“Your money.” He shrugged and followed her in to get them. He made no
comment when she added two comforters to their purchases. She chose faded
used ones and tried to hold her head at an angle that dared him to object, though
she didn’t see how he could. What would he suggest, that they bury themselves
in leaves to keep warm? Or cuddle up between Dixby and Dougan?
When she came out of another store carrying a new broom with neatly
trimmed bristles, he shook his head. “You know how long it take me to make you a splint broom? ’Bout five minutes. Know how much it cost? ’Bout
nothing.” Olivia raised her index finger to her pursed lips and tossed the broom
into the back of the wagon.
When they were done shopping they sat on the wagon seat, gnawing on bread
and jerky and no longer irritable. Olivia watched the people who passed them in
the street. To her disappointment none of them looked like gunslingers or bank
robbers. Apart from a pair of rough-looking, fur-bearing trappers, they looked far too much like the law-abiding, church-going folks of Five Rocks. They
encountered no more Indians that day, though she was pleased to see a number
of black faces.
“We best get going,” Mourning said, wiping his hands on his pants. “Fella in
the store said we gotta turn onto that big wide street where we seen that building
with the silver dome and go till we come to a square what got some grass on it.
That where we gotta turn left onto the Chicago Road. He dint remember if it got
a sign on it or not and if it got one, it might not say Chicago. It might say the new name – Michigan Avenue. You got your map from your uncle’s will?”
“Yes.” Olivia leaned over the back of the seat to lift the lid of one of her wicker baskets and remove her precious envelope. “Yes, here it is, the Chicago
Road, right here.” She held it out to Mourning with her finger on it. “So we’re
all right? You know the way?”
He nodded. “We be all right. Don’t matter none if we get lost no how. ’Mount
a shopping you done, we could survive in the woods for a year or two. Feed a lot
a the forest critters too.”
“Are you ever going to stop griping about me buying that loaf of sugar? I’ll
be glad to fix your coffee bitter if you want.”
Their bickering was good-natured. Everything was going well. There was
only one thing left to do. Follow Uncle Scruggs’ map.
Before they turned onto the Chicago Road, Olivia put her hand on
Mourning’s forearm. “Look at that, Mourning.” She pointed at a three-story
building of yellow brick. “Detroit Female Seminary,” she read the sign. “That whole big building, just for girls. Maybe after we get rich I can go to school here.”
“That ain’t all they got in Detroit.” He grinned. “This morning I been in the
Black Second Baptist church. Whole congregation of coloreds, part freed slaves,
part people what was born free. They got a school in there too. Haw Dixby, Haw
Dougan,” he commanded the team and turned onto the Chicago road. “You been
right ’bout this city, Livia. They got colored dock workers and servants and all,
like you gonna expect, but they also got a colored barber and I seen white customers sittin’ in his chairs. They got coloreds what owns all kinds a stores and white folks goin’ in and buyin’ from ’em, like that ain’t no thing. Even got a
colored saloon where white folks go to gamble.”
