Zenobia and them were watchin me, watchin that pile of food I fixed for Shag.
I whispered, “We’ll eat later,” and looked up to see if he were lookin. Then I spat onto his tomater and cheese and watched my venom spill onto the bread.
I were hungerin too. My stomach felt like it were eatin itself, bite by bite, till there weren’t nothin left but empty achin.
I laughed and quick covered my mouth. Just leave it to me to laugh at the wrong time.
“Don’t talk!” Shag shouted. “You talk at her again and I’ll whip you and them.” I couldn’t hardly tell him that I weren’t talkin, but laughin at what I done.
I shuddered thinkin of that nasty whip in the wagon.
“Git up here. We puttin some road under us afore you eat,” he said.
I looked back at Zenobia, but her eyes was closed again.
The horses moved along steady, the wagon swayin and creakin. Shag held the reins in one hand and stuffed food into his mouth with the other. He reminded me of our mean old sow, Daisy.
We traveled for a few hours till the sun rested atop the western mountains. I’d be right happy to see it set after such a long, hot ride. I couldn’t wait another mile and begged him to stop so’s I could tend to some necessaries and get food together for us.
He grunted, reached along the side of his seat, and pulled out another flask. “I wanted to catch up with the others afore nightfall, but it looks like they’s too far ahead. We’ll make camp here tonight,” he growled.
Shag headed the bays off the dusty road and over to a small clearin bordered by a stream. He unhitched the horses, picketed and hobbled them, then yelled to me to fix him somethin to eat. The horses set to drinkin and browsin; Shag just set to drinkin.
I were pickin through foodstuff, tryin to decide how to make supper for everyone, when Shag picked up his whip and rifle and walked to the back of the wagon. He untied one end of the rope holdin the line of slaves together and yanked it hard. One by one, Enoch, Armour, Zenobia, and Better slid from the wagon and onto the ground, but Auntie laid there, eyes closed, and still curled up like a fern frond.
“Git over to that tree,” Shag ordered, follerin behind with more rope.
The line of them walked slow, Enoch and Armour clankin in their fetters, nearly fallin. The girl Better was draggin her feet behind Zenobia, who walked sure with her head high.
Whoosh, crack, the whip sounded its warnin.
One by one they sank to the ground and watched as Shag tied their ankles and hands tight together. How could they stand the bindin and the pain?
Shag set under an oak, his back against the broad tree. He gnawed at some bread and drank from his flask—his eyes never left us.
“Y’all stop watchin me,” he shouted.
I walked over to him, lifted the jug settin beside him, and poured water into a tin cup. “I’m right glad we aren’t with everyone else. I heard from that girl back there that some of them German folks from a town up north got the pox.”
Shag’s eyes widened and one of them twitched fierce. He started to say somethin and opened his mouth afore swallowin what he’d just drunk. The whiskey poured over his lips like a millrace. His shirt were soaked through.
“The pox? We got the pox here? This ain’t worth all the trouble I go through. No reward’s worth the pox.” He took another swig from the flask.
“My grandpa called whiskey the water of life,” I said in a treacly voice. “He used it to clean wounds and to cure most everythin.”
Shag gulped another mouthful. This time all the corn whiskey went down his throat. I were glad for that and hopin that it would send him to sleep.
I moved over to the wagon and gently nudged Auntie. “Auntie,” I said, “Auntie, wake up now. You needs to drink and eat. You needs your strength.”
Truth be told, I needed Auntie to get back her strength. I missed her.
I propped up Auntie’s head and let her drink her fill, then I fed her tiny bites of bread and ham.
When I finished feedin Auntie, I picked up the bucket of water and lugged it over to the others, who were whisperin amongst themselfs. When I knelt down to dip a cupful of water for Zenobia, she asked, “What about Brightwell?”
I just looked at her and said, “He’s gone.” She shook her head slow and tears filled her eyes.
The words had just come out of my mouth, and Shag were up and walkin over toward me sidewise, like the old yeller dog that got bit by a sick skunk last summer.
I set the bucket down and moved away from Zenobia afore Shag come closer.
He made it another few steps, stumbled, and grabbed the wagon’s side.
“You, girl, you. I told you no talkin.”
The sun dropped below a notch in the mountains, and Shag looked around, like he were surprised by the dusk.
“I’m goin to sleep,” he said. “We’re leavin early tomorrow. Git over here, girl. I’m tyin you to the wagon.”
“But what about all of us eatin? We starved and thirstin.”
I started to say more, but he raised his fist the way Pa does to let me know what’s comin.
“Where am I spost to sleep?” I asked, knowin that none of us would see a spoonful of food.
“I’m tyin you up on there,” he said, pointin up to the wagon seat. “And don’t you be talkin to them.”
I climbed onto the seat and he bound my feet together, then tied my hands behind my back.
He stumbled to the other side of the wagon and pulled his bedroll, rifle, another flask, and a small cookin pot from under the seat. Shag made his camp over by the side of the crick near a lopsided circle of stones filled with the charred wood of an old fire.
He mounded kindlin and branches inside the stones and fanned at a small flame. We watched as he took a big swig from the flask, then another, and another—corn squeezins spillin down his front with each gulp.
“Keep your eyes to your own business,” he yelled, “or I’ll pick them eyes right out of your ugly black heads!”
Shag kept drinkin, and the little cookin pot never were put into use. After a while he lifted his shirt over his head and draped it onto the branches of a sweet pepperbush all spiked with flowers.
I watched as he undid the cinch around his blankets and rolled them out onto a grassy patch of ground. When he climbed inside the bedroll, he took a big swig from the bottle and laid back, cradlin his rifle in the crook of his arm. Within a few minutes, he were snorin loud, the bottle capped and lyin acrost his hairy chest.
I looked up at the darkenin sky filled with birds headin to their roosts. They swooped down together, hunnerts of them, like they was one bird, and flew into the trees around us. Then they all joined together talkin and tellin of the day’s happenins, then everythin were quiet like they had disappeared.
Zenobia, Armour, Better, and Enoch, all of them tied together under the tree, hummed quiet amongst themselves like evenin bees. Then everythin were quiet. Quiet like they had disappeared.
Behind me in the wagon, Auntie slept, but I didn’t think I could never sleep bein all tied up. But I must’ve, cause I were dreamin about me and Zenobia trapped in the cave when I woke to a screamin that could rouse a rock.
“The pox!” Shag yelled. “Lord a’mighty, I got the pox! Someone needs to burn me a sow to ashes.”
The dragonfly is a “snake doctor” and will hover above a snake, protect it from harm, and sew it up after injury. It may even bring it back to life.
My neck, so stiff I couldn’t hardly raise my head, felt sore from the long night. I turned and looked over at Shag. He surely did look like he had the pox on him.
Eyes swolled to little slits; face puffed up and red with weepin spots; hands, chest, neck, and back all broke out in a rash—if I hadn’t knowed better, I’d a thought the pox too.
Durin the night, my hands come free. I reached down and untied the ropes around my feet. Shag were too senseless to see that I were loose without him even havin to untie me.
I
looked back at Auntie. She were sittin up! Sittin up and lookin most like her old self. And Zenobia, over there with the others, she wore a big grin acrost her face like none I’d ever seen.
My feet near didn’t hold me when I climbed down from the wagon and turned toward Shag. He were runnin at me—flappin and squawkin like the worn-out hens I axed for dinner.
“Whoa,” I said as he got closer. “Whoa, I’ll tend to you with some herbs, but you cain’t get close by them or me. We cain’t take care of you if we get the pox. Now go lie down and I’ll try to help you.”
He finally paid me some attention and set right back down on them poison ivy blankets, yellin, “Don’t just try to help me. I’m on fire, on fire! Do somethin. I’m dyin.”
“You are in some sad shape, Mr. Honeybone, but I’ll fetch some herbs and tend you. You’re doin nothin but makin it worst bad for yerself.”
Next when I looked, Shag were rollin around on the ground like an upside-down cooter turtle. He whined and cried and scratched at hisself all over. He took a long drink from his flask, then another, and another afore he laid back on his bedroll and closed his eyes.
I couldn’t feel no pity for him.
I walked to the back of the wagon with the water jug and give a drink to Auntie. She drank deep, then leant back against the side rails and watched as I gathered up food and water for the others and carried it over by the tree where they was all tied.
My grandpa’s knife sliced easy through the ropes around Zenobia’s hands. Soon as she were free she worked at untyin all the others.
“Some water in the jug and milk in the tin,” I told them. “And ham under the bread, and there’s cheese, green beans, and tomaters.” Zenobia and Better opened the blue bandanna, tore off pieces of bread, and set slices of Emma’s ham on each one. I couldn’t stop myself from stuffin my share into my mouth.
Zenobia shook crumbs out of the bandanna, folded it into a triangle, and tied it onto her head. When she tucked her wiry brown hair under the bandanna, she didn’t look like the Zenobia I knowed.
We all ate in quiet, couldn’t say a word or hear a word with Shag startin up again with his moanin and cryin.
“I’m dyin. Dyin, with the pox!” he yelled.
I looked over at Zenobia and smiled.
“Sweet girl,” Auntie called. I were some surprised to hear her voice strong for the first time in days. She were up, had slipped out of the back of the wagon, and were walkin slow over to us. She smoothed at her skirt and pushed wisps of her flyaway silver hair out of her face. I loved it when she called me by the very name my grandpa once used.
“Lark,” she said, “thee is causin that man great pain. Thee should treat thine enemy as thee would thy friend.”
I am not kind as Auntie. I were likin the sound of Shag’s misery and felt like he were bein punished for all the bad he done to the slaves he caught, whipped, and killt. He couldn’t be hurt near enough for what he done to my friend Brightwell.
I picked up a piece of bread, laid a slice of ham on it, and passed it over to Auntie.
She reached out, took it into her hands almost like she were prayin, and smelt of it afore takin her first bite. Then she lowered the bread, looked at me with her cornflower-blue eyes, and said, “Sweet girl, thee must minister to the man or I can’t eat this food in good conscience.”
She wanted me to “minister to the man”? The same man what hunted slaves, chased, beat, and sold them like they was animals, and killt them like they was nothin. I’d as soon try to put gloves on a rooster.
I took time eatin my last bite of bread and brushed crumbs off my skirt as I walked toward Shag.
The fire beside him still showed some life. I added dry kindlin to the embers and fanned it with my fancy bonnet. It didn’t take but a couple of minutes for the fire to come on, and then I laid it with some twisted branches till it flamed high.
“You ain’t worth spit snuff!” he yelled at me.
I didn’t need to hear them words from him; I’d heard them plenty from my pa. But then, he were the same kind of man as my pa, with the same stream of mean, strong-as-snake poison runnin through his blood. Were there some bad runnin through me that roused them to be hateful? Or were it the whiskey turnin them cruel?
I picked up Shag’s pot and walked to the wagon for some of the herbs Emma had shared. But I’d need me some pain-killin willow bark from the silvery-green thicket by Shag’s camp.
The willows was lively with the worried rattlin and chatters of tiny, black-masked yeller birds who picked through the branches for bugs. I whistled soft to soothe them, and their worry calls turned to their witchity, witchity song.
I rolled up my sleeves and used Grandpa’s knife to peel long strips of willow bark. Plink, plink, plink, I dropped them slivers into the pot till it were halfway filled.
Right above me a white-tailed dragonfly, each of its clear wings patched with two black spots, hovered and dipped. Grandpa called them snake doctors. He told me they tended after snakes and would hover above them in the fields. I looked close at the ground around me. I learnt to always watch where I were steppin when I saw one of them snake doctors close by.
When I got back to Mr. Shag Honeybone, he were in a fitful sleep. A blessin for him and for us too. He turned, tossed, tried to get up and walk away, but I pushed him down and told him to stay put. I added some valerian root to the pot of willow bark, set it on the fire, and watched back and forth between Shag and the pot as the water simmered and turned the color of a muddy crick.
“Mama, Grandpa, what should we do now?” I asked.
I couldn’t think on where we could turn or how we could all get away from the hunters out on the trail. How long afore someone in the long train of traders turned back to look for Shag?
The pot of herbs bubbled, and the driftin smell reminded me of my grandpa. I bent to stir down the boil and saw Shag’s rifle lyin next by him like a wife. I carefully slid it out from the crook of his arm, carried it over to the wagon, and tucked it under the seat beneath a ragged blanket.
I were worried, but now I weren’t worryin alone. Now I had Auntie again, and Zenobia and the others, but now I had all the others to worry for and to hide. What if we got caught and sent south?
“I’m jus a twelve-year-old girl.” I must’ve mumbled that aloud to myself, cause Zenobia’s gold eyes got big and she looked at me like I were crazy.
The words Armour Washington, one eye missin; Enoch Smith, branded; Zenobia, scarred on wrists and back; Better, three fingers missing; Theodate Hague, private reward was burnt into my mind like the CW letters on Enoch Smith’s cheek.
“Moses,” I said. “Mama, I got to remember Miz Moses. She done it and so will I. Step by step, mile by mile.”
The sounds come to me, but I weren’t payin attention to nothin ceptin my own thoughts. Then Zenobia grabbed my arm and held her hand behind her ear.
“Horses,” she said. “Horses comin on, and comin on fast from the south.”
To stomp your right foot three times is good luck, but to stomp your left foot is bad luck. Turn around three times to unwind the bad luck.
The others quick set down against the tree, and Zenobia worked at fixin the ropes so’s they looked all tied together. At the end of the rope, she looped it round her legs and stuck her hands behind her back. I’d cut the rope too short for her to tie, but she grabbed it and held on.
Auntie run for the wagon, bent over and picked up somethin from the ground, then crawled into the back. She stretched out straight, eyes closed, and placed a flat death rock on each eye.
I rushed to my sack and pulled out another one of my new long dark skirts, shook it open, and laid it over Auntie’s body.
Hooves pounded along the road, and I heard someone shoutin, “Here they are, here they are.”
Two men rode in and stopped next to the wagon. I knowed the tall gray-haired man with the beard. He’d been a part of the group of men movin slaves south. His broadaxe face would be hard for me to fo
rget. But the short, fancy-dressed man in the wide-brimmed white hat hadn’t been with the slave catchers or traders I’d seen. He spun his sorrel mare and looked over the campsite.
“What you doin way back here? Where’s Shag?” the fancy man asked. “You supposed to be behind us, headin south.”
“I wouldn’t get no closer,” I said, starin up at them straight in their eyes. “We got the pox here and more. We travelin this road with a mess of death. Now the old woman is dead of the lung fever, and over there is Mr. Honeybone—near dyin too.” I pointed to the lump of blankets acrost the clearin.
The men seemed like they was weighin out my words one by one, like coins.
Above us a sparrow hawk screeched like a lost haint. “More bad luck,” I said.
The man on the sorrel looked up, then rode over to the wagon and used the butt end of a whip to lift the skirt off Auntie’s face. He quickly pulled the whip back, and the skirt dropped down over her.
“I don’t believe it about Shag,” the broadaxe man said. “I’ll warrant you killt him.” He turned his horse around and walked it over toward the mound of beddin where Shag were sleepin.
He got down off the horse and lifted the edge of the top blanket with his foot.
“Whoot!” He let out a yell that would stop a chargin bear. He stepped back, both hands over his mouth, and stood there like a seed takin root.
I could see them blankets movin, then Shag set up and said, “Help me, help me, I’m dyin. I got the pox.” He tried to push hisself up, but fell back down. He were some sight.
The fancy man on the sorrel whirled round and took off at a gallop. His hat flew off and wheeled acrost the clearin. The other man backed up till he near bumped into me. When he got to his horse, he almost didn’t make it into the saddle. Last I saw he were headin south.
Shag kept yellin till he found his flask and took three long gulps. Then he settled back into the very blankets poisonin him and closed his eyes.
After the riders left, I stomped down on my right foot three times. “Good luck, good luck! We had us some good luck! Finally.”
Running Out of Night Page 14
