Leapholes

Chapter 27

The cock crowed as the wagon pulled away from Abigail's house. A silver moon was fading against a bluish-black sky. The sun was but a glowing orange sliver beneath the clouds on the horizon. The prairie grass smelled of fresh morning dew.

Their wagon was packed with everything they would need for the long journey south, which wasn't much. Abigail had run rescue missions before, and she knew the importance of traveling light. Their canteens were filled with drinking water, and they had more dried biscuits and beef jerky than Ryan cared to eat. They each wore a cowboy hat to block the sun. They would sleep on blankets. Beyond that, they had just the clothes on their backs and determination in their bellies.

"How long you reckon 'til we get there, Miss Abigail?" said Ryan.

"Reckon?" said Jarvis, mocking him. "Yet another fancy word. You're a regular abolitionist now, aren't you, kid?"

Both Ryan and Abigail ignored the sarcasm. Jarvis had been grouchy all morning, ever since Abigail's goat had relieved itself on his boot. Abigail said, "Two days. Maybe more, depending."

"Depending on what?"

"Dependin' on whether I'm right or not."

They traveled all day, stopping only to give their horse a rest. Ryan, rode at Abigail's side. She let him take the reins, and it was fun to have the power of a horse at the control of his fingertips. The dirt road shadowed the river, so it was impossible to get lost or bored. Life along the Mississippi was a nonstop show. Ryan saw foxes, bears, and more deer than he could count. Hawks streaked down from the sky and snatched unsuspecting trout from the eddies. The little towns along the way were straight out of the history books. All afternoon, steamboats churned up and down the river. Ryan half expected Huck Finn and Jim to come floating by on a raft any minute. He imagined his dog Sam running happily along the banks and swimming in the river. Then he shook off that thought, trying not to make himself homesick.

That night, they slept under the stars. They woke the next morning and continued due south. Their course took them away from the river, which jogged southeast. By mid-morning, the seemingly endless prairie had turned to farmland. The first plantation came into sight.

"What do they grow here?" asked Ryan.

"Whatever they can," said Abigail. "That there's a cotton field."

It didn't look anything like the amazing photographs Ryan had seen of snowy-white cotton fields ready for harvest. Spring was the planting season, and the fields were bare by comparison.

"What's that smell?" said Ryan.

"Freshly turned dirt. That smell to a farmer is like blossoms to a bumblebee. They can't stay away from it. Don't matter how bad last year was. They might have worked sun-up to sundown, March to October, then lost the whole crop to boll weevils or bad weather or just plain bad luck. Don't make no never mind. They smell that dirt, and they is right back at it the next year. Farmers are a special kind of people."

She brought the wagon to a stop with a tug on the reins and a gentle Whoooooa. She climbed down and told Ryan and Jarvis to follow her up the hill. When they reached the top, they were in a cluster of trees and bushes, looking out over another cotton field.

"This was all useless prairie not long ago," she said. "Now look at it."

Ryan said, "You sound like you admire farmers."

"I do." Then her gaze drifted toward a group of black men in the field, about two-hundred yards on the other side of the fence. "Except when it comes to slavery."

Concealed by the bushes, Ryan counted a dozen slaves scattered across the field. It was mostly stoop labor. Some were planting seeds, while others tended to seedlings and sprouts. Two strong men rode behind a plow mule that was tilling the dark topsoil.

The lone white man was on horseback with a shotgun in his arms. His horse was pulling a small flatbed wagon down a working road that ran alongside the field. On the wagon was a tub of water. The man wore a large black cowboy hat and a black vest over a red flannel shirt. His smokey-gray beard was so long and gnarled that Ryan almost wondered if small animals might be living in there. Despite his advanced years, he sat upright in the saddle. The most striking thing about him was his eyes. They were cold, black, and piercing-the kind of eyes a diver might see just a split second before the Great White shark removes a hunk of flesh.

If Legal Evil had a human host, Ryan imagined that he'd have eyes like these.

Ryan watched as the two plowmen unhitched the mule from the harness and led it to the old man's wagon. The animal drank eagerly from the tub. When the mule had taken its fill, the old man handed the slaves a battered tin cup.

Then the slaves drank from the mule's tub.

One by one, they came to the wagon, dipped their cup into the tub, and took a drink. They looked very thirsty, but they seemed to know better than to ask for a refill. It was a well-worn routine. Each slave trudged across the field, drank, and immediately returned to work. The two big men working the plow were first. The women and girls were next. The boys followed. Finally, from the farthest corner of the field, came a tired, old man.

Ryan watched him carefully. He was at least a hundred yards away, but that gait was familiar. That mop of gray hair was unmistakable. And those basketball shoes were a dead giveaway.

Ryan could barely speak. "That's Hezekiah."

"I knew he'd be here," said Abigail. "This here's the Barrow farm. Old Man Barrow lost a whole bunch of slaves last year when he rented them out to a farmer in Illinois. Slavery is illegal there, and an Illinois judge gave them all their freedom. But now with the Dred Scott case, the U. S. Supreme Court said slaves is property who can never be free. So Mr. Barrow sent out posses to fetch his slaves back."

"But Hezekiah was never his slave. He was never anyone's slave."

"It probably came down to Mr. Barrow's word against Hezekiah's. Guess who the police are going to believe?"

For a brief instant, Ryan was thinking of his father again. Could that have been what made him plead guilty, the futility of one man's word against another's? No way, thought Ryan. This situation was completely different. This was slavery in the nineteenth century. Hezekiah was truly the innocent condemned.

"Let's git," said Abigail. "Before they see us."

She led them down the hill, back toward the wagon. Ryan trailed behind and pulled Jarvis aside. He didn't want Abigail to overhear. When she was far enough ahead of them, he said, "This is going to be tougher than I thought. I just realized something."

"What?" said Jarvis.

"We need a leaphole to get back. I don't have any. You don't have any. And Hezekiah doesn't, either."

"How do you know he doesn't?"

"Think about it. Would he be busting his back working in a cotton field, drinking from a mule's bucket, if all he had to do was pull a leaphole from his pocket and pop himself back to the twenty-first century?"

Jarvis didn't answer, but Ryan saw no inkling of disagreement.

They caught up with Abigail and climbed into the wagon. With a clipped giddy-up, Abigail had them rolling forward again. She pulled a U-turn around a tree, and they retraced the ruts in the road from their own wagon wheels.

"Why are we going back?" asked Ryan.

"There's an old barn in the next county. Belongs to an abolitionist. We'll rest there till nightfall. When it's good and dark and everyone's asleep, we'll come back on foot for Hezekiah."

Then what? thought Ryan. He had no leapholes. They had no way to get back to the twenty-first century. Ryan said, "Sounds like a good plan."

"Oh, yes. A girl's got to have a plan."

Ryan looked away, thinking. "This boy could sure use one, too."