Chapter 5 #2
“Ewww.” A symphony of disgust floated from the children’s lips.
“Aunt Zinnie, how’d you know those were snake eggs?”
I motioned Lovie’s Juniper and that little band of foragers closer. “Shape’s same as or different from a chicken’s?”
“Different,” Ella’s son, Nero, answered. “They’re like those cornbread sticks you and Mama and Aunt Lovie make.”
I nodded approvingly. “That would be an oval. How’d the shells feel?”
“Kinda soft like Tessie’s hide.”
I tapped Annabelle’s nose, affirming the accurate parallel she’d made with the Tollivers’ cow. “Soft like cowhide or leather, right? Not hard like the shell of a chicken’s egg.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“See those speckles?” I squatted on my haunches and pointed at the remnants of a shattered shell. “See how thin and see-through it is? These ain’t the eggs any of us wanna eat. They’re eggs of potential enemies.” I eyed our gathering of little bits, needing their full comprehension. “Understand?”
Their unified voices fell in soft waves of contrition and melodious “yes ma’am”s.
“Mama, we were only tryna help.”
Abigail added her lament to Annabelle’s. “We didn’t mean to make you mad, or for nothing bad to happen.”
I stood with the aid of the stick I’d wielded like a rampaging woman.
“I know that, little bit.” I smoothed my girls’ plaits and kissed their heads before looking at every child present.
“Your harvesting efforts are appreciated. But out here on this trail—same as in life—we can’t afford not to know the difference between what’s helpful and what’s harmful.
” I tapped my temple. “We gotta be shrewd. Wise. And we sho’ ‘nuff gotta see hurt hiding in plain sight. What if that snake mama came back while y’all was stealing her children? ”
I curved my fingers into claws and bared my teeth.
“She woulda had herself some supper.” My lunging with a growl sent them running away, screaming.
I grinned and took Hattie from Lovie when the children’s screams set her to fussing.
“Enough excursions for the day. Get y’all selves back on this trail and stay ahead of us where we can see y’all and know you’re safe. ”
Lovie and Ella stood beside me, chuckling as the children hurried ahead, obediently.
“How’d those scamps manage to get out of sight and go investigating?” I resituated Hattie in her harness and looked from Ella to Lovie, struck by our contrasts.
Hazel-eyed, sandy-haired with skin paler than honey, Ella was long, lean. Lovie was her opposite—cinnamon-hued and petite. Dull calico dresses didn’t hide their beauty. With my strong limbs and coarse braids beneath my kerchief, I was plain in their presence.
Lovie shrugged. “We thought they were up here with you. You probably figured they were back with us and they slipped off. They’re fine, Zinnie. Wipe that worry off your face. Got our hands full tending these herds, but the three of us’ll be more vigilant.”
What my sister mistook for worry was partly my missing and remembering.
Showing the children how to identify snake eggs took me back to the days when Mama Ruth and my stand-in mothers patiently taught me the magic of root working or how to be a handmaiden to life by catching babies. They’d shared their skills with tender insistence, leaving no room for ignorance.
Zinnie, these gifts ain’t nothing to play with. Roots heal. Roots kill. When you help a woman bring life into the world leave room for joy and disappointment ‘cause some births mean death. All the gift asks of you is for you to open your heart and hands and offer your best.
“Zinnie, you gonna scoop up some of that venom to make medicine?” Ella’s teasing interrupted my memories.
“Thank you, no. But you can gather some for your supper if you wish.”
Ella laughed despite shuddering at the sight of the pulpy mass near our feet. “I never ate no snake eggs, and I’m disinclined to start now based on this mess.”
“Zinnie, why you beat those eggs like that?” Lovie grimaced and held her belly, mouth twisted like she might get sick.
“Something wrong with it? You went and grew fond of snakes?”
“No, indeed.” My sister gathered her skirt and stepped away. “A dead snake’s the only good snake. But you walloped those eggs like they were proxy for something.”
“Maybe… someone. Not something.”
We turned towards the front of the caravan. Plantation people rode too far ahead to be seen, yet somehow their presence was felt. Dreaded even. If there was a blessing in walking this journey, it was the physical distance created by numerous wagons separating us from them.
Ella sucked her teeth as we fell in step. “If you was pretending those eggs were these Mississippi Saints, I say go’n back and bash ’em again.”
My snickers blended with theirs as I considered that fat-limbed branch in my hand and decided to keep it. On this precarious journey its solid heft could come in handy for protecting myself or my children.
My Annabelle and Abigail were big enough to sound an alarm and give a good fight if ever endangered.
But my baby was defenseless. I pounded the ground with that stick, willing to wield it like Jesus overthrowing tables in the temple to protect my children.
“I don’t plan on needing to hit nothing no time soon but,” I held it up, “I got a peacemaker if I do.”
“Good, ‘cause no telling what kind of critters we’re liable to meet up with now that we’re out here living like wild women. Y’all heard that coyote last night?”
“Lovie, sis, you must’ve been hearing in your sleep. That wasn’t no coyote yipping,” I contended. “That was a wolf. Howling.”
“Dear, Jesus! I thought I was dreaming.” Ella grabbed my arm and looked about as if that vocalizing creature of the night might be hiding nearby. “Lord, let it be a lone one. And don’t let it cross our paths again.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears.” I kicked a pinecone from the trail and watched it wobble away before eyeing the landscape.
The terrain had changed only slightly since leaving the homestead.
There were minor dips, manageable hills here and there, but we still traveled across mostly flatland.
Using that stick like a staff, I inhaled air that felt soft, clean.
The weather was mild and friendly, but my body felt traitorous if not persnickety.
I’m no spring chicken, but I’m too young to be feeling like somebody’s ancient woman.
It was mighty early in the journey and already I’d taken to wrapping my feet and lining my rough, disagreeable brogans with cloth to minimize the discomfort of walking from sunrise to sunset.
Yet, by midday my feet throbbed and mercilessly ached.
Come nightfall my legs felt next to worthless.
Pain didn’t prevent nighttime duties. Setting up camp.
Cooking for and serving the Tollivers before tending our own families.
Feeding and corralling livestock. All of that after walking dawn to dusk, the bulk of the time carting my little one.
My baby girl had taken to raising a fuss whenever I laid her in her basket on our oxcart. She’d wail so long and loud even Master Ryland caught wind of her discontent in the wagon at the head of our contingent and sent word for me to “hush that hollering!” as if at his wits’ end.
I knew to correct the matter, to keep her where she was most content. I’d tried placing her on my back, but she was too little as of yet. For now, I kept her safely strapped against my breasts, cocooned in my body warmth and close to nourishment.
With Lovie’s help, I’d refashioned Hattie’s cloth harness to be able to nurse her as I walked. Now, she slept as if kissed by angels and heaven.
I pushed a lock of hair from her forehead. “This child feels like she’s gained a new roll of fat since we left.” Wouldn’t be much longer before she’d be big enough to shift onto my back.
“With all that mama milk she probably has.” Ella frowned and stared at the sky. “I hope the sun isn’t thinking about hiding. The day’s cold enough already.”
Lovie kneaded her lower back, her apron pulling taut as she stretched. “Might get cooler still. Those clouds are drifting in like angry gray bolls of cotton. It might be fixin’ to rain.”
I sniffed the air. “Smells like it. Ella, stay back here with my waddling sister.” Lovie wasn’t too far in her pregnancy but her petite frame was already swaying side to side like geese headed to a pond.
“I’ma hurry ahead and pull out the hides in case it does get to raining so we can cover the children. ”
“You were waddling with Hattie in your belly not too long ago, Zinnie, so don’t be making fun of me.”
I chuckled at my sister’s censure and hurried forward, intent on being ready should heaven open and shower down on our heads even while praying that it didn’t.
Be merciful, Mother Nature, and blow these rain clouds right on past us. We have enough to contend with in our new vagabond existence.
We made it through the evening meal and had settled down for the night when the heavens decided its congregation of fat gray clouds wasn’t an empty threat.
What were breezes throughout the day swelled into wicked gales of wind whipping across the wide field, sending sheets of rain slanting sideways as thunder and lightning accompanied icy torrents.
“Mama, are you cold… or scared?”
Exhausted from the day’s trek, I lay huddled with my little bits on the rear of our oxcart doing my best to keep them warm and safe.
Despite the cowhide stretched across the top of the cart, Abigail’s thin whisper hinted that my efforts might have failed.
I reached across her to secure the end of the rough blanket we shared about Annabelle while answering my middle child’s question.
“How can I be when I’m with my favorite children? ”
“Favorite? You got more babies somewhere?” In another time and space Annabelle’s alarm might’ve been humorous, except the shattered hearts of too many slave mothers bore the indelible scars of a child being taken and existing elsewhere in the world without them.