Freedom Stone (7 page)

“That's Coal Mine,” he said.

“Them's sharp eyes,” Willis answered. “Coal Mine's who it is.”

That was a very bad turn. Coal Mine was one of the biggest horses at Greenfog and easily the orneriest, a beast so ill-tempered it snorted and bit even when it was in a good frame of mind. The horse had been given its name on account of its deep, black coat, but none of the slaves ever addressed him that way, since—unlike any horse they'd ever seen—Coal Mine seemed to grow angrier at the very sound of his name. The safest way to address him was usually just “you horse!”—at least until he took offense to that too.

Cal slowly approached the field, stopping when he was still a good fifteen feet away from the horse and the plow. Willis looked at him with a small, mean smile.

“The matter, boy?” he asked. “You ain't scared, are you?”

“No, sir,” Cal said.

“You don't wanna go back to bird chasin', do you?”

“No, sir.”

“Then get yourself in harness and get behind that animal,” Willis instructed.

Cal nodded but didn't move.

“Now,” the man said.

Cal circled nervously around Coal Mine and stepped toward the harness laid out along the ground. He lifted the heavy leather shoulder straps, jostling them as little as possible. Coal Mine snorted menacingly.

“Faster, boy!” Willis snapped. “Morning's half gone already.”

Cal slipped the rest of the way into the harness, took hold of the reins, then snapped them and clicked his tongue the way he'd seen the grown slaves do. To his surprise, Coal Mine started to move. Even Mr. Willis looked like he hadn't expected that and grunted in what was either approval or annoyance. After a few moments of watching Cal at work, he turned to go back to the tobacco fields, warning Cal before he left that he'd be back to check on him and, if he saw him slacking, would whip him soundly. “Unless I don't jes' feed you to that horse,” he added with a laugh.

For a little while after Mr. Willis left, Cal and Coal Mine got on passably well, but their work was not easy. The plow would never go more than a few feet before coming up against a slab of stone so big that the clank of the blade would vibrate right through the rigging and into the boy and the horse themselves, causing both to jump. Cal would then have to creep forward and clear away the obstacle before he could go any farther—always keeping low so as to dodge a hoof if it came his way. After enough clangs and enough delays, Coal Mine had had enough, stopping cold in the field and refusing to move. Cal clicked his tongue and the horse did nothing; he snapped the reins, and the horse kicked out. He tried doing both at once and Coal Mine first reared up and then kicked back, doing both so furiously that Cal was convinced the animal was going to tip the plow and rip the riggings.

“Ain't seen no one handle this horse so poor before,” Mr. Willis's voice called out as he breasted back through the tobacco plants, nodding his head in mock disappointment. “I guess two beasts as thick as the pair of you just wasn't meant to be together.”

“We was fine for a time, sir,” Cal said, “but I can't make him do nothin' now.”

“You best try harder,” Willis snapped. “You push on him yet?”

“
Push
on him, sir?”

“You got mud in your ears, boy?”

“Mr. Willis, I touch that horse, and he'll kill me sure.”

“You don't touch him, and I'll kill you sure. Stand off to the side and push him from there if you're so afraid. He kicks then, you might just dodge them hooves.”

Cal looked at Willis warily, then at Coal Mine, and concluded he stood a better chance with the animal than with the man. He dropped the reins and harness, crept toward Coal Mine's left flank, and placed his hands on the hindquarters. The horse felt bristly and hot and, to Cal's surprise, did not react to his touch. Cal pushed gently, and Coal Mine snorted loudly.

“More!” Willis commanded.

Cal pushed Coal Mine harder and the animal snorted louder.

“More!” Willis shouted, snapping his whip loudly.

Cal drew a breath, closed his eyes and did as he was told, shoving Coal Mine hard enough to tell even the dimmest horse it had to move. “You horse!” he shouted for extra measure.

At that, Coal Mine produced a sound Cal had never heard from a horse before—less a snort than a roar. He lashed back with his hooves once, and then again, and still again. On that last one, he twisted his body as he kicked, whipped a hind leg around and clipped Cal hard on the side of the head. The hoof and shoe met scalp and skull and the world seemed to explode in a burst of blackness and sparkles, accompanied by a pain so great it passed beyond pain altogether. Cal felt himself flying through the air and then hitting the ground with a hard, blind thump that shook all his bones and snapped his head back even more violently than the kick had. Cal heard nothing, saw nothing and lay completely still, reckoning with a strange sort of calm that this was probably the end of him and that, with his head and bones all likely broke, that just might be a good thing. After a time—there was no telling how long—the blackness began to part and he heard Mr. Willis's voice, muffled and thick as if it were coming through molasses.

“Get up, boy,” it sounded like the voice was saying.

Cal could not move.

“Get up,” the voice repeated.

Cal opened his eyes and saw the overseer standing above him. The man was bent over and squinting at him hard, with an unfamiliar expression on his face. The expression would have passed for concern if Cal had been a white child, but was likelier an expression of worry that one piece of the Master's property might have been broken beyond repair by another piece and that Willis himself might have to pay for the damage.

“You're fine,” Willis said, and Cal now heard him more clearly. “That animal only nicked you. He'da hit you square, you'd be dead now.”

Lifting himself on his elbows, Cal looked dizzily about and saw other slaves running toward him. Racing through their legs was Plato and behind him, his mama. Plato had been watching Cal admiringly as he worked Coal Mine along the plow line; the moment the horse kicked out, the boy took off.

“Is he gonna die, Mama?” Plato cried. “Is he gonna die?”

“Stand back!” Willis commanded. Plato kept running and when he came within reach, Willis shoved him away hard.

“Come to me, child!” Mama commanded. “This ain't your affair!”

“Hold that boy 'fore I decide not to wait for the appraiser and just sell him off today!” Willis yelled. Mama grabbed Plato and held him close

Cal sat the rest of the way up, feeling dizzy enough to lose his breakfast. His eyes seemed to be loose in their sockets. His face was sticky with blood flowing from a cut where the horse's hoof had hit. In the ground was an impression as deep as a bowl where his head had struck and sunk.

“I ain't gonna die,” Cal said dully to Plato. His own voice sounded odd and echolike to him.

Two slave men stepped forward to help Cal to his feet and Willis glared at them. “The boy's gonna get up on his own,” he said.

The men stepped back and Cal rose slowly to a crouch, steadied himself and stood up cautiously. He wiped the blood from his cheek and then, absently, wiped his hand on his shirt. He turned to Plato, flashed a weak smile—and then winked. Plato beamed.

“Somethin' funny to you?” Willis shouted at Cal.

“No, sir,” Cal answered.

“To you?” he yelled even more fiercely at Plato.

Plato shook his head in a terrified no.

“You ready to get back behind that plow?” Willis barked at Cal.

Cal hesitated. “Yes, sir,” he answered, his head throbbing with the mere effort of speaking.

“Louder!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Again!”

“Yes, sir!” Cal shouted this time, wincing with the jolt of pain that seemed to go through his brain.

“Once more!” Willis screamed, snapping his whip at the ground next to Cal. “Answer me, boy, and answer me loud!”

“Yes, sir!” Cal now shouted as loudly as he could. “Yes sir, yes sir, yes sir!”

With that, Cal's eyes widened and his nostrils flared, and the people in the crowd looked at him and froze. In that instant, they could see, Cal was about to do the most dangerous thing any slave could do: He was about to forget who he was. He was no longer just the property of the Master doing the bidding of the overseer. He was a blameless boy being tormented by a small, cruel man with a whip. A slave who let himself think that way was a slave getting set to scream or curse or even strike out, and to earn himself a whipping so severe it would cut the flesh from his bones. In Willis's eyes there was a quick, cold spark as he braced for the blow—a blow, it was suddenly clear, he'd been hoping for all morning. In a flash, the two slave men who'd tried to help Cal before leapt forward and grabbed him hard. One of them pinned the boy's arms by his side, while the other slapped him hard across the face.

“Don't do it, boy,” the one holding him hissed into his ear. “Don't do it.”

Willis glared furiously at the men, then turned to Cal and fixed him with a poisonous look. “You're no good, boy!” he shouted, his pasty skin turning an angry crimson and a small, wormlike vein bulging in his forehead. “No good even for a slave. I'd whip you till there weren't nothing left to whip if the Master didn't think he could make a coin offa you. You best just hope he sells you before I kill you— because that's what I aims to do! Now get back in that plow harness! The rest of you, back to work!”

The slaves edged away slowly, dispersing back into the field. The two men who had hold of Cal carried him bodily back to the plow and waited there until he had himself back in harness. Plato stood staring, and Mama turned him around by his shoulders and ordered him back to the fields. When the boy was gone, Mama approached Cal, touched his cheek and turned his head so she could examine him. The blood was oozing from a lump the size of an egg and Mama winced at the sight of it. Mr. Willis had been right; if that horse had kicked him square, Cal would be dead. She looked him in the eye.

“Keep hold of yourself, son,” she said. “He means what he says.”

Chapter Eight

MAMA WAS NOT happy when Lillie told her she'd be traveling to Bluffton with Bett. News like this was not the kind of thing that would have pleased Mama on any day, but having already seen Cal get kicked by the horse as the morning was just beginning, she had about had her fill of the kinds of trouble children their age could cook up for themselves.

“Are you tryin' to get yourselves sold?” Mama asked when Lillie told her about her plans.

“But, Mama,” Lillie said, “Bett almost always takes a child with her when she goes to Bluffton.”

“A small child,” Mama said. “Girls as old as you got work to do right here.”

The matter would have ended there, but Lillie's eyes looked so bright at the idea of leaving the grounds—brighter than they'd looked at any time since Papa died—that Mama couldn't bring herself to say no. The world could be tiny for any slave, especially one with the restless spirit of a child. If the plantation's gates opened even a little, it would be flat cruel not to let Lillie go through them. Mama swallowed her worries and said yes.

It was, as Bett had promised, just two mornings later that she and Lillie set out on their journey. Mama and Plato accompanied Lillie to the stable, where the wagon would be getting readied for the trip. The girl's breath quickened with each step that took her farther away from the cabin. Plato noticed her rising excitement and looked at his sister enviously.

“How come I can't go too, Mama?” he said.

“Hush, boy,” Mama answered. “I can't have the both of you to worry about.”

When the three of them rounded the path that led to the stables, they could see that the horse and wagon were already waiting and Bett had settled into one of the seats behind Samuel, the old wagon driver. Samuel had spent much of his life on the plantation and had never done any job but tending the horses and driving the Master or the other slaves. A tall, broad man with large, powerful hands, Samuel would once have been considered good protection for a woman and a girl traveling by themselves. But he was now past sixty—very old for a slave and even for many white men—and sometimes he seemed barely able to look after himself anymore. Mama regarded him uneasily.

Lillie pulled free of Mama's hand, which she had been holding since they left the cabin, and sprinted ahead. She hopped up lightly into the seat beside Bett and kissed the old woman on the cheek. Bett patted her hand. Mama and Plato trotted up after her.

“You have your traveling pass?” Mama asked Samuel. The old man smiled and patted his breast pocket, then looked alarmed. He groped in his jacket for the paper that was the only thing that would protect them from slave catchers if they left the plantation without a white adult accompanying them. The paper was not there.

“Samuel!” Mama cried.

“Phibbi,” Bett said evenly, “quit your worryin'. I got it here.” She patted her apron pocket and Mama could see the edge of the precious paper poking from the top. “Samuel gave it to me already; he just forgot.” Samuel looked embarrassed, and Lillie and Bett smiled. Mama didn't.

“All right, then,” Mama said, waving her hands impatiently. “If you're gonna go, go. Soonest you leave is the soonest you come back.”

“Yes, Miss Phibbi,” Samuel said. He turned to Bett. “All right, Miss Bett?”

Bett nodded and Samuel snapped the reins. The wagon jerked into motion, and as it did, so did Lillie's heart, pounding in anticipation behind her breastbone. She waved excitedly to Plato—who waved back sulkily—and blew a kiss to Mama; then she watched them dwindle behind her as the horse clopped away. When Lillie could see them no more, she turned ahead, looking all about herself as the wagon bounced past the slave cabins, circled around the side of the Big House and headed for the long, tree-lined drive that led past the plantation gate and into the swirling world beyond.