1. Freedom, Or Something Like It

The country was uncertain of itself. Propelled by the possibility of industry, it limped with the wounds of the Civil War, a body broken, but hellbent on survival. Railroads

snaked through the hills and valleys, screaming forward with the promise of connection, coughing up black smoke into the blue sky. They rattled the once tranquil ground of the nation, cutting scars into the pristine land. Just the same, the war had left a generation of empty chairs, echoes of men torn apart by violence, who could not see far enough into the future to appreciate the country’s progress.

Americans were never intent on living with this land, but beating it into submission. This constant, unwinnable battle left a sour taste in the mouths of many. This was not the Manifest Destiny they were once promised. It was a bloody, unending disaster. The wilderness, with its unkind mystery, loomed the same as the smog of industry. It changed the weight of the air, altered the smell of it. And it changed the people, too. It seemed they could not will themselves together, fighting ruthlessly amongst themselves in some tacit snatch at freedom. 

Thomas Calloway was not concerned with the country's problems. He sat on a cot in his cell, basking in an inch-wide beam of sunlight that fell onto the stone floor in the late morning. 

With anticipation, he was upright with his Bible, comb, and toothbrush in his lap. A guard lumbered over, one who had seemed to derive great pleasure in beating Thomas for invented infractions, and unlocked his cell. Even now, the guard couldn't help but dig his fingers into Thomas's forearm as he shackled him up one last time. 

Thomas didn't say a word. In fact, he fell out of the habit unless someone spoke to him first. As the guard met another at the door, the warmth of the afternoon embraced him, and he wanted so badly to step into it. 

Another guard began to unlock the shackles again, while a third held a clipboard and a canvas drawstring bag. 

“Calloway, Thomas?”

Thomas nodded. 

“Born November 18, 1864?”

He nodded again. 

“Well, it's my pleasure today to tell you that you have served your debt to the state of Kansas, and you are released from the custody of the Klempson correctional facility.” The guard handed Thomas a decade old bag of his belongings, with a misplaced sense of optimism in his sentiment.  

Thomas turned into the sun and stepped outside of the prison walls for the first time in eight years. The gravel almost felt like quicksand that could swallow him up. The metal door slammed to a close with a clang that echoed inside his skull. More guards walked him to a gate, and Thomas struggled to remember if more fences had been built since the beginning of his sentence.

On the other side of the gate, he stood alone, untethered, unordered. For years, the blank blue sky above him had melted into his surroundings, a different kind of ceiling framed by four stone walls.

Now, without them, it felt like the sky might fall down on him. Its weight hummed through the wind, a restless murmur that seemed to carry the horns of rapture. The air in Thomas’s lungs felt sour, sharp. He took a deep breath, trying to replace it, but each shallow burst left him unsatisfied.

He squared his shoulders, standing upright for the first time after months of trying to diminish himself. Rolling his neck, then his shoulders, he heard a series of sharp pops from stiffened joints. The awkward weight of the shackles was gone, replaced by the strange heaviness of the boots he’d been issued.

Thomas hadn’t thought of where to go. For the first time in as long as he could remember, no one was telling him where to go. Arthur wasn’t in his ear, manipulating him into believing their crimes were necessary or threatening to abandon him if things went sideways. There were no guards barking orders, no chains binding him to the bodies around him, no roadmap scrawled out by someone else’s design. Only his own will.

To his right, the horizon stretched barren, flat as a dry creek bed. To his left, a single, scraggly tree stood alone, its shadow stretching long in the afternoon sun. He decided to go left.

Thomas walked a mile or so, the rhythm of his boots clumsy and uneven. They felt foreign, as if the ground itself was rejecting his steps. Finally, he spotted a ditch and made his way down, the grass hissing softly around his knees. He sat, steadying himself thoughtlessly at first, then slowly becoming aware of how strange it felt—choosing to stop, to rest. It was as unfamiliar as the air, as alien as freedom itself.

He kept his hand there on the earth for a moment and closed his eyes. The cool mud was soft, and the grass was still damp, but poked at his skin. He pushed his hand down until it sunk into the ground, satisfied that he’d left a mark. 

Memories often folded in on themselves. Each time he heard a noise, felt a breeze, it was as if the synapse in his brain fired with such violence, flashes of the past burst before his vision. This feeling was inescapable, as it was now. 

Dropping soil onto a casket. Digging a small trench to channel rain water as a boy out of boredom. His face slamming into the mud while guards threw him outside to sleep in the cold. 

Thomas blinked, hard, and turned his head to the side, and the visions would stop for a moment. 

When he pulled his old trousers up, they fell right back down to his feet. There was no fat on his hips to catch them, his roughly hewn structure vaguely visible beneath sun whipped, weathered skin. Thomas dropped his shoulders and wrestled with the drawstring of the cotton sack, biting at it with his teeth until it came free. He threaded it through the belt loops and tied it in a knot above the button, a makeshift belt to hold up what little dignity he had left.

The old cotton shirt hung loose on his frame, draping unevenly over the massive trapezius and latissimus muscles that corded his back and shoulders, a testament to years of relentless labor. Thomas hadn’t seen a mirror in years, but he didn’t need one. He could look down and read the evidence of time etched into his body. Threads of white scars mapped his hands and forearms, marks from flying stone chips slicing through flesh before they hit the ground.

He flexed his hands, the motion slow and deliberate, revealing fingers worn blunt from gripping a thick steel handle, tenuously wrapped in leather. His fingernails were cracked, thick, and dark from years of trauma. Two of them no longer grew correctly, jagged with faint streaks of discoloration from bruises long healed but never forgotten. He turned his hands over to examine his palms—leathery, calloused, and gnarled, like the bark of an ancient tree.

Finally, he reached for his prized boots, the ones he’d dreamed of reclaiming. The grin that spread across his face was brief but genuine—until the moment he touched them. Eight years in storage had reduced them to brittle remnants. The dry-rotted leather crumbled at his fingertips, splitting at the seams. His anticipation dissolved into quiet disappointment.

Begrudgingly, Thomas slid his feet into the prison-issued boots, too large, too heavy,

and stiff in all the wrong places. They weren’t what he wanted, but they would have to do. Resigned, he stuffed the prison clothes and his ruined boots back into the sack. He sat with the bible for a while, unsure of what to do with it. 

It was too heavy to carry, but it felt wrong to discard. Chaplains in the boys homes, wardens and guards in the prisons, they all seemed to believe that Thomas’s suffering would redeem him. Pain will make you clean. But here Thomas sat, filthy, in a ditch, with no map to navigate the land. These words printed on a page, would not light him a fire, nor feed the acidic knots in his gut. Even if he didn’t necessarily know whether or not god was up there, or down here, or inside him, so many people treated the pages with reverence, that it gave him pause. 

He flipped the pages back and forth in his hands, then shut his eyes, opened to a random page, and dropped his finger on the paper. 

And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them. (Rev. 9.6)

Seek death. 

Thomas did his best to glean some meaning from the passage, but all he could latch onto were those two words: seek death. 

In those ceaseless hours of manual labor, Thomas never had the wherewithal to feel anything but inertia. When he was returned to his cell, prohibited from speaking to any other human being, the stillness would creep in on him, like it could change the weight of molecules in the dark. 

At night, in that cell, he felt it- he sought death. The third night he was here, a man was so desperate to end his fifteen-year sentence of rock-breaking, that he simply slammed his head against the stone floor until his heart stopped beating. A few cells down, another man bit into his own wrists to try to stem enough blood loss to drain his life. But, the guards stitched him back up, dragged him back to his cell, and he was back to breaking rocks the next day, bandaged wrists and all. 

Seek death, but it will not come. 

Because death was not despair in prison, but relief. 

The first time they brought the men out to a different yard, Thomas was unsettled to find gallows before him. His first thought was that the prison was so overcrowded, they were simply going to hang the least promising among them. 

Which was partially true. 

Current prisoners were the captive audience to the state's executions. The first time, Thomas snapped his gaze the the ground, and shut his eyes as tight as he could, trying to drown out the sound of 180 pounds of dead weight pulling on a noose. A guard whacked the back of one of his kees with a baton, and when Thomas fell to a kneeling position, the guard grabbed a fistful of Thomas’s hair and yanked his head back. “Watch!” he demanded. 

The prison guards all wore crosses, prayed together each morning. They found their justice in this book. It felt so at odds with what Thomas dreamt of heaven- mercy, pity, peace. 

He laid the bible next to himself in the grass, put the prison clothes neatly next to it. If god wanted his bible back, he could come down to the ditch and get it himself, Thomas reasoned. 

Rising to his feet, Thomas trudged up the incline and surveyed the open land. He found the railroad track—the same one that had carried him to Klempson—and began following it back.

He walked for hours. The morning light burned into the afternoon, and the afternoon slowly dissolved into the pink hues of evening. Hunger gnawed at him, and his stomach ached with acidic sharpness. When he came across sprigs of onion grass, he picked and chewed on them, savoring their sharp, fresh bite—a welcome change from the stale monotony of prison food: watery oatmeal, moldy bread, and meat that reeked of decay.

As his feet ached and his knees groaned, Thomas decided to stop for the night. Veering off the railroad and into the woods, he found a large oak tree. He leaned against its sturdy trunk, its bark rough and grounding beneath his back. Exhaustion tugged at him, but a faint smile touched his lips—his first in longer than he could remember.

It occurred to him then that he couldn’t recall the last time he’d heard his own voice. The thought unsettled him, like realizing he’d forgotten the face of an old friend. Clearing his throat, he tested the sound, startled by the rasp that escaped him. “H-h,” he stammered, his voice catching like a door hinge long unused. “H-hel-llo,” he murmured, the word fragile in the stillness. “I-I-I’m Thomas,” he whispered to himself, the name foreign on his tongue, like it belonged to someone else entirely.

For eight years, he’d been confined to “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,” and reciting his inmate number. Any attempt to speak beyond those few phrases would earn him the crack of a baton across the back of his skull. One word out of turn, and he’d be thrown in the hole. The clink of chains, the bark of guards—those sounds filled his days. But it was the silence at night that troubled him most.

In that oppressive quiet, with nothing for his thoughts to cling to, they collided and twisted in on themselves. Dance with the ghosts of his past, or defy them? Night after night, he confronted them in the dim, solitary glow of his cell, until despair wound its way into his bones. A tightness gripped his chest, and it never really left. He could distract himself from it, momentarily. The impending sense of doom would follow him to his grave. At times, he could stifle it by taking a few deep, slow breaths. Most of the time, however, his hands would tremble, his forehead and neck would sweat, his words would tangle in his throat. Freedom felt too heavy, the sky felt too wide. 

Now, the silence returned, vast and empty. He drifted into an uneasy sleep, but the night refused to let him rest. Coyotes yipped in the distance, their cries sharp and fleeting, like mocking laughter. A wagon creaked by on the nearby road, its groaning wheels a ghostly presence just out of reach. Neither sound came close—why would they? He was neither a threat nor a prize. 

The stars wheeled above in dizzying entropy, as the totality of his suffering weighed upon him. 

Near dawn, the world erupted. A violent, piercing crack ripped him from sleep. The blaring horn of a locomotive shattered the predawn stillness, followed by the deep rumble of the train’s approach. The track vibrated the earth, and Thomas felt it reverberate through his chest, rattling his ribs as though the very ground was trying to shake him awake.

Without the monotony of labor, Thomas had to decide what to do with his days. Like any other man returning from war, Thomas thought that he should return home. But that was a mercurial concept, as easy to grip as sand or ash. The last place he remembered, before everything went to hell, was a small abandoned mining cavern, at least a few days' worth of walking still.

The only way he could navigate was the sun, stopping frequently to make sure he was still heading vaguely east. When he heard the faint trickling of water, he found a running creek, babbling over smooth, mossy stones. He bent down and drank until his belly hurt, and he had to lay there on the bank for half an hour while it settled and stopped sloshing in his gut. 

He was getting so hungry, that his sense of smell felt more acute. When he caught the distant scent of roasting meat on a campfire, he was tempted to investigate. Even if there were people, he could walk right up to the grill and take a piece of rabbit, or deer, or whatever they had. 

Hunger was its own home, it sharpened his senses, compromised his morals. Twenty-one years ago, Thomas stole a loaf of bread, and was sent to a home for wayward boys. More like a warehouse than a care facility, Thomas, sensitive and quiet, was picked clean by the older, tougher boys. If he asked for help from the adults, they ushered him out of their way– too overworked to notice him. So he ran. 

It was easier than he expected, almost like the people at the boys’ home didn’t really care if they ran away. In the middle of the night, he tiptoed out of the front door. 

Then, stealing didn’t seem wrong. Nobody noticed, or again, nobody cared, when his filthy hands swiped day-old pastries from a cart. He shoveled one into his mouth and before he could swallow, he found a finely dressed man, heavily intoxicated, slumped in the gutter. 

Thomas nudged the man, who only vaguely stirred, drooling on himself. Thomas reached into the man’s jacket and found a pocket watch, a small knife, and a billfold. Reasoning that the man was dressed so fine, and that he could easily replace these objects, Thomas stuffed them in his pockets. 

That’s where it started, but this is how it’s ending. Thomas stumbled in the boots, wearing sores into his skin so deep, he started to feel the warm, wet trickle of blood. He removed the boots entirely, tying the laces together so he could sling them over his shoulders. He walked slowly over the rocks and grass, stopping when the ground got softer under his heels. 

By the third day, all he’d eaten were wild berries, onion grass, and creek water. Static filled the edges of his vision, and every time he tried to start a thought, it drifted away, lost to the fog in his mind. What direction was he supposed to be heading? Did the sun rise in the east?

He felt it—a flicker of recognition, the way the grey rock met the green wood. This was the place, the one he was searching for. But where was home? The void in his stomach expanded, pulling everything around it like a black hole, consuming him.

He stumbled, but pushed himself back up, leaning on the trees to steady himself as he forced his legs to move forward. He fell again, his body too heavy to carry. His knees hit the earth hard, and he collapsed face-first into the grass.

But something caught his eye—merciful, and cruel. In the grass, half-covered in ants, lay an apple with a bite taken out of it. Without thinking, he reached for it, his fingers brushing the fruit. But then, the world snapped back into focus. Something tightened around his forearm, cold metal biting into his skin.

A whimper escaped him as he yanked back. 

Mistake.

The metal chord dug deeper into his arm and he yelped, then stopped for a moment. 

A snare, meant for a wild animal.

You’re a Wild Animal.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on a solution instead of the panic gripping his windpipe. He groaned, and tried to reach under with his free arm, but the snare was well-constructed, and he couldn’t reach across himself.

This is it. This is how I go. Seek death. 

Then, a voice.

But it will not come.

“Tiens! Tiens!1” a man’s voice, bright and excited, was behind Thomas. “Tu devais avoir faim,”

Thomas panicked, blood thrumming in his ear drums. A younger man, maybe 19 or 20, leaned down in his eyeline. Thomas pulled at the trap, which ripped into his flesh. He yelped. 

“Non, non, non,” the man said softly, holding out his hands. He held a knife in his left hand and Thomas kept glancing at it. When the other man picked up on this, he looked at the knife too, and set it on the ground. “Safe, safe,” he said carefully. “Safe, help, I help,” he pointed to Thomas’s arm, bleeding through his shirt. 

Thomas stilled and, after a moment, gave a small nod of approval. 

The man laid the knife between the snare and Thomas’s skin that pulled the blade up, toward himself. It snapped free and Thomas rolled over and scooted back. 

“S-s-sorry,” he said, holding his wounded arm. 

“Tu es faim,” he nodded to the apple “faim?” he repeated. 

Thomas shrugged. “I don’t unders-s-s-tand”

“Hmmm…un-gry?”

“Angry?” Thomas repeated, confused, and a little hurt. 

“Non, non, eh, un-gry?” he mimed eating something from a bowl with a spoon. 

“Hungry?” Thomas asked, hopefully. 

“Oui! Oui!” The man was excited they were making progress. 

“Yeah, I’m hungry,” Thomas admitted, his mouth almost too dry to form the words. 

“S'il te plaît, suis-moi” the man pointed behind him. 

Thomas could see the faintest column of smoke, escaping the canopy of trees. He assumed it was this man’s camp, so he walked cautiously behind him through the woods. The woods opened and closed around him like a ribcage, expanding and contracting with each breath. The trees demanded Thomas to remember they were alive, waving with the wind so whatever sunlight could pierce the canopy, shifted over the ground like a circular tide. 

And for a moment, he’s here, following a French stranger through the woods, and he’s in an alley following Seb toward the promise of food, and he’s following a guard to a cell, and he’s following someone to rob. But when these memories folded over, it made the always-nervous sensation in his chest worsen. But if he blinked hard, he could focus again. 

He focused on the man’s peculiar dress. He wore fine tweed slacks, but patched trapping boots. He wore a fedora, but with the shed of a snake wrapped around the crown. He wore a vest of soft, worn leather, but his shirt was stitched with delicate embroidery. 

They came to a clearing, and Thomas could smell cooking meat. 

But another, older man came out of the tent, say Thomas, and erupted. 

In their vowel-heavy language, they continued to speak around him as he strained to hear some familiar syllable.  “Who is this? Why do you bring strangers here?” He shouted.

The younger man tried to calm him, “Father, he is injured, he is hungry, let’s help him” 

They were both animatedly using their hands to talk over each other when a third, even older man emerged from the other tent. He dressed from a different era, as if he’d stepped out of the tent from the Neolithic age. 

He wore furs and leathers from head to toe, and held a musket over his arm. “What’s this?” he said calmly.

“Grandpa, this man is hurt, hungry, I’d like to help him. Your son would not” the youngest explained.

“Why not?” The oldest ask the middle.

The middle rolled his eyes and gestured heavenward. “Criminelle”, then he pointed to his own wrist, where Thomas’s branded M marked him for the rest of his days. Thomas didn’t know French, but he could understand the word in its proximity to English. 

“Are we not criminals?” The oldest asked with a wry chuckle, stroking the long beard he kept more for warmth than style. “What are you called?” he looked at Thomas, who could only shrug. 

“I dunno what you’re s-s-saying.”

“Name?” the youngest asked. 

“Oh, my name, it’s-s-s Thomas, Thomas-s-s Calloway,” he recited, hoping they would know his stammer wasn’t an accent. 

“Tomas,” the older man repeated, stepping forward and gripping his hand. “Etienne,” he pointed to his own chest.

“Etenna,” Thomas repeated, nodding. “Nic-c-ce to meet you”.

“Luc,” the youngest pointed to himself, and when the middle only glared at Thomas, Luc added, “and Henri,” he patted his father’s shoulder. Luc plated some scraps of rabbit and squirrel with a torn piece of bread, with a tin cup of water. He offered it to Thomas, who took a few cautious steps back. 

“L'enfer vient avec toi” – “hell’s coming with you,” Henri said, spitting on the ground in Thomas’s direction. He couldn’t translate exactly, but he got the sentiment. 

Luc looked around and found a large rock nearby, which they’d used to dry damp bedding. He took it off, tossing it carelessly into the leaves. His father yelled something in protest, but Luc ignored it, reassuring Thomas with a wink. Luc set the food down on the rock and motioned toward it. “Prendre son repas” he grinned. “Eat,” he added, sounding it out carefully. 

Thomas nodded, waiting for him to rejoin his father and grandfather before he tucked in. But once he did, it was gone in a few bites. Thomas drank the tin cup of water in a few gulps. Fortunately for his nerves, Etienne and Henri had set about some other task. Henri was sitting at the campfire, sewing a small pouch out of a fur. 

“Th-th-th-ank you,” Thomas stuttered, setting the tin plate and cup down a few steps away from Luc and backing up carefully. He looked around for a moment, unsure of which direction to head in. 

“You are looking for buried treasure?” Luc teased, gesturing broadly at the remoteness of their environment. 

“Treasure?” Thomas repeated.

“Oi!” Luc lit up each time Thomas understood him. Even Thomas could admit the momentum felt warmly human. 

Thomas shrugged. “Something like that,” he nodded. It was only late morning, and the sun was hard to find in the grey sky. When Thomas looked up, he squinted. 

Agonizingly, they formulated enough for Luc to understand what Thomas needed: he was looking for an old mining cave, where he buried some treasure, and he thinks it’s east, but he’s not quite sure. Luc asked something to Etienne in French, who paused from sheering the tissue from the inside of a deer hide, cleaning his nails with the same knife, then pointing toward a large, rocky ridge in the distance. Luc then explained that Etienne knows of an abandoned mine, over the rocky ridge. Luc can take Thomas there in the morning, but it might take a day or so on foot. 

Thomas didn’t know how to explain it in English, much less whatever they were doing now. “You don’t have to help me,” 

“Non, en veux, ehhh, not have to, want to,” he grinned. “Pénitence…for your arm,” Luc motioned, exaggerating a frown at Thomas’s bicep. 

What do you have to lose? “Sure, thank you, eh, merci?” Thomas rasped. 

Luc beamed. “Oi! Very welcome, very welcome, Tomas,”

Etienne even cracked the smallest of smiles from beneath his white and gray beard. 

Thomas didn’t strain to understand them much for the rest of the night, he just let their aqueous vowels slide over each other. It sounded like there were no consonants in French, nothing hard and strong to latch onto. It tumbled out, filled whatever container it was in like honey. 

They gave him a little more food, which he gladly ate. And Luc convinced him to let him stitch up his arm. Thomas would watch carefully, trying to memorize the movements of Luc’s skilled hands pulling flesh back together. 

“You are a man made of iron,” he said quietly. “Strong,” he said a little louder. 

Thomas tried to smile, but it only looked like a wince. “Stupid,” he corrected, tapping his temple with his other hand. 

Luc shrugged, not bothering to correct Thomas, but not encouraging him either. He closed the gash across the back of Thomas’s bicep when Thomas began to return the old cotton shirt to his back. 

As he turned, Luc let out an audible, but small breath. Thomas could feel the warmth of the fire on the gnarled flesh of his back.

Chewed through, then torn open, over and over, by the crack of a whip. 

At times the lashes were a result of some indiscretion. A group of prisoners above him devised a language of taps to speak to one another at night. The guards would always allow infractions to occur, just long enough for the men to begin to believe they might have gotten away with it. Then, they’d be pulled out of their cell in the middle of the night, or they’d be politely pulled away from rock breaking. Either way, the experience was meant to disorient and terrify first. 

It was intended to teach him the error of his ways. Instead, it only taught him that men are sadistically cruel when given the opportunity, the encouragement to be. At times he wondered, especially when guards went pale in the face over their treatment, if the newjacks who didn’t last were horrified at what they were being tasked with. 

They must have looked even deeper in the dim light of the fire, lit from below. Luc diverted his eyes when Thomas dropped his shirt and turned back around. They were both quiet for a while, before Luc offered Thomas a bedroll near the fire. 

Watching the flickers and occasionally feeding it, Thomas struggled to sleep. He listened to the forest, trying to imagine open skies again. But the alley kept closing in. 

And he was here, in the dirt, by the fire, trying to breathe through flashes of time. He was also 11, having just successfully pickpocketed a string of unsuspecting people leaving a tavern. He was squatting in an alley, inspecting the Masonic ring he’d just stolen from a face he never saw when he heard a noise that made his blood run cold. 

Ping.

Thomas looked up and saw an older boy, who looked more grown from his misfortune. “That was pretty ballsy,” his voice said through the dark, raspy like he spent his whole life screaming. 

Thomas said nothing, only froze. 

“Are you hungry?”

He hesitated, looking up at the dark figure through dim lamplight, all Thomas could really make out were his teeth. Silver and gold and jagged and gleaming, they flashed in what was meant to look like a smile, like a chimp baring its teeth. 

The figure shrugged. “Follow me, or don’t” he sauntered away, melting into the shadows. 

Before Thomas could think, he followed. 

The brick walls felt like a mismatched maze, but the figure in front of him navigated them with brisk, confident efficiency. They crossed a space with open air, and Thomas felt like he could breathe again, but then the older boy came to a hatch outside of a warehouse. He stomped on it in a pattern. 

Shave and a haircut.

Two bits.

The hatch raised up from the inside, and the older boy knelt down to say something before turning and swinging the hatch open. The older boy was partially in the hatch, both feet on one wrung. He swung the door open so it landed on the ground behind him, and a small flicker of light came from below. 

“C’mon,” Seb nodded.

The dream stirred Thomas from his sleep, slowly peeling one eye open. At first, he could make out the grey-blue of the sky and a large black smudge. In the following seconds when his vision focused, he realized that Henri was standing over him. Thomas forgot where he was, scurrying backward in the dirt. Henri only watched as Thomas looked around, chest heaving, piecing it back together. 

He was out of prison. In a new trap. 

Luc appeared in the distance, his steps light and quick as he rejoined the camp, the bundle of St. John’s wort hanging from his belt. He smiled, as though the weight of the world was something he had never known. “Ready?” he asked. 

“S-s-s-ure,” Thomas said, standing and wiping off his hands.

Before he could step toward his prison-issue boots, tied together at the laces, Luc presented him with a pair of worn trapper boots, clearly once belonging to Etienne. They appeared to be handmade, not by a cobbler, but by someone simply trying to keep their feet warm in the circumstances. They were like socks, made of brushed leather, with a cord looped through a hole poked near the top of the foot. Luc had to show Thomas how to wrap the long strap of leather all the way up to his shin to keep the boot from slipping down again. 

They were warm for the summer, but Thomas was past complaining. Each step he’d taken in those prison boots only felt like agony. Somehow, it was as if they’d decided they would fit worse when he was out of prison. But it wasn’t the size of the boots, it was the size of the steps he was taking. 

Outside of his cell, Thomas would always be chained to someone else. Yanked by the hands in front of him, dragged by the legs behind him, taking small, incremental steps to try to cut the difference. Now he took long, upright strides that caused his foot to shift over the sole with each step. 

The trapper’s boots were snug when they were tied, and didn’t feel like confinement at all. Thomas felt like he could stand taller, and he gave two small hops for good measure. 

Luc chuckled softly, his amusement evident. “Meilleur,” he said, securing a bedroll and tin cup to Thomas’s pack with deft hands. The added weight made the bag shift awkwardly on Thomas’s back, but Luc simply patted it with satisfaction. “Suis-moi,” he instructed, motioning for Thomas to follow.

“Follow me,” Thomas murmured aloud, testing the words.

Luc nodded, a faint grin flashing across his weathered face, and set off with a purposeful stride. They moved through the woods, the underbrush whispering against their boots. A good distance from the camp, Luc slowed, scanning the ground with a practiced eye. Without warning, he crouched low and pointed to a patch of churned mud. “Look... ehm… animal foot.”

Thomas knelt beside him, squinting at the marks. They were faint but discernible: pairs of split impressions etched into the wet earth. “Tracks,” Thomas murmured, brushing the edge of one with his fingers.

“Oi! Tracks, cerf.” Luc planted his thumbs against his temples, fingers wiggling in mimicry of antlers.

“Deer?” Thomas guessed.

Luc smiled, the corners of his mouth twitching, and shrugged. Whether unsure of the English word or the translation itself, he seemed content enough. Thomas hesitated, wondering if Luc doubted his own interpretation of the tracks, but Luc had already risen, brushing his hands on his pants. Without further discussion, he signaled for Thomas to continue following him.

They hadn’t gone far when Luc paused again, this time near a cluster of low, yellow-flowered plants. He crouched and plucked a few, holding them up for Thomas to see. “Medicine for pain,” He pointed from the plant to Thomas’s arm, his brow furrowed in thought.

“Pain medicine,” Thomas said softly. A faint smile tugged at his lips. The exchange felt like solving a riddle—one he hadn’t expected to enjoy.

Luc gave an approving nod before they pressed on. For a while, they walked in relative silence, their boots crunching softly over the forest floor. The trees were restless in the rising wind, the shifting sunlight dappling the ground with patterns that seemed alive. Suddenly, Luc stopped mid-step and shot out his arm, halting Thomas in place.

Thomas froze as Luc raised a hand to his ear. “Listen,” Luc whispered, his voice barely audible. 

The forest, alive moments ago, had grown unnervingly still. Then came the faint snap of a twig, the rustle of leaves low to the ground. Luc crouched slightly, bringing his hands together, motioning small.

Thomas barely had time to process the gesture before a rabbit bolted across their path, its brown blur vanishing as quickly as it appeared. “Always listen,” Luc said with quiet approval, pointing to his ear again. Thomas nodded, replaying the scene in his mind as they resumed their trek.

The sky darkened as they continued, heavy clouds gathering above the treetops. Luc glanced upward and slowed his pace, his gaze fixed on the shifting gray mass. “Là-bas,” he said, pointing toward the horizon. “Rain.”

Thomas followed his gesture, spotting the sharp outline of a rocky overhang in the distance. Luc clicked his tongue in thought, then turned sharply off the trail, motioning for Thomas to stay close.

When they reached the shelter, Luc’s face lit with satisfaction. The rock jutted out like a natural awning, just large enough for the two of them to crouch beneath. As they ducked under, the air grew cooler and carried a faint mineral tang. Thomas had to stoop to avoid scraping his head, finally settling against the uneven stone. He shifted uncomfortably, trying to take up as little space as possible.

Luc, meanwhile, seemed at ease. He pulled a silver cigarette case from his pocket, the intricate engraving catching the dim light. Flicking it open, he took one for himself before extending the case toward Thomas.

Thomas hesitated, then accepted.

They smoked in silence, the faint crackle of burning tobacco mingling with the growing patter of rain on the rock above. The sound was soothing, a steady rhythm that drowned out the ache in Thomas’s legs and the swirl of his thoughts. For a while, they simply sat, letting the stillness of the moment envelop them.

But after a while, Luc leaned back, his cigarette nearly spent, and studied Thomas with quiet interest. Thomas sensed a question coming, and he tensed as a matter of reflex. “You were eh prisoner?”

Thomas’s chest heaved whether he wanted it to or not, his breath out in a shallow burst. “Yeah,”

“You…escape?” his tone was measured, probing.

Thomas looked up at him then, meeting his eyes for the first time in what felt like hours. “No,” he said flatly.

The tension broke in an instant as Luc let out a soft, exaggerated breath and grabbed his chest in mock relief. His grin returned, wide and boyish, as if Thomas’s answer had somehow restored balance to the world.

“Released,” Thomas clarified, his voice quieter now. He tapped the ash off his cigarette, the action giving his hands something to do. “Set free.”

Luc repeated the words slowly, rolling them over in his mouth like unfamiliar coins. “Re…leased. Set free,” he murmured, breaking the phrase down into its parts. He seemed to savor the simplicity of it, letting it settle into his understanding.

For a moment, they both sat in the echo of the words, the rain outside softening to a steady drizzle. Thomas leaned his head back against the stone, unsure why the exchange had left him feeling lighter.

Luc nodded to himself, the corner of his mouth quirking up as if the answer satisfied him. He didn’t push further, content to let the conversation drift with the smoke curling up into the cool, damp air.

The rain died down, and the sky opened back up. “We go?” Luc said hopefully. 

“We go,” Thomas repeated, gesturing back out into the woods where he trusted a strange Frenchman to lead him to…he wasn’t even sure. 

Anxiety started to gnaw at Thomas. Why was Luc helping him, and why were they alone? If he had escaped, what was Luc’s plan? The thoughts must have weighed heavy on Thomas, because his pace slowed considerably. 

“Getting tired?” Luc called back to him. 

Thomas thought for a moment. “I’m ok,” he nodded, and took a few cautious steps toward Luc, but let him lead with some distance. 

Luc carried a revolver on his hip, the worn leather of the holster snug against his side. It wasn’t unusual for the wilderness, but Thomas couldn’t stop glancing at it whenever Luc’s back was turned. Each glance felt like an admission of his unease, though the Frenchman didn’t seem to notice—or if he did, he didn’t care.

Luc whistled a carefree tune as he walked, the light, lilting sound almost at odds with the rugged terrain. He moved along the narrow trail with the easy confidence of someone who had carved it himself, his strides steady even when the path became treacherous.

As they continued, the thick canopy above thinned, the trees giving way to an open slope bathed in muted sunlight. The ridge loomed ahead of them, its jagged face cutting sharply against the horizon. Luc stopped and pointed toward the highest point, where the shadows of weathered beams and rusted supports hinted at a long-forgotten past.

“Étienne said the entrance is just up there,” Luc said, gesturing to the ridge. “Mine.”

Thomas followed Luc’s finger, squinting against the light. He could make out the dark mouth of a tunnel, partially obscured by overgrown brush and debris. The remnants of the mine sat in quiet disrepair, its timbers leaning at precarious angles, as though the land itself had long since tried to reclaim it.

They started up the incline together, the gravel shifting beneath their boots with every step. The slope was steeper than it appeared, forcing both men to grab at roots or exposed rock for balance. Thomas slipped once, his foot skidding out from under him, but Luc reached out instinctively, steadying him with a firm hand.

“It’s alright,” Luc muttered, nodding toward the summit as if to encourage him.

The air grew thinner as they climbed, carrying the sharp tang of rust and damp stone. When they finally reached the top, Thomas stood for a moment, catching his breath and surveying the mine’s entrance. The dark tunnel yawned before them, framed by rotting wooden beams and partially collapsed rock. It looked more like a forgotten grave than a place of refuge.

Luc stepped forward, peering into the shadows with a practiced eye. He adjusted the strap of his pack, then glanced back at Thomas, his expression unreadable.

“Let’s see,” he said, motioning toward the entrance.

Thomas hesitated, his instincts warring with necessity. But there was no turning back now. With a deep breath, he followed Luc into the depths of the abandoned mine, the shadows swallowing them both.

The dim light of Luc’s lantern stretched the serrated mouth of the cave, the long shadows dancing slightly with the lilt of the flame. There was a faint trickle of the water still carving the earth. It smelled of clay and salt, carried by the damp air. Luc cast his light on an abnormality- a panel of boards nailed over a channel in the mine. 

He nodded toward it. Thomas felt the rough, rotten boards and remembered exactly where he placed the nails eight years ago. He only had to kick the disintegrating wood to open the channel, a cool gust of air carrying the distinct scent of iron. 

Luc patted his shoulder, which startled him slightly, but extended the lantern into the little passage so Thomas could see. 

It was still there. A small cigar box, wrapped tightly in a red bandana. Thomas’s heart swelled with something that felt a little like hope. 

Seb wouldn’t have bothered to wrap the box back up, let alone replace the boards over the hiding hole. Thomas ran his fingers over the once shiny embossed text on the lid. It was heavier than he remembered, though it could have been his memory playing tricks on him. 

There were also three boxes of ammunition nearby. Thomas handed them to Luc. “Peace offering for Henri,” he said, surprised at how loud his voice was in the empty expanse. 

Outside of the cave, Thomas paused to open the lid. His breath hitched in his chest with the item sitting on top. 

It was a tintype of all four of them, during the good days, whatever that meant. A relative time of peace wherein they could afford to live like civilized animals, when Thomas was 17. Ironically, this was the age Seb was when he led Thomas down a dark alley. At 17, it wouldn’t have occurred to Thomas to do the same. 

He would have protested. And Arthur would have gotten in his ear, twisted his thoughts back against themselves, confused his sense of reality. 

But here, Arthur looked…proud?

Seb sat with his legs spread wide, teeth flashing in a usual sneer, but Thomas noticed now that the corner of his eye curved with the faintest trace of dread. Morris sat next to him with his ankles crossed, knees parted only slightly. He interlaced his fingers and laid them flat across his stomach. Arthur and Thomas stood behind them. Thomas was a few inches taller than Arthur now, who looked down at the camera with a stoic sort of pride. Thomas stood with his shoulders hunched forward, his eyes cast down, not at the lens, but he tried to smile, while everyone else tried to look tough. 

The next items were the possessions they used as a contract. If any of them survived, those survivors were entitled to the contents of the cigar box. But Arthur and Morris were dead. For whatever reason, Seb hadn’t come for the stash.

Seb’s gold tooth weighed more than it should, he had it cast in solid gold from jewelry he stole. That way, he reasoned, he’d always have something valuable to trade or sell. 

Morris’s silver pocket watch was a gift from his dead father, engraved with their initials on the back. It was his prized possession, as he wound it each morning, checked it obsessively all day, and shined it each night. 

Thomas’s knife was one he bought from an eccentric traveller after their first decent take. It was the typical prize of an 11-year-old boy, a testament to what a child he was when he grew up too fast. 

Arthur’s ring was actually Thomas’s ring for a brief period.

When Thomas held it there, staring at the square and compass engraved into the ring, he turned it over in his fingers, the same as he did the night Arthur proposed Thomas trade it for some jerky. 

“What is this?” Arthur asked when Thomas dropped down into the cellar behind Seb. 

“A lookout,” Seb pointed. 

“C’mon,” Arthur pointed to the wiry, dirty, wild-haired boy with sad eyes, darting around the ground. 

“I just watched him pickpocket six people,” Seb protested. “He’s, y’know, unassuming,”

Arthur looked Thomas up and down, who was getting less comfortable by the second. He wanted to scurry back up the ladder, but now there were three much older boys hovering over him, examining him like a rodeo bull. 

“Lemme see what you took,” Arthur opened his hand. 

Thomas took a step back and shook his head. If he “showed” them, they would steal it. That was the game and he knew it well enough. 

“Do you want some food?” Arthur asked hopefully, like a skilled haggler. 

Thomas hesitated, and nodded tentatively. 

“If I give you some food, will you show me everything you lifted?” Arthur said slowly, like Thomas couldn’t understand him. 

Thomas nodded again. 

“Good,” Arthur nodded over to a half-eaten sandwich on an overturned barrel. When he offered it to Thomas with an extended hand, Thomas wouldn’t step forward. Arthur looked at Seb, who only shrugged, not sure what to make of it. Arthur threw the sandwich on the ground in front of Thomas, who inhaled it in as few bites as possible. The other boys laughed at his voracity, but Arthur’s smile faded the fastest. 

“Alright, let’s see,” Arthur coaxed Thomas. He’d almost forgotten his end of the deal, and was ready to disappear back up the ladder.

Nervously, Thomas reached into his pocket and pulled out a Masonic ring, three billfolds, a broken necklace chain, and a pack of cigarettes. All of which he placed nervously just before his feet and stepped back again, until he was against the ladder. 

Arthur looked down, then back up at Thomas. “I’m not gonna take your shit, kid,” he said quietly. 

“You’re not?” Thomas’s little voice broke over his feelings. 

“No, no I just wanted to see if you were any good,” He crouched low, so he could be level with Thomas. “You are, you know that?” he smiled. 

“Really?” Thomas asked. 

“Yeah,” Arthur laughed. “I’m Arthur, that’s Seb, and that’s Morriss, what’s your name?”

“Thomas,” he said quietly. 

“Thomas,”

Thomas

Thomas

“Tomas?” Luc tapped his shoulder, breaking him out of the trance. 

“S-s-sorry,” he grimaced, placing the ring back into the box. 

“Did you find treasure?” he nodded to the box, trembling in Thomas’s hand. 

“Yeah, I guess,” he ran his blunted finger over the edge of the box again. 

Luc shrugged and motioned back toward the wood, which they were high above. Now they could see the smoke from the campsite clearer, an arm that reached above the skeletal darkness of the trees. “We go back?” he asked Thomas. 

“Yeah, let’s go.” He forced a smile again. 

Getting down the incline was easier. Luc squatted low, and let himself slide without catching for long distances down the incline, stopping and falling to his bottom several times, but laughing the whole way. When Thomas joined him at the bottom, he was still, holding his hand out to signal Thomas to do the same. 

Ahead of them, a large gray wolf stood in the brush, watching them. All Thomas could see was a coat of black, grey, and white, mixed together on each individual hair. Its eyes looked black from this distance, poking out from its fair coat. Its ears pointed attentively toward Luc and Thomas, its nose gently flexing as it tried to pick up the scent. 

When Thomas looked back over at Luc, he was pointing the revolver at the animal, and without thinking Thomas shouted.

“GO ON!” he yelled with enough force to shake the birds from the trees, to make Luc flinch, to be heard by the older men back at camp. 

The wolf panicked, scrambled up the ridge, away from the men. Luc looked at Thomas, stunned. Thomas couldn’t explain himself, only pull at his fingers. Luc’s expression softened. 

“You like wolves?” Luc asked. 

“I gue-e-e-ss,” Thomas shrugged. “S-s-s-sorry,” he couldn’t look at Luc. 

“It’s alright, Tomas, no wolves,” Luc said, holstering his gun. “No wolves,” he repeated, nodding back toward the trail. 

It was easier going back, Thomas was surprised to find that the trees didn’t look as uniform as they did before. When they passed a patch of St. John’s wort, he knew they were drawing close. 

Etienne was smoking from a corncob pipe, sitting on a log. On his lap was an open, leatherbound notebook. Inside, he was drawing loose impressions of different tracks and writing notes in French. To write, he used a piece of willow charcoal, which made a pleasant hissing sound as it dragged across the tooth of the paper. 

Etienne and Luc exchanged strings of information, while Thomas returned to the flat rock to separate the contents of the cigar box. 

Morriss’s pocketwatch, Thomas’s pocket knife, Seb’s gold tooth, Arthur’s Masonic ring, and thirteen dollars in cash were the sum total of his earthly possessions. 

“Do you have use for any of this stuff?” Thomas nodded toward it as Luc joined him. 

Luc turned the ring over in his hand, his fingers tracing the intricate engravings. His eyes gleamed with an odd mixture of curiosity and calculation. ‘qu'est-ce que c'est?’ he asked, as if testing the weight of the symbol, intrigued by the idea of belonging to something grander than the world they occupied. He slid it onto his finger, the fit perfect, and his face lit up, his other rings gleaming like tokens of conquest in the moonlight. He held up his hand, admiring the subtle gleam of the Masonic emblem. ‘It suits me,’ he muttered, almost to himself, then added with a wink, ‘A man of secrets, no?’”

“The Masons? I dunno, it’s like a club, I guess? A…brotherhood?” He was trying to explain it holistically in as few words as possible. 

Luc slipped it on his finger. He seemed pleased as he twiddled his fingers, making all the rings he collected glint in the moonlight. He held up a pointer finger, as if to signal wait. 

When he returned, he held in his hands an exceptionally well made leather wide-brimmed hat in a rich dark brown. It was as if he carved it out of the forest itself, There was a braided band that encircled the crown, fixed with a knot and a stitch. Under the knot were two brass aglets. Luc turned it over so Thomas could see the lining, a softer, thinner type of leather to keep his head warm and dry. 

Luc, without warning, placed the hat atop Thomas’s head. The wide brim tipped slightly to one side, the leather soft against his scalp, the weight of it made it feel like a crown. Luc stood back, admiring the fit with a grin. ‘merveilleux,’ he said, almost as though he were conferring upon Thomas a title he hadn’t yet earned but would soon grow into. Thomas’s hand instinctively reached up to adjust it, but he didn’t take it off. 

“I like it,” he said quietly. “Thank you,” he nodded. 

Etienne and Henri wandered over, eyeing the rest of Thomas’s belongings. 

“You can take whatever you need, for helping me,” he explained, motioning to what was left of the objects. “I don’t have use for this stuff anymore.”

Henri leaned forward and grabbed the knife and ammunition, then sat near the fire so he could examine the blade in the dim light. 

Etienne clicked his tongue in disapproval, but was more polite when he picked up the pocket watch. He opened the face, and showed it to Thomas. 

“You have to wind it,” he showed Etienne, the same way Morris showed him when he was a kid, and he couldn’t believe he remembered it correctly on the first try. 

Etienne’s face lit up, his eyes peeled back in surprise, then he smiled, his beard flexing around the pipe fixed between his teeth. From under his arm, he held out a leather bound notebook, its pages deckled from being torn by hand. The cover was a sturdy square of leather, bound with a long, simple band. Inside, there was a small groove along the spine, where there were a few charcoaled twigs wrapped in a small cotton cloth. 

“Thank you,” Thomas nodded. Etienne strolled off, examining his pocket watch closely. Thomas returned the cash to his pocket, but left the tintype sitting there. Luc asked about it, but Thomas only shook his head. “Keep it,” he chuckled. “Thank you, again,” he extended his hand and Luc surprised him by wrapping him up in a hug, slapping his back a few times. The entirety of Thomas’s musculature tensed up, as if it would press itself into a diamond. He couldn’t manage to move his arms before Luc broke the embrace.  

Thomas left while the three of them were still sleeping, when the black of the night started to splinter into a soft, gray blue. He crept down the side of the ridge and looked back up to the column of smoke, saying a silent thanks once more. He pulled the cap down a little further on his forehead and headed east, certain of his direction this time.