Running Out of Night (7 page)

“It looks to be clearin out there and sun be settin,” I said.

Zenobia lifted her head and glanced toward the openin. “I cain’t hear no more hounds.”

“We safe for now,” I said. “Let’s eat a few bites and think on what we goin to do.”

I cupped my hand to my ear and heard the sound of a kingfisher bird rattlin like a bucket of dried butter beans. That bird wouldn’t never stay close if anyone come nearby us.

I fumbled around inside my sack, felt for the soft rounds of apple, the jerky, and cracklins, and pulled them out. I stuffed a sweet apple slice into my mouth and chewed, then bit into a tough piece of jerky and tugged at its stubbornness.

Last night had been a fattenin moon. We could wait awhile afore leavin the cave and we’d still have plenty of light for travelin.

“Girl,” Zenobia said. “What we goin to do?”

The “we” in her question didn’t bother me none now.

“Finishin our food so’s we can get out of here,” I said.

I heard her chompin and felt her movin her bag. She wriggled sideways, then propped her face on her hands.

“I were watchin from the porch when you was workin and pickin out in your tomater patch. You was whistlin like that yeller bird on the fence post. You whistle to him; he whistle right back to you; you sound jus’ like him.”

“I’m a right fine whistler,” I admitted, glad that someone had noticed somethin good about me.

Zenobia’s finger poked into my shoulder. “What were that bird you was singin to?”

“That were a lark,” I answered.

“I be thinkin on that and now I namin you Lark, and that ain’t a milk name, that a name you keep. You Lark.”

“Lark,” I said, “I likes that name Lark,” and I whistled its sweet flutin song for her. We both giggled, but then I shuddered. I remembered one of the last times Pa let me go to school. My teacher caught me whistlin, and she said, “Miss Nicoll, whistlin girls and crowin hens always come to some bad end.” I wouldn’t let myself come to no bad end.

I looked over my shoulder. The light were beginnin to fade. I dug my toes in the sand to gain purchase, then wiggled backward a few feet toward the openin. Then I
realized that my toes was wet, covered with cold runnin water that had crept up from the risin crick and into the cave.

“Mama, Grandpa, don’t let us come to no bad end.”

Then I yelled, “Zenobia! We in trouble. The water’s risin fast. Either we get ourselfs out now or we gonna drown.”

M
ake a heartfelt wish when you see the first star come out, and your wish will come to pass
.

Z
enobia crouched by the openin and tore at the branches. I slipped next to her and pulled off the stubborn twigs till we could grab the trunk. The water rose quick—one second an inch deep, the next over our feet and climbin fast.

We pushed against the trunk, rocked it back and forth, and pushed again till the tree groaned, slipped sideways, and rolled into the torrent.

I looked down at my hands. They ran with ribbons of blood. I shook them and reached out to dunk them in the risin water, but Zenobia yelled at me to get out.

“We don’t have no time to waste!” she shouted.

I looked over at her and saw that she were bloodied too.

“Lark, you go. I pass you the sacks.”

I crawled out of the flooded cave and tried to reach for our sacks, but the water picked me up like a leaf boat and whisked me downstream. Small branches whipped acrost my cheeks, tore at my forehead, and caught in my hair. My hands, knees, and legs slammed into boulders, but I couldn’t take no time to think of the hurtin. I gulped water, gasped at the air, paddled like my Delia dog, and fought to keep my head above the powerful current.

The water slowed and smoothed. I half floated, half paddled, and worked my way toward the bankside. I almost made it, but another crick, this one narrower, rain-swolled, and flowin as fast as any I’d ever seen, hit me broadside and twirled me round and round. I paddled but didn’t make an inch of headway. I spun and spun, down into the dark waters, sputterin and chokin and all the time thinkin to myself that I weren’t goin to let this be my end.

I grabbed for a branch afore it washed past me and held on with both hands. I kicked hard and the branch shot straight up and out of the twirlin waters, then bore me along. Off to my side, I saw a light patch of sand juttin out like a long, white finger. I held on, turned toward the landfall, kicked hard, and my foot finally scumbled against the gravelly bottom so’s I could push myself onto shore.

I laid there on the sand, pantin and feelin every bit of
me hurtin now. “Mama,” I said, “I didn’t think things could get any worst.”

“What you didn’t think to be worst?” asked Zenobia, who stood on the bank just a few feet above me. She were near dry, and our food sacks on her shoulders looked to be in fine shape.

“You went heels over,” she said, and laughed. “I held on to them tree roots and climb along the bank.”

Her humor made me mad. “Look at me. A fine thing for you to laugh at me all bloody and hurt.”

Zenobia grinned. “You be alive; you not be broken; you not be caught.” She scrambled down the bank and reached for my hand. I didn’t want her help, but I looked up at her, grasped her tightly, and let her pull me up. My legs wobbled like a newborn filly’s.

“We need to get back in the crick so’s they cain’t pick up our scent,” I said to her, actin like nothin special happened to me and like I were the boss of both of us. I reached for my sling and sack, which I didn’t want to carry, and slipped them onto my achin shoulders.

“My buckeye!” I said, pattin at my pocket. “Oh, thank the good Lord, my buckeye is safe.”

“Why you worryin now about a buckeye?” Zenobia asked.

“It’s my good luck,” I said. “My grandpa give it over to me. He always carried it; now I always has it in my pocket. I’d never let go of it for nothin.”

Zenobia shook her head back and forth. “Don’t seem like to me your good-luck buckeye been workin too hard for you.”

We held hands and slipped and stumbled acrost the rocks and branches in the crick and worked our way downstream in the shallows. The night closed around us. I could smell the wet earth, wild mint, and skunk. We sloshed through the water till we couldn’t take another step, and finally, in the shelter of an overhangin sycamore, we dropped our packs and fell to the ground.

We was both shakin from the cold and the wet, gaspin like a couple of fresh-caught fish tossed on shore. Neither of us had the breath to talk.

Finally, Zenobia said, “Trapped in the cave weren’t so good and safe.”

I rolled onto my back. “Like I said, trapped ain’t never good for the one in it.” I looked up through the lacework branches of the trees, saw my first star, squeezed my eyes together, and made a wish for a table full of hot food.

We laid there, quiet, and all around us the night come into its fullness. Frogs, tree crickets, first one, then others, jar flies, all manner of sounds chorused together. Skeeters whined in my ears; I swatted, but no amount of hittin could keep them from feastin on me.

Above us, a lightnin bug circled and flashed. When I raised my head, I could see them flickerin on and off, like little candles in the bushes and grass alongside the crick.

“Zenobia,” I said. “Look at them lightnin bugs. How can there be so much good and pretty and such bad and ugly all mixed together?”

I raked my fingers acrost the top of the grass and caught myself a handful of lightnin bugs, then sprinkled them over Zenobia’s head. They snaggled into her dark, wiry hair, sparklin and flashin so’s she looked like she’d walked into a cloud of stars.

Zenobia struggled up onto her elbows and looked down the crick. “I seen bad and ugly,” she said, “but now I follers the North Star and finds me some good.”

She laid back, tugged her food sack close, and clutched it to her body.

I pulled off my wet sling and spread it on the ground next to the sack, then I untied the knot, stuck my hand inside, and fumbled through apples. Finally, I felt at the softness of my old Hannah doll’s skirt. Just rubbin on it made me feel safer.

Zenobia set up, reached into her bag, and pulled out somethin to eat. “We gots to get movin and find a place to hide out afore tomorrow mornin.”

We rested, then gathered our sacks and hung them over our shoulders. I picked them lightnin bugs out of her hair and scattered them acrost the grass. Then, we stepped back into the cold crick and tossed water onto the bank to wash away our smell.

Every time I heard a hooty owl call or a dog fox bark,
I jumped. I were right used to bein outside, but tonight, I just wanted to settle down in front of a fire and sleep.

Zenobia and me walked for a few hours. We didn’t talk none; it seemed like the water washed away all the words from us and sent them downstream. Finally, we heard the dawn song of a sparrow.
Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody
, it called, safe on its perch in a nearby tree. But there weren’t no safe for us in the full light of day, and I were plumb out of ideas to keep us goin.

I
f you’re kind to the trees, they’ll tell your story ahead of you to the other trees, and they will always lend you shelter
.

Z
enobia and me was tired. I knowed we couldn’t keep on walkin. I looked up into the branches of the huge sycamore where the little bird sang its song over and over, over and over. I wished I could feel so happy at the comin of the mornin.

Ten feet above us, a thick branch swooped acrost the crick, then dipped down almost into the water. I waded to the sturdy limb and pulled myself up and over, then dangled my legs on each side like I were ridin one of Grandpa’s old horses. First I slid an inch, then another, and finally I hitched a few inches at a time till I got to the middle of the crick. Zenobia stood below me
and watched as I hoisted myself up through the big branches, then up again till I were a good twenty feet above her. I looked down, through the wide leaf hands and branches, at glimpses of the curlin blue-green of the water.

“Get up here, trouble girl. You got no business bein down in the crick this time of day. Foller where I come up. There ain’t no way for someone to track us up here from the middle of the water.”

Zenobia checked her sack, tied it closed, and looked up into the thickness of leaves. She hugged the limb, pulled herself onto it, and crept to the center of the crick.

“I don’t like this. I never like bein up high. What if I falls?”

“Turn your mind to climbin up and don’t think nothin about fallin down,” I urged.

Zenobia stood, steadied herself, and grabbed the branch above her. I watched her get her balance and walk slow toward the trunk. Once she reached it, she leant against its bulk, then gripped the branch and pulled herself up. At first, she were careful, but then she climbed faster and faster. Just as I started to caution her, she reached for a branch, and it snapped. She slipped, down, down, one limb, two, three, reachin, graspin, and hollerin as she fell toward the rocky crick below us.

“Hold on, girl!” I screamed.

She flailed, thumped, and stopped her fall in the fork of two strong limbs. They looked like big speckled arms cradlin her in the air.

“Oh law,” I said. “Cain’t you take care and get up here without near killin yerself and lettin everyone know we here?”

She looked up and shouted, “I didn’t spect to be climbin no trees, and I sure didn’t spect to be flyin through no trees.”

“That weren’t no flyin,” I said, “that were fallin, and fallin and hollerin, and that ain’t what we needs now.”

Within a few minutes, she righted herself and began the climb through the branches, but she come more slow this time, not so bold and full of herself. Finally, she set on a limb just a few feet away. She were breathin hard and holdin on tight. Bloody scratches striped her arms, legs, and the side of her face. She looked like she’d been wrestlin a bobcat.

I could tell she hadn’t spent no time in trees, but for me, hidin out high in tree branches always felt like a safe nest. Folks never think to look up. How many times had I run and hid from Pa and my brothers after they hurt me? They’d hunt through the woods never knowin that I set up above them and watched their every move.