The Autobiography Of Miss Jane Pittman Part 10

"They want me stop him, Jane," he said.

"You mean kill my boy?" I said.

"If they say do it I must do it, Jane."

"Raise your head, Mr. Albert," I said.

He wouldn't.

"Mr. Albert?" I said.

He raised his head slowly and looked at me. Great killer he was and scared of me. I didn't say a thing, I just looked at Albert Cluveau. Gray beard all over his old wrinkled face. Watery old blue eyes. That old felt hat, sweat-stink, torn at the top. An old man who ought to be sitting in the sun-here talking about killing.

"Speak. Mr. Albert," I said.

"I tell them me, you, we all time fish there in the St. Charles River," he said. "I tell them I eat at your house. I tell them you make Albert good Creole coffee. I tell them, I say: *Jane good n.i.g.g.e.r woman just like you see me there.' I say. *If he must stop, let Maurios stop him. Not Albert. Albert and Jane, side by side, fish there in the St. Charles River.' They say: *Albert Cluveau, this your patrol. Maurios patrol farther down the river. If we say, Albert, stop that n.i.g.g.e.r, Albert, you stop him. If you don't, Albert-.' "

"Can you kill my boy?" I asked him.

"I must do what they tell me," he said.

"Can you kill my boy?" I asked him.

"Yes," he said.

I looked at Albert Cluveau a moment, then I felt my head spinning. I made one step toward the house, then I was down on the ground. I heard somebody way off saying, "Jane, Jane, what's the matter, Jane?" I opened my eyes and I saw Albert Cluveau with his ugly face kneeling over me. And I thought I was in h.e.l.l, and he was the devil. I started screaming: "Get away from me, devil. Get away from me, devil. Get away from me, devil." But all my screaming was inside, and not a sound was coming out. I heard from way off: "You sick, Jane? You sick?" I was screaming, but I wasn't making any noise. I was struggling to get up, but I couldn't move.

"Get away," I said. "Get away from me."

I could hear myself, so I knowed he could hear me too. I saw him standing up, looking funny, like I shouldn't be talking to him like that. Looked like he wanted to say, "Jane, what I said to make you act like that?" I pushed myself up off the ground and started toward the house.

"You need a doctor, Jane?" he said. "Jane?"

I went in and laid down on the bed. That evening I went to Ned. I didn't tell him I had fell, but I told him to beware of Albert Cluveau. All he said was, "I will build my school. I will teach till they kill me."

I went to Vivian.

"They'll kill him if he keep on," I said. "Why don't you take them children back to Kansas. He'll have to follow you if you go."

"He told me when he was coming here he could get killed," she said. "But I came with him anyhow. I have to stay now."

The Sermon at the River.

Two weeks before Ned was killed he gathered us at the river. It was on a Sunday, a beautiful, blue-sky day. No, you had a few clouds, way up high, paper thin. A little breeze stirred on and off. You could see it moving the willow leaves down near the water.

The people was at the river when I got there, but Ned hadn't started his talk yet. He was sitting on the gra.s.s with Vivian and the children. When he saw me he told me to come down there and sit with them. One of his students took my arm and helped me down the hill. The bank wasn't that steep, I had gone down them steeper than that, but he wanted to help me and I couldn't tell him no.

I had my head rag on under my straw hat, and I took the head rag off to sit on. I used my straw hat to fan with. Ned was there in his Army uniform looking serious serious. I asked him what was the matter. He told me nothing. But Jane, the oldest girl, told me that white people had been pa.s.sing by there ever since they came down to the river. She pointed at two men fishing in a boat now. They was close enough for me to see who they was-two of the Lec.o.x brothers from Bayonne. They made their living on seine boats running up and down St. Charles River.

"Maybe you ought to not talk today," I said.

"That's what they want," he said.

When everybody had come there Ned got up and turned his back to the river and to the men out there in the boat. He told us to kneel while he prayed. After the prayer he told us to sit down. I looked back at the people who was there. Mostly children. The old people had stayed home.

I can't remember everything Ned said to us that day, I can't even remember half of what he said, but I can remember some. I can remember it because Ned believed in it so much-and his talk at the river that day definitely hurried him to his grave.

"This earth is yours and don't let that man out there take it from you," he said. "It's yours because your people's bones lays in it; it's yours because their sweat and their blood done drenched this earth. The white man will use every trick in the trade to take it from you. He will use every way he know how to get you wool-gathered. He'll turn you 'gainst each other. But remember this," he said. "Your people's bones and their dust make this place yours more than anything else.

"I'm not telling y'all men own the earth," he said. "Man is just a little bitty part of this earth. When he die he go back in the earth just like a tree go back in the earth when it fall, just like iron go back in the earth when it rust. You don't own this earth, you're just here for a little while, but while you're here don't let no man tell you the best is for him and you take the sc.r.a.p. No, your people plowed this earth, your people chopped down the trees, your people built the roads and built the levees. These same people is now buried in this earth, and their bones's fertilizing this earth."

I was listening to Ned, but I was keeping my eyes on the Lec.o.x brothers out there in the boat. They pretend they wasn't listening, but they was listening. Each time they whipped out the lines they was looking over where he was.

"You got some black men," Ned was saying, "that'll tell you the white man is the worst thing on earth. Nothing horrible he wouldn't do. But let me tell you this," he said. "If it wasn't for some white men, none of us would be alive here today. I myself probably'll be killed by a white man. I know they following me everywhere I go."

When he said this everybody looked at the men out in the boat.

"Look at me," Ned said. "Not at them." When the people turned their heads toward him he went on. "But even when he raise the gun or the axe or anything else he might use I won't blame all white men. I'll blame ignorance. Because it was ignorance that put us here in the first place. Ignorance on the part of the black man and the white man. Because the white man didn't have to go in Africa with guns to get us. The white man came with rum and beads. And why? Because we was already waiting for him when he came there in his ships. Our own black people had put us up in pens like hogs, waiting to sell us into slavery. He didn't tell the white man how to treat us after he got us on his ship, the white man made up them rules himself. It was just his job to hand us over, and he did that. And that he did."

Ned went on: "I wish I could stand here and tell y'all our African people fought and fought the white man. And there was war and war and war. But that's not true. Our people fought each other, and the white man bought the captives for a barrel of rum and a string of beads. I'm telling ya'll this," he said, "to show ya'll the only way you can be strong is stand together. The white man never would have brought us here if we was together. He never would have separated a nation. But little tribes beat each other, and all the white man had to do was wait."

Ned was sweating, standing there in the sun, and Vivian got up to wipe his face. He told her to sit down, not to come close to him. If the people in the boat shot at him now, he didn't want her to get hit.

"I don't know how old I am right now," he said. "I can be thirty-nine, I can be forty or forty-one. But I've seen a lot in this world, and I know this: "I'm much American as any man; I'm more American than most. And what is this American? I'll tell you what he is. Because they didn't have no such thing as American till we got here. The Indians was the first ones here and they never called themself Americans. Matter of fact they didn't even call themself Indians till Columbus came here and started that. After him, then here come Vespucci with his stuff."

When Ned said Vespucci the children looked at each other and started giggling. Ned had to smile at that too. The funniest name any of us had ever heard-Vespucci.

After the children had quieted down, Ned went on: "Columbus had a black man with him when he came here and called these red men Indians. By the time Vespucci came here and called this place America you had black people running every which a' way. America is for red, white, and black men. The red man roamed all over this land long before we got here. The black man cultivated this land from ocean to ocean with his back. The white man brought tools and guns. America is for all of us." he said, "and all of America is for all of us.

"I left from here when I was a young man, but most people thought that was the best thing to do then. But I say to you now, don't run and do fight. Fight white and black for all of this place. You got black people here saying go back to Africa, some saying go to Canada, some saying go to France. Now, who munks y'all sitting here right now want be a Frenchman and talk like they do? Let me see his hand in the air."

The children started laughing. Ned had said that to make them laugh.

"Be Americans," he told the children. "But first be men. Look inside yourself. Say, *What am I? What else beside this black skin that the white man call n.i.g.g.e.r?' Do you know what a n.i.g.g.e.r is?" he asked us. "First, a n.i.g.g.e.r feels below anybody else on earth. He's been beaten so much by the white man, he don't care for himself, for n.o.body else, and for nothing else. He talks a lot, but his words don't mean nothing. He'll never be American, and he'll never be a citizen of any other nation. But there's a big difference between a n.i.g.g.e.r and a black American. A black American cares, and will always struggle. Every day that he get up he hopes that this day will be better. The n.i.g.g.e.r knows it won't. That's another thing about a n.i.g.g.e.r: he knows everything. There ain't a thing on earth he don't know-till somebody with brains come along.

"I'm telling you all this because I want my children to be men," Ned told us. "I want my children to fight. Fight for all-not just for a corner. The black man or white man who tell you to stay in a corner want to keep your mind in a corner too. I'm building that school so you'll have a chance to get from out of that corner."

One of the children raised his hand, and Ned told him to stand up. The boy was way in the back and we couldn't hear him too good and Ned told him to speak louder. Ned told him not to pay any mind to the people out in the boat because if we had anything to hide we wouldn't be out there in the first place. The boy came closer to the water.

"Professor Dougla.s.s," he said. "You keep saying we ought to not listen to Mr. Washington, but ain't Mr. Washington saying that to keep the race from getting slaughtered? Mr. Washington growed up round these white people. He know a man'll shoot a black man down just for standing on two feet. This something maybe the people in the North don't know yet. And another thing, Professor Dougla.s.s," the boy said, "ain't he saying learn a trade because a trade is the thing that's go'n carry this country?"

The boy stood there with his hands to his side till Ned told him to sit down. The boy sat down quickly, but looking at Ned all the time. I felt very proud, seeing how well Ned had trained them. Ned smiled and nodded his head. He was proud that one of his students had asked him a question like that. He was always harping on Mr. Washington, and here was another chance to harp on him again.

"I agree with Mr. Washington on trade," he said. "But trade is not all. I want to see some of my children become lawyers. I want to see some of my children become ministers of the Bible; some write books; some to represent their people in the law. So trade is not all. Working with your hands while the white man write all the rules and laws will not better your lot.

"Now, that other thing-don't mess with the white man and he won't slaughter you. Well, let me tell you a little story. My own mother was killed by white men, not because she was messing in their business, she was trying to leave the South after she heard of her freedom. Her head and my little sister's head was bashed in with sticks.

"But other people was killed on that day," he said. "And many, many have been killed since. I agree many of them have been killed because they stood up on their two feet. But if you must die, let me ask you this: wouldn't you rather die saying I'm a man than to die saying I'm a contented slave? Mr. Washington might have had the safety of our race in mind-I think Mr. Washington did-but since he made that statement over five years ago over a thousand men have been lynched. And for no other reason but their black skin."

Ned took out his handkerchief and wiped his face, then he folded it carefully and put it back in his pocket.

"Maybe one day the white man will tell you to leave this country or die in it," he said. "There's talk that this can happen. Well, let me tell you this, warriors. He's got no idea how many of us here. All of us look alike to him anyhow, so he'll count ten, get tired, and not count the other five. And that's on our side. So this is what you do. (I might not be with you-and I hope it never come to happen. But if it come to happen, this is what you do.) Let everybody go except one young man in each family. Let that young man hide in the swamps, hide in the field, anywhere he can hide hide. When the rest are safe, let these young men set fire. As many fields, as many woods, as many houses and barns and cribs he can. Let him run, run, run till his black legs refuse to move, till his black arms hang to the ground. Show them, warriors, the difference between black men and n.i.g.g.e.rs."

Ned got quiet and looked at us a long time. His eyes was sad again now. Behind him the river was blue and calm: nothing to disturb the water-but that boat over to the right there.

"Let us pray, warriors, this day never come," Ned went on. "If it do, it'll be the worst day of your life."

When Ned got through talking his shirt was soaking wet. He came back where we was and laid down side his wife. Everybody was quiet, thinking 'bout what he had said. I felt Ned looking at me. For a while I kept from looking back at him, but keeping my eyes on the people out there in the boat. But the longer I looked at them the more I could feel him looking at me. Then I looked in his face. His eyes said, "I'm go'n die, Mama." But I knowed he had no fear of death.

a.s.sa.s.sination.

A month pa.s.sed-no Albert Cluveau. I didn't think he was worrying about stopping Ned, I didn't think he had enough sense to worry; I just thought he was sick and couldn't get around. I wanted to ask about him-not that I cared about Albert Cluveau-but I wanted to know what he was doing. Why all this quiet all of a sudden? Don't tell me conscience was catching up with him. It never bothered him before. But no matter who I asked, n.o.body had seen Albert Cluveau. When I went to Bayonne on Pigeon I had to go by the lane where he lived, but I always found excuse not to go to his house. Coming back home, the same thing: I would look down the lane but I would never lead Pigeon that way. I could have gone to his house in five minutes, but, no, never.

But I used to see Ned all the time. He used to live just across the road from where he is buried now. He is buried side the place where he was building his school. The people finished the school after his death, but it was destroyed during the second high water. That was back in '27 when we had a very bad high water. We had one in '12, but the one in '27 was much worse. Ned used to live on the field side of the road; his school was on the river bank side of the road. Another house is built in the place where his house stood, but we kept the place where his school was and where he is buried. It will never be sold. We collect from people to pay the taxes and keep up the land, but it is ours. It is for the children of this parish and this State. Black and white, we don't care. We want them to know a black man died many many years ago for them. He died at the end of the other century and the beginning of this century. He shed his precious blood for them. I remember my old mistress, when she saw the young Secesh soldiers, saying: "The precious blood of the South, the precious blood of the South." Well, there on that river bank is the precious dust of this South. And he is there for all to see. We have a marker there for people to stop by and see if they want to. No, it is not a tall and showy thing. It's nothing but a flat piece of concrete, but it's there for all to see if they just get out the car and look.

I used to go by all the time when he was alive. He had already cleaned up that acre of land, and now he was laying down the foundation for the school. The children used to help him in the evenings and on the weekends when they didn't have to work. Sometimes I used to stop by and instead of finding them working I would see them out in the river swimming. I was so scared for Ned's life, I was scared the white people might pay some of them bigger children to drown him. He would always come out the water when he saw me sitting there on Pigeon. "You call that building a school?" I would say. "Me, I call that playing." "I have to teach everything," he said. "Swimming is good to learn." Looking at Ned now, you could see how big he was, how powerfully he was built in the chest and shoulders. If he was standing close to me I would put my hand on his shoulder.

"You worry too much, Mama," he would say.

"Do I, Ned?" I would say. Because both of us knowed that day was coming. When and where we didn't know.

Two nights before he was killed I had a dream where a bunch of Cajuns had lynched him in the swamps. The next morning I got on Pigeon and went up to his house. When I told him about my dream he brushed it aside like it was nothing. While I was up there he told me he was going to Bayonne to get some lumber for his school. He was taking two boys with him and he was go'n spend the night in Bayonne with a friend. He told me to stop worrying; this was making Vivian worry, too. She was already getting nervous, he said. I stayed up there till he left that evening, then I got on Pigeon and went on back home. The next evening when he was on his way home with the second load, Albert Cluveau shot him down. Alcee Price and Bam Franklin, the two boys he took with him, told us how it happened. They had spent the night in Bayonne with Ned's friend talking about the school. n.o.body went to bed before midnight even when everybody had to get up early the next morning and go to work. They got up around five because they wanted to pick up the lumber and get it back here before the weather got too hot. They got back to the school around eight-thirty. That evening when it got cool again they went back to Bayonne for the second load. After they had loaded up it was around five. They didn't have far to go, three, four miles, but they had to travel slow because of the road. The road was dirt and full of ruts and the lumber was heavy. Bam said every half mile they had to stop to give the mules a rest. They always stopped in the open. At that time you had cane fields and houses on one side of the road; trees on the river bank side. They always stopped near a house or a yard. After resting the mules a few minutes they would start out again. Bam said they had just driven off after the second or third stop when they looked up and saw Albert Cluveau. He was on his mule at the end of a cane row with the gun already sighted at Ned. He told Ned to get down. Ned stopped the wagon, but n.o.body moved.

"What do you want?" Ned asked him.

"Get down," Cluveau said.

"You don't scare me, Cluveau," Ned said.

"Get down now," Cluveau said.

Ned handed Bam the lines. Bam pushed them back.

"Let me go," Bam said. "I don't care about me."

"But I care about you, Bam," Ned told him. "That's what I've been teaching all the time-I care about you. When will you ever hear me, Bam?"

"I won't let you die," Bam said. "He ain't got nothing but a double barrel there; he'll need both of them to bring me down."

"Stay here," Ned said. "Take the lumber home. Finish the school. Talk to my wife. Talk to Mama."

"No," Bam said.

"I order you to do that," Ned said. "You must listen to me sometime, Bam."

Bam and Alcee both said Ned looked at them a second, then he looked all round him, even glancing at the sky, like he wanted to see everything for a moment. Then he jumped from the wagon and started running toward Cluveau. Cluveau hollered for him to stop and get down on his knees, but he kept running on Cluveau with nothing but his fist. Cluveau shot him in the leg-the white people had told Cluveau to make Ned crawl before killing him. When Cluveau shot him, he fell to one knee, then got back up. Cluveau shot again. This time he tored off half his chest.

Albert Cluveau swung the mule around and rode away. Bam and Alcee didn't go after Cluveau, they picked up Ned and laid him on top the lumber. The lumber was red when they got home. Blood dropped through the lumber on the ground. A trail of blood all the way from where Ned was shot clear up to his house. Even the rain couldn't wash the blood away. For years and years, even after they had graveled the road, you could still see little black spots where the blood had dripped.

The People.

When the people heard the news they started crying. The ones living side the road followed the wagon to the house. When the others came in from the field and heard what had happened they knelt down right there and cried. They didn't want go near him when he was living, but when they heard he was dead they cried like children. They ran up to the wagon when it stopped at the gate. They wanted to touch his body, they wanted to help take it inside. The road was full, people coming from everywhere. They wanted to touch his body. When they couldn't touch his body they took lumber from the wagon. They wanted a piece of lumber with his blood on it.

I knowed he was dead before Frank Nelson's boy came there and told me. I was laying down on my bed when I heard this sweeping noise pa.s.sing through the house. "Now what?" I said. I sat up and looked, and it wasn't sweeping at all, it was a light on the floor. Like a flashlight, but not shaking like a flashlight would shake, moving smooth, going from the front to the back. "They done killed him," I said. And I got on Pigeon and started for his house. I met Nelson's boy coming to tell me. But he could see I already knowed, and he turned around and ran back long side the horse. When I got there they had already took his body inside and had laid it on the bed. Vivian was sitting in the chair just looking at the body. People all round her crying, but she wasn't hearing a thing. Just looking at the body. I put my arms round her shoulders and I could feel her trembling. It was hot as it could be, but she was trembling like she had chill. I tried to say something to her, but she didn't hear me. I doubt if she even knowed I was there-just looking at the body. I told the people to get out. Making all that noise wasn't doing a bit of good-get out. I kept a couple women in there to help me with Ned and Vivian, but I wanted the rest of them out. After we had put Vivian to bed round the other side, I came back in and told the people let me be by myself with Ned awhile. They didn't want leave me alone, but I told them I was all right, and they went out. I sat down side Ned and held him close and started talking to him like he was still alive. I can't recall what I said to him-just little talk; I can't recall when I fell on him, but I remember people pulling me off the bed and my clothes soaking wet with his blood. The took me to the children's room and made me lay down. Somebody stayed in the room with me, but I can't recall who it was.

The sheriff came and examined the body and asked Bam and Alcee some questions. They told him it was Albert Cluveau-like they needed to tell him anything, like he didn't already know it was Albert Cluveau, like everybody round there didn't already know it was Albert Cluveau-but he told them he wanted them to come to Bayonne the next day and make a full statement. From what he could see there now everybody was too excited to make sense. The next day Bam and Alcee went to his office. The first thing he asked them, even before they had a chance to say good morning, if they had been to the wake last night. They said yes. He asked them if they had had anything to drink there, coffee or maybe little wine? They said yes, little homemade wine; blackberry. He said, "Uh-hum, now tell me what happened." They told him the only thing they could tell him was that Mr. Cluveau shot Professor Dougla.s.s when Professor Dougla.s.s wouldn't get on his knees and crawl. He asked them if they was sure it was Mr. Cluveau. They said yes they was sure. He asked them if it was a cane field or a corn field. They had already told him it was a cane field, so they said cane again. He told them with cane so high that time of year (July) how could they see a man? They said Mr. Cluveau came out of the cane on the headland. He said he thought they told him Mr. Cluveau shot Ned from the cane field. He said just like they was changing their story from cane field to headland, maybe they would change that story from headland to corn field. And maybe they would change that story from corn field to pecan tree. He said if memory served him right there was a pecan tree close to where Ned was shot. He said was he right or wrong. They said right. He said, "You sure the person didn't shoot from round the pecan tree?" They said they was sure he didn't, he shot from the headland of the cane field. He asked them if they had anything to drink the night they stayed in Bayonne. They said they didn't. He asked them how come. They said they was too young and Professor Dougla.s.s would 'a' frowned on that. He said what they meant they was too young. He said didn't they just tell him they had drunk exactly one night later at the wake. He said do one night age n.i.g.g.e.rs that fast. Or is it the sight of seeing a dead man that put the gray in their head. Bam and Alcee told him they had the drink because some older men had the bottle. One of the older men said, "Here. Drink. Rejoice when somebody leave this wicked world. Do not weep." He said, "Rejoice, huh? Do not weep, huh? And maybe y'all did some rejoicing in Bayonne the night before. And maybe y'all was still rejoicing when y'all was coming home yesterday. And with all that rejoicing going on, maybe y'all mistook one man for another." He said he had heard that had often happened when n.i.g.g.e.rs started rejoicing. Half the time they don't know what they see. And he said how did he know the two of them hadn't gotten together and killed the professor. He said from what he had been hearing around there that professor was getting on a lot of people nerve trying to make them vote and go to school. He said how did he know some of these people hadn't paid them to shoot that drunk professor to make him leave them alone. He said just to show you it couldn't have been Mr. Cluveau, he had talked to Mr. Cluveau the night before and Mr. Cluveau had told him with his own mouth, mind you, that he had spent all day yesterday and all night the night before gigging frogs on Grosse Tete Bayou. He said to prove it, old man Cluveau had showed him the mosquito bites-his poor old body was just full of welts. He told them he was sure they didn't want call a nice old man like old man Cluveau a liar, now, did they? They said they could just tell him what they saw. He said he didn't ask them that. He said he asked them if they wanted to call a G.o.d-fearing man like Mr. Albert Cluveau a liar. They said no. He told them to go on back home and he didn't want hear that kind of talk out of them no more.

Vivian stayed here till we finished building the school, then she went back to Kansas. She wanted to stay here and do Ned's work, but we was scared she could get herself killed just like Ned was killed. We made her go and we hired a teacher by the name of Jones. Professor Jones didn't look nothing like Ned. A little light-skin man about half Ned's size. Didn't teach what Ned wanted to teach either. Taught just what them in Bayonne told him to teach-reading and writing and 'rithmetic-and we had to take that or get nothing. He stayed there till the high water destroyed the school in '27.

The Chariot of h.e.l.l.

I waited till we had put Ned in the ground, then I went out looking for Albert Cluveau. But no matter when I came up to his house, Adeline, the oldest girl, said he had just left. "What you want?" she said. "I want talk to him," I said. "Daddy just left," she said. I would turn Pigeon around and go on back home, but that evening or the next day I would go back to his house again. Every time I thought about Ned I would head back to that house. Adeline would be standing on the gallery waiting for me. "I want speak to your daddy." "Daddy just left." "Just left again, huh?" "Yes, Jane." One day I made pretend I was going back home. I went a little piece and came right back. I saw him sitting on that mule back there in the yard. He was just getting ready to get down when he looked up and saw me. He swung that mule around and shot out cross the yard, headed for the swamps. Another time when I went there he didn't have time to get on the mule. Headed for the swamps and left the mule.

"Where your daddy?" I asked Adeline.

"Gone."

"Where?"

"Bayonne."

"What George doing back there in the yard?" I said. "You know Albert Cluveau ain't never went to the toilet if he wasn't on George's back."

"He walked this time," Adeline said.