The reformatory, p.51
The Reformatory, page 51
“I’m going under with Colonel!” Haddock said. “Boone, load up the dog boys on the truck and drive around the fence. I want the dogs covering the field and the truck covering the road. Let’s make up for lost time and catch him before dark.”
“Boss, you want me to call on the Hewitts and—”
“No,” Haddock cut him off. The last thing he needed was for those photographs to land in the hands of Lance Hewitt, who was with the state highway patrol and beyond Bird’s jurisdiction. Some of the Reformatory’s neighbors might already be patrolling because of the bell and the standing fifty-dollar reward, but he wouldn’t tempt fate. “We’ll get him ourselves.”
“You sure, Boss?” Boone said. He didn’t question instructions often, but of course he was worried that Stephens was already to the road and beyond, if he’d been running fast.
“Yes. I’m counting on you, Boone.” Ideally, Colonel could lead Haddock straight to Stephens without a pack on his heels to see the photos. But if Stephens had too much of a head start, Boone would see him on the road or another dog would catch him hiding in the corn. “He has my private belongings. No one sees my private things except you, hear? Not the dog boys, not Hewitt. Nobody.”
“Yessir.” Boone honked his horn in a long, persistent note that sent Jasper and the dog boys scrambling to climb back into the bed of the truck with their dogs.
Crutcher stood watching. He wasn’t Boone by a long shot, but Haddock wanted to keep an eye on him during his initiation. “You come on under the fence with me,” Haddock said. “Take off that coat so you don’t dirty up that pretty suit.”
“Yessir,” Crutcher said in a defeated mumble, taking off his coat and draping it over a branch. Crutcher might not survive this hunt if he couldn’t get his heart behind it, or if he saw too much. Haddock had warned Crutcher the day he interviewed for the job that he could not be soft on the boys or they would be ruined as men. Today was Crutcher’s first real test.
Haddock lowered himself to his knees, pushing the loosened fence panel down as far as it would go, while Colonel tugged on his leash, barking impatiently for him to hurry up. Colonel pulled so hard that a sharp edge of the severed metal gashed Haddock’s upper right arm as he crawled through, leaving a red stripe of blood through his torn shirt. The cut wasn’t too deep, but it hurt more than any injury in years and would likely leave a scar. When Haddock roared a curse, Colonel whimpered and looked back at him with hangdog eyes, snapped from his scent euphoria. Colonel lost all his passion for hunting if Haddock yelled at him. And of course Haddock had never hit Colonel. Haddock couldn’t train his bloodhound the way he trained the boys.
“It’s all right, boy,” Haddock hissed between his teeth, patting Colonel’s head and running his hand down his flapping ears. “I’m not mad. I promise.” Then his command: “Git him.”
Colonel’s tail wagged. He pressed his nose back to the soil.
Once again, Haddock’s celebration was cut short as he followed Colonel’s lead. He’d expected Stephens’s trail to turn south toward the road, but the dog was tracking north through the crops and more or less parallel to the fence. Haddock thought Stephens might have run the wrong way at first and would correct his path, but Colonel’s pace north only quickened.
“What’s back this way?” Crutcher said.
Haddock mapped it in his memory, since he had considered purchasing that land for the Reformatory: the cornfield ended on the unincorporated property beyond the county line that was still mostly untouched woods. Nothing was out there except a creek, once a river, that ran out just beyond the abandoned railroad track and was long overgrown with weeds. This route held none of the promise of the peanut mill or the main road leading back to Lower Spruce. But if Stephens thought the Vaseline would keep the dogs off of him, maybe he thought the water would too.
“The creek,” Haddock said as it dawned on him. “That little sonofabitch.”
Crutcher quickened his pace to try to catch up with Haddock. “Should I tell the others?”
“They’ll figure it out if those dogs are worth a damn. If not, I don’t need ’em.” Haddock reached back to pull out his Colt so it would be ready in his hand.
“Superintendent…,” Crutcher began gently. “Why the guns? Surely he doesn’t have one.” No, Crutcher would not pass this test.
“I’d ‘surely’ love to know who cut my fence,” Haddock said, mimicking him. “Stephens didn’t do that by himself. You got any idea?”
“No, sir, not at all.”
Haddock waited a moment to decide if he believed Crutcher while Colonel sniffed at another boot print beside a browning plant. By God, Colonel was on Stephens’s trail!
“How’d you like what you found, Crutcher?”
“Sir?”
“Out in my shed. You said you were messing around in there. How’d you like it?”
In the long silence, the other dogs barked a racket, still heading the wrong way. He and Crutcher would be alone, at least for a while.
“I found a… broom,” Crutcher said. “That’s all.”
“That’s the trouble when you go through another man’s things,” Haddock said. “Did it dawn on you to wonder what I use it for besides sweeping?”
“Maybe I’m just… dumb,” Crutcher said, an almost laughable claim from a man as haughty as he was, “but I don’t understand your meaning, Superintendent Haddock.”
Haddock hated being lied to. He considered turning on his heel, raising his Colt, and seeing what kind of mess he could make of Crutcher at close range. He’d tell Bird he was so surprised by the footfall behind him that he’d shot Crutcher by accident. Not that Bird needed more than half a reason. But he didn’t want to slow down Colonel’s momentum; a gunshot would upset his dog.
“Only two things you need to know on a hunt,” Haddock said instead. “Number one, you make an example of the runner or others will try it. Number two, you keep your mouth shut and don’t ask questions. Don’t make me tell you twice. Some mistakes you don’t come back from.”
Crutcher did not answer, even to say Yessir. Haddock heard his silent loathing and judgment behind him, but if Crutcher wanted to shoot him in the back, so what? Crutcher would have a hell of a tough road explaining the shooting to Bird, even if he tried to claim it was an accident. Negro men didn’t shoot down white men if they wanted to live another day.
Haddock ventured a glance over his shoulder so he could see Crutcher’s tight, angry lips and let him know he didn’t give a damn. Haddock smiled. “Watch and learn,” he said.
The leash snapped as Colonel ran faster, leading them toward Robert Stephens.
40
On the unfenced end of the cornfield, Robert ran into a wall of trees. With dogs barking behind him—real dogs, not the noises that had fooled his ears as soon as he was under the fence—Robert had hoped that liberation from the corn plants meant he could wade straight into the creek. Instead, he was wading into a tightly packed thicket of thin tree trunks and nests of brush beneath them, barely passable and harder to see past than the ordered rows of corn. If not for the dogs, and Gloria waiting for him, he would have turned back.
These weren’t the tamed woods where he lived, thinned by traffic paths to the turpentine camps, with easy gaps between the trees for games of tag. He never would have played with Gloria in these woods, where any toy would instantly be lost and every step was met by twigs poking and scraping his chest, arms, and shins. If not for the dogs and maybe snakes, the thick woods would be the perfect place to hide. But they were not good for running or for finding his way. For the first time since the crow had appeared in the cornfield, Robert was forced to slow down until he wasn’t running, and then he was hardly walking, fighting against the underbrush, his arm raised to protect his face.
But it was impossible not to get scratched, and Robert pressed one hand over his right eye after a twig smacked his face so hard that he thought he’d poked his eyeball out. The sting almost made him cry out, but the barking behind him reminded him not to make a sound. Was the barking farther away? Robert was afraid to trust his ears because he wished it so much and wishes weren’t real, but at least the dogs didn’t sound closer. Not yet.
He didn’t see the crow anymore either. The crow had come in and out of sight in the cornfield, but Robert hadn’t seen it in the web of trees. Now Robert wondered if the crow had been Blue or if he’d only hoped it was, and despair licked at his stomach again. He felt let down both by Blue and by Gloria, although it pained him to admit that he was frustrated with his sister. She hadn’t described the woods this way at all! She’d promised a creek, and instead thick woods were a trap slowly catching him like a spider’s web to hold him for the dogs.
And holding him for Haddock. Robert knew he must be coming too.
No wonder most runaways ran toward the road instead! Why hadn’t Blue told him what to expect? Or did Blue know these woods himself, after being trapped at the Reformatory? Blue might not have ever set foot in the land behind the cornfield, or even known how to get there. Robert’s doubts and worries cramped his lungs as he gasped harder for air, although his pace had slowed to a crawl. The more slowly he moved past the thickets and fallen timber crisscrossing his path as if to block him, the harder he breathed, as the air was hotter and thicker.
But his fear of Haddock and the dogs kept his feet moving despite his aching muscles and overworked lungs. He squeezed himself past the pine trunks and tried to duck as many branches as he could, ignoring the scratches. As he was finding his rhythm, he was yanked backward so hard that he almost fell from his feet. He turned around in terror, afraid Haddock had somehow snuck up behind him, but his satchel had only caught on a broken limb. When he pulled to try to free himself, he realized the limb had caught in the satchel’s hole, not the strap, and had ripped the hole so big that the haint jar fell to the ground, with the envelope beside it.
“No… no… no…,” Robert whispered.
He didn’t know if he was more afraid of breaking the haint jar or seeing Haddock’s photos, but he rushed to collect everything that had fallen out. The jar had a chip in the glass now, but it had not broken enough to release the ashes inside. The envelope was still tied tightly, but Robert tightened the string a little more just to be sure. He would have to carry the torn satchel in his arms like an infant.
A dog bayed behind him, shockingly close. He heard Haddock’s voice calling in the wind, saying, “Here, doggie doggie!” Haddock was going to catch him!
Despair froze Robert where he crouched. He was afraid to move or lift his head too high.
When he was still, his breathing and heartbeat were so loud that he was sure Haddock would hear him a mile away. He started to crawl forward in the prickly brush, but he noticed that the drawing of Redbone had flown free from the bag, lying ten feet to his right. The drawing was more wrinkled than it had been and seemed to have a tear, but Robert would not leave Redbone’s drawing behind. Leaving it behind would not only be a sign for Haddock on the trail; it would feel like leaving Redbone’s spirit behind too.
Still breathing fast, perspiration falling into his eyes, Robert crawled toward the drawing, which had landed on a flat stone beyond another fallen tree trunk. He strained to reach through a gap beneath the fallen tree to try to grab it, but as soon as his fingers got close, the paper shivered… and flew out of his reach, hopping five more feet away in a light breeze.
Cursing, Robert climbed over the tree trunk to try to reach it again. This time the paper whirled up higher and away from him like it had been snatched and was dancing eight feet in the air above him, rocking gently back and forth before it got stuck in a tree branch and flapped there.
“No…,” Robert whispered again, near tears. He didn’t have time to climb up and—
The paper freed itself, hovering above Robert so that Redbone’s face showed. Then it floated farther ahead, rocking lazily on breezes that Robert could not feel.
“Redbone?” Robert whispered, hardly daring to hope. “Or… Blue? Is that you?”
An invisible crow cawed.
Robert was so excited that he nearly shouted for joy. “Will you show me?” he whispered. “Can you show me where to go?” The floating paper whirled in a circle and then charged forward, nearly out of sight past the treetops. “Wait—not so fast!”
But he followed. If Blue or Redbone or both of them were driving the paper’s path as he hoped they were, they had saved him a harder time, because his direction had shifted slightly. He fought past untamed brush until the floating and dipping paper revealed a deer trail he had not seen from his previous position. He might never have found the thin trail of orange soil, where it was so much easier to run and seemed more likely to lead to a creek. He noticed that his boots were leaving prints on the path, but the loud baying behind him told him he didn’t have time to cover his tracks. The dog knew where he was. He only hoped he had enough of a head start to outrun the dog and locate Gloria and the truck.
But did he?
Clasping the broken satchel and its contents to his chest, Robert begged his aching, pulsing legs to keep running just a bit farther and faster. He was quick in short races, but he wasn’t used to long distances, and his entire body was complaining. His feet were sore, chafing against the insides of his too-big boots, and his lungs were howling for rest. When his stomach lurched, he braced himself against a tree trunk with one arm while he bent over and threw up the food he’d eaten that day, splattering the mess against the soil. He kicked at pine needles to cover it. He didn’t want to give Haddock the satisfaction of knowing how tired and scared he was.
“Heeeeere, doggie doggie doggie!” Haddock’s voice called.
Haddock sounded close enough to tap him on the shoulder, so Robert stumbled into a run again. And the dog! The howling sound wasn’t like the choppy barks from Red McCormack’s dog Duke when he chased you down the fence; the low, wounded baying sounded like Henry Jackson’s song by the old well, as if the dog were telling stories about Robert’s short, sad life.
Where was the paper? He had lost sight of it when he threw up, but he noticed it caught in some branches overhead, more torn than before. For an instant he was sure it was just an ordinary piece of paper that had been blown by the wind—and maybe he was completely off track by now. Why had he ever believed he could steal from Haddock and get away? Why had he believed that Gloria could rescue him when she’d barely been able to feed him? Or that haints could lead him to freedom when Blue was trapped himself?
But as Robert ran on the faint trail, the paper yanked itself free from above and sailed a few yards ahead of him, twirling. The paper’s frolicking reminded Robert of newsreels he’d seen of Air Force jets doing tricks in the air. Robert laughed with a hysteria he could not control as he gasped for air. The paper was a haint somehow, and the haint was leading him just as Blue had promised, and every time he thought of it, he laughed harder, because no haint he had ever seen in a scary movie looked like a plain old piece of paper.
The treetops whispered as he ran, rustling so loudly that they obscured the sound of the barking. Gooseflesh sprang across Robert’s arms as an energy like electricity jolted his skin, like being held and rocked and sung to. Like being carried. When the path cleared up and Robert saw an opening ahead he hoped led to the creek, his feet were moving with longer and longer strides before he touched the ground, and it dawned on him that he might be flying instead of running. Was he floating over the stones and dead leaves and pine cones, his legs freed from their burden as they churned above the ground? As soon as he looked down, Robert’s feet landed on the path hard, but he didn’t lose his balance, propped up by imaginary arms.
He leaped up again to see if he could fly just as his dreams had always promised, or some memory of long ago, and as his legs pumped, he felt himself rise until a tree branch above him thwacked the side of his head and a dead leaf went into his mouth, but that only made him laugh harder. His feet couldn’t feel the chafing against his raw ankles anymore, gliding instead of running. Then he landed so hard that it hurt his soles and made him stumble, scraping his knees.
The path had led him to a clearing… and a Negro woman in a white dress like a church usher was standing twenty feet ahead. She was smiling at him, so familiar that he almost called Gloria’s name—but the shape of her face and frame made him gasp as he realized—
“Mama?” Robert said.
Calling her broke the spell, or maybe it was the baying dog behind him, but the woman was gone when he blinked away droplets of sweat. The leaves’ powerful rustling was gone too, along with the electric feeling Robert was now sure she had given him to help him move faster and find his way. She’d appeared in the middle of the creek ahead, wading in the water like the spiritual Miz Lottie had sung. A crow cawed, and this time Robert saw the bird perched on a branch above the water, close to where Mama had been.
Robert’s knees gave way until he was kneeling at the edge of the path, panting, new tears mingling with the sweat stinging his eyes. His excitement at finding the creek couldn’t overcome the pain of seeing Mama so briefly before she was gone. He had seen a dozen ghosts at the Reformatory, but only Mama’s ghost truly mattered, and she’d been the hardest to find. Maybe it was because she had never visited the Reformatory in life, as Blue had said, and she had only appeared in a flash to let him know she was there, that he had reached the creek he was looking for. The unfairness opened new sorrow in Robert even as he whispered, “Thank you, Mama,” because coming to him must have been so, so hard.
As if in comfort, the pencil drawing of Redbone floated back down in front of him and onto the ground. The journey had nearly torn the paper in half, but Redbone’s grin still showed through the rips and creases. Sobbing now, Robert folded the paper as well as he could with shaking hands and shoved it into his back pocket, hoping it would be safe there.
The crow cawed again, sounding impatient, and Robert let go of any doubt it was Blue. “Okay—dang,” Robert whispered. “I’m coming.”
