We rarely traveled into any of the populated areas, and if so, not together. Freeing Leandro might hold in the law’s eyes, but to the men who walked the streets of St. Jago de la Vega, he was still a slave. They didn’t speak to him when they would speak to me, and when they even noticed his presence, it was either with disdain or dismissal. Leandro didn’t complain, but he was a proud man. I saw how it hurt every time he was treated as less than he was. So our visits to gather supplies grew fewer and far between the longer we were together.
They couldn’t be eradicated completely, though. Some supplies could not be reproduced, and though I could go into the city alone, it wasn’t fair to isolate Leandro even more than he already was. On this visit, we parted ways outside the border, agreeing
