Running Out of Night (4 page)

I could hear my brothers laughin, but I couldn’t see them. Another shot, another nest on the ground. When I looked over to the porch, that trouble girl had disappeared. I reached into my apron pocket to rub against the reassurin smooth of my good-luck buckeye, but it weren’t there.

K
ill a swallow and bad luck will follow
.

M
y heart felt near broke for the swallows, but I were fearin for myself and for the girl. Clem yelled that he needed food for his hunt. Samuel whistled for his cry of dogs, and they streamed into the barnyard from three sides. I didn’t see how they’d missed that girl.

I grabbed the handle of my basket, heavy with tomaters—some of them ripe ones squished from the fall—and run for the porch. I needed to make sure that the trapdoor were closed afore the boys got into the cabin.

The door stood ajar. I pushed it wider and ran inside. On the floor, a little pile of jerky spilled from the girl’s gray bandanna. The trapdoor gaped open, the bench laid
on its side, and two disks of dried apple stared up from the floor.

Bathsheba and Delia was close at my heels. I whirled on them. “Stay, girls. Tend to your manners,” I scolded, and they almost stopped, but they caught the smell of the jerky and near trampled me gettin to it.

I could hear them boys behind me. They clomped up the steps. The dogs tore at the bandanna. I run to the trapdoor, and there, framed in the dim square of light on the ladder, the girl backed down into the cellar. I dropped the door into place, righted the bench, scooped up the bandanna, and stuffed it into my basket of tomaters.

“Girl!” Clem yelled. “Look at that mess of spoilt maters.” He pointed at them. He grabbed me by the neck, bent me over the basket, and shoved my face hard into the pile. I sputtered, pushed myself up, and used the sides of my balled fists to rub the burnin juice out of my eyes.

“And you let them dogs in. You know them dogs don’t come inside.”

I guessed I couldn’t explain that they wasn’t hardly invited in.

Bathsheba yelped as Clem’s heavy boot landed in her soft flank. She usually outruns everything, but her long, saggin teats slowed her some. Afore Clem could reach Delia, both hounds was out the door. I wished I could foller them. I knowed that them killt swallows was bringin in bad, bad luck for me.

“Get us some pack food,” Samuel ordered. “We gonna be out trackin upriver all night.”

I pushed strands of wet hair behind my ears, blinked my blurry, burnin eyes, and started for the basket of victuals I had set beside the trapdoor. Samuel spied the two golden disks of apple a second afore I could kick them acrost the floor and out of sight.

“You been in them cellar apples?” he yelled. He walked toward the trapdoor, picked up the basket of food, and kicked the bench over and out of the way. Then he stuck his fingers in the door holes and threw it open. Afore I could duck or move out of Samuel’s way, he walloped me.

I
f you hear whispering, it is the sperrits arguing which one is going to be near you for the day and night
.

M
y arm and shoulder was on fire. The stabbin pains shot through me till my stomach churned. I turned my head and throwed up, then Mama’s fingers brushed over me softly, like moth wings, and I heard her a-whisperin to me. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want Mama’s touch or voice to go away.

I opened my eyes, but all I saw were black. Black as the bat cave over to the river. But the smell here, the smell in this black, were a mix of apples, smoke, earth, my throwed-up bitter waters, and none of the stink of the bat cave.

I moaned and tried to sit up, but a rough hand pushed
me down and covered my mouth. A voice whispered in my ear, “Shhhhh.”

“Am I dead?” I asked. Was the sperrits arguin over me?

“You be dead if you don’t stop talkin. Let them git out the cabin,” the voice whispered.

The voice. I remembered the girl comin out of the cabin. The shots, the bird nests all blowed up, the girl, that trouble girl, were the one who caused all this, and it were her voice talkin to me now.

I laid still but couldn’t stop shakin. The girl’s hand took ahold of mine and gently squeezed and patted it. Hot tears spilled down the side of my face and onto the hard-packed dirt floor.

Just a few feet above my head I heard the shufflin and clompin of boots, the thunk of somethin hittin the floor, and then the familiar sound of the heavy oak door slammin shut. Nothin but the creakin of floorboards settlin back into place—and then nothin.

“You, girl, you got a mess a trouble in your life too,” she whispered. “I thought I were worst off to anyone, but you got it bad.” Her hand patted at me, then rested on my good arm.

“Are you pityin me?” I asked. I pulled my arm out from under her hand and moved a few inches away.

I don’t know how long I slept, but when I woke, I felt the scratchy warmth of a feed sack laid over me and heard the soft, low sounds of her hummin nearby. I tried turnin onto my other side, but the pain kept me still.

“What we gonna do now?” I asked.

The girl stopped hummin and turned over toward me. I could feel her breath on my face.

“We goin to get away from here afore you … we get killt,” she said.

I felt about near as killt now as I ever had.

“Did you hear where they be lookin for me? Did you see the way your pa went when he left?”

Samuel’s words, “trackin upriver,” run through my mind. “North along the river, but they could be anywhere the dogs lead them.” I groaned as I tried to move into a comfortable position.

“North where I’m goin,” she said. “Follerin the North Star now for all the nights since I run.”

She started talkin at me, soft-like, tellin me a story, but tellin herself the story too.

“My ma and papa, they gone now,” she said. “Ma sold and sent away south; Papa sold and sent I don’t know where. Last time I saw him his arms was tied behind. He had a bit in his mouth, his lips curled back like he smilin, but the blood drippin from his mouth and runnin down him. And my baby sister, I can still hear her cryin, and my ma screamin when the soul-driver man pull Promise out of her arms. He tell Ma that she never see her baby or me again.”

She paused. The colors of her story faded, then brighted as she talked. “Why don’ they sell us together the way
they say they goin do? He shove my baby sister into a wagon full a people. People she don’t know.”

I felt the girl shudder next to me.

“I tried to run after my Promise.” Her voice caught as she continued. “But the man hit me over and over, knock me down, and throw me into his wagon. He thinks I am hurt some bad, so he don’t chain me. Soon as I could move, I slip over the side of the wagon and hide all day in a ditch. I want my ma and papa, my baby sister, but they gone. I do what my ma always told me, I foller where the Drinkin Gourd points to the North Star.”

Even through the darkness I could see everythin. The cart crammed full of people chained together, the little girl cryin, lookin for her sister’s face and listenin for the sound of her ma or pa’s voice. Her sorrow made me forget about mine.

“I turned round, seen Promise’s wagon leavin. She were holdin out her hands, reachin for me, but I”—she gulped—“I hurt so bad I cain’t move, and all I do is watch her till I cain’t hear nothin or see her no more.”

This time I reached out and found her hand. I couldn’t imagine havin a mama and papa, and a baby sister I loved and who loved me, but even worse, I couldn’t imagine losin them.

M
ake sure nobody follows you and walks in your tracks, or you will die
.

I
slept again and woke to the sound of a purrin snore beside me. I reached out to smooth Bathsheba’s sleek fur, but my hands met tufts of wiry hair.

I weren’t in the barn with a sleepin dog. I were in the cellar, trapped, with the runaway girl who started up my problems. If it hadn’t been for her, I’d be back out in the garden pickin tomaters, or shovelin our cow Hildie’s dung out of the barn. Anythin would be better than where I were now.

I slowly pushed myself up, winced with pain, then touched my arm, my shoulder, and my wrist. “No bones stickin out anywhere,” I said aloud, “but I am right hurt.”

I couldn’t see the girl, but I felt the rough sack slip off as she rolled over.

“We best be gettin out of here afore them men come back,” she said. “Only the good Lord knows how long we been down here.”

We? “We best be gettin out of here”? Just what I needed. Not bad enough that I’m a mite smaller than most girls, and that my ugly red hair stands out like broom corn, but now look what I were stuck with—a tall, raggedy runaway slave girl who dragged trouble behind her like a tail. We’d stick out worse ’n chickens in Sunday dresses.

“Who says you’re goin anywhere nearst to where I’m goin?” I asked.

“You. You’s the one who say ‘what
we
gonna do.’ ”

I thought back on those words. I had said that. Maybe I were just plumb scairt at the time and not thinkin right, but here I were down in a cellar hole, all beat up, and talkin about runnin away with someone I’d never even seen till today.

“I don’t know where you gonna go,” I said quietly, “but I cain’t stay round for any more beatins from anyone. I have to run while I can, and I don’t need no one follerin me.”

Oh, I felt right sorry for that girl. I felt sorry down to my toes, but I’d gotten deep in trouble for her, and even though I knowed she’d lost everythin, well, I had to look out for myself now.

I bit down on my lip as I pushed myself up from the
hard-packed dirt floor. Every inch of me hurt, but I couldn’t stop to think on that. I waited for a sound, any sound above me. Nothin moved, nothin creaked. I raised the trapdoor slightly and ducked my head as the sand from the floor sifted down and onto my hair. I pushed the door open wider, stepped up, and poked my head over the edge.

The last rosy light of the day made the cabin glow. I loved this time when I were home alone and all peaceful-like. I’d sit out on the porch steps when Pa and my brothers wasn’t around, maybe Bathsheba or Delia beside me, and watch the sun settin and listen to all them birds callin one to another as they found their way back to their homes.

From outside, I heard the shrill talkin of the nighthawks as they began to crisscross the sky above the clearin.
Beanzz, beanzz, beanzz
, they cried.

“Beans is right,” I said as I looked down at the girl. “We best be loadin up on food. Jerky, cracklins, whatever we can fit in these sacks easy-like.” I turned and stepped back down into the cellar.

She bent, picked up a bag, and began stuffin it with taters. “No,” I said. “Load it with jerky, cracklins, dried apple slices, apples, anythin you can carry easy, not them heavy taters.”

She nodded, dumped most of the taters on the floor, and reached for the meat.

I slowly loaded a bundle, then slipped on the shoulder
sling I carry when I’m pickin apples. From the racks below the smoked ham, I gathered up some soup bones, a hunk of smoked ham, and a fat pig’s knuckle. I tied the sling closed as best I could with my hurt arm.