Max turned his face up to the woman. As she bent to kiss his lips, he felt the tears rolling down her cheeks and he knew that she also had heard.
He closed his eyes.
How could he tell this woman he couldn't even see what he felt?
How could he tell her she brought kindness and love into this room?
"Thank you," he whispered gratefully. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
On the fourth day at the rice fields, Reeves came over to him.
"I been wanting to talk to you," he said quickly. "But I had to wait until that damn nigger wasn't around.
I got a boat!"
"What?"
"Keep yer voice down," Reeves said harshly. "It's all arranged.
It'll be in that big clump of cypresses south of the prison the day after we get back."
"How d'you know?"
"I got it fixed with my girl," Reeves said.
"You sure she ain't jobbin' you?"
"I'm sure," Reeves answered quickly.
"These Cajun girls all want the same thing.
I told her I'd take her to New Orleans with me if she helped me escape.
The boat'll be there. Her place is out to the middle of nowhere.
It'll be a perfect place to hide out until they stop lookin' for us." He glanced up quickly and began to move off.
That evening, Mike sat down next to Max at chow. For a long time, there were only the sounds of eating, the scraping of spoons on plates. "You goin' with Reeves now that he got his boat?" Mike asked suddenly.
Max stared at him. "You know that already?"
Mike smiled. "Ain' no secrets in a place like this."
"I don' know," Max said.
"Believe me, boy," the Negro said sincerely, "thirty days in the cage is a lot longer than the year an' a half you got to go."
"But maybe we’ll make it."
"You won't make it," Mike said sadly. "Fust thing the warden does is get out the dogs.
They don' get you, the swamp will."
"How would he know we went by the swamp?" Max asked quickly.
"You wouldn' tell him?"
The Negro's eyes had a hurt expression.
"You knows better'n that, boy. I may be a trusty, but I ain't no fink.
The warden's gonna know all by himself.
One man allus goes by the road. Two men allus goes by the swamp.
It's like it was the rule."
Max was silent as he dragged on his cigarette.
"Please don' go, boy," Mike said.
"Don' do nothin' to make me have to hurt you.
I want to be you' friend."
Max looked at him, then smiled slowly. He reached out his hand and rested it on the big man's shoulder.
"No matter what," he said seriously, "you're my friend."
"You goin'," Mike said.
"You' mind's made up." Mike got to his feet and walked off slowly.
Max looked after him, puzzled.
How could Mike know what he himself didn't know? He got to his feet and scraped off his plate.
But it wasn't until he was over the fence the next night and racing madly toward the clump of cypresses with Reeves at his side that he knew how right Mike had been.
Then Reeves was scrambling around at the foot of the cypresses, sunk half to his knees to the murky swamp water, swearing.
"The bitch! The no-good lying Cajun whore!"
There was no boat there.
12.
THEY PUSHED THEIR WAY THROUGH THE REEDS, sloshing in the water up to their waist, and up onto a hummock.