Runners

“He ain’t comin’ back,” Moses said.

The certainty in his bother’s voice made Samuel’s stomach twitch. Squatting in the hayloft of the old barn, the two were sweating like crawdads over a cooking pot. Whole place smelled of cat piss. They’d been hiding there for two days, and Samuel had seen no sign of a cat. Maybe it too was hiding and waiting.

“He ain’t comin’ back,” Moses said again.

At fourteen, Samuel was two years younger than Moses, but his brother often looked to him for reassurance. Ever since getting kicked in the head by a mule a few years earlier, Moses had been jumpy. Samuel couldn’t blame him. He’d nearly died, and Mama had said she didn’t think he would ever be right again.

“He’s comin’ back,” Samuel said.

They’d come upon the old barn in the middle of the night. It had been so dark that Moses had walked straight into the outside wall. It was also set far back in the woods, away from anything resembling civilization. Vines and ivy had grown up around it. Probably someone had tried to make a start out here, but the wilderness had proved too unaccommodating.

Samuel thought back on their journey so far. They hadn’t planned to run. In the end, they’d really had no choice. That new driver had hated Moses with a fire and took to beating him once a day. Daddy would tend the wounds, telling Moses to keep his head down. Moses had always been one to keep his head down. Didn’t matter to the driver. He’d decided that there was just something he didn’t like about Moses. Some folks were like that. Was no rhyme or reason to their hatred.

Samuel guessed that Daddy had just gotten tired of seeing his boy in pain, so he’d struck the man a fierce blow. Wasn’t that he was intending to kill him. Just happened. They’d left out with nothing but the shirts on their back. Didn’t even have shoes. Not like they really needed them. They’d been working barefoot their whole lives. Samuel recalled the sound of Daddy walking around the quarters; his hard, calloused feet slamming against the floorboards like hammers.

Three days running without rest, the three of them had started to feel the fatigue. They’d been drinking water from streams and creeks, but water wasn’t enough to sustain someone on the run. They’d needed food, so when they’d found the old barn, Daddy had helped them up into the hayloft and told them to wait there while he went for supplies.

“I ain’t sayin’ he would leave us,” Moses said. “He ain’t comin’ back ‘cause he’s dead.”

“You shut your damn fool mouth,” Samuel said.

His brother shrank into himself. A small amount of shame washed over Samuel. Moses wasn’t a damn fool, far from it. He had a keen understanding of most everything and was able to pick up new tasks with a level of ease that Samuel envied. In fact, Moses had always brought in the biggest hauls when he had worked the fields and had quickly learned how to tend and shod horses when the master had moved him to the stables. Samuel, on the other hand, only brought in yields enough to satisfy the drivers and didn’t have any skills beyond picking and singing. Mama once told him he had the voice of an angel. Samuel knew that wasn’t true. The angels were resounding. His own voice was low and soft.

Something moved in the shadows of the old barn. Moses clutched his eyes shut and began muttering something that Samuel suspected was a prayer. Crawling to the edge of the hayloft, Samuel looked down over the side. The darkness below was so pervasive he couldn’t make out much of anything. He heard the sound again, a little louder this time. Feet shuffling through dried leaves.

“God be merciful,” Moses said.

Samuel kicked his brother in the thigh, gave him a hard look. Moses probably couldn’t see the look. The kick was enough to shut him up.

“Boys,” a quiet, pained voice spoke from the darkness.

Moses scrambled to the edge of the hayloft, pushing in close beside his brother. The floorboards of the old barn creaked as their Daddy emerged from the shadows. One hand was clutching his side. The other was cradling something. Samuel lowered himself down from the hayloft and crossed to him. That was when Daddy sagged forward, dropping to his knees.

“What’s wrong?” Samuel asked.

His daddy moved his hand from his side, revealing the bloody hole beneath. Moses came down from the hay loft like a shot and squatted down next to him.

“Daddy,” he moaned.

A deep agony rose inside Samuel. He fought back tears. Daddy was a big man. Biggest Samuel had ever seen. There in the darkness, he looked small. Fragile. His daddy’s other arm dropped and five potatoes rolled onto the floor of the barn.

“What happened?” Samuel asked.

“Don’t matter none,” Daddy said. “I hid until they gave up looking for me. I hid too long.”

Gasping in agony, he fell to his side. Moses rolled him over so that he wasn’t laying on his wound. Samuel felt like sobbing. The urge was there, yet the tears never came.

“You keep going,” his daddy said. “Just keep going.”

Then he closed his eyes. He fell into a sleep from which he would never wake. Moses wailed, throwing his head back like some wild animal braying at the moon. Samuel gathered up the potatoes and went looking for a spot to cook them up. Raw potatoes would make someone awful sick. There was a chance someone would see the smoke from the cooking fire. It was a chance they had to take.

“What we gonna do?” Moses whimpered.

“We’re gonna eat,” Samuel said.