The Book of Lost Friends(70)

“What choice have I otherwise? I must obtain word of Father or proof of his intentions for my provision. Lavinia would leave me penniless, with no choice but that my mother bargain me off to a man.” The frost that always covers her over cracks a little now. There’s pain underneath, and fear. “If Papa is gone, an inheritance becomes my only hope.”

She’s right, I know. Her papa is the only hope for all us. “Well, we have to get you a dress, then. Dress, and a corset, and some padding to stuff it, and a bonnet to cover that hair.” I hope this plan don’t get us killed or put in jail or worse. Then who’ll carry the Lost Friends around? “But you promise me, I do this thing with you, no matter what we find out, you won’t pull foot out of here and leave me stuck with her.” I nod over to Missy Lavinia. “She ain’t my burden to bear. And it’s you and her that got me into this whole mess. You owe me something. You and me, we stay together, till we figure out about your papa. And till we get Missy sent back home. If this lawyer man does have money waiting for you, you’ll pay Missy’s passage and find somebody to get her back to Goswood. We have us a bargain?”

Her bottom lip pokes out a little at the idea of having to do for Missy Lavinia, but she nods.

“And one other thing.”

“No other things.”

“And one other thing. When we do part company, whenever that is, the Lost Friends go with me. And meantime, you learn me how to read it and write down new ones for new folks.”

We shake hands on it, and the bargain is struck. We’re in this mess, together.

Least for now.

“Making you a woman sure will be a whole lot tougher than making you a boy.” The words are hardly out my mouth when a shadow falls over me, and I look up and see a colored man, stout as a woodcutter, standing over us. He folds and unfolds a hat in his hands.

I hope he didn’t hear what I just said.

“I come ’bout the Loss Friends.” He glances toward the Katie P. “I hear…heared it from a fella. You put me in the Loss F-friends, too?”

We look toward the landing nearby and see the singing man Juneau Jane wrote the letter for on the boat, and he’s pointing somebody else our way. Word of us has spread.

Juneau Jane gets her pencil and asks the man who he’s looking for. It’s nobody we’ve got on our pages already.

She takes down names of the man’s people, and he gives us a nickel before he goes back to work, loading seed bags onto a swamp boat. Then comes another man. He tells us where to go to buy some used clothes and goods cheap, and I decide I better strike off before the day’s gone. Can’t take Juneau Jane and Missy Lavinia with me, since it’s the colored town he’s talking about.

“You stay here, and I’ll go where he said to,” I tell her and get a biscuit from our poke, and tuck Missy’s reticule in my britches, then leave them with the rest of our goods. “Watch after Missy.”

I know she won’t.

It worries me some as I follow the man’s directions and wind up in a little settlement down in a gully. First, I find a stitcher woman who sells mended clothes out the back of her house. I buy what’s needed for Juneau Jane, but I wish I could buy a miracle, because that’s needed most. The stitcher woman points me to a harness maker who mends shoes for people and fixes up old ones to sell, too. I have to guess at the size, but I get some for Missy, since her feet are gone raw and she don’t watch where she’s walking. I trade off that gold locket that was hers. Figure it can’t be helped, and the chain’s broke anyhow.

I decide against buying button boots for Juneau Jane. Too much money, and they’re lady shoes she can’t wear for a boy. We’ll just have to hide her brogans under her dress hem while she talks to the lawyer. I go to a peddler store in a tent, looking for a needle and thread, in case we need to put a stitch or two in that dress to keep on Juneau Jane’s skinny body.

I buy socks and another blanket and a cook pot. Buy some pretty peaches from a man with a basketful. He adds a nice plum to the top and don’t even want me to pay for it, since I’m new here. Folks are kind in the colored town. They’re all just like me, come off plantations after the freedom, took to working for the railroads, or the timber companies, or the riverboats, or the shops, or in the white ladies’ big houses that’re almost close enough to see from here. Some freedmen started up stores of their own, to sell to colored folk in this little gully town.

They’re used to folks coming through, traveling. I ask after the names of my people while I make my bargains, and I tell about my grandmama’s blue beads. “Ever know anybody here name of Gossett? Be free now, but slaves before the war. Ever seen somebody wear just three beads on a string?” I ask over and over. “Three blue glass beads, just big around as the tip of your little finger and real pretty?”

Can’t recollect so.

Don’t believe I do, child.

Sounds right purdy, but no I ain’t.

You seeking after your people, child?

“Feel somewhat familiar about those, I do,” a old man tells me when we stand aside to let a dray rumble by, filled with coal. White clouds lay over the man’s eyes like sifted flour, so he has to lean close to me to see. He smells of pine sap and smoke, and he walks stiff and slow. “Think I have seen such before, but a long time ago. Can’t say where, though. Mind’s not good these days. My apologies, young sprout. God speed you along in your journey, all the same. Don’t go by the names, though. There’s many that’ve changed their names. Picked new ones after the freedom. You keep looking.”