Free The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle Page A

time they have their own pack of dogs,
    huge ones,
    taught to follow only the scent
    of a barefoot track,
    the scent of bare skin from a slave
    who eats cornmeal and yams,

    never the scent of a rich man on horseback,
    after his huge meal of meat, fowl, fruit,
    coffee, chocolate, and cream.
    Lieutenant Death

    We bring wanted posters from the cities,
    with pictures drawn by artists,
    pictures of men with filed teeth
    and women with tribal scars,
    new slaves
    who somehow managed to run away
    soon after escaping from ships
    that landed secretly, at night,
    on hidden beaches.

    I look at the pictures
    and wonder
    how all these slaves
    from faraway places
    find their way
    to this wilderness
    of caves and cliffs,
    wild mountains, green forest, little witches.
    Rosa

    After Christmas, on January 6,
    the Festival of Three Kings Day,
    we line up and walk, one by one,
    to the thrones where our owner and his wife
    are seated, like a king and queen
    from a story.

    They give us small gifts of food.
    We bow down, and bless them,
    our gift of words freely given
    on this day of hope,
    when we feel like we have
    nothing to lose.
    Rosa

    The nicknames of runaways
    keep us busy at night,
    in the barracoons, where we whisper.

    All the other young girls agree with me
    that
Domingo
is a fine nickname,
    because it means Sunday, our only half day of rest,
    and
Dios Da
is even better,
    because it means God Gives,
    and
El Médico
is wonderful—
    who would not be proud
    to be known as The Doctor?

    La Madre
is the nickname
    that fascinates us most—
    The Mother—a woman, and not just a runaway,
    but the leader of her own secret village,
    free, independent, uncaptured—
    for thirty-seven
    magical years!
    Lieutenant Death

    My father captures some who pretend
    they don’t know their owners’ names,
    or the names of the plantations
    where they belong.

    They must want to be sold
    to someone new.

    They must hope that if they are sold here,
    near the steamy, jungled wilderness,
    they will be close to the caves,
    and the waterfalls,
    and witches.

    My father brings the same runaways back,
    over and over.

    I don’t understand why they never give up!
    Why don’t they lose hope?
    Rosa

    People imagine that all slaves are dark,
    but the indentured Chinese slaves run away too,
    into the mangrove swamps,
    where they can fish, and spear frogs,
    and hunt crocodiles by placing a hat on a stick
    to make it look like a man.

    The crocodile jumps straight up,
    out of the gloomy water,
    and snatches the hat,
    while a noose of rope made from vines
    tightens around the beast’s green, leathery neck.

    I would be afraid to live in the swamps.
    People say there are
güijes,
    small, wrinkled, green mermaids
    with long, red hair and golden combs…
    mermaids who would lure me
    down into the swamp depths…
    mermaids who would drag me into watery caves,
    where they would turn me into a mermaid too…
    frog-green, and tricky.
    Rosa

    The slavehunter comes
    with an offer.

    He wants to buy me
    so I can travel
    with his horsemen
    and his huge dogs
    and his strange son
    into the wild places
    where wounded captives
    can be healed
    so they won’t die.

    The price
    of a healed man
    is much higher
    than the price
    of an ear.
    Rosa

    My owner refuses.
    He needs me to cure
    sick slaves
    in the barracoons.

    After each hurricane season
    there are fevers, cholera, smallpox, plague.
    Some of the sick can be saved.
    Some are lost.
    I picture their spirits
    flying away.

    I sigh, so relieved that I will not
    have to travel with slavehunters
    and the spies they keep to help them,
    the captives who reveal the secret locations
    of villages where runaways sneak back and forth,
    trading wild guavas for wild yams,
    or bananas for boar meat,
    spears for vine rope,
    or mangos for palm hearts, flower medicines,
    herbs….
    Lieutenant Death

    The weapons of runaways are homemade,
    just sharpened branches, not real spears,
    and carved wooden