Part 21 (2/2)

Handful.

The night before I went to the City a.r.s.enal to steal a bullet mold, me and Goodis crept up to the empty room over the carriage house-the same one where me and mauma used to sleep-and I let him do what he'd been wanting to do with me for years, and I guess what I'd been wanting to do with him. I was twenty-nine years old now, and I told myself, if I get caught tomorrow, the Guard will kill me, and if they don't, the Work House will, so before I leave the earth, I might as well know what the fuss is about.

The room was empty except for a straw mattress Sabe had laid on the floor for Minta and him, but the place still had the same old fragrance of horse s.h.i.+t. I looked down at the grungy mattress, while Goodis spread a clean blanket cross it, smoothing out every little wrinkle just-so, and seeing the care he took with it, I felt tenderness to him pour through me. He wasn't old, but most of his hair was gone. The lid over his wandering eye drooped, while the other lid stayed up, so he always looked like he was half asleep, but he had a big, easy smile and he kept it on while he helped me out from my dress.

When I was stretched out on the blanket, he gazed at the pouch round my neck, stuffed fat with sc.r.a.ps of the spirit tree.

”I don't take that off,” I said.

He gave it a pinch, feeling the hard lumps of bark and acorns. ”These your jewels?”

”Yeah. Those are my gemstones.”

Pus.h.i.+ng the pouch to the side, he held my b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his hands and said, ”These ain't big as two hazelnuts, but that's how I like 'em, small and brown like this.” He kissed my mouth and shoulders and rubbed his face against the hazelnuts. Then he kissed my bad foot, his lip following the snarled path of scars. I wasn't one to cry, but tears leaked from the sides of my eyes and ran behind my ears.

I never spoke a word the whole time, even when he pushed inside me. I felt like a mortar at first and he was the pestle. It was like pounding rice, but gentle and kind, breaking open the tough hulls. Once he laughed, saying, ”This what you thought it'd be?” and I couldn't answer. I smiled with the tears seeping out.

The next morning, I was sore from loving. At breakfast, Goodis said, ”It's a fine day. What you think, Handful?”

”Yeah, it's fine.”

”Tomorrow gon be fine, too.”

”Might be,” I said.

After the meal, I found Nina and asked her could I have a pa.s.s for the market-Sabe wasn't in a granting mood. I told her, ”Aunt-Sister says mola.s.ses with a little whiskey would do your mauma a world of good, might calm her down, but we don't have any.”

She wrote the pa.s.s and when she handed it to me, she said, ”Any time you need . . . mola.s.ses or anything like that, you come to me. All right?”

That's how I knew we had an understanding. Course, if she knew what I was about to do, she never would've signed her name on that paper.

I walked to the a.r.s.enal with my rabbit cane, carrying a basket of rags, cleaning spirits, a feather duster, and a long broom over my shoulder. Gullah Jack had been watching the place for a good while now. He said on the first Monday of the month, they opened it up for inspection and maintenance, counting weapons, cleaning muskets, and what-not. A free black girl named Hilde came those days to sweep it out, dust, oil the gun racks, and clean the privy out back. Gullah Jack had given her a coin not to show up today.

Denmark had drawn me a picture of a bullet mold. It looked like a pair of nose pliers, except the nose came together to form a tiny bowl on the end where you poured the lead to make the musket ball. He said a bullet mold wasn't much bigger than his hand, so get two if I could. The main thing, he said, was don't get caught.

That was my main thing, too.

The a.r.s.enal was a round building made out of tabby with walls two foot thick. It had three skinny windows high up with iron bars. Today, the shutters were thrown back to let the light in. The guard by the door wanted to know who I was and where was Hilde. I wound through the story about her getting sick and sending me for the stand-in. He said, ”You don't look like you could lift a broom.”

Well, how you think this broom got on my shoulder? All by itself? That's what I wanted to say, but I looked at the ground. ”Yessir, but I'm a hard worker, you'll see.”

He unlocked the bolt on the door. ”They're cleaning muskets today. Stay out of their way. When you're done, tap on the door and I'll let you out.”

I stepped inside. The door slammed. The bolt clicked.

Standing there, trying to get my bearings through the gloom, I sniffed mold and linseed oil and the rancid smell of cooped-up air. Two guards were on the far side with their backs to me, taking a musket apart under one of the windows-all the pieces spread out on a table. One of them turned and said, ”It's Hilde.”

I didn't clear up the mistake. I started sweeping.

The a.r.s.enal was a single room filled with weapons. My eyes roved over everything. Kegs of gunpowder were stacked in the middle halfway to the ceiling. Arranged neat along the walls were wooden racks filled with muskets and pistols, heaps of cannon b.a.l.l.s, and in the back, dozens of wooden chests.

I kept the broom going, working my way round the whole floor, hoping the swish-swish covered the loud, ragged way my breath was coming. The guards' voices came and went in echoes.

This one could fire on the half-c.o.c.k. See the mainspring on the hammer? It's gone bad.

Make sure the ramrod head is tight and there's no rust on it.

When I was blocked from their view behind the powder kegs, my breath eased up. I got out the feather duster. One by one, I brushed the tops of the wooden chests, pausing each time to look over my shoulder before lifting the lid to peek inside. I found cow horns with leather straps. A tangle of iron hand cuffs. Bars of lead. Pieces of thin rope I guessed to be fuses. But no bullet molds.

Then I noticed an old snare drum propped up against the wall, and behind it was another chest. Picking my way over to it, my lame foot upset the drum, and whamblam, it hit the floor.

Here came the boots stomping. I grabbed the duster and the feathers twitched and shook in my hand like they'd come alive.

The guard yelled at me. ”What was that racket?”

”This drum right here fell over.”

He narrowed his eyes. ”You're not Hilde.”

”No, she turned sick. I'm filling in.”

He had a long piece of metal in his hand from the musket. He pointed it at the drum. ”We don't need that sort of carelessness in here!”

”Yessir, I'll take care.”

He went back to work, but my heart had been beat to b.u.t.ter.

I opened the chest where the drum had leaned and there must've been ten bullet molds inside. I pulled out two, slow so they wouldn't clink, and stuck them in my basket under the rags.

Then I swept the air clean of cobwebs and wiped down the gun racks with oil. When I had the place good as Hilde would've done it, I gathered my stuff and tapped on the door.

”Don't forget the latrine,” the guard at the door said, thumbing toward the rear of the a.r.s.enal.

I headed back there, but I walked right past it and kept going.

That night in my room, I found a little piece of cobweb in my hair. I took a towel and rubbed myself clean, then lay down on top of the story quilt, remembering the smile on Denmark's face when I'd showed up and pulled a bullet mold from my basket. When I drew out the second one, he'd slapped his leg and said, ”You might be the best lieutenant I got.”

I waited for sleep, but it didn't come. After a while, I went and sat on the back porch steps. The yard was quiet. I eyed the room over the carriage house and wondered if Goodis had looked for me after supper. He would be asleep now. Denmark, too. I was the only one up, worrying about the bowl on the end of the bullet mold, the place they pour the lead. How many people would those musket b.a.l.l.s kill? I might've pa.s.sed one of them on the street today. I might pa.s.s one tomorrow. I might pa.s.s a hundred people who would die cause of me.

The moon was round and white, sitting small at the top of the sky. It seemed the right size to sit in the bowl on the bullet mold. That was what I wished. I wished for the moon instead of lead.

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