We were trapped in a world where tomorrow was yesterday. The fire had come three times and gone, and now we were back where our fathers had been a hundred years ago. There were some—"Toms," I've heard them called— who went into slavery as if it were their birthright, but there were also those who fought and died rather than hoe in some redneck's field. Most of those who fought did die. But free.

"Go tell it on the mountain,

Over the hill and everywhere;

Go tell it on the mountain,

To let my people go...."

The fire came the first time when the good soldier-men in Washington and Moscow decided on mutual suicide. The Russians thought of victory in terms of population destruction. They shot at cities. Our people suffered more than Mr. Charley. We lived in the cities that were the targets. But so did the white liberals who were helping bring change.

The fire came a second time when militants burned the remnants of Whitey's cities. Mr. Charley was too busy with his war to be bothered then, but the fire came a third time when he finished and turned his attention inward. There was civil war between whites and blacks. Might may not make right, but it makes victory. White's Mate.

A Fool's Mate. Black loses, and now tomorrow is yesterday.

The war killed most all the good folks. They lived where the bombs fell. The rednecks and the militants seem to be the only survivors. And now the rednecks, who waited so long for their chance, are "puttin' 'em back in their place." There are very few of us out here in the hills. We're hunted, and running, but free.

My son Al came to me this morning, while I was at the spring getting water for breakfast coffee. He asked when we could go home. Said he's getting tired of camping in a smelly cave. He misses Jamey, the son of the white couple who lived next door in St. Louis. At five he's too young to understand a child killed in war. Nor would he understand if I told him Jamey's father was one of the vigilantes who drove us south into these hills. He wouldn't understand, and I'm afraid to try an explanation. Because I don't understand either.