Remembered

by Yvonne Battle-Felton

  They so wrapped up in each other’s arms that they don’t notice me go. I don’t want to but my feet lead me straight to the river. The cool grass cushions my feet. I sit on the bank, legs dangling. The river kisses my soles. Don’t know how long I been crying when I feel a hand on my shoulder. He sits down next to me, quiet as a keep. Even though I don’t expect to hear nothing but how everything’s gonna turn out alright, I tell him everything. James listens in silence and after a few minutes, he does the same. He tells me things I won’t believe until years later when Tempe tells me they true. By the time I get back to the cabin, Samantha and Rose are there. Mama and Tempe stand on the porch still fawning over one another.

  “She’s gonna have a baby,” Mama says. “A free child.”

  “Half free,” Samantha says. She’s wearing a limp flower in her hair; her special occasions hat.

  “Long as Tempe a slave, that baby’s a slave,” Rose says.

  “Yep, a little free baby,” Mama says. She nods her head like she and Rose said the exact same thing. “It’s time to have a wedding!”

  There are gifts: flowers with long stems, a thick homemade quilt, thin shells and words. One by one they lay hands on Tempe covering her in prayers.

  “Lord, may this child know your undying love and unwavering mercy in her times of need,” Rose says.

  “Yahweh, may she never forget to praise your name,” Samantha says.

  “Lord, let this baby be born free,” Mama says.

  Before leading the women’s march to the river, Tempe gives me a quick hug. I hold on too long. The sun shines but it’s not warm. The air is cool; crisp enough to hurry our steps. Tempe’s eyes are covered with a thick cloth. According to Samantha, slaves been getting married like this for generations. Can’t nobody prove she’s wrong. Samantha twirls Tempe round and round till she’s about dizzy. She pushes her forward. “Your heart will lead the way,” she says. “If Edward is the man for you, your heart will lead you to him.” She covers all of our eyes with scraps of cloth.

  We walk slowly behind, trusting Tempe will know the way. Blindfolded, the walk from the cabin to the river is a lot longer than I remember. Every so often Tempe hollers for us to duck down, watch our heads, move a bit to the side. Nettles stick to the bottoms of my feet. More than once she leads us straight through a briar patch or bed of pine needles. Over the years, our feet done worn paths all through the woods, the grass, around the fields. She can’t seem to find none of them. She stumbles and falls. We stumble and fall. She gets up and slips. We get up and slip. She seems to be able to find all the leftover slick mud. Gnats swarm around my head. My hair gets snagged in tree branches. Bushes prick my legs. We circle back twice before reaching the same long, spongy slick of grass leading to the mud we done slid in twice already. This time, Tempe leads us around it. I ain’t the only one happy about that. Mama starts to hum. We all get to walking and humming and then Tempe stops.

  There’s a loud splash, followed by another. Chattering chipmunks, songs of wild birds and cheers of the men drown out Tempe’s squeals and Edward’s laughter. I uncover my eyes. Tempe jumps in the river. Edward in a pressed shirt and new dungarees runs to the edge and jumps in. He splashes through the river, running to her and her just about gliding to him. He holds her like it’s forever. I believe it. Edward’s gonna buy Tempe’s freedom. They gonna save up and buy Mama and me. By the time the baby come we’ll have a cottage and land, a mule. We’ll be a family. Forever.

  Chapter 17

  Things start turning up missing. First it’s little things like doorknobs and cutlery from the main house and washtubs and fruit baskets from the slave cabins. Pretty soon it’s cows and horses and people. The few field hands Walker had gone missing too. Walker sent down word that they’d run off—all of them at once. We don’t believe it, though. Been so busy, ain’t seen much of James, Rose, or Samantha.

  “When you finish the washing, get out to the fields and see if there’s anything needs picking.” Mama starts each day with a list of work for Tempe and me. “Stay together. Check the barns, muck the stables.”

  “Ain’t hardly nothing left to clean up after,” Tempe says.

  Every day I roll up the bed, do my business, get fresh water for Mama and Tempe, grind meal for the evening’s supper, and wait. Some mornings I pick vegetables and weeds to pass the time. Mama can’t stand to see us idle.

  “Just do what I tell you,” Mama says.

  “Soon as Edward makes enough money I’m going to get away from here and ain’t gonna be nobody here for you to boss around but her and I’m taking her with me!”

  I’m out on the porch with a bucket of carrots, cabbage, and kale. “Why you always so mad?” I ask. She can’t hear me, though. I set the bucket down and follow her. She’s already down the river, hitching up her dress like I hadn’t already hauled up a tub full of water for her to bathe in. I pull weeds nearby.

  “I should be tending to my husband’s house.”

  There ain’t nothing I can say that won’t make her mad. “You know, I ain’t never even been there? Never set one foot in that door. Never slept one night on that bed. Never even met his mama. She’s in there scraping Edward’s pots, scrubbing Edward’s floors, cooking Edward’s food.”

  “You mad cuz Mama ask you to do chores round here and you want to be doing them around there?”

  “Mama ain’t ask me to do one thing for her since I been grown. Everything she tell me to do is for him.” She waves her hand in the air.

  I look up.

  “Not him, him. Walker. Edward’s been to see him twice since we been married. He ask for a price. Walker say not for sale. He ask for a pass for me to be with him. Walker say too much work round here for me to be running off playing free.”

  “What you got to go around there for anyhow? Edward’s up here working more every day.”

  “Course he’s working. Walker done sold off all the field slaves right after harvest. Edward says he’s letting go of all he can, to hold on to what he got.”

  “How he just sell a body away?” Mama had talked about it. Auctions. Shackles. Down south. Bedtime stories to make Tempe and me mind.

  “What? You thought Mama and them made them stories up like them stories about Gitche Goo-Goos?”

  Slave cabins emptied. Cooking boxes, beds, people, all sold. “Why don’t y’all run off?”

  “Where we gonna run to? Edward’s house? That’s about the stupidest thing I heard yet.”

  “Edward should have saved up enough to get youse a good start up north.”

  “How we gonna get up north?”

  “I can tell you how to get to—”

  “You keep your runaway plans right to yourself, you hear? I don’t want no part of no plan you and Watson cooked up.”

  “It worked for Watson.”

  “It ain’t done you no favors and I ain’t sure I believe it’s done Watson any good neither.”

  “Buddy and Franklin would have told me if they’d heard something.”

  Tempe slips into the water. There’s no sun to speak of that woulda dried her but she stays in, knee deep. “I s’pect they would tell you if they’d heard something. What about his mama?”

  “Watson ain’t got no mama.”

  “Edward’s mama. She’s liable to meet the sheriff at the gate. Her boy running off with a slave, leaving her behind? She probably tell the law before we even get good and—”

  “You couldn’t just leave her, she’s family.”

  “She’s Edward’s family.”

  “And Mama and me?”

  “Youse family.”

  “Not Edward’s family.”

  “What difference that make?” Her words are clipped. For a second, she don’t sound like Tempe.

  A few days later, Walker sends word not to go up to the house unless we called for. We tend our garden and the
ones of the slaves who ain’t been back. Walker hired Edward, Buddy, and Franklin to tear the cabins down and carry the wood to the soldiers—his effort for the war. One night after supper, Tempe drags me up to the house. With Old Missus and Old Walker dead and Young Missus sent away before the war got started good, we hoping to see Samantha and James tending the fire or stirring up something good. We peek in the kitchen window. Ain’t nothing to see. No pots cooking, no fire burning, nothing.

  A few days later, Walker sends for Mama.

  “Keep yourselves and this place clean,” Mama says. She keeps looking from Tempe to me, from me to Tempe. No matter where she is she keeps her eyes on both of us. And her hands. Her long fingers, cool to the touch, on our faces and eyelids, pressed against foreheads, wound around curly hair. “Take care of each other. There’s enough people out there that want to hurt you, tear you down, don’t you never do nothing but help each other up.”

  “Mama, you just gonna be up the house,” Tempe says, like she believes it.

  We hold each other tight. Squeeze till the breath almost run out right there and then.

  “Can’t we run?” I ask. “Go far away from here together. Don’t matter where longs as we together.”

  “I don’t know nobody that ever run that lived.”

  “Mama, if you run off would you come back? I sure wouldn’t. Course you don’t know nobody that run off and lived,” Tempe says.

  “I lost plenty that died running,” Mama says. “Ain’t gonna be no talk of running.” She’s pacing. “I don’t want to hear no more about it. Tempe, Edward’s gonna buy you. You two buy your sister.”

  “Walker done said he ain’t gonna sell me, not ever.”

  “Maybe he just needs some convincing. Only way I know to save us is for me to go up to that house like I been called to do. I can’t do nothing for you girls down here but from up there, I’ll be watching over my gals—no matter what. As long as Walker got me up there, he won’t bother with you two down here. If we ever get separated, if anything tear us apart, I’ll find my way back to you both. No matter where.” She stops, sinks to her knees and holds us tight. “As long as y’all don’t ever forget me, I’ll make my way back to you.”

  The sun sets same as it always do. Mama rips off a piece of her dress for each of us to hold on to. She wraps it around a handful of shells, some small rocks, a ribbon. By sunrise, before she can say I love you or whisper goodbye, Mama is gone.

  Weeks later and we’re inside the barn. It’s cool and about empty. Animals are gone but it still smells like manure. Edward is standing with his head hanging low and his shoulders slouched, looking every bit like he wouldn’t harm a nest full of bees. He looks down at Tempe’s feet. “I says, ‘Master Walker’—I tell you how much he like it when I call him that?”

  Tempe and me nod yes. It’s taken him thirty minutes to get to the good part of the story and he ain’t there yet.

  Edward clears his throat. “Master Walker, I been thinking on how I can help out in this war.”

  “What about Mama?” Tempe interrupts.

  “I’m getting to that part,” Edward says. He leans over, kisses Tempe’s belly.

  It’s nearly time to get back to chores. Ain’t nobody left to do them all except for Tempe, Edward, and me. Mostly Edward and me. Walker’s given up on pretending to pay him but Edward comes around just the same. He mends, plants, weeds, harvests, and plows and does most of Tempe’s work besides. Tempe can’t reach over to pick up so much as a basket of clothes without Edward picking it up for her. If Tempe wants a hole dug, she just has to pick up a shovel and Edward will get to digging it. Don’t seem to matter where she is, Edward finds her. You’d have thought she was the only woman to ever have a baby. He even has his mama doing Tempe’s work. He carries home shirts with holes and scraps of fabric and brings back starched shirts and winter blankets. She sends buckets of biscuits and greens, hot yams, cornbread. Anything Tempe has a hankering for, Edward’s mama can get her hands on it. Seems like everybody but maybe me and Walker waiting on Tempe. Only Walker’s waiting too, I didn’t know it then.

  “Tempe, you want another piece of sugarcane to suck on?” I ask. I’ve been sucking on this cane since Edward brought it. I stripped the bark and whittled down the rough stalk. I’m near the sweet, juicy flesh and don’t want to share. But, if it will keep her mouth busy. I offer my ripe piece of cane. She sniffs at it and turns her nose up. I can just about taste the sap on my lips. I must have smiled. She snatches it and shoves an end in her mouth. Don’t savor it or nothing. She rubs her belly with one hand and wipes the juice from her mouth with the other. I never do get the rest of that cane back.

  “So I say,” Edward continues, “been thinking ’bout signing up to go fight alongside my brothers but then I get to thinking ’bout leaving Tempe. ‘She be fine,’ he says, ‘don’t I look after her?’ And I get to worrying ’bout you, sir, and how you here with only those two little gals here to cook and fend and hoe. ‘They strong enough to do all that need doing,’ he say. ‘’Bout time they do more round here.’ Yes, sir, but when them Yankees come tearing up the land, burning houses, killing up folks, who gonna protect y’all? I knows you sent Missus and Mama somewhere for safekeeping but what Tempe know about no gun? What Spring know about no hatchet. How they gonna keep them Yankee soldiers from killing you?”

  Tempe laughs so hard I think she’ll fall right off of the log Edward has set up for her. “Keep them from killing him?”

  “I’d save him,” I say. Edward and Tempe stare at me hard. “If he dead, how he gonna tell me how to find Mama?”

  Tempe sucks her teeth. Edward nods.

  “‘What you make of all this fighting’ he asks,” Edward continues. “I says, sir, I tell you the truth, this fighting got me scared. Yankees near burned up the whole town. Even the church been razed. They just running poor white folks, good ones too, out in the open and—well, no need to tell you what they do to them once they catch ’em. Ain’t safe. With all the men and boys off fighting they done left the land and the womenfolk at the mercy of the Lord. ‘No gentlemen would attack a lady.’ These ain’t gentlemen, sir. ‘I’d have gone and fought,’ he says, like he ain’t paid a boy from town to take his place. I say, I hear the Yanks getting closer and closer everyday. Winning more and more. Killing up folks and tearing part families and leaving ’em every which way.”

  “The Yanks!” Tempe says. She beats me to it.

  “Let me tell it,” Edward says. He throws up his hands, pretending to be mad.

  “Go on,” I say.

  “‘Can’t nobody beat our boys here on Southern soil, don’t you worry about that,’ he says. ‘Before long this war will be all over and things will just be like they was in the good days.’ But then I slip, The good days, sir? He gets to eyeing me up and down like he’s weighing me. ‘What you think it’ll be like if those damned Yanks win? They stealing our land, taking our women. What you think they gonna do with you? You won’t be safe, you know that. They ain’t gonna take care of you and your family. Let you work for ’em, get you no safe place to live.’ You sure right about that, sir. I was almost snatched up the other night on my way home. Streets no place to be. ‘Didn’t I tell you? Them Yankees, can’t trust ’em.’ No, sir. These were men from round here, I say. Said they would string me up if I even thought about joining the Yankee side. ‘It’s not fitting to turn your back on your home, boy. You ought to know that. South done born and raised you,’ Walker says. ‘We got to defend her. Streets ain’t safe no how. A strong, able man like yourself ought to be out there fighting for our way of life. Got just as much right to defend the South as anybody. Don’t you think?’ Sir, I couldn’t abide killing folks. Thought of it just turns my stomach something fierce. Walker smiles like that’s what he been waiting on. ‘Why don’t you stay here awhile, until the war’s over?’ No thank you, sir, my ma’s aging poorly and I wouldn’t want her to need fo
r nothing during the night. ‘Can she cook?’ he asks. He’s getting excited. She think she can, sir. Sure do. Why the last thing my pa said, Lord have mercy on his soul, the last thing he said—before he met the good Lord—was, ‘Woman, you sure is a mighty fine cook.’ Least, that’s what she says he said. By the time I came in to help, he was dead, a piece of cornbread still in his hand. No, sir, wasn’t that much around the kitchen before she took sick but now, well, I just took to cooking for us both. ‘Does she clean?’ he asks. My mama’s floors so clean you could eat clear off ’em. Strays come in off the streets just to eat offa my mama’s floors, I tell him.” I hold my sides in from laughing so hard. I ain’t never met Edward’s mama but from what he says, Ms. Lola Mae would kill him if he got her mixed up with Walker.

  “‘I been thinking on bringing Tempe or Spring up to the house,’ he says. ‘About time they start earning their keep around here. Maybe even pay them a little something.’ Now I can tell he’s still thinking about having my mama up there cooking and cleaning for free cuz he done forgot he ain’t paid me nothing. ‘She could buy her baby,’ he says. ‘Wouldn’t she like that?’ Can you believe it? Buy the baby? It ain’t exactly how we planned but it’s a start! First we buy the baby, then you.”

  He stops talking. He don’t say and then we’ll buy Spring. Just first the baby, then you.

  Tempe stands up. She puts her hands on her hips. “Ain’t planning on being here when the baby’s born,” she says.

  “Don’t see where you reckon you can hide with my baby ’bout to climb out any day now. It’s too dangerous. Streets ain’t safe. Woods ain’t safe. Least if we wait till the baby’s born and buy him, my child will be free.”

  “Baby ain’t yourn.”

  Edward straightens. His hands clench. His jaw clenches. “This baby Walker’s baby,” she says. “You know that. Long as Walker got my papers, this baby his.”