Into the Free by Julie Cantrell Read Free Book Online

He died right next to me. Under the dogwood. I watched four men drop his casket into the ground, heard Mr. Sutton call him a “good man,” spent the long, lonely night crying at his grave. Yet here he is, standing on my porch, saying, “Ready?”
    It’s Sloth. It has to be. With his round chin, his deep wrinkles, his happy smile, his rough voice. He takes a step toward me, “twisted like a tornado” from the old gunshot injury to his foot. I drop the sandwich I’d packed as a snack and fumble for the doorknob behind my back. I keep both my eyes on Sloth. Mama opens the door and I rush in. “Sloth!” I say, shaking from the inside to the out. “Sloth. On the porch!”
    Mama steps outside and looks around calling “Hello?” but she finds only an empty evening.

CHAPTER 7
    March 1942
     
    It has been six years since I first followed gypsy laughter to the cemetery, spying on them behind the poplar tree, then running through the woods with a gypsy boy on my trail.
    And it’s been six years since Sloth died, but I still feel him with me. When the warmth of the sun wakes me in the morning, Sloth calls to me, “Morning, Wild Child.” When I stir the roux for gumbo in the heavy iron pot, Sloth helps me glide the wooden spoon in smooth, round circles. “Color of a penny.” When I check the trotlines and set a turtle free, Sloth clicks his tongue. “Coulda made a mighty fine soup.”
    It’s been six years since Sloth died, but I see him all the time. I see him in the woods and in the garden and in the chicken coop. I see him between the stacks at the library and in the swaying cornfields and in between the warm green rows of cotton. He watches me when I climb my tree and gather eggs and walk to school. I am not afraid of Sloth’s ghost. I am only afraid of myself. Afraid I’m going nuts, like Jack and Mama, and that there’s no way for me to escape the madness. My blood runs crazy. That’s all there is to it.

     
    “Those gypsies’ll steal anything not tied down,” Jack says to himself before leaving for another rodeo. I prop my feet against Sweetie’s trunk and lie flat against the grass. I try to block the sounds of Jack by focusing only on Steinbeck. Of Mice and Men .
I seen the guys that go around on the ranches alone. That ain’t no good. They don’t have no fun. After a long time they get mean. They get wantin’ to fight all the time.
     
    Jack locks his guns and whiskey into a long metal box. Lets the metal from the lock and the box both bang together. Makes me jump. I’ve never seen a gypsy steal anything, so I don’t believe a word Jack says. Not about the gypsies—or anything else, for that matter.
    Jack keeps slamming things and banging things and stomping his boots across the porch, so I give up on Steinbeck and climb my tree, hoping for a glimpse of the gypsies. I always long to see them come. Little dashes zipping through like light before heading back out to the free. When they finally do arrive, I find a spot in town, usually behind a brick corner or a budding tree. From there, I watch them spin colored scarves through the streets. Some come in silence, others in song. But none come alone. They are never alone.
    They come every year, right on time, with the birth of spring. And with them comes the boy in the brown cap. The one who first followed me when I was just a girl. He’s no ghost, like Sloth. He’s as real as I am. I’m sure of it because others see him and talk to him, and in a strange sort of scratch across time, he has grown up with me. A living, breathing, aging human being. Not suspended like Sloth.
    I have never said a word to the boy, with his dark hair and even darker eyes. But my nights have become filled with dreams of him. In my younger years, the dreams involved us steering pirate ships together or climbing foggy Asian peaks. But in recent months, the dreams have shifted. Now he fills my thoughts. Both night and day.
    Over the years, while I’ve tended Sloth’s