He looked away, refusing to give an answer.
I went to the cave and held my breath as I pulled back the entrance covering. “Sukey,” I whispered, and a small mewling noise answered me. Sukey raised her head, then with a sigh, let it fall back again. An overpowering stench filled the cave, but I was drawn in, first by remorse and then by astonishment when I saw something suckling at Sukey’s breast. “Forgive me—” I began, but Sukey’s hot hand grasped my palm. “Water,” she scratched, and when she scratched it again, I realized the urgency. I couldn’t think of what to use for a receptacle until I remembered my leather slippers. Though wet and worn, they were largely intact.
Pan looked up as I exited the cave. “She needs water,” I said.
“I’ve been trying, but it don’t stay in my fingers. All night I was looking for something to put the water in.” He leaned his head on his knees and began to cry.
“I’m going to try to use my shoe,” I said. He didn’t follow me down to the water, but watched from his sitting position as I rinsed out my slipper as well as I could and then hurried back while cradling water in the awkward container.
When I lifted her head, Sukey’s skin felt hot and dry. Though a good deal of the water spilled down her neck, she drank thirstily, and I went back for more. When she was sated, I attempted to take the baby from her, but she shook her head and clung to it tightly.
I left her then, needing to escape the oppressive odor. Pan was still seated under the pine, but when I sat next to him, he turned his back to me. “Pan?”
“I don’t like you no more,” he said. “When I get outta this mess, I’m going to live with my daddy. He don’t have much, and he’s gonna whoop me for goin’ to the docks, but he don’t never leave me like that the way you done.”
“I’m sorry, Pan,” I said. “I don’t know what happened. I guess fear just got the better of me.” I shook my head in disbelief, remembering the overriding panic.
“You don’t know what happened? What happened is you run away, leaving Sukey and me here to die.”
“But I came back,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I care about you.”
“Phhh! I got a daddy who care about me! All I got to do is get back to find him.”
The truth came out. “Pan,” I said, “your daddy came with me to find you.”
He turned enough to give me a skeptical look. “He come with you? Then where is he?”
“He got sick up in Norfolk. I called in a doctor, twice, but he couldn’t help.”
He swung toward me in fury. “You saying he’s laying sick someplace? You run off and leave him, too?”
“No,” I said, realizing that I should have waited to tell him.
“Then where is he?” he demanded.
“I’m afraid that he died.”
Pan got to his feet and took a few steps away before he turned back. His dark eyes narrowed. “Why you saying that?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, Pan,” I said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you this now.”
“You saying my daddy come down here to slave country and he die? You telling me the truth?”
“Yes, Pan,” I said. “I’m afraid I am.”
His chin trembled as he fought for control. “You sure the slave catcher don’t get him?”
“No, Pan. He had a cough, and then he got very ill. I was with him when he passed away.”
“You was with him?”
“I was, and I was there when he was buried. When we get out of here, I can take you to see his grave.”
“I don’t want to see no grave!” he said. Slowly, he walked to the water’s edge, where he slumped to his knees. There he leaned in to himself and began a desperate call for his father.
I followed. “Pan, I’m sorry.”
“Go away,” he shouted, and struck out at me, and I knew then to let him be.
At a loss, I decided to see to Sukey and forced myself into the sickening smell of the cave to face the task of cleaning her up. Her torn petticoat lay beside her and she closed her glazed eyes after I tore loose a large piece and told her of my intentions.
I had not expected to see such a fresh amount of blood, and while my stomach heaved, I cleaned her as thoroughly as I was able. Off to the side, I found the umbilical cord attached to a small piece of what I guessed to be afterbirth. Though uncertain, I suspected there ought to be more.
I don’t know how many trips I made out to the water to rinse the rag, but only later, as I gathered moss to pack between Sukey’s legs in an attempt to stanch the blood flow, did I see Pan take notice.
During my ministrations, the baby gave an occasional soft mewl, but I didn’t touch it. It was impossibly tiny, and I was sure it could not survive for long. Finally satisfied that I had done all I could, I returned outdoors and went to sit beside Pan, who remained at the water’s edge.
“If she is to get well, I’ll need your help, Pan,” I said.
Pan sounded drained when he spoke. “That lil one so small, it can’t even cry. Those the kind that die. I saw it when I was helping Sukey in her sickhouse.”
“I agree that it looks weak, but we must do our best for Sukey. Can I count on you to help me out?”
“Wasn’t me who go running off,” he said bluntly.
“I won’t do that again, Pan,” I said.
“We’ll see,” he mumbled.
“Pan, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry about your father, but always remember that he was a good man.”
He kept his eyes away from me. “He was so good, then why did he always go running off and leave me and my mama?”
“He was scared, Pan. He was scared of getting caught.”
“I don’t hold with him leaving my mama to die like that,” he said.
“I know it doesn’t seem right, but I guess his fear of getting caught was bigger than anything else. I suppose I did the same thing last night. My fear just took over.”
He sniffed loudly before he turned to me. “And what was you so afraid of?” he asked.
I picked up a nearby twig and used it to poke at the mossy ground. “Pan, the truth is, I’ve been scared and running for most of my life.”
“What was you running from?” His voice was hard.
I took a deep breath. “To start with, when I was a young boy, I thought I was white. When I was just around your age, I found out that my mother was a Negro. Since then I’ve been trying to pass as a white man. It’s a secret that I’ve been hiding all of my life.”
“You saying your mama was colored like me?” he asked, his curiosity sparked in spite of himself.
“That is what I am saying,” I said, digging deep into the moss while he stared at me. “And we can’t return to Philadelphia because of it,” I added.
Pan’s thin shoulders sagged. “It don’t matter, Mr. Burton. We all gonna die out here anyway.”
His hopelessness startled me. I forced a confidence that I did not feel. “Pan! We’re not going to die! We will come through this, and someday you will be the man your father always knew you would be. We’ll get through this. I promise!”
“We’ll see,” he said, unconvinced, then clutched at his stomach as it growled audibly.
“This morning I ate some huckleberries,” I said, pointing to the abundant blue fruit. “They went right through me, so we can’t eat many.”
“I ate them, too,” he admitted. “But they make my stomach hurt.”
“If we’re going to be here until Sukey recovers, we’re going to have to eat something more substantial,” I said. “But I don’t dare try to get a fire going.”
“When my daddy got nothing else to eat, he eat grubs. Say they give you some get-up-and-go.”
“Let’s go find some,” I said, and though the idea was less than appealing, I knew their nutritional value.
The earth on this island teemed with oversize black beetles, and where there were bugs, there were grubs. We didn’t have to look far for decaying logs, and when I turned the first one over, there squirmed the large white larvae. Pan watched as I picked one up.
“You gonna try it?” he said, grimacing as I held it up.