Which Way Freedom (6 page)

“No.” Wilson looked at Jason. “Finish feedin' them animals.” Jason scrambled back into the hayloft.

When Obi went to supper, Martha Jennings stayed in the kitchen again while they ate. Her face was hidden as she bent over her mending.

“Mistress, I help you,” Easter called from the table. “Why don't you wait till we finish eat?”

“Don't fret about me,” Martha said.

Obi took a piece of corn bread, but he was too nervous to eat.

“We takin' the tobacco to the plantation,” he said to Easter.

She looked worried. “Tonight?”

“Master Wilson say I can't go,” Jason whined.

Martha started to say something to Jason, but Wilson came into the kitchen. “Let's move on,” he ordered. Obi got up from the table.

Jason helped Easter stack the wooden plates.

“Come on, I ain't got time for all that,” Wilson said to Easter. He nodded in Jason's direction. “Let him clean.”

At first, Easter didn't realize that Wilson was talking to her.

“Yes, suh?” she said, looking confused.

“You're comin' too.”

Easter dropped the plates on the table and turned to Martha. Martha rose quickly from her chair, visibly trembling.
“You and Obi are goin' to the Phillipses' to hire out as field hands for their cotton crop.”

Easter looked as if she were about to cry. “Mistress, what about the tobacco croppin'?”

“We'll finish that ourselves. Most of it's done now.” The shirt Martha was mending fell unnoticed to the floor. “They hirin' you out early. Don't want to lose money.”

Wilson gave Martha a disgusted look and waited in the doorway.

“What about me, Mistress?” Jason's frightened eyes filled with tears.

“Boy, you're too young to hire out,” she said.

Easter went over to Martha. She clutched her arm. “Mistress, why we have to go now? We never hire out this early—”

“Gal, what's wrong with you?” Wilson yelled angrily. “Come on!”

Obi pulled Easter away. “Come on, Easter. We go now.”

Not only will we abstain from all interferences with your
slaves, but we will, with an iron hand, crush any attempt
insurrection on their part.

From the Proclamation to
the People of Western Virginia,
May 26, 1861
General George B. McClellan, Union Army

Easter put her arms around Jason's shoulders as they watched Obi bring the mules with the wagons out of the barn. “We see you soon, Jason. Don't cry, now,” she said, wiping his face. The hot, humid air was heavy.

“You an' Obi comin' back?”

She bent down and kissed him on his forehead, her voice cracking. “We be back—soon.” Easter climbed behind Obi on one of the mules, and Wilson mounted the other. Jason waved, his small mouth quivering as he tried not to cry. Martha came out of the kitchen and stood behind him. Easter waved and looked back until she could no longer see Jason and Martha in the gathering dusk.

Obi knew that this was the last they'd see of the Jennings farm. He didn't know how, but they'd get to Buka tonight.

“I know somethin' go wrong, Obi,” Easter said softly. “I feel it all day.” She held him tightly around his waist. Because of the wagon clanging noisily down the road, the words were hidden from Wilson, who rode behind.

“How we get to the creek now?” she asked.

“We find some way. Now I see why Wilson rush us to work so hard.”

Easter squirmed. “We never work in the field at Master Phillips.” She sighed. “Obi, it take three week for the cotton crop to be pick. This way they make some of the money they would from hirin' us out in the winter.”

“They have us sold before the soldiers come back,” Obi said. His head swirled. He had no idea how they'd be able to sneak off the closely guarded plantation. “Maybe we find someone there who help us get to Buka. Or who tell Buka where we are.”

“But we have to get Jason too,” she reminded him.

He hadn't thought about Jason. “We have to sneak back in the house to do that. Get caught for sure.” The road began to widen, and he sensed Wilson moving up to ride alongside. “We talk later,” he whispered.

They rode the rest of the way in silence. The closer they got to George Phillips's three hundred acres of land, the more determined Obi became to find a way to leave.

When they rode through the gates of the plantation, they saw a group of men standing on the lawn. George Phillips was talking with them.

“They soldiers?” Easter asked.

Obi strained to see. “I think so.” He thought he recognized the grey Confederate caps. Normally, their wagons would have been met at the gate by one of Phillips's people. Tonight, however, small groups of slaves watched the men talking, keeping a careful distance from them. Phillips's face was as somber as his black suit.

“What the devil's going on?” Wilson mumbled.

When they climbed off their mules, Jessie, the overseer who'd brought the news about Tyler, spotted them. He walked across the lawn.

“Hello, sir,” he said to Wilson. Then he motioned with his hand toward the soldiers. “The family see so much trouble—now this.”

Wilson placed his hand on the mule's neck. “What happened?”

Jessie shook his head. “Jeremiah try and run off to them Yankees instead a watchin' out for young Tyler like he supposed to.” He spread his thin mouth in a grin. “But them Yankees trick him. Send him right back here. Tell our soldiers that they ain't fightin' this war to steal nobody's property.”

Obi's heart raced as he stared at the cluster of men on the lawn. Now he recognized a tall figure, his hands tie behind his back.
Jeremiah!
he said to himself. He and Easter glanced at each other. She too realized what this meant Running to Yankee soldiers wasn't the way to freedom.

Obi wished he could talk to Jeremiah—find out what his plan had been and why it hadn't worked. Wilson and Jessie started toward the tobacco barn. Obi and Easter followed leading the mules. As they passed the soldiers, Obi tried to catch Jeremiah's eyes, but Jeremiah's head was thrown back. He looked defiant, standing straight and tall and seeming to stare at the dark, starless sky.

“That boy goin' to suffer now,” Jessie said. “Master Phillips don't allow no beatin' 'less someone real bad, and that's a bad one.”

Wilson spat on the ground. “Wish I was back on the sea. Sick to death of war—sick to death of slaves and dirt.”

They passed the smokehouse, where meat was cured and stored. Obi tried to block out the men's conversation so that he could think. He had to figure out a way to meet Buka—tonight!

They walked by the spinning house, and Obi heard the women inside laughing and talking softly as they spun the cotton thread that would be woven into cloth. It was familiar sound, and comforting at a time when things were changing rapidly. He would have liked to stay there and listen a while longer.

When they reached the tobacco barn, a young woman came out to help unload the leaves from the wagons. As
soon as one of the wagons was empty, Wilson turned to Jessie. “I'll be back tomorrow for that other wagon and mule,” he said.

Obi wished he could take the mule himself and ride away with Easter.

“You stay in the long cabin tonight,” Jessie said to Obi.

Obi looked surprised. “I ain't stayin' with Thomas, suh?”

“You workin' in the field, not with the carpenter.”

“Suh, I thought I could stay with Thomas in the cabin.” Obi kept after the overseer because he didn't want to be in the long cabin with a lot of other men.

“You stay where you told to stay,” Wilson told him. He turned to Jessie. “He give you any trouble, you put him on that whippin' post. Watch him good.”

The overseer winked. “He'll be safe here.”

Obi felt trapped as he took another bundle of tobacco to the barn. It would be almost impossible to get away without the help of one of the Phillips people. Though he knew many of the slaves, he didn't know if he could trust any. Who would help him without turning him in before he even got to Buka?

“The gal can stay in the nursery,” Jessie told Wilson. The nursery was a cabin for children who had no mothers. During the day it was used for the babies belonging to the women who worked in the fields. They were cared for while their mothers worked. Two old women who could no longer labor as field hands took care of the children.

Easter stared at the ground. Usually she stayed with the cook's helper in a small shed behind the kitchen of the family house.

Wilson got on the mule and rode off without looking back. The women who had been working in the barn were leaving. “Y'all go on to the cabins,” Jessie said to Obi and Easter. “Curfew startin' now, and the horn will be blowin' at five in the mornin'.”

He walked away from them, heading in the direction of the far pasture. Obi guessed that he was going to find out
what was happening to Jeremiah, who was by now probably in the plantation jail, on the outskirts of the property.

As soon as the overseer was out of earshot, the women began to talk. One of them put her hands on Easter's shoulders.

“Why you here in July?” She didn't wait for an answer but continued talking. “You see they bring Jeremiah back?” They started walking toward the cabins.

“Jeremiah a fool,” a short woman walking next to Obi said, “believin' them stories he hear about soldiers coming to free us.”

The large, white, two-story plantation house loomed over them as they passed it on their way to the slave quarters. The lawn was clear of people now. Behind the house, footpath bordered with cypress and magnolia trees led away from the house. Easter was on the verge of tears as they approached the quarters. There were two rows of one-room log cabins that faced each other—seventeen on each side of a narrow path.

People sat talking in front of and in the narrow alleys between the cabins. Some of them sat around small fires. Ordinarily, by now most of them would be inside after the grueling field work. They'd eat, do their chores, and sleep early. Though barely a sound could be heard, Obi guessed they were talking about Jeremiah.

The women who had walked with Easter and Obi joined different groups of people. Obi put his arm around Easter's shoulders.

“We find a way,” he said. “Buka ain't gonna leave without us. He leavin' to show us the way. Otherwise he stay right here.”

Easter gazed at the small fires and the people huddled around them. “I don't like stayin' in these cabin. I could be with Rose in the shed or at the farm with Jason and Mistress.”

Obi sighed. “Wherever you be, you still a slave. I don't
like it either. My mind made up. We figure a way to leave.”

“And get Jason too!”

“Go on to the cabin now,” Obi said, ignoring her comment.

Obi watched her disappear into the shadows as she walked to the nursery at the end of the rows of cabins. He didn't know how they could get Jason. He didn't dislike the boy, but he wasn't going to jeopardize his own chances of running in order to save a child.

Jason hardly know he in slavery,
he told himself.
Someday Jason be a man an free he own self
As he walked to the long cabin, he realized that everyone was outside—even the children, who weren't playing but sitting quietly with the adults.

A group of men sat around a fire. They stopped talking when Obi approached. All the men knew Obi, but only one, a man called Julius, greeted him. Though Julius made room for him in the circle, Obi sensed that he was unwelcome.

“What you doin' here in July?” Julius asked.

“I here for the cotton.”

“You ain't workin' with the carpenter?” Julius said, surprised.

Obi shook his head. “Easter here too. She in the nursery.”

“Guess your master finish he own croppin'?” Julius said.

Obi wanted to say, “Ain't got no master,” but Buka had taught him to keep silent.
Trust no one with your secrets unless they takin' the same chances you is
, Buka had said.

Obi nodded in response to Julius's question and wondered whether there was anyone in the quiet, secretive circle of men who'd help him get to Buka.

Sensing someone staring at him, Obi turned away from Julius and looked straight in the eyes of Rayford, George Phillips's personal servant. The proud, arrogant man was one of the Phillips' most favored slaves and was called
“Massa Rayford” behind his back. Obi had never known him to associate with any of the other slaves. He even had his own small room in the family house.

But on this night, instead of the clean, white trousers and shirt he usually wore, Rayford had on a rough, homespun shirt and overalls like the field hands. His dark eyes jumped and flickered in the firelight. He was staring angrily at Obi. Then he stood quickly. The others rose with him. Obi looked from one man to the other, wondering what he'd done wrong.

“You can go to the cabin,” Julius said to Obi. “There be a pallet under the shutter. You can sleep there.”

Obi had the feeling that the men were going somewhere. Why would Rayford be there, dressed like a hand?

“You goin' inside too?” Obi asked.

“Yes,” Julius said, but he hesitated. Obi knew he was lying—the other men had already slipped away—so he stayed where he was.

Rayford snuffed out the fire. Then he grabbed Obi by the shoulders. “What you want?” he asked gruffly. “What they send you here for?” he added.

Obi tried to pull himself out of the larger man's grip. “The overseer tell me to sleep in the long cabin.” He knew for certain now that the men were planning something. Maybe this was an opportunity for him to get help. He tried to remain calm. “Master hire me out early—but I supposed to meet Buka tonight.”