Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

Seeing this, House reached across the cot to touch the arm where Lucius had touched it but hesitated and withdrew his hand just as Henry lifted his forearm in response-too high to bear, it seemed, for he clenched his jaw not to cry out. The pain turned his gaze murky. He closed his eyes and gasped out, “Lo’d A’mighty!” Hearing those words, an old woman two beds away called on his visitors to witness that Deacon Short was a true man of God; if he had ever sinned, none could recall it. “Praise de Lo’d!” the woman cried. A shy chorus of assent rose from the ward. The ambulatory patients and their visitors walked past like mourners in a slow procession, crooning warm harmonies. “Hear them angels?” Henry whispered. “Think they comin after me?” Henry Short produced a stillborn smile as his visitors tried to smile back, sick at heart.

Bill House looked around the ancient ward. “Well, now, Henry, these folks treatin you okay?” Short’s red eyes watched Lucius. “As best black folks knows how, Mist’ Bill.” As a dying man in dreadful pain, he did not bother to conceal his sarcasm. House stared at him, shocked that this man he’d known so well could speak so bitterly. He tried to jolly him: how could an old hand like Henry get caught in a back burn? Short had no time for this. Urgently, he said, “Mist’ Bill? You member when that man come huntin me? Ochopee?” That same man had come for him again, he told them. He’d seen him assembling a weapon on the dike road. Then he came toward him down the rows, in and out of the molasses smoke of burning cane.

Henry dropped his fire rake and ran, dodging in and out amongst the cane. The smoke that obscured him from his pursuer shrouded the ditch, too; peering back over his shoulder, he had pitched right into it and fallen hard, hitting his head. Lying there stunned, he only came to when the burn overtook him and he woke up choking on the smoke, clothes singed by fire. Afraid to holler out for help, he rolled and crawled along the ditch to the mud puddle where he was found toward twilight. Since the local clinic lacked a ward for coloreds, he’d been shipped here.

Lucius said, “Can you tell us what he looked like?”

“Too much smoke. Seen the big bulk of him, is all. Seen how he walk back on his heels, toes out-”

“That’s him!” House cried. “That’s the same man we saw in Ochopee!”

“Yessuh. Scairt me so bad I never watched where I was runnin.”

Leaving House at the bedside, Lucius crossed the floor and introduced himself to the two men sitting by the door. They had come as soon as they were notified, they said. Their name was Graham. A few years ago, their brother Henry had spoken kindly of Lucius Watson and they thanked him for coming. The Grahams were worried that today was Sunday, with nobody on duty to give Henry something for his pain-not that it mattered, since he was refusing his pain medication. As best they could fathom his fierce code, uncomplaining acceptance of his agony signified some sort of penance, though what he should feel penitent about they could not imagine. They had to leave him every little while to recover from the sight of such hard suffering.

At Henry’s bedside, told who those men were, House turned to look. “Them fellers knowed me when they seen me?” Overjoyed, he went to meet the Grahams, who rose and sat him down between them.

Through torn screens in the high windows came the caw of crows in the listless stillness of hot summer woods. Small bits of life crawled and flew about the ward on ancient business. Lucius awaited Henry Short’s return. Henry’s mouth had fixed itself in a grim semblance of a smile but the broken eyes, discolored red and yellow, had gone glassy with withheld tears. “You’re a tough old gator, Henry, you are going to make it,” Lucius said, taking the rickety chair beside the bed. “Doan go wishin that on me, Mist’ Lucius,” Henry gritted, as tears escaped onto his caved-in cheeks. “I done with life. I had my fill.”

“All right. Just rest.”

With the testiness of pain, Short said, “You ain’t come all this way to Immokalee to tell this nigger to just rest, Mist’ Lucius. I believe you still huntin fo’ yo’ daddy.” Henry was altogether present and intent on his visitor’s expression as if to make certain that he wished to hear the truth. “That day you come to see me? Chatham Bend? I lied that day.” Short was gasping. “Been tellin lies about that autumn evenin all of my whole life.” He sounded more resentful than remorseful. “White folks ever stop to think how they make black men lie? Good Christian nigras? Lie and lie then lie some more, just to get by in life? Just to get by? ”

Lucius found a cloth to wipe his brow. “Don’t exhaust yourself. No need to talk.” Out of his agony, Short summoned the will to glare. “If they ain’t no need to talk, how come you settin here? They is a need!” Henry rasped this with asperity, in fits and starts. “My time comin. I needs to finish. Same as you.” He closed his eyes and kept them shut as if reading testimony etched in acid on the inside surfaces of his eyelids. “Got a cryin need.” When he emitted a sharp cough of pain, the churchwomen drew closer, fearful that his visitor might drain the Deacon’s strength.

“These folks love you, Henry.”

“Yessuh,” the burned man snapped, impatient. “All God’s chillun lovin dere poor ol’ Deacon.” He was struggling to indicate an old book on a little shelf above his head. When Lucius said he’d be happy to take his word, Short closed his eyes and shook his head. Lucius took the Bible from the shelf and slid it beneath the mitt of bandages on his right hand.

“Mist’ Lucius, I was deathly scared of Mist’ Watson but I never felt no hate. Because he seen me. Seen me as a man, I mean, a somebody with my own look to me and my own way of workin, not just any-old-nigger with no face but only just his two hands for his work. Field niggers, house niggers, make no difference: they all scared niggers. Your daddy scared ’em, too, got rough with ’em, but all the same, he listened like they was people. He was a very uncommon white man in that way, very uncommon. I felt beholden all them years I knew him.”

And had he “seen” E. J. Watson in return? Lucius wondered. The great waste?

“Course treatin coloreds with respect don’t mean he gone to tol’rate no gun-totin nigger standin amongst white men come to judge him. And that’s what he seen that evenin, comin ashore.” When Lucius looked puzzled, Short said sharply, “What I told you! Nigger actin to be a man! A human man,” he added quietly. He lay still to accumulate strength again before continuing.

“Follerin after ’em that evenin, I was so heavy in my heart I couldn’t hardly get a breath. I was dead scared of Mist’ Watson and dead scared of them scared men passin the jug around. All I could see there on that shore was the mob that killed my soldier daddy back in Georgia.

“Mist’ Edgar didn’t hardly look at me, just warned in a scrapy voice, ‘You get on home.’ But knowin this black rascal could shoot, he took no chances. Easy-like, still talking, he hefted up that double-barrel like he was fixin to hand it over to Old Mist’ Dan, way he was told, but by the little shiftin of his feet I seen he was gettin set to swing that gun from the hip, blow that fool nigger off the end of that line of men to show ’em he meant business-show ’em that if he was to let go his other barrel, next one to fall would be a white man and more likely two.”

For a moment, distracted by his pain, Henry lost his thought. He had confused himself. He frowned. His dry mouth twitched. After Lucius fed him water in thin sips, he shifted minutely and tried again.