I continued to be a young man, full of weary hubris. I was warned that any journey into the interior of this country would bring me to savages, so I nodded and swore to keep to the coasts and then hired a horse and servant to take me into the darkest forests, where I found the Creeks in Hillaubee and now am married and a Great War Chief; though the title is honorary, I believe the wife is genuine. What the Creeks gave me was a respite from the expected, at least while I studied how they were bound to each other and defined their enemies. The wife was simply so I could sink into daily life unremarked; I was not prepared to give my heart to anyone new, if indeed it had ever been given. I once sent my French wife a basket that my Indian wife made. But before long even the novelty of Indians began to follow paths that I knew: a man defended the men who resembled him.
So a week ago, when the chief of my adopted village asked if I’d sit in on a diplomatic meeting that evening with visitors from the Carolinas — the white men’s war had come and gone and I had confirmed the Creeks’ good opinion — I said yes, of course, but returned to my cabin and opened the wooden trunk I arrived with years ago, to imagine what it might look like if I filled it again. Endless talk of war, even after the fighting had settled, merely reminded me of everything I’d already seen. I wondered if all men lived by the same self-preserving code. If guilt was foregone. If it was no hardship to grow up alone, because all men are fundamentally so.
I CONTINUE AT a generous distance, keeping them in my sight but only just. I am interested in how they walk, the Indian leading mostly but sometimes the black man striding ahead, both of them turning every minute or so to confirm the others’ presence. These are not men trying to lose each other. Have they made some pact? Is there a sense that if one escapes, he’ll turn the others in? What do they have to hold over each other’s heads? Though they are not always silent, they do not converse in an easy enough manner to convince me of a prior relationship. There are no trading partners here, and I doubt even that the slave belongs to one of these men, for they do not make him carry the bags or prepare the food. Of course, it is possible that he is not a slave but a Creek, as they have sometimes been known to adopt negroes into their clans if the circumstances allow. But he does not seem to speak their language beyond a phrase or two. I suspect the white man of leaving the plainest signs on the trail behind him. The leaves are shuffled up in trenches as if he were not fully lifting his feet but rather being pulled by a force mildly stronger than the force bidding him to collapse. Though he may have shot the travelers, he certainly did not plan the attacks, and doesn’t appear to have any aim but to watch for flowers and keep close to the others. He is almost a child.
At noon they sit down in the brush and pull food out of their sacks, which is oddly domestic for men on the run. In the noise of chewing I am able to approach closely enough to pick up a little conversation.
“How is it?” the white man asks.
The black man rubs his upper arm and nods.
The Indian passes a cloth bag of parched corn to his left and each man takes a handful.
“What was the best thing you ever ate, Cat?” the black man asks.
The white man’s smile is shy. “My wife had a garden,” he says.
“She was a fine cook?” The Indian spits out a kernel of corn, which without boiled water must be painfully hard.
“No,” the one called Cat says.
“I had a ham once, or part of it at least, that my mother stole from the master’s kitchen on Christmas — told him the pig wasn’t near as big as he thought it was, which is why there weren’t more cuts. It wasn’t hot, but lord it was juicy. I wrestled my brother for the last piece and lost, but that taste sat in my mouth for days.” He runs his tongue across his upper lip. “There’s good moments and bad moments.”
“Not good men and bad men,” Cat says.
The others seem surprised, as if they were not accustomed to the white man speaking, or at least not speaking philosophically. He reaches out a hand and pats the black man’s knee.
“As we get worse, you seem better,” the Indian says.
“No. But even the people we love can fail.”
“Who’s failed? Us two? Or you? Don’t start spouting forgiveness like you’re some kind of saint, because that bounty hunter’d say otherwise.” He turns to the Indian. “I told you, didn’t I? Said there was a blue-eyed man wanted for murder, and seemed to think Cat was it.”
“Was he?”
“What do you think?”
They look at the white man, who seems unconcerned. He apparently said his piece.
“You’re not getting off from this,” the black man says. “We all did it.”
They halt again at dusk in a broad meadow, congregate around something in the weeds. They stand so close together it almost looks as if their arms are linked, or they are praying. The distant figure of Cat moves behind the black man, whom I now know to be Bob, and after a further pause, all three move back onto the main path, the white man casting a last glance at the spot in the prairie. A half dozen sandhill cranes fly up near the tree line like some ancient species.
WHEN THEY STOP for the night, I stop well behind them. They make a fire to cook something and although the flame is small, I am surprised that the Indian lets his guard down to this extent. I am too far to hear any of their whisperings, but an hour after they settle for the night, I creep closer. The slave’s snoring bursts through the underbrush. From behind a holly, I look at each in turn. Oh, to always see man when he is unaware of being watched. Their faces give away so much: the black man, though he snores through an open mouth and his arms and legs are flung wide, has a furrow to his brow that interrupts his sleep, causing him occasionally to flip and moan; the Creek’s face is stone, is sadness, and he is tucked tight beneath a blanket so that his hands and feet are not exposed; and the white man — he is awake. His eyes are open and flit back and forth, as if watching meteors, but the sky is cloudy and he is heedless of my presence. I could take him now, but that would answer none of my questions. He does not look as ferocious as I’d imagined, but there are bloodstains on his cuffs, so I assume he took the lead in the killings. They are universally unkempt but oddly trusting. What guarantee do these men have that one of them will not steal the money from the others?
I crawl back to my camp and sleep as light as a bee, which is to say in dozes, and hardly at all.
ON THE SECOND day they are beginning to slow; Bob has an injury that is making his steps uneven, and the others attempt to keep pace. If I did not trust in my own stealth, it would be almost unfathomable that they hadn’t yet felt my presence. I have moments of wanting to step hard on a branch, or throw a walnut, just to enter into their sanctuary. I should have roped their wrists by now, but they are leading me like a tide, deeper into the west.