In Search of Satisfaction Read Free Page B

everyday. He sat things by. He gathered his gold and silver coins and the little paper money, sewing all he could into his clothes, clothes taken from the master, and bought a new-made coat for Yin.
    Josephus did not want to wear worn, ragged clothes away, nor grand, brand-new ones either. He wanted it to look like someone who knew what they were doing had sent him out on the road. He did not want to go barefoot because he did not know how far they would have to walk. He managed to get some shoes. All the things he thought he needed were put by. Master Krupt was dying a little more each day. Alcohol poisoning and, now, mushroom poisoning. No doctor was called.
    Josephus packed as much to take with him as he thought would be safe on him and Yin. But … the money remaining. He thought hard what to do with what they could not safely carry, had to leave behind!
    Remembering when he had worked far out in the field, he thought of an old tool shack seldom gone into by anyone except a slave. Now he had been the only one in it for nigh on twenty years or so. He went there, dug a hole in the ground of the shack, putting half of the remaining gold, silver and jewels from Mistress Krupt into it, buried at the bottom of a tool box and covered with tools. He covered the hole and stomped the ground over it. Then he took a long look at the shack, sighed, said, “I see you again some day.”
    When the master didn’t die from the water covering the mushrooms,which were now rotted, Josephus just mixed the whole jar of spoiled, smelly stuff into the next spicy meal and served it to both Master and Mistress. Then he called Yin.
    “Yin, baby, Pajo is gettin ready to leave here.”
    She was surprised and alarmed. “Oh, Pajo, where you goin? When you leavin me? When you comin back?”
    “I don know, baby. I do want to know, do you want to stay here? I don blive ole Master is long for this world … and yo ma ain’t gettin on too well.” He saw the fear and pain in Yin’s eyes. He hurried on, “She be alright tho. If’n we don be here, people will come in and take care of her like she need to be. She sick.” He hesitated. “She mayhap mighten die.” Yin’s eyes spilled slow, quiet tears. She looked at her father. She loved him. She loved her mother. But she knew him better than anyone in the whole world. He loved her better than anyone in the whole world. ’Cept God.
    “Is … are you gonna take me with you, Pajo?” She sniffed. “Or are you gonna leave me here?” Her face was full of fear. Her heart was in her eyes, mouth, nose and ears, it seemed.
    “I wants to take you.”
    “Will we come back sometime and see bout mama?”
    “I … If’n you wants to. I know we will be back.” He was thinking of the gold.
    Yin sighed so deeply it hurt Josephus. “Then I want to go with you. Pajo.”
    “Good, baby, good.” A weight lifted from his tired shoulders.
    Finally, that night he removed a necklace from Mistress Krupt’s neck as she slept fitfully, dying. A gold chain with a locket having one diamond and two rubies on it, clogged with the mushrooms she had vomited. He thought of the diamond ring he had already taken from her drawer that was now out in the shed with the other gold. He took a picture of the mistress from her bureau top. He took all the papers belonging to Yinyang. He packed all the things they needed that they could carry walking. Packed a little food. Hitched the tired horse, Sal, to the wagon. Then he changed his mind, unhitched her, thinking someone would bring Sal home and thereby find whatever might be wrong there. Then he changed his mind again, hitched her back up. Would drive all night while the child slept, then leave the wagon wherever he was when dawn came and walk till they was far, far away. If someone found thewagon, they would probably keep it, he thought, “wasn’t nothin but a poor man gonna be out where they would leave it noway.”
    That night Josephus cleaned and placed the necklace