Running Out of Night (9 page)

“If’n we tell them bout you,” the white-haired boy said, “they’ll git us more food, take better care of us.”

“No they won’t,” the scarred boy said. “They pack her in with us, and we won’t get not a bite more, maybe even a bite less with another mouth to feed.” He looked at me, gave me a quick half smile, then faced the others.

“You, you, boy, you stop talkin at us,” the white-haired boy said as he shook his fist. “Who you think you are?” He dropped my Hannah doll and stepped right on her as he shoved the boy hard, then punched him in the stomach.

The boy buckled, straightened back up, and set his lips in a thin line. The other boy moved as if to step in, but the ropes held him tight.

I didn’t see where this talkin and fightin were leadin me
to no place good. I started to say somethin to them about us all helpin each other when I heard people talkin and horses
clop-clop
pin slow and easy toward us.

“Shhhh,” I cautioned, my finger in front of my mouth. “Don’t tell them nothin bout me.”

I looked up at the sycamore—the first branch were just out of my reach. My Hannah doll laid on the ground by the black boy. I wanted to grab her, but I didn’t have no time.

I run to the tree and jumped for the lowest branch, but missed it by an arm’s length. The tallest Negra boy, the one with the scarred face, swung me up onto his broad shoulders and said, “Git out of here.” I stood, reached up, grabbed the patchy limb, and pulled myself onto it.

I looked down, searchin for my Hannah doll, and saw the tall black boy bend over, pick her up, and stuff her inside his tattered shirt.

A horse whinnied.

I swished up and into the cover of the broad, leafy branches and climbed faster than I’d ever climbed afore. I looked for Zenobia, but for once she stayed put. Soon as I heard the woman-man and weasel-face gettin closer, I stopped, laid out flat on a limb, and hugged myself tight.

A fuzzy black-and-yellow-striped bumblebee hummed above me, circled, and landed on my arm. I didn’t move. I watched as it stretched out its long tongue and licked itself like a cat, then combed its front legs down its dusty, furred body. It stopped, looked at me with its huge eyes,
then packed its cargo of yellow dust into pockets on its rear legs. Its wings begun to move, and I could feel a tiny whirlwind in the hairs on my arms.

Below me another whirlwind exploded. Dogs barked and howled. Men shouted and cursed. I heard my pa’s voice and the sound of the hounds. I felt like I were havin a nightmare with all the yellin and thrashin goin on. Old Delia dog were down there, snortin around the tree trunk, snufflin into the sand and leaves, raisin Cain.

“Where’s the redhead girl? And where’s my runaway slave girl?” Pa yelled. “I seen their tracks back a ways. Ya be hidin them and tryin to get the money, and I’ll beat y’all till there ain’t nothin left of your sorry hides. My hounds got the smell of them.”

The woman-man yelled back at Pa, “Don’t you be bustin in here, old man. Them’re our boys, but them Negras over there, they’re goin back to their owners. We caught them in Pennsylvania a week ago.”

“Get outta here!” the white-haired boy yelled at the dogs, and he must’ve kicked at one by the sound of the yelpin.

I didn’t have to see Pa to know he were mad.

He yelled to my brothers to look around the camp. I could hear them walkin through the leaves and shoutin to the dogs to stop their barkin.

“I don’t know nothin about yer redhead girl,” the woman-man yelled, “but you get out of here or we gonna shoot you like we shot the last man got in our way.”

I heard rifles cock, then the sound of Pa mutterin.

Delia barked again, a high, yappin chirp like the one she gives when I tease her with a bite of food, then a short, yippin howl, the sound she makes when Pa kicks her.

“Movin out,” Pa yelled to my brothers and the hounds. “That girl ain’t nowhere round here, let’s move it out.”

They passed below me, so close I felt a chill run clear through my bones. I kept my eyes scrunched closed like I did when I hid inside the old pine chimney cupboard. If I couldn’t see them, then they wouldn’t see me.

Delia yipped and chirped again. I pictured her liftin her head, sniffin at the air between me and them.

My brothers yelled at Delia and Bathsheba; the woman-man and weasel-face shouted at them all to keep a-movin. I held my breath, not wantin them to smell my fear or feel my life above them.

They scuffled through the leaves below me, and Pa said, “Them dogs are tellin me them girls are round here somewheres. We’re not goin far.” They moved off, the dogs runnin in circles and barkin and Pa cursin a streak.

I laid still—still as that woman the preacher said turned into a pillar of salt. How long would it be afore one of them boys told the woman-man about me?

“What’s this you hidin in your shirt?” I heard the woman-man ask. “Where the devil did this raggedy thing come from? Answer me,” she shouted,
“now!”

I
f an owl calls out a name, that person soon will die
.

I
heard scufflin below me, but I didn’t dare look down. Then, a muffled cry, and the scarred boy said, “I don’t know where it come from. It were over by them tulip trees. When we was walkin over to here, I jus picked it up.”

“Yer lyin,” the woman-man shouted. “You saw them girls, and they’s a reward for one of them. Which way did they go?”

No answer. I could hear someone whippin him, then yellin, and then some quiet, but still no answer. Were he goin to tell on me to save hisself from more beatin?

Even if he told, Zenobia would still be safe up here. Nobody knowed about her.

My heart thudded, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I wanted to open my eyes and look up to Zenobia again, just to feel like someone were with me, but I stayed still. Closed inside myself.

Mama, I thought, what is goin to happen to your girl now?

The man spoke up. “Let im be,” he said. “We need to get im back fit to work or we won’t get no reward.”

The woman-man said, “This place been nothin but trouble for us. I come here thinkin it to be a good spot, all hid out under this big tree, water for the takin, but I’m not feelin safe.”

A warm breeze lifted my hair like thin fingers was rufflin through it. Goose bumps stood up on my arms. Mama, I thought, is that your sperrit tellin me to hold on?

I held on but shook like a cottonwood leaf in a wind. Dust rose from all the commotion below me. I heard feet scufflin through leaves, talkin, and then the
clop, clop, clop
of the old horses movin slowly away.

Were Pa and my brothers somewhere nearby watchin for us? Me and Zenobia waited and waited, never passin a word to one another. Dark settled. I looked at Zenobia’s wide eyes, then up through the tree at the comfort of the moon. It looked like it were snared in the branches.

“Zenobia,” I whispered, “think we safe now? C’mon.”

“Oh Lordy,” she whispered. “Not bad enough climbin up, but now I gots to climb down, and in the dark.”

“Stop your frettin and let your feet and hands find their way.”

“Got your sling of food and bundle, my sack of food, and my tired body to move. I hope I don’t do no flyin like last time.”

“Just pay attention and talk to the tree. Thank it for givin us shelter.”

“Thank ya, old tree,” Zenobia sang quietly. “Thank ya for leaves and shade, and—”
Crack
. I heard the sound of wood splittin. Leaves and twigs showered onto me.

“Oh, Lark, I’m scairt to the bone. I cain’t move.”

“Come on, trouble girl. You sure don’t have no choice but to come down or go up, and I cain’t see how goin up will help you much. We got dark now, and we gots to move on while it’s safe. Now, stay quiet.”

I stood on the broad limb and reached up and patted Zenobia’s bare foot.

“You’re doin fine. Keep comin slow and easy-like, slow and easy, no hollerin and no flyin.”

“You take your sack,” she whispered as she swung it down to my branch.

I slid the sack onto my back next to my sling, thrust my leg into the black between the limbs, and felt for safe footin. I touched onto the smooth branch below me so’s the steppin down come easy. First one foot, then another.

“It’s not bad, Zenobia.” Could she hear the shakin in my voice?

She sniffled above me.

“I wants to find my ma and papa, hold my baby sister again. I misses them till my heart burstin. But all I’m goin to do is end up broke into pieces or fish food in the crick.”

“Quit feelin sorry for yerself.” Although I were feelin right sorry for my own self. “We need to get away from here and find somewhere safe to hide for tomorrow, so climb down.”

“I’m hungry,” she whined.

“I’m hungry too, but we not safe around here. No tellin if Pa is close, if the dogs catches our smells again, or what—”

Crack
. Zenobia flew past me, nearly knockin me off the limb. Fallin, fallin, down, down, just like my Hannah doll, without a sound. I heard her hit the ground with a loud thump, and then nothin.

My foot slipped. I caught myself, my heart poundin till it near jumped out of me. Were Zenobia hurt? Dead?

I felt my way slowly, brushin the limb with my feet, steppin down till I dropped from the last branch onto the sandy, leaf-covered soil. Zenobia and her sack laid like a heap of rags at the base of the tree.

“Zenobia? Trouble girl, answer me. Sorry, so sorry. You was so scairt, I should’ve helped you more.” I bent over her and wiped the leaves and dirt from her face. Her arm were twisted behind her. Her eyes shut.

“Zenobia? Answer me, girl. You was so brave. Fallin like that and not a sound from you.” A wind rustled
through the sycamore leaves, and shiftin moon shadows washed acrost her bloodied face.

I laid my ear against her chest and tried to hear her heartbeat through the thickness of the night sounds. I shivered. Were somethin or someone watchin us? Then came a long dry shriekin cry, as cuttin and cold as a splinter of ice. I hunched over Zenobia’s still body to protect her and looked all around us, up and down. Nothin stirred except the leaves.

Another shriekin. A pale barn owl, its heart-shaped face lookin down on us, flew by on silent wings and landed in the branches above.

“Night sperrit, don’t you be callin out her name!” I shouted, shakin my fist up toward him. “I knows what happens when you calls a name.”

“Zenobia. Trouble girl.” I whispered so’s the owl couldn’t hear me. “We just found each other. We was like sisters. Now look what you gone and done.”

D
eath is foretold by a sound in the heavens like a pack of animals at bay
.

I
don’t know how long I set there with Zenobia, rockin back and forth on my knees and cryin like I hadn’t cried since my grandpa passed on. Oh, I knowed she were gone and that I’d have to bury her afore the day come on. I couldn’t just walk away and leave her for the buzzards and animals. She needed a fittin restin place for her long journey home. My heart, my whole body hurt with a heavy load of sorrow.

I patted Zenobia, then pushed myself up. My legs and feet moved like they was wrapped in sacks. I stumbled toward the crickside, bent, and poked my fingers into the
damp soil. It were loose and sandy, easy enough to dig, but I would need a sturdy branch and a flat rock to help with the work. Every sycamore stick I tried for diggin broke—too brittle for the task. I slid down the bank to the crick, turned over rocks, tossed some up the cliff to pile on Zenobia’s grave, and chose a thin, flat stone for the diggin.

I slung our food sacks over the top of a bush, tied them together, and set off for the woods. I skirted the meadow so’s to stay out of the fullness of the moonlight, and searched the ground for a strong stick.

The stick found me afore I found it. I stumbled, stepped down, and it reared up in front of me. I caught it, turned round, and headed back. I didn’t want no animals to get to Zenobia afore I could take care of her.

Lightnin bugs flickered in the meadow. I thought on how Zenobia looked just last night with that cloud of them little stars shinin from her thick hair.