Far and Wide, Way in the Distance

By C. D. Harper

The need/necessity of Emanuel having to run here and there, resting but running again, farther, always away from the known and always into the unknown, looking, searching, hoping, like a tree branch that reaches and stretches every year.

• Language: English
• Publisher: URLink Print & Media, LLC
• Release date: Feb 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781684863532

C. D. Harper

C. D. Harper is a retired Professor of Theatre Arts and Dance, California State University, Los Angeles, where he served as Chair of the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance, Founding Executive Director of the Harriet and Charles Luckman Fine Arts Complex, Founder of the Luckman Jazz Orchestra. He also served as Executive Assistant to the President of the University. He received an undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois, and a Master and Ph.D. from St. Louis University. Dr. Harper has published two novels: Covenant and Face the Unknown. He resides in Gleneden Beach, Oregon.

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Part 1

Chapter 1

It Was Illegal But …

The slave trade was declared illegal around 1808 or so, although there was still a lot of activity going on in the slavery business, especially in the Southern colonies and certain places up north, like New York and Rhode Island. And in South American!

There were thousands of slave births, too. Apparently, there was a lot of interaction going on among the slaves and between the slave gals and their masters or just some plain white men who might be travelling by and ran upon some slave gal. And to make sure those relationships were protected, any baby born of a slave mother was a slave. And it didn’t matter if the baby looked white or black or anything in between.

While any black baby born to a white mother was free, like its mother. Of course, those babies would often disappear from everything, including accurate record keeping. And since white men owned all slave women, they could do whatever they wanted with and to them. The more slaves, the wealthier the owners.

Emmanuel was one of those whose mother had to have been white. How he got away was never known! He was different. He grew up with Nurse Herring and her daughter, Jeanne. They both had white skin. And any skin tone darker than white or what was called white was considered colored or black. Emmanuel, he had kind of white skin, sort of; at least it looked that way. Some called it dirty white because it had African genes mixed in with white genes.

He was born in the mountains of Northern Virginia, not a black baby freed by someone else, but a baby, as peculiar as that might sound! How he got there and who his mother and father were, he didn’t know. Nurse Herring only told him it had something to do with an abolition society or group or cult. What? She didn’t know, at least that’s what she said. So, he was treated like one of her family. Why? He didn’t know!

He didn’t have a surname. And since he didn’t belong to anyone, Emmanuel was just Emmanuel, his own person, so to speak. He could have had a last name or should have, but Nurse Herring didn’t have time to think much about that. He didn’t have any name when she got him, so she started calling him Emmanuel. That was it!

Nicodemus Swarthmore, ho’wever, was different! He inherited a huge plantation with many slaves, some of them had special skills and he would loan them out to various other slave owners to help them with special problems. The Swarthmore Plantation was the most productive plantations in the area and beyond. He was a firm believer in slavery! All men of substance, he thought, should have the opportunity to own slaves. It built a certain kind of strength and character.

Nicodemus was a mulatto. His mother was old man Swarthmore’s daughter who fell in love with a handsome slave and out came Nicodemus. His mother died giving birth to him and the father found himself hanging from the end of a rope. Grandpa Swarthmore took Nicodemus in and treated him like a grandson, taking him to church and sitting in the rich white folk section, teaching him how to run the plantation and instilling all his knowledge and believes in him, like he was his grandson. And finally, when the old man decided to take a seat in thar old rocking chair on his porch and do nothing, he expected Nicodemus to take over, to manage the Swarthmore Plantation. After all that’s what he had prepared him to do.

But Nicodemus Swarthmore found himself on Captain Scott Willoughby’s freighter, Trustworthy II, along with Emmanuel, the free man of color.

Captain Scott and Nicodemus Swarthmore lived the typical white American life based on the prosperity of slavery. And Emmanuel? He remembered Nurse Herring and Jeannie. That was all!

They were always in his life, sleeping together in the same bed. Jeannie on one side of Nurse Herring and Emmanuel on the other. The three of them were always together, Emmanuel and Jeannie learning doctoring and helping Nurse Herring with her nursing. She taught Emmanuel about her world and how medicine could heal the sick. And never once did she ever mentioned anything about his being different in any way, except she did explain how he was physically different from Jeanne, who as she matured, lose interest in learning about nursing. Her greatest joy appeared to be spending time with Emmanuel. And with that recognition Emmanuel was soon sent on his way to find his way without Jeanne or Nurse Herring!

Hey boy, get your lazy ass off my steps! What the hell is wrong with you? Get on away from here! Now git! You hungry or something? Get on ‘round the back! That’s where niggers belong, Where you from? Done run off from your master? Now get on away from here! I don’t have folks like you around here! Get on round back! Ain’t saying you‘ll get anything. That’s where niggers belong. You know that!

When Emmanuel stood, Doc Willow was surprised to discover standing before him was a young dirty-white-skinned or in the Doc’s eyes a really light skinned slave, tall, erect, maybe in his late teens or early twenties and good looking with curly almost straight hair. He had never seen a slave as handsome as this boy or maybe he had not noticed before. But this one did look different and illustrated a level of confidence he had never seen in a slave.

There was something about his eyes, a quickness and brightness, different from other slaves he had seen, including the two female slaves who worked for him. Their expectations were different! They both had to be prepared to perform personal and special intimate duties for Doc. Willow.

And his wife, Miss Charlene, would have them do special household jobs, cooking and emptying all the slop jars, washing and ironing, and cleaning the house. But their main responsibility was to be available to assist Doc. Willow in whatever his needs were. And she knew exactly what that meant!

Doc. Willow didn’t own them, and neither did Miss Charlene. They belonged to his uncle, Arthur, who owned and operated a large plantation right up the road a piece, maybe three or four miles, within walking distance. And none of his uncle’s slaves looked like this boy standing before him.

Go on ‘round the back and somebody will meet you at the door, maybe with something to eat, maybe not. Where you from?

Emmanuel looked at him and pointed to the north.

That way. He said.

That way? There’re lots of places ‘that way’. Where are you going? Doc Willow was thinking ‘this nigger might just look smart but be the dumbest nigger he had ever seen’.

Wherever I can find a place to be, get a job. Maybe here!

No! No! I don’t need you here! Don’t believe in owning slaves anyway. At least, I don’t think I do. Uncle Arthur always provides whatever I need when it came to that! So, you go on up there. He will take you, I’m sure. (laughs) If you was a gal slave, there would be no doubt!

But I’m not a slave. Emmanuel spoke with confidence and looked him in the eyes!

Doc. Willow quickly looked away but gather himself as quickly as he could. Sure! Sure? What else can you be. My uncle is a good man. He’ll treat you good. Well, get on ‘round back. Then take that road, take you right there! You best go on to my uncle’s before it gets too dark. Tell him I sent you. Otherwise, no telling what might happen to you. He’ll protect you.

Later that evening when Doc Willow walked out to his front porch for some fresh air. (He had just examined Mrs. Buckner who was always a bit pungent, especially under her dress.) He found that same bright—eyed slave sitting on his steps.

Boy! Didn’t I tell you just this morning to get away from here? Didn’t I? This is a doctor’s office! Don’t be hanging around here! Do you understand what I’m saying? Now get your black self away from here before I send for my uncle! I’m sure he could use another slave, ‘specially one looking like you. Did them black gals of mine try to get you in the house? Did that? Did you touch them? I’ll send their asses back for some fresh ones if you did! You understand, boy? Now get on away from here!

I thought you might …

What, you hungry?

Yes, I am. I was hoping you would be as generous as before. I could use a job, too. Maybe you could use some help.

Wait a damn minute, boy. Slaves don’t ask for jobs. Doc Willow wanted to laugh.

I’m not a slave, never been a slave. Told you that earlier.

Then what the hell are you? The desire to laugh was gone and Doc seemed more perplexed. Every nigger I know is a slave. That’s all they can be. The good Lord made that very clear when He made yawl black and us white!

I’m not a nigger, either. I’ve heard that word before but not in reference to me.

Listen to you! I’ll never heard a nigger talk like that. Hell, my uncle wouldn’t allow that! You need to be talking like a nigger!

And how is that?

I ain’t got time for this! Get on ‘round back. I’ll have a bag of food for you, then get your ass away from here and don’t come back. You hear me? I got two nigger wenches and that’s enough. Don’t need no male slave anyway.

What about a job? I know a little about doctoring on people?

Wait! (Laughs) You asking me for a job, a doctoring job, putting your black hands on white folks? What in the world… The precision of his language suggested to Doc Willow that he had been exposed to some learning in something or he had been around white folks who allowed him to imitate the way they talked. Slaves were supposed to be inferior, God made them that way, but there was nothing inferior about the way this nigger talked and acted or looked. Nothing! He had never seen a nigger like this before. How old are you?

I’m not sure. Jeannie said I am older than her by four or five years. She just turned fifteen or so, I think. That’s what her mother said. But Jeannie said she was about eighteen. Nurse Herring sent me away because Jeannie was getting up in age and wanted to always be around me. Plus, there was only one bed. I’m sure you understand!

Because of what? Ohhh! You meant Miss Jeanne wanted to be around you and she was old enough to, I see. Now I see. And she … I’m sure she, what was her name? Nurse Herring? It was like a bell went off in his head and he chuckled.

I never called her Miss Jeanne and she never called me Mr. Emmanuel. From a little girl she was always with me. We sorta grew up together. The three of us!

I see, where were you before that? Doc Willow was getting more and more curious.

"Before what? I was always with Nurse Herring and Jeanne. Sometimes I was on a boat, off and on, helping out the Doctor. I never believed he was a real doctor. Nurse Herring would send me there to help. She taught me things that the Doctor on the boat didn’t know about, but I did.

So, you been a slave around medicine all your life. That’s where you think you learned doctoring, huh?

I told you I was never a slave. Must I always repeat myself?

You got papers to prove that?

No, never needed papers. I was like Jeannie. Everybody treated us the same. We were a family, as long as I can remember. Sometimes on the boat… I think Nurse Herring and the doctor, well, that wasn’t my business. Anyway, Nurse Herring was a real doctor in her old country. That’s what she said.

And where was that?

I don’t know. Sometimes she did talk in a funny language, she and the doctor. Me and Jeannie would laugh at them.

So where did you come from?

Where do people come from? I told you! I was a member of Nurse Herring’s family until recently, until she sent me away. How many times must I repeat myself?

Was she your mother?

Of course not! All she ever said was I was born in a secret abolition society somewhere in the North Virginia mountains where they allowed people to be people. That’s all I know! Emmanuel impatience was showing.

A secret abolition society? Well, I never heard of such a thing? Maybe my uncle would know about that or should know. Can’t have your kind thinking you not slaves.

It was a secret group! Emmanuel looked at the Doc, shook his head and started to walk off.

Where are you going? You, you can’t just walk away from me when I’m talking to you! Slaves don’t do that! I will call for help if I need to.

Emmanuel walked further away from Doc Willow and smiled.

Who would you call? There are only the two slave women and a white woman in your house. I’ve been watching this house and you for days. You are the only man here.

Easy picking, uh! What do you want? Doc Willow was obviously getting nervous. His uncle had told him once to never let a slave know when you get to that point, but he feared it was too late.

I know something about doctoring, and you need some help. And I have run out of food. I will work for food.

Like a slave, huh? That’s all they get!

There was silence for several minutes. Then Emmanuel walked away, saying loud enough for Doc Willow to hear him. I’m not a slave. My goodness, how many times must I tell him that!

Then what are you? Doc Willow spoke loudly but didn’t move. What? You expect me to pay you? Emmanuel continued to walk away.

Then he stopped and looked at Doc Willow, shaking his head, then continued to walk away slowly, which seemed to frustrate Doc Willow.

What! He shouted. You hear me talking to you!

Emmanuel stopped and this time turned to face him, which seemed to startle Doc Willow.

That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Right? And I was always paid for my work. I will not work if I’m not paid. Emmanuel could see the uncertainty, even fear, on the Doc’s face. He suspected his fear was visible, too, but not from any uncertainty. He was certain that he was not a slave and never would be a slave. He had met escaping slaves who’s entire being was immersed in fear. He didn’t want to live with that kind of fear. Never!

"Well, I never heard of such! People like you are always slaves; always will be, even if you think you know something about doctoring. There’s nothing wrong with being a slave, you know. Where would this country be without slavery? I’ll tell you where. Nowhere! Probably wouldn’t exist. God made places for each of us to be and do to help build His kingdom. He put you where you are, where you supposed to be. And me? Where I am! Where I’m supposed to be! That’s that! God did all of this! For his glory! Hell, we look like him! You don’t! You look like the devil! Well, most slaves do! But he let you be here with us to help build His kingdom! You ought to be proud and happy!

Nurse Herring said I was not a slave, never been a slave. People with any abolitionist notions are against what you’re talking about. They talk about a different God, a different kingdom, I guess. Don’t you know that? And didn’t you say you don’t believe in slavery? Are you an abolitionist?

Of course not! I don’t, I just don’t believe… what I said was… I don’t believe in owning slaves … you wouldn’t understand. Doc Willow looked at him.

Why wouldn’t I?

Some things are just too hard for your kind to understand. (laughs) You, you must think you’re like me.

In most ways I am. Have you doctored on anyone like me? Did you see anything different, feel anything different? I don’t think so! You want me to think I am not like you, but I know I am. That’s why you want uncle’s slaves to try out a medical procedure or some medication before people like you. If it works on us, make us well, then it will work on you, right? Emmanuel took several steps toward him.

Doc Willow raised his hand stopping him. It was clear he was nervous and didn’t know what to do. He realized it would take his uncle and his people more time than he thought he would have to rescue him. And beyond that he had no means of contacting him or anyone who could help if he needed it.

He couldn’t decide if he should be afraid or resent this uppity nigger or what. He was different and kind of interesting, but scary at times, talked differently and seemed to have some real thinking capacity. But he was still a nigger, a slave! What would happen if they developed more niggers like him up in those Mountains?

You’re not like me, which explains why slavery was the correct and Christian thing for you. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and many other great leaders of this country believed that. You know they both had slaves, just as God had planned, right? You knew that, right?

That’s what he said. But Doc Willow really didn’t know what else to say, didn’t know how to explain what he had accepted as the appropriate way of life. God’s way of life! He had never had to explain or think about it. And he didn’t know if he liked the challenge! There was something about this slave that confuse him or make him think about things he had just accepted.

You go on ‘round to the back door. I’ll meet you there.

Whatever happened at that back door on that evening, whatever was said between Doc Willow and Emmanuel was never ever spoken about again.

Emmanuel become Doc Willow’s assistant. Some folk said he did most of the doctoring, unless it was a white female who objected. They would insist on Emmanuel leaving the room. But he listened and consulted with Doc. Willow after the patient left. But there were those who didn’t object, especially after the word got around about Doc. Willow new success. If it were a slave woman, Doc Willow would always smile. He seemed to enjoy the way most of them had to pay for his service. His uncle didn’t object. Often that would lead to an impregnated slave! Of course, that happened all the time. There were, consequently, more and more light-skinned slaves around, at least that’s what his uncle told him, but none were like Emmanuel.

Doc Willow didn’t want to believe him! How could they live if there were more slaves like Emmanuel? Too smart for their raggedy pants! With more and more of them looking like they half white or white … he didn’t know what to think!

He soon learned the breadth and depth of Emmanuel’s knowledge and was impressed, but never told him that. The strange thing was Doc Willow was never convinced that Emmanuel was never a slave. If he were, if there is this abolitionist community up in the mountain creating men like him, then somebody has to do decide what to do! What if there were others like Emmanuel, doing the same thing as he was, especially when he doctored on those white ladies who didn’t mind having his black hands all over their bodies? What if there were other smart-ass slaves doing what only white men was supposed to do? What then?

Doc Willow’s office was in a little area that had no name when his grandfather first opened his office. The story was his grandfather was a doctor already when he got there from some little village in England, and when he died, Doc. Willow, who had worked as his assistant, just took over his practice and lived in the same house, slept in the same bed, used the same quilt, and ate on the same table with the same utensils as his grandfather, but he didn’t have the earned official Medical Degree. So, his learning about medicine was trial and error and reading the many books his grandfather left and a few new ones he brought himself.

Doc Willow had increased his doctoring knowledge by using slaves and Indians and poor whites as experimental pieces, under his grandfather experienced eye. Of course, it wasn’t unusual for his grandfather and him to used slaves as research objects to cut on and try new medicine on and new cutting technic or tools to made sure the research could teach them more about the human body and how to repair it. That knowledge was really needed to help save the lives of white folks. His grandfather had told him he was as good as any of the so-called doctors with medical degrees. Much of his learning had been on real bodies. The plantation supplied a constant supply of dead and alive slave bodies.

Everyone that needed medical care, including some slaves and some Indians, always said they were going down to Doc Willow Place. That become the name of that area. So, folks from near and far would travel to Doc. Willow Place in search of medical assistance. The peculiar thing was that area appeared on the North Carolina official map as Doc Willow Place!

The Indians were actually there first. Doc Willow didn’t know if they had a name for that area or not. It really didn’t matter because the Indians were always on the move according to the hunting season and the weather. How long they had been at Doc Willow Place? No one cared nor did it matter, it seemed! What they called it didn’t matter either! The Indians were on land that their ancestors lived on and used as needed and in the same way their grandparents did.

Doc’s uncle was responsible for all of the slaves in the area, except for those who lived up in the mountain. No one ever talked about their father or their mother and he never asked. There was something about them that no one talked about.

His grandfather, the head of the Willow family, called Doc Willow’s uncle, Arthur. All that land had been given to them by the federal government. Back in those days all Arthur had to do was have some slaves, claim the land, and it was his.

Arthur was known as a stern master who kept his slaves in line. No escapes from his place, at least that’s what he would say, but up on the side of the mountain was a community of escaped slaves, some of them from Arthur’s plantation. It was a stopping off place, a place where slaves could become ex-slaves, where relatives met and friends and traveling buddies got to know each other and sometimes the weak became the strong. But then there were those who stayed around to help the new arrivals find their compass that would lead them into and through the unknown.

Early on, there was this unspoken understanding that allowed the plantation and the slave’s stopping off place up in the mountain to co-exist. When Arthur had several slaves to escape, that mountain community would be the first place he would look. And, of course, often his slaves wouldn’t be there, and sometimes all the slaves would have disappeared, depending on the weather, time of year, and the need to protect new arrivals. Sometime news from the underground railroad would cause the entire community to disappear for a while.

There were times when Arthur would surprise them and collect only his slaves, but there were also times he would take a few others. But he always left the community intact. It was his safety net. He either found his slaves there or took replacements.

Arthur didn’t have to do that with the Indians. Of course, they were not the slave type, whatever that meant. They refused to be slaves! They preferred to be themselves, a part of nature. What happened to the Indians were different. They all, most of them, just disappeared. In about two weeks most of them were gone. Doc Willow heard that they were given land in the northwest and in the southwest where they could live in peace and be and do like they wanted, establish their burial grounds, their sacred waters, just be the Indians that nature and their ancestors prepared them to be. So, most of them disappeared. Arthur told Doc Willow they had to go. They didn’t have a choice. The government said it had a place for them where they could be themselves. Go! The government said and they went!

Their leaving made it possible for Arthur to increase the size of his plantation. Land and more land meant the need for slaves and more slaves. Arthur brought slaves and contributed his seed to the making of even more. Some looked like him. Others looked like the other white men he had working for him. And some looked like other slaves who were free to contribute their seed to the making of more and more slaves!

There were always more slaves than the owner and the white plantation workers and the poor whites, who lived off the plantation but close enough to be available if needed!

And that ex-slave community in the mountains grew in number and size. Its growth, however, was more problematic and scarier for Arthur and the other whites around them.

There were now two, at least two, of those ex-slave communities of escaped and freed slaves scattered across the mountain side above Arthur’s plantation and Doc Willow Place. They all lived in peace or relative peace until the slaves’ riots in other places grew in number and articles started to appear in Journals, newspapers and the riots became the main topic of conversation among white people, rich and poor. And the fact that in many areas the slaves outnumbered the plantation owners and their white community! There were also reports of slaves killing their masters or having their way with white women. And the messages on the underground railroad encouraged the slaves to think about and pursue escaping, heading north or west or into Mexico, looking for a place to be.

The Willow family realized that they could not survive without the help of the Arthur and his community of scattered poor whites and