Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories (18 page)

She walks the other way. When she comes to where the river is closest to the walkway, Ruth stops and sits on the bench. She looks out at the river, the far bank where the Columbia skyline rises over the trees.

The buildings crumble like sand and blow away. Green-and-yellow birds spangle the sky. Below them wolves and buffalo lean their heads into the river’s flow. From the far shore a tree limb rises toward her like an outstretched hand. On it rests a jaguar, blending so well with its habitat that Ruth cannot blink without the jaguar vanishing. Each time it is harder to bring it back, and the moment comes when Ruth knows if she closes her eyes again the jaguar will disappear forever. Her eyes blur but still she holds her gaze. Something comes unanchored inside her. She lies down on the bench, settles her head on her forearm. She closes her eyes and she sleeps.

T
hey had been on the run for six days, traveling mainly at night, all the while listening for the baying of hounds. The man, if asked his age, would have said forty-eight, forty-nine, or fifty—he wasn’t sure. His hair was close-cropped, like gray wool stitched above a face dark as mahogany. A lantern swayed by his side, the twine securing it chafing the bullwhip scar ridging his left shoulder. With his right hand he clutched a tote sack. His companion was seventeen and of a lighter complexion, the color of an oft-used gold coin. The youth’s hair was longer, the curls tinged red. He carried the map.

As foothills became mountains, the journey was more arduous. What food they’d brought had been eaten days earlier. They filled the tote with corn and okra from fields, eggs from a henhouse, apples from orchards. The land steepened more and their lungs never seemed to fill. I heard that white folks up here don’t have much, the youth huffed, but you’d think they’d at least have air. The map showed one more village, Blowing Rock, then a ways farther a stream and soon a plank bridge. An arrow pointed over the bridge. Beyond that, nothing but blank paper, as though no word or mark could convey what the fugitives sought but had never known.

They had crossed the bridge near dusk. At the first cabin they came to, a hound bayed as they approached. They went on. The youth wondered aloud how they were supposed to know which place, which family, to trust. The fugitives passed a two-story farmhouse, prosperous looking. The older man said walk on. As the day waned, a cabin and a barn appeared, light glowing from a front window. Their lantern remained unlit, though now neither of them could see where he stepped. They passed a small orchard and soon after the man tugged his companion’s arm and led him off the road and into a pasture.

“Where we going, Viticus?” the youth asked.

“To roost in that barn till morning,” the man answered. “No folks want strangers calling in the dark.”

They entered the barn, let their hands find the ladder, and then climbed into the loft. Through a space between boards the fugitives could see the cabin window’s glow.

“I’m hungry,” the youth complained. “Gimme that lantern and I’ll get us some apples.”

“No,” his companion said. “You think a man going to help them that stole from him.”

“Ain’t gonna miss a few apples.”

The man ignored him. They settled their bodies into the straw and slept.

A cowbell woke them, the animal ambling into the barn, a man in frayed overalls following with a gallon pail. A scraggly gray beard covered much of his face, some streaks of brown in his lank hair. He was thin and tall, and his neck and back bowed forward as if from years of ducking. As the farmer set his stool beside the cow’s flank, a gray cat appeared and positioned itself close by. Milk spurts hissed against the tin. The fugitives peered through the board gaps. The youth’s stomach growled audibly. I ain’t trying to, he whispered in response to his companion’s nudge.

When the bucket was filled, the farmer aimed a teat at the cat. The creature’s tongue lapped without pause as the milk splashed on its face. As the farmer lifted the pail and stood, the youth shifted to better see. Bits of straw slipped through a board gap and drifted down. The farmer did not look up but his shoulders tensed and his hand clenched the pail tighter. He quickly left the barn.

“You done it now,” the man said.

“He gonna have to see us sometime,” the youth replied.

“But now it’ll be with a gun aimed our direction,” Viticus hissed. “Get your sorry self down that ladder.”

They climbed down and saw what they’d missed earlier. “Don’t like the look of that none,” the youth said, nodding at the rope dangling from a loft beam.

“Then get out front of this barn,” his companion said. “I want that white man looking at empty hands.”

Once outside, they could see the farm clearly. Crop rows were weed choked, the orchard unpruned, the cabin itself shabby and small, two rooms at most. They watched the farmer go inside.

“How you know he got a gun when he hardly got a roof over his head?” the youth asked. “The Colonel wouldn’t put hogs in such as that.”

“He got a gun,” the man replied, and set the lantern on the ground with the burlap tote.

A crow cawed as it passed overhead, then settled in the cornfield.

“Don’t seem mindful of his crop,” the youth said.

“No, he don’t,” the man said, more to himself than his companion.

The youth went to the barn corner and peeked toward the cabin. The farmer came out of the cabin, a flintlock in his right hand.

“He do have a gun and it’s already cocked,” the youth said. “Hellfire, Viticus, we gotta light out of here.”

“Light out where?” his companion answered. “We past where that map can take us.”

“Shouldn’t never have hightailed off,” the youth fretted. “I known better but done it. We go back, I won’t be tending that stable no more. No suh, the Colonel will send me out with the rest of you field hands.”

“This white man’s done nothing yet,” the man said softly. “Just keep your hands out so he see the pink.”

But the youth turned and ran into the cornfield. Shaking tassels marked his progress. He didn’t stop until he was in the field’s center. The older fugitive grimaced and stepped farther away from the barn mouth. The farmer entered the pasture, the flintlock crooked in his arm. Any indication of his humour lay hidden beneath the beard. The older fugitive did not raise his hands, but he turned his palms outward.

The white man approached from the west. The sunrise made his eyes squint.

“I ain’t stole nothing, mister,” the black man said when the farmer stopped a few yards in front of him.

“That’s kindly of you,” the farmer replied. The dawn’s slanted brightness made the white man raise a hand to his brow. “Move back into that barn so I can feature you better.”

The black man glanced at the rope.

“Pay that rope no mind,” the farmer said. “It ain’t me put it up. That was my wife’s doing.”

The fugitive kept stepping back until both of them stood inside the barn. The cat reappeared, sat on its haunches watching the two men.

“Where might you hail from?” the farmer asked.

The black man’s face assumed a guarded blankness.

“I ain’t sending you back yonder if that’s your fearing,” the farmer said. “I’ve never had any truck with them that would. That’s why you’re up here, ain’t it, knowing that we don’t?”

The black man nodded.

“So where you run off from?”

“Down in Wake County, Colonel Barkley’s home place.”

“Got himself a big house with fancy rugs and whatnot, I reckon,” the farmer said, “and plenty more like you to keep it clean and pretty for him.”

“Yes, suh.”

The farmer appeared satisfied. He did not uncock the hammer but the barrel now pointed at the ground.

“You know the way over the line to Tennessee?”

“No, suh.”

“It ain’t a far way but you’ll need a map, especially if you want to stay clear of outliers,” the white man said. “You get here last night?”

“Yes, suh.”

“Did you help yourself to some of them apples?”

The black man shook his head.

“You got food in your tote there?”

“No, suh.”

“You must be hungry then,” the farmer said. “Get what apples you want. There’s a spring over there too what if your throat’s dry. I’ll go to the cabin and fix you a map.” The white man paused. “Fetch some corn to take if you like, and tell that othern he don’t have to hide in there lest he just favors it.”

The farmer walked back toward the cabin.

“Come out, boy,” Viticus said.

The tassels swayed and the youth reappeared.

“You hear what he say?”

“I heard it,” the youth answered and began walking toward the orchard.

They ate two apples each before going to the spring.

“Never tasted water that cold and it full summer,” the youth said when he’d drunk his fill. “The Colonel say it snows here anytime and when it do you won’t see no road nor nothing. Marster Helm’s houseboy run off last summer, the Colonel say they found him froze stiff as a poker.”

“You believing that then you’re a chucklehead,” Viticus said.

“I just telling it,” the youth answered.

“Uh-huh,” his elder said, but his eyes were not on the youth but something in the far pasture. Two mounds lay side by side, marked with a single creek stone. Upturned earth sprouted a few weeds, but only a few. The youth turned from the spring and looked as well.

“Lord God,” he said. “This place don’t long allow a body to rest easy.”

“Come on,” Viticus said.

The fugitives stepped back through the orchard and waited in front of the barn. The farmer was on his way back, a bucket in one hand and the flintlock in the other.

“Why come him to still haul that gun?” the youth asked.

The older man’s lips hardly moved as he spoke.

“Cause he ain’t fool enough to trust two strangers, specially after you cut and run.”

The farmer’s eyes were on the youth as he crossed the pasture. He set the bucket before them and studied the youth’s face a few more moments, then turned to the older fugitive.

“There’s pone and sorghum in there,” the farmer said, and nodded at the bucket. “My daughter brung it yesterday. She’s nary the cook her momma was, but it’ll stash your belly.”

“Thank you, suh,” the youth said.

“I brung it for him, not you,” the farmer said. The older fugitive did not move.

“Go ahead,” the farmer said to him. “Just fetch that pone out the bucket and strap that sorghum on it.”

“Thank you, suh,” the older fugitive said, but he still did not reach for the pail.

“What?” the white man asked.

“If I be of a mind to share . . .”

The white man grimaced.

“He don’t deserve none but it’s your stomach to miss it, not mine.”

The older fugitive took out a piece of the pone and the cistern of sorghum. He swathed the bread in syrup and offered it to the youth, who took it without a word. Neither sat in the grass to eat but remained standing. When they’d finished, the older fugitive set the cistern carefully in the bucket. He stepped back and thanked the farmer again but the farmer seemed not to hear. His blue eyes were on the youth.

“You belonged to this Colonel Barkley feller too?”

“Yes, suh,” the youth said.

“Been on his place all your life.”

“Yes, suh.”

“And your momma, she been at the Colonel’s awhile before you was born.”

“Yes, suh.”

The farmer nodded and let his gaze drift toward the barn a moment before resettling on the youth.

“The Colonel got red hair, has he?”

“You know the Colonel?” the youth asked.

“Naw, just his sort,” the farmer answered. “You call him Colonel. Is he off to the war?”

“Yes, suh.”

“And he is a Colonel, I mean rank?”

“Yes, suh,” the youth answered. “The Colonel got him up a whole regiment to take north with him.”

“A whole regiment, you say.”

“Yes, suh.”

The white man spat and wiped a shirtsleeve across his mouth.

“I done my damnedest to keep my boy from it,” he said.

“There’s places up here conscripters would nary have found him, but he set out over to Tennessee anyway. You know the last thing I told him?” The fugitives waited. “I told him if he got in the thick of it, look for them what hid behind the lines with fancy uniforms and plumes in their hats. Them’s the ones to shoot, I said, cause it’s them sons of bitches started this thing. That boy could drop a squirrel at fifty yards. I hope he kilt a couple of them.”

The older fugitive hesitated, then spoke.

“He fight for Mr. Lincoln, do he?”

“Not no more,” the farmer said.

To the west, the land rose blue and jagged. The older fugitive let his eyes settle on the mountains before turning back to the farmer. The youth settled a boot toe into the grass, scuffed a small indentation. They waited as they had always waited for a white man, be it overseer, owner, now this farmer, to finish his say and dismiss them.

“The Colonel,” the farmer asked, “he up in Virginia now?”

“Yes, suh,” the older fugitive said, “least as I know.”

“Up near Richmond,” the youth added. “That’s what the Miss’s cook heard.”

The farmer nodded.

“Black niggers to do his work and now white niggers to do his fighting,” he said.

The sun was full overhead now. Sweat beads glistened on the white man’s brow but he did not raise a hand to wipe them away. The youth cleared his throat while staring at the scuff mark he’d made on the ground. The farmer looked only at the older fugitive now.

“I need you to understand something and there’s nary a way to understand it without the telling,” the farmer said to the other man. “Them days after we got the word, I’d wake of the night and Dorcie wouldn’t be next to me. I’d find her sitting on the porch, just staring at the dark. Then one night I woke up and she wasn’t on the porch. I found her here in this barn.”

The farmer paused, as if to allow some comment, but none came.

“Me and Dorcie got three daughters alive and healthy and their young ones is too. You’d figure that would’ve been enough for her. You’d think it harder on a father to lose his onliest son, knowing there’d be never a one to carry on the family name after you ain’t around no more. But he was the youngest, and womenfolk near always make a fuss over a come-late baby. That rope there in the barn,” the farmer said, lifting a Barlow knife from his overall pocket. “I’ve left it dangling all these months ’cause I pondered it for my ownself, but every time I made ready to use it something stopped me.”