The Good Lord Bird

“You can’t go yet,” he said. “Too hot. They haven’t hung the Captain yet.”

“How is he? He’s yet living and yet well?”

“That he is. In the jailhouse as always. Set to hang on December second. That’s in a week.”

I thunk on it a moment. It hurt my heart a little to think of it. So I said, “It would do me well, I reckon, for me to see him.”

He shook his head. “I ain’t hiding you here for my safety and satisfaction,” he said. “I got enough risk just taking care of you.”

“But the Old Man always thunk I brought him good luck,” I said. “I rode with him for four years. I was friends to his sons and family and even one of his daughters. I’m a friendly face. It might help him, being that he ain’t never gonna see his wife and his children on this side no more, to see a friendly face.”

“Sorry,” he said.

He sat on that thought a few days. I didn’t ask it. He said it. He come to me a few days later and said, “I thunk on it and I changed my mind. It would be a help to him to see you. It would help him through his last days, to know you is yet living. I’m doing this for him. Not you. I will arrange it.”

He called on a few persons, and a few days later he brung an old Negro man named Clarence back behind the shop to where I was hid. Clarence was a white-haired old feller, slow movin’ but thoughtful and smart. He cleaned the jailhouse where the Old Man and the others was kept. He set down with Mr. Caldwell, and Mr. Caldwell discussed the whole thing. The old man listened thoughtfully.

“I gots an in with the captain of the jailhouse, Captain John Avis,” Clarence said. “I knowed Captain Avis since he was a boy. He’s a good man. A fair man. And he’s grown fond of Old John Brown. Still, Captain Avis ain’t gonna just let this boy walk in there,” he said.

“Can’t I come with you as a helper?” I asked.

“I don’t need a helper. And I don’t need no trouble.”

“Clarence, think on what the Captain has done for the Negro,” Mr. Caldwell said. “Think of your own children. Think of Captain Brown’s children. For he has plenty, and won’t never see them nor his wife no more on this side of the world.”

The old man thought for quite some time. Didn’t say a word. Just thunk on it, rubbing his fingers together. Mr. Caldwell’s words moved him some. Finally he said, “It is a lot of activity in there. The Old Man’s popular. A lot of people coming and going during the day. Lots more for me to do with them leaving things, gifts and letters and all sorts of stuff. The Old Man’s got a lot of northern friends. Captain Avis don’t seem bothered by it none.”

“So can I go?” I asked.

“Lemme think on it. I might mention it to Captain Avis.”

Three days later, in the wee hours of the second of December, 1859, Clarence and Mr. Caldwell came into the basement of the barbershop and roused me from sleep.

“We moves tonight,” Clarence said. “The Old Man is hanging tomorrow. His wife come down from New York and just left him. Avis’ll look the other way. He’s right touched by it all.”

Mr. Caldwell said, “That’s fine and good, but you got to move from here now, child. It’s gonna be too hot for me if you is found out and come back here.” He gived me a few dollars to get started in Philadelphia, a railroad train ticket from the Ferry to Philadelphia, a few rags, and some food. I thanked him and was gone.

It was close to dawn but not quite. Me and Mr. Clarence drove in an old wagon and mule to the jailhouse. Mr. Clarence gived me a bucket, a mop, and cleaning brushes, and we howdied the militia out front and walked past them and into the jailhouse smooth as taffy. The other prisoners was dead asleep. Captain John Avis was there, setting at a desk in front, scribbling his notes, and he looked at me and didn’t say a word. Just nodded at Clarence, and looked back down at his papers. We walked down to the back section of the house where the prisoners were, way to the end corridor, and on the right, in the last cell, setting up on his cot writing notes by the light of a small stone fireplace, was the Old Man.

He stopped writing and peered into the darkness as I stood in the hallway outside his cell, holding that bucket, for he couldn’t see me clear. Finally he spoke out.

“Who is there?”

“It’s me. Onion.”

I stepped out the shadows wearing pantaloons and a shirt, and holding a bucket.

The Old Man looked at me a long time. Didn’t say a word ’bout what he seen. Just stared. Then he said, “C’mon in, Onion. The captain don’t lock the door.”

I come in and set on the bed. He looked exhausted. His neck and face was charred from some kind of wound, and he limped as he moved to put a piece of wood on the fire. He moved gamely as he sat back on his cot. “How is you feeling, Onion?”

“I’m fine, Captain.”

“It does my heart good to see you,” he said.

“Is you all right, Captain?”

“I am fine, Onion.”