Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1: The Best Critter God Made
Chapter 2: Time the Trickster
Chapter 3: Snared!
Chapter 4: Wiggling out the Noose
Chapter 5: The Apocky-Lips Come A-Knocking
Chapter 6: Bit, Chawed On, Swallowed, and Spit Back Out
Chapter 7: The Education of Little Charlie Bobo
Chapter 8: Into Dee-troit
Chapter 9: The Informer
Chapter 10: Catching the Thieves!
Chapter 11: Savages
Chapter 12: Fixing to Go to Canada
Chapter 13: The Big Cleanup
Chapter 14: Canada
Chapter 15: Cat-Hauling
Chapter 16: The Kidnapping of Sylvanus Demarest
Chapter 17: Lifting the Wool
Chapter 18: Folk in Canada Ain’t Right
Chapter 19: Dee-troit, One Week Later
Chapter 20: Never Looking Back
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Sneak Peek at Elijah of Buxton
Copyright
Dedicated with love and respect to the Curtii:
Habon, Ayaan, Ebyaan, and Libaan
“A journey is called that because you cannot know what
you will discover on the journey, what you will do,
what you will find, or what you find will do to you.”
—James Baldwin
Just outside of Possum Moan, South Carolina
August 1858
I’d seent plenty of animals by the time I was old ’nough to start talking, but only one kind worked me up so much that it pult the first real word I said out my mouth.
And ’cording to the only folks who was there to witness the whole fuss, the word kept tumbling outta me o’er and o’er for more’n half a day.
Long ’nough for Ma and Pap to wonder if I’d banged my head on something and got tetched. Long ’nough for ’em to start looking ’round for something to tie ’crost my mouth to hesh me up.
I don’t know what it was ’bout this critter that riled me so, ’cause when you holt it up next to other animals, there ain’t that much that’s spec-tac-a-lar ’bout it.
It ain’t nowhere near’s big as a b’ar. And it can’t knock the biggest, strongest man down with one swipe.
It ain’t nowhere near’s sly nor quick as a cat; it ain’t no good at all at mousing nor catching holt of birds without a lot of help.
And it ain’t got nothing as bad a rep-a-tation as a snake; it don’t get nowhere near the ’mount of talking ’bout in the Bible that snakes do.
I’d seent all them critters and plenty more, but it wasn’t till Pap set the puppy that growed up to be Pinky next to me in the dirt of the front yard that I said, “Dog!”
I guess I done more than just say it; it’s tolt that I screamed, “Dog! Dog! Dog! Dog! Dog! Dog! Dog! Dog …”
Pap tells me, “Little Charlie, neither you nor the pup hadn’t showed signs of being nothing but dour and gloomish, but when we put you one next to the other … well, sir, it was though someone struck a flint on gunpowder! Sparks flew; y’all both made noises that neither pup nor babe had ever made afore, all the while rolling and laughing in the dust, then, like y’all had a talk ’bout it and took a vote, tore off in them woods together.”
Which was shocking, Ma and Pap said, since I hadn’t even started crawling proper.
Ma tells me, “We was worried sick ’bout you, Charlie. Why, if I had a penny for each person what axed me if you was a dimwit, I’d be rich as George Washington! I don’t know how many times I had to tell folks you was just a babe, and not five or six years old, that that was why you wasn’t walking or talking.”
I figger the real reason was I hadn’t seent nothing worth talking ’bout till I seent Pinky, and nothing worth getting up and chasing after till that particular minute neither.
Ma said the way I chased after that puppy brung to mind this contraption she’d seent at a fair in the city of Charleston when she was a girl.
“A automaton,” she called it. “ ’Twas one-half fancy pocket watch, one-half tin can, and one-half little boy, and it moved jus’ as stiff and wobblish as you done running after that puppy, Charlie.”
I don’t remember doing the talking, but the picture of that wiggling, squirming, wet-tongued, fat ball of fussing and fur is in my head so strong that it’s something I’m-a be pondering ’bout for the rest of my days. And I’m a real big ponderer.
When me and Ma is working the fields and the time’s dragging, I learnt to make myself think on things so’s I won’t go dim-witted. I seent what’s happened to Ma, how she keep on chopping or digging or weeding without doing no thinking. I seent how if you keep working without doing no thinking in the field, it ’come a bad habit and you can’t help but do it elsewhere too.
We look at it different.
She says the best way to get through working the fields is to make her head be still and quiet as a pond. I want mine to be a river crashing through a waterfall. I got to be thinking ’bout something or else my head’ll pop.
That’s how I figgered out why dogs has worked their way so far ’neath my skin; now that I’m older and had lots of chances to see and be ’round other critters, I think it come down to the eyes.
At that first meeting-up with Pinky, n’en one of us couldn’t talk, but we traded looks and both seent something one in the ’nother. When I looked in that puppy’s eyes, I seent myself looking back! Sure’s if her eyes was mirrors or a couple of shined-up silver cups. Not jus’ the ’flection of me, but something that said, “This here critter knows you.”
And I knowed when she was looking in my eyes she seent the same ’zact thing.
It didn’t take but a half a second, but that look’s what got us both to cavorting and carrying on so. And that’s a look that no animal, other than a dog, has ever give me since.
No other animal and not very many people neither.
* * *
Stanky, whose ma was Pinky, had give birth to a litter of six pups and they all lived. After they was ’zactly forty-nine days old, Pap said me and him had to look ’em o’er to see if there was a hunting dog in the bunch.
Pap tolt me, “A good dog is the same as a good person; they’s born that way, not made. Ain’t no silk purse ever been made out of a sow’s ear.”
The pups was squirming and sliding o’er one the ’nother, carrying on something fierce, nipping at anything that moved, not caring if they was biting their brother or sister or even their own selfs. Jus’ looking to get any kind of puppy meat that they could in them sharp pinnish teeth.
All their antics was first-rate nonsense to me.
I’d axed Pap, “But how can you tell if they’s gonna be any good hunting when they’s acting so coltish and foolish, Pap?”
“There’s a couple ways we do it.”
Pap brung one the wood crates out the shed and set it on the forest floor behind the cabin. Then we brung the pups and put ’em inside the crate. They was still so small that they had plenty room to move ’bout.
Pap said, “I’m thinking it’s that black one with the white spot on her tail. We’ll see how good my eye is.”
I couldn’t let Pap know, but that one’s name was Ashes.
When the pups had been first born, Pap got vexed with me once I started naming ’em. I couldn’t unna-stand why, but he’d made me stop.
I named ’em anyway and kept it to myself.
“Keep a sharp eye on ’em and tell me what you see.”
Pap had go
ne to the shed and brung out four of his bullets and his pistol. He kept ’em hid under the floorboards wrapped up in a fancy piece of thick purple curtain that had beautiful gold tassels sewed on ’longside the fringe.
The curtain was well knowed throughout all of South Carol-liney. It was so fancy ’cause Ma had bought it offen a woman who is the cousin of George Washington. The woman tolt Ma that George give a whole set of ’em to his wife, Martha, for her birthday and Martha got vexed, saying George had gone cheap on her, paying only five hunnert dollars ’stead of the five thousand dollars she was ’customed to having spent on her. She couldn’t ’bide having nothing so common in her home and sold the curtains to George’s cousin for next to nothing.
Ma had tolt me that meeting the woman was a sign that the luck of the Bobos was changing. She said in life, there was good luck followed by no luck, followed by bad luck, followed by tragical luck, followed by the luck of the Bobos.
Pap reached in the crate and pult out the first of the pups, Ashes. He flipped her on her back and helt her down by her belly.
She squirmed for a second, then set still.
Pap kept her pinned down.
After a bit she began tussling to get set free, even biting at Pap’s hand.
Pap shook his head and smiled.
He done the same with each of the rest of the pups.
Some of ’em fought like badgers to get up soon’s they was flipped, some of ’em jus’ laid there waiting to see what was gonna happen. Curly and Nippy done the same as Ashes.
Pap put ’em all back in the crate and unwrapped the pistol out the curtain.
He loaded it up with four bullets and raised it o’er his head.
I covered my ears.
Pap pulled the trigger and the forest shook from the boom.
Me and all six of them pups flinched.
Pap waited a second, then fired the next three bullets fast-fast.
Sagebrush, Ol’ Thunder, and Squalane kept on flinching with each shot that come, then pressed theyselfs into the corners of the crate, whining and spinning in circles.
Ashes, Curly, and Nippy was different. They come to ’tention after that first flinch and was staring up at the gun with their front legs stiff as stone and their chests all bowed out and their eyes burning. Their ears was perked up and, ’stead of being scairt by the noise, they was looking for more of it. These was the same three that stayed still at first when Pap flipped ’em but soon tired of the whole thing and fought.
Ashes was even making a huffing sound, as though she wanted to bark but wasn’t sure if she should.
I set to com-fitting the scairt puppies. I didn’t want Pap to know I’d disobeyed his orders, so ’stead of using their proper names I didn’t say nothing more than “It’s all right, li’l pup” and “There, there, girl.”
Pap laughed and shouted, “Man alive! That ol’ dog done birthed three hunters! Come on, boy; don’t tell your ma, but once they’s growed and I gets ’em trained, she gonna be getting a store-bought dress! And you’s gonna be getting some proper shoes! Three hunters outta one litter! We’ll keep one of ’em, and you get to decide which.”
I didn’t let another second get by; I said, “We’ll keep the one with the white-tip tail!”
Pap didn’t su-spect nothing. I said, “And I’m gonna call her Ashes,” which only made sense since that was already her name.
Pap roughed up Stanky’s neck and said, “What a dog!”
The next day, when me and Ma come out the field toward dusk, I was washing off at the pump. Soon’s she seent me, Stanky starts up doing something she ain’t never done afore. She gets to whining and rubbing herself ’gainst my legs, acting cattish!
I pushed her off twice, then on the third time, I was fixing to give her a good swat, but I seent how upset she was, so I helt up.
What come to mind was that one the pups must’ve got sick or maybe even died. Without drying off or nothing, I went ’round back of the shed to see if that’s what got Stanky so jumpy.
I looked down in the crate where she kept ’em and couldn’t believe my eyes. Only Ashes, Nippy, and Curly jumped up to give me greetings. Sagebrush, Ol’ Thunder, and Squalane wasn’t nowhere to be seent.
I looked to the woods and whistled for ’em, but nobody answered.
“Where they at, Stanky?”
She kept looking at me all pitiful, whining and sniffing at the crate.
I tolt Ma.
She cut her eyes and said, “They probably done run off, Charlie. Or maybe they was sick and Stanky took ’em out in the forest to let nature have her way. I don’t know, son, there’s other things to fret ’bout. Let me scare something up for you to eat.”
And even though I had my ’spicions ’bout what really happened to them three pups that had flinched with every shot, first thing after I woke up for two weeks straight, afore I went off to the fields, I’d stand behind the cabin and try whistling ’em up and calling ’em home.
I guess it mean ain’t no doubt I’m a Bobo; I didn’t have no luck at all.
Time moves different when something you ain’t ’specting to happen goes ’head on and happens anyhow. I seent where time goes from moving at the reg’lar pace to when it slides ’long on greased locomotive rails. I also seent where it slows right on down, like it’s fighting its way through a big invisible jug of molasses.
Trouble is I can’t never figger what it is that makes one thing move fast and the other slow.
For a sample, if you was to ax me afore I seent what happened to Pap, I never would’ve thought time could slow down in the way it done. It was something so turrible that I’d-a give anything to make it go by faster, or better still, make it so I didn’t never see it at all.
As ’shamed as it make me feel and coldheart as it sound, I wish I’d-a jus’ run ’crost Pap laying at the foot of that old maple with that big gash setting like a extra smile ’crost his forehead.
If I hadn’t been cursed to see what happened with my own eyes, it probably would’ve been nigh on useless to try and figger how my pap come to be laying there, but I’d trade being ignorant ’bout it in a hop, skip, and a jump if that meant the sight of him wouldn’t be barging into my dreams no more.
But I seent it, and unseeing something’s the same as unringing a bell; it ain’t never been done. I don’t care how much you want to get rid of the remembering, you might as well not fight it; you might as well jus’ go ’head and make yourself a holster, ’cause that memory is yourn and you gonna be toting it ’round for the rest of your life.
I ’member the minutes after Pap got knocked down as though I was watching it happening to someone else.
It was like I was watching some other boy ’stead of me picking Pap up and going o’er to Spangler with my pa in his arms.
I ’member thinking right off how the boy wasn’t gonna be able to get Pap on Spangler’s back long as the saddle was there.
I ’member seeing the boy, who I knowed was me, laying Pap down soft on the ground and how Pap’s eyes come open.
I ’member the boy closing Pap’s eyes and taking the saddle offen Spangler and leaving it in a tree so’s no one would interfere with it afore we come back.
I ’member the boy going and picking my pap back up and setting him ’crost Spangler’s back near his neck so’s Pap’s head and arms was hanging off to the right and his legs was throwed off to the left.
I ’member watching the boy climb up on Spangler’s back, being careful not to kick Pap when he throwed his leg o’er.
I ’member the boy finding jus’ how fast he could go without causing Pap no distress, but at the same time trying to fly.
I ’member the way Stanky’d jumped up whining and crying during the whole trip to Doc’s, licking at Pap’s hand, which was dangling and swaying loose and limp ’longside Spangler’s belly.
I ’member how thankful I was when the boy got to Doc’s house and fount him home.
I ’member the boy pulling Pap offen Spangler
and cradling him and carrying him inside like a baby.
I ’member how Doc called for Petey the dimwit and Josh Bowen to come give him a hand taking Pap away from the boy.
Then I ’member sitting on Doc’s couch, feeling I’d carried the weight of the whole world on my shoulders.
’Twasn’t long afore the sheriff come in and axed me to explain how Pap had got hurt.
On the ride back from Doc’s house, I wondered ’bout how I’d tell Ma what happened, but I’ll be blanged if I couldn’t think ’bout it for but a second or two afore I’d have to quit so’s not to bust out in tears.
I was jus’ gonna have to wait till I seent her and hope I’d find a way to say the words that I was sure was gonna jus’ ’bout kill my ma.
* * *
The cabin was empty. Even though it was Sunday, Ma was probably out in the fields trying to get a leg up on the weeding.
Me and Stanky started walking off to where we’d finished yesterday at dusk.
She seent me from ’bout a half mile off and waved her arm twice o’er her head afore she got back to digging out weeds.
After while, she stopped weeding mid-swing and looked back up at me.
She stood straight up, shaded her eyes with her right hand, then threw the rake to the side and commenced running at me.
I don’t know how she knowed so sure that something was wrong. And wrong in a big way. But she knowed.
She started up yelling when she was ’bout fifty yards from me, “No! Charlie! What happened? Where’s he at?”
Stanky ran out to Ma and commenced jumping and nipping at her. Ma swatted her away.
Ma got to me and set to slapping at me with both hands.
“What’s I s’pose to do now? What’s I s’pose to do?”
Stanky took to tugging at Ma’s shift, trying to pull her offen me.
I was froze. Ma kept swinging and slapping as though it was me who’d done something to Pap. I didn’t even bring my hands up to protect myself.
“I’m as good as dead! What am I to do?”
I tried wrapping my arms ’round her to pull her close, but that jus’ got her more and more vexed. She closed her fists and went from slapping me in the chest to throwing roundhouses and jabs at the side of my head.