I said, “It is nothing but Ma’s wee duppy charm. Back of every petticoat.”
“Maybe you need to give me a duppy charm,” she said. “Maybe you got more charms dan dat. Maybe I keep quiet about ’em shiny golden charms and you could keep de res’ if you shared but one. Duppies never harm no one dis far away.”
Patience raised her eyes to look at Cora’s face and said, “I shared our food when you were starving.”
“Share one t’ing more. You Massa’s daughter. You live on de backs of my mother and my gran. You ne’er eat a crumb dat someone else didn’t hand-make and bring to you. All I got to do is say it loud and mens take it all from you.”
Was Cora one of our slaves? I did not know her at all. She must have always worked in the fields or someplace away from the house. She had seemed so decent when we were in the cage together. Yet if she belonged to Pa, she belonged to us now. Patience glared at Cora. I did not dare let down my posture of defense. “How you change so from what you seemed on the ship. I thought you were our friend. Our companion.”
“You don’ share with a friend?” she asked. “Den you lets me wear dat and be warm for a whiles. I give it back to you in a whiles.” She laid her hand on Patey’s cape and I saw her fingers wrap themselves into it and hold tight.
“Cantok!” I said. Cora jerked her hand away from Patey’s clothing as if there had been a thorn in it.
A voice broke the air among the three of us. “You!” Uncle Rafe said, coming for us. I cringed and held Patey’s hand, ready for him to clutch at me again. Yet the arm he jerked was Cora’s. “You come this way.”
He pulled her down the path. As she went, Cora turned and looked toward us. She grimaced as if she might start to cry and Rafe gave her a shove. Two men, one old, one younger than my pa seemed, stood at a short fence with a horse and a small donkey by them. They gave Uncle Rafe coins that he counted, and when he was finished, he tooth-marked two of them.
I expected the men would ride the horse and put Cora on the donkey. Instead, they tied her hands with coarse rope and bound the other end to the saddle of the horse. The young man got on the horse. The old one swung himself onto the donkey, his feet dragging the ground. Cora walked alongside, her face toward the road. Under her skirt, rotted and torn off at the hem so it was shorter than was decent, I spied Patience’s shoes moving along on Cora’s feet. She never looked up as they passed us.
I wanted to call out “Farewell!” but I did not. I had known her kindness longer than I had known her greed, and the part of Cora that I would miss was indeed the good part. At least, thank heaven, she did not say anything to give away our secret. The rest I did not try to understand just then, for we were compelled to get into two lines and walk the road.
We walked until the air darkened, for no sun set. Staying off sharp stones, thorns, rough clay, and horse droppings occupied my mind fully. I could sing no more. All my strength went to putting one foot ahead of the last. We stopped at a place that was more of a cave than an inn. After they barred the door they gave us potatoes boiled with milk and herbs. For me it tasted wonderful, but Patience could not keep it down and as we had sat where we stood before, she leaned over on the floor to be sick.
They bade us lie side by side on damp ground, and for coverings against the cold, tossed a few old flea-bitten skins upon the lot. With some tugging and grunting, the skins moved about and covered perhaps half the women. A few of them set up a squabble and exchanged blows for the rights to a filthy old hide. I lay low, ducking the fists swinging over my head, and tried to lie as close to Patey as I could. The men prisoners were across the room. A man from the inn stood to guard us with a musket. One of the older women asked him the name of this place. “It has no name,” he said. “It is just a place.”
Then one of the men asked him where we had landed, and the man said that we came ashore around the heel of Casco Bay. And where we were now was outside of Harraseeket. A woman on my left side said, “Ain’t that jus’ like ’em? Won’t tell a woman nothing but has all the time in the world for a bloke.”