The Book of Lost Friends(81)

She wants me to come close. I go to squat down, but Missy Lavinia tries to pull my arm. “Stop troubling me,” I tell her. “You just stand there.”

“I can’t buy your goods,” I tell the woman. “I’d do it if I could.” She’s a poor, ragged thing.

Her voice is so quiet, I have to lean close to hear her over the racket of men and wagons and horses passing by. “I got people,” she says. “You help me seek my people?” She reaches for the tin cup that sits with her, shakes it, and listens hard for the sound. Can’t be more than a few cents in there.

“You keep them coins,” I say. “We’ll put you in our book with the Lost Friends. Ask after your people anyplace we go.”

I move Missy Lavinia over to the wall. Set her down on a painted bench in front of a window. She’s white, so she can sit there, I reckon.

I go back and rest on my knees beside the woman. “Tell me about your people. I’ll remember it, and soon’s there comes a chance, I’ll get it in our Book of Lost Friends.”

She says her name is Florida. Florida Jones. And while the music plays someplace nearby and folks stroll on the boardwalk, and a smith’s hammer sings out whang-ping-ping, whang-ping-ping, and horses snort and lick their muzzles, dozing lazy at the hitch racks, Florida Jones tells me her tale.

When she’s done, I say it all back to her. All seven names of her children, and the names of her three sisters and two brothers, and the places where they been carried off from her and who by. I wish I could write it down. I’m carrying the book and what’s left of the pencil, but I can’t make enough letters and how they sound. Don’t know how to work the pencil, either.

Florida’s thin hands reach out, cold on my skin. Her shawl falls away, and I see the brand on her arm. R for runaway. Before I think what I’m doing, I touch a finger to it.

“I gone off seekin’ my children,” she tells me. “Ever’time they take one, I go seekin’. Stay seekin’ long’s I can, till they find me, or the pattyrollers cotch me, or the dogs git on me, bring me back home to that place I hate and that man I been made to be with against my wants. Once I get over the punishin’, Marse say, ‘Make another baby, you two, or else…’ and then that man get on me and pretty soon, I’m ripenin’ up again with another one. Love that sweet, pretty thing when it comes. Ever’time, Marse tell me, ‘Florida, you get to keep this one.’ And ever’time, he find hisself in need of money, off they go. And he say, ‘Well, that one was too fine to keep, Florida.’ And I just sit and cry out and mourn till I can get away and go searchin’.”

She asks if I could write a letter for her and mail it to the Southwestern newspaper. Then she hands over her cup for me to take the money.

“It ain’t enough yet, to pay for the paper,” I tell her. “But we can go on and get the letter ready. And the day’s early, yet. Might be we could help you sell the rest of your—”

Commotion in the street stops me. I turn in time to hear a woman scream and a man holler as a wagon just misses somebody. A horse tied at hitch sits back against the reins and breaks the slobber leathers and somersaults over its tail, its hooves kicking and thrashing the air. Other horses spook and pull and tug their reins free and wheel off. One smacks into a man riding a ewe-necked chestnut colt that looks barely old enough to be under saddle.

“Har!” the man hollers and jerks up the rawboned colt, puts the spurs to it and whips it over and under with his long bridle reins. The colt downs its head and goes to bucking—just misses barreling right into Missy Lavinia, who’s wandered from the bench. She’s standing in the street, just staring off. The wagon team bolts and the driver fights to gather them up before there’s a runaway. Folks on foot and dogs scatter in every direction. Men run to the hitch rails to grab their horses, and loose mounts hightail down the street, the reins flying free.

I jump up and go to running while the colt and its rider kick up dust clouds, them hooves sailing past Missy, but she just stands there looking.

Somebody calls from the boardwalk, “Yeehaw! Look at ’im buck!”

I get to Missy Lavinia just before the colt finally lands spraddle-legged, buckles in the knees, and goes down hard, rolling over the top of its rider, who hangs on and comes halfway back up when the colt does. “Git on yer feet, you broom-tail dink.” The man whips the horse on the face and ears till it finds its legs again, then he spurs it toward Missy Lavinia. “Git out the street! Ya spooked my horse!” He grabs a rope from his saddle, meaning to hit her with it, I guess.

Missy throws her chin out and bares her teeth and hisses at him.

I try to move her up on the boardwalk where he can’t run us down, but she won’t budge, just stands there hissing.

The rope comes down hard. I feel it whip my shoulder, hear it sing side to side through the air, slapping saddle leather and horseflesh and whatever else it can reach. The rider reins the colt round, while the wild-eyed thing bawls and snorts and balks. It comes sidewards and spins and fights for its head, knocking into Missy Lavinia. She goes down into the mud, and I fall atop of her.

“Please! Please! He addle-headed! He addle-headed! He don’t know!” I yell and throw my hands out front of us as the rope sings again. It hits my fingers hard, and I grab on, desperate to stop it. The rawhide honda whips back and hammers my cheekbone. Lights explode in my eyes, and then I’m falling down a deep hole into the black. I take the rope with me, hang on to it for all I’m worth. I hear the cowboy yelp and the colt stagger and then the thump of its heavy fall. I smell the gush of its breath.