The Book of Lost Friends(54)

There’s a cook plate up top. After the stove heats, I’ll fix up that squirrel, feed Dog and me.

“Least we got kindle in here and plenty of split wood out front. Lucifers, too,” I tell him. I’m thankful the floor is dry, and the roof don’t leak. And when I get a good flame, I’m thankful for that, too. I crouch naked, bare and slick from the rain, and feel the fire’s heat even before it comes. Just knowing there’s an end to the cold makes it better.

After the stove’s drafted good, I drag one of them velvet chairs to the back of the room. It’s the big, wide kind for a lady to sit with her hoops, back when they wore such. A courtin’ bench, so’s she could arrange her skirts closer a bit if she wanted a beau to sit with her, leave it laid out, if she wanted to keep him off.

I pull my knees up in the chair, let my head rest, stroke my fingers back and forth against the red velvet. It’s soft like a horse’s muzzle. Soft and warm everyplace it touches my body. I sit and stare at the flame, thinking how good that chair feels.

Never sat in a velvet chair in my life. Not once.

I rub my cheek against it and soak the heat from the fire. My eyes get heavy and close, and I let go.

Two days of sleeping and waking and tending follow. Two days, I think. Might be three. I turn feverish myself late in the first day. Feverish, and tired, and even though I cook up the squirrel, I can’t keep much of it down. It’s all I can do to hobble the horses so they can forage, and get back in my dry clothes and wrap the other girls with the drawers and shimmies, and try from time to time to let the dog come and go or force a little water down Juneau Jane. Missy still won’t take any, but her little half sister’s getting stronger.

The first day I get my wits again, Juneau Jane opens her strange gray-green eyes and looks up at me from the red chair cushion, dark hair splayed out all over it like a nest of snakes. I can tell she’s seeing me for the first time and can’t make sense of where she is.

She tries talking, but I shush her. After all the days of quiet, even that much noise makes my head pound. “Hush, now,” I whisper. “You’re safe. That’s all you got to know. You been sick. And you’re still sick. You rest now. It’s safe here.”

I figure that much is true. Rain’s been falling, day after day. Water must be up high everywhere, and whatever tracks we left behind, they’re surely gone. Only worry is how long it might be till Sunday, when somebody comes. I got no idea by now.

Question answers itself when Dog sits up and barks me awake early in the morning. Scares my eyes wide open.

Outside, a voice sings,

    Children wade, in the water

And God’s a-gonna trouble the water

Who’s that young girl dressed in red?

Wade in the water

Must be the children that Moses led

God’s gonna trouble the water….



The voice is deep and strong. Can’t tell, Is it a man or a woman? But the song brings Mama to mind. She’d sing it to us when I was little.

I know I need to move, stop whoever that is from coming in here, but I can’t help it. I listen at a few words more.

They come in a child’s voice this time.

That’s good. Good for what I got in mind to do next.

Wade in the water, children, the little voice sings loud, not afraid.

    Wade in the water,

And God’s a-gonna trouble the water.



Then the woman again,

    Who’s that young girl dressed in white?

Wade in the water

Must be the children of the Israelite,

God’s gonna trouble the water.



I whisper the lines along with them, feel my mama’s heartbeat against my ear, hear her say real soft, This song ’bout the way to freedom, Hannie. Keep to the water. The dog, he can’t find the smell of you there.

The child sings the chorus again. It ain’t far away now. They must be almost to the clearing.

I get up and hurry to the door, press my hand hard against it, get myself ready.

    Who’s that young girl dressed in blue

Wade in the water…



I swallow hard, think, Please, let them be good people coming up the path. Kind people.

They sing together, the big voice and the small one.

    Must be the ones that made it through

Wade in the water.



Behind me, a scratchy whisper says, “Wade…wahhh-ter. Wade in…wahh-ter.”

I look quick over my shoulder, see Juneau Jane pushing herself up off that red velvet cushion on one wobbly arm so weak it wiggles back and forth like a hank of rope, her eyes open halfway.

And God’s a-gonna trouble the water, the child outside hollers into the air.

“Y-you d…don’t, b-believe…be…been redeemed…” Juneau Jane sways, fighting to push out the words and stay upright.

A cold feeling travels all over me, then hot sweat breaks after it.

“Hush up! Quiet, now!” I hiss. I pull open the door, stagger to the edge of the porch, and hang against a post. Two people come out of the woods—a stout, round woman with hands like supper plates and big feet in black leather brogans, white kerchief on her head. With her comes a little boy child. Her grandson, maybe? He’s skipping along with picked flowers in one hand.