“If that masta get ahold a me, he finish me off. That’s why I stay hid. Every day I’s lookin’ out. I ain’t never goin’ back to bein’ a slave. They got to kill me first!” He sat quiet, as though exhausted from telling his story. Finally, he roused himself. “And what ’bout you?” he asked.
I was startled by his direct question. I had not expected to have him share his past so openly, and now he wanted the same from me. But how far could I trust him? Negroes were liars and thieves and always ready to take advantage of a white man. Yet so far, this one had only helped me. Dare I tell him how alone I was? Was it safe to tell him that when I fled my home, I left behind everyone and everything I cared about, knowing that I could never return?
“I knows you runnin’ like me. Why you got to get away, it don’ matter none to me.”
“I shot my father,” I said quietly, hoping that he heard me, for I did not want to repeat those words.
“We do what we got to do,” he said.
“I hated him. His name was Marshall. I always thought he was my brother, but only a few months ago I found out that he was my father.”
“Why you thinking he your brother?”
“My grandmother told me that I was her son and my dead grandfather was my father.”
“And what ’bout your mama?”
“At the same time I found out Marshall was my father, I learned that my real mother was a Negro.” It was difficult to believe my own words, for I still loved my grandmother as my true mother.
“So you take a gun to your daddy?”
“He was going to sell me for a slave,” I said.
“You kill him dead?”
“Yes.”
“And you a nigga?”
“My mother was a mulatto,” I said. “Her name was Belle.”
“Was she a light cullah?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And your daddy was white?”
I nodded. “I look just like him. I’m as white as he was.”
“That don’ matter. You still a nigga. But you can pass. That’s your bes’ bet.”
I had nothing to say.
“You got a family name?”
“Pyke,” I said. “I’m Jamie Pyke.”
“Not no more,” he said. “You got to go by somethin’ else.”
I stared into the fire. How could this be? Until a few months ago, I had thought of myself as white, and now, unbelievably, I was a Negro without a name, running for my life.
AS MY HEALTH returned, Henry’s manner toward me remained genial, and because I felt no judgment of my character, I ceased judging him. In fact, I came to rely on him so much that I disliked it when he left for his work at the tavern. When I was alone, any unusual noise startled me, and I would leave at a run to hide in the trees. My heart pounded as I hid, watchful and terrified, until I would emerge, weak with relief to realize that the disturbance had come from deer passing through or squirrels chasing one another. Daily I feared that Rankin, the treacherous overseer from our plantation, and his son Jake, two of the most ruthless men I knew, would find me. It was almost certain that they were still searching for me, and though they were known for their dogged determination in locating runaway slaves, their notoriety came from their merciless treatment of their captives.
Then gradually, as I became familiar to the particular sounds that came from living in the woods, I adapted to Henry’s primitive lifestyle. By the time we were well into the pleasant season of autumn, each morning after Henry set out for work, I quite happily spent the day in the outdoors. There, while gathering wood for our evening fire, I had the time to observe the wildlife around me. Birds were in abundance, and my childhood fascination with them grew.
My interest stemmed from a large book of bird illustrations that I had been given as a child. Kept indoors for most of my early years, when I was not reading the book, I used the images to teach myself to sketch and paint. When I grew older, I used a penknife to carve birds and woodland creatures out of wood. Now, alone in this forest, I often busied myself whittling and sketching, and for those hours I was free of worries.
I decided that I might remain with Henry indefinitely, but as colder weather approached, he began to suggest that it was time for me to consider my future. “You got to get into town, find some work an’ someplace to stay,” he said. “Snow comin’. It ain’t nothin’ like you see before. Snow here gets deep. Hard livin’ out here.”
“But what will I do? Where will I stay?” I argued, fear causing a high childish whine in my voice.
“You get a job easy enough if you go in passin’ for white. Thing is, you do that, you got to be careful,” he said.
I didn’t tell him that I had never considered anything other than presenting myself as white. I had never and would never consider myself a Negro. In fact, the idea disgusted me.
Henry thought awhile before he continued. “You pass, you got to cut ties with any niggas that you know.”
“I don’t know any,” I said.
“There’s me,” he replied, but it took a while before I caught his meaning.
AFTER I FOUND work in Philadelphia, I took Henry’s advice, and we cut ties. My life progressed and I did well for myself, establishing a place in Philadelphia society.
I was alarmed, then, when Henry sought me out some fifteen years later; he was a link to my past that could ruin me if it were exposed. I was living as a white man, in white society, with no affiliation to any Negroes other than those of my household staff. Yet suddenly, he appeared with the request that I give employment to his seven-year-old son.
I might have refused him, but after I saw his desperation, and faced with the debt I owed him, I could not refuse. Thus I agreed to take in Henry’s son, Pan, so he might be taught to perform the domestic duties in an established house.
On our first meeting, the young son struck me as rather delicate, with his slight build, dark skin, and ears that jutted out from his thin face. Pan’s unflinching brown eyes met my own, an unusual habit for one of his race. And it was there, in the boy’s eyes, that I recognized something of myself. For all of his bravery, they held something of the fear that I had felt when I first came to Philadelphia.
I agreed to provide for the boy, but I had no intention of becoming involved with him, and turned him over to Robert, my butler, and Molly, the cook, for use in the kitchen. A few weeks after his arrival, Molly reported back to me: “That boy, he’s something! He work like I tell him to, but you never see nobody ask questions like he do. ‘Why you do this? Why you do that?’ He even ask if I show him how to write down his name.”
Eventually, as Robert gave him more chores, I began to see Pan around the house more frequently. He was an uncommonly cheerful child, and when he saw me, he’d enthusiastically call out, “Hello, Mr. Burton!” And he didn’t leave it at that. Almost always his greetings included other comments, such as “Did you see my new shoes?” or “I’m sure gettin’ plenty to eat.” His demeanor was so winning that in spite of myself, I began to take notice of him.
Then came the day he found me cleaning the cage of my much prized cockatoo, Malcolm. When Pan opened the door to my upstairs room, his eyes opened wide. “What you doin’ with that bird?” he asked.
“I’m caring for him,” I said.
“Ain’t he supposed to be outside?” He looked back out the door. “Does Robert know you got him in here?”
Malcolm flew to Pan’s shoulder, and though the boy stiffened, he stood his ground. When the bird began to nose Pan’s ear, the boy did not move but rolled his eyes up at me. “He gon’ hurt me?”
“No, I rather think he likes you,” I said.
Malcolm leaped onto his favorite perch with a questioning squawk. Pan stared. “I sure never do see somethin’ like him before.”
“His name is Malcolm, and he is a salmon-crested cockatoo.”
“Where did you get him?”
“He was my first friend when I came to this house,” I said, surprising myself with my open answer.
“Your—”
“Naughty boy!” Malcolm interrupted, using his favorite phrase.
Pan gaped, then gave a nervous laugh. “That him talkin’?”
“It is,” I said.
“That bird was talkin’?”
“Yes, he mimics very well.”