The Good Lord Bird

When they reach Pikesville, men ask Chase if it’s true that John Brown has been killed. He says yes: that he saw him knocked off of a bridge and that he put every one of his bullets into him. The men take Chase to a saloon and buy him drinks. Henry and Bob watch as Chase embellishes the story to the point where he claims to have killed Brown with his bare hands.

After many hours, a drunken Chase takes Henry to the Pikesville Hotel. He ignores more men who want to buy him drinks at the hotel and begins shouting for a woman named Pie. She is a mulatto woman, and the most beautiful person Henry has ever seen. Pie demands that Chase give her nine dollars that he owes to her, and Chase offers her Henry instead, claiming that “Miss Abby could use her” (133). Pie says that Henry is “so ugly, she’d curdle a cow” (134).

Upstairs, Pie sends Henry into a room where he meets an ugly white woman named Abby. Henry sees a woman taking a bath in a tub near the wall and faints. When he wakes, Abby is squeezing his body, telling him that he is “flat as a pancake” (136). Knowing that Abby will discover he is a boy, Henry runs out of the room and through a door in the hallway, into a room where Chase and Pie are having sex. Henry hides under their bed while they try to get him out. Abby and Chase leave the room, and Pie talks sweetly to Henry, who, after seeing Pie half-naked, is convinced that he is in love with her.

After coming out from under the bed, Henry goes to Pie for a hug, but she bends him over her knee and pulls up his dress to spank him. When she sees that he is a boy, she is horrified, saying, “Them rebels find out you was on the Hot Floor, peeking at them white whores, they’ll cut out them little grapes hanging between your legs and stick them down your gizzard. Might pull me in on it too” (141). Pie wants to help Henry escape, but says that Bob is going to be sold. Henry says that if Brown finds out that Bob is old, he’ll kill everyone in the brothel when he arrives.

Henry asks Pie to take him to Dutch’s place, but Pie can’t do it because she can’t travel without papers. Henry says that he will write papers for her. When Pie learns that Henry can read, she asks him to teach her. If Henry will help her learn to read and write, Pie will keep his secret and convince Abby to let him work cleaning the rooms at the brothel until they figure out how to escape. Henry agrees.

Pie sews a pretty dress for Henry and teaches him etiquette like curtsying and making small talk with men. Henry doesn’t hate his time in the brothel, and Miss Abby comes to remind him of Dutch. But Bob has to stay outside in what is called the “slave pen” (146), and Henry feels guilty about it. One evening he sneaks outside to visit Bob. The conditions are depressing: over twenty men, women, and children are inside, and the smell is terrible. A crazy woman named Sibonia throws a ball of mud at Henry and it hits him in the face. Sibonia’s sister, Libby, stops her and talks to Henry.

She knows Henry is a boy instantly and tells him that there is no one named Bob there. Before Henry leaves, Sibonia mutters, “This child is troubled” (161). Sibonia then keeps making mud balls and stacking them in a pile. She tells Henry that it is dangerous to pretend that he can’t read, and that it will get them all in trouble. She also says that if Henry will write her a pass so that she can escape, she will tell him what is happening with Bob.

A week later a girl comes into the house and tells Henry that there is a Bible meeting in the slave pen. This is Sibonia’s signal that Bob is there. Bob’s clothes are ripped and he says that working in the sawmill is killing him. The other slaves don’t ever speak to him and he claims that Sibonia is a witch. A huge colored man named Darg comes out of the house and tells Henry to leave unless he can prove that Miss Abby sent him to talk to Bob. Darg is threatening and Henry leaves immediately.

One evening Pie gets into an argument with a man named Judge Fuggett while the hotel is full of rebels. Fuggett explains to the crowd that nine of the slaves have been planning an insurrection and intend to kill white families in Pikesville. He will try them the following morning. Henry runs upstairs to tell Pie, who says, “They should hang ‘em all. Every one of them low-down, no-count niggers” (161).

Downstairs, Sibonia is brought into the saloon in chains. Fuggett names her as the leader of the insurrection. Sibonia admits that she and Libby are the sources of the revolt. She refuses to implicate any other slaves and says, “If I had the chance, I would do it again” (163). She is not afraid of torture or death and the men put her back in the slave pen while they argue about how to proceed. Fuggett learned about the insurrection from “a trusted colored. Known to many of you” (164) and believes that the plot is real.

The next day, Fuggett sends the town’s minister to speak with Sibonia. She respects him and cannot lie to him. But during their conversation, she convinces him that she does not believe the revolt would have been a sin. The minister prays with her, then tells Fuggett he is leaving the town. 

Two days later Fuggett has the nine slaves hanged. A young man who is to be hanged collapses in tears as he nears the gallows. Sibonia tells him to be a man and goes first, as an example of courage to the others. Her hanging goes badly, as the rope is poorly adjusted and she only falls halfway through the gallow’s hole. The white people in attendance begin to question the justice of the sentence, but allow the hangings to proceed.

After the hanging, Pie cuts herself off from Henry and won’t speak to him. He believes that she is the one who told Fuggett about the plot, and assumes that her guilt is the cause of her silence. Henry begins to think that he should stop playing a girl and take his place as a man in the slave pen. He believes this would impress Pie. One afternoon he goes to tell her his intentions and she is not in her room.

He is looking for her outside when he hears Pie’s voice from Darg’s hut. Henry peeks through the door. Darg is having sex with her from behind, cursing her for spoiling the revolt while beating her with a switch the whole time. Henry wishes that he had a gun to shoot them both, but notices that Pie looks like she is enjoying the pain. 

After seeing Pie with Darg, Henry wants to escape, but “It weren’t slavery that made me want to be free. It was my heart” (176). He begins drinking liquor with the men in the saloon most nights, and they constantly pinch him and feel his buttocks. Chase returns from a failed cattle venture, and he and Henry often speak about how they are both in love with Pie.

Henry is lonely and goes to visit Bob, who tells him that the slaves believe that Henry was the one who gave them up to Fuggett. Before he can respond, a large slave named Broadnax grabs Henry’s arm. He says that he promised to teach Sibonia her letters so she could escape, and never came back to keep the promise. He promises Henry that when he finds out who told on Sibonia, he will make them suffer. Broadnax also believes that it might have been Bob, which worries Henry enough that he tells the other slaves that he and Bob rode with John Brown, which gets their attention.

After telling Broadnax the story of how he and Bob came to know each other, Broadnax agrees to let them both live. But he orders Henry to come and tell him whenever there are “Free Staters” (184) in the area, because he has heard rumors that they are on their way to help the slaves.

Henry wants to run away and leave town, but knows that Broadnax will kill Bob if he does. For the next few days, he drinks more heavily than usual. One evening Owen comes into the saloon and finds Henry. It has been two years since they have seen each other. He tells Henry that he will be back soon to get him. 

The next day Henry is able to slip out to the slave pen. Before he can tell Broadnax that the Free Staters are near, Darg comes out of his hut and walks towards them. The town is full of rebels who have also heard about the presence of abolitionists nearby, and everyone is armed. Darg is planning to whip Broadnax, who has been defying him during work, but Henry pretends to faint when Darg opens the gate to the slave pen. When he pretends to regain consciousness, Henry flirts with Darg and asks him for a drink of water. Suddenly the Free Staters ride up to the hotel and fire their way into the saloon. During the ensuing fight, they drive the rebels out.

Their leader is a man who calls himself Captain James Lane of the Free State Militia. Henry escapes into an alley, finds Bob, and they run together, only to be tripped by John Brown, who steps in front of them. Brown asks Henry if it is true that he has been “using tobacco, swearing” (194), and drinking. Henry admits it, but says that he is still pure in terms of virginity. Brown puts Henry on his horse and they ride out of Pikesville.