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"Under the hanging tree," he said ominously.

I nodded and then I was gone.

I ran as fast as I could toward the Tomb, having made up
my mind that Champ Noland was the first man that I had
to free.

Again I was amazed at how fast I could run. I moved as
nimbly as an African cheetah and so was in front of the small
prison in no time at all. But when I got there I saw that it
was padlocked.

I knew where the key to the Tomb was kept because of
all the years I'd spent near Mama Flore. It was on a hook in
the kitchen. With my newfound speed I ran to the back
kitchen door. I found a ring of keys hanging from the hook.
Then I hurried toward the Tomb and tried three keys be
fore one of them opened the padlock.

"Champ!" I cried.

He was curled up on the floor with his head down between his knees. When he heard my voice he roused himself and raised his eyes to see who had opened his door.

At once I went to work finding the right key for his

manacles.

His face was all bruised and the flesh above both his eyes
was swollen from beatings. There was dried blood about
his mouth and there was something wrong with his jaw.
"What you doin' here, Forty-seven?"
"Men wit' guns comin'," I said, still fumbling for the
right key. "We gotta get the other slaves and run 'fore they
kill us all."

I might have been John's people's hero but Champ
Noland was mine. He took in my words and forgot his pain
and torture. I found the right key and his chains fell away.
He rose up and strode out of that prison just as if it was any
other door. He knew that if Tobias had seen him defy his punishment that he would be killed no matter how valu
able he was as a worker and a stud. But having heard my call he rose to the task regardless of the danger.

"AWAKEN, TOBIAS TURNER AND TENNESSEE
BOB AND WILLIAM THORNDEN AND MILLER
JONES!" the voice boomed in my head so loudly that I
lowered almost to the ground.

"What's the mattah, Forty-seven?" Champ asked. "You

shot?"

"Don't you hear it, Champ?" I said.

He pulled me to my feet and started dragging me
toward the slave quarters.

"RISE ALL YOU MEN OF THE CORINTHIAN
PLANTATION!" the voice boomed again. "BRIGANDS
ARE ATTACKING WITH MUSKETS AND KNIVES!"

I knew that it was John somehow speaking in my mind
and in the minds of all the sleeping white inhabitants of
the Corinthian Plantation. I could hear the voice because
of the light in my chest but Tall John wasn't speaking to
the slaves, and so Champ remained ignorant of the call.

As we moved toward the slave quarters the voice got
weaker. And by the time we were at the men's cabin I
could barely make it out at all.

"Wake up, boys, they tryin' to kill us all!" Champ yelled as
we barged into the men's quarters.

"What you doin' here, Champ Noland?" Pritchard asked
as he rose up from Mud Albert's mattress.

I realized in that instant that Pritchard had been given
the job as the new top boy in the cabin. Mud Albert wasn't
even in his grave yet and the cowardly, mean-hearted
Pritchard had already taken his place.

Champ stepped forward and struck Pritchard a mighty
blow while still shouting, "Wake up, men, they comin' to
kill us!"

Champ took the key from Pritchard's belt and ran from cot to cot unlocking shackles.

"Go to the women's cabin," Champ told Number Thirty-
three. "Run down there and tell 'em all to run!"

Thirty-three, a tall slave with coal-black skin, hesitated
for just a moment, then he grabbed the keys from Champ's
hand and ran out the door. Meanwhile all the men I had
sweated and strained with in the cotton fields leaped from
their cots. The sun was coming up and I heard a crack from
over where the mansion stood. After a moment there were
more cracking sounds and someone cried, "Gunfire!"

The men started shouting then. They rushed out of the
cabin and scattered. I came to the door and in the first
weak rays of dawn I could see fighting in front of the mas
ter's mansion. There were flames rising from his house.

"Mama Flore!" I shouted, and then I was running.

21
.

White men were firing their muskets and fighting hand to
hand in front of the mansion. I saw Tobias and two of his
men struggling with the bald and disfigured Mr. Stewart.
Stewart had superhuman strength. As soon as one of those
men jumped on him he'd throw that man off as if he were a child. Tobias and his men kept coming though.

It was a terrible sight but I didn't have the time to worry
about what happened to Tobias and his people. All I cared about was Mama Flore.

The flames from the mansion had spread to the barn. I hastened to Mama Flore's side. She was still unconscious. I tried to lift her but the speed John had given me had little effect on my strength. I could barely lift one of Mama
Flore's big arms.

I could hear the yells and struggles outside of the barn
while the flames crackled around, closing in.

"Wake up, Big Mama!" I cried. "Wake up! It's a fire!"

When she didn't stir I took her by the arm, intent on

dragging her from the blazing barn. I had managed to move
her about three feet when my strength gave out.

I looked around to see if there was a blanket that I could
roll her onto. I thought maybe pulling the blanket under
her would allow me to move her. In one stall I saw a blanket and grabbed it before realizing that it was the pall John
had used to cover Mud Albert's body. I was mesmerized
by the uncomfortable pose of his death. I thought that he
would remain like that through all eternity, all twisted up
and suffering because of Tobias and his evil.
I hurried back to Flore's unconscious body.
I was afraid of being burned to death in the barn but I
couldn't bring myself to leave the only mother I ever knew. I begged her to wake up but she was still unconscious from
that white man hitting her.

The barn door was just beginning to burn when it burst open and Champ Noland came running in. He went to Big Mama and took her up in his arms.

"Come on, boy," Champ told me. "Let's go out the back
and put Flore in the carriage."

Even though the back door was covered in flame Champ
managed to kick it open.

I saw that he'd found the carriage that I'd led to the
barn earlier. He hefted Flore into the back, jumped up in the driver's seat, and turned to help me up, but I was already at his side using my newfound speed.

Champ yelled at the gray mare and we took off. There
was gunfire now and then and plenty of shouting from the
fight in front of the plantation. On our way down the road be
hind the mansion a white man, Roger Brice, jumped at us.

He landed on the side of the buggy and yelled at
Champ, "Pull this wagon ovah, niggah!"

For the first time in his life Champ did not obey the di
rect order of a white man. Instead he lifted Brice by the
front of his pants and threw him off into a ditch on the side
of the road. The bearded white man hit the ground hard
and he didn't rise to continue his attack.

Champ and I looked at each other then, and even
though we didn't say a word we knew the content of each
others' minds. Champ had used his great strength to fight
back against a white man. He might have killed that man.
It wasn't just a crime punishable by torture and death but
it was also unheard of in the history of us slaves. It was as if
he had broken some higher law that would call down hell-
fire upon us.

I had already conspired to attack Mr. Stewart with
Eighty-four. I had thrown my rock at him. Eighty-four had
struck him in the head. But neither act seemed as bad as a
full-grown man-slave going against a white man. A man-slave throwing off the yoke of slavery meant that the rules
we had lived by our entire lives had been broken.

We both turned our heads to the sky, looking for God's
retribution. But it didn't come. Champ yelled at Tobias's
horse again and we were hurrying away from the scene of
the battle.

In the distance we could see the tall flames rise from the Corinthian Plantation. The sounds of the battle faded but then I heard something like both a gasp and a scream.

"Did you hear that, Champ?" I asked.

"What?"

I heard another scream. It was a girl.

"That," I said.

"I don't heah nuthin', Forty-seven," Champ replied,
cocking his ear.

"Stop the wagon, Champ. Stop it."

He did as I said just as soon as he was sure that we were
hidden behind a stand of dark trees.

"What's wrong, boy?"

"You know where the hangin' oak is?" I asked him.

"I guess I do," he said. "They hanged the man I called
uncle from there onceit."

"Numbah Twelve will be theah waitin' for me. You go
to him and I'll be by in just a while."

"Where you goin'?"

"Hand me that rope from under yo' "seat," I said.

Big Champ Noland did as I asked and I ran off in the woods faster than a deer fleeing a cougar.

Running through the deep forest toward the sound of
the girl's scream, I realized that it wasn't one girl yelling,
but two.

I was agitated and afraid for my life and the lives of the
only family I had ever known. But even though I was so
distressed it was still amazing to me how I managed to run
through those woods. My feet moved surely between the
low-slung branches, and if there was no place to stand I easily climbed high and moved quickly through the upper branches like a wily chipmunk avoiding some land-bound
predator. At times I was nearly at the top of the trees, find
ing the fastest footholds there.

I was at such a lofty place when I saw Mr. Stewart fall
upon Eloise Turner and her faithful servant, and half-sister,
Nola. Eloise, dressed in a mere slip and barefoot, was trying
to evade the leather-skinned madman while Nola, wear
ing only a nightshirt herself, was standing to the side yell
ing for help.

Stewart grabbed Eloise and lifted her in the air.

"Help me!" she cried, and I remembered when Pritchard
had slapped me silly and branded me.

I knew I had to save those two girls. I knew I had to face
my fear of the man who daunted me since as far back as I
could remember. But before I could steel myself Nola ran forward and threw a rock, hitting Stewart in the head. That blow would have knocked any ordinary man out cold. But Elias Ainsworthy Stewart was no longer an ordinary man. He had risen after Eighty-four delivered a fatal blow to his
head, and so Nola's pebble wasn't going to bother him.

The stone made a metallic sound upon striking his
skull, and for a moment Stewart froze, tilting his head as if
he had forgotten something. Eloise was screaming and I
chose that moment to jump down from the tree.

I came down on the ground behind Stewart. I made to
run up to him but I tripped on something soft. I was up on
my feet soon enough but then I saw that the obstacle that
made me fall was the body of Tobias Turner. He was lying
half on his side with his head turned at an impossible an
gle. He wore black pants and a white shirt with the tails out
and no shoes. It was his bare feet that made me feel sorry for him. The big difference between the master and all of
his slaves was that he was always shod and we never were.
Now that he was fallen down to our level even the musket
lying next to his outstretched hand was impotent.