A mouth closed at the right time is often wiser than an open one.

I drew in my arms and legs and signaled Zenobia to do the same. When I peeped over the edge of the limb, I could see the woman-man knockin buttonballs out of her hair and off her shoulder. I pressed myself flat against the limb as she walked acrost the leafy ground below us.

Nearby, a flock of chatterin goldfinches dangled from the ripenin buttonballs and tugged at them. They called to each other, warbled their see-me, see-me, chickoree, and flew from branch to branch.

“Gold birds,” the woman-man said in her gruff voice to nobody.

I opened my eyes wide and looked over at Zenobia. We set, afeared to move, afeared to breathe, afeared to gaze down at the woman-man again, scairt she’d feel our stares.

My body ached from stayin put so long, and I knowed Zenobia were feelin it too. She stretched, stuck out her leg, and wiggled her toes back and forth. The branch didn’t move, but I shook my head and wanted to scream at her not to chance it again.

“Over here!” the woman-man yelled. “We’ll take cover here tonight.”

Then clankin, a horse whinnyin, and voices below us.

Zenobia peered down through the branches and glanced at me, her eyebrows all knit together.

“What?” she mouthed, but I shook my head and held a finger in front of my lips.

I stuck my head over the edge of the limb and watched the happenins down below. Five tattered boys, three whites and two Negras, trickled into the clearin under the tree. One Negra, black as gunpowder and tall and straight as a young pine, were hog-tied to the other. A thin, weasel-faced man on a chestnut horse stopped beside the sycamore, swung out of his saddle, and tied the reins to a bush.

“I don’t want to git no closer to a town or a road,” the woman-man said. “We don’t need no one snoopin our business, and we got water right here.”

The weasel-face nodded and brushed dirt from his pants. “We’ll keep ’em hid here tonight,” he said.

Oh law, if they was thinkin to camp here all night, how could Zenobia and me stay in the tree?

Below us, one of the Negra boys began to sing a sad, sad song.

“I’m troubled, I’m troubled, I’m troubled in mind,

If Jesus don’t help me, I surely will die.

O Jesus my Saviour, on thee I’ll depend,

When troubles are near me, you’ll be my true friend.”

“Stop!” the woman-man ordered. “Shut yerselfs up and don’t make no more noise.”

The singin stopped. I could hear murmurin, and then some talkin between them.

“I said shut up!” the woman-man shouted.

I leant over and peeked down.

The woman-man pulled a crumpled hat from her waistband and cuffed the two boys and kicked at their legs, just the way my pa always did me and the dogs.

The weasel-face tugged another piece of rope from his belt, looped it round the tree and the two hog-tied Negra boys, and knotted it.

“Y’all stay here,” the woman-man ordered the boys. “Leave here and we’ll find ya and whip ya till yer own mother wouldn’t know ya.”

I heard a low answerin, and then the woman-man and weasel-face untied their horses and led them toward the oak woods.

Three of them other boys set down under the tree and talked quiet amongst themselves. The two black boys paced back and forth, back and forth on their short tethers, the way our hounds did when Pa tied them to the porch rails.

Them other boys wasn’t chained nor tied, and I couldn’t help wonderin why they didn’t jus leave. Run for it. Hightail it to Waterford, or home, or wherever they wanted to go. But Pa hadn’t never tied me—why had I stayed with him for so long?

The sun rode lower in the sky. Still the weasel-face and woman-man didn’t come back. The two black boys stopped pacin and set down, their backs against the trunk like they needed to be propped up.

Zenobia wiggled and shifted again. This time the tree branches swayed. I reached over to rap on Zenobia’s leg, and my Hannah doll slipped from under the strap and slid from my lap. I almost caught the hem of her patchwork skirt, but she were off and already on her way down through the limbs. She stopped fallin for just a moment as she caught on a big clump of mistletoe. “Thank ya, baby Jesus,” I said to myself, but then Hannah, devil-bent to cause us trouble, come loose and disappeared through the leaves.

The boys stopped talkin. I imagined them lookin up, tryin to see where that doll come from.

It didn’t take but a blink afore they was up and yellin at us.

“Git down here!” they called. “Git down here or we comin up to git ya.”

“Thanks, trouble girl,” I whispered. “You done it now. Got any ideas how to get us out of this?”

I couldn’t help myself. I quick-like looked over the broad limb again and saw them, hands shadin over their eyes, lookin up into the tree. I ducked back down.

“You. You, girl!” one of the boys yelled.

He’d said “girl,” not girls. He didn’t know that there was two of us up in the tree. One of us were goin to be okay, but which one? And how could one of us be okay if the other got caught?

“Who does he see?” I asked Zenobia. “We cain’t let them know they’s two of us.”

My question got answered afore we could decide what to do.

“Red,” he yelled, “this is your last chance or we comin up after ya.”

I looked over at Zenobia, mouthed a silent fare-thee-well, and began the long climb down.