The Good Lord Bird

Turns out them five fellers never had to come after all, the way it all worked out, for by the time they was geared up to go, the only place for them to head was due north as fast as their legs could carry them. White folks got insane after the Old Man done his bit, they went on a rampage and attacked coloreds for miles. They was scared outta their minds. I reckon in some fashion, they ain’t been the same since.

* * *

I hears that much has been said ’bout the last meeting between the Old Man and Mr. Douglass. I done heard tell of ten or twenty different variations in different books written on the subject, and various men of letters working their talking holes on the matter. Truth be to tell it, there weren’t but four grown men there when the whole thing happened, and none lived long enough to tell their account of it, except for Mr. Douglass himself. He lived a long life afterward, and being that he’s a speechifier, he explained it every which way other than in a straight line.

But I was there, too, and I seen it differently.

The Old Man came to that meeting disguised as a fisherman, wearing an oilskin jacket and a fisherman’s hat. I don’t know why. No disguise would’a worked by then, for he was red hot. His white beard and hard stare was plastered on every wanted poster from Pittsburgh to Alabama. In fact, most of the colored in Chambersburg knowed ’bout that supposed secret meeting, for they must’ve been two or three dozen that turned out in the dead middle of the night as we rolled in the wagon toward the rock quarry. They whispered greetings from the thickets on the side of the road, some held out blankets, boiled eggs, bread, and candles. They said, “God bless you, Mr. Brown” and “Evening, Mr. Brown” and “I’m all for you, Mr. Brown.”

None said they was coming to fight at the Ferry though, and the Old Man didn’t ask it of ’em. But he seen how they held him. And it moved him. He was a half hour late for meeting Mr. Douglass on account of having to stop every ten minutes to howdy the colored, accepting food and pennies and whatever they had for him. They loved the Old Man. And their love for him gived him power. It was a kind of last hurrah for him, turned out, for they wouldn’t have time to thank him later on, being that after he moved to the business of killing and deadening white folks at breakneck speed, the white man turned on them something vicious and drove lots of ’em clear outta town, guilty and innocent alike. But they juiced him good, and he was fired up by the time we turned into the rock quarry and bumped down the path toward the back of it. “By gosh, Onion, we will push the infernal institution to ruination!” he cried. “God’s willing it!”

The quarry had a big, wide, long ditch at the back of it, big enough for a wagon to roll through. We rolled into that thing smooth business, and an old colored man silently pointed us right through it to the back. At the back of it, standing there, was Mr. Douglass himself.

Mr. Douglass brung with him a stout, dark-skinned Negro with fine curly hair. Called himself Shields Green, though Mr. Douglass called him “Emperor.” Emperor held himself that way, too—straight-backed, firm, and quiet.

Mr. Douglass didn’t look at me twice, nor did he hardly greet Mr. Kagi. His face was drawed serious, and after them two embraced, he stood there and listened in dead silence as the Old Man gived him the whole deal: the plan, the attack, the colored flocking to his stead, the army hiding in the mountains, white and colored together, holing up in the mountain passes so tight that the federals and militia couldn’t get in. Meanwhile Kagi and the Emperor stood quiet. Not a peep was said by either.

When the Old Man was done, Mr. Douglass said, “What have I said to you to make you think such a plan will work? You are walking into a steel trap. This is the United States Armory you are talking about. They will bring federals from Washington, D.C., at the first shot. You will not be there two minutes before they will have you.”

“But you and I has spoken of it for years,” the Old Man said. “I have planned it to the limit. You yourself at one time pointed out it could be done.”

“I said no such thing,” Mr. Douglass said. “I said it should be done. But what should be and could be are two different things.”

The Old Man pleaded with Mr. Douglass to come. “Come with me, Frederick. I need to hive the bees, and with you there, every Negro will come, surely. The slave needs to take his liberty.”

“Yes. But not by suicide!”

They argued ’bout it some more. Finally the Old Man placed his arm around Mr. Douglass. “Frederick. I promise you. Come with me and I will guard you with my life. Nothing will happen to you.”

But, standing there in his frock coat, Mr. Douglass weren’t up to it. He had too many highballs. Too many boiled pigeons and meat jellies and buttered apple pies. He was a man of parlor talk, of silk shirts and fine hats, linen suits and ties. He was a man of words and speeches. “I cannot do it, John.”

The Old Man put on his hat and moved to the wagon. “We will take our leave, then.”

“Good luck to you, old friend,” Mr. Douglass said, but the Old Man had already turned away and climbed into the wagon. Me and Kagi followed. Then Mr. Douglass turned to the feller with him, Shields Green. He said, “Emperor, what is your plan?”

Emperor shrugged and said simply, “I guess I’ll go with the Old Man.” And without another word, Emperor climbed into the wagon next to Kagi.

The Old Man harred up his horses, backed away from Mr. Douglass, turned that wagon ’round, and took his leave. He never spoke to Frederick Douglass or ever mentioned his name again.

All the way back to Harpers Ferry he was silent. I could feel his disappointment. It seemed to surge out of him. The way he held the traces, drove them horses at half-trot through the night, the moon behind him, the silhouette of his beard against the moon, his beard shaking as the horses clopped along, his thin lips pursed tight, he seemed like a ghost. He was just knocked down. I guess we all has our share of them things, when the cotton turns yellow and the boll weevil eats out your crops and you just shook down with disappointment. His great heartbreak was his friend Mr. Douglass. Mine’s was his daughter. There weren’t no way for them things to go but for how God made ’em to go, for everything God made, all His things, all His treasures, all the things heaven sent ain’t meant to be enjoyed in this world. That’s a thing he said, not me, for I weren’t a believer in them times. But a spell come over me that night, watching him eat that bad news. A little bit of a change. For the Captain took that news across the jibs and brung hisself back to Harpers Ferry knowing he was done in. He knowed he was gonna lose fighting for the Negro, on account of the Negro, and he brung hisself to it anyway, for he trusted in the Lord’s word. That’s strong stuff. I felt God in my heart for the first time at that moment. I didn’t tell him, for there weren’t no use bothering the Old Man with that truth, ’cause if I’d’a done that, I’d’a had to tell him the other part of it, which is that even as I found God, God was talking to me, too, just like He done him, and God the Father was tellin’ me to get the hell out. And plus, I loved his daughter besides. I didn’t want to throw that on him. I knowed a thing or two right then. Learned it on the spot. Knowed from the first, really, that there weren’t no way Mr. Douglass could’a brung hisself to fight a real war. He was a speeching parlor man. Just like I knowed there weren’t no way I could’a brung myself to be a real man, with a real woman, and a white woman besides. Some things in this world just ain’t meant to be, not in the times we want ’em to, and the heart has to hold it in this world as a remembrance, a promise for the world that’s to come. There’s a prize at the end of all of it, but still, that’s a heavy load to bear.

27. Escape

Things was a hot mess the moment we hit the door of the farm back at the Ferry. Time we walked in, the Captain’s son Oliver and Annie were waiting at the door for him. Annie said, “Mrs. Huffmaster called in the sheriff.”

“What?”

“Says she saw one of the coloreds in the yard. She went to the sheriff and denounced us as abolitionists. Brung the sheriff by.”

“What happened?”

“I told him you’d be back Monday. He tried to get in but I wouldn’t let him. Then Oliver came down from upstairs and told him to get off. He was angry when he left. He gave me a mouthful ’bout abolitionists running