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A minute later, I breathed out the words: “What happened, Drusilla? I thought you were leaving Paducah.”
Drusilla stopped long enough to reposition her arm behind Atticus; she grunted with the effort. “I changed my mind,” she said, straining, and we went into motion again. “I have things to do in Paducah, so I can’t leave yet.”
“Why did you help us?” I asked. “Did you…miss your chance to escape because of us?” If it was true, I was grateful, but it would make me feel guilty just the same.
“I didn’t miss my chance,” Drusilla said. “At the last minute I simply chose to take another route—the carriage I’m taking you to now was supposed to be my way out of Paducah.”
I looked over the back of Atticus’ neck, his head hung low between us, to see Drusilla on his other side.
“You’re sacrificing your freedom for ours?” Grateful. Guilt. So much guilt.
“Your conscience is clear, Thais,” Drusilla told me. “I didn’t decide to stay only to help you.”
“But it was part of your decision.” I was sure of it.
“Yes. It was part of my decision. But I would have made the same decision even if you weren’t here to help.”
“Thank you,” I said with emotion in my voice.
Drusilla nodded; she repositioned her arm around Atticus once more.
“But I thought you said there wasn’t time to help free Atticus.”
“I negotiated,” Drusilla said. “Everything in Paducah is a negotiation. Anything can be bought for the right price. Let’s keep moving. Less talk. It expels too much energy.”
Having to agree, I didn’t say another word. I wanted to tell Drusilla how grateful I was to her, how I would never forget her for as long as I lived—I wanted to take her into my arms and embrace her as my friend. But no energy or time could be spared for such things.
A “little ways” turned out to be the longest fifteen minutes I had ever walked, and when I saw the “carriage”, which was just a small flatbed utility trailer on two wheels pulled by a man on a horse, relief flooded me, and lent extra movement to my exhausted, pain-stricken legs.
The man on the horse jumped down.
“How in the world did you two carry this man all that way?” the man asked as he reached for Atticus’ arm, draping it over his own shoulder to relieve me and Drusilla. The man was as tall as Atticus, maybe taller, and easily helped him onto the utility trailer without our help.
“With difficulty,” Drusilla answered.
She turned to me then, cupped my elbows in the palms of her hands, and peered into my eyes. “When you get to the river,” she began, “there should be a flat-bottom raft hidden in the woods not far from where he leaves you. I don’t know where myself, or even if it’s there; I just know that it’s supposed to be. I can’t say you’ll be safer on the river, but I can say it’ll be faster.”
“Why don’t you go with us?” I reversed our arms, cupped Drusilla’s elbows instead. “You can leave this place and travel with us to—.” I stopped myself. My whole heart trusted Drusilla, but I had learned too many lessons on The Road.
“I have to stay,” Drusilla insisted.
I squeezed her elbows.
“But these people are—”
“They’re negotiable,” Drusilla cut in; her brown eyes enriched by her smile. “Now go”—she took me into a hug—“and make it to your destination safely. I will pray for you.”
The hug broke, and our hands fell slowly from one another.
“I will do the same for you,” I told her, and then I climbed onto the trailer with Atticus who lay on his back, his eyes closed.
I heard the rider’s heels tap the horse’s sides, and the clicking of his tongue against the roof of his mouth to instruct movement.
“Thank you again,” I called out as the horse pulled us away. “I will never forget you.”
Under the blue-gray moonlight and a black sky full of stars, Drusilla raised a delicate hand into the air and waved me good-bye.
“Good-bye, my friend,” I said, though Drusilla was too far away now to have heard.
