The Soldier's Lady (20 page)

“My name is Trumbull,” the man answered. “And I didn't bring you here, you chose to come.”

“How you mean dat?”

“I put a choice before you, then you made your own decision. You may leave anytime you like. There are always two roads before us. They are before us every minute of our lives.”

“What does you mean . . . two roads?”

“The two roads between light and darkness. They are the two roads of character that determine what kind of people we become.”

“What kin' er nonsense you talkin' 'bout, mister? I ain't neber heard nuffin' like dat. What wuz dat light I seen las' night?”

“I don't know. I saw no light.”

“When you come out from dat buildin', dere wuz light all roun' you.”

The man called Trumbull smiled. “Well, that is amazing,” he said. “He must have wanted to save you even more than I did.”

“Who you talkin' 'bout? Whatchu mean He must hab wanted ter save me?”

“I'm talking about God, son.”

“What! Now I knows you's crazy! I's gettin' out er
here. Where you put my clothes?”

“I was planning to have them washed this morning. But if you want them back now, I will get them for you.”

He turned to walk away.

“Hey, mister—how'd you know where ter fin' us las' night?”

“I followed you,” answered Trumbull, turning back into the room.

“Why—why you doin' all dis? Why you foller us?”

“I followed
you,
son—only you.”

“Why me?”

“I have my reasons.”

“Well, I want ter know why.”

“What's your name, son?”

“Duff . . . Micah Duff.”

“Well then, young Micah Duff,” said Trumbull, pulling a chair to the bedside. “If you want to know why, I will tell you.—Why don't you have some breakfast from this tray while I tell you about it.”

Trumbull drew in a deep breath and thought a minute. “I have a brother,” he began. “He is older than me. From as long ago as I can remember he was full of anger and hostility. Though we had a gentle and soft-spoken father, my brother became angrier and more rebellious and violent as he grew. He finally left home, got into trouble constantly, and eventually killed a man. He is now in jail and I have not seen him in many years.”

The man paused and stared again deeply at the boy.

“Do you know what all that taught me, young Duff?” he asked.

“What?”

“It taught me that everybody has choices in life. It taught me that the way people make those choices determines the kind of people they become. I realized I did not want to become like my brother—angry, hard, self-centered. Look where it led him. I didn't want that. So I set out to take a different road in my life, a road leading in another direction. It took me a while, but I eventually set out to try to figure out the kind of person God wanted me to be. And that's what I've been trying to learn to be ever since.”

“What's all dat got ter do wiff me?” asked Micah.

“You've got that same choice before you, just like my brother did, just like I did—the choice of what kind of person you want to be.”

“But I want ter know why you followed me.”

Trumbull smiled. “Because of something I saw in your eyes when I ran into you and your gang of street thugs yesterday.”

At the words the boy bristled.

“Dey ain't no gang er thugs, dey's—” he began.

“Come, come, young Duff,” interrupted Trumbull. “You and I will never get anywhere if we're not honest with each other. Those boys you were with were no-good thugs who are going down the road of darkness. The sooner you admit that, the sooner you can understand the difference between that and the road of light and truth. Now do you want to know what I saw in your eyes?”

“Yeah,” he answered.

“I saw a look I remember in my own brother's eyes when he was still young enough to have gone either way. The instant I saw you and looked into your face, it was like
seeing my brother again. There was nothing I could do for him—he made his own choices in life. Those choices took him down the path of darkness. But in that moment, I thought that maybe I could help you.”

“Help me . . . how?”

“Not to become like my brother, or like those toughs you were with.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I don' need any er yo help, mister. Who ax'd you, anyway! What business is it of yers what I's like?”

“Just the business of every human being to his brother.”

“Yeah, well, you ain't my brother and I don' need yo help. I's doin' jes' fine afore you come along.”

“Were you, young Duff? Were you doing just fine? What kind of life were you living, Micah?”

“It wuz all right.”

“Was it? Tell me, Micah, can you read?”

“No, I can't read.”

“You want to learn?”

“Neber thought much 'bout dat.”

Trumbull left the room. He returned half a minute later holding a newspaper. He opened it and held the front page toward where Micah Duff still sat upright in bed.

“Do you know what this says?” he asked, pointing to a caption at the bottom of the page.

Micah shook his head.

“I'll read it for you,” said Trumbull. “It says,
‘One Negro youth stabbed, one shot, three jailed, in midnight robbery attempt thwarted by police'.”

He went on to read the names listed in the brief article.
Young Micah Duff's throat went dry.

“Now, young Duff,” said Trumbull, “are you ready to listen to the difference between light and darkness, between good choices and bad, and between becoming a person of dignity and worth and character or a person of selfishness and anger?”

It was quiet a long time.

When the boy spoke again, his voice was soft and sober.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “I reckon I's ready.”

R
EFLECTIONS

18

T
he cabin fell silent as Micah paused.

The look on his face showed how deep were the memories he had relived in telling us his story. The rain had let up some but was still falling steadily on the roof. The fire in Henry's stove was toasting us, and we were so engrossed that none of us even thought of moving from where we sat listening.

“So that was the beginning of three years spent with the man called Hawk Trumbull,” Micah went on with a smile. “I stayed with him till I was sixteen. After that I joined the army.”

“Dat's da man you tol' me about,” said Jeremiah.

“Yes it is, Jake,” smiled Micah. “Hawk's story is why I said some of the things I did to you back then. I know it wasn't too pleasant, but I felt I had to.”

“How you mean, Duff?”

“Well, you see,” Micah replied, “Hawk's brother's name was Jake too. And so the moment I met you, I
thought of Hawk, and I knew that maybe you'd been sent to me just like I'd been sent to Hawk—to help you face your choices just like Hawk helped me face mine.”

“An' dat you did—though I didn't care much fo it at da time, I's mighty thankful now dat you had da courage ter make me face my anger.”

“Me too,” added Henry.

“I am glad to hear that, Jake,” smiled Micah. “I was the same way too at first. I was thirteen when I met Hawk. You were twelve or thirteen when you and I first met. So we were a lot alike, Jake. Maybe that's one of the reasons I was so hard on you—I saw myself in you. Mine was a terrible life, though at the time I was too young to know anything different. But God will use anything He can to find a way to get His love into us. So He used the dreadful circumstances of my life to accomplish that. When Hawk took me under his wing, I squawked and complained too. But on that first day, after he showed me the newspaper, I realized that he had saved my life.”

“Just like you did mine,” said Jeremiah.

“I reckon so,” nodded Micah. “And knowing that, I realized I could trust him. And once you learn to trust someone, everything changes. When I realized that he wanted only good for me and was willing to do anything, even make sacrifices for me, for my good—that turned my whole life around. I realized that he cared about me, even loved me. He treated me like a son, even though he was white
and I was black. He became like a father to me. Since I never knew my own father and since my mother was dead, I had no one else. I suppose I became a little like him. Even as I talked to you, Jake, I found myself saying some of the very things he had told me.

“He taught me about God, about how God works in our lives, about who God is. He taught me to understand myself and to understand people. He taught me to speak intelligently, taught me to read, to write, even to read whole books, something I would never have dreamed of doing as long as I was stuck in that life I was in. He gave me not only an education about God and reading and writing, but mostly about life and choices and deciding what kind of man I wanted to be. He always put choice in front of me. For Hawk, everything is always reduced to the two Cs
—
choice and character. He always said that light and darkness are before us at every moment—the two paths of life, he called them, and how we allow God to make better people of us.

“And after that, ever since, I have been intrigued by the character and growth of the people I've met. Hawk taught me to look beneath the surface for a person's true character. I saw that people weren't always what they seemed. It made me think a lot about what kind of person I wanted to be myself. If you're observing people for the wrong reasons, it will only lead to judgment. But for the right reasons it helps you grow yourself. That's
what Hawk helped me to see . . . both in others and in myself. He helped me decide what kind of person I wanted to be, just like I told you when we first met, Jake.”

“What waz dat light you seen when dat man come out an' stood dere when you wuz runnin'?” asked Emma.

Micah smiled. “I don't know, Emma. I've often wondered if I had a momentary vision. For a time I wondered if Hawk was an angel. I don't know. Sometimes God does things we do not understand to get our attention and to tell us it's time to look to the light and find out who and what He wants us to be. That was such a moment for me. I can't explain it. God wanted to speak to me. He used Hawk to say what He had to say.”

“Does you think God will eber speak ter me, Mr. Duff?”

“God speaks to everybody, Emma. But He uses different ways to speak to us all. We have to be listening when His voice comes, even though we might not know what it's going to be like. God's voice came to me through Hawk. For you it will be different.”

“Will I see me a vishun, Mr. Duff?”

“Probably not, Emma. Most people don't. But God always speaks, if we're listening.”

“Where is Hawk now?” I asked.

“I don't know,” answered Micah with a sad smile. “I've wanted for years to see him again so that I could thank him for all he did for me. He always
talked about going west, about living off the land. He was fascinated with the high desert. I never quite understood why. He never really seemed like a city man. If anyone could live off the land, it was Hawk. He was remarkable in more ways than just knowing things about God that most folks never discover. But I joined the army and traveled around a lot. Then the war came. I wanted to get back to Chicago to see if I could track him down. But I doubt he's still there. Besides that, he would be getting to be an old man by now. I don't know . . . something tells me he made it out west, and may still be there, for all I know.”

It grew quiet and suddenly we were all aware that the rain had stopped. Almost immediately the whole cabin brightened as sunlight streamed in through the window.

Micah's story had been so interesting and moving. But it left me feeling strangely melancholy. I didn't know why.

Maybe it wasn't his story at all but all of us being here together like we were, listening to everyone else talk about their lives. But I hadn't shared much at all about mine the whole time. All of a sudden it struck me why.

I was different from the rest of them—different from Micah and Henry and Josepha and Emma and Jeremiah. Even though I had been a slave too, my father was white. That set me apart from them.
And the realization made me feel very, very strange.

But I hardly had the chance to think about what it meant. All at once the door opened and there stood Katie.

“So this is where you all disappeared to,” she said. “We got home and there was nobody to be found!”