Walter Mosley - 47

"How you feelin', Big Mama?" I cried.

"I feel good, baby. But what happened? Where are we? I remembah that Tobias said that he was gonna beat you and then somebody hit me."

I put my arms around Flore's head and squeezed her. I kissed her face.

"Why you cryin', babychile?" she asked. "Is we dead?"

"Naw, Big Mama. We free."

Flore's eyes opened big as moons. She looked at me and then at the tree branches above her head.

"Free?"

The truth was dawning on both of us. We were free.

Free to do what we wanted to do. Freedom what every slave dreamed about from morning to night and from night to morning, every day of their lives.

Flore's mouth opened and tears flooded her eyes.

"Free?" she said again.

She rocked forward and put her arms around me. When she hugged me I was her little boy again. I grabbed on tight.

In the distance dogs were howling and the smell of smoke was in the air but we didn't care about all of that. We were free under the pale blue morning skies. Even if they caught us and hung us from the tree we hid behind we still had the greatest treasure in the world.

After a while Flore fell asleep too. Nola had taken a sip of Tall John's water earlier on and so she was dozing peacefully.

"Will they find us?" I asked my friend.

"I don't think so," he said. But his brow was furrowed and his words were heavy.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"There's a place about ten miles north of here where my machine lies hidden under the ground. There's an alarm set on it designed to tell me if one of the Calash is somewhere nearby."

"Did that alarm ring?" I asked.

John nodded.

"Maybe it's just some animal rubbed up against it," I suggested, wanting to calm my friend down.

"No. It's Wall. He has found my ship while I was distracted here with you and your friends. He will soon be able to utilize the mechanism and dig the green powder from the earth."

"Then we bettah go an' stop 'im 'fore he can do that," I said, speaking right up. "You helped me save my friends an' now I'll help you."

John smiled then.

"You would help me even though you are just now free?" he asked.

i "If'n we can put Flore an' Champ ovah wit' Eighty-four then I'd be happy that they was free an' you'n me could go an' take that green powder gin away from Andy Pike."

"It will take him a while to open the door," John said. "And together we might be a match for him."

I smiled and shook my friend's hand.

"We gonna do it," I said.

Then John said something that I didn't understand at the time but it struck me as being rather odd.

"Your courage gives me the strength to surrender myself," he said. "All life flows toward the Upper Level."

After that John gave me a drink of his sleeping water and I drifted off into a dream that was not a dream at all.

I was floating in the air among thousands of the tiny, multicolored people of John's race. Then I felt something pulling and pushing at me, and the sky disappeared and there was nothing above but blackness and stars. I was thrown out of the company of the little people and I was flying faster than anything toward one of the glittering stars.

All of a sudden I knew that I wasn't dreaming about me

but about Tall John when he got into his Sun Ship and headed off toward Earth.

The star I was heading for became as big as the sun. It was a wide field of fire that sang with power and majesty, but I wasn't afraid. I slipped through the white flames of the star and came to a place that was pure and red. It was hot but there was a place right in the middle of the star that was black and cold. I/John dove into the center of the blackness and suddenly I/John was somewhere else. I/John was far, far away from my home, and lonely. I/John would never be home again. All of my people were far behind me while I/John would find star after star traveling so far away from my home that it would be as if there was no home for me, anywhere.

I woke up crying for that loneliness. And I knew somehow that the dream was not really a dream but a lesson about my friend Tall John from beyond the stars. His light was a part of me now and it was telling me about my friend, his history, and my mission.

"You awake, boy?" Champ Noland asked.

It was nighttime. Champ and Flore and Tall John and Nola stood around me as I lay on the ground. The moon illuminated my friends.

"Where's Eloise?" I asked.

"We sent her home," John said.

"She was like in a spell," Nola added. "John put the evil eye on her."

I could see that the newly freed slave girl was of two minds about my friend and his powers.

"Yes," John said. "I put her in a trance and suggested that she tell her friends that we saved her and then headed west for the river. That should give us enough time."

I got to my feet and clasped hands with Champ. Then I kissed Mama Flore and touched Nola's arm.

"Are you still willing to help me?" John asked.

"Yes, sir," I said.

Champ was walking just fine and Flore stood on her own two feet with no assistance. I was happy that Nola was with us. I didn't know her very well because even though she was a fellow slave, she'd been in the service of Eloise and so I had hardly ever crossed her path.

I guess I must have been looking at Nola while having these thoughts because she came up to me then.

"Do you trust that boy they call John, Forty-seven?" she asked softly so that no one else could hear.

"Sure, Nola. He's the on'y reason that we got away alive."

"But before he got here nuthin' ever happened that we had to get away from," she said, looking at me with wide, trusting eyes.

I realized that I was like a savior to her because I had saved her life her and her mistress Eloise.

"Do you miss Eloise?" I asked then.

"Miss Eloise?" she asked, repeating the last part of my question. "I s'pose that I will miss her. But I can see how

things will never be the same. An' even though I love her in my heart I'd be afraid evah to sleep in that house again 'cause I might awake to gunshots and fire."

"You were brave out there, fighting Mr. Stewart to save Eloise," I said. "You're a hero too."

Hearing this made Nola's brow furrow.

"But I was scared to death fightin' that man," she said.

"Me too," I added. "Bein' brave, I figger, is just the othah side'a the coin from bein' scared. If whatevah you fightin' ain't bad enough to scare ya then they ain't no reason to be

brave."

Nola smiled at me then and touched my arm. I knew that from that day on we would be the best of friends.

"It's time to go, Forty-seven," Tall John said.

And so we were off through the deep woods that surrounded the cotton plantations.

John was in the lead, holding up an orange light to show

us the way.

"Is that niggah crazy?" Champ asked me along the way. "Holdin' up that light so them white mens can find us."

"We free now, Champ," I remember saying. "There ain't no more masters or niggahs or slaves for us. Just free men and free women no mattah what color they is."

"But what about that light?" he asked.

"Only we can see it, Champ," I said.

I didn't know how I knew that but I knew it was true.

When Flore said that she was hungry John gave us all little squares of food that looked like bread but tasted sweet like cake. After eating a couple of those squares I wasn't hungry at all.

We walked for hours before reaching the field where John saved me with his light. Eighty-four was there waiting for us. She ran up to John and kissed him on the lips and hugged him to her. She was happy to see the rest of us too but Tall John was the only one she had eyes for.

The sun was coming up again and John told everyone that we needed to sleep before making it out of the south. He gave everyone a drink of the special water that he carried in his yellow bag, but only Champ and Flore and Eighty-four and Nola went to sleep.