while he plans your destruction.

“He don’t like Indians, but he hates Negroes,” she said.

“You got looks and hair like your mother

you’re lucky that way,

defer to the white man, stay out of his path.”

“But I can’t Mama,” I say out loud,

“Can’t let a child die like this.

It ain’t right, is it?”

She answered, all right,

well, it was the wind,

but it was her voice talking through it.

I got in the wagon, all hitched ’cause I was going somewhere

and turned my mules in the path

where the white man was running and stopped there.

Gave that boy enough time to hide someplace.

White man cursed, pointed his gun at me.

“Sorry Mister,” I said,

“these mules got minds of their own.”

“Ain’t you part nigger?” He said to me,

then he shot my mules.

I knew he’d die in his sleep.

I saw the sowing he’d reap

and that released me from my hatred.

I buried Brandy and Brandywine

took a long time, said a few words.

One day, that boy came to see me.

He had a scar running down one side of his face.

He said, “Mister, I’m cold and hungry,

can I stay at your place?”

I said, “Yes, come on in the kitchen where it’s warm.

Lemme look at your face.

Maybe I got something that’ll help,”

but he said, “Nothing will.”

I filled his plate with pinto beans, bacon, cornbread,

filled his glass of milk to the brim,

then we said grace.

“Where’s your mama?” I asked

and he said, “Dead,

Yours?”

“Same. Pitiful, isn’t it?

You aim to move on, or stay?”

“Don’t you know?” he asked.

I said, “Some things, not others.”

He said, “Your mother was a witch,

that’s what people say.”

“Naw, she wasn’t, she just saw things.”

“I ain’t too black for you?”

“I am too,” I said.

“No, you ain’t,” he answered,

“but you’ll do.”

4. THE SHERIFF’S EXPLANATION

I deputized a lot of men that day.

I didn’t say, “Are you men in the Klan,”

when they raised their hands

and swore to uphold the law.

All I cared about

was whether they were willing to die.

If they did so in the service of the white race,

I could live with that.

I could not live with the disgrace

of allowing Negroes to get away

with rape, murder and worse.

If we didn’t stop them now, I thought,

we’d have to later.

Yes, innocent died,

depending on how you look at it.

You couldn’t tell who was what.

Miss Mary, old woman

used to cook dinner for us

when I was a boy

got caught in the middle of gunfire.

I drug her body out of the way of trampling feet,

least I could do,

but see, she was one of them.

That’s what it came down to in the end.

I threw her body in the hole with the rest.

I stood there awhile,

watching the others bury that sad affair.