The Bottoms

16

Two afternoons later Mose was buried on our place, between the barn and the field. Daddy made him a wooden cross and carved MOSE on it, swore when he got money he’d get him a stone.

A couple black folks Daddy knew who knew Mose came out, but the only whites there were our family. There was some didn’t have no truck with what was done to Mose, but they didn’t want it known they’d show up at a colored man’s funeral.

At night, when I closed my eyes, I saw Mose hanging, his pants down, cut, bleeding, his eyes and tongue bulged, that rope around his neck. It would be some time before I could lay down and not have that image jump immediately to mind, and some years before it didn’t come back to me on a regular basis. Funny things would set it off. Just seeing a rope, or a certain kind of limb on an oak, or even the way sunlight might be falling through limbs and leaves.

Even now, from time to time, it comes back to me clear, as if it happened day before yesterday.

Part Four