A Place Called Freedom (1995)

Lennox was as quick as a snake. Jay hardly saw what happened. There was a blur of movement and Lennox had the boy in an armlock. The knife fell to the ground. Peg gave a cry of disappointment.

The second Indian vanished.

Jay stood up. “What have we here?”

Dobbs rubbed his eyes and stared. “Just an Indian boy, trying to rob us. We should hang him as a lesson to the others.”

“Not yet,” said Lennox. “He may have seen the people we’re after.”

That thought lifted Jay’s hopes. He stood in front of the boy. “Say something, savage.”

Lennox twisted the boy’s arm harder. He cried out and protested in his own language. “Speak English,” Lennox barked.

“Listen to me,” Jay said loudly. “Have you seen two people, a man and a woman, on this road?”

“No trade today,” the boy said.

“He does speak English!” Dobbs said.

“I don’t think he can tell us anything, though,” Jay said dispiritedly.

“Oh, yes he can,” Lennox said. “Hold him for me, Dobbo.” Dobbs took over and Lennox picked up the knife the Indian had dropped. “Look at this. It’s one of ours—it has the letter T burned into the handle.”

Jay looked. It was true. The knife had been made at his plantation! “Why, then he must have met Lizzie!”

Lennox said: “Exactly.”

Jay felt hopeful again.

Lennox held the knife in front of the Indian’s eyes and said: “Which way did they go, boy?”

He struggled, but Dobbs held him tight. “No trade today,” he said in a terrified voice.

Lennox took the boy’s left hand. He hooked the point of the knife under the nail of the index finger. “Which way?” he said, and he pulled out the nail.

The boy and Peg screamed at the same time.

“Stop it!” Peg yelled. “Leave him alone!”

Lennox pulled out another fingernail. The boy began to sob.

“Which way to the pass?” Lennox said.

“Pass,” the boy said, and with a bleeding hand he pointed north.

Jay gave a sigh of satisfaction. “You can take us there,” he said.

42

MACK DREAMED HE WAS WADING ACROSS A RIVER TO A place called Freedom. The water was cold, the river bottom was uneven and there was a strong current. He kept striding forward but the bank never got any closer, and the river became deeper with every stride. All the same he knew that if he could just keep going he would eventually get there. But the water got deeper and deeper, and eventually it closed over his head.

Gasping for breath, he woke up.

He heard one of the horses whinny.

“Something’s disturbed them,” he said. There was no reply. He turned over and saw that Lizzie was not beside him.

Perhaps she had gone to answer a call of nature behind a bush, but he had a bad feeling. He rolled quickly out of his blanket and stood up.

The sky was streaked with gray and he could see the four mares and two stallions, all standing still, as if they had heard other horses in the distance. Someone was coming.

“Lizzie!” he called.

Then Jay stepped from behind a tree with a rifle pointed at Mack’s heart.

Mack froze.

A moment later Sidney Lennox appeared with a pistol in each hand.

Mack stood there helpless. Despair engulfed him like the river in his dream. He had not escaped after all: they had caught him.

But where was Lizzie?

The one-eyed man from South River ford, Deadeye Dobbs, rode up, also carrying a rifle, with Peg on another horse beside him, her feet tied together under the horse’s belly so she could not get off. She did not seem to be injured, but she looked suicidally miserable and Mack knew she blamed herself for this. Fish Boy was walking alongside Dobbs’s horse, tied by a long rope to Dobbs’s saddle. He must have led them here. His hands were covered with blood. For a moment Mack was mystified: the boy had shown no sign of injury before. Then he realized that he had been tortured. He felt a wave of disgust for Jay and Lennox.

Jay was staring at the blankets on the ground. It was obvious that Mack and Lizzie had been sleeping together. “You filthy pig,” he said, his face working with rage. “Where’s my wife?” He reversed his rifle and swung the butt at Mack’s head, hitting him a bone-crunching blow to the side of the face. Mack staggered and fell. “Where is she, you coal-mining animal, where’s my wife?”

Mack tasted blood. “I don’t know.”

“If you don’t know I might as well have the satisfaction of shooting you through the head!”

Mack realized Jay meant it. Sweat broke out all over him. He felt the impulse to beg for his life but he clamped his teeth together.

Peg screamed: “No—don’t shoot—please!”

Jay pointed the rifle at Mack’s head. His voice rose to a hysterical pitch. “This is for all the times you’ve defied me!” he screamed.

Mack looked into his face and saw murder in his eyes.

Lizzie lay belly down on a grassy tuft behind a rock, with her rifle in her hand, waiting.

She had picked her spot the night before, after inspecting the riverbank and seeing the footprints and droppings of deer. As the light strengthened she watched, lying dead still, waiting for the animals to come to drink.