Free My Name's Not Friday by Jon Walter Page A

all narrow with staring so hard at him, trying to see the man I thought he was. He still looks proud, but there ain’t no kindness there like I had assumed. No kindness and no sense of justice. That much is obvious, and I tell him so. ‘I ain’t never been so disappointed in a man before!’
    He might flinch at that, I can’t be sure, but I flinch myself when he flicks out the whip, coils it up and stores it back in his belt.
    ‘That’s something we’ll both have to live with, Friday. Now get yourself over to Lizzie’s cabin. I want you out in the fields when the horn sounds first thing tomorrow morning.’
    I don’t want to be near this man a moment longer than I have to, and I walk away with the mark of his big hand on my cheek, still sore to the touch and burning.
    *
    When I get back to the cabins there are more people about than there were before. A bunch of kids are skipping over at the tree, all talking at once like little birds. A woman squats on her doorstep, scrubbing something in a pail of water, andthree young men have brought wooden chairs outside their cabin door and are sitting smoking. They watch me pass the fire pit and stop at Lizzie’s cabin.
    To my surprise, it’s Sicely who opens when I knock and she leans on the doorframe, blocking my view inside. ‘What do you want?’
    A voice calls out from behind her back. ‘Who’s that, Sicely? What they want?’
    ‘It’s the new boy, Mama.’ Sicely shouts back inside. ‘The one the missus brought back ’stead of Milly.’
    A hand grasps the door above Sicely’s head. ‘Come on now, Sicely. Open it up and let me see.’
    Sicely slides back inside the cabin and a woman appears at the door in her place. She’s about the same age as my mama would have been. She’s got a similar line in her nose and cheeks as well – at least as far as I remember. Her head is bound up in old Woolsey rags and she has a shawl across her shoulders that looks like it’s seen more years in this world than she has.
    ‘Are you Lizzie?’ I ask. ‘Mrs Allen said I was to stay with you.’
    The woman stands there looking at me. It’s like she ain’t seeing me at all, like she’s seeing someone else entirely. Behind her back I see Sicely move across to the fire and she kneels, blowing a tiny flame that lights her face. The young boy I saw at the tree squeezes out from behind Lizzie’s skirt to take a look at me, but Lizzie puts a finger to his head. ‘Go on back inside, Gil.’ She folds her arms when she speaks to me. ‘You come from the auction?’ I nod. ‘Then you must’ve seen my Milly.’
    ‘I don’t know, ma’am. I didn’t talk to no one there. I don’t know who anyone is.’ I’m awkward, standing here onthe step without being invited inside, but I want to make an effort to please this woman if I can. ‘What did she look like?’
    Lizzie’s lip twitches. ‘Oh, Milly’s pretty. You’d remember her if you saw her.’
    ‘Oh yes! You mean the pretty girl? I do remember. Yes, I do. The girl with the blue bow at the front of her dress?’
    ‘That’s her!’ Lizzie’s face lights up. ‘She had her best dress on, the one I made for her last birthday. Did you see her sold? Do you know who bought her and where she went?’
    ‘I saw the man who bought her. Yes, I did. He was wearing a green jacket as I remember.’
    ‘He was? And where’d he take her? Did they say where he was from?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ Lizzie’s eyes drop like a stone in water and I know I haven’t helped at all. ‘Won’t Mrs Allen be able to tell you?’
    Lizzie looks like I made her eat a gooseberry and she don’t answer, just stands at the door, staring at her feet, but I still try to make it better. ‘She sure is beautiful, just like you said. And she got a good high price. Two thousand dollars, I think it was. She was worth more than anyone else there. I know she was. So that man must have thought she was special. He must have wanted her real bad to have