The spotted pony brings Deputy Granger and his probing eyes even with us again.
“I’m going to need to search you. You’re the only wagon on which they coulda hid. Might as well be thorough before I go home.”
Mr. Calloway’s shoulders slump, like he might be sighing. Then he calls, “Whoa, boys and girls, whoa now!”
I cast about for an escape, fear wringing my insides into a wet knot. The slivered openings on either side of the wagon reveal nothing but wide-open prairie.
I lean over and speak into Annamae’s ear, so low that I cannot even hear myself. “I will turn myself in. Pull the sheet over you and hide.” I squeeze her palm.
Our chariot, now our prison, staggers to a halt. Annamae pulls me back down as I start to rise, pointing to the crack on her side of the wagon. A weeping willow, one of spring’s first bloomers, drips down its branches not ten feet away.
The deputy’s boots thud on the grass as he dismounts.
“Going to take a moment to move my clock,” says Mr. Calloway.
We don’t hesitate. While Mr. Calloway pushes aside the heavy timepiece we scoot to the front of the wagon box.
“I’ll go around to the head,” says the deputy.
I nearly push Annamae out of the wagon in my haste.
“No need, sir. Here we are,” says Mr. Calloway.
I drop from the driver’s seat right after Annamae. In five tiptoes, we cover the distance to the shaggy green haystack. Its verdant curtain swallows us up.
Neither of us dares to breathe as we listen.
“Just doing my job, sir, thank you. Good luck to you,” says the deputy.
“And you,” says Mr. Calloway. “Giddap, boys and girls, giddap!”
His oxen moo in reply. The wagon groans as it pitches forward. Deputy Granger’s horse snorts, then pounds away, easily bypassing Mr. Calloway. Only then do I resume breathing.
After a few minutes, we peek through the branches. The trail is empty now. Beyond the trees, a rolling carpet of knee-high grass spreads out before us, but neither Annamae nor I want to venture into the open yet.
“May that be the last we see of the deputy,” I say.
“Amen.” Annamae stares up at the dome of green. The leaves rattle shhh as the wind stirs them. “God planted this tree right here for us.”
“Maybe it’s better to think of it as fate.”
She jerks back, as if I sneezed on her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, sometimes I wonder why God would grant a favor if trouble’s just waiting around the corner? It feels disingenuous. If it’s fate, then it’s written in the stars, and we can’t do much to avoid it.”
Her lips split apart, and I can see her opinion of me begin to plummet.
“I don’t mean any offense. I just mean, if God is benevolent—”
“God is benevolent, and it ain’t Christian to believe in fate, because He’s in charge of the stars, too.” She raises her eyes to the canopy and mutters, “Be merciful on the poor wretch’s soul. She’s going through a rough spell.” With that, she rummages through her saddlebag.
I drop the matter, for I don’t want her to think I’m a heathen. Though Father’s knowledge of Chinese beliefs was limited—he was brought to the states when he was only thirteen—he was just as adamant about passing them on to me as his Christian ideology, which he got from Pépère, my French grandfather. If they were important to Father, they were important to me, too, despite their inconsistencies.
Annamae offers me a canteen from her saddlebag, which I gratefully accept, though I refuse half a leftover sandwich. My stomach is still too wrung out to accept food. “You got a chamber pot in there? Because I could use one.”
She frowns. Here I thought her opinion of me could go no lower. Tilting her head to one side, she taps a worn fingernail against her chin. Whatever she’s going to say, I pray she says it soon since the river threatens to burst the dam soon.
Her frown fades into resignation. “I’ll show you a trick that’s cleaner than squatting. Pull down you’s trousers.”
I do it.
“Now, take my hands, and make like you’s gonna sit.” She pulls back, counterbalancing me, and in this position, I relieve myself without sloshing my boots.
“My turn,” she says.
When done, we find another spot under the willow and hunker down. Christening the ground seems to diffuse some of her annoyance at me, and her manner becomes easy again.
“It’s nice here. I been in St. Joe four years and never gone more than two miles.”
“Where were you before that?”
“St. Louis.”
“Your parents?”
“Barely knew ’em.” She speaks without emotion. “Only got two brothers. Tommy, the baby, he died when he was seven.” She shakes her head and glares at a shriveled leaf. “I tried to drown myself in the horse trough after that, but kept bobbing back up.”
“I’m sorry.”
She nods.
“What about your second brother?”
“That’s Isaac. Ain’t seen him in near five years, since I was eleven. He swore he’d get free before he turned twenty. That was”—she counts on her fingers—“five weeks ago. I gave up hope on seeing him, but then Ginny told me he’d meet me at Harp Falls.”
I remember that Ginny was Yorkshire’s Negress. My eyes pinch together. “How did she know that?”
“Isaac musta told someone to tell her. She’s like our messenger, knows lots of folks. She’s the one who told me I’d replace her, even helped me get my Moses wagon.”
“Oh. Did she tell you where is this Harp Falls?”
“Somewhere between here and California.” She wrinkles her nose. “So you’s from China?”
“My parents were, but I was born in New York.”
“Your mama?”