Part 6 (1/2)

”That's where we started for.”

The old man looked at me and shook his head. ”The boy'll never make it,” he said. ”You? I figure it'll take you about thirty years. Give or take a couple.”

”Well, we better head out,” I said. ”Thank you very much. I wonder if I couldn't bother you for a bottle of water?”

Ned was sound asleep, so I had to shake him to wake him up. I told him to get the flint and iron together. The old man gived me a jug of water and we left him standing out on the gallery.

I can tell you all the things we went through that week, but they don't matter. Because they wasn't no different from the things we went through them first three or four days. We stuck to the bushes most of the time. If we saw people, we hid till they had pa.s.sed us. One day we had to run a dog back that was trying to follow us because we was scared the people might come looking for him. Another time I watched a house about an hour before I went and asked them for water. The people cussed us out first, then they broke down and gived us the water.

One day, with the sun straight up, we saw a man on a wagon. I went out in the road and waved him down and asked him where we was. He told me the parish. I asked him if that meant I was still in Luzana. He said close as he could speculate I was right in the middle of Luzana. I asked him could we ride with him. He said we could-if we was going the same way he was. But since it didn't look like we was, then he had to say no.

I had already throwed my bundle in the wagon; now I was helping Ned up on the wheel.

”Y'all look beat,” the man said to me.

His name was Job; the people told us later.

”We was going to Ohio,” I said. ”My little friend here got tired.”

”He look it,” Job said.

Rednecks and Scalawags.

Job took us to his house. Soon as his wife saw us in that wagon she started fussing. Tall and skinny-nothing but a sack of bones. Looked like she ought to been too weak to even open her mouth; but that woman started fussing when we drove in that yard and didn't stop till we left there the next day.

”What you doing with them n.i.g.g.e.rs?” she asked Job. ”You ain't had no money to go and buy no n.i.g.g.e.rs, and you sure ain't got nerve enough to steal none. If you brought them here to feed them you can turn around and take them right straight on back. Ain't got enough food here for me to eat.”

”Let them stay here tonight,” Job said.

”In my house?” the woman said. ”Stink up my place?”

It was a cabin, not a house. Old-leaning to one side. Job had even propped it up with fence posts to keep it from falling all the way down.

”They can sleep in the crib,” he said.

”That's right,” his wife said. ”Ain't got nothing else in there. No corn, no punkins, no cushaw, no 'tatoes. Look at this old ground.” She stomped it with her foot. ”Look at that garden. What garden? Where my turnips? Where my mustards? Look at them old dead mules. Look at this old ground.” She stomped again.

Job told us to stay in the wagon, and he got down and started unhitching the mules.

”Old no count,” his wife said. ”That's why you didn't go to war like a man. Talking 'bout it ain't your war, it's their war. That's why I ain't got me no children. You no count. You just no count.” Then she started laughing.

Job told me and Ned to stay in the wagon till he came back. We sat out there two, maybe three hours. All that time we could hear that woman in the house fussing. They had a bayou behind the house and you could hear crickets and frogs on the bayou, but over all that noise you could hear that woman. When Job came back outside it was so dark we could hardly see him. He told us follow him to the crib. I had to wake up Ned and tell him come on. It was dark in the crib. The crib was hot and dry. I could feel dry gra.s.s under my feet, and the scent was strong. Job told us to go sit by the wall. I held my hand out till I touched the wall, then I sat down and pulled Ned down side me. Job was there now. I couldn't see him too good, but I could smell him. His scent was strong as the gra.s.s scent.

”Here,” he said.

I reached my hand up in the dark and I touched his hand, than I took the piece of cornbread. It was wet on one end.

”Piece for him,” he said.

I gived Ned the piece I already had, then I reached for the piece Job was holding. He told us we could sleep there tonight, and tomorrow he was taking us somewhere else. We sat there in the dark eating the soggy bread. It had been dipped in pot liquor. Pot liquor that had been round couple days.

When Ned got through eating he laid down and went back to sleep. I sat against the wall listening to that crazy woman till way up in the night. The war had done that to lot of them, drove them crazy like that. More than once I started to wake Ned up and tell him let's go. I even put my hand on his shoulder to shake him once. But he was so tired. And I was tired, too. I told myself I would just sit there and keep guard.

The next morning when Job woke us up I was still sitting there against the wall.

”Where we going?” I asked him.

”Y'all friend Bone,” he said.

”I don't know n.o.body name no Bone,” I said.

Job didn't say another word. We clambed in the wagon. The woman was standing in the door fussing. Looking the same way she looked the day before. Like she hadn't gone to bed, like she hadn't closed her eyes or closed her mouth a second. We could hear her saying ”no count” and ”n.i.g.g.e.rs” till we got out of sight. When Job was sure she couldn't see us no more he reached in his pocket and brought out some pecans. That's what we had for breakfast and dinner that day-pecans.

I have seen some slow mules in my days, but the two pulling that wagon must have been the slowest yet. Two little brown mules not much bigger than Shetland ponies. You couldn't even see them from the back of the wagon. Like the wagon was moving there slow and creaky all by itself. I wanted to sit on the board with Job, but he told me to get back. And a good thing I did because later that day we met up with two Secesh on horses. Before they got to us Job told us to stay quiet and let him do all the talking. When they got a little closer he pulled back on the mules to make them stop. He didn't have to pull back hard.

”See you got some n.i.g.g.e.rs there,” one Secesh told him.

”Yes,” Job said. ”Can't say they much, but you got to start with something, a fellow poor like me.”

”Feed them, they'll grow up,” the Secesh told him.

”Will do,” Job said.

”And y'all mind, y'all hear?” the Secesh told us.

”They better,” Job said.

The Secesh rode off. Job shook the lines. Had to shake them twice to make them two little mules come up. He didn't tell us who the riders was, but I knowed all the time they was nothing but Secesh.

Job went on eating pecans and dropping the peels in the wagon. Looked like he didn't have strength enough to drop them out on the ground. And maybe he just didn't care-with that crazy woman back there fussing at him all the time. Them mules didn't care too much either; that wagon just creaked and creaked and wasn't getting nowhere.

Almost sundown that evening we stopped at a crossroad. Job told us to get down and walk half a mile and we was coming up to a big house. Go knock on the door, front or back, and tell the man there we needed a home. ”But don't tell who brought you here,” he said.

We started down the road, and the wagon moved on. The crop was down, and I kept looking back over my shoulder at Job. I could hear the wagon creaking, but it was moving so slow it looked like it wasn't moving at all. Now, all a sudden I remembered I hadn't told Job thank you. Now, I wanted to run and catch that wagon and tell him how much I appreciated what he had done for us. But my poor little legs was so tired they couldn't go nowhere. I wanted to holler, I wanted to wave, make some kind of sign, but I doubt if Job would have heard me or seen me. The way he was sitting there, gazing down at them two little brown mules, I doubt if he even seen or knowed where he was going.

We didn't see the house till we made the bend. A big white house with a gallery on the front and the side. To the right of the house you had fruit orchard-oh, maybe two or three acres-maybe more. On the other side, the left side of the house, you had horses and cows in a pasture. Farther down was the quarters.

Listening to Job, I went up to the front door and knocked. A n.i.g.g.e.r came there and looked down at me. Right off, I could see I had done the wrong thing.

”Job brought y'all here?” he said.

”Who?” I said.