The Year the Lights Came On (21 page)

Freeman smiled, smiled his King-of-Black-Pool-Swamp, Chief-of-the-Great-Okeenoonoo smile. “I gotta be careful. You know that.”

“You could’ve whistled, or somethin’.”

“Yeah. Guess I could’ve. Where’d Wes go?”

“Down to the sand—hey, how’d you know Wesley was with me?”

“I been watchin’ you for almost a hour. What’d y’all doin’, anyway? You look like a bunch of fools draggin’ a pair of pants through the woods. I even saw Alvin and Otis doin’ the same thing. Y’all crazy?”

I explained Dover’s scheme and Freeman radiated. He loved the plan and he loved the attention.

“That is something else,” he said happily. “Yessir, that is about the finest piece of thinkin’ Dover has ever done, or ever will do. Hard to believe he’s got that much sense.”

“He said he got the notion from a radio show. Sam Spade or somebody.”

“Sam Spade? Well, it ought to work. Sam Spade, huh? I didn’t hear that one. Did you? You hear it?”

“Naw. Hey, Freeman, what’d you think about pokin’ them pants of yours in that fox hole?” I asked.

“Son, that is pure genius. Yessir. Pure genius. Couldn’t’ve thought of anything better myself. Guess I messed it up, trampin’ all around here, but that’s some kind of thinkin’. I’m proud of you. Yessir, I am, and that’s a fact.”

Freeman’s compliment was highly flattering, but his mood changed quickly and he became strangely tense.

“What’re you gonna do, Freeman?” I asked. “Sheriff and his deputies are gonna be all over the place.”

Freeman picked up a stick and started chewing on it. “Well, I’m not too sure. I just know I’m not goin’ to jail, and that’s the truth. Not for somethin’ I didn’t do.”

“You didn’t steal that twenty dollars, did you, Freeman?”

“Steal it? Shoot, I never even saw it. If I was goin’ to steal something, it’d sure as Satan be more’n twenty dollars. You know I got more sense than that.”

“They’ll catch up to you, Freeman. Sooner or later.”

“They never gonna catch me, and you know it. C’mon, let’s go find Wesley.”

We moved quickly through the woods, across a net of drain ditches covered with surface water, and followed the bank of Beaverjam Creek. Freeman moved like an animal, completely noiseless and graceful. Watching him slip like some wind creature through the trees, I realized it was impossible to tell he had been there. Perhaps bloodhounds would siphon off the steps he had taken, but no man could follow the evidence of Freeman’s movements. I had never before believed his stories about melting into the woods and becoming part of them; now I did, and I
remembered other exhibitions of his skill. Once, when Wesley and I had camped with Freeman, I saw him snap the head of a cottonmouth moccasin in a move so blinding it frightened me. “I could do that ten times out of ten,” he bragged. Now, following him, I knew he had not lied. Freeman became an ethereal extension of himself in Black Pool Swamp. In Black Pool—in the Great Okeenoonoo—Freeman was free, free from any of the pitiful suspicions we had when he told his tales.

Wesley was sitting, half-hidden, beside a water oak that was twisted and knotted. He was not surprised to see Freeman.

“Here,” Wesley said, handing Freeman the paper sack of food Mother had prepared for him. “Mama’s worried you’re starvin’ in here.”

Freeman devoured the sandwiches and baked sweet potato.

“That’s good,” he declared, swallowing the last sandwich. “Boys, y’all have got one good mama, and I’d swear to it on a stack of Bibles as high as my head.”

“Talkin’ about mamas, you got one that’s scared to death,” Wesley said.

Freeman’s face was furrowed and he seemed extremely tired. “Yeah, I know it. Figured she must be pretty upset when she and Daddy come over to your place last night. She all right? She—she any sicker?”

“She’s worried, Freeman. You got to expect that,” answered Wesley. “You her only child and you’re runnin’ around in here like some fool, hiding from the law. You know you can’t do that.” Wesley was irritated.

“Well, Wesley, I guess that’s something you can’t know about. I guess that’s something that me and only me has to answer to,” Freeman said slowly.

“Freeman, you’re breaking the law by runnin’. It’s plain and simple.”

For a moment, Freeman did not speak, then he said, “Wes, I just don’t need your preachin’ right now. Law? What law? I get arrested and throwed in jail for somethin’ I didn’t do, and you call that law? I didn’t steal no twenty dollars. I didn’t steal nothin’. You hear me? Nothin’.”

Wesley knew he had pushed Freeman. “All right, Freeman, let’s look at this thing, piece by piece. You say you didn’t steal Hixon’s money? Well, why was it in your shirt pocket?”

“How’m I supposed to know? I don’t have the slightest notion. I’d say Dupree done it when I took my shirt off and hung it up on the back door of the store. Don’t know any other time it could’ve happened.”

“O.K.,” Wesley continued. “Why didn’t you tell that to the sheriff?”

“Tell him?” Freeman said. “I told him a hundred times. Maybe a thousand. He just kept sayin’ to shut up or he’d smack me shut. Said he was gonna throw me in jail and bury the key. I’m telling you, Wes, I’m not goin’ to jail.”

“How you think you can make it in here?” I asked.

“I’ll make it, Colin. Don’t need to fret about that. I got ways. Lots of ways.”

“Freeman, you may hide out here and not get caught. I don’t know,” Wesley said. “But they’ll be after you until this thing’s over. You ought to let the sheriff take you, and my daddy’ll make sure you don’t spend one night behind bars. He’ll make bond, and I know it. Besides, Daddy’s got lots of people he knows over in Edenville. He don’t like Brownlee one bit, and he’s not about to let anything happen to you.”

Freeman was obviously affected by Wesley’s assurances. “I reckon you’re right, Wes. Your daddy’s a good man, and I know he’s got some pull over at the courthouse. But—but, Wesley, I can’t do it. I just can’t, and that’s that.”

I knew Wesley would argue. I knew he would think of some reason for Freeman to surrender, some reason that Freeman could not deny.

I was wrong.

“What do you want us to do, Freeman?” Wesley asked after a moment.

Freeman looked at Wesley, then at me. We were both surprised. Wesley had not protested. He had accepted Freeman’s position.

“I been thinkin’ about that,” Freeman replied eagerly. “Three things, Wes. Three things.”

Wesley nodded. “What are they?”

Freeman moved closer to Wesley. “First thing is to get to Dupree. Find out why he stuck that twenty dollars in my pocket.”

“You sure it was Dupree?” I asked.

“Had to be. I been thinkin’ about it. You know Dupree swore he’d square up with me for what I said to him that day at school. Well, I just made all that up, right there on the spot, but there must’ve been somethin’ that went on down there on that farm. Anyhow, he never forgot it. Every chance he’s had this summer, he’s denied it.”

“What made you say anything about him on his granddaddy’s farm, Freeman?”

“Well, Wes, it just popped in my head, that’s all,” Freeman explained. “I’d heard one of his granddaddy’s hands tellin’ about a bull chasing Dupree out of the pasture, and that was the only thing I could think of when Dupree was lippin’ off to Colin.”

“It’s not gonna be easy,” Wesley said. “We’ll try. What else?”

“I’m gonna be needin’ some food from time to time. Whenever you and the others can get somethin’ together, put it in a sack and leave it somewhere.”

“Where?” I asked. “No way we can tell where you gonna be.”

“I tell you what. The REA’s gonna be cuttin’ through near here,” Freeman answered. “Leave it where they quit cuttin’ every day. I’ll find it.”

“That’s two things. What else, Freeman?” Wesley pressed.

“Don’t know if you can do it, Wes. Maybe I’d better take care of it myself.”

“What?”

“My mama. She—she ought to know I’m all right. I’d go over there, except I know there’s been a sheriff’s car around, and it might get Mama and Daddy in trouble.”

“I’ll try.”

Freeman was quiet. He stared at the ground. “I’d appreciate that, Wesley. I sure would.”

Wesley unwrapped Freeman’s pants from my walking stick. “You really think you can hide from the law, Freeman?”

“In here, I can.”

“What about them bloodhounds?” I asked.

“Shoot, y’all got ’em messed up. Anyway, they don’t got a chance followin’ me in the water, and there’s where I aim to be the rest of the day.”

“What if somethin’ happens? What if you get a snake bite, or somethin’? Here, you want these?” Wesley offered Freeman his dirty pants.

“Naw, y’all keep ’em. Don’t be worryin’ about me, Wes. If I get snakebit, I’ll yell.”

Wesley looked at Freeman as though he would never again see him. “Take care, buddy.”

“Yeah.”

“Take care, Freeman,” I said.

“You, too. Good thinkin’ on them pants, ol’ buddy.”

“Yeah.”

“See you, Freeman,” Wesley muttered.

“I’ll whistle some night,” Freeman replied, grinning. He turned quickly and slipped away into the woods. He did not make a sound leaving.

“He’s spooky,” I said.

“Yeah, he is,” Wesley whispered.

11

IT WAS NOON BY THE SUN. T
he sun had burned away the fog pockets of morning and dried the upper crust of plowed fields, leaving a powdery film of dust. It was hot. Wesley and I hooked our jackets over our shoulders as we crossed through a pasture where we had found dozens of Indian arrowheads around a rock bed of hard, white flint. After a rain, hot in the sun, you could smell white flint.

“You think the sun will burn away the scent we put down?” I asked Wesley.

“Doubt it,” he said. “May make it ripe.”

We were damp from the undergrowth of Black Pool Swamp and tired from miles of wandering. Wesley walked slowly, his head down, struggling with the quarrel of how he would reply to the inevitable question: “Did you find Freeman?”

*

“No,” I answered for Wesley, who turned his back to Mother and cringed at my lie. “No, Wesley didn’t, Mama.”

I had only half lied; Freeman had found us, or me.

“What happened to the food I gave you?” asked Mother.

“Uh—we left it, hopin’ Freeman would find it,” I quickly answered. “Could’ve been he was watchin’ us all the time.”

Mother sighed. She could see Freeman, alone and trembling, eating soggy sandwiches and a cold sweet potato. “C’mon, I’ve fixed some lunch,” she said.

Lynn wanted to know where we had been, what we had done.

“Dover came back about an hour ago,” she told us. “Daddy went with him over to where the sheriff is.”

“Did Mama say anything about us not bein’ with him?” Wesley asked.

“Nothin’ I heard,” Lynn replied. “Garry took off to the branch, sayin’ he was lookin’ for Freeman, and Mama had to go find him.”

Wesley and I ate lunch and changed clothes. Otis and Alvin and R. J. drove up in Dover’s truck as we were leaving the house.

“Where y’all been?” Alvin asked. “Dover’s been worried.”

“It’s not easy goin’ through that swamp,” Wesley complained. “Y’all had a picnic trampin’ through the woods. They turn the dogs loose?”

“Turn ’em loose? Shoot, they not even there,” R. J. said, giggling. “Dover was right. Jim Ed Felton must be talkin’ to everybody between here’n Edenville. You oughta see the sheriff. He’s havin’ a fit.”

“He got his deputies out lookin’ for Freeman?” I asked.

“Naw,” Alvin answered, laughing. “They just sittin’ around a fire, just like Dover said. Y’all see any signs of Freeman?”

“Uh—naw,” I said. “Nothin’.” Wesley and I had agreed not to tell anyone of our encounter with Freeman, and I knew he had
not changed his decision. His greatest test was Mother, and he had not told her.

“Well, c’mon,” Alvin said, “let’s get on over there.”

Wesley and I jumped into the back of Dover’s truck and Alvin geared it forward, jerking and spinning. “Hold on, boys. Here we go,” he yelled.

Alvin drove Dover’s truck like a madman until he topped the hill above Rakestraw Bridge and then he slowed to a crawl. The two tornadoes of dust curling off the back tires rushed up and swallowed the truck in a red cloud, and Otis said Alvin was crazy if he thought Dover wouldn’t know he had been speeding. “Dover’ll have Alvin shinin’ this thing from bumper to bumper,” he predicted, stuttering with the drumming of washboard ruts in the road.

A few hundred yards from Rakestraw Bridge, Alvin eased the truck over a caved-in culvert wedged in a shallow ditch beside the road. Some forgotten chain gang paying the wages of premeditated evil had long ago planted the culvert and packed it tight with top soil from Carey Carter’s pasture, and Carey Carter used the culvert as a bridge to work the richest bottomland in Eden County.

“Hit the footfeed, Alvin,” R. J. urged. “Spin a wheel.”

Dover’s truck cried as Alvin slipped the gear from second to low, scraping steel nerves.

“Dover heard that,” Otis shouted.