Natashia Deon: Grace

From behind the tent comes a third man, another soldier in butternut-colored trousers and he’s closing the last button on his gray coat. His soldier suit got gold stars and a wreath sewn into each side of his up-perched collar. “Colonel,” all the men say, saluting him.

There’s a disquiet here.

I feel it immediate.

Like walking into a room of somebody else’s best friends and when they see a stranger, everybody gets quiet.

A pack. The killing kind. Bonded by some hunger.

“What do you have to report?” Colonel say to Snooper.

“A nigger and a white woman, sir. They was kissing and hugging up on each other. Everything’s all gone to hell, that’s what,” Snooper say.

Colonel shifts his trousers, signals to Fatty for his pistol. He say, “So what are you going to do about it, soldier?”

“Are they outlaws, sir?” Fatty say, giving Colonel his pistol.

His question makes Colonel red-faced. “Do you know what negroes do?” Colonel say, disgusted. “And what that nigger is doing to that white woman in bed right now? Sending our great nation to hell, is what. Next thing you know they’ll want to marry. First, the government takes our property and rights and give it to niggers and then they give ’em our women, too.” He cocks his pistol. “I’ll show you what I’m going to do about it.”

IT’S PITCH BLACK down here tonight.

Mostly.

Only a teardrop from this candle keeps the light low — more wick than wax. And the light from the saloon above is sprinkling down on me.

Cynthia made me close the latched door in the bathroom floor ’cause she say these nosey women like to wander. So it’s gon’ take me forever to put these bottles of whiskey away since it’s dark and I can hardly see. I finished the first rows — the letters A through E — put the pretty ones up front, like I wanted.

I sit here on my knees trying to read the shadows of labels, and wedge open the last cart of liquor. I run my tiny light across the first labels. . doggone, another C, Cognac. Means I got to move the bottles again.

Dogs is barking loud outside, just beyond the porch, and men’s voices are mixing in with ’em. I crawl over to the stuck-shut side door and peek through the gaps. The men there are tying their dogs to the porch.

Up in the parlor, Johnny’s shooting marbles and Cynthia’s still in her wedding dress, sitting on a stool, drying a glass.

Two of the men run up the parlor steps. A third set of clicking heels trail behind. Their knocks slam at the door all together.

“Sam,” Cynthia yells to the door. “You got the key. I ain’t gettin up.”

“Open up!” a man’s voice say.

“We ain’t open,” Cynthia yell back. One of ’em kicks the door.

“What the hell’s wrong with you!” Cynthia say. “I said we ain’t open.”

“Cynthia!” the man say again, this time his kick almost moves the door open.

She hops up and I rush to see through the slats in the floor. She tell Johnny, “Go to your room and go to sleep. I’ll be there directly.” Cynthia grabs her pistol from behind the bar, puts it in her garter.

“Open up!” the man say.

Cynthia fixes her hair, sets two glasses on a table, and picks up a bottle of gin on the way to the door. She opens it calmly, relieved when she see ’em: Henry and Ray, and Bobby Lee follows ’em in wearing a patch on his eye now.

“Aw, damn,” Cynthia say. “It’s just y’all. Why you got to kick my shit? Bamming on the door like you the law.”

She picks up the drinking glasses from the table with her fingers, takes ’em back to the bar. When she sets ’em down, she notices the men’s silence. She pauses. Breathes. She says over her shoulder, “Ain’t it a little late for you boys? Surprised y’all ain’t at Sweeny’s, Bobby Lee. Bernadette told me how y’all regulars down there now.”

Cynthia picks up the drinking glasses again. She takes out two more and brings all four to the table in front of them with a bottle of gin. Ray and Henry take out their pistols.

“What’s goin on here, Bobby Lee?” Cynthia say. “Y’all here to rob me?”

Ray and Henry start searching the saloon and disappear toward the gambling parlor while Bobby Lee waits.

He don’t say nothing.

Ray and Henry come back from the locked parlor door, then Ray starts back through the hallway toward the sleeping quarters and bathroom. “There’s too many doors,” Ray yells back up the hall and comes back to the saloon with Henry and Bobby Lee.

“We can do this the hard way,” Ray say, “and disturb everybody in here, or the easy way.”

Cynthia steps away from ’em, pulls her gun from her garter as she does, and points it across ’em.

“I got my child in here,” she say. “So if by easy you mean I take down at least two of ya, then easy. I ain’t gon’ let y’all rob me or hurt nobody in here.”

“We not robbing you,” Bobby Lee say.

“Where is she?” Ray say.

“Who?” Cynthia say.

“That nigra girl you used to keep here.”

I don’t move.

“What you want her for?” Cynthia lowers her gun and slides into one of the hard chairs above me to the left. Her shadow blocks the light from my eyes. I got to stay still. Don’t want my floor to make a noise.

She pours four shots of gin. “Is this about my party, Bobby Lee? I swear y’all’s invitation was in the post.”

Henry stutters, “D-don’t m-mess around, Cynthia. We know she here.”

“Left months ago,” Cynthia say.

THE HOOVES OF Confederate horses click over mud-set stones while their riders — Fatty, Skinny, Snooper, and Colonel — let their horses’ struts take over their sway. They ride slow and cautious through the tunnel of vines where Squiggy and Rachel chased turkeys into the thick.

“I swear it was down here,” Snooper say.

A quick movement from the ground makes ’em grab their pistols and point ’em at the forest floor where George is. He’s resting against a tree with his mouth wide open, snoring. Fatty taps Colonel and Colonel signals the others to stop.

Colonel jumps down from his horse and with his weapon drawn, he kicks George’s boot.

“Boy?” Colonel say.

George flinches but don’t wake up.

“Boy!”

George opens his eyes and blinks through the haze, squints at Colonel, then proceeds to take his time yawning and stretching his arms high and wide, cracking his back, straining, say, “How do, Colonel?”

Colonel lowers his pistol and slides it in his trousers. “You a soldier, boy?” he say.

“I much more prefer the title, man of leisure. Bum knee kept me from the ‘honor’ of war, of course.”

“That so?” Colonel say. “I’ve seen one-armed men fight a hell of a fight for this great nation. Real heroes. And men like yourself, full of excuse and leisure, are insults to the Confederacy.”

George wobbles hisself up. “If you don’t mind me saying, Colonel. . war been over a long time. And you and your one-armed men lost for all us. Thanks for nothing.”

Colonel throws George against the tree and George laughs, flopping from side to side. Colonel lets him go. “You’re drunk,” Colonel say.

“Naw, sir. I’m George and you are on my land.”

Colonel say, “We’re looking for a white woman and a negro. They call themselves a couple.”

George burps as he starts his sentence. “The only white woman ’round here is my sister. But now that you mention it,” he say, “free negroes are more uppity than caught ones — talk how they want, sleep all day, and yep, probably take our women.” George bends over a little, then thrusts his hips forward, back and then forth, making a humping motion. “And screw ’em like this.”