Running Out of Night

by Sharon Lovejoy

  “You,” Pa said as he slammed the door shut behind him. “You fetch up that scatter-gun and powder. We got a runaway, and I can git me fifty dollars if I catch her afore she leaves the county.”

  Her. Pa had said “her,” and I knowed what that meant. I forced myself not to look down at the trapdoor. I put my hand to my mouth to stop a laugh from makin its way out. Sometimes when I’m plain scairt or sad, I laugh. Sure to earn me the back of Pa’s hand.

  “Het it up!” Pa yelled. “Every man and hound from Purcellville to Hades is out lookin for her.”

  A fresh round of howlin and barkin jarred me into movin. The dogs whined, scratched at the door, and tried to push their way inside. From somewhere far off, I heard another pack of dogs yippin like they was runnin a bear.

  I set my broom bristles down proper-like in the corner, climbed onto the stool in front of the stone fireplace, and stood on tiptoe to reach his shotgun—shiny, smooth, heavy, and cold, as cold as Pa’s slatey eyes that squinted at me from acrost the room. I could feel them on my back.

  “Grab the shot pouch and horn,” Pa said. “They want her alive, but they don’t say nothin about pickin buck and ball out of her dirty brown hide.”

  Grandpa’s old shot pouch and powder horn hung from straps on a big iron hook in the mantel. I lifted them down and set them on the table as Pa brushed past me.

  He started for the narrow ladder to the attic, turned, and said, “Put some victuals together for me.”

  “Oh law,” I said under my breath. I’d have to go down to the cellar for some dried apples, jerky, and cracklins. I hadn’t made any bread yet, and they was the only things I had to hand.

  I waited for Pa to climb the ladder afore I picked up his victuals sack and lifted the door. I wondered how the girl felt, trapped down in that dark hole and hearin all the commotion just a few feet above her.

  A clank and a dull thump sounded from below.

  I poked my fingers into the trapdoor holes, lifted it, and leaned over the openin.

  “Shhhhhhh,” I hissed. “You get us both killt.” I scuttled down the steps. “Keep quiet or we goin to end up like our old sow Daisy hangin from them hooks.”

  The girl set huddled in the dark amongst the near-empty barrels of potatoes and apples. She looked up at the meat swayin above her and rubbed the side of her head.

  “We in trouble,” I said. “They close on your trail. Why didn’t you tell me?” She just set there and stared at me like I were speakin in tongues.

  I moved past her and began to slide dried apple slices off a long thread of gut and into Pa’s pouch. I stepped over to the wooden racks filled with strips of jerky and cracklins curled like pine shavins. I never gets to eat much of the meat I dry, but today I couldn’t stop myself. First one piece and then another went into my mouth. I chewed quickly and swallowed so’s Pa wouldn’t smell it on me, then picked a wintergreen leaf out of my pocket and stuck it in my mouth.

  The girl stood up and held out her hand. I passed her three small pieces, and she shoved one into her mouth. Then she pulled the dirty gray bandanna off her head, tucked two pieces inside it, and headed toward the ladder.

  “Deer shot when it runs,” I said.

  “But the man say he gonna shoot me,” she whispered.

  I shook my head. “No, he ain’t, not so long as you keep quiet.”

  The trouble girl turned back and crouched in the corner. She looked right wild.

  An empty harvest basket set beside the steps. I picked some extra meat and apples, turnips and taters, and tucked them inside to fix for supper. I didn’t want to have to make any more trips down into the cellar.

  “You stick right where you are,” I said, waggin my finger at her. I hooked the basket onto my arm, slung Pa’s victuals sack over my shoulder, and climbed the steps. When I poked my head above the floor, I heard Pa movin acrost the attic.

  “What you goin to do? Run out the door and into that pack of dogs?” I asked, but I didn’t give her a chance to answer.

  I climbed out, lowered the trapdoor into place, nudged the bench back over it, and set down the heavy basket.

  Pa run into somethin, and it thudded onto the attic floor. A flood of bad words come from him. I grabbed my tin cup, gulped a mouthful of water, and scurried over to Pa’s powder horn. He were backin halfway down the ladder when I unscrewed the plug and spit the water into the horn. There weren’t no way he could shoot with his powder wet. Just as I replaced the cap, Pa’s boot hit the kitchen floor.

  Dogs can see ghosts and will bark when the ghosts are nearby.

  I handed Pa the horn and pouch. He looped the long straps around his neck, then looked round the messy kitchen. “What you been doin here all mornin? Don’t you know how to work?” he asked as he jabbed the barrel of the gun into the center of my chest.

  I didn’t dare look at him or let him see he’d hurt me.

  Pa picked up his victuals sack, walked out the door, and slammed it hard. From the small, hazy mica window, I watched as the dogs circled his legs like they hadn’t seen him for days. The neighbor’s hounds, who’d been sniffin all around the yard, turned and headed back toward the porch. I could hear him yellin at them. Tellin them to get off his farm (like they knowed this was his farm), and threatenin to shoot them if they didn’t.

  Pa walked acrost the yard with half a dozen dogs slinkin behind him, noses to the ground, tails down. Then they stopped, circled him, snuffled their noses into the soil and up into the air, like they was smellin fresh-killt deer. They turned and made a yelpin run for the porch again.

  He picked up a water bucket, hurled it at the dogs, and promised to shoot them all. “Worthless!” he said, and yelled a string of words he usually saved up for me.

  I watched till I couldn’t see Pa or hear a dog barkin anywhere near. From somewhere in the woods, I heard the muffled sound of a shot. Close by, a raspy blue jay scolded, and a redbird hidden in some bushes called purdy, purdy, purdy, purdy.

  I wondered where my brothers was. With my luck, they would come home too and expect me to fix up more victuals for the hunt. I were gettin tired of liftin up that door and worryin about all the things that was a tick away from goin wrong.

  Two years ago, the last time Grandpa and me went to church afore he passed, the preacher told me that my “good common sense” kept me alive. My good common sense told me to go get that girl out of the cellar and out of my life, but my heart, the thing that gets in the way of my common sense, were tellin me somethin else.

  “Mama, what should I do?” I asked. “Am I goin to get the beatin of my life tryin to help her?”

  No answer.

  “Mama, please, just give me a sign what to do.”

  No answer.

  I wished that just this one time my mama could answer. That someone could tell me what were right and what were wrong. And why did I have to take a beatin for someone I didn’t even know, or care about? Someone who probably wouldn’t give me a butter bean if I were the hungry one. Why should I risk my own hide for her?

  I quick-like righted the kitchen and picked up my big fanny basket but then set it back down. I wanted to go out and pick some tomaters and work around in the garden, but I needed to tell that whatever-her-name-was trouble girl that things was safe for now, so long as she stayed put and kept quiet. Why should I worry about easin her when I were nervous as a hen in a fox den? What did I care if she were scairt down there? I were gettin mad just thinkin about the fix she’d put me in.

  I spun round, went straight to the bench, and clunked it on the floor as I moved it. Maybe put the scare into her, maybe so much of a scare she’d take off and head for the … the what?

  I lifted the trapdoor just a sliver. I needed to make sure I could put things to rights if the boys surprised me.

  “You in there?” I asked as I bent over the hole and squinted into the blackness.

  “What you think?” she answered.

  That made me mad. “Don’t go smartin off, or you’ll be s
orry,” I barked. Oh sweet Lord. I sounded like Pa.

  I knelt down and leant forward. “You gonna have to stay quiet here till tomorrow mornin. You cain’t go out yonder with all them hunters and dogs runnin the woods.”

  She snuffled loudly but didn’t say a word.

  “I’m goin to do some pickin and my chores, but I’m not goin to take any chances talkin to you again today,” I said. “Don’t cry. And don’t you move and knock into anythin else. Understand?”

  “Bless you,” she whispered. Her words made me feel like the mud Pa had knocked off his boots.

  I passed a crock of water and a tin cup down to her and let the door drop. I set on my haunches, rocked back and forth, back and forth, and tried to imagine how I would feel down there alone. Alone, in the dark, knowin that traders and slave catchers and packs of dogs was searchin the woods and fields for me.

  I almost cried for her.

  And then she sneezed.

  I stomped on the floor, then knelt down till my lips almost touched the crack around the trapdoor. “One sneeze like that when everyone’s to home, and you’re dead. Dead like the possum Pa skinned last night.” I glanced up at the window to make sure nobody were lookin in, then blew on the sand and watched my handprints disappear.

  Always carry a buckeye in your pocket as a good-luck charm.

  I worked among the poles of greasy beans, tugged, twisted, and dropped the plumpin pods into my fanny basket. The beans was just startin to lose their green—I needed to string and hang ’em afore I missed my chance to make our winter supply of leather britches. I don’t know why, but stringin and knottin those beans, well, it makes me feel like I’m settin my world to rights. I love hangin them beans on the back porch, line after line, like so many pairs of narrow green socks.

  “Thank ya, beans, y’all be mighty good eatin,” I sang to them. Then a layer of tomaters. “Thanks, all ya beauties. Y’all redder than a maple leaf.” As I worked, I forgot all my worries, all my sorrows. The garden does that for me, makes me feel as healt up as the arnica and comfrey poultices the preacher’s wife made for me once after I angered my pa.

  From the field nearby, I heard the sweet slurried song of the lark. I answered with my own whistlin song. He were confused, sang right back, and I whistled again and smiled. I’m a right good whistler but most never do it in front of anyone.

  All around me the barn swallows wove and dipped, chittered and dived. Under the eaves of the shed, their mud nests overflowed with gape-mouthed babies beggin for their suppers. A phoebe, tail dippin up and down like the handle on our water pump, left his perch and snapped a moth out of the air in front of me.

  Maybe I were feelin too good, too right with things, but the next minute I looked up and there she stood in the doorway. Her brown hair stuck out in tufts like the pinfeathers on the baby swallows. The dirty gray bandanna in her hand bulged with a passel of Pa’s victuals. She took one look at me and started to jump off the porch and hightail it.

  “Stop!” I shouted, and ran toward her. “You cain’t run when they’s so close to you. Them dogs’ll catch your scent.”

  She turned toward me and her golden eyes looked big as chestnuts. Her mouth hung slack open, and she gasped for each breath like the little doe the dogs run down and cornered by the woodshed. I could feel how scairt she were.

  But could she feel how scairt I were? What if she got caught and told where she’d been hidin? What if afore I could get indoors and make things aright, Pa or my brothers come in and seen the cellar all tore apart? And what if she got shot, and hurt, and sent back … sent back where?

  Boom. I dropped my gatherin basket, and the birds tornadoed around me. A shattered, bloody nest laid at my feet. A barn swallow swooped past, skimmed just inches above the ground, and arced up to the spot where the nest once clung. As it flew, it made a keenin cry—most the saddest sound ever.

  I could hear my brothers laughin, but I couldn’t see them. Another shot, another nest on the ground. When I looked over to the porch, that trouble girl had disappeared. I reached into my apron pocket to rub against the reassurin smooth of my good-luck buckeye, but it weren’t there.

  Kill a swallow and bad luck will follow.

  My heart felt near broke for the swallows, but I were fearin for myself and for the girl. Clem yelled that he needed food for his hunt. Samuel whistled for his cry of dogs, and they streamed into the barnyard from three sides. I didn’t see how they’d missed that girl.

  I grabbed the handle of my basket, heavy with tomaters—some of them ripe ones squished from the fall—and run for the porch. I needed to make sure that the trapdoor were closed afore the boys got into the cabin.

  The door stood ajar. I pushed it wider and ran inside. On the floor, a little pile of jerky spilled from the girl’s gray bandanna. The trapdoor gaped open, the bench laid on its side, and two disks of dried apple stared up from the floor.

  Bathsheba and Delia was close at my heels. I whirled on them. “Stay, girls. Tend to your manners,” I scolded, and they almost stopped, but they caught the smell of the jerky and near trampled me gettin to it.

  I could hear them boys behind me. They clomped up the steps. The dogs tore at the bandanna. I run to the trapdoor, and there, framed in the dim square of light on the ladder, the girl backed down into the cellar. I dropped the door into place, righted the bench, scooped up the bandanna, and stuffed it into my basket of tomaters.

  “Girl!” Clem yelled. “Look at that mess of spoilt maters.” He pointed at them. He grabbed me by the neck, bent me over the basket, and shoved my face hard into the pile. I sputtered, pushed myself up, and used the sides of my balled fists to rub the burnin juice out of my eyes.

  “And you let them dogs in. You know them dogs don’t come inside.”

  I guessed I couldn’t explain that they wasn’t hardly invited in.

  Bathsheba yelped as Clem’s heavy boot landed in her soft flank. She usually outruns everything, but her long, saggin teats slowed her some. Afore Clem could reach Delia, both hounds was out the door. I wished I could foller them. I knowed that them killt swallows was bringin in bad, bad luck for me.

  “Get us some pack food,” Samuel ordered. “We gonna be out trackin upriver all night.”

  I pushed strands of wet hair behind my ears, blinked my blurry, burnin eyes, and started for the basket of victuals I had set beside the trapdoor. Samuel spied the two golden disks of apple a second afore I could kick them acrost the floor and out of sight.

  “You been in them cellar apples?” he yelled. He walked toward the trapdoor, picked up the basket of food, and kicked the bench over and out of the way. Then he stuck his fingers in the door holes and threw it open. Afore I could duck or move out of Samuel’s way, he walloped me.

  If you hear whispering, it is the sperrits arguing which one is going to be near you for the day and night.

  My arm and shoulder was on fire. The stabbin pains shot through me till my stomach churned. I turned my head and throwed up, then Mama’s fingers brushed over me softly, like moth wings, and I heard her a-whisperin to me. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want Mama’s touch or voice to go away.

  I opened my eyes, but all I saw were black. Black as the bat cave over to the river. But the smell here, the smell in this black, were a mix of apples, smoke, earth, my throwed-up bitter waters, and none of the stink of the bat cave.

  I moaned and tried to sit up, but a rough hand pushed me down and covered my mouth. A voice whispered in my ear, “Shhhhh.”

  “Am I dead?” I asked. Was the sperrits arguin over me?

  “You be dead if you don’t stop talkin. Let them git out the cabin,” the voice whispered.

  The voice. I remembered the girl comin out of the cabin. The shots, the bird nests all blowed up, the girl, that trouble girl, were the one who caused all this, and it were her voice talkin to me now.

  I laid still but couldn’t stop shakin. The girl’s hand took ahold of mine and gently squeezed and patted it. Hot tears s
pilled down the side of my face and onto the hard-packed dirt floor.

  Just a few feet above my head I heard the shufflin and clompin of boots, the thunk of somethin hittin the floor, and then the familiar sound of the heavy oak door slammin shut. Nothin but the creakin of floorboards settlin back into place—and then nothin.

  “You, girl, you got a mess a trouble in your life too,” she whispered. “I thought I were worst off to anyone, but you got it bad.” Her hand patted at me, then rested on my good arm.

  “Are you pityin me?” I asked. I pulled my arm out from under her hand and moved a few inches away.

  I don’t know how long I slept, but when I woke, I felt the scratchy warmth of a feed sack laid over me and heard the soft, low sounds of her hummin nearby. I tried turnin onto my other side, but the pain kept me still.

  “What we gonna do now?” I asked.

  The girl stopped hummin and turned over toward me. I could feel her breath on my face.

  “We goin to get away from here afore you … we get killt,” she said.

  I felt about near as killt now as I ever had.

  “Did you hear where they be lookin for me? Did you see the way your pa went when he left?”

  Samuel’s words, “trackin upriver,” run through my mind. “North along the river, but they could be anywhere the dogs lead them.” I groaned as I tried to move into a comfortable position.

  “North where I’m goin,” she said. “Follerin the North Star now for all the nights since I run.”

  She started talkin at me, soft-like, tellin me a story, but tellin herself the story too.

  “My ma and papa, they gone now,” she said. “Ma sold and sent away south; Papa sold and sent I don’t know where. Last time I saw him his arms was tied behind. He had a bit in his mouth, his lips curled back like he smilin, but the blood drippin from his mouth and runnin down him. And my baby sister, I can still hear her cryin, and my ma screamin when the soul-driver man pull Promise out of her arms. He tell Ma that she never see her baby or me again.”