Into the Free

by Julie Cantrell

  “A long, long life,” the lady continues. “But not long enough.”

  She stops abruptly and stomps her foot. Three golden bands clank against each other and spin around her nut-colored ankle. A woman next to me gasps, but the woman in the circle keeps talking, letting each syllable take its time to carry this story to the ears of her tribe. Young and old, they watch her without blinking, and I watch them. “So respected and so loved was she, that even in death, she is honored.”

  It’s just a simple story. One that could have been told in a matter of seconds, whispered from one knobby-kneed kid to the next, but to the people around me, it is a legend. “Our queen fell into a hard and early labor. Child number fifteen. Fifteen! Our king was distraught. What was a man to do?” She shrugs and looks every one of us in the eye before unspooling the rest of her story. She sees I am barely paying attention. I sit straighter and try not to think about how the boy’s lips move across the steel harmonica.

  She asks again, “What was a man to do?” She tells of their love. His devotion. “Ten thousand dollars to anyone who could save his bride. A fortune, even today. But there, camped in the small village of Coatopa, Alabama, no amount of money could save her.” She spreads her arms up to the dark sky, and the boy leans close to me as the woman opens herself to the night.

  “Even as he suffered, he carried her body to this city. This Iti Taloa, Mississippi. And here, in this holy land, where he could have been turned away, left to bury his own, he was not judged. He was welcomed, even helped by the generous people of this town. It is a fine hour in our history. A day when we were not thrown from our wagons into the night. A day when Romany people, our people, were honored. We prepared her well. Her body, adorned in a royal robe of green. Around her neck, the heirloom shells, handed down from generation to generation.” She lowers her voice with each repetition, slowing the pace. “Shells and a long chain of golden coins. And at her feet, sacred linen. In her hands, riches that would make any beggar wail.”

  Others have heard this story countless times, yet attention here is intense. I want to know everything there is to know about these people, their queen, their history, their future. I want to know about the boy folded beneath me, catching my stare and causing me to swell with shame for the sinful thoughts he stirs in me.

  I reposition myself on the crate. My leg brushes against his arm. I catch my breath. We both sit motionless, his arm on my bare ankle. Waves of electricity surge between us.

  The beautiful gypsy continues her performance around the fire, but I barely hear what she says. Something about sending their queen across the River Styx and giving her treasures for the journey. The woman says the church could not hold so many mourners. The boy’s arm wraps around my leg, his fingers cradle my ankle. I become the sound and the stars and the flames.

  Finally, the woman bows. Her bangles lead the tribe’s applause. An elderly man stands to tell another tale. The white-shirted harmonica player whispers to me, “Let’s go.” And I follow.

  CHAPTER 10

  “I’m Millie,” I say as we walk, a nervous giggle coloring my words.

  “River,” he says, taking my hand. He leads me through the field of flowers. The moon lights a silver path.

  “Is that your real name?”

  “No. I don’t remember my real name,” he says.

  “Tradition or something?” I am embarrassed I don’t know more about his culture. About this boy I’ve been dreaming of for years.

  He laughs. “No. Nothing like that. I fell into a river when I was a baby. No one thought I would survive. They found me downstream about five hundred yards. Washed up on shore, happy and kicking. No one had ever seen anything like it.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like you either,” I tease, surprised by my forwardness. I think quick to cover my tracks. “I mean, someone who’s survived such a thing. That’s really incredible.” I smooth my skirt with my one free hand and hope he doesn’t think I’m a fool.

  “Yeah, some people say I’ve been chosen. You know, by God or something. To, I don’t know, do something big. But that’s kind of hard to believe, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe they’re right,” I say. His fingers are long and strong. He could crush my hand in his, if he wanted to. I hear Jack’s voice, “Never trust,” but I just keep moving forward, into the night, with River.

  “I play music for tips,” he says. “Not so big.”

  We accidentally jump a deer, and we steal the warm spot of flattened grass. River pulls me down next to him, so close I shiver. “I can’t imagine anything better than to travel around playing music. Making people happy,” I say. “What’s bigger than that?” I lean into him as the moonbeams bounce across the field of yellow flowers. “Want to hear something funny?”

  “Always,” he says, running his fingers through my hair. My world speeds up. After years of moving along in slow motion, I am suddenly surging through the moments. He touches me, and like flame to dry grass, I am consumed.

  I have imagined him dirty, as he was when I first saw him, years ago, but he isn’t. Not at all. Even his fingernails are trimmed and neat. His hair smells of oranges. His teeth are white and straight. I wonder how he manages to shatter every idea I’ve ever had of his people. “When I was a little girl, I used to think the flowers were stars that had fallen to the ground,” I say. “I thought when I picked the flowers, I was collecting stars. Straight from heaven. Like God was sending me tiny presents.”

  He nods out to the field that surrounds us. “Looks like stars to me.”

  “Not to me. Not anymore,” I say. “Now I just see flowers.”

  “Sad,” he says.

  “Yeah, I figure God has more important things to do.” I laugh.

  “What do you mean?” he asks.

  “Nothing,” I say, embarrassed. “Let’s talk about you.”

  “Tell me.” He delves deep.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I just mean, He seems to have something against me. That’s all.” I laugh again, nervously, wishing I had never brought up such a ridiculous topic in the first place.

  “Can’t be true,” he rubs my arm with his fingertips. Explosive fireballs burst through my body.

  “True. But He did save you from that river and bring you to Iti Taloa tonight. So, I’m almost willing to forgive Him for all the rest.” I smile. I don’t know who this girl is. Talking like this. Not anything like me. I am out of sorts, strangely confident. But I don’t want to talk anymore. I just want to listen. To his voice. To the sound of his breathing. The sound of my heart pounding in my chest.

  River places his hand beneath my chin and tilts my face toward him. “I want to kiss you,” he says.

  “Is that so?” I tease, wondering why a guy so perfect wants anything to do with me.

  “No,” he answers, “not anymore. Right then, yes, I did. But now, right now? Umm, too late.” And then he laughs that sweet, fiery gypsy laugh. The entire cosmos is just one big, wonderful place. There’s no such thing as Jack and Mama and Iti Taloa. Slow down, I think. Make it last. But everything goes faster. Time swallows moments like a great tsunami. River. Me. I curve my body into his and we kiss. A happy, innocent, brilliant little joy. A gypsy kiss.

  I hold still, not wanting him to ever let go of me. Here, in this field, in River’s arms, I can forget about Jack. About Mama. About fear. He pulls me closer, kisses me again, and I never want it to end.

  “Thank you, God,” River whispers, laughing.

  I smile. “I don’t even know if I believe in God anymore,” I confess. The first time saying it out loud.

  He thinks before answering. I like that about him. “Well, I’m sure God still believes in you,” he answers.

  I’ve heard this phrase before. From Mama. I’m not falling for it. He must think I’m gullible. Naive. The dizziness I felt only moments earlier shifts to nausea, and as much as I want to stay with him, I refuse to be another foolish girl, tricked by the charming traveler. Another used coin around
his waist. The wind picks up, and I try to ignore all the warnings swirling around me, but as River leans in for another kiss, the flowers wave their yellow flags and shout, “Caution!”

  “My mother will be worried,” I lie. “I better get home.” I run for the woods while I still have the power to escape his pull.

  It’s Saturday morning. River haunted my dreams again. For six years, I have watched this boy come and go each spring, and I have dreamed of running off with his tribe every time they leave town. I don’t know how I had the power to leave him last night. In that field of flowers. I can’t stop thinking about him. But can I trust him?

  I’m going to risk it. I know I’m probably being foolish, but I hurry out of bed and brush my teeth. I’m going back to the camp to find River. I want to know everything about this coin-laced vagabond. Dangerous or not.

  I throw on my favorite dress and kiss Mama good-bye. “Where’re you off to?” she asks, and I hope this means she’s snapping out of her latest bout with the blues.

  “Library,” I say, grabbing a stack of books to cover my trail. I close the door behind me before she has a chance to change my mind.

  I don’t make it off the porch before I see him. “Morning,” he says, leaning against Sweetie’s firm trunk and sending waves of golden heat right through me. We both stand and stare, only a stack of books and sweet spring air between us. I feel him touch me with his eyes.

  “How long have you been here?” I ask.

  “All night,” he grins, and my spine shoots sparks across the sky. “Going to the library?”

  “Yep,” I answer. Words are sticking to my ribs and I sound silly.

  “Here, let me help.” He pulls the stack of books from my arms, and I tremble as his hand brushes my wrist. We walk the worn path from Cabin Two to the library. “You must really like to read,” he says, pretending the stack is too heavy to carry. “Who’s your favorite?”

  “Author?” I ask, half surprised to be having a conversation about books with a gypsy boy I assume to be illiterate. “Hemingway,” I say. “Yours?”

  “Fitzgerald,” he says. “‘They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.’”

  I lose my breath as he quotes from This Side of Paradise.

  “So how does this traveling life work, exactly? Do you just wander around the world telling stories and playing your harmonica? Impressing people with random literary quotes?”

  He laughs, but he is not making fun of me. He sets the stack of books on the ground, pulls out his blues harp, and begins to play me a tune. It’s not the instrument I hear. It’s his spirit, and it is singing.

  “We just move around trying to earn enough money to stay out of people’s way,” he says. “Folks pay us for eggs or chickens or maybe a newborn donkey or goat. The women read palms, tell fortunes. The men play cards, and we all play music. Some of us take on day jobs, you know, like hauling stuff or cleaning things or picking crops. Nothing too hard. Stuff anybody could do. One of the guys used to have a monkey he had trained to dance and collect money in his little cap.”

  “I remember him,” I say. “He used to bite people.”

  “Only if they didn’t pay up,” he laughs.

  “So where do you call home?” I ask.

  “Home is here. Yesterday it was Jefferson. Next, the coast. Might stay there a while. Might not. I just spin around three times and I’m in my place.”

  “Like a coyote,” I tease. “Dangerous!” No matter how much I fight it, I want his place to be with me. I want to go wherever he goes. But I don’t say that. Instead, I ask, “So where were you born?”

  “You’ll never guess,” he says, pulling me to the edge of the pasture and placing a long thread of wheat grass between his lips. The cows watch us with intense curiosity as he pulls me down beside him.

  “Texas?” I ask.

  “Not even close.” He smiles.

  “Louisiana?”

  “Try again,” he says, the grass twirling with his tongue.

  “Oh, just tell me, please!” I shove playfully.

  “Montana,” he confesses.

  “You were born in Montana?” I ask, doubtful he’s telling the truth. Montana seems as far away as Africa to someone who has never left Mississippi.

  “I swear. Montana. My dad’s not Romany. He’s a trapper. French Canadian. Met my mother when she passed through his town. I’ve never met him. Being a traveler didn’t suit him, I guess.”

  “It would suit me,” I say.

  “That right?”

  “Absolutely,” I say again. “I’d love to live your kind of life.”

  “Well, it wasn’t for him. That didn’t make things so easy on my mother. Some say my river trip was God’s way of telling her to be grateful for what He gave her. That He could take me away if He wanted to. My mother told me she could have done without that lesson.” He laughs, but it is shallow.

  I stir into his arms. His chest smells of wheat. The kind of earthy, good smell that makes me want to dig my hands in the dirt and plant something. A fertile smell. “What’s he like?” I ask. “Your dad.”

  “Don’t know. I’ve only seen him once, playing pool in a bar. I watched him shark some guys out of their cash.”

  “Do you look like him?”

  “Just like him.”

  “Then I don’t blame your mother one bit,” I say and he kisses me, right there in the middle of the day, where anyone could see if they were looking. If Jack saw, he would kill me. So I stand up, grab my stack of books, and walk straight through the woods, the quickest route to the library, without looking back to see if River follows.

  But he does.

  Before I know it, we are near the river, close to the spot where Mama buried her box under the sycamore tree. I do not tell River about the box.

  “Great place,” he says, examining the sycamores and loblolly pines. “These are my favorite.” He points to a black walnut. “Strong, dark wood. Great for woodwork. What’s yours?”

  “All of them,” I say. I grab a low limb and pull myself up into a high, healthy magnolia. River walks beneath me and kisses my ankle. I melt.

  He pulls me down and I fall into his strong arms, no longer caring one bit about singing trees or Mama’s box of buried secrets.

  My ears begin to ring. “Rain’s coming,” I tell River. I’ve always known when to head home, before the thunderheads break loose and flood the ravines. I smell the storm in the air before the blackbirds warn me with their spiral flight and increased chatter. So by the time the squirrels run to their nests, River and I have already raced out of the thick forest, along the winding creek beds and through the low-lying fields.

  We have almost made it to the library when I jump over a cedar trunk that blocks the path. My foot lands near about on top of a cottonmouth, and River leaps to defend me. I yell, “River! No!” But it’s too late. He has already lunged at the snake. I close my eyes.

  I’ve seen what a cottonmouth can do. I had a kitten who was killed two years ago. First, River’s leg will swell. Then his mouth will go foamy. His eyes will dull. His tongue will go limp. The lump, with its orange pus oozing and its infectious stench spreading, will travel up his leg straight to his heart.

  But I am wrong. River’s jumping only confuses the snake, as if he can’t decide which one of us to strike. The rain starts to fall hard and heavy through the leaves, and by no small miracle, the cottonmouth decides not to bother. He relaxes his neck back under the maze of cedar limbs and watches us back away, one slow step at a time.

  “It’s okay now,” River says. “Guess no one ever told you not to mess with a cottonmouth.”

  River stays right with me all the way to the library. “When it rains, this is where I go,” I explain. I love the creaky old floors and the smell of mold among the stacks. It’s the closest thing I can find to being in the woods. Some of the older pages still smell of earth. Plus, Miss Harper, the librarian, with her nervous eye twitches and rapid speech, is just
too nice.

  Miss Harper doesn’t even look up when we arrive. She knows the sound of me. “Millie,” she says, “I’m so glad you’re here. I can’t bear to wait another day for the new Steinbeck novel, so I’m rereading The Grapes of Wrath. Just listen to Tom Joad.

  “‘Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there…. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready.… I’ll be there.’

  “Beautiful, isn’t it, Millie?”

  She loves Steinbeck so much that she’s turning three shades of red, and her neck is nearly purple from increased blood flow. I worry she’ll pass out and I’ll be stuck trying to blow air back into her.

  Then she finally lifts her chin to notice River, and I want to say, Here’s what’s beautiful!

  “Oh my,” Miss Harper gets nervous. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you with Millie. Hope you like John Steinbeck.”

  “Yes, ma’am. One of my favorites, in fact.” River seems to know just how to charm everyone who crosses his path. He starts quoting Steinbeck right back to Miss Harper, without a book or anything.

  “‘What’s this call, this sperit?’ An’ I says, ‘It’s love. I love people so much I’m fit to bust, sometimes.…’ I figgered, ‘Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe,’ I figgered, ‘maybe it’s all men an’ all women we love; maybe that’s the Holy Sperit—the human sperit—the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of.’”

  Miss Harper is melting behind her desk. River leans down and whispers near her, “Jim Casy. Chapter Four.”

  Miss Harper and I both circle River like moons. He smiles. I tell Miss Harper about our close call with the cottonmouth. “Well,” she says. “Just remember what I always say. When something bad happens, it’s good experience. Now you know something you didn’t know.”

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  She closes Grapes of Wrath and says, “When the right person’s on your side, you’ve got a good chance of beating the odds.”