The Journey of Little Charlie

  He put his hand in the pockets on her apron and come out with some coins and a ratty old folded-up piece of paper. He opened it and laughed.

  “Well, looky here, Little Charlie Bobo; we gots to set this woman a-loose. These here official papers says she been granted her freedom by her master, one Mr. Robert Boylar, eight year ago.”

  The cap’n ripped the paper into bits.

  “Who you think this was gonna fool, Lou?”

  He reached his hand down the front of her smock and snatched a chain and locket offen her neck. He unclasped the locket and laughed.

  “Well, well, well! Three locks of curly darky hair. Ain’t that adorable?”

  He slid the locket and chain into his pocket.

  He bent o’er the man and went through his pockets too. There wasn’t nothing.

  The cap’n give the man a kick to the ribs and said, “Now get up.”

  The man struggled to get to his feet. When he done it, he towered o’er the cap’n.

  Pointing with his pistol, the cap’n gestured for the man to start walking.

  We turnt into a parade as we left the alley. The man was up front, the cap’n behind him, then the woman with me behind her.

  The cap’n tolt the man, “Move smart to the left.”

  There wasn’t many folks on the street, but every one we seent, both black and white, first give us looks of surprise that turnt dirty a second or two after. But no one didn’t say nothing nor raise a finger to stop us.

  We started walking toward the jail; I was praying we wouldn’t draw no ’tention, but that was nigh on impossible when you’s got two bloody darkies and one scairt-looking white boy ’long with a nervous, dirty, stringy white man pushing ’em forward.

  Plus, the woman who was the leader of the thieves wasn’t having none of being quiet. She had things she wanted to say and wasn’t ’bout to be stopped.

  She called out to the chained colored man, “We knowed, my sweet, my precious. We knowed.

  “There ain’t been one second in these pass nine and a half year that we wasn’t a-waiting this. We done had us ’most ten year to get ready, so this ain’t no surprise. We knowed it was coming. We knowed it would end.

  “But, Chester, my beloved, each day it didn’t happen was Christmas, it didn’t matter what the month.”

  The cap’n said, “You shet your mouth, Lou.”

  She wasn’t having none of it.

  “I knowed it wasn’t but a matter of time afore I’d turnt a corner, or opened a door, or would jus’ be going ’bout my business walking down the street and the cap’n was gonna be there, waiting, the cap’n or some other piece of stank garbage.”

  The cap’n hissed, “Lou, if you don’t shet up, it’s gonna be hard on you, I swear it!”

  She laughed. “What you gonna do? You gonna damage Massa Tanner’s goods? Shoot me, I don’t care.”

  She kept talking. “But, Chester, them was nine and a half good years, real good years, years we didn’t have no right to nor ’spectations from.

  “I tells you this every day, but it still ain’t ’nough, honey; you’s been the best man someone could love, you’s the strongest, kindest, gentlest person there is and you knows how much I love you, my sweet.”

  “Lou! You hesh up right now.”

  “My name’s Eloise. Eloise Demarest. And that fine man there is my husband. Mr. Demarest, don’t you hang your head, my love, not for one minute. We done the best things folks can do up here and we had us all them years of heaven.

  “And we stolt every last second of ’em from them Tanners! And ain’t no way they can get ’em back neither.”

  The cap’n reached back and cuffed her in the face.

  She spit blood and said, “Jus’ ’member, my dear, my beloved, that this ain’t us no more. We’s done, we’s through, but we’s done the best folk can do and we’s gonna live on, we’s sent three tidings to live on.”

  I don’t think no one in the world was ever happier to see a jail than I was when we turnt a corner and the Dee-troit jail was jus’ a block away.

  But the excitement wasn’t done; a colored woman called from ’crost the street, “Don’t you fret, Eloise, I knows what to do. They’s gonna be all right.”

  The woman bust out in tears and run back the way we’d come from.

  I looked at the cap’n.

  He said, “Don’t worry none ’bout her; long afore she get back, these two will be cooling their heels in a cell.”

  When we got back to our boardinghouse, I felt as dirty as if I’d been riding behind the cap’n for a month. No ’mount of soap was making me feel better. I had to bite down hard on a washrag so’s the cap’n wouldn’t hear me crying.

  The cap’n was in a bad temper; I’d slept later than I ever had in my life and he woke me by slamming his boots into the wall. He’d already been out to check on the address where them twins was s’pose to be and the place was a cobbler shop owned by a white man who didn’t know nothing ’bout no colored twin babies. The man from the butcher shop had tricked the cap’n outta fifty dollars, quit his job, and hightailed it to who-know-where.

  Next we went to check on the house where the slaves we’d caught on the street was s’posed to be living.

  No one answered the cap’n’s knocks.

  The door was real thin and the cap’n shouldered it open with one bump.

  Soon’s we were in, he put the sawed-off shotgun next to the door and looked ’round.

  The inside of the house was a real surprise, nothing like a place some slaves was living in for ten years. It was one real big room sectioned off into different parts. And it was clean.

  There was a eating and food-fixing part with a old-time stove and pile of wood, a sleeping part behind a curtain, a part with a table and ink bottle on it, a part with a bunch of red bricks stacked up with boards ’twixt ’em for holting up ’bout fifteen or twenty books.

  Everything was wiped of dust and shining.

  They didn’t have much furniture, and the pieces they had wasn’t nowhere near as good as me and Pap could’ve made, but they was solid.

  There was a table for eating, four chairs—none of ’em any kin to the next one—a desk, and two peculiar chairs that ’peared to be too big to be toys but too small for real people.

  There was a big sideboard with some dishes and jars and jugs of food piled neat ’crost the shelves it had. Next to the fireplace was another table, this one littler, with drawers running down one side and one long drawer running ’crost the top.

  The cap’n said, “Let’s make this quick. If we’s lucky we’ll get some clue where the boy is at.”

  It was almost a shame the way the cap’n set ’bout searching the thieves’ home. He was more interested in busting things up than looking for clues.

  He picked up every dish and jug and bottle they had, looked into ’em, shook ’em, then tossed ’em into the middle of the floor so’s they shattered.

  He checked every tin and jar of food, then emptied ’em on the pile of broke-up dishes; he used his boots to stomp every chair into kindling. Every broom and mop was snapped in half. The only thing he couldn’t bust up was the table.

  He went at the few books they had particular harsh, tearing pages out of ’em and wadding ’em into balls afore he pitched ’em on the pile.

  He snorted when he picked up the last book, the Bible. He put it back.

  He even pulled all the ticking out the mattress from their bed and added it to the pile of confusion he was building in the center of the room.

  As much ruckus as the cap’n was making, the pounding that exploded out of the small house’s only door was even louder. I near jumped out my skin when someone yelled, “Chester, Eloise, is y’all all right?”

  The cap’n walked fast-fast to the door and picked up his shotgun. He reached in his coat pocket and tossed me his pistol ’stead of Pap’s.

  He whispered, “Stand o’er there, turn your body to the side and if it’s one, aim at his head,
if it’s more than one, aim at the head of whoever’s second in line. But don’t shoot nor do nothing less’n I tells you to.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I pray to sweet baby Jesus that bad marksmanship ain’t something that run in the Bobo family. If you’s as cockeyed a shot as your ma was, my goose is cooked. And yourn too.”

  Even though my heart was beating my ribs to death, I still felt myself starting to blush.

  “Now you watch careful what I do here; first thing is you got to grab control of the sit-a-way-shun right off, you got to be loud and let ’em know you the craziest one in the equation with the least to lose. Watch careful how I casts a spell on ’em and don’t let ’em ease out of it.”

  The banging commenced again. “Eloise? Chester?”

  The cap’n snatched the door open, causing it to come partial off the top hinge. He yelled, “Who has the nerve to interfere with me doing my legal duty?”

  There was three colored men standing on the front porch, and somewhere in Dee-troit a table was leaning propped up on one leg ’cause each of the men was gripping on to one of the three missing legs to use as clubs.

  The cap’n said, “What the …” and leveled the shotgun at the men.

  You’d’ve thought they was trying to stop a runaway carriage; every one of ’em tossed the table’s legs down and throwed their hands up in front of theyselfs whilst at the same time yelling, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!”

  The cap’n screamed right back at ’em, “How you darkies gonna stop a white man doing his legal duty?”

  The whoas kept coming.

  The cap’n pressed his ’vantage and flipped his lapel so’s his slave-catcher badge was showing.

  “Does any of y’all know how to read?”

  The one up front was starting to fall outta the spell the cap’n had cast.

  He said in a snotty tone whilst looking the cap’n in the eye, “We all do, do you?”

  The cap’n ignored his words and said, “Then y’all can see me and my pard-nah is here on official guv-mint business.”

  He bobbed his head at me.

  “And we can kill anyone that try to stop us from the ex-a-cution of our swore God-give duties. This here badge give us that right.”

  The three men looked in my direction and, seeing me for the first time, threw up another chorus of whoas and took another step back.

  The cap’n said, “If y’all’s got any problems with what I’m doing, we can go get my cousin, Sheriff Turner, and have him set it straight. Or better yet, I can blow y’all to bits myself.”

  One of the men said, “Don’t do nothing stupid. Come on, fellas, let’s go find Gina.”

  They eased theyselfs off the porch, walking backward.

  The cap’n shut the door the best he could and said, “We’s on the clock now; folks’ courage starts growing fast once they ain’t at the end of the barrel of a gun; who knows what them fools is gonna talk theyselfs into doing. Hang on to that pistol.”

  I said, “There ain’t no place in here big ’nough to be hiding four thousand dollars; maybe it’s all been spent?”

  The cap’n looked at me like I was a mo-ron.

  “Spent? What four thousand dollars you talking ’bout?”

  “Ain’t that why we chasing ’em, ’cause they stole money from Mr. Tanner?”

  The cap’n shook his head. “Naw, fool, they didn’t steal no money, they was worth four thousand dollars when they run ’way ten year ago. They stole they own selfs.”

  How could someone steal—

  “Quit interfering with my work, boy. Jus’ watch that door.”

  He went back to tearing down the house.

  He attacked the table with drawers that was setting next to the fireplace, which, in my mind, if he was really looking for clues, was the first place he should’ve looked.

  As soon as he pulled open the drawer that run along the bottom of the table, a smile starts creeping ’crost the cap’n’s face.

  He took out a stack of envelopes that was tied together neat with a blue ribbon.

  He opened one of the envelopes, took out the letter inside, and started reading. The smile on his face growed more and more with everything he read.

  The cap’n kissed the letter and said, “You know what this is, boy?”

  “Yes, sir, it’s a envelope.”

  The smile left his face. “Of course it’s a envelope, you mo-ron. But it’s something else too.

  “It’s proof that you need to learn how to read. If it was you by yourself that come up here, this would be the end of the line for you; you’d have to go back to Mr. Tanner with jus’ them two darkies that’s sitting in the pokey.

  “But if you hadn’t-a misspent your youth chasing rabbits and possums barefoot through the hollers and learnt to read, you’d know that these here letters is the key to another fifteen hunnert dollars.

  “Our third fugitive, who’s going by the alias Sylvanus, has got hisself in a school ’crost the river in a place called …”—he looked back at the envelope—“called Saint Catharines.”

  He kept reading, then laughed. “Listen to this. ‘I continue to do well in my studies and am first in my class in calculus and Greek. I am currently second in literature and Latin but strive daily to improve.’

  “Don’t that beat all? You can’t tell me that that don’t make you, a free white boy in these here U-nited States of A-mur-ica, ’shamed near to death that you can’t even read your own name, and this darky, who must be ’round your age, is doing Greek? That don’t gall you?”

  Maybe this boy could do Greek, whatever that was, but could he do something useful? Pap once tolt me he didn’t think there was another twelve-year-old boy in the world who could handle a two-mule team for twelve hours straight plowing up a field.

  Could the colored boy do that?

  And I do know how to read my name when I see it.

  The cap’n turnt the letter o’er and read from the back.

  “Listen here. ‘My greatest dream and wish is that someday soon I’ll be able to once again return home to be held in the arms of the kindest, most loving parents a boy could ask for. Give my warmest embraces to my sisters and tell them they are constantly in their brother’s prayers. Faithfully yours, your most obedient son, Sylvanus.’ ”

  The cap’n said, “Ooh, that there’s some good writing. I wonder who helped him?”

  He put the letter back in the envelope, slid it into the blue-ribbon pile with the others, then tossed it to me.

  “Hang on to those; I’ll read the rest when we gets back to the hotel. Maybe our Mr. Shake-a-Spear’ll tell where them twin girls is.”

  The envelopes was all of the same kind of rough paper, but the writing on ’em was very fancy and done neat.

  There was the same stamp on each one.

  The cap’n’s voice made me jump. “What I tell you, boy? We’s doing the Lord’s work and at the same time granting wishes to this darky, ’cause it ain’t gonna be long ’fore we’s gonna put him right back in his mammy’s loving arms.

  “Let’s get outta here afore we draw any more unwelcome guests.”

  As we was fixing to leave, the cap’n went back and took the Bible off the shelf.

  He opened it and there was a bunch of writing all o’er the pages at the front. He read some of it and tore the pages out, then ripped ’em into pieces that fluttered to the floor. He give the writing at the back of the book the same treatment.

  He set the Bible back on the table.

  “Savages.”

  He spit on the broke-up pile of the family’s goods.

  “Go check the street and see if them colored boys is laying in wait.”

  I raised the gun and walked out of the busted door.

  I helt my breath and stepped onto the sidewalk.

  There wasn’t no one near.

  I called out, “Ain’t no one here.”

  The cap’n come out with the shotgun in one hand and Pap’s pistol in the other.


  “We gotta go back to the jail; I got a few things I needs to talk to Lou about.”

  When we got there, the cap’n went right to the pen where the woman was being helt.

  She looked something turrible; she hadn’t had no sleep at all.

  The cap’n set a chair next to the bars.

  “So, Lou, where’s that boy y’all runned off with?”

  “He died from smallpox four year back.”

  The cap’n smiled.

  “Really?”

  She didn’t say nothing.

  “Folks is saying you birthed a set of twins ’round a year or two pass. Where they at?”

  “They died from the scarlet fever three month past.”

  “Ooh, let me sit a little farther ’way from you, y’all sure do seem to be toting every dis-ease knowed to man.”

  “It’s ’cause of all that good food Massa Tanner use to feed us.”

  “Still ain’t got rid of that smart mouth, has you, Lou? Now tell me where them girls is at.”

  “You must know something I don’t; why don’t you go find ’em?”

  “That’s jus’ what we gonna do, soon’s I get back from paying a visit to a school up in Saint Catharines, Canada.

  “You see, I got me a ’pointment to meet me a young man go by the name Mr. Sylvanus Demarest.”

  It was easy to see that that shook the slave woman up; her face never changed, but her voice was shaking when she said, “You do what you gotta.”

  “You ain’t really in no position to be telling no one to do nothing, is you?”

  “By the smell from here, I wishes I wasn’t in no position to be near you.”

  My stomach started tightening up. I could see the cap’n was itching to hit this woman again and I didn’t think I could watch that for a third time.

  He looked into her face hard, then starts a-smiling slow.

  “Don’t worry, woman, I’m gonna do ’zactly what I got to. I ain’t gonna be long in Canada, and once I gets holt of that big, smart, edy-cated boy a yourn, me and him and you’s gonna do some par-laying and soon after our talking’s done, they’s gonna have to write a new chapter for the Bible.

  “I’m hoping Lazarus don’t mind sharing the spotlight, ’cause sure as shooting, after I’m done talking to y’all, I know them dead twins a yourn is gonna get resurrected, they gonna shake off that scarlet fever, pop out they graves good as new, and, hallelujah, it’s gonna be a miracle when the whole family join up for the trip home!”