47

_17.

"Wake up, boy," someone said. "Wake up."

In my dream I was floating on a square raft down a wide river. The sun was glittering in my eyes and warming my skin with its bright rays. A great she-bear stood on her back legs at the shore and roared me welcome.

"Wake up, boy," a female voice said. She shook me gently but still the wounds on my back felt as if hot coals had been dropped on them.

"Ow!" I cried.

I opened my eyes to see Eighty-four sitting there in the glow of something like lamplight. It was a steady orange radiance emanating from the tripod that John had set up before he passed out. After a moment I realized that it must have been nighttime because out beyond the orange glow was darkness.

"You crazy, Eighty-four? We cain't have no light in the night. They'll see us out here."

"He said no," she whispered. "He said that they cain't see us 'cause'a his little lantern."

She didn't have to say who he was. I knew that John had set up some magic to protect us.

"He bettah?" I asked.

"Not hardly," Eighty-four said. "He crawled off an' said that he had to do sumpin' to make his legs an' arms not be so stretched out. I said that I'd help him but he bade me to stay here wit' you."

I figured that he was probably going to do something so strange that he thought he might scare Eighty-four. Maybe he was going to turn back into a tiny little orange and purple man, I thought. And then I wondered about that. How could I have gotten so far away from a slave's everyday life that I was thinking about magic and defying the white men that owned me? That wasn't me. I bowed my head when white men addressed me. I said yassuh and nawsuh whenever they asked me a question. How did I find myself in the night, half dead, thinking about magic and so deep in trouble that nothing I knew of could save my life.

"I love him," Eighty-four said.

"You do?"

"Uh-huh. He was so sweet to me them days that we picked cotton. He talked to me like he could see right in my heart. An' I know he felt sumpin' fo' me too."

"He said, 'that Eighty-four's a beautiful girl,'" I added.

"He said that?" She seemed amazed.

"Yes, ma'am. He said that you were just as pretty as Miss Eloise. And I do believe he's right."

Eighty-four grinned and leaned over to kiss my brow.

"You a nice boy," she said. "I sorry I was so mean to you that day we pick cotton."

"Shoot," I said. "Pickin' that cotton make a mad daws out of a bunny rabbit."

Eighty-four grinned some more and touched my cheek with her calloused palm.

"Maybe Numbah Twelve and you and me can get away somewhere where they ain't got no slaves," she said. "Maybe him an' me get married and we could raise you as our boy."

Even though I was weak and hurting I felt something grand about her including me in her dream. All John had to do was give her a few nice words and she changed from a sullen bully into a woman filled with hope.

"How are you, Forty-seven?" John asked then.

We both turned and saw him emerge into the orange light. He was walking upright and full of strength. It was as if all of Mr. Stewart's tortures had amounted to naught. John winked at me and I knew that he had done some powerful magic.

"Was you listenin' to us?" Eighty-four asked warily.

"Only a little bit, Tweenie. I was happy to see you and I didn't want to interrupt."

The slave-girl bowed her head. I knew that she was embarrassed at what she had said. I think she was more worried about him knowing what she felt than she was about the white men that had to be after us.

Just as I had this thought I heard the braying of Tobias's

hounds. There was a yip and then a loud howl. And we all three knew that the white men were hunting us down.

"Put out that light, Numbah Twelve," I said.

"No one can see us as long as this light shines," he replied calmly. "They can't see us while we remain within the light of this disk."

I had no idea of what his words meant. And even though I trusted him I knew that he was capable of making mistakes. After all, him thinking that saving Tobias's daughter would keep the plantation master from hurting us is what got my friends beaten and killed.

The hounds were getting closer. I could hear each one barking and calling for black blood.

"We got to get outta here, baby," Eighty-four said to her man.

"Forty-seven is too weak," he answered. "And if we move away from my little machine the dogs will run us down."

"They'll smell his blood if we stay here," she argued.

"No," he said. "You have to trust me, Tweenie. I know what I'm doing."

"You didn't know so good when you got yo butt tied up in Mr. Stewart's shack," she said.

"If you run Tobias and his dogs will tear you to shreds," he said. "But if you stay, and I survive, we will be married in a church and Forty-seven here will grow into a man who will save the whole world."

"If we run we can do that."

"If we run Forty-seven will die and the world will pass away with him," John said.

Eighty-four gazed at me with an emotion in her face that I could not decipher. Maybe she hated me for standing in the way of her happiness. Maybe she wondered at the deep connection between me and her man. I had no answers for her. John and his war with the being called Wall was just as much a mystery to me as was the sun in the sky or the secret to how birds learned to fly. All I knew for sure was that he was right about my wounds. I couldn't have risen to my feet if an angel flew down and bade me to follow him to the Pearly Gates.

Just at that moment a dog bayed not ten yards from where we sat. Eighty-four and I turned our heads to see, at the furthest extreme of orange light, the snout and tail of one of Tobias's hounds! The dog was tinted orange by John's glowing apparatus. It seemed to glance at us, or at least in our direction, but then he turned away, howled, and ran off into the night.

For a moment I saw one of Tobias's men come into the glow but he just looked through us and then went on after the dogs.

We all sat silently for long moments after the hunters had gone. The dogs' braying faded into the distance.

I was so tired that when I closed my eyes I couldn't open them again. But I wasn't quite asleep. I could still hear John and Eighty-four talking.

"What we gonna do if'n we cain't run?" she asked.

"When the sun comes up," he said, "I can take you and Forty-seven one at a time to a special place."

"An' we just gonna wait till then?" she asked.

"I guess."

"Then why don't you come ovah here an' sit next to me t'keep me warm?"

I heard a rustling and then I passed over into the darkness of sleep.