Trouble Don't Last

by Shelley Pearsall

  “What's got ahold of you?” said Harrison impatiently. “We gonna git some rest and hide ourselves here. Now, you come ‘long, like I says. Stop being a child.”

  But I stayed where I was and watched Harrison shuffle toward the old tree. He took some cuts of onions and scattered them in the leaves.

  “How'd you know ‘bout this tree before we got here?” I ventured to ask, drawing a little closer. “You see things that happen ‘fore they do?”

  Harrison gave me a sharp look. “Don't know where you git all them foolish thoughts of yours, Samuel, but you better be leaving most of them in here,” he said, tapping the top of my head with his finger, “where they belong, or they gonna git us in trouble, sho’ enough. Know what I'm sayin?”

  I stared at my feet stuck in the damp leaves, wishing more than anything that I was back fixing breakfast with Lilly. My mind laid it out on the table. A whole big plate of sizzling fatback and warm corn cakes.

  Harrison traced his finger along the black lightning stripe. “If I could foretell things that were gonna happen in my life, you think I woulda worn out my bones workin for whitefolks all these years? No, I woulda rolled over and died the day I was born, that's what I woulda done.”

  Harrison looked over at me.

  “Truth is,” he said, calm as anything, “I run off once before, to this same tree. That's how I know it.”

  I stared wide-eyed at Harrison. Far as I knew, no one on Master Hackler's farm had ever stolen away. Especially not Harrison.

  “You run away? From Mas Hackler?”

  “A long, long time ago. From Old Mas Hackler. Way before you was born, Samuel.” Harrison shot a hard look at me.

  “And don't you go askin me no more about it, ‘cause I ain't breathin another word. It's something between me and the good Lord, and that's all. Now, you help me git up to this here branch.”

  And without another word, Harrison started climbing into the tree himself. He made me pitch down on all fours so he could step on my back and pull himself up to the lowest branch. “I ain't nothin but an old sack of skin and bones,” he kept telling me, but I thought he was going to split me in half like a fence rail while he was climbing up. After he was settled with a lot of cursing and groaning, I scrambled up to one of the other limbs.

  We looked just like a pair of out-of-place birds perched in that tree. Harrison reminded me of one of those gray-headed birds, and I was one of those small, brown yard birds. Only we couldn't fly off, that's what I kept on thinking. If someone caught sight of us, we would have nowhere to go. We would be stuck in that old tree, nothing but a pair of helpless birds without wings.

  “You think they gonna come after us?” I asked Harrison.

  “Maybe so,” Harrison answered, leaning his head back against the trunk.

  “They gonna bring dogs?”

  “Maybe so.”

  “That onion smell gonna cover where we walked?”

  “Already tol’ you that, Samuel. Onions and maybe a good hard rain.”

  I glanced up at the flecks of gray morning sky showing between the leaves. It felt like rain, but no rain had fallen yet, and I remembered that my feet had sunk into the soft earth in more than a few places as we crossed the fields.

  “You think this tree's gonna keep us hid from them dogs?” I asked, running my hand along the knotted bark.

  “If they go round lookin for us, it will,” Harrison answered.

  “What if they find us? What's gonna happen?”

  Harrison's eyes snapped open and he gave me his meanest stare. “Now, you be quiet, child, and git some rest ‘cause we got another long run ahead of us. I don't want to hear no more of your talkin.”

  I kept quiet then, but the questions were still running back and forth in my head. What if I had left footprints in the field? What if Master hired dogs to track us down? What if it didn't rain? What if they found us sitting in the tree? What if they shot us down, as if we were nothing more than a pair of foolish wild birds?

  I looked up at the sky and tried to make it rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. I wished as hard as I could. Lord, make it rain.

  But then a sound interrupted my wishing.

  “Samuel,” a voice called sharply in the distance. “Samuel!”

  Heart pounding, I closed my eyes and leaned back against the cold trunk of the tree. I knew whose voice it was …

  They were already looking for us.

  Still as a Tree

  “OLD MAN, come out now!”

  That was Cassius. He seemed to be riding along the line of the woods, looking in. I glanced over at Harrison, but his eyes were shut tight, and his mouth was moving in silent talking. Praying.

  “SAMUEL! Where are you? Sam-uel!” The snake knotted itself around my throat as Master Hackler's voice slithered through the woods, looking for me. I squeezed tighter against the tree.

  It was hard to tell for sure, but the voices seemed to be coming from the edge of the woods, near the field. Getting louder as they came closer.

  Then came a voice I wasn't expecting.

  “Samuel!” Lilly's familiar voice called for me. “Come on back now!” They had brought Lilly all the way from the kitchen to look for me.

  I swallowed hard, thinking about the trouble I had surely brought to her. She had always barreled in to save me, and now I had gone and done the most shameful thing anyone could do. I had run off.

  “SAMUEL! HARRISON!”

  They were riding in our direction because I caught a glimpse of the brown flank of Master's horse and the bay-skinned mule with Lilly. I closed my eyes. I knew they were going to spot us, sure as anything, when they rode into the woods. And if I wanted to keep us from more trouble, I knew I had to call out for Lilly to save us. I didn't know how she'd keep me and Harrison from being cowhided for what we had done, but I knew there wasn't any other way out of trouble.

  We all must pay, Lilly would tell me.

  Maybe Miz Catherine would take the rest of Lilly's money and some of her saved-up things as punishment. Or maybe Master Hackler would listen to Lilly's talking because she had a way with him, she always said.

  Drawing in a deep breath, I waved my arms and started to holler Lilly's name. “Lilly—” I called out.

  But, at that moment, the loud crack of a rifle split the air.

  “Lord, have mercy,” I heard Harrison whisper.

  In the silence after the gunshot, I pictured myself as still as a tree. I imagined that my arms and legs had turned into its branches, and that my brown skin was its dark, cold bark.

  Three more shots rang out.

  A warm drop trickled down my face.

  I waited for the snapping of the underbrush as Master Hackler and Cassius made their way to our hiding place. I waited for them to catch hold of our ankles and pull us out of the tree.

  Overhead the sky rumbled, and a sudden wind moved through the woods. Beneath me, the tree limb swayed.

  My heart pounded. What was happening?

  More drops fell on my arms. The sky rumbled again.

  “Hallelujah!” I heard Harrison whisper. “Lord, let it rain!”

  And then the rain came down. Hard.

  It fell harder and harder, as if Master had shot holes in the sky. Big drops hissed on the leaves around us. And finally the rain fell in drenching white sheets, heavy as wet muslin on a clothesline.

  Truth is, that rain saved us. When I squinted at the edge of the woods, Master Hackler, Lilly, and Cassius were gone. Harrison figured they hadn't seen us at all.

  “Just trying to scare us,” Harrison shouted above the noise of the rain. “But them shots ‘bout took away the last years I got left!”

  He didn't say a word about me hollering for Lilly. But I couldn't stop thinking about her sitting on Master's mule, calling out for me and Harrison. It made my insides hurt to picture it. Would Master take her back and cowhide her for letting us run off?

  “What about Lilly?” I said. “She gonna be all right?”

  “Lill
y be fine,” Harrison answered, pulling down his slouch-brimmed hat to keep the rain off. “She seen hard times before. She can take care of her ownself”

  “Lilly know you was runnin off with me?”

  “I reckon she knew I would run off sometime,” Harrison said. “When the right time come. Don't you go worryin ‘bout Lilly.” He tugged a hat out of the tow sack. It was one of Seth's hats. “Forgot it in the barn, ‘magine that!” Harrison grinned, holding the hat toward me.

  I shook my head and kept on. “Why didn't she run off?”

  “Who?”

  “Lilly.”

  All Harrison would say was, “You got to be old like me and Lilly to understand things like that.” Then he closed his eyes, leaned back against the tree trunk, and flat out refused to talk about it anymore.

  All day, we sat up in that old tree while it poured. My legs kept falling asleep, and the rain ran in rivers down the tree limbs and soaked me clear through.

  “I'm cold,” I said about fifty times.

  “Be thankful you ain't dead,” Harrison answered from underneath his hat.

  “When we climbin down?” I asked about fifty more times.

  “When I says we does. Stop pestering.”

  I thought about Lilly working in Miz Catherine's warm, dry kitchen with the fire popping on the hearth. Lilly's big arms would be pressing out a tableful of dough, hands flying from the dough to the mound of flour and back, like brown birds dusting their wings. What would she be making? A couple of meat pies maybe. Or a Sunday pot of hens and dumplings.

  My insides rumbled with hunger.

  When I stood around too long watching Lilly work, she would always press her lips together and give me one of her stares. “You spoiled to a stink,” she'd tell me. “Git workin.”

  I looked nothing like Lilly. She had dark, high cheekbones and deep creases around her mouth and eyes. I was the color of ginger cake. “Just like your poor momma,” she'd say. “I got the skin of an old, tough chestnut and you a nice piece of warm ginger cake.” Thinking about Lilly made me sad, sad, sad inside.

  “Don't let anything happen to her,” I whispered to the sky. “She didn't do nothin wrong.”

  But the sky sent the rain splattering down even harder.

  Night Scare

  By the time the rain finally stopped, our muddy footprints had likely been washed clear to the Mississippi River. It was close to nightfall. The sun squeezed one last bit of light through the clouds, and Harrison pulled a handful of snap beans and four damp biscuits from his coat pocket. “Here,” he said, giving me half. And that's all there was for our supper meal.

  Truth is, I could have chewed up a whole field of snap beans and an entire plate of biscuits right then. I was that downright hungry. And we had hardly brushed off the crumbs before Harrison decided it was time for us to be running again.

  “They gonna be comin after us fast, now that the rain stopped,” Harrison said, looking up at the evening sky. “But you gotta help me down from this tree, Samuel, ‘cause I think rig-or mortis has set in both my legs.”

  I didn't know what “rig-or mortis” was, but my feet tingled and stung when they hit the ground, as if they had landed in a whole nest of bees. Then Harrison tried climbing down. Only, his knees gave way and his whole body sagged into the wet leaves. “If this ain't the most outrageoust thing,” he swore, trying to stand back up again. “My mind wants to be free and my body don't.”

  Not knowing what to do, I stood there looking down at him.

  “Stop staring at me, child,” Harrison spat out. “Mind yo’ business.”

  So I fixed my eyes on the silvery bark of the old maple. A black beetle was crawling along the rough tree, weaving back and forth. It had six needle-thin legs, and I pressed its shiny back, watching the legs churn by themselves.

  I wondered how far we had to go ‘til we got to freedom. What would happen if Harrison couldn't run any further?

  “Now, Lord, if you can just raise up these bones of mine,” I heard Harrison say. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that he had found himself a crooked branch from the maple tree. With both hands curled around it, he was leaning and then standing. “I got my walking legs again,” he said, breathing hard. He waved the walking stick at the forest. “Let's get a-movin, Samuel, before that rig-or mortis sets in again.”

  But as it got darker and darker, finding our way through the woods was worse than stumbling through a cluttered room without a candle. Roots reached up to tangle around our feet. Slippery mud and leaves sent me and Harrison pitching forward. Sharp twigs snapped across our arms and faces.

  “I s'pose all the wild animals out there in them woods be laughing theyselves silly at the sight of us,” Harrison sighed as he picked himself up and brushed himself off again. “You and me keep on falling flat in these woods as if we are both rum-drunk.”

  But as Harrison stood up, I had the feeling something was watching us. I remembered the big raccoons that used to tiptoe across Master's yard some evenings. And I knew snakes lived in the woods because Young Mas Seth had once brought home a big black one, stuck on the end of a stick. Even with its head cut off, this snake had been longer than Seth's arms stretched out. Seth said it ate rats. Which meant rats lived in the woods, too.

  Then I felt something move in the darkness. Something that slid out from under my feet.

  My heart dropped like a rock inside me, and I hollered for Harrison to run.

  “Samuel!” he called out.

  But I took off fast in the other direction. Branches snapped and rolled under my feet as I forgot all about being careful. Forgot all about being quiet. I could feel the wild animal right at my heels, chasing me. A snake. Or a big rat. Or something else. I ran as hard as I could, until I fell over a tree root in the darkness, and Harrison caught up.

  “You hold on now,” he hissed, snatching me up from the leaves. Above the noise of our hard breathing, I strained my ears to hear the sound of the animal sliding slowly out of the darkness toward us. I listened for the crackle of leaves and branches. But the only sound was the gentle creaking of the trees above us.

  “Don't hear nothin,” Harrison said, shaking my arm hard. “You just running like a scared rabbit, ain't you, Samuel? You never did see nothin in the woods, did you?”

  “Yessir.” My heart thudded in my chest. “Something big was folio win us.”

  But Harrison just cursed at me and turned around in a slow circle. Looking up at the dark trees towering above us and the patch of night sky, he gave a low groan that sent a chill clear through me.

  “Now you gone and done it, Samuel,” he whispered. He sank down to the ground, covering his face with his hands. “ ‘Cause I done lost all recollection of the direction we was running in.”

  For the longest time, he just sat there on the cold, wet ground in the middle of the woods, saying nothing.

  Feeling ashamed for running, I tried to tell him I would find the way back. “I bet I can find where we was. I got good sense. We ain't run that far.”

  But Harrison's eyes wouldn't even look up at me. They stayed closed. “Thirty-nine lashes,” he whispered, his voice distant and trembly.

  I leaned closer. “What?”

  “Thirty-nine lashes for runnin off, law says.”

  “We ain't been caught.”

  “Old Mas Hackler says he gotta do what the law tells him to,” Harrison mumbled. “‘You belong to me,’ he says, ‘just like my hunting dogs and my horses, and you get beat same as them if you run off. I don't like doin it, but I have to,’ he says, “cause you gotta learn to mind me.’”

  “You mumbling, so I can't understand you, Harrison.” I tried to pull on his shoulder. “Why you talkin about Old Mas Hackler?”

  But Harrison turned away angrily. “Just let me lay here and die,” he snapped. “Don't put nothin on my back. I don't need none of your doctoring. Just let me lay here and die.”

  Harrison was talking out of his head. I thought maybe he had been stricken
by a fever, or a delirium.

  “Look up at the sky now,” I said, pointing all around. “You think we can find our way yet?” But Harrison didn't even lift up his head.

  “She didn't want to hide here,” he whispered. “Belle tol’ me the hayloft wasn't safe. And I didn't listen to her. And then the baby started up crying. Hushhh, baby.” Harrison raised a finger to his lips. “Shhhh….”

  His words set me to trembling. Who was Harrison talking to? I didn't know anyone named Belle. And why was he worrying about hiding in a hayloft?

  “Stop bein this way, Harrison,” I pleaded.

  I remembered how Lilly had gone out of her head like Harrison once. She took a hickory-splint basket she had made, one that she told me was her favorite, and threw it into the fire. She burned the whole basket to ashes without saying a word. Just told me to go away and leave her be. Even later, she wouldn't say what she was so awful sad about. “I got my thoughts, you got yours. Why you think the Lord gives us our own thoughts to keep?” is all she'd answer.

  “You want me to leave you be?” I said to Harrison.

  Around us, the woods were quiet, except for a splatter of raindrops as the wind came through the trees.

  “Don't mind leaving,” I whispered again.

  Harrison was silent.

  “You want me to go away?” I said louder.

  He turned to me suddenly, giving me a look like his old self.

  “Why you talking like that?” he snapped. “Where you planning on going to anyways?” He waved his hands at the woods around us. “They got wild animals out there. They gonna grab onto them skinny ankles of yours, pull you down, and chew yo’ whole little body to pieces.”

  I didn't know if Harrison was trying to be funny or mean.

  “Lordy you as much trouble as your momma Hannah always was,” he said, shaking his head. “Shoulda known.”

  Reaching into his pocket, Harrison pulled out a fat sweet potato. “May as well eat something. Nothin else to do,” he said, cutting the potato in half. “Maybe you can use that fool head of yours to turn this into a slice of Lilly's good sweet-potato pie. If you can go ‘round turning trees into wild animals, you oughta be able to do that.” He handed me the sweet potato. “Lordy, Lordy, if only Lilly could see us now.”