Katy Smith - Free Men

The Indian turns toward him, away from me, and recounts a legend I can’t hear, perhaps about how the stars crawled into the sky from some primordial swamp and arranged themselves in stories so that centuries later men would find reason to speak even after it was dark.

I pick my way half down the pecan before I know what I am doing. The ground below me is now close enough to fall upon without sound. I stretch one leg out, just to feel it, and wonder what such a leg might do independent of my better judgment. Might it hop down from this tree and creep over to the fire to warm its foot? Sneak between the men’s bodies to claim its spot in the circle, near enough now not only to hear every swallowed word but to offer its own modicum of worldly perspective? It too has dreams; it too has a past that has shaped it like a slow drip of water in a lime cave, and which it too wishes to slough off. Across the proscenium of my mind trots an idea so swiftly that I almost miss it: to once more abandon my previous existence and join these bandits as a brother-in-arms, though perhaps their days of being armed are mostly done.

What stops me? My other leg, the one still notched in the lowest branch, protests. I am weak enough to yearn for fame, the variety that’s enshrined in learned texts and passed down as wisdom so that bolder men might adjust their empires. I am brave, but I am not bold; I am curious, but my curiosity needs a purpose. And though I can confess to wanting these men to see me as kin, foolishly, I am still unconvinced that the human family is really so broad. This is the irony of the scholar; though I intend to convince the world of a universal truth, my own heart lags behind. I climb back up the tree silently, and with a certain diminishment of pride.

The black man flops over, letting out a breath loud enough to scare the foxes.

“I’m going to need some new clothes. No one’ll think I’m free looking like this. Can’t be free until folk believe it. Cat asleep?”

They wait.

“Who’s going to take him, you or me?”

THE BLACK MAN and the white man and the Indian man are asleep under the blanket of dawn. Their chests rise and fall, a little organ in the woods.

In my notebook I mark the habits that have grown familiar. The way the black man begins his sleep with all his limbs out, then turns from his back to his stomach, then over again, each shift accompanied by loud snorts and then pleasant sighs. How the Indian man must cover himself with something, like a child afraid to let his hand slip from the quilt, and the white man is generally awake through the night. Yes, he’s awake now too. His eyes are closed, but his hands are at work, idly braiding strands of grass. Their campfire is black and cold, for it was small and didn’t keep. They needn’t have bothered hiding it.

Here I am, a man in a pecan, poised to strip these men of their liberty, all because I believe strongly in the principle of justice, which suggests that men come alike before the law and are punished alike. This fact seems to me a very leveling one and, executed properly, could serve as a primary route to dismantling the outdated oligarchy so rooted in European soil. Whatever I write, of course, will refrain from a political tone. But I remind myself that any nascent feeling of brotherhood I may have in this tree is but a blink compared to the enduring good of impartiality. These men have already negated their freedom through an act of violence, and empathy is nowhere in fashion.

Cat sits up, tossing his braided grass into the embers of the fire. On his hands and knees, he picks past his comrades and crawls into the ring of woods surrounding the clearing. I hear the stream of his urine and then his scuttling deeper in the pines, in search of food, perhaps. From my perch in the lower branches, I cannot be discerned but by the doves roosting above me. The black man and the Indian are still asleep; the Indian’s gun is resting between them, as if either could claim it. I wish they were awake and speaking. The hour is coming when this hunt will be done, and I — the arbiter of their fates if Fate is to be believed in — am already sorry.

I once might have watched the white man’s absence more closely, but now I know he will never leave, that he is built like a barnacle. Yesterday morning, the others took a bow and a net into the forest to scare up breakfast, and Cat, left to guard the bags of silver, became nearly despondent as the minutes passed and brought no sign of their return. I was unconcerned — the Indian would not get lost and neither man would abandon the plunder — but the white one began gulping, and if I had not known it was fear from the raw smell of him, I would have thought the man was choking on a bone. By the time they returned, he was weeping.

He comes back now, still crawling, with a cluster of leaves in his shirt pocket. He squats by the fire, rolls a few of them into a thin tube, and lights the end of it in the embers. I have heard the other men discuss, in Cat’s absence, a bounty hunter that may have been after the white man for murder, even before the events at the creek. But crouched here — damp, lonely, and pipeless — he looks incapable of force. Just because he weeps doesn’t mean he is worth pity.

The scent of the smoke first wakes the Indian, who stands and stretches while glancing into the gaps in the surrounding trees, his lean arms still tense after a night of unrest. He kicks the black man, who begins mumbling loudly, complaining of his bandaged shoulder. The Indian takes a stick and digs in the embers. He tosses the wood to one side and nimbly scrabbles in the hot dirt with his fingers until he finds the cache of squirrel meat he had wrapped in leaves and buried the night before, roasted now. He pulls it into pieces for his companions. None speak until the meat is gone.

It is the slave who fully wakes to his surroundings last, and I say slave because I have learned that he fled a plantation in Florida, leaving behind wife and children. So he found the road more appealing than his bride — this is neither new nor criminal. His folly lies in lingering. If he were caught on the road they might bring him safe home, but now with the bags of silver to his name, he’s not worth keeping alive. After he finishes his roasted breakfast, he is reluctant to stand and looks confused until he rubs the sleep from his eyes and lets his memory settle around the past few days. Upon remembering, he softly shakes his head.

The black man brings his knees to his chest, dropping his hands down to his feet so he can pick in his toes. They haven’t eaten much in their travels; I expect the Indian to fell a deer soon. From my branch, I stretch one leg to shake out the numbness.

“How soon’s the Mississippi?” The black man’s whisper is remarkably loud.

The Indian bends to speak to him so I cannot hear. The white man is not paying attention, but has untied one of the sacks and removed a coin.

“And after we cross, then we cut loose?”

The Indian nods, pouring water from his jug onto the remnants of the fire and covering it with leaves and dirt. He makes a comment I cannot hear and the black man throws a stick at him, not without affection, then buttons his ragged coat with dignity and takes himself into the woods for a private toilet. The Indian kneels by the white man. His voice is soft, but I cup my ear and catch it.

“If I survive whatever comes,” he says, pausing, dipping his head to meet the white man’s oblique gaze, “then one day I’ll go back. I could protect you there.” His hand is on the other’s shoulder.

I slowly remove the strap of the gun from my shoulder, bring it into my crooked lap.

The white man makes a sound like a startled horse, which may be a laugh. He pats the Indian’s shoulder, and the Indian, to my surprise, pats back.