Beware of those with eyebrows that meet; in their hearts lies naught but deceit.

It seemed like a world of time afore I got to the ground and looked into the chicory-blue eyes of the boy who yelled. I thrust out my chin so I seemed growed up and like they didn’t scare me none.

“What you want with me?”

The boy didn’t say a word, just stared and stepped aside so’s the shorter, white-haired boy, who were holdin my Hannah doll by a leg, could get up close. He looked from my head to my toes. I knowed that I were dirty and all tore up from washin down the crick, but I acted like I had on my clean Sunday clothes. Besides, he didn’t look no better than me.

“You done now,” the boy said. “You one of us, and you’ll be workin for them too.”

“Them? Why’d I be workin for them?” I looked from one boy to the other. “I works for myself now and nobody else.”

“We all slaves, and nothin more. We’re orphans. We might as well be black as them,” the chicory-eyed boy said, noddin his head toward the bound-together Negra boys.

“Why don’t you leave here?” I asked. “Leave here afore them people come back. You’re not tied to nothin, and you sure can run and hide away from them.”

“Been so long since we ate good, been so long we been travelin, I don’t know where we run or what we’d do,” the white-haired boy said to me. “Might as well be tied; if we run and they catch us, why, we’d be whipped to pieces.”

I could feel all the others starin at me and listenin to our words. I looked round. They was all dirty and wore tattered clothes, and was barefoot except for the white-haired boy, who had on boots holier than my worm-eaten tobacca patch. I knowed I couldn’t trust him, him with his two thick white eyebrows joinin together like one.

The Negra boys stood up and brushed dirt off their hands and pants.

“Easy you to hide,” the tallest boy, with the scarred face and missin front tooth, said. “But I cain’t. I’m a runaway, and they’s takin me back to my owner. I tried runnin a few days ago and this is what it got me.” He turned full round, and I could see his clothes all tore in slits and glued to his back with thick patches of dried blood.

“I know about that kind of hurtin. Pa and my brothers near broke me a few times,” I said. “I run away afore, but they always caught me. Not now, though. I lit out of that place for good, and I aim to find me a new life.”

“I don’t know how you spect that,” the white-haired boy said. “Nobody cares none what happens to us or to you. None of us got no family. We was sold to them, and now they’re sellin us for bondslaves. Nobody cares.”

“I care,” I said. “I care what happens to you and what happens to me.” I looked around the circle and saw some noddin their heads yes, others shakin them no.

“If’n we tell them bout you,” the white-haired boy said, “they’ll git us more food, take better care of us.”

“No they won’t,” the scarred boy said. “They pack her in with us, and we won’t get not a bite more, maybe even a bite less with another mouth to feed.” He looked at me, gave me a quick half smile, then faced the others.

“You, you, boy, you stop talkin at us,” the white-haired boy said as he shook his fist. “Who you think you are?” He dropped my Hannah doll and stepped right on her as he shoved the boy hard, then punched him in the stomach.

The boy buckled, straightened back up, and set his lips in a thin line. The other boy moved as if to step in, but the ropes held him tight.

I didn’t see where this talkin and fightin were leadin me to no place good. I started to say somethin to them about us all helpin each other when I heard people talkin and horses clop-cloppin slow and easy toward us.

“Shhhh,” I cautioned, my finger in front of my mouth. “Don’t tell them nothin bout me.”

I looked up at the sycamore—the first branch were just out of my reach. My Hannah doll laid on the ground by the black boy. I wanted to grab her, but I didn’t have no time.

I run to the tree and jumped for the lowest branch, but missed it by an arm’s length. The tallest Negra boy, the one with the scarred face, swung me up onto his broad shoulders and said, “Git out of here.” I stood, reached up, grabbed the patchy limb, and pulled myself onto it.

I looked down, searchin for my Hannah doll, and saw the tall black boy bend over, pick her up, and stuff her inside his tattered shirt.

A horse whinnied.

I swished up and into the cover of the broad, leafy branches and climbed faster than I’d ever climbed afore. I looked for Zenobia, but for once she stayed put. Soon as I heard the woman-man and weasel-face gettin closer, I stopped, laid out flat on a limb, and hugged myself tight.

A fuzzy black-and-yellow-striped bumblebee hummed above me, circled, and landed on my arm. I didn’t move. I watched as it stretched out its long tongue and licked itself like a cat, then combed its front legs down its dusty, furred body. It stopped, looked at me with its huge eyes, then packed its cargo of yellow dust into pockets on its rear legs. Its wings begun to move, and I could feel a tiny whirlwind in the hairs on my arms.

Below me another whirlwind exploded. Dogs barked and howled. Men shouted and cursed. I heard my pa’s voice and the sound of the hounds. I felt like I were havin a nightmare with all the yellin and thrashin goin on. Old Delia dog were down there, snortin around the tree trunk, snufflin into the sand and leaves, raisin Cain.

“Where’s the redhead girl? And where’s my runaway slave girl?” Pa yelled. “I seen their tracks back a ways. Ya be hidin them and tryin to get the money, and I’ll beat y’all till there ain’t nothin left of your sorry hides. My hounds got the smell of them.”

The woman-man yelled back at Pa, “Don’t you be bustin in here, old man. Them’re our boys, but them Negras over there, they’re goin back to their owners. We caught them in Pennsylvania a week ago.”

“Get outta here!” the white-haired boy yelled at the dogs, and he must’ve kicked at one by the sound of the yelpin.

I didn’t have to see Pa to know he were mad.

He yelled to my brothers to look around the camp. I could hear them walkin through the leaves and shoutin to the dogs to stop their barkin.

“I don’t know nothin about yer redhead girl,” the woman-man yelled, “but you get out of here or we gonna shoot you like we shot the last man got in our way.”

I heard rifles cock, then the sound of Pa mutterin.

Delia barked again, a high, yappin chirp like the one she gives when I tease her with a bite of food, then a short, yippin howl, the sound she makes when Pa kicks her.

“Movin out,” Pa yelled to my brothers and the hounds. “That girl ain’t nowhere round here, let’s move it out.”

They passed below me, so close I felt a chill run clear through my bones. I kept my eyes scrunched closed like I did when I hid inside the old pine chimney cupboard. If I couldn’t see them, then they wouldn’t see me.

Delia yipped and chirped again. I pictured her liftin her head, sniffin at the air between me and them.

My brothers yelled at Delia and Bathsheba; the woman-man and weasel-face shouted at them all to keep a-movin. I held my breath, not wantin them to smell my fear or feel my life above them.

They scuffled through the leaves below me, and Pa said, “Them dogs are tellin me them girls are round here somewheres. We’re not goin far.” They moved off, the dogs runnin in circles and barkin and Pa cursin a streak.

I laid still—still as that woman the preacher said turned into a pillar of salt. How long would it be afore one of them boys told the woman-man about me?

“What’s this you hidin in your shirt?” I heard the woman-man ask. “Where the devil did this raggedy thing come from? Answer me,” she shouted, “now!”