“There weren’t time to get out here. The white folks was watching me close.”
“You awful close to Pie.”
“I don’t know nothing ’bout Pie’s business,” I said.
“Maybe she told it.”
“Told what?”
“About Sibonia.”
“I don’t know what she done. She don’t tell me nothing.”
“Why would she, you frittering around dressed as you is.”
“You ain’t got to pick my guts about it,” I said. “I’m just trying to make it along like you. But I never had nothing against Sibonia. I wouldn’t stand in the way of her jumping.”
“That lie ain’t worth a pinch of snuff out here.”
The fellers behind Broadnax edged to the corner of that fence, close now. A couple of ’em had plain stopped working altogether. Weren’t no pretense to them working now. I had that two-shot pepperbox sleeping under my dress, and a free hand, but it wouldn’t do nothing against all of them. There was five of them altogether, and they looked mad as the devil.
“God hears it,” I said. “I didn’t know nothing ’bout what she was aiming to do.”
Broadnax peered at me straight. Didn’t blink once. Them words didn’t move him.
“Miss Abby’s selling off the souls in this yard,” Broadnax said. “Did you know that? She’s doing it slow, thinking nobody notices. But even a dumb nigger like me can count. There’s ten souls left in this yard. Two weeks ago there was seventeen. Three of ’em’s been sold off in the past week. Lucious there”—here he pointed to one of the men standing behind him—“Lucious lost both his children. And them children ain’t never been inside Miss Abby’s hotel, so they couldn’t’a told it. Nose, the girl who gived you the word about the Bible meeting, she was sold off two days ago, and Nose didn’t tell it. That makes just us ten left here. We all likely be sold off soon, ’cause Miss Abby thinks we is trouble. But I aim to find out who sung about Sibonia before I leave. And when I do, they gonna suffer. Or their kin. Or”—he glanced at Bob—“their friends.”
Bob stood there trembling. Didn’t say a word.
“Bob ain’t been inside the hotel since Miss Abby throwed him out here,” I said.
“He could’a talked at the sawmill, where he works every day. Told one of them white folks over there. That kind of word’ll pass fast.”
“Bob couldn’t know—’cause I didn’t know. Plus he ain’t one to run his mouth at white folks. He was scared of Sibonia.”
“He should’a been. She didn’t trust him.”
“He ain’t done no wrong. Neither did I.”
“You just trying to save your skin.”
“Why not? It covers my body.”
“Why should I believe a sissy who frolics ’round in a frock and a bonnet?”
“I’m tellin’ you, I didn’t tell nobody nothing. And neither did Bob.”
“Prove it!”
“Bob rode with Old John Brown. So did I. Why didn’t you tell him, Bob?”
Bob was silent. Finally he piped up. “Ain’t nobody gonna believe me.”
That stopped Broadnax. He glanced around at the others. They’d all gathered in close now, they didn’t care who was watching from the hotel. I certainly hoped somebody from the hotel would bust out the back door, but nar soul come. Glancing over to the hotel back door, I seen they’d posted a lookout anyway. A Negro was over there, sweeping the dirt around with his back to the door, so if somebody come busting through, he’d hold that door closed a minute to give ’em all a chance to pop back into place. Them pen colored fellers was organized.
But I had their attention now, for Broadnax looked interested. “Old John Brown?” he said.
“That’s right.”
“Old John Brown’s dead,” Broadnax said slowly. “He was killed at Osawatomie. Your friend killed him. The feller you get soused with, which is all the more reason to skin you.”
“Chase?” I would’a laughed if I weren’t feeling so chickenhearted. “Chase ain’t killed nobody. Two hundred drunks like him couldn’t deaden the Old Captain. Why, at Black Jack, there was twenty rebels there with dead aim and they couldn’t hurt the Old Man. Turn me loose and I’ll tell it.”
He wouldn’t turn me loose all the way, but he motioned them fellers to back off, which they done. And right there, standing at the fence, with him gripping my arm tight as a raccoon trap, I gived it to him. Quickly told them everything: About how the Old Man come to Dutch’s and took me. How I run off and met Bob near Dutch’s Crossing. About how Bob refused to ride Pardee home once the rebels rode off. How Bob helped me get back to the Old Man and was stolen along with his master’s wagon by the Old Man hisself and brung into camp. How Chase and Randy brung us there after Old Man Brown run off after Osawatomie, where Frederick was murdered. I left out the part about not knowing for sure if the Old Man was alive.
It moved him enough not to kill me right there, but he weren’t moved enough to turn me loose. He considered what I spoke on though, then said slowly, “You had the run of things in the hotel for months. How come you never took off?”
I couldn’t tell him about Pie. I still loved her. He could’a put it all together and suspected what I knowed. They would’a deadened Pie right off, though I suspected they planned as such anyway, and I didn’t want that. I hated her guts but I still loved her. I was in a tight spot all the way around.
“I had to wait on Bob,” I said. “He got cross with me. Wouldn’t run. Now the trap’s sprung. They watching everybody close now. Ain’t nobody going nowhere.”
Broadnax pondered it thoughtfully, and he softened some, letting go of my arm. “That’s a good thing for you, for these fellers here is game to send their knives rambling across your pretty little face and throw you in the hog pen without instructions. I’ll give you a chance at redemption, for we got bigger game. Turncoat like you, you’ll get reward for your labor from us or somebody else down the road one way or the other.”
He backed off the fence and allowed me to straighten myself out. I didn’t turn and run. Weren’t no use in that. I had to hear him through.
“This is what I want you to do,” he said. “We hear word the Free Staters is riding this way. Next time you get wind of where they are, come out here and pass it to me. That’ll even us.”
“How I’m gonna do that? I can’t get out here easy. The missus is watching me close. And Darg’s out here.”
“Don’t you study ol’ Darg,” Broadnax said. “We’ll take care of him. You just pass the word on what you hear ’bout the Free Staters. Do that, and we’ll leave your Bob alone. But if you tarry, or we get word about them Free Staters from some corner other than you? Well, you’ll be overdue. And you won’t have to sneak out here with lemonade and biscuits for Bob no more, ’cause we’ll bust him so hard across the head, he’ll have a headache that’ll deaden him right where he is. As it is, only reason he’s drawing air right now is ’cause of me.”
With that, he snatched the handkerchief holding the biscuits and the mug of lemonade I brung out for Bob, shoved the biscuits down his mouth, drunk down the lemonade, and handed me the mug. Then he turned and walked back to the other side of the pen, and the others followed.
Oh, I was stuck tight then. Love will hang you up in many a direction. I thunk on it quite a while that day, thunk about Broadnax busting Bob’s brains out and coming into the hotel after me, and that was a worrisome notion. That Negro was determined. A man would have to pump a bunch of iron into a feller like that to stop him. He had a purpose, and that strangled the hope outta me. I fretted on it quite a bit that night and the next morning, then decided to run outta town, quit the idea right off, then thunk on it again all afternoon, decided to run again, waited all night, quit on the idea again, then runned the same whole bit around my head in the same fashion the next day. The third day I got tired of spinning ’round and fretting in that fashion, and gone back and done what I normally done in them days, ever since I lost Pie really: I got drunker with greater purpose.