Sarny (7 page)

I think she was right. I thought on burying the dead men but all we had to dig with was the butcher knife and I thought they’d come and get the bodies later anyway. I prayed over them as much as I could remember from prayers Delie and I said. Since I didn’t have anything to use for writing I remembered on their names. Not last names, just first. One boy he looked at me a long time and said, “My name is Carl. Please don’t forget me.”

I started crying thinking on it. Crying now writing on it. They were all going to die and nobody would know where they died or even who they were so I got their names and remembered on them.

Elijah.

Robert.

Jim.

Carl.

I see them now the way they were then. Young, scared and dying and I remembered on them.

Still do.

Later I was never sure whether Laura she found us or we found her. Didn’t matter so long as we found each other, way I look at it.

When the four boys died we left that place and kept on moving south. There were more and more soldiers and guns and wagons moving on the road, so many of them that it made traveling hard and slow because we had to get off the road so much to let them go on by.

Slowed us down to a frog crawl. By this time we were running short on food and when we went by a plantation name of Haven Hall we turned in. Figured to see if they had some vittles and halfway down the lane coming to the house there stood a field of sweet corn to the side.

’Course the soldiers had been at the corn and most of it was gone. But corn it don’t all come ripe at once and the ears too green for the soldiers had come ripe for us.

We picked enough for a feast and set to eating
them raw. Tyler Two mostly gummed but he got some down and Lucy nodded. “Maybe we make a fire and roast a few ears he’ll get more into his belly. Raw corn is hard to pull loose.”

“I’d like some roasted ears myself.”

So we found some wood and made a small fire at the side of the cornfield and when it burned down I pushed some ears we hadn’t shucked into the coals. “Won’t take but a mite.”

And looked up to see a carriage coming down the lane from the plantation.

Ain’t much on knowing carriages. Waller had one he thought was fancy and I ’spect it was pretty—shiny black with leather seats oiled, harness shining in the sun—but it wouldn’t hold a candle to this one.

Closed in with soft red curtains over the windows and a small door on each side. Muddy here and there but still shiny with big wheels and a team of matched gray horses. Big black man driving the horses, sitting up on top with the reins coming back tight, like he was holding the horses from running. Wearing a black suit and a small round hat with a feather sticking up from it near a foot. He pulled the team up next to our fire and they fidgeted, stamping to go. Little spit from their lips where the bit went through.

Lucy’s mouth dropped open and so did mine. Whole thing didn’t belong. Not anymore. It was from before, fancy carriage being driven by a black man.

One of the curtains slid open and a woman’s face appeared. Prettiest white woman I ever saw. Oval face, black hair pulled back with a silk scarf over it, brown eyes as big as a plate and white teeth. I could see Lucy stiffen and knew she wasn’t going to take any sass off this woman and neither was I. Days for that were gone too.

“Excuse me for interrupting your meal but I wondered if you girls might be looking for employment.”

Soft voice. Like honey over warm milk. Almost dripped with soft. Didn’t know what employment meant but I didn’t want to sound dumb. Didn’t matter. Lucy jumped in.

She looked up at the driver. “You don’t have to be working for her like this—slavery is done. Those blue soldiers are killing it. You can get down off that buggy anytime you want.”

He smiled and shook his head. “I’m not a slave. Not now. I work for Miss Laura for money.”

“I do not believe in slavery.” The woman she pushed the curtain open wider. “I am offering you both a job helping me travel. I can
pay each of you twenty dollars a month for the time I need you, and if you are suitable, the employment may continue after I reach my destination.”

She talked so fine. Words just floated out of her, lighter than air, all big and said just so. I couldn’t help smiling thinking on it. Was like music. And twenty dollars a month. More money than I ever knew there was, just for a month’s work. Real pay for work, pay in money. Used to dream about it. Working for money to earn enough to buy my freedom. Some did it on other plantations but Waller he would never have allowed it. But I shook my head. “I can’t. I’ve got to find my children in New Orleans.”

She smiled again. “But my dear, that’s perfect. I’m going to New Orleans.”

And that’s how we came to be with Miss Laura.

There’s some to say later that Miss Laura wasn’t a moral person but most of those people have trouble with their own morals. Miss Laura she became a good friend to me, almost a mother like Delie, and without her I maybe wouldn’t have had a life at all so I don’t think too much on her morals. Just think on her as a friend.

’Course then I didn’t know what I know
now. She opened the door of the carriage and motioned to the boy. “He can ride inside with me with one of you. I’m worried that he may fall off. The other one can ride on top of the carriage with Bartlett. I’d let you both ride inside but there isn’t any room. I … liberated … some food from Haven Hall.”

I saw inside the door she was holding open and she was telling the truth. The whole inside was packed with sacks and jars. Must have been enough food for an army.

“I’ll ride on top,” Lucy said, and I nodded because I could see it coming. Bartlett he wasn’t ugly and Lucy she couldn’t help herself.

Tyler Two and me we climbed up into the carriage and after moving some bags and boxes around we made a small place to sit. I sat and Tyler Two he sat in my lap.

“I am Laura,” she said. “Laura Harris. And your name?”

“Sarny.” Started to say more but stopped. Didn’t have a second name. “Just Sarny.”

She nodded. “A sign of the times, dear. A sign of the times. And the little boy?”

“We found him. He don’t talk. Call him Tyler Two.”

“Tyler too?”

“Like the number. My own son is Tyler and my daughter is little Delie so I just called this
little man after my own Tyler. Except he’s Tyler number two.”

“I see. And where are your own children?”

And so I told her all about Waller and little Delie and Tyler and selling them and how we found where they were going and all of it. All of it. And when I came to where they took little Delie and Tyler in the wagons she said a word I only ever heard men say and turned away and looked out the window ’cept the curtain was still drawn.

Told her all of it even the name of the man took my children and all the time I was sitting there talking I thought on how it couldn’t be happening. Never talked to a white woman except to say Yes ma’am and No ma’am, and here I was sitting in a fine carriage with this beautiful white woman that talked like molasses telling her everything. Everything. And she nodded and smiled and cried, a touch of a white hankie to the corner of her eye, and all the time I thought this ain’t so, this can’t be happening.

But it was. All of it.

Carriage rode like soft cloth over water, compared to the wheelbarrow. I never thought I’d see on anything like it and even later when the world was new and I rode in buses and trains smooth as glass I still remembered on that carriage.

When I’d finished Miss Laura she looked in my eyes and reached across the seats and touched my hand, like the feather falling off a bird, and smiled and said, “I will help you find your children when we get to New Orleans.”

“But how will you know where to look? I heard New Orleans is so big you can’t walk across it in a day.”

“I know the man who has them. Chivington.”

“You know him?”

She smiled softly. “I know many men. It is my business to know men.”

Oh Lord, I thought, I don’t know what I did to set you to helping me this way but should you give me a sign I’ll do it again and again. To hand me this woman who knows the man who has my children, who will help me. Thank you, Lord.

Didn’t say more. Didn’t want her to be not liking me. White or not, could she help me get back my children I’d do anything for her. Anything.

She opened the curtains and I leaned back in the carriage while little Tyler Two he went to sleep on my lap and I thought over and over again, thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Lord.

It was still slow. Better than the wheelbarrow, better as day is better than night, but still slow because the road it was jammed with soldiers and wheel guns and the carriage was too big to go around.

First thing on the road, we hadn’t gone ten paces after we turned out of the lane into the traffic when an officer on a big bay, officer with all sorts of gold on his blue shoulder, he rode up alongside the carriage.

“What in blue blazes are you doing with this rig on this road?”

“Oh dear, I’m afraid I’m in the way.” Miss Laura she smiled up at him through the window and I could see him start to melt. “I’m terribly sorry but I have an urgent need to get to New Orleans.”

“New Orleans? But that’s still in rebel hands.”

“So I understand. Still, I have to get there. I’m sorry if this is disruptive but I have this
letter of passage from Bret— I’m sorry, from General Carrington. Would this help?”

“Madam, General Carrington commands this whole sector. If he says you can pass, you can pass. Please allow me to furnish you with an escort to clear the way.”

Learned from that. Men think they have power and some do but it’s only show power. Like bulls getting ready to fight. All dust and pain. Women have the underneath power. Little push here, little push there and things happen. Men don’t see it but it’s so. They think they own everything can be done but it ain’t that way. Watching Miss Laura I learned.

Things went some better after that. Still slow but faster than the wheelbarrow by three times and I settled back for the ride. Miss Laura she looked out the window some and looked at me some and looked at Tyler Two some and smiled now and again but didn’t say too much.

The escort was four men on horses with a young officer kept coming back to the carriage to ask Miss Laura if everything was all right.

“Thank you for your concern,” she’d say. “Yes, everything is fine.” And she’d smile so sweet the man would go off all puffed up.

Once I smiled. Couldn’t help it. He was just so puffy and full of himself. Little boy with a
gun on a horse. She saw the smile and knew what I was looking at.

“Aren’t men wonderful?” she said. “They can do so many useful things for us. All we have to do is let them.”

“You really know the blue general?”

“Bret? Oh my yes. We’re dear friends. I met him when he came to New Orleans before the war. I held a gala for him when he was promoted.”

Saw it then. She turned her head to look out the window and the scarf over her hair pulled away and right there in back of her ear I saw it. Tight hair, tight little black curls. Frizzy hair. I stared. Couldn’t help it. Last thing I expected to see against that white skin.

She turned back and saw where I was looking and smiled again but didn’t say anything, just held her finger to her lips and shook her head a tiny bit and pulled the scarf down to cover it again.

I’d heard of them. Delie she told me about women who passed. Didn’t say were they bad or good, just some were called octoroons and they passed. I thought, oh my, here she sits in all this riding a fine carriage with a letter from a general and a blue escort and inside she’s as black as me.

Made me chuckle. Little laugh.

“What are you so happy on?” Lucy her face
suddenly came into the window, hanging upside down, big smile across it. “You look like you ate a whole pie.”

“Thinking on life,” I said. “Thinking on how life is upside down sometimes. Like you.”

Lucy she swung back up and was gone and Miss Laura she waved her hand. “She seems happy.”

“Lucy she’s always happy. Especially with men. She’s up there with Bartlett and that will keep her happy enough. Maybe keep Bartlett happy too.”

“You needn’t worry about Bartlett. He’s a dear man and has been with me a long time. He’s … not quite functional, if you know what I mean. He’s a eunuch.”

I didn’t know what she meant. Lots of her words went around me then and maybe some still would. I’d get the main ones, almost all, but some of the important ones seemed to skitter past before I could get their meaning locked up to hold. Sometimes I’d ask but wasn’t I careful I’d be asking
all
the time and I didn’t want to look dumb. Don’t think I am, never thought I was dumb, but a place in me didn’t want to even look that way so I held back and didn’t find out until later that she meant Bartlett had been cut when he was a small boy so he couldn’t make children. Owner did it when Bartlett he was still a slave,
before Miss Laura she bought him and gave him freedom. Hope there’s a hell, I thought when I finally learned what it meant. Hope there’s a hell and Waller is there and the man who cut Bartlett was there and Greerson was there.

Bartlett he turned out to be the finest, most gentle and understanding man I ever knew.

I hope there’s a hell.

We were two days getting out of the area the general’s letter of passage covered. That night we stopped in a plantation called Albemarle where the only person was an old white woman called us darkies and I thought I was going to have to tie Lucy down to keep her from killing somebody. Lucy she took to freedom right smart and wasn’t anybody going to step on it.

Old woman she was gone in the brain and thought we were visitors from another plantation. Twittered around like an old bird. Soon as we got down from the carriage she came out on the front steps of the house. Everything run down and grown to weeds so I ’spect she’d been alone for a long time. The hedges hadn’t been trimmed in more than a year.

“My lands, you should have written you were coming. We didn’t expect you. Here,
girl,” she says to Lucy, “take the lady’s wraps and bring us some cordials. Be quick about it.”