Thick, hot air clung to Denver like an unwanted layer of skin. The slight breeze that followed the creek out of the hills died by mid-afternoon, and the two of them stopped frequently to drink and splash cool water over their faces. But the urge to keep moving prevented Denver from doing what he actually wanted. To find a nice shady tree. To lay down and sleep. To wake up in his bed at home. Or maybe not wake up at all. Maybe just slip back into that place he had been. That empty space with a lonely voice singing in the night.
     Instead he pushed on against gravity and desire. The terrain rose gradually in low rolling waves. The creek banks were covered with cane reeds and willow shoots and tangles of honeysuckle. A heavy sweetness hovered over the water and the vegetation was alive with insects. Bees and grasshoppers. Just like on Earth, he thought.
     His mind snapped back to that thing in the cornfield. No. Not like Earth.
     The thought brought no familiar adrenaline urge to flight, like on that morning he ran to Bully’s. There was just a slow, steady press of desperation. He wanted to tell her about it. You see, there’s this shadow. It’s followed me since I was thirteen. Only it’s not a shadow anymore. It’s something else, and…. She would laugh at him, wouldn’t she?
     Denver continued to walk ahead, resolutely, without slowing, Saphronia at his heels, uncomplaining. They walked that way for an hour, maybe two, before they came to a wide, open field.
     “Wait. I know this place.” Saphronia grabbed his arm. “This is Honey Creek. The Ridge plantation. See the old house over there on the rise.”
     Denver saw no house. He looked at the empty field, his eyes straining in the summer sun. Wind rippled through the grass. It whispered and moaned like distant human voices. Angry voices. He heard a horrible plaintive cry.
     A woman called out a name, “Jo-o-o-h-hn..” A weak, gurgling reply, “Sally.” Fading into the wind. Only he felt no wind, just the slightest breeze.
     “Did you hear that?”
     “What?”
     “Voices, I think.”
     “There’s no one here now. Sally took the children. Moved to Arkansas.”
     “Sally?”
     “Yes. Sally Ridge. They killed her husband.”
     “John.”
     “You know?”
     “The voices. We’ve gotta go.” Denver tugged at Saphronia’s arm.
     “Wait.” Saphronia held her ground. “The Reverend lives there on the Cave Springs fork. A couple of miles.”
     “Why do you call your dad The Reverend?”
     Saphronia looked away across the field. She sighed heavily. “I don’t know. He hasn’t been Pa for a long while.”
     Denver thought about this for a moment. About how much he always wanted a daddy. How he would never have a daddy. He took one long last look back across the grassy field. He heard something far off. A low moan that made him shudder.

     Saphronia led him away from Honey Creek, up a shallow ravine into a dense grove. “We could follow the creek. It branches about a mile upstream,” she said, “but this is faster.”
     “I hope you know where you’re going.”
     “Don’t worry,” said Saphronia with a bit too much bravado. There was something just beneath the surface. An uneasiness. It seemed to Denver that the sadness in her face had deepened.
     “So why did they kill John Ridge?” he asked, trying to change the subject.
     “He sold our land. Because of him our people walked the trail where they cried. Him and his father and his cousins. The elders said they must pay. So several young braves went out one night and killed them. Gunundale’gi, John Ridge, Galagina. Blood Law. Only Oowatie escaped.”
     “Blood Law?”
     “It’s the old law. The Tsalagi Law.”
     “Do you remember it? The Trail….”
     “Some of it. Mostly, I remember the Reverend’s stories. He told them many times.”
     “So tell me.”
     “Egwaninulati was very beautiful. Our people had been there for many generations. Then the soldiers came. They said, you gotta walk. You gotta go to Indian Territory. The land of sweet dreams, just like in the bible, they said to Ma. But this is our home, said Ma. No matter, said the soldiers, President Jackson signed a paper. Your chiefs have traded this land for the land out west. The Reverend spat on the ground. Oowatie has no authority to give away our home, he said. The Reverend was furious.
     “I follow White Path, the Reverend said. We will not leave.
     “The soldiers insisted. Gently. With their long rifles pointed at me and little Jack. They said, you will follow White Path and John Ross to the grave. Ma pleaded with him, don’t fight the soldiers, Jack. They will kill you.
     “The Reverend saw that Ma was right. So they packed up as much as our mule could carry, and we started to walk. At least that’s the way the Reverend tells it.”
     “So what do you remember about it?”
     “I remember they took us to a place with walls and soldiers where we waited for a long time. It was the stockade. The soldiers were nice to me and little Jack. The Reverend says it’s because many Tsalagi, like my uncle, once fought beside Andrew Jackson. And some of the soldiers had Tsalagi wives.
     “Anyway, when we walked finally, the sun was so hot. People started dying. When it got too hot to bear, the elders begged the soldiers, let us camp until fall or many more people will die. At first the soldiers said no, but then they relented. They let us stay until the weather changed.”
     Saphronia stopped abruptly. They had reached the crest of a low hill and the land before them fell gently away into another ravine. Below, the creek spoke softly.

     Saphronia looked up and down the gully, furrows of deep concentration between her brows.
     “This way,” she said, finally, and headed north along the ridge. They walked in silence for what seemed like hours, keeping to the high ground above the creek. Saphronia said nothing and never slackened her pace. Finally, tired and hungry, Denver had enough.
     “Wait,” he yelled, and planted himself on the bare ground. “We’re lost, aren’t we?”
     “No,” she said.
     “Well, I’m not taking another step until you tell me what’s up.”
     Saphronia glared at him. “Fine. It was nice to meet you Mr. Denver deLeon.”
     Denver wanted to lash out, but better judgement held him back. “Look,” he said, “I’m tired. Can’t we just rest a minute?”
     The black eyes that penetrated him shifted to the creek below, then turned inward. Suddenly they brimmed with tears and she let out a long sigh.”
     “I’m sorry,” she said, “It’s just that….”
     “It’s just what?”
     “It’s….It’s not there.” She started to sob.
     Denver didn’t think he could stand it if she cried anymore. “What’s not there?”
     “The house. The Reverend’s house. It’s as though it was never there at all.”
     “I don’t understand.”
     “My baby. I’ll never see my baby….” She sobbed now in great heaves.
     Denver wanted to put his arms around her, to comfort her. But he kept his distance, feeling helpless, until her grief subsided.
     “We’ll find your baby.” He said it lamely, knowing it didn’t ring true.
     “I told you. We’re dead.”
     Denver snorted, “Okay. So what? We might be dead, but I’m hungry.” He immediately regretted his flippant reply. He half expected her to start wailing again, but she didn’t. Instead, her eyes turned cold and empty. Like Grannies did when he asked about his daddy.
      “We could go back downstream…,” she began.
     “We can’t do that,” he snapped back.
     “Why not?”
     “I don’t know how to explain it. We just can’t, that’s all. Besides it’s too far.”
     He was surprised that Saphronia didn’t argue with him. “There are nuts,” she said, “and berries and wild potatoes. You just have to look for them.”
     “Oh for Chrissake,” he was whining, but the words just tumbled out anyway. “I need some real food.
     “We can trap a rabbit or a possum,” she said.
Denver’s stomach turned at the thought of eating a possum. Ugly overgrown rats with beady eyes. And bunnies.
     “No way. I don’t think so.”
     “Then what do you think we should do?”
     “We could find a taco place with a drive-thru.”
     “What?”
     “Better yet, we could have pizza delivered.”
     Saphronia gave him a puzzled look. “I don’t understand.”
     “Nothing. I don’t know, okay? I just want to lay down and go to sleep.”
      “The sun will be down in a few hours. Maybe we should find a good place for camp.”
     For the first time Denver noticed the growing shadows and the breeze, suddenly cool. “I just want to lay down and go to sleep,” he repeated and closed his eyes.
     Somewhere from the far distance came that sound again, a low moan like a thousand years of despair loosed upon the world.