“I told him the spirit might come back after I healed him.”
“They’ll be out of the state by tomorrow morning,” Daddy Claxton said.
“It was a devil wart. It takes a special kind of conjuring to get rid of it.”
“How long they going to keep us here?” LeBlanc said.
“We ain’t got to work as long as the hacks is out on search,” Claxton said.
Evans unlocked the back doors and threw them open. The wind blew the rain inside the tru
ck. He and the captain climbed inside and left the doors open. Their boots and the bottoms of their trousers were covered with mud. A thin stream of water ran off the brim of the captain’s campaign hat. Their slickers were shiny from the rain.
“Somebody in here saw them get away,” the captain said. “I want you to tell me where they went.”
The rain blew in the truck and formed small pools on the floor.
“Speak up. You ain’t deaf and dumb,” Evans said.
“What about you?” the captain said to Daddy Claxton.
“I was working all the time. I didn’t see nothing.”
The captain asked each one of them.
“I didn’t know they were gone until we came out of the ditch,” Avery said.
“There was too many people around,” Toussaint said.
“I heard they went fishing,” LeBlanc said.
“I didn’t see nothing,” Brother Samuel said.
“Everybody outside,” Evans said.
“Where we going?” Daddy Claxton said.
“You’re going to stand in the rain till we find them or somebody tells us where they are.”
“The rest of the trucks is going to the barracks,” Claxton said.
“This one ain’t,” Evans said.
They climbed out and stood looking at Evans and the captain. The rain ran off their straw hats down inside their clothing. The other trucks drove past them through the mud. Several guards were moving into the trees on the other side of the clearing. They carried rifles and shotguns. One of them was examining the area where the ditch wall caved in, an eroded pile of clay that sloped down to the bottom of the canal. He bent over and looked at the ground, the rain breaking across the back of his slicker.
“Here’s where they come out,” he yelled.
The other guards came back and looked at the deep boot marks in the clay.
“This is it, captain. They headed into the woods.”
“Call the warden and tell him to get the state police moving in from the other side,” he answered.
“What about us?” Claxton said.
“You’ll stay here till we catch them,” Evans said.
“It’s getting cold. Let us get in the truck,” Daddy Claxton said.