Chapter 29If you're new to this, start atThe Beginning. And thanks for sharing my stories with all your friends.
Installment #30 of:Sing Low: The Hangman of the WoodsBy B.C. Crow (Chapter 29Morning came. I rolled out of bed. My back ached and I should’ve felt more depressed, but the fire of hope or determination hadn’t left me. Deep inside I knew that the trial had been rigged. I’d known that the verdict would be guilty, even before I’d staged my protest. Still I was crushed to actually hear it.The first thing I did after leaving the apartment was to pick up the day’s newspaper. My protest yesterday had made the front page. I wasn’t surprised to find Biahn’s name under the headline, “Protesters Rally Behind Liar.” I read on. The whole article was just the usual propaganda. It debunked me and anything I’d said. It painted the hangman as a terror who was finally caught and tried.If I didn’t know better, I could easily see myself being swayed by Biahn’s argument. Worst of all was the last paragraph. The judge decreed that the children be sent away to a foster agency in China, and that the hangman be executed in the same manner that he murdered so many others. He was scheduled to swing at noon tomorrow.“Barbarians,” I screamed beneath my breath.Those prison tents with all those children looked foreboding. Even from several blocks away, their faded tan canvas rippled like a stale nightmare. Careful not to raise any alarm, I approached the camp. The tents smelled worse today than I remembered. Nothing much had been done to improve the sanitation of those living spaces. In front of each tent were two armed guards. Two other guards were positioned at the rear corners of the tent, in case anybody felt inclined to dig or cut their way to freedom. I wondered if they’d heard the bad news yet.The guards around the boys’ tent seemed tougher and more vigilant. There must've been some escape attempts from there. Those guards were actually some of the guerilla fighters, more mean and vicious than the ordinary guards watching the girls’ tent.I couldn’t see Thing One anywhere near the girls’ tent, so I figured that he was off duty. That made me wonder where he might be, since he wasn’t at our apartment. I still couldn’t believe that he’d throw his lot in with these men. With little chance of a sneak meeting with Chirp-chirp, I meandered closer to the girls’ tent. I waited until one of the guards had his back to me, then I scurried with as much stealth as I could control.Leaning up against the tent, I searched for a hole or rip or anything. The tents were old, but in surprisingly good condition. At last I found a small burn hole. Maybe it was from some ash of a campfire or cigarette, I couldn’t tell. The hole was smaller than my pupil, but I pressed my eye to it, anyway. Inside I could just make out the profile of a little girl, maybe six years old. “Pssst.”She was alert. Her head swiveled around to find the source of the sound.“Over here,” I whispered as I tapped the canvas.She glanced from side to side before easing over to me.“Find Midnight,” I whispered. “Tell her it’s Iddo.”“Midnight? Iddo?”“Yes. Hurry.”She stood, didn’t move for a minute, then ran off. Great. She wasn’t going to be much help. I pressed my face up to the canvas to search through the pinprick again. Maybe someone older would wander by. It better be soon. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could go unnoticed by the guards.A figure passed by the hole. I couldn’t see who it was, but I knew that she was much taller than the six-year-old I’d just talked to.“Pssst.”The figure backed up past my hole again. “Iddo?”It was Midnight. The little girl had found her after all. “Midnight, it’s me. Are you okay?”“I’m scared, Iddo, yes I am. Children scared, too. You help? Please you help.”"I'm here, don't worry, it'll be okay," I tried to calm her.“Daddy Smiling—you see Daddy Smiling?”“No. They want to execute him, though.” I winced. Maybe that wasn't the best way to calm her.“Ex-y-coot?”“I'm sorry, they’re going to kill him.” I didn’t know how to break it any easier to her. I shouldn't have told her. “They want to kill him, then send you all far away.”“Why?” she whimpered.“They don’t like Daddy Smiling, and they want you all far away so you don’t tell anybody the truth. At least they don’t want anybody around here to know.”She went quiet, but I heard a sniffle. Then she spoke again, her voice trembling. “I want be with you. You help?”She sounded so sad. My heart ached just listening to her. “Yes, Midnight. I will help. I don’t know how yet, but I’ll find a way. I’ll be back here soon. Can you stay by this spot, so I’ll know where to find you?”“I wait for you, Iddo. You be Daddy Iddo with me soon. I wait for you.”“I love you, Midnight. I promise I’ll find a way to get you out of there.”“Hey!” one of the guards shouted.I looked up. The guard who had his back to me was now running toward me. I jumped up and sprinted away. For a fatty I found the strength to outrun the guard. Luckily he wasn’t in a chasing mood, or he might have caught up to me when my breath finally gave out. I was only a block away at that point, and I leaned against a tailor shop. I wheezed. The sewing machine in the windowless shop raced against my breath.I tried to calm myself and think about how long I’d been by that tent before getting noticed. It had to be under five minutes. The guards might be a little more vigilant now that they’d seen me. I wouldn’t have much time. Even if I did manage to stage a breakout, I doubted I could free anyone but Midnight.Midnight was my biggest priority, but I knew I’d still feel bad about leaving the others behind. I tried to think of alternatives but there weren’t many. Even if I could free all the others, there was no way I could get them all back to the woods safely. I almost felt guilty for wondering if they'd be better off in China.The Americans and Europeans wouldn’t likely be too interested in taking the children. So far, their interest seemed to stretch only as far as planting their language into our culture, or like Krystal’s father, taking advantage of certain local hospitalities. The Chinese were increasingly fractured, but were still the closest major country where it made any sense to send the orphans.I’m sure that enough families could be found locally to take them all in, but that would risk exposing the corruption for what it was.I wasn’t sure when the children would be sent away, but I knew they couldn’t stay much longer in the tents. Not only was sanitation a problem, but the city was too small to afford feeding and guarding them much longer. I had no time to wait.I didn’t have a plan as I hurried back to my apartment. All I knew was that I needed a knife.I returned less than an hour later. The same two guards were on watch. Luckily my encounter with them earlier hadn’t affected their level of vigilance. Perhaps they supposed me to be long gone. All the better for me.Still, I didn’t want to rush. From behind a row of dense shrubs surrounding a neighboring building, I watched for about fifteen minutes. Aside from the guards, who rarely checked around where I wanted to free Midnight, there was no other people around. I could do this.With one last look at the sharp reflective metal waiting in my hand, I stepped out from hiding. I crept closer, only to shimmy back as the guard decided to walk around the tent, right to where I was wanting to go. With lazy ease, the guard lit a cigarette and puffed away directly in front of me. Even if he casually turned around, he'd see me crouched down. I didn't have enough time to fully retreat and thus was in the open.I gripped the wooden handle tighter. With a quick lunge forward, I could bury my blade in the man’s back. It would be easy. But no. I couldn’t do that. Never could I do that. Instead, I stood frozen in place, not daring to move lest my slightest motion or noise draw his attention to me.I waited for him to finish his smoke. Once done he dropped it on the ground and stepped on it. Then, as if he’d just finished a bowel movement, he left his designated waste area to return to his former position.Keeping him in the corner of my eye, I sneaked over to the tent. The guard was stretching, not paying attention as I carefully slipped the knife into the canvas. I had to be careful. I didn’t want to accidentally stab my future bride.As the knife penetrated the canvas, it made a parting rip that I was sure could be heard clear up on campus, nearly two kilometers away. I paused long enough to look over. The guard was still unaware of my actions. I hoped that the cut couldn’t be seen from the cameras inside the tent. I proceeded to saw-cut a vertical slit up the fabric. My teeth ground together after each centimeter of canvas voiced its approval at being divided.So close to freeing the woman I loved, I couldn’t help but wonder again, how would I support her. With no job I’d have to either get a paid internship or find another job. Not only did the internship pay better than any job I’d likely find, but it would also be a good step at a real career. My only problem, I was still short two years of schooling to qualify for it.One more pass of the blade was all I’d need. I glided the knife out, finishing the cut. But the tearing threads of the canvas had other plans. I stared in horror as the cut turned into a rip. The tightly stretched tent, old as it was, made up its own mind to continue my new door higher and higher. The higher the rip climbed, the louder and faster it parted.Now my intrusion was receiving notice. The guard responsible for watching this portion of the tent was running and yelling at me. Another guard from the other corner of the tent stepped around to join him. All I had to do was stick my head in, grab Midnight, and run. So why did I just stand there, looking from one guard to the other, back to the climbing rip, then back to the guards again?After a sufficiently stupid amount of time, my body decided to respond to my will. I shouted, “Midnight!”Her face appeared in the opening. I reached for her, but she moved so slowly, like she was unsure of what to do. The whole world had slowed down. When at last I could grab her hand, I pulled her through the tent and started to run with her in tow. I lost my grip on her as the first guard slammed into me, flattening me on the ground.He was just about to get to his knees when the other guard caught up, bent down, and slammed a steely fist into my head. My world went black.When my vision returned, I could see that the tent had fallen down. The out-of-control rip had stretched all the way up and over the tent, eventually causing the tent to split in half. The two guards had left me unconscious on the ground. A plastic zip-tie held my hands together. Another zip-tie lay unfastened near my feet. The girls must have stampeded out of the collapsing tent. Why else would the guards have been too distracted or overwhelmed to finish tying me up?Luckily, I'd gained consciousness before they finished wrangling the horde of confused girls and placing them in the boys’ tent. No doubt they’d return to arrest me, or worse. Midnight was back under their guard. I’d lost my opportunity. Before the guards noticed me, I got up to leave. I'd taken only a few steps when one of them shouted "Stop!"I paused. My luck exactly. I'd come around just long enough to gain a degree of hope, only to be captured again."Hey, I said stop!" He shouted again.But I was stopped. Suddenly thoughts of brutal beatings entered my thoughts. He was going to over-react and give me a royal beating when he caught up to me. I slowly turned, raising my hands above my head.One of the guards from the boy's tent only spared me half a glance as he sprinted past and took the arm of one of the orphaned girls that I hadn't seen just ahead of me. My head must have been hit harder than I thought. I didn't recognize the girl, but her simple primitive woven clothing marked her as one of the girls from the tent.I took a quick look around, just in case I'd been mistaken and Midnight hadn't been taken. None of the girls that were still being gathered were her.Quietly, I slipped away before any guards could recognize me.Oh, my head hurt. The pain from the fist kept pounding at my temples. The pain of failing Midnight squeezed the rest of my head.I returned an hour later, my wrists were now ringed with purple bruises from the zip-tie that I’d removed. By this time, the commotion I caused had settled, not to mention the throbbing in my skull. My hopes sank when I beheld the new arrangement. All the children were in a single tent. The guards from the damaged girls’ tent had joined the guards for the combined tent now. In addition, they’d been strengthened by about four more guards, including Thing One.Anger boiled inside me upon seeing Thing One. It wasn’t fair of me. He was just doing his job. Besides, he truly believed that the children would be taken somewhere better. What irked me was that he wouldn’t help me free Midnight. Maybe he might, but there was no way of getting to him to talk about it. He was in the company of far too many other guards. If he’d at least come back to the apartment I could have talked to him about it, but given his recent behavior, that was unlikely.No matter how hard I thought, my mind refused to cooperate. There was no way I knew to free Midnight and the children. Maybe if I went for a walk, I could clear my head. I had to make a plan.Once out of sight of the guards, I couldn’t help but think, maybe Midnight would be better off without me. No, that was still muddled thinking. I had to free her. But there was still the problem of not qualifying for the paid internship for another two years. That didn’t matter. “Focus,” I scolded myself. “How do I free her?”After all, if worse came to worst, we could get by without an apartment. It’s not like she wasn’t used to living in the woods. For me it would be a longer commute to school, but cheaper. Dropping to my knees, I wanted to shout. I couldn’t concentrate for the life of me, or for her!Still with no clear idea of how to rescue her, I found myself back at the makeshift concentration camp. In the ten minutes I’d been walking, several buses had arrived and the children of the woods were being ushered onboard. There would be no camp left here tonight. I watched as Thing One, once my role model, ushered Midnight onto one of the overcrowded buses before following her in and shutting the door.I imagined myself chasing after the bus, but it would do no good. There was nothing I could do. I sank to my knees. I’d lost, again. This was the last time I’d ever see Midnight, Chirp-chirp, Grub, or any of the others.I sat on my knees long after everyone else was gone. There was only one thing left for me to do. It would be just as defeating, just as hard. Just as well; I knew I couldn’t avoid it.Click here to read Chapter 30Copyright 2017: While I encourage you to share this link with your friends and family, please keep in mind that this is copyrighted material. Under no circumstances do you have the right to re-publish any or part of this content without specific written permission from BC Crow and Blue House Publishing.