James McBride - The Good Lord Bird

“I was told in confidence by a colored,” he said.

“Which one?”

“I ain’t telling it,” the judge said. “But it’s a colored that told me—a trusted colored. Known to many of you.”

That gived me the shivers, too, for there weren’t but one colored in town known to many of them. But I throwed that thought from my mind at the moment, for the judge declared right then and there that it was already three days since they found out about the insurrection, and they had better find a way to make Sibonia give up more names, for he feared the insurrection had already gone past Pikesville. They all agreed.

That was the monkey wrench she throwed on ’em, and they couldn’t stand it. They was determined to break her, so they thunk and thunk on it. They broke that night and met the next day and talked and thunk on it some more, and finally, late that night on the second day, the judge himself come up with a scheme.

He called on the town’s minister. This feller ministered to the coloreds in the yard every Sunday evening. Since the plot was favored to murder him and his wife, the judge decided to ask the minister to go to the jailhouse and talk to Sibonia, ’cause the coloreds knowed him as a fair man, and Sibonia was known to respect him.

It was a master idea, and the rest agreed on it.

The judge summoned the minister to the saloon. He was a solid, firm-looking man in whiskers, dressed in a button-down jacket and vest. He was clean by prairie standards, and when they brung him before Judge Fuggett, who told him of the plan, the minister nodded his head and agreed. “Sibonia will not be able to lie to me,” he announced, and he marched out the saloon and headed toward the jailhouse.

Four hours later he staggered back into the saloon exhausted. He had to be helped into a chair. He asked for a drink. A drink was poured for him. He throwed it down his throat and asked for another. He drunk that. Then he demanded another, which they brung him, before he could finally tell Judge Fuggett and the others what happened.

“I went to the jail as instructed,” he said. “I greeted the jailer, and he led me to the cell where Sibonia was held. She was held in the very back cell, the last one. I went inside the cell and I sat down. She greeted me warmly.

“I said, ‘Sibonia, I come to find out everything you know about the wicked insurrection’—and she cut me off.

“She said, ‘Reverend, you come for no such purpose. Maybe you was persuaded to come or forced to come. But would you, who taught me the word of Jesus; you, the man who taught me that Jesus suffered and died in truth; would you tell me to betray confidence secretly entrusted to me? Would you, who taught me that Jesus’s sacrifice was for me and me only, would you now ask me to forfeit the lives of others who would help me? Reverend, you know me!’”

The old minister dropped his head. I wish I could repeat the tale as I heard the old man tell it, for even in the retelling of it, I ain’t tellin’ it the way he rendered it. He was broke in spirit. Something in him collapsed. He bent forward on the table with his head in his hands and asked for another drink. They throwed that on him. Only after he flung it down his throat could he continue.

“For the first time in my ministerial life, I felt I had done a great sin,” he said. “I could not proceed. I accepted her rebuke. I recovered from my shock at length and said, ‘But, Sibonia, yours was a wicked plot. Had you succeeded, the streets would run red with blood. How could you plot to kill so many innocent people? To kill me? And my wife? What have my wife and I done to you?”

“And here she looked at me sternly and said, ‘Reverend, it was you and your wife who taught me that God is no respecter of persons; it was you and your missus who taught me that in His eyes we are all equal. I was a slave. My husband was a slave. My children was slaves. But they was sold. Every one of them. And after the last child was sold, I said, ‘I will strike a blow for freedom.’ I had a plan, Reverend. But I failed. I was betrayed. But I tell you now, if I had succeeded, I would have slain you and your wife first, to show them that followed me that I could sacrifice my love, as I ordered them to sacrifice their hates, to have justice for them. I would have been miserable for the rest of my life. I could not kill any human creature and feel any less. But in my heart, God tells me I was right.’”

The reverend sagged in the chair. “I was overpowered,” he said. “I could not answer easily. Her honesty was so sincere, I forgot everything in my sympathy for her. I didn’t know what I was doing. I lost my mind. I grasped her by the hand and said, ‘Sibby, let us pray.’ And we prayed long and earnestly. I prayed to God as our common Father. I acknowledged that He would do justice. That those deemed the worst by us might be regarded the best by Him. I prayed for God to forgive Sibby, and if we was wrong, to forgive the whites. I pressed Sibby’s hand when I was done and received the warm pressure of hers pressing mine in return. And with a joy I never experienced before, I heard her earnest, solemn ‘Amen’ as I closed.”

He stood up. “I ain’t for this infernal institution no more,” he said. “Hang her if you want. But find someone else to minister to this town, for I am finished with it.”

And with that he got up and left the room.

They didn’t waste time roasting corn when it come to hanging Sibonia’s coloreds. The next day, they started building the scaffold. Hangings was spectacles in them days, complete with marching bands, militia, and speeches and all the rest. On account of Miss Abby losing so much money, being that four of hers was going to the scaffold, they drug the thing out longer while she fussed about it. But it was already decided. It brought plenty money to the town. Business boomed the next two days. It kept me busy running drinks and food all day long for the folks who come from miles around to watch. There was a sense of excitement in the air. Meanwhile, any master who had slaves slipped out of town taking their colored, they disappeared with their colored and stayed away. Them folks wanted to keep their money.

News of that hanging drawed some other troubles, too, for there was a rumor that Free Staters got wind of it and was roaming around to the south. Several raids was said to have gone on. Patrols was sent out. Every settler walked around with a rifle. The town was locked up tight, with roads in and out closed off to everybody unless you was known to the townsfolk. What with the booming business, the rumors, and the sense of excitement in the air that runned everywhere, the actual thing took nearly a full week before they got to the show itself.

But they finally got to it on a sunny afternoon, and no sooner did the people assemble in the town square and the last militia arrive did they drag Sibonia and the rest of them out. They come out the jailhouse in a line, all nine of them, escorted on both sides by rebels and militia. It was a mighty crowd that came to witness it, and if them coloreds had any notions of being rescued by Free Staters at the last minute, all they had to do was look around to see it weren’t going to happen. There was three hundred rebels armed to the teeth at formation around the scaffold, about a hundred of ’em being militia in uniform with bright bayonets, red shirts, and fancy trousers, even a real drummer boy. The colored from all the surrounding areas was brought in too—men, women, and children. They lined ’em up right in front of the scaffold, to let them witness the hanging. To let them see what would happen if they tried to revolt.

It weren’t a long distance from the jailhouse to the scaffold that Sibonia and them walked, but for some of ’em, I reckon it must’ve felt like miles. Sibonia, the one they’d all come to see hang, she come last in line. As the line walked to the steps leading to the scaffold, the feller in front of Sibonia, a young feller, he got timid and collapsed at the bottom of the scaffold stairs as they were led up to the hanging platform. He fell down on his face and sobbed. Sibonia grabbed him by his collar and pulled him to his feet. “Be a man,” she said. He got hisself together and climbed up the stairs.