Remembered

by Yvonne Battle-Felton

  Your pa pulls me back, drops you in my arms.

  “Run! Keep my boy safe!” he says.

  The house is splintering, cracking in two. It’s being eaten alive and taking Tempe with it. Your pa shoves me down what’s left of the steps. Without looking back or knowing your name, he jumps into the flames. Two more shots, one more scream. I run.

  You hungry, soiled, and angry. I don’t know where we heading but I plan to stay in the woods most of the day. I ain’t the only one. Freedom come alright. For most of us, it hasn’t come on horses or with golden trumpets. Wasn’t no angel going around saving all the slaves. Some owners turn people loose. Some slaves walk off. Far as I know, wasn’t nobody going round checking if people had set slaves free. And don’t seem like nobody’s making sure we stay free either.

  The woods overflow with people. They spill over paths forging ways where there were none. Even in sleep they seem to be moving. Some further south, others up north. A few of them wander, stumbling over rocks and people, silently staring straight ahead. Most people talking, singing, mumbling, laughing, moaning, crying, some of them all at the same time. Everybody’s carrying some bit of news or looking for some. I can’t rest at a log or sip along the river without somebody slipping behind me asking if I know their brother, sister, mother, father. If I can help them find their daughter, cousin, grandmama. Their stories keep me up. For that, I’m thankful. I can’t close my eyes without seeing Tempe.

  She’s in Walker’s parlor and I’m there with her. They don’t see me. Walker’s pointing a shotgun at Tempe’s chest. Tempe’s holding a hot poker above her head. He’s about to pull the trigger. She’s about to strike. I open my eyes.

  I’m back in the woods. I can’t catch my breath.

  Keep moving. It’s a whisper just above my ear.

  I turn around but ain’t nobody there.

  Hurry up. The whisper surrounds me, blowing in both my ears at once.

  “Tempe?” I whisper back. I know it ain’t her but it’s her voice. It feels like Tempe. I’m in the middle of the woods talking to myself. People walk right around me not paying me any mind.

  You’ll miss her.

  “I don’t have time for this foolishness,” I say. “I ain’t taking no parts in this.”

  Somebody’s playing tricks on me. I’ll stand right there until the rascal comes out. Ought to be ashamed. I’m tapping my foot, waiting. A hot breeze pushes against my back. The longer I stand, the hotter it blows. I’ll just keep walking, I decide. “I ain’t leaving on account of you,” I say.

  I’m not sure but I think I hear laughter.

  I’m carrying you tight to my breasts. You mad about it and let me know it. I emptied one of them bundles and wrapped you up inside it. Left them shells, rocks, molded food behind. Memories scattered all over Maryland. From your smell won’t be too long before I have to empty the other one. All I have left is this book, a few skins, a little bit of food, and you. Between screaming, you rooting around and biting on me. More than once I wonder if babies can drink blood cuz you sure seem fit to draw it.

  “He’s hungry,” a woman says, like I don’t know it. She slips up beside me. I been trying to mash anything I could find to settle you. “You ain’t got no milk?” She puts out her arms. I undo the bundle. Hand you to her. She’s shaking her head and clucking about how small you is and how lucky you is to be free. She nurses you till you fall asleep. “You ain’t gonna get far with this baby and no milk.”

  I don’t ask her why she got milk and no babies. She looks like she been running day and night since the war began. She fidgets when she sits, while she talks. She’s itching to get on her way.

  “Now we gonna have to watch out,” she says. “Everybody ain’t ready to stop slaving. They done set up so many rules and laws, the woods is the safest place to be right now. But won’t be for long. So many soldiers marching, slipping, and running through the woods on the way to or from some battle, pretty soon we’ll have to take the main road. The baby’s likely to slow us down. Don’t make no never mind, we’ll head north at nightfall.”

  We? I don’t even know this gal’s name and she’s already tied herself to us. You fall asleep in her arms. She ain’t far behind you. Both of you snuggled up against a tree trunk, snoring. Soon as she wakes up I’ll tell her we ain’t going. What do I know about up north? How can I leave Tempe behind?

  I can’t sleep with the woods and my head filled with moaning, crying, and footsteps. I close my eyes and see your mama standing in the doorway burning. Each time I blink, my heart jumps. I hear crackling, popping, screaming. Before long it’s like I’m in the house watching Tempe ask Walker about Mama. I can hear him laughing. Pushing up against her, whispering in her ear how he done sold Mama Lord knows where to God knows who. He grabs for her. She snatches up a poker. He reaches for it. She swings. The curtains catch afire, then the settee, then Walker. But he’s got a shotgun. Shots splintering the sky like lighting splitting wood. Sometimes it’s a shotgun in Walker’s hand. Sometimes it’s in Tempe’s. It’s always me pulling the trigger.

  Get up.

  I don’t need no ad in the paper, no crow flying over my shadow, or no cock crowing to tell me Tempe’s dead. I’m lying there holding my breath, one, two, three, thinking about her, Mama, Watson, Edward. Everybody gone. I’m thinking about the times I ain’t never known that Samantha told us about. The things James said. The stories. Back when he was little, Watson, me, and the kids from the other plantations playing out back of the cabin, snatching crumbs of grown-folk talk, thinking we was grown. Mama teaching me to walk, to run, to be Spring and not Sister all the time. Not my mama? They wrong. All of them. The rumbling snores stop. There’s no wind blowing. Nothing. I ain’t breathing, ain’t holding my breath no more and not bursting for air. It’s pitch black. Something’s moving. It’s light-footed, graceful, close. It’s right next to me, warm. It smells like cinnamon. Ain’t no man, no animal either. I know it ain’t nothing else but Tempe.

  Seems like soon as I know it, I can see her. The only light comes from her. Her entire body smolders like burning coal. I feel like I should holler out or scream or pray but I don’t do none of those things. I just wait. She kisses you all over. She can’t get enough of you. I can’t move, don’t want to. She sits beside me. She holds my hands in her warm, smooth ones. We stay there, her sitting and rocking and humming and me just lying there not able to smile, to talk, to breathe. I can’t open my lips, can’t make the words come out. Can’t tell her I love her. I feel a stinging sensation of love all around me, through me. She tells me everything she’s seen since she been dead. How she flips through time like pages and sees whole lives. She tells me about Ella and Mama, Papa Jonah and Mama Skins. Remember, she says. She don’t tell me everything but I don’t know it then. She don’t say it, but I know she wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for me. She wouldn’t have left you if there had been some other way. If I hadn’t put it in her head that she could save us, that Walker would tell her where Mama was, she’d be alive today instead of me. My heart starts beating fast. I take a deep breath and hold it. I know by the time I let it out, she’ll be gone. I hold it for as long as I can. Sooner or later I breathe.

  I sleep for an hour, maybe more. It’s still dark. You’re bound to my bosom, full and happy. The girl is jumpy, ready to move. She’s weaved some hides to make something you can hold on to. When we reach the river, she fills one with water, stitches it. We set off following the river. Twice as many folks out at night as during the day. She’s asking folks about her kin: an old woman with eyes that twinkle when she laughs and nails as long and thick as fingers. A baby that ain’t never opened her eyes.

  “Ain’t you got nobody to find?” she asks.

  “You seen a woman called Agnes?” I ask the next person we see.

  The woman stares at me, waits. “Agnes what?” she asks. “Walker, we belonged to Walker.”

/>   She purses her lips. “Who’s your kin?”

  “Just Mama and my sister, Tempe.”

  “What she look like?”

  I get to describing her. Soon’s as I say one thing, I remember another. “She’s about this tall, no, this tall. About this wide, no,” I picture her again, “this wide. She’s got a laugh that could make the birds take notice. Her voice sounds like trickling rain, she moves like the river.”

  The woman grabs both of my hands in hers. “If I see her, I’ll tell her you looking for her. God bless,” she says.

  “You ain’t never gonna find your mama like that,” my companion says after a few days.

  I picture her twinkling-eyed, long-nailed mama. I’m not the only one, I think. We been walking for miles before I find out her name. We stopped a few minutes ago. She’s nursing you for the umpteenth time.

  “What’s his name?”

  You’re suckling on one teat, already eyeing the other one. “Edward Freeman, just like his pa. What’s yours?”

  “Spinner, like my ma. She was the best spinner on the whole plantation. I’m gonna change my name, though. What they call you?”

  Flames lick at the bottom of my feet, up my calves and thighs, to my belly, through my chest. They creep up my neck. Not Sister, not anymore. “Spring, my name’s Spring.”

  Chapter 19

  It’s been days. Spinner tries names on and off as we travel. For a few miles she’s Rose, she goes a whole day as Sunshine and a few steps as Tallulah. We’ve been practicing describing people. I’ve gone from asking about Mama to asking about Mama, Watson, James, and Samantha. The last time I described Watson as a flash of muscled-brown goodness, she stopped me: “Don’t nobody care ’bout how he looks in your head. What’s he look like for real?” Since then, my descriptions are more precise. It’s my memories that fade. I lose count of how many people I describe them to. I interrupt a man in the middle of fishing. I’m halfway through describing Watson’s long, brown arms.

  “Does he have one of them grins that get people to smiling? Like this?” He demonstrates.

  My body’s shaking. He’s asking about Watson’s walk, the way he stands and leans to one leg, the way his arms swing just a little, the way his face don’t tell nothing at all about what he’s thinking. I’m swallowing hard, trying to keep what’s inside in. I’m crying and shouting. You crying. By the time we get you settled down good it’s night. We set out following the fisherman’s directions at dawn. We don’t have far to go but I’m out of breath by the time we get there. A post office / general store / fishery in the middle of a town just outside of Baltimore. The place reeks of fresh fish, crabs, and spices I ain’t never smelled before. I know this is the place. It’s no bigger than a slave shack but I’m the only one that seems to notice. People are lined up two-a-head from out the front door to clear around the corner. I ain’t never seen so many folks in one place. I’m standing there with my mouth open. All them people. I see myself in their eyes. I’m sweating. My shift feels like rags. It clings to me. My bare feet are caked in mud, dirt, and animal droppings. I pat my hair. My tight curls are matted. I smell myself. I want to hide.

  Spinner’s looking like I feel. She swings her head from the front of the line to the back and back up again. Her mouth’s wide open. She’s jittery. I look back to the line. It’s getting longer by the minute. All sorts of people wait in it. Old, young, men, women, poor, well-to-do, they got one thing in common: ain’t none of them paying Spinner and me no mind. I hoist you up, straighten my shoulders, grab Spinner by the hand and lead us to the back of the line. The procession is mostly silent. Every so often a ripple of conversation moves through the crowd from lips to lips.

  “Looking for a gal named Delilah, bout nine years old, chocolate-brown skin, this tall. Her folks are Antonia and Lewis Coleman from Salisbury,” the man in front of me says. He starts shifting from foot to foot. His eyes are like large dark pools pulling me in. I know cuz he’s staring at me. Seems like everyone in front of me turns too. You let out an angry cry. I’m squeezing you tight. Trying to find something to hold on to so I don’t get lost in his eyes.

  “We don’t know her,” Spinner says. She passes the message to the person behind us.

  The man nods his head, turns ahead to await more news. News travels from one end of the line to the other for hours before we reach the shop door. Inside, fish hang from hooks, crabs scrabble around in buckets. The walls are plastered with pictures and newspaper ads. Lost, Lost, Lost. They all seem to say the same thing. Some got pictures. We shuffle past them. Can’t neither of us read. I’m watching folks for signs of Watson. A familiar walk, gesture, shake of the head. Something. My heart’s beating fast.

  “What can I get you?” a man asks.

  His apron is stained with blood. I can’t seem to see nothing else but streaks of bloody handprints. Till I see a hole. Just like the hole that must be gaping from Walker’s chest. Spinner is as jumpy as a cat in heat. She’s grabbing on my arm and whispering in my ear but I can’t make out a word she’s saying. I’m about tired of her hot breath on the side of my face and spin around to tell her so when I catch a glimpse of something from the corner of my eye. His forehead’s all creased up but I’d know that face anywhere. It ain’t Watson. He don’t look nothing like him. But Spinner’s squealing about how I found him and how he looks exactly like I been describing and what a miracle it is. Before I can set her straight, he’s around the counter grabbing me with thick arms. He pushes me back, looks me over from head to toe then hugs me again. He’s crushing you to me. He don’t notice until you scream to tell him about it.

  “He yourn?” Franklin asks.

  Well?

  I’m about to say no. To explain that I let Tempe down. To tell him I should have been the one to die. That Tempe would be standing here, holding her boy, her husband by her side, if I had stood up to her for once. If I had believed I, and not her, was the special one. Each time I try to explain, she pinches me. She twists my skin in her hot fingers, leaving burned kisses on my arms.

  Don’t you abandon my boy.

  Before I know it, I’m telling him you are. I let him hold you. He’s staring at you. If he can see your pa in your long fingers and thin lips, he don’t say nothing. His boss gives him a pack of sandwiches and five minutes to get back to work. Franklin leads us out back. I’m hungrier than I thought. Between gulps of tomato-and-cheese sandwiches, Spinner, me, and Franklin try to squeeze in all we got to say. Franklin’s watching Spinner nurse. I’m waiting on him to ask about my milk.

  “Y’all caught me just in time,” he’s saying, “me and Buddy heading up to Pennsylvania. He got a friend up there. Got jobs lined up and everything.”

  “You heard anything ’bout Watson?” I ask. My throat’s dry. I try to picture him right. The color of his eyes, the shape of his head, anything. All I can make out for sure is his back.

  He don’t say nothing for about a minute. Then he smiles. “Last time I seen Watson, he was smoking past Tempe heading due north. Fast as he was running, I don’t suspect he stopped till he got clear to Canada. You know they would have killed him if he came back, don’t you? Kirk had a bounty out on him. Dead or alive, Kirk didn’t care which. Between the patrollers and slave catchers, that boy couldn’t slow down till he crossed the border and even then, with them pulling folks back and selling them further south, seems like there wasn’t no time for him to stop running.” Franklin closes his eyes like he can see Watson running.

  I’m smiling right along with him, trying to make his memory mine.

  Buddy strolls up thirty minutes later. Seeing him is better than I remember. He’s quiet, almost gentle. Years in the service have made him think before speaking. We’re late. Franklin’s scrubbed down the shop and himself, said his goodbyes and got his last pay. Buddy’s been telling us about the places he’s been. Seems like he’s seen the whole world.

 
“It ain’t gonna be easy in Philadelphia,” he says, “ain’t none of us strangers to hard work. Long as we don’t expect no handouts, won’t be surprised when we don’t get none. Between what me and Franklin’s got saved, we be able to get a room for you two. Try to keep close as we can. Got jobs lined up for the both of us. There’s farming outside the city. In the city there’s domestic work and even factories. You two can take turns caring for the baby.”

  He’s got it all figured out except Spinner’s having second thoughts about leaving without finding her mama. Second thoughts turn to thirds. How will her mama know where to find her? She won’t, we agree. Unless someone can get word to her. We can put an ad in the paper. Spinner’s shaking her head, her mama can’t read. What if her mama’s up north? No, Spinner says, there ain’t no reason to think her mother would be up north already set free and not send for her only girl-child. No, she ain’t up north. The more Spinner talks about it, the more convinced she is that her mama is right there in Maryland looking for her. Don’t have the heart to speculate on her being down south. None of us do. Spinner will stay behind. Buddy asks if I want to stay with her and have them send for me. I can’t stop thinking about my own room. Making my own money. Picking and choosing my own work and being paid for it. Nobody telling me what needs doing or when to do it. Seem like everything about slaving is right here and freedom is right across that line.

  Buddy’s ready to go. He knows a place Spinner can stay until she’s ready to join us in Philadelphia. He shows her how to get news to him through the shop where we found Franklin. Franklin will put in a good word for her so she can find work. It won’t be long. Soon as she finds her mama, they can join us in Philadelphia.