Lost Souls Recovered, page 8
Pony turned around. “He’s another worker; he wants me to get back to work.”
“How you get that name?” she asked.
“Mother said I liked ponies as a little boy.”
Jane continued to study his features as his race confused her. He looked white but there was a hint of color in him, she thought. The gray eyes, curly brown hair, and slightly reddish skin confounded her.
“Why’re you looking at me like that?” he asked.
Her look turned sheepish. But she wanted to know. “Where’d you get that curly hair?”
He had seen the stares before and had heard it before. “My pa said his grandmother had colored blood.”
“Mr. Pony, I best return to work. I don’t want Mr. Childs or the missus after me.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Childs is the owner of all this land. That barn you building is for him. I stayed on with him here in Mount Hope after the War.”
“Bye, Miss Jane,” Pony said. He ran back to the task of helping build Mr. Childs’s barn.
Jane sat on the same bench the next day washing clothes, wearing the same long skirt and ratty blouse. And with his next break, Pony walked over to the singing chickadee.
She smelled him. “You back again,” Jane said.
Rivulets of sweat began to sting his eyes, causing him to use the tail of his musty cotton shirt to wipe his clammy face, hoping the already sweat-soaked shirt would work better to slow down the rivulets than his sweaty hands. “My pa told me the colored people are good people.”
Looking at Pony’s slender frame, Jane said, “Seem you can stand a good meal. Why don’t you stop by my home? Me and Fannie will cook a good meal for you.”
“Gee, thanks. I love to eat,” he said, rubbing his flat belly. “I’ll be there after we finish throwing up the barn.” He paused. “Tell me where you live.”
Jane told him, and he said, “Be there in a couple of hours.”
He paused, then asked: “Who’s Fannie?”
“She my fourteen-year-old daughter.”
“I see. You have a family?”
“Two grown boys; they done moved on. Got two girls at home with me. My husband died a few years back.”
Fannie had worn a long, gray dress that that hugged her slender frame at the waist. She and her younger sister had set the table.
“Come in,” Jane said, hearing a knock at the door.
“Good evening, Miss Jane,” Pony said. “I came with an empty stomach.”
Jane tilted her had back and laughed. “Good, we got plenty.”
Pony returned several more times for dinner, and with each visit he took more and more of a liking to Fannie.
Within in two years’ time, they were married; she was sixteen and he was eighteen. Jane had seen something in the skinny boy, and believed he’d do right for Fannie, so she happily assented to the marriage by signing her name with an X for approval on the marriage license.
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As Tilla opened the front door to go to retrieve her sister, Pony told her to take Jughead with her for company. Jughead was Caroline’s find. Caroline adopted the black-and-white border collie when he walked up to her one day—a day she had had an accurate floorboard count—while she sat in a pasture under a Spanish moss tree, contemplating her hollow place in the world. As was the course, Jughead would lick her hands and face, then snuggle in her lap.
But Caroline later began to ignore Jughead as she developed recurrent and intrusive thoughts about harming him; ignoring him was her way of saving his life. As Caroline deprived Jughead of affection and attention, he soon found it in Tilla, who rubbed his belly and took him for walks.
Tilla yelled in a drawn-out voice: “Jughead, Jughead.” He finished his business against an old tree stump and sprinted in the direction of the waves that carried Tilla’s voice. He wagged his tail feverishly, ready to please.
They made it to Troublesome Creek thirty minutes later. Tilla saw a colored boy walking on the bur oak log that crossed the shoals of the creek. After a few steps on the log, he jumped in the air to prove he could land squarely on the log without falling into the water. Tilla stopped to watch, entranced. He did it again. He landed on the log, put his arms in the air, turned slightly to the spectators on land behind him, and cocked his head to the side as to say it was easy, nothing to it. As he turned to face forward, he failed to see the notch in the log. He lost his balance and fell in the warm water and went under.
After about forty seconds of being under water, the children’s faces sagged, wondering whether he had drowned. Suddenly, he burst through the water, his arms flailing, pretending to escape from hands of a Confederate soldier.
A little white girl shouted: “Andy, stop playing like that. It’s not funny.”
“C’mon, boy,” Tilla hollered. Jughead had held off long enough. Hunger pangs gnawed him, and he sniffed the corn pone in Tilla’s pinafore pocket. “Okay, boy, let’s share.” She broke off a piece and Jughead quickly snatched it from her open hand. “We gotta find Caroline so we can go home to eat.”
She asked the children who were congregated in a small group if they had seen Caroline. They didn’t recognize the name. Even Tilla’s description of her sister was of no help.
Tilla stumbled upon a colored girl who knew Caroline. She told Tilla that she had seen Caroline earlier at Troublesome Creek, but she had left.
“Did you talk to her?” Tilla asked.
“Yeah, I did. She looked sad. She mentioned something about ‘going away.’”
“Did she say where?”
The girl shook her head.
Tilla and Jughead continued to search for Caroline all around Troublesome Creek. Tilla walked in several hallows calling out Caroline’s name; the only thing Tilla heard was the echo of her own voice.
The sun begun to set and Tilla and Jughead headed home. Caroline was probably already at home, Tilla thought.
“Where’s Caroline?” Pony asked.
“Don’t know, Pa. I thought she’d be here. Me and Jughead didn’t see her.”
Fannie walked around town calling Caroline’s name every day for three weeks, hoping she’d hear her mother’s cry, like a cub animal recognizes her mother’s call. The search continued but was less frequent. But the pain was still present. She blamed herself for her daughter’s disappearance; she bottled her grief by withdrawing inside herself.
Pony feared that Fannie’s melancholy could lead to the disintegration of his family. He coveted an intact family, unlike his family that unraveled when he was young. His father Charles sympathized with the Southern poor coloreds and whites and yeoman farmers who forged an alliance with the Northern Republicans as a strike against the planter aristocracy they so resented. He put his hat in the political ring and ran for a seat in the Alabama legislature but took a drubbing at the polls. He just couldn’t overcome the scalawag label that his opponent pinned on him. Pony witnessed his father become a defeated man after the wretched political race. Charles drank himself into oblivion, eventually dying of a broken heart.
8 — Spring, 1887
Richmond lay a fortnight behind.
The hard biscuits and smoked bacon that Ann had packed for them were gone within the first three days of leaving Richmond. It was John’s idea to keep plodding south at breakneck pace for fear of Billingsly or hired men giving chase. They sopped up water from streams along the way, and even caught a couple of thin trout in one of the streams.
Wayworn and famished for food, drink, and sleep, they wended along on adrenaline and the naked reality of putting as much distance between them and Richmond as quickly as possible.
While the fear of being nabbed by Billingsly began to slake a bit as they covered more ground, their adrenaline began to evaporate as they walked along in a thatch of pine trees, each step harder than the next. Suddenly, they dropped to the carpeted forest floor together, unable to will their tired bodies to keep moving forward. It was a good place as any to rest and recuperate.
The warm spring temperature dropped with the sun; periodic nippy breezes ripped through the forest. Douglas removed a gray wool blanket from his haversack and wrapped it around himself and fell to the carpeted forest floor. He was asleep inside of ten seconds and snoring within thirty.
When John had packed his haversack, he’d never thought about bedding; he was focused more on just getting away from Richmond. Looking at Douglas wrapped snugly in the wool blanket caused John to think of his grandmother’s quilt.
But thinking of his grandmother’s quilt led to thoughts about his poor mother and whether he had put her life in jeopardy. He knew Billingsly would have questions, and he wondered what she’d tell Billingsly, what she’d tell the law. He was sure both had been to visit. He closed his eyes to erase any thoughts of Billingsly. His legs were nerveless and ready to collapse; he removed the flasks from the poke sack that was inside of the haversack and stuffed it with duff. He then put the flasks in his haversack, put the duff pillow under his head, and curled up in a fetal position to conserve body heat.
Ten hours later, Douglas’s eyes, glued shut with dried rheum, popped open. He rolled over onto his back, sticking his arms out of his blanket, and stretched them to shake off the stiffness in his muscles. He leaned over and shoved John, who was in a deep sleep and didn’t respond. Douglas shoved harder, turning John over onto his stomach.
John moaned.
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” Douglas said.
John sat up slowly, happy to see daylight, though concerned by the fog that hung in the air.
The sun was almost at its zenith, and the fog was burning off, just in time to search to sate their hunger pangs.
Something caught Douglas’s attention. “What’s that over there?” he asked, pointing to a grayish, weather-beaten wood building in the distance.
An elm tree obscured part of the building, blocking John’s view. “Where?”
”Down yonder,” Douglas said, standing closer to John while pointing at it.
Douglas packed his haversack, slung it over his shoulder, took his first steps out of the protective covering of the forest, and eased cautiously into a fallow field, headed for the building.
John was hesitant to follow, like a cub afraid to leave the safety of his den to follow his mother on unfamiliar terrain. Douglas widened the gap between him and John, and soon Douglas was three hundred feet in front of him, obscured by the swales and bushes that dotted the field.
John felt the gulf between them grow like a weed. He removed the pocket watch from his haversack and looked at the time. Panic set in as he realized that for the first time since they’d left Richmond a few days ago, Douglas was no longer within eyesight or even a loud whisper. He put his haversack on his shoulder and decided to act. Like the frightened cub, John left the safety of his den, running as fast as his still half-asleep body would allow.
A large reddish-brown doe crossed his path and stopped, training her saucer-plate eyes on John, who was paralyzed in his tracks. The doe snorted and stomped her forelegs, trying to persuade John to move. She was protecting her fawn that John hadn’t seen sleeping in tall timothy. John caught his breath and walked laterally and slowly away from the deer to show her he meant no harm.
As he widened the gap between him and the doe, the doe lowered her head and resumed chewing the timothy. He descried a large beech tree about forty yards in front of him, which he hurried to. He took off his haversack and slid down against the tree. He sat under the tree, tossing rocks in front of him, wondering if he’d be left to fend for himself in a world that was unfamiliar to him. He retrieved the pocket watch again from the haversack and figured nearly an hour had passed since Douglas had gone out ahead of him. It seemed longer. No sight of Douglas. No sound of him.
He decided to move again. He stood up, found his next target, another beech tree ahead of him, and slogged to it. After reaching the base of the tree, he fell hard to the ground, having no strength to bend down to sit.
Ann’s unforgettable smile that he captured as time had drawn nigh for him to flee Richmond popped into his thoughts. He wanted to touch her, to have her hug him. The guilt at this moment ravaged his mind. He’d come clean and tell Billingsly about Laura and the flasks and hope for mercy. He regretted his decision to leave Richmond, and now he’d give an eyetooth to return to the place he’d despised for so long, all to ease his mother’s pain.
He removed his ragged cotton shirt, exposing ribs that poked like ladder rungs through drum-taut skin. While sitting up against the tree, his strength left his body and he slumped sideways. Madame Billingsly was dead because of him. His actions were sure to devastate Monsieur Billingsly once he learned about his wife. And he had left his precious mother back in Richmond under a false pretense. He had killed one person and knocked the heart and souls out of two.
To join the carnage he left behind, he struggled to cover his torso with his shirt as though it were a shroud. He moved his hands across patches of dirt and grass as though he were touching his final resting spot. Douglas had failed him by leaving him to fend for himself. He had no strength to look for him. Each hunger pang increased in intensity and his mind had loosened such that he dreamt of dying to get away from the hell on earth he had created. If he was lucky, he’d die in that spot, and someone would find him and dig up dirt and throw his guilt-laden body in a hellhole he felt he deserved.
9 — Spring, 1887
A splotchy, red-faced man knocked on the cabin door in rapid succession.
No answer. He knocked harder, but still no answer.
His companion, a wraith-looking man with unfriendly eyes and a pustulate complexion, spit out a wad of tobacco juice on the porch and said, “Suppose them slaves are here?”
“Don’t know, but we’ll find out,” said the red-faced man. He took two steps back, then kicked open the door. He picked up his black slouch hat that had fallen off with the kick and walked in with his sidekick.
Old newspapers, a pencil, and scraps of foolscap were on the kitchen table. A few clothes hung from a rope line. Wicker baskets were scattered around. The beginnings of a quilt were on a molded and broken-down settee. The wraith looked in John’s bedroom. He stooped down and looked under the bed. Too dark to see, he moved his arms back and forth until he felt something. He removed a small pine box from under the bed.
The wraith walked out of the bedroom into the main room. “Hey, Caleb,” he said with a smirk, “look here.” He paused. “Mr. Billingsly said something about a pine box.”
“Yep, look to see if there’s some writing on it,” Caleb said.
The wraith blew wood dust from the bottom of the pine box. He brushed the remaining dust with his right hand. With a clear view of the stenciling, he said, “It say property of Edward Billingsly.”
As they continued their search, Ann walked to her cabin on a quite warm Friday morning carrying a basket of wild berries. She dropped the basket and her jaw dropped upon seeing the open door; she raised her cotton dress above her boots with both hands and hurried up the steps and through the front door as fast as her arthritic back would allow. She feared Billingsly or his henchman had been there and left John’s body to rot inside. A pall of doom suffused her, and this time would be her last on earth, she thought.
Her eyes met the wraith’s, then fell to the pine box in the wraith’s hand.
“You probably wondering what this is?” the wraith asked.
Ann said nothing.
“We talking to you!” Caleb said.
“Get out of my house!” Ann screamed.
The wraith smirked. “This wench must not know who she talking to.”
Her anger escalated and her voice reached a crescendo, “Get out my damn house!”
Caleb closed the door, then grabbed Ann by the right arm and flung her to the floor. “We here on business.”
Pain exploded in her back. She was stuck to the floor; she tried but couldn’t push herself up straight.
Caleb became impatient. “Get your ass up.”
She couldn’t move. Caleb grabbed her left arm and yanked her up, forcing her to sit in a chair. Using his left arm, he swiped everything off the kitchen table and slammed the pine box on the table.
Ann flinched.
“We want some answers,” Caleb said.
Ann closed her eyes, hoping it all was a bad dream.
The wraith removed a pocketknife from his breast pocket. He moved toward Ann with the knife in sight. He grabbed her chin with has left hand and squeezed tight, forcing Ann’s eyes to pry open.
“Where’d this box come from?” Caleb asked.
She shook her head. Her mind was going to a familiar place—the time she lost her husband, her twin daughters, the rape. She mustered, “Don’t know.”
“Where’s your boy?” the wraith asked.
She was even quieter, saying in a whisper, “Don’t know.”
The wraith yanked the clothes off the clothesline and cut the rope with his pocketknife.
“Stand up,” the wraith demanded.
She crept up, grimacing as she rose.
With his narrow right hand, the wraith pulled on Ann’s dress at the neckline, forcing the buttons to pop off. He used his knife to rip the bottom part of the dress. He inserted his hands into the tear and pulled hard until she was naked, except for her run-down black boots.
A smile lit the wraith’s face. “Get over by that wall,” he said, pointing to the back wall.
Ann inched her way to it.
Caleb sat at the kitchen table. “Now, unless you tell us what we need to know, you gonna get whipped.”
Ann was silent. Her face folded into a blank expression, one that she had spent all her life shaping; one where laughter and happiness was halted; one where hope did not often take refuge.
The wraith looked at Ann’s scarred back and shook his head. She flinched with the first lashing. The second lashing forced open her mouth; she screamed and collapsed to the floor.
“Shut up!” the wraith said.
Her screams quickly dissolved into a whimper.
Caleb said, “I’ll make the bitch talk.”
