Free Into the Free by Julie Cantrell Page A

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