Promises to the Dead (7 page)

It was a good thing my uncle wasn't there. Delia was right. He'd have got himself killed in no time.

"Down with the Yankee hirelings!" a man near me yelled.

"Give me some gunpowder," another cried. "I'll blow 'em to kingdom come!"

Yet another ripped open his shirt and bared his chest. "Shoot me," he screamed at the soldiers, "I dare you!"

I tried to find a way out of the crowd, but everybody was big and mad. They pushed us this way and shoved us that way. I was scared we'd end up trampled underfoot.

The farther we went, the worse the rioting got. By now the soldiers had abandoned the train cars. They were marching down the middle of the street, pressed tight together, carrying their guns over their shoulders as if they were in a parade. Some looked scared. Others looked angry. Most just stepped along grim-faced, trying hard to ignore the rotten vegetables a crowd of women was hurling at them.

The man with the South Carolina flag managed to get in front of the soldiers. He strutted along ahead, grinning like it was a good joke to force the Yankees to march behind a rebel flag. Folks in the crowd cheered at the sight.

Around this time a man someone identified as the mayor of Baltimore thrust himself into the line of soldiers and started marching with them. I reckon he thought the sight of him would have some effect on matters, but things just went from bad to worse.

Every intersection was blocked with sawhorses, wagons, anchors from the harbor, and anything else handy. On Pratt Street, people were throwing things at the Yankees from windows and rooftops—stones, bricks, bottles, pitchers, chairs. A walnut bureau plummeted down and splintered to bits at my feet. The noise scared Perry and me both. Neither of us had ever been in a crowd like this, nor had we ever seen so many people.

By now Baltimore's fine citizens had begun shooting at the soldiers from porches and open windows. Every now and then the Yankees fired back but the mob pressed so tight around them they could scarcely raise their guns. Just ahead of me, I saw a soldier go down, his chest spurting blood. I'd seen deer killed, I'd shot a heap of muskrats, rabbits, and squirrels myself, but I'd never seen a man shot. I tried to back up so as not to step on him, but the mob pushed me right over him.

Suddenly a strong bony hand grasped my shoulder, and I heard a voice I'd hoped never to hear again. "Well, well," Colonel Botfield said. "We meet once more, Jesse Sherman."

The Colonel's nails bit into my skin as if he had claws on the ends of his fingers. "It appears you've got part of what I'm looking for," he said, grabbing Perry's arm. "But where's his mama?"

While Perry and I struggled to escape, the crowd roared and surged around us, pushing us out to its edges and finally pressing the three of us up against a wall. No one paid the least notice. Perry and I might as well have been in the middle of a barren desert for all the help we got.

Colonel Botfield tightened his grip on me till my arm tingled all the way down to my fingertips. The pain was fearsome. "No more fooling," he said. "Where's Lydia?"

"With the good Lord and all his saints," I gasped, trying to keep a grip on Perry with my free hand. "Safe from you forever."

"Lydia's dead?" Colonel Botfield stared at me, as if sorely grieved to hear he'd lost the reward money. "How did she die?"

"Birthing a baby down in the marsh." I glared at the man with all the hatred in my soul. "Where she went to hide from you and the widow."

For a moment the colonel acted as if he didn't know what to say or do. He just stood there cursing with half of Baltimore surging around us, screaming and hollering. "Where is she?" he demanded. "What did you do with her?"

I reckoned the old villain was fixing to dig up the body and take it to the Widow Baxter, still hoping to get his hands on that hundred-dollar reward. "She's buried someplace you'll never find her," I yelled.

For that I got a crack across the mouth hard enough to draw blood. "Go back home, Jesse," the colonel drawled, "before you get your sorry self killed."

Shoving me aside, he tightened his grip on Perry, who'd been hollering the whole while, kicking and flailing his fists and matching the colonel's profanity word for word. "Come with me, boy," he snarled. "Your mama might be dead, but you're still alive."

"I won't let you have him!" I grabbed at Perry, catching hold of his shirt. "You got no claim to him!"

"Believe me, I got more claim than you do." The colonel jerked at Perry, tearing his shirt out of my hands.

The boy sunk his teeth in the old devil's arm, but neither he nor I was any match for Colonel Botfield. The next thing I knew, he'd struck me again, knocking me to my knees this time. He took off with Perry, and I ran after him, ducking the rocks and bottles meant for the soldiers. A stone hit my shoulder, a bullet whizzed over my head, but I finally got close enough to catch hold of Colonel Botfield's coattails.

"Give him back," I cried. "I'll get money, I'll pay you for him, just don't take him!"

Perry reached for me, but Colonel Botfield eyed me with scorn. "You vex me, boy." With no warning, he pulled out a pistol and struck me hard on the side of the head.

Stunned, I fell flat in the street. For a second or two, I rolled this way and that, ducking the hobnailed boots pounding the pavement all around me. When I finally scrambled to my feet, dazed and bleeding, Colonel Abednego Botfield had disappeared like the devil he was. Gone straight down to hell, for all I knew, taking Perry with him.

A hole opened in the crowd and I half staggered, half fell into an alley. Blood streamed down my face, blinding me. My head felt like it was split in half. Sprawled among rotten fish and vegetables, I began to cry. Between sobs, I cursed Colonel Abednego Botfield, I cursed Baltimore City, I cursed myself for being a stupid boy.

While I lay in the filth bawling, the sounds from the street slowly faded. The hollering stopped. The shooting stopped. The riot had finally burned itself out like a forest fire.

When I was sure it was safe, I ventured to the end of the alley and peered up and down Pratt Street. I was so dizzy I could hardly stand, but at least my head had stopped bleeding.

All around me, wounded men groaned in the gutters. Torn knapsacks and bedrolls were strewn everywhere, along with bricks, broken bottles, and smashed furniture. There was blood, too, whole puddles of it. And, worst of all, just a few feet away, a man lay on the pavement, his arms outflung, his face white and drawn, his eyes wide open. He was the same fellow I'd seen near the station earlier, daring a soldier to shoot him. It seemed someone had done as he asked.

I'd never seen a battlefield, but I reckoned this was how one looked after the fighting was over. I threw up then and there, emptying my stomach of everything I'd eaten on the
Sally H.
that morning.

A couple of men carried another body past on a stretcher. They didn't pay no mind to me. Just trudged along carrying that bloody corpse.

One said to the other, "I hear ten Yankees got killed today."

"I heard it was twice that many. Maybe more."

"How many civilians?"

"Ten or twelve, somebody said."

"Damn Federals." The man spit in the gutter. "Firing on unarmed folks. Seems to me they ought to be hanged for that."

After the men rounded a corner, I sagged against the wall, sunk in misery. I yearned to run back to the ship and tell Captain Harrison I'd done all I could for Perry. He'd take me home, and that would be the end of it.

But of course it wouldn't be the end of it. Once something like this got started, it didn't quit till it was done. And that wouldn't be till Perry was safe.

There was nothing for me to do but go to that house on Monument Street and find Miss Polly Baxter. Even though he was a slave, Perry was her nephew and a pretty child at that. Surely she'd help get him back from Colonel Abednego Botfield.

CHAPTER 8

I staggered uphill on Charles Street, reeling this way and that like Uncle Philemon coming home from the tavern. Way far ahead I could see a statue of George Washington standing on top of a tall column, gazing out over the city. Trouble was, I was so dizzy I saw two of everything, including the monument itself. My knees felt like they'd melted. And I kept vomiting, though there was nothing in my belly but green stuff that burned my throat when it came up.

Somehow I made my way to that tall column and from thence to number 115 West Monument Street. It was a grand place, well kept and dignified, the home of ladies and gentlemen. Here I was, dirty and bloody and so dizzy I could scarcely stand up. How was I to knock on that big door and ask for Miss Polly Baxter? Why, she'd never speak to a raggedy boy like me.

While I stood there, swaying back and forth, the door opened and out came a well-dressed gent wearing a black armband. I had to stare hard to keep from seeing two of him. "Come along, step lively, don't dawdle," he called to someone inside.

A plumpish woman hastened out the door, followed by a pretty young lady with a melancholy look. Both were dressed in black silk dresses. Maybe it was the color of their clothing, but the two of them were as pale as pale could be. Behind them came a young Negro woman, toting more boxes than she could manage.

I guessed the pale young lady to be Miss Polly Baxter, but before I dared say a word to her, a carriage drove up. In a trice, they all climbed inside and went rattling away down Monument Street.

"Hey, what are you doing hanging around here, boy?"

I wheeled and found myself face to face with a large Negro woman about the age of Delia. She was standing in the doorway of number 115, broom in hand, getting ready to sweep me away with the rest of the dirt.

I reckon I'd turned too fast, for all of a sudden I got so dizzy I couldn't see straight. The woman turned into a pair of twins, everything went as black as those silk dresses, and I felt myself falling, falling, falling. The last thing I heard was the woman saying, "What's wrong, wrong, wrong..." and then I was gone into the dark.

***

For a long while after that, I passed in and out of strange dreams and visions. In one, the wind blew me higher and higher, way above the roofs of Baltimore and on across the Bay, all the way back to the little house where I was born, and there was Mama alive and well and so happy to see me. All those other babies were there, too, laughing and gay, as healthy as children could be. Through the window I saw Daddy plowing the field, strong the way he was before he sickened.

I put my arms around Mama and held her tight and smelled her sweet smell. I wanted to ask where she'd been all this time, but I knew not to. Such a question would break the spell.

Then Lydia stepped through the door, carrying her baby girl, the one that died, only she was alive now and smiling at me. Lydia came over to Mama and touched her arm. "You can't keep him here," she said. "He's got promises to keep."

Mama held me tighter, and then ever so gently she loosed herself from my arms. "You must go back, son," she whispered. "It's not your time to join me."

"No, don't make me go, Mama. Let me stay with you."

But Lydia came between us. "Remember your promise, Jesse. Find Perry and get him to Polly, so I can rest peaceful."

In a flash, she and Mama and all the others were gone and I was alone in a dark, narrow street. Somehow I knew I was in Baltimore, just outside Slattery's slave jail. I heard sounds of misery from behind the wall, cries and sobs and groans, wails and shrieks mixed with hollering and cursing and whips cracking. Out of the shadows stepped Colonel Abednego Botfield, taller than life, his eyes glowing red as a hellhound's. In one hand he held a pistol, pointed at my heart. His other hand gripped Perry.

"This boy is mine," Colonel Botfield snarled. "You'll never get him."

Behind me stood Lydia, knife at my throat. "You promised to keep him safe," she hissed in my ear. "You swore on my grave!"

Just as Colonel Botfield pulled the trigger, everything changed, and I was all alone again in a strange place, crying for Mama.

"There now, there now," someone said softly. "Rest easy, boy."

I opened my eyes to find myself lying on a straw pallet in a small dark room lit only by a candle. The ceiling was low and the air smelled of mold and dust. At first I thought I was in a jail cell, but just as I was about to holler in fright, a Negro woman leaned over and patted my hand.

I tried to ask her who she was and where I was, but my throat was sore and my mouth was dry and my voice was no more than a croak.

"Hush," the woman said. "You been mighty sick. First there was your head. You lost a lot of blood and nearly died from a concussion. Then the fever set in."

She pressed a cool cloth against my head. "Goodness gracious, boy, you've kept me on my knees for more than two weeks praying the Lord to spare your young life."

"Two weeks?" I tried to sit up but found I couldn't manage it. The fever had left me weak as a baby. "I have to find Perry, I promised his mama I'd take care of him, I—"

"Lie still, and drink this." The woman held a cup of something hot to my lips. It smelled like swamp water and I shut my mouth tight, recalling some of Delia's medical concoctions. They tasted so bad a body got well just to save himself from drinking them.

"Come on, honey," the woman coaxed. "Take a few swallows, like a good boy." She pushed the cup firmly against my lips until she managed to get a few drops into my mouth. It tasted just as bad as it smelled, but I swallowed it anyway. Which encouraged her to pour more into me.

"My name's Athena," she went on. "You been here at Judge Baxter's home since I found you, off your head most of the time, shouting all sorts of nonsense about some child and Miss Polly—"

"Please go fetch Miss Polly Baxter," I cut in. "I got news from her dear friend Lydia. And Perry—I have to tell her about Perry." Shaking with worry, I clutched Athena's hand.

Athena stared at me, her face full of distrust. "How do you know Miss Polly? Who are you anyway, boy? Where do you come from?"