It is a completely different story when one group meets another going in the same direction. Relief revives the fellow sojourners. They form hastily banded-together packs, joining one another in travel for as long a distance as possible. Anyone fleeing in either direction has the same fear of isolation and vulnerability, of suddenly finding themselves picked off and alone, eager to fall in with greater numbers of their own kind, swelling their ranks, increasing their odds.
At various intervals along the roads and riverway are squads of colored men in groups of three, four, six, as many as a dozen, with guns. They don’t stop or interact with any of the white groups leaving Colfax. Most of the white caravans include at least one or two older males with weapons. But the Colfax defenders are steadfast in their refusal to allow entrance to any white person. If there isn’t already an armed colored man in a group coming into Colfax, a patrol unit assigns a man with a gun to escort the cluster of families seeking refuge inside the town limits. Asylum seekers arrive in Smithfield Quarter anxious and sweating, almost always in groups of ten or more.
White men patrol too, mostly along the banks of Red River, and it is inevitable that opposing patrol squads, colored and white, cross paths. Mostly, the two sets of tight-lipped, armed men glare in silence across the distance at each other, or briefly exchange coarse taunts. In a few cases, they exchange gunfire as well, but no one is seriously injured.
The precarious relationship between colored and white in Colfax crumples like a wobbly wagon wheel that finally capsizes the cart. White men are angry that Negroes who just weeks before knew their place now flex their muscles, their numbers increasing on a daily basis. Colored men try on rebellion as a naked man would a suit of clothes. Some of the younger ones, including Spenser McCullen, become intoxicated with the idea they are one step closer to the freedom granted after the Civil War, when they believed they would receive forty acres of land and a mule instead of never-ending work for a succession of white men.
Terrified colored families pour into Colfax and overrun Smithfield Quarter, already stretched beyond its limits. Opposing forces close rank, black versus white, Republican versus Democrat, plantation riverbed people versus hill people.
The colored men meet outside the courthouse at noon to change patrols and exchange news, comparing notes. There are hundreds of them now, and they spread themselves out from around the building all the way out to the Pecan Tree. Men mill everywhere around the courthouse square, sitting, standing, lying down.
McCully, Israel, and Sam sit together under the Pecan Tree, and Spenser McCullen joins them late, arriving on foot from the direction of the steamboat landing. He waves a packet of papers at the older men as he approaches.
“What?” McCully asks. His face is set in grim lines. The teasing that his eyes usually convey has been extinguished, but he looks more in control of himself than a few hours before, after hearing about Jessie.
“A newspaper from New Orleans, on the upriver boat,” Spenser says. “The captain say we in it.”
“We best take it to the courthouse and see if the politicians tell us what it say,” says Israel.
“Politicians don’t tell us nothing till it suit them,” Sam says. “Go to Smithfield Quarter, find my son Green, and bring him here. We sent that boy to school for a reason.”
While they wait, the men handle the newspaper, passing it back and forth, studying the drawings and regularity of the lines of print, speculating on the contents. Eventually, they abandon the newspaper.
“Mr. Hadnot and some other men from Montgomery come again this morning, near Coptic Point,” Israel says. “They call us names, even fire a shot. We fire too, but nobody hit nothing but dirt. One fall when his horse spook, but he just dust hisself off and get back on the mare.”
“Coptic Point where white men get Charley Harris alone and carry him out to the woods,” Sam says. “No body yet, but he gotta be dead.”
McCully says nothing, and Israel and Sam fall silent too, until Spenser comes back with Green Tademy. Green’s younger brother, Jackson, tags along behind the two older boys. Both of the Tademy boys are handsome in the same dark, chiseled fashion, with Indian features in the sharpness of their nose and smooth, high foreheads, though at fourteen, Green already sports hair on his face, and the beginning of sideburns. Green has a compact, athletic body, almost sculpted, and Jackson, at eleven, shows signs of the same body type. There is no need to explain that they are brothers. Only the age difference separates their looks. The biggest contrast between the two is that Green has a mischievousness about him, even as he carries the weight of expectations of a firstborn, and Jackson is more serious-minded, determined not to disappoint. Their crudely made shirts and pants are from the same bolt of material, differentiated by size and the patterns of whatever was at hand at the time of mending. Green usually speaks for both of them. Giving direction to one is as good as giving it to the other.
Green studies the newspaper, turning the pages until he finds a small article buried in the rest of the news. He reads out loud to the men haltingly, stumbling over some of the words, unable to recognize or sound all of them out, but he manages to convey a majority of the newspaper account.
Figure 6. New-Orleans Republican, April 12, 1873
“See. The authorities on the way,” says Israel when Green has finished.
“On the way not the same as here,” says Sam.
“Last of the white folks leaving Colfax,” says Spenser. “We come across a family with a wagon so full, pots falling off the pile like it raining supplies. They don’t stop to pick them up neither. We let them pass.”
“I hear they put the word out to the colored reverend in Montgomery for the colored there to help us.”
“Somebody got to do something,” says Israel. “Federals too slow, and everything else too fast.”
“They didn’t have to take Jessie,” McCully mumbles.
“No, they didn’t,” Sam says into the uncomfortable silence that McCully’s reminder brings. “We need to take a pause and put up a service for your brother. Respect his passing. Tomorrow Palm Sunday, no better time than that. The women can bring food, and we each say a few words. And Brother McCully, tonight you need to go home, be with your family. We do fine here one day without you.”
“Lucy say they low on rations in Smithfield Quarter,” says Israel. “And now there more people than ever.”
“The Lord will provide,” says Sam.
“Yes, He will,” echoes Spenser McCullen.
Figure 7. Letter from Captain William Ward to Reverend Johnson, Montgomery
Chapter
6
After patrol, as Saturday turns toward evening, Sam and Israel sandwich McCully between them along a path from the Colfax courthouse to Smithfield Quarter, escorting him to his house for the night, as though they can somehow shore up the big man if they position him just so. They avoid direct reference to the long day: Jessie’s murder, the breakdown in peace talks, McCully’s unpredictable mood. The three men cross over to the low side of Colfax to enter Smithfield Quarter, navigating the narrow dirt roads, passing a group of shacks so close to one another they almost touch.
Smithfield Quarter before the siege was always crowded, but now it spills out over itself, like the swollen waters of the Red River during flood. Every available inch houses a family in need of safe haven. Front and back stoops are pressed into service, newly made into sleeping porches. Floors and kitchen tables become beds. Towels and washrags double as blankets. People in every house make do, giving up what they can to put up fellow townsmen, whether they agree with the courthouse seizure or not.
Each house they pass brings a “Hello” or “How’s the family getting on?” or “I’m sorry to hear about Jessie.” Israel and Sam wave soberly and pay their respects to the people porch-sitting or walking, but they don’t stop beyond the obligatory politeness of Sam informing each that there will be a service for Jessie tomorrow. The sun dips lower in the sky, and the trio picks
up their pace.
“Who gonna sort out Jessie’s service?” Israel asks.
“Once we get McCully home, Polly be good at organizing the food and the women,” says Sam. “And we all preachers. Whoever want to speak about Jessie, free to speak up.”
They cut between two small shacks to get to the parallel road, Israel in the lead, navigating the twisting streets. At the bend of the road leading toward McCully’s house, they come upon a thick cord of men, women, and children standing patiently in a ragged line, talking and visiting to pass the time. One old woman pushes a small wooden wheelbarrow, dilapidated and wobbly, and others in the line carry an assortment of feed sacks, gourds, baskets, and canvas bags.
“How you fixing to carry away the food?” the old woman asks when she sees the three men are empty-handed.
Israel and Sam look at each other, puzzled. They push toward the front of the line to get a better idea of what the attraction is.
“Look here, Brother, we all waiting our turn,” an elderly man says.
“Just looking, Brother,” Israel says.
On the buckled front porch of McCully’s house, Polly and Lucy measure and transfer small quantities from several large sacks of flour, rice, cornmeal, and sugar to people waiting in line. Behind them are two large smoked hams and a keg of molasses. Polly stands at the head of the steps, introducing herself, rationing supplies, setting the pace and keeping the line moving. Her voice carries as she gives orders. “Service for Jessie McCullen at sunup tomorrow. What you able to bring? Sweet-potato pone sound fine. Make as much as you can. Give her a little extra of the dark corn syrup, Lucy.
“Young man, you help Miz Johnson here home. And don’t leave till she unload all this food,” Polly commands.
“Look like your wife already got the word,” Israel says to Sam. Sam nods. Polly is a generation younger than Sam, taller by several inches than her husband, and as far as Israel is concerned, would be especially attractive if she wasn’t so forward.
When Lucy sees Israel, she smiles. Her chocolate-brown skin is slick from physical exertion, and an escaped wisp of wiry, gray-streaked hair peeks from her head scarf. The baby is asleep in a basket at her feet, and the long sleeves of her dark dress, her apron, and even her exposed wrists are coated with the fine white flour she scoops. She looks happy at her task. She gives Israel a short wave and goes back to spooning out flour for two small boys, each holding a handle of the #3 washtub they carry between them. Israel slowly waves back.
“Where all that food come from?” asks Sam.
McCully speaks for the first time since they started out for the quarter, his voice a little flat. “Spenser and some others get supplies from Craft’s store.”
“That much food got to cost a pretty penny,” says Sam. “Whose account old man Craft gonna charge?”
“The account past due, I expect,” says McCully.
“What that supposed to mean?” Sam stares at the food that hasn’t already been packed up and taken away. “Mr. Craft gonna make somebody pay. Who got that kind of money? The politicians?”
“Nah, not the politicians.” McCully releases a bitter grunt. “We out here the better part of two weeks, Sam, and now our women and children drawn in too. We running out of everything. The general store cut off credit to any family they know got a man at the courthouse.”
“Somebody still got to pay,” Sam insists.
“We already pay, ten times over,” says McCully. “We pay all our lives. A bit of food don’t put a dent in what’s owed.”
“Spenser stole all this food?” Sam asks slowly.
Israel keeps quiet, listening. He doesn’t think it right to take food from the white man’s store without asking, but he worries about Lucy and the children. The last time he visited, Lucy was reheating and adding more water to the same weak soup they had served each of the last three days, and there wasn’t meal for corn bread.
“It ain’t right, McCully,” Sam says. “Mr. Craft never done nothing to us.”
“You wrong, Sam,” says McCully. “Only two sides now, and when it come down to it, I tell you which side Craft be on.”
“Do people know where that food come from?” Sam asks.
“Nobody want to know. Nobody care. That what scared and hungry is.”
“There ain’t no excuse to take what ain’t ours,” says Sam.
“We come too far to turn around. We got to outlast them.” McCully summons up a little of his old spark. “Tomorrow we do Jessie’s service like we supposed to, and the children gonna eat. Monday, colored men of Colfax go back to the courthouse and finish what we start, clear a path for change to visit this town. That all anybody need know.”
The women cook late into the evening and early in the morning before the sun comes up. Almost every cabin has some contribution, a still-bubbling pot of seasoned stew, fatback and limp dandelion greens simmered for hours in its own pot liquor, rice and thickened gravy, twice-risen bread. Plenty of pork is threaded through the dishes, no longer the poor fare they have rationed the last few weeks. Those who don’t have basics to cook or vegetables from their garden plots to offer use their portion of the food doled out the day before. No questions are asked, no explanations are offered. Against all odds, a faint but stubborn strain of optimism hangs in the air as families take pleasure in being reunited. They make a clearing along the widest, longest road in Smithfield Quarter, just in front of Eli McCullen’s place. The weather is warmer, and they set up tables out-of-doors. Almost everyone in Smithfield Quarter turns out for Jessie’s service, whether newly arrived or longtime resident.
Preacher Johnson speaks first, a gray-haired man about eighty, a well-known minister from Montgomery. Two men help him to the makeshift pulpit they have set up on an elevated part of the road.
“Jessie McCullen a good man, a good husband and father, and he cut down in his prime,” Preacher Johnson begins. “All he ever want is to serve his God and serve his family. We all just want to live in peace. We got no call to mix in white folks’ matters. Give up the guns and the courthouse, and go back to the families waiting for you. Give up now before you bring the white man down on all of us. God give us our just rewards in the next life, if not in this one. We got to wait. We got to be patient. That all I want to say.” Johnson takes his seat again.
Scattered amens erupt from the gathering, and many heads nod in agreement. A few other men stand and address the congregation with similar sentiments, although the words differ.
McCully rises from his chair and walks forward slowly, letting his height and carriage settle in the minds of his audience before he says his first word. He looks across the breadth and depth of the crowd, catching one eye after the other in a conspiratorial connection, as if he assumes they know what he is going to say and they already agree. He lets the silence build until it is uncomfortable. Babies start to whine and children squirm. He waits until adults fidget in the beginnings of confusion and annoyance, some pitying him for his loss and others barely containing their anger or discomfort. Only then does he begin to speak.
“We want our turn,” he says.
His words are so soft and indistinct that those beyond the first few rows of listeners have trouble understanding he has begun at last. There are those who can’t quite catch what he says and lean over to a neighbor to ask. But McCully himself repeats the words, stronger and louder this time.
“We want our turn,” he says again, and he shakes his fist as he says it. “We done waited too long a time, and now we want our turn.
“We was free once, and they cast us into bondage. We waited to be delivered again.
“At last we was set free one more time. All of us remember like it just come this morning. No words possible to capture that certain sweet joy what come on Freedom day. But the land we work and the land where we leave our sweat and our blood don’t belong to us. No. We don’t get no part of that land, even though our hands and our backs bring up the fruit from the soil.
“Most of u
s still on that land, or some mean little piece just like it. Still not ours or our children’s. But we say, ‘That’s all right. We just wait a little longer. Because we free now.’ We decide to be patient some more.
“They tell us we got the right to vote. But if we get to the polls set up in white folks’ section of town, white folks say we don’t have no home to come back to. They threaten us. They beat us. They kill us. We don’t get no work from them, even the ones on the land by rights should be ours.
“Did we not march? Did we not march to the polls anyhow, one hundred black men here in Colfax, in 1868, cast our vote one after the other for the party of Lincoln, the Republican Party? Did we not make our voice heard? They turn out our families then, and we move them from one piece of land that weren’t ours to another. We vote for a set of white men taking the place of the ones been in charge too long, thinking the new ones treat us better. Treat us fair. But now is time to help our own self. Give our children what their children get.”
McCully stares down at the crowd, fierce. “Eye for a eye.” He has a cruel cast to his lips. “That come straight from the Bible. They take one of ours, we got to take one of theirs. We got to take two of theirs.”
The rhythmic nods in the gathering turn cautious, uneasy.
“It’s our turn now. Our children’s children still be waiting if we don’t stand today. You think you safe looking the other way, going on with the life you living now? Ask my brother Jessie. Ask him what he done to deserve a bullet to his head. Ask him what good the safe choices done him. No. You can’t ask Jessie. Jessie dead.”
McCully pauses for a long time. He points to several family men in the gathering, key in the community, one after the other, without saying their names out loud. “Less than half the Smithfield Quarter men join up so far. How about the rest of you? What you waiting for? For the white man to make a promise about better times coming? To die a old man in what you calling peace without scratching together nothing to leave your children? To hope nobody notice you and just let the days pass, one to another, without lifting up your voice for what is surely ours? What good a extra day of life if you don’t move something forward? You think those white men out there gonna all a sudden change their way and give us anything we not willing to take ourselves in blood? All you people trying to stay in the middle. There ain’t no middle. Ask the White League and the Democrats, turning everything into white against black. We in a war, and they pull every white man into it against us before they let one of us have something. Yes, my brother Jessie was a good man, a man like you. He think by staying out the way, staying in the middle, not doing no harm to nobody, the white man leave him alone. He don’t vote. He don’t come with us to protect Republicans. He work old man Thornton’s place five years, and he weren’t no closer to owning his own mule or wagon than when we first get to Louisiana.