Page 146 of The Reformatory

Robert’s bottom lip shook. “What about him?”

Blue stared at Robert with the same scrutiny as the crow, with eerily round black eyes. When Blue blinked, his eyes turned normal. “You’re not the only one running,” he said. “That kid Tex from band, when he saw the dogs after you, he led ten other boys with him to the woods on the other side of the dorm, headed in another direction. They’re gonna try to make it to that side road while everybody’s looking for you. And Haddock’s got this kid from the kitchen, Kendrick, locked up in the Box so he can hurt him later. You’re not the only one in trouble.”

“When people see the photos—”

“They don’t have time to wait for that,” Blue said. “It’s up to us.”

“Up to us to do what?” Robert said, his heart racing with new dread. Whatever plan Blue had kept from him was bound to be terrible. Blue had never cared about him running away or whether he ever saw Gloria and Miz Lottie again.

“We’ve got to kill Haddock, Robert.” Blue’s garbled voice sounded half like a crow’s, half like that of the young boy he’d been. “Before he hurts anybody else.”

“Liar,” Robert said. “You don’t care about those other kids. You just want Haddock dead because of what he did to you.”

“Don’t you?” Blue said. “After what he did to Redbone?”

With all Robert’s heart, he did. He’d wished Haddock dead since the night Haddock whipped him at the Funhouse, but especially since Haddock had sent Redbone to die. He’d always believed killing was wrong, but no jailhouse was good enough for Haddock. Not even the electric chair, although Papa said the worst punishments were mostly for Negroes. The photos he carried might not prove enough to put Haddock in jail; he might make up explanations other white people would believe. The sheriff wouldn’t believe Robert’s claims against Haddock, the same way he’d never believed Papa. Maybe no one would.

But Gloria was waiting for him. Boone was a liar, but had been right when he said haints whispered ways to die in your ear. Robert knew he should still be running instead of wasting time talking to Blue in the middle of the creek. Haddock might see him at any time. He suddenly felt so tired that he wondered how he could take another step. Blue’s demands were taking the wind out of him even while the dog’s baying, so much closer now, made his skin itch to run.

“I don’t want to kill anybody, Blue. Not even him. I just wanna go home.”

“You don’t have to kill him. I will,” Blue said. “You only have to let him catch you.”

41

The creek’s bank was so choked with brush that Gloria stepped into the water close to the shallowest edge as she hurried toward the barking. Birdsong overhead and the gentle stirring of small creatures in the reeds concealed the true horror of the day. The bloodhound was closest, but at least two other dogs were audible now, although she didn’t think they were in a pack. Not yet. Intuition flooded her as she ran, flowing freely with her breath: Haddock wanted to hide his secrets, but other dog handlers were catching up. And Haddock had a gun, his trigger finger untroubled by decency or conscience.

Haddock didn’t only want to capture Robbie: Haddock planned to kill him.

Mama used to say Gloria rushed into plans without thinking, just like Papa, so she tried to think as she navigated the creek with all the speed she dared. As she ran, splashing her loafers and the cuffs of her denim dungarees, Gloria asked herself what she was willing to do to save Robbie. She could rescue him from one dog and one man, maybe, but she couldn’t prevail against several. Could she die for her brother? The resolve pumping through Gloria’s veins with her heartbeat was so fierce that she knew she could. She had not believed she might die today when she woke up in Mrs. Hamilton’s comfortable guest bedroom on a quiet new street free from crowing roosters, but she might have reached the place where she would die. Not Miz Lottie, as she’d feared—her. She squeezed her eyes closed to try to see what was to come, but as always, she couldn’t see when she tried. Gloria tested the idea of dying to see if it would paralyze her or make her want to turn back, but she only ran faster, her feet slipping slightly in unseen hollows. Until that moment, she had not known that she was not afraid to die.

But she might not have to. She could shoot a dog without thinking twice, and she was sure she could shoot a man too, even if it would mean going to jail. But could she shoot more than one man? She didn’t know, but maybe she could. Newspaper reporters and the sheriff would claim she had lost her mind like they would say about Ruby McCollum in Live Oak one day soon, but her soul knew the truth: rescuing Robbie from a killing place would not be as immoral as leaving him there. The stench of pain and death from the Reformatory reached all the way out to this creek, dripping from aerial roots reaching toward the water. And if the law said she was wrong to shoot at the men chasing her brother, the law was wrong too. Uncle June had said he didn’t think his killing in the war was a sin because those men were trying to kill him.

She would know the truth, at least. Miz Lottie, who had given her the gun, would certainly know. Papa would too. If she lived long enough, one day she would write a book about how she had helped set Robbie free. She’d tried the courthouse, hadn’t she? She’d brought Harry T. Moore and the glorious John Dorsey to try that way, but justice in Gracetown didn’t exist for Negroes. She’d told the judge about Lyle McCormack’s true-life violations and all he’d cared about was Papa’s imaginary one. No one was left to look out for Robbie except her.

Gloria heard a woman singing and realized the voice was hers. She didn’t remember hearing it before, but the melody and lyrics popped into her head like a song she knew well and had sung with her arms clasped with others who were not afraid to die. She sang with a low, soft voice, keeping rhythm with her splashing feet: “Ain’t gonna let no-bo-dy… turn me ’round… turn me ’round… turn me ’round… Ain’t gonna let no-bo-dy turn me ’round… I’m gonna keep on walking… keep on talking… Marching to Freeeeedom Land…”

It was a freedom song! Gloria didn’t know how she understood there was any such thing, but it was a song for church and also for street marches in a sea of determined Negro faces. No music had ever lifted her spirits like the song on her lips; she finally understood how Mahalia Jackson’s praise music sounded to Miz Lottie. The melody was old-timey, but it was a song from the future. Maybe it was a song from her future. Or Robbie’s. The song made her feel like she could remake the world. If she lived, saving Robbie might only be the beginning of what she could do.

The song led Gloria through twists and turns as the creek widened and deepened farther into the woods, away from the safety of the waiting truck, toward the chaos of the barking.

Nearly whispering, she sang her way past branches and stones, brushing off bugs and spiderwebs so thick and strong, they once would have made her scream when they touched her hair.

And then she saw him. Twenty yards in front of her, Robbie was standing dead center in the creek like a nature portrait on a museum wall. She grinned, but he was facing the bank instead of looking ahead at her. Whispers of his voice carried on the water’s surface. Who was he talking to? Gloria crouched behind a shrub on the bank in case one of the trackers had found him. Gloria’s heart stuffed her throat; shooting someone had been easier in her imagination.

What if it wasn’t Haddock? What if it was some silly young boy hardly older than she was, like the deputy who had arrested Robbie, just doing what he’d been told?

But no one was in sight, although Robbie was so intent on his conversation that he hadn’t noticed her approach. And Robbie’s tone was measured, not scared, so soft she could not hear his words. The only other creature she saw on a branch above the bank was some kind of bird, maybe a raven or a crow. But even the crow was gone when Gloria blinked a gnat from her eye.

Why had Robbie stopped? Why wasn’t he running? Was he praying?

After thirty long seconds of watching Robbie, Gloria decided it was safe to call for him.

She tried a whistle at first, but her lips were trembling and mostly blew out only breath.

Gloria opened her mouth. “Rob—”

The bloodhound was so loud that it could be in her ear, and brush rustled nearby. Gloria clamped her mouth shut with both hands to keep any sound from bleeding through. She ducked farther into a cluster of air plants growing against a mangrove trunk. Water sloshed a racket as her weight lurched, her knees suddenly unsteady and worthless as she clung to the tree. Her veins felt like they were filled with acid instead of blood.