James McBride - The Good Lord Bird

“What’s your marse’s name?”

I couldn’t think of nothing, so I said, “Fred.”

“What?”

“Just Fred.”

“You call your marse Fred or just Fred or Marse Fred or Fred sir?”

Well, that tied me in knots. I should’a named Dutch, but Dutch seemed a long way away, and I was confused.

“Come with me,” he said.

We started off through the woods away from the creek, and I followed on foot. We hadn’t gotten five steps when I heard Fred holler. “Where you going?”

The man stopped and turned. Fred was standing dead in the middle of the creek, his squirrel gun cocked to his face. He was a sight to see, big as he was, frightening to look at with dead intent, and he weren’t no more than ten yards off.

“She belong to you?” the man said.

“That ain’t your business, mister.”

“You Pro Slave or Free State?”

“You say one more thing, and I’mma deaden where you is. Turn her loose and git your foot up that road.”

Well, Fred could’a burned him, but he didn’t. The feller turned me loose and trotted off, still holding my squirrel rifle.

Fred climbed out of the water and said, “Let’s come off this creek and head back toward where the others is. It’s too dangerous out here. There’s another creek on the other side from where they left.”

We went back to where the horses were tied off, mounted, and rode a half hour or so north, this time to a clearing near where another, bigger creek widened out. Fred said, “We can catch a duck or a pheasant or even a hawk here. It’s gonna be dark soon and they’ll be collecting their last vittles of the day. Stay here, Little Onion, and don’t make a sound.” He dismounted and left, still holding his squirrel rifle.

I stuck close to the spot where he left me and watched him move through the woods. He was smooth business out there, quiet as a deer, not a sound come out of him. He didn’t go far. Maybe thirty yards off, I could see his silhouette in the trees, then he spotted something up in a long birch that stretched skyward. He raised his rifle and let a charge go, and a huge bird fell to the earth.

We run up on it and Fred paled. It was a fat, beautiful catch, black, with a long red-and-white stripe on its back, and a strange, long beak. It was a nice bird, plenty meat, about twenty inches long. Wingspan must’ve been nearly a yard. Big as any bird you’d want to eat. “That’s a hell of a hawk,” I said. “Let’s move away from here just in case somebody heard the shot.” I moved to grab it.

“Don’t touch it!” Fred said. He was pale as a ghost. “That ain’t no hawk. That’s a Good Lord Bird. Lord!”

He sat on the ground, just ripped up. “I never saw it clear. I only had one shot. See that?” He held up the squirrel rifle. “Damn thing. Only got one shot. Don’t take much. Man sins without knowing, and sins come without warning, Onion. The Bible says it. ‘He who sins knows not the Lord. He does not know Him.’ You think Jesus knows my heart?”

I growed tired of his mumbling confusion ’bout the Lord. I was hungry. I was supposed to be getting away from the fighting and here I was held up by more of the same. I was irritated. I said, “Stop worrying. The Lord knows your heart.”

“I got to pray,” he said. “That’s what Father would do.”

That wouldn’t do. It was almost dark now, and the others hadn’t caught up to us yet, and I worried that the shot would draw somebody. But there ain’t nothing to tell a white man, or any man, who’s made up his mind to a prayerful thing. Fred set there on his knees and prayed just like the Old Man, fluffering and blubbering to the Lord to come to his favor and this and that. He weren’t nearly as good as his Pa in the praying department, being that he weren’t able to attach one thought to the next. The Old Man’s prayers growed up right before your eyes; they was all connected, like stairways running from one floor to another in a house, whereas Fred’s prayers was more like barrels and clothing chests throwed about a fine sitting room. His prayers shot this way and that, cutting hither and yon, and in this way an hour passed. But it was a precious hour which I’ll tell you about in a minute. After he gived up them various mumblings and jumblings he gently picked up the bird, gived it to me, and said, “Hold it for Pa. He’ll pray on it and favor God to fix the whole thing up righteously.”

I grabbed it, and as I done, we heard horses coming fast on the other side of the creek. Fred snapped over his shoulder, “Hide quick!”

I had just enough time to jump into the thickets holding that bird as several horses splashed across the creek, came straight up the bank, and busted through the thickets and to where Fred was standing. They came straight on him.

There wasn’t nowhere to run, for we had tied our horses a quarter mile off, and they’d come from that very direction, which meant they likely found our mounts anyway. I had just enough time to dive deep into the thickets before they sloshed up the bank and marched up to Fred. He stood there smiling, wearing all his hardware, but his seven-shooters wasn’t drawn. The only gun he had in his hand was that squirrel gun, and it was spent.

They sloshed up the bank right to him quick as you can tell it. There were maybe eight of ’em, redshirts, and riding in the lead of ’em was Rev. Martin, the feller Fred drawed on back at the Old Man’s camp.

Now Fred was thick, but he weren’t an altogether fool. He knowed how to survive in the woods and do lots of outdoor things. But he weren’t a quick thinker, for if he was, he’d’a drawed his heater. But two or three thoughts at once was more than he could handle. Plus he didn’t recognize the Reverend right off. That cost him.

The Reverend was riding with two men on either side of him bearing six-shooters and the rest behind him heavily armed. The Rev hisself wore his two shiny pearl-handled numbers on his belt, which he likely stole off some dead Free Stater, for he hadn’t had them things before.

He rode right up to Fred while his men surrounded Fred, cutting off his escape.

But still Fred didn’t get it. Fred said, “Morning.” He was smiling. That was his nature.

“Morning,” the Reverend said.

Then Fred’s mind checked itself. You could see his head cock to the side, something whirring in there. He stared at the Reverend. He was trying to figure out whether he knowed him.

He said, “I know you ... ,” and quick as you can tell it, without a word, the Reverend, setting atop his horse, drawed his shooter and took him. Blasted Fred right in the chest, buttered him with lead and powder, and the blessed God, the ground caught him. Fred twitched a few times and breathed his last.

“That’ll teach you to draw on me, you apple-headed, horse-thieving, nigger-loving bastard,” the Reverend said. He come down off his horse and took every single gun Fred was wearing. He turned to the others. “I got me one of Brown’s boys,” he said proudly. “Got the biggest one.”

Then he throwed his eyes to the woods ’round him, where I was hiding. I held tight to where I was. Didn’t move an inch. He knowed I was close.

“Look for the second rider,” he barked. “There was two horses.”

Just then another feller spoke up, a feller sitting on a horse behind the Rev. “You ain’t had to shoot him cold-blooded like that,” he said.

Rev. Martin turned to the man. It was the feller that had caught me in the woods just a while before. He was still holding my squirrel gun, and he weren’t pleased.

“He would’a returned the favor,” the Reverend said.

“We could’a exchanged him for one of ours,” the feller said.

“You wanna change out prisoners or fight a war?” the Rev said.