One Sunday, Samuel came to visit. Mahala rushed to serve Samuel some of her precious tea in one of the china cups painted with pink flowers. She had harangued Micco for these cups and their saucers, the matching plates and bowls, and the silver place settings that he had to save for each year, one setting at a time. After drinking tea and smiling charmingly at Mahala, Samuel asked Micco outside to talk. He had a matter to discuss. In the dirt yard in front of the cabin, Samuel causally broached the matter of Micco’s African blood.
He knew Micco’s heritage: In the first year after Samuel had come to the farm, the Creek man had confided about his grandfather Coromantee-Panther. It was information Micco never had intended to share, but he’d been so happy for a friend, he’d become giddy with affection and camaraderie. Yet he’d been wise enough to ask Samuel never to tell anyone else. Micco wasn’t entirely foolish; he knew he was giving out dangerous information. Even Mahala didn’t know; Micco had never told her, because he knew that she worshipped white people and despised Negroes. With each child that Mahala had given birth to, Micco had prayed to his wife’s Christian god that none would betray his African line, but the prayer had been answered slant. His twin sons were white-skinned but had wide noses and full lips. His third son had been born with blue eyes, but his skin had turned brown in his fourth year, so that Mahala continually had bathed him in buttermilk and screamed at him to stay out of the sun, though this boy had only laughed at her as he ran outside to play or hunt. With Micco’s daughter, that god kept laughing, for though Lady’s skin remained very pale, her eyes hazel, and most of her brown hair straight, there were tight kinks that grew at her nape. Mahala sometimes wondered if someone had cursed her with the old medicine she’d ridiculed in the past. Why else would her children have these strange features?
As Samuel observed the copse of trees on the horizon, he remarked that it would be such a shame if Micco’s heritage were revealed. He could become a slave. Even Micco’s sons, who had gone to live in Creek villages, could be tracked down and put in chains. But Lady would be the worst, because men in the Louisiana territory would love to use her for their base desires: a Negro girl who looked completely white would be in great demand. However, Samuel always would keep Lady’s secret now that the little girl was his wife. There was no reason to be afraid. He’d only wanted to remind Micco of the trust that lay between them. And remembering the past nectar of friendship, Micco held out hope.
The day that Micco finally understood he’d been deceived by Samuel Pinchard began with a minuscule event. Micco had gone fishing and told his Negro, Pop George, to have four buckets of water waiting when he returned to keep his fish fresh. But upon his return the buckets were still empty. Micco sent for Pop George, who told him Samuel had ordered him to accomplish other tasks. Only then, Samuel had said, could he turn to filling Micco’s buckets, and the white man had slapped Pop George several times to induce obedience. Every time the Negro had finished one task, Samuel had given him another thing to do. Pop George had not had time to fill the buckets. While telling this story, he referred to Samuel as “Master.” When Micco asked why, the Negro told him he had been ordered to do so by the white man.
The grandson of Coromantee-Panther became angry, an emotion he’d never truly felt before. His heart shaded with red, and he raised his hand to strike Pop George, who did not crouch or beg, but simply stood there. The Negro’s face was not impassive, however. Though he was a slave, he looked at Micco with pity. That was when Micco recalled the words of Nila many years before, when she’d told him that white men were not to be trusted. And Pop George—the man Micco had purchased for fifty dollars years before—felt sorry for him, for Micco actually had believed a white man could be an Indian’s friend.
That evening, Micco went to the creek, seeking out his only remaining comrade. Micco needed counsel, but the small man Joe could not be found. And he was not there the next day or in the days to come. Though Joe would return to the farm that had once been a village, he would never show himself to Micco again.
And Micco still hadn’t solved the riddle: which sets of hands he should lean toward.
II
Self-realization is thus coming slowly but surely to another of the world’s great races, and they are to-day girding themselves to fight in the van of progress, not simply for their own rights as men, but for the ideals of the greater world in which they live; the emancipation of women, universal peace, democratic government, the socialization of wealth, and human brotherhood.