Paint the Wind

  It was a long time before the screaming died in the child's throat and the thrashing limbs lay still in the black giant's arms.

  He crooned a strange song of soothing into her ear. Fancy heard it vaguely through her sobs; the words were foreign and rhythmic. Almost against her will she let them seep into her agony, and in a little while a blackness came and she drifted into it for comfort.

  Atticus laid the unconscious child gently on the ground; she would sleep awhile, for he had chanted the healing magic into her ear and it would do its work long enough for him to gather what he must and bury the massa and the missus.

  He scanned the grounds for signs of Massa Deverell and saw the man's crumpled body on the ravaged verandah. Atticus wondered briefly if the massa had been forced to watch his house being ransacked, his wife raped and murdered before he was left to die in the burning house he'd been born in—the house the Deverells had thought they'd own forever.

  Fancy stood at the side of the newly mounded graves; when she awakened, the bodies of her father and mother were gone away somewhere. Atticus said he'd buried them, but she couldn't think about that now . . . later she would think about where her maman and papa had gone . . . later she would find them.

  The sickening scent of burning sugar cane filled the air around them. In her fist Fancy clutched a lock of hair Atticus said had been her mother's. She stared at the thick brown curl, so pathetic in her hand; it was unlike the lustrous dark crown of bouncing ringlets her mother had worn so proudly, and seemed alien, yet she clutched it tightly.

  "French women are the most beautiful of all," her papa had told Fancy once, as he'd watched her mother at the dressing table fixing her elaborate coiffure. "And men desire them more than any others."

  Fancy stuffed the lock of hair into her pocket with the tiny music box she had salvaged; Atticus said the exquisite musical trinket had been dropped from a soldier's sack of spoils.

  The old man stood stooped by the finished graves, sweat making the muscles of his knotted shoulders and arms gleam. Horrid, ropelike welts crisscrossed his back and glinted in the sun and sweat.

  "Poorly as we feelin' right now, child, you and me got to decide what we do next," he said, looking up from the freshly turned earth.

  Fancy nodded but didn't try to speak. She saw that Atticus had salvaged certain items from the ruins: a knife, scissors, needles and threads, some slave clothes to replace her own that had burned with the house, and a pair of shoes he must have snatched from her room when he'd rescued her. He'd found his old banjo lying miraculously unharmed near his cabin, and his medicaments had been left undisturbed. Everything else of value had perished or been taken.

  "Now, Miz Fancy, we got to git you to somewheres, quick. You could go to your mama's people, if we know'd where dey abide." He cocked his head toward her questioningly. "Y'all know where your mama come from?"

  Fancy shook her head. "I only know it's called La Retourne and it's north of Savannah."

  "Lot a territory north of Savannah. Don't know rightly how we ever find it wif dis old war goin' on. Y'all could go stay wif Massa Redmond over at Tremayne, I reckon. Less'n, of course, the same thing's happened over dere, and likely it did." Tremayne was their nearest neighboring plantation, but the main house was more than fifteen miles from Beau Rivage. Atticus had seen smoke rising from that direction when he'd emerged from the cistern—that would explain why no help had come.

  "I don't like Johnny Redmond, Atticus. He was mean to me at the Fourth of July barbecue, and those Redmond girls are the very limit!"

  Atticus chuckled a little; his uneven teeth gleamed against his charcoal skin. "It don't hardly matter if dem girls is de limit or not, honey child, 'cause beggars cain't be choosy."

  "I am not a beggar!" Fancy replied sharply, stung by the thought. "I'm François Deverell of Beau Rivage and I am not a beggar!" The arrogance of privilege made her eyes defiant.

  "Miz Fancy!" Atticus said sharply. "Beau Rivage is gone. Your mama and daddy are gone. Your brother, Massa Armand, he off God knows where wif his regiment. Dis a serious business, missy, you got to understand!"

  "What are you going to do, Atticus?" she asked, her voice made small by his distress.

  "I expects I'se goin' west, child. To Californy or one of dem places where de sun shine all de time and dere's gold for de takin'. Ain't got no family what needs me now. My wife gone ten years past. All my children sold off long ago . . ." He stopped for a moment and Fancy wondered why Atticus seemed upset by the memory. It was normal for young black bucks to be sold away when they came of age, especially if they were good breeding stock. She knew her daddy'd considered Atticus' eleven sons the best he'd ever bred on Beau Rivage.

  "I always thought I'd like to see what all's out west, if I ever git free."

  "Are you free, now, Atticus?"

  "Guess I am now, Miz Fancy. Leastways dat's what dem soldiers say last night. I heard 'em, when dey run into de quarter. 'Y'all's free,' dey yelled out. 'Pack yo' black asses outa here. Y'all's free.'"

  "Then I guess I'd best go with you," Fancy said, trying to sound reasonable. " 'Til we find somebody we know, at least."

  Atticus looked at the small miserable child for a long moment; Savannah was as far away as the moon, and with a war on, just as hard to get to. The neighbors would take her, but if he brought her to them, he might be recaptured, and he'd waited too long for freedom to let that happen. He couldn't leave her behind alone. . . .

  "I expects you're right about dat, child," the old man replied finally. "I don't rightly know what else to do wif you." He shook his balding head at the strange ways of the Lord and began to gather up what they would need to take along.

  They tied what they could carry into bundles, including as many herbs and roots from Atticus' supply as he thought essential. He dosed them both with vile-tasting medicine and they set out in a westerly direction along the riverbank. They would keep to the bayou, away from the main roads, he told her, to avoid any soldiers still in the neighborhood.

  "When dis ol' war's over, Miz Fancy, we jest see if we kin find your kinfolk," he said to make her feel better, but he knew in his heart that it would be a very long time before Fancy Deverell would feel better about anything at all.

  Chapter 2

  Fancy looked with repugnance at the dark brown paste that Atticus had worked over so laboriously since they'd made camp for the night. Everything about their life so far had been frightening or wearying or both.

  She tugged off her soiled shoes and wiggled her toes tentatively. She felt as if they'd tramped a thousand miles, not seven or eight as Atticus said it had been.

  Night had fallen around them and the country rang with uncertain sounds. Screeching sounds, and slithering sounds that brought her legs up tight against her body . . . bird sounds and insect sounds and swamp sounds, all scary. Fancy had lived on the bayou all her life, but never before had she been at the mercy of its sounds.

  Atticus had built a fire to warm them and had tried to show her how, but she'd been too tired to pay attention.

  "What is that smelly stuff?" she asked finally, wrinkling her nose at the concoction the old man had made from roots and leaves.

  "Dis here's a stain for yo' white skin, child."

  "No!" Fancy's cry of horror was genuine. White skin was a southern belle's most prized possession; she shielded it from the sun with bonnets and gloves and parasols; she coaxed it into perfection with creams and unguents.

  Atticus looked up from his work, directly into Fancy's startled eyes.

  "Now you listen to me real good, Miz Fancy," he said, his voice as stern as she'd ever heard it. "If we was to be found traveling together like we is, a black man an' a li'l white child, dey'd string me up for kidnappin' before you could blink yo' eye.

  "You tol' me you want to travel wif me, child, and I done said awright. But the only least way I kin see dey let you stay wif me, is if dey believe you is a black child. You gotta be my grandbaby, what lost her mama and da
ddy and is headin' west wif her grand-daddy. Otherwise you got to turn yourself around right now and go on over to Massa Redmond and stay wif him."

  Fancy considered these facts solemnly . . . there was no doubt

  Atticus was right. She'd seen what happened to nigras caught messing with white folk, and no one would listen to a child's explanation of the truth.

  "If you put that stuff on me, Atticus, will I be black forever?"

  "No indeed, Miz Fancy," the old man said quietly, his face unreadable. "Lord knows nobody in his right mind would do dat to a person!"

  He started to rub the paste onto her arm; Fancy shut her eyes so she wouldn't see it happen.

  "What's more, child, I gots to stop calling you Miz Fancy and call you jest plain Fancy from here on in. Ain't no little colored gals called Missy around here."

  Digesting the full impact of her sudden demotion, Fancy blinked her eyes open and stared at Atticus. As long as she was white, he was her servant . . . what would he be to her if she became black?

  "I don't want to be colored!"

  "Ain't nobody want to be colored, Fancy—not if dey live in Loosiana!" Atticus' voice held something Fancy hadn't heard there before. Was he becoming what her father called an "uppity nigger"? she wondered. He sounded different than before. Stronger. In charge. Maybe that was better somehow; she just wasn't sure.

  "I'll stay with you," she said finally, and her voice, which she had intended to sound imperious, sounded only small and scared.

  Miserably, she submitted to Atticus' careful ministrations. Face, scalp, neck, arms, hands, and legs, all smeared with the dismal stain and then washed clean in the chilly creek. Fancy kept her eyes tight shut the whole time and Atticus said nothing of the tear that slid down her cheek. When she opened her eyes to see the damage, she wasn't black, but a dark honey color like a pecan.

  Atticus surveyed his work critically. "Thank de Lord you got dark hair and dark eyes, Fancy. But yo' nose and mouth like a white child's, so we cain't make your skin too black or it look suspicious. If anybody ask us about you, we jest tell 'em you is a high yeller."

  "What's that?" asked Fancy disdainfully as she strained her neck to look over her shoulder in an effort to view the backs of her darkened legs.

  "A high yeller is a child what has a black mama and a white daddy."

  "Oh," she replied, her voice choked back because she knew such children were laughed at by both colors. Quadroons, octaroons . . . every plantation had them, although her mother had never allowed her to speak of them. Fancy's eyes were suddenly downcast, and a soft pink flush rose under the darkened skin of her cheeks.

  "Atticus' lesson number one, Fancy," he said very gently, bending down to her level as he spoke, so he could coax the down-turned eyes to look into his own.

  "Who you be is inside you. It ain't got nothin' to do wif de color of your skin or de clothes you wear or who your mama and daddy is. It got to do wif what's in your heart and what's in your head. You hear me, child?" He put his leathery hand under her chin and tipped her face up toward his own. She tried to avoid the intensity of his eyes but could not.

  "You jest de same child you was before I put dat old stain on you, 'cause inside you still Fancy Deverell. Jest 'cause Beau Rivage and your mama and daddy gone, you ain't changed none. You still carry dem all inside you, where it count.

  "I'se a orphan, too, Fancy. I got took from my mama and daddy way back in Africa so long ago, I cain't hardly count de years, but dey live inside me still. My daddy was a king in my tribe and a great warrior. And de pride of him lives inside dis old blacksmith every day of his life in de white man's world. Every single day!"

  Fancy's great teary eyes blinked hard; she'd never thought of Atticus as having a mother and father. Or as being a king's son. Maybe he was still lonesome for his family, as she was for hers. Maybe this horrible empty ache she felt would still pain her when she was as old as Atticus.

  "But I feel different now," she whispered shyly.

  "Sometimes folks git to be different, even though dey stays de same," he replied enigmatically.

  "I don't understand."

  "What's different is de learnin' dat comes of life, Fancy. It changes de way you sees things, 'cause you know more than you did before. De same part is what lives inside of you, dat no man can mess wif. Not if dey beat you, or starve you or laugh at you, or try to make you feel ashamed. Dat part, Fancy, is like a holy thing. And dat part never, never changes . . . not even when you gits old like me."

  Fancy nodded. She would try to remember the words, for they seemed to come from Atticus' heart . . . and, for the moment, they were all she had to hold on to.

  "Atticus!" Fancy's voice was imperious and cranky. "You come back here this minute and pick up my bag. It's too heavy for me!"

  Atticus eyed the child speculatively, as if to decide when to begin her education about life.

  "First place, Fancy," he said in a dignified voice. "You got no call to take dat tone wif me. I'se a free man now."

  She looked astonished and didn't venture a reply.

  "Second place, if we is to travel together we got to share de load. 'Cause I'se bigger, I kin carry mos' things. But we got to share and share alike. Dat's jest fair."

  "That is not fair! You're a darkie and you're supposed to do the work!"

  Atticus chuckled.

  "You a darkie now, too, Fancy, so I reckon y'all better find out how it feels to have folks expectin' you to work."

  "I won't carry it!"

  "Then I guess you jest won't have no clothes to change into next time you wants to. All your clothes in dat bundle, ain't dey?"

  "It's too heavy."

  "Den you best figure out what you kin leave behind, honey. What you need, you got to carry wif you. Dat ain't my law, dat's life." The amused expression on his face made her angrier.

  "Then I won't go!"

  "Den I guess I jest have to leave you behind." He calmly picked up the huge bundle of all their other belongings and moved toward the edge of the clearing where they'd camped.

  The fury of being disregarded made Fancy reckless and mean. "You can't leave me here, you uppity nigger!"

  She saw Atticus stop, still as an oak, then straighten himself under the huge pack he shouldered. Without looking back, he walked on.

  Fancy stood, defiant hands on hips, watching the retreating figure until she was certain he'd really meant what he said. Then, biting her underlip nervously, she hastily gathered up her small bag, looked around the campsite to make sure she hadn't left any precious belongings behind, and ran after him. She was beginning to learn that every possession was an important one; if you lost a hairpin, there would be no new one to replace it. If you lost a shawl, you'd have no protection from the cold and damp. Instinctively, she pulled her shawl tighter around her as she ran.

  She saw Atticus glance over his shoulder at her as she caught up, but he said nothing, simply slowed his long strides to accommodate her shorter steps.

  "I'm sorry, Atticus," the child murmured grudgingly. "I shouldn't have called you that."

  They walked on in silence for a few minutes, then Atticus spoke, choosing his words carefully.

  "Callin' names' a bad business, Fancy. It's real cowardly to sass a man 'cause of somethin' he cain't help, like his skin bein' a different color. I expects y'all be findin' dat out now, soon enough."

  Fancy glanced down at the color of her own small hand, and gulped back her pride.

  "I accepts your apology," Atticus said with lofty dignity, and he reached for Fancy's hand; she was surprised at the surge of comfort she felt as the great leathery fingers closed around her own.

  "Hey you, nigger!" The hostile white voice pierced the air and turned heads in their direction. Instinctively, Fancy moved behind Atticus. The short, scruffy white man with the bushy black beard was pointing at them. "That child don't look like no nigger baby to me."

  The man attached to the voice looked at the bedraggled pair with narrowed eyes.
"You! Young'un," he called to Fancy. "You come over here, let me get a look-see at you."

  "Oh, no, sir, massa," Fancy whispered from behind Atticus in her best nigra voice. "I'se a black child sho 'nuff."

  Atticus placed his hand protectively on her shoulder.

  "She's a high yeller, mister. Her daddy a white man. She's my grandbaby."

  The man smirked a lascivious and knowing grin. "Well, now, that explains it. You must be real proud, boy, that a white man fucked your little girl and give her such a pretty child."

  Atticus fought down the blood-red urge to crush this arrogant little man's head between his two great hands. "Oh, yessir. I'se mighty proud," he said.

  Atticus shuffled backward obsequiously, shooing Fancy behind him as he went. He knew that such behavior pleased the kind of men who made such statements.

  "Shame she ain't a touch older," the man shouted to him as they backed out the door. "Might be I'd fuck the little bastard just like her mama got fucked. She looks right frolicsome."

  Out the door at last, Atticus scooped up Fancy in his arms and walked hurriedly away, the ugly sound of the man's laughter ringing in his ears, beneath the rage.

  "I hate being poor!" Fancy stamped her small foot against the rock for emphasis.

  Fancy picked up her faded blue dress from the small pile of belongings and threw it to the ground.

  "I won't wear these stupid rags anymore either. And I won't be laughed at by stupid white trash not fit to shine my boots!"

  "You ain't got no boots," Atticus replied with equanimity. He knew the outburst had been occasioned by a trip to town, where Fancy had been teased by the children of a farmer at the general store. She'd been sullen all the way home.

  "But I will have them. And everything else I want! You mark my words, I'll get back everything I was supposed to have. And more. And I don't care what I have to do to get it, either!"