Sarny Read Free Page A

just like starving wouldn’t work. I had to be strong I knew and get away not to kill Waller but to find them, find my children, and Waller he would just have to look for his own death.

TWO
    It wasn’t but six days coming. Happened right in front of me and didn’t I know that God was all forgiving and sweet I would think he had a hand in it.
    Waller he knew me and knew I would run as soon as he took me off the chain so he didn’t let me loose. They brought me food and water and a girl named Lucy she brought me a blanket to sleep in and cover myself for privacy when there was a need.
    I worked at the chain, saved pork fat to grease my wrist so it would slip off, but it was too tight and just cut in until I had a sore. Decided to use my brain, started thinking did I act better, didn’t fight it, maybe Waller would take me off the chain and I could run but it didn’t matter.
    There came a day when I was still on the chain and I heard a rumble, like thunder, except there were no clouds in the sky. Thereare some who believed in evil hants. Not me because I had started to read the Bible and was on my second time through. Had me a Bible left me by old Delie and I never asked where she got it. So I didn’t think on hants except this one was full of meaning. Thunder in a clear sky meant big change was coming and I sat a mite thinking on what change it could be when Waller he came out of the house.
    Had a gun in his hand, that evil little pistol he loved so much. He looked white, whiter than usual and scared, and he came running towards the barn pointing at something and when I stood to look I saw men running towards the plantation across the north field.
    They were wearing blue. Wasn’t thunder we heard but guns, big guns far off.
    There must have been thirty or forty of them. They were carrying guns, long rifles with bayonets, and Waller he stood by the corner of the barn, stood by me with that silly little pistol in his silly little hand looking at the soldiers come a running and made the last mistake of his sorry mistaken life.
    He raised that pistol like he was going to shoot at the soldiers.
    Some stopped to shoot at Waller and the bullets missed him and hit the wall, chippedwood and whined away, but so close I crouched down on one knee and a boy came running around the corner of the building.
    No more than a boy. Couldn’t have been sixteen, seventeen years old. White boy wearing blue pants and a blue jacket that were too big for him and had a rifle ’most as tall as he was with a bayonet on the end.
    I saw it all. Slow, it happened. Waller he had the little pistol and the boy he ran around the corner and the bayonet went into Waller. Slick, like Waller wanted it to happen, like he pushed against it. The bayonet it slid into him just above his belt buckle, slid in and came out the back, and the boy he looked surprised, surprised and mean at the same time, so that he pushed harder and lifted Waller a bit, lifted him up and back and then dropped him.
    Waller he wasn’t dead yet but knew he was dying and I knew it too and the boy he looked at me.
    “Please,” I said. “Please. He has the key to the shackles in his front pocket. Please.”
    I didn’t think he would do it. He was looking for others to shoot, others to stick, but he kneeled down next to Waller. Waller still looking at his belly where the hole was, holding his hand there to stop it some way, knowing he was going to die he looked at me and thenback at his belly while the boy found the key and handed it to me.
    “Here,” he said. “You’re free now—on your own.”
    “Thank you.” He meant free of the chain but I took it for the long road, free now, free. We were all free. Could walk where we wanted to walk, be where we wanted to be.
    Free.
    I didn’t stand long. There were those who stood, looking, wondering. I saw them later. Those who had used the chains for bracing, leaned against slavery to give them strength. Suddenly the brace was gone and