A Separate Country by Robert Hicks

their darling had done,
for her own sake, no?
But those two looked tired and resigned. As much as Rintrah had pretended he didn’t need me, I had seen his eyes widen at the idea of real food.
    I left the horse up the block, tied to a rigid plane tree, and snuck into the house. Thank God for thick rugs. Father had a cigar and a visitor in the library, and I could see him through a crack in the door as I glided past.
The negroes are human, friend, no mistake. That doesn’t make me a nigger lover. There’s nothing about being human that inherently recommends itself to me. I dislike most humans. Dirty grunting animals. I see no reason to burn them in their homes, though. Yes, yes, I know you had nothing to do with that. But it’s not good for business, you must agree with that.
    Chocolates and a bit of dried pork shoulder, into the bag. Day-old bread. Blankets from the stable. I packed them tight in a tack bag. In the darkness every cricket and moth screamed at me, begged me to stop.
Go on upstairs, comb your hair, read something, fall asleep atop the lace coverlet, so cool.
Mother flipped the pages of her prayer book upstairs, always looking for the perfect prayer, never too long or too specific. I watched her through the window.
    Back on the horse, I rode calmly back to the woods, not wanting to draw attention. I avoided the puddles that pushed up against the banquettes, afraid of the sound of the splash and the telltale wet trail behind. No one could follow me, they must not.
They could be killed, or taken prisoner
. I suppose I always thought that the negro families knew what they were doing, those who had made the swamp their rabbit hole, into which they would disappear and emerge free on the other side. I thought of them as born for escape, bred for escape, raised in the art of escape. I imagined that all negroes knew the way out, and all of them were marking time for their chance. But two orphans? They would never make it.
    I heard the sound behind me but ignored it. Could have been a possum or coon. Leaves scraped against leaves, twigs cracked. The boys waited for me at the bent cypress. There was no time to indulge fear of the dark woods and its unfathomable sounds. Twigs cracked, the forest breathed, there was nothing to fear. A sweet lie.
    I left the horse just off the path and walked the last stretch through the tripping underbrush. The bag became heavy, I could smell the pork swaddled in canvas. I would die of hunger, I thought.
    Something scraped a branch and I hurried the last few feet. Paschal and Rintrah sat with their backs to the trunk of the tree, on opposite sides as if they’d been fighting. Rintrah was the first to his feet, his nose in the air, a smile cracking his face.
    “Ham, pig, pork. Yes, yes, yes.”
    Paschal told him to hush and grabbed the bag. I was surprised by this. He snatched it and twisted my arm a little. His face was stone, he didn’t look at me. Rintrah praised me as a princess, a goddess, a seraphim of the highest order. He would write me songs, he said, and he began to make up words on the spot. His voice was low and resonant. Paschal grabbed him by the arm and shook him.
    “We must leave, brother.”
    “But the chocolates?”
    Paschal was already walking into the dark.
    “This is rude, brother. Are you a gentleman or are you not? Because you blather on about the ways of gentlemen, and I have to tell you that you bore me with that talk, but I
tolerate
it, because I love you, brother, but now I know you have been wasting your breath and my time. Bring those chocolates!”
    Now I heard it. I heard it clearly. Or rather, now I recognized it. Paschal had heard it and had disappeared. Rintrah had not heard it, or could not hear it over the sound of his delight.
The colored boy will make it, but not the dwarf,
I thought. The twigs snapped in rhythm, the leaves whispered across something broad and fast. Footsteps, a body shoving the forest out of its way.
    “Hide, Rintrah. Hide!