The Journey of Little Charlie

  “Plus, they probably gone and changed their names. That’s the first thing they want to do once they bust loose.

  “Afore we get to sorting ’em darkies out, let’s get your hosses took care of. Y’all staying anywhere yet?”

  “We passed a boardinghouse that didn’t look too bad. We’ll stay there till our business is done.”

  “That’s fine. Come on back to the stables and we can get your hosses took care of.”

  The sheriff pushed hisself away from the table and led us outside.

  Once he seent Spangler and the cap’n’s mare, he whistled. “My, my, my, them’s two fine, fine hosses. Y’all must be from one the big plantations.”

  I could see the cap’n’s hackles raising up.

  “It’s big ’nough.”

  “Cotton? Rice?”

  The cap’n’s good side had got wore down by the few questions the sheriff was axing. He ignored the man. I couldn’t unna-stand why; the man didn’t have to help put our horses up but done it anyway. Being friendly couldn’t hurt nothing.

  The cap’n said, “So how much we owe y’all for tending to the horses?”

  The man answered, “Let’s jus’ call it good old-fashioned Southern hospitality being served up a long way from home.”

  “Thank you, sir. Now’s there somewhere near where we can get fed?”

  After we got the horses stabled and bid the Dee-troit lawmen a good night, me and the cap’n walked toward where the sheriff said we could eat cheap.

  I axed him, “How come you didn’t tell the sheriff you got a address where the gang’s hiding out? He could’ve tolt us where it’s at.”

  “What,” the cap’n said, “and let them two run off ’head of us and grab ’em? No, thanks.

  “Maybe you ain’t as dense as I first pegged you. You had sense ’nough to keep your mouth heshed back there, but I seent the foolish look on your face; don’t tell me you couldn’t see what was o-ccuring?”

  “I thought he was jus’ trying to be helpful and was jib-jabbing to pass the time.”

  He give me a disappointed look.

  “You’s every bit as dense as I first thought.

  “First thing you got to keep in mind is you needs be suspicious of anyone who’s looking to be helpful. Most times they ain’t doing nothing but looking to help they own self.

  “Second thing is chitchatting, and I s’pose even the way y’all in Possum Moan say it, ‘jib-jabbing,’ is how most folks is gonna feel you out afore they decide if you’s worth whatever trouble they got planned to visit on you.

  “And third, whenever someone starts right off getting false-friendly with you, keep in mind all they trying to do is get a leg up on you so they can know what’s the best way to fleece you.

  “That sheriff, who ain’t nothing but a common thief with a badge, would jus’ as soon stab you in the back on a lark as give you the time of day. And the other one, after five minutes of being ’round him, if you was wearing drawers, you’d have to check to make sure you still had ’em on.

  “The more you keep them two highwaymen in the dark, the better off you is. You jus’ got the royal treatment and don’t have clue the first ’bout it.

  “Let’s get the horses.”

  He opened his wallet and pult a piece of paper out that had some scribbling on it.

  “We needs find out where this address is; I gots to stop in this store to ’range for meeting the boy who gonna let us know ’zactly where our folks is at.”

  We fount the store on the paper and the cap’n tolt me to wait whilst he went in and talked to a man setting at a counter. Some money changed hands, then the cap’n headed back out to me.

  “There’s s’pose to be a park with a statue ’bout half a mile from here. Someone’s gonna get the boy a message and he’s gonna meet us there in a hour.”

  We set right off for the park.

  The statue was of a glummish-looking man who was made of iron. I couldn’t blame him for looking so low-down and beat; it ’peared every bird in Dee-troit had a job of stopping by each day and doo-dooing on him. He had a fancy old hat on his head and was carrying the kind of spear they use to chuck at folks in the Bible.

  After the longest time, a colored man in a white coat covered with smears and specks of blood walked into the park and come right to us.

  The colored man’s boots was stained with blood and gore too. He had to work in a slaughterhouse. He’d rolt the cuffs of his trousers up, but they was stiff with dried-up blood too.

  He set on the bench next to me.

  “Howdy.”

  I knowed the cap’n was discom-fitted by the colored man setting hisself next to us without axing permission.

  He never looked in the man’s direction but said, “What you want, boy?”

  The man shot the cap’n a dirty look.

  “Boy? Maybe I got the wrong folk.”

  He got up from the bench and started walking ’way.

  The cap’n smiled and called, “What’s your hurry, my good man?”

  The man turnt back.

  “I knows you the ones from down south; who else would be sitting here looking so country?”

  I guess the cap’n seent who had the upper hand here and changed his attitude.

  “Why, sure we is, where you from?”

  “It ain’t important. You brang the money?”

  The cap’n said, “Now holt on for a minute; let’s see what we’s paying for.”

  “Soon’s I get the money, you’ll see.”

  The cap’n reached in his coat pocket and set a bundle of cash on the bench.

  The colored man reached o’er and began counting it out loud.

  “… thirty-five, forty, forty-five, fifty, fifty-five, sixty.”

  The cap’n said, “That good?”

  “That’s what we ’greed on.”

  “Well?”

  The man said, “You read?”

  The cap’n said, “Do you?”

  The man said, “Here’s what you needs.”

  He set a folded piece of paper on the bench where the cap’n had put the money. The cap’n pulled a face and picked it up and read what it had to say.

  “I still got some questions. They lives in a two-room house at 541 Madison Street?”

  “Right.”

  “What kinda neighborhood is it?”

  “What kind of neighborhood is it? You looking to grab these here folk or is you looking to move in?”

  “I meant is it all slaves or is it mostly white?”

  “Slaves? Ain’t no slaves here in Mitch-again.”

  “Is the neighborhood mostly white folk or colored?”

  “It’s a mix.”

  “It say she work at Seifert’s Laundry, 22 Vernor, and he work at 113 Gray-tiotte; how close is they?”

  “Three block apart.”

  “How far’s that from the jail?”

  “Ten-minute walk.”

  “Through what kinda neighborhood?”

  “All businesses. All white.”

  “I guess that conclude our business.”

  The colored man said, “Maybe not. How much you willing to pay for information on two more?”

  The cap’n said, “I ain’t looking to be burdened by no big coffle of slaves. I’m here to get these folk only.”

  “The two I’m talking ’bout is your runaway’s babies. Two girls. Twins. Two year old.”

  The cap’n said, “Healthy?”

  “Fat as a couple of spring piglets.”

  The cap’n smiled. “Well, that do make a difference. Let’s talk.”

  I walked up to get a better look at the statue.

  They talked a bit more, the cap’n counted out some more bills, then the bloody colored man counted ’em and said, “Reach me the paper back.”

  He pult a pencil from behind his ear and wrote something down. “The babies stays with this woman whilst the folks is at work. That’s her address. You got any more questions? I needs to get back to work
.”

  I thought this would be when the cap’n let this man know what he thought of the disrespectful way he answered a white man’s questions. But he didn’t say nothing ’sides, “Thank you kindly. I’ll be seeing you again soon.”

  “Not if I see you first.”

  The cap’n smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind; you might be surprised.”

  He waved me o’er. “Follow him.”

  “Won’t it be easier to jus’ find out where the slaughterhouse is at ’round here?”

  The cap’n said, “He don’t work in no slaughterhouse.”

  “Why, sure he do, didn’t you see—”

  “Didn’t you see the pencil?”

  “Why, yes, sir, but—”

  “What would someone who work in a slaughterhouse need a pencil for? To write farewell notes for the cows? To pass on any last word the sheeps had to say to their families back on the farm? To get addresses offen the pigs so’s he could send postcards?

  “He work in a butcher shop and I need to know which one. If this address he give me don’t pan out, me and that boy got some more talking to do. Now get moving.”

  “But what if I get lost?”

  “Ain’t no one in Dee-troit who don’t know where the jail is; if you ain’t back in a hour, meet me there.”

  I didn’t have to worry. I should’ve knowed the cap’n would be right.

  I followed the man until he went in the back of a butcher shop six blocks from the park.

  There was two colored boys sitting out front of the place and I axed ’em, “What’s the name of this here shop?”

  They looked at one the ’nother and the skinniest one said, “Butcher shop.”

  “But who own it?”

  “The butcher.”

  They laughed and I felt myself getting red.

  A woman walked past and I said, “ ’Scuse me, ma’am, what’s this here shop called?”

  She said, “The Irish Butcher Shop.”

  She give me a staring-down-her-nose, raising-up-her-eyebrows look and said, “You need to get back in school, young man.”

  I said, “Yes, ma’am,” but I was thinking what I really needed to do was get back to South Carol-liney, where folk don’t act so strange and uppity.

  I walked back to the park feeling mighty low and dim.

  But once me and the cap’n got back to the boardinghouse and he started planning how we was gonna catch the gang of thieves, I mostly forgot ’bout how rude these Yankees was.

  It was getting more and more exciting, ’specially when the cap’n tolt me the leader of the gang was a woman that wore a eye patch and had a long scar running ’crost her forehead and cheek from when she lost the eye.

  I was too worked up to sleep more’n a minute that night!

  Sweat was pouring from every part of my body.

  I kept going o’er my part; I wanted to get everything jus’ the way the cap’n had ’splained it. I wasn’t ’bout to do none of what he called “improvising nor improving”; he’d kept drilling in me that things had to go A-B-C and if they did we’d be all right.

  We’d been standing in the alley for the longest time afore he finally said, “Don’t turn now, that’s her with the sack and the bonnet.”

  The cap’n had me as a shield, ducking behind me so the woman couldn’t see him. Soon’s she walked on by the alley he give me a shove and I was on the sidewalk behind the woman.

  Following the plan, I run out in the street till I was ten yards past, then turned to face her.

  I said, “ ’Scuse me, ma’am, do you know where—”

  Both me and the woman gasped. I thought the cap’n had made a mistake, ’cause whilst this woman did have a eye patch and a scar running ’crost her cheek, he hadn’t said nothing ’bout her skin! She was colored!

  How could a woman who didn’t look no different than the slaves I’d seent ’round Possum Moan be the leader of a gang that robbed Mr. Tanner of four thousand dollars?

  Before I had much of a chance to think on it, something ’bout me tolt her I was trouble and she squozed the bag to her chest and done a quick look ’round.

  I said, “Do you know where a stranger can get—”

  She turnt back to me and at that second the cap’n eased out from the alley. I flinched when a loud crack exploded from behind the woman’s back.

  Time slowed down and she jerked whilst a fine red mist rose up offen her back and settled ’crost her head and shoulders.

  The woman’s mouth come open and she said, “Oh!”

  She stumbled forward and fell in my arms.

  I couldn’t believe what I jus’ seent! The cap’n never said nothing ’bout shooting no woman in the back!

  I eased her to the ground and looked back at the cap’n; I knowed he was no good, but who could put a bullet in someone who wasn’t even holding on to a knife?

  I twisted the woman so’s I was ’twixt her and the cap’n, hoping with all my might since he’d have to go through me, he’d hold on to his fire.

  I looked into his eyes to see if he’d do it, but it didn’t take but a second for me to unna-stand what happened.

  The cap’n wasn’t clutching on to no pistol; ’stead, in his hand was the cowhide whip that was always coiled on his saddle.

  The whip was laying in front of him stretched out and resting like it was a rattler that had got a good bite in on someone.

  It had made the same sound as a small pistol.

  The sack the woman had been toting fell when she got hit and everything in it was spreading out willy-nilly on the sidewalk. There was apples, some collard greens, four or five tin cans, and a package that spilt; it coulda been cornmeal.

  The cap’n yelled at me, “Has you lost your mind? Move ’way from that wench, boy, or you’ll be getting a taste of the lash too.”

  The woman was starting to get back her unna-standing of where she was.

  She sat up and looked at the cap’n.

  He said, “Surprise! Guess what, Lou? It been ten years and I hates saying it, but ’em years ain’t been kind to you, my darling. You looking downright turrible!”

  From her hands and knees, the woman started gathering the things that come out from her bag, scooping ’em in toward her.

  The cap’n said, “Uh-uh, ain’t no need for none of that, Lou.”

  The woman fount her voice. “My name ain’t Lou, it’s Eloise.”

  The cap’n laughed. “Well, a rose by any other name, huh? You jus’ let Little Charlie pick them things up, you get on back here in this alley. You partial to jewelry? I knows you is, so I brung a special bracelet for you; crawl on over here and get it, girl.”

  The woman stood up and walked to the cap’n, a bloody slash run ’crost her back up onto her shoulder.

  My hands was shaking, but I picked up her groceries, putting ’em in the sack, then went back into the alley.

  The cap’n already had the woman shackled at the ankles and the wrists. He’d made her squat down with her back to us and her face mashed into the alley’s wall.

  “Now we wait. The butcher said if she ain’t there right at twelve thirty, the man gonna think she been tied up”—the cap’n looked at the woman and bust out laughing—“or chained up, as the case may be, at the laundry and he come o’er to see her. We got ’bout fifteen minutes.”

  Time was acting strange again and the fifteen minutes the cap’n spoke of didn’t take but seconds.

  The cap’n had his back to the street but kept taking looks o’er his shoulder at the place the man worked.

  “Right on time!”

  He stepped back into the alley and said, “Now, Little Charlie!”

  I walked into the street and seent the other gang member. He was colored too and just a bit shorter than Pap but a whole lot broader.

  When he ’bout got to the alley, I said, “ ’Scuse me, sir, your wife tolt me to tell you she need some help o’er there.”

  Soon’s he heard my voice, the man’s eyes got wide and his no
se flared.

  Dropping down into a crouch, he looked at the alley and seent the cap’n and the woman standing together. The cap’n’s left hand was yanking rough on the woman’s hair, pulling her head backward, and his right hand was clamped on his pistol, which was jammed under her chin and pointed upward.

  “Easy, now, big boy. Let’s think ’bout this.”

  The man said, “He hurt you, ’Loise?”

  “Naw, honey, I’m doing fine. He can’t do nothing to me.”

  The big black man seent the pickle they was in and knowed there wasn’t nothing he could do. His shoulders sagged and a low, soft moan come outta him.

  “Atta boy. Now jus’ get down on your knees and come into the alley.”

  The man done it.

  “Lay on your belly.”

  The man leant forward till he was flat on the ground.

  The cap’n turnt the woman loose and slammed his boot onto the man’s head, pinning him to the ground.

  “Little Charlie, gimme them shackles.”

  I picked the heaviest set of shackles outta the bag and handed ’em to the cap’n.

  “All right, Cletus. You know your right from your left? Put your right hand behind your back nice and slow.”

  The man did.

  The cap’n grabbed holt of the man’s forearm.

  He put the top half of the shackle on the man’s wrist and locked it down. Hard.

  He pushed it even harder, till it was biting into the man’s black skin, making all the veins in his hand bulge like thick, black night crawlers.

  “Now, boy, the other hand.”

  He done it again.

  “Raise your left foot.”

  The cap’n got the shackle on his ankle.

  “The other’n.”

  The man was completely shackled on his belly.

  The cap’n tolt me, “Push her back in the alley.”

  I led the woman to the back of the alley. The cap’n unwound his bullwhip and it runged out three times, opening three perfect straight lines ’crost the man’s back.

  The man flinched but never cried out.

  The cap’n put his pistol on the man and walked o’er to where I was holting the woman.