Elijah of Buxton

  I knowed this didn’t have nothing to do with the bear-fighting dog hitting me in the side nor the man punching me in the chest. I knowed this waren’t nothing but my conscience talking to me ’cause I was gonna have to break my promise to Mrs. Chloe. There waren’t no sense in going back to the stable to try and free her and them Africans. The best thing I could do was ride Jingle Boy hard back to Buxton and see what Ma and Pa would say we should do.

  But my conscience knowed that by the time I got down there and they put a posse together and came all the way back up here those slavers would’ve took Mrs. Chloe away and there wouldn’t be no way to figure out where.

  I had to choose twixt going back and telling her no one could help or getting to Buxton quick as I could ’cause maybe, maybe, something could get done. But my conscience was chewing at me and choking on my guts ’cause it knowed that was a waste of time. The gambling man was right. Couldn’t nothing nor no one help now.

  The tears finally came. I was gonna listen to Mrs. Chloe. She told me not to come back. I dug my heels into Jingle Boy’s sides and pointed him south, down the road to Buxton.

  I was pushing Jingle Boy harder than I should’ve, but it was for a good reason. Not just ’cause I wanted Ma and Pa’s help on this confusion, but also ’cause with Jingle Boy running so hard, I was hoping that the only thing I’d want to think ’bout was hanging on tight so I wouldn’t get tossed. But it waren’t working, all his bumping and jarring couldn’t make me quit thinking.

  I thought ’bout how my conscience and Ma’s cookie jar snake were pretty much alike. Seemed that no matter how hard and fast I tried to run away from either one of ’em, I ended up carrying it right along without even knowing I’d done it. ’Bout the only difference twixt the two was that it ’peared the snake had been a whole lot easier to toss down and be rid of than my conscience was gonna be.

  Me and Jingle Boy waren’t even a mile out of the little logging village when I pulled up the reins and stopped him.

  It waren’t nothing ’gainst the horse but, doggone-it-all, I wished I was riding Old Flapjack instead.

  If this was Old Flap we’d’ve been going so slow that I wouldn’t’ve had no choice but to try and figure out what to do. All the bouncing Jingle Boy was doing whilst he galloped made it so’s I waren’t able to get ahold of a thought and work it all the way through. And even though there was some comforting in that, I knowed I had to stop him afore I made a real bad choice.

  The thought that was mostly plaguing me was Mrs. Chloe talking that growned-up language then looking so disappointed in me when she saw I waren’t understanding it.

  Growned folks have whole slews of ways of crushing your spirits if you’re young. And if I got one weakness to what they do, it ain’t when they holler at me or switch me or chase after me to try and ’buke me. If they really want to squash all the happiness out of me, it seems all they gotta do is tell me they’re disappointed in something that I did.

  It’s even worst when they don’t come right out and say they’re disappointed but instead look at me and wrinkle their brow then turn away whilst shaking their head a little. They seem to get so doggoned sad. For some reason, that hurts more than any switching or beating they can lay on you.

  If I was gonna think this through, I knowed I was gonna have to quit worrying ’bout the disappointment and put all my thoughts on the growned-up language Mrs. Chloe used on me. I know it had something to do with her lying ’bout her baby loving me so much, something that both of us knowed waren’t true, but I still couldn’t cipher what it meant. How’s a baby gonna love someone they ain’t never seen afore? And how’s a baby’s ma gonna lie like that? That don’t make no sense, that don’t make no sense atall.

  But why did she want to pretend that me and that girl was some sort of kin to each other, that there was something strong twixt me and …?

  I’m gonna sound like I’m being boastful and pridesome, but what I’m ’bout to say is the truth, and if it’s the truth it ain’t boasting:

  Why, my brain is so powerful amazing that some of the time it leaves me dumbstruck!

  Here all these things had been happening and trying to pull my mind away from what was right in front of me, then in two shakes of a lamb’s tail my brain told me what Mrs. Chloe was really saying! It even told me why she said it!

  And that ain’t nothing but more proving of what I been saying all along, riding a mule’s a whole lot better than riding a horse. Why, if I hadn’t pulled Jingle Boy up, I’d be halfway to Buxton by now without getting a chance to have a proper thought, and it might be too late!

  I dug my heels into Jingle Boy again and headed him hard north, back toward the little logging village, back to the stable.

  The bear-fighting dog had got back up on his feet. His tail was twixt his legs and he was staggering ’round and whining and looking like he waren’t seeing too good. If I’d’ve been fra-gile as Emma Collins I’d’ve felt sorry for him, but I recalled the bite on Mr. Kamau’s leg and the three new holes I had in my side and I didn’t feel no sorrow atall.

  I throwed left hard as I could and caught him in the same spot as afore. He didn’t make a sound, he dropped like a sack of rocks.

  I stepped over the dog and eased the stable door back open. This time when I went in, a hinge squeaked and the stable could tell I was there.

  I looked at the bundles to the left and my heart stopped, my blood ran cold, and time stood still!

  Even though my eyes waren’t all the way use to the darkness, I could still see the hole in the barrel of the mystery pistol that Mrs. Chloe was aiming right twixt my eyes! And whilst it had been waving and jumping in my hand, it was steady as iron in hers.

  I whispered, “Mrs. Chloe, it’s me!”

  She took the gun off of me.

  She said, “I told you not to come back!”

  She looked back at the door, and afore I could answer, she said, “Now, where them men you was talking ’bout?”

  “They couldn’t help. They were too scared.”

  She set the gun behind her and picked her baby up.

  The disappointment was still in her eyes when she looked at me. I noticed a long time ago when it comes to disappointment, once a growned person feels it for you, you ain’t nothing but a dead duck, ’cause caint nothing be done to change their mind.

  I took another deep breath so there waren’t gonna be no backing off from talking growned, which when you look at it seems to be a powerful lot like lying.

  I said, “Mrs. Chloe, pardon me swearing, but it’s the blangedest thing! I was riding Jingle Boy back to Buxton and something was bothering me and I couldn’t figure out what it was, then it came to me just like that!” I snapped my fingers.

  She just watched me hard.

  “When I first saw your daughter I was so stupid-fied and shocked that my mind played a low-down, rotten trick on me, but once I got on that horse, I knowed what was plaguing me, I knowed what was wrong! It came to me that that there girl’s the spittin’ image of my baby sister that died of the fever two years pass!”

  Mrs. Chloe kept watching me.

  I lied, “Yes, ma’am, my little sister that pass two years ago looked exactly like your baby.”

  She said, “Chile, I’m sorry to hear that. I know your’n and your ma’s hearts must be busted.”

  I said, “Thank you, ma’am. You’re right, Ma’s heart’s busted so bad she won’t stop mourning and she’s tossed out all her clothes that have any kind of colour in ’em and she won’t wear nothing but black ’cause the doctor told her the Lord waren’t gonna bless her with no more children.”

  Mrs. Chloe didn’t say nothing. She looked at me and shooked her head up and down one time.

  I said, “And now Ma’s always saying what she wouldn’t give for just one more look at my baby sister.”

  She said, “Your poor ma. Your poor, poor ma.”

  I took this as encouragement to lie some more, to keep trying to talk this secret langua
ge.

  I said, “She’s always moping and even terrorfying folks by wandering ’round in the woods at night and saying she’d give anything for one more look, that my sister went too fast, that Ma didn’t have the chance to tell her no proper good-bye.”

  Mrs. Chloe said, “That’s a tragedy. I see through you what a good woman your ma is. She sure done raise a fine boy in you, a fine, fine boy. What kind of world we living in when a good woman like your ma have to shoulder that kind of load and caint have no more babies?”

  Once you start lying, it ain’t hard to keep going. It’s like a ball starts rolling down a hill. But I knowed I had to prettify the story even more. I said, “Yes, ma’am, she goes on and on talking ’bout how she would die happy if she could get just one more look at my sister.

  “Then she’ll say, if God was truly just and kind, like she knows he is, maybe not only would she get a chance to see my sister one more time, but maybe there’d be some way she could raise another child.”

  I watched Mrs. Chloe’s eyes hard, the same way I watch Mr. Travis’s. If you’re reciting something to him and you’re doing good, you can tell by his eyes, you know you just gotta keep going on. Mrs. Chloe’s eyes were doing the same thing.

  I said, “Ma’s always saying she don’t care if she birth it or not, all she’s longing for is another little girl to look after and raise. Why, ma’am, the way she’s dragging ’round and carrying on is ’bout to drive me and Pa mad.”

  Mrs. Chloe said, “I hopes you and your pa is kind with your ma, boy. Ain’t nothing in the world worse than birthing a little one then losing it. Nothing. I done lost three myself, two what was sold away and one what die asleep. This gal here my last.”

  I was through. I was so ’shamed of myself for lying that I couldn’t talk no more of this growned-folks language.

  I was ’bout this close to slipping into another one n’em fra-gile spells when Mrs. Chloe studied me and said, “So what you think we should do, son?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “What can me and you do that’ll give your poor ma some comforting?”

  I knowed what she was really asking, but I didn’t know how to answer her.

  All I could say was, “I was wondering, ma’am, if maybe you’d let me borrow your baby and carry her to Buxton so I could show Ma how much she favours my sister?”

  Mrs. Chloe’s eyes looked just like Mr. Travis’s did if you got all the way through conjugating your Latin verbs without no mistakes.

  I said, “Confused as Ma is, maybe she’ll think this is my sister and she’s getting one more look.”

  Mrs. Chloe drawed in a long hard breath. For the second time she sounded like she’d been underwater and had come back up just afore her lungs were ’bout to bust.

  I raised my right hand and said, “I swear on my ma’s head I’ll look after her real good, ma’am. You saw how good I held her. I swear she’ll be safe, and once I swear, I ain’t got no choice but to keep my word. I swored I was gonna come back, didn’t I? I swear she’ll be safe if you let me borrow her.”

  I thought I’d messed up on this growned-up talking, I thought I’d said the wrong thing ’cause Mrs. Chloe made a sound like she’d just got gut-punched. But she whispered, “Chile, chile, chile. That’s just the thing that we can do … that’s just it.”

  She kissed the baby’s eyes and told her, “You see, sweetheart? I promised. I promised you you waren’t going back to Kentucky. I promised you I waren’t gunn allow you to go back, only I never thought it’d be like this! You know I never would’ve done nothing to hurt you ’less it would spare you a whole life of hurt, don’t you? Never, baby.

  “Something told me to wait, and I ain’t never had no fear nor softness in me, so it was something else. And lookit here. Lookit what my waiting done brung. Lookit this here boy. He did come back. He come back! And I ain’t never been so proud of no young man in all my days.”

  She looked up at me.

  She said, “You’s all I got left.”

  I couldn’t tell if she meant me or her baby.

  She kissed her daughter’s eyes again and said, “’Stead of this being your last night it turned to your first.”

  She told me, “Don’t you cry, boy. Don’t you dare. I ain’t never loved nothing in my life more’n I loves you right at this minute. Ain’t nothing for you to be crying ’bout. Only reason any of us need be crying is if, come tomorrow, you waren’t nothing but a dream, nothing but my mind conjuring something to stop me from doing what I was gunn have to do. But you is real, ain’t you?”

  I wanted to say, “Yes, ma’am,” but all I could do was shake my head up and down and keep sucking the looseness back up into my nose.

  She said, “I knowed it. Don’t seem like a haint or a dream would be fainting and crying much as you do. ’Sides, I done me lots of dreaming and I ain’t never yet had one near beautiful as you is. Never.”

  She said, “’Fore you go you take her on over to her pa and let him hold on to her one last time.”

  She reached me the baby. Her hands were back to shaking.

  I carried the child over to the big African and reached her out to him. His hands could only come up so high, but it was high enough that he could cradle her bottom and put her face on his.

  She grabbed at his hair and he mashed his rough, cracked lips into her cheek. He kept his face there, closed his eyes, and took four or five deep breaths like he was trying to get the smell of her deep into him. He held her as far away as the chains would go then said something to her in African.

  His voice was deep like thunder. He reached her back to me and said, “Boy. Go! Go, now! Uh-san-tay. Uh-san-tay sah-nah. Thank you much kindly.”

  I was wrong afore when I said it seemed couldn’t nothing make this man cry.

  I took the girl from him and turned to the woman to see if she wanted to hold her baby again. She was back to leaning ’gainst the wall like a bundle and her hands were covering her eyes. But she was smiling.

  There waren’t nothing more to be said.

  I put the girl in my right arm and got a chunking stone ready in my left hand for the dog outside. I peeked back out of the stable door and saw the dog was still stretched out on the end of the chain, the mud was drying up ’round his tongue, and he waren’t moving a lick. It looked like his nightmare was over.

  Afore I stepped through the door, Mrs. Chloe said, “Boy. What you called?”

  I said, “Elijah, ma’am.”

  Then, so if she did bust out and got to Canada, she wouldn’t make the mistake of asking for the other Elijah, the white one up in Chatham, I told her, “I’m Elijah, Elijah of Buxton, ma’am.”

  She said, “Well, son, you done proved what you said afore. You proved that if you wants something horrible bad enough, sometimes dreams has a way of finding you. You done lift something heavier than any wagon of stones off my heart, Elijah of Buxton. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, ma’am.”

  I looked back into the stable. Everything was dark and foggy again.

  I said, “Ma’am? What’s your baby’s name?”

  The African man said, “Too-mah-ee-nee!”

  The woman said, “He call her Too-mah-ee-nee, but I calls her Hope. You make sure you thank yo’ ma. You make sure yo’ ma tell Hope when she done growned …” Miss Chloe stopped and covered her mouth with her hand for a second. She pulled it away and said, “You make sure your ma tell Hope her pa full-blood African. And he say he use to be a king. And I believe him.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I will. And I’ll tell her her pa’s name’s Kamau and her ma’s name’s Chloe and she’s got two names, Hope and Too-mah …”

  Mr. Kamau said, “Too-mah-ee-nee, she our Too-mahee-nee.”

  I said, “Too-mah-ee-nee.”

  Mrs. Chloe said, “How you gunn ’member all them new names, ’Lijah?”

  I told her, “I ain’t good at mathematics, ma’am, but I’m real good at rememberizing things. Plus I got me a pencil and
some paper in my tote sack and I’m gonna write ’em down.”

  She said, “Stop! You writes? And reads?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You is truly, truly a miracle. But you gotta quit pressing our luck. Y’all gotta get on outta here.”

  As I stepped back out of the stable, Mr. Kamau said, “Chloe, let me have gun.”

  She said, “Man, hesh. Where you gunn hide it if I gives it to you? I’m-a keep it cover up in this here rag till Prayder and them worthless boys comes in the morn with our clothes. “Way I sees it, Old Scratch gunn owe me big ’cause bright and early tomorrow morn I sure am ’bout to send him back four of his cursed souls and one of his good-for-nothing dogs.

  “’Sides, Mr. Kamau …” She laughed kind of soft. “… if you’s the mighty African king you’s always claiming you is, and you wants this here pistol so bad, why don’t you come on over here and take it from me?”

  There was a wait then the stable was fulled up with another soft laugh, this one deep and rumbling.

  He said, “I love you, Chloe.”

  She said, “Aww, hesh, Kamau, I love you too.”

  Their soft laughs, that boy’s bawling, and those chains rattling and scraping are sounds I’m gonna be hearing for the rest of my life. Even if I live to be fifty.

  I wrapped the baby’s arms ’round my neck and ran to where I’d tied Jingle Boy. I took two of my chunking stones out of my tote sack and put ’em in my pocket. I throwed the other ones and Mr. Taylor’s sullied knife on the ground. I gentle set Hope Too-mah-ee-nee in the empty tote sack and tied her ’round my back, same as the women in the fields. And we started for Buxton.

  Twixt Jingle Boy already being run too hard and me being careful whilst holding on to Hope Too-mah-ee-nee, we went easy and didn’t get to the ferry in Detroit till near daybreak. She’d been a good baby and hadn’t cried or nothing all the way there. Mostly she pulled at the hair on the back of my head.