“So it’s freedom then,” I said.
“Freedom,” she said. “Mend it or rip it. No more treating. No more in-between. Die young, or not all.”
And so we walked out from the woods and onto the path, and in open view of the night, I took her hand and I was aware that her hand was steady and mine trembled. We had put our lives on the honor of Georgie Parks. We believed in the rumor, in the Underground. We crossed and did not look back, and made for the woods, steering clear of Starfall. I had, in the days prior, taken time to wander among the back-paths, and had found a way to bring us to Georgie’s meeting place with both speed and discretion. When we reached the small pond where Georgie and I had stood one week earlier, we relaxed a bit.
“What will you do when you get there?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” she said. “Don’t know what a gal do in a swamp. Would like to work—work for my own. That is my highest ambition. How bout you?”
“Get as far as I might from you, I figure.”
We both laughed.
“You know you crazy,” I said. “Got me out here, running. I say if we make it through—when we make it through—I will have had all I need of Sophia’s schemings.”
“Uh-huh. Might be nice to lighten my own load,” Sophia said. “Men ain’t brought me and mine nothing but a heap of trouble.”
We laughed a little more. I looked up at the starless sky, then looked over to Sophia, who was backing away, backing toward the pond. And then I heard footsteps, and conversation, and I could tell that whoever was approaching was not alone. I thought to hide then, but I distinctly heard Georgie’s voice among the men, and this stayed me. Then the voices went quiet and all we heard were the footsteps crunching against the ground. I took Sophia’s hand and looked through the opening in the wood. I saw the darkness framing the figure of Georgie Parks.
I smiled, I remember that. And I tell you, as I have always, that I remember everything, but here perhaps, I am playing tricks upon myself because it was a starless night, and I could not see Sophia as little more than a silhouette before me, but I swear that I remember seeing the face of Georgie Parks, and his face was pained and was sad and I did not know why. And then I heard the footsteps again and I saw five white men emerge, one by one from the darkness, and I saw that one of them carried a rope between his hands. And when they were out, they stood before us for what seemed like forever and I heard Sophia moan, “No, no, no…”
And then I watched one of the men touch Georgie’s shoulder and say, “All right, Georgie, you done good.” And at that Georgie turned his back on us and walked back into the forest, and these men, with their rope, turned to us.
“No, no, no,” moaned Sophia.
I swear they were like phantoms, glowing against the night like specters, and I knew by their outline and bearing exactly what they were.
9
RYLAND’S HOUNDS BROUGHT US up by pistol-point, brought us through that moonless and starless night, through a darkness thick enough to touch, thick as the ropes knotted around our hands. And I was suddenly aware of the cold, of the wind swinging like a sword, so that I then began to shiver and this became a fact of great amusement for our captors, and though I could not see them, I could hear them laughing at me, mocking me—“Time for shivering past, boy”—for they took me to be in fear of what they might do. It was true that Ryland’s Hounds were fearsome and the fact that I was not in total terror can only be attributed to the flight of emotions—shame, anger, shock—that now raced ahead of fear. They could have done anything to us out there, done anything to her, for this was the normal path of things. It was the necessary right of the Low, who held no property in man, to hold momentary property in those who ran, and to vent all their awful passions upon them. And from the moment I saw Georgie disappear, and Ryland float out of the woods like wraiths, I felt that this venting must come. But it did not. They just led us out of the woods, into Starfall, until we were at the jail, and there they replaced rope with chains, and left us in the yard, like the animals they took us to be, dressed in cold irons, for what must be our last moments together, our last moments upon this earth as we knew it.
I remember the heaving weight of the chains, a center-line extending from the collar around my neck, down to a smaller chain and cuffs around my wrists, through another chain and cuffs clapped around my ankles. And this lattice of cold iron was looped around the bottom rail of the fence that bracketed the jail, so that I could neither straighten my back nor take a seat for relief, and was thus permanently stooped. All my life I had been a captive. But whereas the particulars of my birth had allowed me to feel this bondage as a mark or symbol, there was nothing symbolic in this hulking web. I could angle my neck in one direction, and there I found pain of a different sort, for I caught sight of Sophia, fastened just as I was, perhaps a few yards away. I wanted so bad to say something as radical as I felt the moment then demanded. I wanted to tell her of my great sorrow at having led her into this deeper, truer slavery. I wanted to hold myself to her account for this great betrayal. But when I spoke, I had nothing but the most impoverished of words.
“I…I am sorry,” I said. I had turned my head back down to the ground. “I am so very sorry.”
Sophia did not answer.
What I badly wanted, right then, was a blade, and with it, I would slit my own throat. I could not live knowing what I had done, what I had brought to Sophia. And it was so very cold out there. I could feel my hands turning to rock, and my ears disappearing into the night, and I knew I was crying, because I felt those quiet tears freezing on my cheeks.
At that moment, lost in my own shame, I heard a low rhythmic grunting, and I saw that with each grunt the bottom rail of the fence shook a little. And now looking over I saw that it was Sophia who was grunting. She was pulling the weight of the chains and, one foot at a time, sliding closer and closer, for what I could not be sure. Perhaps she wanted to be closer so that she might whisper some ancient curse, or rend one of my ears between her teeth. She moved with great force, and with her every upward heave, the rail heaved with her. I had no idea she was this strong. She began slowly, breaking between each slide, but as she approached, the heaves became faster and greater, so that I thought her plan might be to the snap the railing itself and free us. But when she reached me, she stopped, exhausted, panting from her great effort, and she was close enough that I could see all of her features and she looked upon me, tender at first, so tender that, at least for that moment, my shame slid away. Then, straining against the chains, she angled her head forward a bit, past the fence, past the jail, and though I could not see it, I knew that her indication was aimed toward Freetown. And she looked back at me and what I saw was a look so hard that I knew that she too wished for a knife, though the throat she wanted it for would not be her own. Now I saw her face tighten and her teeth bear down. Sophia gave one last heave until she was right next to me, so close that I could feel her breath on my cheek and her arm close against mine, so close that she could lean in against me, as she did now, so close that I could feel her warmth, so close that icy darkness retreated, and I shivered no more.