The Good Lord Bird

Six of his sons was there: Salmon, John, Jason, Owen, and the young ones, Watson and Oliver, plus their kin, the Thompson brothers, two of them. They all looked down. They was spent. Not a one of ’em spoke up. Didn’t say a word.

“Take Little Onion with you,” he said. He tossed Fred’s cap into his saddlebag and made ready to get on his horse.

“We’ve done enough for the cause, Father,” Jason said. “Stay with us and help us rebuild. The federals will find Rev. Martin. They’d catch him and put him in jail, try him for Fred’s killing.”

The Old Man ignored him and mounted his horse, then stared out at the land before him. He seemed to be someplace else in his head. “This is beautiful country,” he said. He hold out the feather from the Good Lord Bird. “And this is this beautiful omen that Frederick left behind. It’s a sign from God.” He stuck it in his weathered, beaten straw cap. It stuck straight up in the air. He looked ludicrous.

“Father, you are not hearing me,” Jason said. “We are done! Stay with us. Help us rebuild.”

The Old Man stretched his lips in a crazy fashion. It weren’t a real smile, but as close as he could come. Never saw him out and out smile up to that point. It didn’t fit his face. Stretching them wrinkles horizontal gived the impression of him being plumb stark mad. Seemed like his peanut had poked out the shell all the way. He was soaked. His jacket and pants, which was always dotted full of holes, was a mass of torn and ripped clothing. On his back was a bit of blood where he’d taken a grape ball. He paid it no attention. “I have only a short time to live,” he said, “and I will die fighting for this cause. There will be no more peace in this land until slavery is done. I will give these slaveholders something to think about. I will carry this war into Africa. Stay here if you want. If you’re lucky, you’ll find a cause worth dying for. Even the rebels have that.”

He turned his horse ’round. “I have to go and pray and commingle with the Great Father of Justice upon whose blood we live. Bury Fred right. And take care of Little Onion.”

With that, he turned on his horse and rode off east. I wouldn’t see him again for two years.

PART II. SLAVE DEEDS (Missouri)

10. A Real Gunslinger

The brothers started haggling not two minutes after the Old Man departed. They stopped their wrangle long enough to bury Frederick atop a knoll that looked down on the town from across the river, plucking some of his Good Lord Bird feathers and giving them out to each of us. Then they hanked among themselves some more about who said this or that, and who shot who and what to do next. It was decided they’d split up and I’d be tagged up with Owen, though Owen weren’t particular about the idea. “I’m going to Iowa to court a young lady, and I can’t move fast with the Onion on me.”

“You weren’t saying that when you kidnapped her,” Jason said.

“It was father’s idea to take a girl on the trail!”

On it went some more, just fussin’. There weren’t no clear leader between them once the Old Man had gone. Nigger Bob was standing ’round as they quarreled. He had run and been plumb gone and disappeared during all the fighting—that nigger had a knack for that—but now that the shooting stopped, he showed up again. I guess wherever he run to weren’t good or safe enough. He stood behind the brothers as they went at it. Hearing them fussin’ ’bout me, he piped up, “I will ride the Onion to Tabor.”

I weren’t particular about riding with Bob no place, for it was his pushing me along that helped me to my situation of playing girl for the white man. Plus Bob weren’t a shooter, which Owen was. I’d been on the prairie long enough to know that being with a shooter counted a whole mess out there. But I didn’t say nothing.

“What do you know about girls?” Owen said.

“I know plenty,” Bob said, “for I have had a couple of my own, and I can look after the Onion easily if it pleases you. I can’t go back to Palmyra nohow.”

He had a point there, for he was stolen property and was tainted goods no matter how the cut go or come. Nobody would believe nothing he said about his time with John Brown, whether he actually fought with the Old Man or not. He’d likely get sold to New Orleans if, according to his word, things went the way they did among the Pro Slavers, with white folks believing that a slave who tasted freedom weren’t worth a dime.

Owen groused about it a few minutes but finally said, “All right. I’ll take you both. But I’m going back across the river first to scrounge what’s left of my claim first. Wait here. We’ll head out soon’s I get back.” Off he went, harring up his horse and riding straight into the thickets.