The Book of Lost Friends(71)

I thank him and promise I don’t take it for discouragement. “Texas’s a big place,” I say. “I mean to keep asking.” I watch him walk back toward the colored settlement, bent over and hobbling.

I could stay here in the gully town, I think to myself. Stay here in the shadow of all them big buildings and fine houses and the music and the noise and all the different kind of folks, and wouldn’t that be something? I could ask after my people, day after day to travelers who come through from the East and the West.

The idea sparks in my head, a fire on wood that’s been laid and waiting a long time. Be a whole new kind of life to leave behind mules and farm fields and table gardens and chicken houses, and stay in a place like this. I could get work. I’m strong, and I’m smart.

But there’s Tati and Jason and John and Old Mister and Missy Lavinia and Juneau Jane to think about. Promises and sharecrop papers. Life never is just about what you want. Seldom ever.

I push my mind back to the task I’m at now and commence worrying how long I been gone from Juneau Jane and Missy and what’d happen if Missy walked off or stirred up trouble. Juneau Jane might not try to stop her, and probably can’t anyhow. Missy’s bigger and stronger by twice.

I head back, walking fast and taking care to keep out of the way of farm wagons and shays and white ladies with market baskets and baby carriages. I work up a sweat under my clothes even though the day ain’t warm. I’m just worried.

In my mind, young Gus McKlatchy says, Well, that’s the problem with postulatin’, Hannibal. Brings up trouble that ain’t happened yet and likely won’t ever. Why bother with it? I smile to myself and hope Moses didn’t catch Gus and throw him off that riverboat, too.

I try to quit postulating while I make my way back to the port landing.

Missy and Juneau Jane still sit right by the cordwood. There’s colored folks gathered round—a couple men standing, couple squatted down or sitting on the grass, a old man leaning on a young girl’s shoulder, and three women. All peaceable enough. Juneau Jane’s reading to them from the Lost Friends. She’s got our quilt set out, folded in front of her. I watch a man drop a coin in it. There’s three little carrots, too, plus Missy Lavinia’s eating on one.

It takes some doing to get us away from there, but I know we need to move on in our task. I tell the folks we’ll come back later with the Lost Friends. Then I push Missy’s feet into the shoes I bought her, and thank heaven they mostly fit.

Juneau Jane ain’t happy with me when I chase off the last of the people so we can go. “You hadn’t ought to make a spectacle,” I say while we start down the riverbank.

“News of us and the Lost Friends traveled as the men from our boat visited the town with their pay,” Juneau Jane answers. “Others came. What would you have me do?”

“I don’t know.” That much is true. “Just that we don’t want everybody in the Port of Jefferson talking about us.”

We go on about our business, make our way down the river on a trail folks must use for fishing or hunting. At a brushy spot near the water, I get all us washed some, but work on Juneau Jane most.

The dress and petticoats are a sorry sight. The raggedy corset hangs on her like a sack, and the dress hem is too long. “You’ll have to walk high on your toes, like you got heel boots on,” I tell her. “Keep your feet up under the dress, don’t let them old brogans show; that’ll give us away. No Gossett lady would be in such poor shoes.”

I finally undo everything and take the britches she’s been wearing and wrap them round her middle inside the corset, and stuff the bosom part with the shirt she had on, then do up the laces again. It’s better, some. Who knows if it’ll fool anybody, but what choice have we got? I do up her spoon bonnet last, pull it up tight against her face to hide the hair, then I stand back and look.

The picture of her pushes a laugh out my mouth. “You…y-you…look like somebody been whittlin’ on Missy Lavinia.” I cough. “Look like some…somebody took her down to the nubbins.” I get to laughin’, and I can’t stop. Can’t even catch my breath. Juneau Jane stomps her little foot and scolds me to hush up before somebody comes wandering down here to see, what’s the ruckus about? But the madder she gets, the harder I laugh.

All that laughing makes me miss Tati and Jason and John, and even farther back, my brothers and sisters and Mama and Aunt Jenny and my four little cousins and Grandmama and Grandpapa. With all the ways we labored hard, planting and chopping and hoeing and harvesting, we laughed, too. Laughing carry you over a tough time, that’s something my grandmama used to say.

I go right from laughing to being heavy in my heart. Feel a lonesome burden all of a sudden. Lonesome for people I love. Lonesome for home.

“We best get on with this,” I say, and we pull Missy Lavinia up, work our way back to town, follow the directions the folks gave Juneau Jane to the lawyer man’s office. It ain’t hard to find. Man’s got him a big brick building, two floors high, with letters carved in a square stone up top. Juneau Jane looks at it and reads his name there. L. H. WASHBURN.

“Walk up on your toes,” I remind her. “Keep them shoes under your hem. And talk in a lady voice. And act in lady ways.”

“I am aware of how to conduct myself with propriety,” she brags, but she looks scared to death under that bonnet. “I have been given deportment lessons. Papa insisted upon it.”