Silent Thunder (2 page)

“He's busy running this plantation, is all.”

I fingered the pages of my book. “Does the master call
you
to him on
your
birthday?” I'd never thought to ask Mama that before, but now it seemed such a sensible question.

“No,” Mama said.

“How come?”

“He don't know when my birthday is,” she said softly.

“Why don't you tell him—then he'll know.”

Mama folded her arms tight. “Hush up,” she said.

“You're
always
trying to hush me.”

“That's 'cause you're a bottomless well of questions, child. You run too deep with too many how-comes and why-nots. It's a pestering menace.”

I was holding my book close to me now. As close as breathing, it seemed.

“I just don't want you to make a silly mistake and go bragging to folks about that thing. You know how talkedy you can get.”

I didn't tell Mama that Rosco had promised to learn me letters, had promised to learn me to read with the book he'd stolen from young Master Lowell.

Rosco was the only one of us who had been learned to read. “That boy knows way too much for a thirteen-year-old child,” Mama says.

Rosco taught himself to know words. He did it by listening to Lowell, Master Gideon's boy, practicing his lessons. You see, Rosco was Lowell's own body servant; Rosco
belonged
to Lowell. He polished Lowell's shoes,
shined his door brass, put Lowell's bedwarmer between his sheets when the colder months came on, mucked the stall where Dash, Lowell's gelding, stayed, and did any other chores Missy Claire, the master's wife, wanted him to do for Lowell.

It wasn't regular for a boy to have a slave child of his own. Heck, Lowell couldn't have been no more older than Rosco—twelve, maybe thirteen years old. But I heard Mama tell her friend Thea that Master Gideon gave Rosco to Lowell because Lowell was sickly. He had some kind of breathing trouble, which was why he was always wheezing like a pup, hungry for air. Lowell's wheezy breathing could have been why he was so skinny—and so
pale.

Anyway, ever since Miss Rose McCracken, the white teacher lady, had been coming to Master Gideon's study to learn Lowell to read, Rosco had been stealing looks at Lowell's lesson books. Rosco said whenever he could hear Lowell reading out loud, he listened real close. Then later, when Lowell was out in the courtyard taking his afternoon refreshment, Rosco looked at Lowell's lesson books and, one by one, had learned the letters for himself. Rosco said he first started doing this two summers ago.

When I asked Rosco how he learned so good, he said it took him many days of quick, eye-dartin' glances before he began to catch on, and more time on top of that before he could fully read. He said the dim light of
Lowell's room forced him to look real hard at them letters till they started to make sense—till they grew into full-out words.

Well, once, after Lowell was done with one of his lesson books—Rosco said it was a book called
The Clarkston Reader
— Lowell set it on the shelf in Master Gideon's study. One day Rosco swiped the book right off the shelf, slid it under his shirt, brought it back to the quarters, and taught himself to read it full and well—from the very front to the last page!

Then Rosco got the boldness of a bloodhound in him, swiped himself a page from Lowell's writing tablet, and learned himself to make letters.

When Mama found out Rosco had stolen from the master's son, she begged him to put the stuff back. Her eyes had tears in them—that's how serious she was about it. But Rosco, he said no. He went against Mama, just like that.

By the time night fell, the dander had settled between Mama and me. Mama said, “I know we have our share of clashes, Summer. And I have true concern about that book. But I'm not one to deprive a child of her birthday present. You can have the book so long as you promise to keep it hid away.”

“I promise, Mama,” I said.

Later, after everyone had gone to sleep, Rosco came close to my pallet and whispered to me, “Now it's your turn, Summer. It's your turn to learn letters, and I'm
gonna teach you. That's your real birthday present from me—from your brother Ros, the smartest slave boy on Parnell's place.”

Then Rosco tucked Lowell's hard, thin book under my head. “Dream big, now,” he said. “We'll start our lessons soon. Happy birthday, Summer.”

I fell asleep happy and itchin' to get started with my lessons. But I kept hearing Mama's warning about my learning book.

“. . . keep it hid away.”

August 24, 1862

T
HE BIT
.

It's choking me.

Choking back my breath.

Only breathing I can do is through my nose. But that breathing hurts. It hurts to smell the leather and iron, soaked with the foam from my spit.

Then comes the worst of it. He's yanking on the bit. Stretching my lips and jaws into an ugly, messed-up grin. Snatching back my neck. Sending my eyes rolling. Rolling bald and blinded, way far back in my head.

I can't fight the bit. Ain't never been able to break free from its iron hold.

I get still and quiet. Throat burning. Limbs gone to mush.

He's ready to mount me, now that I'm still. Mounts me bareback. Doesn't even bother with the saddle
.

My insides are screaming, “Buck! Buck 'im off!” But I'm goose-flesh all over. Helpless.

Soon his face is down near mine. His mouth right at my ear. The breath on him is hot and stinky—like a sick, mad dog, just come from slopping swamp water. Now he's hollering crazy-like, “Come on, nigra boy, take me for a ride!” His boot heels dig hard into my gut. “Giddy-up!” he shouts. And then he's riding me full-out.

I try, best I can, to twist my head back around. Try to see his face. But there ain't no way to twist. He's got me reined up tight.

I know his voice, though. It's the ugly voice of slavery. It's the cruel call of every white man who enjoys his ride on the back of a nigra.

I'm able to see my feet making a slow gallop. My feet are bare. Thick with mud. The longer I look, the more I see they ain't feet at all. My toes have grown together. They've grown hard.

Just as I see them swelling, turning to hooves, I hear Mama calling me, soft and low.

“Rosco! Rosco, child, wake up! You're dreaming haints again.” Mama was holding me to her. Soon as I felt her hands cupping both my cheeks, I knew the ride was over—over for now, at least. These evil dreams haunted my sleep on too many nights. And each time, Mama was there to deliver me from them. “I'm here,” she said. “Easy, now.”

“It was night terrors again, Mama,” I explained, sitting up, trying to shake myself free of the dream.

“Them dreams is just demons,” Mama said. “Don't let 'em get the best of you, child.”

I shifted on my pallet. As much as I liked the
feel-good warmth of Mama's hug, I tried to gently twist free of her hold. Sissies let their mamas hug them in the night. I was thirteen, almost a man. Too old for letting demon dreams scare me.

Still, I listened close to Mama as she told me what to do when haints came to my sleep. “Darkness has a way of making demons seem real,” she said. “When them haints come creepin', petition the Almighty with one word—any word at all—to soothe your soul in that very moment. Say it over and over, till peace comes.”

I sure as heck didn't know how a word could turn back demons, but I nodded when Mama spoke. I nodded like I understood. To my way of thinking, it was Mama herself—Mama's strong arms holding me, that sure way Mama had of talkin'—that drove them demons away from my dreams.

“Best way to feel safe in darkness is to speak words that comfort you,” Mama said.

That morning I went to town to help my friend Clem, Master Gideon's tack slave, load horse-shoeing iron onto the flatbed of the master's wagon. It was then that I spotted me a page from something called
Harper's Weekly
, rustling past my ankles on the dirt. My eyes caught the words
free
and
slave.

You never saw me snatch a scrap of trash off the ground so fast. (I'm good at quick swipes—been swiping
Lowell's tablet paper and books out from Master Gideon's study ever since I was little). Clem was too busy sizing up his shoeing iron to notice me crumpling the
Harper's Weekly
into the seat of my drawers, but I could feel that sharp-cornered ball of paper pressing into the skin on my backside all the way home. Felt like a burr pricking at me, only bigger.

Later, I stole off to the cypress tree that marks the edge of Parnell's land, so's I could get quiet and be alone. I read every one of that paper's words. I even read words I ain't never seen the likes of before that day. Words like
rebellion
and
authorized.
There was one sentence, though, that I read without a hitch. It said that henceforth, all slaves admitted into military service are declared free, along with their wives and children.

It also said that colored men could fight to help turn back slavery, and that President Abraham Lincoln was under something called
coercion
to free
all
black people to destroy the Confederacy, and win the war.

Boy, did that paper get my head to spinning. Me, a solider—fighting to be free. It was a high-headed notion that had crossed my mind a time or two. But seeing it spelled out, all clear and official, put a whirl of excitement in my belly.

To go off to fight would have meant that I'd have to leave Mama and Summer. But it also meant I could
get out from under Master Gideon's rule, and that I wouldn't have to take care of young Master Lowell anymore.

I had promised Summer I'd teach her to read, and goodness knows, she'd have had a hissy fit if I just up and went off and didn't keep my word. And Mama, she thought any kind of fighting was not the Christian way, even though I'd tried telling her that this war was what could make all of us free. When I said that, Mama just shook her head. I swear, sometimes I thought my very own mother liked busting her backbone for white people.

Mama didn't know about me wanting to fight. Neither did Summer. Thea knew, though. She knew everything, without even having to ask. She had what Mama called “the power of intuition.” But to me it was more than that. Thea could see inside people's thoughts. That's why we called her a
seer.
Sometimes she told me what I was thinking before I knew I was thinking it myself. Like on that very afternoon, after I had tucked the scrap from
Harper's Weekly
back in my britches and was coming up to Master Lowell's quarters, thinking on enlisting. Thea met me on the road. She took a solid look at me. “You got the war drum beatin' in you, don't you, child?” was what she said. All's I could do was nod.

I sure wished Thea could put thoughts
in
people's heads instead of just take them out. That way, she
could have stricken Mama with a clear notion that slavery was as far off from any kind of Christian way that there was, that freedom was what the Almighty had in his mind when he created this world.

August 27, 1862

T
HE BOOK
R
OSCO GAVE ME
sure smelled funny. Smelled like a horse saddle and sawdust, all rolled into one. That thick odor filled my nose all night long while I tried to sleep. I tossed on my pallet, thinking about learning letters from Rosco, thinking about how someday I'd be able to make sense of all them black squiggles Mama said don't look like nothing but chicken scratch.

I woke at twilight, before I heard Chief, the cock, crowing. The sun hadn't even opened its eyes yet, but, oh, I was wide awake.

But this morning, as soon as I saw even the smallest crack of light entering the sky, I slid Rosco's book—well, Lowell's book that Rosco swiped—out from under my head and turned it open. Them black squiggles were truly beautiful, all lined up one after the
other, marching like tiny, fancy dancers across the pages. I slowly ran my finger over that parade of squiggles.
“Letters,”
I whispered.

Inside the book's hard front cover there was a swirl of letters, too. Them letters were even fancier still. They were curly, and looked as though they'd been drawn with a quill like the one I saw the master use in his study. Looked like swells of water that slosh and dip in Mama's washbasin, like I could dive right into them and let their eddies take me for a ride.

Soon as I heard Chief's call, I slid my birthday present back under my pallet and closed my eyes, like I was fast sleeping, like I'd never woke. Not long after, Mama came and shook me. “Summer—Summer, child, wake up!”

I didn't like lying to Mama, but today I didn't feel like waking. I wanted to enjoy the dreamy thoughts I was having about the letters in my book. So I faked sleep real good. To my way of thinking, I wasn't really lying (lying's done with words); I was just fooling Mama.