10

BEFORE SHE MARRIED and moved from our house, my sister Susan would cover herself with a quilt in a corner of the middle room when it rained, or thundered, or when lightning staged its primitive dance across the skies. She would not move except to breathe. In our very, very young years, we thought Susan hid as a game and we delighted with wiggling in and out of that dark quilt cave as thunder lashed its terrible complaint outside. But as we grew older, we realized Susan was not playing games; she was afraid. The loud voice of thunder was the loud voice of demons and it was advisable to cover your face and close your eyes and not anger the demons—who were angry enough if you knew how to translate their popping, cruel language.

We missed Susan when she married. On days of storm, the middle room seemed lopsided, out of balance, and unnatural, without Susan.

It was lopsided, out of balance, and unnatural on the Sunday following our afternoon with the Dasher Brothers Flying Circus and the hot dog roast at Wind’s Mill. It had begun to rain in early morning, the kind of rain which would fall through the day, into night and into sleep. High, black clouds boiled up and tortured Earth with lightning, spreading like witches’ fingers, and Earth (or the demons) screamed and trembled with each painful jolt.

We crowded near the radio in early night and listened to Sunday gospel quartet singing. Mother lit the huge kerosene lamp we reserved for company and placed it on the rolltop desk. “Just for warmth,” she said.

My mother had a gift for warmth. It was in the way she spoke, in the way she touched, the way she surprised us with gingerbread and hot chocolate; it was in the way she yearned to hurt when we hurt and rejoice when we rejoiced.

“Remember this rain,” she told us. “Remember sitting here and remember how warm a kerosene lamp can be. Soon, it’ll be different every time it rains. When we get the REA, we won’t all be bunched up in a corner like this.”

“Why, Mama?” asked Lynn.

“Because there’ll be a light in the middle of the ceiling and it’ll make the whole room bright, instead of just one little corner, and you’ll all be playing by yourself instead of sittin’ together.”

“If Susan was here, she wouldn’t be playin’,” I said.

“Well, maybe not Susan, but that’s all right,” answered Mother. “We’re all afraid of something. It’s just that Susan’s afraid of thunder.”

“Well, I’ll be glad when we get some electricity,” said Louise. “Maybe we can get us a radio that doesn’t have static all the time.”

*

It had stopped raining on Monday, but it was a gray morning and there was a fine, chilling mist, part fog. Wesley and I went to the corn crib after breakfast and began to shuck corn, stacking the ears in neat, yellow pyramids. It was hateful work, and frightening. My father always kept a king snake in the corn crib. King snakes loved to feast on rats, but king snakes were not poisonous. It didn’t matter. We knew that somewhere, warm and cozy under the heat of corn shucks, a king snake was curled, waiting. Garry absolutely refused to go near the corn crib, and, once, my sister Frances had accidentally sat on a king snake and she gave a horrible description of snake fangs sinking into flesh.

Corn shucking was a wet-day ceremony, the always-something-else job. But there was one consolation, one promise: if we worked long enough to achieve my father’s predetermined goal of the number of bushels needed, we would be permitted to fish the swollen streams that fed into Beaverjam Creek. When it rained, catfish rallied by schools at the mouth of those streams, gobbling away at the fresh supply of land food washed into the inlets. We knew R. J. and Paul and Otis would be fishing one of the spots. We would find them, and if we were lucky we would find Willie Lee and his brother, who was named Baptist. They were the two funniest fishermen in Emery, and we loved to sit with them as they argued over the size of catfish nibbling the bait off hooks, or who had eaten the last can of sardines that Willie Lee’s wife, Little Annie, had packed for them. We seldom saw Baptist, except while fishing. He was a nervous man. He believed in ghosts and good luck charms and he was an encyclopedia of dos and don’ts in man’s efforts to solicit fortune from the spirit world. Baptist claimed to hold the world’s record in the number of times he had seen the Soldier Ghost floating in the trees of the old Civil War cemetery, but Willie Lee said Baptist was crazy and the only thing he had ever seen in the cemetery was the moon shining on the leaves of the guarding oaks.

Wesley and I were talking about Willie Lee and Baptist and predicting where they might be on Beaverjam Creek, when Mother appeared in the doorway of the corn crib. She had driven to Emery to buy groceries and had promised to tell Freeman we would be fishing. Sometimes Freeman could beg off work, if the invitation to do something was irresistible.

Mother’s face was splotched with anger. “Boys,” she said, trembling, “Freeman’s just been arrested.”

Wesley stood. “What?”

“Freeman,” Mother repeated. “He’s just been arrested.”

I remembered what Dover had told Freeman, that someday he would get in trouble for working on Sunday.

“Why?” I asked. “What’s Freeman done, Mama?”

“Mr. Hixon said he stole twenty dollars from the store. He called the sheriff.”

“Freeman wouldn’t do that,” Wesley said. “Who said he stole it?”

“They did,” Mother said, releasing her anger. “Mr. Hixon said it was Freeman. Said Dupree and that little Haynes boy saw him take it off a counter.” Mother cared deeply for Freeman. He was her personal social concern, and she had spent hours prying into his personality and saying silent prayers for the welfare of his soul.

“Did you see him, Mama?” asked Wesley.

“Just for a minute. Mr. Hixon was holdin’ him in the back of the store for Sheriff Brownlee to get over from Edenville.”

“What’d Freeman say?”

“Not much, Wesley. He was ashamed to see me, I guess,” Mother answered. “He did say he didn’t do it. Said Dupree was telling a lie, and asked me if I’d tell his mama that.”

Wesley sat on the floor of the corn crib and began to slowly strip the shuck away from an ear of corn. “I bet Freeman’s tellin’ the truth,” he said, finally. “I bet Dupree had somethin’ to do with it. He’s been tryin’ to find some way to get to Freeman all summer.”

“What’ll they do to Freeman, Wesley?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“They’ll take him over to the jail,” Mother said angrily. “He’ll be locked up with drunks and crooks and God only knows what else.”

“He’s not but fourteen years old,” Wesley said, almost as an afterthought.

“That won’t make any difference, boys. It’s a stealing offense and that means jail, no matter what age he is.” Mother was trying to contain her temper, but she could envision Freeman shoved behind bars with criminals who worked the road gangs in their striped convict uniforms.

“What’re we gonna do, Mama?” I asked.

“I told your daddy. He was up at the house. He said he’d go over there and see what it was about. Said something might be worked out. Maybe he could post bail for Freeman, or something.”

“Can we go with Daddy?” I pleaded. “Me’n Wesley?”

“No,” Mother answered sharply. “No. I’m sorry, boys, but it’s something you ought not be around.”

“Freeman’s our friend, Mama.”

“She’s right,” Wesley decided. “It’d just make Freeman feel bad, and I guess he feels bad enough already. If Daddy can do anythin’, he will. If he can’t, it’s just gonna be Freeman’s word against Mr. Hixon’s.”

“Couldn’t we wait in the car?” I begged.

“No,” Mother answered. “You can wait up at the house, but it’s best that we handle this, and we need to be goin’ on over. If Freeman’s daddy gets there before the sheriff, there may be some real trouble. Your daddy can stop all that.”

*

We waited for more than an hour before we saw our Mother’s 1938 Ford appear, sliding cautiously along the slippery red road, and as she stopped beneath the pecan tree in the front yard, we saw that she was alone.

“What happened?” I asked eagerly. “Where’s Daddy?”

“He’s with Sheriff Brownlee,” she said. “Freeman escaped over on Rakestraw Bridge Road.”

“He…?” Wesley exclaimed.

“Escaped,” Mother repeated. “We were followin’ them over to Edenville to see about postin’ a bond, and when Sheriff Brownlee slowed down to cross Rakestraw Bridge, Freeman jumped out and ran off in the swamp.”

“He got away?” I asked, amazed at Freeman’s boldness.

“I don’t know,” Mother said, slipping wearily into a chair. “When I left, Sheriff Brownlee and your daddy and Freeman’s daddy were after him.”

Wesley walked to the window and looked out in the direction of Black Pool Swamp. “They’ll never catch Freeman,” he predicted. “Freeman knows that swamp better’n all of them put together. He won’t come out until he wants to.”

“I don’t know, son,” Mother said. “Sheriff Brownlee was shootin’ his pistol off up in the air and yelling that he’d get the bloodhounds if Freeman didn’t come back, and you have to remember Freeman’s daddy knows that swamp pretty good, too.”

“Not like Freeman,” insisted Wesley.

“But the bloodhounds, they’d find him,” I said.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Wesley whispered. “Maybe not.”

*

They did not find Freeman that afternoon. At first darkness, my father told us, Sheriff Brownlee stood at the mouth of a logging road leading into Black Pool Swamp and yelled, “Hear me, boy. I’m comin’ back. I’m comin’ back, boy. And I’m takin’ you outa here. No man alive, white or black, ever got away from me, boy. You better give up.” Freeman had not answered Sheriff Brownlee’s threats and Brownlee had lost his temper. He emptied his pistol into the ground and screamed that he would return with a truck loaded with deputies carrying shotguns, and he would get bloodhounds trained to chew the legs off escaped criminals.

My father was tired and wet, but he was irritated that Sheriff Brownlee had threatened Freeman. “Man or boy, it don’t matter. All that’ll do is scare him more, make it harder to get him out.”

“What would Morgan do?” asked Mother. Morgan was my father’s brother, and he had been sheriff of Eden County for years before retiring to fish the Savannah River.

“He’d go into the swamp and stay until he found the boy,” my father said simply.

“By himself?” I asked. “Is that all, Daddy?”

“It’s just one boy.”

“But Freeman knows that swamp inside out.”

“It’d be a boy against a man, son. Don’t ever forget that.”

My father did not know Freeman. In Black Pool Swamp, Freeman was not a boy. He was an animal. No man could trap him.

“I don’t like it,” Mother fussed. “Freeman’s all alone in that swamp, and he’s got a sheriff firing off his pistol like crazy. That man’s no good. He never has been. No wonder there’s so much trouble in the county. He’s kin to Old Man Alfred Brownlee, and that’s the craziest man in Georgia. In fact, Old Man Alfred’s first wife was my first cousin on my daddy’s side, and she used to say that whole family didn’t have enough sense to get in out of the rain.”

“Mama, Freeman’s all right,” Wesley assured her. “Freeman’s fine. He’s been livin’ in that swamp all his life.”

“But it’s damp out tonight,” Mother protested.

“Freeman’s dry,” Wesley said. “He’s got more’n a dozen places to hide where it’s dry as bein’ at home.”

“There’s snakes in there,” Lynn whispered.

“Freeman raised most of them,” Wesley argued. “You not talking about the Okefenokee. There’s no alligators or nothin’ like that in there.”

“Not what Freeman says,” Lynn answered.

“Freeman would say anything about Black Pool Swamp, Lynn, and you know it. There’s nothin’ in there but some rabbits and beaver and squirrels,” Wesley replied dryly.

“And snakes,” Lynn added.

“Yeah, some snakes.”

Wesley knew Freeman well. Freeman had a dreamer’s pride in Black Pool Swamp. To Freeman, Black Pool Swamp made the Okefenokee seem like a mudhole. It angered him when people made fun of Black Pool and he had invented outrageous stories to enhance his position as the only real authority on those two hundred acres of dark, forbidding woods. He told of an albino bear, eight feet tall, whose shimmering white fur was streaked with dried blood. He told of bobcats as huge and fierce as Asian tigers. He told of a killer wolf, a twenty-foot rattlesnake, a vicious wild boar with foot-long tusks, and he swore he knew the entrance to a secret underground cave where Indian warriors were buried. Occasionally, Freeman would present a bone from a decayed cow and tell us it was the remains of a careless human who refused his warnings about the dangers of Black Pool, or the Great Okeenoo-noo, as he called the swamp. Okeenoonoo, Freeman claimed, was an ancient Cherokee Indian word meaning Woods of Death.

The WPA had drained Black Pool Swamp in the mid-thirties and the signature of woeful, frightened men who had only their muscles and the promise of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to believe in was still carved in crisscrossing drain ditches that found the banks of Beaverjam Creek. The ditches had become covered in a death mask of honeysuckle vines and swamp grass, drooping and rising out of the depressions where WPA men had shoveled for WPA wages. Industrious beavers had whittled stick dams out of small hardwoods and had laced the dams together near the creek. The dams had again clogged Black Pool Swamp and there were acres of barely moving surface water seeping over the rims of WPA ditches, covered in a death mask of honeysuckle vines and swamp grass.

To those who feared the woods, Black Pool Swamp was imposing and, in its way, evil. To Freeman and those of us who lived south of Banner’s Crossing, Black Pool was an endless wonder, a huge playground to be discovered with each eager excursion. We had hacked off fox grape vines to swing, yodeling Tarzan yells in the soprano voices of boys. We knew which ridges of heaped-up dirt to walk in the watery bottomland. We had learned to cross back and forth over Beaverjam Creek, balancing on the trunks of fallen trees that had washed out of the banks of the creek in sudden flooding. We knew where to find the dens of red fox, where the giant canecutter rabbits played, where catfish or eel could be caught by grappling, and where the remains of several whiskey stills belonging to Freeman’s daddy could be located. Once, Wesley and I had even discovered one of Freeman’s man-made caves. It was a shallow hole running into the side of a steep hill overgrown with mountain laurel. Freeman had found a land flaw, a curious wash-out scooping into the hill, and he had carefully sculptured his cave out of hard clay and mountain laurel roots. It was a magnificent hiding place, a quiet, cool fortress protected from wind and rain by a natural upper lip that curled over the opening. It was not a large cave, but Freeman had obviously spent long, dreamy hours there. Wesley found some Grit newspapers and a cache of cured rabbit tobacco, and there was evidence that Freeman had experimented with building a small cooking fire. We did not tell Freeman about our discovery, but we began to respect his stories of caves and hiding places in the Great Okeenoonoo.

*

We ate supper in silence, listening for some new off-sound among the voices of Black Pool Swamp. Perhaps Freeman would speak to us in one of his animal tongues, and we would understand. He would tell us where he was, what he needed, how he felt.

An owl celebrated its confusion of sleep and rest and Wesley lifted his face toward the sound, straining to recognize Freeman’s playful imitation. The owl called again and Wesley relaxed. Unlike Laron Crook, Wesley knew the difference between Freeman and a bird. The owl was real, and would cry again and again, until Wesley slipped away and tied knots in the four corners of his bedsheet and then the owl would stop crying and bury its head underneath its wings. I did not know why owls obeyed Wesley’s strong superstition, but they always did and we would silently marvel at this great power Wesley had. It was a spell not even Freeman could explain, though he declared that an owl, like the vampire, was Satan’s creature and tying knots in bedsheets strangled owls much in the same manner as flashing a cross in the face of a vampire stifled the gruesome urge for human blood. “It’s all the same,” Freeman had told us. “For every evil spell, there’s a good one. Ol’ Wesley just accidentally discovered one about owls.”

*

We were half listening to a radio comedy show when Dover arrived with Freeman’s parents.

“Go to the kitchen,” Mother told us, “and be quiet.” The grownups sat in the living room and talked in voices we could hear only as distortions. Occasionally, the low, grave tones of the men would be countered by the painful choking cough of Rachel Boyd. She had tuberculosis and her lungs had shriveled into small tender sores that bled a sickening red mucus when she could not control her coughing. Her illness had isolated Freeman, who could not wholly accept the wheezing, emaciated woman as his mother. To Freeman, his mother was someone vigorous, someone who had been warm to touch, whose skin had been flushed red with the vitality of Irish blood. He still loved this once-upon-a-time mother, this weakened substitute, but he was quietly horrified by the coolness of her gray coloring and the nauseating mucus odor of her breath. He had watched her suffer her incredible pain, watched as she lay motionless in bed fighting to conquer the spasms that were squeezing her lungs, and he had heard her mumbled, bewildered prayers for relief, incoherent prayers of half-promises and a beggar’s pleading. Freeman had listened to the women of Emery speak of “poor Rachel Boyd,” and he knew what they meant: his mother had a terminal illness. In a vision that had eased into his dreams many times, Freeman knew she would die in early life, her lungs drowning in their own phlegm. Her lungs would die first and then the spillway of her throat would die, and then her brain and then her heart. Her heart would die last, wanting to live against terrible, predictable odds. Her heart would die of suffocation, pumping frantically, unreasonably, until it could no longer pump.

Freeman’s vision of his mother’s fate had been transferred to us, not by description, but by some mystic union we shared, and as we listened to Rachel Boyd choking in our home, I believed she longed for death, wished for death with selfish yearning.

“Louise, you hear her?” I asked, whispering.

Louise nodded. She moved to the side table where Mother kept drinking water in an enamel bucket, and she poured a dipper of water into a clean glass. “I better take this in there,” she said. “She’ll be needing it.”

Louise put the glass of water on a mahogany serving tray that Amy had given Mother for Christmas, and then carried it into the living room. Louise was the oldest daughter still living at home and she understood her responsibilities; she was part girl and part woman, part sister and part mother, and she had a gift for separating the roles.

“Is she dyin’?” asked Lynn when Louise returned.

“Hush,” commanded Louise. “She might hear.”

We sat and listened. We could hear the men talking and I knew Dover had become angry. His voice was tense and high-pitched, and I thought he must have been pacing because his voice changed positions through the sheetrock wall. Occasionally, Dover would pause and there would be a deeper bass reply from my father or Freeman’s father.

“Dover’s all worked up,” I said to Wesley.

“Yeah,” Wesley replied.

“Wonder why he’s so mad?” Lynn whispered.

“Ssssssssssh,” Wesley said suddenly, whirling in his chair. Outside, Short Leg and Bullet barked. Wesley moved to the back door and opened it.

“What’s the matter?” Louise asked.

“Sssssssssh.”

Wesley stepped onto the back porch. He looked into the heavy, blank darkness. He whistled sharply and Short Leg and Bullet stopped barking.

“What’s the matter?” Louise repeated. “You hear somethin’?”

“Freeman,” Wesley said quietly. “It’s Freeman.”

At first I did not hear it. There was nothing but a low wind and the brushing sound of wet leaves against wet leaves.

“I don’t hear nothin’,” I said.

“Listen,” Wesley warned.

And then I heard it: a shrill, long whistle folding into the wind, riding an invisible sound wave and carrying the eerie message that Freeman was safe.

“It is,” I exclaimed. “That’s Freeman.”

“That’s nothing but the wind,” Louise said. “Nobody can whistle like that.”

“He’s got a cane flute,” Wesley explained. “That’s his cane flute.”

The flute whistle floated in again, clear and strong. Wesley stepped outside and returned the call of the whippoorwill. There was a long silence and then a whippoorwill replied from somewhere in Black Pool Swamp.

“Maybe he knows his mama and daddy’s over here,” Lynn said.

“He knows,” Wesley replied. “We better tell them.”

We followed Wesley into the living room and Wesley told of Freeman’s cane-flute signal. Rachel Boyd wept quietly, burying her face in a large handkerchief. Dover asked Wesley if he was sure the whistle had been Freeman and Wesley said, “It was.”

“I’d guess so, too,” Dover agreed. “Freeman used to keep that cane stick with him all the time.”

Odell Boyd nodded and sucked on a hand-rolled Prince Albert cigarette. “The boy’s got them things everywhere,” he said. “I showed him how to cut one out, oh, couple of years ago. It’s Freeman, I’d guess.”

“You know where he is, son?” my father asked Wesley.

“No, sir. He could be anywhere. Freeman’s got lots of places in the swamp.”

“That’s the truth,” added Dover. “Lots of places.”

“Places we’ve never even seen, Daddy,” I explained.

“He knows more about them woods then anybody,” Odell Boyd muttered. “More’n me, even.”

“Wesley said he’d be fine down in the woods, Rachel,” Mother said quickly. “You said that, didn’t you, Wesley?” Mother’s voice betrayed her. She was thinking of Freeman being Wesley or me.

Wesley hesitated. He looked at Mother and then at Rachel Boyd. “You don’t need to worry about Freeman, Mrs. Boyd,” he said softly. “He’ll be out in a couple of days, soon as he gets some time to think about it.”

Rachel Boyd did not answer. She closed her sunken eyes and struggled with a convulsion trembling in her throat.

“We’ll go down in the morning and see if we can find him,” Wesley continued. “Me and Colin. Maybe he won’t run from us.”

“Good idea, Wesley,” Dover said. “He’s close to you boys, and that’s for sure. Maybe I’ll take off from the REA crew and go with you. Reckon it’ll be too wet to do much work, anyhow.”

“But the sheriff’s comin’ back with his deputies,” Lynn said. “They’ll be all over the place and…”

My father’s gaze stopped Lynn in mid-sentence. “They’ll start up by Rakestraw’s Bridge,” he corrected. “It’ll take all day to get down here.”

“Well, they’ll bring in bloodhounds and I guarantee it,” Dover said gravely.

My father walked to the living room window and looked out into the gray-black sheet of fog. “They been to your place, Odell?” he asked.

Odell Boyd shook his head. “Not directly. They’s been a sheriff’s car over that way. Saw it as we was leavin’ the house. Guess they must be expecting Freeman to come home.”

“Freeman’s not about to do that,” Dover declared. “That boy’s got better sense than that. They sure don’t do him credit, they think that.”

“They’ll be watching,” my father replied. “They’ll be wanting somethin’ of Freeman’s to get the scent if they bring in hounds.”

The room suddenly became quiet. Funeral quiet. No one moved. I could see gaunt, restless bloodhounds straining against their leashes, gouging clean, sharp furrows out of the ground with their claws, yelping at the scent of Freeman lingering in an old shirt or jacket. I could hear the primitive Ho’s and Yo’s of the bloodhound master urging his trained killer dogs to sniff out the unseen vapor trail of Freeman’s escape, and I had a grotesque vision of Freeman cowering in the arm of a high limb on a water oak as triumphant men circled their fourteen-year-old prey and laughed at his fear of drooling, hungry dogs with white, flashing teeth.

Odell Boyd flipped open the lid of his tobacco tin. “Maybe them dogs couldn’t find no scent if we’d scrub all the boy’s clothes,” he said.

“Makes no difference,” Dover answered. “They’d just take the whole pack of ’em in where Freeman’s bed is and they’d get it. Don’t make no difference, Odell.”

Odell Boyd nodded. He licked his cigarette into a roll.

“Not much a man can do in a case like this, not much at all,” Dover added.

Odell Boyd nodded again.

“Best thing to do is post bond for the boy and get Old Man Hixon to take a settlement,” Dover continued. “I worked for the man a long time and I’d guess he’d talk about it. Anyway, I’m not so sure he believes Dupree anymore’n I do,” Dover declared.

“He sure didn’t sound that way this afternoon,” argued Mother. “You’d have thought Freeman robbed Fort Knox, the way he was carryin’ on.”

“Yes’m. He sure sounds that way sometimes,” agreed Dover. “I seen him lots of times, mad like that. He gets over it, though.”

Rachel Boyd moved forward in her chair and reached for Mother’s hand. Her body heaved with a deep gurgling in her lungs.

“He’s my boy,” she said hoarsely, sadly. “He didn’t steal nothin’ from nobody. He wouldn’t do that.” She turned to Wesley. “Wesley, he wouldn’t do that, would he? You know him. He wouldn’t do that.”

Wesley stepped forward and handed Rachel Boyd the glass of water from the mahogany tray. “No m’am,” he said gently. “Freeman wouldn’t do nothin’ like that. There’s a truth to it. It’ll come out.”

“It will, won’t it?” Freeman’s mother whispered. “Pray God there’s a truth and it’ll be told. It’s not Freeman’s doing. I know it’s not.” She searched Wesley’s face for its magic.

“No, m’am,” Wesley said. “It’s not his doin’.”

“It’ll be like the boys said, Rachel,” Mother added softly.

Odell Boyd cupped the thin cigarette in his hand and stared at the burning tip. “I’ll see Hixon. First thing in the mornin’. Maybe I can work it off.”

Dover stood. “Best I take y’all on home,” he suggested. “Maybe me’n the boys can get us a early start in the mornin’.”

*

Wesley tugged me from sleep before dawn, motioning silence. Garry still breathed his warm, even rhythm of dreams. We dressed quickly in the umbrella of orange kerosene light in the middle room, and I could smell the spice of morning coffee and oatmeal from the kitchen.

“Now, I mean it,” Mother instructed as we ate. “Both of you stay together and don’t go driftin’ away from Dover. I don’t trust boys bein’ out in the woods this early.”

Mother worried about us. She did not consider that we had often been in the woods before dawn, checking rabbit boxes. But this was a particular day, with a particular mission, and she sensed an unseen danger. She filled our bowls a second time with bubbling oatmeal and spooned rich butter on top. “Eat it up,” she said firmly. “It’s stopped raining, but it’ll be chilly by the creek.”

Wesley poured a second cup of coffee. “Does Daddy think Freeman stole that money, Mama?”

“I guess not. Your daddy’s had his own trouble with Mr. Hixon. Two or three times, he’s tried to double-charge your daddy for fertilizer.”

“I remember,” Wesley said.

The white light of morning stretched its fingers over the rim of Black Pool Swamp and froze the horizon with its dull, aluminum color. Dover’s truck stuttered to a halt outside and we heard several voices.

“Dover’s got people with him,” I said.

“Why?” asked Mother. “He didn’t say anything about bringing anybody with him.”

Wesley and I went outside. Dover was removing a cardboard box from the cab of his truck. Alvin and R. J. and Otis stood sleepily, moving their balance from foot to foot, yawning, stretching. They said listless hellos. Otis leaned against the back fender and stuck his hands in his pockets.

“Why’s everybody here, Dover?” asked Wesley.

“Because, ol’ buddy, I have figured out what we’re gonna do to keep Freeman outa the strong right hand of the law. Yessir, got the plan when I was feedin’ Bark last night, so I stopped by and got the boys this mornin’.”

“What’re you talkin’ about, Dover? There’s nothin’ we can do,” I said. “Nothin’ except look for Freeman.”

“Sure there is,” Dover exclaimed. “Absolutely. Now, me and you and Wesley and the boys here know that nobody’s gonna find Freeman in that swamp if Freeman don’t want them to find him. Is that right?”

“Well, yeah, I guess,” I said.

“Except for one thing,” Dover added. “One thing, and one thing only.” Dover was becoming excited.

We waited for him to continue. He looked at Wesley and motioned slightly with his hands, begging Wesley to ask about the one thing that would trap Freeman. Wesley did not respond. Dover turned to R. J. and Alvin. Alvin blinked and yawned.

“One thing,” Dover repeated. “Any of you got any idea of what the sheriff’s plannin’ on doin’?”

“Bringing in deputies,” I answered eagerly.

Dover was disgusted. “So what?” he said. “A truckload of deputies couldn’t find Freeman in a month of Sundays. What else?”

“Bloodhounds,” Alvin said, suddenly awake. “Gonna bring in bloodhounds. That’s what they was sayin’ at the store last night.”

Dover laughed. “You got it, Alvin. You have put your finger slap-dab on it, boy. Bloodhounds. But we got the answer to that right here.” He raised the cardboard box he was holding, then placed it on the lowered tailgate of his truck and pulled open the folded-in top and removed a handful of wadded shirts and pants.

“What’s that?” asked Wesley. “Whose clothes you got, Dover?”

“Freeman’s, Wesley. These are Freeman’s clothes. His mama gave ’em to me early this morning. Them bloodhounds want to smell Freeman, well, by granny, they’re gonna smell Freeman.”

Wesley picked up a shirt and examined it. “All right, Dover. You want to tell us what it is you got in mind?”

“Well, Wes, every one of us is gonna take one of these pieces of Freeman’s clothes and we’re gonna drag them through Black Pool Swamp, goin’ in all different directions. That way, when them bloodhounds get in there, they’ll be goin’ crazy, trying to find which smell to follow.”

Dover made his announcement like a politician at a chicken barbecue. His plan was remarkable. It was a plan that would have baffled Sherlock Holmes, and Dover was drunk with the giddiness of his brilliance. He turned slowly on one heel, prying into each of our faces, begging our awed approvals. A wide, open-mouthed smile covered his face like a half-moon and there were very small sounds of “Yeah? Yeah? Yeah?” clicking on his tongue.

“I swear, Dover,” exclaimed Alvin. “I’m not believing it. You make that up? All by yourself?”

“I did. I sure did, Alvin. Well, almost by myself,” Dover answered proudly. “I heard this radio show where Sam Spade or Mr. Keene, Tracer of Lost Persons, or Boston Blackie, or somebody, stopped a crook from killin’ somebody by doing almost the same thing. And, boys, if it can work for Sam Spade, it can work for us.”

Wesley smiled, nodded, separated Freeman’s clothes. “It’s a good idea, Dover. I’m not sure it’s something we can do, but it’s one good idea.”

“What’d you mean, we can’t do it?”

“Daddy may not like it,” answered Wesley. “Maybe it’s against the law.”

“Against the law? What’s against the law, Wes? Sam Spade done it. It’s not against the law to go draggin’ clothes in the woods. Alvin, you ever hear it was against the law to drag some old clothes in the woods?”

Alvin grinned. “Not me, Dover.”

“I’m not talking about that,” Wesley said quietly. “I’m talking about interferin’ with a lawman’s duty, or something like that.”

“Wesley, you beat all, you know that?” argued Dover. “We’re talkin’ about Freeman. Freeman. If you was in there in place of him, he’d be doin’ the same thing, and more. No telling what Freeman would do if the shoe was on his other foot. I got to tell you, Wes, you can be some kind of stubborn at times. You not right all the time, you know.”

Wesley did not answer. R. J. spat through the slit of his front teeth. Alvin picked up a rock and threw it at a fence post, hitting it dead center. Dover kicked at the ground and pulled at his pants.

“All right,” Dover finally said. “I’ll go ask your daddy. He says it’s all right, you and Colin can come along. Don’t make no difference what he says about me’n the others. We’re gonna do it, and we not afraid to take the chance.”

Dover had leveled Wesley and Wesley knew it. “Aw, that’s all right,” Wesley said. “No need to ask Daddy. We’ll help out.” There was a right and a wrong to the matter, but Wesley was not certain right and wrong was important. Helping Freeman was part of it, and belonging to Dover’s inspired production of a radio drama was part of it. Wesley also knew his leadership had limits. He knew there was a difference between leading and demanding, even if he had reason for making demands. There was a thing, a rare click, in Wesley; it tempered his logic, balanced it with impulse, and as predictable as he seemed, no one ever knew what Wesley would do.

“Now, that’s talkin’,” exclaimed Dover. “That’s the way I like to hear you talk, Wes. All right, let’s do it this way.”

Dover squatted and brushed a fan-shaped design in the white sand of the front yard. He drew a series of loops, circles, and lines with his finger. At the bottom of the fan, he scrawled the letter N. “That stands for North,” he announced proudly. “I learned to do that in the Army.” At the top of the fan, he lettered an S.

“That’s South?” Alvin asked.

“You got it, Alvin. That’s South. S for South.”

“Put you a W on the right, Dover,” Otis said, cocking his head to study the design.

“The W goes on the left, Otis. W for West. E goes on the right. E for East,” Dover corrected.

“Yeah…”

Dover studied his lettering. “You got it, boys? This here’s Beaverjam Creek. That there’s Rakestraw Road.” He made wavy lines with his finger.

“Dover, you got the S and N upside down,” R. J. said.

“What’d you mean, R.J.?”

“North’s that way, and South’s that way, according to the creek.”

Dover looked again at his map. He stood and walked on the other side, peering at his design like a hawk after a rabbit. Then he looked around him, settling on the sun with its red yoke rupturing and running into the trees. “Yeah, you’re right, R. J.”

“What’d you need N and S for anyhow?” asked Otis. “That don’t mean nothin’. We know the swamp.”

“I guess you’re right, Otis. Just thought I’d like to teach you boys somethin’,” Dover explained timidly. “Anyway, this is it: R. J., you take off and go over toward the Goldmine Road; Otis, you skirt around that upper beaver dam and follow the old creek bed; Alvin, you stay on the high ground, up where we hunted them doves last year; Wes, you and Colin go right down the middle of the swamp, since y’all live here and know them low places better’n any of us, and I’m gonna go over toward Tanner’s Branch.”

“Me’n Wes don’t have to go together, Dover,” I volunteered. “He can go one way and I can go the other.”

“You stay with Wes,” ordered Dover. “And I mean it. Anything happen to you and your daddy’ll skin my hide. I’m not about to get your mama and daddy on my back.”

“But…”

“You stay with me,” Wesley said firmly.

“Aw…”

Dover erased his map with his shoe. “Now, we all are gonna start up there near Rakestraw Road, down below the bridge. All you gotta do is drag them clothes along behind you. When you get to some place where there’s nothin’ but snakes and lizards can get through, take them clothes and stuff ’em inside of your shirt, and backtrack a little ways, then cut off to one side. That way, it won’t do nothin’ but confuse them dogs.”

“Why’s that, Dover?” asked Otis. It was easy to baffle Otis.

“Well, Otis, I can smell Freeman in them clothes,” declared Dover. “I swear that boy puts off a stink. When them bloodhounds start sniffin’ out Freeman, they won’t smell nothin’ but Freeman.”

Dover issued articles of Freeman’s clothing and Wesley went into the house to tell Mother we were leaving. He returned with a paper sack.

“Mama fixed some food for Freeman, in case we find him,” Wesley explained. “I guess she thinks he’s starving.”

“Your mama’s a good woman, Wes, and that’s the truth,” Dover said. “I guess Freeman knows how to take care of himself, but if we don’t find him, just leave it somewheres. Freeman’ll find it. You better believe he’ll know where we are, even if we don’t know where he is.”

*

Dover drove his truck over a logging road that had become spotted with broom sage—a brown, forgotten highway. He stopped a quarter of a mile away from Rakestraw Bridge.

“All right, boys, y’all get started,” Dover instructed. “I’m gonna drive the truck back out to the road and I’ll circle back and pick up here.”

“It’s gettin’ late,” Alvin noted. “You not gonna have time before they turn loose them hounds.”

“Shoot, we got plenty of time, Alvin. You never seen a bunch of sheriff’s deputies at work, have you?” Dover said.

“No,” Alvin admitted.

“Well, first thing they gonna do is build a fire up there where they park their cars and trucks, and don’t ask me why. They always building fires, no matter how hot it is. Then they got to wait for ol’ Jim Ed Felton to bring his hounds, and Jim Ed’ll have to stop two or three times on the way to show off them dogs at country stores. Don’t ask me about that, either. That’s just Jim Ed. Loves to show off them dogs. Even when he gets up there where the sheriff’s waitin’, he’ll spend a hour talkin’ about which dog tracks best, which one howls loudest, which one’s in heat. It’ll take a couple of hours before they get ready to start.”

Dover had truly impressed us with his knowledge. There were times when we did not respect the fact that he was a man and we were boys, that he knew things we had never thought of.

Wesley and I slipped and stumbled down a steep hill leading to the upper spill of Black Pool Swamp. It was a part of the swamp we did not know well, because it was outside our boundaries, north of the imaginary north line that protected us, isolated us from threat and danger. We had hunted there with Freeman, and once each year we crossed through that damp, mossy seepage to a lush cane growth on Little Tanner’s Branch, and we cut a summer’s supply of fishing canes. But there was an unusual quiet to this part of the swamp, as though some untold horror had left its presence and that presence overwhelmed everyone and everything invading its influence.

Wesley had a pair of Freeman’s work pants and I carried the food Mother had packed in a paper sack. I walked ahead of Wesley, watching for suckholes, soft pools of sand and water that pockmarked the swamp. We decided to edge close to those pools, knowing the dogs would plunge stubbornly into the middle of the mire and be slowed by the laborsome work of clawing their way to firm ground. If we could trick them into four or five suckholes, we would then lead them straight up the steepest hill we could find, then down again, and up again, then back into the swamp.

We quickly discovered three suckholes and Wesley made certain the scent of Freeman’s work pants coated the ground. A huge pond of backed-up water we had never before seen forced us to the bank of a hill.

“Must be some new beaver dams,” Wesley guessed. “They been chewin’ on every tree in here.”

We walked silently along the rim of the pond, where the heavy perfume of tiny blossoms from tiny flowering plants lingered like sweet breath. A rain crow fussed at our intrusion. Huge black gums and water oaks and ash and beech had been nibbled down and the bark stripped clean. At the base of the trees, there were flat, neatly circled chips.

“What’d they strip the bark for?” I asked Wesley.

“Not sure,” he admitted. “Maybe it’s the sap they’re after. Maybe that’s what they eat. Maybe they use it to plug up their dams, like tar, or somethin’. I heard Halls Barton say they stripped the bark off to cure the logs. Maybe that’s it.”

We walked the shoreline of the water bank until we found the dam, a majestic heap of sticks and logs jammed into the runway of the branch. There was a long, curving wing on both sides of the branch, a fort-like pile of limbs built to nudge the water into select run-arounds in a slow, seeping fashion.

“Be some good fishin’ there,” observed Wesley. “We’ll have to remember it. Don’t guess nobody knows it’s here. Not even Freeman.”

“Sure he knows,” I said. “Freeman’s been all through here.”

“He’d have told us about this. It’s a lots better dam than them behind the house. Naw, Freeman don’t know about it.”

We had lingered too long and Wesley increased our pace until we crossed back inside our boundaries, and we were easy about where we were and where we were going. As we moved along, Wesley thought of a way to further confuse the bloodhounds. He took Freeman’s pants and rubbed them up the trunks of several trees, as far as he could reach, then he would stick the pants in his jacket and broad-jump away from the base of the tree. Fifty feet away from the tree, he would begin dragging the pants again.

“That’ll make ’em think they got Freeman treed,” Wesley said proudly. “Might even bring the sheriff and his deputies in tryin’ to find him. They’ll be goin’ crazy.”

“Are they gonna smell us, Wesley?”

“Sure, but it’s not us they’re supposed to smell. It’s Freeman, and Dover was right about one thing—these pants stink enough. I bet Freeman had been wearin’ them a week or longer.”

Nearer to the center of Black Pool Swamp, where we played, Wesley began to call softly for Freeman, but there was no answer.

“Do an owl,” I urged. “Maybe he’ll answer an owl.”

“Owls call at night. Don’t you know nothin’?”

“What about a bobwhite?”

“Well, he might answer.”

Wesley did a bobwhite. We waited. He whistled again. Nothing.

“Freeman,” I called out. “Freeman.”

Wesley turned his head slowly, like a bird listening to the wind. “He’s not gonna say nothin’,” he mumbled.

Freeman did not answer, but I could feel him, sense his presence. He was near, watching us.

“He’s there, ain’t he, Wesley?” I whispered.

“Maybe.”

“There’s no maybe about it. He’s sneakin’ around and you know it.”

“We don’t got the time to find out. We gotta get back to the house,” Wesley said.

“Let me drag the pants a little bit,” I begged. “You been draggin’ all the way.”

“All right, but make sure they stay on the ground. I’m goin’ on down to the sand bar to see if Otis has crossed the creek yet. You come on down there.”

Wesley left quickly, disappearing into the woods. I turned Freeman’s pants inside out and carefully pulled them after me. Not even Wesley had thought of turning the pants inside out, and I was pleased with the brilliance of my idea: if bloodhounds could smell Freeman on the outside of his pants, they would go slobbering crazy when they picked up a whiff of this fresh odor.

I decided not to follow Wesley’s path. If the bloodhounds had become accustomed to our scents, going separate directions would have to divide the pack and we would then contend the bloodhounds were worthless, because they could not tell one scent from another.

Dragging Freeman’s pants through the woods was the first important, man-type thing I had ever done, and I began to feel the oppressive responsibility of a newer, higher calling. I could see men sitting around service stations talking about the daring and, yes, the genius, of my woodmanship. Dragging pants was a man’s job, they would say, a man’s art, and I had, at twelve, advanced all recognized knowledge of the subject by turning the pants inside out. And they would talk—probably in exaggerations—of how the fresh, powerful scent of Freeman had been sniffed off oak leaves by a wild dog covered with bloodsucking ticks and driven insane with rabies, and how that dog had begun stalking me, slithering along on its belly like a bobcat, until it found me, off guard and unawares. They would lower their voices when they retold the part about the dog’s charge, leaping through the air toward my twelve-year-old back, and how I had turned, Freeman’s pants in one hand and a jagged walking stick in the other, and how I had had time to do only one thing—fall away and jab the walking stick into the throat of the diving dog. And after the telling, the men would sit quiet in their service stations and nod. Their telling and sitting and nodding would make a legend of my helping Freeman, and I would protest. Any man—man, that is—would have done the same thing.

I found a walking stick, with the suggestion of a point, and then circled the hill where, when we were younger, we had spent exuberant hours on torn-apart cardboard boxes, sledding down a carpet of pine needles. It had been a childish time, a time when there was no difference between black and white and our babyhood friends included the children of Negro sharecroppers. In the days of our sledding, we had been totally free of the distinction of Our Side and the Highway 17 Gang. We did not know there was a difference between us and anyone. We did not know, because we did not care. The days were too filled with adventure, too crowded with pleasures of running, physically running, after the quicksilver of seasons. The running had kept us joyously alive, had reminded us of our realness and quickened our imaginations of what it was like to be a spinning member of a spinning universe.

I passed a fox den that was unusually deep, burrowed beneath a surface root of a black gum tree, and an inspiring bit of trickery exploded in my mind. I pulled Freeman’s pants over the opening of the fox den, generously rubbing the ground with Freeman’s scent. I wrapped the pants around my walking stick and carefully shoved them deep into the den, scrubbing them against the walls of that dark, dry hiding place. I then walked away in giant steps, holding Freeman’s pants above my head on the stick. If Jim Ed Felton’s bloodhounds could still tell up from down, they would turn into whimpering fools at the fox hole. And if Jim Ed found them there, braying at a hole in the ground, he would kick their butts and sell them to the highest bidder.

There was no reason to drag Freeman’s pants any longer. There was a certain justice to leaving Freeman in a fox den. Freeman would love that touch, I thought. Freeman would have done exactly the same thing.

“Colin, what are you doin’, boy?”

I did not expect Freeman’s voice. It struck me like a great weight, broke my knees, and crushed the breath out of me. My heart erupted like a volcano, careened off my ribs, and lodged somewhere underneath my left armpit. I sank to the ground, and Freeman was over me like a cloud, catching me before I fell forward.

“Hey. What’s the matter, boy? You all right?”

I tried to motion for Freeman to catch the stick in my hand, the one holding his pants, but he did not understand and the stick fell away.

“C’mon, boy. You not gonna die on me, are you?” Freeman said. He slapped me twice across the face and suddenly the fear rushed out of my brain and my heart began to ease back into my chest cavity.

“Yeah, yeah, Freeman, I’m all right,” I mumbled, sitting down and breathing deep. “You have to scare me to death?”

Freeman smiled, smiled his King-of-Black-Pool-Swamp, Chief-of-the-Great-Okeenoonoo smile. “I gotta be careful. You know that.”

“You could’ve whistled, or somethin’.”

“Yeah. Guess I could’ve. Where’d Wes go?”

“Down to the sand—hey, how’d you know Wesley was with me?”

“I been watchin’ you for almost a hour. What’d y’all doin’, anyway? You look like a bunch of fools draggin’ a pair of pants through the woods. I even saw Alvin and Otis doin’ the same thing. Y’all crazy?”

I explained Dover’s scheme and Freeman radiated. He loved the plan and he loved the attention.

“That is something else,” he said happily. “Yessir, that is about the finest piece of thinkin’ Dover has ever done, or ever will do. Hard to believe he’s got that much sense.”

“He said he got the notion from a radio show. Sam Spade or somebody.”

“Sam Spade? Well, it ought to work. Sam Spade, huh? I didn’t hear that one. Did you? You hear it?”

“Naw. Hey, Freeman, what’d you think about pokin’ them pants of yours in that fox hole?” I asked.

“Son, that is pure genius. Yessir. Pure genius. Couldn’t’ve thought of anything better myself. Guess I messed it up, trampin’ all around here, but that’s some kind of thinkin’. I’m proud of you. Yessir, I am, and that’s a fact.”

Freeman’s compliment was highly flattering, but his mood changed quickly and he became strangely tense.

“What’re you gonna do, Freeman?” I asked. “Sheriff and his deputies are gonna be all over the place.”

Freeman picked up a stick and started chewing on it. “Well, I’m not too sure. I just know I’m not goin’ to jail, and that’s the truth. Not for somethin’ I didn’t do.”

“You didn’t steal that twenty dollars, did you, Freeman?”

“Steal it? Shoot, I never even saw it. If I was goin’ to steal something, it’d sure as Satan be more’n twenty dollars. You know I got more sense than that.”

“They’ll catch up to you, Freeman. Sooner or later.”

“They never gonna catch me, and you know it. C’mon, let’s go find Wesley.”

We moved quickly through the woods, across a net of drain ditches covered with surface water, and followed the bank of Beaverjam Creek. Freeman moved like an animal, completely noiseless and graceful. Watching him slip like some wind creature through the trees, I realized it was impossible to tell he had been there. Perhaps bloodhounds would siphon off the steps he had taken, but no man could follow the evidence of Freeman’s movements. I had never before believed his stories about melting into the woods and becoming part of them; now I did, and I remembered other exhibitions of his skill. Once, when Wesley and I had camped with Freeman, I saw him snap the head of a cottonmouth moccasin in a move so blinding it frightened me. “I could do that ten times out of ten,” he bragged. Now, following him, I knew he had not lied. Freeman became an ethereal extension of himself in Black Pool Swamp. In Black Pool—in the Great Okeenoonoo—Freeman was free, free from any of the pitiful suspicions we had when he told his tales.

Wesley was sitting, half-hidden, beside a water oak that was twisted and knotted. He was not surprised to see Freeman.

“Here,” Wesley said, handing Freeman the paper sack of food Mother had prepared for him. “Mama’s worried you’re starvin’ in here.”

Freeman devoured the sandwiches and baked sweet potato.

“That’s good,” he declared, swallowing the last sandwich. “Boys, y’all have got one good mama, and I’d swear to it on a stack of Bibles as high as my head.”

“Talkin’ about mamas, you got one that’s scared to death,” Wesley said.

Freeman’s face was furrowed and he seemed extremely tired. “Yeah, I know it. Figured she must be pretty upset when she and Daddy come over to your place last night. She all right? She—she any sicker?”

“She’s worried, Freeman. You got to expect that,” answered Wesley. “You her only child and you’re runnin’ around in here like some fool, hiding from the law. You know you can’t do that.” Wesley was irritated.

“Well, Wesley, I guess that’s something you can’t know about. I guess that’s something that me and only me has to answer to,” Freeman said slowly.

“Freeman, you’re breaking the law by runnin’. It’s plain and simple.”

For a moment, Freeman did not speak, then he said, “Wes, I just don’t need your preachin’ right now. Law? What law? I get arrested and throwed in jail for somethin’ I didn’t do, and you call that law? I didn’t steal no twenty dollars. I didn’t steal nothin’. You hear me? Nothin’.”

Wesley knew he had pushed Freeman. “All right, Freeman, let’s look at this thing, piece by piece. You say you didn’t steal Hixon’s money? Well, why was it in your shirt pocket?”

“How’m I supposed to know? I don’t have the slightest notion. I’d say Dupree done it when I took my shirt off and hung it up on the back door of the store. Don’t know any other time it could’ve happened.”

“O.K.,” Wesley continued. “Why didn’t you tell that to the sheriff?”

“Tell him?” Freeman said. “I told him a hundred times. Maybe a thousand. He just kept sayin’ to shut up or he’d smack me shut. Said he was gonna throw me in jail and bury the key. I’m telling you, Wes, I’m not goin’ to jail.”

“How you think you can make it in here?” I asked.

“I’ll make it, Colin. Don’t need to fret about that. I got ways. Lots of ways.”

“Freeman, you may hide out here and not get caught. I don’t know,” Wesley said. “But they’ll be after you until this thing’s over. You ought to let the sheriff take you, and my daddy’ll make sure you don’t spend one night behind bars. He’ll make bond, and I know it. Besides, Daddy’s got lots of people he knows over in Edenville. He don’t like Brownlee one bit, and he’s not about to let anything happen to you.”

Freeman was obviously affected by Wesley’s assurances. “I reckon you’re right, Wes. Your daddy’s a good man, and I know he’s got some pull over at the courthouse. But—but, Wesley, I can’t do it. I just can’t, and that’s that.”

I knew Wesley would argue. I knew he would think of some reason for Freeman to surrender, some reason that Freeman could not deny.

I was wrong.

“What do you want us to do, Freeman?” Wesley asked after a moment.

Freeman looked at Wesley, then at me. We were both surprised. Wesley had not protested. He had accepted Freeman’s position.

“I been thinkin’ about that,” Freeman replied eagerly. “Three things, Wes. Three things.”

Wesley nodded. “What are they?”

Freeman moved closer to Wesley. “First thing is to get to Dupree. Find out why he stuck that twenty dollars in my pocket.”

“You sure it was Dupree?” I asked.

“Had to be. I been thinkin’ about it. You know Dupree swore he’d square up with me for what I said to him that day at school. Well, I just made all that up, right there on the spot, but there must’ve been somethin’ that went on down there on that farm. Anyhow, he never forgot it. Every chance he’s had this summer, he’s denied it.”

“What made you say anything about him on his granddaddy’s farm, Freeman?”

“Well, Wes, it just popped in my head, that’s all,” Freeman explained. “I’d heard one of his granddaddy’s hands tellin’ about a bull chasing Dupree out of the pasture, and that was the only thing I could think of when Dupree was lippin’ off to Colin.”

“It’s not gonna be easy,” Wesley said. “We’ll try. What else?”

“I’m gonna be needin’ some food from time to time. Whenever you and the others can get somethin’ together, put it in a sack and leave it somewhere.”

“Where?” I asked. “No way we can tell where you gonna be.”

“I tell you what. The REA’s gonna be cuttin’ through near here,” Freeman answered. “Leave it where they quit cuttin’ every day. I’ll find it.”

“That’s two things. What else, Freeman?” Wesley pressed.

“Don’t know if you can do it, Wes. Maybe I’d better take care of it myself.”

“What?”

“My mama. She—she ought to know I’m all right. I’d go over there, except I know there’s been a sheriff’s car around, and it might get Mama and Daddy in trouble.”

“I’ll try.”

Freeman was quiet. He stared at the ground. “I’d appreciate that, Wesley. I sure would.”

Wesley unwrapped Freeman’s pants from my walking stick. “You really think you can hide from the law, Freeman?”

“In here, I can.”

“What about them bloodhounds?” I asked.

“Shoot, y’all got ’em messed up. Anyway, they don’t got a chance followin’ me in the water, and there’s where I aim to be the rest of the day.”

“What if somethin’ happens? What if you get a snake bite, or somethin’? Here, you want these?” Wesley offered Freeman his dirty pants.

“Naw, y’all keep ’em. Don’t be worryin’ about me, Wes. If I get snakebit, I’ll yell.”

Wesley looked at Freeman as though he would never again see him. “Take care, buddy.”

“Yeah.”

“Take care, Freeman,” I said.

“You, too. Good thinkin’ on them pants, ol’ buddy.”

“Yeah.”

“See you, Freeman,” Wesley muttered.

“I’ll whistle some night,” Freeman replied, grinning. He turned quickly and slipped away into the woods. He did not make a sound leaving.

“He’s spooky,” I said.

“Yeah, he is,” Wesley whispered.