Stealing Freedom (4 page)

Richard was crying, and blood trickled out of his nose. “I'll show you who's bigger,” he sobbed. He turned and ran through the woods.

“What a coward,” said Joseph, brushing the leaves off his clothes.

Ann's stomach was in a tight knot, and she saw the look of fear on Addison's face. Was Joseph just incredibly brave? Or was he too young to understand, too young to remember what they'd done to Augustus for letting the oxen loose by
accident?

“We better get back to the others,” said Addison quickly.

They walked through the forest, silent except for Joseph's occasional comments about the fight. “He kicked me when I
wasn't even looking! What a yellow belly!” and “He's got no more strength than Rachel's baby sisters. I'll call him Tiny Richie from now on.”

By the time they got to the clearing, Ann's stomach felt as if an entire flock of geese had been let loose in it. Her father had already left to work for Mrs. Griffith, who paid him for his time, and many of the children and other adults had already gone fishing or gone home. Her mother was gathering plates with Catharine and wiping them with sand and leaves.

“Mamma! Catharine!” Ann ran to them, ready to blurt out the whole story, but her mother spoke first.

“Ann Maria, you help us with these things. We're going on home. I've got sewing to tend to.” She didn't even look up from her plate cleaning to see Joseph's bruised jaw.

It wasn't like Arabella to give up the one day she could chat and laugh with family and friends to go back home and work. But Ann didn't question. She helped gather the skillet, plates, and spoons they'd brought and balanced the heavy carrying basket on her hip as they began the walk home. The boys ran ahead and Ann hung back with Catharine.

“Why doesn't Mamma want to stay?” she asked her sister in a low voice.

Catharine shook her head. “I don't know. Everybody has long faces, and nobody is telling us children a word about it.”

Ann frowned, wondering. There had been a few folks missing today—a couple of the oldest neighbors hadn't come, and Lizzy had stayed home with Alice, the baby. “Maybe someone is sick and they don't want to worry us,” she suggested.

Catharine nodded. “Maybe.”

Suddenly Ann stopped short. “I've got to go back. I didn't get to see Uncle Abram.”

“Aunt Mimi and Uncle Abram left a long time ago,” said Catharine.

Ann pouted.

“You'll see them next Sunday,” Catharine said in answer to her pout. “Come on.”

By the time they reached their cabin, Master Charles was already in the front yard, and their mother was trying to calm him down.

“He's just a child, Master Charles. You let me take care of him. I'll whip him good and teach him some manners.” Her voice held a false calmness covering a layer of fear.

It was obvious that Master Charles had observed the Sabbath as he usually did, by drinking enough rum to make his actions as unpredictable as a storm.

“I'll be the one to teach him. Bring him out here.” Charles Price stood in the low sunlight, wavering slightly, a horsewhip in his hands. His startlingly blue eyes were bloodshot and ill-focused, and his curling brown hair was matted with perspiration.

“Now, Master Charles, let me get you a cool drink of water and you have a seat in the shade here. I'll take care of my son Joseph, and he'll never dream of laying a hand on Master Richard ever again. You'll see.” Arabella tried again to soothe him, but Master Charles threw down the whip, shoved her aside, and opened the door to the cabin himself. He emerged dragging Addison and Joseph by the necks of their shirts. The boys stumbled as they were yanked along. Addison was crying. Catharine slipped by them into the cabin.

“Which one is it?” Master Charles demanded.

For the first time Ann saw Richard, huddled next to a tree, pale as buttermilk. He did not answer his brother.

“I said, Which one is it? Answer me or I'll whip them both!” he bellowed.

Richard pointed feebly at Joseph.

Master Charles threw Addison to the ground and yanked Joseph's shirt off, tearing it. Then he pulled him over to the tree. “Tie him up,” he ordered Richard.

“He can just apologize,” Richard said in a tiny, quavering voice. “I didn't—”

“I said, Tie him up!” Master Charles shouted. He grew red in the face. “No nigger of mine is going to raise his hand to a white child and get away with it.”

Richard clutched the tree as if it were the only thing holding him up, and did not move. Master Charles tied Joseph to the tree himself.

Ann dropped to her knees. The rhythm pounded in her head:
Helpless, helpless, helpless…

Crack.

The leather whip sliced Joseph's tender back. Joseph's body jolted, but he didn't cry out.

Crack.

A second welt opened. Blood trickled down.

Crack.

Joseph's legs shook. Blood seeped onto his trousers. Still, he was silent.

Crack.

“Stop!” Ann heard the shout. She realized it was her own
voice when everyone turned to stare at her. Suddenly horrified that she'd dared to challenge her master, she felt faint. But Master Charles had stopped swinging the whip, so she kept talking. “It's
my
fault,” she said loudly. “Whip me, not Joseph. I lied to Richard. I…”

But the exertion in the heat must have been too much for the drunken Charles Price. He gazed at her dumbfounded for a moment, then staggered a few steps, fell down on all fours, and vomited.

Boldly, Ann untied the rope that held Joseph to the tree. She looped his arm over her shoulders and helped him across the yard. Catharine rushed out of the cabin carrying a pot of heated water, cloudy with salt.

“Lay him down so I can pour this over the wounds,” said Catharine.

Ann helped him down. Catharine poured. Then, and only then, did Joseph scream.

“No good ever came out of a lie, baby girl.”

Ann had cried so many tears into her father's rough shirt, she didn't think she had any left.

“Now, you didn't make Master Richard start that fight with Joseph, and you didn't make Joseph fight him back, and you didn't make Master Charles pick up that whip. So I want you to stop this crying, you hear?” He held her face and she nodded.

She went to say good night to Joseph. Tonight he would share the pile of rags their parents slept on in front of the hearth downstairs, instead of climbing the ladder to sleep on the wooden floor of the loft.

“I guess I proved to that old Richard I'm tougher than he is,” said Joseph, lying on his belly with his chin propped on his fists.

Ann touched his cheek. When had her baby brother become so rock hard? “You are
dang
tough, Joseph S. Weems,”
she said. “But I wish you'd leave Richard alone from now on.”

Joseph made a face. “I can manage myself with Richard and Charles and William and the whole lot of them.”

His words sent a chill through her. To speak of Master Charles or Master William by only their first names was an offense worth at least twenty lashes from the horsewhip. “Shush, Joseph. You don't need more trouble. I am painfully sorry for this trouble I caused you, but please don't bring more on yourself.”

“Don't worry about me,” he said. He tried to turn on his side, but winced, groaned, and flopped back over on his belly.

“You'll feel better in the morning,” she promised him.

Mistress Carol insisted that the flower beds around the tavern be kept weeded, watered, trimmed and generally better taken care of than even the oxen. She couldn't control the mud in the front yard, but she could protect the flowers next to the house, which she believed would attract customers to the inn and tavern. Ann thought the free-flowing rum and ale, along with a hot dinner for fifty cents for a gentleman and thirty-three and a third cents for a gentleman's servant was plenty to attract people to the tavern. And she thought that a long day on the red, dusty road from Annapolis or Baltimore was enough to cause anyone passing in the evening to want a place to stable their horses and livestock and stay the night. Nevertheless, the flowers, Mistress Carol demanded, must be perfect.

Sitting in the shade of the tall magnolia, Ann pulled out weeds and snipped off dead marigold blossoms. The windows
to the house were closed to the midday heat, and the voices inside droned in a murmur.

Suddenly the window above her head was flung open, and she had to press herself against the wall of the house to avoid a dribble of slimy brown liquid dumped from a spittoon. The voices were instantly clear.

“I have no peace in my home. I must do
something.
“ That was Master Charles.

“You can't sell off one without the other.” That was Master William's voice. “If you do, they'll run—especially now, with those two from up the road gone off.”

“Then I'll sell Ellie. That would help pay the debt, and the boy is too young to run.”

“Son, I know it would pain you to sell the boy, but the only way to make peace with your wife is to send them both away.”

There was a loud snap and the window closed on their conversation.

Ann sat motionless in the flower bed. Should she go tell Ellie? Tell her to run with Benjamin before she got sold away from him? The thought made her queasy. She didn't want to think about anyone running, especially running and getting caught. And Ellie was neither brave enough nor strong enough to run. Better to trust that Master Charles would listen to his father and sell Ellie and Benjamin together. She would miss them, but that would be best.

At home that evening, Ann told her mother what she had heard.

“And he thinks that wife of his will be less of a witch as soon as he sends them away?” her mother scoffed. “Women don't
forget so easily. That man has a lifetime of anger from her to live with.” She stirred the cornmeal so violently, sprinkles of it flew out of the bowl. “Ellie is a good woman, and I'd hate to see her go, but if she gets away from Master Charles, she'll rest easier at night, for sure.”

Ann pulled two ants out of the pile of turnip greens she'd just picked.

“What else did you hear, Ann Maria?” her mother asked.

“Nothing much else. Just that Master Charles has some debt he has to pay—that's why he wants to sell Ellie and Benjamin.”

Her mother stopped stirring and looked worried. “What kind of debt? Did they say if it was big?”

Ann shook her head. “He said that the sale would help pay for it, that's all. Oh—and that two slaves have run off. Do you think it's anyone we know?”

Her mother sank onto the dinner bench and held her head in her hands. “Lord, you've got to protect them,” she whispered.

Ann stepped behind her mother and wrapped her arms around her neck. “We know them, Mamma?” she asked softly.

“It's your aunt Mimi and uncle Abram.”

Ann's throat tightened. She buried her face against her mother's neck. “Mamma?” she said in a small voice.

“Yes, baby.”

“I never got to say good-bye.”

Every night before supper they prayed for Uncle Abram and Aunt Mimi's safety. And every day that there was no news of their capture felt like a victory. Uncle Abram had promised Ann's parents that somehow he'd send word when they were safely in the North. So they waited, happy to hear no bad news and anxious to hear good news.

Joseph's wounds healed and left raised scars. Joseph didn't lose any of his spirit. He just gained a hotter temper.

Somehow, too, something healed between them and Richard. It wasn't that Richard apologized—he would never have done that. He did, however, start giving them things. First he gave Joseph the Indian headdress. It was just a bunch of crow feathers sewn onto a leather strap from an old horse harness, but he said it would look better on Joseph than on him. Then he gave Ann his two favorite marbles. Ann didn't see how he could tell the difference between one marble and another, since they were all made of the same creamy white clay, but nevertheless Richard claimed those two were his favorites. Ann saw
the gifts as the closest thing to an apology Richard could muster, and began to let herself forgive him.

The first tinges of crimson crept into the maple leaves, and the evenings grew cool. Ann's father and brothers worked long hours harvesting the tobacco and hanging the huge leaves to dry in heavy bunches in the tobacco barns.

The pumpkins in the garden turned from green to orange, and when Mrs. Griffith paid her father in molasses instead of coins one Sunday, Ann's mother happily picked one of the pumpkins, chopped it up, boiled it, and turned it into the most delicious pumpkin pudding Ann had ever tasted. That is, until the Sunday Richard brought a gift of pumpkin pudding for Ann, Addison, and Joseph to share with him while sitting on sun-warmed rocks next to the Patuxent River. He'd stuffed it into the leather bag that normally held his marble collection, and since he'd not stolen any spoons along with the pudding, the only way to eat it was to tip their heads back and squeeze bits of it into their mouths.

Ann's first taste was so delicious she closed her eyes to keep the flavor swimming on her tongue for as long as possible.

“Is it good?” asked Richard hopefully.

“Mmm-hmmm,” Ann answered, while waiting eagerly for the pudding to be passed to her again.

Addison licked his fingers. “What's in it that tastes so good?” he asked.

Richard shrugged. “Just pudding, I guess.” He dangled one foot over the side of the rock he was sitting on and swung it.

Joseph shook his head. “No. There's something in it I've never tasted before.”

Addison and Ann agreed.

Richard sniffed the nearly empty sack. “It just smells like nutmeg and cloves and cinnamon—like any other pumpkin pudding.”

The three Weems children exchanged glances. Certainly Ann had heard Mistress Carol talk about how she needed more nutmeg from the market, or tell Ellie not to use too much cloves and cinnamon in the hot cider, but she'd never actually
tasted
any of those things.

Joseph stuck out his chin and gave Richard a challenging stare. “I don't believe you.”

Richard's eyes widened. “What do you mean? What else would there be in pumpkin pudding?”