Let the Circle Be Unbroken (44 page)

“Believe me,” Mama said, “you did more than enough and we’ll never forget you for it. Never.”

Mrs. Mattie Jones let out another happy laugh, then set about fixing breakfast. Mama helped her, while outside Papa and Uncle Hammer began chopping a fallen yard tree to replenish Mrs. Jones’s dwindling firewood supply. Moe, feeling cold and weak, remained inside by the fire, but Stacey preferred to be outdoors where he washed his face in the bright sunlight, then cleaned his teeth with a sweet gum stick.

I stayed with him, not wanting to leave him for even a minute. I wanted to help him if he needed me but at the same time I felt somewhat shy of him. I couldn’t get over how adultlike he had become, and that bothered me. It bothered me as well that there was a large chunk in his life now that I could never share. But I guessed there was nothing I could do about that, that it was all a part of that thing called change.

“Cassie, how come you so quiet?” he said as he wiped his face. “You ain’t gone and changed on me, have ya?”

“I don’t ’spect so.”

He looked at me. “Or maybe you thinking . . . I’m the one changed. That’s what you thinking?”

“Ain’t you?” I accused.

He pursed his lips and was thoughtful “Guess I have . . . but that ain’t necessarily bad.”

I looked at him warily.

“It ain’t, Cassie. Really. Why, if we don’t change, things don’t change, we might as well stay babies all the time. ’cause when we grow, we bound to change. You eleven now, you oughta understand that.”

“And I s’pose you do, huh?” I questioned, growing just a bit tired of his attitude of adult superiority. “You ain’t grown yet, ya know.”

He grinned at me. “Now you sounding more like Cassie.”

I grinned too, then laughed, as I remembered what Mama had said before Stacey had even gone away, that one day we would be better friends than we had ever been before. I could feel the truth in that now.

Stacey finished washing his hair and I passed him a comb, all the while continuing to study him, how thin he had become and how scarred his hands were. Finally, I said what had been on my mind for so long. “What was it like, Stacey? The cane fields?”

A pained look came into his eyes and he stopped combing.

“Stacey, what happened out there?”

“It was awful, Cassie. It was jus’ so awful. . . .”

*   *   *

“They brung us down from Mississippi, crowding us into that truck like cows,” Stacey said when we all sat before Mrs. Mattie’s fire. “Picked up workers all ’long the way, and when we got deep into Louisiana the truck started stopping at farms and plantations letting off workers. Me and Moe, we got taken all the way to the Troussant plantation ’long with a whole lotta others.”

“That plantation was some kinda big,” put in Moe. “Must’ve been larger than Mr. Granger’s even. Mostly planted in cane.”

Stacey emphasized Moe’s statement with a nod and went on. “We stayed in a shack. Dirt floor . . . holes in the roof . . . rats
all over. We were crowded in there too, each of us with just a little spot to sleep. Weren’t no beds. No chairs. Nothin’ ’cepting some kinda shelves ’long the walls. And they didn’t give us anything. They said we wanted blankets, we could sign for ’em up at the plantation store and they’d be charged to our pay. Said we could charge other things too. Clothes and such. Then they told us we had to have a machete and said we could charge it like everything else.”

He bowed his head and looked at his hands, then spread them open so that we could see the palms, scarred deep with dark welts. Mama took one of his hands and held it between her own.

“Never knew chopping cane could be so hard. Sunup to sundown. And them cane leaves, they cut up our hands something terrible. Some of the workers, they got gloves from the store, but it didn’t do much good. Still cut through.”

Moe shook his head, remembering.

“Worked six days in the fields,” Stacey said, “raining or shining, we worked till we was bone tired. Then come one full week of work and we didn’t get paid. We was kinda upset ’bout that, but then we figured we was to get paid every two weeks. But then that next week we still didn’t get paid, so all of us there talked it over and finally got up the nerve to ask the boss man ’bout our pay. Well, he told us that we was under contract to work till the cane was all cut. Said if we was paid every week, we’d run off after we got a little money, and the plantation, it just couldn’t function that way, they had to go out and get new workers every week. Said we’d get paid when all the cane was chopped, not before. Well, we didn’t much like it, not getting paid till then, but what he said made some sense ’cause there were some men talking ’bout quitting, and couldn’t nobody fault ’em the
way we had to work. So, anyway, we went on back to work, figuring to get our money come December.” He looked at Papa. “Me, I figured to bring back enough money for taxes. Figured to bring back over a hundred dollars and I didn’t care how hard I had to work to get it. Thought of that money was what kept me going.”

“Me, too,” Moe laughed curtly. “Kept thinking how that money was gonna help get us off Mr. Montier’s place. Figured to have plenty of money ’cause all me and Stacey charged up at that store was for a blanket and a knife, and some writing paper and stamps. Come every Sunday, we wrote letters to y’all and come every Monday, we mailed ’em up at that store, thinking y’all was gettin’ ’em. Wasn’t ’spectin’ none back ’cause we ain’t put no addresses on ’em. ’fraid y’all’d come get us.”

“Guess them plantation folks, they was ’fraid of the same thing,” said Stacey, “’cause they musta not sent ’em.”

Moe shook his head wearily. “Lord, my poor papa . . .”

Stacey glanced at Moe and went on. “Come December and some of us got fever. The boss man, he said he was gonna get us a doctor but in the meantime, he ’spected anybody who could walk to work. Well, me and Moe, we were feeling sick, but we went on out working anyway. Second day we worked that way we was loading cane onto a wagon and the cane got loose and rolled off on my foot.

“Moe, he went for the boss man. Said we had to have a doctor for my foot, but the boss man, he just said for Moe to get back to work and that he’d come see ’bout it. Well, I waited, all that evening and that night, and I was paining something awful. Next morning the overseer he come and he called himself checking my foot. Said it was just sprained, but I figured there was bones broke in it and I got
scared . . . scared I could lose my foot if it didn’t get treated.

“So I told Moe I was gonna go. I couldn’t work no way with my foot broke and I figured they was bound to give me my money, me being sick and all. I figured to get my pay, get a bus and come on home. Moe, he said, if I was going, he was going too. There was another boy name of Charlie Davies said the same thing, so we went to talk to the boss man. Mr. Troussant, the owner of that place, he was there in the office, and when we told ’em we were sick and we wanted to get our pay and leave, they said we couldn’t leave. Said we owed them money ’cause of all the cost of transporting us down, and food and housing and everything we charged at the store. Said we had to work out our time till all them charges was paid, and what was left, they’d pay it to us come the last of the cane.

“We’d been working nearly ten weeks and they tell us that! Ten weeks! But we knew there wasn’t nothin’ we could do about it.” His voice went low. “Nothin’.” He paused and I saw both hurt and anger in his eyes. “Told the others what they’d said and some of ’em wouldn’t believe us, said the boss was just joking us. But there was two other boys, name of Ben and Jimmie B., believed us, and ’long with Charlie and Moe and me they decided they was gonna get outa there that same day.

“That night when we were ready to slip out, Charlie, he said he had something to tend to first and for us to go on and he’d catch up. Well, we did, we went on. Ben and Jimmie B., they weren’t sick, and they helped Moe and me along and come nighttime we stopped. Charlie, like he said he would, he caught up with us and told us why he had took so long. Told us he gone back to the office looking for money
and found it. Said it was money owed us and he was gonna divide it with us. ’Minded me of T.J., Charlie did. . . .

“Jimmie B., Moe, and me, we didn’t want no part of it. But Ben, he went ’long with Charlie ’bout the money. So we told ’em we didn’t want them traveling with us. They got caught with that money, we didn’t want nothing to do with it. When we left outa there, Charlie and Ben headed on west and we went north. Got rides some of the way with colored farmers, but mostly, we stayed to the woods, ’fraid to come out on the road. Made pretty good time. But then just west of Shokesville, Moe and me, we both give out and Jimmie B., he went looking for some colored folks to help us, maybe put us up a few days.”

As Stacey had talked, his voice had become so low that I had to lean forward to hear him. Now his words were a mere whisper. “They shot Jimmie B. . . . We heard them. Some white men out hunting seen Jimmie B. and when Jimmie B. got scared and ran, they shot him . . . killed him, ’cause he ran.” He cleared his throat and spoke up. “Moe and me, we didn’t know what to do, but we knew we couldn’t run. We was too sick to run. We hid . . . but they got us and took us up to the jail.”

Stacey fixed his eyes on the fire and stared blankly into it. A long time passed and he didn’t speak. Moe said nothing. We waited.

“Heard they’d ’spected us of stealing that money.” Stacey’s words were drawn, paced, quiet. “Heard they’d caught Charlie and Ben. Then heard they was gonna send us back. For three weeks, we heard all that. Then the deputy this morning, he come and didn’t say a word, just grabbed me up and I thought for sure, thought . . .” Smiling weakly, he shook his head and sniffed back his tears. “Lord . . . who’d’ve
ever thought,” he said, “who’d’ve thought . . .” Then, unable to say anything more, he broke down and cried.

*   *   *

When breakfast was over, we waved good-bye to Mrs. Mattie Jones and started home. Stacey sat in back between Mama and me, Moe up front with Papa and Uncle Hammer. They were still weak and despite their attempts to keep awake, they kept drifting off to sleep. Papa, Mama, and Uncle Hammer managed to stay awake, talking softly, watching over us, but I too drifted off, awakening several times with a start to gaze once again at Stacey, not quite believing yet that he was really there beside me. Then I would nudge him just a bit so that he would move in some way and, once I knew that he was all right, would go off to sleep again.

Past midnight we reached Strawberry, and following Soldiers Road to Smellings Creek, we took Moe home and witnessed the Turners’ joyful reunion before swinging east again. Stacey, wide awake now, leaned forward to peer out into the darkness that cloaked the woods and the fields that were so familiar to him. We sped over the bridge once more, past the Wallace store, and Jefferson Davis, down to the first crossroads, past the Simmses’ place to the second crossroads, then west toward home. The old oak, veiled in gray by the moonlight, became visible, then the meadow and the field, and finally the house, dark, asleep like the land, and as much a part of it as the trees, black against the midnight sky on the other side of the road.

As we pulled into the drive, the dogs started barking. Almost immediately a dim light appeared in the house, and from across the garden a round light came moving slowly toward us. The side door swung open and Christopher-John
and Little Man were standing there in their nightgowns with Big Ma behind them, a kerosene lamp in her hand which she held out into the night.

“David . . . Mary . . . Hammer, that y’all?” she called.

Papa turned and smiled at Stacey. “You answer her, son.”

Stacey grinned and, unexpectedly, squeezed my hand. “Look at ’em, Cassie,” he said. “Look at ole Man and Christopher-John.”

“David, y’all bring that boy?”

For a moment Stacey was too choked to answer. Then he cleared his throat and followed Mama out of the car. “Yes, ma’am, Big Ma. They sure did.”

Stunned, the three of them did not move from the doorway. The light in the garden went out. Then, all together, Big Ma, Christopher-John and Little Man let out a tremendous whoop and came tearing down the steps. Mr. Morrison came running across the yard. “Lord, the boy done come home!” he cried. “He done come home!”

“Yes, sir,” Stacey said, limping to meet them. “I done come home . . . and it’s the very best place to be.”

I agreed.