Chapter 6

Readers are introduced to Travis' recurring dreams (see if you catch the song reference in the dream). And readers also find out more about the jagged scar running down Ned's cheek.

Growing up, I had this recurring dream. I was in a night setting without moonlight. Surrounded by trees, I walked along a smooth firebreak. There were thin trees, some covered in moss and large. Looping vines dipped into sight and traveled back up and out of view among the leaves. The strange, dark world I briefly lived in only drew curiosity out of me. So I continued to walk.

After what seemed minutes, pieces of strange fruit drooping down from trees appeared in the murky forest. The large fruit swayed, but without the moonlight, I couldn’t see much more than their silhouettes. And the farther I walked, the more abundant the strange fruits were.

At some point, lightning flashed, thunder rolled and a soft rain fell. But I never thought of turning the other way. I just walked. The path doglegged to the right and up a hill. As my legs pushed into the mud created beneath me, I could see a tree. It was an old sycamore with a massive, bubbly trunk. It had several thin branches sprouting upward, but one large branch stuck out like the spout of a tea kettle. As my ascent turned into a crawl, I saw that another strange fruit hung from the spout-like branch.

The lightning continued to flash and the thunder continued to boom. I reached the top of the hill and fatigued, grabbed the base of the trunk. The piece of fruit was well out in front of me as the branch from where it hung shot out over the hill’s steep descent on the other side. In the dark and rain, I struggled to make out much more of it than when I was on the road. It had a knob at the top, and a thick vine attached it to the sycamore. It was wrapped in a thin, papery material, but that was all I could see.

The dreams always ended the same yet each time the ending surprised me. A crow fluttered into the scene and landed on the flat surface near the fruit’s knob. It pecked vigorously, digging, only stopping once it had pulled free its objective. It turned to me with a round object in his mouth. Then lightning flashed, revealing an eyeball pinched between the bird’s beak.

My mind jumped back to the dark hotel room we were in. I turned over and saw that Ned was awake.  He was staring at the ceiling of the room and running his index finger along the jagged scar that was etched down his right cheek.  It had been there for as long as I knew Ned, but I never asked where it came from.  So I finally did.

Ned seemed startled when he heard the question.  He quickly removed his hand from his face as if I had caught him doing something embarrassing. 

“’Not sure,” he answered.  “It’s been there for as long as I can remember.  My parents always told me I fell and scratched it when I was a child.”

“That’s one deep scratch,” I said. The edge of the scar was accented by the moonlight. 

Ned turned away from me so all I could see was his bare shoulder sticking out from under his blankets.  He was uncomfortable talking about it, and I didn’t know why. 

Rolling back over on my back, I eventually fell asleep but woke up only a couple of hours later.  It was still dark out.  I sat up and stood from the bed.  I grabbed the chair from the small desk in the corner of the room and moved it next to the window and sat.  From my second story vantage point, the small city was mostly silent.  Periodically I could hear the tapping of horse hooves as they trotted down a street somewhere or a drunk man’s laughter. But mostly silence. It was hard to believe a town so small and quaint and quiet played such a vital role in the Underground Railroad. 

From my window, I could see the back of the Baptist church.  I heard a door along the back open. Two men walked out.  By moonlight, I saw that one of the men was a bearded, older man.  He was wearing a dark suit and a top hat.  I could not see the man he was talking to because the door blocked him from my view.  I wondered why two church members would be meeting this late in the morning. 

I heard noise coming from the second story deck that ran along the back side of hotel.  The men at the church hear the same thing as the bearded man turned and looked up at the hotel.  The noise was definitely the pattering of footsteps along the wooden deck.  The bearded man briskly walked away from the church. He made sure to pull his hat low, covering his forehead. The door to the church closed. I poked my head out of the window and saw the man with the cricked teeth walking back to our room. 

“What’re you doing?” I asked him. 

He looked up at me, turned and ran the way he came.

“Well isn’t that interesting,” I thought. 

I turned back to the room. My suitcase was missing. 

“He stole my suitcase,” I yelled.

Ned jumped out of bed.

“Wha’?”

“He stole my suitcase,” I said again.

By then, I was by my bed pulling my pants up. 

“Who did?” Ned asked as he was doing the same.

“The one with the cricked teeth,” I said and wiggled my fingers around my mouth.

I turned and pulled my body through the window.  As I ran after the man, I heard Ned crawl through the window behind me. I reached the stairs.  I saw the man running into an alleyway leading back to Broadway. 

“Stop,” I yelled, but he turned left around the corner.  

I ran down the stairs and followed him.  As I ran, I could feel the air becoming heavier in my lungs and my legs burn with each lunge.  A couple of blocks away I caught up to him, jumped and tackled him to the ground.  I turned him over on his back.

“Call for ‘uh policeman, Ned,” I said.

The man swung his hand at my throat.  I fell over on my back.  He stood to run from me.  I looked up and saw Ned pulled a revolver out from behind his back. 

“Hold it or I shoot,” he said, cocking back the hammer. 

The man stopped.

I stood and called for the police.  The man turned around. 

“P’wease don’t,” he pleaded.  “P’wease, I have fam’wee.”

He reached into his suit coat and pulled a small, metal-based photograph from his pocket. 

“My fam’wee,” he said as he handed it to me.

The photograph was of a young woman and a baby. 

“My wife, my child,” he said as he pointed.  “I steal f’aw them.  Please d’un turn me in.”

“Where are they?” I asked.

“Kalamazoo.”

“How did ‘ya end up here?” Ned asked him lowering his revolver from the man’s head. 

“I steal f’aw a living.  A person who does that can’t stay in one place f’aw too long.  ‘Had a job in Kalamazoo but was forced out of work.  I’ve got’ta feed my fam’wee somehow.  Stealin’s the only thing I am able to do.  I’m forced to do it.”

He agreed to show us where he stashed my suitcase.  After we retrieved it, the three of us walked back to our hotel room.  There we hashed out rules for the man from Kalamazoo. We decided he could stay with us as a servant being paid $5 a month.  That money was to be used to only send back to his wife and child in Kalamazoo.  At night he would sleep in the bathroom with the door locked.  If he were to break any of the rules, we would call the police and have him imprisoned. He thanked us as we closed the bathroom door and blocked it with a chair. 

“You’ve got some kindness in your heart after all,” Ned said to me as we were stripping down for bed a second time. 

I laughed.  “At least we won’t haf’ta carry our suitcases anymore.”

I did not mention to Ned the two men I saw behind the church that night.  I think the excitement of chasing down our servant made me forget about them temporarily.

Author's Note

As you can tell, I was listening to Billie Holiday one night, and I knew I had to incorporate the powerful song into my book somehow.

Reviews

[nostal]

MORE.
The beginning of this chapter was magical, although there are some instances where you can get a bit repetitive. And the dialogue got funny at points. I understand this is how people of that region speak but don't overkill it.

And some actions felt a bit out of place. Like the second after he said to Ned that the man had stolen something, he wiggled his fingers around his mouth?

haha... besides all I've criticized... this is deeply original and highly entertaining.