The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Read online

  Big Laura took the lead and we started walking again. Walking fast, but staying quiet. Somebody said we ought to get sticks just in case of snakes, so we all hunted for a good green stick. Now everybody had a stick but Big Laura. She leading the way with that little girl in her arms and Ned by the hand. She had found us a good clean path and it was cool under the trees, and everybody was happy. We walked and walked and walked. Almost sundown before we stopped the first time.

  “We headed toward Ohio?” I asked.

  “You got somebody waiting for you in Ohio?” they asked me.

  “Mr. Brown told me look him up,” I said.

  Nobody believed Mr. Brown had told me that, but they didn’t say nothing.

  “I want go to Ohio,” I said.

  “Go on to Ohio,” one of them said. “Nobody holding you back.”

  “I don’t know the way,” I said.

  “Then shut up,” one of them said.

  “Y’all just sorry y’all ain’t got nobody waiting for y’all nowhere,” I said.

  Nobody said nothing. I was little, and they didn’t feel they needed to argue with me.

  We was in a thicket of sycamore trees, and it was quiet and clean here, and we had a little breeze, because way up in the top of the trees I could see the limbs sagging just a little. Everybody was tired from the long walk and we just sat there quiet, not saying a thing for a good while. Then somebody said: “My new name Abe Washington. Don’t call me Buck no more.” We must have been two dozens of us there, and now everybody started changing names like you change hats. Nobody was keeping the same name Old Master had gived them. This one would say, “My new name Cam Lincoln.” That one would say, “My new name Ace Freeman.” Another one, “My new name Sherman S. Sherman.” “What that S for?” “My Title.” Another one would say, “My new name Job.” “Job what?” “Just Job.” “Nigger, this ain’t slavery no more. You got to have two names.” “Job Lincoln, then.” “Nigger, you ain’t no kin to me. I’m Lincoln.” “I don’t care. I’m still Job Lincoln. Want fight?” Another one would say, “My name Neremiah King.” Another one standing by a tree would say, “My new name Bill Moses. No more Rufus.”

  They went on and on like that. We had one slow-wit fellow there who kept on opening his mouth to say his new name, but before he could get it out somebody else had said a name. He was just opening and closing his mouth like a baby after his mama’s titty. Then all a sudden when he had a little time to speak he said Brown. They had took all the other names from him, so he took Brown. I had been sitting there on the end of a log listening to them squabbling over new names, but I didn’t have to get in the squabbling because I already had a new name. I had had mine for over a year now, and I had put up with a lot of trouble to hold on to it. But when I heard the slow-wit say his name was Brown I was ready to fight. I jumped up off that log and went for him.

  “No, you don’t,” I said.

  He said, “I, I, I, can be, be, be Brown if I want be, be, be Brown.” He was picking on me because I was small and didn’t have nobody there to stand up for me. “You not the on’, on’, only one ra, ra, round here that can be, be, be Brown,” he said. “Me’, me’, mess round here wi’, wi’, with me, I ma’, ma’, make you, you, you change your name back to Ti’, Ti’, Ticey.”

  “I’ll die first,” I said.

  “Go, go, go right on and di’, di’, die,” he said. “Br’, Br’, Brown my name.”

  And I tried to crack his head open with that stick. But I didn’t bit more hurt that loon than I would hurt that post at the end of my gallery. He came on me and I swung the stick and backed from him. He kept coming on me, and I kept hitting and backing back. Hitting and backing back. Then he jerked the stick out my hand and swung it away. I tried to get the stick, but I fell, and when I looked up, there he was right over me. He didn’t look like a man now, he didn’t even look like a loon, he looked more like a wild animal. Animal-like greed in his face. He grabbed me and started with me in the bushes. But we hadn’t gone more than three, four steps when I started hearing this noise. Whup, whup, whup. I didn’t know what the noise was. I was too busy trying to get away from that loon to think this noise had anything to do with me or him. I heard the noise again: whup, whup, whup. Every time it hit now I saw the hurt in the slow-wit’s face. He was still heading with me in the bushes, but every time the noise hit I could see the hurt in his face. Then I saw the stick come down on his shoulder, and this time he swung around. Big Laura had the stick cocked back to hit him again.

  “Drop her, you stud-dog,” she said. “Drop her or I’ll break your neck.”

  He let me slide out of his arms, just standing there looking at Big Laura like he was wondering why she had hit him. I tried to get the stick away from Big Laura so I could get another crack at him, but she pushed him to the side.

  “Go back to that plantation,” she said. “Go back there. “That’s where you do your stud-ing.”

  “No,” he said.

  “I say get out of here,” she said, ready to hit him.

  “No,” he said. (Because he was a slow-wit, and he wouldn’t know where to go by himself.)

  Big Laura hit him in the side with the stick. She hit him twice in the side, but all he did was covered his head and cried. He was a slow-wit and couldn’t look after himself. All he could do was do what you told him to do.

  “You got just one more time to try your stud-ing round me,” Big Laura told him. “Just one more time, and I’ll kill you.” She looked at everybody there. “That go for the rest of y’all,” she said. “You free, then you go’n act like free men. If you want act like you did on that plantation, turn around now and go on back to that plantation.”

  Nobody said a thing. Most of them looked down at the ground. Big Laura went back to her children, and I went back and sat down on the log. The slow-wit stood over there crying and slobbering on himself.

  The sun went down and we found the North Star. Big Laura put her bundle on her head, then she took that little girl in her arms and Ned by the hand and we started walking again. We walked and walked and walked and walked. Lord, we walked. I got so tired I wanted to drop. Some of the people started grumbling and hanging back, but they didn’t know where else to turn and they soon caught up. Big Laura never stopped and never looked around to see who was following. That little girl clutched in her arms, Ned by the hand, she moved through them trees like she knowed exactly where she was going and wasn’t go’n let nothing in the world get in her way.

  We went on till way up in the night before we stopped to sleep. Big Laura dropped her bundle on the ground and sat the children side it. She took everything out the bundle and spread the dress out so the children could have a pallet to lay down on. Then she dug a hole in the ground and filled it with leaves and dry moss. She stuck a little piece of lint cotton under the moss and leaves and started scraping a piece of flint and iron together near the cotton. Soon she had made fire, and she covered the fire with green moss to get smoke. She sat down by the pallet and waved her hand over the children in case mosquitoes broke through the screen. The rest of the people closed in but stayed quiet. And you heard nothing but the swamps. Crickets, frogs, an owl in a tree somewhere.

  “You can go to sleep,” I told Big Laura. “I’ll keep mosquitoes off the children.”

  “Sleep yourself,” she said. “You go’n need all the strength you have to reach Ohio.”

  That was all I needed to hear. The next minute I was snoring.

  Massacre

  The next thing I knowed the sun was shining bright and somebody was hollering, “Patrollers.”

  Everybody jumped up and made it for the bushes. Big Laura hollered at me to grab Ned and run. I had already passed Ned, but I leaned back and grabbed him and almost jecked him up off the ground. Half the time I was carrying him, half the time I was dragging him. We crawled under a bush and I pressed his face to the ground and told him to stay quiet quiet. From the bush I could still see the spot where we had been.
The big slow-wit was still out there. He didn’t know where to turn to or what to do. Like he wanted to go in every direction at the same time, but he didn’t know where to go. I wanted to call him—but I was scared the patrollers might see him coming toward us. Then the patrollers came in on horses and mules. Patrollers was poor white trash that used to find the runaway slaves for the masters. Them and the soldiers from the Secesh Army was the ones who made up the Ku Klux Klans later on. Even that day they had Secesh soldiers mixed in there with them. I could tell the Secesh from the patrollers by the uniforms. The Secesh wore gray; the patrollers wore work clothes no better than what the slaves wore. They came in on horses and mules, and soon as they saw the slow-wit they surrounded him and started beating him with sticks of wood. Some of them had guns, but they would not waste a bullet. More satisfaction beating him with sticks. They beat him, he covered up, but they beat him till he was down. Then one of the patrollers slid off the mule, right cross his tail, and cracked the slow-wit in the head. I could hear his head crack like you hear dry wood break.

  I wanted to jump up from there and run—but what about Ned? I couldn’t leave him there—look what Big Laura had done for me just yesterday. I couldn’t take him with me, either—they would see us. I stayed there, with my heart jumping, jumping, jumping.

  The patrollers moved in the bushes to hunt for the rest of the people. They could tell from the camp there must have been lot of us there, and they knowed we was still close around. They moved in with sticks now to look for us. I could hear them hitting against the bushes and talking to each other. Then when they spotted somebody, a bunch of them would surround the person and beat him till they had knocked him unconscious or killed him. Then they would move somewhere else. First you would hear them hitting against the bushes lightly, then after they spotted somebody you would hear them hitting the bushes hard. Now, you heard screaming, begging; screaming, begging; screaming, begging—till it was quiet again.

  I kept one hand on my bundle and one on the side of Ned’s face holding him down. I was go’n stay there till I thought they had spotted me, then I was getting out of there fast. I told Ned be ready to run, but stay till I gived him the sign. I was pressing so hard on his face I doubt if he even heard me, but all my pressing he never made a sound. Small as he was he knowed death was only a few feet away.

  After a while the patrollers left. They went right by us, and I could hear them talking. One was saying, “Goddamn, she was mean. Did you see her? Did you see her? Goddam, she could fight.” Another one spit and said: “They ain’t human. Gorilla, I say.” The first one said: “Lord, did you see Gat’s head? Made me sick.” Another one: “Gat all right?” Another one: “Afraid not. Afraid he go’n die on us.”

  They passed right by us, and my heart jumping, jumping, jumping. I kept my hand on my bundle and I kept Ned quiet till the last one had passed. Then I relaxed a little bit. I took me a deep breath and looked up at the sky. It was quiet, quiet, not a sound. I mean you couldn’t even hear a bird. Nothing but the sun—and the dust the men had raised thrashing in the bushes. I could see the sun streaking through the trees down to the ground like a long slide. Only one time, so they say, it refused to shine: when they nailed the Master to the cross.

  I stood up and told Ned come on, and we went back to the place where we had camped. The slow-wit was dead, all right; his skull busted there like a coconut. One of his shirt sleeves was knocked clean off. I turned to Ned, but he was standing there just as calm as he could be.

  I left the slow-wit, I wanted to find Big Laura and give Ned back to her. I saw somebody laying over in the bushes, but when I got closer I saw it was a man. He was dead like the slow-wit, and I went on looking for Big Laura. I had to give Ned back to her, and I needed her to show me how to reach Ohio.

  I looked for her everywhere. Sometimes I made Ned stand side a tree while I went in the bushes looking for her. I saw people laying everywhere. All of them was dead or dying, or so broken up they wouldn’t ever move on their own. I stood there a little while looking at them, but I didn’t know what to do, and I moved back.

  Then I saw Big Laura. She was laying on the ground with her baby still clutched in her arms. I made Ned stay back while I went closer. Even before I knelt down I saw that her and the baby was both dead.

  I took the baby out her arms. I had to pull hard to get her free. I knowed I couldn’t bury Big Laura—I didn’t have a thing to dig with—but maybe I could bury her child. But when I looked back at Big Laura and saw how empty her arms was, I just laid the little baby right back down. I didn’t cry, I couldn’t cry. I had seen so much beating and suffering; I had heard about so much cruelty in those ’leven or twelve years of my life I hardly knowed how to cry. I went back to Ned and asked him if he wanted to go to Ohio with me. He nodded.

  When I turned away I saw a patroller’s cap laying on the ground covered with blood. I wondered if that was Gat’s cap. Then I saw another one all busted up. So she had busted two of them in the head before they killed her and her baby.

  Before we started out I thought we might as well take some of the grub that was left there. I got enough corn and potatoes to last us a week. I reckoned that in a week I ought to be in Ohio or close there. After I got the food, I got a few pieces of clothes for me and Ned to sleep on at night. Then I found the flint and iron Big Laura had used to light the fire with. Both of them looked like pieces of rock, so anytime anybody asked me what they was I just told them, “Two little rocks.” I gived them to Ned and told him it was go’n be his job to see that they got to Ohio same time we did. After I had covered up Big Laura and the child with some clothes, I put the bundle on my head and we started out. Every now and then I asked Ned if he was tired. If he said no, we went on; if he said yes, we found a good place to sit down. Then I would take something out the bundle for us to eat. Ned would put the rocks on the ground while we ate. But soon as he was through eating he’d pick them up again.

  We went on, staying in the bushes all the time. When Ned got tired, we stopped, nibbled on something, then after he had rested we started out again. When the sun went down and the stars came out we traveled by the North Star. We didn’t stop that night till we came up to a river. But I could see it was too wide and too deep for us to cross, so we moved back in the swamps for the night. I dug a hole in the ground and built a little fire just like I saw Big Laura do the night before. While me and Ned sat there eating a raw potato, I put two more potatoes and two more yers of corn in the fire. When Ned got through eating, he went to sleep on the little pallet I had made for him on the ground.

  I sat there looking at Ned, wondering what I was go’n do next. “I got this child to take care, I got that river to cross—and how many more rivers I got to cross before I reach Ohio?” I said to myself.

  I looked at Ned laying there. He was snoring like he was in a little bed at home. I didn’t hear any mosquitoes but I waved my hand over him like I saw Big Laura do the night before. After a while I laid down side him, and I didn’t wake up till I felt the sun shining in my face.

  The sky was more pretty and bluer than I had ever seen it before. I felt better than I had ever felt in my life. Birds was singing in every tree. I woke up Ned and told him look at the air and listen to the birds. But Ned wasn’t much interested in this kind of stuff. He was probably thinking about his mama and his little sister. I was thinking about them, too; thinking about all the people; ’specially the slow-wit I had seen them kill; but I looked at it this way, we had to keep going. We couldn’t let what happened yesterday stop us today.

  I pulled the corn and potatoes out the hole. All of them good and done. We ate the potatoes for breakfast. I was go’n save the corn for me and Ned’s dinner.

  Heading South

  I got my bundle together and Ned picked up his two rocks, and we started for the river. It still looked too deep and too wide for us to cross, so I asked Ned what he thought we ought to do, go up or go down? He looked up, he looked down, then he looked up ri
ver again. He nodded that way and we started walking. The sun was on our backs now.

  We walked all morning. Every now and then we stopped to nibble on something. We stuck to the bushes all the time, but we kept the river in sight. After going so far I would move closer to the river to see how deep it was. It was always the same—deep deep and wide.

  That evening we heard voices. We was coming up to a bend in the river when we heard the people talking. I stopped and held my hand out so Ned would be quiet. Not that he had been making any noise, but I didn’t want him to make any now for sure. We listened and listened. I thought I heard nigger, but I wasn’t too sure, so I listened some more. When I was sure it was nigger I was hearing I nodded for Ned to come on.

  When we came round the bend I saw niggers strung out all over the place just eating and resting. I had never seen so many happy black faces in all my life before. We done made it, we done made it to Ohio, I said. But if this was Ohio, how come I had made it here so fast? What was I doing carrying all this food on my head? Now, instead of me feeling good I felt let-down.

  When the people saw me and Ned they all stopped talking and looked at us. Not far from where they was eating I saw two wagonful of furniture and bundles. Now, I didn’t know what to think. Where would poor niggers get this kind of stuff from?

  I dropped the bundle on the ground and asked the people if this was Ohio. It had been quiet till I opened my mouth. Now everybody started laughing. The air brimming full. One nigger had the cheeks to throw his pan of food up in the air and not even bother to catch it. Food scattered all over the place.

  Then they got quiet. I didn’t know why till I saw the white lady coming toward us. She had two girls about my size.