Glory Over Everything (26 page)

The first time he slap her, she stays sitting up. The next time she goes down. When he goes for her again, I jump him. He tries to shake me off, but I get ahold of his arm with my mouth and hang on. After he works me loose, he sends me flying against the wall. When Master Marshall comes at me again, Miss Lavinia starts crying for him not to hurt me. “She is only a child! She did nothing wrong,” she say.

“Your nigra bites me and she did nothing wrong?”

When she get to her knees in front of him, he look down at her so ugly that I think he gonna kill her.

“Marshall, I'm pleading with you not to harm her,” she say.

“Get this nigra out of here!” He pushes me at Papa George, his best slave, who runs things down at the barns. “Get her down to the quarters!”

“Please, Marshall,” I hear her say, “she's like my own child.”

“Like your own child!” he yell. “The titles you give these nigras! You talk like she's kin to you!”

When Papa George takes me down to the quarters to stay with Ida, all the while he talks to me. “You do what Ida say and you get along jus' fine. In time Masta Marshall forget you down there and they bring you back up. And don' go cryin' and carryin' on, so's you don't have Rankin payin' attention to you.”

Hearing Rankin's name make the hair on my neck rise up. The only man on that farm that I's more scared of than Master Marshall is Rankin.

When Papa George hands me over to Ida, I get scared and start calling out to him, “Don't leave me, don't leave me!” Two times he turns 'round like he's comin' back, and when Ida waves him on, I only yell for him louder. Ida hits me hard and tells me to hush up! That quiets me. Nobody never hit me before.

Ida's a tall woman but skinny like a post. Even for a slave, she got a hard look about her, and I wonder if it's because all she ever raised was boys. She sure don't give off no warm feelings to me.

“You want Rankin in here?” she asks. Her eyes show worry when she says that, and I wonder how she can be scared of him when she had all those babies with him.

Two days pass and still no one from the kitchen house or the big house comes down to see me. I don't have none of my nice clothes and I got only one pair of shoes and no combs for my hair. Still I keep thinking that any day Miss Lavinia will send Papa George down for me.

Everything at Ida's is different from up at the big house. She lives in one room, and at night I got to sleep beside her on a dirty floor pallet. Then two of her boys come in and sleep across the room from us. One looks about my age and the other is older. In the days I's there, they don't say one word to me but watch me when they think I don't see. I got on a pretty green dress of Miss Lavinia's that was cut down to fit, but what they most keep looking at is the soft leather shoes on my feet. They don't have none.

I do my best to help Ida out. It's winter, so she don't work out in the field. Instead she spins wool. She good about showing me how to card the fiber by pulling the wool through long nails. Even if it's not a hard job, my arms and shoulders get tired real quick. But Ida don't let me stop. She keep me going, saying, “You never know when Rankin's gonna show up, and we better be working.”

One afternoon I ask about her children. “I only got boys. My older two was sold,” she says, not looking in my eyes. “Rankin say they was troublemakers, but”—she whisper—“it just that Masta Marshall needin' the money. Now I got the two you see at night. My other one, Jake, he workin' with Rankin and live with him at the overseer's house.”

“Why does Jake stay with him and not with you?” I ask.

“Jake's the only one almos' as white as his daddy. He was just a little one when he sees his big brothers get sold. When he see them go, he don' stop carryin' on until Rankin tells him if he don't shut up, he's the next one. After that, Jake change. He don't call me Mama no more, and one day he says, ‘Ida, you'll never see me get sold. If I do anythin', I'll do the sellin'. Then he goes to live with his daddy in the overseer's house, and after that he do everything he see his daddy do.”

“Would they ever sell you?” I ask.

She stops the spinning wheel and works the wool in her hands. “Maybe so,” she say real quiet.

T
HREE DAYS AFTER
they take me from Miss Lavinia, the slave traders come. Ida and me jump awake when Rankin and Jake bust open the door in the middle of the night. When Rankin starts tying up my wrists, I yell to Ida, “Go get Miss Lavinia!” but Ida just stands there quiet.

“Shut up!” Rankin talks to me in a way that makes my mouth go dry. He grunts at me. “Nigras, acting like white folk! There's one more up in that big house that needs sellin',” he says to Jake. “That Jamie the next one to go.”

“You mean the one with the bad eye?” Jake asks.

“Yah, he's the one.”

“He's white as me,” Jake says.

Rankin snorts. “He's white as you, but that don't mean you both not nigras.”

The dark look that goes across Jake's face scares me so much that I start to call out again for Miss Lavinia. That's when Jake takes a rag that was tied around his neck and comes at me.

“Don't let them take me,” I say to Ida before Jake ties the rag tight around my mouth. Ida is pulling on her dress, but she stays quiet. She follows us outside and watches as they tie me to three other men who all look done in. They sit as soon as I'm tied, and the rope pulls me down to the ground with them. I start to cry, but with the rag in my mouth, I choke. My tongue burns when I work to loosen the rag, and I keep looking for Ida to help, but her head is down and turned away. When the traders go off for a drink with Rankin and Jake, Ida comes over.

“Remember who you is,” she say in my ear when she loosens up the rag. “You no slave like me. You raised like a white girl. You knows how to read and write. You 'members that and hold your head up like a white girl. That way they buy you for the big house someplace.”

By now I's too scared to cry. I keep looking up toward where the big house is and wonder why nobody's coming to get me. Where is everybody? Where are they taking me? Nobody's telling me nothing.

When the traders come back, one of them slaps at the air with his whip, and the men I's tied to jump up like a gun goes off. Before I know what's going on, they start out walking, and I get jerked along so fast that I can hardly keep up. When the trader whacks his whip again, it cracks down beside me. I'm so scared that my water start running down my legs.

“Keep a good eye on her,” Rankin call out to Jake, and that's how I find out that Jake is coming along with the slave traders.

I
N THE NEXT
days we stop at other farms. They got slaves to sell, so others are tied up with us, but I's the only girl. It's cold and I's too scared to cry and all the men stay quiet as me. They keep their heads down and move ahead, and I wonder why they don't have no fight. Then I hear two of them talking at night and find out that one man was already killed for getting loose and trying to run.

In those next days Jake don't leave me alone. After he takes the rag from my mouth, he keeps talking smart until I finally sass back. He laughs. “Oh, listen to this one from the big house! Don't she think she's somebody! I guess we'll get to find out what she looks like when they take those fine clothes off and set her up on that block for everybody to see.”

That scares me enough to start me crying, and after that, every chance he gets, Jake rides up beside me and tells me about what's going to happen to me up on the block. I keep telling myself don't pay him no mind. Miss Lavinia won't let that happen. I know she's sending Papa George for me any time now.

In the end it's good that Jake is there. At night the traders talk rough about me being a woman and what they wanting to do to me, but Jake tells them that his daddy sent him along to make sure I get to the auction without no man on me. “She'll bring more money, never been used yet,” he tells them.

They keep me tied at the end of the line. One of the men has a bad foot, but that don't stop them from making us move fast. I keep up good enough, but after three days of walking, my feet are so puffed up that when I take off my shoes, I can't put them back on. The man tied next to me watches me when I set them to the side. Before we get up again, he clicks his tongue and nods at my shoes and then at my feet, letting me know that I got to put them on. “I can't,” I whisper, “my feet is too sore.” But he nods again, and when I shake my head, he pushes his legs out for me to see both his feet swoll' up and bleeding. I see what he's telling me and put my shoes back on, and after that I don't take my shoes off no more no matter how sore they get.

Sometimes we stop for food and water, but tired as we are, we's always ready to get going again. None of us has warm clothes to keep out the cold, and when you move, you work up a heat. At night they give us some blankets.

After about three days, my bowels start moving on their own. Up to then I don't let myself go like the men do when the drivers tell us to squat. We's all tied together, and I turn my head when the men do their business, but I hold on. Then a couple of days in, my stomach starts hurting, and before I know it, I don't have no say. The worse part is it gets all over my skirts and then the smell starts coming off me. Soon as Jake picks up on my trouble, he starts in on me, but I don't let him see me cry no more.

“So, Miss Sukey, they don't teach you how to use a privy up at the big house?” he say.

Cold as I is, my face gets hot.

He makes pig sounds. “You sure do stink like the pigs down at the barn. You dressed like a lady, but you just a pig!”

My bowels keep running, and after two days my legs and my private parts is so sore that I don't care no more. All I want is to get someplace to wash up.

On our last night out, I'm shaking from the cold and I feel so sore all over that when everybody is sleeping, I can't hold myself back no more and I start to cry. The man who's tied next to me is the same man who tells me early on to keep my shoes on my feet. Now he slides closer and talks to me: “What yo mama's name?”

I's so surprised to hear him say something that I stop crying. “Dory,” I whisper, “but she's dead.”

“Den who raise you up?” he asks.

“Belle and Miss Lavinia,” I say, but that starts me crying again.

“Dey do a mighty fine job a raisin' you,” he says.

I's so cold my teeth is chattering.

“Ol' Ernest here gon' come close to you. He don' mean you no harm. He jus' gon' keep you warm,” he says.

“But I stink!” I say.

“You stink, but it ain't nothin' that won't come off with a good dose a water,” he says as he moves beside me.

He stays there all night, but I can't sleep because his being nice to me makes me cry even more.

M
Y FEAR WAS
that Mr. Cardon would be at the door before I was able to take my leave. The night of the fifth day, as Robert packed my trunk, I studied the map on which I had originally planned my excursion. I set it next to the one that Henry had given me. Though his was crudely drawn, they both directed me to the eastern shore of Virginia and then down south into North Carolina. On seeing this, I decided to follow my original plan, going first by boat to Norfolk, then by coach, traveling south from Virginia alongside the canal that ran down through the Great Dismal Swamp into North Carolina.

As a boy, I had read of the Great Dismal Swamp and dreamed of the exotic wildlife rumored to live there. Previously I had anticipated a visit, though now I cared nothing about my earlier plans and studied the map solely to locate the fastest way down to Pan.

Henry was at my door before sunup, wearing an optimistic smile and carrying the small black leather bag that looked as new as the day I had given it to him years before.

Robert was there to see us off. Though he was always youthful-looking, this early morning his face was lined and gray. We had spoken the night before and solidified our plans. I understood the burden I had left him with, but he assured me that all would be seen to and as soon as matters were taken care of, he would join me wherever I decided to settle.

“Godspeed,” Robert said as I turned to the carriage. I nodded, wishing mightily that he were coming with me.

Though it was before dawn when we left for the shipyards, I kept a sharp lookout for Mr. Cardon or one of his men, and when long lines and chaos met us at the docks, I pushed through to pay double the going rate so Henry and I could more quickly board the steamboat.

Once under way, the huge boat, pumping and puffing steam, moved swiftly through the Delaware, and in under three hours we arrived at the canal that cut through thirteen miles of land to meet the Chesapeake. Here we disembarked to climb aboard a lesser boat, where horses, hitched to the small craft, pulled us along a scenic path that I might have appreciated had I not been so anxious to put Philadelphia behind us. As I looked about nervously, Henry, unaware of the threat of Mr. Cardon, gave me a questioning glance more than once.

To my great relief, when we reached the Chesapeake River, another boat was already waiting to take us to Baltimore. On this we traveled for six more hours, but luck was with us, for no sooner had we disembarked in Baltimore than we were able to find passage on yet another steamboat—one that kept night hours and was bound for Norfolk.

I secured a small cabin for the two of us. When we were finally alone and well under way, Henry spoke his mind. “You got to settle down,” he said. “You actin' like somebody on your tail.”

I was uncertain how much to tell him, for he knew nothing of Mr. Cardon. “I might have been in trouble if I had stayed back in Philadelphia,” I admitted.