“Get back to your chores,” you said harshly, reaching across
me to open the door.
“But,” I said,
wanting to ask how you found me? How you knew I was in danger? Why did you help
me? There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but you shouted at me again. “I said get!”
I stepped out
hastily, dropping my bag on the hard brown ground. “I want supper on the table
in an hour,” you said. I was about to
reach down to pick up my bag when you closed the door. I had to step back fast before you drove over
me.
I picked it up watching
the dust cloud rise from your speedy departure as you headed to the barn. I
stood there as you parked the truck near the opened doors of the red building,
and jumped out with your rifle to run inside.
I wondered what you were planning.
We had road the short distance without speaking one word.
But I did look over at you a few times to see your tense jaw line, and the
tight grip you had on the steering wheel, while you kept staring behind us. My
heart was racing in my chest. I kept
looking out the rear window to see if anyone was following us too. There was no
one, but that didn’t mean someone hadn’t heard those shots or seen us leaving.
The woods are full of eyes that see; at least that was what Papa always said.
Still frighten by what happened, I kept thinking, you, a
nigger had just killed three white men.
Papa said that he had never seen a nigger killed a white man before, but
that he had heard plenty saying that they would. He also added that he knew
they were either drunk out of their minds or just flat out lying.
Everybody knew the rule, no killing of white folks. For every white person killed, the Klan would
come in the night and drag four or five nigger families out of their homes to
kill in return. If anyone found out
about those bodies in the woods, you and I both were dead for sure, as well as
a few innocent families. So what were you planning?
I waited a while
longer, but when you didn’t come out of the barn, I turn to walk back into the
house. But out the corner of my eye, something caught my attention. It was a
small cloud of dust coming from off the field way in the distance. There was
someone out there. I stopped to stare at the dark figure, wondering who was
plowing in your field.
Copyright © 2013 Glynis Rankin
