James McBride - The Good Lord Bird

“You weren’t saying that when you kidnapped her,” Jason said.

“It was father’s idea to take a girl on the trail!”

On it went some more, just fussin’. There weren’t no clear leader between them once the Old Man had gone. Nigger Bob was standing ’round as they quarreled. He had run and been plumb gone and disappeared during all the fighting—that nigger had a knack for that—but now that the shooting stopped, he showed up again. I guess wherever he run to weren’t good or safe enough. He stood behind the brothers as they went at it. Hearing them fussin’ ’bout me, he piped up, “I will ride the Onion to Tabor.”

I weren’t particular about riding with Bob no place, for it was his pushing me along that helped me to my situation of playing girl for the white man. Plus Bob weren’t a shooter, which Owen was. I’d been on the prairie long enough to know that being with a shooter counted a whole mess out there. But I didn’t say nothing.

“What do you know about girls?” Owen said.

“I know plenty,” Bob said, “for I have had a couple of my own, and I can look after the Onion easily if it pleases you. I can’t go back to Palmyra nohow.”

He had a point there, for he was stolen property and was tainted goods no matter how the cut go or come. Nobody would believe nothing he said about his time with John Brown, whether he actually fought with the Old Man or not. He’d likely get sold to New Orleans if, according to his word, things went the way they did among the Pro Slavers, with white folks believing that a slave who tasted freedom weren’t worth a dime.

Owen groused about it a few minutes but finally said, “All right. I’ll take you both. But I’m going back across the river first to scrounge what’s left of my claim first. Wait here. We’ll head out soon’s I get back.” Off he went, harring up his horse and riding straight into the thickets.

Course the brothers one by one reckoned they too would scrounge what they could from their claims, and followed him along. John Jr. was the oldest of the Old Man’s sons, but Owen was more like the Old Man, and it was his notions that the rest followed. So Jason, John, Watson and Oliver, and Salmon—they all had different notions ’bout fighting slavery, though all was against it—they followed him out. They rode off, tellin’ me and Bob to wait and watch from across the river and holler a warning if I seen some rebels.

I didn’t want to do it, but it seemed like the danger had passed. Plus it brought me some comfort being near where Fred slept. So I told ’em I’d holler loud and clear for sure.

It was afternoon now, and from the knoll where we sat, Bob and I could see clear across the Marais des Cygnes River into Osawatomie. The rebels had mostly cleared out, the last looters hurrying out of town whooping and hollering, with a few bullets of a few early Free Staters who had started to make their way back across the river whistling in their ears. The fight had mostly gone out of everybody.

The brothers took the logging trail that looped out of our sight for a minute, heading to the shallow part of the river to wade across. From my position, I could see the bank, but after several long minutes of leaning over the knoll to watch them cross the river, I still didn’t see them reach the other side.

“Where they at?” I asked. I turned ’round but Bob was gone. The Old Man always had a stolen wagon and horse or two tied about, and every firefight usually ended up with all kinds of items laying about as folks scrambled to duck lead. As luck would have it, there was an old fat mule and a prairie wagon setting there among the stolen booty in the thickets just beyond the clearing where we stood. Bob was back there and he was in a hurry, digging out lines and traces from the back of the wagon. He slapped the lines onto the mule, hitched it to the wagon, hopped atop the driver’s seat, and harred that beast up.

“Let’s scat,” he said.

“What?”

“Let’s git.”

“What about Owen? He said to wait.”

“Forget him. This is white folks’ business.”

“But what about Frederick?”

“What about him?”

“Reverend Martin shot him. In cold blood. We ought to level things out.”

“You can seek that if you want, but you ain’t gonna come out clear. I’m gone.”

No sooner did he utter them words than a bunch of hollering and shooting came from the same direction as the brothers disappeared to, and two horseback-riding rebel riders in red shirts busted through the thicket and into the clearing, circling ’round the long row of trees and coming right at us.

Bob jumped down from the driver’s seat and commenced to pulling the mule. “Wrap that bonnet tight on your little head,” he said. I done it just as the redshirt riders come through the clearing, saw us in the thicket of trees, and charged us.

Both of them were young fellers in their twenties, their Colts drawed for business, one of them pulling a mule behind his horse loaded with gunnysacks. The other feller, he seemed to be the leader. He was short and thin, with a lean face and several cigars stuffed in his shirt pocket. The feller pulling the mule was older and had a hard, sallow face. Both their horses was loaded with goods, rolling fat, with bags stuffed busting to the limit with booty taken from the town.

Bob, trembling, tipped his hat to the leader. “Morning, sir.”

“Where you going?” the leader asked.

“Why, I’m taking the missus here to the Lawrence Hotel,” Bob said.

“You got papers?”

“Well, suh, the missus here got some,” Bob said. He looked at me.

I couldn’t explain nothing and didn’t have paper the first. That set me back. God-damned fool put me on the spot. Oh, I stuttered and bellowed like a broke calf. I played it as much as I could, but it weren’t that good. “Well, I don’t need papers in that he is taking me to Lawrence,” I stuttered.

“Is the nigger taking you?” the leader said, “Or is you taking the nigger?”

“Why, I’m taking him,” I said. “We is from Palmyra and was passing through this country. There was quite a bit of mess with all the shooting, so I drug him ’round this way.”

The leader moved in close on his horse, staring. He was a ripe, good-looking drummer, with dark eyes and a rowdy look to him. He stuck a cigar in his mouth and chewed it. His horse clunked like a marching band as he plopped his mount ’round me, circling me. That pinto was loaded down with so much junk it was a pity. She looked ready to shut her eyes in death. That beast was carrying a house worth of goods: pots and pans, kettles, whistles, jars, a miniature piano, apple peelers, barrels, dry goods, canned goods, and tin drums. The older feller behind him pulling the mule had twice as much junk. He had the nervous, rough look of a gunfighter, and hadn’t said nothing.

“What are you?” the leader asked. “Is you part nigger or just a white girl with a dirty face?”

Well, I was fluffed, wearing that bonnet and dress. But I had some practice being a girl by then, having been one for the several months past. Besides, my arse was on the line, and that’ll unstring your guts quick when you’re in a tight spot. He throwed me a bone and I took it. I mustered myself up and said as proudly as I could, “I am Henrietta Shackleford and you ought not to talk ’bout me like I am a full-blooded nigger, being that I am only half a nigger and all alone in this world. The best part of me nearly as white as you, sir. I just don’t know where I belongs, being a tragic mulatto and all.” Then I busted into tears.

That boo-hooing moved him. That just stuck him! Whirled him backward! His face got soft and he throwed his Colt in its sleeping place, and nodded at the other feller and told him to do the same.