My Name's Not Friday (26 page)

‘Why not?’

‘Samuel, you ain’t never done a thing wrong your entire whole life.’

‘I didn’t know what else to do. I’m gonna take it back.’

‘Thieves as well,’ says Gloucester, shaking his head. ‘I knew you two were no good. I knew it as soon as I saw you.’

Joshua bends down, takes the ten-dollar bill that is tucked into the rim of Gloucester’s bowler hat and puts it in his pocket. He looks at me sheepishly. ‘Well, I might as well, mightn’t I? If that’s what he thinks.’

‘HELP!’ Gloucester suddenly starts shouting out at the top of his voice. ‘Help me, someone! Thieves!’

‘Shut up!’ I snap.

‘Or what? If you had the guts to shoot me you’d have done it already.’ He turns around to face the road. ‘Help!’ he shouts out again and he struggles onto his feet.

A shot rings out and a bullet bites the ground, just an inch from Gloucester’s boot. Joshua has picked my gun up from the floor and he’s not scared to use it. ‘I ain’t as nice as my brother,’ he tells Gloucester. ‘Everybody says so. So you better do as he says or I’ll shoot you for real and be done with it.’

He points the gun at Gloucester’s chest as though the man has a heart. ‘Go get that horse, Samuel,’ he tells me with a grim face. ‘We better get out of here.’

I do as he says and when I return, Joshua has put the sack over Gloucester’s head and tied his hands to the back of his mule, same as he did to us.

I take a moment to apologize. ‘I’m sorry ’bout my brother, Mr Gloucester, but he’s been naughty since the day he was born, I swear he has. I’ve tried to teach him right from wrong, but I can’t do nothing with him.’

But I don’t set Gloucester free. I leave him where he is cos what goes around comes around. I’ve learned the lesson
in that, and we leave him and his mule to wander blindly in among the trees as my brother and I ride away into the new day.

Joshua holds to me tightly, his arms around my waist as we make for the border. After a long while, he tugs at my shirt and puts his mouth to my ear. ‘I need to take a leak.’ I pull the horse to a stop in the lee of a large boulder and he wanders away to relieve himself.

‘You got a drink?’ he asks, when he comes back to the horse. I take Gloucester’s flask from the saddle and watch him swig it down. This Joshua is older than the brother I left behind, like he’s grown into himself without any help from me. And I don’t know how he did that. I always thought he needed me for everything.

‘Bet you’re surprised to see me, aren’t you?’ I ask him when he’s drunk enough. ‘I told you I’d come back for you. Didn’t I tell you? Bet you didn’t believe me, did you?’

‘You took your time.’

‘I know and I’m sorry. It took a whole lot longer than I thought it would.’

I tell him my story as best I can in a short time and he listens to me then says, ‘I thought it must be something like that had happened.’

I thought he’d be more impressed. ‘Didn’t you believe I’d been taken by the Devil?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe I did a bit, but I always had my doubts. We all did.’

‘And did you believe it was me that laid the turd?’

Joshua just shrugs.

‘Father Mosely was going to blame you. You know that, don’t you?’

Joshua nods like it’s no big thing. ‘We found out the truth when he came for Abel Whitley. We kept watch and saw what happened.’

‘How come Gloucester didn’t take you? You should’ve been the next one to go.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But if you knew what was happening, why’d you stay? Why didn’t you tell someone?’

Joshua shrugs. ‘There weren’t no one interested. Anyway, I reckoned if I got took, I might end up in the same place as you and that wouldn’t be so bad. Not if we were there together. I wasn’t going to find you any other way that I could think of.’

It warms me up to know that Joshua had been waiting all this time to find me, just like I’d been waiting for him. I take hold of his hand and kneel. ‘I think we should pray to the Lord and thank him for everything He’s done.’

‘What for?’

‘Cos God just saved you, Joshua. He’s saved us both.’

But Joshua pulls his hand away. ‘You believe what you want, Samuel.’

He walks away from me, but I get up and go after him. ‘What if I told you that I prayed for you every day that I was away? I asked the Lord to keep you safe. I made a deal, to do good works in exchange for all the bad things I knew you’d be doing.’

But Joshua won’t look at me. ‘You didn’t need to.’ That’s all he says.

We head north, and by nightfall I’m sure that we must’ve crossed the border into Union territory. That gives me some comfort, and we stop to make camp. I have nothing to light a fire, and anyway, I wouldn’t want to risk it, so I tie the horse securely and lie down with Joshua at the back of a large boulder, hugging each other for warmth as the darkness comes upon us.

‘Do you know a place we can go?’ Joshua asks me just when I think he’s fallen asleep.

‘I’m going to take us to the Major. I’ve been thinking it through. He’ll help us, I’m sure he will, and even if he can’t look after us himself, he’ll know what we can do. He’s a good and righteous man, Joshua, and I’d like you to meet him.’

In the morning, Joshua convinces me that we shouldn’t return to Middle Creek with a stolen horse. ‘They won’t let you explain that you’re bringing it back, and it won’t matter anyway, cos you still stole it in the first place.’

I know he’s right.

We search out the road I travelled with Harry only a couple of days before and ride till we come to the outskirts of the camp where I spent so much time recovering from my injuries. I stop the horse to look upon it. ‘There it is, Joshua. Now all we got to do is find the Major.’

Joshua slides down from the horse. ‘Come on and get off the horse,’ he tells me. ‘If people see us riding it, they’ll ask all sorts of questions.’

I don’t know when he decided it was OK to boss me around, but I step out of the saddle and Joshua takes hold of the reins as we walk on down the road. The first army wagon we see, he calls out to the driver. ‘Hey, mister, we found one of your horses wandering on its own and bought it back for you.’

The soldier stops his wagon and looks at us suspiciously. He can see it’s a good horse and he knows it ain’t ours. ‘Where’d you find him?’ he asks.

‘About three miles back down the road.’ Joshua points the way and smiles at him sweetly, his little cheeks breaking out in dimples. ‘You can take him in if you like. Say it was you who found it. All we want is a lift into camp so we don’t have to walk.’

The soldier thinks about it, then comes around the rear of the wagon, ties our horse to it and lets us ride into camp on top of the boxes he’s got stacked in the back. Joshua plays the cute little kid by sitting up straight and saluting every soldier that we pass. Once we’re inside the camp he thanks the driver then says to me, ‘Where’d you say this Major lives?’

I lead him through the tents towards the redbrick buildings, knowing that the Major’s barracks are out the back of ’em, and I hear Old George singing before I even see him. ‘Here we are now,’ I tell Joshua, all excited cos it feels like I’m coming home. ‘That’s Old George, that is. He sits outside the Major’s hut and sings. I don’t know why, but he does.’

‘Perhaps he likes it,’ says Joshua, eyeing Old George suspiciously.

‘Hi there, George.’ I wave to him like an old friend as we step up on the porch. ‘This here’s my brother, Joshua. We’ve come to see the Major.’ Old George looks up at me but he don’t say nothing. He just keeps on singing.

We go inside the barracks, but find the Major’s room locked. ‘What’ll we do now?’ asks Joshua.

I recognize the servant who had attended to my bedpan. ‘Do you know when the Major will be back?’ I ask him, feeling bad at not knowing his name.

The man acts like he hardly knows me. ‘He ain’t been seen. Not since the day before yesterday. They reckon he’s either dead or taken prisoner. Most likely he’s dead.’

The news makes my heart stop as the servant walks away.

Suddenly this place feels cold and unfriendly as we stand outside the locked door. ‘What are we going to do now?’ Joshua asks me.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Ain’t there anyone else you know?’

I shake my head.

The servant comes back along the corridor, carrying fresh bed linen to another room. ‘You can’t be standing around here,’ he tells us and he lifts his nose in the air as he pushes past. ‘The officers’ll be back soon.’ He shoos us back out onto the porch. ‘Go on and get away now.’

‘You got no right …’ I begin to tell him but Joshua takes hold of my arm. ‘C’mon.’ He pulls me away. ‘We oughta find some food before it gets dark.’

So we walk back into the camp. We go from tent to tent asking for food, but no one gives us a thing till we offer to pay. By then I’m glad of the money Joshua stole from Gloucester’s hat. It costs us fifty cents for a plate of pork and rice and that ain’t cheap. We eat our meal at the side of the path, and when I try to say grace, Joshua makes a point of telling me that it ain’t the Lord who has provided for us, it’s him. ‘We need to be fending for ourselves,’ he tells me, and I take offence at that.

‘What do you think I’ve been doing all this time?’

‘I don’t know. I’m just saying, that’s all.’

It begins to rain as the darkness draws in and that don’t improve our tempers. The only shelter we find is a row of wagons parked up close to each other, near to where they
keep the horses in a pen. Joshua spots a guard hunched under a tree, but we come around his blind side so he don’t see us crawling in beneath the big wheels, all dripping wet and silent. Sleeping under wagons ain’t exactly a bed of roses, but it’s the best we can do till morning.

Joshua leans against me like a rock, all hard and grumpy. It feels a long time ago since we were thrilled at finding each other. You’d think that sort of happiness would last a little while but it seems it don’t, not if you’re cold and uncomfortable.

Still, I feel bad about letting him down. ‘It ain’t much, is it?’ I whisper.

After a moment he says, ‘Could be worse.’

I take off my jacket and put it around his shoulders. ‘If you put this on properly, it’ll keep you warm.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’ll be all right.’

Joshua slips his arms inside the jacket and he feels a lot softer when he leans back against me. ‘I did try to be good when you were gone,’ he tells me.

‘How do you mean?’

‘I did my math. I tried harder with some of the other subjects too.’

‘I’m glad,’ Perhaps that’s what saved him the other times that Gloucester came to call. Perhaps it weren’t me at all. ‘Tomorrow we got to figure out what to do. There’s a place where you line up if you want to work. You got to be there first thing in the morning if you want to get chosen.’

‘OK.’

I don’t offer up a prayer for my brother as we go to sleep with the rain hitting the wagon just above our heads and dripping down through the gaps in the boards.

But I pray for the Major, hoping he’s still alive. Perhaps he’s been luckier than the servant said. Perhaps he’s been rescued by someone who’ll be as kind to him as he was to me. I sure hope so. And if not, may the good Lord take pity on his soul.

In the morning, we walk out along the path that divides the contrabands from the white folk in the camp and we join the men out looking for work.

After a while an officer arrives wanting men to lay a new section of rail track and he walks along the line, choosing those he wants to work for him. He touches the arm of a man three down from us, then chooses the man right next to me, but he doesn’t even glance at me or Joshua. I ain’t disheartened though. I figure it’s pretty hard work and he won’t want boys for it. Even though I’m strong enough, it ain’t the same for Joshua and I can understand that. So I don’t mind too much when the next fella does the same thing. Nor the one after that.

But then a chef arrives from the canteen and announces he’s after a couple of kids to run errands and do light chores. He’s paying a dollar a day plus food from the kitchen and we lean out of the line, hoping to catch his eye and make a good impression. I put my arm around Joshua’s shoulder, hoping he’ll be chosen with me, and we both give the chef a big smile as he arrives at us. ‘We got experience in a kitchen, sir. We can tell carrots from potatoes and we’ll chop ’em any way you like.’

The man moves quickly on to another boy further up the line and taps his arm. That boy don’t seem to have anything special about him, not that I can see, but he gets given the job all the same and we watch the two of ’em walk away towards the barracks.

‘Is it always this difficult?’ Joshua asks me.

‘It’ll be all right. We’ll get something.’

But we wait another hour and still have no luck. ‘Is that it then?’ I ask the old fella standing next to us.

‘I expect it is. There might be something if you don’t mind standing around half the day, but the work won’t be worth much. Better to try again tomorrow.’

I know the truth in that and we watch most of the men drift back to their tents, leaving only those of us who are too old, too young or too ugly to be given work. Eventually Joshua takes me to one side. ‘It might be better if I do this on my own tomorrow.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘But you’re putting people off. That chef would have given me the work if it weren’t for your face. You know he would.’

‘That ain’t true.’

‘Yes, it is. I don’t mean to be hurtful, Samuel.’

‘Then don’t be.’

‘It’s better to be honest.’

‘Well, to be honest, you’re starting to get on my nerves. I would’ve got a labouring job if you weren’t so small. I used to get ’em all the time.’

Joshua glares at me. ‘Have it your own way.’

‘Come on.’ I take hold of his sleeve and walk him away, making for the edge of the camp where there are army stores and blacksmiths shoeing horses. Perhaps we can find some
work there instead. On the path we pass two ladies who are struggling to get through the mud with the buckets of water they’ve fetched from the well.

‘Let me help you with those,’ offers Joshua. All of a sudden he’s being helpful and sweet. One of the women – the one with her hair tied up in red cloth – she gives her bucket to my brother and she’s all smiles as she pats him on the head. ‘That’s very kind of you, young man.’

Her friend looks me up and down doubtfully. ‘You gonna offer too, or what?’

I take her bucket grudgingly and we follow them to their tent.

‘How come you ladies are doing such hard work?’ asks Joshua, trying to keep up with the heavy bucket. ‘Don’t you have boys of your own to do this?’

‘Ooh … he is smooth.’ They laugh together, speaking as though we can’t hear ’em. ‘Such a smooth tongue and still not old enough to have all his teeth. What do you think he wants?’

‘I can’t imagine,’ says the other. ‘But I’m sure we’re gonna find out.’

Joshua smiles sweetly at ’em. ‘I ain’t after much ladies, ’cept a bed for the night for me and my brother here.’ He’s holding the bucket away from his legs as he walks, trying not to spill a drop and I do the same thing, hoping they won’t notice my wet breeches.

‘Don’t you have any parents looking out for you?’

‘No, ma’am, we don’t. We mostly look out for ourselves.’

The ladies smile at him then look back at me with unease. ‘Your brother don’t say much. Has he got a tongue?’

‘Sure, he can talk,’ Joshua answers for me. ‘There ain’t nothing wrong with him ’cept for the way he looks, but
I’m the clever one, so he keeps his mouth shut when I’m around.’ They laugh at that as well. Oh yes, they think it’s real funny. ‘He’s a hero though,’ Joshua tells ’em. ‘He was out fighting against the rebels and they tried to blow him to pieces. That’s how he came by his face, so I hope you won’t be holding it against him, cos we all of us owe him a lot. I know I do. If it weren’t for people like my brother, then none of us would be free.’

The ladies manage a smile in my direction, and when we reach their tent they say, ‘Well, here we are. Home, sweet home.’

It ain’t much of a place, but it’s better than having nowhere to stay. We put their buckets down just inside the flap, and Joshua nods at the floor. ‘We could just tuck in there and you wouldn’t notice us. We wouldn’t make no noise, and we’d fetch your water every morning and evening.’

‘It’d be nice to have some help around the place,’ says one, but the other says, ‘I don’t know. We ain’t got much space.’

‘What if we paid you?’ Joshua spreads his hands wide as though it’s more than fair – the best offer they’d get for sure. ‘We could manage ten cents a day.’ He already has a coin in his fingers and he holds it up for ’em to see. ‘First day up front.’

So he bags us a place on their floor, just inside the door of their tent, and I’m glad of it when the rain begins again.

The next morning, Joshua keeps his promise. ‘Don’t you follow me,’ he says, putting ten men or more between us,
and I don’t know where to look when he gets chosen for a job in the officers’ mess. I’m still standing in line an hour later, with all the work already gone.

I don’t give up though. I spend the whole day asking for work, going from one place to another, but it seems that if your face don’t fit, people won’t even trust you to dig dirt. I don’t go back to the ladies’ tent until I have to, and it’s already dark when I come inside the flap. The three of ’em all have empty plates on their laps.

‘Where you been?’ Joshua asks me.

‘Around.’

One of the ladies hands me a plate with corn and rice. ‘We saved you something to eat. It might be cold.’ I take a mouthful and it is. ‘You been looking for work?’ she asks, and I nod. ‘You get anything?’ I shake my head.

‘My brother’s made for better things than labouring,’ Joshua tells ’em. ‘He always has been. Did I tell you he could read and write? He’s a teacher too. A good one.’

Those ladies look impressed. ‘Maybe you could charge a few cents from the parents roundabout? There’s plenty of folks want their kids to read. Maybe you could set up a little school or something.’

‘I don’t do that any more.’

‘Why not?’

‘I ain’t got no books or boards, and anyway I don’t like the thought of taking money from people when they should be learning by rights. It ain’t fair.’

Those ladies look a bit put out. ‘Seems a shame to waste a gift the good Lord gave you, particularly if you’re going to be a burden on the rest of us.’

It doesn’t do to pick fights with people who are putting a roof over your head and I ain’t so sour that I’ve lost all my
common sense. ‘I know that, ma’am,’ I say. ‘I’ll find a means to pay my way, you can be sure of that.’

In the coming days we find the women to be decent folk, if not overly generous. They are both heading eastward, searching for their sons who had been sold away some years before, and they let us know that they won’t be staying at the camp any longer than they have to and we can’t go with ’em.

I’m the first in line every morning, but it’s useless. I go to the barracks. I go to the stores. I even go from one tent to the next, but I don’t find work and I don’t think I ever will. Once the women leave, I’ll be a burden to my brother. I know I will. Cos nobody wants a Negro with a face like mine. Perhaps Joshua won’t want me either. Perhaps he can’t wait to get rid of me.

One afternoon I’m sitting at the side of a path when a coin drops in my lap. I call out to the officer who must have dropped it, holding it up for him to see. ‘Sir? You just …’ The officer looks back and nods but he carries on walking and I realize that he didn’t drop it at all. He assumed I was begging. I hold the dime up to my face, the first money I made since we arrived at the camp. I put it away in my pocket quickly.

That evening, I put the coin on the up-turned crate which the women use for a table when we eat. ‘It’s not much, I know.’

‘Where d’you get it?’ the ladies ask suspiciously.

‘A soldier got me doing his chores. Says he might want me to do ’em again.’

The next day I take myself around the soldier’s tents, begging for money. I say, ‘Please, sir. Some money for supper,’ making sure they see my face, knowing it makes ’em feel
bad. I make a couple of dimes before I stop. I find a tin that I can put ’em in so tomorrow I can rattle it and then I won’t have to talk.

One morning I’m waiting at the well when a girl walks past, holding her mother’s hand. She takes a good long look at my face and that’s rude, but I forgive her. I even give her a smile, though I know it don’t look too good.

Well, that girl can’t take her eyes off me and she pulls at her mother’s arm. ‘Look, Mama!’ she says. ‘Look!’

Her mother turns to look at me and her mouth falls open. She takes a couple of steps towards me, then stops, hardly daring to come any closer. ‘Samuel?’ she asks me finally. ‘Is that you?’

Now I know I have never seen these people before – I’m sure of it – so I have no idea how they know my name but the mother knows me for sure. I can see it in her eyes as she takes me by the arm. ‘What happened to you, Samuel? Oh dear God, what happened to your face?’

She can see I don’t recognize her. ‘It’s Celia,’ she says immediately. ‘Hubbard’s wife. And this here is our daughter, Sarah.’

The girl holds her finger up to my face and there’s her ring of braided grass, the same one she offered me through the wall of Hubbard’s cabin. I put down my bucket, astonished that I know ’em both, even though I’ve never seen their faces. ‘You’re Celia? And Sarah? It’s really you?’ The little girl beams up at me when I touch the top of her head. ‘I’m so relieved you’re all right …’ I stammer to a halt, ashamed at having left ’em to wait in the woods when Hubbard lay
dying in the cotton field. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come to find you, I’m sorry I left you there not knowing ’bout Hubbard, but once I started running I couldn’t stop …’

Celia puts a hand to my mouth as though none of that matters. ‘I’m so glad we found you. Hubbard will be so pleased to see you. I know he will.’

It takes me a second to hear the truth of what she just said. ‘You mean he ain’t dead?’

‘He weren’t five minutes ago,’ she laughs.

I can hear the words but I can’t believe my own ears. ‘But I was with him in the field. I saw how he was …’

And for a moment I’m back there again, watching the light disappear from his eyes, the blood spreading quickly across his green shirt. There was so much blood … Could it be that he really is alive? That all the time I thought I was alone, Hubbard was alive and that he’s here, right now, in the same place I am?

‘Come on.’ Celia takes me by the hand. ‘Let’s go and find him.’

They lead me through the tents in a state of shock. If it weren’t for holding her hand, I wouldn’t believe she’s real. But she is. The woman leading me along the pathway says she’s Celia and I can’t find a reason to think she might be lying. Except that Hubbard’s dead. I’ve been thinking he was dead for so long I can’t believe he’s actually not dead at all and that I’m gonna see him any moment. We walk back along the path and I look at the faces of everyone we pass, expecting ’em to be Hubbard, though none of ’em are. Then, just for a moment, I lose my nerve. Perhaps he won’t want to see me. Perhaps when he sees my face like this he’ll wish we’d never met. I’ll be a burden on him. I’m sure he’ll think that, same as the women at the tent.

But then little Sarah takes hold of my other hand and she’s skipping along like she just won first prize in a lucky dip. And she looks a lot like Hubbard. I can see him in her face and she’s got a smile like the sun itself and it warms me through, giving me courage when I’m losing it.

They bring me to one of the larger tents on the far edge of the site, a makeshift structure of coppiced wood and tarpaulin, all held together with rope and string. Beside it stands the old nag and a wagon from the Allen plantation, the same one I sat in when I first met Gerald.

‘Hubbard?’ Celia calls out at the entrance. ‘Hubbard? You come out here right now. I got someone to show you.’

They stand back, leaving me exposed, as a pair of thick black fingers grip the edge of the canvas and pulls it aside. And suddenly Hubbard’s in front of me, having to stoop as he comes out, then straightening up till he’s standing as tall as he ever was and looking down at me, his eyes adjusting to the daylight.

I’m hugging him before he’s even sure who it is and I’m feeling like a little boy again. I could be Joshua. I could be any of the lost kids at the orphanage, hoping one day they’ll be hugged by someone who loves ’em.

‘Samuel? Is that really you?’

If Hubbard’s scared at seeing the state of me he don’t show it. He hugs me so hard I can scarcely breathe, and little Sarah laughs out loud, seeing me struggling for air, cos she must know just how it feels, being hugged like that by her daddy. She looks happy enough to burst.

When he lets me go, Hubbard holds me by the shoulders to get a good look at me. ‘I didn’t ever expect to see you again.’

‘I thought you were dead,’ I tell him, and then I go and
burst into tears and that makes me ashamed, wiping a hand around my face and smearing myself all in snot. ‘I was sure of it. I was sure you must’ve died.’

‘Oh, I ain’t even close,’ he tells me, smiling. ‘Matter of fact, I’m feeling better than I have for a very long time.’