Glory Over Everything (28 page)

I propped him up higher in bed so he might breathe easier, but that seemed to have little effect. Through rasping breath, he begged me to go for Pan with or without him.

“I will,” I said.

He held out his hand. “Swear on this,” he said, weakly pointing to his missing thumb. I took his disfigured hand in mine and made a promise. Then I sat, his hand clasped in both of mine, until Henry breathed his last.

I
STOOD SILENT
at Henry's grave site. He had died so quickly, much as Caroline had. Had I failed him, too? I was free to go and though everything in me wanted to bolt, I had promised Henry that I would go for Pan. I tried to argue myself out of it. It was too dangerous, and now I had a daughter to care for. A daughter! Caroline's child! My daughter! Wasn't she my first responsibility? Yet I knew that the baby was as safe in Robert's hands as she would have been in mine. True, I needed to arrange for them to leave Philadelphia, but Pan was the one most in danger, and I had given Henry my word.

I flinched when the grave digger threw the last bit of dirt on Henry's grave, and when he struck at it to tamp down the soil, I reached out as though to stop him.

The man leaned back on his shovel. “You wantin' to say somethin' over him?” he asked. I looked about this remote cemetery located outside of town, meant only for Negroes. Here stones and sticks served as markers, and I thought of the large granite headstones that marked the Burtons' resting place. I remembered, too, the eulogies given my adopted parents, but words for Henry failed me, and I shook my head. “But he was a good man,” I said, not wanting the man to misunderstand.

He studied me for a moment. “You needin' me to say somethin' for you?” he asked.

I nodded. What harm could it do?

The old colored man set down his shovel and straightened up. “What you call him?” he asked.

“Henry,” I said.

“Jus' Henry?”

I nodded again but was somehow embarrassed for Henry's lack of a family name.

The man folded his dirt-stained hands in front of him before he lowered his head. “Lawd, You got Yourself a good man. Keep him safe in Your place a glory.” The man gauged my reaction from the corner of his eye, then assured himself of coins when he quickly added, “And Henry wants to thank You, Lawd, for providin' him with this good masta what looks out for him down here.”

B
ACK IN THE
room, I set Henry's small bag in a corner next to mine. That evening, after having secured passage on a stagecoach for the following morning, I paced the small room.

What was I to do about the baby? Now that I knew there was a child, I was surprised by the feelings that I had about her. I had never imagined myself as a parent—in fact, because of my parentage, the idea was not a consideration. But now that she was here, I felt protective toward her. I feared leaving her in Philadelphia, for what if Mrs. Cardon were to change her mind? Should she demand the baby's return, Robert had no way of refusing her. No, the baby must be removed, but where could I send her?

The only place that came to mind was Williamsburg. I dug into my trunk to find Lavinia's letter and reread it once again. She had written of her daughter, Elly, whom I remembered only as a willful redheaded child. But she was grown now, and Lavinia had stressed that both Elly and her cousin were independent and freethinking. As well, they ran a school for girls, and I hoped their caring might extend into sympathy for a young baby. In the end, I had little choice. I sat down to write a letter, addressing it to the Madden School for Young Girls, Attention: Miss Eleanor Pyke, Williamsburg, Virginia.

Dear Miss Pyke,

I have recently been in contact via letter with your mother, Mrs. Lavinia Pyke. She informed me that you are aware of our personal connection. Thus I dare write to you with a request that, because of the extreme circumstances I find myself in, would surely appear to be taking advantage of the situation.

I will come straight to the point.

I am on my way south to North Carolina to carry out a mission that is not of my choosing. Because of a promise made, I am bound to go. However, I have just learned that my motherless infant daughter must leave Philadelphia at once. I find I have nowhere else to turn, and I humbly ask that you open your door to my manservant, who has my daughter in his trusted care.

I set the letter aside to pace again about the room. According to Lavinia's earlier words, Elly was aware that Marshall was my father, but was she also aware that I had killed him? And had Elly been told that Belle was my mother? Would she then see my child as Negro and, if so, might that influence her consideration of a safe haven?

I forced myself to sit. I would take the chance. If Elly did not take the baby in, I would have to trust Robert's ability to formulate another plan. I could think of no other solution and ended the letter with Edenton, North Carolina, as a post station whereby to reach me. After some thought, I signed off as James Pyke Burton.

Next I wrote to Robert with instructions to hire a carriage and bring the baby and the nurse to Williamsburg, where they were to find shelter with Miss Elly Pyke until my return. I included a letter of passage and another of introduction for Robert, then added a last note for my lawyer with instructions to transfer all available funds to Williamsburg.

In the early morning I posted the letters, then waited anxiously to board the stage for North Carolina.

F
INALLY COMES A
day when I can stand up some. Then I start to wonder how to get home. I figure if I can get hold of Mr. Burton, he'll come for me.

I can't get the woman who takes care of me to talk, but one night after she finishes working on my head, I ask her to bring over a can of lard. I don't think she will, but she does. When I ask her to sit down beside me, she keeps looking at me like she don't know what's coming next.

“I'm just gonna do what I always do for my mama,” I say, and I take one of her hands and start to rub it in with grease. I work her hand just like I did Mama's, and in a little while she closes her eyes. While I'm working on each finger, I start to talk, and I tell her about my mama and about how good I took care of her when she was sick. I tell her how Mama had to go when the good Lord called, but that she said she would always look out for me. “I don't know where she was when I got took, but I'm expecting that she'll get Mr. Burton to come any day now.”

The big woman is quiet and her eyes stay closed, but it looks to me like she's listening, so I keep going. “Mr. Burton is the man who's coming for me. If he knows where I'm at, he'll show up.”

I reach for her other hand and this time she gives it over easy. “Can you tell me what place this is so I can write to Mr. Burton?” I ask. The woman opens her eyes and starts looking around to see if anybody's awake. Then she holds her finger up to her mouth so I stay quiet. Later, after she checks to make sure nobody is awake, she goes into her own small room where she sleeps and comes back with a old quill and a bottle of ink and a piece of paper. At the top it says:

You at Southwood in a sickhouse in North Carolina.

The ink is still wet. I stare at her. “Did you write this?” I ask, but quick she puts her finger to her lips. Then she grabs hold of my hand and on the inside of it spells out S, U, K, E, Y, showing me how she don't need to use paper and ink.

“Is that you? Sukey?” I ask, and she nods. “My name's Pan,” I say, and I'm excited now I know her name. I want her to write some more on my hand, but she keeps pointing to the paper for me to get started on my note to Mr. Burton, so I do. My hand is shaky, but under what Sukey wrote, I print out real careful:
Mr. James Burton in Philadelphia.

Mr. Burton, they got me in the sickhouse at a place called Southwood in North Carolina. I need you to come get me. I got whooped on the head but I can stand now. Come quick to get me. I want to get home. I'm scared.

Pan

I give the paper over to Sukey, who waves it around to dry it out, then folds it and puts it inside the top of her dress by her big chests that hide the paper easy.

I want her to talk some more, so I ask her what's going to happen to me if I get took for a slave, but she only shakes her head and goes back to her room. After a while, when she looks out and thinks everybody is sleeping, I see her take my letter out from her chests. Then with a long stick she hooks down one of the baskets hanging from the ceiling. It's filled with weeds, but she takes them out. Then she turns the basket upside down and taps at the bottom until it lifts out. From what I can see, it looks like the basket got two bottoms. She slips my letter in, then closes up the bottom, and after she puts the weeds back in, she hooks the whole works up again onto a rafter. I count three baskets over from the corner and wonder if she'll remember which basket she put it in.

It's hard to see in her room because she's got so many baskets of weeds hanging all over, but squeezed in there she has a chair and a small bed with a brown blanket, just like we all got. There's nothing on the wood floor and no window, but she got a table with some quill pens and some ink with some paper sitting to the side.

Later I find out that she uses the paper to write down who is sick and how many babies get born, and every week she gives that over to the two white men who come to see her.

I wonder when she's going to send my letter off. I don't like this place and I want to go home.

E
VEN THOUGH
I say that I don't want nothin' to do with this boy, I never seen nothin' like him before. Almost every night now he rubs my hands down and I don't remember somethin' ever feeling so good. Trouble is, he got that sweet way about him, and while he's rubbin' my hands, he keeps asking me questions. I don't give no answers 'cause there is none. One night he say, “What happens if I get took for a slave?” I keep my eyes closed like I don't hear him, and I try not to think about it. He's small in size, but he's 'bout the same age as me the first time I got sold, and thinking back on it, I don't know how I come through.

I
FORGET HOW
many days we was tied up and traveling, but on our last day, when they drive us through the town, I hang my head because people stop what they're doing when they see us coming. Some laugh and poke fun but most only get quiet when they look at us. Some shake their head and look away. One of the slave men that's tied can't take no more and starts yelling at the town people watching us, “What you lookin' at? What you lookin' at?” The trader slaps the whip at him, but that don't stop him, and he starts to laugh in a way that scares me. It's like he can't stop hisself.

I's feeling so low that I don't look up no more. I just want to get to the auction yard, and when we do get there I almost feel good. The place has a high wood fence around it and they got to unlock a big door to let us in. We don't have no time to look around before they free us from the line. When they untie me from Ernest, I see his hands shaking, and that makes my stomach knot up. I never see him look scared like this before, and I's wondering what he knows that I don't know.

They hand me over to a old woman, and I think maybe she's a slave herself because she's rough in her talk when she takes me out to a small wood shed. There she brings two buckets of cold water, a rag, and a chunk of soap. She has me take off my clothes and shoes and tells me to wash myself, all the while shaking her head as she watches. But I don't care. Let her look. When I start to wash, my sore skin burns like it's on fire. I don't stop, but I soap up and scrub the stink away. Real nice, I ask the woman to bring me two more buckets of water. When she does, I soap up again, then rinse myself over and over. The cold water bites at me, and I keep catching my breath with each dose, but at least I feel clean. The woman hands me a big rag to dry myself with, then gives me a old and mostly clean brown petticoat and dress. We don't talk, but she keeps watching everything I do. Now that I's clean, I start to feel more like my old self.

“Please,” I say, “I need to write a letter. Could you help me?”

She sighs and shakes her head. “I jus' know that you was somebody's pet! It was those clothes and those shoes. And now you talkin' 'bout writin'. I see this over and over. Young ones like you startin' to look too good to the masta, the wife sell you off. That what happen?”

She brings over a brown rag to tie around my head and talks low into my ear. “Don't you go tellin' nobody here that you can write.” She steps back with her hands on her hips to look me over. “You been with a man yet?”

I shake my head, pretty sure of what she's saying.

“You start your bleedin' yet?”

I nod, wishing she'd stop asking me these questions.

She makes a face. “Till you sold, you keep your eyes down, you keep your head down. Don't go smilin' at no mens. They ask, you say you trained for the big house.”

Then she hands me a gray blanket and takes me out to a stall.

I
NSIDE THE HIGH
wall that hides the slave pen, a dirt yard runs down the whole side of what looks like a long barn. The big building has rooms that look like stalls in the horse barn, with doors that have bars across the windows. In time I find out that they need those windows so buyers can get a look at us before they put us on the block.

Inside the stall I get put in, there is a dirt floor with clean hay spread out. There, a woman and a small child sit on a bench against the wall across from the door. The woman looks up at me when I come in but doesn't say nothing. Her girl is asleep with her head in her mama's lap.