Lost Souls Recovered, page 12
The man was carving a piece of wood with a carving knife. As he knocked shavings from the wood, he looked up at John.
“How much for the peaches?” John asked.
He looked at John and Douglas for a few seconds, then said, “For you boys, fifteen cents a bushel.”
John dug deep in his trousers and fingered his money to separate one bill from the others. He handed the pushcart vendor a one-dollar bill. The pushcart vendor held the dollar bill to the sky, stretching it as though to make sure it was real.
The vendor was walnut brown, with shoulders and chest whose girth came from lifting, pushing, and pulling heavy objects. He had short, coarse black hair, a broad nose, full lips, and a jowly jaw. “I’m Kelly,” he told them. Giving the dollar back to John, Kelly said, “You keep this.”
Accepting the return of his dollar bill, John said, “Thanks, sir. I’m John.”
“I’m Douglas.”
“You boys from this way?”
“No, we from Richmond,” Douglas said.
“Greenville’s a mighty long way from Richmond. What’ll y’all doing in Greenville?”
“We’re on our way to Alabama,” John said.
“We just got here minutes ago,” Douglas said.
They had set out from Richmond in early May and had made it to Greenville, South Carolina, in late July. Rick had told them that where they found plank roads, they should consider using them because they generally offered a more direct route south, and they’d see more signs pointing them in the right direction. These roads were also close to commercial centers and railroad tracks were not too far off.
When they were not riding atop the stolen Cleveland Bay horses, they found themselves taking Rick’s advice, walking along the plank roads where available, which were close to merchants that offered rooms for colored only. They stayed in rooms in small townships a little longer than desired because Douglas sprained his ankle when he tripped over a step as he turned his head to look at a buxom, young colored woman. After a few days, John insisted they move on because he did not want to raise suspicion that they had money.
They’d also used their lucre to buy used clothing and shoes; they’d discarded the tattered and odiferous clothing they had worn weeks at a time to lighten the load of their haversacks. They even exchanged their pewter mugs and Billingsly’s pocket watch when they hitched a ride for several miles on the back of a horse wagon.
They had so far survived by the grace of God, fortunate happenstances, and the sheer will to drive their young bodies as far as their young bodies would take them.
After several minutes of chatting with Kelly, John heard their Bays whinny. He pivoted and pointed to the hitching post where they had tied Lightning and Thunder; two men were atop their Bays pressing them to gallop at full speed.
“Damn, they done stole our horses!” Douglas exclaimed.
After the risky operation of stealing the Bays from the senator, John settled on the belief they wouldn’t be able to hang on to the horses forever. He just wanted to get to Mount Hope before the weather turned cold, assuming there’d be no other unforeseen long stops. His bigger life was waiting on him.
Where you boys going before the sun go down?”
“Don’t rightly know,” Douglas said.
Kelly looked at Douglas and John. “You carrying everything you own on your backs in them bags, I suppose.”
Hesitant to reveal more than necessary at this point, John said, “Yeah, it’s not much.”
Looking at Douglas and John, Kelly said, “Your eyes be tired. Seems to me you can stand a wash of clothes … and a bath. Tell you what. Me and Emily got a bath you can use. Won’t y’all come with me? You can stay with us ’til you rested to get going on your way.”
“Who’s Emily?” John asked.
“Emily’s my little girl. She ten by my count.”
As Kelly picked up his pine wood stand to place on his wagon, Douglas said, “Let me help you with that.”
“No, you boys help put the bushels and bags on the wagon.”
It took John and Douglas about an hour to load the wagon.
Kelly walked around it to ensure his cargo was secure. Satisfied things were in place with the rope he used to secure the cargo, he said, “You boys, hop on.”
Douglas threw his haversack on top of the cargo, but John kept his close to his side.
Kelly snapped the reins and his mules began to pull the cargo. Douglas and John lay back on their backs and inhaled the bread and pastry.
“John, we got food here to last us a while. We can fill our bags and go,” Douglas said.
John was getting tired of running. Billingsly and his henchman could not possibly catch him—they were just too far away, he thought. He needed to entertain thoughts from time to time about his mother, and dream, as he had done so many times before, that he had made the right decision and that she’d survive like she had always done. Slowing his trek to Mount Hope would give him time to fuel his mind and body. Ignoring Douglas’s suggestion that they pilfer and run, John closed his eyes and thought of Ann as Kelly’s wagon bounced along a dirt road.
He opened his dreamy eyes upon hearing Kelly singing.
“What are you singing?” John asked.
“It’s the Jim Crack Corn song. Don’t you know it?”
“No,” John said. “You know it, Doug?”
“Never heard it.”
“You boys’ll know the song by the time we reach home. Just listen.”
When I was young, I used to wait
On Massa and hand him the plate;
Pass down the bottle when he get dry,
And brush away the blue tail fly.
Jimmy crack corn, I don’t care,
Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care,
Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care,
Old Massa gone away.
And when he ride in the afternoon,
I follow with a hickory broom;
The pony being very shy,
When bitten by the blue tail fly.
Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care,
Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care,
Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care,
Old Massa gone away.
One day he rode around the farm,
The flies so numerous they did swarm;
One chance to bite him on the thigh,
The devil take that blue tail fly.
Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care,
Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care,
Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care,
Old Massa gone away.
The pony run, he jump and pitch,
And tumble Massa in the ditch
He died, and the jury wondered why
The verdict was the blue tail fly.
Jim crack corn — I don’t care,
Jim crack corn — I don’t care,
Jim crack corn — I don’t care,
Old Massa gone away.
They buried him beneath the sycamore tree,
His epitaph there for all to see,
“Beneath this stone I’m forced to lie,
The victim of a blue-tailed fly.”
Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care,
Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care,
Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care,
Old Massa gone away.
After three passes of the song, Kelly said, “Okay, boys, all together now.”
Douglas and John joined in.
k
John and Douglas slept in an attic room with a low ceiling caused by eaves that slanted sharply. John woke first several hours later, with the Jim Crack Corn jingle stuck in his head. John felt moisture on his face. He raised up a bit, opened his eyes, and saw a tabby’s lustrous eyes. He pushed the tabby away, telling it to go elsewhere. No sooner than the tabby strolled off, John was awakened by the cock-a-doodle-doo of an annoying rooster. It was dawn. He stood up in his blue drawers and looked out the small window.
He recognized Kelly’s brawny build and complexion, and figured the young girl near him was Emily.
“Doug, wake up,” John said, while rocking him.
Douglas groaned.
“C’mon, Doug. Didn’t you hear the rooster? We gotta get up.”
As John donned his trousers, he looked in the place where he’d put his haversack. “Doug,” he said in a panicked voice, “where’s my bag? I put it right there,” He pointed to a corner. “I see the rifle but not my bag.”
“I don’t know. Where’s mine?”
Douglas fell back to sleep.
John walked out of the back door of Kelly’s house and into an expansive orchard, one that seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. He spotted Kelly and ran to him. He breathed in heavily and said, “Mr. Kelly, have you seen our bags? They’re missing.”
“They’re not missing. They’re sitting on the floor by the stove. You okay, son?”
John turned and ran to the house. He flung open the door and looked to the left, where he saw the two haversacks resting on the poplar floor. He opened his bag. It was stuffed with peaches, apples, and muscadines. He put his haversack onto the kitchen table and removed the fruit. A smilet surfaced when he saw the white poke sack. A bigger smile emerged when he removed the two whiskey flasks. “Thank you, Jesus,” John whispered.
“John, over here,” Kelly said, waving his right arm high in the air as John walked out the back door again.
Emily was sitting in a small chair several feet away under a shade tree eating a biscuit. “Emily,” Kelly hollered, “come from over there and greet John.”
She ran to her father, followed by a small piebald mongrel dog. John moved closer to Emily to formally introduce himself, at which point the dog growled and showed his small canine fangs.
“Go on, pet him,” Kelly said.
John was hesitant, but sensed the dog was harmless after he wagged his tail feverishly and extended his head to John to be petted. John leaned over and scratched the dog on the head, who then licked John’s hand. As John stopped scratching him, the dog whimpered, begging for more. John complied.
“What’s his name?” John asked Kelly, who was snapping apples off the branches.
“Dog,” replied Kelly.
“Yeah, the dog. What’s his name?” John asked again.
Kelly repeated, “Dog.” John looked puzzled. “John, my boy, he’s just some dog that come this way every so often. I feed him, so he come by knowing I’ll give him something. Dog don’t seem to belong to nobody. I don’t really know where he goes after getting a bite from me.”
With his heart overruling his mind, John said, “He belongs to me.”
A half hour later, Douglas donned his clothes for the day and joined everyone else outside. Looking in the direction of the bath, Douglas said, “Mr. Kelly, you mind if I take a bath over there?”
“Emily,” Kelly yelled.
“I’m right behind you, Pa.”
“Oh, sweetie, your pa didn’t see you. See to it that these boys have soap, wash rags, and towels.”
Tall for her age, Emily was giddy at being around two young men. She giggled as she looked at Douglas’s bare chest. When Kelly turned away, Douglas twitched his pectoral muscles rhythmically. Emily covered her mouth as she giggled again. Douglas cracked a toothy smile, and Emily ran off to get the things needed for the bath.
The outdoor bath consisted of large oak boards that were bound together to form a wall for privacy. A large barrel of water was hoisted up high that the bather used by pulling on a string to pour the water over himself.
John entered the shower first, doffed his clothes, and threw them on top of the wall. He pulled lightly on the rope as he stood under the barrel waiting for the first splash. With another gentle tug, he was thoroughly wet. He stooped down and picked up powdered soap and began to lather his body.
Douglas tossed a brush into the bath. “What’s this?” John asked.
“You gonna need it; that rag you have ain’t gonna do the job.”
After twenty minutes, Douglas screamed, “Hurry up.” He added: “I need some of that water.” John ignored Douglas and continued singing his now favorite ditty—“Jimmy Crack Corn.”
They sat on folding wood chairs on Kelly’s wide, covered front porch, having just eaten dinner on their third day of staying with Kelly. The sky was dark and the moon shone radiantly. The weather was humid and the breezes were few, but no one complained.
John looked around and asked, “Man, you’re out here by yourself. Are you lonesome out here?”
“Nah, me and Emily got friends. People come now and then to pick fruit. We got our church. People get any wrongheaded notion, I got rifles and revolvers. My little girl’s a crack shot with the rifle. The Lord’s gonna take care of me and Emily on His own terms.” Looking at Emily sitting to his right, Kelly asked, “Right, baby girl?”
“Right, Papa.”
“Mr. Kelly, I never asked, but where is the lady around here?” Douglas asked.
“My wife passed on a few years ago. Just me and my baby girl, now. Maybe I find someone. A girl need help with girl things; know what I mean?”
“Reckon so, Mr. Kelly,” Douglas said.
“You boys want some more lemonade?” Kelly asked.
Without waiting for an answer, Kelly instructed Emily to fetch some lemonade.
“Mr. Kelly, you’ve been carving since you sat down. What’re you making?” John asked.
“Gigs. This one almost finished,” he said as he was finishing shaping the third of four tines.
“What’s that?” John asked.
Kelly made a few more shavings on his project, then held it up for Douglas and John to see.
“Me and Emily like to eat frog legs. We catch frogs with this.”
After watching Kelly shape the wood with a carving knife, John asked to try.
Pointing to the other three tines, Kelly instructed John to shape the last tine like the other three. Kelly handed John the carving knife and watched John carve. After a few minutes, Kelly said, “That’s pretty good, son,” admiring what John had carved. “You a natural, keep it up. It’ll get easier and soon you’ll be doing it with your eyes closed. Carve lots of things with a good knife; good hobby for you, son.”
Emily returned and handed one mug of lemonade to Douglas and one to John.
“Thank you,” Douglas said as he winked at Emily. She covered her mouth and giggled.
The conversation shifted to Douglas and John’s upcoming trek. Kelly agreed with Douglas that it’d be best if Douglas and John went through Atlanta on the way to Alabama. “There’re a lot of colored folk down there in Atlanta,” Kelly told Douglas and John.
“Maybe we meet some there as nice as you,” John said.
“There’re a lot of good people in the world. You just gotta find them,” Kelly said.
“Thanks for everything, Mr. Kelly,” John said. “We’ll never forget you.”
“Okay, boys, I know y’all best be moving on. So listen closely.”
Douglas and John put the empty mugs on the floor as Kelly told them how to hop a freight train that left Greenville the next day at eight o’clock in the morning. “I think it go near Atlanta. The station an hour walk from here. You boys go on and rest your heads; you got a long day ’head of you.”
k
“Douglas!” Emily yelled, “Papa say y’all come to breakfast.”
“Douglas, you hear that? Your girlfriend’s calling.”
Douglas tossed his pillow at John. “The little girl’s got some taste,” Douglas said.
“Yep, some,” he said.
After filling themselves with ham, biscuits, and fried apples, Douglas and John finished packing and met Kelly and Emily on the front porch.
“Remember what I told you about the train. Be careful. Plenty people out there mean to do you harm.”
Douglas and John nodded.
Kelly extended his right hand, and said, “You boys take this.”
“What is it?” John asked.
“Something to make you feel good when you need it.” He handed Douglas two bottles of Jack Daniel’s. “Someone gave them to me for a favor and I never had use for them.”
As they walked away, Kelly said, “Hey, John, you forgetting something?”
John turned around and said, “No, Mr. Kelly.”
Kelly emitted a crack whistle and Dog ran to him. “It seems Dog wants to go with you,” Kelly said.
John walked back to Kelly. “Come here, boy,” John said as he clapped his hands twice.
“What you gonna call him, John?” Kelly asked.
“Dog.”
“Nah, that’s not much of a name. Give him a good name.”
“His name’s Greenville,” Douglas interjected.
“There, it be settled; Greenville it be,” Kelly said.
“I like it, but it’s too big for him. How about Greeny?” John said.
k
The piercing sound of the train whistle quickened their pace. Greeny, sensing the need to hurry, stayed a few steps ahead. As they approached the tracks, they discovered that the train was moving slowly. They were about a quarter mile away.
Douglas and John stopped. Gloom filled their eyes as the train chugged farther from them. Greeny turned around and walked to John, where he wagged his tail and lifted his head to be petted. John ignored him.
Greeny barked and Douglas and John looked in the direction of the train. It had stopped for some unknown reason.
“Let’s go!” Douglas said. They ran toward the boxcar, but were slowed by the weight of their haversacks. They were less than a quarter mile from the caboose, but it might as well have been five miles. As they slackened their pace, the boxcar started moving again.
Douglas and John stooped over with their hands on their thighs, breathing heavily from exhaustion. As they looked up, the gloom had returned to their eyes. Greeny seemed to sense their despair. Unburdened by weight, Greeny sprinted on his short legs and caught up with the slowly moving train.
