“Hidin like some panther.”
“You used to talk of runnin to Florida youself.”
“And talk’s all it ever be. Easy talk.”
“You a coward then.”
“A coward? Damn you.”
“I’m goin.”
“But I ain’t lettin you.” Samuel moves toward the open door of the tack room. The Pygmy pushes himself against the old man but he holds firm. “Be calm,” he says. “You shakin like a snake rattle.”
“I’ll kill you.”
“Kill me?”
“I would. If I had to I would.”
“Lord Jesus.” Samuel waves him away. “You a devil,” he tells him. “All these years and I never saw it.”
Outside, Benjamin is waiting. He is ten years old now. His long brown hair is tied back in a tight pigtail, and already he is taller than the Pygmy.
THE BOY TAKES him by horseback into the forest. Here there is a river. Since the early winter they have worked to scratch a narrow pocket into the trunk of a windblown cypress, leaving the bark untouched so that now, overturned at the water’s edge, their crude dugout resembles nothing so much as a rotting log. Hoot owls are fighting like apes in the treetops, oo-aw squallings that remind the Pygmy of his lost home. It is a warm night but he sees that Benjamin is shivering. The boy is excited. “Adam,” he says, “we are going to do this.”
The Pygmy points in the direction of Yellowhammer. “Head on home,” he says.
“Head home?”
“Start back.”
“For what?”
“I can’t take you.”
“What do you mean?”
“This ain’t a trip you need to be makin.”
“Why are you saying this, Adam?”
“Please now. Go on.”
“I won’t.”
The Pygmy lifts a stolen hay hook and threatens him. “Go on,” he says again. “Go.”
But then the boy threatens him as well. “I’ll tell Father,” he says. “Make me go and I’ll wake him.”
The owls are in a frenzy now. Benjamin tries to move past, but the Pygmy grabs him and they stumble. They fall hard. He lands atop the boy and there is a gurgling. The hay hook is buried in the boy’s throat, and he wants to speak but the Pygmy stops him. “Be still,” he tells him. The hay hook slides out easily, but then much more blood comes and the boy is dead.
The Pygmy presses his lips to the boy’s forehead and feels the body cooling. He rolls away and pushes his own face against the dirt. For a long time he stays like this—but finally the angry owls go quiet, and fearing daylight, he rises. Twice he swings the hay hook into Benjamin’s chest, puncturing the lungs. The horse has shied off but is watching him. There are stones scattered about, and he drops handfuls of them down the front of the boy’s tucked shirt. The slack corpse sinks quickly into the dark river. He watches it disappear, and he hopes that it will remain there.
Kau is in the dugout. He is drifting south. He is following the river.
PART ONE
RETURNING
I
South—Into the forest—Lawson
KAU SAT CROSS-LEGGED in the shaky dugout, listening to the night sounds of the forest as the river carried him farther and farther south. In the distance he could hear the yips of red wolves coursing whitetails in the hot sandhills. A whippoorwill called and he tried to answer back. Five times he whistled before finally the notes came perfect and the whippoorwill called again.
The surface of the river was shining now, and at this first hint of dawn he paddled for the shore. He beached at a sandbar, then dragged the dugout into a thicket growing along the bank. The forest had grown quieter, and he squatted low in the underbrush, forcing himself to swallow some of the horse feed. In addition to the ten pounds of raw oats, the blanket and the saddlebags, all he had managed to pilfer was a dented canteen and a small tin pot—those and the blood-flecked hay hook. He checked the crocus sack that he had taken from the boy. Inside was a leather-sheathed hunting knife and a tinderbox, Benjamin’s sling and a collection of smooth stones that were each the size of chicken eggs. He added the knife and tinderbox to a saddlebag, then tossed the hay hook far out into the river. He waited for a splash but heard nothing.
Tears came as he ran his fingers along the leather sling—twin cords of finely plaited hemp joining a pocket of soft calfskin. This had been a gift from the innkeeper to his son, a weapon purchased from an Arab who did horse tricks in the Augusta circus. Kau dried his eyes against the calfskin and then folded the sling into one of the saddlebags. A distant wolf howled as he dropped ten of the round stones in with the horse feed.
He returned to the dim sandbar and found a pool of still water cut off from the muddy river. He went down on all fours and, careful not to silt the shallow pool, used his fingertips to brush the scum from its surface. A tear formed in the orange crust. He touched his dry lips to the tepid water and sucked long, steady streams down his chalked throat. He drank until his stomach felt heavy, then began spitting mouthfuls into the canteen.
The redbirds were singing as he walked back to the dugout. At Yellowhammer he had carved two short paddles from an oak plank. He took up one of them and scraped the sandy soil down to the hard-pan, forming a trench alongside the beached dugout. He settled into the crumbling furrow and from across the river came cackling and the beating of wings, a turkey dropping from its roost. The hen was yelping for her poults to join her when the day arrived clean and blue and Africa hot. Exhausted, he rolled the dugout over on top of him.
Flat on his back, hidden in the dark chamber, he pressed his head against the worn saddlebags. The turned earth was cool against his skin and the scent of the cut cypress worked to clear his mind. He closed his eyes and between flashes of the bloody boy was able to think and plan. When the innkeeper discovered them both missing, he would alert the American soldiers at the fort and send for the slavecatcher. Eventually there would be a chase and for that he needed to rest. He steadied his breathing and fought to collect himself.
LAWSON. THE SLAVECATCHER. The man lived in a cabin near the fort, alone save his mules and a pack of bloodhounds. Kau had seen him only once. A smuggler had a coffle of slaves camped near Yellowhammer when there was an escape. Lawson arrived and had the runaway treed in the river
