The Funeral Pyre

By Joann Jones

Kat set the muslin on Uncle Bootjack's forehead without giving the rag so much as a squeeze. Cool water streamed down the sleeping man's scalp and seeped into the remnants of his knotted, gray hair. Kat knew that she deserved a slap for being so careless. At ten years old, she should have known better.

Lucky for Kat, they were alone. Thompson had emptied the shack so Uncle's cold wouldn't spread through the plantation. Bootjack needed nursing, but Thompson loathed risking the health of his valuable slaves. He grinned when Kat asked to watch over Uncle. Thompson didn't care much for the girl. He thought she was scrawny, hardheaded, and nearly worthless.

Kat slept on a wooden plank near Uncle's straw pallet. She rested lightly and woke every few hours to change his compress. Kat couldn't spend as much time with him during the day as she wanted to because Thompson insisted that the girl continue harvesting her rate of cotton and helping Esther, the cook.

The loud knock startled the girl. Esther swung the door open. The sun blazed around her plump silhouette. "Thought I told you I had a basket of peas needing shelling."

Kat squinted at the darkness that eclipsed day.

"Fever didn't break."

Esther put her hands on her hips. Her shadow became a cobra ready to strike. "It ain't gonna. Stupid nigger brought it on himself."

"Master Thompson wants me to --- "

Esther yanked the girl off the dirt floor. "Only thing Thompson's gonna want is a full belly. Now go to the porch and get to shelling Kat Anna Rose."

Kat hated that name, even though it was prettier than her old one. The slim-boned girl inherited her mother's flat nose, slanted eyes, and heart-shaped mouth, but the only trait the other slaves noticed was her coloring. It was all Thompson's. With her blonde curls, mint-green eyes, and light skin, Kat could easily be mistaken for white by an untrained eye.

The slaves called the child "Naomi's yellow baby" until she was five years old or so. About that time, Esther saw what seemed to be a fuzzy carrot growing up from the ground instead of down into the soil of Thompson's vegetable plot. Esther tugged at the root, and a dead kitten came up in her hands. Esther dropped the cat, tore an offshoot from the base of the magnolia tree, and set out after Naomi's daughter.

Kat saw Esther clomping up the hill clutching that tree bark. One look at Esther's twisted mouth and scowled brow should've made the child run. Instead, Kat stood and laughed at Esther's catfish face. The child didn't know she had done any wrong. Kat didn't bury the kitten; she planted it. She believed the dead kitten would grow into a living cat.

Esther clamped down on the child's wrist.

Kat shrieked and dropped the bucket she was toting. "What did I do?" she asked.

Esther answered by lifting her switch.

Kat shut her eyes. The familiar sound of wood slicing through air whistled in her ears, then stopped. The child opened one eye. A third shadow squatted on the grass beside hers. Kat turned around. Her mother's violet-black fingers were deep in Esther's brown arm.

Esther was big, but Naomi was strong. Twenty-one years of hauling baskets full of cotton had pounded Naomi from a woman of flesh into one of granite. She ripped the branch from Esther's hand and pushed her aside. Esther melted under Naomi's glare and lumbered away.

Naomi drew a new pail of water, kissed her daughter, and sprinted back to the cotton field. In the distance, Kat thought Naomi looked like a toddler gathering flowers. Then an overseer rode towards Naomi, and Kat turned away. The child couldn't bear watching him beat her mother for protecting her.

Esther slapped Kat across the face the moment the child entered the kitchen.

"Ain't no call for that," Preacher said.

"That child put a dead cat in the rows of carrots."

After that day, Esther referred to Kat as "the child who put the cat in the rows." Over time, she blurred the phrase into "cat inna rows," and it sounded like "Kat Anna Rose." Soon everyone took to calling the child that.

So when Esther told Kat Anna Rose to shell peas on the back porch in the middle of winter, that's what the girl did. Every day Kat begged her mother to say her real name, but Naomi never answered. Uncle explained that her mother had stopped talking a long time back. He left it at that. Uncle didn't know the reason for Naomi's silence. Not a slave on the plantation did.

The absence of facts didn't stop the rumors. Most slaves whispered that Thompson cut Naomi's tongue out once she stopped menstruating. Kat knew that the tale was nonsense. Thompson wouldn't take notice of a woman's monthly cycle, and he never cared enough to silence the women he raped.

Thompson took pride in his ever-sprouting crop of half-white babies. He called Kat and the other the blonde ones "summer dandelions" because their white kinks formed circles around their faces. Half-white slaves didn't trouble Thompson, as long as they understood they were half-black and nobody's child but their mama's.

Kat shelled the last pea, knocked on the back door, and ran back to Uncle's shack. She changed his compress then kissed his hand. The fire from his skin lingered on her lips like the heat of a warm stove. Kat considered staying, but the consequence of toting an empty basket to the scales terrified her.

The overseers begun beating Kat with lashes and hickory before the hair on her head had reached the bottom of Naomi's hips. Kat endured the misery because her only other option was to yield to Thompson's will. At some point, Thompson found Kat's weakness. He then instructed his overseers to beat Naomi, instead of Kat, when the girl refused to work.

Kat thought about the fleshy vines of scars that wrapped around her mother's body, and she left Uncle. Kat found Naomi in the fields and used her mother's slim body as a shield from the January wind.

Every few bushes, Naomi paused to float her bloodstained hand in the air. She suspended a cotton boll between her swollen fingertips then let it fall. Her movement was elegant. She released the boll like a lady dropping a handkerchief. Her movement was defiant. Discarding the master's wealth invited the lash. Her movement was love. Love for her daughter, a little girl whose name no one knew. Kat caught the boll and pretended it was a white blossom blowing in a spring breeze.

After nightfall, Kat resumed her vigil. She dipped a cloth into an herbal brew Naomi made, propped Uncle's head up, and squeezed the elixir into his mouth. Uncle woke when the cool liquid touched his lips. He told Kat about his trip.

Thompson went to Georgia to buy a new cotton gin. He brought Uncle along because Bootjack was sharp and knew gins well. Before the salesman opened his mouth to make an offer, Uncle already knew how much the machine should cost. Bootjack shared his knowledge with Thompson and made sure his owner didn't pay too great a price. On their way back to Alabama, Uncle rode in the open wagon with the gin, while Thompson rode inside the buggy. A light snow fell, and Uncle wrapped the extra horse blanket around his shoulders. He marveled at the commotion. People walked the streets. Horseshoes clattered on the roads.

Then Uncle saw a black man and his family on the roadside. The man wore a broad hat and a thick coat. His wife nestled a gloved hand into the crook of her husband's arm and gripped her daughter's hand with the other. The man held his head high. Snowflakes floated past the brim of his hat and melted on his face. The image burned onto Uncle's mind like a brand.

Thompson drove on. A veil of snow fell between Uncle and the family. Uncle shook his head and said, "Free niggers." A dusting of snow lay on the gin. Uncle brushed it away and covered the gin with the quilt. Snow melted through his jacket and chilled his bones and blood. Uncle's observation became his mantra. He continuously uttered, "Free niggers."

When they arrived at the plantation, Thompson stepped to the back of the wagon. He saw the horse blanket and grunted. "Take that rag off my gin."

Uncle threw the blanket at Thompson's feet. "Free niggers." Uncle's sweat-covered face shined like anthracite. His eyes held water like a cistern.

Thompson slid his silver flask from his coat pocket and took a swig. "Uncle, seems to me you ain't feeling quite all right. You'd do best to go on to your house."

Bootjack jumped from the wagon. He screamed, "Free niggers!" The prayer was now a command.

Thompson lifted his flask. The silver flashed like lightning. He bashed the thunderbolt into Uncle's temple. Bootjack fell to his knees. Blood and rum trickled over him. Uncle pulled his neck back and looked into Thompson's green eyes. "Free niggers!" he shouted.

At first, Kat believed that the blacks Uncle saw must have been slaves. The only free people she had ever seen were white. Uncle fell asleep, and Kat thought about his words. She imagined standing on a snowy roadside with her mother and Uncle. Kat promised herself that they would run away to freedom once Uncle recovered.

During the night, Kat woke to change Uncle's compress. His face was cold. Thinking his fever was gone, Kat smiled. She rocked Uncle and shouted his name, but couldn't wake him. Uncle was dead.

Thompson forbade his slaves from having a funeral. Nobody thought much of it until Big Thomas, a purchase from a Virginia tobacco plantation, said that the slaves up there had funerals. Now, each of Thompson's slaves wanted his or her own ceremony, but none would face a whipping to give Bootjack one.

Thompson's mother had died last summer. She had a funeral, so Kat thought Uncle that should have one too. Kat talked with Preacher because Thompson always rented him out to drive the undertaker's cart. Consequently, Preacher had attended every funeral in the town over the past 20 years. He had a keen ear, and recited straight from the Bible. Kat hoped he could answer her question.

"Will Uncle go to heaven without a funeral?" Kat asked.

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth," Preacher said.

Kat shook her head, "I don't believe Uncle is wanting for more of this. Will he go to heaven?" she asked.

"Heaven is promised to whosoever believeth in Christ," he answered.

"If nobody needs a funeral why do white folks have them?"

Preacher twisted a blade of grass around his wheat-colored finger. "I reckon they helps the soul."

"Do you want a funeral when you die?"

That spark of inquiry started a blaze inside Preacher. He knew the beauty of a graveside service. For the first time, Preacher considered that he, the town's guide along the River Styx, would be dumped into the communal grave without even an "Amen." Anger swelled over his face in a fiery wave.

Preacher filled Thompson's water glass during lunch and asked permission to say a few words over Uncle Bootjack's body. Half-empty dishes broke on the floor as Thompson jumped up. He jerked the napkin from his reddening jaw and broke the latch off the back door on his way to Uncle's shack.

Kat was sitting next to the corpse when Thompson arrived. He sent her to find Big Jim and Timothy. She ran to the fields knowing who Thompson meant, even though he only called them "those two big niggers."

Jim and Timothy moved faster than Kat. By the time the girl returned to the slave quarters, the field hands were carrying Uncle to the grave. Thompson led the way, and Preacher followed the body. The atmosphere was still.

Too few years of being told that she was worthless because she was black, female, and a slave had past for Kat to believe it. She knew her words wouldn't be welcomed, but nonetheless, the girl spoke. "Should I tell the others to come over for the funeral?"

"Ain't gonna be no funeral," Thompson said.

"Preacher says funerals help souls go to heaven," Kat said.

Thompson turned around and motioned for Jim and Timothy to continue. His emerald slits focused on Preacher.

Preacher averted his eyes to avoid the stare.

Thompson sipped from his dented flask and bent down. The stink of rum left his nostrils and curled around Kat's face. "Niggers and animals don't go to heaven," he said.

Kat bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.

"I reckon Preacher didn't tell you that." Thompson threw Preacher's name in the air as a taunt. He had named the slave Gregory.

The red faded from Thompson's visage. He knelt on one knee and cupped his palm around Kat's cheek. With their faces so close, the resemblance between father and daughter was undeniable.

"I cares deeply for Uncle," Thompson said. "If it was the proper thing to do, I'd bury him right next to my daddy. But it ain't proper. It'd be blasphemy. The Bible says you niggers bear the mark of Ham. Your peoples was meant to be slaves."

Thompson finished his sermon. Kat and Preacher followed him to the slave plot. Timothy shoveled dirt into Uncle's grave. Repeating the words she remembered from Mother Thompson's funeral, Kat said, "Ashes to Ashes."

"No!" cried Thompson. "That ain't for you."

"Dust to Dust," she continued.

"Lord, you starting a blaspheme," said Preacher.

Kat repeated the verse. "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust."

Thompson shook Kat until her nose bled. Preacher dragged her back to the kitchen. Both Preacher and Esther urged the girl to understand her place.

Thompson walked in. "What are you all doing congregating instead of working? I wish I could find me more niggers like Bootjack."

"Yes, Master Thompson, loyal to the end," Preacher agreed.

Esther nodded. "Gave his life to save that gin, Master Thompson."

Kat wiped dried blood from the base of her nose and smiled. She understood what those three could not. Uncle didn't die to protect the gin. Once Uncle Bootjack saw free blacks, he would not allow that blanket to touch him. Generations of Thompsons had slept under, sweated through, and urinated on that quilt. When it became too worn for his family, Thompson covered his horses with it. Uncle wrapped that blanket around the gin because the machine was Thompson's property, not he. He chanted his mantra, prayer, command, "Free niggers," and allowed the snowflakes to baptize him. Uncle Bootjack died in liberty.

Kat ran back to the cemetery. She clawed a fistful of cold dirt from Uncle's mound. She spread the soil on his grave. Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust," she prayed. Kat scooped a heap of earth into both hands and flung the pile into the air. The wind carried it to the beginnings and end of the communal grave. "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust!" she shouted to consecrate the field and bless all the souls.

Kat stacked logs near Uncle's grave and fetched the old horse blanket. She lit the wood and hurled that quilt into the fire. Flames pierced the cloth. Smoke rose to the heavens.

Preacher ran to the grave and doused the fire. "What kind of heathen mess is this?" he asked.

Kat walked away.

"Kat Anna Rose! You hear me talking to you?"

Kat looked over her shoulder. "That's not my name. I answer to Promise now."

Kat found Naomi in the cotton field. Without looking back, Naomi dropped a boll. Kat let it fall. It was a snowflake, and she and her mother would one day be free.

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Joann Jones is a freelance writer and public speaker. She has written for NBC news. Ms. Jones writes poetry, short stories, essays, and children's literature. She is currently revising her first novel.