Mr. Leroy said, “Zeph, I ain’t saying I don’t ’preciate you doing this, but I’d feel better if you was armed whilst you carried all that money.”
The Preacher pulled open his waistcoat and showed Mr. Leroy the old pistol that he’d let me shoot off once and said, “Oh, don’t you worry, Brother Leroy. I’d not go into that den of vipers unprepared.”
Mr. Leroy said, “In that case, Zeph, hurry on back. I’m-a make sure your pistol don’t get near no water.”
The Preacher said to Pa, “Tell Brother Theodore I’ll be back a bit before noon. Tell him to ask Mr. Segee for a strong horse. We’re going to ride hard.”
The Preacher jumped back up on Champion and tore down the road toward Chatham.
Pa watched him and said, “I wish it waren’t so, but I just ain’t feeling good ’bout this.”
Time don’t never go so slow as when you’re waiting on someone to bring you news. Word spread ’bout Mr. Leroy being able to buy his family, and whilst him and me worked clearing Mrs. Holton’s field, all sorts of folks came up to us and gave him their regards and good wishes.
Mr. Leroy didn’t work no slower nor no faster whilst we waited to hear from the Preacher and Mr. Highgate. He just kept plugging away at the trees like he always did, making the same music, stopping every time someone came up only long enough to see if they were gonna tell him something. Once he saw they waren’t, he was respectful but went right back at swinging that axe.
After four days crawled by, talk started up ’bout sending someone to that village in Michigan to see if there was a problem. Didn’t no one own up to being worried, but everybody was.
On the fifth day after the Preacher and Mr. Highgate left, me and Old Flapjack were rock fishing at our secret lake. I’d just chunked a good-size perch and was pulling him in when Old Flap gave one n’em snorts meaning someone was near.
I quit concentrating on the perch and raised my head. I heard Cooter calling my name from far off.
“Cooter! I’m down here!”
He ran up on me and waited a second for his breathing to catch up to him then said, “They bringing … Mr. Highgate in … from Windsor … on a wagon!”
“Bringing?”
“Uh-huh. Some folk we … don’t know … from Windsor got him loaded on a wagon.”
“How come he ain’t riding Jingle Boy?”
“I don’t know, Eli. They say there’s a horse tied up behind the wagon.”
“Where’s he at now?”
“They said he’s ’bout half a hour outside Buxton. But that was afore I left to come find you.”
“What’d they say ’bout Mr. Leroy’s family?”
“Didn’t no one say nothing. A rider just came by and brung the news that Mr. Highgate got hurt bad.”
I said, “What ’bout …”
Cooter read my mind. He said, “They said the Preacher ain’t with him.”
My heart sunked! That could only mean someone had robbed ’em and killed the Preacher or snatched him into slavery! I knowed I should go find Mr. Leroy and let him know we got word. But after I thought on it for a second, it came to me that I didn’t really have nothing to tell him. Ma’s always saying, “Believe some to none of what you hear and only half of what you see.” So I didn’t think I should run to tell Mr. Leroy some bad news that I waren’t sure had really happened.
I told Cooter, “Come on, if we run down the road maybe we can catch the wagon afore they get to Buxton.”
Cooter said, “You go ’head on, Eli. I been hightailing all over these woods looking for you. I ain’t got no more strength for running.”
“All right, you ride Old Flapjack back and I’m-a try to head off that wagon. Gather up my fishing things and you can have two of those bass on the stringer. Take the rest to my ma.”
Soon’s I broke out of the woods onto the road I saw fresh wagon-wheel marks. They must’ve already passed. I ran back into the trees to try and cut them off farther on down. Right after I turned the first bend I could hear a wagon ahead, so I ran through the woods to where they were gonna have to pass.
It waren’t but a minute later that I saw two horses pulling a big wagon with Jingle Boy tied up behind.
I waved at ’em.
The driver pulled the horses up and said, “You heading to Buxton, son?”
“Yes, sir, but I’m looking for …”
A hand gripped on to the stakes of the wagon bed. A man’s head peeked over the side and he said, “Elijah? That you?”
I knowed it had to be Mr. Highgate but at first I didn’t recognize him.
He said, “It’s me, boy.”
My heart dropped down into my stomach. It was Mr. Highgate and he didn’t look nothing like the way he looked when he left five days ago.
I felt my knees get all loose and floppity, like I was gonna fall into a heap right next to the wagon.
The driver reached down and pulled me up on the seat next to him.
I looked back at Mr. Highgate.
His left eye was open but the right one was swole shut. There was a line running clean ’cross his forehead that was so straight it looked like someone had took a measuring stick then cut along it with a knife. The cut had gone bad and was bandaged up but it still was leaking something from the sides.
Mr. Highgate was kind of choking as he talked. He said, “He done shot me. He done shot me.”
He waren’t saying it all riled up and worried or scared and mad like you’d expect someone that got shot would say it, he was saying it like it was a surprised little prayer. Like he was thinking if he said it over and over he might get ahold on to what happened.
“Elijah, he done shot me. He tried to take my head off.”
The driver said, “He ain’t been in his right mind the whole time. Keep on mumbling ’bout someone name of Zephariah.”
I climbed into the wagon’s bed and put Mr. Highgate’s head in my lap.
We waren’t but a mile outside Buxton when a bunch of growned folks came running at us. Pa was out front.
“Pa!”
Pa jumped into the wagon, looked at Mr. Highgate, and called to Mr. Segee, “Clarence, ride on to Chatham and get the doctor. He been shot.”
Mr. Segee ran toward Buxton.
Pa said, “Theodore, what happened?”
Mr. Highgate said, “Spencer, I done let Leroy down. I ain’t done nothing to stop him, I tried. I swear I did, but he shot me!”
Pa said, “Talk slow, Theo. Tell me what happened.”
Mr. Highgate said, “Didn’t nothing go right. We’s cursed soon as we left Canada. Soon as we get on the ferry to Michigan, Zephariah start in acting peculiar. First thing he done is take that old pistol he showed y’all out of his waistcoat and ax me if I wanted to hold on to it. You know I ain’t real partial to no kinda pistol, Spencer, so I tells him, ‘No, thanks, I got my shotgun. That’s plenty ’nough for me.’
“He say, ‘Suit yourself.’ And I’ll be blamed if he don’t toss that old pistol right in the Detroit River!
“I ax him how come he done that, and he say he don’t need that one, he got him something better. Then he go in his saddlebag and pull out the ’xact same gun and holster like the one he give to Leroy for safekeeping, the ’xact same one! I knowed right then all them stories ’bout him killing them white twins waren’t gossip atall, it was gospel!”
Pa had a look on his face like someone told him he was ’bout to get shot at sunrise. All he said was, “Awww!”
Mr. Highgate said, “Then once we get them horses unloaded off the ferry, he start in on acting like he don’t know me. He won’t say nothing to me. He carry on like he don’t hear none of the questions I’s axing him. We just plod on up the road to this little logging village.
“I ain’t feeling no danger, you know how strange he be some the time. I just figure he ain’t letting nothing pull him off getting up there to talk to that there white man. I’s hoping ’gainst hope everything’s still fine.
“Once we gets
to that village he tell me it’s too late to go see this white man, that we gunn have to hold on till tomorrow. I still ain’t sensing nothing wrong. We pull up in this alley and I spread me a blanket and tries to get some rest.
“I has the hardest time getting to sleep, so I’s just laying there with my eyes shut. Couple hours later I seen Zeph is real quiet walking off toting the bag with all Leroy’s money and gold in it. I calls after him and he tell me he know where some gambling’s going on and he figure if Leroy’s money could buy three people what was slaves, then he could gamble him up two times that sum and free six of ’em!
“I gives him a look like I ain’t ’bout to consider no nonsense such as that. Then he ax me if freeing six waren’t better’n freeing three.”
Mr. Highgate said, “Spencer, a chill run up my back! I told him, ‘Uh-uh, Zeph, ain’t no one gunn gamble none that money.’
“He laugh and say, ‘Don’t worry, ain’t no gamble the way I play cards.’
“I tells him, ‘As long as I’s here you ain’t playing nothing,’ and I reach for my shotgun and aims it at his knee.
“He look at me cold as a viper, like he don’t believe I’s serious. I tells him, ‘You gunn leave all that money and gold right here, else ain’t both of us coming out this here alley the same way we come in.’
“He laugh again and say, ‘You ain’t got no idea how hard it is to kill a man.’ He say, ‘You ain’t got the heart to shoot no one.’ And he pull that pistol out the holster and hold it down at his side.”
Mr. Highgate went on. “What could I do? I draws a bead right on his knee so’s he can see I ain’t fooling. All he do is stare me in my eye and start to raise that pistol. I caint think ’bout nothing but all them years Leroy done worked and how if Zeph left with that gold we waren’t never gunn see him no more.”
Pa said, “Lord, today …”
Mr. Highgate said, “He was right. I ain’t never even point no gun at no man in my life, Spencer.”
Pa said, “Ain’t no one gunn fault you for not shooting him, Theo.”
Mr. Highgate said, “It ain’t like that, I tried! I steadies the shotgun, pulls that trigger, and …”
Me and Pa quit breathing.
Mr. Highgate said, “… and don’t nothing happen, just a loud click. I ain’t never heard no sound so terrible in my whole life. I knowed I had that shotgun loaded, and just as quick I knowed someway he done unload it. I must’ve dozed off and didn’t know it.
“He get a smile on his face what look like death hisself, and raise that pistol till it aiming dead twixt my eyes. I ’member thinking I done let Leroy down. I ’member thinking waren’t no good atall in the world if this was gunn happen, if this rapscallion was gunn get away with this crime. I ’member thinking ’bout my wife, then I ’member getting lift off my feets and I don’t recall nothing else till a couple days pass.
“Once I come to, some free folks up in the logging town was tending to me. A man and his wife, mighty fine folk. Took good care of me and didn’t want nothing in return.”
Mr. Highgate fumbled in the top pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a piece of paper and said, “I axed ’em to write they name down so’s I could send ’em some of my syrup as a kind of thank-you. They even borrowed a wagon to carry me to Detroit, then set it up with this here man to bring me to Buxton.”
He handed me the paper. It had writ ’cross it in rough letters, Benjamin Alston. 509 Wilbur Place.
Mr. Highgate’s mind seemed to leave him. I tried handing him the paper back but he pushed my hand away and said, “He shot me. He really done shot me.”
Pa said, “Hold on to it, Elijah.”
I folded the paper back up and put it in my pocket.
Pa said, “Theodore, try to remember. You didn’t hear nothing more on Zephariah?”
Mr. Highgate said, “Mr. Alston say word was that Zeph be drinking and carousing and gambling. They say he winning big and cleaning all them white folks out they money. But I ain’t in no condition to look him up, Spencer. I figure it best I get back here and let Leroy and the rest of y’all know.”
Mr. Highgate started talking in that surprised little voice again. He said, “He done try to blow my head off, Spencer. He done try to kill me to steal Leroy’s money!”
I knowed better. I knowed if the Preacher had aimed to blow Mr. Highgate’s head off, he’d have blowed it clean off. I knowed the Preacher waren’t looking to kill him.
Pa said, “Don’t the woe never end? How much is we ’spected to bear? How much?”
Mr. Highgate said, “You gunn have to bring Leroy to me so’s I can tell him what happen.”
Pa said, “Naw, Theodore, you done everything you could. I’m-a tell him.”
He looked at me and said, “Come on, son, we’s gunn have to go down to Mrs. Holton’s and let Leroy know ’bout this calamity.”
Me and Pa jumped out of the wagon and started walking toward Mrs. Holton’s land. I ain’t never seen Pa’s head hang so low. I knowed better than to say nothing.
Then out of the blue something came to me. This whole mess waren’t no one’s fault but my own! If I hadn’t’ve told Mr. Leroy that the Preacher waren’t gonna steal his money, none of this would’ve happened! If I’d’ve listened to what Pa told me and hadn’t stuck my nose in growned-folks business, it wouldn’t’ve happened atall!
You’d think I’d’ve come clean and told Pa, but the way he was looking, I think it would’ve killed him to know his own big-mouth flesh and blood was the cause of all this grieving.
We both walked and hunged our heads low as the belly on a fat snake and didn’t talk ’bout nothing.
We saw Mr. Leroy from ’bout a half mile off. There waren’t much you could really see, ’cepting for the sun flashing off the axe when he swung it.
When we were close enough to see the sweat flying and hear all the music, Pa called out, “Leroy!”
Mr. Leroy took one more swing and left the axe biting in the tree.
He looked at us and didn’t no words need be exchanged. He squozed his eyes shut for a second, let out a long breath, sat down, and said, “What? What now?”
Pa walked right up on him and said, “Zeph done run off with the money, Leroy. He shot Theodore then left him for dead.”
Mr. Leroy said, “Theodore’s dead?”
Pa said, “No, he been shot, but it don’t look too bad. The money’s gone, Leroy. Zeph’s gambling it away up in Michigan.”
Mr. Leroy didn’t say nothing.
Then the most terrorific thing happened. Mr. Leroy showed his teeth like a madman and snatched that axe outta the oak and raised it over his head. I knowed he’d figured out who started all this and was gonna split me clean in two!
This time, my legs didn’t get soft and loose-ity, they got strong. Afore he could bring that axe down, me and Mr. Leroy both screamed and I lit out for the woods. I looked back and Mr. Leroy flunged that axe toward one of the oaks on Mrs. Holton’s land. It hit about thirty feet up and stuck there. Then he cut off into the woods in the other direction.
I figured he was gonna circle ’round to catch me so I ran deeper into the woods fast as I could.
I was running so hard it seemed like the trees started stepping aside, like they knowed if I hit ’em they’d get knocked clean over. I was running like the wind. I didn’t feel nor hear nothing ’cepting my heart, it seemed like it jumped right out of my chest and came to rest twixt my ears.
Close as the branches on the trees were slapping by me I knowed they had to be giving me some pretty good whuppings, but I didn’t feel nothing. All I was worrying ’bout was getting away afore Mr. Leroy could bring me down with his axe. All I was thinking ’bout was running faster than anybody’d ever run afore. I must have run for a hour.
I was going fast all right, but it waren’t fast enough.
All the sudden there was a hand ’round my collar, and I was getting snatched right off my feet from behind and pulled down.
I hit the ground
so hard and sudden that my mouth came open and I swallowed a bunch of dirt and old dead leafs.
I hoped Mr. Leroy didn’t tarry when he cut me in two. I hoped I didn’t get the chance to do too much screaming and begging.
I put my hands over my eyes and waited to get killed.
I don’t know how long I stayed curled up in a ball on the ground afore I started hearing Mr. Leroy over top of me. He was gasping loud whilst he waited for his breathing to catch ahold of him so’s he could do a proper job of chopping me up. I thought ’bout getting up and running again, but my legs were so tired and shake-ity that they waren’t gonna do nothing but lay there hoping it waren’t them he’d hit first.
Mr. Leroy got ahold of his breathing and said, “Boy … has you … lost your … natural mind?”
The peculiar thing was that even though he was having a powerful hard time talking, he didn’t sound atall like hisself. He sounded a whole lot like Pa.
’Stead of cleaving me like firewood he said, “Now get up!”
It was Pa!
Pa kept fighting to breathe regular and said, “All I need, you taking leave of your senses at a time like this! When you gunn stop this running nonsense and stand up to what’s in front of you?”
I said, “But, Pa, he was gonna kill me!”
He said, “What? Why on earth would Leroy want to kill you?”
“He knowed it was ’cause of me all this happened. It’s all my fault! I told him the Preacher waren’t no thief.”
Pa said, “Hush that foolishness! This ain’t none of your fault, this ain’t no one’s fault. Leroy wanted his family so bad that he waren’t thinking clear. You couldn’t’ve said nothing to change him one way or the ’nother. Let this here be a lesson to you. You caint let your wantings blind you to what’s the truth. You always got to look at things the way they is, not the way you wish ’em to be.”
I knowed what Pa was doing. Since him and Ma still think I’m so doggone fra-gile they’re always looking out for me, always trying to make it so I don’t feel bad ’bout something I did that’s total foolish. But after ’while you’re old enough and you got to own up to what you did, right or wrong, and couldn’t no one tell me that all this horribleness didn’t start with me.
Elijah of Buxton Page 17