Running Out of Night (3 page)

N
ever lay your broom bristles head-up or you will find trouble just around the corner
.

P
a’s big body blocked the bale of light on the floor. I kept my head down and bent into my sweepin. I didn’t dare to stop workin, and I knowed that if I looked at him the wrong way, he’d clout me.

“You,” Pa said as he slammed the door shut behind him. “You fetch up that scatter-gun and powder. We got a runaway, and I can git me fifty dollars if I catch her afore she leaves the county.”

Her. Pa had said “her,” and I knowed what that meant. I forced myself not to look down at the trapdoor. I put my hand to my mouth to stop a laugh from makin its way out.
Sometimes when I’m plain scairt or sad, I laugh. Sure to earn me the back of Pa’s hand.

“Het it up!” Pa yelled. “Every man and hound from Purcellville to Hades is out lookin for her.”

A fresh round of howlin and barkin jarred me into movin. The dogs whined, scratched at the door, and tried to push their way inside. From somewhere far off, I heard another pack of dogs yippin like they was runnin a bear.

I set my broom bristles down proper-like in the corner, climbed onto the stool in front of the stone fireplace, and stood on tiptoe to reach his shotgun—shiny, smooth, heavy, and cold, as cold as Pa’s slatey eyes that squinted at me from acrost the room. I could feel them on my back.

“Grab the shot pouch and horn,” Pa said. “They want her alive, but they don’t say nothin about pickin buck and ball out of her dirty brown hide.”

Grandpa’s old shot pouch and powder horn hung from straps on a big iron hook in the mantel. I lifted them down and set them on the table as Pa brushed past me.

He started for the narrow ladder to the attic, turned, and said, “Put some victuals together for me.”

“Oh law,” I said under my breath. I’d have to go down to the cellar for some dried apples, jerky, and cracklins. I hadn’t made any bread yet, and they was the only things I had to hand.

I waited for Pa to climb the ladder afore I picked up his victuals sack and lifted the door. I wondered how the
girl felt, trapped down in that dark hole and hearin all the commotion just a few feet above her.

A clank and a dull thump sounded from below.

I poked my fingers into the trapdoor holes, lifted it, and leaned over the openin.

“Shhhhhhh,” I hissed. “You get us both killt.” I scuttled down the steps. “Keep quiet or we goin to end up like our old sow Daisy hangin from them hooks.”

The girl set huddled in the dark amongst the near-empty barrels of potatoes and apples. She looked up at the meat swayin above her and rubbed the side of her head.

“We in trouble,” I said. “They close on your trail. Why didn’t you tell me?” She just set there and stared at me like I were speakin in tongues.

I moved past her and began to slide dried apple slices off a long thread of gut and into Pa’s pouch. I stepped over to the wooden racks filled with strips of jerky and cracklins curled like pine shavins. I never gets to eat much of the meat I dry, but today I couldn’t stop myself. First one piece and then another went into my mouth. I chewed quickly and swallowed so’s Pa wouldn’t smell it on me, then picked a wintergreen leaf out of my pocket and stuck it in my mouth.

The girl stood up and held out her hand. I passed her three small pieces, and she shoved one into her mouth. Then she pulled the dirty gray bandanna off her head, tucked two pieces inside it, and headed toward the ladder.

“Deer shot when it runs,” I said.

“But the man say he gonna shoot me,” she whispered.

I shook my head. “No, he ain’t, not so long as you keep quiet.”

The trouble girl turned back and crouched in the corner. She looked right wild.

An empty harvest basket set beside the steps. I picked some extra meat and apples, turnips and taters, and tucked them inside to fix for supper. I didn’t want to have to make any more trips down into the cellar.

“You stick right where you are,” I said, waggin my finger at her. I hooked the basket onto my arm, slung Pa’s victuals sack over my shoulder, and climbed the steps. When I poked my head above the floor, I heard Pa movin acrost the attic.

“What you goin to do? Run out the door and into that pack of dogs?” I asked, but I didn’t give her a chance to answer.

I climbed out, lowered the trapdoor into place, nudged the bench back over it, and set down the heavy basket.

Pa run into somethin, and it thudded onto the attic floor. A flood of bad words come from him. I grabbed my tin cup, gulped a mouthful of water, and scurried over to Pa’s powder horn. He were backin halfway down the ladder when I unscrewed the plug and spit the water into the horn. There weren’t no way he could shoot with his powder wet. Just as I replaced the cap, Pa’s boot hit the kitchen floor.

D
ogs can see ghosts and will bark when the ghosts are nearby
.

I
handed Pa the horn and pouch. He looped the long straps around his neck, then looked round the messy kitchen. “What you been doin here all mornin? Don’t you know how to work?” he asked as he jabbed the barrel of the gun into the center of my chest.

I didn’t dare look at him or let him see he’d hurt me.

Pa picked up his victuals sack, walked out the door, and slammed it hard. From the small, hazy mica window, I watched as the dogs circled his legs like they hadn’t seen him for days. The neighbor’s hounds, who’d been sniffin all around the yard, turned and headed back toward the porch. I could hear him yellin at them. Tellin them to
get off his farm (like they knowed this was his farm), and threatenin to shoot them if they didn’t.

Pa walked acrost the yard with half a dozen dogs slinkin behind him, noses to the ground, tails down. Then they stopped, circled him, snuffled their noses into the soil and up into the air, like they was smellin fresh-killt deer. They turned and made a yelpin run for the porch again.

He picked up a water bucket, hurled it at the dogs, and promised to shoot them all. “Worthless!” he said, and yelled a string of words he usually saved up for me.

I watched till I couldn’t see Pa or hear a dog barkin anywhere near. From somewhere in the woods, I heard the muffled sound of a shot. Close by, a raspy blue jay scolded, and a redbird hidden in some bushes called
purdy, purdy, purdy, purdy
.

I wondered where my brothers was. With my luck,
they
would come home too and expect me to fix up more victuals for the hunt. I were gettin tired of liftin up that door and worryin about all the things that was a tick away from goin wrong.

Two years ago, the last time Grandpa and me went to church afore he passed, the preacher told me that my “good common sense” kept me alive. My good common sense told me to go get that girl out of the cellar and out of my life, but my heart, the thing that gets in the way of my common sense, were tellin me somethin else.

“Mama, what should I do?” I asked. “Am I goin to get the beatin of my life tryin to help her?”

No answer.

“Mama, please, just give me a sign what to do.”

No answer.

I wished that just this one time my mama could answer. That someone could tell me what were right and what were wrong. And why did I have to take a beatin for someone I didn’t even know, or care about? Someone who probably wouldn’t give me a butter bean if I were the hungry one. Why should I risk my own hide for her?

I quick-like righted the kitchen and picked up my big fanny basket but then set it back down. I wanted to go out and pick some tomaters and work around in the garden, but I needed to tell that whatever-her-name-was trouble girl that things was safe for now, so long as she stayed put and kept quiet. Why should I worry about easin her when I were nervous as a hen in a fox den? What did I care if she were scairt down there? I were gettin mad just thinkin about the fix she’d put me in.

I spun round, went straight to the bench, and clunked it on the floor as I moved it. Maybe put the scare into her, maybe so much of a scare she’d take off and head for the … the what?

I lifted the trapdoor just a sliver. I needed to make sure I could put things to rights if the boys surprised me.

“You in there?” I asked as I bent over the hole and squinted into the blackness.

“What you think?” she answered.

That made me mad. “Don’t go smartin off, or you’ll be sorry,” I barked. Oh sweet Lord. I sounded like Pa.

I knelt down and leant forward. “You gonna have to stay quiet here till tomorrow mornin. You cain’t go out yonder with all them hunters and dogs runnin the woods.”

She snuffled loudly but didn’t say a word.

“I’m goin to do some pickin and my chores, but I’m not goin to take any chances talkin to you again today,” I said. “Don’t cry. And don’t you move and knock into anythin else. Understand?”

“Bless you,” she whispered. Her words made me feel like the mud Pa had knocked off his boots.

I passed a crock of water and a tin cup down to her and let the door drop. I set on my haunches, rocked back and forth, back and forth, and tried to imagine how I would feel down there alone. Alone, in the dark, knowin that traders and slave catchers and packs of dogs was searchin the woods and fields for me.

I almost cried for her.

And then she sneezed.

I stomped on the floor, then knelt down till my lips almost touched the crack around the trapdoor. “One sneeze like that when everyone’s to home, and you’re dead. Dead like the possum Pa skinned last night.” I glanced up at the window to make sure nobody were lookin in, then blew on the sand and watched my handprints disappear.

A
lways carry a buckeye in your pocket as a good-luck charm
.

I
worked among the poles of greasy beans, tugged, twisted, and dropped the plumpin pods into my fanny basket. The beans was just startin to lose their green—I needed to string and hang ’em afore I missed my chance to make our winter supply of leather britches. I don’t know why, but stringin and knottin those beans, well, it makes me feel like I’m settin my world to rights. I love hangin them beans on the back porch, line after line, like so many pairs of narrow green socks.

“Thank ya, beans, y’all be mighty good eatin,” I sang to them. Then a layer of tomaters. “Thanks, all ya beauties.
Y’all redder than a maple leaf.” As I worked, I forgot all my worries, all my sorrows. The garden does that for me, makes me feel as healt up as the arnica and comfrey poultices the preacher’s wife made for me once after I angered my pa.

From the field nearby, I heard the sweet slurried song of the lark. I answered with my own whistlin song. He were confused, sang right back, and I whistled again and smiled. I’m a right good whistler but most never do it in front of anyone.

All around me the barn swallows wove and dipped, chittered and dived. Under the eaves of the shed, their mud nests overflowed with gape-mouthed babies beggin for their suppers. A phoebe, tail dippin up and down like the handle on our water pump, left his perch and snapped a moth out of the air in front of me.

Maybe I were feelin too good, too right with things, but the next minute I looked up and there she stood in the doorway. Her brown hair stuck out in tufts like the pinfeathers on the baby swallows. The dirty gray bandanna in her hand bulged with a passel of Pa’s victuals. She took one look at me and started to jump off the porch and hightail it.

“Stop!” I shouted, and ran toward her. “You cain’t run when they’s so close to you. Them dogs’ll catch your scent.”

She turned toward me and her golden eyes looked big as
chestnuts. Her mouth hung slack open, and she gasped for each breath like the little doe the dogs run down and cornered by the woodshed. I could feel how scairt she were.

But could she feel how scairt
I
were? What if she got caught and told where she’d been hidin? What if afore I could get indoors and make things aright, Pa or my brothers come in and seen the cellar all tore apart? And what if she got shot, and hurt, and sent back … sent back where?

Boom
. I dropped my gatherin basket, and the birds tornadoed around me. A shattered, bloody nest laid at my feet. A barn swallow swooped past, skimmed just inches above the ground, and arced up to the spot where the nest once clung. As it flew, it made a keenin cry—most the saddest sound ever.