Trouble Don't Last

by Shelley Pearsall

  “WHO-WHO-WHO-whoooo.” Harrison turned and hollered again, loud as a drunken man.

  “Harrison,” I tried calling out soft. “Come on back now.” I held my breath, waiting for whitefolks to spring out of the cornfields and barrel down the riverbank toward us.

  “Who-who-who-whooooo …” Harrison kept on, not paying me any mind. “You hear them owls answering me back, Samuel?” He waded into the shallower water near the riverbank. “I keep on listenin and I ain't heard a thing yet, how ‘bout you?”

  “There's nothin out there. You is just ‘magining things,” I said, shaking my head and feeling downright sick inside because I knew there were no owls coming to carry us across the river. Only in Harrison's mixed-up mind. “Stop hollering like that, and come on out of the water now,” I begged.

  “Hush. I believe I just heard an owl, child.” Harrison put his finger to his lips and looked up at the night sky. He turned his head this-away and then that-away as if he was expecting owls to come flying over at any moment.

  Sinking down among the tangle of weeds along the riverbank, I hugged my knees to my chest. What would Lilly tell me to do with trouble like this? What would she say to do about Harrison being out of his head, the cornfields being full of pa-trollers, and the river being too wide to cross?

  The river water slapped gently on the shore as the wind came up.

  It made me think of Lilly slapping the water out of the clothes when she washed them. Her hair would be tied up in a yellow headwrap, and her rolled-up sleeves would look like thick rings of dough around each arm. She would heave a sigh and say, “You got yo'self in a mess a’ trouble this time, Samuel. And a whole wash tub of water ain't gonna make it come clean, that's for sho’ …”

  But then I heard another sound.

  Close by, an owl called soft and low.

  Only this time it wasn't Harrison.

  The River Man

  “Hallelujah!” Harrison whispered, swinging the lantern back and forth, high above the dark water. “The river owl has come for us. Git the tow sack and git a-movin, Samuel.” He splashed out of the water toward me.

  I squinted into the darkness, trying to see what strange kind of bird was coming to save us. Even though I knew it was downright foolish, I conjured up a picture of a big, silver owl flapping across the River Jordan and plucking us from the river-bank just as a crowd of white patrollers burst out of the cornfields with their dogs and their guns.

  But what came out of the darkness was not an owl at all, of course. As we stood on the riverbank, an old rowboat slid out of the shadows. In the moonlight, I could see the silver ripple of its oars in the water and the dark shape of someone sitting in the middle. The way that shape looked, whoever was sitting in that boat was big. Powerful big.

  “Go on, help him come in, Samuel,” Harrison whispered. Raising the lantern for light, he pointed toward the water's edge. “There, where I was standin.”

  The rowboat drew nearer to us, and I could see that it was a colored man's arms pulling hard on the oars. But as the boat slid into the mud bank, I noticed something strange about those arms. White marks and lines cut all over them, and patches of white skin like my scar covered the large hands wrapped around the oars.

  Without turning around, the river man swung the oars into the boat and stood up slowly. Seemed as if he didn't just stand up, he rose up. Like haunts do. His shadow unfolded from that little rowboat, getting bigger and bigger.

  I drew in my breath.

  One leg stepped down into the river, making a ripple in the water, and then the other. The man held the side of the rowboat and turned to face us.

  And my heart stopped dead inside me.

  Lines cut across the colored man's whole face. It looked as if someone had stitched together the pieces of his skin. White scars ran from his mouth to his right eye, from his lower lip to his chin, from his eyebrow across his wide, brown forehead. And as I stared at him, the pieces seemed to shift and move. In the flickering glow of Harrison's lantern, white teeth became eyes, a cheek sagged into the skin, one nose became two, broken lips moved together, a scar made a strange half-smile.

  Then the man spoke. Sounded like deep thunder rumbling.

  “Not a night for some black boy to be wandering along the Ohio River.” The man fixed his eyes on me. “ ‘Specially without any way to get himself across.”

  My tongue felt as if it had turned to ashes.

  The river man's dark eyes shifted to Harrison, who hadn't moved from where he stood, still holding the lantern up in the air. “You trying to get across this river, too, old man?”

  “Don't know,” Harrison answered, his voice hardly above a whisper. Staring at the man's face, he took an unsteady step backward, breathing loud.

  “You don't know?” the man repeated. “Skin as black as earth, body bent over from doing whitefolks’ work all your life, and you don't know what you're running from, old man?”

  With a deep, rolling chuckle to himself, the river man reached for something on the bottom of the rowboat, something hidden in the shadows. Even before he quickly raised it and pointed, I saw what it was. My heart roared in my ears.

  A pistol.

  “You listen to me now, or I'll leave you just where you are and save myself, you hear?” the man's voice rumbled. “I don't have time for confused old men or chickenhearted boys. You want to go across this river with me or not, old man?” He leveled the gun at Harrison.

  Voice trembling, Harrison said he did.

  “And you?” The man stared at me from his scar-ruined face.

  I nodded my head, not daring to open my mouth, not even daring to breathe.

  “All right, then.” The river man waved his pistol at me and Harrison. “This is for folks who don't do what I tell them, don't move fast enough, or don't keep hushed enough. Understand? I got a price on my head, ten times the price on yours. And your death doesn't mean near as much to me as mine. Understand?

  “So, get in.” The man pointed the pistol at Harrison. “You first.”

  Like a wooden toy, Harrison moved stiffly through the water and climbed into the front of the boat. He sat down on the seat and folded his hands like he was praying. “Git the tow sack and climb in, Samuel,” Harrison said, looking down. “Ain't nothin to be skeered of.” But I could tell he didn't believe a word.

  And when I climbed into the boat, I saw why. There, on the man's seat, lay an unsheathed knife as long as my arm, and on the floor of the little rowboat rested a black-handled club. And if this wasn't trouble enough, we had hardly left the riverbank when a woman's scream split the air.

  Hetty Scott

  The scream came from the direction of the cornfields, and after it, I could hear the muffled echo of gunshots and the sad, bawling sound of hunting dogs chasing something through the fields. Cursing, the river man leaned back and pulled hard on the oars. Only thing me and Harrison could see was the dark wall of his shoulders in front of us, coming back and going forward, pulling hard as he could on those oars. Trying to get us into the river. Fast.

  Hugging my arms around my knees, I hunched down as the old boat creaked and rocked into the shallows. The water thumped on the wooden sides, and sounded just like a hundred terrible hands knocking to come in.

  Another scream came across the field, closer this time.

  “Put out your lantern,” the man hissed over his shoulder. Water splattered over us as he swung the oars out of the water. Harrison fumbled with the catch of the lantern, trying to open it.

  “I told you to put out that lantern,” the man snapped. Turning around suddenly, he smacked the lantern out of Harrison's hands. It clattered onto the wet floorboards of the boat, sputtering and hissing. Harrison gasped sharp, and then grew quiet. Keeping his head down, he whispered, “Don't you worry, Samuel. Everything's gonna be all right.”

  But nothing was going to be all right. I knew that.

  I could hear the sounds of a terrible chase coming from the cornfield—the crack of g
unshots, hunting dogs bawling and chopping, men hollering, “Here, over here …” Sounded as if they were chasing someone toward the riverbank, same as they tree a raccoon or corner a fox.

  Then a clear voice came from the edge of the river. “Somebody out there, help me.” It was a colored woman's voice, sure as anything. “Help me!” she called.

  “Don't you say a word,” the man whispered over his shoulder to us. “We are just gonna sit here quiet and leave that woman be.”

  Our boat drifted like a leaf on the water, and I looked up at the silent, hunched-over shadow of the man in front of us. A shiver of fear went straight through me. He was bigger than me and Harrison put together. What would happen to us? “Your death doesn't mean near as much to me as mine,” wasn't that what he had said?

  The woman on the riverbank called out again. Her voice was terrible and sad enough to harrow up the soul. I could hear the men in the cornfield getting louder. They would catch her in no time.

  “Help me, somebody out there, help me, help meeeeee …”

  The river man swore under his breath. Then I heard the oars hit the water as he swung them into the river. Leaning his shoulders into the oars, the man turned the boat. But instead of moving deeper into the river shadows, he pulled straight for the shore.

  We smacked hard into the same riverbank we had left from, and the man climbed out so fast it seemed as if he was trying to throw us all into the water.

  “Over here, woman, over here,” he called, spitting out a string of curses into the darkness.

  Next thing I saw was a cloud of fancy clothing in his arms. It tumbled into the other end of the boat—layers and layers of clothing, with two brown hands and a pair of fancy ladies’ slippers waving and kicking. The cloud stank to high heaven of flower perfume.

  “Careful of them pretty dresses,” a voice babbled from deep in the clothes. But the river man splashed into the boat, splattering mud and water everywhere. He sat down in the middle and put his muddy boots right in the heap of fancy clothing. As far as I could see, there wasn't room anywhere else. Not with me and Harrison on one end, and the lady piled on the other.

  “Lordy I'm a-shakin like a leaf,” the lady's voice kept on talking. “My name's Hetty Scott,” she said, fluttering her brown hands in the air. “I run off from my mistress and they's all chasing me. I don't know how much further I coulda run in Miz Emma's fan—”

  But the rest of Hetty Scott's words were frozen in the air as four dark shadows came tumbling down the riverbank into the water.

  Bloodhounds.

  And right behind the dogs, there was the sudden glow of lanterns and torches coming out of the field like eyes. Men hollered and ran toward the riverbank, pointing at us.

  “Lord, save us,” Hetty Scott wailed.

  The river man's voice thundered, “Get down, get down,” as he leaned into the oars. There was the crack of gunshots from the shore, and a sound like stones being skipped across the water. Only, I knew it wasn't stones.

  “Put yo’ head down, Samuel,” Harrison hollered, pushing my head so hard that my chin smacked into my knees. More stones skipped across the water, and I whispered for Lilly to save us.

  Seemed like we were slowly slipping beneath the river. Cold water seeped through the knee cloth of my trousers, and I could hear water knocking on the sides of the rowboat. There were muffled sounds above. Harrison and the river man hollering. A dog yelping. Sounded like they had brought an oar down on one of the bloodhounds. There were more rifle shots, farther off, and then everything faded and grew quiet around us.

  “You still down there, Samuel?” I could feel Harrison lean over me.

  “Samuel.” He gave my arm a hard shake.

  I opened my eyes one at a time, making sure the night sky was still up there and the sides of the old rowboat were still around us. Had we got away?

  “They gone?” I said, looking around. The river man had his oars out of the water, listening too. I could hear the sound of the lady in the back of the boat, crying loud, and I thought about Lilly telling me, “You ain't allowed to cry unless folks is dying or dead.” The way that lady was crying on and on would make you think that we were all dying or dead.

  “She hurt?” I asked.

  “Naw …” Harrison grinned and shook his head back and forth. “Ain't nothin wrong with her—” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “But she sho’ do smell, don't she?” He waved his hand at the back of the boat. “Whoooeeee. Wonder where she stole all that fancy perfumery?”

  A loud ripple of laughter came flying out of my mouth.

  “You think getting away with your life is something to be laughing about, boy?” The river man turned quick. “Well, you just keep on laughing.” Then, with a smack of his oar, he hit me and Harrison with a wave of river water, hard as a hand slap.

  As me and Harrison gasped for air, the river man's voice rumbled low and mean. “Your two scraps of life ain't worth a thing. Not one thing to whitefolks.” He squeezed my arm and pointed into the darkness. “You are gonna get to the other side of this river, boy, and open up your hand, and what are you gonna see inside of it? Nothing. See if you laugh then,” he said. “See if you laugh then.”

  My eyes stung with tears as the man turned back to his oars. He was as mean as a snake. Even meaner maybe. I couldn't figure out why he had gone and saved us from the patrollers and why he was rowing us across the river. He didn't care a straw about us. Not one straw.

  Harrison kept his head down, not saying another word. But I could hear Hetty Scott still softly babbling and crying to herself.

  The man leaned over her heap of clothes. “Don't want to hear another sound from you, or I'm gonna toss you and your clothes in the river, you hear me?” he said harshly, and Hetty Scott's crying dried up quick as water.

  Breathing hard, the man kept on rowing up the river. Far-off voices drifted across the rippling blanket of water. In the night air, I could smell wood smoke and a sharp iron smell that made me think of the blacksmith hammering out shoes for Master Hackler's horses.

  Were the whitefolks on the riverbank following us? I wondered.

  Floating logs thumped into the boat. A flickering boat lantern passed by in the middle of the river, with two men singing to themselves in the darkness. Sounded like they were both rum-drunk, and so they never saw us at all.

  Slowly, our boat moved toward the shore, and not long after, the man said, “Keep still,” and we scraped into a riverbank.

  Had we made it all the way across the water?

  Wrapping a rough hand around my arm, the man pulled me to standing. “Climb out, and be quick about it, boy,” he said. “Step down right here. Hurry, now. It ain't deep.”

  Heart pounding, I set one foot at a time on the muddy river bottom. Behind me, Harrison climbed out. Holding on to the side of the boat to steady himself, he grabbed the tow sack, and waded into shore.

  But it felt strange to stand on the Ohio riverbank and look across the water toward the Kentucky side we had left behind because, truth was, the Ohio side didn't look any different than the dark Kentucky shore.

  It made me think of the time that I stole a look in Miz Catherine's mirror and jumped at seeing myself staring back from the silver glass. Looking across the River Jordan was just like staring in that mirror. One side seemed the same as the other.

  “You planning on climbing out?” The river man looked back at Hetty Scott, who still sat in the boat, staring wide-eyed from the layers of clothing that surrounded her. I could count three bonnets circling her round face, and so many layers of fancy dresses and petticoats, it was hard to tell where the clothing ended and she began.

  She fluttered her hands. “Can't climb out in the river.”

  The man spat on the riverbank. “What were you planning on doing once you got over here?” he said loudly. “Just parade around in whitefolks’ clothing and shoes? Or did you figure you could steal all those fancy things from your mistress and run away like that?”

&nbs
p; “Lordy I just don't know,” Hetty Scott said, burrowing deeper into her nest of clothes. “I just wanted some pretty things. Never had no pretty things before, you know.” Her hands kept patting the big striped bonnet she wore tied around the others, as if it was the only thing she had left in the world.

  I felt sorry for Hetty Scott, hearing the way the man was talking to her and knowing that we had a whole sackful of stolen things ourselves—when, quick as anything, the man reached into the rowboat, picked up his pistol, and stuck it in front of Hetty Scott's face. In his other hand, he held the knife that had been setting on his seat. Hetty Scott gasped sharp, and her hands flew like two ribbons to cover her mouth.

  “You hear them coming across the water after you?” the river man said low and mean. “You leave those fancy clothes behind, or I'm gonna send you back into the river.” He waved his pistol in the direction of the river. “That's the choice I'm giving you. I'm not taking a fool with me.”

  Hetty Scott sent up a wail then that would have awakened the dead.

  “Let me keep my pretty clothes,” she cried. “I'm takin my pretty clothes to CANADAY I can't leave all my pretty clothes …”

  Before me and Harrison could say a word, the man stuck the pistol in his pocket, grabbed the front of the boat, and pushed it deeper into the water. Holding the side of the boat, knee-deep in the river, the man said again, “You coming with us or not? You have one-half minute to answer me. You coming or not?”

  “Don't you go and take away all my pretty clothes,” Hetty Scott wept. “Please let me keep ahold of my pretty clothes. I never had pretty—”

  With one strong heave, the man pushed the boat away.

  Me and Harrison watched like two stunned birds as the boat with poor Hetty Scott sitting inside began to make a slow, haunting turn into the river's current. Hetty Scott leaned over the side, waving her arms and wailing for us to help her. I could see her bonnets turning all which-way and one oar dragging back in the water. And even as the boat's dark shape disappeared from our sight, I could still hear her sad, crying voice echoing up the river.