June 16th, 1776
Slant is dead. Returned from our field exercises, I paid him a call at the hospital. He was not upon his bed. I found him shrouded in the wheelbarrow.
Thus informed by the sight of him covered by burlap, I set out from the hospital and returned to our camp, where Pomp swept out our tent. Upon my appearing, he put by his whisk and asked me how I fared.
I went to my pack and removed my razor. I gestured he should sit; and he knew the truth of it.
He sat before me without tear or grimace, and in silence, I shaved off his hair.
When I was finished, I sat, and he performed the same office for me. We both, I believe, thought upon that dream that one day we should all sit at the same table on Thanksgiving; that we should show our children our shirts, and tell them tales of when we were young.
It took Pomp some time to complete the shaving, he not being accustomed to that work. I welcomed every stumble, for it brought blood.
Bono came to our fly, bursting full of news; but seeing this tableau, he stopped up his tongue. He observed us in this rite, and though we shed no tears, he did. He whispered, “Liberty to Slant. Liberty to Slant.”
Slant was one of six to die this day. We took him in the evening down to the waterside. Isaac declaimed a prayer of his own devising. Olakunde, versed in the praise-song of Sonponna, spirit of smallpox, beat upon the dundun drum and sang of how the god could not dance, being lumbered with a wooden leg, but still could watch the dancing of others in his honor, O great one, Cold Ground, Hot Ground, Father in the Forest, Wind Like a Man, Peace to the Afflicted, Sweetly, Softly; and then we lowered the bodies into pits near the lapping water; where Slant’s blotched face was covered with sand, his gray eyes blinded with mud, and his limbs, finally, hidden forever from the sun. The last I saw of him, he lay on his left side, an amulet in his hand to guard against deviltry on his last, long journey.
Then began the awful crooning, the grimaced smiles, the mothers clapping for the death of their children to deceive the god. The shouting was loud tonight, and I thought on tall Slant, ill-toothed, slow of speech, gentle of heart. Before me, the crowd of twenty or so surged along the brink of the pit. Women courtesied with kerchiefs in their hands. Men lamented in joy and wailed in exultation, while others slapped juba upon their arms and thighs.
Bono took my hands; he drew me forward. I resisted, for I knew not the measures; but he insisted, and I followed, and found myself next to Pomp in the dance, next to Bono himself. Miss Nsia stood by the verge and watched us; we were among the others, and I knew none of the steps they assayed, but still I moved with them, my teeth clacking with each step; a leg unused to vivid motion, an arm; our bodies roiling above, Slant’s inert below, and we all beat time, we all bowed low, we all spun in the night, and paced in lines, and clapped.
For the first time, I danced.