The Good Lord Bird

A voice inside said, “Who’s there?”

“Trying to get to Dutch’s Tavern,” Old Man Brown called out. “We’re lost.”

The door opened and Owen and Fred cold-kicked the man inside the house and stepped in behind him. The rest tumbled inside.

I went to a side window and watched. The cabin was but a room, lit by a dim candle. The Old Man and his sons stood over none other than James Doyle, who had been in the tavern and held his .45 Colt on the Old Man, and Doyle’s three sons and his wife. Doyle and his boys were pressed to the wall, facing it, while the Old Man’s boys held Sharps rifles and swords at their necks. The Old Man stood over them, shuffling one foot to the other, his face twitching, searching in his pockets for something.

I don’t reckon he knowed what to do at first, for he had never taken nobody prisoner before. He dug in his pockets a good five minutes before he finally pulled out a piece of yellowed, rumpled paper and read from it in a high, thin voice: “I’m Captain Brown of the Northern Army. We come here from back east to free the enslaved people of this territory under the laws of our Redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ Who spilt His blood for you and me.” Then he balled up the paper, stuck it in his pocket, and said to Doyle, “Which one of you is Dutch Henry?”

Doyle was white-faced. “He don’t live here.”

“I know that,” the Old Man said, though he didn’t know it. He had just learnt it. “Is you related to him?”

“None of us here is.”

“Is you Pro Slavers or against?”

“I don’t own no slaves myself.”

“I ain’t ask that. Ain’t I seen you at Dutch Henry’s?”

“I was just passing through,” Doyle said. “He lives down the road a piece, don’t you remember?”

“I don’t recollect every step I take in doing my duties as the Almighty directs me to them,” the Old Man said, “for I am commingling with His spirit almost every minute. But I do recollects you being one of them ruffians wanting to blast me over there.”

“But I’m not Dutch,” Doyle said. “Dutch’s Tavern is two miles east.”

“And a heathen’s haven it is,” the Old Man said.

“But I didn’t fire on you,” Doyle pleaded. “I could have but didn’t.”

“Well, you should have. You kin to Dutch, by the way?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Well, I ask you again. Is you for slavery or not?”

“You won’t find one slave ’round here,” Doyle said. “I got nar one.”

“Too bad, for this is a big homestead,” Old Brown said. “It’s a lot of work to keep it going.”

“You telling me,” Doyle said. “I got more plowing than me and my boys can handle. I could use a couple of niggers around here. You can’t make it in Kansas Territory without help. Why, just yesterday—”

And then he stopped, for he knowed he made a mistake. Old Brown’s face changed. The years dropped off him, and a youngness climbed into him. He straightened up and his jaw poked out. “I come to deliver the Redeemer’s justice to free His people. And to exact the Lord’s revenge on the murdering and kidnapping of the Negro people by slavers and them like yourself who has robbed and stole in the name of that infernal institution. And all that it involves, and all who’s involved in it, who has partaken in its spoils and frivolities. There ain’t no exceptions.”

“Do that mean you don’t like me?” Doyle said.

“Step outside,” the Old Man said.

Doyle growed white as a sheet and pleaded his case. “I meant you no harm at Dutch’s,” he said. “I’m just a farmer trying to make a dollar change pockets.” Then he suddenly swiveled his head, glanced at the window—my face was stuck dead in it and the window was right there—and saw me peering in, wearing a dress and bonnet. A puzzled look come across his face, which was stone-cold frightened. “Ain’t I seen you before?” he asked.

“Save your howdys for another time. I’m doing the talking here,” Brown said. “I’ll ask you for the last time. Is you Free State or Slave State?”

“Whatever you say,” Doyle said.

“Make up your mind.”

“I can’t think with a Sharps under my chin!”

The Old Man hesitated, and Doyle was almost off the hook, till his wife hollered out, “I told you, Doyle! This is what you get for running with them damn rebels.”

“Hush, Mother,” he said.

It was too late then. The cat was out the bag. Brown nodded to his boys, who grabbed Doyle and throwed him and his two older boys out the door. When they reached for the last, the youngest, the mother throwed herself at Old Brown.

“He’s just sixteen,” the missus pleaded. “He ain’t had nothing to do with them law-and-order people. He’s just a boy.”

She pleaded with the Old Man something terrible, but he weren’t listening. He was lost. Seemed like he went to a different place inside his head. He looked past her head, beyond her, like he was looking to heaven or something far off. He got downright holy when it was killing time. “Take thine own hand and split an ax with it,” he said. “That’s Eucclestsies twelve seven or thereabouts.”

“What’s that mean?” she asked.

“This one’s coming with me, too.”