Song Yet Sung by James McBride Read Free Book Online

the creek and pushed through the high, thick grass, her head still throbbing. Weeks of running told her that it would not be long before whoever owned Little George would be coming and they would not be slow about it. There was no place to hide. She could not outrun them. Patrols, constables, sheriffs, slave hunters, money prospectors all, would hunt her with money and murder on their minds. The thought made her push forward faster.
    The high grass surrounding her thickened into swamp and the murky water at her feet deepened. Her dress was torn into nearly rags, and the sharp thistles and vines scratched her shoulders and neck. Her face, though healing, was still swollen, her body still weak from recuperating. She quickly grew exhausted and found a high, dry spot of land near a cypress tree and sat. She noticed a few berries growing out of the side of a bush. She pulled them out and bit them, munching slowly. They were tangy and bitter. They only made her more hungry. She leaned her back against the tree trunk and peered out towards the swamp. She watched a thick flock of wood ducks flutter and rise above the bog like a cloud. They circled slowly in the air and descended towards her. She closed her eyes, expectant, waiting to feel them flapping about her, but instead she fell asleep and dreamed again.
    She dreamed of Negroes eating in taverns, thousands of them; huge, fat Negroes, gorging themselves with more food than she ever seen: giant portions of pig, pie, steak, fried potatoes, laughing heartily as they ate, holding their stomachs as they gorged themselves. She saw Negro children with bulging faces, strutting about in undergarments as if they were the finest clothing: undershirts, undershorts, nightshirts, and sleeping caps. She saw other children sitting in great dining halls before plates piled high with food, desserts, pies, meats, cakes—so much food that it seemed impossible for a child to eat. Yet, even as the children ate, gorging themselves with pounds of food and washing it down with sweet, colored water, they cried out of hunger and starvation, weeping bitterly as they ate.
    The last image awoke her with a start, for she realized she was starving. It was late afternoon. She had to find something to eat. She rose and walked frantically, with purpose now, desperately looking for something to eat, stumbling over logs and splashing through ankle-deep mud. Every sound she made, every splash, every cracking leaf and snapping twig, made her feel as if she were walking in the loudest swamp God ever placed on this natural earth. The mourning doves overhead cooed so loudly that she suppressed the impulse to cover her ears. The earthly things that floated into her vision, the old logs that floated past, the discarded pines she fell over, the burping frogs and colorful snakes that slithered about in the stinking, decaying bog in which she’d suddenly found herself, seemed to point her in a specific direction, as if to say, Here, this way. She was changing inside in some kind of way, she was certain. She was not sure if that was a good thing, but despite an aching, pounding pain in her head, she seemed to be able to hear better, to see better, to smell more. She decided she was delirious.
    The patch of swampy woods ended at a clearing of marsh with shrubbery and forestation that had grown tall, past her head, and ended at another creek, this one as wide as a river. She stood at the bank and watched a sudden gale blow at the stinking mire hard enough to whip the high grass around and bend it low, sending the black river water heaving up on itself, as if it were yelling for mercy from the afternoon wind, which had suddenly grown relentless and now threatened storm, the wind pushing the black water into waves whose angry white tongues lapped greedily at the shoreline, the wind dancing and roaring above the tossing waves.
    She considered trying to swim across the river but decided not to. On the other side, the woods