The Book of Lost Friends: A Novel (26 page)

I’m not sure how I’ll do it without Juneau Jane. She’s the writer. But I’m learning, and bound to get better. Good enough to scratch down the names and the places and to write letters off to the “Lost Friends” column for folks. “I’ll be the keeper of the book after you go home. But I want you to promise me that when you make it back to Goswood Grove you’ll help Tati and Jason and John and all the other croppers to get treated fair, just like the contracts say. Ten years of cropping on the shares, and you gain the land, mule, and outfit for your own. Will you do that for me, Juneau Jane? I know we ain’t friends, but would you swear to it?”

She sets her fingers over mine on the reins, her skin pale and smooth against the calluses worn into me by shovels and plows and the crisscross marks from the sharp, dry bracts of the cotton boles. My hands are ugly from work, but I ain’t ashamed. I toiled for my scars. “I think we
are
friends, Hannie,” she says.

I nod, and my throat thickens. “I wondered about that a time or two.”

I chuck up the horses. I’ve let us fall too far behind.

We start through a draw and toward a long hill and the way is rough, and the horses take my attention. They’re tired and wet, lathered under their collars from pulling in the mud. Their tails lash at flies that gather in the windless air. Up ahead, teams struggle with the rise and the slick earth, digging and sliding, digging and sliding. A wagon rolls back like it might come downhill. I turn my team off to the side to move out of the way, in case.

It’s then I see that Missy’s gotten herself off the wagon, and she’s plopped down on her hindquarters, picking yellow flowers with not a worry in the world. I can’t even push a shout from my mouth before a sorghum barrel busts its tie rope on the catawampus wagon and rolls downhill, kicking a spray of white rocks and mud and grass and chaff.

Missy looks up and watches it pass not ten foot from her, but she don’t move a inch, just smiles and swirls her hands in the air trying to catch the kicked-up fodder as it shines against the sun.

“Get out of there!” I holler, and Juneau Jane scrambles from the wagon seat. She runs in her too-big shoes, jumping grass moats and rocks, wiry as a baby deer. Swatting the flowers from Missy’s hand, she tugs her off the ground and cusses her in French, and they start off afoot, away from the wagons and goods.

It’s times like this I give up on thinking Missy is still inside that body, coming back bit by bit, and that she hears things we say, she just don’t answer. Times like this, I think she’s gone for good—that the poison, or the knock to the head, or whatever evil them men did to her, broke something and it can’t be fixed.

Hearing her take that cussing from her daddy’s mixed-blood girl, I tell myself,
If Missy Lavinia was anyplace in that big, stout body, she’d haul back and swat her half sister into next Sunday. Just like Old Missus would.

I don’t want to think what Old Missus will do with Missy Lavinia when they get home. Send her off to the asylum to live out her days, I guess. If there ever was any chance of finding her right mind again, it won’t happen after that. She’s a young woman still. A girl just sixteen. Those’d be long years, in such a place.

The question nips at me all the rest of the way to Menardville, which when we get there, ain’t too much more than a few store buildings, a smith shop, a wheelwright, a jail, two saloons, houses, and churches. Juneau Jane and me make plans to leave out for Mason to see about Old Mister. It’s just a day’s hard horseback ride away, but longer afoot. Penberthy holds our pay and won’t let us strike off. Says it’s too dangerous walking, and he’ll find us a better way to get there.

By morning, we know we won’t go to Mason, after all. Folks tell Penberthy that the soldiers took the man who had the stole army horse to Fort McKavett, and there he still is, but he ain’t even well enough to hang.

Penberthy fixes us a ride with a mail supply wagon bound on to the fort, just twenty miles south and west from Menardville. Our freight boss parts with us kindly and is good to his promises. He gives my wages and don’t even hold out money for my bail in Fort Worth. He tells us to be mindful of what sort of men we get ourselves in with. “There’s many a youngster succumbs to the promises of riches and fast living. Set the pay money deep in your pocket.” He’s hired Gus McKlatchy for another trip, so this is where we part ways.

We have our goodbyes with the crew. The one to Gus is hardest. He’s been a friend to me. A real, true friend.

“I’d come on with you,” he says before our wagon rolls out. “I’d like to see me a fort. Maybe even sign up and do some scoutin’ for the army. But I’m bound to get me a horse and go to where all them wild cattle are just waitin’ to be caught. One more trip back to Old Fort Worth, and I’ll have enough to be well mounted and start making my fortune, gathering up a herd of my own.”

“You watch out for yourself,” I say, and he just grins and waves me off and says McKlatchys always land square footed. Our wagon rolls forward, and the load shifts under us. Juneau Jane grabs on to me, and I hang on to the ropes with one hand and to Missy with the other. “Gus McKlatchy, you watch out,” I holler as the wagon rattles off, bound for Fort McKavett.

He pats the old sidearm in his belt and gives a grin that’s all freckles and horse teeth. Then he cups his hands round his mouth and yells after me, “I hope you find your people, Hannibal Gossett!”

It’s the last thing I hear before the town fades from sight and the San Saba River valley swallows us whole.

BENNY SILVA—AUGUSTINE, LOUISIANA, 1987

It’s Saturday night, and I’m worried, though I’m determined not to show it. We’ve been trying to have a dress rehearsal of our
Underground
project all week, but the weather has been working against us. Rain and more rain. Augustine, Louisiana, is like a bath sponge after the tub drains. The rain has finally stopped, but the cemetery is wet, the city park is puddled under, my yard is a swamp, the orchard behind my house is covered in ankle-deep mud. Yet, we have to do something. Our last couple weeks before Halloween weekend—and the
Underground
project—are rapidly ticking away. The school’s agriculture department is hosting a Halloween party and haunted house fundraiser in the school’s shop barn that same weekend, and they’ve already put their flyers out. If we want to compete, we have to start advertising.

Before we do that, I need proof that we’re actually going to pull off the performance of this project. So far, the kids are all over the map with it. Some are ready. Some are struggling. Some keep changing their minds about whether they want to participate in the performance portion. It doesn’t help that many of them get little encouragement or assistance at home and have no money for costumes or materials.

I’m losing hope, wondering if we should shift to doing written reports or presentations in class. Something more manageable. No living history pageant in the graveyard. No advertising. No community involvement. No risk of humiliation or crushing public disappointment for the ones who really have tried hard.

I’ve commandeered the old football field for our attempt at a dress rehearsal. It’s on fairly high ground, and I see townie kids playing games of tag and sandlot ball here fairly often, so I figure it’s up for grabs.

In the sunset glow, we’ve positioned the Bug and a few other rattletrap student cars so we can turn on headlights for illumination. I have no keys to the stadium lights that hang bent and broken above the old concrete bleachers, and they probably don’t work anyway. A couple of lopsided streetlamps blink overhead, and that’s it. I’ve spent the last of a small historical society grant to equip the kids with dollar store lanterns that look surprisingly like the real thing. They house cheap little tea candles, but even getting those to stay lit has turned out to be a challenge.

Someone thought a string of Black Cat firecrackers would be a great addition to tonight’s fun. Ten levels of chaos broke out when they started popping. Kids ran everywhere, screamed, laughed, tackled one another. The cardboard mock tombstones we’ve worked on this week have been inadvertently trampled. Some of them were really nice. A few kids even went to the graveyard and made charcoal rubbings of the actual monuments they based their reports on.

Our new lanterns now twinkle cheerfully in the muck, half of them kicked upside down and sideways, victims of the fireworks scramble.

This is all too far out of the norm for them,
the voice in my head says.
It’s more than they can handle.

If they can’t complete a rehearsal, then any kind of a public performance is a no go.
It’s partly my fault. I never anticipated how much the group dynamic would change with all my classes, multiple age groups, and even little brothers and sisters and cousins gathered together to reenact their chosen characters.

“Come
on,
you guys. Let’s not screw it up now.” I try to sound forceful, but really I’m biting back the sting of discouragement. This is unfair to the ones who really wanted this to work. Including me. “These are
people
we’re talking about. They were real living, breathing people. They deserve respect. Grab your tombstone and your lantern, and get with the program. If you have a costume with you and you don’t have it on, put it on over your clothes.
Now.
”

My orders gather very little response.

I need help beyond just my few senior adult volunteers, who are largely confined to a sidewalk because the field is muddy and slick, and we don’t want anyone to fall. I did ask one of the history teachers/assistant football coaches to dovetail with us for this project, but he waffled, reminded me that it’s still football season, and said, “Sounds complicated. Did you get school board approval for this?”

There’s been a knot in my stomach ever since. Do teachers go running to the school board every time they want to do a class activity? Principal Pevoto knows about our
Underground
project…sort of. I’m just afraid he’s not fully processing the scale. He always has a ton on his mind and is moving so fast it’s like talking to a buzz saw.

I wish Nathan were here. The kids keep asking about him. After our awkward brush with his uncles and the blondes last week, chatter and speculation is all over town. When Nathan took me home, he mentioned that he’d be tied up the latter part of this week and through the weekend. He didn’t give me a reason; he wasn’t really in the mood to talk. Eating barbecue while half of the town whispers about you will do that.

I haven’t seen him since a week ago Thursday, though I finally broke down and dialed his number a couple times, then hung up before the answering machine could beep. Yesterday I left a message about tonight’s rehearsal. I keep glancing around, hoping he’ll show. I know it’s silly and right now I’ve got bigger things to worry about.

Like Lil’ Ray, sneaking across the practice field—if a 280-pound teenager can sneak—attempting to join the group late without being noticed. LaJuna trails along in his shadow, carrying what I assume to be their cardboard gravestones. She’s wearing a ruffly pink prom dress with a hoop skirt petticoat underneath and a white lace shawl. He’s wearing slacks and a fancy paisley silk vest that might be someone’s long-outdated wedding attire. A gray jacket and top hat are carefully crooked in his arm.

Their costumes aren’t bad—Sarge mentioned helping LaJuna with hers—but their tardiness nags at the back of my mind. The two of them jostle and bump up against each other as they blend into the group. I watch her hang on his arm, possessive, pleased with herself. Needy.

I understand where she’s coming from. My own memories of those early teen years are real and fresh, even though they’re over a decade old. So is my awareness of the potential risks. My mother started making me aware long before I was LaJuna’s age. She wasn’t shy on topics of sex, teenage pregnancy, the problem of bad choices in relationship partners, of which she’d made quite a few over the years. She was quick to point out that the thing girls in her family did best was get pregnant early, and with loser guys who weren’t mature enough to be decent fathers. That was why she’d left her hometown. Even that didn’t save her. She still got pregnant with the wrong man…and look where that landed her. Stuck working her tail off as a single mother.

The trouble was, it hurt to hear that. It reinforced all my insecurities and the fear that my very existence in this world was an inconvenience, a mistake.

Maybe you should have a talk with LaJuna.
I shuffle this to my mental in-basket, along with a dozen other things.
And Lil’ Ray. Both of them.

Are teachers allowed to do that? Maybe discuss it with Sarge, instead.

But right now we have a rehearsal to accomplish or a graveyard pageant to cancel, one or the other.

“Listen!”
I yell over the noise. “I
said,
listen! Stop
playing
with the lanterns. Stop talking to each other. Stop hitting each other over the head with tombstones. Put the little kids down and quit tossing them around. Pay
attention.
If you can’t, then let’s all just head home. There’s no point going any further with the
Underground
pageant. We’ll just settle for research papers and presentations in class and be done with the whole thing.”

The rumble dies down a little, but only a little.

Granny T tells them to hush up, and she means it. She’ll report to their mamas about how bad they’ve been. How they wouldn’t listen. “I
know
where to find your people.”

It helps a bit, but we’re still a zoo. Some kind of wrestling match is breaking out on the left side of the group. I see boys jumping up and doing headlocks and laughing. They stumble and mow over a couple seventh graders.

You should’ve known this would happen.
My inner cynic delivers an opportune gut punch.
Unicorns and rainbows, Benny. That’s you. Big ideas.
The voice sounds a lot like my mother’s—the mocking tone that frequently sharpened the edge during arguments.

“Cut it
out
!” I yell. I notice a car driving along the street at the field’s edge. It drifts by, the driver leaning curiously out his window, scrutinizing us. The knot in my stomach works its way upward. I feel like I’ve swallowed a cantaloupe.

The car on the street turns around and cruises past again. Even more slowly.

Why is he looking at us like that?

A shrill whistle pierces the air behind me and bisects the chaos. I turn to see Sarge striding around the school building. I thought she was tied up babysitting tonight, but I’m insanely glad that reinforcements have finally arrived.

Her second whistle rises above the din and splits eardrums. It achieves an admirable degree of crowd noise reduction. “All right, you oxygen thieves, it’s cold out here, and I’ve got better things to do than
stand around
and watch
you morons
jump on each other. If this is the best you’ve got, you are a
waste
of time.
My
time. These
ladies’
time.
Ms. Silva’s
time. You want to act like losers, then go home. Otherwise, clamp your jawbones to the tops of your mouths, and
do not
release them unless you have raised your hand high and Miss Silva has called on you. And do not raise your hand unless you have something intelligent to say. Is that understood?”

There’s complete silence. A pure, unadulterated hush of glorious intimidation.

The kids hover on a razor’s edge. Leave? Go do whatever they’d normally be doing on a Saturday night in October? Or knuckle under to authority and cooperate?

“I can’t
hear
you,” Sarge demands.

This time, they answer in an uneasy, affirmative murmur.

Sarge rolls a look my way, grumbles, “That’s why I’m not a teacher. I’d already be grabbing ears and knocking heads together.”

I pull myself up like a rock climber after a fall to the bottom of a canyon. “Well, do we quit here, or do we go on? You guys decide.”

If they leave, they leave.

The reality is that nobody expects much at this school, anyway. Pick any hall, half of the teachers are just coasting by. All that’s really required is that the kids are kept from making too much noise, wandering loose, or smoking on campus. It’s always been that way.

“We’re sorry, Miss Pooh.” I don’t even know which boy says it. I don’t recognize the voice, but it’s one of the younger ones, a seventh grader, maybe.

Others follow once the logjam is broken.

A new direction takes hold. Sarge’s oxygen thieves turn away without further instruction, and take up their tea light lanterns, sort out their tombstones, and find their places on the field.

My heart soars. I do my best to hide it and look appropriately stern. Sarge stands at ease and sends a self-satisfied nod my way.

We progress along with the program, not like a well-oiled machine, but we sputter through as I walk around, simulating an audience.

Lil’ Ray has crafted two tombstones for himself. He is his five times great-grandfather, born to an enslaved mother at Goswood, eventually becoming a free man, a traveling preacher. “And I learned to read when I was twenty-two and still a slave. I sneaked off in the woods, and I paid a free black girl to teach me. And it was very dangerous for us both, because that was against the law back then. You could get killed and buried, or whipped, or sold off to a slave trader and marched away from all your family. But I wanted to read, and so I did it,” he says, and punctuates the sentence with a definitive nod.

He pauses then, and at first I think he’s forgotten the rest of his story. But after the barest breaking of character and a slight twitch of a smile that says he knows he has the audience enrapt, he takes a breath and continues. “I became a preacher once black folks could have their own churches. I was the one who built up many of the congregations in this whole area. And I’d ride the circuit to different ones all the time, and that was very dangerous, too, because, even though the patrollers of slavery days were gone away, the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the White Camellia were on the roads instead. I had a good horse and a good dog, and they’d warn me if they heard somebody or smelled somebody. I knew all the places to hide and all the people who would hide me, too, if I needed it.

“And I married the girl who had taught me to read. Her name was Seraphina Jackson, and she used to worry to death when I was gone from our cabin in the swamp woods. She’d hear the wolves sniffing and digging around the walls, and she’d sit up all night with a big rifle we had found by a stone fence on a old battlefield. Sometimes, she’d hear gangs of troublemakers go by, too, but they did not menace her or my children. Why? Because the reason she was a free woman before emancipation is, her daddy was the banker.”

Lil’ Ray alters his posture, puffs his chest, puts on his top hat, and changes tombstones. His lashes droop to half-mast and he eyes us down his nose. “Mr. Tomas R. Jackson. I am a white man and a rich man. I had seven slaves in my big house in town, and years later when it burned down, that’s the land where the Black Methodist Church and the library got built. But I also had three children with a free black woman, and so they were free, too, because the status of the child followed that of the mother. I bought a house for them and a sewing shop for her because the law wouldn’t let us marry. But I didn’t marry anybody else, either. Our sons went to college at Oberlin. Our daughter, Seraphina, got married to a freedman she taught to read and so she became a preacher’s wife, and she took care of me when I got old, too. She was a good daughter and she taught lots of people to read until she got too old and couldn’t see the letters anymore.”