The Sharecropper’s Daughter It was in the way she looked at me. Touching her belly just slightly with her free hand, she walked as far as she could along the branch without taking her eyes off of mine. If I hadn’t turned and walked away, I believe she would have stopped at the bend just to make her point, to tell me silently that I was the source of her pain. She wanted me to repent in the Lord in the way Negroes and Pentecostals are raised up to do, but I wouldn’t pretend to look upon her condition as a moral failure. My grandfather would surely roll in his grave. Not because his pure Scottish blood coursed through the veins of this child, but because I had failed to righteously stay the path for which he set for his sons in this new world. It was a narrow path to follow my Pa and his people, all lords of their own land, akin to building bridges and policies to keep it that way. It was easier to meander about as they said my Ma’s folk tended to do. I was the failure, the black sheep of the brood. I had no wife and no land, except for the bit left me to tend by my Uncle Sion. No food but what I could dig from the dirt or trap in the woods. Odd bird, they called me. No odder than Thomas, I could say. “Why she looking at you,” Thomas asked. “She’s going to put the hoodoo on you.” He teased, chuckling in his quiet way. He spit a plug of chaw to the ground with a practiced squirt from the side of his mouth, leaving a fine line of brown spittle along his jaw line. The smell of it made me want to vomit but instead, I quickened my step ahead of him. He was my first cousin, my Aunt Maggie’s baby boy, but we’d been raised like brothers after she took to the odd behavior of eating ash from the stove and leaving her children in the yard to wander about in every direction. I ignored his call, and slipped into the woods just beyond the chicken coup. His dog yapped after me but after no encouragement, he became bored with the chase and scampered back to his lazy spot under the porch. I ducked around the silver pines and down into the valley where the air was cool. The floor was cushioned with moss and wet leaves, and the itty bitty medicines the people in the marsh hunted to use for their ailments. I ran through the shallow water, crossing the creek where it trickled around the blue and black rocks that peeked above the surfaces here and there. I ran toward the Woolley Farm and when I got close, I rested for some time before I saw her in the distance. She was making her way to the cabin that she shared with her old nanny. It sat just on the border, in the shadow of the once grand plantation that now lingered land-rich but dirt poor in its wake. I whistled lightly and smiled at her slight hesitation. She tilted her chin in the air, a practiced gesture meant to let me know that our meeting would be on her terms or no. I whistled again and she stopped. She turned to face me with her hand on her hip. “Don’t you be coming around here, Master Zachrey,” she sang in her way. “I don’t want to be bothered with you. I got work to do, hear?” She asked, her voice rising slightly at the end. I stood up and walked toward her. I took the basket she’d been balancing on her head and rested it on my shoulder, holding it there easily with my left hand. I winked at her. She rolled her eyes, narrowing them lazily toward the ground, and then pursed her lips before meeting my gaze. The light dancing through the leaves of the tall trees magnified the liquid pools of her eyes, clear as a baby’s they were. The smell of the sassafras leaves she was chewing on, made me want to toss the basket and take her hand. I wanted to run with her as far and as fast as our legs could carry us, away from this place with its laws and summations. “What is you doing?” she asked indignantly, knowing well that she could speak to no other white man, white person for that matter, in such a tone. I reminded her of it once and wanted to cut my tongue out for saying it. “What is we first,” she asked after a week of silence, her feelings still hurt enough to bring a strangled tear to her eye. “Is we a white man and a colored gal, or is we better than friends what knowed one another since your granddaddy and my granddaddy?” I could have whipped her, or advised her old nanny or one of her uncle’s to beat her for being sassy, but it melted my heart when she spoke to me in any fashion. I couldn’t help it. Maybe Thomas was right. Maybe she had put a spell on me? Maybe she slipped some of her urine in my water and now I could see no other but for her. “Come on, silly gal. I’ll carry your mess for you.” “Suit yourself.” She walked on ahead of me, her hips swaying slightly more than they had been back at the branch. I smiled and shook my head, following along behind her like a punchy drunk jack rabbit. I was older than she was but in these parts, had she been a white girl, our ages would have been matched just right. We probably would have already married, and would already have one youngun or two. We would be living on old Uncle Sion’s place, except Thomas would sleep in the barn rather than in the house like he did with me. “What is it you was fretting over?” I asked. “Fretting over nothing cept this belly of mine,” she snapped, turning around to face me. “You don’t know how it is. Everybody want to know what they already know. The bigger I gets the more they suck they teeth and count the days before I drop this… this.” I grabbed her hand, “This baby, Sissy. It’s going to be a baby.” I pulled her to me, and when her arms went around my waist I could feel her body shaking. “Shush, now.” I said. “It won’t be the end of the world. I promise you, it won’t be.” “When Rebekah, over in Hollow Creek had her baby,” she reminded me. “They killed it and sent her down county road all because Jasp Bailey be the daddy.” I laid the basket down and wrapped my arms around her, kissing her lightly on her forehead. She had the kerchief I bought her tied around her head. I pulled it off and breathed in the sweet smell of the lemon oil she liked to rub in her hair. “John and Cassie live together with their babies. Nobody bothers them,” I tried to reassure her. She retorted. “She’s nearly white herself. Folks got to be reminded that them kids are colored at all.” “Yeah,” I answered slowly. “But they’re colored just the same. Nobody’s been out there to kill nobody.” “I suppose it all depends on who you is and who you ain’t, and you and Jasp Bailey more alike than you and John Morarity.” She didn’t have to spell it out that Jasp Bailey’s daddy was the sheriff, and related in more ways than one to the founders of the county. John Morarity was a newcomer who had no family name to taint. He let it be known that nobody had a say on what happened on his property, and he didn’t tolerate folks talking to or about his children. He kept them close, and when they came to town, they stuck together like a passel of raccoons all wide eyed and silent. She pulled away. “What I’m gone do,” she asked before grabbing her basket up off of the ground. I took it out of her hands and followed her along the path. When we got within a few yards of the edge she turned and took it back. We parted without a word. I headed back the way I’d come. When I got to the porch my brother Wilbur was there, sitting on my chair, leaning with the two front legs tilted in the air. He glared at me with his usual look of disgust. Thomas slouched in the doorway and when I checked with him for a hint he looked away, telling me without saying that he’d told Wilbur where I ran off to. “Can’t get enough of that gal, can you?” Wilbur let the chair drop down to all four legs with a bang. He got up and leaned against the railing. He was my older brother by ten years. The babies between us died soon after our Ma birthed them, leaving a gap too wide for either of us to reach across. He was short and stout like the Brody’s and I was tall and lanky, which was more akin to our Pa’s people. The physical difference made him work that much harder at being a Shealy. “You know folk’s is talking?” He started softly, slowly, like we were friends. “It don’t help having you running all over and around here after that gal. It wouldn’t normally matter, Zachary,” he reasoned. “But a little birdie tells me this ain’t no fly by night type a thing. Little fella tells me you got problems getting your plowing and your picking done for running down to the Whooley place. Little tickle in my tummy says there will be trouble if that baby comes out looking like a Mongoloid with curly blond hair.” I narrowed my eyes at Thomas even though I knew he wasn’t so much to blame. Either of us was any match against Wilbur. Thomas slipped into the house and a few seconds later I heard him drop to the ground out of the back window. He was undoubtedly headed down to the pond, to hide on one of the boats until he was certain Wilbur was gone. “Don’t you get it, Zachary? You can’t run round with a colored gal. Folks won’t tolerate it. If what they’re saying is true…” He was hinting at his son Willie’s birthday party the previous Saturday night. Willie turned eighteen and joined the army the very next day. I only stayed at the party long enough to show my face. “I suppose that gal is more important than your nephew getting killed over yonder.” “We ain’t at war, Wilbur.” “But we’re dancing in the woods with colored’s like we ain’t got a care in the world,” he retorted. I looked away to hide my anger. Sissy told me she’d heard somebody that night. I ignored her warning and bade her to dance with me near the clearing at Cedar Pond. I wanted to tell him it was true, that I’d rather be with Sissy than anybody else, but I knew it would mean a fight. He could beat me like a man beats a child, and had done so many times. I kept my mouth shut and let him say what he would. I knew his wife Barbara Ann put her supper on the table at three o’clock and didn’t stand by, not even for Wilbur. It was nearly half past two. I counted the minutes until he would leave. I found a seat on the bottom step, careful to keep an eye on him. If I got a head start I could outrun him any day of the week, but he was sneaky enough to catch me if I didn’t pay close attention. “What you got to say,” he asked. “Just say.” He beckoned with a sneer. We were friends no more. “You ain’t a boy, Zachary. You’re a man now, been a man.” He waved his arm around the farm. “Uncle Sion left you a nice enough piece of property.” “He didn’t’ leave it to me.” “He left it and you’re on it. What’s the difference?” He blurted. He took a moment to placate his natural urge to scream, and softened his approach to a whine. “Amy will make a good wife for you. She waited for you to come back on Saturday but you had other plans, I suppose.” He’d been trying to make me commit to his best friend’s sister since I was barely sixteen. “She’s pretty enough,” he curled his tongue around the toothpick in his mouth. “She can cook alright. What more can you ask for Zachary? What more do you want?” I shook my head. For all his efforts a moment before, Wilbur lost all composure and flew into a rage. “You ain’t no prize yourself you dirty four-flushing son of a bitch! Daddy sent me up here to beat some sense into you. I told him you was a lost cause!” He pointed his fat finger at me. “You want a bunch of pick-a-ninnies pulling on your britches, that’s your business but don’t make no mistake thinking you’ll raise them here.” He lowered his head, “or anywhere around here.” I readied myself to stand up to run. “What happened to, he left it and I’m on it?” I mocked him. He shot his finger up like a piston. “I will kick your ass, Zachary Shealy! I will kick your ass if it’s the last thing I do. I can guarantee you that.” He hopped off the porch in a flash, but I was halfway across the yard heading toward the pier with enough distance between us to yell back at him. “Get home to your supper, or eat mash with Rowdy in the yard.” I ran to the end of the pier and looked back before diving in. His face was crimson with anger. The thought of him eating supper with his colored farmhand Rowdy, was almost enough to make him dive in behind me. I swam halfway across the pond in ten or so easy strokes and then floated on my back, laughing at him having a tantrum there at the edge of the pier. He jumped around and cursed for a few more minutes before finally leaving in a huff. Thomas peaked above the rim of the boat he was hiding in and rowed out to where I was. I climbed in, and he handed me a hook and line. We fished for our dinner and docked the boat on the opposite side of the lake. Thomas got the fire started and I cleaned the fish. We gorged ourselves until we were too full to move. The sun ambled down into the purple valley across and behind Little Mountain. The house grew dark and lonesome like a forlorn and forgotten motherless child. “I’ll go across and get a bedroll,” Thomas offered, sheepishly. There was no need for him to feel ashamed. I urged him on, “That’s a good idea Tomboy. Keep a lookout for Will and don’t forget your harmonica.” He smiled and left down the bank and into the boat. I took my pants and shirt off, still damp from my swim, and positioned them close to the fire to dry. I rested my head on my arm and thought about Sissy with the dark brown eyes. I whispered it into the air, “Sissy with the dark brown eyes.” After a bit, Thomas rowed back across with blankets and a jar of peaches from the pantry. We passed the jar between us, grinning at how good the peaches tasted. “Thank the good Lord for Rachel Sue’s canning.” Thomas remarked, licking the line of syrup running down his arm. “Uncle Sion finally got it right,” I agreed. “Second time’s the charm,” Thomas reached for the jar. “Rachel Sue was his third wife,” I corrected him. “His first one died when Kathryn was born, and his second one… I don’t remember her name, died with the grippe in 18. He married Rachel Sue after that.” “Three’s the charm, then,” Thomas digressed. “She sure kept a full pantry.” I nodded in agreement before walking down to the water to wash the sugar water off of my hands. Thomas followed me down, tipping the jar in the air over his opened mouth, trying to get the last drop before rinsing it out. I yawned expressively. It was nearly nine o’clock and I knew Sissy would be waiting for me. Thomas watched me as I made a show of laying out my blanket and rolling my pants up to cushion behind my head. He opened his can of tobacco and dug out a plug. He shaped it just right to fit into his mouth, moving it around until it was in place. “I didn’t mean to tell Wilbur about Sissy.” “Wilbur is a pain in the ass,” I told him. He laughed so hard that the tobacco fell out of his mouth. He picked it up off of his blanket and stuffed it back in. “He ain’t never been right,” he grinned. “I’m going to see her,” I told him somberly. His smile faded but his gaze met mine. He nodded his head. “Alright,” he responded. “I’ll keep the fire a going.” I put my clothes back on and rowed the boat across the river. I hid it in the brush behind the barn just in case Wilbur decided to walk back up the hill to finish what he’d started earlier. I climbed up to the hay loft. It was dark but I could see her resting against the wall. I sat down beside her, taking her hand in mine. We sat that way for almost an hour, gazing out of the opening, watching the moon in the distance. I pointed, “Sugar water moon.” She nodded, “…a little more yellow and it’ll be a lemon drop.” I brought her hand up to my lips and kissed it lightly. We eased lower into the bed of hay and fell asleep to the faint sound of Thomas’s harmonica. Before daybreak I awoke to find her sitting against the wall. I smiled at her and she smiled back. “Good morning,” she said. “It’ll be a couple of hours before we know.” She looked through the opening in the hay loft and agreed. “In another hour it will be a good morning,” she seemed to decide. And it was, for later that day the baby was born. She was early by nearly two weeks, but healthy I was told. | 
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