James McBride: The Good Lord Bird

“I ain’t master to you, Onion,” he said. “You just as free as the birds run.” He turned to Frederick and said, “Fred, take my horse and teach Onion here to ride, for the enemy will be hurrying our way soon. There’s a war on. We can’t tarry.”

That was the first I heard the word war . First I ever heard of it, but at the moment my mind was on my own freedom. I was looking to jump back to Dutch’s.

Fred led me to Dutch’s old pinto, the one me and the Old Man was riding, prompted me on it, then led my horse along by the reins, holding it steady, while riding his. As we rode, Fred talked. He was a chatterbox. He was twice my age, but I seen right off that he had half a loaf, if you get my drift; he was slow in his mind. He had a bubble in his head. He chatted about nothing, for he couldn’t fix his mind on one thing more than a minute. We plodded along like that for a while, him blabbing and me quiet, till he piped up, “You like pheasant?”

“Yes, massa,” I said.

“I ain’t your massa, Onion.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, for I was of the habit.

“Don’t call me sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay. Then I’ll call you missy.”

“Okay, sir.”

“If you keep calling me sir, I’ll keep calling you missy,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

This went on for several minutes, us sirring and missying one another, till finally I got so hot I wanted to take a rock and bust him across the head with it, but he was white and I was not, so I busted into tears again.

My tears throwed Fred. He stopped the horse and said, “I am sorry, Henrietta. I takes back every word I said.”

I quit bawling and we headed forth again, pacing slowly. We rode about a half mile down the creek where the cottonwood thickets stopped. The clearing met woods near a set of rocks and wide trees. We dismounted and Fred looked around the area. “We can leave the horses here,” he said.

I seen a chance to jump. My mind was on escape, so I said, “I got to toilet, but a girl needs a bit of privacy.” I near choked calling myself a member of the opposite nature, but lying come natural to me in them times. Truth is, lying come natural to all Negroes during slave time, for no man or woman in bondage ever prospered stating their true thoughts to the boss. Much of colored life was an act, and the Negroes that sawed wood and said nothing lived the longest. So I weren’t going to tell him nothing about me being a boy. But everybody under God’s sun, man or woman, white or colored, got to go to the toilet, and I really did have to answer nature’s call. Since Fred was slow as gravy in his mind, I also seen a chance to jump.

“’Deed a girl does need her privacy, Little Onion,” he said. He tied our horses to a low-hanging tree branch.

“I hopes you is a gentleman,” I said, for I had seen white women from New England speak in that manner when their wagon trains stopped off at Dutch’s and they had to use his outdoor privy, after which they usually come busting out the door coughing with their hair curled like fried bacon, for the odor of that thing could curdle cheese.

“I surely am,” he said, and walked off a little while I slipped behind a nearby tree to do my business. Being a gentleman, he walked off a good thirty yards or so, his back to me, staring off at the trees, smiling, for he never weren’t nothing but pleasant in all the time I knowed him.

I ducked behind a tree, done my business, and busted out from behind that tree running. I come out flying. I leaped atop Dutch’s cockeyed pinto and spurred her up, for that horse would know the way home.

Problem was, that beast didn’t know me from Adam. Fred had led her by the reins, but once I was on her myself, the horse knowed I weren’t a rider. She raised up and lunged hard as she could and sent me flying. I went airborne, struck my head on a rock, and got knocked cold.

When I come to, Fred was standing over me, and he weren’t smiling no more neither. The fall had throwed my dress up around my head, and my new bonnet was turned ’round backward. I ought to mention here that I had never known nor worn undergarments as a child, having been raised in a tavern of lowlifes, elbow benders, and bullyboys. My privates was in plain sight. I quickly throwed the dress back down to my ankles and sat up.

Fred seemed confused. He weren’t all the way there in his mind, thank God. His brains was muddy. His cheese had pretty much slid off his biscuit. He said, “Are you a sissy?”

“Why, if you have to ask,” I said, “I don’t know.”

Fred blinked and said slowly, “Father says I ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, and lots of things confuse me.”

“Me too,” I said.

“When we get back, maybe we can put the question to Father.”

“’Bout what?”

“’Bout sissies.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” I said quickly, “being that he’s got a lot on his mind, fighting a war and all.”

Fred considered it. “You’re right. Plus, Pa don’t suffer foolishness easily. What do the Bible say ’bout sissies?”

“I don’t know. I can’t read,” I said.

That cheered him. “Me neither!” he said brightly. “I’m the only one of my brothers and sisters who can’t do that.” He seemed happy I was dumb as him. He said, “Follow me. I’mma show you something.”

We left the horses and I followed him through some dense thickets. After pushing in a ways, he shushed me with his finger and we crept forward silent. We followed a thick patch of bushes to a clearing and he froze. He stood silent like that, listening. I heard a tapping noise. We moved toward it till Fred spotted what he wanted and pointed.

Up at the top of a thick birch, a woodpecker hammered away. He was a good-sized feller. Black and white, with a touch of red around him.

“Ever seen one of them?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t know one bird from the next.”

Fred stared up at it. “They call that a Good Lord Bird,” he said. “It’s so pretty that when man sees it, he says, ‘Good Lord.’”

He watched it. That stupid thing darn near hypnotized him, and I had a mind to break for it then, but he was too close. “I can catch or trap just about any bird there is,” he said. “But that one there ... that’s an angel. They say a feather from a Good Lord Bird’ll bring you understanding that’ll last your whole life. Understanding is what I lacks, Onion. Memories and things.”

“Whyn’t you catch it, then?”

He ignored me, watching through the thick forest as the bird hammered away. “Can’t. Them things is shy. Plus, Father says you ought not to believe in baubles and heathen stuff.”

How do you like that? Stuffed in my pocket was the very sack his own Pa gived me with his own baubles and charms, including a feather that looked like it come off that very creature we was staring at.

I had my eye on jumping, and since he was loony, I figured to confound him further and keep his mind off seeing I was a boy, and also give me a better chance to get away. I rummaged through my small gunnysack and pulled out that very same feather his Pa gived me and offered it to him. That floored him.

“Where’d you get that?”

“I ain’t allowed to say. But it’s yours.”

Well, that just knocked him flat. Now, truth is, I didn’t know whether that thing come from a Good Lord Bird or not. His Pa said it did, but I didn’t know whether his Old Man told the truth or not, for he was a kidnapper, plus white folks was full of tricks in them days, and I was a liar myself, and one liar don’t trust another. But it seemed close enough. It was black, had a bit of red and white in it. But it could’a come from an eagle or a plain hummingbird for all I know. Whatever it was, it pleased Fred something terrible and he aimed to return the favor. “Now I’mma show you something special,” he said. “Follow me.”