“Walking, what?”
“Like this.” She takes one large step, followed by a larger one, then another.
“Don’t walk away while I’m talking to you!”
“I’m just trying to explain what I’m doing,” she says. “I’m taking the shortcut from church so I get home in time for supper. Mama gets mad something fierce if I’m late.” Ella looks around. Nothing but a lonely wagon stacked with chicken cages, a bureau, and some thick mattresses tied to two horses. Any other time a neighbor or two would be in a garden pulling vegetables for supper, out back taking clothes off the line, walking down the street on the way home from work. Seems like everybody in Philadelphia is shut behind locked doors and here she is talking to some strange white man all alone. Papa will have a fit.
“You supposed to be walking through the woods like that?”
“Like what?” Ella’s right eye twitches. Run.
“What’s the matter with your eye?”
“Tainted,” she whispers. Words seem stuck in her throat. She can’t get enough air.
“Damned my luck. First a bushel of broken ones back home and now this. Why me?”
The too-close man’s hot breath wrinkles Ella’s nose. She steps backward.
“Walker,” a familiar voice calls from the other side of the wagon, “will you come on? I got to get back home before it gets too dark.”
“Mr. Thompson?” Ella calls. “I’m sure glad to see you!” The words tumble fast, in time with her heart. She catches herself before running to hug him. The last thing she needs is Mama to come round the bend and see her arms wrapped around Mr. Thompson.
“Ella? What you doing out here all by yourself? Your pa know where you at?”
“No, sir.”
“You ain’t been sneaking round with no boy, have you?”
“No, sir.”
“Don’t seem like your pa to let you go running around town by yourself. It seems like you’re always up under your mama’s skirts or running behind one of your brothers.”
“Yes, sir, I’m just on my way home now.”
“Through the woods?”
“I was taking a shortcut. It seemed like the fastest way to get home. You know how my mama gets if I miss supper.”
Thompson smiles. “You should get on home then.”
Ella turns to go. She will have to run to make up the time. Won’t Mama be tickled when she tells her what a fright she had on the way home? Overreacting, that’s all. Just plain imagining. “I’ll tell Pa I saw you and Ma that you asked after her.”
“Hold still, Negra,” Walker demands.
Run. Run. Run. The birds chirp, chickens cluck, wind whispers it. Ella keeps walking. Her heart beats so loudly that she can barely make out Mr. Thompson’s words behind her. Walker catches up and grips her shoulder tight.
“Walker, let that gal go!” Thompson yells out. “Get on home, child.”
Walker tightens his grip. His thick fingernails dig into Ella’s shoulder. “You said if I did a few jobs for you, you’d help me catch one. Well, I caught one. First Negro we seen alone in miles. Must be some sort of sign. Now help me get her in the wagon.”
“The Lord is my shepherd …” Ella prays. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.
“I didn’t mean a tamed one. I meant one running around. One I don’t know.”
“Well, she’s one I don’t know,” Walker says. He pulls Ella toward the wagon. She digs her heels into the dirt. He drags her. Her leather shoes, the ones Mama cured, stitched, dyed instead of buying the ready-made ones in the shop, scrunch and slide off Ella’s feet. She fights. She flails and twists her arms, contorts her back. He clamps an arm around her neck, wrestles to pick her up.
“Wait a minute!” Thompson says. “I don’t want no trouble with her pa. He’s good people.”
“For a colored.” Walker spits the words with a clump of chewing tobacco on the ground. “Soon you be talking ’bout they just like us.”
“Just pick another one.” Thompson blocks the way to the wagon.
“Look here, Thompson. You good people. You work hard. Got a piece of land. Do right by your missus. Got yourself a reputation here. You gonna let this fool of a girl ruin all you building up? Don’t you care about your family? I care about mine, I do. I don’t know what kind of man that makes me, but I can’t go home without this gal. I can’t do that to the missus. I ain’t told you before now but my place is bad off. You know how long it’s been since we had a young’un? Something ain’t right there. Need to start over. Build from the dirt up. Need a gal like this to break the curse.”
Thompson laughs. “A curse? You talking just like them. There’s no such thing as a curse.”
“No? Then there’s no harm in taking this gal, is there?” Thompson stares at Ella, wriggling in Walker’s grasp. “Ain’t nothing wrong with what we doing,” Walker continues. “What you think gonna happen to her if she keep running around with her uppity ways? Talking to folk any ol’ kind of way? You want her pa to have to bury her cuz she don’t know how to talk to white folk? And her ma, you want her ma to be chasing round trying to make her do right? Won’t be long before some boy’s in her skirts. She won’t bring nothing but shame.”
Walker’s hands fumble over Ella’s body as he tries to haul her into the wagon. Her pamphlet falls to the ground. She kicks hard like her brothers taught her and runs without turning to watch him double over.
“Call the law! Call the law!” Walker yells. “You seen it. She attacked me!”
Ella’s arms and legs pump as she runs down the road. Just a few strides more and she will be at the bend. Behind her someone stumbles, the earth crunches beneath the weight of too-tight shoes. A slippery hand tugs at the back of her dress. Thompson.
Wheezing, he grips a handful of cloth and hefts her off her feet. “Stupid fool,” he whispers. “Wouldn’t none of this have happened if it weren’t for you.”
She’s dying. The high neckline Grandmother had sworn by and insisted upon clings to her neck like stingy hands. Between the biting lace, Thompson shaking her so that her head rattles and her lungs refusing to breathe, Ella’s world turns black. She almost doesn’t feel it when Walker hits her in the head with the side of a pistol.
It’s dark when she comes to. Her head throbs. Her heart hurts. Her arms and legs, tied, are sore. Her throat is dry. Her tongue’s thick. The drying vomit under her nose, around her mouth, covering her chin, suffocates her. Her head thumps against wood planks each time the wagon bumps, swerves. I want my mama. She lays on her side in the back of the wagon tied hands to feet under a thick row of scratchy blankets and smelly chicken crates. The squawking and scratching of the chickens muffles her screams. The wagon bounces for hours. Days. It is dawn when it finally stops. Shuffling feet, hushed voices and then Walker’s voice, angry and short.
“Just tend the horses and unload the chickens. I’ll get the rest.”
Ella screams.
A sharp bang on the side of the wagon is the only response. The horses are unhitched. The crates unloaded. The blankets lifted. A flash of light. Fresh air, dark-brown eyes staring into hers. Ella jumps.
Quickly a brown hand releases the blankets. Darkness.
Ella’s heart pounds. Her clothes stick to her skin. Her skin sticks to the wooden wagon bottom. The ropes cut into her wrists and ankles.
Hours later she’s dragged across the wagon floor, dumped to the ground. She stares up into an older version of Walker.
Walker joins them. He spits near her face.
“Sir, there’s been some mistake,” Ella says. Don’t look them in the eye. Lower your voice. Be respectful. Her throat is hoarse. “If you would just cut me loose, I can get back home.”
“What’s she talking about?”
“Damned if I know,” Walker Junior says.
“Would you shut her u
p so we can get down to business?”
Ella closes her eyes in time to see the sole of Junior’s shoe before he kicks her in the face.
Chapter 6
For three days Ella is chained naked to a wooden beam a little thicker than she is. Her legs, arms, neck, and every piece of flesh ache. Flies buzz and settle in her hair, on her legs. Her muscles flinch; the flies, undaunted, lap at streaks of urine that dry down her inner thighs. A barn. The air is hot with the stench of manure, pee, sweat, and hate. The smells sizzle, filling Ella’s nostrils. She had been left alone the first two nights. No food, no water, no answer to her screaming or begging to be set free. No glaring eyes. She is almost thankful. Ella has heard stories about robbers creeping in through windows and snatching up colored children who didn’t mind their parents or clean their plates. But she wasn’t a kid anymore and these weren’t googly-eyed demons. She hasn’t been snatched from her bed. For as long as she can remember she’s been warned of the dangers the night brings. There were stories. Always don’t do, don’t do, don’t do, or they’ll snatch you. But in the broad daylight? Who warned her about that? She prays. Please Lord, let me see my papa again. Papa must be worrying a hole in the porch by now. Most likely he’s rounded up the boys and the men from town, hitched up wagons and corralled horses. He’s armed with loaded rifles and unleashed hunting dogs. Right now Papa’s on his way with his men and his guns and his fury. Just wait and see. Just wait.
For three days the cows stare—bored.
When they come, they come carrying candles. Two shadows circling, watching, appraising; casting lines.
“How much she cost?” the old one asks.
“I negotiated some good terms, you’d be proud.”
Sweat trickles into Ella’s eyes. Her body burns all over. “I’ve been stolen!” she screams.
The back of a hand cracks her dry, swollen lips. “She ain’t got no papers, son?”
“I am free!”
Hot fire presses under her arm; her skin burns. Ella screams. The candle flickers.
“What’s the matter with you?” Thin hands press cloth on her skin. Smells of skin, lilac, and turpentine swirl as the old man prods the fresh burn and stuffs the rag in Ella’s mouth. Ella bites hoping for bone, flesh, or blood, instead she holds a mouth full of fraying dirty rag and screams. “Won’t get near as much for her if she’s scarred up.”
Fingers part folds of flesh, pinch. Ella writhes and squirms, twists from hands that are soft like pincushions.
“Look at her, heifer must be in heat.”
“You only got a few weeks to break her in. If you can’t, I’ll do it.”
“It won’t hardly take that long, Pa. She’s mine now.”
Ella’s stomach spasms. It constricts and tightens. I am not a slave, I am not a slave, I am not a slave. The dry cloth smothers the words before they can leave her mouth.
A few hours later, stars pepper the sky. It’s not the carefree breeze of a Philadelphia night. The air is crisp, cold. Inside, candlelight flickers. In gentle voices the men worry over the loss of appetite of a milking cow. Hay rustles. A sweet scent. Cows cull. Heavy boots stomp, wood slides across cold floor. The men settle, wait. Their voices echo. She feels them, knows they are close. Soon Papa will come with her brothers and shotguns. The white men will be sorry. Will Papa kill them anyway? Probably.
But when the killing is over she’ll get a whupping. It’s her fault she’s here, chained to a beam in a stinky barn, and not home. It’s her fault she’s been stolen. Something in her eyes, her walk, her voice. Whatever it is, it was in the way he looked at her. Like she was the devil. Soon as she gets home, she’ll go to church, twice on Sundays. And no more sneaking out the house like she’s been doing. From now on she’ll do as she’s told. She’ll finish her chores and wait for her mother or grandmother to walk the five miles to the big church clear on the other side of the city. She won’t complain about passing at least ten churches just to get there or being forced to sit through the children’s service even though she’s nearly twelve years old. She’ll mind the young ones with their dirty hands reaching for her ribbons and just smile when they beg for sweets, even though they know better than to ask for something before the bell rings. She’ll smile and sing and tell stories and let them climb all over her and miss the service and ask Mama and them what the preacher said. She won’t even think of sneaking back to her own church with the smell of warm bread where she sits with the grown folks and is chair of the Adult Reading Group. If she’s good, maybe Mama will let her go back to her little church even though there’s “hardly any prospects there worth considering for a young lady,” even though she’s not even considering. If Mama does let her go back, for as long as she lives, she will never take another shortcut home.
Splinters pierce her skin clasping her to the beam. The chain winds around her neck, snakes across her belly, wraps around her thin thighs. It is old. It digs into her flesh, leaving flecks of rust and blood on her skin. Heavy on her soul. As the air cools and the night thickens the men talk numbers, coins, pounds, percentages. They count cows, berries, acres, slaves down to the last penny.
“Hips wide for breeding. What you reckon she’s good for—ten, twelve?”
“One a year for,” Walker Junior taps his fingers loud against his palm, “that sounds about right.”
“We should have a healthy stock in just a few years.”
“You sure she can birth?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Nothing else grows here. Ain’t no young’uns been born here for over—”
“—Don’t start talking that curse nonsense. The only thing keeping these Negroes from birthing is the devil. They’re just too evil to birth babies.”
“It ain’t just them.”
“Son, your wife ain’t nothing like them. She’s delicate. Give her time. If there’s any wool to that curse yarn, this new gal will change it. Start afresh. And if there isn’t, well, she didn’t cost you much.”
Sour phlegm bubbles from Ella’s stomach, floods her mouth, saturates the cloth, seeps down her chin. She will die here. Of all the ways Ella has imagined dying: flattened by a runaway cart, trampled by an ornery mule, beat to within an inch of her life by Mama’s switch, choked by a rag full of throw-up wasn’t one of them. Ella M. Clarke, twelve years old. Dead.
“The damned fool’s choking. How you choke on your own spit?” The old man yanks the rag from her mouth. He folds the cloth, wipes streaks of vomit from her face with a scratchy patch of it and shoves the rag back in her mouth. “The way I see it, you done her a favor. Roaming the streets, clothes torn off like a hussy? It’s a wonder no one took her sooner. She coulda ended up dead.”
“Sure coulda.”
Ella bangs her head against the solid wood. If she can get it to crack, she can wake up. There will be blood, maybe a knot on her head, a headache. Even if her head splits wide open, it will be better than this. When she wakes up, maybe all this—the strange look in Thompson’s eyes, being stolen, soiled—is a touch of wine, Christ’s blood, sipped from the bottom of a jelly jar. She’d known better than to dip from the grown folks’ Communion glass. Any minute she’ll wake up and find herself lying in the middle of the cornfield out back of the church or swaying on the path through the woods, cocooned, safe. Her skirts might be damp, a bit muddy. She’ll have to run home for sure. If she can wake up, she’ll get home.
“Stop it, you damned fool!” Sweaty hands around her waist. Senior tightens the heavy chain links. “Since you’re worrying about it, we ought to see if something’s wrong with her,” he says. “I’ll do it.” He unbuckles his belt.
“No, Pa, what if she’s got something? No sense you getting it too.”
“What you wanna do? Send for Doc? By the time you get him to come over here, he’ll be too full of drink to think straight.”
“No need to get him invo
lved. I’ll get Little James, he’ll do.” He’s out the door before his father can answer.
Before it stops, Ella’s heart beats so loudly it echoes in the beam, the shutters seem to shake, the floor trembles. Her body shakes. The old man runs dry, thick fingers across her skin. He presses, pinches, slaps, twists. She worries his sandpaper fingers rubbing against her flesh will start a fire. Ignite them both, she hopes.
“Ain’t nothing wrong with you, is there?” he asks. He probes, sinking his fingers deep inside her.
A few minutes later, Walker returns with Little James. He hangs a lantern on a nail. Nods his head in Ella’s direction. “Do your business,” he says.
James unhitches his breeches. “Don’t do this,” Ella begs through the rag. Her head barely reaches his chest. Little James is at least two heads taller and nearly as old as Papa. Without looking at her, he spits on his hands, rubs them together, spits on them again and pushes two fingers inside of Ella. She shrieks. James smothers her screams with his chest, he enters her. He ruts inside her. His cold sweat drips down her skin. She shivers.
“That’s it,” he coaxes.
The beam wedges into her back. Splinters dig into her skin. Her body burns from the inside. James’s body shakes. He grunts. A warm glob drips down Ella’s thigh.
“Sorry,” he whispers. He pulls up his pants.
“Well?” Senior asks.
“Sir, sure don’t feel like she tainted,” James declares. He adjusts his breeches.
“Good, good,” Senior says, reaching to unbuckle his belt. James rocks back and forth on his heels.
“Would you stay still?” Walker asks.
James fidgets. He rubs one thigh, then the other. Soon he is frantically rubbing them both. “I’m burning! I’m burning!” He screams, flinging himself to the floor. “Master, please take that rifle and shoot me.” He crawls on his knees toward Walker. “I ain’t gonna be no use to you at all.” His eyes roll in his head. Tears drip down his face.
Remembered Page 4
