Paradise Alley (34 page)

She waited by the large grey boulder Dolan had climbed, the first night they had come to Pigtown, until she caught sight of him. Coming through the fields where she thought he might be, though she had noticed that he never took the exact same way twice. She followed him then as she did in the evening, only in reverse—moving out through the fields and the tangles of wood and brush to the east. Taking his same, wide detour around the Irish of Pigtown, all the way to the Fourth Avenue railroad.

After that it was easier, she could get a little closer, behind the
other men and women making their way down to work from the uptown wards. She tracked him back to the Fifth Avenue, then nearly a mile downtown—to where he suddenly turned in through the tall iron gates of what seemed like a manor house, sprung up miraculously on a nearly empty new City block.

There were some words over the gates, but of course she could not read them. She wondered if he might be a servant in the big house, if colored people did such work—but then she realized that she had no idea at all of what the people of Seneca Village did, besides tilling their own small vegetable plots, of how they made their living or earned their bread.

She wanted to follow him right inside, but she didn't dare to go up to the door of such a great house. Instead she went around to the back, which wasn't hard. There were only another couple of houses scattered around the desolate block, and her main fear was that he might see her from the windows of the house. But there was, at least, a brick wall that ran around the back courtyards of the big house, and she was able to shelter behind that, making her way along until she got to the wooden back gate.

She screwed up her courage then, and peeked in through the planks—to see two whole courtyards, filled with colored children. Boys and girls both, in the same uniforms, all dressed in thick, padded shirts and trousers, and dresses. Whirling around with hoops or skipping ropes or playing ballgames—though she thought, too, that most of them seemed very grave for children, almost as grave as the children she remembered in Limerick and Tipperary, begging and starving by the side of the road.

At first she was stupefied, wondering if the house were somehow a part of Seneca Village, or another Negro town all on its own.
All these colored children, living in this fine house!

Then she saw him again, just walking out into the backyard, with its blue-slate flagstones. He was moving differently from when she had seen him going through the fields. Looking more at ease and less watchful—but also devoid of the light-footed swagger she had liked so much. He seemed, instead, to walk in a perennial stoop, bending over or kneeling constantly, to button a coat for a little girl, or patch up a cloth ball for some of the boys. Moving from one to another of the grave children in their funny, padded clothes—wiping their faces, and stopping their tears, tending to their scrapes and bruises.

There was the sound of a gong, and the children hurried to line up—boys and girls, each in their respective courtyards. They stood there in perfect order, more silent and grave than ever, until a tall, grey-haired white woman appeared at each of the doors, and they could vanish inside the house.

She understood it now, she thought. The mansion some sort of a school, perhaps; a workhouse, or an orphanage.
The cartload of orphans in Limerick, outside the poorhouse door. Sitting there with their mouths open, like so many baby birds.
Now that they were gone, he unbent slowly and walked around the courtyards, picking up anything they might have left behind—balls and scraps of ribbon, a small sweater. Taking them all carefully inside with him, then coming back to make sure the gate was shut, and bolted. She had to jump away when he did, swinging back to make sure he did not see her—but she was still close enough to hear him, even to smell him. The sour, liquor smell gone now, just the scent of him—a man's smell of soap and coffee, bacon and tobacco—on the other side of the gate. Making sure that the latch was secured, then the back doors, too, before he disappeared into the orphanage himself.

That night she had raced down the streets from the German ladies', wanting desperately to catch up with him on his way home. Unable to stop thinking about the sight of him, with the children, the whole day in the rookery. She had plunged into the copse near Sixty-fifth Street—and nearly ran straight into him again. He was stopped dead in the path ahead of her this time, his head turned slightly toward the south, as if he were listening intently to something.

“Be quiet,” he said, without looking at her. His voice a whisper now, and she had not dared to so much as breathe.

There was a distant sound, almost more the suggestion of a sound, a very faint clinking of metal or glass—and he suddenly turned and clutched her shoulders with both hands. Before she could cry out he swung her around, pushing her down through the bushes into a little gulley. The branches blinding her, scratching at her face and eyes and his much larger body swinging roughly down over her, pressing her into the earth. He clamped a hand over her mouth—the other one drawing the knife she had seen before from his boot, the blade held just inches from her throat.

She lay there, half under him, trying to make herself stop trembling,
and prepare for whatever would come next. But still, somehow, even in her immediate, physical fear and trembling, she could not believe he would really hurt her. Then his mouth was by her ear, his breath warm on her cheek.

“You make a sound an' I'll cut you,” he whispered. “I swear to God!”

She did as he said—and in the ensuing silence she could hear the men. There was the same faint clinking sound from before, much closer and more distinct now, almost right on them. She moved her head slightly to look up—his hand still over her mouth—and then she saw them.

There were two of them, moving almost soundlessly along the path. They were lean white men, wearing broad-brimmed hats and long white dusters, and bent sharply forward at the waist, as if they were tracking something. Each of them had a curled bullwhip and a pistol on his belt, clearly visible through their open coats.

“—thought I saw him come in here—”

Only when they were nearly on top of them did she realize that the men were talking to each other. Their slow, Southern voices less than a whisper.

“—was sure of it. Does most every night.”

“I know. I seen him, too. You figure he's by us now?”

“I don't know—”

They stopped in the path, no more than three feet above their heads. Close enough now that Ruth could make out the short lengths of chain looped around their arms, the manacles gaping like open hands.
That was the noise,
she understood now. It occurred to her, too, that if she could see them, they might see her—her pale white face glimmering through the underbush. She ducked down toward the ground, her brown hair melting into the dusk.

“He could've gone in here somewheres—”

One of the slavers swung a hand out over them.

“Uh-huh. You want to go in after him? If he's seen us?”

“Ah, hell, he ain't seen us.”

“Why'd he go in there, then?”

“I don't know. To take a piss. We'll catch ‘im with his pecker in his hands.”

There was a pause. Ruth listened for it, her face to the ground—
waiting to hear the first crunch of their feet on the dead leaves. Wondering what
he
would do then.

“He's bein' awfully quiet, for a man takin' a piss. Hell, what if he ain't in there at all? We could spend half the night thrashin' around in there—”

“All right.” The first voice sounded relieved. “All right, we could go on, then. Sniff around the village—”

She heard the voices receding, their footsteps making almost no noise at all. Still she waited, though—not trying to turn, or get away, or even lift her head up. Trying to show that he could trust her, waiting for him to take his hand off.

“You all right?” he said, removing it at last.

She nodded, looking at him as directly as she dared. But even now, his face was a blank, cryptic and unyielding.

“Tell me somethin',” she said. “Was you really gonna cut my throat if I made a noise?”

He stared at her for another moment, then almost laughed out loud. A long smile spreading slowly across his face, despite himself, and she thought that it made his face look much more tender, and almost boyish.

“No,” he whispered, looking down. “No, that would've taken too much time. I'd a had to go for them, first.”

This time she laughed.

“Why, I suppose that's so! I suppose that's the truth, now!”

He chuckled, too—then stopped, and looked down the path in the direction of where the slavers had gone, over toward the west, and Seneca Village.

“I should go, now.” He looked back at her. “You should, too. With them around—”

“I'll go with you,” she said, on an impulse.

“What?”

“I'll go with you. I'll walk before you. That way I can let you know, at least—if there's anything. If they're waitin' for you.”

He stood there, looking at her while he thought it over, his dark, handsome face still revealing nothing.

“No,” he said finally—the disappointment washing over her. “No, it's not right. But you can walk behind. You see anything happen to me, you run to the village, get anyone you can. Will you do that?”

She nodded emphatically.

“Yes, I can do that. No one in particular?”

“No, tell anyone, first person you see. Tell 'em what happened, and to come quick, an' bring the dogs. You understand?”

She nodded again.

“All right, then.”

They started off again, with him walking a good ten yards out in front this time. She picked up the hem of her dress, moving at a half trot. It was a cloudy night, and she was afraid that she might lose him, ahead of her in the darkness. Determined to do her part, to run and give the alarm—but not sure if she really could leave him, if the slavecatchers did jump him. As they drew closer to the village, he held up his hand and slowed, and she stayed dutifully back. Trying to make her eyes bore through every shadow, every possible hiding place behind the low bushes and rocks that dotted the land.

The whole village, walking through the fields, as softly as possible.

He walked on a little ways more, Ruth following, then he stopped them once again. She could see the lights from the village now, the fires flickering through the windows of the square, white, little houses.
Almost there.
But he stood stock-still in the dirt road, so much so that he almost seemed to blend into the darkness—the trees, the rocks, the clouded night. Until Ruth had nearly the same feeling that she had had that night at the old fort with Dolan—that none of this was real at all, and she was out in the darkness all on her own.

He stood there, listening—and then took a half step back, as if he'd heard something. There
was
something. She made out a sort of slithering sound, like someone cutting through the grass, very low.
Could they be trying to crawl up on them?
But just then she heard him chuckle again, reach down to something.

“There, all right.
Napoleon!
Now we're all right.”

He was patting an enormous yellow mongrel, one of the many dogs she had encountered before from the village, swift and silent, and smart as a pig. It started toward her, baring its teeth, but he grabbed it back by the fur of its neck, restraining the animal.

“No, it's all right, it's all right, now. There, Napoleon. She's a friend—”

She felt herself warm to the word, from his lips, though she knew it was just for the dog.

“Your dog?”

“No, my neighbor's.”

“You ought to have a dog, in this place.”

“Maybe.”

They walked down the rest of the path to the village together, Napoleon trotting smartly out in front. She could not picture that anyone, not even the slavers, would molest them with such an animal by their side. When they reached the first houses of the village, he looked at her, as if expecting her to go now, but she did not. Instead she stayed right by his side, pretending to be oblivious. Following him right to the small whitewashed house—straighter, and better made, than the rest—that was obviously his home.

She went right up with him to the door, even after the dog had broken off, and gone back to its master's yard next door. She went right up with him, though she had no real idea of what she was doing, until finally he stood before her, in front of his own house, as if to silently ask what it was that she wanted.

“All right,” he said at last.

“What is your name?” she asked him, but he only looked away, his hands on his hips.

“All right, then.”

Still not answering her, waiting for her to go.

“Let me stay,” she said then, because it was the only thing she could think of to say—the only way she could be sure that he would not leave her, and go inside, and she would never get this close to him again.

“What?” His voice was startled, but not disgusted, which was something.

“Let me stay. For the night,” she said again, blushing and ashamed that this was all she could think of to do—that she had no conversation, nothing to offer that he might find enticing but willing to beg him, just the same.

“It's a small house,” he said at last.

“I don't need much room.”

“Small house, small bed.”

“I'll sleep on the floor, then. Just a blanket on the floor,” she said—then surprised him again: “Do you have a regular woman?”

“What?”

“Don't worry, I won't disturb it for her. I won't lie in her bed, just put a blanket down, an' let me stay beside you for the night.”

“No,” he said with a sigh, still not moving from the door. “No, I don't have a regular woman. Do you have a man?”