Elijah of Buxton (28 page)

I knowed just like that that there was something terrible wrong inside this stable.

It waren't the horses, they smelt the same as Buxton horses. That waren't peculiar.

It waren't the smell of the straw on the floor neither, but I could tell that whoever's chore it was to keep it clean waren't changing it regular enough.

I could even smell that there was a goat or two somewhere in here … all those things were easy to tell and usual. But there was something else mixed up with the all-the-time stable smells, something that just waren't sitting right.

It waren't like a rat had curled up in a hole somewhere and died then commenced to swelling up and rotting, but it waren't far from that. Or like a mule had et something bad and was ailing and leaking sickness, but it was kind of akin to that.

It waren't one n'em sickroom smells neither, one n'em rooms they tell you you ain't got no choice but to go into and say good-bye to someone that looks like they should've died a year afore, but it waren't exactly the back side of that kind of stinking.

I didn't have much time to study on what the strange smell was 'cause my eyes started getting use to the dark and were picking out things, and when it comes to choosing to pay attention to your nose or your ears or your eyes, you gotta listen to your eyes every time.

Then my heart stopped beating, my blood ran cold, and time stood still! Someone was standing over at the other end of the stable!

I acted like a fawn all over again. I quit breathing and frozed all my muscles dead where they were at. Maybe whoever it was hadn't seen me.

My eyes were slow getting more use to the dark and, doggone-it-all, I started suspecting I knowed who I was seeing. At the other end of the stable was the Right Reverend Deacon Doctor Zephariah Connerly the Third, the stealer of dreams!

But, just like the smell in the stable, something waren't right about him.

He was watching me from the other end of the stable and I was pretty darn sure it was the Preacher, but as he real slow started getting more and more lit up and less and less gray and shadowish, I began doubting what I first saw.

He was being
too
still.

The Preacher always had something moving on him, either his hands or his legs or, most of all, his mouth. It just waren't sitting right seeing him standing there with his arms raised up on both sides of him and his head ducked down like he was studying something in the dirt. Or maybe that waren't it atall. Maybe he was doing the same thing I was doing, freezing every muscle so's I might not see
him
.

We both stood still, frozed that way for the longest time waiting to see which one was gonna move first. But finally my legs took to twitching and feeling that they were 'bout to bust out afire. The Preacher was better at this standing-still business than me. He didn't move a finger. He kept his arms up there patient as a rock, quiet as a scarecrow.

But something just waren't right.

I started stealing closer to him one slow step at a time.

Then I heard a humming sound so near to my left-hand side that my blanged legs and breathing frozed up all over again. Whatever it was that was making that sound was so close that even my eyeballs locked where they were at. I kept 'em straight ahead on the scarecrow-that-might-be-the- Preacher. Then, slow as maple sap on a cold day, I started sliding my eyes off to the left, off to the direction that the humming sound was coming from.

The only thing I could make out was that someone had leaned some dark bundles or sacks up 'gainst the left hand side of the stable. There were five of 'em all sitting the same space apart one from the 'nother.

The noise commenced again, sounding like someone fishing 'round trying to figure which song they were 'bout to hum.

I knowed I best quit holding my breath, else I was gonna be forced to breathe in so hard it'd make a racket. I eased air back into me like a bellows being pulled open slow and easy.

I moved my eyeballs just the tiniest bit more and saw exactly what it was that was making that music humming sound.

It was one of the bundles!

I ain't never gonna know if it was 'cause of the slow way air was sliding back into me or if it was 'cause my eyes finally could make out what they were seeing, but my head got light and afore I could do anything my senses took off, squawking and flapping away like a flock of pheasants in a field.

Next thing the stable floor felt like it was rising and dropping like a fresh-dried bedsheet being snapped and shooked afore it got folded.

The way things were jumping 'round and with my wits flewed away, it didn't make no sense to try to keep standing. I knowed I'd best get ahold of something till the floor steadied itself, else I'd pitch into the dirt.

But it was too late. I looked at the humming bundle again and saw that it had arms!

Four live, moving arms!

Two of 'em were tiny and mostly still and two of 'em were big and moving! I couldn't believe I'd come all the way to the United States of America to see my first haint!

I didn't have no chance to get ahold on to nothing, my legs gave out and I crumpled toward the ground. I'd gone and got myself right in the middle of being fra-gile again.

When your senses leave you sudden-like and you start falling, you don't have the time nor the notion to put your hands up so's not to hit your head. Everything goes limp and flops like okree. And since your head's the thickest part of you and most times leads the way down, it's always first to bust the ground. But this time, I did remember to keep my mouth shut.

Part of the floor must've had planks laid down in it, 'cause when my head hit, there was a loud sound like a axe chopping a thick oak. That one good hit to my skull made me see stars and it was
terrible
loud 'cause each and every one of those bundles that was on that wall came to life and unfolded itself with a powerful horrible sound!

The commotion they made when they moved was enough to wake the dead! Not from being loud, but from being terrorific. It waren't no human sound atall, but something 'bout it did bring people to mind. It was groans and rough breathing mixed up with the same noise that the chain on the dog outside had made. Which got me thinking I was soon 'bout to get ripped to shreds by the brothers and sisters of the dog that I'd chunked.

Only difference was now the sound was timesed by five and was added to a bunch of whimpers and the hard sucking in of air.

What I was seeing waren't five sacks atall, nor five dogs looking to settle scores for me chunking their brother, nor five evil spirits come to life. None of that. What I was seeing was worst than all those things totaled up together.

What was on the wall of the stable couldn't've been nothing but five squatted-down demons that had been captured and chained by someone who was sending 'em back to Satan so they couldn't snatch no one else's soul!

I looked over to where the Preacher was, hoping he'd do something to help but got my attention drawed back quick to the chained demons. The four-armed one that was humming made a shushing sound at the rest of 'em and started talking! Talking in English too!

It whispered out to me, “Hoo-hoo! Is you real or is you a haint?”

I lifted my head from the floor and without thinking what I was talking to said, “Pardon me, ma'am?”

She was the only one 'mongst the bunch that looked like a woman, and I ain't sure if it was the right thing to do to call a haint “ma'am,” but the word came out anyway.

As she got clearer- and clearer-looking, I wondered if she was a haint atall. She was starting to look just 'bout like a regular woman, but a regular woman that was afeared and had four arms.

But the way her eyes locked on me, I was pretty sure this
was
a regular woman. I also saw she didn't have no clothes on 'cepting a rag hanging 'cross one of her shoulders.

Seeing a growned-up person naked like that was so shocking that I snatched my eyes off her and looked down at the dirt in front of her feet. There were thick bands of iron hugged 'round her ankles connecting up to some locks and chains that were keeping her where she was at. I was just as embarrassed to see these chains as I was to see that she didn't have no clothes on. I looked at the others so's not to shame her.

The rest of 'em were men and they waren't wearing nothing atall, not even a rag. Their ankles were covered with the same kind of thick iron shackles as the woman's. Their eyes were all on me and they were looking just as scared and confused and surprised 'bout seeing me as I was 'bout seeing them.

The four-armed woman hissed again, “Is you a real boy?”

I waren't sure how to answer her. If she
was
a haint and thought that I
was
one too, she might not do nothing to me. 'Sides, who else but a haint's gonna have four arms? But if she
waren't
a haint and I told her I
was
one, maybe she'd put some kind a haint-killing conjure on me and I'd be dead anyway.

'Stead of looking at her, I put my eyes up in the rafters of the stable, which was easy to do since, whilst my mind was trying to figure out how to answer her question, I was still spread out on the floor being fra-gile. The waiting owl stared back down at me.

I figured I'd best answer her with the truth. I said, “Yes, ma'am, I'm a real boy.”

She whispered, “If you's a haint, get on outta here. If you's a real boy, cut that foolishness and pick you'self outta that dirt!”

I tried to get back on my feet. I got up but kept my head down. A choky, coughing sound came from the woman and I couldn't help but look. The sound was too tiny for a growned woman to be making. I saw a little black head and two little black arms coming out of the rag that was stretched out 'cross her front. It was truly a load off my mind when I could tell that, even with it dark as it was in the stable, she didn't have four arms atall! She was a woman holding on to a baby!

Then I understood! These waren't no chained demons! These were five runaway slaves and a baby that had been caught! I knowed what they were but my head kept spinning anyway.

She said, “Boy!”

“Yes, ma'am?”

She said, “If you's real, go by them horses in that stall behind you and fetch that bucket of water, but keep heshed! One n'em paddy-rollers be over yon lickered up.”

I looked to where she was pointing and saw another bundle on the right-hand side of the stable. 'Cepting for the shotgun leaned up 'gainst him, you'd've never knowed it was a white man.

There was a leather bucket hanging from a nail so I went and brung it and the drinking gourd that was next to it over to where the woman with the baby was squatted down.

She reached out and touched my hand like she was making sure I was real, then said, “Thank you, boy!” She dipped the gourd in the water and propped the baby up so's it could get a drink.

The baby hadn't showed no signs of being alive past a cough or two but once it saw the water it sprunged up and commenced kicking its legs straight out and clawing at the gourd and sucking and slurping and lapping at the water like it hadn't had nothing to drink in two years.

The sound of the baby going at the water stirred the men up something fierce. Two of 'em reached their hands out at me and strained up 'gainst their chains so's to get close to the bucket as they could.

The woman mashed her finger 'gainst her lips and said, “Hesh them chains! You wants to wake that white man and get this here boy killed? They's plenty water here, just you wait!”

She waved her hand 'round a lot whilst she was talking to the men, like they couldn't hear her good.

She eased the gourd away from the baby and said, “There now, darling. Go slow. Ain't no point making you'self sick.”

But the child waren't having none of her cautions. It snatched back at the gourd and bit on the side of it, breathing in water, splashing its mouth 'round like a sparrow in a puddle.

The baby commenced coughing again and the woman took the gourd away. She dipped it back in the bucket and took a long pull herself. Two more times she did this, draining the gourd dry then taking a breath so deep and so hard that it brung to mind someone who'd dived under a lake then come back up right afore their lungs were 'bout to bust.

She said, “Thank you, thank you kindly. Now give them men some.”

I stepped over to the man closest to her and set the bucket in front of him. He looked at it then looked up at me. He raised his hands and I saw that his arms were tied up with heavy chains that were dangling off of his wrists.

I didn't know what to say or do.

Ma and Pa and all the growned folks in the Settlement had told us plenty of stories 'bout folks in chains afore, and a couple of people in Buxton even have thick, shiny scars on their ankles and wrists from wearing 'em, but seeing the chains real waren't the kind of thing you could imagine. It waren't the kind of picture that words could paint.

Maybe the growned folks were trying not to scare us when they told stories 'bout folks being chained up, 'cause judging by the way these people looked, I knowed we waren't getting the whole story. I felt my legs getting unsolid and rickety all over again.

The woman said, “Boy! It's just
my
hands what's free so's I can tend my chile. Them men's arms is chained and they caint reach they mouth. You's gunn have to help 'em.”

I dipped the gourd into the water and raised it to the man's lips so he could drink. His eyes were blood red and swole up and crusted so's you'd've thought he'd had a good, long, hard cry. But there was something in his eyes that told you that this waren't the kind of man that was likely to be bawling, no matter what happened to him.

Things had run out of his nose and were making the hair on his lip look gray, but up close he seemed too young to be showing age that way. He was too strong-looking. He was one n'em men that's got every muscle poking right out of him, sort of like if he waren't careful they'd come ripping right through his skin.