Free The Old American by Ernest Hebert

great hunter, Haggis, will be crowned king. So, then, Caucus-Meteor thinks, if I lose this bet I stand to lose everything I value. I will be a free man. Bleached Bones is right: it’s better when you lose. Still, Caucus-Meteor does not think he will lose. The dream was too powerful.
    From the tense muscles in Nathan’s legs, Caucus-Meteor can see that Nathan’s impulse is to break into a run. The old American is thinking about his slave, when, out of nowhere, the conjuring trick that he has been trying to perform all his life is suddenly before him, but it comes unsummoned, in spite of himself. It comes like the dream. Nathan, you are naked and the gauntlet winds a long way. Caucus-Meteor sees his slave’s lips move. You are praying again. You stand before your tormentors, smelling their sweat and bear grease and cheap French brandy and your own anxiety. Someone shoves you forward. Instead of heading for empty space between the rows, you walk toward one edge of the gauntlet. What are you doing, Nathan Blake? Nathan Blake doesn’t know himself what he is doing. Prayer is guiding him. Or something else. Maybe the devil who resides in the far place. He wants you to join him there, Nathan—go with him. He wants you to run, Nathan—run. Run from your life.
    A stick cracks you between the shoulder blades, like the lash of a whip but cutting deeper. You wince—run, Nathan, run. But no, you walk to the other side, offering yourself for abuse. Stones strike your face and chest. You take another step forward, but keep your head up. The old Mohawk with the burn-scarred face grins at you, a man driven insane by torturers in a time gone by. Another stick slashes you across your back, and you cry out involuntarily, as you did the day I burned myself instead of you. I feel that wound now, a tender place like a sorrow or a remembered hope. Do you know, Nathan Blake, that black slaves who are especially disrespectful are sometimes whipped to death by their English masters? A couple of laughing fellows shove you to the other side of the gauntlet. A woman raises a switch to strike you. You see the blow coming, but you don’t try to avoid it, only to suppress your need to cry out in pain. The switch smacks you in the face.
    You smile at the woman. Are you insane, Nathan Blake? Someone strikes you in the temple, and now you stand in a rain of colored lights. A second later something falls at your feet. You blink, your head clears, and you bend to pick up the walking stick belonging to the mad old man with the burn scars. The stick is decorated with a swatch of your skin and blood. You return the stick, bow, and say, “Your cane, sir.” The Mohawk accepts his implement with a handshake and a thank-you.
    The people in the gauntlet find this exchange between a captive and one of their elderly touchingly amusing. They don’t laugh ha-ha, or hee-hee, or har-har, more like ho-hoh-hohh. Nathan, can you taste blood running down the back of your throat? You step forward, see the lights again, but they’re dimming, changing in color with fading music that may be coming from angels. What does your Protestant Jesus think about angels? Tell me, for I am uninformed on this matter. You hardly feel the next blow. Then another. In your determination to keep your head up and look into the eyes of your abusers, you continue the strategy you started with—don’t run the gauntlet, walk it.
    The conjuring fades until Caucus-Meteor wonders whether it was within him at all, for now he is merely thinking, thinking the word pure in the language of his father. For a while Caucus-Meteor is resigned to losing his bet with Bleached Bones. Nathan Blake staggers, is knocked about. Any minute he’ll lose his temper like the previous runner or he’ll just crumple from meekness. Then Caucus-Meteor notices something that gives him cause for optimism, an improvement in demeanor—head held high but without French