Horrible Harvest

By mid-afternoon, we were back at the boarding house. The old woman who owned the place was giving Bobby a piece of her ever-loving mind. He’d pissed her mattress and brought in two more boarders without asking her. He smoothed things over in his usual manner, with a silver coin or two.

When I entered the room he’d booked for Felix and me, I seen the widow’s young daughter sobbing her eyes out. I was beyond bent up about it. Felix knelt before her, doing his best to comfort her.

“What the hell is she doing here?” I asked.

“Mr. Bunning,” Felix said. “He bought her.”

“Bought her?”

“Paid the widow her asking price. We left the house with her right after – You know? Our go around. Paid extra for a bag full of clothes for the girl.”

My blood went on boil. “She’s going back.”

“Relax, kid,” I heard Bobby say from behind me.

“You bought the girl?”

“I did.”

“Why in the hell would you do that?”

“You should know I ain’t a fan of people questioning my purchases.”

“And I ain’t a fan of grown-ass men purchasing little girls to marry.

He laughed and got my ire up even more.

“Kid, I ain’t the marrying kind, first off. Second off, I done it because my heart’s just too damn generous.”

The girl cried out, “I wanna go home.”

“Generous?”

“Her mother has got a lot of talents. You can ask Felix about that, but mothering ain’t among them.”

“The girl belongs with her mother.”

“She belongs with a woman that offered to marry her off at nine-years-old? For $400? She’s better off with that kind of woman?”

“Her mother ain’t gonna win no awards, but the fat old widow was just mouthing off. She’s desperate.”

“Maybe, but you know what she would have been a month from now once her conjugal earnings had waned? If she didn’t have $400 in hand? Do you know what she would have been?”

I didn’t reply.

“She woulda been more desperate. The price for the girl woulda gone down, and some perverted, inbred Tennessee hillbilly farmer woulda bought her and used up all his bad inclinations on her. Girl would either be dead inside a year or live to be twelve, where she’d die given birth to a just as dead baby boy or girl.”

“I’m supposed to believe you bought the girl to save her life and protect her virtue?”

“Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Because I know men like you.”

“There are no men like me. ‘Cept for Bert, maybe.” He stared at the girl. “You got one thing wrong, by the way.”

“What?”

“I ain’t gonna protect her virtue. You are. That’s what I pay you $20 a week for.”

“That wasn’t our deal.”

“Our deal was pretty vague as I remember it.” He turned to walk down the hall to his room. “The old lady will watch her tonight. We’ve got a party to attend.”

Felix looked at me with beggar’s eyes. “What’re we to do?”

“Don’t ask me. She’s your charge, not mine.”

“That ain’t fair.” He stood and approached me. Whispering, he said, “I got my suspicions about her.”

I laughed. “What kind of suspicions?”

He turned to the girl and then back to me. “She doesn’t look…”

“She doesn’t look what?”

“There’s just something off about her.”

I looked her over. “She looks like a scared nine-year-old girl to me.”

“Yeah, but don’t she look – You know? Not altogether white?”

I raised an eyebrow and give hold to my mad grin. I looked closer at the girl. She had dark, curly hair and her skin tone was a medium shade of olive. Her eyes were a pale green. “I told you. She looks like a scared nine-year-old girl. And you’re to care for her. Not me.”

“I don’t have the first idea how to take care of a little girl. I don’t even know her name.”

“I got an idea.”

“What?”

“Find you a way to get her name.”

“Find a way how?”

“Ask her?

He nodded and then walked toward the little girl like he was sneaking up on a rattlesnake. “Hey, there, girlie. I was – What’s your name?”

Sobbing, she replied, “I wanna go home.”

“I get that feeling. I wanna go home, too.”

Her sobs softened. “Where do you live?”

“About three days’ ride from here. Haven’t been home in about two years.”

“Really?”

“Really. And Augustus – That’s him over there. It’s been about four years since he’s been home.”

She looked at me with sad-eyed wonder.

“He lives way far from here. All the way over in Charleston, South Carolina.”

Her mouth fell open.

“I know. That’s a good piece. Take a week or more to travel that far.”

In a soft, mucus choked voice, the girl said, “I’m from there, too.”

I turned to her and stared.

Felix asked, “What? From where?”

“That’s my home,” she said.

“You live barely a mile from here. We just came from your house.”

She slowly shook her head.

“Are you saying that wasn’t your home?”

She nodded.

“That woman. The one I – The one who owns the house. She’s not your mother?”

She shook her head.

Felix looked at me, his cheeks flush. “We just bought a girl from a woman who didn’t have any right to sell her.”

“How did you come to live with that woman?” I asked.

“My momma, she got sick. We’d been walking a long way. Feels like we walked all winter. We got here. To this town, and she couldn’t walk no more. Mrs. Carol come across us. At night. Just down the road. Resting behind some bushes.”

“Mrs. Carol. She’s the big gal? The one that took me for a ride? ”

“Felix? What the hell?”

“I’m sorry. I never got the widow’s name.”

“That’s her.”

“She took you in?”

“She didn’t want to. She got the sheriff, and he told her we weren’t his concern. Said, she should just leave us be, and she would’ve, too, but momma had some silver forks and such. We took’em from our master’s house.”

“Master?” Felix turned to me and smiled as if to say, I told you so.

“Momma told Mrs. Carol that daddy wasn’t far behind, and he had more of master’s silverware. If she took us in, he’d give it all to her. For helping us.”

“Where’s your momma, now?” I asked.

The girl shrugged.

“What do you mean? How can you not know?”

“Mrs. Carol took us in, and momma was put up right away in the attic. There was a bed of sorts up there. I was put up in a room next to Randall’s.”

“The boy?”

“Yeah, Mrs. Carol calls him Pea Pot, but his real for true name is Randall. Are you really from Charleston?”

“I am.”

“Why ain’t you home?”

“I’ve just got things that need doing. When’s the last time you seen your momma?”

She shrugged. “While back. Can’t say how long for sure. I went up to the attic one day, and she just wasn’t there. The bed was gone. Nothing but a dark old attic.”

“What did Mrs. Carol say happened to her?”

“She lied and said, my daddy came and took her away. Took her to a hospital to get better.”

“How do you know she lied?”

“Because momma lied. I ain’t got no daddy and wasn’t no more silverware coming. Momma just said that, so we’d get took in.”

Felix looked at me. “I guess we best tell Bobby he bought a colored girl.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause I’m pretty sure that sort of thing isn’t allowed anymore. We just lost a whole entire war on that particular notion.”

“But it’s okay to own a white girl?”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“That’s a white buying a white. That’s nothing but an adoption.”

“That’s your legal opinion, is it?”

“My daddy was a lawyer.”

“That makes you a lawyer as much as it makes you a shoemaker.”

“So, you’re saying we shouldn’t tell Bobby he bought a little negro girl?”

“I’m saying it don’t make a difference.”

“What if we get caught?”

“Get caught doing what?”

“With a slave.”

“She ain’t a slave.”

“She’s negro, and Bobby bought her. That makes her a slave.”

“Bobby paid for her. He didn’t buy her. That’s altogether different. She’s our charge. You heard him.”

“And I still don’t know what we’re to do with her. What are we to do with her?”

“Don’t ask me. Ask her.”

He turned to the girl. “What are we to do with you, girlie?”

She give him a mournful look. “I want to go home.”

“She wants to go home,” he repeated.

“I’m getting the same information as you, Felix. We’re in the same goddamn room.”

“What’re we to do about it? How we gonna get her home?”

I rubbed the back of my neck as my entire body ached from the conversation. “We ain’t gonna do shit about it. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

The little girl looked my way and give me a small, sweet smile that took near all her strength to make. “Virginia.”

My heart stopped and raced all at once. That name give me ghosts that we’ll come to. What’s to know now is that it near struck me down.

Bert appeared in the doorway with an envelope in his hand and two Slim Jim gun holsters draped over his shoulder, packed with Gunnison and Griswold revolvers and two dozen rounds of ammo stuffed in the loops. “Got something for you boys to do.”

I was still shuffling the name Virginia through every fold of my mind. I barely noticed he was there.

Felix stood and took the envelope from him.

“Go to that address. Fella named Kaufman will meet you.” He handed us the holsters.

“What’re these for?” Felix asked.

“There for shooting whatever or whoever’s necessary.”

Felix strapped his holster around his waist. “What’re we to do with this Kaufman fella?”

“He sold Bobby some horses.”

He finally got my attention. “I thought that was going to take some time. Finding horses.”

“It did. We’ve been looking for the last three days. Just so happens that Kaufman come through about an hour ago. Says he found a whole corral full. Sent word through the old woman that owns this rat hole. There’s money enough for four riding horses, a packhorse, and saddles.”

I asked, him, “How do you know we ain’t going to just run off with the money?”

“I don’t.”

“So, that’s it. You’re just handing us a pile of money and sending us out into the world. You don’t know us from Adam.”

“I’m not in charge, kid. Bobby’s taken a shine to you. It’s his call. If you run off, you run off.”

“Y’all really ain’t thought this thing through, have you? Trust is a rarity. The chances you’ve come across it in two strangers is near not a thing. You don’t just hand money to them and send them on their way with the hopes they’ll come back.”

“Kid, you wanna run off with our money, run off. You wanna stick around and build a future with the Bunning brothers, stick around. I don’t care one way or another.”

“What about the girl?” Felix asked.

“The old woman will watch her.”

“There’s a thing you oughta know about her.”

“What?”

“She’s not – Well, she’s – The fat gal – Mrs. Carol – The one – She give me the ride.”

“I know who she is.”

“Right – Turns out, she’s – She’s not the girl’s mother.”

Bert looked the girl over. “That so?”

“That’s not – There’s more. She’s colored.”

Bert looked her over with greater consideration. “Now, that is a surprise. Them green eyes sure do give her a white look, don’t they?” He turned to Felix. “I can see it now – She ain’t but a negro by a fraction, but it’s there. There’s no getting around it.”

“Yes, sir – And – I mean, I thought you should know – Bobby, too.”

“Well, it is an interesting development. I’ll grant you that.”

Felix stood proud for having perked up Bert’s interest. “You know – Given the current – Law says she’s free now. She wasn’t Mrs. Carol’s to sell. My daddy was a lawyer – So, I got – Some knowledge of legalities and such.”

“Laws have one glaring weakness that plays into the strength of the Bunning brothers, son. They crumble under the weight of money.” He stepped to the doorway. “Owning a negro in the South in defiance of Yankee law won’t do anything but win us friends with the very slaveless monied masters we’re trying to court.”

I glared at him as he vacated the room.

“He – I wasn’t expecting – He didn’t react how I thought,” Felix said.

“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know. I thought we’d return her.”

“She ain’t a defective pocket watch picked out of the local general store.”

“No, but she is trouble. I mean, that’s plain as day. We just fought this fight – And we – It didn’t go well for us – As I recall. We should just take her back – No, offense, girlie – ”

“Virginia,” I said.

“What?”

“Her goddamn name is Virginia. Call her Virginia.”

“Okay – Virginia. Nothing against you personally, Virginia, but I don’t want anything to do with your kind.”

She looked at him with sad eyes.

“Most people want you gone out of here. Some folks want you back to the way you were before the war – And the ones that want you mingling in with us like you’re regular people are so few and far between, they’re dangerous to know.”

“Leave her be,” I said.

“I’m just saying what needs to be said.”

“You’re scaring her.”

“She scares me.”

“Felix,” I snapped.

Unsettled by the ill-manner in my voice, he drew in a breath and give hold to it.

“The only thing we know for sure in this world is that Virginia is our charge. It’s been stated to us outright by a man paying us $20 a week. That’s all you need to think on. What color she is. What color you are. None of it makes a goddamn difference. We are paid to protect her, and that’s what we’re gonna do. You spent the last two years soldiering. You follow orders better than anyone I’ve ever come across. That’s all you gotta do moving forward. Follow orders.”

“You’re forgetting that following orders didn’t work out too well for me.”

“That’s because you’re looking at it all wrong.”

“How am I supposed to look at it?”

“Who have you been following all this time?”

“Who? You. I suppose.”

“No supposing about it. You’ve been at my heels all this time. I know because they’s my heels.”

“I – didn’t mean – To bother you.”

“I ain’t complaining. I’m just making a point. Where has following me gotten you?”

“I mean – Here.”

“And here is?”

“In this room.”

“A room you’re not paying for, making more money than most people dream about, wearing a spanking new suit, strapped with your very own Gunnison and Griswold, looking dapper in a Boss of the Plains hat, with shiny boots, holding an envelope full of greenbacks, and you just had a fine fat gal take you for the ride of your life – For the very first time in your life.

“Following me got you all that.”

He give thought to my position. “I suppose there’s something to that. I mean, you left out the war and all the killing and dying parts, but still, you’ve got a point. I’m sitting pretty, now.”

I approached Virginia after strapping on my gun belt. “Why do you want to go back to Charleston?”

“It’s home.”

I shook my head. “Only in the technical sense. There’s nothing for you there, now.”

“My aunt and uncle are there.”

“Not likely. They either run off like you and your momma or they – Let’s just say there ain’t but a slim chance they’re still in Charleston.”

She looked at me with blood-colored rage in her eyes. “They’re there. I know it.”

I held up my hand to calm her. “Hold on now. Don’t bow-up on me.” I sighed. “I suppose a slim chance is still a chance.” I gently grabbed her by the shoulders. “We’re going to get you home, Me and Felix. I promise. You just have to be patient and let us come up with a plan.”

She give my request some thought and then nodded.

I smiled and stood up straight. “In the meantime, you need to stay out of everyone’s way, especially the old crow that own’s this house. There’s bound to be trouble if she gets suspicious about – Your heritage.” I grabbed a bottle of laudanum out of my haversack and stuffed it in the inside pocket of my jacket. Before sticking the haversack under my bed, the handle of my bowie knife caught my eye. I pulled it out and stared at it for a beat before handing it to Virginia. “Keep this near you. Anyone gives you trouble, use it.” I leaned in closer to her. “But make damn sure trouble is on their mind before you give it use.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Felix asked.

“There ain’t no good ideas left to be had in this world. All we can hope for is a new situation to come along that’ll present us with better bad ideas to give chase to.”

I exited the room with Felix on my heels, as was his habit.