Hanging Tree

prompt: song Hanging tree

 The sun shines bright and glorious, the start of a new day. Sweat is already beginning to trickle down the small of my back as I shoulder the big empty basket and make my way out to the cotton field.
  Lily the newest slave girl got caught stealing bread from the big house, and now we all bein  punished. Now we got to double the amount of cotton coming in from the fields.  Most others been kissing their teeth an giving her dirty looks when she walks by but not me. I feel nuthin but sorrow for the child. She's such a scrawny thing, got nuthin on her body to support her. Probably whoever sold her didn't feed her hardly nuthin, poor child was starving.
  As I walk by her I see her cotton shift sticking to the lashes still bleeding on her back, but I know she got off easy. She still walkin .
   By mid-afternoon my basket is almost full. I hear my man's familiar whistle. Somehow he has managed to sneak away from his field.  At the sight of his strong broad shoulders and arms my heart jumps a little.
The salt from my sweat drips off my forehead and into my eye, stinging. I wipe it away impatiently with the back of my hand and suddenly he is beside me, the oaky scent of him and his sweat fill my nostrils.
He grabs me from behind playfully and for a moment I relax. I can feel the strong muscles beneath his shirt, grown in the hot sun and forced manual labour day after day. I feel safe for just a moment, and I breathe him in deeply.
He whispers in my ear, " Meet me tonight at midnight at the hanging tree"
and then just as quickly as he arrived, he is gone.
My heart sets to pounding. He is setting to run away, I know. He's been asking me for a long time now.
I force myself to continue picking fluffs of cotton thinking about how to tell John what I've known for some time. I got to find a way to get a message to him.
We been dreaming of running away, running north where we can buy our freedom. John's got money from work he did years back from a kind, rich white man who was passing through. John fixed his wagon and the man gave him more money than I ever known a black man to have.  So we be dreaming of running to a better life.

Can't meet you Johnny, not anymore I whisper into the hot haze. Things is different now. We'll be hanging instead of running. Maybe that would be better. No.  He'll be waiting at midnight. I miss him already. I pray he don't get caught.

I straighten for a minute to ease the constant burning in my back from being stooped over for hours. Then I feel the little flutter and kick. My hand instinctively rises to my belly. I smile for a moment before the fear kicks in. What life are you going to live little one, when our best hope is the hanging tree.