I was born on the old Moss plantation, outside of Hawkin's Point -not far from Charleston. Best I can figure it, that was in 1839. My daddy was the blacksmith. He was a big, powerful man, name of Billy -his daddy was from Africa. I remember his huge roughened hands, how they gripped that hammer as he pounded and shaped iron.

And I remember how he stared at the birds. He would pause in his labors to watch them wheel up there among the clouds, a faraway look on his face. Though he looked peaceful then, he was really a hot-tempered man. He had done been sold three times when he came to the Moss place and took up with my mama. He had tried to run away from every master that bought him.

One day, when I was eight years old, Daddy was leaning on his anvil and watching them birds. The overseer happened to come by, and gave him a good cussing for not working hard enough. He fetched him a lick with the little quirt he always carried around.

Quick as you could tell about it, Daddy took that big old hammer and stove the overseer's brains in. The poor man fell back moaning and dying in the dust, the thick blood spreading from under his head, his fat fingers twitching that quirt a little -like, without any brains to guide them, that's all they knowed how to do.

Daddy put those rough hands briefly on my shoulders.

"Goodbye, son," he said, and took off running. It was actually more of a jog -he seemed to be in no hurry, as if the act of running was just a necessary rule that had to be carried out.

They caught him and hanged him, right in town. Folks came from all over, some bringing their slaves so they could learn a lesson. Doctor Moss brought all the young boys from his plantation, including me.

Daddy stood there on that scaffold like he was ignoring them all. Then he dropped, and his powerful neck struggled against the rope. His legs kicked wildly -kicking and kicking like he was trying to launch himself into the sky with them birds.

That just left Mama and me -I'm Alfred -and my little brother, Roby. We had a sister once. Jenny, four years younger than me and as cute and sassy as a button. Doctor Moss give her to his nephew in Virginia one year, as a Christmas present. I never seen her again.

Daddy killing that overseer didn't help us much -the next one was just as mean. All of us little boys used to run around bare-footed and bare-bottomed, all we ever wore was a long-tailed shirt. That new overseer had a game he played with his snakeskin whip. He used to lash it out at us when we'd come close by to see if he could flip up that shirt-tail without touching the black behind that was underneath. More often than not, the trick didn't work.

He whipped my mama one time. It was the first time I'd ever seen her get whipped. I forget what it was for, but it couldn't have been much 'cause mama always walked around white folks like she was walking on eggs.

The overseer made her pull her dress down around her waist -with everybody looking on -and took out that whip. He called it his "blacksnake". He didn't tie her to the whipping post set into the back yard, which was usually used. Instead he tied her hands to a tree-limb up over her head. She was left unable to hide her nakedness, and she shrilly cried out to Jesus and the overseer for mercy. The whip bit into her back. It broke apart her flesh, including many old scars -even our scars was not our own, they could be broken apart and added to and changed at the whim of the overseer.

I remember standing by, my young eyes popping at the spectacle -and how my mama trembled and moaned even before the whipping began. Once the overseer had got to going good, and warmed to his task, she screamed and sobbed pitifully.

I felt angry and helpless. And somewhere in the back of my childish mind, I thought that my mama must have done something awful bad to deserve such punishment.

When I growed older I began to understand better. It wasn't our masters who mistreated us so, it was the overseers and the pattyrollers -that is, the road patrollers. Unlike the masters, them people could not afford a single slave and probably never would. While slave-owners lived in luxury, rednecks ate dirt -many of them ate and lived less comfortably than slaves. The only way they could strike out at the high classes was through their property. Which was us.

And they did strike out. I seen not just that overseer but later ones whip pregnant women. They would dig a hole in the ground for the woman's belly, and then lay her across it and start in.

Not the masters, though. They seen to it that we was well-fed and healthy, that nearly all our needs was taken care of. That was so's we could work. When we was whipped, and couldn't work, they wasn�t getting their money�s worth out of us.

Doctor Moss was like most other plantation-owners I knowed of. His main concerns was always business and money -we didn't even exist to him, at least not as people. We hated them overseers with all our hearts, but at least they knowed us by name.

The Missus was different. It seemed like that to me, anyways, though my recollections of her have dimmed with time. I do recall that she always wore a smile. I know now that she probably wasn't smiling at me, just smiling in general. That was still something to set store by, though, for the smiles of most white people melted when they seen us.

But she must have taken some liking to me. She arranged for me to work in the big house during the summer time, shooing flies away from her with a feather-duster. I was a little shaver then, maybe five years old. And one day she had me help her plant a magnolia tree in back of the house. We clawed through the soil with our fingers, wordless, planting that tree which she had said would watch over her family for decades to come and give her young'uns shade to play in.

Doctor Moss was upset at her, or pretended to be. He claimed that the very reason they owned slaves was so she wouldn't have to do that sort of thing. She just laughed, and so did he -I was tempted to let out a peep or two myself, but I didn't know how it might be taken so I kept my mouth shut.

The Missus died several months after that, while giving birth to the Doctor's only child Phillip. Her tree managed to grow up to a pretty good size, but one day it died too. Some kind of tree disease, is what they said. The leaves all curled up and fell off, right in the middle of summer. They blowed away -skittering and bouncing down the road like they had gone looking for her. I watched them go. Looking at them empty branches reminded me of how lonesome and empty my own life was. Mine and everybody else's, I reckon.

I growed up to be a year-long field hand; I didn't get no more summers off to shoo flies at the big house. Every day was pretty much the same as the one before. The overseer would wake us up blowing that big old horn of his, and we would file out of our shacks and head for the fields. We would bake all day in the hot sun, ever' once in a while managing to get the waterboy's attention. Then we'd trudge back -making sure our hoes was stacked nice and neat -eat our supper, lay down on our straw-filled pallets, and rest up for more of the same.

The only day that was different was Sunday. We didn't have to work, and the master encouraged all his niggers to go to church. One of the slaves was a preacher, or claimed to be, and they would congregate in a field to hear him repeat what he had been told was in the Bible, or maybe just what he thought ought to be in it. Most masters didn't like that kind of goings-on, for a crowd of niggers would spell rebellion to them even if the crowd in question was all cripples. The slaves had a harder time on them plantations. They had to meet in secret, and would usually leave a pot turned upside down outside their meeting-place. The pot would be tipped over a little, so that there was just enough of an opening at the mouth to catch the noise of their praying and singing and keep it from reaching the master's ears. At least that's what they said. It seemed a little far-fetched to me -I sure wouldn't want my life counting on such precautions.

I was never a real religious-minded man, so Sunday didn't mean nothing more to me than getting some rest. Mama and Roby always went, though, and shook their heads at my sinfulness. I preferred the peace and quiet of the mostly-abandoned slave row over all the singing and hollering I knowed was going on at church. I could do fine without company.

All that changed one Saturday night after work. I had just ate, then stepped outside in the moonlight for a breath of fresh air, when I heard a hissing noise. Looking around cautiously, I seen that it was a couple of other field hands -Sid and Topaz -trying to get my attention. I stepped around the corner to see what they wanted.

"What you fools doin' loafin' 'round my house, dis time of day?"

They shushed at me. "Listen up," Sid whispered. "You wanna have some good fun tonight?"

"I sholy hope dis ain't it."

"We could of went without you, but we didn't," Sid said, but his smile was as broad as before. "But de mo' de better. Come on."

I followed them into the darkness. "Where we goin'?"

"You'll see," Sid said cheerfully. Sid worked as hard as anybody, at least when he thought someone was looking. I could never understand, then, where he got all his energy. That boy was always into something. Sometimes he would start one mess before he got all the way out of the last one.

"Say, Alfred," whispered Topaz. "I seen a ole tomcat pitterin' around back yonder. You ought to th'ow him some scraps, see if he'll stay around. Stray cat stay at yo' house, it's always a sign of good luck."

I peered at Topaz's leg in the moonlight; sure enough, I seen a flashing. He had his usual silver dime tied to his leg with a piece of string to ward off spells. Everybody believed in spells and conjuring, even me back then, but Topaz believed enough for everybody. His whole life was a series of omens and spells and jinx-breakers.

We half-ran through the grassy hills behind slave row. As we neared the slave graveyard, Sid turned around. He was more serious than I was used to seeing him.

"We got to run from here on out," he said. "An� I mean run hard. They's ha'nts all around here. Ha'nts, and will-o'-the-wispses, and worser."

I snorted. "I been out this way huntin' plenty of times," I said. "I ain't never seen no boogers."

"They out here, sho' enough," Topaz said. "I seen 'em. White folks cain't do nothin' but hear ha'nts, they ain't got the eyes to see 'em. Only us darkies."

Sid chuckled softly. "Alfred cain't see 'em. Maybe he got some cracker blood."

The anger in my eyes must have showed through even in the dark, 'cause Sid fell back a couple of steps like he thought I was fixing to hit him.

"Come on," he said then. "We gonna git left out!"

There was a big old gulley past the graveyard, and I could tell that was where we was going. I could hear whispers as we drawed near, as well as muted laughter, and I could detect a faint smoky smell. We stepped down into the gulley and right into six other slaves.

"Awright, we here," Sid announced. "Let's start the festivities."

"They done started," one man informed him.

And they had, at that. There was several bottles of whiskey being passed around, and a pig was roasting over a small fire. I looked all around -down in that gulley, we was completely hidden from view.

"Where�d we get the pig?" I asked.

"Where do we always get pigs?" the first man said. I recognized him now as the carpenter. He had big pouches under his eyes that made him look like a bloodhound. "Outen de barn."

I laughed out loud, amazed at their audacity. "You mean we roastin' up de massa's pig? Lawdamighty!" I fell to the ground, trying not to laugh myself into a fit. "You better cook dat pig up good, boy, so's we can remember how good it tasted while dey whippin' our hide off !"

"Ain't nothin' to worry about, Alfred," said Topaz. "Ole Doc here, he done put a spell on massa so he'll believe whatever we say. We gon' stay out here all night, eatin' and drinkin' and not go home until noon. We'll tell de massa we got a early start at church.�

A fat little silhouette that I recognized as Doc nodded. "It's guaranteed," he said.

"Awright den," I said. "Where'd we get dis liquor? We charm it out of somebody?"

Sid said, "Raymond is de best carpenter in Jefferson County." Baggy-eyes nodded humbly at the compliment. "De massa hires him out, and he gets to keep some of de money. He's been savin' up for dis for months."

If that was the case, I decided that the only polite thing to do was to sit back and enjoy it. I nipped at the whiskey when it came my way. I savored the harsh bite of it.

"We should have brung Uncle Wiley," Topaz said. "He's always real good company. Maybe he could tell us one of dem stories of his."

A couple of the men sneered at him. I doubt if Topaz seen it, 'cause it was so dark and he wasn't looking that way anyhow, but I did. The men was bought off another plantation, and must not have understood a grown man's affection for Uncle Wiley's tales. The fact is, Uncle Wiley was a master story-teller. He was also a master whittler, jester, and listener -and the years had turned him into a pretty good gardener. All of the men and women on Moss's place who was less than forty years old had grown up sitting on Uncle Wiley's knee, listening to his musical voice. That included young Philip Moss.

"You crazy," Sid said. "Dis ain't Uncle Wiley's kind of fun. If he was here right now, he'd prob'ly lay dat whiskey bottle upside yo' head."

We all laughed at the image Sid's words raised. It was hard imagine the old man doing such a thing, especially to a great big man like Topaz, but we could picture him trying.

One of the new hands -the ones who had sneered at Topaz -was staring at me. I started to feel uncomfortable. I hoped he would get bored with it, but he never let up. So I said, "What you starin' at, anyway?"

"How old are you?" he said, ignoring my question.

"I don't know. About eighteen."

He shook his head. "I thought I knowed you, but I reckon not. Seems like I seen you years ago, when I was at Old Man Trent's plantation."

"Might have been his daddy," Raymond said. "He looked just like the boy, only with a beard. Used to be our blacksmith."

"Yeah, that's it! Massa Moss's overseer brung him to Massa Trent's to straighten out some metal fence-railin's. The two overseers got to braggin' 'bout how strong each one's nigger was. They finally made a bet, and made dat blacksmith fight with one of our field-hands -a real big man. Blacksmith near about killed him. Den our overseer got mad because he lost his money,and he killed dat boy his self."

When informed that Daddy had took a hammer to an overseer, the man -whose name, I had picked up, was Bill -took a long drink in tribute.

We sat there in the grass all through the night, gnawing on the massa�s pork and getting drunk. I thought back on tales my daddy had told me, passed down from his own father. His African father had told him about being the son of a village chief. He told about having his own goats and of walking through the jungle to suit his fancy -no passes, no overseer, just doing what you wanted whenever the urge struck you.

I looked at my friends. In the bright daylight we shuffled and bowed before our masters, said yassuh and kept our eyes glued to our own dusty toes. But here, sprawled in the moonlit grass with nothing over us but the sky, we was all African kings.

After being woken by the midday sun, we all stumbled home. A couple of fellows remained behind to dispose of the evidence. Since Simon the tanner had some money saved up too, we decided to do it again the next week.

Slave row was still deserted. It would be awhile before the church-goers returned, which was fine with me. I crawled onto my bed to get a little extra shuteye.

I was awoken this time, not by the warm sun, but by the voice of my mother.

"Out drunk, I see," she said. Roby was standing behind her, grinning like an idiot. "Not surprised. Got too much of your daddy's hot blood. Probably wind up hanged, or worse."

It was as close as she had come to anger in years. For the previous decade she had become more and more withdrawn. Even her frenzied singing at the church meetings had slowed down until it was barely more than a mumble.

Roby, I could tell, really was mad. He was mad because I didn't take him with me. I considered offering to take him next time, but I was not sure how well the others would take to a kid's presence. I wasn't sure if he would come anyway. That would mean missing church, something he hated to do -not that he was especially pious. He just couldn't bear the thought of not being seen.

No more was said about it, though, by neither one of them. Mama clattered through her regular Sunday routine -sweeping things that had already been swept, straightening things that wasn't crooked. It was all done with a vacant look on her face, like she no more cared about what she was doing than the rain cared if it watered the crops or flooded them.

Then Roby took out a old jew�s-harp he had traded for somewheres. He thought he could play it and his ignorance was harder on the rest of us than it was on him. That tinny, unbalanced music filled the little cabin. Mama's body swayed a little as she pursued her duties, like it was remembering something from long ago that her eyes had forgotten.

Not able to put up with the racket no more, especially with my head in such a delicate condition. I staggered outside.

Breathing the fresh air was nice, but the sunlight felt like it was burning a hole right through my eyeballs. I dropped roughly to the ground I was sitting there in the dust, massaging my head, when I heard Uncle Wiley.

"Lawd, boy. You look like you done stepped on somethin�."

"Somethin' like that." I tried to ignore him, but it was more than I could do. He just stared at me in the special disapproving way he did sometimes. I felt like a little young' un again, caught in meanness.

"You want somethin'?" I asked after what seemed like a long time. The words didn't come out as strong as I had intended.

"Want a lot of things. Want a softer bed for my achin' back. Want a quiet woman with a big behind. Ever' once in a while I want a hot slab of fresh-roasted pig meat, but I got sense enough to be careful where I gets it from." He emphasized the last part by spitting in the dust.

My head jerked up, an action I regretted as soon as I did it. Trying to see through the stars, I said, "What are you talkin' about?"

Uncle Wiley snorted. "I ain't stupid, Alfred. And neither is Massa Moss. It just so happens that I work my own truck garden at night. I might be old, but I can still hear drunks squawkin', no matter how far off it is. And I can still smell pigs roastin' where no pigs is supposed to be."

I stared at him, unable to deny his charge. Behind his stern face a faint little smile was starting to crack through.

"Don't worry," he said. "I ain't gonna tell on ya, or nothing like that. Won't have to, the way you fools announce yourselves. You listen to a word of advice from Uncle Wiley. You run around with heathens like that Sid, you'll come to a bad end. You need to straighten up and find Jesus."

I scowled. I wanted to tell him what I really thought of his old-time religion. Near as I could tell, if Jesus was as all-powerful as everybody always said, he could set us all free in a heartbeat. He hadn't done it yet, so either he didn't exist or he didn't care about us. If that was so, he was just like another massa. I figured I had massas enough without volunteering for more.

"Uncle Wiley!"

A little girl was running toward us, wearing a smile so big she practically fell over it. She still wore her church-going brogans. I recognized her, or I thought I did -I believe she was the daughter of Burl, Doctor Moss�s driver. As closed as our little slave community was, I didn't know everybody by name. I didn't even know how many of us there was -just that it was more than I could count. For that matter, I didn't know where the Moss plantation was in relation to the rest of the United States. I doubt if any of the slaves did.

"Come here, missy," Uncle Wiley said as he took the girl in his arms and swung her high into the air. All complaints about his tired old back were forgotten; he had grown a smile big enough to match hers.

"Tell me a story, Uncle Wiley," she said.

"Why sho�," the old man answered. He winked at me over his shoulder, and then the two oddly-matched friends was walking hand-in-hand toward Uncle Wiley's rickety front porch. I watched them, too far away to hear their words but close enough to see their happy faces.

How many times, I wondered, had I sat on that porch and listened to his gentle words? The innocent and meek seemed to be drawn to him. When had his gaze started making me uncomfortable instead of content?

I decided to see what Sid and Topaz was up to. I couldn't wake Sid up, but Topaz I found sitting outside just as I had been.

"I reckon you couldn't sleep, neither," I said.

Topaz shook his head. His big eyes was wide with worry. "No," he said. "I slept a little, but I had a bad dream an' it woke me up. It was about snakes. An' then, when my sister Rosie was eatin' dinner, she sneezed with her mouth full."

I stared at him, expectant. "Yeah?" I said.

"Yeah," he repeated. "Them's all signs of death. I'm not sure if it's mine or somebody else's.�

I shrugged. "Somebody's always dyin' somewhere."

"This'un will be close."

"Maybe Massa Moss is gonna have us all skinned for that little barbecue we had."

Topaz smiled; the very mention of the event seemed to cheer him up. "Ole Conjurin' Doc's hoodoo is guaranteed," he said. "'Sides, the massa wouldn't kill a body over somethin' like that. He's a good massa, not like some of the others around here.�

It never ceased to amaze me how slaves spoke about their masters, even me, before I got older and my anger ripened. We spoke reverently of them, almost lovingly. Slaves from different plantations would argue about which had the better master, as if we owned the masters instead of the other way around. Everyone's hatred was saved for the overseers. The masters did not personally beat us, and that was enough to make some slaves love them.

And yet at other times we would all make fun of them, mimicking their words and actions. We would laugh at them to make them human, to show that they was as flawed as we was. It was like we couldn't make up our minds how to feel about them. We was torn between loyalty to our self-proclaimed "benefactor" -a word I heard used many times before I figured out what it was supposed to mean -and our own need for dignity.

The next Saturday night we was back in that gulley, drinking and eating away. We was a little louder this time, for we had been encouraged by our past success, and had gotten a little cocky.

Sid leaned toward me and spoke, his speech slurred. "You too stiff, Alfred. Know what you need? You need a woman to loosen you up, that's what."

I stumbled forward to stoke the fire. "I ain't seen no gal around here that strikes my fancy." I tried to return to my seat, but found that I couldn't control my legs. I fell heavily into the grass.

"You de stubbornest man I ever knowed," Sid said. "Even yo' legs is stubborn. You go one way and dey go another."

"I ain't stubborn."

"Dat proves it. You so stubborn you won't even admit to it."

Ignoring him, I passed out.

This time when we stumbled home it was to an unpleasant surprise. Doctor Moss and the overseer was waiting on us. It sems like Conjurin' Doc's spell to cloud the massa's mind was working fine -'till the massa counted his pigs.

The overseer was massaging that whip of his. He was a fat, sweaty man, name of Felts. He reminded me a lot of that pig we had roasted. He was always itching to beat on somebody, and he probably thought he had the perfect opportunity, but he was disappointed.

"Put that away, Felts," Doctor Felts said. "You won't be needing it."

Felts was dumbfounded. "But Doctor -we caught 'em red-handed! Thievin' off you like they think they own the place. If you let them get away with that, every uppity nigger on this plantation will be seein' how far they can push us."

Moss smiled. "Oh, I don't intend to let them get away with anything. First let me say, you boys, if I ever catch you at anything like this again, I�ll sell you away with no questions asked.

"So far as this time is concerned -well, there are still several hours of daylight remaining. Get your hoes and start working those fields."

I didn't look forward to having the hot sun bake my brains while I had a hangover, but it was better than Felts' blacksnake. It was the next part that I really didn't like.

"There shall be no whipping," Moss announced. I was surprised, for he had never been the easy-going type before.

"A whipping is over too soon. I think I know something that these niggers will hate even worse. From now on, every Sunday come rain or shine, I expect all nine of you boys to spend the day at church. If I hear that you�ve been laying out, I�ll send you to the auction block with some fresh stripes on your backs. Now get to work."

I was going to get religion anyway, only now it was going to be as a punishment. That didn't exactly put me in a receptive frame-of-mind about the whole thing.

We sweated and struggled in that field, knowing that our friends and family was relaxing in the shade. I didn't mind, though. It was worth it.

Out there, in a gulley just past the graveyard, I had my first taste of freedom.

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