The Good Lord Bird

Stuart went back to the gate and disappeared. But inside the engine house, the hostages begun to sense the change in things. The bottom rail had been on top the whole night, but the minute they got a sense the Old Man was doomed, them slave owners started chirping out their views. There was five of ’em setting along the wall together, including Colonel Washington, and he started chirping at the Captain, which gived the rest courage to start in on him also.

“You’re committing treason,” he said.

“You’ll hang, old man,” said another.

“You ought to give yourself up. You’ll get a fair trial,” said another.

The Emperor strode over to them. “Shut up,” he barked.

They shrank back, except for Colonel Washington. He was snippy to the end. “You’re gonna look good ducking through a hangman’s noose, you impudent nigger.”

“If that’s the case, then I’ll spot you,” the Emperor said, “and blast you now in spite of redemption.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” the Old Man said. The Captain stood by the window, alone, staring out thoughtfully. He spoke to the Emperor without looking at him. “Emperor, come over here.”

The Emperor came over to the corner and the Old Man placed his arms around the colored man’s shoulders and whispered to him. Whispered to him quite a long time. From the back, I saw the Emperor’s shoulders bunch up and he shook his head several times in “no” fashion. The Old Man whispered to him some more, in a firm fashion, then left him to watch the window again, leaving the Emperor to himself.

The Emperor suddenly seemed spent. He drifted away from the Old Man and stopped in the farthest corner of the engine house, away from the prisoners. He seemed, for the first time, downright glum. The wind gone right out of him at that moment, and he stared out the window into the night.

It growed quiet now.

Up to that point there was so much going on in the engine house, there weren’t no time to think of what it all meant. But now that darkness fell and it was quiet outside the armory and inside it too, there was time to think of consequences. There was ’bout twenty-five colored in that room. Of that number I reckon at least nine, ten, maybe more, was gonna hang surely and knowed it: Phil, the Coachman, three Negro women, and four Negro men, all of them was enthusiastic helping the Old Man’s army, loading weapons, chinking out holes, organizing ammunition. The white hostages in that room would squeal on them surely. Only God knows what their names was, but their masters knowed ’em. They was in trouble, for they got right busy fighting for their freedom once they figured what the game was. They was doomed. Weren’t no bargaining left for them. Of the rest, I’d say maybe half of that number, five or six, helped but was less enthusiastic ’bout fighting. They done it but had to be ordered to do it. They knowed their masters was watching and was never enthusiastic. And then the last of them, that last five, they wouldn’t hang, for they sucked up to their masters to the limit. They didn’t do nothing but what they was forced to do. A couple even fell asleep during the fighting.

Now that the thing was swinging the other way, them last five was setting pretty. But the ones in the middle, them that was on the fence and had half a chance to live, they swung back toward their masters something terrible. They sucked up to ’em full stride, angling to get back to their good graces. One of ’em, a feller named Otis, said, “Marse, this is a bad dream.” His marse ignored him. Didn’t say a word to him. I can’t blame that Negro for sucking up the way he done. He knowed he was dead up a hog’s ass if his master put a bad word out on him, and the master weren’t playing his hold card. Not yet. They wasn’t out the woods yet.

The rest of the Negroes that was doomed, they watched the Emperor. He come to be kind of the leader to them, for they’d seen his courage through the night, and their eyes followed him after the Old Man spoke to him. He stood at the window, staring out, thinking. It was pitch-black in there, you couldn’t see a thing ’cept what little light the moon let into the portholes, for the Old Man wouldn’t let anyone light a lantern. The Emperor just stared out, then he paced a little, then stared out some more. Coachman, Phil, and the other Negroes who was sure to hang followed him with their eyes. They all followed him, for they believed in his courage.

After a little while the Emperor called them over to his corner, and they bunched around him. I came, too, for I knowed whatever punishment awaited them was mine’s, too. You could feel their despair as they gathered around him close and listened, for he spoke in a whisper.

“Just before light, the Old Man’s gonna start a shoot-up out front and let the colored out the back window. If you want out, you can climb out the back window when the shooting starts, make for the river, and be gone.”

“What ’bout my wife?” the Coachman asked. “She’s still in bondage at the colonel’s house.”