Running Out of Night

by Sharon Lovejoy

  “Afore you tie me up, I want to see if that out there is my parents’ boy Brightwell.” I nodded toward the meadow.

  “See fer yerself,” Shag said.

  Mama, I thought, give me strength. I reached into my pocket and rubbed my thumb against the buckeye.

  I walked through the meadow toward them bald-headed buzzards. They saw me comin, fixed me with their dead, dead eyes, hissed, grunted, and barely moved away from whatever they surrounded. It didn’t take me but a blink to know that it were Brightwell.

  “Oh, Brightwell,” I cried. “Oh, oh, Brightwell.” He’d helped me, but there weren’t nobody by his side when he needed help. Now all the help in the world would come too late for him. My heart felt like it were broke into so many little pieces that nothin could ever make it come back together again. How had all the good slipped so far away?

  I pushed the tears off my cheeks and turned back toward the wagon. Somehow I’d get even with Shag Honeybone, somehow and soon. I didn’t want to meet Zenobia’s eyes. She’d surely see that my hope were lyin back there in the meadow and give over to that death band of buzzards.

  Shag spent some time tyin my feet to the buckboard. Then he covered them with my travelin sack. Nobody lookin would ever know that I were a prisoner too. I spread my feet as far apart as they would move and struggled to set them loose, but the knots held. Now I knowed how Zenobia and Brightwell and all them others felt when they was all chained and tied up and treated worst than animals.

  Shag circled the wagon and bent to look at a rear wheel. Afore he come alongside to climb in, I looked back at Zenobia. She lifted her head and stared at me.

  “Don’t worry,” I mouthed. “Don’t worry.”

  Each hoof fall led us further south—and further from free soil. We were at the tip of the devil’s tail, the last wagon in the line. The old road were so rutted and dry that the wagons ahead of us disappeared in a rollin cloud of dust so thick that we couldn’t see nothin in front of us or on either side.

  Shag slowed the horses and drawed back till we was out of the dust and far enough behind so’s we could breathe pure air again. He dipped his dirty fingers into a small tin of snuff and stuffed it into his bulging cheek.

  The sun beat down; I thought I would die from my achin head and the heat and thirst. I looked back at the others; all but Zenobia set stock-straight, never movin or showin any feelins. The sweat run down Zenobia’s neck and her clothes stuck to her. She leant forward, her shadow shelterin Auntie from the sun.

  “When are we stoppin for food and water?” I asked Shag, who never bothered to look my way.

  “When I say it’s time,” he answered.

  That man were meaner than a snappin turtle with bear teeth.

  “If you want me to save that old Quaker woman so’s you can get a reward, you’re goin to have to find a stoppin place and let me tend to her.”

  “When I say it’s time,” he repeated.

  “I needs a drink and some food, and I needs to tend to some other things too.”

  Shag looked over at me, turned his head, and spit an arc of tobacca over the side of the wagon.

  “You’re nothin but trouble. I should’ve left you out in the field with the dead slave boy,” he said.

  Dead slave boy. Dead slave boy. Please, Lord, take Brightwell to your heart. Why did the last thing he knew on this earth have to be more hate and more pain?

  “Miss Abigail,” Zenobia called. “Miss Abigail, this old woman need some help.”

  I looked over my shoulder. Auntie shifted beneath Zenobia’s shadow.

  “Shag Honeybone, this will all be worth your while when you collect the money for the runaway slaves and her,” I said, pointin back to Auntie. “You best stop soon.”

  “Whoa, whoooaaa,” he called as he pulled back on the reins and headed the horses toward the shade of trees.

  We were so far behind the other wagons now that we couldn’t even see their dust.

  “You stay put,” he said to me. “I got to go tend to myself now.”

  He pulled back on the reins, the horses stopped, and Shag jumped over the side.

  When he disappeared into the woods, I turned in the seat and said, “Zenobia, I gots my knife here.”

  Zenobia and the others looked up at me. She nodded, then pointed toward the front of the wagon.

  Shag walked toward us and said, “There’s a house over to the east. Woman workin out in a garden. We’re goin there to see what she can spare for us—don’t matter if she can spare it,” he said, “we’ll jus hep ourselfs.”

  “Well, I cain’t go nowhere so long as I’m tied to this seat.”

  He walked over to my side of the wagon and leant in to untie my feet. A green measurin worm had dropped from the tree and onto him. It humped up, stretched out, humped up again, and walked along between his shoulder blades, measurin him for his coffin.

  I reached down, grabbed the handle of Grandpa’s knife good and tight, and lifted it above his back.

  Leaflets three: let it be.

  Berries white: run in fright.

  Auntie’s words “Thee cannot overcome evil with violence, nor violence with evil” come into my head. I did not want to be no better than my enemy. I lowered my hand, slid the knife back into its hidin place, and watched Shag untie me.

  We’d been headin south for a couple of hours. My feet was numb and not wantin to hold me when I stepped down from the wagon. I stomped them to get the blood movin and reached for Shag’s jug of water.

  It near turned my stomach to think that my lips would touch where his had been just a minute ago. I wiped at the top, gulped a mouthful, and let it run down my dried-out throat. I took another gulp, swallowed, walked to the back of the wagon, and climbed up onto it.

  Shag had his back turned to me. He were bent over and lookin close at the horse’s hoof.

  I pressed the jug to Zenobia’s mouth and let her drink her fill. Then I moved over to Auntie and poured a thin stream of water onto her face and neck. She moved and opened her blue eyes, blue eyes that looked as empty and lifeless as Moses’s cat eyes.

  I lifted her head, held the jug steady, and offered her a drink. She shook her head no.

  “Yes, Auntie,” I whispered. “You needs to drink a bit and get your strength.”

  Her eyes focused on me. She opened her mouth and drank. I felt hope trickle into me as sure as the water that run down her throat.

  “Get it up and move it,” Shag yelled at me as he walked to the back of the wagon. “I don’t want no dirty slave mouths touchin my jug. They’s a bucket back there for them under the wood lid.”

  I slid the lid off. The water looked green, murky, and it stank of a pond. I reached for a small tin cup, dipped it in and held it, one by one, for Armour, Enoch, and Better. They sipped greedily and tipped their heads to me in thanks.

  “The woman ain’t in the garden now. You go on over to that cabin and ask for food and water. And I don’t want you lettin on about anythin in case they’s sympathizers,” he said.

  I slid out the back of the wagon with the jug in one hand and patted Auntie and Zenobia with the other.

  “I’ll walk alongside the wagon,” I said to Shag as I neared his seat.

  “Might as well,” he said. “Don’t want to spend no more time tyin you when we’re just goin down the road a bit. Remember though, you run and I kills that slave girl you’s spendin so much time on.”

  “Why would I run?”

  “You’d run so’s you could go free and stir up more slave trouble.”

  “Mr. Honeybone, my father and his men will be findin us soon. You’ll be in sore need to do some explainin.”

  Shag spit, clucked his tongue at the horses, and shook the reins.

  “I’m not worryin none about them findin us. We’ll be south too deep for them to track us.”

  “They won’t stop till they find me,” I said in my most growed-up voice.

  The pair of bay horses moved forward fast. “Whoaaa!” he
said. “Settle down now.” The horses slowed and the one on the left looked back at Shag, the whites of his eyes showin all round. He looked scairt and I saw why. A cart whip set in its holder within reach of Shag’s huge hand.

  “Keep up to me,” Shag said, “or, fetchy and fancy or not, you’ll get a feel of the whip.”

  For once, I kept my mouth clamped shut.

  The wagon rolled down the road toward a farmhouse surrounded on two sides by woods. A kitchen garden stretched from a lopsided barn to a stone springhouse. I stepped lively to keep up with Shag, which weren’t so easy to do in fancy shoes. I wanted to take them off but knowed that a barefoot lady wouldn’t set right.

  Shag pulled to the side of the road and headed toward the house. He stopped short of it in the shade of a tree. I walked to the bed of the wagon and looked over the tailgate. Zenobia leant against the sideboard with her eyes closed. Auntie’s silvery head rested on Zenobia’s lap.

  Looked to me like Auntie had a bit of life pinkin up her cheeks. She turned her head toward me and smiled. I saw the spark back in her blue eyes, and it made me feel right better. Maybe Auntie just needed a tonic, food, and rest to set her back to rights.

  “Now you git over to that house and ask them what victuals they has. Tell them we’re headin south to home. They don’t help us I’ll take what I need, and I don’t give a wad of spit about them people. Remember, you say anythin about me bein a slave hunter and the girl’ll be feedin buzzards—and so will you.”

  My hands curled into tight fists that wanted to punch at his face.

  “Mama, please, please help me find a way through all this,” I whispered.

  I set my bonnet to rights and tied the ribbons. I didn’t think anyone way down here would be lookin for a runaway redhead, but I remembered Auntie’s cautions.

  When I reached the farmhouse, I knocked loud and called out a greetin.

  The door swung open and a young woman not much older than Zenobia answered. She had a round-faced baby settin on her hip, and her arm were hooked through the high handle of an oak-splint basket.

  “Oh,” she said, her hazel eyes wide in surprise. “Company! I don’t get many folks stoppin by here. We see folks passin by on the road, but hardly never stoppin.”

  “Good day,” I said. “We’re headin south and I’m in need of fresh water and a few victuals. And I got a sick auntie in the back of the wagon. I’d like to make up a tonic for her if you has some healin herbs to spare.”

  All the time I’m talkin I’m prayin she has somethin for us and thinkin to myself that there weren’t no way I’d let Shag hurt this woman and her little boy.

  “Y’all feel free to go out to my garden and pick yourself anythin you need. I got a lot comin on—ripe tomaters, corn, snap beans, herbs—go see for yourself.”

  I breathed some easier, and I could feel the peace settlin back onto me. My fists uncurled.

  She slid the big harvest basket off her arm and passed it to me. On the way to the garden, she stopped at a line full of work clothes and gathered them into a bundle. Son on one hip, washin on the other.

  A flock of chickens scratched in the dirt, and a rooster stood atop the stone springhouse watchin over his hens.

  I looked toward the wagon. Shag were tippin up what looked like a flask. Zenobia were still, her eyes closed like she wanted to keep all the world from gettin into her. The girl Better looked over at me, but the others stared straight ahead.

  “I’m sorry not to be rememberin my manners,” the girl said as she piled her clean clothes into a big willow basket. “I’m Emma, and this here is Little Will, named after his pa.” She follered along behind me as I picked, sharin the daily trials of bein a mother and the loneliness of livin so far from a town and her family. Most of the news she had come to her from German merchants and settlers travelin on the wagon road between Pennsylvania and the Carolinas.

  I loved the music of Emma’s voice and the sound of Little Will’s liltin coo, coo, coo. He sounded more like a mournin dove than a baby.

  After a few minutes of gatherin, I follered the girl to her little patch of healin herbs and picked a few handfuls of the plants my grandpa had taught me to use. First Melissa and valerian root for sleepin and calmin. Then sage, peppermint, spearmint, and some red-flowerin bee balm, enough so’s I could brew up a good tonic to give Auntie some strength.

  At the side of the herb garden, a fat tangle of poison ivy wound its way up a tree. I walked over to it, the smell of the herbs under my feet risin up, and stood thinkin on the ivy’s wicked power—a power strong enough to change life for me, Auntie, Zenobia, and the others.

  Below the tree, a tall stand of orange-flowered jewelweed hummed with bumblebees. I yanked off a handful of the leaves and bent to the job of pickin off the knobbledy red fingers that circled the stem a few inches aboveground.

  Emma looked on, frog-eyed, as I rubbed the jewelweed leaves and red fingers acrost my hands, neck, and face.

  “What you doin?” she asked.

  “Gettin ready to pick me some poison ivy. It don’t never bother me, but I’m takin care jus in case it acts up on me this time.”

  “You cain’t pick that poison ivy,” she said. “Why, you’ll be all boiled up faster than a kettle of water.”

  “Don’t worry for me,” I answered, “but I’d much appreciate a little piece of sackin for the pickin and to carry some of them leaves.”

  The girl shook her head side to side like I were right crazy, walked into her barn, and come out with a holey grain sack. I tore off a piece of the cloth and used it to pull some of the leaves from the vine. Ten, eleven, twelve sets of shiny triplet leaves lookin so safe, safe as the herbs I’d gathered for Auntie’s tonic. I closed the cloth over them, folded it into a small square, and tucked it up into my sleeve.

  I looked around the corner of the cabin. Shag were tippin again, and when he finished, he tossed the flask over the side of the wagon and laid back in the seat.

  Emma led me acrost her garden and toward the springhouse. We stepped over a scramble of goose grass, the same as what my grandpa used for cheese curdlin, and its tiny, stickery burr seeds stuck to my skirt. She pulled at the door latch of the springhouse, and it swung open slow. Cold air and the smell of butter and cheese met us. Little Will, still settin on her hip, leant out toward me, and I scooped him into my arms and passed her my empty water jug.

  When I started to step inside, she ducked her head like she couldn’t look straight at me, and said, “Y’all wait out here.” She come back outside carryin my jug filled to the top, a cold milk tin beaded with water, and a big hunk of somethin wrapped in a bright-blue bandanna. “Take these too. Maybe someday y’all come on back and say hey to us.” Emma’s hands shook as she tucked each of her offerins into the big basket. What had got into her to flighten her up like she were?

  I couldn’t make her a promise I might not ever be able to keep. “I’ll never forget your kindness. I hope to do somethin for you someday,” I said, a wash of tears fillin my eyes.

  The three of us started headin toward the wagon. “You’d best stay back,” I cautioned. “He is right mean all the time, but bad mean when he drinks.”

  Emma stopped. Will reached for his mama, and she lifted him out of my arms. I felt sad to let the sweet softness of him go. He raised a small pink hand as if he was wavin a good-bye to me.

  When I got close to the wagon, I saw Shag’s head was throwed back and his eyes closed. His Adam’s apple moved up and down, up and down, as he snored. I crept past him. He snorted, and his eyes opened and rolled into his head till they disappeared. My heart were flutterin inside me.

  I unloaded the herbs, food, milk, and water into the back of the wagon while Emma and Little Will watched me from the big stone step in front of the springhouse. I lifted a hand high and gave a wave afore settin their empty basket at the foot of a nearby tulip poplar tree.

  Auntie still slept, but Zenobia and the others watched silently as I walked to the side of the wag
on and reached for the bedroll below Shag’s outstretched legs. He moved, groaned, shifted his feet, and brushed one foot against my hand. I stopped and waited to see if he would wake. He snorted again. I sniffed at the sourness of his sweat mixed with whiskey—the smell of my pa.

  I picked up the bedroll, backed away from him, and laid it on the ground. After I unfastened the leather cinch and unrolled the blanket, I pulled the square of cloth from my sleeve.

  Shag’s head lolled to the side, facin right at me. He stirred and scratched at his stubbly chin.

  “Leaflets three, set us free,” I whispered as I unfolded the cloth and shook the poison ivy leaves into the beddin. I laid one blanket against the other and kneaded it like I were makin bread, then shook the oily leaves out of the bedroll afore cinchin it closed.

  At the side of the wagon, I stooped and looked, figurin the space I needed to get the bedroll back in its place. Shag moved his feet and drew them beneath the seat. I stopped and waited. He moved again, then straightened his legs. I bent over, judged at the space, and jammed the roll beneath the bench. I almost made it.

  When smallpox strikes someone, you must drive the demon of it into a sow and burn the sow to ashes.

  Shag opened his runny, red eyes, yanked the whip from its holder, and shouted, “Girl, what you think you’re doin?”

  “Jus makin a spot for the victuals,” I said quiet-like, though my heart beat so hard I were sure he could hear every thump.

  “You’re not givin them no food,” he growled. “We leavin here. Get back on the seat.”

  He set up, slid the whip into its holder, and fumbled for the reins.

  “They needs to eat if you’re wantin to get any reward.”

  “They can eat, but not till after I gets mine. You feeds the animals last. Now shut yerself up and git me some food.”

  I walked to the back of the wagon, tugged off the heel of the bread, opened the blue bandanna, and pulled out some cheese and a tomater. Right beside the bread I found some thick slices of ham. Emma’s heart were big—bigger than mine. I left the ham for the others.