Angels Watching Over Me (Shenandoah Sisters Book #1)

by Phillips, Michael

  We just stood—two silent statues staring at each other.

  Then I saw her blink, and the first thing that came to me was that I’d never seen a dead person blink before. But we just kept standing there staring. I sure enough didn’t know what to say.

  The white girl with the huge brown eyes and blond hair was the first to speak.

  ‘‘My . . . my mother is dead,’’ she whimpered, her lips barely moving.

  I stood there another few seconds in the trance I’d been in. But somehow the sound of a human voice, and such a pitiful, forlorn sound from a girl who had just said the words that I hadn’t wanted to say out loud, finally broke me out of it.

  Slowly I found myself walking toward her, stepping through the rubble all around, and not yet even seeing the body that turned out to be her dead daddy in the room behind her. She stood there as I approached, watching me with those huge helpless eyes.

  Then suddenly we were in each other’s arms, both weeping our eyes out.

  FIRST DAY

  14

  WE STOOD LIKE THAT FOR A WHILE—TEN, maybe fifteen seconds—just crying. That doesn’t sound like too long, but it’s long enough when you’re standing in the arms of a complete stranger, especially one with a different color skin.

  The awkwardness of it kind of came to us both at the same time, and we slowly stepped away from each other.

  After our embrace, neither of us knew what to say. Neither of us could even manage a smile. I realized this girl had met the same fate as I had, though she couldn’t know anything yet about the murder of my family.

  I reckon I was still numb, still in shock. But it no doubt was a lot worse for her right then. From the look on her face, she must have just found out what had happened, or else had been standing there a long, long time. The bodies were already cold, I could tell that much.

  I didn’t know what to do. So I just turned and started walking outside.

  The white girl must have thought I was leaving. And I reckon I was. This was her house, not mine. Black folks just didn’t go into white folks’ houses without being invited. I’d forgotten about being hungry.

  I’d also forgotten about the dogs. All of a sudden as I walked out the door there came a reddish brown hunting hound running toward me in a full gallop and baying like he’d just cornered a fox or something. On his heels was a light-colored retriever who wasn’t making nearly so much noise as the hound, along with a tan collie sprinting up to join in the commotion. All three were barking and howling, sniffing and wagging their tails like dogs do. I guess I must not have smelled too bad since none of them took a chunk out of either of my legs, and after that they treated me like I belonged there.

  The girl stood where she was, sniffling and crying for a few more minutes, then found her legs enough to stumble along after me outside. She almost reminded me of a helpless chick following its mother.

  I found a shovel from the tool shed and started digging a hole in the ground out in a field some distance from the house.

  She made her way up beside me. ‘‘What are you doing?’’ she asked in a trembly voice.

  ‘‘They gotta be buried,’’ I answered, glancing at her quickly to see if she was going to faint on me.

  She just stood there watching blankly. I kept shoveling.

  There wasn’t a sound anywhere but flies buzzing about, the moo of some cows off someplace nearby, and my shovel scraping into the earth and then tossing the dirt onto a pile next to the hole.

  ‘‘They your mama and papa?’’ I said as I shoveled. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She took a deep breath.

  ‘‘Yes’m,’’ she finally said. ‘‘And my brothers.’’

  ‘‘No need to say yes’m to me, miss,’’ I said. ‘‘I’m just a darkie—a slave from a plantation the other side of Greens Crossing.’’ I’d figured out that much after my wanderings all night.

  After a bit the girl turned and walked toward the barn. She returned a minute later dragging another shovel behind her. She stood nearby and tried to dig with me. One look was enough to tell that she’d probably never used a shovel in her life. She didn’t even know where to put her hands on the handle or what to do with her foot. But she watched and tried her best to imitate me, managing to scoop out a little dirt.

  Side by side we worked on the graves, the final resting places for the white man and woman, the young white man I’d stumbled over outside and another inside the house, which I later found out were the girl’s older brothers. The black lady in the house and the two other black folks I’d seen on my way in I figured on burying a little way off from the others. It didn’t seem proper that darkies should be buried right by the man and woman who owned the plantation.

  Little was said between us as the day went on except what needed saying.

  I did most of the digging, which was the way it should have been. I was strong and I didn’t mind. What else did I have to do?

  We kept digging on and off for two or three hours. I found the well and fetched us a bucket of water. She didn’t drink much, but I did. It was hot. By that time she had bad blisters on her hands. I poured water over them and told her to sit down in the shade and said I’d finish.

  I intended to make the holes deeper than I’d done for my family. I knew I’d never finish in one day. But I figured I should be getting the bodies out of the house and over to where we were working. If I had to keep digging tomorrow, as least the girl could sleep in her house tonight. But I didn’t think she oughta see what I had to do next.

  ‘‘Why don’t you go for a walk or something,’’ I said.

  She looked up at me. ‘‘Why?’’ she said.

  ‘‘I just think you oughta, that’s all. I gotta go get ’em now.’’

  She nodded, stood up and wandered off.

  I walked back into the house and wondered how I would get these bodies to the graves all by myself. I looked around and found a small rug. I rolled the girl’s mama onto it, then found I could grab hold of the corners and drag it, bit by bit, out of the kitchen and across the yard. I figured her mama’d be the hardest for the girl to have to see, so I wanted to get that body in the ground first. By now it was stiff, and it turned out to be pretty awful work. The blood was dried and black. It was a terrible sight, her eyes open, a look of terror frozen on her white face. I wondered how I had managed to bury my own mama the day before.

  It took me more than an hour to drag the bodies to the graves. I dumped one into the deepest hole and covered it with dirt. The black lady was kind of big and took longest, and I almost couldn’t do it alone. I thought of calling for the girl to help me with her, but then decided I’d better manage it myself. I’m sorry to say I finally rolled her along the ground instead of dragging her. It seemed awfully undignified, but that was the least of my problems right then.

  I put all the bodies next to each other and used another larger rug to cover them up till I could get to them the next day.

  I finished just in time to see the white girl walking across a field toward me.

  ‘‘You likely oughta go in and get dressed,’’ I told her as she approached in her bedraggled nightclothes.

  She nodded and went to the house.

  She paused and looked back, staring at me a few seconds. She told me later she was already wondering how a girl like me knew how to do so much. With me being colored and a slave, she figured that must explain it.

  She was back in a few minutes wearing what looked like a church dress, all pink and frilly with lace. Wasn’t the kind of thing I’d have chosen to wear on a day like this. Maybe she didn’t have anything else, I didn’t know.

  By now it was late afternoon. I began to think what to do next. Gradually my brain was picking up speed again. It was already clear to me that this girl I’d run into was completely helpless. I left the graves and went over to meet her.

  ‘‘You hungry?’’ I asked as we turned together toward the house.

  She nodded.

  ‘‘I�
��m near starving,’’ I said. ‘‘I ain’t had a bite all day. Got anythin’ here to eat?’’

  She shrugged.

  I figured I might as well go look. She followed me into the kitchen. There was bread and cheese and eggs. But I didn’t feel like making a fire for eggs. So we just had the bread and cheese.

  The girl was still in a daze and did whatever I told her, all slow like she was moving through molasses.

  We ate and talked a little. Pretty soon it was getting dark. I didn’t know how the day’d gone by so fast, but I was glad it was nearly over. From the little I had found out, it was obvious neither of us could do anything else or had any other place to go. She was alone and I was alone, and there we were.

  After a while it dawned on me that the cows I’d heard before were bellowing full chisel. I went and looked, and about eight were standing next to the barn, calling out to be milked. So I went and opened the gate to let them in and found buckets and milked them. The girl kept following me about, just watching. At least we now had some warm milk to go with the dry bread and cheese.

  By the time I was done, it was full night, and I could tell the girl was about to fall asleep.

  We walked back to the house again. I found a lantern and lit it.

  ‘‘Where’s your room?’’ I asked.

  She pointed upstairs.

  I walked up the staircase, knowing she’d follow.

  ‘‘Which one’s yours?’’ I asked, looking around the dark landing.

  She pointed to the doorway. I took her hand and led her into it. She lay down on the bed, and I pulled the blanket up over her, then took off her shoes. She didn’t seem to think nothing of it. She was asleep in a few minutes.

  I figured I ought to stay with her at least for the night. So I found some blankets in another room, settled myself down on the floor a little way from her bed, and blew out the lantern.

  That’s how I wound up staying the night under the roof of that big plantation house I’d wandered to, my very first in anything but a slave shanty.

  Just before I dozed off, I realized we didn’t even know each other’s names.

  WHAT NOW?

  15

  IRECKON I WAS PRETTY BEAT AND I SLEPT ALL right, though I came awake a time or two during the night. But I never forgot where I was or how I got there. The reality of what had happened was starting to sink in. My mind didn’t play any more tricks on me when I woke up during the night.

  I just stared into the darkness, not exactly thinking but reliving it over in my memory. How can you not keep thinking about something so awful as what I’d seen? The look on the face of the dead white lady said it all.

  Except for the sound of her gentle breathing, I never heard a peep out of the girl whose room I was in. It didn’t seem like she was going to be much help. The thought crossed my mind a time or two that she might be a mite dull. She looked normal, but there were occasions when she just didn’t seem all there. But then again she’d been through a horrible experience.

  It was comforting to hear the sound of another person sleeping nearby, even someone so needy and helpless. I wasn’t a girl spooked by every hoot of an owl. But I still felt a heap better hearing another person across the room. If we were the only two people left in the whole world—which was another scary thought I tried to push out of my brain—at least I wasn’t completely alone.

  I drifted off again and woke up just as the sun was coming up. She was still sound asleep.

  I got up quietly and crept out of the room and downstairs. First thing I had to do was go outside and find the necessary. On my way back, I fetched a bucket of water from the well. I didn’t know yet that there was a pump inside the kitchen. I’d never even imagined such a contraption. As I carried the bucket inside, I started wondering what to do next.

  I had a drink myself and a piece of the bread, which was getting pretty stale by this time. Then I looked around the messy kitchen. I figured the first thing I ought to do was try to clean it up some before the girl got up.

  That’s when I discovered the water pump and sink. I tried it, pumping a few times till the water started coming out. I just stood staring in amazement. Then I started tidying up the place. I washed the blood as best I could off the floor. I didn’t want her to have to see it again. In the other room, where the edge of the rug was all stained from where her papa fell, I just rolled it up. But there was no rug in the kitchen, so I scrubbed the wood floor, though I couldn’t get near all the bloodstains out.

  I picked up the chairs and started straightening things and cleaning and putting stuff away, or at least setting them on counters or shelves and the table. I found a broom and swept up broken dishes and glass, scooped it up, and put it in a pile outside. When I had the place halfway tidy, I took some time to look around and see what I could see.

  It was a pretty big kitchen, with a pantry and larder next to it. There seemed to be plenty of staples—bins of flour, oatmeal, rice, and cornmeal, different kinds of beans, cheeses hanging in the larder. I’d never been inside the kitchen of a rich white man’s house, and it sure looked like the girl wouldn’t starve anytime soon.

  Then I remembered the cows. I heard them starting their hollering to let somebody know their bags were full again.

  I went out to the barn, and that’s when I realized I was going to have to figure out something to do with all that milk. The buckets from the night before were still sitting there full, with the milk likely getting ready to sour if something wasn’t done, and one of them had been knocked over—from a raccoon getting in, from the looks of it.

  Right then the cows needed milking, so I just poured the old milk out on the ground outside and started milking them again. As soon as I was done, I let them out to the pasture. The milking didn’t take so long this time since they weren’t so full as last night. I came back to the kitchen with a bucket of fresh milk. At least we could drink some of it.

  By the time the girl came down the stairs, I had a fire in the kitchen stove going. I looked over and there she was standing, staring at me.

  I saw from the look on her face that she was going through the same struggle I had the morning before— thinking it must have all been a dream. And now she’d come down to find her dream looking at her from the stove where her mama should have been instead.

  I saw those big blue eyes fill with tears. I don’t reckon I’ve ever seen such a wretched, forlorn look in my life. Her hair was still uncombed, and the pink dress she’d put on the day before was full of wrinkles from sleeping in it.

  That sight of me caused her whole world—the one that a night’s sleep had put back together in her brain—to crumble. If there’s any way the second day could be worse than the first, it’s from having the reality of the nightmare plunge its knife into your heart all over again. And then it’s worse, because you know for sure that it’s just as bad as you thought. Whatever tiny bit of hope you were clinging to suddenly vanishes in thin air.

  So as I said, the sight of me in her mama’s kitchen stuck the knife of reality right smack into her heart again.

  I walked over to her and once more put my arms around her. She broke down and sobbed like a baby. I don’t know what she felt having a rough colored hand in her nice yellow hair, but she didn’t seem to mind. I felt like I was comforting one of my little baby sisters. I held her and stroked her hair till I could tell she’d calmed down some.

  I stepped back and did my best to smile.

  ‘‘Sit down,’’ I said, leading her over to the table. ‘‘I got a fire going. I’ll fix you some eggs.’’

  She obeyed and did what I said.

  ‘‘Later I’ll bake you some fresh bread or maybe some corn cakes,’’ I said. ‘‘Here—have a glass of milk while you’re waiting. Then we can go out and gather the mornin’s eggs . . . and yesterday’s too, I reckon.’’

  She looked up at me and nodded dumbly, then took the glass of milk from my hand and slowly drank a few sips.

  ‘‘How’d you like a
bath after your breakfast?’’ I asked.

  She just kept staring straight ahead.

  ‘‘I’ll boil up lots of warm water. A body feels better after a bath.’’ I was trying to make conversation so she’d get a grip on reality, bad as it was.

  ‘‘What’s your name?’’ I asked.

  ‘‘Kathleen,’’ she mumbled in a voice so low I could barely make out the word.

  ‘‘That what folks call you?’’

  She nodded.

  ‘‘Anything else?’’

  ‘‘Katie.’’

  ‘‘Katie what?’’

  ‘‘Clairborne.’’

  ‘‘Mine’s Mary Ann,’’ I said. ‘‘Mary Ann Jukes. Folks call me Mayme.’’ I pronounced it Mame like my family always had.

  If that’s how we were finally introduced, there wasn’t much to it. Katie didn’t actually seem to be paying attention. I could hardly blame her. By now I think I was feeling sorrier for her than for me. I was pretty used to being a big sister.

  Katie picked at one egg and a little bit of the leftover bread. It was probably enough, along with the milk, to keep her going for a while.

  Me—I ate two fried eggs with some bacon I found, a piece of bread with a hunk of cheese on it and two glasses of milk. In spite of being skinny I knew how to eat. That’s one thing my mama always said about me.

  I was glad to find that at least my appetite was back. I was going to need all the strength I could find for whatever lay ahead.

  MOVIN’ ON

  16

  IHELPED KATIE WITH A BATH AND DID MY BEST to wash her hair, let it dry, and fix it nice. It felt funny after never feeling any but colored hair in my life. Hers was long and soft and light and moved around easy in my hands like I imagined silk would feel, though I’d never seen or felt silk either. But I didn’t say anything to Katie about what I was thinking. I just tried to fix it how I’d seen white girls wear their hair.