Chapter 19 #2
After the fire burns down to a soft glow, I set the fish atop the embers, and crouch on my heels, watching them cook.
The smell is delectable, and the taste is even better.
Ruby and I enjoy the warm meal, using the tree stump as a makeshift table.
We pick every bit of the tender, white flesh from the bones, not wanting to waste a morsel.
After we eat, she helps me cut spartina for the roof of my shelter, and together, we finish the hermitage before the sun sets.
She leaves me at nightfall, turning to wave at me once through the trees. I know this is the last time I’ll see her. My friend. My saving grace. I think of her future life, safe and free in the North, and pray that she gets everything she wants and deserves.
As for me? The marsh will have to be enough.
But the perpetual emptiness of my future conjures dread.
Alone out here, my dreams and memories have full rein—a chorus of regrets eager to chase away any peace I might hope for in solitude.
It’s all coming back to me now. What I witnessed.
What I denied. What I refused to speak aloud, for speaking it aloud would have made it all true.
And finally, it occurs to me. I allowed myself to take the blame for Rebecca’s death because, on some level, I was guilty and felt like I deserved my punishment.
If I’d spoken up, if I’d said something sooner, she might still be here.
I lie back, trying to harness my emotions as night descends.
I listen to the soft, resonant call of a great-horned owl.
The distant splash of a dolphin plying the riverine landscape.
The sawing of cicadas. But even surrounded by these comforting, familiar sounds, the marsh, once my haven, offers me no respite from my tortured thoughts.
My solitude doesn’t last long. I wake to the sound of dogs baying in the distance.
I scurry out of the hermitage, jump to my feet, and tamp out the remains of the fire, throwing dirt over the embers.
The dogs are getting closer. And beneath their baying, I hear the voices of men.
A search party. My heart gallops as I gather my most precious possessions—the kitchen knife, my jewelry pouch, the matches, and the fishing hook and twine, which I hastily cut from the limb I’ve tied them to.
I scoop handfuls of pluff mud, covering my skin and clothing with it to mask my scent before crossing the shallow creek to hide in the underbrush.
The men’s voices grow louder, the glancing light from their torches and lanterns flickering through the trees.
I slow my breathing, every muscle in my body quivering as I will myself to remain still.
“Here! Over here!” The crunch of boots carries from my clearing. The hounds’ baying becomes a cacophony. “She’s been here. There’s a fire. I knew I saw smoke earlier.”
The men talk among themselves excitedly.
I catch snatches of their conversation. Enough to know they mean to lynch me if they find me.
I heard the same threats made against my father, many times.
And lynching has been the fate of many an escaped slave.
This is sport for men like these—hunting human beings.
The reward on my head will likely be the same, whether I’m dead or alive.
Anger wells up in me, hot and fierce. I hate these men. What they stand for.
My muscles tense as the men spread out, parting the underbrush with the butts of their rifles, their dogs at their heels. It’s only a matter of time before they find me. I pray, silently, against all hope.
A ragged snuffling meets my ears. Through the fresh, green undergrowth, I see a bluetick hound on the other side of the creek, her nose to the ground as she prowls nearby.
She lifts her head and bays. I flatten out, slowly, soundlessly, until my belly presses into the cool mud.
I’d rather risk sinking in the sulfurous quagmire than what they have planned for me.
The men gather at the edge of the creek, peering across. There are fewer than I thought—only three. “She must be on the other side of the creek,” one of them says.
“She won’t get far.”
They splash into the creek, their hounds at their heels.
This is it. It’s over.
Suddenly, a gunshot cracks overhead. Then another, from somewhere behind me. I tuck my head under my arms as I hear a bullet whiz past and hit the water. “Off my land!”
The men still, talking among themselves, confused.
“You cross that creek, you’re dead men,” the booming voice says, menacing, angry, and distinctly British.
It’s Kate. She’s come looking for me. Longing and relief and love flood through me, along with the fear that she might die here, with me. These men are hardly the sort to respect her warning.
“We’re searching for that escaped convict. The murderer,” the tallest man says, eyes scanning the spartina. It occurs to me they can’t see her.
“I don’t give a damn. You’re on private property. Mayhew property.” Kate’s voice seems to come from everywhere all at once, as if amplified. She fires another shot. One of the men yelps.
“Goddammit. Show yourself!” the tallest man screeches.
“The next time I shoot, I won’t miss. Now leave, gentlemen, and don’t come around here again.”
The men confer with one another, strangely subdued, all their earlier bravado gone.
Kate has exposed them for the cowards they are.
Men who hunt the desperate and hopeless.
I watch as they splash back through the creek, and trudge up the bank, then disappear into the trees, their hounds padding dutifully by their side.
I remain on my belly in the marsh grass, trembling.
“You can come out, Lil. They’re gone.” Kate’s voice is stern, but tender.
I push up onto my hands and knees, my joints aching. I see her then, silhouetted against the twilight sky, tall and imposing, like a warrior queen of old. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s go home.”