LIV.

The carpenter Jonas Jackson, called Big Jim Crow, was contracted by the preacher known as Swampy Joe to build a new church in Strangetown.  It would be the second such freedman's church in the district, the first being Jessup Floyd's African Methodist Church.  It was to be known as the Chapel of Freedom, and the cost was put up by a parishioner's trust funded by Maw Possum and The Major.  Swampy Joe, whose Christian name was Joseph Greene, was a highly unusual preacher.  

Before Emancipation, he was a slave preacher on Drummond Downs, which was on the Mooresville Road. He had surreptitiously run an invisible church from inside a crumbling gambrel-roofed barn on the outskirts of the plantation. It was partially caved in and grown over with brush and ivy, the rafters sagging with wisteria. And in this crumbling structure he ministered his fellow brothers and sisters into the presence of the Holy Spirit. His church was vaguely of the Baptist tradition. The power of his theology was Freedom, and his brothers and sisters were the Israelites. This was a common theme among most slave churches. What made Joseph Greene's church so unusual was its Hoodoo ritualism.  

At his invisible church, Joseph Greene would throw himself into trances and speak in tongues. He'd call up Ring Shouts and dance bare-chested around the fire, babbling glossolalia and blowing goofer dust from his palm into the faces of his supplicants. He'd charm snakes with fevered hymns and snap chains with his teeth. It was a dazzling spectacle of the Holy Spirit!  It was also provocative to the slaveowning society and placed his life at great risk, but risk it he did as he travelled by night to preach and shout and dance at the various plantations. He'd baptize in the marshes of Limestone Creek where he earned the name Swampy Joe. Now that the war was over, the Chapel of Freedom would become a beacon for all the freed slaves whose Salvation was groomed in the shadow of Swampy Joe. 

Evander Pruitt accompanied Big Jim Crowe to work on the church.  It was his penance for his sins - his recent ones, anyway.  Unlike the traditional gable and steeple of Jessup Floyd's AMC, which was on Strange Street itself, Swampy Joe's church was being built with a thatched hip roof. Keen on the power of symbolism, Swampy Joe had a well dug into the groundwater, and instead of a bucket he hung a bell.  He would ring it on Sundays and his congregants would stand in line as he cast water on them drawn from the well using a gnarled stump of ash wood for an aspergillum. His eyes would lift into his head, and he would cast some benediction, then quote Leviticus or some such, and then open the double doors which revealed a room of split-log pews and a great chest-like structure which doubled as some form of altar.  A grotesque Catholic-like crucifix was hung by hemp at the back end.  

Swampy Joe's performance had tempered somewhat since Emancipation. He slackened somewhat from his Hoodoo roots.  His renowned ministry in the in the County was suddenly challenged by the appearance of another renowned minister. This was Jessup Floyd, who had come by way of a prominent family of New England freemen. He was an educated and well-spoken brother. He had organized congregations of the African Methodist Church among the Low Country Gullah of the Carolina Sea Islands. Now that the war had ended, Jessup Floyd had come to the Nickajack to bring his orthodox brand of social and spiritual enlightenment to the emancipated slaves, who were left bereft with sudden freedom and little more. 

Jessup Floyd always wore a black waistcoat to service with a clerical collar, and his salty beard and gray hair gave him an avuncular air.  In spite of this observant outfit, he had the personal touch. He recounted the possibilities of free labor in devotion to Christ.  He shared the Israelites rejoice of Freedom, and the earnest labor and study of these people to follow in the pathway of the Lord. He dazzled his congregations with photographs of himself in Faneuil Hall in Boston, and shaking hands with Frederick Douglas, and of his free children who were never sold off, and of him standing next to white men, all of them smiling. To freedman this was all quite foreign, but it proved that some form of harmony existed elsewhere when their current post-war world was fraught with violence and tumult. And so Jessup Floyd's flock increased to Swampy Joe's consternation.

But if Jessup Floyd's favorite Gospel was Mark, then Swampy Joe's was John. Whereas Jessup Floyd could recite the Aquinus and Augustine when the assault of logic required it, Swampy Joe could recite Acts and Revelations when the Holy Spirit compelled it. He did it in the fever of what he called the "Gittup." And whereas Jessup Floyd's orthodox Sunday service over the newly emancipated freemen was noted with satisfaction by the Greeks, Swampy Joe's preaching was regarded as bombastic and heathen by the same.

And so the Chapel of Freedom rose from the funky bottoms of Strangetown by the earnest labors of Big Jim Crow and his crew. For his penance, Brother Pruitt helped build the church. He saw no error in the charge. Penance was penance, and Evander Pruitt always paid for his sins - recent ones anyway. Before service, Swampy Joe would slather his hair in pomade and douse his head with water.  In the heat of summer, he would steam and bead water.  His preaching was fevered and fervent. He scooted and shouted and sweated and seethed. What he seethed at was what Lyman Resnick, editor of the Limestone Democrat, was calling the "New Condition." It was not pejorative, but an apt label for the post-war limbo of black-white labor relations. But for Swampy Joe, he proclaimed the New Condition was the freedman's chance to forge a new identity.  The New Condition was a black Israel freed.  And that black Israel meant a new brotherhood nation of freedom, free labor, free choice, free worship, and free expression. When Swampy Joe trifled with sermons preaching land reform and support for the Fifteenth Amendment, his church on Drummond Downs was firebombed by the Ku Klux Klan. On the front page of the Limestone Democrat, the arch-conservative Lyman Resnick could scarcely conceal his satisfaction.  

And so Swampy Joe paid homage to Maw Possum, who proffered him a Quark and a Promissory Note for the construction of a new church, smack dab in the middle of Strangetown. And he rode the cars to Huntsville to draw upon her check from the parishioner's trust at the State Bank on Jefferson Street, and returned to Strangetown to place this cash in the hands of Big Jim Crow, who immediately began construction of the Chapel of Freedom. And so it rose on Strange Street, across from Jessup Floyd's AMC. And the music of both churches would rise on Sunday's into the milieu of sound of Strangetown's busy streets. And so it was that the aroma of sound from both temples would compete but was deemed pleasing all the same to the Lord. 

XLV

After the war, Bill Marmaduke's home and plantation had been confiscated by the military government of Alabama on account of a forfeiture of property taxes. He had been away fighting in Jackson Co. when his father died, leaving the estate to wither and the slaves to wander into freedom. And so it was auctioned from the Limestone Co. Courthouse steps by Captain Fritz Hermann, who commanded the local Yankee garrison of Fort Henderson on the Browns Ferry Road. By freak of bureaucratic fumbling, he commanded a company of 120 Irish "volunteers" who spoke incomprehensible English while he himself spoke only German.  It was by luck that there were several German families who had taken up temporary residence in Strangetown, many of whom spoke English.  These were immigrants who were bound for Colonel John Cullman's colony of Germans south beyond Falkville in the Warrior Mountains, where Jimmy Sloss was building his railroad to Birmingham.

Colonel Cullman and Captain Hermann became fond friends. Among the German immigrants, they organized concerts at the public gazebo in Strangetown where polka and the waltz wafted through the crisp autumn air.  Oktoberfest was celebrated, and these immigrants set up a makeshift beerhall beneath a circus tent on the Niphonia Track on West Houston Street.  To the dismay of Ms. Mary Fletcher Wells and the Temperance Society, the Germans brewed a a variety of beers for public consumption.  Most negroes had never tasted beer before. It flowed freely along with linked sausages and boiled cabbage.  And so did the Bavarian polka and the Austrian waltz. Both John Cullman and Captain Hermann dined together often in the Nickajack Hotel over a fine bottle of Franconian and retired to the Captain's private quarters for cards or to recite Goethe together.  The Greeks whispered else. 

Oktoberfest brought its own joys, but the freedman were celebrating more than that.  Captain Hermann was auctioning off confiscated properties of former Confederates who had failed to pay their property taxes.  These included Bill Marmaduke's plantation Damascus, and Drake Shoney's farm at Gloaming Birch.  According to a formula formerly proposed by General Sherman, each plantation would be subdivided into 40 acre parcels. Prices ranged from $4 - $12 per acre.  The Freedman's' Bureau under The Major, Bonwit Vrooman, ensured all coloreds had the first right of refusal on bidding above the reserve.  Big Jim Crow had high hopes.  He counted himself lucky. His survived the war and more in the Union Army and found gainful employment in the uncertain world of post-war freedom as a carpenter.  He had help construct most of Strangetown's boarding houses and saloons. He'd even help build Father Jessup's new African Methodist Church and Swampy Joe's Chapel of Freedom, which was vaguely of the Baptist tradition. Now with all he saved, he had his eyes set on his 40 acres of fertile bottomland on Bill Marmaduke's plantation called Damascus.  Bill Marmaduke was as of yet the Sheriff of Limestone County. He was at that time nowhere to be seen. He was rumored to be mining in Nevada, whaling in the Galapagos, or filibustering in Venezuela.  Wherever he was, he was nowhere to dispute the sale or payoff the lien.  

And so the morning of the sale, Drake Shoney had shown up with a mysterious carpet bag full of cash and paid off his lien in the nick of the moment.  He retained Gloaming Birch.  Damascus, however, was sold off in ten parcels of 40 acres, and the mansion went to the carpetbagging attorney names Rufus Lipman.  Big Jim Crow won his bid for the price of $385 the plot he so desired.  But the sale had been sneered at by Lyman Resnick of the Limestone Democrat.  He reflected the arguments of Dr. Prentiss, that the negro was naturally indolent and impulsive, and whose inability to subsist even on his own property will subject the State to burdensome welfare.  Better that the negro continue to work the plantations they knew under contracts negotiated by the planters.  This, of course, would not do so long as the Yankees were in charge. Freedman who continued to work these plantations had their contracts negotiated by The Major himself, who organized their labor according to blocs of collective contracts.  It infuriated the Greeks, but not more than giving negroes their own land. If their black labor fled to the yeomanry to plant their own plots, they will simply grow subsistence crops.  The Greeks' entire plantation system, which was dependent on the ability to command labor, was in jeopardy.  

But these concerns were none of Big Jim Crow's. He held in his hand something more than freedom - he land of his own.  It was a deed with his name - Jonas Jackson, owner of 40 acres of good bottom land on parcel 16-06-16 along Piney Creek. This was it - the Square Deal.  Not so many others were lucky.  As a carpenter and a soldier, Big Jim Crow was able to save up for his land.  Most of the freedman were laboring on contracts that, although negotiated by The Major, still resulted in conflict with former masters.  Many planters sought to impose old habits of controlling the lives of their laborers, while at the same charging them for clothing, food and shelter... all of which they benefitted from for free during slavery.  It was a tumultuous time as the freedman sought to exert their new independence, and define what their new freedom and community would look like after emancipation.  Meanwhile, the planters sought to command from their laborers as much work as they provided during slavery.  It was an impasse of plantation capital against agricultural labor, complicated by the racist assumption that a man like Jonas Jackson, on account of his skin, could not make it on his own, nor should he.  

XLII

When he tossed Jesus over three weeks ago, Brother Pruitt fell into a deep funk. In fact, he didn't know which came first, but he bet on his unfaithfulness. The boo hags had come again. He didn't even leave the tent most of the time, which was pitched behind the Whitesport Salon. He battled with terrible demons and sulked gravely. He thumbed the handle of his pistol. He was drunk on Sunday. The Darlings of Strangetown would pass by his tent in the evenings and hear him raving and kicking like the fitful sleep of a dog. His beard grew long. He'd shake open the flaps to his tent in the morning, stark naked half the time. The sun would cast harsh beams into his squinting eyes. No one paid him any mind, so he'd skulk off back into his cot besides which a rifled-through Bible sat open to 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13. Evander Pruitt loved everyone, but in these terrible hours, he did not love himself.

It was out on the endless prairie where the farms were burning, spinning coils of black into the sky that were circled by the buzzards. They had chased Old Pap's army all the way across Missouri into Kansas. These rebels had been a miserable lot. They wore rags, their pockets stuffed with ammunition and molded bread. The lucky ones had shoes. They ate the land up like locusts. Starving themselves, they robbed what little was left on any farmstead they encountered, no matter if the inhabitants were secesh or Unionist. Every man they encountered they either shot or conscripted. Evander and his troop of Jayhawker Unionists snapped and hounded at the rebel column that moved through the land like an evil menace upon the Earth. They were galled by the dead that was left dribbling in its wake, both soldiers and civilians.

Once, they had caught up with a straggling column of Johnny Rebs that were sacking a homestead near Mine Creek, Kansas. They dismounted and fanned out into a crescent overlooking the farm from a wooded ridge. They heard the shrieking of a woman and the wail of a child. There were gunshots and it went silent. They swooped in on the farm and in a sharp spasm of violence they killed every Johnny Reb. Nine of them. They scalped every one of them, and then dragged their bodies to a pig sty and threw them in for the hogs to finish. Their mules weren't worth saving so they shot them too. When Evander walked into the farmhouse, he stumbled back out and vomited. Then they brought out the woman and the child and buried them.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or the sword? As it is written: for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered...

Amen.

The mother and the child. The Madonna and the Messiah. The bottle and the rope.

As all this was tormenting his mind, he was suddenly awoken by the ringing of a bell. It was his bell, which was hung from the outside pole of his tent. He rang it on Sundays to call the wicked to Christ. Who the hell is ringing my goddam bell?

Oh! I's sorry mistuh. I thought I's supposed to summon you by the rangin of this bell here.

Brother Pruitt sat up in his bed rubbing his eyes and grasped for his spectacles. Finding these he saw in his doorway a large black man. He wore a linen work shirt and denims and a wide-brimmed straw hat. His face looked like darkened copper in the morning light.

Who the hell are you?

Oh! Sir, my's name is Jonas Jackson, but all my friends call me Big Jim Crow. I reckon you can too.

Evander sensed he was missing something, so he straightened himself somewhat and beckoned the man to enter. As he did so, Evander washed his face from an enamel basin and ignored the signs of a creeping hangover.

Well, he said. I didn't think anyone besides a bunch of street urchins would ring my bell. I'm sorry. What can I help you with, sir?

Big Jim removed is hat and seemed uncertain how to start.

Well sir, Big Jim proceeded. I've been watching you, and some of the other preachers too. I've been looking to be baptized, and I thought I'd ask you to wash me in the Holy Spirit, sir. If you'll have me, of course.

The request did not confuse Brother Pruitt, but the circumstances had. He had just been thinking about hanging himself again. He might have gone through with it this time too, he thought. He searched Big Jim's eyes for something, maybe a sign. But all he saw was just the eyes of another man. What were his demons, he wondered? Did he have boo hags too? It did not matter. In that moment, there were two men searching for Jesus in one another.

For where two or three are gathered in My Name, there am I in the midst of them.

They spoke at length where Evander Pruitt learned of Jonas Jackson's yearning, his hunger for the Bread and Water of Life. The Saving Grace. The redemption of one man's Soul manifest in a world of sin in a universe of suffering. And when he heard all this, agreed to baptize Big Jim Crow in the Holy Spirit. And bye and bye, this had been done, and Big Jim Crow was cleansed of his Original Sin even if the country he lived in could never be cleansed of its own. And Brother Pruitt lived yet to continue serving the Lord.

XXXIII

Alabama declared Independence from the United States of America on January 11, 1861. Or so the document said. It went through on a vote of 61 to 39 among the delegates of the Secession Convention, which had convened in Montgomery. A young negro page had rushed out of the legislative chambers to announce it to the throng of citizens who gathered below the Capitol steps. Everyone erupted in cheers! Steamboats piped their horns as fireworks burst over the wharfs along the Alabama River. A torchlight ball in the open streets of Commerce Street where bands played Dixie. The flag of the United States was hauled down from the Capitol and replaced by the flag of the Bonnie Blue. This new flag snapped brightly below that of the flag of Alabama, now paramount among nations to these celebrants.

As it were, the delegates from the Nickajack were disgusted. Most of them had opposed secession against the radicals. They included youthful Greeks like William Marmaduke and Branse Havelock and Burnside Lee. Even Bourbon George was a hold out until the last moment when he threw in his lot with the secessionists. These radicals, who were branded the Fire-Eaters, felt they were inaugurating a new Second American Revolution. But it was wholly reactionary and lacked any of those fundamental humanistic merits embodied in the Spirit of '76. It was, quite simply, a dangerous and escalatory political ploy to protect the institution of slavery, Union be damned.

They called the present crisis the "Negro Quarrel," but it really meant war. It had been the inevitable trajectory of history that was arcing towards this moment, when the question of human bondage and its place in modern society must be settled. America would be all free, or it will be all slave, as Mr. Lincoln defined the quandary, but it would all be the same. And this he was prepared to do by the sword to keep the whole lot together, and the same as it were. And so the war came.

For the negroes in bondage, they knew something was up in the air. Very few among them had any idea about politics. Asking about it was taboo. Politics was impossible to grasp for the slave without any political agency to exercise it. But they did have the 'grapvine telegraph,' that vast diaphanous network of rumor and gossip that travelled across the landscape. Slaves who ran errands traded information in the towns with other slaves and white trash. And though slaves could not read the papers, the network originated with people who did, especially in Louisville, Kentucky. News travelled down with the railroad.

Jonas Jackson, who was called Big Jim Crow on account of the blackface minstrel ditty, learned about the secession as he was unloading a consignment of wood at Cottonport. He was a carpenter and slave for Lawrence Darby, a yeoman of Limestone County who owned 80 acres and four slaves. He didn't understand it anymore than the stevedore he exchanged the news with. When he returned home to his Master, however, he found him pale and looking rather shocked. He sat next to the fire place staring into the flaming pit.

Eveythang okay massa? Can I getchu somethin to drank?

He didn't answer, although Master Darby did look thoughtfully at Big Jim and pouted. Then he gently held Big Jim's wrist, which confused him. What he felt in this grasp was trepidation. It crept into him through his Master's hand. From it he sensed things were about to change. More than that, he sense upheaval and calamity. He also sensed death. All these things processed through his mind in no real order. But one thread remained constant among the babel of possibilities. It resolved itself into an infinite point of light. And in it, he sensed the spark of freedom.