Page 172 of The End of the World As We Know It

He’s coming for you. For all of us.

She felt that message down to her bones. And she wanted to run, understanding the plight of Jonah in a whole new way. She stroked her Bible and whispered, “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

“Abby Hardestry. I swear every time I see you, you’ve got a new name.” Working in the fields had roughened Hariett Woodson’s voice. While the Freemantles came to Nebraska as freed slaves—part of the Exodusters movement, the thousands of Black folks who moved into the Great Plains—Hattie was a Kincaider. In 1904, the Kincaid Act amended the Homestead Act to provide 640-acre land claims for settlers in Nebraska’s Sand Hills. It presented a huge opportunity for Black folks to build something they could call their own. Hattie’s people were one of the founding families of Speese.

“I see you as sensitive as ever, Hattie. Leave my poor David be.” Hattie knew well that David passed a while back.

“You just couldn’t wait to get back in the saddle. Or be saddled.” Hattie threw her head back in raucous laughter. From anyone else, the words would sound harsh or mean; from her, they cut to the heart of the matter. Always speaking her mind, always couched in a love for her people, she had an infectious way about her. Hattie wrapped her arm around Abagail’s and walked beside her. “You all hate to leave Hemingford Home, especially just to hang out with us non-respectable Negroes.”

“You hush.”

“You know I ain’t told no lie. We all just common folk once your dad became a member of Grange Hall.” There was something else under Hattie’s words. A constant challenge. Hattie was a hard woman, always stirring folks up. Organizing fights for voting rights, she often spoke at the NAACP meetings in Omaha.

“Where are we going?” A part of Abagail sought her out like she was a missing piece of who she wanted to be.

“To a barrelhouse. You look like you could use a break. A drink, too, frankly.”

“I don’t think so.”

“A girl can dream, can’t she? Come on.”

Hattie led them down the unpaved road apace, round the bend, and up a hill. Throughout Nebraska, from Omaha to Hemingford Home—all across America, truth be told—under the veneer of civility, the mood was angry. A season of blood spread like a contagion across the country. The South was one thing, but the North wasn’t much better, just hidden behind a more polite mask. Workers seethed over job losses and the rising cost of living. It seemed like everyone quit working and went on strike: boilermakers, tailors, truck drivers, butchers. TheGatlin Beekept running articles about businesses hiring Black folk to replace their striking workers alongside crime waves involving Black criminals. The newspaper editorials pounded a constant drumbeat about Negro attacks and police failure to make arrests, and rumors of white women assaulted by Black men.

“Look over there. You can see Gatlin from here. Filled with a bunch of men who made their money from bootlegging, but want to crow about being upstanding citizens. Honest and law-abiding. God-fearing.” Hattie spat off to the side.

Before long, they wandered down a secluded grove and soon arrived at a run-down barn, its planks half-rotted, its paint peeling. A beaten-up sign swung in the wind, the name obscured. A group of men eyed them as they walked up. A couple were Black soldiers who had gone off to the Great War to fight for liberty and had returned to a home where they did not have freedom for themselves. A man in well-patched overalls—the brim of his broad hat frayed about the edges—tipped his cap at them and kept drinking. He was one of the Black folks who moved from the cotton fields of the South to searchfor work in the North during the Great Migration. Though hate followed them like a dogging shadow, they were still able to carve out spaces to call their own.

“What sort of place have you brought me to?” Abagail asked.

“The kind that brews its own moonshine out back.” Hattie half curtsied to the Broad-Brimmed Hat Man.

He opened the door. The bar was fashioned from repurposed wood, surrounded by mismatched tables and chairs scattered around a hardwood dance floor. String lights ran the length of the walls. Abagail knew she wouldn’t get the smell of cigarette smoke out of her clothes for days. In the corner, a man pounded the keys of a piano, wringing all the blues and boogie-woogie he could out of it. A woman belted out lyrics at the top of her lungs to the whoops and hollers.

“Oh my God how I love to be sexy with my man

And how I love him to be sexy with me

When he gets me

What he gets me

What he shoots in me”

“Oh… my.” Abagail blushed. The energy of the room, the easy laughter, the carrying on, it felt like she belonged. She harbored secret ambitions for herself beyond singing at churches. Of maybe one day performing for the smart set, being booked through the Sherman Dudley Theatrical Enterprises touring company. Maybe make a hot record. Make a decent buck. It all felt like a life within her grasp. All it would require was her just… choosing.

“Please, my Lord, my Lord, not unless I have to, I’d rather have you take this cup from my lips if You can.” She’d seen a heap during her time on earth, nothing to match the doings of the latest months. The call of God wasalways about His mission. Moses was called to wander a desert and climb a mountain, never to enter the Promised Land. Noah saved his family from God’s wrath and judgment by flood only to drink himself into a stupor with his survivor’s guilt.

In response to her prayer, a crow squawked from a telephone pole. Its wings fluttered. It cocked its head, its eyes dark and knowing, studying her with a merciless scrutiny. Her opposite number was close. So close she could almost feel his hot, fetid breath on the back of her neck.

“My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O Lord—how long?!” She yelled into the night, her loud cry followed by a sudden burst of tears. “I’m old and I’m scared and mostly I’d just like to lie right here on the home place. I’m ready to go right now if You want me. Thy will be done, my Lord, but Abb’s one tired shuffling old Black woman. Thy will be done.”

Several more crows landed, settling onto the branches. The inky sky silhouetted them. A couple more dropped onto the pathway. Their glossy wings reflected the moonlight, giving them an eerie sheen. Their unsettling caws an aphonic drone. An ominous hum resonating with a sinister energy. Even without looking, she knew she had company. Her eyes darted to the crows, the man-shaped shadow she knew lurked in the darkness.

“I don’t think I’m supposed to be somewhere like… here.”

“In such a den o’ heathens?” Hattie asked.

“I just don’t want Daddy to be embarrassed if folks was to find out I was in places like this. Ain’t a place for a respectable woman. Not at all.”