The Prophets(30)

“Samuel,” she shouted, impressed by how far her voice carried.

He turned and smiled. He walked over to where she was standing on the bottom rung of the fence. He pulled the horse along with him.

“Oh, y’all done in the field?” he asked.

“Well, you see me right here in front this barn,” she said, putting her hand on her hip.

“All right then,” Samuel said with a laugh.

She swung her leg over the fence, then the other, and sat on the top rail.

“What you got planned for your rest day?” she asked, looking beyond him and into the barn. She saw a figure moving around inside and knew it had to be Isaiah even if she couldn’t see him clearly. She returned her focus to Samuel and grinned at the way the tender sun and dawning starlight had lit his skin so that the pitch of it was obvious.

“Ain’t nothing. Gon’ be right here with ’Zay.”

There was a moment of silence between them that gave her the chance to notice the moist of his lips. She forgave him for not asking her about what she would be doing with her Sunday.

“Probably going over by Sarah to have her plait my hair. She do plaits so nice.” She touched her hair and pulled a braid down over her forehead and held it by its tip.

“Where Dug?” Samuel asked after her pretend baby brother.

Puah sucked her teeth. “Somewhere up underneath Be Auntie, I guess. Boys shouldn’t follow behind they mamas like that.”

Samuel looked at the ground and gripped the reins of the horse a little bit tighter.

“Oh, I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” Samuel interrupted. He kicked at the weeds and bent down to pick up a pebble. He threw it over the fence. Puah watched it travel and land in the distance.

“You throw far.” Her lips parted for a smile, which Samuel returned.

“You should come with me to Sarah tomorrow,” she said.

Samuel twisted his lips at the idea.

“What? You don’t like Sarah?”

Samuel laughed. “I like Sarah just fine. But what I supposed to do, just sit there and watch her plait your hair?”

Puah jumped down off the fence.

“Yeah,” she said and moved closer to Samuel. She reached up and touched his hair; it was beady and dusty.

“And maybe she plait your’n.”

They stood there just breathing and not saying anything. Samuel couldn’t look her in the eye, and Puah couldn’t look anywhere else but in his. Samuel had the kind of eyes that invited people over, greeted them, and then quietly shut the door in their faces. And for some reason, standing out there on the wrong side of it, people felt compelled to keep banging on that door until, by some mercy, he opened it. His hair coiled in her fingers and Samuel closed his eyes just as Puah’s mouth parted.

Over his shoulder, she saw Isaiah leaning against the barn door. His arms were folded and one of his legs was raised so that his foot was flat against the door. He didn’t have a frown on his face, nor did he have a grin. He seemed to be lingering in the middle of both, looking outward, but seeing inward. Now and again, he shooed away flies, but other than that, he didn’t move. She stopped playing in Samuel’s head and waved at Isaiah, but he didn’t seem to notice. So she called him. He uncrossed his arms and moved away from the barn. He seemed hesitant to come over to them. He looked at Samuel and Samuel turned to look at him. If they said anything to each other, she didn’t hear it. But it certainly seemed like there was some sort of exchange. Isaiah walked toward them slowly. He came up from behind Samuel, touched his back as he moved beside him. The horse took two steps and then was still again.

“Hey, Puah,” Isaiah said in such a reassuring voice that she nearly felt welcomed in a space that usually felt shut off from everything else. Under that, though, she detected something in the calmness of his tone, a prickly thing that made her scalp itch. She looked at him and saw something quickly flash across his face.

“I was just telling Samuel he should come with me to Sarah tomorrow and get his hair plait. Won’t he look good?”

She didn’t say that to hurt Isaiah’s feelings. She meant it genuinely. Isaiah looked at Samuel from head to toe.

“I reckon he look good either way. Up to him how he wanna show that good,” Isaiah said, grinning. He put his hand on Samuel’s shoulder. “I gotta finish up, Sam. Let me take this here horse back in the pen. Come on, boy. Good evening to you, Miss Puah.”

“Just Puah,” she said. Isaiah nodded his apology and strolled off with the reins of the horse in his hand, pulling the buck along. Puah watched them walk into the barn and then returned her attention to Samuel.

“He right. You look good either way. Still, I hope you choose plaits.” She smiled and turned to climb back over the fence.

“Night, Sam-u-well.” She winked. Then she jumped down and headed to her shack.

Puah was one of two of Be Auntie’s girls; the other, still a toddler, named Delia, a child that Puah swore Be Auntie named with spite in her heart because the baby and Puah shared the same midnight color.

They all slept on one pallet. Puah didn’t like lying down next to her imitation brothers. For some of them (irrespective of their age, and that surprised her), the mere acts of closed eyes and the rumble of snoring were calls to actions she never authorized. Most nights, she slept curled in a corner, the edge of her dress tucked under her soles, creating a kind of tent in which she could hide her body from those who would dare pry.