Black Angels by Linda Beatrice Brown Page A

happened to him around the fire, and it worried her that he watched her all the time.
    â€œHe bout right in the head, you reckon?” she whispered to Luke. “You reckon he take it into his head to run?” They were sitting on part of a fallen pecan tree. Daylily was next to Luke and Luke was next to Caswell. They had stopped there because they saw a few pecans on the ground, but it was too early in the season, and the nuts weren’t good. They were still green.
    â€œNaw, he all right.” Luke seemed confident.
    Still Daylily watched Caswell carefully and tried to talk to him. She had an idea, and she moved around Luke and sat next to Caswell on the end of the pecan log.
    â€œI tell you what we could do,” she said, putting her arm around him. “We could tell stories to pass the time. Would you like that?”
    Caswell didn’t answer, but she kept on talking anyway. “I know,” she said brightly. “You can tell us about your home place. What was it like where you live?” Then Daylily grimaced slightly, realizing that she had made a mistake. He would be remembering his Mamadear.
    Caswell blinked and looked right at Daylily. “They killed Daniel!” he said. “They killed Daniel!”
    His outburst startled Daylily. She shook him slightly. “Caswell, don’t fret yourself!” she said quickly, but he kept talking, and then he told them all about the fire that burned up his house and how he came to be in the woods. After that he seemed to want to hear them talk, and he wanted to hear about their lives back home.
    Luke said, “I ain’t telling him no stories.”
    But Daylily didn’t mind. “Please, Luke, it keep him from starin like that,” she said.
    Luke peered at Caswell. “Y’all go head,” he said, because it was starting to give him the creeps watching Caswell look at the fire like he was going to jump into it.
    Kicking at the green pecans that were on the ground, Luke sighed. “Y’all can start the stories. Ain’t nobody gonna fix this rabbit I done caught for us, so I reckon I better get started. I’ll tell mine after we eat.”
    Daylily shook her head. “I hope I don’t never see another rabbit in my whole life, when us gets to wherever we goin,” she said.
    While Luke was skinning the rabbit, and Daylily was keeping the fire going, Caswell suddenly blurted out, “My Mamadear’s name is Miss Loddy. What’s your mama’s name, Luke?”
    Luke looked away from them into the trees. He sighed. “Was Lucymae. She dead.”
    â€œWhat’s your mama’s name, Daylily?” Caswell persisted.
    â€œGranny,” she said. “She raise me. She ain’t my real mama though. Don’t have no real mama, just have Granny.”
    â€œGranny what?” Caswell screwed up his forehead as if he was confused.
    â€œJust Granny.” Daylily was drawing a little design in the dust with a stick. She turned the corners of her mouth down. She was drawing a quilt pattern she was learning from Granny. The flying geese pattern. Granny said it was a secret code for slaves to get free.
    She was going to make it with some scraps from Missus’ old dresses. Now she guessed she’d never make it. She threw the stick down in the dust.
    â€œWhat happened to your real mama?” Caswell said.
    â€œShe was sold from the place, I reckon, or dead. Don’t know. Time to eat now, don’t ask me no more.”
    After he nibbled a little bit of meat, Caswell lay on his side and closed his eyes. Daylily sure hoped he would go on to sleep. She looked at Caswell and noticed he had a large scar on his ear. For a minute, she wondered how he got that scar, but then she didn’t think about it any more. She had her own worries.
    Now it was her turn to look into the fire. She didn’t like to think about home, about Granny and Buttercup and Mary lyn and all the rest