunt from the man Willie would learn was called Brother ends it all, and time suddenly starts up again. “Take ’im out to the barn,” he says, and the old woman called Laney shows him the way.

It had none of the comforts of the saltbox, but there was a cot, and while the cold made itself known, the extra socks and coat kept it bearable. The horse and its mare didn’t seem to mind, and Willie would make sure to let them both know that nothing like what happened to the goat would happen to them.

* * *

The big house that sat on the hill seemed empty. Slaves and no slave owners? Niggers living on all of this land and no white folk to be seen? Willie shook his head. Maybe things in Georgia went different from Kentucky.

Willie’s eyes were growing heavy, but his stomach turned over. The plate of food they’d given him had burned away as quickly as it had dropped down inside of him, and now he felt ravenous.

He crept outside of the barn and stood in the center of the enclosed pen and stared up at the moon. Moving left, his eyes fell on the big house again and caught hold of a flicker of light traveling between the windows before blooming and then disappearing.

“Haints,” he muttered before helping himself to what was left in the mare’s trough.

___________________

“He telling a tale, been running too long, mind all mixed up and confused,” Laney says.

Brother nods his head. “Could be, could be not,” he says thoughtfully.

“You believe him?” Laney says in shock.

“He ain’t got no reason to lie to us.”

“Crazy is reason enough,” Laney says, slapping her palm down on the table and then turning her head toward the window that looks out on the barn.

“Maybe.” Brother’s words are soft. “But that might ’splain why we ain’t seen hide nor hair of a white man in months.”

“What you think, they all dead?” Laney’s tone is mocking.

“Not all but maybe most.”

“You just as crazy as he is!” Laney shouts, and folds her arms across her breasts. “White men everywhere, take the hand of God to wipe the earth clean of ’em.”

Brother turns somber eyes on Laney. “Maybe that’s just what has happened.”

Laney shakes her head in amazement. “That ain’t what has happened; the boy done told you he seen ’em everywhere from Kentucky to Georgia.”

Brother smirks.

“Sooner or later, one gonna show up right here,” Laney says, and taps the wooden table for emphasis.

* * *

Willie makes five.

New moons come and go before Willie gets the whole story and the viewing.

Days stretch, and warm and wild crocuses lay a purple blanket across the land. Birds are singing and the sun is smiling down on them, warming even Laney’s chilly disposition toward him.

Willie helps with the chores, does whatever he’s told to do, says little and asks even less, but he’s sure to keep his eyes peeled for a white man coming by to collect, show up and stare, ride up and point out what gotta be done next. But none ever come and the chores go on day in and day out like someone’s watching. Maybe, Willie thinks, they doing it for God.

* * *

“So Laney your mama?” he chances and asks one day. He’s been wondering all along, wanting to know who’s kin and who’s not.

“Godsend mother,” Brother says and looks real hard at a knothole in the wood. “My real mama died some time back.”

“Indian?” Willie ventures, having seen the curl and straight of the man’s head whenever he thinks to remove his hat.

“Yeah.”

“And the girl?” Willie hopes he doesn’t sound too eager.

“My sister.”

“Godsend?”

“Nah, blood.”

Nothing for some time, then Brother giving him a wry smile and asking, “Ain’t you gonna ask about Spin?”

* * *

And what of the big house on the hill?

He wanted to ask. He found himself staring at it for long periods of time. It was hard to ignore, but the rest of them managed to do it. As far as he could tell, their eyes hardly wandered up that hill and to the mansion that stood there.

He’d never been warned to stay away from the house, but the manner in which they pretended it wasn’t there made Willie feel that he should act accordingly.

___________________

By June they had torn down and rebuilt the pigpen more times than Willie could count. Well, he’d stopped counting when he ran out of fingers and toes. That frustrated him—that and the sun beating down on his neck.

Winter had kept him humble, spring made him grateful, but this early summer heat just made him feel mad for some reason, so when Brother told Willie to pull down the east side of the pen again, Willie had to loose his tongue and ask, “What for?”

Brother didn’t say a word, just used his hammer to point to the east side as he strolled past Willie and out toward the field.

Willie watched him for a while and then he thought about the hot meals and not-too-cold barn. He thought about Suce’s soft eyes. He could do a lot worse than building, tearing down, and rebuilding a pigpen.