Paint the Wind Page 3

"You sho got yourself a powerful bad temper, Fancy," he said unbendingly. "You git control of it, or it git control of you. De way you sassed dose children today, you could of got us killed!"

  She did not respond, but stood, stubborn and hostile. Atticus, too, held his ground.

  "If you think you is mad about us bein' colored, I'se twice as mad about you bein' stupid!

  "I don't much care if you throw your clothes on the ground, 'cause you is de one what got to wear 'em. But I sho 'nuff care about you gittin' me lynched." He shook his grizzled head for emphasis. "I sho 'nuff do!"

  Then he left her standing alone in the clearing.

  Fancy tapped her foot in agitation. She let the angry mask slip from her face as Atticus moved from sight; she knew he was right, but she'd decided not to admit it. Not this time.

  "How did you get to be a slave, Atticus?" Fancy asked in her innocence, and Atticus was whirled backward violently through time.

  Buy me, massa. I got plenty work left in me. I got gumption. . . .

  Here, Mr. Riader. I got you a big buck nigger and a likely wench. She's a good bearer, too. Three pickaninnies in three years. Ever since she turned ripe she breeds one a year. . . .

  Open your mouth, nigger! Show this gentleman your teeth. . . .

  The words from the second auction were still seared into the old man's soul. The first time he'd been sold, he hadn't understood the strident garble of the auctioneer, unintelligible to a boy who knew only his own Yoruba tongue. But the brutality had spoken a universal language. The ankle irons that rasped great chunks of flesh from the bone . . . and left a place for maggots and rotting infection . . . the whizzing whip that sung like molten iron as it rent slashes in unwilling hide . . . the caffle of slaves bound together by chains, heads and shoulders bowed down by the weight of desperation.

  "What was it like to be a slave?" the child prompted, seeing Atticus' hesitation.

  How could he tell her of the hold of the ship . . . the vomit and excrement, the anguish and the dying. Thirst, hunger, heat, airlessness. Festered leg sores. Festered hopelessness.

  "Well, now, honey," he said, drawing each word carefully from within himself. "Cain't recall too much good about it. . . ."

  Chapter 3

  Fancy watched Atticus' competent movements as he prepared to settle in for the night. The day had been a hard one and he looked weary. "Tell me about when you were young, Atticus," she asked, hoping to take his mind off their troubles. "Tell me about Africa."

  Atticus leaned back against the gnarled trunk of a swamp oak as the shadows from the fire flickered strange leaping shapes on the Spanish moss above him. He smiled and pulled the child close to him, settling her comfortably in the crook of his arm, against his body. He was thinner now than he had been; she could feel his ribs when he held her.

  "My daddy was de king of the Yoruba tribe, child," he said, remembering. "Dat's how I come to learn magic, 'cause de sons of the king had to learn secrets and mysteries de gods passed on to de menfolk long, long ago. My brothers and me had to go through trials and ordeals before we could call ourselves men.

  "Had to learn to listen to de gods when dey spoke to me, Fancy. Had to learn about how to cure things. Learned other things, too, but I cain't talk none about 'em."

  "Why not?"

  " 'Cause dey'se mysteries and dey'se only for menfolk to know." He smiled at the disappointment on Fancy's face.

  "Don't you go pout on me now, child. Ain't nothin' to mess wif, dose old gods! If dey turn on a man, he's a goner, sho 'nuff."

  Fancy's head began to creep lower; soon it slipped into Atticus' lap and he reached out to pull the blanket up over the small body nestled in against his own.

  "Do you miss your mama and daddy, Atticus?" a sleepy voice asked after a while.

  "I misses 'em."

  "I miss mine too," she answered wistfully. Then she turned, so she could look up into Atticus' eyes. "I'm real sorry about today, Atticus. If those stupid men had known you were a king's son, , they wouldn't have been so mean to you."

  "Long's you is black, honey, it don't matter whose son you is. You jest a no-account nigger to folks like dem."

  "But that's not fair, Atticus."

  "Nothin' much I seen so far 'bout dis life looks fair to me, child."

  There didn't seem any more to be said, so Fancy closed her eyes, and snuggling in close as she could to Atticus' warm and sturdy body, she went to sleep.

  Atticus sat unmoving, staring into the dwindling fire, surprised by the moisture in his own eyes. He had seen the long ago for a moment, through the child's questions. He had felt once more the breath of what it had been like to be young and free; strong and confident in the swelling pride of your own manhood.

  He saw again . . . the glistening shadows of dancers who'd lived only in his memory for decades. Shining naked bodies flickered in the glow of massive bonfires . . . the inexorable beat of drums surrounded him, urging the dancers to wilder frenzies . . . taking over brain and body and soul with their insistent rhythms . . . night sounds, drum sounds, fire sounds. Sounds of sex and life and death all trapped inside him, beating inside him, lost for a lifetime inside him, in the pallid white man's world where respect went to the rich, not the wise . . . where manliness had nothing to do with connection to the earth and nature . . . where even the gods were puny and disinterested in the affairs of men.

  Atticus glanced down at the sleeping child and idly brushed her dark hair back from the softly brown skin of her cheek. More than once since he'd started away from Beau Rivage, he had wondered if he'd been right to take her with him. Right to remove her from the white man's world to endure this life of uncertainty and hardship. At first he'd told himself he'd had no choice, he'd taken her along to keep her from danger. But that wasn't quite true.

  Perhaps he'd taken her along because he sensed he had something important to teach her ... or because he was an old man and lonely, and she gave him a reason to keep on.

  Atticus drew the blanket closer about them both and prepared himself for sleep, wondering at the strange ways of the gods. What trick of the Spirit World was this sleeping child beside him? White, female, not even his own. Why give me knowledge of men's mysteries, he asked silently, and then give me a girlchild to teach?

  Atticus lay back beneath the blanket and folded his arms beneath his head; he stared hard at the stars in the ice-blue sky, but there were no answers there.

  He should have found a place for her long ago . . . left her behind to the white man's world and whatever fate had in store for her.

  Spirit child, he thought as he began to drowse. Who are you to me?

  "Teach me how to play the banjo, Atticus?" Fancy asked as they finished cleaning up the tin plates from which they'd eaten the scraps of their dinner.

  Atticus cocked his head to the side and looked at the child. "Hard to learn the banjo, honey. Got to have a stick-to-it nature to play music."

  "I can do it! If you could learn to play, I can, too." She wrinkled her nose at him teasingly, and with an indulgent nod he sent her scampering in the direction of the treasured instrument.

  Atticus motioned the child to sit beside the fire facing him and, settling cross-legged on the ground before her, took the old banjo into his grasp. Fancy noticed the size of his hands and the spread of his great fingers on the instrument's neck, and frowned. Her own hands were less than half the size of his.

  Atticus sat comfortably, bending his head over the banjo, and Fancy noticed for the first time a sort of reverence in the way he held the instrument. Tenderly, respectfully.

  "Each string got a different sound dependin' on where you put your fingers on de frets." He rubbed his thumb over the calibrated ridges on the neck of the banjo and demonstrated a chord, then handed the banjo to Fancy, who tried to make her hands do what she'd seen.

  "Got to press real hard on dem strings wif your lef' hand, honey. Got to press so hard it hurts, an' makes red stripes on de tips of your fingers."

&nbs
p; Fancy pressed down as hard as she could on the reluctant strings and was surprised to see painful red ridges on the pads of her fingers when she let go.

  "That can't be right, Atticus. It hurts too much. You just don't want to teach me is all!"

  Atticus chuckled. "After a while you git calluses on your fingers instead of ridges, den your hands is tough enough to play." He showed her the chord again and told her to try it for herself.

  She did so, with slightly better success.

  "This is too hard for a child to learn, Atticus," she said haughtily, but he only laughed.

  "Now, dat jest ain't so, Fancy. My boy Jonah learned when he was younger'n you. But he had a stick-to-it nature."

  Fancy stared at the banjo in consternation. He could almost hear her thinking If some little pickaninny could learn this, so can I!

  "Ain't nothin' worth knowin' dat's easy to come by, honey. Almost as if God makes de good stuff de hardest of all to git, so's we kin appreciate it more, mebbe."

  Fancy looked up into Atticus' kindly eyes.

  "I'd really like to learn, honest to pete I would, Atticus. If you won't laugh at me, I'll try some more."

  "Wouldn't ever laugh at a body who's tryin', sugah. Tryin' what counts mos' wif ol' Atticus." He patted Fancy on the head and smoothed down the little cowlick that had risen from the corn-rows he'd plaited to make her look more like a colored child.

  "Lemme show you a real good chord to git started wif. . . ."

  Later, he watched her sitting quietly by herself, fingering the instrument. Her tongue stuck out a little from the corner of her mouth in concentration. The sounds she made weren't right, but they were better than before.

  "Sounds real good, Fancy," he called to her from the edge of the clearing. "Sounds real good to me." But she didn't hear him, she was so engrossed in learning stick-to-it-ivity.

  Fancy looked at her shoes in consternation. The soft leather was drenched and muddied, the bedraggled laces clung like lifeless earthworms to the sodden uppers.

  Atticus had told her that her shoes were essential tools of travel and that she mustn't risk them by playing on the slippery stones of the swampy stream. But life provided so few pleasures these days that she'd ventured far from the bank, pleased with herself for this little rebellion that made her feel in charge of her own destiny again.

  Then her foot had skidded out from under her with a sickening suddenness, and plunged her into icy water, the silty, slimy mud squishing over the tops of her shoes and soaking through to her feet.

  Now she'd have to face the music.

  Atticus' frown when she reached him said he understood without explanation. He shook his head disapprovingly, but his tone wasn't unkindly.

  "Thought I told you to git some water for de canteens and not go playin' around on dem stones."

  Fancy shook her head affirmatively, but didn't answer.

  "Guess you better change your clothes, 'fore we git on our way."

  She nodded again—it didn't seem he was going to reprimand her after all. Quickly she laid down the canteens she'd been carrying and the shoes, which she had rinsed off as best she could in the stream, and began to unpack a change of clothes from her knapsack.

  "I guess it's about time you started walkin' barefoot anyways,"

  Atticus said, glancing sideways at her under his gray lashes as she went about the business of breaking camp. "It's best you git your feet toughened up some before de cold weather comes."

  Fancy looked up, startled by the absurd notion of walking barefoot. A lady never walked barefoot; never risked so much as a callus.

  "I am not going anywhere without my shoes," she said emphatically.

  "You got more shoes in that li'l bag you totin'?" Atticus asked, seemingly with interest.

  "You know I haven't!"

  "Den you got no choice I kin see."

  "Oh, yes, I have. We can just sit right here until they dry out."

  " 'Fraid we cain't do no sech thing, Fancy. We only got food for breakfas'. Got to find me some work today. We got to keep movin'."

  "I won't go barefoot!"

  "Then you gits left behind, I expect."

  "All I did was play around a little bit," she countered, trying to hold on to her defenses as long as possible. "Dat's true 'nuff."

  "Then why are you being so mean to me?"

  "You made your choice dis mornin', honey. You decide you ain't gonna listen to old Atticus, you gonna do's you please. Atticus rule number 603 say you git to choose de way you go, you git to live wif de consequences. De only thing good about it is you learn not to make de same mistake twicet."

  Atticus finished organizing for departure; Fancy, dejected, bundled up her clothes again into their small sack. Tying the bedraggled laces together, she slung the soggy shoes over her shoulder and they began to walk.

  Atticus smiled just a little to himself at Fancy's progress. A few months ago she'd have pouted all day over such a lesson—now she just took it in hand and did the best she could with it. Life had a funny way of providing all the learning you could stand, if you had the courage to take the teaching in the right spirit.

  "Y'all have a good time in that old stream before you fell in?" he asked over his shoulder, after they'd gone a mile or more.

  "Sho 'nuff did!" she called back, mimicking his speech.

  Atticus laughed aloud at the spirited reply. "Well, den, mebbe it was worth de trouble you got into. You reckon?"

  "No," she answered with a rueful small laugh. "It sho 'nuff wasn't!"

  Atticus turned with a surprised chuckle and, unexpectedly, swept the child up onto his wide shoulders.

  "Den I expects you learned a important lesson dis mornin', honey—so I kin give you a li'l ride, jest 'cause I'se your friend."

  Fancy threw her arms around Atticus' thick neck and hugged him tight. As she did so, the bald skin on the top of the man's head and the grizzled gray tonsure of hair around it suddenly reminded her that he was old and it might be a great effort for him to carry her.

  She squeezed him hard again and kissed the top of his head lightly. "You kin let me down now," she said, after a minute or two. "So's I kin toughen up my feet before the cold weather comes."

  When he did so, Fancy took hold of Atticus' hand and walked at his side, as cheerfully as her unhappy feet would allow.

  "You 'pear to be a mite peaky," Atticus said, looking up over the pot of stew that simmered on the cookfire. He'd snared a rabbit earlier in the day and had expected Fancy to be waiting impatiently for her favorite dinner, but she was quiet and listless.

  "Got somethin' ailin' you, child?"

  Fancy was seated on the ground, her knees drawn up to her chest, arms around them, her chin resting despondently on her knee. She shook her head no and said nothing.

  Atticus smiled a little to himself; she'd grown to be so much a part of him that it would be nearly impossible to imagine life without her now.

  "Got some troubles gnawin' on you, sugah?" He moved in quietly beside her, his body casting its long shadow across her turned-down face.

  She nodded yes without looking up at him.

  "Want to tell old Atticus about 'em?"

  She shook her head no again, and Atticus frowned.

  "How's a person to help you, if'n you cain't say what's hurtin'?"

  "I was just thinking, Atticus. What if I never get back to Beau Rivage? What if there's no place for me ever to go back to? No way ever to have the things I'm s'posed to have?" She looked up and he could see the tears and worry in her eyes.

  "Well, now . . . dat's a powerful lot of what-ifs for one li'l child. No wonder you is feelin' poorly."

  Fancy nodded at the affirmation.

  "I kin tell you don't want no ordinary cheerin' up, honey. 'Cause dis what-if is real important to you.

  "Mebbe what you need is a brand-new dream," he said judiciously. "Jest in case the what-ifs shouldn't work out like you want 'em to. Sometimes they don't, you know.

  "Sometimes
de Lawd got real mysterious ways, child. Real mysterious. But mostly things work out. I kin tell you dat from my own experience.

  "Besides, honey, wif your mama and daddy gone, might be you wouldn't like it none back dere anyways."

  "If I didn't dream about going back to Beau Rivage, what would I dream about?" Fancy asked sensibly.

  "I been givin' dat considerable thought now, honey. You ain't de onliest one around here got to have dreams, you know."

  "You've got to have dreams, too?" she asked, surprised.

  "Sho 'nuff do, child! Got to have dreams to keep on keepin' on." He watched her out of the corner of his eye to see if he'd piqued her curiosity.

  "I been thinkin' you and me might should head on out to Californy and find us a big old gold mine."

  Fancy's eyes widened. "How could we do that?"

  "Same as anybody, I expects. We jest git us a pick an* a pan and we dig around some. We got gold mines back in Africa, you know, so I'd know jest how to do it."

  "You would? Would we be rich then, Atticus?"

  "Lordy, Fancy! We be so rich, we build us a house so big it make Beau Rivage look like a outhouse!" She giggled, but looked unconvinced, so he expanded on the theme.

  "We be so rich, we kin buy you ribbons for your hair and silver slippers for your tootsies and everythin' a young lady from a fine place like Beau Rivage ought to have!"

  Fancy's eyes lit up at the thought of plenty. "Oh, Atticus, I didn't know you knew how to make us rich again!"

  The old man smiled at the relief in the child's face.

  "You stick with old Atticus, honey, and we do jest fine." He tried never to lie to Fancy, even in little things; life was hard, no

  Chapter 4

  Fancy tried unsuccessfully to close the buttons on the cuff of her dress. Startled, she realized that her arm had grown too long for the frayed sleeve. It was more than a year since Beau Rivage. A year of walking and hitching and catching work where they could. A day here, a week there, sometimes as much as a month in one place if work was plentiful. Fancy looked at her hands with a mixture of disgust and pleasure. They were dirty, work-roughened, and uncared-for, but they had learned to do many things well in their year of wandering.