Paul D's Captivity in Alfred, Georgia

Recounts Paul D's enslavement, his imprisonment on the chain gang, and his escape following the blossoming trees north.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

Sold to Brandywine

Sold to Brandywine The Coffle South Schoolteacher sells Paul D to a man named Brandywine, who chains him in a coffle of ten and leads him from Kentucky into Virginia. Paul D tries to kill his new master and fails, and the attempt seals his fate. The Beginning of the Trembling The trembling starts inside Paul D's chest, a rippling that goes from his shoulders to his spine. He hides it successfully, but it marks the shattering of the identity Garner built: the man who was a man becomes a thing being transported. The Iron Bit The road south includes a bit in Paul D's mouth, a piece of iron that locks his tongue and makes him feel less than the roosters he watches. The wildness it puts in his eye will never fully leave.

The Box in the Ground

The Box in the Ground The prison camp is a long line of wooden boxes sunk in the earth, five feet deep and five feet wide, with barred lids. Paul D is locked in one of these graves at night and worked in chains by day. Hands Out of Control His hands shake so badly he cannot smoke or feed himself. The trembling stops only when a sledge hammer is placed in his grip; then his hands obey the rhythm of the chain gang. The Price of Sanity The box does what slavery and running could not do: it drives him crazy enough to keep his mind. He learns to live only in the moment, refusing to remember or feel. He is dead to the world outside the trench.

Hi Man and the Chain Dance

Hi Man and the Chain Dance The Morning Shout Each dawn the prisoner called Hi Man shouts "Hiiii!" to release the forty-six men from their kneeling position. No one knows how he knows when to give the mercy, but Paul D learns to trust him absolutely. The Songs They Beat In the field, the men sing songs that murder their despair: they beat the boss to death with rhythmic hammer blows and sing love songs to Mr. Death, smashing his head. The songs are coded, protective, and full of the lives they have lost. The Eyes on the Chain Every man watches the others' eyes for signs of breaking. If one pitches and runs, the chain yanks all forty-six. The bond is not friendship but survival, and Paul D learns to love his fellow prisoners with a love that asks nothing.

The Flood and the Great Escape

The Flood and the Great Escape Rain Without End Seven days of rain turn the prison camp into a swamp. The guards lock the men in the boxes, and the water rises around them. The mud begins to pour through the roof and the bars. The Chain as Messenger Hi Man yanks the chain, and the signal passes down the line. Each man dives under the mud, following the chain that either saves them all or kills them all. They come up gasping in the dark, free because they moved together. The Cherokee Camp They stumble on a camp of sick Cherokee, who feed them and knock the chains off with small axes. The Cherokee call them Buffalo men and point them toward the North. The flood that tried to drown them becomes the river of their liberation.

Following the Tree Flowers

Following the Tree Flowers The Blossoming Route Paul D is the last Buffalo man left, with no plan and no destination. A Cherokee elder tells him to follow the tree flowers: dogwood, cherry, magnolia, pecan, apple. As long as he keeps the blossoms in sight, he is going north. From February to July Paul D races through blossoming plums and peach trees, eating whatever the road provides. The beauty of the landscape is almost unbearable to him, because it is a land that is not his and never will be. The Weaver Woman in Delaware The apple field turns out to be Delaware, where a weaver woman takes him in, feeds him, and passes him off as her nephew. He stays eighteen months, the longest he has ever rested, before the restlessness of a hunted man sends him on the road again.

after the escape attempt at Sweet Home

Paul D's first weeks at Alfred, Georgia

during the eighty-six days on the chain gang

after eighty-six days, during the rains

after leaving the Cherokee camp, spring of the first free year