Freedom Stone (29 page)

The maid quickly reported back to Bett that the Master had seen the letter, and Bett reported that back to Lillie.

“Then we's free!” Lillie exclaimed.

“You ain't nothin' of the kind,” Bett said. “Remember what your papa told you 'bout the weasel. It don't let go o' the chicken till it has to, and the same is true of a master and a slave.”

Bett was right, of course. The Master of Greenfog would not consider releasing three of his slaves and handing them five hundred dollars on the say-so of a letter he didn't trust in the first place. But the farmer's phrasing had been so firm he dared not ignore it, either. Instead, he stalked to his stable, mounted his horse and galloped to Bluffton, where he visited the telegraph office and sent a message all the way from Charleston County in South Carolina to Warren County in Mississippi, addressed to the man named Appleton. The telegraph cables, so far at least, had not been cut by the war.

“Letter received,” the Master instructed the telegraph man to tap out in code. “Authenticity in doubt. Please confirm.”

He rode back to Greenfog, and two days later a boy from the telegraph office arrived with a response from Mississippi.

“Letter authentic. Gold was mine. Proceed as instructed or I shall proceed as promised.”

Lillie and Mama and Plato knew nothing of the exchange of telegrams during those two days, and they had no choice but to go about their business and wait for some kind of word. Throughout that time, Lillie found that her thoughts and her dreams were filled with feverish images of the war and the battlefield and her muddy, dying papa. One night she awoke, screaming and sobbing, and Mama was suddenly beside her—holding her head and stroking her hair as she did when Lillie was a child smaller than Plato.

“Your papa ain't here,” Mama whispered. “But your mama is.”

Finally, on the third day after Lillie's return, the Master told the housekeeper to tell a kitchen maid to fetch Lillie and Mama and Plato up to the Big House. When they arrived, he was waiting for them on his porch—having no intention of receiving slaves in his library or even in his foyer. He stared at them coldy, with nothing but a nod for a hello. Then he read the letter from Mr. Appleton aloud. Lillie smiled to herself when she noticed that he left out the parts in which Appleton gave him instructions and threatened him with what he would do if he didn't obey. A Master who had spent his life giving orders to others seemed not to want his own slaves to hear him taking them.

Mama gasped. “What does this mean, Master?” she asked when he was done.

“It means you're free, Franny,” the Master said sourly. “You and them as well.” He gestured absently at Lillie and Plato.

He reached into his coat pocket and reluctantly handed Mama the gold coins. Lillie's eyes welled when she saw the drawstring bag that held them. It was the same bag Papa had shown her just days before—still bearing traces of battlefield mud. The Master looked much sorrier at the prospect of losing his gold than at the prospect of losing his slaves, and Lillie took heart at that. Even before he had summoned them, she and Mama had discussed an idea.

“Sir,” Mama said now, “if you want some o' this gold back, we'll give it to you—'cept we want to trade it for two other slaves.” The Master didn't have to ask if those two slaves were Bett and Cal, but he asked anyway.

“Yes, sir,” Mama answered. “Them's the ones.”

Bett, they all knew, was almost worthless to the Master, but he demanded fifty dollars for her, which was far more than she would ever fetch at auction. Cal had a lot of years of labor ahead and the Master demanded two hundred dollars for him. Even that was less than he could have gotten if he sold the boy when he was fully grown, but the Master was in need of cash now and settled for the lower price. Mama returned the payment for both of them before the coins had even grown warm in her hands. Then the Master ordered them to wait where they were, while he retreated to his library to write out the manumission papers for the five of them. He handed them to Mama and assured her they were in order. Later, in their cabin, Lillie and Mama read them through carefully. The papers were properly drawn and signed and named the entire family, plus Bett and Cal, as the slaves to be freed.

All five were instructed to be off the Master's land by the very next morning. Lillie and the others used the one night they had left to pack their possessions and say their good-byes. Lillie ran to see Minervy, hugged the girl tight and told her to look after the babies and try to be brave. Minervy cried and promised she would. Lillie never set eyes on Sarabeth again, and that was fine with her. Sarabeth had been a better daughter to her father than she had been a friend to Lillie, and while that might be as it should be, she had done Lillie a terrible wrong all the same. The good and bad in all of that was more than Lillie wanted to sort out when she was feeling such joy.

Cal spent a final night in Nelly and George's cabin and realized only when he was leaving the next day that they must have become true parents to him—otherwise he'd not be feeling the sadness he was. He cried as he said good-bye to them, but took care to finish up before he saw Lillie.

By the time the work horn blew the next day, Samuel's wagon was hitched and waiting and the five of them were piling their bags aboard. As they were doing that, they heard footsteps crunching through the soil and turned to see Mr. Willis approaching. They froze at the sight of him—his whip coiled in his right hand, his expression a mixture of amusement and contempt.

“I reckon this is good-bye to the lot o' you,” he said as he drew near. He stopped and spat in the dirt at his feet.

“Yes, sir,” Mama said.

“Can't say I'm sorry to see any o' you go,” Willis went on with a small laugh, and then gestured to Plato. “Though this one woulda fetched a nice price.”

Plato pressed himself against Mama, who held him tight. Willis then looked at Mama squarely. “Course I do reckon I'll miss seein' your face, Franny,” he said. He took a few steps toward her, reached out and took hold of her chin. Mama shuddered, but Willis didn't notice and turned her head first one way, then the other. “You was a pretty one,” he said.

Before she could think, Lillie stepped forward. “Mr. Willis,” she said in a clear voice. “That's a freedwoman you're touchin'. She's my mama, and her name ain't Franny—it's Phibbi.” Then she glanced toward the Big House, where the Master would just be getting up and would expect a quiet day, with no sign of the five freed slaves when he emerged for his morning walk. He would not care for Mr. Willis causing any unpleasantness and disturbing those plans. Willis followed her eyes—and her thinking—and looked back at Lillie with an icy expression. Then he released Mama's chin with a snap, spat in the soil again and strode off.

Without another word, Lillie and the others climbed into the wagon. Two hours later, they were in Bluffton. While they were there, they stopped at the furniture store where Henry lived and gave him one hundred of the remaining two hundred and fifty gold dollars. That would not be enough for him to buy his wife and child back, but it would get him much closer—and allow the family to reunite much sooner. Shortly before nightfall, they all said their good-byes to Samuel, who turned his wagon around and headed back to Greenfog. Mama hired another wagon heading North—uncertain for the moment where they would all finally stop, but reckoning that Pennsylvania sounded like a fine and friendly place to live.

It would be only one more year before the war would be over and all the slaves on all the plantations would be free. In that time, however, the Greenfog slaves would still need their Friday bread, and the Master did allow the oldest of his kitchen maids to move into Bett's cabin and take over the work. Bett had schooled the woman well in the ways of baking over the years, and the two of them had hugged good-bye on the morning Bett left. With all the farewells, no one had paid any mind to the heavy-looking, loaf-sized bundle Bett was carrying among her few belongings. But the first time the new baker woman tried to use the oven, she did notice that a single brick was missing from inside it.

Author's Note

SLAVERY WILL ALWAYS count as America's greatest crime. It was a period defined by greed and cruelty and inhumanity. But for the slaves themselves and the people who tried to help them, it was also a time of courage and sacrifice and sometimes even joy.
Freedom Stone
is a work of imagination, but it's also one in which I have tried to include both of those sides of the Civil War South.

To the extent that I have succeeded in doing that, I owe thanks to what I learned from some fine historical works. Among them are:
The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South
, by John W. Blassingame;
Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made
, by Eugene D. Genovese; and, most remarkably,
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano,
the 1789 autobiography of a slave who won his freedom and then told his tale. It is a moving and extraordinary book.

As always, I also owe thanks to my friend, confidante and agent, Joy Harris, of the Joy Harris Literary Agency. There is none wiser or better, and I am lucky to know her. Thanks too to Michael Green of Philomel Books, for giving
Freedom Stone
the thumbs-up, and to Jill Santopolo whose suggestions and recommended edits were always smart, insightful and precise. It is a far better book for having spent time in her care. For reading the manuscript and offering advice, appreciation goes to Steve Kluger and Garry Kluger, as well as to Kevin McAuliffe, the kind of grade-school teacher every child deserves but only the luckiest ones get.

Finally, my deep love to Alejandra, whose strength and love of family brought life to the character of Mama; and to Elisa and Paloma, who enchant and amaze me daily.