“What really happened?”
James frowns. Stares across the river.
“I ain’t mean nothing by it,” Agnes says. “Tell it like you want to.”
“It ain’t that,” James says. He stands behind her. Pulls her close. A sheet slips from her hands. He breathes in the smell of her hair. “Things gonna get a whole lot worse around here.”
“What you mad for?” Agnes asks. Later, Ella sits on the step whittling away while Papa Jonah whittles at his pipe. Even layered in skins, her bones poke through the garb. The rise and fall of her back is the only sign she’s breathing. “No more circle? What that mean to you? I’m the one been suckling on them stories since before I could walk. What you think I grew this big on blueberries and carrots? Them women are my family and I don’t get to see them no more till Walker and Sampson make nice or die. You don’t see me burrowing a hole about it.” Ella hasn’t looked at her since supper. She’d sat there not even pretending to eat the steaming plate of coon tail and smothered carrots. Stood up before Agnes had even finished the telling and sat on the porch, without asking Mama Skins if she could leave the cabin.
“Come on,” Agnes says, slipping beside Jonah to stand face-to-face with Ella. She doesn’t wait for Ella’s silent response but drags her around the back of the cabin, through the garden and into the woods. The trees here are taller than any on Walker land. Agnes drops her hand. She wraps her arms around a thick tree. She wiggles and stretches them but still, her fingers do not touch. “Go around the other side,” she commands.
Ella rolls her eyes, drags her feet and faces the tree. She looks up and up and still can’t see the top of it. The bark is smooth in some places, worn in others. Here and there scars and holes dot the thick trunk. It oozes sweet-smelling sap. Sniffing, she leans closer.
“It ain’t gonna bite.” Ants scurry up and down the thick bark. Patches of moss and clusters of leaves barely conceal knotted wood, holes, and burrows. Sap slides lazily from seldom used holes. The tree tickles her cheek, but Agnes waits. Finally Ella’s hot fingertips press against hers. “The end of the circle don’t mean we not gonna get out of here. Just mean none of them can help us. All I need you to do is hold on and I’m gonna hold on just like this,” she says. “We keep holding on just a little while longer, we gonna both be free.”
That evening the girls sit with their backs pressed against the rough bark. The cool night air wrinkles Agnes’s nose. “Don’t nobody out there care nothing ’bout how you feel ’bout being here,” she whispers. She breathes deeply so the air fills her lungs. “Just do what you told and don’t end up dead. You better start eating too.”
Ella snorts.
“I mean it. I ain’t going to do all this planning just to end up carrying you. You heavier than you look. I swear them bones got to weigh more than a head of hogs.”
Ella giggles.
“It ain’t gonna be long, you’ll see.” No sense talking about bringing James. He’s coming no matter what.
Agnes is up before dawn the next morning. Before sunrise she has done her share of picking, washed the windows up at the house, soaked pots, and scrubbed the front room. By noon she has washed the steps and beat the dough for supper. Grinning, Samantha hands her a full chamber pot. She whispers above the stench, “James heard that gal’s pa is looking for her. Folks in town talking about a gang of black men heading this way. They gotta be her peoples. Sheriff sent them every which way but here. He told them this place is haunted but they heading here just the same, should arrive just before suppertime.”
Agnes nearly drops the pot. Its contents swirl and slosh like her stomach. Come to take her home. Agnes’s hands tremble.
“Go tell your ma,” Samantha says. “She’ll know what to do.”
Chapter 9
Samantha and Myrtle hear them first. Trotting horses, stomping mules, murmuring voices, and one lopsided cart clomping up the path. Tufts of dirt and pebbles fling as they pass. Somebody’s going to have to clean that up, Myrtle thinks. Black men tall as trees trail behind the sheriff and one of the reverend’s boys. This ain’t no coffle. The men dismount. Clutching the reins in tight fists, they stare. With sweeping gazes they take in the chipped paint, missing planks, coarse lawn, bare fields, and slave hands dotting the fields. Myrtle wishes they had come ten years ago when the grass was thick, the house freshly painted, when the manor was plump with flowers, vegetables, cows, and slaves. Young ones fetching milk, grabbing reins. Older ones watering horses, shoeing if need be. Fields covered with slaves picking, pulling, mending, fixing, plowing, maybe even singing. One or two babies underfoot. Myrtle would have looked at these men and known they appreciated all she did for the place. That was before Meredith come, before the fields were full of nothing but graves.
Walker Senior sits in the parlor, his legs crossed beneath his writing desk. Every once in a while he leans forward, spits a wad of snuff into a kerchief, refolds it.
“What they doing now, James?” Walker Junior asks from the chair across from his father.
Big James parts the curtains wide enough to peep out. “Sir, they’ve dismounted. It looks like they’re just huddled up in front of the door. One’s looking right at me through the window and pointing up here. Should I invite them in?”
“No, you damned fool! Not till I tell you to,” Junior snaps.
“James, tell Myrtle to get supper going,” Senior directs. “Son, that ain’t no way to treat company. Go see to the door,” he says. He stands with his shotgun behind his chair and his pistol on the blotter.
James pushes the kitchen door open. “Master Walker says y’alls to start supper to cooking,” he says. Before the door clicks shut he whispers, “Send James to fetch Meredith.”
“Come in from that heat, Sheriff,” Walker calls from the top of the porch.
The sheriff climbs the steps, finds a patch of shade and leans against the railing. The rest of the party is left to wait out in the Maryland sun. “Been some time since I been up here. I’d say ten, eleven years?”
“Sounds about right,” Walker says.
“Not since—”
“The plague?” Senior interrupts. He settles down in a wicker rocking chair, shotgun propped against his leg.
“Weren’t no plague I can remember,” the sheriff says. “Only hit here. Folks got to saying only thing growing here is ghosts.”
Senior laughs. “Folks liable to say anything.”
“I ain’t here to tell you how to run your affairs,” Sheriff says, “but that gal’s pa been told you snatched her up in Pennsylvania. She’s free.”
“I was in Pennsylvania a few weeks or so ago, wasn’t I, Pa? I’m sure quite a few people was too. I ain’t buy no slaves. I saw plenty of Negroes just running around the streets. I couldn’t say for sure I seen one in particular. It’s his word against mine, ain’t it?” Junior asks.
“His and Mr. Dwight Thompson’s. Thompson’s a businessman, much like yourself far as I can tell. Sheriff up in Philadelphia sent this boy down here with papers and testimony and asked me to help him look around and send him on his way. Says here Thompson don’t usually go about telling tales. But now since Mr. Thompson ain’t here, I reckon Thompson ain’t sure what he saw if he saw anything at all.”
Myrtle slips out the back to look for James. That gal leaving sure is gonna undo all Meredith’s fixing. All that scheming to save Agnes from Walker. All them dead babies scattered across them fields. When Walker find out she ’bout the only thing not dried up round here she’ll be birthing babies aplenty. What Meredith gonna do then? She can’t kill ’em all. Myrtle finds James cleaning out the barn. “Your pa wants you to go get that gal. Her folks come to take her home.”
“Can I offer you another glass of tea, Master?” James asks the sheriff. His hands shake. James stares just above the sheriff’s head. What’s taking that boy so long? Probably fiddling in the woods with
Agnes. Like nobody knows. That boy could take any house slave from almost any neighboring plantation, any one Master Walker is on good terms with, and he chooses a girl headed for the fields. He’s probably rolling around in the dirt with her right now. What else could be taking him so long? He couldn’t be still trying to come up with a plan. James had thought of at least ten, three of which seemed less likely to end with one of them getting killed. One even ended with the pa and them carrying her off alive. If she just come running along the fields like she was running from someplace else, why it wouldn’t even look like Walker had set off with her. If it did, wouldn’t nobody say it did. Happy to have found her, her pa would just leave. Walker would be madder than Old Missus in a rainstorm but things would settle down soon enough. If they said she’d escaped, maybe knocked one of them out, it might not be so bad after a spell. The sheriff shoos him away.
“If it gets to court, Thompson’s word against yours, I don’t know whose side will hold up.”
“Sheriff, the only young gal I got on my property is Agnes,” Walker says. “You met her yourself. She was born right here.”
“Rumor is that no children were born on this place, cuz it’s haunted,” the sheriff says. “Boy, give me some of that air.”
James waves a hand-folded fan in wide arcs.
“The place is a bit haunted, as you say, Sheriff. Just the other day a darkie was fished right out the river with rocks all in her mouth. They say she was held down by a big hand from the sky but I don’t believe it. They liable to believe anything, you know. Another one was found strung up like a tree with vines and twigs all round her body wrapped up in animal fur. She turned on three tracking dogs, spooked them. It took three rounds of buckshot to take her down. It’s getting dark but if you want to look and see if that gal done found her way down to my grounds some kinda way?”
“I hardly think that’s necessary,” the sheriff says.
Thick clouds pass overhead. The wind swirls leaves in quick moving patches. Below, the men shift from one foot to the next. It’s time to go.
“Agnes was born right before we started having all them troubles. Back then we had all sorts of things growing here. She the last one, though,” Walker says. “She’s down the river right now, down the very spot where Sampson’s gal got snatched up. You all are most welcome to go down there and have a look around. That would satisfy all sides, wouldn’t it?”
By the river, sweat drips down Agnes’s forehead, into her eyes to her chin. It wouldn’t take this long if she had someone to help. She’s hauled three rocks and two logs and can still see the worn edges of the circle plain as day. Walker will kill her if Mama Skins don’t do it first. Mama Skins won’t have nobody to blame but herself. You get started, I’m gonna take this one for a little walk, Mama Skins said. As if Walker hadn’t said he’d skin them all if there was anything left of the circle. She was lucky he hadn’t already taken the whip to her. The way he’d come storming down after the men hauled Grace out of the water. Made them all watch as they slit her belly open in case the baby had survived. Had them carry mother and son to a ditch behind the far field, throw them in. They’d still be wandering Walker’s if Mama Skins hadn’t gone back late that night, said words over their graves, told stories of rising up, being together in Heaven.
Agnes’s back and arms ache. Down yonder, field hands trill like doves. Closer, a familiar trill rings—James. Agnes trills bluebird in response. Listens. His response is clear. She trills robin, listens for Mama Skins’s response. Trills again. Silence. Where could they have gone?
Deep in the woods, past the river, beyond the far field and the ditch, Mama Skins whittles a pipe out of a fresh stripped piece of bark. “This is just the wood I’ve been looking for. Couldn’t have found it without you,” she says. “Jonah will be tickled.”
Ella sits on a large rock. Her feet dangle down the sides. Her fingers trace its cracks. The forest is alive with birdsong. She stops to listen. Is that a robin?
“Damned birds,” Mama Skins says, “sounds like they eating up Master’s crop. No sense in hurrying home. We’ll head back when things settle down a bit. All this walking got me to thinking.” Mama Skins pauses, tilts her head, listens. From between the layers of her garb she pulls out a bundle made of sewn hides. She unties the large bow. A bright green apple, a lemon, strawberries, and a beet roll out. From another fold, she pulls out a blunt, rusted knife. Without looking up, she saws at the lemon. Bits of yellow skin sprinkle the rock. When she finally breaks through, she puts the lemon to her lips, sucks the juice out in quiet slurps. She wets a fingertip, gathers the scattered flesh before popping her finger into her mouth. “I hear you and Agnes thinking about running off. That true?”
“What we gonna do?” Little James asks. He’s out of breath from running to the circle and out of breath from pacing since he’s been there.
“I don’t know,” Agnes says for the third time. “Done looked everywhere they could be.”
“They gotta be up to the house, then. Your mama know they was coming. Coulda took her up there, handed her over to her pa. Think he bought your mama? Give her her papers as a thank you? Your ma wouldn’t go lessin she could take you. Walker wouldn’t allow that. She would expect you to take her place. Why, you could be free this very minute!”
“You know Walker better than that.”
“Why wouldn’t her pa at least buy you? You the one been taking care of her.”
Would Walker really sell her? Her, the only child from this place in a lifetime of dying babies? Would he sell her away from her mama and papa? From James and them? He could use the money but would he take it? If he did, would that make her free? Not quite free, sold to a free man. Would she be that little gal’s slave? What would happen to this place if she wasn’t there? Would Mama Skins keep doctoring? She’d probably kill Walker. Less he’s dead already. If that gal’s pa is anything like she say he is he could be halfway to jail right now. Less he killed the sheriff too.
“We gotta get to the house!” Agnes yells. She’s already sprinting through the grass. If he hadn’t killed anybody, if that gal’s pa is gonna buy her, Agnes will come back for James and Mama Skins and Papa Jonah. But she won’t be left behind.
Junior and Senior sip iced drinks on the porch. Below, the men gather around the sheriff in a circle. James catches tails of words: “lies, guns, cahoots.” The sheriff’s “Watch your mouth, son,” rises up to the porch.
“He’s a good sheriff,” Junior says.
“Not as good as the last one, though,” Senior says. “Last one woulda come in, took off his hat, sat a while, then asked ’bout that gal after supper. He knew how to be respectful.”
I’m ready if they storm the house, James thinks. The circle seems to tighten up, to close in on the sheriff in ripples. Can’t hardly see the deputy over the broad backs and long necks of the gal’s kin. It’s the sheriff’s thin, whiny voice that wafts up in snatches. James can’t hear the men’s deep voices. As one, at least when he tells the story later, they tense, spread their feet, reach for guns in holsters. James shivers. He’d hate to harm young Walker but he wouldn’t mind knocking Master Walker upside the head once or twice. An icy wind blows. A crack of thunder, followed by another and a flash. God don’t like this. Ice-cold rain pours over the men, the fields, the lane. Even as they stand there it washes away their footprints. The men mount donkeys and horses. Before they’ve even left the lane, all traces of them are gone.
Agnes, with Little James behind her, slips and runs through the rain, down the path, around the field, to the back of the house. Myrtle, Samantha, and James sit in the kitchen praying.
“She gone? I miss her?” Agnes asks.
Agnes will never forget the looks on their faces and the shivers up and down her spine as they turn to stare at her.
12:30 p.m.
Why you stop? Tempe asks. She’s got her legs crossed like she’s sitting,
only ain’t no stool there.
“You hear that?” I ask.
She shrugs. Around the room bedsprings creak. Patients moan. If I listen real hard, I can hear Edward breathing just about. Wish that was all I heard. The window’s open but it don’t carry no breeze. Only thing blowing in is the sound of angry voices from the streets. Raised voices chanting so fast it sounds like a mumble. Don’t matter, though. I know what they saying. They want my boy. If I could look out the window, I would see miles and miles of pitchforks and torches. Every so often loud cheers break the chant. I sure hope they ain’t hurting nobody. That mob’s liable to do anything. Glass bottles and rocks soar past the window, crack against the wall outside. Sirens start the same time the screaming does. I try to drown it out so it don’t worry my baby none.
I’m patting his hand. With my eyes closed I picture him the last time I seen him.
Spring.
“Not yet,” I say.
Open your eyes, woman.
“Tempe!” I’m about to say something I’ll wish I hadn’t. But I hear it. Music playing on a phonograph. Before I can say anything, day turns into night. Sunshine turns into candlelight. The hospital beds turn into couches and crates, a cupboard turns into a table, and my Edward is standing there, in my front room, dressed for work. He’s grinning, sharp even in his wrinkled trousers and sweat-stained work shirt. Them boys there too. Instead of laying up hurt, they sitting on my good furniture, their work boots on my hardwood floor, beer jars on my table. I don’t mind, though. Without bandages and bruises I recognize them. Neighborhood boys that went to school, war, and now work with Edward.
There’s Jacob, a fresh-rolled cigarette hanging off his bottom lip.
“Don’t you smoke that in here,” Edward says. “My mama doesn’t stand for that in the house.”
“Man, your mama got a rule for everything. Take your shoes off in the house, put the cup on the saucer in the house, don’t light up in the house. She ain’t gonna know nothing ’bout it,” Jacob says.
Remembered Page 8
