Trouble Don't Last

by Shelley Pearsall

  And then he hobbled away without another word. When we got farther down the road, Harrison turned and looked back at the church. The door was closed and Miz Kettle was gone.

  “You keep yo’ head down so they don't see inside that bonnet, Samuel,” he whispered. “And you let me talk if there's talkin. And if there's trouble, you take to your heels and run like lightning into the woods. You don't wait for me, or nobody else.” He spit at the ground. “I don't like this disguisin and walkin in daylight atall. Not atall. Anyone with eyes can see I ain't young and you ain't a girl.”

  The man that Miz Kettle had called Ham was already waiting by the tree stump when we got there. He was a skinny black fellow, leaning back on his elbows and smoking a yellow clay pipe. A longhaired dog was following his nose in circles around the bottom of the stump.

  “Mornin. I'm Ham,” the fellow said in a way that didn't sound friendly or not. The dog sidled over, but he wouldn't give my hand a lick, just sniffed at me and Harrison.

  The fellow looked up at the gray sky and puffed lazily on his pipe.

  “Good day for fishin,” he said.

  “Lady told us you was s'posed to take us somewhere.” Harrison's voice was cross. “You just gonna sit there smokin your pipe and talking ‘bout fishin, or you gonna take me and Samuel where you is s'posed to be taking us?”

  “Well, now, I don't know,” the fellow said slowly. Reaching behind him, he pulled up a whole stringer of fish from the tall grass, as if they'd just been swimming there. “Said it's a good day for fishin, didn't I?”

  I stared at the fat, yellow-bellied fish, my mouth wide open.

  The man squinted at Harrison. “Old Man Know-All died last year, I think. ‘Less you be him.”

  Chuckling to himself, Ham slid off the stump. The dog jumped and snapped at the dripping tails of the fish. “Like I says before, it's a mighty good day for fishin, ain't it? You want to carry this string of fish we caught this morning?” he said to Harrison. “Or not?”

  Harrison just took the stringer offish. Didn't say a word.

  “All right, then. The girl you be calling Samuel”—he gave Harrison a crooked grin—”she gonna carry your fishing poles.”

  Ham handed two fishing poles to me. “And you and her gonna just walk up this road, real slow and easy, like you been fishin in the creek real early, see? Me and Eggs, we walk ahead and keep a lookout. Be a few miles of walking maybe, but when I turn off the road, that's where we stop and meet again.”

  Ham whistled for his dog and started down the road.

  “Lord, have mercy,” I heard Harrison say under his breath. “Come on, Samuel.”

  But it gave me a jumpy feeling to sneak along a road in daylight pretending to be someone else. I couldn't see a thing, and I kept pitching forward and tripping on account of that sorry old dress dragging in the dirt.

  “You the worst girl I ever seen,” Harrison said over his shoulder. “Pick up yo’ feet.”

  The only good thing was that no one came riding down the road.

  And then someone did.

  A Stringer of Fish

  Voices and a jangle of wagon chains started up far behind us. We were walking a steep part of the road. “Something's comin,” I said to Harrison.

  “Keep walkin,” he answered without turning around. “Just keep walkin and keep yo’ head down.”

  Ham was so far ahead, all you could see was a smudge of brown that was his coat and a smudge of fur that was the dog, Eggs. He didn't care a straw about us, seemed like. Wasn't watching at all.

  The wagon pulled closer. I could tell it was a wagon instead of a carriage by the creaking sound of the wheels. Sounded like big tree limbs swaying in the wind. Master Hackler had an old carry-all wagon, my mind said. What if Master Hackler was coming up the hill toward us?

  Keep walkin, keep walkin, keep walkin.

  A voice cursed at the horses to pull harder. I strained my ears to hear the names of those horses. I thought I heard Nap and Red, and when I heard those names, I let out some of the breath I was holding. Master Hackler's workhorses were called Web and Hall. But if it wasn't Master Hackler, it could be just about anybody, maybe white patrollers following us and chasing us down.

  Keep walkin. Keep walkin. Keep walkin.

  I kept my head down and tried not to catch my feet on the edge of that old dress. What was it the river man had said?

  Walk as if you have the perfect right to do so, keep your shoulders back, swing your arms. Don't scuttle around like a bent-over black beetle, or they'll know that's exactly what you are—

  A team of grays rattled past, pulling a wagon piled high with barrels and stove wood. I saw the wagon pass Harrison, who was walking in front of me. Then the creaking and rattling slowed.

  “Whoa, boys,” the wagoner said, and the horses came to a halt in the middle of the road. There was silence first, like the wagoner was looking us over, and then he called to me and Harrison. “You, darkies, come on over here.”

  My feet stopped. Felt like they had turned to lead.

  The wagoner leaned over the side of the wagon. I could see his wide back with a dark stain of sweat from shoulder to shoulder. He pointed to Harrison. “Let me see what you got there in your hands,” he said. “Hold up them fish, so I can get a good look at them, boy.”

  Harrison stepped closer to the wagon and lifted the string of fish. I could see the fish dangling and turning in the air. Me and Harrison were just like those fish, I thought, dangling in the air, barely breathing.

  “You and the girl catch all them pretty fish this morning?” The man's voice was sharp and mean as a fishhook.

  “Yes,” Harrison said real low.

  I ducked my head down and kept my eyes on the ground. Looked at the ruts and the horseshoe prints and the broken-up rocks and the dung piles. Didn't want him to see there wasn't any girl inside that bonnet.

  “Ain't that nice,” the wagoner said. “But I think you should give a few of them fine-looking fish to me, don't you?” Looking up quick, I saw the fellow reach down and tug the string of fish out of Harrison's hand. “Whitefolks got to eat supper too,” he said.

  After the man took the fish, Harrison didn't move. He just stood next to that wagon with his arms stiff at his sides. Looked like he turned into a block of wood.

  “Tell you what.” The man twisted the string of fish this-away and that-away looking at them. “Since you been good enough to fish for me this morning, it wouldn't be right if I didn't leave something for you.” And in a flash, the wagoner laid that string of fish on his wagon seat, thumped the head off the smallest one, and threw it at the ground in front of Harrison's feet. “There you go, darkie. Now you and that girl of yours got some fish to eat for your supper.” He leaned his head back and laughed loud as the wagon pulled away.

  Me and Harrison just stood on the side of the road after that, like we were nothing but a pair of old fence posts stuck in the dirt. “You remember me telling you how my ol’ master's son caught me fishin one night when I was young?” Harrison said real quiet.

  I nodded.

  “They went and gave me a lash for every one of them fish I caught that night. You remember me telling you ‘bout that? They said the pond wasn't mine, and the night wasn't mine, and the fish wasn't mine.” Harrison looked down at the fish head lying in the road. It was nothing but a sad triangle with one staring eye.

  “Got eleven scars on my back from them fish, Samuel, and the whole time my master was laying his cowhide across my back, know what I was thinkin?” Harrison looked at me. “I was thinkin that someday when I got myself free, I was gonna have me my own pond in the north, and I was gonna own every one of them fish in my pond, right down to the muddy bottom.”

  He picked up the fish head. “Walked all this way north to find out it ain't no different here atall. Nothing belongs to us here neither. Whitefolks own all the ponds, all the fish, and they gonna take whatever belongs to us, down to the very bottom. Don't matter where we go, Samuel. You a
nd me and all the colored people in this world ain't worth—”

  He flung the fish head hard into the woods. “Nothing.”

  Up ahead, Eggs started barking. Ham stood at the top of the hill, waving his arms. Waving and waving at us to keep walking.

  “We s'posed to keep movin?” I asked.

  “Go on.” Harrison gave me a hard push. “You go on up the hill and when you catch up to that skinny fellow, you tell him that I ain't walkin all the way to Canaday” he snapped. “Don't even want to go to Canaday no more. No, I doesn't.”

  Green Murdock

  Ham didn't listen to me or Harrison, though.

  When Harrison got to where Ham was waiting, he tried to tell him that we weren't going any farther. “You can just leave us right here,” Harrison said. “A wagon or a horse or the Lord himself can come and git us. I ain't walkin no more today.”

  But Ham just puffed slow on his pipe, and said it was only a stone's throw farther to the house of a man named Green Murdock, and that was the only place he was supposed to leave us. Green Murdock would take us somewhere after that.

  “Where's he gonna take us to?” Harrison asked.

  “Don't know,” Ham said.

  “How far we got to go ‘til we see Canaday?”

  “Don't know.”

  “Where we at now?”

  “Don't know.” Ham shrugged his shoulders, and whistled for Eggs. “I only take you from here to there. This morning, you was there and now you is here.”

  “Lord Almighty.” Harrison rolled his eyes.

  Ham kept on walking, down a small path through a woods of ash and oak trees. “One thing ‘bout Green Murdock, though,” Ham said over his shoulder. “Say he's a white fellow. That gonna worry you? ‘Cause he ain't nothin but a peddler. Just an of white peddler fellow.”

  “A peddler?” Harrison said sharply, and I knew exactly what he was thinking.

  Lilly used to say all peddlers were nothing but liars and cheats. “They talk outta the sides of their mouths, every single one of them,” she would tell me when they came to the kitchen door. They were always trying to sell something to Miz Catherine, who was fond of buying fancy things, and Lilly would get a tongue-lashing every time they came. She'd get in trouble from Master Hackler if she let them in, and from Miz Catherine if she didn't.

  Harrison went right up next to Ham, making his steps match Ham's long ones. “I hear you right? You sayin me and Samuel got to throw our luck on some no-good white peddler?”

  “There's his house,” Ham nodded, blowing little puffs of smoke.

  At the end of the footpath stood a poor-looking plank house. Its small front porch sagged into the ground, and orange trumpet vines grew all over it like they were trying to push right in. In the field behind the house, there was a tumbledown barn and a sagging old woodshed.

  “Looks like Green Murdock's wagon ain't come back yet,” Ham said. He put his hands in his pockets and stood in the middle of the yard, like he didn't know what to do. “Guess you just gonna have to hide yourselves in his woodshed ‘til it does.”

  Walking across the yard, he pushed open the crooked woodshed door. “Nothin fancy,” he said, setting a stick against the door to hold it open and looking inside real quick. “But he ain't gonna be gone long. Just out sellin things prob'ly.” He waved his hand at the damp-smelling darkness. “Go on in.”

  Me and Harrison stepped inside.

  Ham stuck his head through the open door. “Don't you worry. Green Murdock's gonna be back here in no time—” And without another word, he pushed the door shut and left me and Harrison in the middle of the darkness.

  It was a long time before someone came.

  We sat there in the closed-up woodshed, listening to the birds call outside, and a big yellow hornet buzz and peck at the window. Truth is, the sound of those birds made me feel worse inside. I thought about all those birds soaring around the tree-tops while we were hunched over like rats in the woodshed. My stomach grumbled. Last thing we had eaten was the loaf of bread at the whitefolks’ church. Running and hiding. Seemed like that's all we had done for days and days. How many days had it been? I tried to count. Was it five or six since we had run off? There's nowhere in this whole United States that a runaway is safe, the river man had said. Would me and Harrison be running and hiding our whole lives?

  “Hear something coming,” Harrison said, tapping my arm.

  There was the sound of a wagon rattling into the yard. I pushed back the girl's bonnet so I could keep an eye out. I didn't think anybody would know that we were hiding in the woodshed, but I guess they did. The woodshed door creaked open not a half-minute later.

  “Well, dog bite my tail,” a voice boomed. “What fine colored folks have I got hiding in my shed today?”

  I could see a short white fellow standing in the doorway. He had a shiny circle of bald skin on the top of his head, and by the looks of his clothes, he was fond of food.

  “Come out in the light and show yourselves,” the too-loud voice kept on. “Unless you are thinking about sitting in my wet and miry woodshed all day.”

  “You just stay quiet behind me,” Harrison whispered over his shoulder.

  Keeping my eyes on the edge of that dress so I wouldn't trip and fall over, I stepped outside the woodshed behind Harrison. But once I got there, a strange and peculiar feeling came over me. I felt the warm afternoon air on my face, and I saw light, plain as day, all around me. Reaching for where that girl's bonnet should have been, I felt nothing sitting on the top of my head.

  Harrison shot me a look. “Samuel,” he hissed. “Git that bonnet on.”

  But the white fellow put his hand over his eyes and laughed loud enough to send spit flying all over as he gasped and chuckled. Never saw any whitefolks ever laugh that way before.

  “Don't you worry ‘bout that bonnet,” he said, trying to take in breaths of air. “That ain't nothing. I've seen colored girls dressed as boys, boys dressed as girls, women in their husbands’ clothes, and men pretending to be poor widows.”

  Chuckling, he held a finger to his lips. “You don't need to breathe a single word about who you are or what master you ran off from. That's what I always tell the colored folks that come here. I tell them that Green Murdock holds secrets about as well as an upside-down cup holds water.”

  He started toward the house. “I'll just call you Young and Old, if that's fine with you. Or—” He stopped and pointed at me. “Now, this would be downright humorous. I'll call you Old and him”—he pointed to Harrison—”Young.”

  Even Harrison cracked a little smile at that.

  “So, Old and Young, are you as hungry as a shilling, a half-dollar, or a whole dollar?” he said. “ ‘Cause I have everything from a half-chewed piece of corn cake—which'll cost you nothing—to a fine smoked ham in my wagon, depending on what you have the money to pay for eating.” He squinted at us. “Paper money or coins are all the same to me. Which one might you be carrying, Old and Young?”

  Harrison didn't answer, and Green Murdock got a down look on his face.

  “Don't tell me that you ran off from your master without a shred of money,” he said. “Me and my poor horse have to eat, don't we? And keep a roof over our heads? Only way I make a living is by peddling things.” He shook his head. “All of this helping folks is just about putting old Green Murdock in the poorhouse these days.”

  I remembered the five coins we had given to the widow lady and how we still had a few left over. Why was Harrison not breathing a word about them?

  “We got a little something, maybe,” Harrison said uneasy-like. “Enough money to eat, I s'pose.”

  “Enough money to eat?! Well, dog bite my tail, Young—” Green Murdock broke into a grin and slapped his leg. “I'm just a poor peddler and even I don't eat MONEY!”

  I could see Harrison's shoulders go up fast, like he didn't think Green Murdock was being funny at all. Reaching into his pocket, Harrison pulled out the leather pouch of coins. “Here,” he sai
d sharply, holding out two coins. “This be ‘nough for me and Samuel's supper?”

  Green Murdock took both coins and slipped them into his boots. “Didn't mean to say that about running off without a shred of money, Young.” He patted Harrison's shoulder. “I'm the kind that always helps folks and does what I can. Any soul around here would tell you that about old Green Murdock.

  “Now, let's see if I can find you that good smoked ham I told you about. It came all the way from Cin-cin-nati. Almost walked out of town by itself. You go on in the house”—he pointed—”while I have a look around my wagon.”

  Green Murdock paused and grinned at me. “Maybe I'll even bring a new tow-linen shirt and trousers for the boy.”

  Only thing was, he couldn't find the fancy ham. He came back carrying a small slab of bacon and a bag of potatoes instead. “Don't you worry,” he told us, throwing kindling onto the fire until the flames licked halfway up the chimney. “I can cook this piece of bacon good enough that it'll taste just like that fancy ham.”

  Truth is, the tow shirt and trousers weren't new either. When I put them on, I saw the trousers had little chew holes from mice, and the shirt was splattered with mud. But I was purely glad to be free of that girl's dress, so I didn't breathe a word.

  Green Murdock told us to have a look around while he was cooking. “Go on. Look at all the things I sell,” he said, waving his arm around the room. “Just don't touch anything. That's what I always tell the colored folks. Can't have all my china broken and my fine embroideries ruined.”

  Right away, my eyes fell on a plain pine box leaning up against a wall. Size of a person. Green Murdock chuckled, seeing me staring at that coffin. “I sell everything folks need from birth to death, and anything else that happens to someone in between.”

  He lifted a china bowl from an open crate full of straw. “These fancy willowware bowls came all the way from England. Aren't they something to see?” He held the bowl in front of me and Harrison, turning it this way and that. “Sold two of them this morning to old Rose Waverly in Red Oak.