by Kathi Appelt
“She should be good there,” the vet said. When the time comes, Cade will ride along with them, even though it will be hard to watch the cat go.
Now, as he stands on the banks of the bayou, Cade shivers.
He pulls his jacket tighter and watches the fog hover just above the water’s surface. The sky is turning as pink as roses.
He needs to tell Soleil what is true, something about angels, including an angel with a crack that ran from the corner of her eye to the collar of her robe. And when he tells her this, he will also have to tell her about the lost Lady and why she mattered so much.
Soleil? She could walk away, and he wouldn’t blame her if she did.
For now, he puts his right hand over his chest and feels the beating of his very own heart. Below him, the bayou slides toward the sea. The ancient haints rise from the water’s silver surface, linger for a moment, then disappear into the morning air.
Gabrio
COSTA CHICA, MEXICO
NOVEMBER
The boy tied his shoelaces, then tied them again in a double knot. He could not risk stumbling over his laces, couldn’t risk losing a shoe. These shoes had to carry him a long ways, over unfriendly ground.
He climbed into the back of the truck, an old army truck with canvas sides. There were other people already in there, sitting on benches in tight rows, side by side. In the boy’s left pocket he carried every bit of money he had, plus some that his tía and tío had scraped together. He knew they had given him every last peso they could find.
They were all counting on him. Every single person in his family needed for him to make it to Texas. He could do it. He had his St. Christopher medal, the one his abuela had placed around his neck. The cash in his left pocket should get him there, plus some for when he arrived.
And in his other pocket? A small figurine of a woman, carved out of marble, her eyes closed, her mouth an open O, as if she is taking in a deep breath, and maybe the whole world with it. It was handed down to him from his mamacita. It was given to her by her mama and hers before that.
All the edges of it were smooth from being rubbed and rubbed some more. Whenever he held it, it warmed up in the middle of his palm. He patted his pocket to make sure it was there, looked around the truck at his fellow travelers, and prayed.
“Señor Dios,” he said. “Enviar ángeles, por favor.”
Buffalo Bayou
HOUSTON
The bayou, she remembers all her names, she remembers the names of those she’s met, and some she hasn’t, she remembers their deepest dreams, their keenest prayers. She knows all about love, how it’s lost, how it’s found. How it can save the world.
Listen. There are angels.
Amen, they whisper. Amen.
Author’s Note
I grew up on the south end of Houston, on the corner of Mayo Avenue and El Buey Way. I can count my Houston ancestors from at least seven generations back. So I’ve wanted to write a story that was set in my hometown for many years. And I’ve always known that if I ever did, it would take place along the Buffalo Bayou. The bayou of my story is far more fictional than real, and while I’ve hewn to historic maps of the wards and streets and bridges, as well as the various paths of the ever-changing bayou itself, I’ve definitely taken some liberties with their actual geography. Considering how often the bayou herself has shifted in her banks, I let her be the guide location-wise.
A few years ago I happened across a small article by Louis Aulbach about a woman named Sylvia Routh, who was brought to Texas as a slave in the early 1830s. She was owned by a ship’s captain, James Routh. When he died, he set her free, leaving her a substantial amount of property. He also set their two older sons free, and he left his ship in their care. However, he did not do the same for their two young daughters. Instead, he put them in the custody of a friend until they reached the age of twenty-one. So my character Achsah is loosely inspired by Sylvia’s story.
Reading about Sylvia led me to some further research about pre–Civil War Texas and the very startling discovery (to me) that one of the reasons that the Texans fought for independence from Mexico was that Mexico had made slavery illegal. The Texans who had come to settle there rejected that law. Because they wanted to entice settlers from the southern slave states to locate in Texas, it was important to them to maintain the legality of slavery, especially in light of the two major cash crops—sugar and cotton—which were labor intensive.
If you read the constitution of the Republic of Texas, you’ll find the inclusion of the infamous Section 9, the section that embeds slavery into the fabric of Texas’s history and that mimicked the Constitution of the United States.
One of the underreported facts of American history is that in the years before the Civil War, there was a southern Underground Railroad, but instead of it leading to the northern states or Canada, it led to Mexico. It wasn’t as organized as its more famous northern route, but it nevertheless existed. Among the narratives of enslaved people that the Works Progress Administration (WPA) writers of the 1930s wrote down, there is at least one that talks about walking to Mexico and crossing the Rio Grande into freedom. The city of Costa Chica, along the eastern coast of Mexico, was partly settled by enslaved people who escaped.
There have been so many dark moments in our history as a country, and one of the most bleak and horrifying was the forced removal of thousands of Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee (Creek), and other indigenous people from their homes and land in the southeastern United States to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi. Genocide is the only way to correctly describe it, as thousands died along the trail.
One of the many things that were stripped from the Native Americans when they were forced out were the marble fields of Georgia. The marble there is uniquely beautiful and arises in a variety of shades and colors. Many of our public buildings, as well as private homes, were built using Georgian marble, including the United States Capitol Building and the Lincoln Memorial. It’s also used for the vast majority of US military headstones.
About the cemetery angels . . . Several years ago I accompanied my grandmother to the funeral of her younger brother. He, along with many of my ancestors, is buried in the old Washington Cemetery, one of Houston’s oldest graveyards. My grandmother’s family—the Brenners and Brinkmans—all arrived here beginning in the 1830s. So there we were, my grandmother and I on a rainy fall day, and as we drove out of the cemetery, I noticed that many of the angels—not just a few—were headless.
Those angels haunted me. And that’s when I began to learn about the black market in stolen cemetery statuary. So yes, it’s a thing.
Sadly there is also a thriving black market in exotic pets and their fur, which is where sweet Zorra comes in. The wild animals that make their homes in Laguna Atascosa and other refuges in the Rio Grande Valley are all at risk. If a border wall is actually constructed, migratory animals will be terribly disrupted. But even nonmigratory animals, like ocelots, require large swaths of land for their survival. If those lands are cut in half, many of them will suffer, and some species may be seriously diminished, especially if the wall obstructs them from accessible water and habitat.
I’ll never be the sweet believer that is Soleil, but I do believe in love as the key to restoring the darkness that can be so pervasive. I do believe in gathering in circles, sharing our stories, and learning to see one another for who we truly are—messy, conflicted, angry, smart, joyful, driven, funny creatures, who have the capacity for being lamps in the world. I also believe that if the world is to be saved, it’ll be because young people join together and get the rest of us to stop being asshats.
Acknowledgments
I believe in angels, largely because a host of them set aside their own work to become my saving graces. Cynthia Leitich Smith, Rita Williams-Garcia, Kevin Noble Maillard, Jennifer Zeigler, Elizabeth Harper Neeld PhD, Anne Bustard Fusilier, Susan K. Fletcher, Liz Garton Scanlon, Lindsey Lane, Professor Andrew Torget, and Marion Da
ne Bauer. I’m indebted.
When I needed expertise, two people, who shall remain nameless, not only did close reading, they read between the lines. This book is so much better for their care and attention.
Diane Linn, you always ask exactly the right questions at exactly the right time. And Erika Barosh Ervin, thank you for deep breaths and encouragement.
Thank you to Marco Wagner for the gorgeous jacket, and to Debra Sfetsios-Conover for the design. To Jeannie Ng and her steadfast crew of copy editors, you are the ever-loving best. I appreciate you more than you know.
In so many ways, the entire team at Simon & Schuster feels like family to me. I feel so fortunate to work with each and every one of you.
I’m beyond grateful to Holly McGhee, agent and muse, and to Caitlyn Dlouhy, editor and guide.
And what about Ken? He just keeps taking a chance on love, and that is all that matters.
About the Author
KATHI APPELT is the author of the Newbery Honor recipient, National Book Award finalist, PEN Center USA Award–winner, and bestseller The Underneath, as well as the National Book Award finalist The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp; Keeper; Maybe a Fox (cowritten with Alison McGhee); and many picture books, including Counting Crows. She has two grown children and lives with her husband in College Station, Texas. Visit her at kathiappelt.com.
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Atheneum Books for Young Readers
A Caitlyn Dlouhy Book
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ALSO BY KATHI APPELT
The Underneath
Keeper
The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp
Maybe a Fox (with Alison McGhee)
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Bibliography
For further information about the times and places that occur in this story, I recommend the following resources:
BOOKS:
Aulbach, Louis F. Buffalo Bayou: An Echo of Houston’s Wilderness Beginnings. Houston, TX: Louis F. Aulbach Publisher, 2012.
Baker, T. Lindsay, and Julie P. Baker, eds. Till Freedom Cried Out: Memories of Texas Slave Life. College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press, 1997.
Blanchett, Sara Louise. 2013. The “Other Side”: Public Memory and the Life of Sylvia Routh in Houston 1837–1859. Thesis, Department of History, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC: University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Burt, William Henry, and Grossenheider, Richard Philip. A Field Guide to the Mammals: Field Marks of all North American Species Found North of Mexico. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1952.
Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2014.
Francis, Lee. Native Time: A Historical Time Line of Native America. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1996.
Glancy, Diane. Pushing the Bear: A Novel of the Trail of Tears. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace, 1996.
———. Pushing the Bear: After the Trail of Tears. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009.
Hoxie, Frederick E., ed. Encyclopedia of North American Indians: Native American History, Culture, and Life from Paleo-Indians to the Present. Houghton Mifflin Company. Boston, MA, 1996.
Keith, Bill, and Baker, Bill John. They Call Me Eddie Morrison: Cherokee National Treasure. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, 2016.
Neeld PhD, Elizabeth Harper. A Sacred Primer: The Essential Guide to Quiet Time and Prayer. Austin, TX: Centerpoint Press, 2011.
O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. 20th Anniversary edition. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.
Shelton, Gilbert. Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Issues 1–14,. San Francisco, CA: Rip Off Press, 1971–1997.
Sipes, James L., and Zeve, Matthew K. The Bayous of Houston. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2012.
Steptoe, Tyina L., Houston Bound: Culture and Color in a Jim Crow City. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016.
Torget, Andrew J. Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800–1850. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
Tucker, Phillip Thomas. Emily D. West and the “Yellow Rose of Texas” Myth. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2014.
WEBSITES AND PAGES:
The Baby Moses Project: babymosesproject.org
“The Black People ‘Erased From History’ ”: bbc.com/news/magazine-35981727
“Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1938”: loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/about-this-collection
Buffalo Bayou Partnership: buffalobayou.org
“Constitution of the Republic of Texas”: tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/mhc01
“Georgia Marble”: aboutnorthgeorgia.com/ang/Georgia_Marble
“New Orleans Grave Theft: Nothing’s Sacred”: nytimes.com/1999/02/16/us/new-orleans-grave-theft-nothing-s-sacred.html
Operation Jungle Book: bigcatrescue.org/operation-jungle-book
Texas Slavery Project: tshaonline.org/home
Texas State Historical Association: tshaonline.org/home
“The Underground Railroad: A Study of the Routes from Texas to Mexico”: uh.edu/honors/Programs-Minors/honors-and-the-schools/houston-teachers-institute/curriculum-units/pdfs/2003/african-american-slavery/redonet-03-slavery.pdf
“Their Stories to Tell”: chron.com/news/article/Their-stories-to-tell-2007485.php
PLAYLIST*
*With the exception of “Thinking Out Loud,” these are songs commonly found in the public domain and sung through the years by a wide variety of performers. These are simply my favorite versions and don’t actually reflect the way they might have been sung in the context of this story.
“Down to the River to Pray,” sung by Alison Krauss: youtube.com/watch?v=zSif77IVQdY
“Jolie Blon,” sung by Clifton Chenier and The Red Hot Louisiana Band: youtube.com/watch?v=yteXz_J1Nlk
“Lead, Kindly Light,” sung by David Beck: youtube.com/watch?v=MVX3G_stfwg
“Thinking Out Loud,” Ed Sheeran: youtube.com/watch?v=lp-EO5I60KA
“This Little Light of Mine,” sung by Sam Cooke: youtube.com/watch?v=OdsIjwwfhjk
VIDEOS
“Houston Flood Defense Traces to Flooded Past, Rachel Maddow, MSNBC”: youtube.com/watch?v=sACC2jBzjis
“Ocelot Attack!”: youtube.com/watch?v=2oSh_zOaVFk
“A Tale of Two Rivers: Mississippi River Flood of 1927, excerpt, Part I”: youtube.com/watch?v=UGy4DgeaZNo
“When the Roads Turned to Rivers: Texas in the Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey: youtube.com/watch?v=l6V8Kxyvivw
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2019 by Kathi Appelt
Jacket design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover
Jacket photo-illustration of ocelot copyright © 2019 by Marco Wagner
Jacket photograph of ocelot copyright © 2019 by Dave King/Dorling Kindersley/Getty Images
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ISBN 978-1-4424-2109-7
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