Belle City Page 2

  Jonas managed his own sly grin and followed his father to the house, trying to imagine never again being able to hunt and fish and roam the woods with Silas. "How come Ma is poorly again?"

  Zeb Thatcher sighed deeply. "She lost another baby."

  Jonas was shocked. He hadn't known she was carrying again. He snuck a look up at his Pa. The big man's weathered and lined face was scrunched up like he wanted to cry. Jonas wanted to say something but saying the wrong thing would earn him another slap up side the head, and the look on Pa's face said that just about anything would be the wrong thing.

  "That makes five," Zeb said sorrowfully. "Another one'll kill her."

  Five! Jonas knew about two: One last year and one the year before. He also knew enough about the process of animals giving birth to know that two miscarriages was a bad sign. But five. For sure the next one would kill her. Five miscarriages would kill a horse or a cow or a pig. His Ma should have been dead. No wonder she was poorly all the time. "Is she gonna be all right?"

  "I hope so," Zeb said. "I pray so." He dipped his head as if praying.

  They'd almost reached the house. Jonas saw that the lines were filled with clean clothes flapping in the gentle breeze, and as hot as it was, they'd be dry in another hour. He figured that Esther would stay long enough to fold the clothes and make sure Ma had food to eat–even when she was well, Corrinne Maxwell Thatcher was a picky eater–and only Esther would take the time and make the effort to prepare the food their mother liked. And what she liked, the food of her native Scotland, Zeb Thatcher called hog slop and refused to eat.

  "Pa?"

  Zeb slowed his long-legged gait and looked down at his youngest son, at the child who most likely would be his last. "What, Boy?"

  "What's wrong with Si and his people that you don't like them? They got the same name as us."

  Zeb slapped him up side the head. Hard. "That don't mean nothin', you hear me? A whole lotta niggers got the same name as white folks, and it don't mean nothin'. What means somethin' is how you act, and you been actin' like no son of mine, and you're gonna stop it right now." And Zeb slapped him up side the head again.

  Now Jonas was mad. "Si's brothers are goin' to fight the war just like my brother. Don't that mean they're the same?"

  "Somebody's got to dig the ditches and cook the food and slop the latrines. That's why niggers are goin' to the war, not to fight the...the...whoever it is we're fightin'." Zeb pushed him up the front steps to the porch, then snatched the screen door open so hard it slam-banged against the side of the house, knocking off some of the chipped paint. Then he pushed Jonas inside ahead of him with such force that the boy fell and skidded across the parlor floor.

  "Well, it ain't right," Jonas said, halfway to his feet and halfway out of the room, headed for the kitchen.

  "But it's how things are," his pa bellowed back, "and how they always been and how they always gonna be!" And Jonas knew right then that the difference between what was right and how things were would some day cause him bigger problems than a slap up side the head.

  ***

  Tobias, Silas and Ruthie's mother, Nellie, was so proud that she cooked them a whole breakfast, even though she was in the middle of her dinner preparations, and she gave Little Si a whole roasted yam—his favorite food—for himself alone, he didn't even have to share with Ruthie, as congratulations for his bow-and-arrow prowess. "You do your People proud, Son," she said. "You all do. Them woods is your home, same as this house is, and don't never forget that." Nellie didn't make a point of emphasizing her fifty percent Muscogee Creek ancestry—there was no point to that since there were no Creek left in Georgia—but it was important to her, and her husband and children knew and respected that. Nellie also knew that the bow and arrow were not Creek tools, though she doubted that her family knew that, doubted that it would matter if they did. What mattered was that in Carrie's Crossing, Georgia, in 1917, a few Colored people had something that was theirs—had something that white people did not, even if that something belonged to somebody else. It would never have occurred to the white people of Carrie's Crossing that the Indians of Georgia—back when Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi and Tennessee still had Indians—would be different from the Indians of the Plains and the West, and that a left-behind Georgia Indian would hear about and relish the stories of those other Indians' bravery (savagery, the whites called it) and adopt the bow and arrow as her own, and then offer it to her children as something that they too could claim as their own.

  "Jonas wanted to shoot with the bow, but I told him he couldn't 'cause he wasn't no Indian," Si told his mother. Since all of his attention was focused on peeling and buttering the roasted yam, he didn't immediately notice the change his words produced around the kitchen table: A mixture of pride and dismay in his mother, foreboding in his brother, and something resembling annoyance in his sister.

  "Your Pa told you to stay away from that boy," Nellie said, her anger gentled by the gratifying sense of her child's pride in the ancestry that soon would be lost to history. "Y'all know better than to go against what your Pa says." She looked from one to the other of her three youngest children, her gaze lingering the longest on Ruth, the youngest, the only girl, her joy. But that's not why Nellie's eyes held Ruth's. "Did he do something to y'all?"

  They all shook their heads and said, "No, m'am."

  "He said something," Nellie said—a statement, not a question—looking at Ruthie.

  "He said Beau and Eubie could be heroes too since they're goin' to the Army like his brother. He said it don't matter that they're Colored." Ruthie looked into her mother's eyes as she spoke, searching for proof of Jonas Thatcher's lie, but Nellie got up from the table, turned away from her, went back to the stove and her dinner preparations.

  "You don't need nobody to tell you who you are or what you can be," Nellie said, her back to her children so they wouldn't see the anger in her face; she had never shown them anger, and she hoped to God she never would. "It's no good us believin' that some otherbody knows us better than we know us." Nellie turned to face them. "You don't need Jonas Thatcher to tell you nothin' 'bout your brothers. You known Beaudry and Eubanks all you life, Ruthie. Ain't that right? And ain't they already heroes to you?"

  Ruth nodded. Her Pa and her two oldest brothers and her Uncle Will were more than heroes to her—they were gods: Strong, powerful, good, providers and protectors. She looked at her younger brothers—Silas and Tobias—and saw them the same way, only with more familiarity because they were closer in age and size. They were her friends too, Si and Tobias.

  "If y'all are through with eating, you boys go on out and help your Pa and brothers and Uncle Will. And make sure to tell 'em what y'all brought home this mornin'."

  Two chairs pushed back from the table, and two pairs of feet crossed the kitchen. The back door opened and slammed shut. Nellie came back to the table and sat across from Ruthie. "What else did he say?" she asked her daughter.

  Ruthie knew better than to tell her mother that Jonas Thatcher said he wished he was Colored so he could marry her. Nellie would tell Pa and he'd tell Beaudry and Eubanks and Uncle Will and the four of them would go crashing through the woods looking for Jonas and kill him for sure. "He said there ain't no fish in the creek."

  "He's right."

  Ruthie looked toward the sink where the line of fish she'd caught in the creek was waiting to be cleaned, then she looked back at her mother. "Ma?"

  Nellie gave her an odd smile, one Ruthie had never seen before. "There ain't no fish in Carrie's Creek for him," her mother said, in a tone of voice that was unfamiliar, too.

  "How come?"

  "'Cause Miss Carrie, she put a curse on it, that's why. Cain't no white people catch no fish in that creek. Not never."

  Ruthie still stared at her mother, her eyes wide and questioning and confused. "Miss Carrie, whose name I got? Who is she? And that's her creek?"

  Nellie nodded. "She was your Grandma and it sure is her creek."


  From the Recorded Memories of Ruth Thatcher McGinnis

  "Sissy, you said for me to just start talking, but are you sure that tiny little thing can hear me and see me? Well…if you're sure…my name is Carrie Ruth Thatcher McGinnis and I was born on the seventeenth day of May in nineteen-hundred and four in Carrie's Crossing, Georgia. And I want to tell how the place got its name because right now, today, there's a real estate developer trying to change the name to something more 'upscale' because, he says, Carrie's Crossing sounds backward and country. We can't let that happen. It's enough of a shame that nobody today realizes that Carrie's Crossing and Carrie's Creek got their name from a real woman: Carrie Thatcher, born a slave in eighteen-hundred and fifty. I know this because she was my grandmother. She and her brother, William, stayed on to work for Carney Thatcher, helping him farm, after the Emancipation in exchange for some land of their own. He gave them what he thought was useless land because a creek ran through it, a creek that flooded every time it rained, so the land was marshy and swampy and full of snakes and bugs. It was near a crossroads—trails, really, more than roads back then, trails in the woods, one of them leading to Carney Thatcher's farm and the part where the white people lived, and the other trail leading to the part that Carney gave Carrie and William. And it was because of them that other Colored people moved to live up that trail.

  In the spring of 1890, it rained in Georgia like it had never rained before, swelling the creek on Carrie and William's little farm and turning it into a wild river that rampaged across the land, washing away everything in sight, including Carrie. William heard her screaming and calling for help and he ran out into the storm looking for her, trying to save her. He saw her bobbing up and down in the fast-running creek but he couldn't run that fast. On the opposite bank, close to where Carrie had grabbed a tree root and was trying to hold on, two white men with nets were scooping up fish. Carrie called out to them to help her. To save her. They stood there on the bank of the creek, watching William try to reach his sister, watching Carrie lose her strength and her grip on the tree root. William said Carrie's last words were, "You'll never catch another fish in this creek! This is my water now! My creek!" And she was swept away. William and the other Colored men from up the road spent the rest of the day and into the night looking for Carrie. They found her in a tree at the crossroads, holding on so tight to a branch they had to break her arms to get her down. She had died trying so desperately to live. From that moment to this, Carrie's Creek and Carrie's Crossing bore the name of that slave woman who was my grandma. And from that day to this, no white person has ever been able to catch a fish in that creek. In Carrie's Creek. She cursed it and she claimed it.

  Now, as to why the whole city and the area around it is called Carrie's Crossing: Once again, back then the creek ran past a junction in the road, though, like I said, back then they were more trails than roads. One of those trails led from the woods to the creek; the other led from Carney Thatcher's farm to the creek. After the Emancipation, the whole area started to grow. Small farmers like Carney Thatcher now outnumbered the big plantation owners because they no longer had free labor, and quite a few Blacks now had their own land, like Carrie and William. So, a third road came into being—and this one was a real road. It started at the point where the original two met and it ran south, down toward Belle City. Both Blacks and whites traveled this road, the Blacks turning right to go uphill when they got to the creek and the whites turning left. It became sport for whites to lay in wait and ambush Blacks, steal their sacks of flour or sugar or beans or whatever they had, and throw them into the creek. Until Miss Carrie drowned hanging onto a tree limb at that crossroads. From that time on, there was no more attacking or ambushing of Black travelers—nobody really knows why but everybody liked to think that she protects the crossing. So, just like the Creek now belonged to Miss Carrie, so did the Crossing. And that's how one of the most affluent communities in Georgia came to be named for a slave woman, and I'm not so sure sometimes that those of us who know the true story should tell it. That real estate developer wants to change the name because he thinks it sounds too low class for his gold-plated plans, but in a way, it might just be to his benefit—and ours—that he not know the true story. Why? Because secrets have power, that's why.

  From the Diary of Jonas Farley Thatcher

  Summertime 1917. Pa would surely skin me if he knew I was writing down everything like I do. It's called Keeping A Journal and its something imporant people do. Im not importnt yet but I aim to be some day. A teacher or a writer like Mr. Mark Twain or Mr. J. F. Cooper. I could write about the last Indian in Carrie's Crossing which is in georgia. It's my friend Silases ma. I don't know what kind of indian she is, but she surely is one. I don't know her name either. Maybe I'll ask Si and he'll tell me what kind of indian she is and what's her name. I'm not supposed to be playing with Si nomore. Pa said so and he hits me when he finds out if I play with Si. Pa hats Si. Pa hats all collard people tho I don't kno why. He saids they are lazy and nocount but Si and his Pa and brothers work all the time. I think his ma does allso. One time when I have climed up a tall pecan tree to look thru the woods at Si's house I saw his ma out in the fields. leasways I think it was his ma cause it werent Ruth. I surely know Ruth when I see her. She works in the field allso my ma and sisters donot work in the filds. They just cook and wash clos swept the yard. Ruth and her ma do that allso. I see then when I clim the big pecan tree. I want to mary ruth but I kno I cant. she sayd her brothers and her pa wood kill me. my Pa wood too. Ruthie's collard and we cant marry with them. But I wish we cood so I cood mary Ruthie Thatcher. She is the most butiful girl I ever saw.

  ***

  Everybody leaned in closer to the glowing kerosene lantern in the middle of the table. It was turned up as high it would go, but even with extra light from the firepit and its flames' shadows dancing against the kitchen walls, they could barely read the lessons Nellie wrote for them on the lined pad with her stub of a pencil. She sat at the head of the table. Uncle Will and Big Si sat to Nellie's right, Tobias and Little Si to her left. Ruthie was in her father's lap. This was their Saturday night ritual, Nellie's reading and writing lessons. Late, well after dark, they closed the shutters on the kitchen windows so that the house would almost be in total darkness, and the six of them gathered around the table. When the weather was warm, the room got too hot too quickly, but the lessons were more important than comfort. This December night was pitch black and icy cold, but just as the heat didn't deter them, neither did the cold. It was a practice night: Everybody got a chance to write his or her name and Carrie's Crossing, Georgia on the paper, along with their date of birth. Uncle Will always wanted to be the last one, and when he finished, he grunted with satisfaction and everybody else clapped their hands.

  "That's real good, Uncle Will," Big Si said. "Real good."

  "You all keep this up and I won't have anything left to teach," Nellie said, taking one of Uncle Will's huge, calloused hands in both of hers and squeezing.

  "Is mine good too, Ma?" Tobias asked.

  "I forgot how to spell Crossing," Little Si said, reaching for the paper everybody had written on so he could check his spelling. "I left out a 's' and dang! I put the 'n' in the wrong place—"

  He was cut off midsentence by a knock on the front door. For one brief instant, the six of them were frozen, like the Biblical salt figures. Then, as one, they moved, making no more noise than mice scampering across the floor. Nellie grabbed Ruth from her husband's lap with one hand and Little Si with the other and headed for the pantry door which Tobias already had open. Uncle Will and Big Si had their pistols in their hands. As Nellie and the three children disappeared into the pantry, Big Si closed the door and followed Uncle Will through the kitchen, into the front parlor, and to the front door. They stood on either side of it as five more knocks sounded on the door in rapid succession, followed by a voice quietly calling them by name.

  "That sounds like...that's Freeman from over in Belle City,"
Will whispered.

  Big Si put his mouth to the crack in the door. "Freeman?"

  "It's me," they heard whispered back, and they unlocked the door and opened it a crack, barely enough for the tall, thin man to squeeze through, bringing a blast of frigid air with him. He stamped his feet and rubbed his hands together, then blew on them.

  "Go on in the kitchen and get warm," Will said, as he and Big Si threw the bolts back on the door, stuffed the rags back into the crevices around and beneath the door, then hurried back into the kitchen to release their frightened family from the pantry. "It's all right, y'all," Will said as Tobias emerged first, clutching a thick stick and looking both frightened and defiant. "It's all right," Will said, as Nellie and the younger children emerged and he alone saw the big hunting knife that Nellie returned to the deep pocket of her skirt.

  Nellie turned up the lantern. "Mr. Freeman?" She said his name but made it a question: What are you doing here? it asked, though it carried no impoliteness or sense of unwelcome, merely the honest fact that his unexpected presence was unusual in the extreme.

  He hurriedly removed his hat. "Miz Thatcher, Will, Silas. How y'all doing?" Then he looked closely at the pantry, and the question on his face was: How did they all fit inside?

  "We all fine, Freeman," Will said. "What you doin' here this time of night?" he asked, the only one of them who could voice what they all were thinking.

  "I heard the Army took your oldest boys—they been doin' a lot of that, usin' that draft to take the young men, knowin' womenfolk and old men can't keep up with all the work 'round the farm—so I brung somethin' to help y'all out."

  It took them all several seconds to grasp the import of their guest's words. It was Nellie who reacted first, and the fury behind her words was frightening. "I told you, Silas, didn't I tell you? I told you it wasn't right, them taking my boys. The law said ages twenty-one to thirty-one was subject to that draft and my boys ain't but nineteen and twenty but they came and got 'em anyway. The dirty bastards. And now I know why: So they can steal the land, too. First they steal my boys, now they want to steal my land!"