Running Out of Night (25 page)

F
ridays are a bad-luck day to laugh. If you laugh on Friday you’ll be crying by Sunday
.

T
he wagon and rider passed by. Armour stared straight ahead. Me and Auntie raised our hands in greetin. As the man on the unlucky white-stockin’d horse trotted past without another glance, I felt like a thick barrel band had loosed and dropped off me. When I looked back over my shoulder, I saw the rider rein in the horse and swing it around.

“Stop!” he yelled. “Where you headin?”

Enoch called out a soft “whoa” and pulled back on the reins.

The man on the white-stockin’d horse rode back by the
wagon, circled the front, looked the men up and down, and leveled his rifle at them.

Auntie stood up and greeted them. “Good morning, Friend,” Auntie said, like she were talkin to her favorite neighbor. “Won’t thee please move aside and let us pass? We are hurrying home to tend sick family.”

I knew that just tellin that little lie, even though she were tellin it to save us, would trouble Auntie.

“We’re not movin anywhere but where we want to be. And where we want to be is right here, askin you who you are and where you’re goin,” the man shouted. He moved his rifle till it stared at Brightwell.

Sweat soaked through Enoch’s shirt. He looked back at us, his eyes wide, but when he saw the fear on Better’s face, he turned and said, “Sir, please, she tryin to get home to family. We be travelin hard since North Carolina.”

“You don’t talk at me, boy!” the man shouted.

The rider come closer and looked over into the bed of the wagon where we set.

“Lift them blankets,” he ordered.

I couldn’t get up, but Auntie bent over, picked up the mound of blankets, and laid them over the side of the wagon.

The rider poked at them, rode around us, and set his rifle back acrost his saddle.

“We’ve had runaways on the road and up on the Blue
Ridge,” he said, “but we catch most of them at night, when they thinkin they safe. Stupid, stupid slaves. That’s why they slaves, they stupid!”

Brightwell leant forward. I knowed him and knowed that after all he’d been through he’d like nothin better than to yank that man off his horse. He started to stand.

Auntie walked a step to the back of the wagon seat and laid her hand on Brightwell’s shoulder. “Thee has a spacious heart—let it fill with the Light,” she said quiet-like. He settled back.

I were shakin, some sure that if Brightwell had done what he wanted to do, well, there would be plenty of blood spilt to pay for all of our pain.

“Go on,” the rider said, lookin us over again. Then he nodded north, the way we was headin.

I couldn’t help myself and let out a small snort of a laugh. Auntie shook her head at me, and Zenobia’s golden eyes widened in surprise. I bit at my lips, covered my mouth, and acted like I’d just sneezed.

The man stared at me, turned, dug his heels into the horse’s side, and rode south. But he left his white-stockin’d bad luck behind when he tipped his hat and said, “Good Friday to you.”

Oh law. I’d laughed on a bad-luck Friday. I’d be sure to be cryin on Sunday.

“Get ready,” Enoch said. “Down the road a ways they’s
some more people and two riders. We run into them soon.”

Better squeezed her eyes shut. Auntie set between Zenobia and me and held our hands. Were there any way we could come out safe through this? All we could do was roll on, right into the middle of trouble again.

A
void riders on white horses or you will surely run into bad luck or death
.

I
couldn’t stay jus settin. Settin and waitin. I stood up behind Brightwell and looked at the road ahead of us.

“Oh no,” I said. “Brightwell, here’s Armour’s hat.” I snatched the hat off Armour’s head and passed it to him.

“It’s the woman-man, the very same woman-man what caught you.”

Brightwell pulled the hat on and slunk low on the wagon bench. He kept his head down so’s she couldn’t see his scarred-up face.

I stepped back and set down in the wagon again.

“Zenobia, remember that meaner-than-a-mule-bite woman-man? Under the sycamore tree? We in for trouble.”

Zenobia nodded. “What happen to our luck?” she asked. “Best make sure you still has your buckeye.” She sank down, pulled the blue bandanna low on her head, and swiped her hand acrost her shiny face.

Better didn’t move, didn’t neaten up, didn’t show any feelins. It were like Better were with us, but her soul had left her.

Auntie set up straighter, smoothin her plain skirt, and tuckin and twistin her hair into a small coil.

I needed to make myself feel peaceful so I checked again and made sure every wisp of my red hair were still under my bonnet. Then I patted at my pocket to feel for my buckeye and set up prim and straight like the young wife of our travelin preacher. “Please, Mama and Grandpa, help us make it through this safe.”

The riders and three boys moved slow, but we all come together at the place where a small trail run into the wide road.

The woman-man on her white horse and the weasel-face man on the chestnut geldin stopped, yelled somethin at their boys, and watched us passin by.

I cast my eyes down. I didn’t want to look at the boy with the chicory-blue eyes. Please don’t let them remember Brightwell. Don’t let them boys remember me.

We rolled slowly past. I felt all them eyes starin at us, starin into us, like they knowed that we was shirkin from them.

“Where you headin?” the woman-man asked.

The wagon stopped. Auntie stood.

“Hello, Friends,” she said. “We are traveling from North Carolina to our home. We have some sick family.”

Poor Auntie. I knowed it pained her.

The woman-man shifted on her saddle and craned her neck till she could see into the bed of the wagon. She circled us, stoppin at the tail end, then stoppin by the side of Enoch and the others.

“You, you in the hat. Lift it up. Lift up yer hat.”

Brightwell set still.

“He can’t hear a word thee said. He is stone deaf and dumb,” Auntie said.

“You, boy”—she pointed to the dirty boy with the chicory-blue eyes—“lift his hat and let me have a look at him.”

The boy stepped up to the side of the wagon and started to climb onto the seat.

Enoch shook the reins and clucked for the horses to move.

“Stop!” the woman-man said. “Go after em!” she shouted at the weasel-face man on the horse.

He turned and rode toward us.

The boy had held on to the side of the movin wagon. He swung up, reached for Brightwell’s hat, and tugged.

“It’s him! It’s the slave what run away from us!” he yelled over his shoulder.

Brightwell reached out, grabbed the hat, and pushed the boy off the wagon and to the ground.

Seemed like the world blowed to pieces round us.

Shoutin. Better screamin. Enoch shakin at the reins, horses boltin forward, and the man aimin a rifle right at Armour.

Then I heard them. The dogs. Grandpa’s dogs—Bathsheba and Delia. They was soundin their chirpin barks and bayin and makin enough noise to raise the dead.

I looked down the trail to the side of us and saw Pa, Samuel, and Clem runnin fast toward us. Trouble. More trouble.

Zenobia started to crawl over the side of the rail.

“No,” I said, “you cain’t get away now. Them dogs would find you. Pa would shoot us. It’s too late, too late.”

I pulled her back into the wagon.

“We gots to set still and keep quiet.”

Zenobia settled next by me. Auntie stood and looked toward the three men headin right at us.

“Curse you two!” my pa shouted.

Had he already seen me?

“You, woman. What you think you doin? You tryin to catch my runaway and git the reward?”

He were talkin to the woman-man and weasel-face.

I watched from under the brim of my bonnet. Pa and my brothers didn’t know I were in the wagon. Them dogs hadn’t smelt me yet.

“That boy up there is my catch,” the woman-man said.
“I had him till he broke free and run away. Now I got him back.”

“I don’t know about no boy. I’m trackin a runaway slave girl. She’s my take.”

“If she’s a runaway with a reward, then she’s mine,” the woman-man shouted.

“Thee must let us pass,” Auntie said. “We are traveling back to our home and sick family.”

“Git out of my way!” Pa yelled to the woman-man as he started toward us.

I didn’t dare look up, didn’t dare let him notice me.

The dogs was barkin and runnin around the horses.

Pa yelled at the woman-man again.

“Woman, move away from that wagon!” Pa shouted, motionin with his old shotgun. “I’m lookin for the slave girl with the big reward.”

“One more step and you’re dead. I’m sick of you and yer kind stealin from me,” the woman-man said as she pointed her rifle at Pa.

Just then Delia and Bathsheba lifted their muzzles, sniffed, and went crazy wild. They circled the wagon, barkin, leapin up at the tail end, tryin to get to me.

“I knowed it!” Pa yelled. “They found the slave girl. She’s mine. We gittin the reward.”

He moved toward us and Brightwell stood, towerin above Pa and all the others.

“That’s him, that one’s ours!” the woman-man shouted, aimin at Brightwell.

I stood up and reached behind the wagon seat where Armour had hid Shag’s rifle. None of my friends could use that rifle against any whites, no matter how bad them people was. My friends wouldn’t never get their freedom or find shelter with anyone if they was killers. They’d be hung from a tree branch like a shot deer.

My fingers wrapped around the barrel. I lifted the rifle up and over the back of the seat and held it out of sight.

“Git down here, boy!” the woman-man shouted. “Right now, reward or not, I’m shootin you, you miserable … Do somethin!” she screamed at the man who rode with her. “Do somethin, you stupid, worthless fool.”

The weasel-face rider looked at her, turned his horse, spit a brown stream of tobacca, and rode away. He yelled back over his shoulder, “I am sick of bein your stupid, worthless fool. Find someone else.”

While the woman-man watched us, the three white boys, the ones who had been under the sycamore tree, took off runnin in three different directions. The chicory-eyed boy ran north, the white-haired boy run south, and the other, he just run, zigzaggin like a rabbit runnin from a fox.

She screamed at them, “Worthless cowards. All! Worthless!”

The rider and the boys never stopped. Never looked back.

She spun around and leveled her gun at Pa.

“You and yer boys, you get out of here and I’ll let you stay alive. Them’re my slaves, my reward, my property. Get out or I’ll shoot you all.”

Clem and Samuel stepped away from Pa.

I watched as Pa raised his shotgun and pointed it at the woman-man. Then I heard an earsplittin crack, like a tree bein hit by lightnin. I saw the look of surprise on Pa’s face when the bullet hit him. First come a small red spot, the size of them rosebuds I put on my baby brothers’ and sisters’ graves. Then that red spot growed and bloomed, spreadin wide acrost Pa’s shirt. He reached up and pressed his hand against his chest afore he fell.

The dogs howled and yipped when they smelt the blood. My brother Samuel kicked at Delia and Bathsheba and bent to help Pa. Clem knelt beside him, lifted Pa’s head, then slow-like set it down in the dirt.

“He ain’t the only one I’m goin to shoot!” the woman-man yelled.

I lifted the rifle and nested the butt against my shoulder. Though my whipped arm pained me, I held steady and sighted on the woman-man. Grandpa had taught me how to shoot sure without missin or wastin a bullet, but I’d never shot at anythin livin. It were like I were outside of my own self. Tellin myself that for us to be free I’d have to kill that woman-man and scare away my brothers. But the other part of me was sayin over and over that I’d
be just like the woman-man, just like Pa, just like Shag. Killin. Spillin blood. Goin against what Auntie had tried to teach me.

I slipped the bonnet off so’s I could see clear and cocked the hammer. I heard Clem ask Samuel, “Is that Girl?”

“Lark,” I shouted. “My name is Lark.”

The woman-man looked at me, takin in the rifle, takin in that her time were about spent.

“No, Lark, thee mustn’t use violence against evil,” Auntie said quietly.

I aimed.

Grandpa’s voice come to me. “Lift your arm and keep it steady … butt plate tight against your shoulder … hit what you aim for.”

“You got to my countin to three to put down your gun and get out of here,” I yelled. “I never misses what I aim for.”

The woman-man took my measure, then slow-like laid her rifle acrost the saddle.

“Does thee want to be like thine enemies?” Auntie asked.

The dogs looked up when they heard my voice. They sniffed at the air and began howlin and barkin. They ran around the wagon, jumped up, again and again, till old Bathsheba made it into the bed.

I kept my rifle level and didn’t take my eyes off the woman-man.

“Don’t worry none,” I said to Zenobia. “Them dogs are my friends.”

Bathsheba snuffled against me, whined, and sank down with a long groan.