“Oh,” Mr. Manly said. “Yes, but it was different then. God said it was all right because it was the only way to get the earth populated. See, in just a few generations you got so many people they’re marrying cousins now, and second cousins, and a couple hundred years it’s not even like they’re kin any more.”
Mr. Manly decided not to tell them about Adam living to be nine hundred and thirty and Seth and Enoch and Kenan and Methuselah, all of them getting up past nine hundred years old before they died. He had to leave out details or it might confuse them. It was enough to tell them how the population multiplied and the people gradually spread all over the world.
“If we all come from the same people,” Raymond said, “where do niggers come from?”
So Mr. Manly had to tell them about Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and how Ham made some dirty remark on seeing his daddy sleeping naked after drinking too much wine. For that Noah banished Ham and made his son a “slave of slaves.” Ham and his family had most likely gone on down to Africa and that was where niggers came from, descendents of Ham.
Harold Jackson said, “Where does it say Indins come from?”
Mr. Manly shook his head. “It don’t say and it don’t matter. People moved all over the world, and those living in a certain place got to look alike on account of the climate. So now you got your white race, your yellow race, and your black race.”
“What’s an Indin?” Harold said. “What race?”
“They’re not sure,” Mr. Manly answered. “Probably somewhere in between. Like yellow with a little nigger thrown in. You can call it the Indian race if you want. The colored race is the only one mentioned in the Bible, on account of the story of Noah and Ham.”
Harold said, “How do they know everybody was white before that?”
Mr. Manly frowned. What kind of a question was that? “They just know it. I guess because Adam and Eve was white.” He said then, “There’s nothing wrong with being a nigger. God made you a nigger for a reason. I mean some people have to be niggers and some have to be Indians. Some have to be white. But we are all still brethren.”
Harold’s eyes remained on Mr. Manly. “It say in the Bible this man went to Africa?”
“It wasn’t called Africa then, but they’re pretty sure that’s where he went. His people multiplied and before you know it they’re living all over Africa and that’s how you got your different tribes. Your Zulus. Your Pygmies. You got your—oh, all different ones with those African names.”
“Zulus,” Harold Jackson said. “I heard something about Zulus one time.”
Mr. Manly leaned forward on the edge of the desk. “What did you hear about them?”
“I don’t know. I remember somebody talking about Zulus. Somebody saying the word.”
“Harold, you know something? For all you know you might be a Zulu yourself.”
Harold gave him a funny look. “I was born in Fort Valley, Georgia.”
“Where was your mama and daddy born?”
“Fort Valley.”
“Where was your granddaddy born?”
“I don’t know.”
“Or your great-granddaddy. You know, he might have been born in Africa and brought over here as a slave. Maybe not him, but somebody before him, a kin of yours, was brought over. All your kin before him lived in Africa, and if they lived in a certain part of Africa then, by golly, they were Zulus.”
Mr. Manly had a book about Africa in his collection. He remembered a drawing of a Zulu warrior, a tall Negro standing with a spear and a slender black and white cowhide shield.
He said, “Harold, your people are fine hunters and warriors. Oh, they’re heathen, they paint theirselves up red and yellow and wear beads made out of lion’s claws; but, Harold, they got to kill the lion first, with spears, and you don’t go out and kill a lion unless you got plenty of nerve.”
“With a spear, huh?” Harold said.
“Long spear they use, and this shield made out of cowhide. Some of them grow little beards and cut holes in the lobes of their ears and stick in these big hunks of dried sugar cane, if I remember correctly.”
“They have sugar cane?”
“That’s what it said in the book.”
“They had a lot of sugar cane in Cuba. I never see anybody put it in their ear.”
“Like earrings,” Mr. Manly said. “I imagine they use all kinds of things. Gold, silver, if they got it.”
“What do they wear?”
“Oh, just a little skimpy outfit. Some kind of cloth or animal skin around their middle. Nothing up here. Wait a second,” Mr. Manly said. He went over to his bookcase. He found the book right away, but had to skim through it twice before he found the picture and laid the book open in front of Harold. “There. That’s your Zulu warrior.”
Harold hunched over the book. As he studied the picture Mr. Manly said, “Something else I remember. It says in there these Zulus can run. I mean
Mr. Manly noticed Raymond San Carlos glancing over at the book and he said quickly, “Same with your Indians; especially your desert tribes, like the Apaches. They can run all day long, I understand, and not take a drink of water till sundown. They know where to find water, too, way out in the middle of the desert. Man told me once, when Apaches are going where they know there isn’t any water they take a horse’s intestine and fill it full of water and wrap it around their bodies. He said he’d match an Apache Indian against a camel for traveling across the desert without any water.”
“There’s plenty of water,” Raymond said, “if you know where to look.”
“That’s what I understand.”
“Some of the older men at San Carlos, they’d take us boys and make us go up in the mountains and stay there two, three days without food or water.”
“You did that?”
“Plenty of times.”
“You’d find water?”
“Sure, and something to eat. Not much, but enough to hold us.”
“Say, I just read in the paper,” Mr. Manly said. “You know who died the other day? Geronimo.”
“Is that right?”
“Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Died of pneumonia.”
“That’s too bad,” Raymond said. “I mean I think he would rather have got killed fighting.”
“You ever seen him? No, you would have been too young.”
“Sure, I seen him. Listen, I’ll tell you something I never told anybody. My father was in his band. Geronimo’s.”
“Is that a fact?”
“He was killed in Mexico when the soldiers went down there.”
“My goodness,” Mr. Manly said, “we’re talking about warriors, you’re the son of an Apache warrior.”
“I never told anybody that.”
“Why not? I’d think you’d be proud to tell it.”
“It doesn’t do me any good.”
“But if it’s true—”
“You think I’m lying?”
“I mean since it’s a fact, why not tell it?”
“It don’t make any difference to me. I could be Apache, I could be Mexican, I’m in Yuma the rest of my life.”
“But you’re living that life,” Mr. Manly said. “If a person’s an Indian then he should look at himself as an Indian. Like I told Harold, God made him a nigger for a reason. All right, God made you an Indian. There’s nothing wrong with being an Indian. Why, do you know that about half our states have Indian names? Mississippi. The state I come from, Tennessee. Arizona. The Colorado River out yonder. Yuma.”
“I don’t know,” Harold said, “that spear looks like it could break easy.”
Mr. Manly looked over at him and at the book. “They know how to make ’em.”
