Fear crawled right up my spine.
Saying nothing about what he had done to Hetty Scott, the man waded out of the water and walked right past me and Harrison. I heard the hard snap of twigs and brush as he stomped into the woods.
“Samuel,” Harrison said, pointing. “Go on. We s'posed to be following him.” But I didn't want to follow the man's cold shadow as it disappeared among the trees. I figured he was just gonna leave us somewhere, same as he had done to poor Hetty Scott.
A Forest of Silence
“Who else we gonna follow?” Harrison hissed. “Can't just stand on the riverbank waitin for them patrollers to come across the river and find us.” Harrison started into the woods, carrying the tow sack and leaning on his walking stick. He waved his arm, telling me to hurry.
But the river man was walking fast. Holding his pistol in one hand and the knife in the other, he weaved back and forth, cutting a crooked line around trees and fallen logs. It made my legs feel like someone had set them on fire, trying to keep up. As I followed his mean back, all kinds of questions circled inside my head.
Why had he gone and done something so terrible to poor Hetty Scott when she didn't do anything wrong? Why had he brought us across the river at all? Couldn't he see us walking and walking behind him? Where was he taking me and Harrison to?
Then the man stopped so sudden in the middle of the woods, I almost jumped out of my skin.
He stared hard at me.
Had he heard the talking in my head?
“How old are you, son?”
“Eleven,” I answered quiet. Kept my eyes down.
“That old man got a name?”
“Harrison. But he ain't that old,” I lied. “He only got rig-or mortis in his bones from working in the fields when he was young.”
“Rig-or mortis,” the man gave a deep, rolling laugh. Sounded like the laugh had something mean behind it. Like summer thunder coming across the cornfields.
The man looked back at Harrison, who was hobbling so far behind that all you could see was a speck of white tow sack in the dark woods. “I traveled with an old man once,” he said. “When I was eight, they chained me to an old Negro. Walked most of a hundred miles together, Norfolk to Richmond, Virginia. And I remember, plain as day, how that old, bent-over man held up most of the chain between us, trying to make those irons light as he could for me.”
The river man paused and looked at me. “You know what irons are, boy?”
“No, sir.”
Reaching out quick, he circled his hand around my throat. “Collars they fasten here, around your neck.”
His hand tightened, and fear stuck in my throat. In a voice that I tried to keep calm as water, I asked him what he had done wrong to be put in irons.
“Wrong?” The man squeezed his hand, and my fingers flew to my throat, trying to pull his hand free. Even after he let go, it felt like something stayed circled tight around my neck.
“I was a slave boy, same as you,” the man's voice rumbled. “Sold for the first time when I was eight and a half-dozen times after that.” He gave me a hard look. “You never saw blackfolks put in irons and sold before?”
I thought of the picture I had of my momma. In my mind, I had always seen her riding away like a white person, sitting in a wagon. Maybe the truth was that she had been chained like the man was saying, chained around the neck like dogs are and walked all the way to Washington, Kentucky, to be sold.
“See this?” The man traced his finger down one jagged scar on his dark face. “Your master ever beat you like this?”
“No, sir,” I whispered.
“Know how I got my scars?” He held out his arms, pointing to all the scars. Some jagged stripes, some round like pox marks. “You see what those marks are?”
“Smallpox?”
“Look.” He held his arm closer. “They look like nail marks to you?
My throat tightened.
“I was beaten by a board with a nail stuck through it,” the man's voice kept on, low and angry. “When I wasn't much older than you. My master, he came home mad-drunk one night, tore a board off the wall, and beat me ‘til the blood ran down my skin in rivers.”
The man turned away. “Don't you forget what can happen to you,” he said over his shoulder. “You don't watch your step, trouble'll find your black skin too.” And then he walked ahead, snapping branches like bones under his feet.
A whole forest of silence grew up after his words. Seemed like the night air had pulled in its breath at hearing what the river man said. Seemed like the breath had been taken out of me too.
“Lord, Samuel!” Harrison's loud whisper made me jump. “I never thought I was gonna catch up.” He leaned hard on my shoulder. “Feel like I done walked the bones clear outta my feet, how ‘bout you?”
“Yes,” I said, my voice sounding strange and trembly.
“That fellow say anything to you?”
I tried to remember what Lilly put in her turnover pies, and the names of each one of the hogs in Master Hackler's barn, to keep from thinking about the man's scars and what he had said.
“He tell you why he sent that poor lady into the river?”
I shook my head.
“Don't understand that atall. Why would a fellow go and do something like that? Send that poor slave lady out into the river to be caught like that? Just ‘cause she was scared outta her daylights and mixed up about some fancy clothes ain't no reason to do something like that. Don't understand that atall…” Harrison sighed and shifted the tow sack from one shoulder to the other.
Not looking back at us, the river man followed a small creek through the woods. It twisted and turned like a piece of rope. He stayed to one side of the creek, moving through places where the ground was soft and thick with moss.
“That fellow knows where he's going to. You can just tell,” Harrison whispered as we walked. “He's takin us somewhere. My legs may not hold out long ‘nough to get there, but he's takin us somewhere—”
It was almost light before we stopped at a clearing where a small house and frame barn sat silent. The house was made of neat, brown bricks and made me think of a loaf of Lilly's bread. Behind it, there was a gray barn that looked the same as Master Hackler's, only this barn was straight up and Master Hackler's sagged to one side, as if it had been standing in a strong wind too long.
I noticed a yellow-painted chair sitting in the tall grass near the house. If someone had left one of Miz Catherine's chairs outside, it would have put her in a fit worse than I could imagine. My fingers itched to take the chair back into that house so someone wouldn't get themselves in trouble.
The man stopped before we got near the house. Seemed like he noticed the yellow-painted chair too, but he didn't say a word about it.
“Keep quiet and listen close, now,” he said sharply, keeping his eyes fixed on the house and the woods. “Everything's all ready, it looks like. But you do exactly what I tell you, understand?” He glared at us. “I'm only gonna go through this once before I leave.”
In the dim morning light, I could see the man was dog-tired. His big shoulders were slumped over like they had melted down, and the front of his shirt pressed against his skin with dark circles of sweat. River mud splattered his clothes all over.
“You walk around the back of that house until you see a white-painted cellar door standing open, with steps going down,” the man said, pointing at the house. “You go and hide yourself in that cellar. Could be for a day. Could be two or three days. But there's food and blankets already down there for you. So you just wait there and keep quiet until the white widow lady who lives in the house takes you to another—”
The man cut a look at Harrison.
“You listening to what I'm saying, old man?”
But Harrison was leaning on his walking stick, head down, eyes closed. He looked as spent as I had ever seen, not even like himself anymore.
The man turned to me. His voice hissed slow and mean. “You got any sense?”
I didn't dare look up. Just nodded yes.
“Then you heard what I told the old man—you and him hide in that cellar and keep quiet until the white widow lady takes you to another safe place.”
In my mind, I tried to conjure up a picture of what kind of white lady would go around helping blackfolks, but I couldn't. Lilly always said Miz Catherine would cut off her own right arm and sell her left one rather than lift a hand to help us, even if we were keeled over and dying.
The man tapped my chest with his pistol. “You gonna remember what I said in the woods? You gonna remember how I got all my scars?”
I nodded, keeping my eyes fixed on the front of his red shirt.
“There's two things I learned when I run off like you and got away from my own master.” He stuck the gun in his pocket and told me to look up. Slowly, I looked at the river man's scar-ruined face, his eyes staring at me like two bottomless holes. “First,” he said, “you always walk as if you have the perfect right to do so, the same as whitefolks walk. Go on, walk toward that tree—”
The river man pushed me forward. I stumbled, and then started across the clearing, walking the way I always do. He followed right behind. “Draw attention to yourself,” he said, giving me another hard push. “Don't scuttle around like some poor, bent-over beetle carrying a few crumbs to his master. You slave or free? Walk like it. WALK!”
Ten times, twenty times, he made me walk back and forth between two trees. Picking up my feet. Keeping my back straight. Swinging my arms. Putting my nose in the air like I was smelling the wind.
Leaning on his walking stick, Harrison stood and watched, saying nothing.
“Wait.” The man latched onto my arm and stopped me right in the middle of walking. “Say I'm a white fellow—maybe a patroller—who's caught ahold of you. What are you gonna do now, boy?”
My heart thumped in my chest. His rough hand squeezed my arm tighter. “You want to run?” he said.
“Yes” came whispering out of my mouth.
“No,” the man's voice rumbled. “You run, they know exactly who you are. Haste will always be your undoing. You wait and look for their weakness. Then you plan a way out. Never go running off, understand?” He glared at me. “You have these things set down in your head or not, boy?”
I nodded. Walk. Don't haste.
The man glanced over at Harrison. “Go and get me that old man of yours and tell him to bring along the bundle he's been carrying.”
Slow and shuffling, Harrison brought over our bundle of stolen things. “Ain't nothin much in here but food and clothes for me and Samuel,” he said, keeping his eyes low. “We only run off with what belongs to us.”
But the man opened up the tow sack like he owned it himself. Saw Miz Catherine's bonnet, Master Hackler's boots, and all the other things, of course. With no expression on his face at all, he tied the bundle closed.
“I'll be taking your tow sack along with me,” he said, lifting it to his shoulder.
I thought about all the things inside that tow sack …the silver pocket watch Harrison was gonna sell for money, the bridle for the horse he thought we'd have someday, the blankets that belonged to me, the skillet from Lilly's kitchen …
“Wait,” Harrison said.
“Something wrong, old man?” The man gave Harrison a squint look. Like Harrison was nothing more than a flyspeck or spot of dirt. Nothing that mattered much.
Harrison cleared his throat. “There's a roll of gray yarn in the bottom of that tow sack. Couldn't we keep ahold of it maybe? It belongs—” He paused and looked quick at me. “To Samuel.”
Gray yarn?
I stared at Harrison. What was he talking about? Why would he ask for the gray yarn and why would it belong to me?
Even the man seemed set back a little. He looked first at Harrison, then at me. Shaking his head, he lowered the bundle to the ground, untied it, and hunted around for the roll of yarn.
“Here,” he said, pulling out something and tossing it to me.
I looked down at the small tangle of wool in my hands, and the river man grinned like it was something funny to see me holding nothing but that yarn.
“Don't suppose you thought to bring any money in this sack?” he said, lifting the bundle in the air and shaking it hard. “Or were you thinking that a little roll of gray yarn was gonna buy you everything you need in this world, old man?”
Harrison was silent.
“Lucky day for you that I got some spare money to give away.” The river man loosened a small leather pouch tied to his belt and nodded toward the brown house. “You pay the white widow lady for keeping you in her cellar, and other folks if they ask for money.” He tossed the leather pouch to Harrison. “Remember where you put it, old man.” But the pouch tumbled through Harrison's stiff fingers and jangled to the ground.
“One more thing,” the river man said as he lifted the tow sack to his shoulder. “Slave catchers and patrollers, they have the right to hunt any old place they please. They can come across the river and catch you here in Ohio, the same as Kentucky. You understand what I'm saying?”
Harrison nodded.
“There's nowhere in this whole United States that a runaway is safe,” the river man called over his shoulder. “You just remember that.”
And without another word, he turned and walked into the woods, his legs cutting up the ground like a big pair of saw blades. The last I saw was his red-flannel back carrying all our things, disappearing between the trees.
Me and Harrison hurried toward the house, just as a rooster crowed.
The Gray Yarn
The white doors of the cellar stood open as if expecting us.
Four old stoneware crocks sat on the steps going down. They looked like they were filled with nothing except rainwater and cobwebs. But as we stepped past them, a brown field mouse suddenly darted out from the shadows, and we nearly jumped out of our skin.
Telling me to wait until he had a look around, Harrison ducked his head and crept into the cellar first. Then his hand poked out of the darkness and waved for me to follow.
It took my eyes a while to see into the shadows. The cellar was a low, squarish room. Half-cut tree logs, with the bark still on them, ran close over our heads, and the floor was hard-packed clay, same as Master Hackler's.
Beside me, Harrison whispered, “You see anything, Samuel? I can't see a thing down here in all this mess. How ‘bout you? You see something for us?”
About a hundred and one things were scattered and stuffed into the cellar. It would have put Lilly in a fit, the way things were left all which-way Carpenter's tools, a half-made chest, and two small red-painted cupboards lay at the foot of the steps, as if the fellow making them had just set them there, turned, and run off. Deeper in the shadows, I could see big wooden barrels, the half-moon shape of buggy wheels, sacks of potatoes or turnips, a pile of broken chairs, and a heap of other things against the walls.
“Go on over there,” Harrison whispered, pointing at the far end of the cellar. “Just poke around a little.”
At the other end of the room, my eyes caught sight of something. Hidden behind a wall of barrels stacked almost to the ceiling beams was a ragged corner of blue and white. Coming around, I saw an old straw pallet and a pile of coverlets setting there, plain as day, with a crock of buttermilk, a brown jug of cider, and a basket stuffed full of food beside them.
“Harrison!” I called out. “Look here.”
“What?” Harrison said, stumbling and climbing through the dark cellar. “What?” When he got to where I was standing and looked around the row of barrels, he squeezed his eyes shut and raised his hands up toward the ceiling.
“Glor-ee be. Glor-ee be. Glor-ee be,” he whispered, shaking his hands in the air. “That man was telling the truth, sure enough, he was.”
After that, me and Harrison pounced on the food faster than two half-starved cats on the back of a bird. We hadn't eaten at all since we had been in the cornfield, the day before
. So we snapped up the pieces of bread sopped in buttermilk, the jelly cup, the slice of cold bacon at the bottom of the basket, and the caved-in baked apple. I was so awful thirsty, I gulped down more than half of the jug of cider, and Harrison had to tug it out of my hands to get some for himself.
“You is spoiled to a stink, Samuel.” He grinned, shaking his head. “Gimme some of that cider now.”
But after we had eaten everything that had been left in our hiding place, down to the dried-up crumbs in the bottom of the basket, I was still hungry as a horse, and I got the idea of poking around the cellar for more food and cider.
Only, Harrison wouldn't even hear of it.
“That ain't the right thing to do, stealin,” Harrison said, leaning back against the cellar wall and pulling a blanket up to his chin. “You ate plenty enough. Don't wanta hear no more about it, Samuel.”
“But you stole from Mas Hackler,” I said, my voice rising. “You took the boots, and the gloves, and the fancy bonnet from Miz—”
“You hush,” Harrison said, glaring at me. “That weren't stealin.” He looked up at the wood planks over our heads. “Now, you be quiet. Folks is livin up there, you hear?”
But still I kept on.
“Why is me stealin more food wrong and what you done ain't?”
Harrison pressed his lips together in one angry line. “cause stealin is takin things that don't belong to you, and I didn't take nothing that didn't belong to me.”
He held his hands out, palms up. “Look at these ol’ hands of mine.” His stiff fingers trembled. “Who owns these hands?”
“You does.”
“Samuel.” He squinted hard at me. “You got anything sit-tin on them shoulders that thinks or not?” He smacked his left hand. “Who OWNS this hand? Who BOUGHT this hand?”
“Mas Hackler?” I tried.
“An’ who owns this leg?”
Trouble Don't Last Page 7
