The Book of Lost Friends - Lisa Wingate Page 0,122
Confederate army. Why? I don’t know. His sister Louisa, after the war is over, she gets married to the man who was her owner. Did they fall in love or did she have to do it? I don’t know. Like I said, my Tales from the Underground is ace.”
“Yeah, well mine’s so ace, it’s, like, triple ace,” Lil’ Ray claims, then senses the possible rub of the Negativity Rule. “I didn’t say his was bad, though. Just that mine’s ace. Hard-core, y’know? I got my people traced way back. I got stuff from the Library of Congress in my project.”
“My people were here before any of y’all’s people,” protests Sabina Gibson, who’s actually on the rolls of the Choctaw tribe. “I win no matter what y’all find out. Unless you got, like, cavemen in your papers or something.”
A battle of dueling ancestors ensues. It follows us past a lovely marble pedestal that holds the AUGUSTINE CARNEGIE LIBRARY sign, and up the concrete steps.
The group collects at the ornately molded doors, undoubtedly shiny brass at one time but now streaked with a sad patina of disuse. I shush the chatter before we head inside. I want the kids to practice reasonable library etiquette, even though the place will most likely be empty, save for our helpers from the New Century ladies.
Lil’ Ray protests in a whisper that it was his idea to show the guy his project; therefore, he should get first dibs on our guest.
The guy doesn’t answer, but looks at me in a way that says he’s amicable to whatever we decide.
I realize I haven’t made introductions, and while a few of these kids may realize who Nathan is, most of them don’t know him. I introduce him, but as soon as I speak the name, the buoyancy of the group drops as if our collective shoes are slowly filling with cement. A silent undercurrent of apprehension stirs in our midst. A few suspicious glances slant his way, and a few curious ones. The Fish girl cups her hand and whispers in her friend’s ear.
Nathan looks like a man who would prefer to walk back down the steps, leave this town behind, and never return. But something stops him—the same something that has brought him here today.
I suspect neither of us knows quite what that something is.
CHAPTER 21
HANNIE GOSSETT—TEXAS, 1875
Missy Lavinia rocks on the bunk and cries and moans in the dark. She’s wet herself because she won’t use the slop jar in the corner, and carried on so much about it she retched up what was in her stomach, too. This whole low-slung jail building has gone to stinking. The night’s so still, no air moves through the window bars to take out the smell.
How’d I end up like this? I ask myself. Lord, how’d I end up here?
The man in the next cell complains of the noise and the stink and beats on the wall twixt us and tells Missy to quieten down, she’s near drove him crazy. Heard the deputies bring him in a couple hours past sundown—a liquored-up fool that’s got hisself in trouble for stealing horses from the army. The sheriff of Fort Worth is waiting for the army to come fetch him. He’s a Irishman, by the way he talks.
In the dark, I sit and finger the place on my neck where Grandmama’s blue beads should be. I think of Mama and how everything’s gone wrong since I lost the beads, and now maybe I’ll never meet her or any of my people again in this world. Lonely perches like a buzzard on my head. It pecks at my eyes so all I can see is a blur outside the window as the half moon blows its breath over the stars, dimming them down.
I’m the alonest I’ve ever been. Last time I was locked up was when I was six years old, after I told my purchaser at the auction sale that I was stole away from Goswood Grove. Even though I was just a child, alone and scared in that jail after being turned over to the law for safekeeping, at least I had the hope that Old Gossett