The Book of Lost Friends(45)

I drink in the sight, stand mesmerized, drenched in leather and paper and gold edges and ink and words.

I’m carried away. Lost.

I’m so completely transfixed that I have no idea how much time passes before I realize I am not alone in this house.





CHAPTER 11


HANNIE GOSSETT—LOUISIANA, 1875

The river tugs at my clothes as I drag my body up onto the sand, then lay there coughing out water and all that was in my gut. I can swim, and the man threw me close enough to shore that it could’ve been easy to get there, but this river’s got its own mind. A strainer tree spun off in the boat’s wake, grabbed me up as it whirled by, and dragged me down. Took all I had to get free.

I hear a gator sliding through the mud not far away, and I push to my hands and knees and cough up more water and taste blood.

It’s then I touch my neck and feel the empty place.

No leather string. No Grandmama’s beads.

My legs wobble as I get up and stagger to the shore looking for them. I pull my shirt up and check under it. Missy’s reticule slides lower in my wet britches, but the beads ain’t there.

I want to scream at that river, cuss it, but I just fall on all fours and cough up the rest of the water, think to myself, If ever I see that Moses again, I’ll kill him dead.

He’s took away all that was left of my people. The last bit of them is gone in the river. Might be it’s a sign. A sign to make my way home, where I never should’ve strayed from. Once I get there, I’ll decide who to tell about what. Might be the law can go after the men that grabbed Missy Lavinia and Juneau Jane, but the news can’t come from me. I have to find another way to let the sheriff know what’s happened.

Looking up and downriver one more time, I wonder how far it is to a place where I can get a ferry crossing to the home side of that big, wide, rushin’ water. Not so much as a hint of people hereabouts that I can see. No buildings, no road but the one where we took on wood. It must go someplace. Might be, if the divine providence is on me, nobody’s come to collect them horses yet.

It’s the best hope I got, so that’s where I go.

Before I get there, I hear the sound of men, the jingle of harness buckles, the groan of shafts and singletree. The soft snort of a horse. I ease up my step, but hold out a hope that the woodcutters might be colored folk who’d help me. Closer I come, the more I know their talk is some other language. Not Frenchy talk—I can pick out a handful of that—but something else.

Maybe this is some of the Indians that still live back in the swamps, married in with the whites and the slaves that run off to hide in the woods years ago.

A prickle crawls over me. A warning. Colored folk got to be careful in this world. Womenfolk got to be careful, too. I’m both, so that’s double, and the only thing I have to protect myself is a derringer pistol with two cartridges that’s wet and probably ruined.

A dog barks, and both men quieten their chatter. I stop where I am, drop down in the brush. The dog rummages closer, and I go fear-cold. Don’t even breathe.

Go away, dog.

I wait for that thing to flush me out. Back and forth he moves, sniffing loud and fast. He knows he’s found something.

A man hollers a sharp grunt of a word.

The dog scampers off, quick as can be.

I let my forehead sag on my arm, catch a breath.

Wagon springs squeak. Wood hits wood. A mule brays. A horse nickers and snorts and paws the ground. The men grouse and mutter, loading up their pay goods.

I crawl forward to where the brush is thin as lace and I can see through in places.

Two men. Not white. Not Indian. Not colored. Something between. Their smell drifts on the wind. Sweat and sour grease and dirt and whiskey and bodies that don’t bother with washing. Long, dark hair hangs from their hats, and mud cakes their raggedy clothes.

The dog is poor and thin, with a patchy bald hide that’s bloody from it scratching its mangy skin. The mule pulling the wagon ain’t much better. Old and stove-up, he’s got sores where the harness’s been rubbing and the flies made a feast on the raw flesh.

A good man don’t do a mule that way.

Or a dog.

I stay in my hiding place, listen at their strange talk, try not to move while they lead our horses over to the wagon, tie them fast, then climb up and let off the wagon brake. I watch Old Ginger’s stocking feet stomp as she fusses about the buffalo gnats and no-see-ums and deerflies. I want to run out and take her back, steal her away somehow, but I know I need to sneak off while I can, get gone from here before the snakes and the panthers come out and the haints rise from the night bayou. Before the rougarou, the man-wolf, comes from the black water and prowls looking to eat.

A quick, sharp squeal of metal on metal pinches off that thought as the wagon cargo slides and shifts. Through the hole in the leaves, I catch a flash of gold. I know what it is almost before my mind can draw up the thought of the two big trunks with brass corner plates.

What was brought onto the Genesee Star far upriver just got loaded off here.

Might be them trunks sit empty now. Might be I oughta forget I saw them, and just look after myself. But I follow that wagon instead, staying far back enough that even the dog don’t know. My head pounds, and the sweat pours off me, and the mosquitos and the deerflies land and bite. I can’t slap, and I can’t run. Got to stay quiet.