Running Out of Night (10 page)

Were the moonlight playin tricks on me? Somethin flitted, moved through the grasses and wildflowers and in and out of the shadows, stopped, then vanished like a will-o’-the-wisp. I knowed if it were Zenobia’s sperrit, I shouldn’t be afeared, but my hands shook as I gripped the stick even tighter and melted into the bosky darkness.

Heels down first. Heels down slow and easy. I crept along, kept my eyes on a faint trail that spooled through the trees and tried to think like a deer. If I follered this,
would I circle round and end up along the crickside near my friend?

Somethin snapped and crashed. Loud bayin and shriekin come at me from up above, beside me, all around. I stopped, my toes rooted into the ground. The frogs, the crickets, everythin quieted except the distant sounds of water. The night went quiet as an apple on a tree.

Maybe a minute passed, maybe more, but I didn’t move. I learnt a long time ago that turnin into a shadow, disappearin into whatever was round me were sometimes the only way to stay alive. I knowed how to wait.

From somewhere close by come a familiar call.
Whippoorwill, whippoorwill, whippoorwill
. The animals began singin their night songs again. I took one step, two, three, and slipped into the tangle of their sounds.

Soon I smelt the sycamores, heard the rushin of the crick, and knowed I were close to Zenobia.

Zenobia. My tongue licked at salty tears.

I’d need to get her in her grave, mound rocks on it so’s no animal could reach her, and make my way toward Waterford afore the sun come up. I didn’t have no plans, but I knowed that I wouldn’t go back to Pa’s house and the life, if I could even think on it as a life, I’d had afore trouble girl stirred things up for me.

The top of the big sycamore stood high above the other trees. I headed toward it, makin sure I stayed hid in the cover of the shadows.

I walked along the edge of the meadow, then stepped into the bright, freckled moonlight under the sycamore. On the limb above Zenobia’s body set that white-faced owl. And on the bush where I’d tied our sacks of food were nothin.

S
lave children must always be buried facedown to be set free to heaven
.

T
he stick felt like safe to me. I held it tight, rested it on my shoulder, and turned in a slow circle, searchin the shadows, the meadow, anywhere someone could hide. Silver-rimmed clouds run acrost the sky and smothered the moon. The dark under the tree turned blacker than a crow, too thick for me to see. The clouds passed. Slowly, slowly, things come into my sight, and I could see the empty bush.

My eyes darted back and forth, between Zenobia and the woods. I shook and my skin turned cold, like it done when Pa put his eyes on me. More bad would happen.

Were it Pa out there watchin and just waitin to catch
me and drag me back to his cabin? Worst of all, takin me away and leavin Zenobia alone, unburied, critters tearin and worryin at her like she’d never been nothin to no one. But she had been. She had a family that loved her, and she were my onliest true friend—the first one since my grandpa who cared what my brothers and Pa done to me. She were the one who fitted me with my name. She would be buried proper by me—and not facin down like a slave. Zenobia were a free girl when she died.

I stooped beside Zenobia, wiped my tears with the gritty back of my arm, and whisper-sang, “Back in the lovin arms of Jesus, precious Jesus take me home” to make myself feel easy. I moved alongside her, takin care not to step over her body so’s I wouldn’t end up in the grave with her.

I walked over to the bank and stretched out on the ground where I were goin to dig the buryin hole, scuffed my feet, and dragged my hands against the sandy soil for a size marker. If someone watched me, they must be thinkin that I been bit by a crazy dog.

My stomach knotted and growled so loud it sounded like it come from an animal. Hungry, tired, thirstin, and runnin out of night. No time to stop and eat. Some mess of trouble if the job weren’t done soon.

I knelt beside the crick and filled my cupped hands with water again and again till my stomach swolled and wouldn’t hold another sip. I still hungered. Inside my pocket was the leathery dried wintergreen leaves. I tore
off a little wad of them and chawed. That first shock of mint made my mouth water. Then I chawed and chawed on them leaves to ease my hunger.

I dipped my hand into the water, felt along the bottom of the crick like a raccoon lookin for crawdads, and lifted out two small, smooth stones for settin Zenobia’s eyes.

I couldn’t put off what had to be done a minute longer. I crawled up the bank, found my markers, picked up my stick, and began breakin through the ground.
Thump, thump, thump
.

The flat rock worked like a hoe, cuttin through the soil and moundin it so’s I could scoop it with my bare hands onto the ground beside me. Sweat ran burnin into my eyes. My self got lost in the rhythm of the poundin, the scrapin of the stone, and the swoosh of the earth as I tossed it aside. Slowly, slowly, minute by minute, the hole got bigger and deeper.

I stopped, leant on the stick, and looked up at the night sky. The thick whiteness of the Milk-Away spilt acrost the wide blackness. I searched out the Drinkin Gourd, and found the four bowl stars and the three in the handle pointin to the steadiness of the North Star—the star Zenobia once follered to find her free soil.

“Mama, Grandpa, what a fine place to be. Down in a grave hole, and fair game for anyone huntin me. And now my friend will be buried here forever.” I brushed at a tear.

The grave weren’t near as deep as the one Grandpa’d been put in, but I’d dug down so’s I stood waist deep. I
dropped my stick and pushed myself up with my wobbledy arms, but the wall of the grave crumbled. Sand, small stones, rocks, and clumps of soil slipped right back where they’d just come from. Dirt covered my feet. I set back for a minute’s rest and leant against the side of the grave. The moon disappeared behind the trees, and darkness poured into the hole. Smells of damp earth, wet leaves, and skunk wrapped around me. A toad purred, and the owl, the owl, it shrieked once, took wing, and glided, like a death haint above me.

Somethin slithered acrost my foot, and I clawed my way out of the grave hole and onto the ground. I lay there on my back, pantin, and closed my eyes. The sycamore leaves rustled loudly, and my skin prickled till the hairs on my head felt like they was stickin straight out. My eyes flew open and there, starin down from the tree, were a dark, shadowy ghost face with big, dark eyes.

Y
ou can bewitch someone by pointing any sharp stick or cane at him
.

C
ould the face have been a shape-shiftin trick of the shadows? I propped up on one arm, craned my neck so’s to see into the branches, but it, whatever it were, had vanished.

I were scairt—scairt so deep inside—but I needed to stay, needed to finish what I started.

The stars faded, and the first gray light of dawn sifted through the leaves and onto Zenobia. She needed buryin, and soon. My achin body wanted to stay restin, but my head told me it were time to get up and take care of my friend.

I reached into my pocket and felt for my lucky buckeye.
“I should’ve give this to you, Zenobia,” I said to nobody. “Don’t know how I’m goin to do this to you, girl. Bury you here, for forever.” Tears trickled down my face. There weren’t no shirkin this job. She needed to be brushed clean and set to rights like I did my grandpa in his pine box. She’d be laid out, hands folded over her chest. Then, the flat stones set onto her eyes, and a bunch of wildflowers tucked into her hands to keep her company. I dropped to my knees, straightened her raggedy skirt and her bent leg careful, so as not to hurt her. But how could I hurt her any more than she were? I reached under her body to straighten her arm and tugged it.

“Aiiieeeee! Aiiieeeeeeeeee!”

I dropped Zenobia’s arm and tripped backward over a root just as somethin heavy—heavy and big—tumbled from the tree and landed half on me. When I fell against Zenobia’s body, my screamin tailed onto the other screamin sound. Sure as thunder after lightnin, I knowed the haints was goin to put me in that grave with her.

I laid there twined in a jumble of black and brown arms and legs—like snakes in a rock pile. “Lark, you be killin me,” a familiar voice cried.

“How can I be killin you if you dead?” I asked, lookin down into Zenobia’s wide golden eyes.

One long black leg worked its way out of the tangle, and
a big hand pushed against me. I looked back and watched the gunpowder-black slave with the scarred face strugglin to stand. Last time I seen him he were hog-tied onto another boy.

I raised up, felt at myself to make sure all the pieces was still there, and started to move off Zenobia, and she cried out again.

“I’m hurtin, hurtin bad,” she said.

“You be hurtin with no skin on your back if you don’t keep quiet,” the runaway boy said. “You scairt me right off that branch when you come back from the dead.”

“She’s hurt bad,” I said. “We need to help her.”

“I know what happen to me when I try to help someone besides my own self,” the boy said. “Look what helpin you done for me.”

I looked at his bloodied legs and arms, and my stomach turned.

“Sorry,” I said, my head bent. When I looked up, I could see my Hannah doll’s head pokin out of his shirt.

This weren’t no time for us to talk about what had happened to him or how he’d gotten away from them slave catchers. We needed to get away afore the sun come up over the hills.

“I gotta move you, trouble girl,” I said, “but you cain’t make a sound. I’ll be as easy as I can, but if you scream again, after all that noise we made, well, our luck is about played out.”

Zenobia looked at me and nodded.

The boy stood behind me and dropped to his knees, his face all twisted with hate. He looked at me like he’d tasted spoilt meat. He jumped down into the grave hole and crawled back out with the long diggin stick tight in his fist. Were he so mad at me from the trouble I’d caused him?

I watched him get up and walk toward me, the stick pointin steady at me all the time. I knowed what he were doin and turned my head so as not to be caught in his witch trickery. I glanced back at him again, takin care not to look at the stick. He come closer. It took all of everythin I had inside me to turn my back on him. If he were goin to end my days, I wanted helpin Zenobia to be the last thing I done on earth.