Sarny (3 page)

First I didn’t eat. First I just squatted against the wall bound tight by chains and had dark thoughts, thoughts of what I would do to Waller when I got loose. Kill him, cut him, use an ax on him and then go for my children.

But the thoughts wouldn’t work just like starving wouldn’t work. I had to be strong I knew and get away not to kill Waller but to find them, find my children, and Waller he would just have to look for his own death.

It wasn’t but six days coming. Happened right in front of me and didn’t I know that God was all forgiving and sweet I would think he had a hand in it.

Waller he knew me and knew I would run as soon as he took me off the chain so he didn’t let me loose. They brought me food and water and a girl named Lucy she brought me a blanket to sleep in and cover myself for privacy when there was a need.

I worked at the chain, saved pork fat to grease my wrist so it would slip off, but it was too tight and just cut in until I had a sore. Decided to use my brain, started thinking did I act better, didn’t fight it, maybe Waller would take me off the chain and I could run but it didn’t matter.

There came a day when I was still on the chain and I heard a rumble, like thunder, except there were no clouds in the sky. There
are some who believed in evil hants. Not me because I had started to read the Bible and was on my second time through. Had me a Bible left me by old Delie and I never asked where she got it. So I didn’t think on hants except this one was full of meaning. Thunder in a clear sky meant big change was coming and I sat a mite thinking on what change it could be when Waller he came out of the house.

Had a gun in his hand, that evil little pistol he loved so much. He looked white, whiter than usual and scared, and he came running towards the barn pointing at something and when I stood to look I saw men running towards the plantation across the north field.

They were wearing blue. Wasn’t thunder we heard but guns, big guns far off.

There must have been thirty or forty of them. They were carrying guns, long rifles with bayonets, and Waller he stood by the corner of the barn, stood by me with that silly little pistol in his silly little hand looking at the soldiers come a running and made the last mistake of his sorry mistaken life.

He raised that pistol like he was going to shoot at the soldiers.

Some stopped to shoot at Waller and the bullets missed him and hit the wall, chipped
wood and whined away, but so close I crouched down on one knee and a boy came running around the corner of the building.

No more than a boy. Couldn’t have been sixteen, seventeen years old. White boy wearing blue pants and a blue jacket that were too big for him and had a rifle ’most as tall as he was with a bayonet on the end.

I saw it all. Slow, it happened. Waller he had the little pistol and the boy he ran around the corner and the bayonet went into Waller. Slick, like Waller wanted it to happen, like he pushed against it. The bayonet it slid into him just above his belt buckle, slid in and came out the back, and the boy he looked surprised, surprised and mean at the same time, so that he pushed harder and lifted Waller a bit, lifted him up and back and then dropped him.

Waller he wasn’t dead yet but knew he was dying and I knew it too and the boy he looked at me.

“Please,” I said. “Please. He has the key to the shackles in his front pocket. Please.”

I didn’t think he would do it. He was looking for others to shoot, others to stick, but he kneeled down next to Waller. Waller still looking at his belly where the hole was, holding his hand there to stop it some way, knowing he was going to die he looked at me and then
back at his belly while the boy found the key and handed it to me.

“Here,” he said. “You’re free now—on your own.”

“Thank you.” He meant free of the chain but I took it for the long road, free now, free. We were all free. Could walk where we wanted to walk, be where we wanted to be.

Free.

I didn’t stand long. There were those who stood, looking, wondering. I saw them later. Those who had used the chains for bracing, leaned against slavery to give them strength. Suddenly the brace was gone and some stood, wondering where to turn, how to live.

But I had my children.

Waller he was still alive. Down on his side holding his hands over his belly, his head turned up, and I put my knees down next to him.

“My children,” I said. “Where did they go? Where did you send little Delie and Tyler?”

But he didn’t answer. Just looked up at me and then down at his stomach and back up and I saw the power go out of him, saw the life go out of his eyes and knew he wouldn’t tell me anything.

Just had to move then. Couldn’t stay, couldn’t wait—had to get moving and keep moving. I went by the quarters and saw Lucy
standing by the door and she said, “What am I going to do?”

“Do?” I almost yelled at her. “Why Lord, Lucy, you can do anything you
want
—that’s what you can
do
.”

I found an old tow sack by a blanket, threw my other shift in it, a small bag with my needles and thread, half a pan of corn bread that was still in the pan and a pound or so of pork fat. Wasn’t much but more than some, more than many had, and it would have to take me to the next food. Would have to take me towards my children.

I never looked back.

Left that place, left the buildings and the fields, left Waller dying in the dirt and the white women in the house and never once looked back. The other slaves—no, free people—would have to take care of themselves now. Bluecoats coming, bringing freedom to everyone, sweeping clean all the dirt there was, but I didn’t look back.

Had to find my children.

I had never seen the town. Had heard of it, talk all the time of all the houses and people and stores. Some of the men went now and again to help load and they came back with stories of men in frock coats and women in long dresses and carriages so fancy it seemed you could eat them. Billy he said he saw a black man eating hard candy from a sack. I had never even seen hard candy let alone eat of it and he said they had it in the stores and would sell it from jars a penny a bag but Billy now and again saw hants and heard whispers others didn’t hear so I didn’t believe everything he went on about.

The ax-faced man with the wagon had come from the road to town and had taken my children down that road and that’s the way I went. Couldn’t help but nearly run. They’d been gone six—no, seven—days and maybe they were in that town and I could find them there and my feet they just wouldn’t walk slow.

Still I hadn’t walk-trotted a mile when Lucy she caught up with me. Tall girl, leggy so she could move, sixteen, seventeen years old with a smile all the time even when things weren’t funny. Sometimes she made me think of myself when I was younger though maybe she was a bit smarter and a good bit prettier. Didn’t show the smart but it was there.

“Decided to come with you. That’s what I
wanted
to do,” she said when she caught up. “Except I didn’t know you’d be running. It like to killed me catching up.”

“They took my children,” I said. “I can’t walk slow—”

“I know. I was there. Don’t you worry, we’ll find little Delie and Tyler. Don’t you worry.” And there was that smile. “Waller he was still laying there when I left.”

“I don’t care a snip about Waller.”

“It’s good he’s dead.”

“I don’t care.”

“Maybe the pigs will eat him.”

I didn’t say anything more about him and never did say another word on him until I was old and even now could I see him, Bible or no, I wouldn’t forgive him. Spit on his grave.

I didn’t know how far it was to town but Lucy had heard it from Billy. “Seven miles,” she said. “A mile is the same distance as the
length of that south cotton field. So it would be seven of those fields. I figure we’ve walked three fields so there be four more. To town.”

She was carrying a sack that was heavier than mine, big weight down in the bottom. “What’s in the sack?”

Her smile widened, seemed to cover her whole face. “Got me an extra shift in there.”

“Heavy shift.”

“I stopped by the smokehouse on my way out and took two hams. They ain’t big but they looked done and I figured we earned them.”

“We earned everything—”

“Riders.” There was the sound of hooves.

Hard word. Riders. Them that run and come back talk about riders. Men on horses. Hard men. Mean to the bone men with guns and whips and chains and dogs. Riders is the word for the hard men.

But it’s wrong this time. These riders are wearing blue, brass buttons glinting in the sun, rattle of sabers and creak of saddles. There were twelve of them, two by twos with a man in charge, an officer, out to the side and a little ahead.

We moved off the road to let them by but they stopped. Officer first, then all the men, stopped and looked down on us.

“You’re free now.” The officer brushed at a fly that had been following the horses and buzzed his face.

“I know. Yes sir. Thank you. The soldier at the plantation told us that—”

“But there are still dangers. We are just an advanced unit. There are bands of renegade scavengers—rebel deserters—that we haven’t rounded up yet, killing and looting.”

New word. Scavenger. Didn’t know it. But knew the others—killing, looting. “Yes sir.”

“You might want to find a safe place to be until things settle down. Look for some Union troops encamped and stay close to them.”

“I can’t. I’ve got children to find.”

He had been looking away and he looked down on me now. Tall horse, tall man, looked down and smiled like he was a father. “Stay away from people on the roads unless they are soldiers.”

“Yes sir.”

And they were gone, the horses trotting past. Some of them looked at Lucy and some looked at me and their looks weren’t as soft as the officer’s. Looking at our shifts, way we stood. Two looked back as they rode away and I thought the officer was right, might be dangerous along the road especially at night. And from more than scavengers. But I didn’t say anything and when I turned I saw Lucy and she
was smiling back at the men and I thought, too much tooth in
that
smile. Might as well light a lantern and hang it over the store.

“Let’s go.”

It was afternoon, hot and muggy, and I kept moving and had there been time it would have been a marvel to see the country we traveled through.

Must have been a plantation every mile. Some of them nicer than the one I’d lived on and most of them less and all of them in smoke. Some big houses burning, some barns, sheds. Quarters burning all over the place. Blue-coated soldiers were everywhere. Moving this way and that. All seemed to have a reason to move, a place to get to, a place to leave. A lot of busy work.

Didn’t see any gray soldiers except dead ones. Saw a group in a ditch, almost in a row, must have fallen like they stood. All their coats were open to show their bellies and some of them had big holes, some weren’t marked so you could see it but they were all dead. Didn’t see any dead blue ones, only gray.

Lucy she made the hex sign when we passed the bodies, little and first finger out and thumb down but I shook my head. “They won’t bother you. Not now.”

“They got spirits,” she said. “They all got spirits can come back and hant us.”

I didn’t think so. They just looked like busted dolls to me but I didn’t say anything more about it. Lucy she wanted to make the hex sign it didn’t hurt anything and maybe it would help.

Black folks around every corner, over every rise. Some walked with the blue soldiers, following them, smiling but scared-looking like they thought it wouldn’t last. Like you could be free and then not free. Not me, I thought, you try to turn me back into a slave and you’ve got your hands full. Might as well try to turn sawdust back into a tree.

Others they just looked dazed. Didn’t know where to go, how to get there. Some followed us for a spell and I looked back once to see six or seven trotting behind us but we set too pushy a pace and they all fell away.

Every one I see, every single one I asked about little Delie and Tyler. Every soldier and every black person and they all try, think hard and try, but none remember seeing them, not even the wagon and the ax-faced man.

Town wasn’t like they said. We came to the edge of it in the evening, just as the light was changing and it was getting hard to see. Part of it was light but most of it was smoke. Some buildings were all burned down, some were still burning. I didn’t see any fancy carriages or hard candy or pretty dresses or frock coats.
Nothing but ruin. There were no men, no black men, no white men. Some women were there, white women except with all the soot on them they looked black and I stopped one of them on the outskirts. Woman maybe forty, looked sixty, seventy, kept picking at her dress.

“Could you tell me where they take slave children?” I asked. “To sell them?”

But she didn’t answer, just looked past me, past Lucy at where a building used to be and there wasn’t anything but burned boards and smoke. “We had a store there. We had a store right there. See? Right there where—”

“I had two children, miss,” I said. “They came here on a wagon. They must have come here. They were this high, to my waist and a bit more. A girl and a boy. Did you see them?”

Didn’t say anything for the longest time. Just kept picking at her dress where there was a hole as big as her hand burned through. I started to turn.

“I had a boy,” she said. “I had a son and he went to Antietam and is buried there. I had a son and a store and a husband who ran off and now they’re all gone.”

“I’m sorry but—”

“I never had slaves. I didn’t like slavery. Why did they burn my store?”

“I don’t know.”

She picked some more, tears cutting the soot on her face, making white streams. “The man you want is Greerson. He owns—I guess owned would be the right way to say it now. He owned the slave yards at the south end of town.”

“Thin man, face sharp like an ax, slick hair?”

She nodded. “Yes. He might know what happened to your children. Just go to the south end of town and look for the yards. If you see my husband would you send him home?”