Sweet Song

by Terry Persun

  Leon was glad to go and might have gone alone had Jake not changed his mind and agreed to leave the next night. But as it was, he felt satisfied with the plan. He offered nothing more than a nod in answer.

  Jake shoved his hand toward Leon in earnest.

  Leon shook it, and the deal was set.

  “Let me hold the money, so I can pack up for tomorrow.”

  Leon cocked his head, but relinquished without complaint. He reached into his sack and pulled out most, but not all, his money and handed it over to Jake.

  The following day, both men ate more than usual.

  Billy made another comment, but not in front of the others where he could be ridiculed. He said only, “Black or White,” as Leon stepped past him.

  Leon, gaining confidence in his lie, said, “Billy or William,” then continued on. He would be gone the next day. Billy could do little to hurt him now. And being black wasn’t a crime. His fear lay in being found a liar.

  Neither Leon nor Jake worked as though their hearts were in the job that last day. The two of them ate together but separate from the rest of the crew. Once they were paid, they walked off side by side.

  “We’ll leave after dark,” Jake said. He held out his hand.

  “This too?” Leon said.

  “That was the plan.”

  Leon hesitated, then eased his hand forward for Jake to take the money.

  “You don’t trust me?” Jake questioned.

  Leon said nothing.

  “Tonight, then.” Jake wandered off toward the bunkhouse.

  Leon would have wanted to leave before nightfall, but either way was fine. Perhaps Jake was afraid they’d be followed. The woods would be dark, but they didn’t need to travel fast. And they’d probably only stay in the woods until they were out of view of camp, then they’d head for the river, their guide on the trip.

  In the shed, Leon made sure he had his sparse belongings packed. He fingered his book. The overcast skies had kept him from reading by moonlight lately. He had bought a candle, but rationed its use to make it last.

  He tied his blanket with twine. He stuffed his sack and its contents into the bedroll. He felt the extra money there, but did not count it. Security was in knowing its location. He thought about his dishonesty with Jake and wondered why he hadn’t handed over all the money. Perhaps because whites had never shown their honesty to him. Yet, neither had Negroes.

  Leon sat in the doorway and lay back placing his head on his bedroll. He listened for Jake’s footsteps. The sky darkened and the stars emerged. Cold crept from the woods behind him and from the river in front of him. The scent of snow rested in the breezes carried from the north. Only a few weeks left, he thought, before the change in seasons became official.

  The stars grew brighter and the air colder. Leon put his arms over his chest and soon dozed off. When he awoke, he recognized the feel of a new day. Morning was near.

  Jake had never come for him.

  Leon’s knees hurt from sleeping with his legs hanging over the shed door opening. Bone chilled, his teeth chattered and his spine had what Martha used to call chicken skin running along it. He thought of checking for Jake at the bunkhouse, but decided against it. The others might awaken. His mind raced, but arrived nowhere. He needed to wake up more, get his wits about him. Then he heard someone coming. Was he wrong about the time? Had Jake fallen asleep too?

  Leon grabbed his bedroll with his sack and money rolled inside. When he stepped outside, he saw Billy and stopped dead in his tracks. Only a pre-morning breeze moved as Billy approached.

  “He left last night,” Billy said.

  “Who?” Leon said.

  Billy pointed to Leon’s bedroll.

  “Oh,” Leon lowered his head. “How did you know?”

  “I observe. I been watchin’ you two. Seen you give him your wages. Knew right then my suspicions were right.”

  “What did you come by for, then? To laugh at me?”

  “I noticed him gamblin’ on you, but it was too late. You wouldn’t a believed me if I told you. Now, you can see on yer own. You don’t have much people sense, do you? Never mind, I already know.” Billy walked right up to Leon. “Try to be more cautious, more observant of the manners of others. Pay attention.”

  “I can’t trust anybody.”

  Billy held out his hand and there was money in it. “Can’t trust everybody,” he said.

  “Why you giving me this?”

  “Trust don’t deserve this treatment. Besides, I know you don’t like this work. I don’t know what you can do, but I can see this ain’t how you gonna spend your life. I will tell you this, the lumber camps is no better. But you’ll find out.”

  “No I won’t.”

  Billy laughed. “That’s all the work there is, farmin’ in the summer, timber in winter, and buildin’. You ain’t in Philadelphia, you know.”

  Leon didn’t know where Philadelphia was exactly. “Maybe I should go there.”

  Billy laughed harder. “Not now you won’t.” He nodded toward the woods. “You best go.”

  Leon shifted his weight as if he were going to run, but didn’t move from that spot.

  “Black or white?” Billy asked.

  “Black,” Leon said, and instantly felt at ease. The river sighed. The branches on the trees relaxed. Leon’s shoulders rested and his neck softened.

  They stared at each another.

  “Do I look black?” Leon asked.

  Billy cocked his head, looking for something, Leon thought, that could help him with the identification, help him confirm Leon’s answer.

  “White,” Leon said, and the familiar guilt came back. He lied.

  “Your choice,” Billy said. He waved his hand to shoo Leon. “Now, git. You’ll make better time travelin’ by day anyhow.”

  This time, Leon let his body run. He didn’t look back. He ran, and for the moment was himself, not black or white, not Italian or Indian. Leon was a child again, innocent and free.

  Even in the woods, Leon could feel the river. It had its own weight, its own sound and feel. Like a strong man, the river had presence and charisma.

  He felt odd as he pulled away from the river, like leaving home. His love of the river was a true emotion. The river had saved him. It had been there while he worked and while he slept. It was there now, beside him. Yes, he could feel it as he could feel Pine Creek all the while he grew up.

  After a while, Leon got angry with Jake for lying. The two of them had become friends and had talked and planned together. Had Jake lied about his mother and sisters? About college?

  With each thought, Leon stepped harder and grabbed more aggressively to the tree trunks he used to help propel himself uphill. How could he get along in life if everyone he met was allowed to use him? Even his own family? He stumbled on a protruding root and fell onto one knee. His hand gripped a rock. He breathed in gusts of air. His throat hurt. He had forgotten water. Proof of his stupidity.

  Leon sat and put his arms across his knees. He shook his head. The air around him stood still, even though he witnessed the wind playing in the upper branches of the trees.

  He had to change. As Billy had told him, Leon knew he had to become more people-sure. He had to observe their every action. As the calm of his own breath returned, Leon sang a song about how he would watch everyone and notice if they lied to others. He sang how he would be the observer of all things dangerous and dishonest. After a while, his throat still scratchy, Leon headed out at a slower pace.

  Without someone who knew the area, Leon had no idea where he traveled. The river was his only guide. The roamers had known the hills and creeks and farms. Leon did not.

  Yet, he ran across what appeared to be paths, not roads. He couldn’t discern whether they were animal trails or Indian trails. He learned to search for scat and prints, to notice hair on branches, rub marks where black bear had scratched or white tail deer had rubbed velvet from their antlers. By focusing his senses on the natural elements, he
was amazed at what he knew. Like smelling the river and somehow knowing that it was about two miles off to his right. Smelling the air and noticing that snow was closer than he had imagined.

  Rocks and boulders made traveling difficult. His ankles and knees took a beating. His second day out was uneventful, but more wearing on his body. He had eaten a third of his jerky and stale bread. He camped close to a creek that night. He caught two trout in his burlap sack, made a fire, and ate.

  The sky filled with clouds. The threat of snow screamed down at him louder than words. Thinking about the snow and imagining himself dying, covered in white, under a tree, Leon recalled what he had learned about the timber camps. How farmers cut lumber in the winter. They dragged the logs to the creek banks to await the spring runoff, the flood that would lift the logs and take them to the river, to the mills.

  He awoke shivering. A thin layer of frost lay everywhere along the ground. A sliver of ice had formed near the water’s edge. An Eagle screeched. The sun’s path across the sky lowered each day. Even so, a single ray through the trees felt warm to the skin compared with the remainders of the night air.

  Leon picked at his jerky. He rolled his things together. He stood tall and looked upcreek to where he hoped to find the beginning activity of a timber camp. The first thing he’d do was buy a heavier coat with what little money he had left and some of the money Billy had given him.

  With a purpose in mind, Leon made his way upstream, away from the Susquahanna. He had no idea what to expect. When might he run into a camp? Would he hear them working before he arrived? Or see them? He traveled hard that day. The air kept his body dry and cool whenever he stopped to rest. His body stayed warm, the energy coming from the workings of his legs and arms, from the speed of his movements.

  More than once, Leon came upon deer and frightened them into escape. The deer surprised him with their speed and agility. The animals had apparently congregated in a particular part of the forest, as though this herd was the largest in the world. He had stumbled onto them by accident. They teased him. He knew how deer muscle tasted dry and gamy, the jerky salted to bring out the tang.

  Leon rested against a tree and listened. More deer rustled around in the leaves ahead. Or maybe not. This sound was different. Something was wrong with the weight or pattern of movement. He crept up to a clearing. Jake held a fallen branch and raked over the area where he had built his camp. Fire burned in Leon’s stomach and chest. His eyes bulged, taking in everything they could. He reached into his sack, felt for the cold metal, and pulled out the revolver.

  Jake looked up when Leon stepped from the brush. “Don’t shoot.”

  “I should kill you right now,” Leon said.

  “My family needs it. I had no choice.”

  Leon walked toward Jake and told him to sit. “I trusted you.”

  The fear in Jake’s face turned to disgust. “You weren’t honest. As soon as Billy noticed somethin’ wrong ‘bout you, I seen it too. I should-a telled the boss. You ain’t nothin’ but a nigger. Them other men, they cain’t see nothin’. But Billy knowed and then I seed it too. You ain’t deserved this money. Go ahead and shoot me if you want, but there’s the truth of it.”

  Leon boiled. “I’m not a nigger,” he said. “I’m a man like the rest of you. Billy doesn’t know shit about me. You don’t know.”

  Jake appeared to question his own words. “It’s ‘cause you don’t say nothin’. Everything’s a secret with you.”

  “A man’s allowed his privacy.” Leon stepped right up to Jake and shoved the gun not three inches from his nose.

  Jake’s eyes narrowed. “You ain’t Leon White. If you anythin’, you Leon with no last name. You got Hillary Carpenter with child, then run off.” He tightened his lips.

  “Jacob,” Leon said.

  “I knowed that you.”

  Leon squeezed the trigger until it went off on its own.

  Click.

  Jake’s mind appeared to register the sound instantly. He slapped the gun out of Leon’s hand. The useless metal flew into the leaves a few feet away. Then Jake brought his boot up and kicked Leon squarely in the chest, knocking him down the hill. “I’ll git you.” Faster than a frightened rabbit, Jake ran away.

  Leon’s chest hurt and it took him a minute to stand again. He went back to find the revolver. He should have asked for his money back. He should have pistol-whipped Jake. Nothing appeared to be the right thing to do.

  The money had been gone the day before and it was still gone. Hillary was with child. That’s why he’d been chased out.

  Leon sat on the ground and rubbed his chest. He hadn’t fooled anyone. Billy was right. He needed to transform himself, to observe and copy, or he would surely get lynched one of these times. Or he could be black. But Big Leon had died for Leon’s chance to change his life.

  It wasn’t until later in the day that Leon learned the truth of the deer’s migration. While he walked a ridge along one of the hills that paralleled the creek, the tree line thinned, letting more of the sun splash into the woods. Direct sunlight warmed the area regardless of the altitude. The insect population grew. The deer sightings subsided, but squirrels were everywhere, birds squawked, crows warned of Leon’s arrival, flying together, noisy black clouds heading toward the river.

  When he broke from the woods, he expected to see the remains of a harvested field, a farmhouse where he could beg for food and directions, but that was not what fell before his eyes. Leon came upon a graveyard. The death of a wide patch of forest stretched for more than a mile. Tombstones of tree stumps lifted from the ground. His heart sank at the same time his stomach celebrated. Somewhere near he’d find work, but he would have to kill the trees to get paid.

  Leon had grown up in a shack nestled among trees. The trees had protected his family from wind, rain, and snow. Many of the songs he created as a youngster praised the trees. Here, they had been torn from their magical place and left soulless. He could feel the lack of trees as strong as he could feel the presence of the river his first day out.

  It was unbelievable what men could do. It was powerful and sad. But it was work. Billy had laughed when Leon suggested he wouldn’t work in a lumber camp. Billy had been right. Leon knew he had to settle that battle inside himself. Sensing the loss before him, he could only imagine what the war had been like. This expanse would be littered with human bodies instead of wooden ones. Perhaps his five friends had been right to make up their lives, to create new stories for themselves. After all, that is what Leon was about to do, too, unless he ran into Jacob. Then there would be trouble.

  Leon searched the area for activity, for sheds, wagons, tools. Brush and bark littered the area. He headed downhill along the standing trees, planning to camp near the creek once again. From there, he’d go up creek until he hit the forest and go uphill until he found where next the cutting would begin.

  As he made his way back to the creek, the two worlds called out to him, one in sadness and one in life. A family would wait another year or two, then move into the flat at the top of the hill. They would work hard to remove stumps and clear the land. They’d be sure to build next to the woods for protection, yet grow their crops from the cleared area. Leon knew that was how many of the farmers began their lives, by homesteading a cleared woodland area. He no longer wondered why their lives were sad though. How long would it take to wear the sadness out of a butchered forest? How many laughing children would it take? Squawking chickens? Squealing pigs?

  The mosquitoes appeared to lift from the earth in the mild temperatures the sun brought to the clearing. Near the creek, Leon noticed a few logs and could see why they had been left behind. One was split. An uneven gouge twisted along its entire length leaving no visible appearance that a single board-length could come of it. Other logs were hollowed, having been the dying older branches of trees.

  Leon did not fish, but ate the last of his bread and jerky. He decided that if he didn’t run into a camp, he’d walk down over the slope a
nd search out the river again. Snow hung in the sky, even though the sun’s warmth tried to hide it during the day. Leon was not convinced. Once at the river, he could easily walk the riverbank for a few more days. He could walk at night as well, not getting the distance he’d like, but keeping his body heat up.

  He fell asleep, shivering, once the sun dropped. He awoke several times to sounds that stopped once he woke up. Before dawn, Leon rose, rubbed his arms to warm them, tucked his mouth under his bedroll to breathe body-warm air over his chest and arms, then swore and got up. Packing his few things, and placing his hands flat into the warm coals that were left from the night’s fire, Leon felt sufficiently ready to head out.

  This would be the day. The gurgle and bubble of water relaxed his mind. The creek spoke to him, conversed in the language of water. He’d travel half the time upcreek and if he found no signs of an early logging camp assembling, he’d jog his way downstream toward the river. Every wrong decision stole a day from him.

  Few insects buzzing about, continual bird-songs and squirrel-chatter, and the background tinkle and tuck of flowing water, kept Leon hypnotized. He stopped and focused on the power and strength still left in his legs. His stomach tightened, folding into its own emptiness. His arms felt numb, his hands sensitized. After he let out a long sigh, new sounds echoed through the woods, ones that didn’t belong there. Had he unconsciously followed those sounds? He ran upstream where the water slowed, fanning out into a deep pool. Boulders lay visible under the clear water’s surface. Trees bent into the pool and would soon become weighted down by snow and fall across the water to create a bridge that led only halfway across the creek. It would land on the submerged boulder and await the spring thaw when it would be dislodged by cut timber. The creek would be cleared again.

  The sound of people talking grew as the sound of the creek and forest animals blended into the background. Leon jogged toward the voices stopping to listen every fifty yards. As the voices became louder, Leon was surprised to find that he got happier. By the time he left the creek bank and traveled uphill toward the conversation, he was humming and making up songs.