A Free Man of Color - Barbara Hambly [117]
“There was a k-kind of Turk in an orange t-turban,” he went on after a moment. “He was in the c-courtyard. I remember thinking his t-turban looked like a p-pumpkin under the lanterns in the trees. And as I c-came down the steps I s-saw Angelique’s little f-f-friend, C-Clemence. She was st-standing in the courtyard, looking for s-someone. But I c-couldn’t stand to talk.”
His face contracted again with sudden pain, and he turned away. “Duh-duh-don’t … Don’t let my father know I s-said all this,” he whispered. “I have to g-go. I have to be out at the w-woodlot now. I just wuh-wuh-wanted you to know I d-didn’t … I d-didn’t kill her. Do you believe me?”
“I believe you,” said January. You cowardly little wretch. And, hearing the anger in his own voice, the threat of sarcasm fighting to rise to the surface, he added humbly, “Thank your father for me. And thank you.”
“It’s all I can d-do,” said the boy softly. “I hope … I hope your friends c-can find who really d-did it. I hope what I’ve t-told you is some help. Because I c-can’t even c-confess this, you know? I cuh-cuh-can’t … I cuh-can’t c-confess that I left her alone.”
You’re condemning me to exile from everyone I know, thought January, as the door closed behind Galen, the labored squeak of the bolt echoed again. From the only home I have. And you expect me to pity you because you can’t confess?
Have your own nightmares, boy. I’ll shed a tear for you on my way back to New Orleans on foot.
He turned back, gritting his teeth hard as the steel arms of Christ’s cross pressed, then grated, in the raw meat of his palm, and began to gouge at the clay once more.
“Boss-man say, Gonna sell that big black boy,
Boss-man say, Gonna sell that big black boy.
Tell the Big Boss he run off in the night,
But take him out, take him on up to Natchez
town …”
January swung around, heart pounding hard at the sound of the thin, wailing song beneath the jailhouse window. A woman singing, he thought, standing in the near-complete early darkness of the evening, her voice almost hidden by the singing of the hands as they came past on the pathway to the cabins.
Singing to him. There was no other reason for her to be there, close enough to the jail for him to touch, had he not been chained.
“Mama, take this food, hide it in the black oak tree,
Mama, take this food, hide it in the black oak tree,
Where the bayou bends,
My food, my boots, they wait for me …”
Something dark flashed between the bars of the windows; a moment later he heard the soft strike of metal on the packed dirt of the floor.
Uhrquahr, thought January, in a sudden flash of cold rage. So Uhrquahr had his own plans to benefit from the windfall his employer had too much honor to pick up.
The anger helped him. Exhausted, the agony in his hand sapping the rest of his strength, without that fury he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to tear free the loosened chain from the wall.
The thought of Uhrquahr did it, though. He wrapped the chain twice around his arm and wrenched, half-blind with anger, and the staple popped free with a force that sent him staggering into the opposite wall. He stumbled, fell, gasping and in a pain he had never experienced in his life, aching in every muscle.
And knowing that he wasn’t done yet, for he had to cut through the wooden bars.
He couldn’t even stand up to cross the cell to the window. On hands and knees, in the pitch dark, he crawled, back muscles crying out with agony as he swept the invisible dirt before him with his left hand. His right was a useless root of pain. He literally had no idea how he’d manage to cut the bars.
He knew he’d have to manage. There was food and his boots waiting for him in the black oak where the bayou curved—a short distance from the path that led back to Ti Margaux’s house, for he’d noticed the tree there. God knew how he’d get the spancel off his wrist or where he could get sufficient alcohol to keep