In the Shadow of the Hanging Tree Read online

  She began to cry. The wheezy sound of her breathing turned to a high-pitched whistling every time she drew a breath. “I don’t want to die, Henry.”

  Henry’s heart broke. He leaned over her and hugged her to him, stroking her hair, hot tears running freely down his face.

  “We’ll find us some help. Come on now.” He removed her second dress from her bag—a faded blue flower print that had belonged to the late Missus Cromwell, which Eliza called “her best”—and carefully worked it over her head without even trying to remove the remainder of the dress she was wearing. Once done, he put her coat back in her bag, re-shouldered everything, and lifted her again.

  No longer fearing discovery but hoping for it, he resumed walking northeast on the road. Eliza had passed out or fallen asleep. He hadn’t seen a single house since he’d set out after her but he knew there had to be some along the road somewhere.

  After about an hour Eliza woke and began moaning softly. “Henry, I can’t…it hurts. You have to stop.”

  “We have to keep going, Eliza.”

  “Henry, please.”

  “Just for little while, then.”

  He laid her down at the roadside, then sat down next to her with his legs splayed out in front of him. He lifted her head and slid over slightly so he could let her rest it in his lap. Minutes later, Eliza was dead.

  Henry cradled her head and howled with grief; his sense of loss so immense as to be immeasurable. His body shook uncontrollably with the sobs as he cried her name over and over. “Eliza…Eliza…Eliza…”

  4

  Still sitting at the roadside with Eliza’s head in his lap six hours later, Henry didn’t even look up when the rider halted his horse in front of him.

  “Well, you look like you’ve been through it. That your wife?” the man asked, looking down at Henry speculatively. Henry didn’t move.

  “You hear me, son?”

  Henry raised his head, then nodded slowly. “We never had no preacher.”

  “You a runaway?”

  “No, sir.”

  The man measured Henry silently. His face, baked by the sun and creased with age, was thoughtful. Henry let his head drop back down.

  “What happened to her?” The man asked finally, nodding toward Eliza.

  Henry slowly lifted his head again. “Some men took her. They tried to hang me but the rope broke and I ran. I followed them, but it was too late. She was snake bit.” He turned his attention back to Eliza and began stroking her hair.

  “These men, were there a lot of them? Thirty or forty, all on horseback, with a couple of wagons?”

  Henry nodded without looking up.

  The man grunted as if Henry had just affirmed something he already knew. “Local militia, least that’s what they call themselves. They’re no better than the ones they’re supposed to be fighting—perhaps worse…who do you belong to?”

  “I’m free, sir.”

  “I suppose you can prove that.”

  Henry heard Emmet Dawson’s voice, “Pin these to his shirt. There aren’t any free niggers in Missouri.” He looked down at his shirt, still moving slowly as if in a daze. The free papers were there, pinned underneath his left breast. He couldn’t remember them being put there. They were dirty, crumpled, and torn. He pulled them off and stared at them a moment before looking up and holding them out toward the man on the horse.

  The man waved his hand. “I don’t need to see them. You might want to take better care of them, though. Unless you’re just planning to sit there until someone else who wants to hang you comes along. My guess is it won’t be too long.”

  “Yessir, I reckon you’re right.”

  “Well, a man’s got to decide things for himself. You have any skills?”

  “I can do some carpentering.”

  “My name’s Macklin, James Macklin. Folks just call me Red, mostly, though most of the red’s turned gray now. I’m just outside of Lawrence—that’s Kansas in case you don’t know. Could be I’d have some work for you—paying work—if you can make it there. Though, I don’t see your chances are that good—being honest. Just stay away from Fort Scott if you make it across the line. You might find some help in some of the outlying farms, but if you go into to town you’ll be hanged, like as not.”

  The man took one of the three canteens slung from his saddle and dropped it at Henry’s feet. “I’m sorry I can’t do more for you.”

  Henry looked at the canteen, then at the man on the horse. Tears began welling in his eyes. “My name is Henry, sir.”

  “God be with you, Henry.” The man glanced at Eliza again before spurring his horse and riding away.

  Henry leaned forward and hooked the canteen’s strap with his forefinger and dragged the canteen close enough to pick it up. He pulled the stopper and drank deeply. There was a moment just as he was lowering the canteen where he thought he was going to be sick. He fought it back and after a few moments the feeling passed. He stared down the road in the direction the man had gone—the same direction Henry had come from—and wondered how far Lawrence was, and if the man had meant what he said about having paying work. He looked at the canteen, then down at Eliza. “I guess I can’t stay with you. I thought I could…I thought seeing it’s my fault you’re…I shouldn’t have run off. I shouldn’t oughta left you. Now I’m all mixed up inside. Mayhap being…being dead with you would be better than going on livin’ without you.” Henry broke into fresh sobs as he hugged Eliza’s stiffening body to him.

  After a time, the tears dried up. He stood painfully, his taxed muscles screaming. A light breeze blew his free papers across the road. He retrieved them and put them in his sack. Then, with a heavy sigh that was nearly a sob, he slung the canteen over his shoulder, carefully picked up Eliza’s body, and walked into the woods.

  It was late afternoon before Henry had dug a hole he felt was deep enough to bury Eliza in. He’d carried her nearly a mile into the woods when he came across a small pond. Up until then he was unsure of what he was looking for—he’d simply been walking—but

  when he saw the pond he stopped immediately; he knew it was the place.

  Taking turns using his knife to loosen the soil, then scooping it out with his hands, he spent the next two hours digging the grave. Once satisfied, he washed out the small cloth sack that had held the flour in the pond. He set to washing Eliza: first her arms and face, then, pulling up her dress, he began on her legs. He walked the short distance to the pond several times to rinse the cloth. Fresh tears of grief had been falling as he worked, but a different emotion crept in as he reached Eliza’s upper legs. A stream of blood, which had dried to a dark maroon, began around her anus and vagina and trailed down her inner thigh all the way to her knee. Emmet Dawson’s face burned in Henry’s mind. He gritted his teeth together and clenched his fist around the makeshift washcloth, his eyes gleaming with hate.

  He laid Eliza in the grave. He knew he’d be unable to cover her face with dirt so he spread her coat out over her. That done, he put her drawstring bag neatly beside her and began filling the grave in with the dark soil.

  It was almost sunset by the time Henry found enough rocks to cover the grave, and he was feeling lightheaded with hunger. Standing over his work, he wrung his hands together. He was aware that he was inadequate for what was required next.

  “I’m not good with words; not like you were. You know how you were always having to correct me and all. Words for times like this are best left to preachers and to those who know God’s book a sight better than I do. But If’n…If you can hear me, Eliza, I want to say I’m sorry…I’m sorry for letting you die, and…and,” Henry’s voice broke. “…and I’ll miss you every day…I love you and I hope God’s there waiting for you…and I hope you’ll be waiting for me whenever I get there…I guess that’s all.”

  5

  Henry had been following the river eastward for five nights when he came upon the lone man’s camp under a good-sized birch overlooking the river. He was hollow-eye
d and gaunt, having eaten nothing in nearly ten days except for the flour paste, a few earthworms and two small crawfish he’d managed to catch in a creek where it joined with the river. The previous night he passed by a house built right on the river. The light spilling from the windows was warm and inviting. He stopped a safe distance away and considered knocking on the door and begging the occupants for something to eat. In the end he dismissed the idea as foolish and moved on.

  He’d cursed himself early on for leaving the thread and bit of twine in Eliza’s bag then burying it with her. He could have used it for snares. Having nothing to make snares with, he tried deadfall traps instead. He set several up every morning before he slept for the day, but all of them had been empty in the evening when he checked them.

  It was a little before dusk and he was walking through the woods, ten yards or so from the river bank. The man was seated on a rock in front of a campfire, cooking some meat he’d spitted on a stick. He was singing softly to himself. There was a horse tethered to a nearby bush. The aroma of the searing meat was maddening. Henry hunkered behind some brush and peered around at the man. He was sitting at profile to Henry, and Henry’s blood instantly froze in his veins.

  The man was Emmet Dawson.

  Only he wasn’t.

  The man was around the same age as Emmet Dawson—mid-forties or thereabouts—and wore a similar beard, but the resemblance stopped there.

  Henry looked around. He set down his things and quietly backtracked to where an arm-sized branch lay on the ground. He picked it up. From the weight he didn’t think it was pithy. He crept back toward the camp.

  The man caught movement when Henry was still ten feet away. He turned to see Henry walking toward him with the branch held like a club.

  “What are you aiming to do with that, boy?” the man asked warily.

  “I’m hungry, I just need some food. Then I’ll be on my way,” Henry answered, closing the distance.

  The man smiled reassuringly. “Suurrre thing, c’mon in. I’ve got plenty to spare. Why don’t you just put that stick…down.” He wheeled on the last word, bringing up a pistol and aiming it at Henry. Henry lunged forward, swinging the branch in a wide arc and connecting solidly with the side of the man’s head. The pistol went off but the shot went wild. The man crumpled to the ground, a trickle of blood ran from his ear.

  Henry dropped the branch and looked down at the unconscious man, then at the pistol. He looked around apprehensively, then squatted and picked it up. It was heavier than he expected. Next he pulled the stick with the chunk of meat skewered on it out of the fire where it had fallen when the man pulled the pistol. The meat was covered in ash. Henry didn’t notice. He went at the meat greedily, dropping the pistol when he discovered he’d need two hands.

  He didn’t get very far. The first few barely chewed pieces he swallowed came right back up in a rush of hot, yellow stomach bile. He spit a couple of times, then forced himself to slow down. He took three smaller bites and chewed them thoroughly before swallowing. The meat stayed down the second time, though grudgingly.

  The man groaned and Henry froze, watching him for any sign of movement. The man remained still, and the sound was not repeated. Realization of what he’d just done filled Henry with shame, and on the heels of that, there was fear for his life. He picked up the pistol, but it slipped from his greasy hand. He wiped the hand on his trousers, then transferred the spitted meat to that hand and wiped the other. He snatched up the pistol and hurriedly walked back to where he’d left his things.

  He stowed the grain sack with his few belongings in it, the pistol, and the meat, in the saddlebags slung over the horse. He hastily removed the man’s bedroll and a battered canteen and dropped them on the ground. Henry had never ridden a horse before, but he’d helped saddle them times beyond count and he had a good sense of how things worked. He untied the reins; the horse chuffed and stamped nervously. He gently stroked the horse’s cheek and whispered some soft words of encouragement. After a couple of false starts he was able to get mounted.

  The horse wouldn’t move. Henry clicked his tongue, bounced up and down, and shook the reins. The horse simply stood there. Finally, willing himself to calm down, he pictured Lawrence Townley, his old overseer, mounted and riding. Townley was a skilled horseman. He spent as much time at the plantation on horseback as he did on foot. Henry jerked his legs against the animal’s flanks, and the horse started forward.

  He was now a horse thief, if not a murderer.

  6

  He regained his strength quickly; the man whose horse he’d stolen had a fair supply of dried beans, salt pork, and cornmeal stored in his saddlebags. He’d obviously been planning to be travelling for awhile. There was also another chunk of beef like the one the man had been eating when Henry came upon him. It was fresh so Henry had eaten it first.

  He’d lost count of the days since he’d found Eliza. He was pretty sure it had been ten, but it could have been eleven or twelve—or nine. His thoughts were crowded and conflicted: could he have saved Eliza if he hadn’t run away the night they tried to hang him? What if he had ran to her instead? Could he have freed her and escaped into the woods with her? He knew in his heart that he would likely have been shot or recaptured before he ever reached her. But what if he had reached her? Would she be with him now instead of being buried in a shallow and unmarked grave in the Missouri woods?

  He also tried not to think about the man he’d hit with the branch, but his conscience wouldn’t cooperate. He’d left another man in exactly the same predicament that he himself had been in: alone, on foot, with no food. But it’s not the same, Henry told himself. I passed two houses within five miles of where I left him. That man could stop for help; I couldn’t. His logic was cold comfort.

  He travelled by day because he was too afraid to trust the horse through the woody terrain in the dark, even though during that first night the horse seemed unperturbed by the darkness or the terrain. But Henry was nervous, especially because he no longer had a fat moon to see by.

  The land finally opened up after two days of slow riding along the river. The trees slowly began giving way to grass and scrub. But since the area appeared sparsely populated, he continued on by day. He hadn’t seen another soul since leaving the man by the river, and he made sure to keep a good distance away from the few homesteads he came across.

  The Kansas/Missouri border came and went; he had no way of knowing. When he finally came to the wide and well-beaten road, he stopped the horse and dismounted. He stared south, then north. The landscape had become wide and, to Henry at least, nearly featureless. There was a surplus of brush and grass, but not nearly as many trees as there were in Osceola and Samuel Cromwell’s place at Lawson’s Bend.

  The openness made him feel apprehensive, and he was aware of how he must look—like a runaway slave on a stolen horse. He wasn’t as afraid as he had previously been, however. Part of him couldn’t shake the feeling that he really didn’t deserve to live without Eliza.

  There was a decent pair of wool trousers in the saddlebags, and he had changed into them the previous day. They were too short in the legs and too wide at the hips, but still looked a far cry better than the ones he’d been wearing. These he discarded along with the torn and bloodstained shirt he’d had on since leaving Samuel Cromwell’s farm. He’d thought about setting the horse loose and continuing on foot, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He felt safer with the horse, and the pistol, which he had taken to wearing in the waistband of his trousers even though he didn’t know how to shoot or load it.

  At last he decided to follow the road north. He had no idea whether Lawrence was north or south, but north felt right to him. Sooner or later he would have to ask someone if he was going the right way.

  Sooner turned out to be two hours later, just after noon. He spied the dust from the lone wagon long before it reached him.

  A knot formed in Henry’s gut when the wagon (which was travelling south) neared him. He stopp
ed the horse and resisted the urge to put his hand on the pistol’s grip. Instead he lifted a hand to the oncoming wagon. The wagon’s driver reined in the four horse team

  alongside Henry. There was a second man seated next to the driver; he was eyeing Henry with open suspicion. Henry looked to the driver. “Excuse me, sir, could you tell me how to get to Lawrence…Kansas?”

  “That’s a fine animal,” the driver said, ignoring Henry’s question. “Where’d you get it?”

  “I worked for him,” Henry replied.

  “That so? Well, I reckon it ain’t completely unheard of for uuhh, free negro to own a horse of his own. I’m guessing you’re one of them, then.”

  “Yessir, that’s right…Lawrence, Kansas?”

  “Although you do look a sight young. Did you lose your shirt?”

  “You’re in Kansas, boy.” The second man spoke up. “Lawrence is up that way, round-about ninety miles. You just keep on the way you’re going, you’ll get there. Let’s get moving, Lee. My backside’s hollering at me to get off this damn thing.”

  “Thank you,” Henry said and urged the horse on.

  Once Henry was out of earshot the wagon driver turned to the other man. “What in the hell, Frank? That nigger’s a goddamn horse thief, sure as shit draws flies.”

  “He was also carrying a revolver—had it stuffed down his pants, but he wasn’t hidin’ it.”

  “Well, if you’d keep your hands on that shotgun like you’re supposed to when we’re working we could have—”

  “Done what, Lee? The line don’t pay me to be regulating on horse thieves or no runaway niggers—especially with all the fighting going on. I’m not sticking my nose in all this business just to get it cut off by one side or the other. We’ll stop at the sheriff’s when we get to Fort Scott, tell them what we saw, and get back to work so we can go home.”