He holds the picture of a cowboy on a tall yellow horse and whistles long and low. “It sure is purdy. Tell me how the tale went. Was there lotsa shootin’?”
He sits down, and I sit down with him. I want to share all about the movie Mrs. Sevier took us to and the theater with its big red velvet seats and tall towers that looked like they should’ve been on a king’s castle. But there isn’t time to talk about those things. Not today. Not with what’s happened. I have to get Arney to say yes to what I asked him yesterday.
The moon will be full tonight, and on the water it’ll be almost bright as high noon. With Arney’s brothers gone, there won’t be a better time. I can’t let Mrs. Sevier drag us off to Augusta. I can’t let Miss Tann make us go back to the home. And besides that, Fern’s starting to think of Mrs. Sevier as her mama. Little by little, her mind’s letting loose of our real mama. At bedtime, I sneak over to Fern’s room and tell her about Queenie and Briny, but it’s not working anymore. Fern’s forgetting the river and Kingdom Arcadia. She’s forgetting who we are.
It’s time for us to go.
“So, what we talked about yesterday. You’re gonna take us, right?” I ask Arney. “Tonight. The moon’ll be up early and long.” You don’t live all your life on the river without knowing how the moon travels. The river and its critters choose their moods according to the moon.
Arney jerks away like I’ve slapped him. He pinches his brown eyes closed. A shock of thin, reddish-brown hair falls across his forehead and parts over his long, bony nose. He shakes his head in a nervous way. Maybe he never meant to help us at all. Maybe it was just big talk when he said he could run his daddy’s boat and he knows how to get through the oxbow lake and Dedmen’s Slough all the way to the big river.
But I told him the truth about Fern and me. The whole story. I even gave him our real names. I thought he understood why we needed his help.
He rests his elbows on his dirty overalls where his knees poke through. “I’d sure enough miss ya if’n you’z gone. Y’all been the only thang good ’bout this place so far.”
“You can come with us. Old Zede’s fetched up lots of boys. He’d take you on, I bet. I’m sure he would. You’d never have to see this place again. You could be free. Just like we’re gonna be.” Arney’s daddy drinks every night, and works his boys like sawmill mules, and beats on them all the time, especially Arney. Hootsie saw Arney get whopped upside the head with a hammer handle just for bringing his daddy the wrong peck of nails. “And either way, the pearls are yours, just like I promised.”
I dig in my pocket and pull them out and hold them in my hand where Arney can see. I feel bad about the pearls. Mrs. Sevier gave them to me the night after she took Fern to get fitted for the special shoes. She thought it was my birthday on account of that’s what the papers from the Tennessee Children’s Home Society said. The Seviers figured I’d forgot all about it being my special day, and they surprised me with a party at supper. I was surprised all right. My birthday was five and a half months ago, and I’m already a whole year older than they think I am. But my name isn’t May Weathers either, so a birthday in the fall didn’t matter too much to me.
The pearls are the prettiest things that have ever been mine, but I’d give them up for Queenie and Briny and the river. I’d hand them over quick as a wink.
Besides, Arney needs the price they’ll fetch more than I do. Half the time, they’ve got whiskey but no food in their camp.
Arney touches the pearls, then pulls his hand away and picks at a scab on his knuckle. “Awww…I couldn’t leave my fam’ly. My brothers ’n’ such.”
“Think on it real hard. About staying on the river with us, I mean.” Truth is that Arney’s brothers are practically grown, and they’re just about as bad as Arney’s daddy. Once they get tired of working like dogs and finally decide to light off, Arney’s likely to starve to death or get beaten till he breaks right in two. “Briny and Queenie can find you a place, I promise. They’ll be so happy you brought Fern and me back, they’ll find you a really good place. If Zede’s not there at Mud Island anymore, you can stay with us on the Arcadia till we come across Zede again.”
A little worry sliver pokes under my skin. Really, I haven’t got any way of being sure Briny and Queenie are still tied up in our same spot…except that I just know. They’d wait there forever if they had to, even though the nights are getting cooler, and the leaves are falling, and it’s time to be headed south down the river to warmer country.
What I’m afraid won’t go easy is getting Briny and Queenie to cast off once Fern and me are back on the Arcadia.
Has Silas told them that only me and Fern are left, that Camellia’s gone and Lark and Gabion are far away? Do they know?
I can’t think about it too hard, because it hurts. Don’t borrow trouble from round the bend, Briny always said. Right now, I just have to concentrate on getting down the slough to the big river. From there, we’ll stay close to the shore and watch out for the wakes off the boats and the barges…and keep an eye on the drift piles and strainer trees and such. Many’s the night here at the Seviers’ house, I’ve climbed way up in the cupola and looked out. I can’t see the river from there, but I can feel it. I’m sure I hear the foghorns and the whistles, far off distant. At the edge of the sky, I can see the Memphis lights. From what Arney’s told me, I figure the slough that drains off this lake must hit the Old Man River someplace between the Chickasaw Bluffs and the bars upwater from Mud Island. Arney’s not exactly sure, but I can’t be wrong by much.
Arney nods, and it’s a relief. “All right. I’ll take ya. But it’s gotta be tonight. No way of knowin’ when my brothers’ll git back.”
“Good. Fern and me will sneak down here soon’s the moon comes up over the treetops. We’ll meet you at the boat. You be sure your daddy gets into his whiskey early this evenin’. Let him eat real good too. That’ll make him sleepy. I’ll check that Hootsie brings down plenty of food for supper.” That won’t be hard. All I have to do is tell our new mommy the boy here in the camp is hungry and didn’t have enough to eat. She’ll make Zuma rustle up extra.
Mrs. Sevier has a heart that’s soft as a dandelion puff. It’s just as fragile too. I don’t want to think about how she’ll get by once we’re gone. I can’t think about it. Queenie and Briny need us too, and they’re our folks. It’s simple as that. There’s no other way to look at it.
It’s time for us to go.
Arney nods again. “All right. I’ll be there at the boat, but if’n we’re to trek downriver together, they’s somethin’ you oughta know first. Might be it’d change some thangs.”
“What’s that?” My breath hiccups a little.
Arney’s bone-thin shoulders lift and fall, and he cuts a narrow look at me before coming out with it. “I ain’t no boy.” He unbuttons his shirt neck, which isn’t much more than rags anyhow. There’s a strip of dirty old sack muslin wrapped around under there like a doctor’s bandage, and Arney ain’t a boy. “Arney’s for Arnelle, but Daddy don’t want nobody knowin’ it. People won’t cotton to me workin’ if’n they find out.”
Now I’m sure more than ever that Arney needs to stay down the river with us. On top of the fact that he’s a she, and this is no kind of life for a girl, there’re bruises all over her skinny body.
But what’ll Zede say about a girl on his boat?
Maybe Briny and Queenie will let us keep Arney on the Arcadia. Somehow, I’ll make a way. “It don’t matter if you’re a girl, Arney. We’ll find you a place. You just be ready tonight once the moon’s over the trees.”
We pinky-promise on it, and then Arney’s daddy hollers for her from the other side of the trees. Lunch is over.