The Journey of Little Charlie

by Christopher Paul Curtis

  He handed me the envelope and said, “This is fifty dollars American, which we calculate would more than cover the cost of the gentleman’s boots and suit.”

  I tolt him, “Thank you kindly, sir, but he wouldn’t-a done nothing but wore that suit of clothes till it was stiff as wood anyway. Seems to me if I was ’em clothes I’d be a lot happier to get put out my misery quick than to have to die slow and stanking on the cap’n’s back. Don’t no one owe nothing for them things.”

  He wouldn’t take the money back and handed me the cap’n’s wallet.

  “We found it contained five-hundred-and-forty-one dollars American. Please count to make certain it’s all there.”

  My hands set to shaking as I opened the wallet and looked at all the money the cap’n was toting. I wished I knew ciphering as good as Sylvanus so’s I could count it out proper.

  I tolt him, “Do I have to count it, sir, or can I just take your word?”

  He smiled. “Put it away, young man, and be careful.”

  “Cat got your tongue, boy?” Sheriff Turner said loudly. “What you come up with?”

  I tolt him part of what I knowed I had to do.

  “I’m taking ’em two slaves you’s holting for us back to South Carol-liney by myself.”

  Him and Keegan ’changed a look.

  “I’m telling you that’s a even worse idee than y’all going to Canada was.

  “You ain’t never gonna make it. You ain’t got no pard-nah, you ain’t even got no dog. It’d be hard ’nough if you was jus’ toting one runaway back, but two? My, my, my, that’s a tall order even for someone who’s seasoned as your friend the cap’n is … or was, whatever the case may be.”

  “What choice I got, sir?”

  “What choice? How ’bout you chooses staying alive? How ’bout you chooses to send a wire to tell ’em folk back home to send you some help?”

  “There ain’t no one can come, sir.”

  He reached his hand out for me to shake it. I did. Every finger throbbed when he turnt my hand loose.

  “Boy, I hopes you enjoyed your brief time on the earth, ’cause it coming to a end a lot sooner than you think.”

  Keegan said, “What kinda bounty is y’all ’specting to get for them two?”

  Soon as I said it, I knowed I shouldn’t-a. “ ’Round ’bout two, three thousand dollar.”

  Keegan whistled one long note.

  “That’ll set up a man for a good long time, won’t it, Sheriff Turner? Yes, sir, a whole lot of com-fitting can be got outta that!”

  The sheriff said, “You sure I caint talk you outta this?”

  “No, sir, there ain’t nothing else I can do.”

  “Well, I’m ’vising ’gainst it again, but let’s get your folks ready.”

  The sheriff took me to where the woman was sharing a cell with four other colored gals and two white ones.

  The sound of us coming in had all their heads perked up looking worrifully at the cell door. The only one who wasn’t paying us no mind was Syl’s ma. She was squatted down in a corner with her hands holting on to her face.

  The six other women’s heads all dropped soon’s they seent we didn’t have no business with them.

  The sheriff said, “All right, gal. Your carriage awaits. You ’bout to go home; come on.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Wench, don’t make me come in that cell.”

  The woman got up slow.

  She come to the cell’s door, studied my face a bit, then says, “Ain’t you the one that went to Canada with the cap’n?”

  I nodded my head. It wasn’t a good idea; one the cords in my neck tightened up and made me give a cry.

  “Where my boy at?”

  “I don’t know. Last I seent of him, a crowd stole him from us and rushed him off.”

  “What kind of crowd?”

  “ ’Twas about a thousand colored folk with sticks and guns with a hunnert or so white ones mixed in ’mongst ’em.”

  Why, I got to tell you the look that come o’er that woman’s face sure wasn’t what you’d ’spect to see from no one that knowed they was a week or two away from a good hiding afore they went back to picking cotton in the hot sun all day. You’d-a thought I tolt her I was gonna split the reward money with her. She jus’ ’bout stumbled.

  One of the other colored women said, “Child, we’s so happy for you!”

  They hugged each other and patted one the ’nother’s backs whilst smiling hard and whispering.

  The sheriff tolt ’em to break it up and hustled Syl’s ma out the cell, through the door to the holting room.

  Soon’s she was out, Sheriff Turner said to me, “Where’s your shackles at?”

  I showed him what we’d brung.

  He looked at ’em and said, “These ain’t no good for what you planning on doing. You need traveling shackles. I got some you can buy cheap.”

  The sheriff pointed at the bench and tolt Syl’s ma, “You set right there till we come back with them chains, gal.”

  He went through another door, leaving me and the woman alone.

  She said, “My boy, sir, you talk to him?”

  “Yup.”

  “He look OK? What he say?”

  I looked at the door where the sheriff was shackling her husband.

  I tolt her, “Well, I gotta say if you and him didn’t favor one the ’nother so much, I wouldn’t never thought you give birth to him. You talks normal, but that boy a yourn been keeping his nose in a schoolbook so much he’s started talking like one. You’d be embarrassed to death if you was to see the airs he’s putting on. And other than them Tanners, he dressed better than any white folk I’d seent in South Carol-liney!

  “You’d weep tears of shame if you was to see the way Syl’s carrying on.”

  I wasn’t looking to pile on the agony for Syl’s ma, but the truth’s the truth.

  Keegan come in and hefted the shackles o’er to her. She looked up and, smiling to beat the band and with her black face a-shining with tears, she stood up and raises her hands out front of her, as though she’s ’specting him to give her a big piece of chocolate cake with mint icing ’stead of the chains he was fixing to.

  Keegan said to her, “Gal, has living up north all these years made you lose your mind? Has you gone so daft you’s forgot what’s a-waiting on you down in South Carol-liney? Ain’t no one playing no game with you.”

  She talked to him bold as any white man would.

  “You listen here, if this was a game, I done won it nine time o’er!”

  He laughed at her and said, “What you won? You ’bout to go back to being a slave. You ain’t gonna have nothing.”

  “What I won? Lemme tell you, mista man. I done give birth to twin girls that you or that stanking cap’n or n’en one n’em other savages Massa Tanner gonna send up here ain’t never gonna find no matter how hard y’all looks.

  “And our Sylvanus! Our baby boy! Who even this gigantic white boy, wit’ his sorry, trashy self, say is talking proper and dressing good as a prince and doing jus’ fine, and writing us letters in his own hand! And judging by the way the both of y’all looks and talks, them’s things neither one of y’all can’t even dream ’bout doing.”

  I started up blushing hard.

  But she wasn’t done.

  She spread her fingers on her right hand and helt it in Keegan’s face. Starting with her thumb, she commenced counting down, rolling each finger one at a time into her palm as she talked.

  “What I won? I was owned by them Tanners, my ma was owned by them Tanners, her ma was owned by them Tanners, her ma was owned by them Tanners, and her ma afore that too.”

  After reciting all her mas and grandmas that was owned by the Tanners, her hand was balled in a hard black fist.

  With her palm pointing up, she all the sudden throwed her fingers open like she been holting on to a hand full of something, dust maybe.

  Then she blowed into her hand and gusts it all away.

&
nbsp; She said, “But that done come to a end with my girls! They ain’t owned by no one, they’s free! Them and Sylvanus is free!

  “Oh, yeah, them Tanners might have holt o’ me and Chester now, but see if we do one minute of work again.

  “Chester know, I know, and them Tanners know what gonna have to be done with us. But no matter how slow and drawed-out they make the end for us, they ain’t getting one second of them nine years and six months back. Not one second.

  “What I won? I’m-a go to my grave knowing my chirren is free, and me and Chester gonna be going home too. That’s what I won.

  “My girls is in Buxton! Buxton!

  “You know what that mean? It mean you’d have better luck going into hell and snatching a poke chop off the devil’s own dinner plate than you’d have of getting them babies back to the Tanners.”

  The sheriff come in and said, “Keegan, why you looking to get her all worked up? Let’s jus’ get ’em shackled proper and out on the road.”

  The sheriff took me to a third door in the holting area. There was a big crate up ’gainst the wall.

  “Why, sir, I already got shackles. I don’t see no need to buy other ones.”

  “Let me ax you, boy. Once you get out in the woods with them darkies, what on God’s green earth is gonna stop that buck from pulling you offen that horse and skinning you alive?”

  “I’m fully armed, sir.”

  “What difference do that make? I’m telling you all they gonna do is wait for the right second to jump you. And ’em light shackles will jus’ give him something to strangle the life outta you. Only thing that can prevent that is these.”

  He pulled the heavy wood crate into the holting room.

  It didn’t take long for me to see the difference ’tween my shackles and the ones the sheriff wanted me to use.

  It was the difference ’twixt a puny two-day-old calf and a prize thousand-and-a-half-pound bull.

  One was skinny and stringy and the other’n was all thick muscles and solid bone. With twenty years of good eating, my shackles might grow up to be half the size of the sheriff’s. One meant business and the other’n didn’t.

  There was also a four-foot-long iron bar that had a thick metal U welded on each end. There was holes cut in each end of the U. It musta weighed sixty pounds.

  At the bottom of the crate was iron staples and bolts and yards and yards of thick, heavy chains.

  The sheriff said, “Keegan, put the crate on the wagon, and soon’s you ready, boy, you and me’ll head on o’er to the blacksmith to get these darkies locked down proper.”

  It wasn’t but a short trip to the blacksmith’s.

  The sheriff said, “Hello, Dale. I brung you some irons that needs to be closed down on some runaways.”

  The blacksmith said, “Afternoon, gennel-men. How many you need bolted in?”

  “Jus’ the two of ’em, thank you kindly, Dale.” The sheriff smiled. “This boy’s taking ’em back to South Carol-liney by hisself.”

  The blacksmith looked at me. “Really?”

  “His pard-nah got retired out of the business o’er in Canada.”

  “Uh-uh-uh. I’ll do what I can. Brang ’em ’round back.”

  We pulled Syl’s ma and pa to the back of the blacksmith’s shop.

  As soon as we was ten feet from the shop, the smells of the place started me feeling sick for home.

  Once the blacksmith was finished with Syl’s ma and pa, they was quite the sight.

  He’d took the four-foot iron bar and put one end of the U that was on each end of it ’round the back of Syl’s pa’s neck. Next he put the front of Syl’s ma’s neck in the U at the other end of the bar. Then he run the chain through the holes in the ends of both of the Us.

  Then he took some of the iron staples and hammered them so’s Syl’s parents couldn’t slip out.

  Next he pult off the cap’n’s light shackles and put on the sheriff’s heavy ones. But ’stead of bolting them down, he hammered more of the staples onto ’em.

  It looked powerful bothersome.

  Once the smithy was done, him and the sheriff walked out the shop.

  Syl’s pa said, “You know what that sheriff’s man’s got planned for you, don’t you?”

  “What you mean?”

  “When you was out getting ’em shackles, he tolt the sheriff he wasn’t ’bout to let three thousand dollars walk out his life without no fight. He done laid plans to bushwhack you on the way south.”

  Syl’s ma joined in. “What you thinking, child? Can’t you see you parading ’round with us is telling every scalawag ’twixt here and Carol-liney, ‘All what stands ’twixt you and three thousand dollar is this dumb o’ergrowed sharecropper?’

  “Can’t you see the wolves is laying in wait? Don’t you hear folk sharpening knives and waiting on you?”

  My guts started aching something fierce when Syl’s pa said, “Sheriff tolt Keegan he couldn’t do nothing to y’all till you was out of Wayne County. Said he didn’t want to have to write no reports ’bout no shallow graves being fount in the city.”

  “Why you telling me this?”

  Syl’s ma said, “We’d have a hard time with Keegan. And you”—she laughed—“I’m gonna have you talked outta this afore we gets outta Mitch-again. I seent your heart and I knows you ain’t gonna do this.”

  My face was afire.

  The sheriff come back in and said, “Look, boy. Iffen you’s able to get ’em outta Dee-troit, you might have a icicle’s chance in the hot place, so I’m-a tell you what—you pay me for my time and my shackles and I’ll see y’all to the city limits.”

  My seventh sense was burning.

  The sheriff give Syl’s ma and pa enough chain so’s they could walk ten feet or so behind our horses.

  If the sheriff hadn’t been there, I don’t think we’d’ve got off the first block.

  We drawed some looks from colored folk and even some white ones that made the hair on my neck stand up.

  One time the sheriff had to tell some folk, “Y’all move on; this here ain’t none your business.”

  Another time he had to raise his shotgun and say, “Uh-uh, it ain’t worth it. This is all legal. Papers is all good; ain’t no one getting kidnapped.”

  By the time the streets had runned out and the buildings had gone from being giant walls to being brick to being wood to being only every once in the while, I was a nervous mess.

  I near retched when the sheriff said, “All right, boy, what y’all gotta do is keep going due south on this trail ’bout four more mile; you gonna hit a town called River Rouge. Jus’ ’bout there, you’s gonna run back into the Dee-troit River; from there go di-rect south.”

  He shook his head and said, “Good luck. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  He turned north, and me and Syl’s ma and pa kept south.

  All the sudden every tree, every blade of grass, every pebble looked like it coulda been big ’nough for Keegan to be hiding behind.

  I kept Pap’s pistol gripped tight in my hand, relieved I hadn’t had to use it on the sheriff.

  I wasn’t sure which way we was gonna go, but it sure wasn’t gonna be the way the sheriff said to. Soon’s he disappeared on the road north, we made a sharp turn east through the woods, toward where I’s thinking the river was. Meandering ’long the river would take lots longer, but it was the only way I could be sure we was gonna be heading south. And it also meant I wasn’t gonna find Keegan behind the next bush.

  Even though I knowed letting ’em go was the right thing to do, I kept having doubts. I always been tolt they ain’t the same as us, they don’t feel things like white people do, they don’t love their kids the same, they don’t love nothing but ducking work and sleeping. I always been tolt they ain’t even got souls.

  The big lie in that showed itself when I seent how Syl had falled so hard for that pretty girl. The only critter I’d ever seent that look on afore was a human being. And I ain’t done much studying on the Bib
le, but I believe it do say somewhere in there that all human beings has souls.

  Keegan and the Dee-troit sheriff and all them other folk wasn’t ’bout to stop me.

  * * *

  We smelt the water long afore we come o’er a hill and seent it ’bout a half mile off.

  There was a colored man sitting on the bank. He ’peared to have two lines in the water.

  I tolt Syl’s ma and pa, “I’m-a chain y’all to this tree and go down and talk to that colored man. You knows you ain’t getting far with them shackles, so jus’ be patient.”

  I wrapped the chain ’round a tree and left ’em.

  I hoped they had sense ’nough not to run off with them heavy shackles on their necks.

  I rode up on the man.

  A rowboat was pult up on the riverbank next to him.

  “ ’Scuse me, sir, is this here the Dee-troit River?”

  He didn’t look up from his fishing pole.

  “Sure is.”

  “How they biting?”

  “Not bad; that cold winter we had means there’s lots of perch.”

  “What you using?”

  “Crawlers and minnerows.”

  I pointed ’crost the river.

  “That there’s Canada?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You been there?”

  “Many a time. Ain’t gone far into it, though. Fishing’s jus’ as good here.”

  “How come you ain’t using the rowboat?”

  “I’m more comf-table being on land when I’m fishing. I live a couple miles downriver and this time of year the fishing’s better up here.”

  “What’s the best way to get o’er there?”

  He looked at me.

  “Whoo-wee! You took a good one, I see!”

  “Yes, sir, got jumped by a whole mob.”

  “Looking to improve your luck in Canada, huh?”

  “Maybe, sir.”

  “There’s a ferry in Detroit, and one north of the city.”

  “How far’s that?”

  “Detroit?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “On horseback, it ain’t but ’bout a hour or so. And goodness me, what a horse that is!”

  “Thank you, sir. Any blacksmiths ’tween here and the city?”