There’s a pale, silvery light from the moon when I leave the cabin, like someone has left a lamp on low. The trail ahead of me is otherwise dark. The air is warm and calm and my body’s still buzzing with excitement from the meeting. I usually cut through the forest, stay away from the main road just in case a luna or the plantation police are out and about catching the late stragglers. Makes the mile back to Puli even longer with each careful step. Tonight I’m itching to take a chance but decide to stay careful, sticking to the hidden dirt paths. No use looking for trouble, not with all the work we have to do in the months ahead. Calm, yeah, and just bright enough that I can easily see through the trees if there’s someone coming down the road but they can’t see me.

The moonlight casts the main road in a whitish glow when I finally emerge from the dark forest path near the northern side of the plantation. There’s only the last long stretch of empty, open road to walk down before jumping the fence and cutting across the fields. In the distance I can see the dark shadows of the plantation buildings. Not far now. I can already taste the sweet burn of whiskey from the bottle I keep under my mattress.

I walk quickly down the paved road when I hear the low rumble of a motor starting. I turn back to see nothing, darkness, the road empty until bright headlights flick on and a dark sedan roars out from behind some trees not far from the path I came out of. I start to run, thinking I’m fucked with this bum leg, thinking I can still make it back to the fence and into the fields before the car reaches me. There’s nowhere else to hide now, the forest behind me, the fields ahead.

“Run! Run! Run!” I hear Franklin yelling at me again, like when we were young and caught stealing lychee from old man Pakua’s backyard tree. He’d been waiting for us, and had come out of the house with his shotgun in hand, but we were too fast jumping over the fence, running down the road before he got to the gate.

“Run! Run! Run!” I see Laki running down the dirt road to greet me at the end of the day, good dog, best dog.