Peter Abrahams - Last of the Dixie Heroes

“You must have happened sometimes,” she said.

“So I’m authentic too?”

“Oh, yes,” Lee said. He felt her lips on his cheek, the side of his neck, against his ear. “That’s the whole point.”

Roy cooled off. Heat must have been shimmering up from their bodies. He thought he could hear the waterfall.

When Roy awoke, Lee was sitting in one of the window spaces, reading the diary. “Fell out of your pocket,” she said. “Hope you don’t mind.”

Roy didn’t mind. “Who’s Zeke?” he said.

“His body man-doesn’t he say that somewhere?” Lee turned the pages.

“Is that like a bodyguard?”

Lee looked at him over the diary. “Not exactly.”

“Then what?”

“More like a personal servant.”

“A paid servant?”

“No.”

Roy went over, read: takin Zeke bac fer boddyman sed godbis an wen up to th montan Hows fer godbis up thar.

“The standard of literacy is pretty typical of the period,” Lee said.

Roy didn’t care about that. Zeke wen asckulcin but I larnt him difernt.

He could feel Lee’s eyes tracking along with his. This time she had nothing to say. Roy walked out the back of the Mountain House, past the fire pit, still smoking, and into the slave quarters. He had a careful look around, saw what he’d already seen, the rusted iron ball lying in the weeds that overgrew the dirt floor; the plant world reclaiming everything, but maybe not fast enough.

A crow cawed, rose up out of the woods behind the slave quarters, hunched over, wings beating furiously. Roy went outside, crossed to the back of the plateau where the mountain began rising again, found what might have been a trail, might have been a chance series of openings between the trees, started up. The air was still and warm, full of insect sounds. Roy was sweating and a little thirsty by the time the ground leveled and he stepped into a clearing the size of a baseball infield.

Roy thought of it as a clearing because there were no trees, but chest-high plants grew everywhere. A man with his back to Roy was hard at work chopping them down with a machete and stuffing them into a plastic trash bag. His tightly curled hair gleamed with sweat and his T-shirt, with a picture of Bob Marley on the back, was soaked through. He was singing a song under his breath, but Roy was close enough to catch it.

“Yes I’m gonna walk that Milky White Way

Oh Lord, some of these days.”

Roy stopped breathing. The man must have sensed that, because he immediately stopped singing and spun around. He saw Roy, dropped the machete, raised his hands high.

“Don’ shoot.”

Roy hadn’t realized he was carrying the gun, didn’t even remember picking it up off the blanket. He almost said, Don’t worry, it’s not real, but of course that wasn’t true. “Why would I do a thing like that?” he said.

“Seen you DEA types get testy after one of these long climbs,” the man said. He looked more like Chuck Berry than Bob Marley, although he was lighter skinned than either. “I would too, hot day like this’n, specially with the money they’re payin’ you.”

“I’m not a DEA type.”

“FBI? BATF?” The man squinted a little at him; Roy was still in the shade. “Can’t say as I recognize the outfit.”

“You’re safe with me,” Roy said.

“I’m not feelin’ safe, some reason,” the man said.

“Put your hands down.”

The man lowered his hands, but slowly, and kept them open toward Roy. “Couldn’t be a hunter, this not bein’ huntin’ season,” he said. “ ‘Less you’re not against bendin’ a rule or two, the kind that don’t make no sense, anyways. Which case, you and me have somethin’ in common.”

Roy moved into the clearing, glanced around, fingered a leaf of one of the plants. “How long’s all this been growing here?”

“Since’t Adam and Eve. It’s nature.”

“I meant organized like this. A plot.”

“Ain’t no plot,” said the man, his voice rising and turning a little querulous. “Thought you wasn’t law enforcement.”

“I’m not.”

The man still looked worried. “Don’t suppose you could be provin’ that somehow.”

“By flashing a badge that says ‘not the police’?” Roy said.

The man laughed, revealing a mouthful of stained teeth. “There’s the trouble with this… hobby,” he said, glancing around the clearing. “Sometimes you get to thinkin’ not quite right. It’s a relaxin’ hobby, don’t get me wrong, but the thinkin’ part can lose its straightness, you know what I mean.”

“Yes,” Roy said.

“Name’s Ezekiel, by the way.” He held out his hand.

Roy shook it. “Roy.”

“Happy to know you, Roy. Truth is, I’m feelin’ relief you turn out to be whoever you turn out to be, what with this not even really bein’ harvest time yet, and the crop off to such a promisin’ start.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Sweet,” said Ezekiel. “Sweet, sweet music to my ear.” He took out a cigar-size joint. “Hate to toot our own horn, but we make a fine produc’ here in eas’ Tennessee. You from around these parts, Roy?”

Roy shook his head. “Atlanta.”

“Sure would love to go there one day. See much of Ted Turner?”

“No,” Roy said. “You’re from around here?”

“Time immemorial,” Ezekiel said. He struck a wooden match with his thumbnail, lit the joint; a ball of smoke rose up like the first phrase in a tribal signal. Ezekiel took a big drag, passed the joint to Roy.

Roy had tried marijuana in high school, once or twice in college, not since. None of that was on his mind. His only thought was: Is it authentic? Why wouldn’t it be? Why wouldn’t there have been clearings like this, if not in the time of Adam and Eve, at least in 1863? He took a big drag and felt good right away, big and strong, at one with his uniform, comfortable in his double skin. Then he grew aware of the wooden stock of the gun in his hand, yes, a living thing, as Lee had said, the feel of it another comfort all by itself. He wanted to be shooting things with it, distant things, flying things, hiding things.

“Quality produc’, Roy?” said Ezekiel.

Roy looked at Ezekiel and all at once could not get past the otherness. Their gazes slid past each other, focused elsewhere.

But Roy heard, heard after the sound was gone, the way the y in his name came out when Ezekiel spoke it, almost like pure air, a breeze, the same as when his mother said it, or Curtis. Curtis: whom he’d almost called a dumb nigger. And so what about that almost? He’d had the thought, which was what counted, and worse, was fighting a sick desire to say the word out loud, right now. He handed back the joint.

“You say something, Roy?”

“No.”

“Didn’t catch it, anyways. See them birds up there?”

Roy looked up, saw a V-shaped formation of birds high above.

“Means rain by midnight,” Ezekiel said.

“Doesn’t feel like rain,” Roy said.

Ezekiel laughed, a laugh that got wheezy at the end. “Feel like rain,” he said. “That’s a good one. Like we’re rubbin’ up skin to skin with the weather.” He took another drag, passed the joint to Roy. Roy took one too.

“You married, Roy?”

“I was.”

“Me too. Was and was and was. You understand women, Roy?”

“I don’t even understand the question.”

Ezekiel laughed, wheezed, laughed some more. “Made my day, runnin’ into you like this,” he said, patting Roy on the back. “Never did get your last name, Roy. Should be on a last name basis, now we’s becoming friends.”

“Hill,” said Roy.

“Same as me,” said Ezekiel.

“Same as you?”

“Course, a common name,” said Ezekiel. “Now say it was Schwarzenegger, wouldn’t that be weird?”