All God's Dangers (66 page)

What I wanted to tell em I told em; what I didn't want to tell em I didn't tell em. And I never did want to tell em nothin bout this organization. They wasn't about to be told by me. While I was there in prison, from the first day to the last, didn't nobody pick my guts about it as hard as that white woman. And when she finished, she knowed just as much as she knowed before she asked me.

M
ANY
a mornin I'd go to the field, tote water, and off my water hours I'd go to the woods and swamps, cut me some white oak, put it on the wagon to carry home. And when Miss Phoebe Burnside become warden, she took me out of the field completely. Put me down at the barn and the blacksmith shop on the Coosa River, keepin watch on the state's property. Hog pasture went right to the bank of the river, kept plenty of hogs there. I was a watchman and overlooker for them hogs.

Naturally, I spent a lot of time around the blacksmith shop. But I didn't have to sharpen no plows or shod no mules—I could do it but I didn't have it to do, it weren't put on me.

Well, Captain Oliver Cook taken sick and had to go to the hospital and they put Captain Lew Hurley in his place over the boys in the field. He come off of bein over a women's squad and they took his women and divided em out under them other boss men. And at that period of time, there was a white lady workin in the prison department and she wanted me to build her a chicken coop. So I was in the yard near the blacksmith shop at this old women's prison, nailin and fixin that white lady a chicken coop, wire chicken coop, and I heard a horse come up in the yard; that horse hit that asphalt—blok-ablok-ablok-ablok-ablok-ablok-ablok—I quit and raised up. I knowed it was a state horse because other horses didn't come in there, nothin but state horses—had a old gang of mules there and
one saddle horse. I quit workin, quit nailin; had my saws and other tools there where I was makin that chicken coop. And that horse come right down on me. I seed it was Mr. Lew Hurley on that horse.

“Nate.”

I said, “Yes sir.”

Now he oughta knowed that I was busy and I weren't no shop man—

“Get them boys some sharp plows over yonder. Them boys' plows is all dull. And get em over there at once.”

Soon as he said that I just quit listenin and bowed down to my work. I didn't carry no plows nowhere. He whirled around on that horse and went back. I reckon he was lookin for them plows to come regardless to what I said or done. But he didn't see no plows then.

Well, the farm superintendent come in there that evenin after Mr. Lew Hurley had done went back to the plow boys. I didn't know he was there—Captain Albert Morehead—and he went on over in the field where Captain Hurley was. Captain Hurley raised sand when he didn't see no plows come and he reported me to the farm superintendent. Told him—some of the boys listened at him and some of em, one or two of em, one of em was my right-hand friend—that was a little old chunky-built fellow sentenced up from Birmingham, by the name of Willy Akers. So he told me that night when the boys checked in from the field—Willy Akers overheard what Captain Hurley told Captain Morehead; told him, “I went over to camp to get some plows and I told Nate Shaw to bring em out here and he wouldn't do it”—Willy Akers listened at him— “You oughta put his damn ass in the field. He's just sittin over there at that camp and he don't do a damn thing, just sittin.”

Willy Akers told me that—he heard him, he was one of the plow hands. I asked him, “What did Captain Morehead tell him then?”

He said, “Captain Morehead didn't pay him no attention far as raisin a big talk; he just passed him up.”

That raised my hackles. I said, “Well, I aint too good to go back to the field—”

Willy Akers looked at me, said, “You done put your days in the field, Uncle Nate. You don't have to put out no more.”

“I know it,” I said, “if I understands the warden's orders. And if Lew Hurley tries to make me break them orders or tries to break
em hisself, he just might find
his
ass in the road. He already violated the rules here some time ago—” That was before Miss Phoebe Burnside become warden. One of them colored gals broke to run one day in the field and he shot at her. And that was strictly against orders. He had to plead for his job after that. I learnt all about it: he told the warden he didn't shoot to hurt her, he just shot to scare her. He didn't hit her but you wasn't allowed to shoot noway around them women, to shoot em or to shoot to scare em neither.

Willy Akers knowed that history.

“No, I aint goin back to the field. I'm goin to stay where the warden put me until I go free. Lew Hurley is one boss man this colored man aint goin to recognize.”

M
ORNINS
them boys would hitch up the mules—boss man'd check em out—all get ready for the field. I'd be walkin around at the blacksmith shop and the barn and the pasture. But if I took a notion I'd go off and cut me some white oak. Evenin, I'd get me a ax and sharpen it, prepare it for the next mornin. Mornin come, I might catch the boys and go on to the field, carry that ax with me, and I knowed what I was goin to do when I got to that field—I'd reach down in the wagon, grab my ax, and jump off. Go right on to the woods, swamps, wherever I went, tell the boys, “I'll see you all.” Tell such-and-such a one, the wagon driver, “Stop over on that road a piece on your way back, please; and if you find any white oak piled up there, bring it to the blacksmith shop.”

I hung around the blacksmith shop where I could see what come in and what went out. Saturdays, when the boss man would come up out of the field with the boys, from work, he'd watch and see that the boys ungeared them mules and put em up and he'd turn his saddle over to the lot man; it was the lot man's job to put feed out, ready for him. Boss man would come on back around by the blacksmith shop, goin to the office, I'd go out and stop him: “Captain.”

“What is it, Nate?”

“I needs a wagon and a pair of mules this evenin.”

“Nate, you better go around and tell the lot man; you know how it is, he turns them mules to pasture at one o'clock every Saturday. Tell him whatever mules you wants this evenin, tell him not to
turn em out, turn the rest of em out but keep them two you want in the lot.”

I'd get right up, go around there and tell the lot man—sometimes it'd be a white man, sometimes it'd be a colored man—tell him, “Such-and-such a pair of mules, I want to use em this evenin and I done asked for em, granted to me. Don't turn em out—I'm goin to use em to the wagon.”

I was liable to drive them mules three miles or more from camp, huntin white oak. Take that wagon and a pair of mules at one o'clock, drive off from the barn up to the back of the shop, stop and get my ax and lay it in the wagon—hit the road. If I was out and black dark comin in, they never did hunt Nate Shaw up. I'd just be late comin back to the shop with a load of white oak from some woods, somewhere or other.

And sometimes I'd take one of the prisoner boys with me, one of the field workers that wanted to breathe on the outside for awhile. It stuck me to see them boys locked in like they was and sufferin to go out; if they'd let em out every once in awhile they'd a been glad to come back. I'd go to the office and tell the warden, “Such-and-such a one wants to go with me and I believe you can trust him.”

“All right, Nate, but you're responsible for him. You can take him with you but bring him back. If you can't bring him back, you just have to get on the wagon and hustle on back here, let it be known.”

I'd say, “I appreciate it, sir.”

There was two different fellows there at camp, two especially, one or the other would always want to go with me, ride out on the wagon into the country. Never did carry off one that acted like he wanted to run. Many a Saturday night, that wagon'd roll back there and I'm holdin the lines and one of them fellows was with me. Come back late hours, after dark, drive that wagon on around there to that blacksmith shop and take out from it; carry them mules on to the lot and put em up.

H
AD
a great big old tree beside the blacksmith shop; I'd set under there and make my baskets. That hackle tree would throw shade like a cloud—biggest hackle tree I ever seed in my life. I'd sell my
baskets to anybody that wanted em—I never did have to carry a basket off of the camp grounds to sell it. Them boss men that worked there over the prison department, night watchmen and so on, they'd have me to make em baskets, bottom chairs, and the next mornin when their time come to crank up their cars and go home, they'd load up what they bought from me or had me to work on their chairs. And that advertised my work clean up in Coosa County. I just didn't have enough time to do all the work that come in for me after that.

People would come to the prison—one white man come soon one mornin, told the warden, “I heard that you have a man here that bottoms chairs, makes baskets, and so on.”

Warden said, “Yes, I got a man here of that type.”

“Well, I'd like him to bottom some chairs for me and make me some baskets.”

Warden listened at him and listened at him. He got his story told and the warden said, “Yes, but you see him about it. And whatever he promises you, he'll do it. And when he makes your baskets and bottoms your chairs, don't you come in here and pay it off—you pay it to him. We allows him that privilege here.”

Well, the white man wanted to know where he could find me at. Warden told him, “I dont know where he's at. He goes down there by the blacksmith shop”—told him how to get there—“and if he aint there, go on down to the barn, right around the corner of the prison department here. Nate Shaw—he'll do what you want done, and when he does it, you pay him.”

So he come out of there lookin for me. The field man hadn't got his boys straightened out to go to the field yet. And them boys that plowed was all around the shop there waitin on the field boss to come around and get em to go to the field. I was at the edge of the bunch standin around at the blacksmith shop—great big level yard and the blacksmith shop set right in the midst of that openin. Them boys was in a huddle, standin there laughin and talkin and I happened to be standin over on the far side—I weren't exactly amongst em. And I seed that white man walk up—I knowed there weren't no worry bout him botherin nobody because he looked like a farmin man, and a strange white man to what I ever seed come around. He walked right up to them boys, looked at em and said, “Which one of you fellows is Nate Shaw?”

I was lookin at him. Some of the boys told him, “That's him, right over yonder.”

He waded on through the crowd and come up to me. Said, “Nate—is your name Nate?”

I said, “Yes sir, this is Nate Shaw, what's left of him.” As I grew older in this world and less than I was when I was sure enough at my best, I'd tell em, “This is Nate Shaw, what's left of him.” And every time I'd tell it, I'd remind myself what I used to be.

He said, “Nate, I come down to see the warden and talk with him this mornin about you makin me some baskets and bottom me some chairs. And she told me where I could find you. Maybe you might be around here”—he told me what the warden told him—“if you wasn't around here she couldn't tell me where you was. I'm glad to run up with you.”

Told him, “Yes sir.”

And he told me everything the warden said. I liked to laugh when he was tellin me all that—he couldn't hold it in—but I hardly cracked a smile. I thought quick: he might think I was feelin
big
that I was allowed the privilege to sell my own baskets. And I didn't want to think that about myself.

He said, “Now I want so-many and so-many baskets and I got so-many and so-many chairs to bottom.”

Wasn't many at all; bout two or three baskets and two or three chairs he wanted bottomed. I looked at him, said, “Well, I'll do all that. Did you bring your chairs with you?”

He said, “No, no, I didn't bring nothin. I just come to see if I could get it done.”

I said, “Well, if you didn't bring the chairs, you bring em to me when you can. I'll bottom them first, then make your baskets.”

He left me and went back, whatever way, I didn't see; I was around there at the blacksmith shop and from there to the barn. And by twelve o'clock—he was livin way up in Coosa County—and before dinner come he had them chairs there at the shop. I bottomed em for him, then I made his baskets. He paid me good money—and I was a prisoner. Charged him a dollar apiece for them baskets and I charged him for them chairs dependin on how long I worked on em.

I enjoyed that money, but in this way: most of it I gived my wife for the support of my family. And I gived her, while they kept
me there at Wetumpka, six to eight dollars and as high as fifteen dollars a visit. It weren't what I could have gived her if I was free—the labor of a free man always brings more than the labor of a prisoner—but what I did give her, it enabled me to think better of myself. I knowed why I was where I was, I could think clear through that, but I was lost to my family and they was lost to me. All the money I could give em couldn't balance that.

When TJ and Ben Ramsey from the settlement down in here went up and got my people away from where they was when I was arrested, they moved em to the Culpepper place, right in the house with TJ, piled em up in there with him. All right. When they left there they come down on the Grace place, Courteney place you might say. And when they left there they moved out on Warren Jenks' place, right this side of the crossroads out here. And when they left there they moved over on the Leeds place out on the Beaufort road, goin through there by Lavender's bridge. And they was livin on the Leeds place over yonder when I come free. I didn't keep no track of just exactly how many years they lived at all these places but I do know where they went from one place to the other. And when they was livin on the Jenks place I begin to visit em on Christmas parole and soon, on weekend parole.