In the Shadow of the Hanging Tree Read online

  “What about the woman?” Bob asked.

  Emmet Dawson looked down at Eliza appraisingly. “Shut her up and tie her to my wagon…and here,” he handed Bob the free papers. “Pin these to his shirt. There aren’t any free niggers in Missouri.” He gave Henry a final stony look then walked into the camp.

  James Dawson climbed from his horse, pulled a knife from the waistband of his trousers and cut the rope tethering the still wailing Eliza to Henry. He helped her to her feet.

  “You heard your pa, James. Shut that bitch up,” Bob said impatiently.

  James let go of Eliza and she ran the few steps to Henry. Her hands were still tied and she could do no more than push her body up against his. James retrieved a neck-cloth from his saddle bag then pulled Eliza away from Henry by her upper arm.“NOOOO!” she screamed, twisting around and kicking at James. A small group of men from the camp had gathered to see what all the fuss was about and a pair stepped forward and subdued Eliza while James gagged her with his neck-cloth. Henry, meanwhile, was struggling fruitlessly against his tether trying to get to her.

  “Let’s get this done,” Bob said. “Some of ya’ll give me a hand over there.” He mounted his horse and spurred it forward into the camp. The horse moved too fast for Henry to keep up and he fell and hit the ground face first, cutting his cheek open on a jagged rock. He struggled to keep his head raised up as he was jounced over the wagon-rutted road. A few men stopped what they were doing and ran alongside him, kicking him. Another man ran up and hit him in the back of the head with a cast iron cook pan. White light exploded behind Henry’s eyes and he bit his tongue.

  The metal taste of blood filled his mouth. The assailant called out: “Did ya hear that? Sounded like a dang church bell on Sunday mornin’. That nigger’s head’s as hard as a rock.” He was dragged several hundred feet to a huge oak at the road’s edge. The old tree had a thick limb that jutted straight out from the trunk about twelve feet up and spanned nearly the entire width of the road.

  There were six people hanging from the tree limb.

  Even with the blood from his cut face blinding one of his eyes, Henry saw more than he could bear: five men and one small boy; all slaves. The flickering of the campfires made them look as if they were alive and engaged in some sort of macabre dance. The boy, who couldn’t have been more than five, was naked. His face was a rictus of torment.

  Henry panicked and began to struggle violently. Bob jumped off of his horse and began fashioning a slipknot on a coil of rope. Three men pulled Henry to his feet; one of them gut-punched him, knocking out his wind. Bob heaved the end of the rope in the air but it fell short of the limb and tumbled to the ground. He gathered it back up and threw it again, this time it sailed over the limb a few feet from the lynched boy.

  “Bring ‘im over here,” Bob ordered. The men dragged Henry, still gasping for breath, underneath the dead slaves. Bob slipped the noose over Henry’s head and pulled it tight.

  “No! We’re…free…we’re free,” Henry wheezed and began throwing his shoulders back and forth. Bob was already on his horse and moving; Henry was jerked into the air, his windpipe suddenly closed by the weight of his body. He kicked his feet wildly and began spinning in circles. He saw the other hanged slaves as he turned. He saw the boy, his tortured features stared at nothing. He heard the taunts and laughs of the men below him.

  Suddenly he was falling; the laughs turned to shouts of surprise. He hit the ground painfully, his knees buckled with the impact and he landed on his back. Cool night air rushed into his burning throat. He looked up and saw several men running toward him. Acting purely on the instinct to survive, Henry rolled over on his side and forced himself to his feet. He ran for the side of the road as fast as his legs would move.

  Two men—one of which didn’t look older than fourteen—were running at a diagonal to Henry’s path in an attempt to cut him off before he reached the side of the road and the woods beyond.

  Just before Henry reached the trees, the older of the two tripped and fell.

  Henry, with his hands still tied behind his back and on a collision course with the second, bent down and twisted his upper body slightly to the right just before slamming into him at an all-out run. He heard a snapping sound as his shoulder impacted with the man/boy’s chest and sent him flying into the brambles of the roadside. Rifle and pistol shots rang out among the shouts and Henry both heard and felt something zing past his left ear as he plowed through the underbrush. He ran blindly, the darkness growing thicker as he gained distance from the campfires. Tree branches whipped and scratched his face and the din of the chase was so close behind that he could hear the labored breath of his pursuers in between their shouted curses.

  “If I fall, I’m dead, if I fall I’m dead, if I fall I’m dead, repeated over and over in Henry’s mind like a chant.

  There was the crash of someone falling, right on his heels. Then cries: “SON OF A BITCH! OWWW, GODDAMN! Help here, boys! Help here, now! Busted my damn leg I think!”

  Suddenly Henry was alone. There were a few more shouts, growing more and more distant. Then nothing.

  Henry kept running.

  A few minutes later he finally did fall. He rolled onto his back and lay there, his chest heaving, until he caught his breath. He listened for the sounds of pursuit and heard none. Then it hit him: Eliza.

  His shame was immediate and deep. “I left her there,” he said aloud. “Oh, Lord, I ran away and left her.” Henry began to sob; “I have to go back…I have to go—” Suddenly he heard a branch break—not very far off. He tried to hold his breath but his chest wouldn’t stop hitching. After a moment he gained control and listened silently. A minute passed. Footsteps; moving slow. Two of them. One was nearly right on top of him and another was off a ways in the direction he’d come from.

  The one farther away spoke: “Come on, Frank, we ain’t going to find him. I can’t see hardly a thing. We’re going to get lost, is what we’re going to do. Besides, what that boy do so wrong as to get himself hung, anyway?”

  “You don’t be talking like that, Ned. Mister Dawson’s giving the orders. And he isn’t going to be happy if that nigger gets away. Besides, I thought I heard something.”

  “Well it ain’t our fault. He’ll be mad at Bob, not us. Bob was supposed to be doing the hanging. And that nigger’s probably halfway to Kansas by now. You know how they can run.”

  “Bob needs to check he isn’t using a rotten rope next time he’s fixing to hang someone.”

  The man—Frank—stopped less than four feet from Henry. After what seemed like an eternity, he said, “Fine, then, let’s go back,” and started away.

  Henry stayed where he was long after he could no longer hear the men walking through the brush. The moon was higher and a little of its light now filtered through the trees. Henry’s hands had fallen asleep. He rolled onto his side and tried to get up. It wasn’t as easy this time without the aid of fear but he managed it after a couple of attempts. He scanned the ground for a rock to cut the rope with. It was hard to see. Walking slowly, back in the general direction of the men’s camp, he finally came across a pumpkin-sized rock which had split in half. Henry kicked the pieces apart and dropped to his knees in front of the larger of the two. Twisting his body around so he could get his wrists positioned over the rock he began running the rope back and forth on the split edge. It was a lot more difficult than he expected. The rope was tough and the scant moonlight provided little to see by. After several minutes he was finally free. He sat down and massaged his wrists. A shallow cut from the rock’s edge trickled blood. Henry didn’t even notice. He was thinking about Eliza.

  The decision to try to free Eliza wasn’t really a decision at all. He was simply compelled to do it. He still couldn’t shake his feeling of cowardice for running away but he realized there was nothing he could have done for Eliza had he stayed. He would have been shot, or more likely subdued and hanged a second time. Now at least, he thought there could be a chance of
freeing her when the men were

  off their guard. That meant he had to wait. He hoped they would assume he’d kept running and was miles away by now.

  He found a large patch of may-apple in a shallow depression which was partially surrounded by a stand of oaks. He decided to lay up for the remainder of the night and most of the following day, figuring he’d try to creep up on the camp at dusk. With any luck he’d be able to spot Eliza, then wait until the men fell asleep before making his move.

  It was the longest twenty hours of his life.

  He lay awake in the may-apple until the early hours of the morning. He imagined every possible savagery Eliza could be enduring, and he alternated between crying for her and seething with hate for all things white. Finally, shortly before sunrise, he slept. The sleep, however, was fitful and filled with dreams of Eliza. Eliza, lying naked in the road, surrounded by men, and screaming his name over and over. He tried to run to her but couldn’t. It was as if the very air had come alive and was pushing back at him with invisible hands. It was like trying to run under water.

  He awoke before midday drenched in sweat, the echo of Eliza’s screams still ringing in his ears. His mouth felt like it was full of cotton and his tongue throbbed dully with his heartbeat. He spent the hours running possible outcomes through his head. He’d been a plantation slave his entire life, not a fighter. Outside of John Brown teaching him to defend himself, he’d never even been in a fistfight with another man. He hoped he could be brave when it came to it. For Eliza.

  2

  The camp was gone.

  Henry reached the road just before sunset. He hit upon it a little too far south and had to backtrack a half mile before coming to the place where the camp had been. There was no question of it being the right spot; the bodies still hung above the road, swaying slowly back and forth. The thick limb of the oak creaked ominously from the combined weight of the corpses.

  Standing at the roadside, Henry stared indecisively into the deepening shadows.

  After some inner debate, he took off at run, southward on the road, back toward the deadfall where he and Eliza had made their makeshift camp.

  He found the deadfall with little trouble but was both winded from the run and light-headed from dehydration by the time he reached it. He cursed himself again for not discovering that the road was so close when he’d chosen the deadfall as a their camp. Everything was still there, minus the small bundle of food, which had been dragged several feet away and ripped open, the contents eaten. The small jug of molasses, however, was untouched. He pulled the stopper and poured the thick liquid into his mouth before packing up their possessions, slinging them over his shoulder and heading for the river.

  It was a good clip, and it took Henry the better part of an hour to reach the river. He felt selfish for using up the time, but knew his body needed the water. When he arrived he hastily dropped his and Eliza’s things and slid down the grassy bank to the water. Wading out to his waist, he bent over and drank by double handfuls until he had his fill. He touched the cut on his face; it didn’t feel very deep. Now I’ll have a scar on both sides of my face, he thought as he washed the dried blood away. Afterward, he clambered back up the bank and retrieved the empty molasses jug, then returned to the river and filled it. It didn’t hold much, but he knew he’d be thankful for it later.

  Feeling refreshed from the water and molasses, Henry made his way back to the road, alternately running and walking. When he arrived back at the oak with the hung slaves he didn’t waste any time. The ropes were tied off to a pair of smaller trees at the roadside. Henry stood under them and fished his knife out of the grain sack he’d been keeping his belongings in.

  One by one he cut the ropes. The bodies made sickening thumps when they hit the road. Fighting back the urge to vomit he cut the last one and stowed the knife back in the sack. He was grateful for the darkness.

  He began dragging the bodies off the road and into the brush. When he got to the boy he started to weep. “I’m sorry I can’t stay and give you a proper burial,” he said to the boy as he laid him next to the

  others. “I have to see to Eliza now.”

  Henry took off at a run northbound on the road. He was painfully aware that he was following men on horseback, and he knew that if they didn’t stop for more than a night at a time, he’d never catch up to them on foot. Even being burdened with the wagons wouldn’t slow them enough. He pushed the thought away and concentrated on running.

  It didn’t take long for him to begin flagging. He stopped briefly and drank half of the water in the molasses jug. He was more hungry than thirsty now, and he considered mixing the small amount of flour in Eliza’s bag with the remaining water. He decided to wait until daybreak, and continued on instead.

  A stitch in Henry’s side forced him to stop again two hours later. He’d been keeping a steady pace between a fast walk and a run when he first felt it. It wasn’t bothersome right away, but it steadily grew deeper and more painful the longer he ran. Finally, already slowed to a sort of bent shuffle, he stopped and rested.

  The rest of the night passed. Henry ran when he could, but mostly he walked. His thoughts were fatigue-induced jumbles, bordering on delirium. His mind jumped seamlessly from one memory to another. He remembered the first time he and Eliza had made love. He was fifteen, she was seventeen. It happened after Master Abbott’s bible reading one Sunday. All Abbott’s slaves were allowed the afternoons to themselves on Sundays. They still had to work the morning, as Abbott didn’t feel the Christian day of rest applied to negroes. He gave them Sunday afternoons “Out of the goodness of his heart.”

  They were both over-eager that first time, and the act had been clumsy yet wonderful beyond words. He remembered how Eliza had suffered for a week afterward with a rash and blisters from the poison ivy she’d lain in. For the next two years they’d made love nearly every Sunday afternoon.

  3

  When the sun rose Henry moved off the road and into the woods.

  He kept moving parallel with the road, stopping to look and listen every time he heard something—real or imagined. Finally, in the early afternoon, he simply couldn’t go any farther. He was in an area where the trees were thinner and the underbrush was taller so he just sat down. He would be out of sight to casual passersby—if there were any—and he was too spent to search around for a better location.

  He opened Eliza’s bag intending to get the small sack of flour. Her coat was on top. He wondered if she’d been cold the previous two nights. The nights were getting cooler. He began weeping again. He pulled her coat from the bag and held it against his face. The lining smelled so strongly of Eliza it caused him to start bawling loudly. He pushed the coat forcefully into his face, dampening his cries. After awhile the tears subsided; he lowered the coat. A runner of snot was smeared on the inside of the collar. He wiped it off on his own filthy and worn-out shirt, vaguely noticing the free papers that were somehow still pinned there.

  He dumped a small amount of water into the flour sack and began kneading it. Thick, milky liquid seeped through the weave of the fabric and dripped from between his fingers. He tilted his head back, squeezed the pasty batter into his mouth, then chased it down with the remainder of his water. Curling up on the ground with Eliza’s coat cradled in his arms, Henry slept.

  The sound of horses on the road dragged him out of a deep and dreamless sleep. He sat up, disoriented, just in time to see ten or more riders heading north at a gallop. He ducked back down, but the caution was needless; the riders were past before he’d completed the motion.

  From the position of the sun, Henry guessed it was three hours before sunset. He cursed himself for sleeping so long. His head and legs ached. After stowing Eliza’s coat back in her bag, he stood, the muscles in his legs protested loudly. He began walking, resuming his northward course through the woods, parallel with the road. He’d make better time on the road, but knew it would be safer to stay off of it until dark.

  After h
is over-worked muscles loosened up, he began jogging through the underbrush.

  As with the flight from his captors of three nights prior, the calloused bottoms of his feet barely registered the thorns, twigs, and stones they trod over. In all his twenty years, Henry’s feet had never touched a pair of shoes.

  He found Eliza the next morning.

  Exhausted and dehydrated, Henry nearly passed her by—would have, in fact, had he not heard her labored and wheezy breathing some ten feet from the roadside. The sun had been up for over an hour. He was no longer running, but walking drunkenly and mumbling to himself. He’d fallen several times during the night.

  The sound came from his right. He stopped and listened. Suddenly every nerve in his body was alert. He sprang to the roadside and into the brush; Eliza was there, splayed out on her back with one scratched and bleeding leg sticking up in the air. It was caught up in the branches of a scrubby hazelnut shrub. She was naked from the waist down, her dress torn off at the midline. It appeared to Henry as if she’d been tossed there from the road. Her left cheek was severely bruised, and the eye was so blackened it was completely closed from the swelling.

  He picked her up, gently, and carried her a little further from the road. “Oh, Henry…I knew you’d…find me,” she said weakly as he squatted and laid her down in a small patch of woods grass. He dropped her bag, retrieved her coat and carefully put it under her head.

  “I’m here with you now, Eliza. I’m here. I’ll look after you just like you looked after me when we was children an’ I took that first whippin, from Master Townley,” he said soothingly, fighting tears.

  “Henry, I’m snake bit,” she said, lifting her arm up and reaching for him. Henry took her hand and cupped it in both of his.

  “Where, Eliza?” He began looking over her battered body. “Where are you bit a—?” He saw it before the words were completely out of his mouth. Her left leg—the one that hadn’t been stuck in the hazelnut—was so swollen it had split open from her knee to her ankle. Blood and bright yellow pus oozed sluggishly from the wound.