The Good Lord Bird

Weiner was itching mad but kept quiet. He was a stout, stubborn man who loved a good fight, and you couldn’t tell him nothing. We rode closer and seen the Free State Indians and Missourians engaging through the thin pine trees of the wooded area in the clearing. It weren’t a big fight, but them Indians defending their free settlement was outnumbered, and when Weiner spied it, he couldn’t help hisself. He rode off, busting through the woods on his horse, leaning low. The other men followed him.

Owen watched them go, frowning. He turned on his horse and said, “Fred, you and Onion ride forward toward Osawatomie and wait outside the settlement while we chase off these Missourians. I’ll be back shortly.” And off he went.

Now, Bob was setting there on his mount and he watched them ride off. And nobody said nothing to him. And he rode off in another direction. Said, “I’m gone,” and took off. That nigger ran off a total of seven times, I believe, from John Brown. Never did get free from the Old Man right off. He had to run all the way back to slavery—to Missouri territory—to get free. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

That left me and Fred setting there on our stolen ponies. Fred looked itching for a fight, too, for he was a Brown, and them Browns liked a good gunfight. But no way in God’s kingdom was I gonna go over there and fight it out with the Missourians. I was done. So I said, just to distract him, “Gosh, this little girl is hungry.”

That snapped him right to me. “Ohhh, I will get you some eatings, Little Onion,” he said. “Nobody lets my Little Onion go hungry, for you is halfway to being growed now, and you needs your rest and victuals so you’ll grow into a great big sissy.” He didn’t mean nothing by it and I took no offense from it, for neither of us knowed what the word really meant, though the leanings of it from what I knowed weren’t flattering. Still, it was the first time he said the word sissy since he first come to knowing of my secret some time back. And I took note of it and was glad to be leaving him before he gived me away.

We rode forward into a patch of thick woods about a mile farther up the trail, then cut off it to follow an old logging trail. It was peaceful and quiet, once we drawed away from the shooting. We crossed a creek and come to where the old logging trail picked up again on the other side and tied our horses off there. Fred pulled off his hardware and got his blanket and hunting things out—beads, dried corn, dried yams. Took him several minutes to unstrap them guns, for he was loaded. Once he done that, he give me a squirrel rifle and took one for hisself. “Normally I wouldn’t use this,” he said, “but there’s enough shooting ’round here so it won’t draw no attention, not if we hurry.”

It weren’t dark yet but evening was coming. We walked about a half mile along the creek bank, with Fred showing me the markings and the likes of where a beaver family was busy making a dam. He said, “I’ll cross the creek and work him from the other side. You come up this way, and when he hears you coming, that’ll flush him out, and we’ll just meet yonder near where the creek bends to get him.”

He crept over on the other side and disappeared in the thickets, while I come up on the other side of it. I was about halfway to where we was to meet when I turned and seen a white man standing about five yards off, holding a rifle.

“What you doing with that rifle, missy?” he said.

“Nuthin’, sir,” I said.

“Put it down, then.”

I done like he said, and he come up on me, snatched my rifle from the ground, and, still holding his rifle on me, said, “Where’s your master?”

“Oh, he’s ’cross the creek.”

“Ain’t you got a sir in your mouth, nigger?”

I was out of practice, see. I hadn’t been ’round normal white folks in months, demanding you call ’em sir and what all. The Old Man didn’t allow none of that. But I righted up. I said, “Yes, sir.”

“What’s your marse’s name?”

I couldn’t think of nothing, so I said, “Fred.”

“What?”

“Just Fred.”

“You call your marse Fred or just Fred or Marse Fred or Fred sir?”

Well, that tied me in knots. I should’a named Dutch, but Dutch seemed a long way away, and I was confused.

“Come with me,” he said.

We started off through the woods away from the creek, and I followed on foot. We hadn’t gotten five steps when I heard Fred holler. “Where you going?”

The man stopped and turned. Fred was standing dead in the middle of the creek, his squirrel gun cocked to his face. He was a sight to see, big as he was, frightening to look at with dead intent, and he weren’t no more than ten yards off.

“She belong to you?” the man said.

“That ain’t your business, mister.”

“You Pro Slave or Free State?”

“You say one more thing, and I’mma deaden where you is. Turn her loose and git your foot up that road.”

Well, Fred could’a burned him, but he didn’t. The feller turned me loose and trotted off, still holding my squirrel rifle.