Yellow Jack? Sarah knew of no such man, but she imagined he must be pretty remarkable if white folks were interested in him all throughout Delta and Vicksburg, and if this lady would call on them just to ask about him. She’d never known white folks to get excited about any nigger, black or yellow, except the ones Papa said played music and sang in the minstrel shows.
“Yeah, I heard sump’n ’bout that, ma’am,” Daddy muttered.
“Well, I don’t mind telling you both, I won’t sleep a wink tonight. You remember what poor Mama and Big Pa went through in sixty-six, God rest them both, and so many others besides. And it seems like the doctors can’t do nothing about it. So it would put my mind at ease if you’d go out to see Mama Nadine and tell her to make me a potion against Yellow Jack. I want her to bring it to me come morning. I’ll give you three dollars to go to her, and that ought to help you meet your debt. Tell Mama Nadine I’ll pay whatever she says.”
Sarah saw Mama and Papa look at each other, and she knew what they were thinking: Three whole dollars just to go out and see the witch doctor, Mama Nadine? She wasn’t much more than a half-hour’s walk away, out in her brick house in the woods. Mama had taken Sarah there once, long ago, when she had a cough that had lasted for a month. Mama Nadine made her drink something that tasted awful, and that cough sure was gone a week later.
But what kind of yellow nigger could be so evil white folks would need a potion against him? He must have some powerful magic, Sarah thought with a surge of fear.
“Dark’s comin’ on,” Papa said, still looking at Mama. “I better git movin’, if I’m goin’.”
The white woman’s face brightened with a wide smile. “Thank you kindly, Owen! I sure hoped you’d do it! I’ve known you and ’Nerva so long, you’re like kin. You’re good folks, and I told Mama and Big Pa I’d look out for you. I hope you’ll be here with us a long time.”
“Well, now, I don’t know ’bout that… .” Papa said, speaking more slowly. “Nex’ year, maybe, Missus Anna, I been thinkin’ ’bout goin out west, maybe up nawth. I figger me an’ cotton seen enough of each other by now. I hear there’s good wages workin’ on the railroad.”
Tonight was full of surprises! Sarah had never heard Papa talk about moving away, but the thought excited her. She could imagine her entire family hitched up to a wagon and rolling across hills and valleys to places she’d never seen. Maybe the days wouldn’t be so tedious in a new place, and she’d have more time to climb trees and play marbles, slave-kitcher, hopscotch, and “Hide the Switch” with Lou.
“Out west!” the woman said, dismayed. “Owen, that’s no place for civilized folk, what with the Injuns running wild. They’d just as soon eat your young’uns as look at you. And you don’t need to go north. Don’t we treat you good here? Freeing y’all is one thing, but then how can you feed yourselves? That’s the biggest price of the war, to my mind. Did you already forget how many Negroes died in the riot in Vicksburg in December? At least thirty-five, all told. And there’s babies starving on the streets there today.”
“Yes’m, we done heard that,” Mama said quickly. “Sho’ did—”
“We heard it, Missus Anna,” Papa went on, “but that don’t mean we gon’ starve, too. I also done heard ’bout whole towns full o’ nothin’ but niggers. An’ they ain’t starved yet.”
“What the hell is all this about?” Suddenly the room went silent, and a broad-shouldered white man in a long black coat stood in the doorway. It must be the lady’s husband, Sarah thought. Sarah barely noticed his fancy clothing because she was so frightened by the anger in his eyes. Mama and Papa always told her the surest way to trouble was to make a white man mad, so she mustn’t ever even look one in the eye. She tried to look away, but not before she saw the rider’s crop in his hand.
“Did I hear you right, Owen Breedlove? You in here starting a damn debate?”
“George … your language …” the woman said weakly, her face changing colors, but then she was silent under his gaze. Sarah saw her brother fold his arms across his chest, imitating Papa’s earlier stance that had seemed somehow dangerous. She also noticed that Alex was staring right toward the white man’s face without blinking, despite Mama’s warning.
“No, suh, Mr. Long, I ain’t doin’ nothin’ like you said,” Papa told the man. “Niggers sho’ don’t know nothin’ ’bout no pol’tics an’ such. I was jus’ tellin’ Missus Anna a story I heard ’bout some niggers out west.”
“Well, east, west, or south, seems to me niggers were happier when they were looked after. We never had these troubles before the war. Wish someone else was responsible for feeding and clothing me. Is your business finished here, Anna?”
“Yes, it is,” the woman said, opening her tiny handbag again, and she pulled out three gold-colored coins that shone in the lamplight. She gave them to Papa. “Three dollars, Owen.”
“Might as well throw that money in the river and make a wish,” the white man muttered. “I swear, Anna, sometimes …”
“Thank you again, Owen,” she said, ignoring the man. “Y’all have a good supper and a good night.”
The white man and woman walked out the door, leaving the excitement of their visit hanging in the air. Sarah didn’t even mind that the white man had seemed so cross, since at least his presence had been a novelty. “Ooh, Mama, did you see that lady’s dress?” Sarah cried.
“I seen it,” Mama said, but kept her voice low. She and Papa both seemed to be listening; Sarah wondered what they were listening for, until she heard the man shout for the horses to git, and they could hear their wagon driving away. Mama and Papa didn’t want to talk about them until they were sure they were gone, Sarah realized. She wondered if the visitors were driving one of those fancy carriages she had seen in Vicksburg, sleek and black and pretty.
“Come askin’ after that hoodoo at suppertime, when she know you tired an’ hungry,” Mama said. “Her mama woulda knowed better manners’n that.”
“Sho’ glad for this money, though,” Papa said, shrugging. He picked up his bowl and began to scoop food into his mouth with a spoon. “This’ll go a long way to what we owe ’em.”
“Y’all see how Mr. Long come in here all haughty ’cause he liked them Rebs?” Alex said, laughing as he imitated the white man’s barrel-chested stance, his hands planted on his hips. “Them Rebs ain’t do nothin’ in that war but lose. Papa, I seen him jump away scared o’ dat nigger still goin’ roun’ wearin’ his blue coat on Sundays. You know who I mean, that cropper was with them Yankees way back?”
“Yeah, I know ’im,” Papa said. “They say Simon crazy, but don’t none of them buckras bother ’im, neither. They hate that blue like they hate the devil. Scared, that’s why. Simon was jus’ a-poundin’ on his drum in the war, tol’ me he didn’t even git no gun with that blue coat, but white folks roun’ here think he done kilt a mess o’ buckras an’ liked it.”
Mama humphed, exhaling loudly through her nostrils. “Scarin’ ’em ain’t gon’ do no good. That’s why them Vicksburg niggers gettin’ kilt now. Seem like ain’t nothin’ changed.”
“Sho’ ain’t,” Papa said. “Talkin’ ’bout Mis’sippi done sent a nigger to the Senate, but ain’t nobody better fo’ it but him. Niggers out here still workin’ theyselves to death like befo’,” Papa said, and Mama and Alex murmured their agreement.
Sarah mustered enough nerve to creep to the window to try to peer after the woman in the white dress to see if she was indeed riding in a shiny carriage. By then their visitors had already vanished behind the thick stand of trees. All she could see was a low cloud of dust left by their departure. She knew Papa hadn’t told the truth when he told the white man he didn’t know anything about pol’tics, because that was his favorite subject with the men who came to visit him on the porch. He talked about Re-con-struc-tion and the Freed-men’s Bu-reau and Wa-shing-ton. Those days, Papa was like a preacher, and every time his voice rose up, the men called back to him Tell it! and You ain’t lyin’! T
hey had come to talk to Papa a lot before Christmastime, when all those people got killed in the race riot in Vicksburg. Mama said she was tired of all their talking, and on Christmas Eve she just about had to chase all those men home. She said they shouldn’t be talking about so much ugly so close to Jesus’ day.
“But we gon’ go west or nawth, come spring,” Papa said, eating a spoonful of food. “If there a way, Lord know I’ma find it.”
“Tell you what, if Missus Anna give me a hunnert dollars, I’ll mix up a potion my own self,” Mama said with a laugh. “That’ll git us west and whatever else we want, too.”
“Mama, you don’t know no hoodoo like Mama Nadine!” Louvenia said.
“I ain’t said I did. But Missus Anna ain’t got to know I don’t.”
“Woman, you so wicked,” Papa said, but he was grinning. The grin changed his whole face, as if he weren’t tired at all. “Who wanna walk with me down to Mama Nadine’s?”
Sarah jumped up and down. “Ooh, Papa, I does! Me!”
“You ain’t scared o’ that witch woman, Li’l Bit?” Papa said, and Sarah shook her head. Papa rubbed the top of her head, his fingers sifting through her plaits. “Come on, then. You an’ me’s on a errand tonight.”
Sarah couldn’t believe her luck! She closed the palm of her hand tightly around her candy and vowed to save it until later. The white lady had told her not to eat her candy until after supper, and besides, she might try to wait until tomorrow or the next day, or even longer, before she ate it. She wanted to save her candy for a special day.
“Take a lamp, and y’all hurry back,” Mama said, then she sighed. “I sho’ hopes Missus Anna ain’t be bringin’ none o’ that Yellow Jack roun’ here.”
With Mama’s worry in their minds and a low-burning kerosene lamp to light their way, Sarah and her father began their journey along the rutted road in the twilight. Stalks of high grass swept across Sarah’s thighs as she walked. She could hear the bathing creek gurgling a few yards away from them, which made her wish she could jump into the water and splash the heat away. Insects followed them, and Sarah scratched at a new bump on her wrist from a bite.
“Papa,” Sarah said, “who Yellow Jack is?”
Papa laughed. “Yellow Jack ain’t no who. It’s a fever makes white folks turn yellow.”
“Yellow like a nigger?”
“Nah, not like that. But they’d sho’ be scared o’ that, too, maybe mo’ than they scared now. Yellow Jack’ll kill ’em, though, lots o’ time. That be what kilt off Ole Marster and Ole Missus, use to own all this land. Ole Marse Burney got the fever in April, then his wife went sick in fall, near to Thanksgivin’. That was a awful year roun’ here, Li’l Bit. I only stayed here on ’count Mr. Burney had axe me to, cuz he done me a good turn long time ago. Ain’t for that, your papa woulda been runnin’ to the Yankees, too. Then the crop went bad in sixty-seven, and I ain’t pull myself out of owin’ since. Only good thing to come out o’ that year was you. But ’til we leave roun’ here, we still be slaves, every one o’ us, don’t matter what po’ Abe Lincoln writ down.”
Papa was silent for a long time after that, and Sarah enjoyed the sight of their long shadows walking alongside each other on the road. Papa usually didn’t talk to her like she was one of his grown men-friends, and she didn’t want to say anything stupid to ruin it so he’d remember she was still the baby, only six years old. She looked up toward the sky, and saw that the sun was ready to dip out of sight inside the tree line to the west. It would be dark soon, and they’d need the lamp for sure. Sarah knew the bugs would follow their light and bite them the whole way.
“Papa … where do Yellow Jack come from?”
“You git it from touchin’ and breathin’ on folks that’s gots it, I reckon, or maybe the air git dirty. When somebody die from it, they burn up the bodies so won’t no one else kitch it. I figger it’s like one o’ them plagues on Egypt the Sunday preacher be talkin’ ’bout. Plagues take the good an’ wicked alike. I sho’ would hate for Yellow Jack to take Missus Anna. I knowed her since she was born.”
Swatting away a cloud of gnats flying close to her head, Sarah looked up at her father’s bearded face and sharp chin, feeling at once very small and very safe. Her feet stumbled in the deep, muddy ruts, but she struggled to keep pace with him. Her bare foot splashed into a thin puddle of muddy water left over from last night’s storm, and she hoped she hadn’t stained her dress. There were still three more days until Mama did washing.
“Papa … only white folks git Yellow Jack?”
“That’s what they say, Li’l Bit, but plenty niggers git sick, too. Jus’ don’t be breathin’ on nobody who sick, an’ you be fine. But know sump’n? I figger God ain’t got no plagues in mind for a sweet li’l one like you.”
Sarah hoped Papa was right. He smiled down at her, his teeth glowing bright in the waning sunlight, but this time Sarah didn’t feel warmed by his smile. Her stomach felt tight suddenly, and she wished she’d eaten before she’d left for such a long walk. Maybe she was scared to see Mama Nadine, after all.
“Bugs think you eatin’ good tonight, huh? No, you ain’t,” Papa said, slapping at a skeeter on his neck. When he moved his hand away, Sarah could see the tiny smear of blood left behind. “I got ’im?” he asked her, cocking his head like he did when he shaved his face clean each summer. Sarah nodded, gazing uneasily at the blood spot on her father’s neck. Blood always made Sarah feel queasy.
Owen Breedlove smiled, satisfied. Soon, as he walked, he began to hum the song about dancing with the Charleston gal with the hole in her stocking, and Sarah hummed right along with him until the queasy feeling went away.
Chapter Two
By the time Sarah reached Mama Nadine’s sturdy brick house nestled between old, thick oak trees, she was soaked through from the sudden downpour. Droplets that felt as big as her fingers splashed her clothes, thunder roared above the trees, and lightning seared the cloud-darkened skies in flashes that made her vision dance. Sarah’s teeth were chattering, but although she was wet, she wasn’t cold. The chattering was because of fear.
Tentatively, Sarah strained to reach up to knock on the smooth wooden door with the iron knocker that had turned green from time. As she did, she felt disbelief tickling the back of her neck, reminding her that Papa had used this very same knocker only two weeks before, when she could smell simmering stew from Mama Nadine’s supper wafting from underneath the door. Oxtail stew, and red beans and rice. She and Papa had eaten well that night, which was so few days ago but already felt like a make-believe memory.
Please, please, please, please, Sarah thought, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. She heard a fiddle’s deep strains from inside the house, the music growing more rapid and then slowing down until it almost sounded as mournful as Sarah felt. Certain her knock hadn’t been heard, Sarah rapped the knocker sharply again. This time the fiddling stopped.
Sarah recognized the lanky, curly-headed man who opened the door; he looked almost like a white man, except for his lips and broad nose that reminded her of Papa’s. He held his fiddle by the neck in one hand, the bow in the other. He looked surprised.
“Well, lookie what the storm blew in,” the man said. “Salut, chérie. You here for Mama Nadine?” To Sarah, he sounded exactly like a white man, too, except for the words she couldn’t understand. Cajuns always talk funny, Papa said. Besides, Papa had told her this man was Mama Nadine’s son, who was being schooled up north by his rich white daddy. He had a strange-sounding Cajun name Sarah couldn’t remember, but he’d been nice to her when she was here last.
Silently, Sarah nodded.
“Come on inside then. You came all this way your lone self?”
Again, Sarah nodded, stepping out of the rain and flinging droplets of water from her face. Her dress, which was clinging to her tightly, dripped on the straw mat. Sarah’s teeth clicked uncontrollably. “I g-gotta see M-Mama Na—”
“And you will, little one, soon’s I find you a b
lanket. Looks like that rain caught you unawares. Un moment.”
Mama Nadine’s house had three rooms, or maybe even more, Sarah guessed. This room in front had a small table and soft chairs for sitting, and a shelf full of books. Mama had only one book—an old Bible Ole Missus had given her a long time ago, even though Mama didn’t know how to read the words in it—but Sarah had never seen so many books in one place. There were big candles everywhere, most of them lit to give the room light. There was a strange scent around her; something sweet was burning in the air.
“Somebody out there at my door?” Mama Nadine’s voice called from the back.
The man, who draped a sour-smelling blanket over Sarah’s head, called something back to her in Cajun, then he began to gently push Sarah toward another brightly glowing room. Sarah was eager to see Mama Nadine, but her feet didn’t seem to work the way they should, dragging and half stumbling as she got closer to the other room.
He was taking her to the kitchen, Sarah realized. She and Papa had eaten in here when they came last time, and the thought of it made Sarah’s eyes grow misty. The small kitchen smelled smoky. It was an entire room with nothing in it except a cookstove, a washtub, shelves filled with jars, and a smoothly sanded wooden table with four chairs. There were strings of garlic, feathers, and some trinkets hanging on the wall from nails. And, of course, there were candles. Candlelight made overlapping shadows on the walls.
And here sat Mama Nadine. She was a honey-colored woman younger than Mama with thin, birdlike limbs. She wore her head wrapped in a colorful scarf that dangled to her breast. She was sitting in a chair, and a dark-skinned girl about Louvenia’s age sat cross-legged on the floor between her thighs. The girl’s hair was spread across her shoulders, and Mama Nadine was running a strange-looking comb with metal teeth through it. Inexplicably, when the comb touched the girl’s hair, it sizzled with smoke. Mama Nadine was performing some kind of magic on the girl, Sarah decided.