The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
Then, at the far end of the armory, across from the rifle works, several townspeople came sprinting out an unguarded building, holding rifles they had stolen. Kagi, Leary, and Copeland, guarding the rifle works at the far end of the yard, saw them through their window and opened up on them.
The crowd outside the gate quickly scattered, and now they opened up. The Old Man’s men returned the fire, which splattered the windows and pinged into the brick walls around the townsmen. They quickly re-formed into groups. Two militia companies in different uniforms, some fully uniformed and others in only hats and coats, suddenly appeared out of nowhere and assembled in raggedy fashion around the arsenal yard. Them fools had every kind of gun they could dig up: squirrel guns, muskets, fowling pieces, six-shooters, old muskets, and even a few rusty swords. Half a dozen of them crossed the Potomac above the Ferry, walked down the pass next to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and attacked Oliver and Taylor on the bridge, who engaged them. Another group came over on the Shenandoah opposite the rifle works. A third went to capture the Shenandoah Bridge, firing on two of the Old Man’s fellers who was guarding that. Kagi and Copeland suddenly had their hands full down at the far end of the armory with another group down there that had stolen them rifles. And just like that, it was full out. It had started.
The militia and civilians outside the main gate, they huddled for a minute, then assembled in a group and marched, and I mean marched, I’d say a good thirty of ’em, marched right inside the armory gate, firing on the engine house as they came, sending shots through every window.
Inside the engine house, the Old Man kicked into action. “Men! Be cool! Don’t waste powder and shot. Aim low. Make every shot count. They will expect us to retreat right away. Take careful aim.” The men did as he said, and, from the windows, busted enough charges at them militia to push them back ten yards, scattering them back out the armory gate and onto Shenandoah road in no time.
That firing was too much for them Virginians and they stayed out the gate, but not that far this time, not across the road. Their numbers growed by the second, too. More could be seen coming from the hills above, some running on foot, others on horseback. Out the window, I saw Kagi emerge from the rifle works and shoot his way through the yard, past the entrance gate with Copeland covering him, trying to make his way over. It was hot work getting to the engine house, but he managed it at a full sprint. The Emperor opened the door for him and slammed it shut behind him.
Kagi was calm, but his face was red and alert with alarm. “We got a chance to pull out now,” he said. “They movin’ a group to take both bridges. They’ll have the B&O Bridge in a few minutes if we don’t hurry. And if they take Shenandoah Bridge, we’re trapped.”
The Old Man didn’t bat an eyelash. He sent Taylor to cover the B&O Bridge, told Kagi to go back to his position with Dangerfield Newby, a colored, then said to Stevens and O. P. Anderson, “Take Onion back to the farmhouse and bring in the coloreds. They is no doubt hiving there and anxious to join in the fight for their freedom. It is time to take this war to the next level.”
O.P. and Stevens gathered themselves on the quick. O.P. wore a look on his face that said he weren’t sorry to leave, and neither was I. I had a bad feeling ’bout things, for I knowed then that the Old Man was losing his buttons. I weren’t in the mood to say good-bye to him then, even though I hadn’t fully confessed to him ’bout the Rail Man being shot dead. It didn’t seem to matter then, for the thing was winging out of control in a worse way than even I imagined, and my arse was on the line, and while it’s a small arse and was covered with a dress and petticoat for the better part of three years up to that point, it did cover my backside, and thus I was always fond of it. I was used to the Old Man losing touch and getting holy once the shooting started. That weren’t the problem. The problem was: ’Bout a hundred armed white fellers screaming outside the gate, tanked, seeing double, and the mob growing by the second. I might mention here that for the first time in my life, the feeling of holy sanctimony begun creeping into my spirit. I felt myself reaching to the Lord a little. It might’a been ’cause I had the urge to piss and no place to do it without giving myself away, for that was always a problem in them days—that, and always having to dress like I was going hunting every night when I gone to bed. But I think it was a little more. The Old Man tried to press sanctification on me many a day, but I ignored him in the years previous. It weren’t nothing to me but words. But, watching that crowd outside muster up, I growed chickenhearted from that affair, scared right down to my little dangling rascal and his twin little giddies. I found myself muttering, “Lord, ’scuse me a minute. I has not had a high tolerance for the Word before but . . .” Kagi heard me and scowled a minute, for he was a strong man, a man of courage, but even a strong man can have his courage moved and overtested. I seen real concern in his normally cool face this time, and heard his voice crack when he said it. He gived it to the Old Man straight: “Get out now before it’s too late, Captain.” But the Old Man ignored him, for he’d heard me call out God’s name, and that tickled him. He said, “Precious Jesus! Onion has discovered Thee! Success is at hand!” He turned to Kagi, calm as a bowl of turtle soup, and said, “G’wan back to the armory. Reinforcements is coming.”
Kagi done like he said while O.P. and Stevens grabbed a couple of extra balls and cartridges for their rifles, throwed them in their pockets, and moved to the back window. I followed. The window faced the back wall of the armory. They busted a few shots out the window, which sent a couple of Virginians who’d wandered back there scrambling, and we three crawled through it and out. We made for the back wall, which led to the bottom of the river at the B&O Bridge. We was over that wall in no time. We runned through an open lot and sprinted across the bridge and made it across only ’cause Oliver and Taylor was giving fits to a small group of the enemy who was trying to drive them off it. We made it with bullets pinging everywhere, and within seconds crossed the bridge to the Maryland side. From there we hustled past two more of the Old Man’s men, crossed the road, and in seconds was climbing through thick thickets up the mountain toward the Kennedy farm—in the clear.
We stopped at a clearing ’bout a half mile up. We could see from our vantage point the crowds and militia growing outside the armory, groups of men now, charging into the armory in fours and fives, firing into the engine house, then backpedaling as the Old Man and his men answered ’em—dropping one or two Virginians each time. The wounded lay in the clear in the armory yard, moaning, just feet from their fellow fighters, some of whom had quit breathing altogether, and the rest of their brothers who stood crowded at the entranceway on Shenandoah Street, cursing angrily, afraid to come in and get them. Oh, it was a hot mess.
We watched, terrified. I knowed I weren’t going back over to the Ferry. The crowd outside the armory had growed to nearly two hundred now and more coming, most of ’em holding bottles of gut sauce in one hand and rifles in the other. Behind them, in the town itself and at Bolivar Heights above it, dozens of folk could be seen fleeing up the hills and out of Harpers Ferry, most of ’em colored, and a good deal of white folk, too.
Stevens kept going up the hill while O.P. and I stood for a moment together, watching.
“You going back there?” I asked O.P.
“If I do,” he muttered, “I’m walking on my hands.”
“What we gonna do?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I wouldn’t go back there if Jesus Christ Himself was down there.”
I silently agreed. We turned and climbed up the mountain, following Stevens, making our way up toward the farmhouse fast as we could go.
30
Un-Hiving the Bees
We found Cook on a quiet dirt road near the Kennedy farm in a state of excitement. Before we could say a word, he blurted out, “We has hived some bees!” He led us to a nearby schoolhouse, where Tidd and Owen stood over two white men and ’bout ten slaves. The co
“Who’s he?” O.P. asked.
“He’s the great-nephew of George Washington.”
“The George Washington?”
“Correct.” He grabbed a shiny, powerful-looking sword lying on the porch floor. “We got this from the mantle of his fireplace.” He turned to O.P. and said, “I presents to you the sword of his great-uncle. It was a gift to Washington from Frederick the Great.”
O.P. looked at that broadsword like it was poison. “Why I got to have it?” he asked.
“The Old Man would want you to. It’s symbolic.”
“I . . . I ain’t got no use for it,” O.P. said.
Cook frowned. Stevens snatched it and holstered it in his belt.
I walked over to Colonel Washington to have a look. He was a tall, slender white man in a nightshirt, still wearing his sleeping cap on his head, his face unshaven. He was trembling like a deer. He looked so glum and scared, it was a pity.
“When we busted in his house, he thought we was thieves,” Tidd snorted. “He said, ‘Take my whiskey! Take my slaves. But leave me alone.’ He squawked like a baby.” Tidd leaned down to Colonel Washington. “Be a man!” he barked. “Be a man!”
That got Stevens going, and he was an aggravating soul if I ever saw one. He was overall the best soldier I ever saw, but he was the devilment when it come to wagging his fists and digging into a fight. He strutted over to Colonel Washington and glared down at him, hulking over him. The colonel just shrank beneath him, setting underneath that big feller. “Some colonel you are,” Stevens said. “Ready to trade your slaves for your own wretched life. You ain’t worth a pea thrasher, much less a bottle of whiskey.”
Oh, that riled the colonel, Stevens scratching at him that way, but the colonel held his tongue, for he seen Stevens was mad.
Tidd and Owen produced pikes and rifles and begun handing them out to the coloreds, who, truth be told, looked downright bewildered. Two got up and took them gingerly. Then another grabbed one. “What is the matter with you?” Tidd said. “Ain’t you ready to fight for your freedom?” They said nothing, befuddled by the whole bit. Two of ’em looked like they had just got out of bed. One turned away and refused the weapons handed to him. The rest, after a bit of burbling and showing how chickenhearted they felt ’bout the whole affair, went along more or less, taking whatever weapon was offered and holding them like they was hot potatoes. But I took a notice to one of ’em sitting at the end of the row of the coloreds. He was seated on the floor, this feller in a nightshirt and pantaloons, with his suspenders hung low. He looked familiar, and in my excitement and fear it took me a long minute before I recognized the Coachman.
He weren’t dressed so splendid now, for he weren’t wearing his pretty coachman’s outfit with white gloves, as I seen him before, but it was him, all right.
I started toward him, then turned away, for he seen me and I got the understanding that he didn’t want me to recognize him. I knowed he had some secrets and thought it better to pretend not to know him, with his master there. I didn’t want to get him in trouble. If a feller had the impression that the bottom rail was gonna be on top, he’d act far different if he’d’a knowed that at some point the white man was gonna get the Ferry back and sling the Negro every which way. I seen what was going on down at the Ferry and he did not. Neither did Tidd, Cook, or the rest of the Old Man’s soldiers who stayed back up at the farm. But I saw O.P. pull Tidd aside and give him a mouthful. Tidd said nothing. But the Coachman watched them both, and while he didn’t hear what nar a one of them was saying, I guess he made up his mind at that moment that he weren’t going to play dumb and was going for the whole hog.
He stood up and said, “I am ready to fight,” and grabbed his pike when it was offered. “I needs a pistol as well.” They gave him one of them, too, and some ammunition.
His master, Colonel Washington, was setting on the floor of the schoolhouse porch, watching this, and when he seen the Coachman take them weapons, he couldn’t help hisself. He got snappy. He said, “Why, Jim, sit down!”
The Coachman walked over to Colonel Washington and stood over him with a terrible look on his face.
“I ain’t taking another word from you,” he said. “I been taking words from you for twenty-two years.”
That flummoxed Colonel Washington. Just dropped him. He got hot right there. He stammered, “Why, you ungrateful black bastard! I been good to you. I been good to your family!”
“You skunk!” the Coachman cried. He raised his pike to deaden him right there, and only Stevens and O.P. grabbing him stopped him.
They struggled with him mightily. Stevens was a heavy man, a big mule-strong feller, as tough a man as there was, but he could barely hold the Coachman. “That’s enough!” Stevens hollered. “That’s enough. There’s fight enough at the Ferry.” They wrestled him back away from the colonel, but the Coachman couldn’t stand it.
“He’s as big a skunk as ever sneaked in the woods!” the Coachman cried. “He sold my mother off!” and he went at Colonel Washington again even harder this time, and this time even Stevens, big as he was, couldn’t handle him. It took all four of them—Tidd, Stevens, Cook, and O.P.—to keep him from killing his former master. They had to grapple with him for several minutes. The Coachman gived all four of them all they could handle, and when they finally pinned him back, Stevens was so hot, he pulled his hardware and stuck it in the Coachman’s face.
“You do that again, I’ll air you out myself,” he said. “I’ll not have you spilling blood here. This is a war of liberation, not retribution.”
“I don’t care what name you calls it,” the Coachman said. “You keep him away from me.”
By God, the thing had winged so far out of control, it weren’t funny. Stevens turned to O.P. and said, “We got to move these people now. Let’s move them to the Ferry. The Captain needs reinforcements. I’ll tend to the others. You keep him away from the colonel.” He nodded at the Coachman.
O.P. weren’t for it. “You know what’s waiting for us at the Ferry.”
“We got orders,” Stevens said, “and I aims to follow ’em.”
“How we gonna get to the Ferry? We’d have to fight our way in. It’s closed off by now.”
Stevens peered at Washington out the corner of his eye. “We ain’t got to fight our way in. We can walk in. I got a plan.”
—
The road from the schoolhouse on the Maryland side going down to the Ferry is a dangerous one. It’s a steep, sharp hill. At the top of it, the road arcs like the curve of an egg. You bounce high over that, and from there you can see the Ferry and the Potomac clear, then you hit that hill and fly down that till you hit the bottom. Right there, at the bottom, is the Potomac River. You got to turn left hard to follow the road to the bridge back over to the Ferry. You can’t take that hill too fast coming off that mountain, ’cause if you come down too fast, it’s too steep to stop. Many a wagon, I reckon, has bent and broken an axle or two at the bottom, trying to take that turn too fast. You got to take that thing with your horses reined up tight and your brake pulled in hard, otherwise you’ll end up in the Potomac.
The Coachman took that road in Colonel Washington’s four-horse coach like the devil was whipping him. He bounced down that hill so fast, it felt like the wind was gonna pull me off. Stevens, Colonel Washington, and the other slave owner rode inside, while the slaves, me, and O.P. rode the running boards, hanging on for dear life.
’Bout a half mile from the bottom, before that dangerous turn come up, Stevens—thank God for him—he hollered out the window to the Coachman to har them horses and stop the wagon, which the Coachman done.
I was standing on th
“We is going across the B&O Bridge,” he said. “If we get stopped by militia there, you’ll get us through,” he said.
“They won’t let us!” Colonel Washington said. Ooooo, he growed chickenhearted right there. Big man like that, crowing like a bird.
“Surely they will,” Stevens said. “You’re a colonel in the militia. You just say, ‘I have made arrangements to exchange myself and my Negroes for the white prisoners inside the engine house.’ That’s all you say.”
“I can’t do it.”
“Yes, you can. If you open your mouth in any other direction at the bridge, I’ll bust a charge in you. Nothing will happen to you if you follow my directions.”
He stuck his head out the window and said to the Coachman, “Let’s go.”
The Coachman didn’t hesitate. He harred up them horses and sent that wagon raking down that road again. I hung on from my fingernails down, glum as could be. I would’a jumped off that thing when it stopped, but there weren’t no scampering off with Stevens around. And now, with that thing up to speed again, if I’d’a jumped off on that hill, I’d’a been busted into a million pieces by them wagon’s wheels, which was thick across as my four fingers, if Stevens didn’t shoot me first, he was so mad.