Natashia Deon - Grace

The crowd cheers.

“Make two lines,” Preacher say. “On the right — those going north. The left — those of you who want to go west.”

The crowd rumbles, excited, knocking into each other, going left and right. Charles leans down to Josey. “What you say, Josey? North or west?”

She points.

“West it is,” Charles say, picking her up and pushing his way to the left.

Shots ring over the crowd.

Charles throws hisself over Josey. Other folks duck and scatter. Some clump together. Others lay out on the ground. But Preacher holds his spot on top of that box and let the gunfire come.

Slavedriver Nelson sits on his horse, Maybelle, with his gun in the air, his whip on his side. Twenty or thirty whites are with him. Nelson say to the crowd, “Since when are slaves allowed to gather around like this?”

A black boy yells, “We ain’t slaves no more. We free.”

“Is that right?” Nelson say, and trots out to him. “Where you from, boy?”

“Brown plantation. President Lincoln signed the ’Mancipation Proclamation and free us.” The boy casts his arm out to Nelson. “Here’s the papers.”

“Right,” Nelson say, pushing ’em away. “Maybe they free the niggers of the Brown plantation but niggers from the Graham plantation, the Henderson plantation, and the Reed plantation ain’t going nowhere.”

Preacher say, “You can’t keep ’em here. It’s against the law.”

Nelson prances Maybelle to Preacher, bends down and looks him in his eye. He unbuttons his whip. “Is you presuming to tell me what the law say, boy?”

“Naw, suh,” Preacher say.

“This here’s the Confederate States of America. Lincoln ain’t the law here. This war will prove that.” Nelson trots around to the back of Preacher. “Now then. Take your nigras and you leave here before we punish y’all as runaways.”

Preacher say to the crowd, nervous at first, then loud. “Don’t matter where we leave from. We’ll start our journey from the fields of the Brown plantation. If anyone wants to join us, we’ll be there ’til morning. We are free.”

“You disrespecting me, boy!” Nelson say, pointing his pistol at Preacher now. “I just said they ain’t leaving and you just now invited ’em to come. Did I hear you right, boy?”

Preacher don’t say nothin.

“You couldn’t just shut your black fuckin’ mouth, could you?” Nelson cocks his gun. “You inciting these slaves to run? Is that what you doin?” He knocks Preacher’s hat off with his pistol.

“Naw, suh,” Preacher say.

“Yes. Yes, you wuz.”

One of the white men fires in the air. Its sharp pop sends all the horses in a panic. Maybelle, too. She rears up and throws Nelson. Maybelle comes down hard on one leg, shrieks and collapses, screeching in pitches that ears cain’t endure.

Nelson scurries through the dirt and slides next to her. “Goddamn!” he yells. “Goddamn! It’s broken!” The horse struggles to get up but cain’t.

New commotion from behind the white men stirs the horses again. Annie’s doctor, Dr. Mitchell, comes ’round on his horse, circling the group. “What the hell’s going on here?” he say to Nelson. “I told you I needed ten minutes. Ten.”

Maybelle shrieks.

“Shut up that damned horse,” Doctor say. “I give you a chance, a job, and this is how you repay me?”

Nelson rubs Maybelle and she squeals. “Her leg’s broke, suh.”

“I said shut up your mare,” Doctor say and pull his pistol. “She’s no good now.”

Nelson jumps in front of Maybelle, standing between her and Dr. Mitchell.

She keeps screaming, making too much noise, fumbling to get up, but it ain’t no use.

“Naw, Dr. Mitchell,” Nelson plead. “Don’t do this. Please. If she got to go, I got to be the one that do it.”

“I asked you to do a handful of things for me,” Doctor say. “Notify the men of our meeting and wait for me ’til half noon. Don’t you know this is a war, boy!”

Maybelle shrieks.

Doctor fires.

She don’t shriek no more.

Nelson’s eyes widen.

Dr. Mitchell waves his pistol toward the slaves. “Y’all go back to where you came from. Except for the ones that belong to Annie Graham or these men. You others. . your owners are cowards.”

Nelson whimpers next to his horse and Dr. Mitchell turns away from him.

Everybody moves slowly back to where they were going.

The lady in orange sings:

“Oh! Go down, Moses

Way down in Egypt land .

Tell ole Pharaoh. To let my people go.”

Others join her in song, walking past Nelson with pity in their eyes, watching him cradle his dead horse.

“Get outta here,” Doctor yells to ’em. “Get.” He pauses when he sees Josey and Charles unmoved. Doctor’s strange expression is like he hadn’t expected to see ’em anywhere outside a room where he treated her vapors, or where Charles wasn’t waiting anxiously nearby for her recovery.

The black man in the straw hat throws his hands down and say, “I knew it! Lies!”

Charles continues to stand frozen with Josey’s hand in his as the parade of other brown people pour around him like water past a big rock. His shoulders hang from hope removed, his once joyful face a blank expression.

Dr. Mitchell rides over to him and say, “Charles. I’m going to tell you this like I’m telling the rest. If you leave here, it means that you and Josey are both runaways. And nobody can protect you. We’re at war.” Doctor rides back out to the center of the yard and shouts. “All y’all belonging to Annie Graham. Get back to work!”

Josey looks up at Charles, waiting for him to say something but he won’t look at her. He mumbles, “Let’s gon’ get back to work.”

IT’S BEEN TWO weeks since negroes decided to leave without asking. They were wrong. Then last night, a man came to Annie’s without asking. He was wrong, too.

I had been chasing after his black buggy since I first heard it a quarter mile down Annie’s road. I wished to God that it was George. My hope helped make me swifter.

Falling rain was spreading around the buggy like tears, promising me it was George inside.

It bumped along the muddy road with its horses grunting and snot spilling, promising me George. And when the horses slowed in front of the Graham house, I was quivering for my satisfaction. Let me see him! I wanted to kill him.

A burst of firelight glowed from inside the carriage. Its door swung open where I was waiting, and a lamp came through the opening, then the arm of the white man. His whole body folded out. It weren’t George.

The man hopped down from the buggy steps, limped in place to keep his balance, held the lamp out in front of him, and stabbed his burgundy cane between loose stones. He threw his coat over his head and his black hair flattened in the rain. Mud sprayed on his trouser as he began his hobble to the front door, a walk like an almost-tipped-over jar, rocking to find its flat bottom again. But he couldn’t right hisself. He was a gimp. He shook his good leg on the front porch and the other he wiped down with both hands while I went inside.

Bessie was scrambling up the stairs toward Missus Graham’s bedroom. I met her at the top of the landing and could’ve swore she looked right at me. But as soon as I thought it, she walked right through me. “Missus Graham!” she said opening Annie’s door. She went in without asking, said, “Missus Graham!”

“What the hell’s wrong with you, girl?” Annie said, sitting straight up.

“It’s Mista Graham, ma’am. He here.”

Mr. Graham’s knocks returned to the door and Annie leaped out of bed like a child caught napping instead of cleaning and pulled a dress over her head, checked her face in the mirror, twice, rushed down the staircase, pinning her hair on the way. By then, Bessie was already in the main room, waiting for Annie’s signal to open the door. But instead of giving the sign right then, Annie waited.