Glory over Everything: Beyond The Kitchen House(66)

“Don’t let them take me,” I say to Ida before Jake ties the rag tight around my mouth. Ida is pulling on her dress, but she stays quiet. She follows us outside and watches as they tie me to three other men who all look done in. They sit as soon as I’m tied, and the rope pulls me down to the ground with them. I start to cry, but with the rag in my mouth, I choke. My tongue burns when I work to loosen the rag, and I keep looking for Ida to help, but her head is down and turned away. When the traders go off for a drink with Rankin and Jake, Ida comes over.

“Remember who you is,” she say in my ear when she loosens up the rag. “You no slave like me. You raised like a white girl. You knows how to read and write. You ’members that and hold your head up like a white girl. That way they buy you for the big house someplace.”

By now I’s too scared to cry. I keep looking up toward where the big house is and wonder why nobody’s coming to get me. Where is everybody? Where are they taking me? Nobody’s telling me nothing.

When the traders come back, one of them slaps at the air with his whip, and the men I’s tied to jump up like a gun goes off. Before I know what’s going on, they start out walking, and I get jerked along so fast that I can hardly keep up. When the trader whacks his whip again, it cracks down beside me. I’m so scared that my water start running down my legs.

“Keep a good eye on her,” Rankin call out to Jake, and that’s how I find out that Jake is coming along with the slave traders.


IN THE NEXT days we stop at other farms. They got slaves to sell, so others are tied up with us, but I’s the only girl. It’s cold and I’s too scared to cry and all the men stay quiet as me. They keep their heads down and move ahead, and I wonder why they don’t have no fight. Then I hear two of them talking at night and find out that one man was already killed for getting loose and trying to run.

In those next days Jake don’t leave me alone. After he takes the rag from my mouth, he keeps talking smart until I finally sass back. He laughs. “Oh, listen to this one from the big house! Don’t she think she’s somebody! I guess we’ll get to find out what she looks like when they take those fine clothes off and set her up on that block for everybody to see.”

That scares me enough to start me crying, and after that, every chance he gets, Jake rides up beside me and tells me about what’s going to happen to me up on the block. I keep telling myself don’t pay him no mind. Miss Lavinia won’t let that happen. I know she’s sending Papa George for me any time now.

In the end it’s good that Jake is there. At night the traders talk rough about me being a woman and what they wanting to do to me, but Jake tells them that his daddy sent him along to make sure I get to the auction without no man on me. “She’ll bring more money, never been used yet,” he tells them.

They keep me tied at the end of the line. One of the men has a bad foot, but that don’t stop them from making us move fast. I keep up good enough, but after three days of walking, my feet are so puffed up that when I take off my shoes, I can’t put them back on. The man tied next to me watches me when I set them to the side. Before we get up again, he clicks his tongue and nods at my shoes and then at my feet, letting me know that I got to put them on. “I can’t,” I whisper, “my feet is too sore.” But he nods again, and when I shake my head, he pushes his legs out for me to see both his feet swoll’ up and bleeding. I see what he’s telling me and put my shoes back on, and after that I don’t take my shoes off no more no matter how sore they get.

Sometimes we stop for food and water, but tired as we are, we’s always ready to get going again. None of us has warm clothes to keep out the cold, and when you move, you work up a heat. At night they give us some blankets.

After about three days, my bowels start moving on their own. Up to then I don’t let myself go like the men do when the drivers tell us to squat. We’s all tied together, and I turn my head when the men do their business, but I hold on. Then a couple of days in, my stomach starts hurting, and before I know it, I don’t have no say. The worse part is it gets all over my skirts and then the smell starts coming off me. Soon as Jake picks up on my trouble, he starts in on me, but I don’t let him see me cry no more.

“So, Miss Sukey, they don’t teach you how to use a privy up at the big house?” he say.

Cold as I is, my face gets hot.

He makes pig sounds. “You sure do stink like the pigs down at the barn. You dressed like a lady, but you just a pig!”

My bowels keep running, and after two days my legs and my private parts is so sore that I don’t care no more. All I want is to get someplace to wash up.

On our last night out, I’m shaking from the cold and I feel so sore all over that when everybody is sleeping, I can’t hold myself back no more and I start to cry. The man who’s tied next to me is the same man who tells me early on to keep my shoes on my feet. Now he slides closer and talks to me: “What yo mama’s name?”

I’s so surprised to hear him say something that I stop crying. “Dory,” I whisper, “but she’s dead.”

“Den who raise you up?” he asks.

“Belle and Miss Lavinia,” I say, but that starts me crying again.

“Dey do a mighty fine job a raisin’ you,” he says.

I’s so cold my teeth is chattering.