CHAPTER SEVEN
Grampa
October 14, 1811
Zeb found himself in an alley with only one way out. He started to move in that direction but he stopped when he heard someone crying, someone who might see him and call the constable. He crept forward and peeked around the edge of the building.
It was Hannah! She was sitting on the front steps of the jail, her head on her knees, sobbing her heart out.
Zeb whispered loudly to her, “Hannah!”
She didn’t hear him. He called her again. “Hannah!” and even louder, “Hannah!”
She turned her head and screamed, “Zeb! You’re alive!” She jumped up and ran to him, throwing her arms around him. “C’mon!” she said frantically, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward the jail. “They’re sure you’re dead, or buried alive!” She tugged at his arm. “C’mon! Father and the constable are in there, still digging at the back wall of that cell. The sand keeps caving in on them. We’ve gotta let them know you’re alive!”
Zeb pulled back and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Hannah. I can’t. The sergeant stole Suba and I hafta go find her.”
“Oh, Zeb!” Hannah cried. “How could you let him steal Suba from you?”
“He told the constable I was a kidnapper, so he could steal her when I was in jail. The constable went back to get her a few minutes after he arrested me, and she was already gone.”
“What’ll we do?”
“I’ll find her, Hannah. They can’t have gone far.”
“What about your grampa?”
“I heard a horse wrangler talking yesterday about a man mistreating a horse, and a bald-headed man chasin’ him down the street with a whip. It sounded just like something my grampa would do. I can’t imagine him bald, but that’s what I’m gonna look for. They said he comes down here to the cotton buyer drivin’ a big freight wagon. So after I find Suba, I’ll go to the cotton auction down at the docks.”
He looked at the jail. “Hannah, I want you to give me time to get away, then go in and tell them I’m all right. Tell your father I’ve gone lookin’ for Suba and then I’m gonna look for Grampa…. Go now.”
Hannah turned and ran up the stairs to the jail-house door. She turned and called down to him, “I’ll keep an eye out for a big wagon and a bald man.” She opened the door and stepped inside.
Zeb moved as quickly as he could, staying in the shadow of the buildings. He ran across the street and through an alley to Water Street. He raced from one building to the next, checking the horses tied up in front.
Zeb ran through an alley to Levee Street, where the taverns were all built at the water’s edge. Flatboats serving as docks floated in front of some of them.
He skidded to a halt. A row of molasses barrels and piles of staves and hoops! This was where the constable had arrested him and this was the little tavern where he had helped the man slip up to his room.
Zeb edged in between the barrels and tried to make his way, unseen, around to the front of the tavern. One of the two wranglers he had seen with Dancey Moore was sitting on the porch. Zeb gasped. Tethered to the rail in the alley next to him were two horses. One of them was a broad black gelding, with four white stockings and a white snip on his nose. There was no doubt about it. It was Andy, Grampa’s horse.
He stood there a moment. It’s tempting to take Andy and come back to look for Suba, but then Suba might be gone forever. And if I do take Andy and they catch me, they might hang me for stealing him. I have no proof that Andy is Grampa’s horse. Zeb slipped behind the man and moved quietly through the front door.
As his eyes adjusted to the dark interior, he could see Dancey Moore and the sergeant at a table right next to the door. Mr. Moore was counting out money into the sergeant’s left hand. The sergeant held his other hand behind his back.
He was being paid for Suba! Zeb was torn between his wanting to challenge the two men and knowing that he really didn’t have a chance with them. He was about to back out of the room when the sergeant raised his eyes and saw him. The sergeant leaped to his feet and blocked the door. “Well, well, well,” he chortled, “how Lady Luck can smile on me! I have the money for your horse, and now I’ve got you. Police constable let you go? Miss Hannah show up?”
Zeb tried to keep his eyes on the sergeant while he looked around the little tavern for another way out.
“You can forget about that,” the sergeant growled. “There ain’t no other way out of here. Just you and me now, boy, settling up accounts.” He began to move closer to Zeb.
“You can’t sell Suba!” Zeb shouted. “She’s a registered horse that belongs to the McAllisters.”
“And you got a paper to prove it. I know. I heard.”
He grabbed Zeb around the neck and reached into Zeb’s shirt pocket. “That’s all we need to make it legal,” he snarled. He tossed the paper on the table in front of Dancey Moore.
The sergeant shoved Zeb away from him but stayed between Zeb and the door. He moved toward Zeb, playing with him, keeping his right hand behind him. What does he have? Zeb wondered. A pistol? A knife?
Zeb looked from one side to the other. He could see nothing to use as a weapon. The sergeant grinned, swinging his left fist hard as if he were aiming at Zeb’s face.
Zeb ducked back and felt a low blow to the ribs. The sergeant laughed. “You don’t know nothin’ about fightin’, do you? This’ll be your first and maybe your last lesson.” He swung again with his left hand.
This time, Zeb stepped back and then kicked hard at the sergeant’s knee. The sergeant howled. “I was just gonna mess up that face a bit,” he shouted. “Teach you a lesson. But now, it’s no holds barred!” He reached out with both arms. His right hand held no weapon. It couldn’t. The hand was misshapen, and he was missing two fingers.
The sergeant glared at him. “That’s right. You’re responsible for that hand. I told you then that I’d make you pay.”
“Sergeant!” A booming voice rang out from above them. The big man Zeb had helped earlier was standing on the inside stairs, looking down at them. He was wearing the same wrinkled, stained clothes he had on when Zeb found him. “You talkin’ ‘bout fightin’ with the partner of Lonnie Champ?” he roared. “The roughest, meanest cock o’ the walk on the Mississippi? Thought I already spanked ya oncet. Looks like it didn’t take. You lookin’ at an alligator, a water snake, a black bear! You’d best run while ya can!”
The sergeant backed away and then edged toward the door. He held his hands up. “He your partner, Mr. Champ? We didn’t know that, sir … honest!”
The man on the stairs looked over at Zeb. He lifted his chin toward the door. “You best leave, boy, and now.”
Zeb started to mention the papers and the horse. The man pointed outside. “Now!” he shouted.
Zeb moved behind the sergeant and slipped out the door. He wished he could go to the constable, but he knew it was no use. “I can’t do a thing about it,” the constable had said when Zeb showed him the letter. “We have to wait for the magistrate.”
A groaning rumble came from the dock area downriver from where he was standing, and above the low rumble he heard the voices of men shouting. Freight wagons come to market!
He hurried down toward the docks, darting from one alley to the next, constantly watching for the constable. A long line of wagons snaked down Silver Street, the steep and slippery cobblestone road from Natchez proper.
At the docks, the wagons were jammed together. He could see a child darting from one wagon to the next. That kid’s gonna get himself killed, he thought. He gasped. It was Hannah!
She waved when she saw him, then crossed in front of two nervous horses and ran to his side, breathing hard. “Zeb,” she said, “I found the bald man.”
“You found him?”
“Ran up to the top of Silver Street. Bald man’s ridin’ in a big Conestoga wagon, just like the one Mr. Culpepper has. Six bales of cotton. Four big gray horses.”
“Where is it?”
“Just come down Silver Street. Should be about halfway to the docks by now.”
Zeb grabbed her arm. “Let’s go.”
“It may not be him, Zeb,” she cautioned, running alongside him. “I got as close as I could and I yelled up to him, ‘Mr. Ryan?’ He looked down at me, shook his head, and kept on going.”
When they reached the cotton docks, dozens of wagons were already there. Most of the wagons had a black driver and a white farmer sitting on the wagon seat.
One of the wagons was the largest he had ever seen, slanted up on the front and the back like a boat. It was carrying six bales of cotton instead of the usual four. Four huge draft horses pulled the wagon as easily as if it were empty.
Driving the wagon was a black man and at his right side a bald old white man. That can’t be grampa, he told himself. Grampa never lets anybody else drive a team of four, and he’d never wear overalls.
Zeb was about to move away from the wagon when he spotted the coiled whip on the man’s belt. Maybe that is Grampa, or somebody who has his whip.
Zeb and Hannah ran across the street toward the huge wagon, trying to fight their way between the wagons and around the horses. The wagons were jammed together, each of the drivers trying to be the first in line. Zeb got through and climbed up on the back of the wagon. He yelled down to Hannah, “Wait until I make sure who it is.”
He pulled himself over the bales, yelling, trying to be heard over the shouts and curses of the wagon drivers. He kept looking at that bald head. The man’s head was pink with sunburn, but his neck was dark brown and leathery. Why isn’t he wearing a hat?
He climbed over the last bale, landing on the seat between the two men. The black man shouted, “What the! …” then swung his right arm, knocking Zeb back against the cotton bales. The old bald man reached for the whip, turning to face Zeb.
“Grampa?” Zeb asked, taking a long, hard look. The man looked completely different without all that shaggy white hair … but it was his grampa, all right.
The old man frowned and stared. Zeb started to move back onto the bench, but the black man had his arm pressed hard against Zeb’s chest.
“Zeb?” the old man cried. His voice quavered. “What are you doin’ here? How did you get here?” He nodded to the black driver and helped Zeb back onto the bench. He held him at arm’s length, staring at his face.
Zeb threw his arms around the old man. Tears were flowing down his cheeks. “Oh, Grampa,” he sobbed. “I just knew you were alive! McPhee said you’d been killed by outlaws, but I didn’t believe him…. I’ve found you! I’ve found you!”
“What?” The old man pulled away. “I wasn’t shot by outlaws! McPhee was the one who shot me!”