Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1)(57)
“We ready?” Sheriff Snyder calls, and I crane my neck around. Behind me are Bob and Bill, each on a horse of his own, their shotguns slung across their saddles. They give a curt nod, and the sheriff turns his horse around and starts off toward the edge of town, the thing walking pretty fast with its long, spindly legs.
The columns on each side follow at a trot, and I glance over at Sofi as I realize that we’re supposed to run wherever we’re going. Her face is impassive, as is everyone else’s, as we’re herded forward.
Old Professor Ghering called Negroes livestock the night of the fateful lecture. I can’t help but think of him as we scurry along.
The pace ain’t too fast, nothing like the wind sprints we had to do at Miss Preston’s, but my boots are new and I haven’t had much to eat over the past couple of days, so even a little bit of a run feels like too much. By the time we’ve cleared the rickety buildings of the town and get into the outskirts of the settlement I know that this trip is going to be brutal. The horse in front of us kicks up too much dust, and I’m still weak from the train ride, but I get the feeling that not keeping up would be much worse than a few blisters and a side cramp.
We’ve gone about a mile at our shuffle run when one of the boys calls, “Sheriff, sir!”
The sheriff, who is rolling a cigarette, glances back over his shoulder. “Mm-hmm?”
“Might we sing, sir?”
The sheriff strikes a match and lights his cigarette, then gives a curt nod.
I have no idea what the whole conversation pertains to until the same boy closes his eyes and sings out, “You get a line and I’ll get a pole!”
Around me everyone responds with a chorus of “Honey! Honey!”
“You get a line and I’ll get a pole,” the boy calls out again, his voice strong and even. This time everyone responds with “Babe! Babe!”
And then everyone sings together “You get a line and I’ll get a pole, and we’ll go down to that fishing hole, honey, oh baby mine!”
The sound of that many voices raised in song brings goose bumps to my arms. It reminds me of home, the way the field hands would sing during the worst of the work, the hard things like hoeing or tilling. It was a way to make the work go faster, to take their minds off the difficult task at hand. They’d sing about far-off places and about days gone by, about silly things like peach cobbler and the devil trying to steal their soul. It was something I always felt outside of back on Rose Hill, since Momma wouldn’t let me go into the fields. She always said it was too dangerous, but I wondered if maybe it was something else, like she was afraid that she could lose me to a song.
I ain’t sure how I feel about the need for work songs in a place like this.
We sing as we shuffle along for the next few miles. Eventually I get the hang of it, and I join in, grateful for something to take my mind off the blisters forming on my feet.
When those shamblers gather round,
Honey! Honey!
When those shamblers gather round,
Babe! Babe!
When those shamblers gather round, swing your scythe and bring them down,
Honey, oh baby mine!
Ain’t no use in looking sad,
Honey! Honey!
Ain’t no use in looking sad,
Babe! Babe!
Ain’t no use in looking sad, shambler’s bite ain’t all that bad,
Honey, oh baby mine!
When my eyes go shambler yellow,
Honey! Honey!
When my eyes go shambler yellow,
Babe! Babe!
When my eyes go shambler yellow, then it’s time to end your fellow,
Honey, oh baby mine!
Swing your scythe and take me down,
Honey! Honey!
Swing your scythe and take me down,
Babe! Babe!
Swing your scythe and take me down, before I turn the whole damn town,
Honey, oh baby mine!
By the time we get to the end of the song I ain’t enjoying it so much.
“Halt!”
We all stumble to a stop. There’s a cook wagon in the middle of the field, something I’ve only seen from drawings about Western life. A grizzled old colored man stirs a big pot of something over a fire, and a couple of small, dark-skinned boys run to and fro as the old man barks out orders.
“All right,” the sheriff calls, turning his horse around so he can look down on us. “You got ten minutes to eat. Now git.”
Everyone rushes to the cook fire, pushing and shoving to get next to the little boys, who hold wooden bowls that the old man ladles some kind of porridge into. I stand back, not bothering to shove my way into the throng. Once the melee has cleared I walk up to the front.
The old man looks at me with rheumy eyes. “Ain’t nothing left,” he says, scraping the pot. He manages to produce a bit of burned mush from the bottom and puts it in a bowl for the little boys to share. To me he hands an empty bowl.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Don’t you sass me, missy. I gave you the bowl because you’ll need it for lunch. Now clear on out.”
I blow out an angry breath and go to stand next to Ida, who is poking at her burned porridge piece in dismay.
The big girl, Cora, looks at me, shoveling her porridge into her mouth with her hand. “You’d better learn, Negro. Them fancy manners ain’t gonna keep you alive for long out here.”