Charles Johnson - Soulcatcher - And other stories

The other white men looked quizzically at Whittaker, whose cheeks flushed bright red. The muscles around his eyes tightened. He spat a foot from where Tiberius sat, then turned away.

"Yeah," he nodded, "Jemmy had that effect on lots of people. It was like there was somethin' inside him too heavy to move. Excuse me? Come again, Mistah Hutchenson? Was I afraid of Jemmy? Well, yessir, I suppose I was. And… What?…If I was scared, why'd I join up with him? Oh sure, I was just getting to that…" Tiberius leaned forward, stretching out his arms behind him to take the pressure of the ropes off his wrists, then sat back, both feet planted on either side of the crate. "The way it come 'bout was when 1 went to the meetin' place this mornin'. When I got there I was surprised. Wasn't nobody playin' music. Or dancin'. Or carousin'. They was all sittin' together under a tree, and Jemmy was right in the middle. I smelled liquor. I turned round to leave, but Jemmy told me to sit down. They was all starin' at me. 'Bout eighteen field hands. Fellahs you didn't fool with. I'm talkin' 'bout men so tired from that awful work in the rice fields that in the morning some of'em was so stiff and sore they couldn't bend over to put on their shoes. Men that'd cut you just as soon as look at you. And at one time or another, Jemmy'd either gone heads up with every one of 'em, or backed 'em down, or done somethin' to make them respect him. I figured, yeah, maybe I better sit down. Once I found a place, Jemmy went back to talkin'. He talked a long time. Listenin' to him, I felt maybe like I was in church or somethin'. He was citin' all the things — horrible things — white people had done. Like cripplin' runaways. Castratin' 'em. Pesterin' the women. Workin' the field hands 'til they dropped in the water, and all that evil, says Jemmy, was done just so people like Mastah Boswell could have his fresh coffee and grilled fowl every morning. But it didn't have to be that way, Jemmy says. Back in Africa, he knew somethin' different and he never let it go. And we didn't have to either. I heard him say somethin' like 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' He was talkin' 'bout the Spanish down in Florida. Jemmy said if we struck out together, we could make it to St. Augustine."

Tiberius stared past his captors, his eyes narrowing a little, watching something only he could see. "I never thought about bein' free 'til then. Never saw how things could be different than they was until I listened to Jemmy. Everythin' looked changed after he spoke. Like I'd lived alla my life in a cave, believin' the shadows I seen were real until Jemmy held up a light and they all melted away. For the first time I could see what things would be like if the best food we had wasn't leftovers from the mastah's plate, how I wouldn't need to tip around all the time, peepin' and hidin' and worryin' 'bout what white folks might be up to. What I'm sayin' is that if you listened to Jemmy— really listened — you come to see that slavery was mad. Just mad. We was all like folks in one of them madhouses, black and white, thinkin' the way we lived and died was the nat'ral ways of things when, from top to bottom, it was crazy as can be. We were crazy. I felt like a sleeper. A man who'd been dreamin' his whole life. But Jemmy woke me hup. And when I looked at the men Jemmy'd brought together, some of 'em wearin' old shoes fixed up with wire or no shoes at all, I seen they'd follow him anywhere."

From outside two rifle shots exploded, shattering the air. Tiberius stopped. Through the barn door he saw two militiamen dragging a black body across the yard. He stood up, taking a hesitant step toward the door. Ethan Whittaker shoved Tiberius back onto the barrel.

"Like I said, Jemmy swore he'd kill me if 1 told on 'em. I knew they was gonna break into the general store to steal arms and gunpowder, but I swear I didn't know they planned to kill Mr. Bathurst and Mr. Gibbs. Nossir. I let on like I was with 'em, but as soon as I could, I slipped away and come back to the house. I wanted freedom, you know, but I wasn't ready to kill nobody, 'least not on the Sabbath."

Tiberius began coughing from the smell of gunpowder drifting into the barn. Outside, every few moments another Negro was executed by the Carolina militia. He looked at the nearly empty bottle in Colonel Bull's hand and, panting a little, said, "You think I could whet my throat with some of that?" Bull stepped forward, grabbed Tiberius's hair in his left hand, and held the flask to the prisoner's lips with his right. Liquor ran down the sides of Tiberius's mouth. After his last swallow, he clamped shut his eyes as the home brew burned its way down. Then Tiberius sighed, and went on:

"So I knew what they was hup to, yessir. But I wasn't part of it, not at first When I got to Mastah Boswell's house, it wasn't cold enough to start a fire, so I went right to the smokehouse and got some ham hanging from the rafters, then to the dairyhouse. I took all the fixin's for breakfast back to the kitchen. I didn't see Della. So I started makin' Mastah Boswell's breakfast myself. That took, oh, maybe two hours. Then, just as I was settin' the food on the table, I heard singin' outside. Thought I heard a drum too. Then the back door burst open. All of a sudden, I seen Jemmy and another fellah named Hannibal come flying barefoot through the dining room, so fast if I'd blinked I woulda missed 'em. Me, I stopped breathin'. I froze right where I was, butterin' a slice a toast, starin' at the ceilin' overhead. It was quiet, quiet, quiet. My head felt light. Didn't a sound breathe through that house until from hup-stairs I heard a thump. Godamercy, they musta cut Mastah Boswell's throat straightaway. Next come his wife screaming. They took their time with her, playin' with her, I reckon. And since I didn't know what else to do — I mean, I was part of this thing now, whether I was ready or not — I sat down at the table, stuck a napkin under my collar, and commenced to eatin' that nice breakfast I put out before it got cold. I figure there wasn't no sense in it goin' to waste, right? 'Bout time I was finishin' my second cup of mint tea, Jemmy and Hannibal come downstairs, blood splattered over 'em like they been to a butcherin'. Hannibal was carryin' Mastah Boswell's head. He put it on the front porch like a Halloween pumpkin…"

Colonel Bull muttered something, then swung the butt of his gun against Tiberius's head, knocking him off the barrel. Hutchenson and Whittaker pulled him off the prisoner, who was bleeding now from a gash on his forehead. Hutchenson helped him back onto the barrel.

"Why'd you'd do that?" Tiberius's head was tucked like a turtle's. He asked Hutchenson, "Why'd he do that? I been tellin' the truth!" He watched them talking among themselves, whispering, and angrily brought out, "No, I'm not lyin'! What's that? What'd he say? Colonel Bull sayin' I tried to drag him off his horse? Oh, that's where I remember you from! Well sir, I… I ain't callin' you no liar, I wouldn't do that. I guess maybe me'n some of the others did pull a white man off his horse when he come ridin' down Pon Pon Road… but I just got swept hup in the rebellion, that's all."

They were quiet for a few moments. Hutchenson had that sad look on his face again. Colonel Bull began loading his rifle. Whittaker took a step toward Tiberius, who flinched, waiting to be hit again, but all the overseer did was ask a simple question.

"Nossir, Mistah Whittaker, I did not kill anybody. know me better'n that. I wouldn't hurt a fly, sir. It's just that, like I was tryin' to tell you, I felt like I'd been sleepin' all my life and just woke hup. You a Christian man, right? You understand how it feels when the spirit hits you at meetin' time, like you was blind but suddenly you can see. That's how it was for me. I was with them when they left the farm, that's right, and marched over to the Godfrey place, then to the Lemy farm, pickin' up as they went more field hands ready to risk everythin' for just one day of freedom and folks like me, who wanted it too but was used to the old ways and had to be swept along. I reckon Jemmy had an army of over a hundred by the time y'all found our camp. We'd covered ten miles and Jemmy thought maybe he'd brought the whole Province to its knees. Guess that was a mistake, eh?" He tilted his head left to keep the blood trickling from his forehead out of his eyes. "I just want you to know the reason they let so many good white people live — the ones what treated colored folks right — is 'cause I took hup for 'em. That's right."