Elijah of Buxton

by Christopher Paul Curtis

  Seeing a growned-up person naked like that was so shocking that I snatched my eyes off her and looked down at the dirt in front of her feet. There were thick bands of iron hugged ’round her ankles connecting up to some locks and chains that were keeping her where she was at. I was just as embarrassed to see these chains as I was to see that she didn’t have no clothes on. I looked at the others so’s not to shame her.

  The rest of ’em were men and they waren’t wearing nothing atall, not even a rag. Their ankles were covered with the same kind of thick iron shackles as the woman’s. Their eyes were all on me and they were looking just as scared and confused and surprised ’bout seeing me as I was ’bout seeing them.

  The four-armed woman hissed again, “Is you a real boy?”

  I waren’t sure how to answer her. If she was a haint and thought that I was one too, she might not do nothing to me. ’Sides, who else but a haint’s gonna have four arms? But if she waren’t a haint and I told her I was one, maybe she’d put some kind a haint-killing conjure on me and I’d be dead anyway.

  ’Stead of looking at her, I put my eyes up in the rafters of the stable, which was easy to do since, whilst my mind was trying to figure out how to answer her question, I was still spread out on the floor being fra-gile. The waiting owl stared back down at me.

  I figured I’d best answer her with the truth. I said, “Yes, ma’am, I’m a real boy.”

  She whispered, “If you’s a haint, get on outta here. If you’s a real boy, cut that foolishness and pick you’self outta that dirt!”

  I tried to get back on my feet. I got up but kept my head down. A choky, coughing sound came from the woman and I couldn’t help but look. The sound was too tiny for a growned woman to be making. I saw a little black head and two little black arms coming out of the rag that was stretched out ’cross her front. It was truly a load off my mind when I could tell that, even with it dark as it was in the stable, she didn’t have four arms atall! She was a woman holding on to a baby!

  Then I understood! These waren’t no chained demons! These were five runaway slaves and a baby that had been caught! I knowed what they were but my head kept spinning anyway.

  She said, “Boy!”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  She said, “If you’s real, go by them horses in that stall behind you and fetch that bucket of water, but keep heshed! One n’em paddy-rollers be over yon lickered up.”

  I looked to where she was pointing and saw another bundle on the right-hand side of the stable. ’Cepting for the shotgun leaned up ’gainst him, you’d’ve never knowed it was a white man.

  There was a leather bucket hanging from a nail so I went and brung it and the drinking gourd that was next to it over to where the woman with the baby was squatted down.

  She reached out and touched my hand like she was making sure I was real, then said, “Thank you, boy!” She dipped the gourd in the water and propped the baby up so’s it could get a drink.

  The baby hadn’t showed no signs of being alive past a cough or two but once it saw the water it sprunged up and commenced kicking its legs straight out and clawing at the gourd and sucking and slurping and lapping at the water like it hadn’t had nothing to drink in two years.

  The sound of the baby going at the water stirred the men up something fierce. Two of ’em reached their hands out at me and strained up ’gainst their chains so’s to get close to the bucket as they could.

  The woman mashed her finger ’gainst her lips and said, “Hesh them chains! You wants to wake that white man and get this here boy killed? They’s plenty water here, just you wait!”

  She waved her hand ’round a lot whilst she was talking to the men, like they couldn’t hear her good.

  She eased the gourd away from the baby and said, “There now, darling. Go slow. Ain’t no point making you’self sick.”

  But the child waren’t having none of her cautions. It snatched back at the gourd and bit on the side of it, breathing in water, splashing its mouth ’round like a sparrow in a puddle.

  The baby commenced coughing again and the woman took the gourd away. She dipped it back in the bucket and took a long pull herself. Two more times she did this, draining the gourd dry then taking a breath so deep and so hard that it brung to mind someone who’d dived under a lake then come back up right afore their lungs were ’bout to bust.

  She said, “Thank you, thank you kindly. Now give them men some.”

  I stepped over to the man closest to her and set the bucket in front of him. He looked at it then looked up at me. He raised his hands and I saw that his arms were tied up with heavy chains that were dangling off of his wrists.

  I didn’t know what to say or do.

  Ma and Pa and all the growned folks in the Settlement had told us plenty of stories ’bout folks in chains afore, and a couple of people in Buxton even have thick, shiny scars on their ankles and wrists from wearing ’em, but seeing the chains real waren’t the kind of thing you could imagine. It waren’t the kind of picture that words could paint.

  Maybe the growned folks were trying not to scare us when they told stories ’bout folks being chained up, ’cause judging by the way these people looked, I knowed we waren’t getting the whole story. I felt my legs getting unsolid and rickety all over again.

  The woman said, “Boy! It’s just my hands what’s free so’s I can tend my chile. Them men’s arms is chained and they caint reach they mouth. You’s gunn have to help ’em.”

  I dipped the gourd into the water and raised it to the man’s lips so he could drink. His eyes were blood red and swole up and crusted so’s you’d’ve thought he’d had a good, long, hard cry. But there was something in his eyes that told you that this waren’t the kind of man that was likely to be bawling, no matter what happened to him.

  Things had run out of his nose and were making the hair on his lip look gray, but up close he seemed too young to be showing age that way. He was too strong-looking. He was one n’em men that’s got every muscle poking right out of him, sort of like if he waren’t careful they’d come ripping right through his skin.

  His lips were cracked with long, bloody splits dividing ’em every little bit. His hair was caked up on one side with blood or mud like he got chunked there by a rock and never took the time to wash it out.

  He had one of his legs stretched out front of him, and there was a big rip outta the skin by his knee. It had got sewed up, but not real good. It must have been from that bear-fighting dog.

  He ducked his head at me once then drank just as hard as the woman and the child.

  She said, “He the chile’s pa. Him and them other three’s all full-blood Africans. He don’t talk a whole lot of English, but he ain’t lost his manners so much that he ain’t gunn say, ‘Thank you kindly,’ has you, Kamau?”

  The man ducked his head again.

  I said, “You’re welcome, sir,” and once he had his fill I went down the line watering the other men.

  The last one waren’t a man atall. He was a boy that looked like he was a little younger than me. His eyes were red and swole up and crusted too, but there waren’t no doubt what caused this on him. It was crying. Even dark as it was, I could still see the gray tracks the tears that had run down his cheeks left. His nose was crusted up and leaking even more than the man’s. It was terrible to see.

  When he looked up at me all I could think to do was pull my hand up in my sleeve then reach my cuff over to wipe his nose and mouth off. He saw me raise my hand and flinched back like he was expecting me to bust him in the face, but he saw what I was trying to do and leaned in. Soon’s I wiped his nose I gave him some of the water.

  Once he had his fill he bent down and pulled my arm so’s my hand was at his lips. He pressed his mouth there. It ripped at my insides something harsh. He was acting like giving him a drink of water waren’t no different than giving him a twenty-dollar gold piece. He wouldn’t turn my hand a-loose. He started mumbling some African talk against it then commenced to crying
in quiet jerking noises that made his teeth rub up against my skin and made the chains on his arms and legs rattle.

  I pulled my hand away and all the sudden I knowed what the odd smell in the stable was. It was fear. It was the smell of five growned folks and one baby that were afeared of everything.

  And that smell and the sight of these chained folks and the sounds they made every time they moved started making me sick to my stomach. I know it don’t seem right, but all I wanted to do was get away from this boy, to get away from these people afore I throwed up. I left the bucket at the boy’s feet and stumbled three steps backward.

  The woman whispered, “No, chile, you’s got to put it back jus’ like it was. You’s got to leave it like ain’t no one been in here.”

  When I got the bucket and gourd back she said, “Come close and keep your voice down. What you doing here? You work in this stable?”

  They’d scared me so bad I’d plumb forgot about the Preacher!

  I remembered what I’d swore to Mr. Leroy and told her, “No, ma’am, I’m searching for the man that stoled my friend’s money.”

  I looked to the other end of the stable and the Preacher was still standing there, pretending he waren’t hearing none of this. I drawed Mr. Leroy’s pistol out of my tote sack so’s the Preacher could see this waren’t no bluff and said a little louder, “He’s gonna give me Mr. Leroy’s money back else I’m gut-shooting him down like a mad yeller dog.”

  Having a gun in your hand when you knowed you were gonna use it to shoot a human person made it feel a whole lot different. When I’d used the Preacher’s old rusty gun to shoot stumps and stones, it didn’t feel nowhere near’s heavy as this one. The mystery pistol was shaking and sliding back and forth in my hand same as a weather vane in a January storm.

  The four Africans drawed back once they saw that gun and the way it was jumping ’round in my hand. You could tell they knowed what a pistol like this one could do to somebody.

  The woman said, “Now I seen everything. A boy holding a man’s gun fixing to shoot someone! But if you’s set on killing that man, you’s too late, chile. Looky there. He breathed his last just ’fore sunset.

  “Had quite the mouth on him, that one did. I knowed they waren’t taking him nowhere. I knowed when they brung him in here and bust his teeth out and split his tongue in two. They ain’t never gunn treat no one what they’s looking to sell like that. What they done with him waren’t nothing but play, nothing but sport.

  “But you tell your friend if that man stoled something from him he done paid a terrible price for it. You tell him that man stayed alive way pass what you’d-a thought someone could, and he never begged, and he cursed them paddy-rollers with every blow they put on him, cursed ’em right to the end.”

  So the Right Reverend Deacon Doctor Zephariah Connerly the Third was dead. I was ’shamed ’cause, wrong as it might seem, the first thing that came flooding into my heart was reliefness ’cause that meant I waren’t gonna have to keep my word and kill him.

  I could see now it was ropes that were keeping the Preacher’s arms spread out to the sides. He was strunged up twixt two beams. Another rope was wrapped ’round and ’round his neck and was pinching his throat narrow and tight. I knowed I waren’t never gonna be able to look at Emma’s old doll, Birdy, again without calling up thoughts ’bout the Preacher.

  The next thing that came into my heart made it sink right down into my brogans. There waren’t no clothes on the Preacher ’cepting for a bloody rag ’round his knees. Mr. Leroy’s money must be all gone!

  The woman said, “Put that thang down ’fore you hurts someone!”

  I put the Preacher’s gun back in my tote sack.

  She said, “Who you belongs to?”

  She could see I was having a powerful hard time taking my eyes off the Preacher, so she pulled at my arm. When I still couldn’t quit looking at him she turned my face so’s I was looking dead at her.

  “Who you belongs to?”

  The only thing I could think to say was, “No one, ma’am. I’m my ma and pa’s boy.”

  She said, “You sure do talk peculiar. Where you born? You from this here town?”

  I said, “No, ma’am, I was born free in the Buxton Settlement, in Canada West.”

  “Canada!”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She said, “How far’s us from Canada?”

  “It took me and Mr. Leroy near ’bouts a hour to ride it, but we waren’t tarrying atall. We were probably riding the horse too hard.”

  She said, “A hour?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Naw, say that ain’t the truth. Say that a lie, boy!”

  “No, ma’am, that’s the swear-’fore-God truth.”

  For the first time since I met her she smiled. She held the baby away from her and said, “Honey, I guess we just snakebit. We run all that time and falls one little hour short. One hour, chile, we was that close. I ’spect we so close we might even be breathing that free Canada air.”

  I started to tell her that mostly the wind blows the other way, from America over into Canada, but I figured that waren’t what she was talking ’bout.

  I said, “Where’s that man taking you, ma’am?”

  She said, “I ’spect me and Kamau and the baby’s heading back to my missus in Kentucky. I caint say where they taking them other three. They don’t talk no English atall and Kamau say they don’t talk the same African he do.”

  I remembered all the stories we’d heard in classes about abolitionists and how they’d risk their lives for people who were just like these folks. I remembered how those stories got you so excited and mad and worked up that you wanted to charge down into America and free all the slaves. I remember how those stories near ’bout made you cry when the growned folks would tell you how they felt when they finally got to Buxton and they pressed their left hands onto the Liberty Bell and they finally knowed how it felt not to be owned by nobody.

  I thought ’bout all the times me and Cooter and Emma and our friends played abolitionists and slavers, the way we had to pull straws to see who would get to be the abolitionists ’cause didn’t no one want to pretend to be somebody bad as a slave owner. I remembered how we’d act like we were sneaking up on a plantation to kill the lot of slave masters and make a run for Canada with some happy, smiling, free slaves. I remembered how easy it all was.

  But now I could see our playing didn’t have nothing to do with the truth. I could see how it was a whole lot harder when things were real and you had to worry ’bout shotguns and chains and coughing little babies and crying folks without no clothes. Folks that were the same as me and Ma and Pa, ’cepting they were near dead. ’Cepting they gave off a sad, peculiar smell. ’Cepting they were chained in a way that I ain’t never seen even the wildest, worstest animal chained.

  I knowed right then that if I got out of this stable in Michigan alive I waren’t never gonna play abolitionists again. Not just ’cause all the fun had been took out of it, but mostly ’cause I knowed I waren’t brave enough to even pretend to be one of ’em. I knowed it would be kinda like pretending you were a angel. It was the kind of thing that would make you ’shamed the next time you ran into a real angel or a real abolitionist. It was the kind of thing that shouldn’t be involved in no sort of game.

  I looked at the woman and swored to myself, shotguns and chains or not, I was gonna figure a way to get her and these Africans out of here!

  I asked the woman, “How many of ’em is it that’s stealing you, ma’am?”

  She said, “They’s that one pass out yon and one what they calls Prayder and his two boys. And a ornery dog.”

  I calculated real quick, swallowed hard so’s there wouldn’t be no backing down, and said, “Ma’am, I can creep up on that man that’s asleep and try to get the keys to those locks away without rousing him, and if he does wake up and I got to use this gun then I got to use this gun. Then I’ll let you all loose and we’ll have a shotgun too and w
hen those other slave hunters come running we all could …”

  Ideas were jumping at me hard and fast and it seemed like the more harder and more faster they came the more they were bumping into one the ’nother and the more confusing and worthless they were sounding, even to me.

  But I couldn’t quit talking. Quitting talking was the same as quitting everything so I said, “And when we get to Buxton, the folks’ll welcome you and help you set up a farm. Even some of the white folks’ll help. And we’re always looking out for people who’re trying to get free, and when you get there me and Cooter are gonna ring the Liberty Bell ’round a hundred times. That comes out to twenty times for each one of you. And don’t no paddy-rollers come there else they get tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail, or they disappear and ain’t never heard from no more. And even the white folks that don’t want us there get mighty riled when Americans come into Canada and try to tell ’em what to do, and once we get there, Emma Collins ain’t gonna have to trick you out of the woods ’cause I’m-a bring you all the way there myself and I …”

  I looked over at the four other people who were back to leaning their heads twixt their knees and breathing in a way that told me they waren’t gonna run nowhere. They didn’t look like a bunch of tired, beat-down people no more. They were back to looking like five bundles throwed up ’gainst a stable wall.

  It was too much. Mr. Leroy dying, the Preacher getting killed, the smells, the way the chains rattled, and the naked folks looking so scared and whupped and tired, it was just too much. The stupid and confusing ideas quit coming and got their place took by a stinging in my eyes and a loosening in my nose and a choking in my throat.

  It waren’t nothing but some powerful fra-gile-ness, and when it comes, there ain’t nothing you can do to stop it. It’s like a ball got rolling down a hill. So all I could do was cry. Same as the chained-up runaway boy that was younger than me, I quit talking, covered my eyes, and cried.

  The woman switched her baby to her left hand and covered my mouth with her right one. She’d done it gentle but her hand was rough as old barn wood ’cross my face.