Part 22 (1/2)

But they didn't. January had bolted across the treedotted strip of land between the big house and the cane beyond Thierry's cottage, when they at last emerged around the corner, riding h.e.l.l-for- leather on the horses that they'd run to, caught, and mounted. It was a good hundred and fifty feet and January leaned into it, legs driving with all his strength, hoofbeats hammering behind him, and a small corner of his heart zinging with the knowledge that there was no way they could catch him before he reached the cane, and he was right.

He plunged into the cane, slithering through the harsh dark green wall of it, praying he wouldn't tread on a snake. They'd expect him to head for the river. That bought him time, for he veered leftward immediately, inward toward the swamp. Once in the cipriere, he thought, they'd have to separate-and then like High John the Conqueror in the tale, he'd be able to take on both the lion and the bear.

He heard the riders behind him, still trying to drive their horses through the cane-rows. They were crackers, not planters, and had never had the occasion to learn that each row of mature cane was, in effect, a wall. He slithered through two or three, like a flea burrowing in a bale of cotton, then hit one of the narrow paths between ditches and ran, their curses fading behind him.

They'd waste time at that, he thought, before turning inland.

His heart was racing, after a week of slavery wild with freedom and with terror.

Two weeks on Mon Triomphe had given him back his old sense of bearings about distances, too.

When he worked his way back through the rows toward what he thought would be about the end of the line of cabins, he found he wasn't far off; just opposite Nancy and Boaz's house, two or three only from the end of the row. At this time of the afternoon, the quarters were empty; everyone in the field, except for the sick and the tiniest children under Pennydip's charge. It was an easy matter to spring over the fence in the last garden in the row, to dart to the well-stocked pig-house, slip his hand under the rafters, and find Harry's rifle.

He threw himself under the house, groped in the long weeds there for the boards that covered holes. He was looking for powder and ball, and found none, although he did find a bullet mold and seven or eight small bags of lead sc.r.a.ps such as he'd collected from Arnaud on Daubray.

Also three gourds of liquor, a bag of salt, a woman's blue silk dress, and two cane-knives. He took one gourd of liquor and the salt, in case he needed something to trade, but didn't dare stay to hunt more thoroughly. He was thinking very fast, like a hunted animal-aware that they would indeed hunt him like an animal. What he meant to do had to be done swiftly, in the hunt's first rush, before men came in from all over the parish. Already he could hear the voices of the pursuers, far distant and still near the river. But with rumor and fear of rebellion capping three years of accounts of Nat Turner's depredations, it wouldn't be long, he thought, before more men joined them. He paused only long enough to help himself to the ash-pone and yams Cynthia had laid out under a pot, then slipped back into the cane, and started to run along the rows-Harry's liquor gourd bouncing and knocking against the small of his back. Once the men turned their horses toward the cipriere, they could travel faster than he.

Once they got Tim Rankin's dogs, he reflected, he had better be able to lick all four feet and jump . . . and thereafter keep his feet off the telltale earth.

A rider bound for Tim Rankin's would take the cart path that turned into the little trail he and Harry had used, that ran along the edge of the slough.

The initial search would be downstream, in the direction of Refuge. If he swung upstream-if he obtained a horse long enough at least to lose the dogs-there was a good chance he could work his way to the river in the next parish. Thereafter he could hide out on Catbird Island and wait for Shaw.

If Shaw was coming. January had been angry at Kiki for saying Hannibal might desert him, but now-on the run for his life-he wasn't so sure.

They would hang Mohammed, he thought, as he reached the shelter of the woods with barely three hours of daylight left and the riders close enough that he could hear their voices, sharp in the distance like bells. Jeanette, too, of course, and Parson and Pennydip. Probably old Banjo as well. Anyone who'd been on Mon Triomphe thirty-six years ago, when Gowon and his friends had burned the house, murdered the overseer and his family and Fourchet's young wife and infant daughter. Duffy was looking no farther than that, seeing nothing but the specter of slave rebellion, without examining the pattern closely to see whether it fit or only appeared to fit.

Well, you can't tell about n.i.g.g.e.rs. Settling himself in the long gra.s.s of the slough, January could almost hear the man saying it. Reason enough not to search for motive, or logic, or any coherent chain of likelihood. A white man had been murdered by his slaves. Every man of them who held slaves-or hoped to hold slaves in the future when he was richer-would be uneasy, too frightened by the recent events in Virginia to consider that January hadn't even been on the place when the trouble had started.

And by flight he had branded himself guilty. Reasonable or not, there was little likelihood he'd survive capture.

You can't tell about n.i.g.g.e.rs.

Well, he thought, leveling his gun on the path that led toward Tim, Rankin's house, you can sure tell about this one.

He would have, he knew, only the one shot.

And the shot, if it failed, would give away his hiding place to the rider whose hoofbeats he could feel through the vibration of the ground.

Virgin Mary, help me get out of this. He was back in New Orleans, the mob of white men around him roaring with laughter as they razored his clothes off him with their knives. Help me get that horse.

There was an oak tree the rider would have to swing around, a low branch he'd have to duck, not twenty feet from where January lay. Smoke from the burning fields of Lescelles stung January's eyes and he blinked the tears away. His mind focused, narrowed, his whole being relaxed and waiting, concentrating on the single shot he'd have. He propped his arms on the elbows, leveled the barrel. Virgin Mary . . .

. . . help me kill this man?

As if someone had pulled the bung from a keg he felt the fire of concentration, the focus of his mind, leave him in a rush.

Virgin Mary, help me kill this man, who is your son as I am your son. The hoofbeats were audible now.

He's a white man. He'll shoot me running, shoot to kill.

I need the horse. They'll have the dogs on me, hang me. This is my one chance. He tried for a split second to tell himself that he didn't really intend to kill the rider, but of course he did-he'd already figured out where to hide the body, in the long gra.s.s of the slough.

Anonymous rifle, anonymous bullet. Shaw's not coming, and even if he guesses he'll understand.

No one will know for sure.

Except you. Will you speak of it to your son.

He wanted to yell at her, Shut UP! I don't have time for this! But you didn't talk that way to G.o.d's mother.

And she was right.

Trembling, he closed his eyes. Heard the hoofbeats check and slow as the man pa.s.sed under and around that perfectly extended tree limb. Heard them pick up speed.

They're going to get the dogs. The afternoon air hung silent, even the singing in the fields hushed.

b.u.mper and Nero must have come out with the news that Ben had run away and they were sayin'

at the house as how it was him that poisoned Michie Fourchet. . . .

Here in the cipriere the smell of cooking sugar was less, the smoke of the burning fields at Lescelles stronger, like sand in his lungs and eyes. Blessed Mary ever-Virgin, he prayed helplessly, show me the way. If I'm not going to turn outlaw-if I'm not going to become the man who steals other men's food and liquor and salt just because I might need them to trade, who'd kill a man from ambush just to steal his horse please show me what I need to do.

The smoke and the scent of ashes grew stronger, a hot reek that stung and burned and drowned out all other scents.

January heard the dogs behind him as he strode north through the cipriere. He stuck to water where he could, wading knee-deep and thigh-deep and waist-deep in green stagnant ponds, the few turtles not sleeping in their burrows turning to regard him somnolently from the branches where they sat. Sometimes he could cut across the drier ground by making stepping-stones of cypress knees, or wading through hackberry brambles. Sometimes he was able to climb a tree and work his way through the branches monkey-wise.

But all this slowed him down. What he needed now was speed.

Sun slanted through the thinning western trees, sun blurred with s.m.u.tty yellow veils of smoke.

January dropped from the trees and raced over the dry ground, the pack howling behind him.

Through the trees he saw the air wavering as heat beat on his face, saw the quarter mile of ash- covered, smoking stubble-rows where the fire had already pa.s.sed. The smoke nearly hid the men working far out to the sides with the water buckets, dim shapes, like demons in a nightmare.

Smoke veiled the hot ruined carpet of earth and ash.

There was a ditch filled with last night's rainwater just beyond the edge of the trees, like a little moat delineating white man's land from the territory of runaways. January lay down in this and rolled, soaking his clothes; got up and shoved his stolen food and stolen salt into his s.h.i.+rt again, his little bundle of pa.s.ses. He remembered Rose's experiments with alcohol, and regretfully left the liquor by the ditch after taking one big hard swig of it.

Then he picked up the gun again and ran.

His cheap brogans smote the hot ash and cinders of the field, kicked live embers, like High John the Conqueror striding through h.e.l.l. The buzzards ascended like cinders themselves on the columns of heat, gra.s.shoppers bounced and buzzed around him, and the smoke wrapped him in scorching veils, rendering him unseen. Virgin Mary, guard me, he thought, with the pounding rhythm of his flight. Hide me in your cloak and keep me safe. The wall of fire loomed ahead of him, heat growing, hammering. As you covered over Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace, so cover me....

He could hear the dogs barking among the trees as he plunged into the flame.

Heat and smoke and suffocation all around him and then he was through, with the leaping wall of gold and crimson flame behind him now, following him, and panicked rats and squirrels skittering madly around his feet. He ran along the row through smoke thick as muslin curtains, watching the fire that raced and crept over the litter of leaves, weeds, trash, and maiden cane. The long lines of fire extended before him on either side. Through the smoke he could make out shapes moving in the gloom, women and children waiting with clubs for the small game to flee before him, men with water buckets, ready to douse down the fire if it looked to be growing too big to control. Through the licking flames on his left January could see them, a hundred feet or so ahead. On the right the fields had been burned that morning. Last night's rain set up a smolder and smoke. Night was drawing in.

Before he got close enough that anyone could say for certain what they saw through the smoke, January veered right, springing over the spear-points of the cut cane-rows, dodging through the oncoming stringers of the fire. On the sides of the field, the line of fire was a reef of heat and flame, scorching his skin and making the water steam in his clothing as he dodged through its channels and plunged into the smoky world of ash and burned earth beyond.