Excerpt from THE GLORY FIELD
by Walter Dean Myers
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"Can I come in the morning?" Lizzy asked.
"All right," Miss Julia said. "But I hope you come early before Mister Joe Haynes rings for the other people to go to the fields. You don't look like you should be out in the fields tomorrow."
"No, ma'am."
"We women have to protect each other," Miss Julia said, a smile easing the hardness of her face. "Now you go on in and get some sleep."
As soon as Miss Julia turned and started back toward the big house, Lizzy stepped back into the cabin. She was trembling again, and when she found herself in Saran's arms, she began to cry.
"Talk to her Moses," Saran whispered over Lizzy's head.
"You got to go on, now," Moses said. "Take our love with you. Take it to Joshua, and to my boy. You take it with you, too, 'cause we all love you. Now go on."
"If you get caught, act like you ain't right in the head," Saran said. "No matter what they do to you, or how bad you feel, or what you see. White folks ain't worried about simple Negroes. They just worry about Negroes that got sense."
"Go on girl, before you break everybody's heart," a voice from the darkness said.
Lizzy felt somebody put something around her neck and knew it was a charm to keep off evil and sickness. In the darkness hands touched her, rough hands, some holding her arm, some patting her shoulders, some touching her hair. Lips touched her, kissed her. In the background it was Moses who was praying. It was Saran who turned Lizzy's shoulders toward the door.
"Don't turn back," she said.
The night was warmer. Darker. Lizzy wanted to turn back, to see the cabins, to see if Miss Julia's light was on, to see if anybody was standing in the quarters waving to her.
"Don't turn back."
Lizzy stopped, looked down, took a deep breath, and continued.
There was a noise. Lizzy leaned forward, and peered fearfully into the darkness.
"Joshua?"
"Over here." Joshua's voice was deep and calm. Lizzy turned and saw him coming toward her. Lem was behind him.
"Where's Mister Joe Haynes?" she asked.
"He's back there tied under that tree," Joshua said. "We'd best be getting on. It'll be light before long."
"Where we going?"
"Girl, I don't know where we going," Joshua said. "But I know we got to get away from here. They'll have the dogs out as soon as the sun rises."
"We going to get away, Lizzy," Lem said. He was limping slightly. "Don't you worry none about it."
"Where we going to get away to?" Lizzy asked, as the two men passed her. "You know where we going?"
"Just going," Joshua said. "Save your breath. Sound carry pretty good along here."
Lizzy knew Joshua was wrong. Sound didn't carry good over the fields, and it didn't carry good over the marshes, either. He just didn't want to talk, that was all.
She thought back on Mister Joe Haynes. Maybe Joshua and Lem had killed him. Maybe that's why they didn't talk much, because they had killed Mister Joe Haynes and knew they were headed straight for hell.
They walked as fast as they could. Sometimes Lizzy almost had to run to keep up with them. Lizzy knew that if any white person saw them running across the fields they would be stopped. If they were stopped at Live Oaks all they would be have to say is that they are one of Master Lewis's Negroes and nobody would bother them. But away from the plantation they weren't safe anywhere.
"Where are we going?" Lizzy asked again, even though she had told herself that she wouldn't.
"I remember a place some miles from here," Joshua said. "There was a big house, and off from the big house there was a little brick house where they used to smoke hams before they built a new big house and a regular big smokehouse. If I can recollect where it was, maybe we can get in there until I see what's what."
"A smokehouse is gonna stink," Lizzy said.
"Dogs might not pick us up in there," Joshua said.
"We gonna be all right?"
"Keep quiet," Joshua answered.
They walked in silence, and Lizzy saw that Lem was having a harder time keeping up than she was. She saw that he was Favouring his left leg, but he wasn't saying anything. Once he caught her looking at him and smiled through his still-swollen face.
When they finally stopped, it was on the edge of a field. The sun was just rimming the far edge of a field, and Lizzy saw a small band of Negroes walking, baskets under their arms, toward the fields.
"We can't make it to the smokehouse. They's a grove of trees over yonder," Joshua said, "we can stay there until night falls."
Lizzy was tired as they made their way to the trees, but it was a different kind of tired than from working the field. It was an excitement that she had never felt before. For the first time in her life, she didn't know what was going to happen next . There wasn't going to be a bell to call her to the fields or the long rows to weed and hoe. She was seeing more than the quarters and the back of the big house at Live Oaks.
"I don't know if I can get up in a tree," Lem said
"You can," Joshua said, simply. "You will."
Lem pulled himself up into a tree, using his arms more than his legs. Lizzy climbed into the branches of a twisted old tree that had partially sunk under its own weight. The trunk of the tree was covered with a soft moss that felt clammy to her skin.
Joshua watched as Lem settled himself on a branch. Then he said he was going to scout around.
"If anything happen, don't give up," he said. "Just keep going."
"You leaving?" Lizzy asked.
"Just looking around, trying to figure out which way we got to go. Which way is the best way north," Joshua said. He lifted a big hand and, fingers curved, wiped the sweat from his brow. "Just that we got to be ready for anything. Being free is what we are looking for. Everybody got to look for his own freedom. Can't be no children when we doing it, either. You understand that, Lem?"
"Yes, suh," Lem said.
Joshua shielded his eyes from the sun and looked toward the heavens. Then he nodded and started off.
"Lem, you scared?" Lizzy called out after Joshua was out of earshot.
"Naw," Lem called back. "We free, that's the onliest thing that matters to me. I'd rather die than go back to them fields again. How about you?"
"Don't know about dying," Lizzy said. "But I like running around out here. You think Joshua is going to look for Neela?"
"Don't know," Lem said. "Now hesh up. Here comes somebody."
Lizzy shut up and looked around. Across the field she saw two white men and two little children walking. She moved further along the branch.
She thought if they didn't see her they could surely hear her heart beating.
The two white men weren't hurrying, and they weren't headed straight for them. They were going directly toward a half-dried channel.
Lizzy knew she was about to cry again. She looked up to where the white men were looking at the channel. The two children were playing tag, running back and forth between trees and rocks.
That's what it means being free, she thought. Doing what you want. Using your time like you want to use it. She could imagine herself running with those kids. Of course, she wouldn't be playing a kid's game, but she could run with them. She could imagine herself in the field. Just walking along, maybe picking up some flowers for her hair, or even to give to Lem. She closed her eyes for a minute and pictured herself giving the flowers to Lem and him looking stupid and him acting like he didn't know what to do with them. It was just a dream of what she might do, but it was a good dream. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
The two white men had walked on, and the children followed.
Lizzy wondered if Joshua had gone on without them. She thought that if he didn't get back by dark she would tell Lem that the two of them should go on.
The sun rose high in the sky, and Lizzy fell asleep in fits and starts. She was hungry, and already missing Saran and Grandma Dolly.
A few more white people went by, but none closer to the tree than the channel. Once they heard a dog in the background, but they never saw him. All day they waited for Joshua to return, and he didn't.
Somewhere between the sun's being high and it moving across the sky and losing its strength, Lizzy decided that from that day, she was going to be on her own. How could she go back? It wasn't what had happened to Mr. Joe Haynes. Or what happened to Lem. It was what had happened to her. She was free. It was a scary free, and it was a hungry free and a tired free, but it was free.
From The Glory Field. Copyright © by Walter Dean Myers
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