“You saw them lookin for a meal, but I weren’t their meal that day. I just had to stay there till them slave traders leaves. I hear you call my name, hear you cryin, but I didn’t dare to move or call out.”
I remembered how them buzzards circled, looped, then dropped down into the meadow. Their big bodies made a black wall of death around the hump–the hump that were Brightwell.
“I kept liftin my head, tellin them wrinkled old buzzards that I weren’t ready for them yet. Every time I talk at them they look at me with their big, starin brown eyes.”
I looked up. Above us, nine death-bird buzzards, their long black wings spread wide, circlin in the blue August sky. I made a wish and watched for one to flap its wings to make it come true.
Flap, flap, flap. Three flaps. Three chances for our luck to change.
“Them buzzards sounds like devils moanin, gruntin, and hissin at me. Sounds like I never hear. They smell rotted. They peck at me with their big hooked beaks.”
Auntie patted at Brightwell’s shoulder. “It is good to see thee again. I hadn’t even a hope of seeing thy face again after the beating that man gave thee.”
“I were right lucky, Auntie. Conductor found me where I’d crawled into the woods. He give me water and food, and tell me the signs to foller to a stop on the railroad. Good folk there hid me, took care of me.”
Zenobia had listened quietly. “I’m glad you think you lucky, Brightwell, but I’d say you was not lucky to be beat near to death by that man. Hard to remember them ‘good folk’ when so many bad are after us,” she said.
“But there are the good people who don’t believe that a person can own another, Zenobia,” Auntie said.
Zenobia slowly shook her head back and forth. “Ummm, ummm, I hoped that freedom time were comin, Auntie, but that slave law and them bad people took away my hopes.”
“Hope all we got, Zenobia,” Brightwell said.
“Brightwell, how’d you know you might could trust them people?” I asked.
“Hope. When I get there, I watch, pray, and hope I’m not steppin into a trap.”
I reached for Zenobia’s hand and squeezed it tight.
“The night I were leavin the safe house, a wagon with three other runaways come in for help. A young woman, Miss Emma, brung them from her farm down the road.”
Emma. Emma were one of them good folks.
“Lark, Miss Emma say you stop for food and water and then head south with a wagonload of people. Then she say next day or so she saw your wagon goin by headin north, but she didn’t see you nowhere. Worried you was hurt, or, or …”
Zenobia and Auntie looped their arms through mine to help me walk.
“When I leave the safe house, I went north after your wagon. I wants to find you all, wants to catch up to him and reckon an eye for an eye. By the time I finds him, finds where he were sleepin, he were so sick, all pocked up and out of his head, I just left him be. Left him to suffer like he left me.”
“You won’t be catchin what he had,” I said. “I give him a dose of poison ivy. Poison ivy and corn liquor is what made him out of his head.”
Bright well laughed and said, “I follered the wagon tracks all night till I found your sleepin spot. I knowed Shag were left behind, but I needed to make sure you was alone.”
“Thee has found us now, Brightwell, and we will all travel north together. Peacefully,” Auntie said.
Peacefully? I were right sure that Brightwell weren’t feelin much peace for Shag and for the likes of him.
We reached the campsite and found Armour, Better, and Enoch all cleaned up and waitin by the wagon, the horses hitched and ready to go. Better handed us each a wedge of corn bread topped with the last of the ham. One bite and it were gone—my stomach wouldn’t be stoppin its complainin.
Brightwell knelt by the crick and splashed his face and arms. Then he picked through Shag’s pack and pulled out an old tan shirt. When he lifted it over his head and tugged it down, well, he looked like any free workin man.
Armour slid the rifle behind the wagon seat. Brightwell and Enoch climbed up beside him while Auntie, Zenobia, Better, and me crawled into the back and set our minds to the day.
Enoch lifted the reins, clucked soft to the horses, and turned them round.
“We needs to be movin on now,” Brightwell said. “Better and Enoch are a free man and woman goin north to Auntie’s farm. They gots their manumission papers and can show them off to anyone who asks. Me, Armour, and Zenobia, we don’t have no papers, so we say we belongs to you, Auntie.”
He said all that to us like he were preachin a sermon. It calmed me some to hear how sure his voice sounded.
The wheels jolted as we moved onto the rutted road and headed north. The sun rose higher in the sky, and the day, like most dog days of August, were hot enough to bake corn bread on a rock.
We passed the tin of water round when the heat got us near droppin, and Auntie pulled bits and pieces of food together, then handed them to us. We was near out of food, and I could hear Zenobia’s stomach growlin, but food were the last thing we could be worryin about now; we was gettin closer to a town, and we was bound to see some other folks soon.
The sun blazed, and the smell of pines, a smell I always loved, near made me sick.
“Someone up ahead,” Brightwell said as he looked back over his shoulder at us. We leant out over the side of the wagon and saw the dust risin along the road. Who would we be meetin? Did we look like runaways or could we pass ourselfs off as just folks headin north?
“Hidden in plain sight,” Auntie said to us. “Remember, thy journey is home to Waterford.”
Brightwell nodded. Nobody made a sound.
My foot set to twitchin, wigglin back and forth like it always done when I get to frettin.
Meetin a wagon weren’t scarin me. That were what I kept tellin myself. I tied the ribbons of the fancy bonnet tight under my chin, tucked in my red hair, and set up straight. Auntie, Zenobia, and Better brushed themselfs off and leant back against the rails, their faces set.
My heart took to flutterin. I looked round, but not one of the others seemed a mite scairt. I sure weren’t goin to let on how I felt.
“Mama,” I said, “I could use me some good luck. Couldn’t you and Grandpa help us?”
The wagon rolled closer and closer. Soon I could see one man drivin and one man sittin beside him with a rifle acrost his lap. Close behind follered a man on a big gray horse with four white stockins. Bad luck come ridin right at us.
Fridays are a bad-luck day to laugh. If you laugh on Friday you’ll be crying by Sunday.
The wagon and rider passed by. Armour stared straight ahead. Me and Auntie raised our hands in greetin. As the man on the unlucky white-stockin’d horse trotted past without another glance, I felt like a thick barrel band had loosed and dropped off me. When I looked back over my shoulder, I saw the rider rein in the horse and swing it around.
“Stop!” he yelled. “Where you headin?”
Enoch called out a soft “whoa” and pulled back on the reins.
The man on the white-stockin’d horse rode back by the wagon, circled the front, looked the men up and down, and leveled his rifle at them.
Auntie stood up and greeted them. “Good morning, Friend,” Auntie said, like she were talkin to her favorite neighbor. “Won’t thee please move aside and let us pass? We are hurrying home to tend sick family.”
I knew that just tellin that little lie, even though she were tellin it to save us, would trouble Auntie.
“We’re not movin anywhere but where we want to be. And where we want to be is right here, askin you who you are and where you’re goin,” the man shouted. He moved his rifle till it stared at Brightwell.
Sweat soaked through Enoch’s shirt. He looked back at us, his eyes wide, but when he saw the fear on Better’s face, he turned and said, “Sir, please, she tryin to get home to family. We be travelin hard since North Carolina.”
“You don’t talk at me,
boy!” the man shouted.
The rider come closer and looked over into the bed of the wagon where we set.
“Lift them blankets,” he ordered.
I couldn’t get up, but Auntie bent over, picked up the mound of blankets, and laid them over the side of the wagon.
The rider poked at them, rode around us, and set his rifle back acrost his saddle.
“We’ve had runaways on the road and up on the Blue Ridge,” he said, “but we catch most of them at night, when they thinkin they safe. Stupid, stupid slaves. That’s why they slaves, they stupid!”
Brightwell leant forward. I knowed him and knowed that after all he’d been through he’d like nothin better than to yank that man off his horse. He started to stand.
Auntie walked a step to the back of the wagon seat and laid her hand on Brightwell’s shoulder. “Thee has a spacious heart—let it fill with the Light,” she said quiet-like. He settled back.
I were shakin, some sure that if Brightwell had done what he wanted to do, well, there would be plenty of blood spilt to pay for all of our pain.
“Go on,” the rider said, lookin us over again. Then he nodded north, the way we was headin.
I couldn’t help myself and let out a small snort of a laugh. Auntie shook her head at me, and Zenobia’s golden eyes widened in surprise. I bit at my lips, covered my mouth, and acted like I’d just sneezed.
The man stared at me, turned, dug his heels into the horse’s side, and rode south. But he left his white-stockin’d bad luck behind when he tipped his hat and said, “Good Friday to you.”
Oh law. I’d laughed on a bad-luck Friday. I’d be sure to be cryin on Sunday.
“Get ready,” Enoch said. “Down the road a ways they’s some more people and two riders. We run into them soon.”
Better squeezed her eyes shut. Auntie set between Zenobia and me and held our hands. Were there any way we could come out safe through this? All we could do was roll on, right into the middle of trouble again.
Avoid riders on white horses or you will surely run into bad luck or death.
I couldn’t stay jus settin. Settin and waitin. I stood up behind Brightwell and looked at the road ahead of us.
“Oh no,” I said. “Brightwell, here’s Armour’s hat.” I snatched the hat off Armour’s head and passed it to him.
“It’s the woman-man, the very same woman-man what caught you.”
Brightwell pulled the hat on and slunk low on the wagon bench. He kept his head down so’s she couldn’t see his scarred-up face.
I stepped back and set down in the wagon again.
“Zenobia, remember that meaner-than-a-mule-bite woman-man? Under the sycamore tree? We in for trouble.”
Zenobia nodded. “What happen to our luck?” she asked. “Best make sure you still has your buckeye.” She sank down, pulled the blue bandanna low on her head, and swiped her hand acrost her shiny face.
Better didn’t move, didn’t neaten up, didn’t show any feelins. It were like Better were with us, but her soul had left her.
Auntie set up straighter, smoothin her plain skirt, and tuckin and twistin her hair into a small coil.
I needed to make myself feel peaceful so I checked again and made sure every wisp of my red hair were still under my bonnet. Then I patted at my pocket to feel for my buckeye and set up prim and straight like the young wife of our travelin preacher. “Please, Mama and Grandpa, help us make it through this safe.”
The riders and three boys moved slow, but we all come together at the place where a small trail run into the wide road.
The woman-man on her white horse and the weasel-face man on the chestnut geldin stopped, yelled somethin at their boys, and watched us passin by.
I cast my eyes down. I didn’t want to look at the boy with the chicory-blue eyes. Please don’t let them remember Brightwell. Don’t let them boys remember me.
We rolled slowly past. I felt all them eyes starin at us, starin into us, like they knowed that we was shirkin from them.
“Where you headin?” the woman-man asked.
The wagon stopped. Auntie stood.
“Hello, Friends,” she said. “We are traveling from North Carolina to our home. We have some sick family.”
Poor Auntie. I knowed it pained her.
The woman-man shifted on her saddle and craned her neck till she could see into the bed of the wagon. She circled us, stoppin at the tail end, then stoppin by the side of Enoch and the others.
“You, you in the hat. Lift it up. Lift up yer hat.”
Brightwell set still.
“He can’t hear a word thee said. He is stone deaf and dumb,” Auntie said.
“You, boy”—she pointed to the dirty boy with the chicory-blue eyes—“lift his hat and let me have a look at him.”
The boy stepped up to the side of the wagon and started to climb onto the seat.
Enoch shook the reins and clucked for the horses to move.
“Stop!” the woman-man said. “Go after em!” she shouted at the weasel-face man on the horse.
He turned and rode toward us.
The boy had held on to the side of the movin wagon. He swung up, reached for Brightwell’s hat, and tugged.
“It’s him! It’s the slave what run away from us!” he yelled over his shoulder.
Brightwell reached out, grabbed the hat, and pushed the boy off the wagon and to the ground.
Seemed like the world blowed to pieces round us.
Shoutin. Better screamin. Enoch shakin at the reins, horses boltin forward, and the man aimin a rifle right at Armour.
Then I heard them. The dogs. Grandpa’s dogs—Bathsheba and Delia. They was soundin their chirpin barks and bayin and makin enough noise to raise the dead.
I looked down the trail to the side of us and saw Pa, Samuel, and Clem runnin fast toward us. Trouble. More trouble.
Zenobia started to crawl over the side of the rail.
“No,” I said, “you cain’t get away now. Them dogs would find you. Pa would shoot us. It’s too late, too late.”
I pulled her back into the wagon.
“We gots to set still and keep quiet.”
Zenobia settled next by me. Auntie stood and looked toward the three men headin right at us.
“Curse you two!” my pa shouted.
Had he already seen me?
“You, woman. What you think you doin? You tryin to catch my runaway and git the reward?”
He were talkin to the woman-man and weasel-face.
I watched from under the brim of my bonnet. Pa and my brothers didn’t know I were in the wagon. Them dogs hadn’t smelt me yet.
“That boy up there is my catch,” the woman-man said. “I had him till he broke free and run away. Now I got him back.”
“I don’t know about no boy. I’m trackin a runaway slave girl. She’s my take.”
“If she’s a runaway with a reward, then she’s mine,” the woman-man shouted.
“Thee must let us pass,” Auntie said. “We are traveling back to our home and sick family.”
“Git out of my way!” Pa yelled to the woman-man as he started toward us.
I didn’t dare look up, didn’t dare let him notice me.
The dogs was barkin and runnin around the horses.
Pa yelled at the woman-man again.
“Woman, move away from that wagon!” Pa shouted, motionin with his old shotgun. “I’m lookin for the slave girl with the big reward.”
“One more step and you’re dead. I’m sick of you and yer kind stealin from me,” the woman-man said as she pointed her rifle at Pa.
Just then Delia and Bathsheba lifted their muzzles, sniffed, and went crazy wild. They circled the wagon, barkin, leapin up at the tail end, tryin to get to me.
“I knowed it!” Pa yelled. “They found the slave girl. She’s mine. We gittin the reward.”
He moved toward us and Brightwell stood, towerin above Pa and all the others.
“That’s him, that one’s ours!”
the woman-man shouted, aimin at Brightwell.
I stood up and reached behind the wagon seat where Armour had hid Shag’s rifle. None of my friends could use that rifle against any whites, no matter how bad them people was. My friends wouldn’t never get their freedom or find shelter with anyone if they was killers. They’d be hung from a tree branch like a shot deer.
My fingers wrapped around the barrel. I lifted the rifle up and over the back of the seat and held it out of sight.
“Git down here, boy!” the woman-man shouted. “Right now, reward or not, I’m shootin you, you miserable … Do somethin!” she screamed at the man who rode with her. “Do somethin, you stupid, worthless fool.”
The weasel-face rider looked at her, turned his horse, spit a brown stream of tobacca, and rode away. He yelled back over his shoulder, “I am sick of bein your stupid, worthless fool. Find someone else.”
While the woman-man watched us, the three white boys, the ones who had been under the sycamore tree, took off runnin in three different directions. The chicory-eyed boy ran north, the white-haired boy run south, and the other, he just run, zigzaggin like a rabbit runnin from a fox.
She screamed at them, “Worthless cowards. All! Worthless!”
The rider and the boys never stopped. Never looked back.
She spun around and leveled her gun at Pa.
“You and yer boys, you get out of here and I’ll let you stay alive. Them’re my slaves, my reward, my property. Get out or I’ll shoot you all.”
Clem and Samuel stepped away from Pa.
I watched as Pa raised his shotgun and pointed it at the woman-man. Then I heard an earsplittin crack, like a tree bein hit by lightnin. I saw the look of surprise on Pa’s face when the bullet hit him. First come a small red spot, the size of them rosebuds I put on my baby brothers’ and sisters’ graves. Then that red spot growed and bloomed, spreadin wide acrost Pa’s shirt. He reached up and pressed his hand against his chest afore he fell.
The dogs howled and yipped when they smelt the blood. My brother Samuel kicked at Delia and Bathsheba and bent to help Pa. Clem knelt beside him, lifted Pa’s head, then slow-like set it down in the dirt.
“He ain’t the only one I’m goin to shoot!” the woman-man yelled.
Running Out of Night Page 16
