“I mean lying about it. Some folks’ll climb a tree to tell a lie before they’ll stand on the ground and tell the truth. That could get you hurt in this country.”
I was a little shook about how she was so tight in her mind, for if I played a girl well, she played a fool even better. There weren’t no fooling somebody like her, I seen that clear, so I said, “I ain’t lying. I’ll get a piece of paper and show you.”
“Don’t bring no paper out here,” she said quickly. “You talk too much. If Darg finds out, he’ll make you suffer.”
“Who’s Darg?”
“You’ll see soon enough. Can you write words?”
“I can draw pictures, too.”
“I ain’t studying no pictures. It’s the words I want. If I was to tell you about your Bob, would you write me something? Like a pass? Or a bill of sale?”
“I would.”
She had her head to the ground, busy, her hands deep in the mud. The hands hesitated and she spoke to the ground. “Maybe you best think on it first. Don’t be a straight fool. Don’t sign no note you can’t deliver on. Not out here. Not with us. ’Cause if you agrees to something with us, you gonna be held to it.”
“I said I would.”
She glanced up and said softly, “Your Bob’s been bounded out.”
“Bounded out?”
“On loan. Miss Abby loaned him out to the sawmill ’cross the village. For a price, of course. He been out there practically since the day he got here. He’ll be back soon. How come he never spoke of you?”
“I don’t know. But I’m worried Miss Abby’s planning on selling him.”
“So what? She’s gonna sell us all. You, too.”
“When?”
“When she’s good and ready.”
“Pie never said nothing about that.”
“Pie,” she said. She smiled grimly and said nothing more. But I didn’t like the way she said it. That pulled at me some. She moved her hands in the mud and packed up another mud ball.
“Can you get word to me about Bob?”
“I might. If you do what you said you would.”
“I said I would.”
“When you hear tell of a Bible meeting for the colored out here in the yard, come on. I’ll get you to your Bob. And I’ll take you up about them letters.”
“All right, then.”
“Don’t stretch your mouth to nobody about this, especially Pie. If you do, I’ll know about it, and you’ll wake up with a heap of knives poking out that pretty neck of yours. Mine’s be the first. Loose talk’ll have us all sleeping on the cooling board.”
And with that she turned, picked up her box, and cackled her way across the yard, movin’ into the center and setting that box deep in the mud again. She sat on it, and the Negroes gathered ’round her again, holding picks and shovels, working the ground all ’round her, glaring at me, picking at the mud ’round her while she set on her box in the middle of ’em, cackling like a chicken.
13.
Insurrection
About a week later, a colored girl from the yard named Nose runned into the saloon carrying a pile of kindling, set it by the stove, and passed by me as she left, whispering, “Bible meeting’s in the slave pen tonight.” That evening I slipped out the back door and found Bob. He was standing near the front gate of the yard, leaning on the fence, alone. He looked tore up. His clothes was a ragged mess, but it was him and he was yet living.
“Where you been?” I asked.
“At the sawmill. They killing me out there.” He glanced at me. “I see you living high.”
“Why you giving me the evil eye? I ain’t got run of this place.”
He glanced nervously ’round the pen. “I wish they’d’a kept me at the sawmill. These niggers in here are gonna kill me.”
“Stop talking crazy,” I said.
“Nobody talks to me. They don’t say nar word to me. Nothing.” He nodded at Sibonia in the back corner, cackling and crowing on her wooden crate. The coloreds surrounded her, working the ground garden with rakes and shovels, making a silent wall ’round her, pushing dirt, slinging up rocks and weeding. Bob nodded at Sibonia. “That one there, she’s a witch. She’s under a mad spell.”
“No, she ain’t. I owe her now on account of you.”
“You owe the devil, then.”
“I done it for you, brother.”
“Don’t call me brother. Your favors ain’t worth shit. Look where I got ’cause of you. I can’t hardly bear to look at you. Look at you,” he snorted. “All high-siddity, playing a sissy, eating well, living inside. I’m out here in the cold and rain. And you sportin’ that new, fancy dress.”
“You said running ’round this way was a good idea!” I hissed.
“I ain’t say get me kilt!”
Behind Bob, a sudden hush come over the yard. The rakes and hoes moved quicker, and every head snapped down to the ground like they was tending work hard. Someone whispered in a hurried fashion, “Darg!” and Bob quickly slipped over to the other side of the yard. He got busy with the rest ’round Sibonia, pulling weeds in the garden.
The back door of a tiny hut on the other side of the slave pen opened up, and a huge colored feller emerged. He was nearly tall as Frederick, but just as wide. He had a thick chest, wide shoulders, and big, thick arms. He wore a straw hat and coveralls and a shawl around his shoulders. His lips was the color of hemp rope, and his eyes was so small and close together, they might as well have been shoved in the same socket. That fool was ugly enough to make you think the Lord put him together with His eyes closed, guessing. But there was power in that man, too, he was raw powerful, and looked big enough to pick up a house. He moved quick, slipping to the edge of the pen a minute and pausing there, peering in, air whooshing out huge nostrils, then he moved along the side to the gate to where I stood.
I backed off when he come, but when he got close, he removed his hat.
“Evening, pretty redbone,” he said, “what you need at my pen?”
“Pie sent me here,” I lied. I didn’t think it was a good thing to bring Miss Abby up, just in case he said something to her about it, for while I had never seen him inside the saloon, knowing he was boss of that yard meant he could pass word to her some kind of way. I weren’t supposed to be there and reckoned he knowed it.
He licked his lips. “Don’t mention that high-siddity bitch to me. What you need?”
“Me and my friend here”—I pointed to Bob—“was just having a word.”
“You soft on Bob, girl?”
“I ain’t soft on him in no way, form, or fashion. I is here to merely visit him.”
He smirked. “This is my yard,” he said. “I tends to it. But if the missus say so, it’s all right, it’s all right. If she don’t, you got to move on. You check with her and come back. Unless”—he smiled, showing a row of huge white teeth—“you can be Darg’s friend. Do old Darg a sweet favor, give him a li’l sugar. You old enough.”
I would step off to hell before I touched that monster-looking nigger with a stick. I backed off quick. “It ain’t that important,” I said, and I was gone. I took one last look at Bob before I cut inside. He had his back turned, pulling weeds in the garden fast as he could, the devil keeping score. I betrayed him, is how he felt. He didn’t want no parts of me. And I couldn’t help him. He was on his own.
