The Book of Lost Friends: A Novel (18 page)

Granny T points the lecture finger at him and nods. “Well, now, that is a good question. Y’all been passing around the pictures. Why do you think the old saint had to move on, so a new sign saying only ‘Augustine Library’ could go up on that marble base?”

The kids try out a few wrong answers. I’m momentarily distracted, thinking about Councilman Walker’s visit to my front porch with his dog, Sunshine. The library saint lives in my oleander bush, thanks to Miss Retta. Now I appreciate him more than ever. He’s a book lover, like me. Library history runs in his veins.

“Who’s got the picture from 1961?” Granny T asks. “I bet you can say why it’s just the Augustine Carnegie Library now.”

“Segregation got over, Granny T,” Laura Gill, one of my townie girls, answers shyly. Laura has never, absolutely never, spoken to me in class or in the hall. She’s clearly quite comfortable with Granny T—a relative or former Sunday school teacher, maybe?

“That’s right, honey. And hooo-ee! Augustine might’ve fought other things as long as it could, but the city was sure happy to take over control of that library!” Memories dance behind Granny T’s thick glasses. “It was the end of something and the beginning of another something. Now, black kids and white kids could sit together in the same room and read the same books. It was another chapter in the library’s history. Another part of its tale. And a lot of people have all but forgot about that. They don’t know the story of that building and so they don’t appreciate it like they ought. But now, you kids…now you understand what it meant, and that it was hard won. And from here on, maybe you’ll care about it in a different way.”

“That’s the reason I asked Granny T to come share with us today,” I tell the kids, joining Granny T in the front of the classroom as the students pass around old photos. “There’s so much history in this town that most people don’t know. And, for the next few weeks, we’re going to do some detective work, see what we can find out. I want each of you to discover the story of a place or an event in this town—something people probably aren’t familiar with—and take notes, copy photographs, whatever you can gather, and write the story.”

A few groans follow, but they’re muffled. Mostly, there are murmurs of interest, mixed with questions.

“Who do we ask?”

“How do we find stuff?”

“Where do we go?”

“What if you don’t know anything about anything here?”

“What if you ain’t from here?”

A desk screeches and for a bare instant, I’m afraid some form of trouble is about to erupt right in front of our guest speaker.
Surely they wouldn’t…

I follow the sound to find Lil’ Ray halfway out of his seat with one hand stuck in the air. “Miss…ummm…Miss…” He can’t remember my real name, and he’s afraid to call me by one of my dubious nicknames in front of Granny T.

“Lil’ Ray?”

“So we gotta write about a place?”

“That’s right. Or an event.”
Please, please don’t start a revolt.
If Lil’ Ray rebels, so will his crowd of admirers. It’ll be tough to get the class back after that. “This is going to be a big part of our semester grade, so it’s important to work hard at it. But I want it to be fun, too. As soon as you’ve found your subject, let me know, so we won’t have any duplicates, and we’ll learn something different from each report.”

I pan the room with my teacher eye, as in,
I mean it. Okay?

Another squeal of desk legs. Lil’ Ray again. “Miss…uhhh…”

“Silva.”

“Miss Silva, what I meant was, instead of telling about a place or a event, can we write about a
person,
because—”

“Oh, oh.” Laura Gill interrupts—actually cuts him off—but she’s got her hand in the air, as if that makes the interruption okay. “At this school in New Orleans, at Halloween time, they do this thing called
Tales from the Crypt.
I saw it in the newspaper last year at my cousin’s house. They dress up like the person and stand there in the graveyard and, like, tell the story to everybody. How come we can’t do that?”

The idea ignites something I’d only dreamed might be possible. Suddenly, fresh tinder is everywhere. My classroom is afire.

HANNIE GOSSETT—RED RIVER, 1875

We gather what things we own, fold our quilt, and take down the scrim cloth we hung for shade from the sun that shines off the river in waves and ripples, mile after mile. For days now, our camp’s been steaming upwater on the Red, fighting snags and grasshoppering over sandbars to get crosswise through the rest of Louisiana and out of it. We’re in Texas now, for good or for worst.

Home’s gone. Too far for looking back or going back. The horses been sold off, and I hope the man treats them good. Was hard to see them go, hardest on Juneau Jane, but that money’s the only way we could buy goods and deck passage on this side-wheeler. Still ain’t sure if I chose right in getting on this boat with her, but before we did, I had Juneau Jane write a letter and post it back to Tati and Jason and John. Wanted them to know not to worry over me. I’ve gone off to see after word about Old Mister. I’ll be back before time comes to harvest the crop.

I don’t tell about hoping to find news of my people. Ain’t certain how Tati would take that. Nor Jason and John, so it’s best not to say. They been my only people for most of my life. But there’s another life deep inside of me, one long back in a little slabwood cabin with the bed full of knees and elbows and so many voices you can’t listen at them all at once.

Juneau Jane’s read the newspaper pages, all the little squares, out loud more times than I can keep count of. The roustabouts and the crew—colored men mostly, except for the officers—come down to our little deck camp. Time after time, they ask what the squares say. A few look for theirselves, read the rows of little boxes with a killing hunger and a wish to finally have what’s needed to satisfy it.

So far, only one man’s found hope, a gal who might be a sister. He said to Juneau Jane, “Now, if I git you some paper and somethin’ to write wit’, maybe you’d write me a letter I could send off when we make Jeffe’son Port? I’d pay for the trouble.” She promised she would, and off that roustabout went, whistling and singing, “Lord, Lord, ain’t you good! Ain’t you been good to me!”

The white folk on the
Katie P.
are mostly poor, hoping to find something better in Texas than what they left behind. They looked at that singing roustabout like he was touched in the head. But they didn’t look long. The notion’s gone round that we been selling voodoo spells and potions under our scrim tent, and that’s why the men come and go so much. Folks whisper about the strange silent ways of the big, barefooted white boy with us, and they don’t want no part of it.

We still got Missy in tow. Wasn’t any choice about it. The river landing where we boarded this boat was nothing more than the leftovers of a trader town shelled flat in the war. Couldn’t leave Missy there in this kind of shape. If we don’t find Old Mister in Jefferson, we figure to put Missy in the hands of the lawyer man, let her be his burden then.

As we’re moving off the Red and into Caddo Lake, then winding up through Big Cypress Bayou toward Port of Jefferson, the
chug-puff-slap, chug-puff-slap
of steamboats echo from all directions. The
Katie P.
’s shallow hull rocks on the wakes when we pass another boat, them going out loaded down with cotton, corn, and bags of seed, and us coming in with all manner of goods from sugar and molasses in pony kegs, to cloth, kegs of nails, and glass windows. Their folks wave, and our folks wave.

Even from a long way off, we hear and see the port coming up. Boat whistles blow a commotion. Bright-colored buildings with heavy iron balcony rails peek through the standing cypress and grapevine on the riverbank. The town noise fights over the rattle of the
Katie P.
and the steam off the boiler. Never heard such racket in my life, nor seen so many people. Music and yelling, horses squealing, oxen bellowing, dogs barking, carts and wagons bouncing along redbrick streets. This’s a flaunty place. Busy and big. The farthest river port you can get to in Texas.

A dark feel slides over me. First I don’t know the reason, but then I do. I remember this town. Didn’t come in by river last time, but this’s where the sheriff’s men brung me as a child after the Jep Loach trouble. They put me in the jailhouse for safekeeping, waiting on my lawful owners to come fetch me back.

The memory strikes me now, as I fold up the Lost Friends papers and put them in our pack. There’s names written in all the edges of the papers, with a lead pencil a boatman stole off a gaming table in the cabin upstairs. Juneau Jane has put down the names of the men on the
Katie P.
who’re looking for their people, and all the names of the folks they’re missing. We made the promise to ask after them wherever we go. If we find news, it can be sent back to Jefferson in the mail, care of the riverboat
Katie P.

The men brung us a few pennies here, a dime there, a box of Lucifers for starting fires, tallow candles, biscuits and corn pone from the boat’s galley. “To help your travels,” they’d say. We didn’t ask for it, but they gave it over. Been eating better on this trip than in my whole life. Can’t recall a time when my belly was full days in a row like this.

I’ll miss the
Katie P.
and her men, but it’s time to go.

“Need to get
her
on her feet,” I say of Missy Lavinia, who just sits till you pick her up and move her like a rag doll, from one place to the other. She don’t fight, but she don’t help, either. The worst is taking her to the stalls at the back of the boat to do her necessary, couple times a day like a little child, which Juneau Jane won’t do. Folks clear a path when they see us come, don’t want to get close to Missy. She hisses at them if she feels like it, sounds like the boiler of the
Katie P.

Makes things easier, getting off the boat at the landing, though. Other passengers back off and Juneau Jane and me get the whole gangplank to ourselves. Even the deckhands and the cabin crew stand away. Mostly they’re kind enough, though, and slip us little tokens and another penny and dime as we pass.

They lean close to whisper the reminders.

“ ’Member to keep a ear for my people, if you’re able. Surely do appreciate it much.”

“My mammy’s name, July Schiller…”

“My sister is Flora, brothers Henry, Isom, and Paul…”

“My brothers were Hap, Hanson, Jim, and Zekiel. All born as Rollinses, owned by Perry Rollins in Virginee. Pappy was Solomon Rollins. A blacksmith man. All been sold south twenty-year ago, now, marched off in a trader’s coffle to settle a debt. Never thought to see them again in this world. You boys tell their names for me everyplace you go, I’d be grateful. And I’ll keep puttin’ you in the Lord’s way, so He don’t forget about you, neither.”

“My wife name Rutha. Twin gals Lolly and Persha. Bought off Master French’s place by a man name Compton.”

Juneau Jane steers over to a stack of cordwood and asks me for the Lost Friends papers, so she can make sure we ain’t forgot anybody.

“I got them safe.” I pat our pack. “We already wrote down all the names they just reminded us of. Besides, I got the list in my mind, too.” I know about remembering names. Been doing that since six years old and Jep Loach’s wagon, not so far from this place.

Juneau Jane perches herself on a log and waits for me to hand over the bundle. “What is preserved in writing is safe from failures of the mind.”

“People
lose
papers.” We ain’t been friends on this journey, her and me. Just two people in need of each other right now. That’s all it is. All it’s ever gonna be. “My mind is sure to go along wherever I do.”

“People lose their minds, too.” She gives a hard look toward Missy, who’s plunked herself down alongside the woodpile. There’s a little green snake winding through the grass toward her britches leg. Her hat’s tipped like she’s watching it, but she don’t even move to chase it off.

I take a stick and shoo the thing away, and think Juneau Jane would’ve just let it crawl right on to where it was headed. She’s a mysterious thing, this fawn-skinned girl that’s a pitiful skinny, big-eyed boy now. Sometimes she’s like a quiet, sad little child. It’s then that I think,
Maybe it ain’t so easy for a yellow girl to make a life, either.
Sometimes, she just seems cold. A wicked, devil-fired creature like her mama and the rest of their kind.

Bothers me that I can’t cipher her out, but she could’ve left me and Missy behind at the river landing, and she didn’t. She paid the fare for us with her horse money. I wonder at what that means.

Sitting down beside her on the woodpile, I hand over the Lost Friends pages and the pencil and say, “Reckon it don’t hurt to check. Ain’t like we know where we’re going, anyway. Somebody comes by—fine white folk, I mean—you try asking real nice, where can we find that Mr. Washburn?”

A thought comes into my head while she checks over her work. “How’re we gonna talk to this lawyer man about your papa’s papers if we do find him?” I look her over, then look down at myself. “Right now, I’m a colored boy, and you’re a ragged little rat off the river.” Been so caught up with the Lost Friends on the boat, I hadn’t thought past us getting onshore. “No lawyer man will talk to us.”

She hadn’t thought that far, either, I can tell.

She chews the pencil end, looks up at all them fancy brick buildings, double-deckers, most of them. Some even triple. A gunshot fires off, cracking through all the noise of the town and the river port. We both jump. Men stop and look around, then go back to work.

Juneau Jane tips up that pointy little chin of hers. “I will speak with him.” Her lips rise at the corners, her nose, which is her papa’s turned-up nose, crinkling. “Were I to inform him I am William Gossett’s daughter and heir, he would undoubtedly assume me to be Lavinia. I believe she was not truthful in saying they had made his acquaintance in New Orleans recently, given that the man resides here in Jefferson, and this is where Papa engaged his services not long ago.”

A laugh puffs out of me, but there’s fear in my belly. Back home, what she’s aiming to do can get you dead in a hurry. If you’re colored, you don’t go pretending to be white. “You’re a colored girl, case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Are we really so different?” She stretches one arm beside Missy’s. Their skin ain’t the same, but not too far off that you’d guess the truth, either.

“Well
she’s
older than you.” I wave a hand at Missy. “You’re a child in short skirts, still. You ain’t even got you no…well, you don’t look much as
fourteen,
yet. Even if Missy
was
lying when she told you she’d met the man before, you ain’t gonna pass for Missy.”

Her eyes hold at half-mast, like I am thickheaded. I want to swat that look from her face. That is the exact way Missy Lavinia used to do when she was a little child. These two girls are more sisters than they know. Some things run in the bloodline just as sure as that little turned-up nose. “They skin you alive, if you get caught at this. Skin me alive, too.”

“What choice have I otherwise? I must obtain word of Father or proof of his intentions for my provision. Lavinia would leave me penniless, with no choice but that my mother bargain me off to a man.” The frost that always covers her over cracks a little now. There’s pain underneath, and fear. “If Papa
is
gone, an inheritance becomes my only hope.”

She’s right, I know. Her papa is the only hope for all us. “Well, we have to get you a dress, then. Dress, and a corset, and some padding to stuff it, and a bonnet to cover that hair.” I hope this plan don’t get us killed or put in jail or worse. Then who’ll carry the Lost Friends around? “But you promise me, I do this thing with you, no matter what we find out, you won’t pull foot out of here and leave me stuck with her.” I nod over to Missy Lavinia. “She ain’t my burden to bear. And it’s you and her that got me into this whole mess. You owe me something. You and me, we stay together, till we figure out about your papa. And till we get Missy sent back home. If this lawyer man does have money waiting for you, you’ll pay Missy’s passage and find somebody to get her back to Goswood. We have us a bargain?”

Her bottom lip pokes out a little at the idea of having to do for Missy Lavinia, but she nods.

“And one other thing.”

“No other things.”

“And one other thing. When we do part company, whenever that is, the Lost Friends go with me. And meantime, you learn me how to read it and write down new ones for new folks.”

We shake hands on it, and the bargain is struck. We’re in this mess, together.

Least for now.

“Making you a woman sure will be a whole lot tougher than making you a boy.” The words are hardly out my mouth when a shadow falls over me, and I look up and see a colored man, stout as a woodcutter, standing over us. He folds and unfolds a hat in his hands.

I hope he didn’t hear what I just said.

“I come ’bout the Loss Friends.” He glances toward the
Katie P.
“I hear…heared it from a fella. You put me in the Loss F-friends, too?”

We look toward the landing nearby and see the singing man Juneau Jane wrote the letter for on the boat, and he’s pointing somebody else our way. Word of us has spread.

Juneau Jane gets her pencil and asks the man who he’s looking for. It’s nobody we’ve got on our pages already.

She takes down names of the man’s people, and he gives us a nickel before he goes back to work, loading seed bags onto a swamp boat. Then comes another man. He tells us where to go to buy some used clothes and goods cheap, and I decide I better strike off before the day’s gone. Can’t take Juneau Jane and Missy Lavinia with me, since it’s the colored town he’s talking about.

“You stay here, and I’ll go where he said to,” I tell her and get a biscuit from our poke, and tuck Missy’s reticule in my britches, then leave them with the rest of our goods. “Watch after Missy.”

I know she won’t.

It worries me some as I follow the man’s directions and wind up in a little settlement down in a gully. First, I find a stitcher woman who sells mended clothes out the back of her house. I buy what’s needed for Juneau Jane, but I wish I could buy a miracle, because that’s needed most. The stitcher woman points me to a harness maker who mends shoes for people and fixes up old ones to sell, too. I have to guess at the size, but I get some for Missy, since her feet are gone raw and she don’t watch where she’s walking. I trade off that gold locket that was hers. Figure it can’t be helped, and the chain’s broke anyhow.