I circled ’round and started back north. I saw the stable from two blocks off. There was a hitching post just down from it so I tied Jingle Boy and commenced walking the rest of the way. I dug five of the chunking stones out of my tote sack and put three in my left hand and two in my right. I didn’t have notion the first what a bear-fighting dog would look like so I hoped five stones would be enough in case me and it had a disagreement.

As I got right on the stable, it happened in a flash. First thing that came to mind was Pa telling me that I didn’t never have to worry ’bout no barking dog, that it was barking ’cause it was just as scared as me. He said it was the quiet dog I had to be afeared of. That was the kind of dog that waren’t interested in scaring no one, it was only looking to bite something big and meaty off of you.

Afore I seen anything I heard the sound of a chain rattling, then a hard grunt like something heavy was changing directions sudden-like. Other than those soft sounds this bear-fighting dog was quiet as a owl diving at a mouse.

I saw a big black blur coming at me and, at the same time as I tried to get out of the way, I throwed left-right-left hard as I could.

I heard a chain sing from getting pulled taut and the bear-fighting dog’s paws hit me square in the side so strong that the last two chunking stones flewed out of my hand. I waren’t nothing but a dead duck!

A spray of the dog’s slobber splashed on my face and I hit the ground hard, knocking my breathing right out of me. The dog still didn’t bark or nothing but his front paws pressed like fists into my ribs. All I could do was wonder if he was gonna rip me apart or squeeze the life out of me by standing on my chest.

I closed my eyes and waited to get suffocated or tored limb from limb.

But didn’t nothing happen. I opened my eyes and saw the dog was out cold, his head was lolling up ’gainst my side. The head was huge, just ’bout the size of a five-month-old calf’s head, and was covered with scars. He was breathing fast, like he’d just chased a rabbit, and little snorts of dust were blowing up with each breath he took. His feet were twitching like dogs do when they’re having a nightmare.

Just that quick I noticed my ribs. It felt like someone had run a knife into ’em and I looked down. The nails from one of the bear-fighting dog’s front paws had disappeared into the front of my shirt and my blood was starting to leak out. I rolled from underneath the dog’s legs, then rolled twice more and laid in the dirt waiting for my breathing to catch back up to me.

After ’bout five or six big gulps of air I pulled my shirt up to see if any bones were poking through. There waren’t nothing there but three tiny holes where his claws had gone in and only one hole was bleeding atall. I felt to make sure waren’t nothing broke. Other than poking three holes in me, it seemed like the bear-fighting dog hadn’t done nothing worst than knock the air out of my chest.

I stood up and put two more chunking stones in my hand then walked over toward the dog. One of my stones had caught him right twixt the eyes. I knowed it was the second left-hand one I chunked. There was a big knot swelling up there already. His tongue was hanging out from twixt long yellow and brown teeth that were ’bout the size of bear claws. There was a little puddle of mud spreading in the dust where his tongue was resting. I didn’t think I’d hurt him too bad, but I waren’t gonna wait ’round to find out.

I leaned against the door that led into the stable and pushed.

 

When you first walk into a room in a house, or into a clearing in the woods, or into the inside of a stable like this one, they have a way of telling you they know you’re there. It ain’t nothing particular noticeable, but the air inside of ’em changes like it’s saying, “I’m watching you.” Some of the time it seems like the air’s smiling and saying, “I’m watching over you, come on in,” and some of the time it seems like it’s all a-frowning and saying, “I’m watching you, and you best be careful.” But I’d got into this stable so quiet and sneakish that nothing knowed I’d cracked open the door, held my breath, and took a step inside.

I eased the door back shut, stood still, and waited for my eyes to get use to the dark.

All I could see was black, but going by what I was hearing, I figured there must’ve been five or six horses held up in here. There was the swish-swish-swish of tails going at flies, there was the bumpty-bump-bump of hoofs shifting and scraping whilst trying to get comfortable, there was the steady, easy, deep breathing of animals that had been worked hard trying to get some sleep. There was also a slow woo-woo-woo sound from a barn owl hid out waiting for a mouse to make a mistake.

It didn’t sound like there was nothing to worry ’bout … right off.

I let air come out of my mouth easy and breathed back in through my nose.

I knowed just like that that there was something terrible wrong inside this stable.

It waren’t the horses, they smelt the same as Buxton horses. That waren’t peculiar.

It waren’t the smell of the straw on the floor neither, but I could tell that whoever’s chore it was to keep it clean waren’t changing it regular enough.

I could even smell that there was a goat or two somewhere in here … all those things were easy to tell and usual. But there was something else mixed up with the all-the-time stable smells, something that just waren’t sitting right.

It waren’t like a rat had curled up in a hole somewhere and died then commenced to swelling up and rotting, but it waren’t far from that. Or like a mule had et something bad and was ailing and leaking sickness, but it was kind of akin to that.

It waren’t one n’em sickroom smells neither, one n’em rooms they tell you you ain’t got no choice but to go into and say good-bye to someone that looks like they should’ve died a year afore, but it waren’t exactly the back side of that kind of stinking.

I didn’t have much time to study on what the strange smell was ’cause my eyes started getting use to the dark and were picking out things, and when it comes to choosing to pay attention to your nose or your ears or your eyes, you gotta listen to your eyes every time.

Then my heart stopped beating, my blood ran cold, and time stood still! Someone was standing over at the other end of the stable!

I acted like a fawn all over again. I quit breathing and frozed all my muscles dead where they were at. Maybe whoever it was hadn’t seen me.

My eyes were slow getting more use to the dark and, doggone-it-all, I started suspecting I knowed who I was seeing. At the other end of the stable was the Right Reverend Deacon Doctor Zephariah Connerly the Third, the stealer of dreams!

But, just like the smell in the stable, something waren’t right about him.

He was watching me from the other end of the stable and I was pretty darn sure it was the Preacher, but as he real slow started getting more and more lit up and less and less gray and shadowish, I began doubting what I first saw.

He was being too still.

The Preacher always had something moving on him, either his hands or his legs or, most of all, his mouth. It just waren’t sitting right seeing him standing there with his arms raised up on both sides of him and his head ducked down like he was studying something in the dirt. Or maybe that waren’t it atall. Maybe he was doing the same thing I was doing, freezing every muscle so’s I might not see him.

We both stood still, frozed that way for the longest time waiting to see which one was gonna move first. But finally my legs took to twitching and feeling that they were ’bout to bust out afire. The Preacher was better at this standing-still business than me. He didn’t move a finger. He kept his arms up there patient as a rock, quiet as a scarecrow.

But something just waren’t right.

I started stealing closer to him one slow step at a time.

Then I heard a humming sound so near to my left-hand side that my blanged legs and breathing frozed up all over again. Whatever it was that was making that sound was so close that even my eyeballs locked where they were at. I kept ’em straight ahead on the scarecrow-that-might-be-the- Preacher. Then, slow as maple sap on a cold day, I started sliding my eyes off to the left, off to the direction that the humming sound was coming from.

The only thing I could make out was that someone had leaned some dark bundles or sacks up ’gainst the left hand side of the stable. There were five of ’em all sitting the same space apart one from the ’nother.

The noise commenced again, sounding like someone fishing ’round trying to figure which song they were ’bout to hum.

I knowed I best quit holding my breath, else I was gonna be forced to breathe in so hard it’d make a racket. I eased air back into me like a bellows being pulled open slow and easy.

I moved my eyeballs just the tiniest bit more and saw exactly what it was that was making that music humming sound.

It was one of the bundles!

I ain’t never gonna know if it was ’cause of the slow way air was sliding back into me or if it was ’cause my eyes finally could make out what they were seeing, but my head got light and afore I could do anything my senses took off, squawking and flapping away like a flock of pheasants in a field.

Next thing the stable floor felt like it was rising and dropping like a fresh-dried bedsheet being snapped and shooked afore it got folded.

The way things were jumping ’round and with my wits flewed away, it didn’t make no sense to try to keep standing. I knowed I’d best get ahold of something till the floor steadied itself, else I’d pitch into the dirt.

But it was too late. I looked at the humming bundle again and saw that it had arms!

Four live, moving arms!

Two of ’em were tiny and mostly still and two of ’em were big and moving! I couldn’t believe I’d come all the way to the United States of America to see my first haint!

I didn’t have no chance to get ahold on to nothing, my legs gave out and I crumpled toward the ground. I’d gone and got myself right in the middle of being fra-gile again.

When your senses leave you sudden-like and you start falling, you don’t have the time nor the notion to put your hands up so’s not to hit your head. Everything goes limp and flops like okree. And since your head’s the thickest part of you and most times leads the way down, it’s always first to bust the ground. But this time, I did remember to keep my mouth shut.

Part of the floor must’ve had planks laid down in it, ’cause when my head hit, there was a loud sound like a axe chopping a thick oak. That one good hit to my skull made me see stars and it was terrible loud ’cause each and every one of those bundles that was on that wall came to life and unfolded itself with a powerful horrible sound!

The commotion they made when they moved was enough to wake the dead! Not from being loud, but from being terrorific. It waren’t no human sound atall, but something ’bout it did bring people to mind. It was groans and rough breathing mixed up with the same noise that the chain on the dog outside had made. Which got me thinking I was soon ’bout to get ripped to shreds by the brothers and sisters of the dog that I’d chunked.

Only difference was now the sound was timesed by five and was added to a bunch of whimpers and the hard sucking in of air.

What I was seeing waren’t five sacks atall, nor five dogs looking to settle scores for me chunking their brother, nor five evil spirits come to life. None of that. What I was seeing was worst than all those things totaled up together.

What was on the wall of the stable couldn’t’ve been nothing but five squatted-down demons that had been captured and chained by someone who was sending ’em back to Satan so they couldn’t snatch no one else’s soul!

I looked over to where the Preacher was, hoping he’d do something to help but got my attention drawed back quick to the chained demons. The four-armed one that was humming made a shushing sound at the rest of ’em and started talking! Talking in English too!

It whispered out to me, “Hoo-hoo! Is you real or is you a haint?”

I lifted my head from the floor and without thinking what I was talking to said, “Pardon me, ma’am?”

She was the only one ’mongst the bunch that looked like a woman, and I ain’t sure if it was the right thing to do to call a haint “ma’am,” but the word came out anyway.

As she got clearer- and clearer-looking, I wondered if she was a haint atall. She was starting to look just ’bout like a regular woman, but a regular woman that was afeared and had four arms.

But the way her eyes locked on me, I was pretty sure this was a regular woman. I also saw she didn’t have no clothes on ’cepting a rag hanging ’cross one of her shoulders.

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!