Leapholes

Chapter 30

They landed in a meadow at sunrise. Low-hanging clouds to the east seemed to be floating on a purple-orange sea of calm. As the sun broke the plane, the chill of night started to burn away. Dew drops glistened on waves of spring grass and an endless field of yellow blossoms.

The forest was gone. The dogs were gone.

And so was Kaylee.

Ryan rose and counted heads once more. To his left were Hannah and Abigail; to his right, Hezekiah and Jarvis. Apart from looking as if they'd emerged from a wind tunnel, they were unharmed. Ryan was more worried about his missing friend. "What happened to Kaylee?" he said.

"Our human chain must have broken during take-off," said Hezekiah.

Jarvis lowered his head in shame. "I'm sorry, everyone. I just couldn't hold on."

Ryan tried not to get angry, but his concern for Kaylee left him somewhere between alarmed and agitated. "What do you mean you couldn't hold on? Everyone else managed to hang on. You're stronger than any of us."

"Yeah, but I was the only one who had the weight of four people pulling on my arm. Hezekiah had only three, you had two, and Hannah had only one. Once that leaphole started to swirl, it was like trying to hold on to four people in the middle of a hurricane."

"All right, fine," said Ryan. "But can somebody please tell me where Kaylee is?"

"She's a sharp girl," said Hezekiah. "She knows well enough to stay with the leaphole and ride it out. I'm sure she's home by now."

Hezekiah's reassurance put him somewhat at ease. But he suddenly had a new worry. "If Kaylee's at home, then where are we?

Hezekiah's gaze swept the meadow. The sun was now completely above the horizon, making the field of wild yellow flowers even more bright. "I have no idea," he said. "Abigail, Hannah-how about you? Does this place look familiar?"

"Not in the least."

"No, sir," added Hannah.

"Then what are you saying?" said Ryan. "We could be… anywhere?"

"No, I wouldn't say anywhere. We broke away from the leaphole during take off, which means that we're probably not very far from where we started."

"But we have no leapholes," said Ryan. "So wherever we are, it means-"

"We're stuck," said Jarvis, finishing the thought. "And it's all my fault. I can't believe I blew it for everybody."

He had indeed let them down, but finger pointing never did any good. Hezekiah laid a consoling hand on his shoulder and said, "Don't blame yourself, big guy."

"It's okay, Jarvis," said Ryan. "It would have taken the strongest man in the world to hang on to four people in that leaphole."

"You really mean that?" said Jarvis.

"Sure," said Hezekiah. "We'll figure something out."

Abigail rose and brushed the droplets of morning dew from her pants. "I don't know what in tar-nation you people are talking about, and I don't want to know. But we ain't never gonna figure out where we is just sittin' around moping. Let's git"

"Which way do we go?" asked Ryan.

"North," she said. "As far north as we can take this runaway slave."

Hannah held her belly. "I'm feeling kind of funny."

Abigail said, "You just hang on there, momma. We don't want that baby popping out till we know we're in a free state."

Hannah grimaced with pain. "I dunno if I can wait. I think all that swirling and twirling maybe got this baby a little excited."

"You want your baby to be born free or born a slave?"

"Free. 'Course I want him free."

"Then you tell him to calm right down and wait a spell, honey. Abigail's in control now. I'll get you and that little one to freedom. We'll be having no more fancy leapholes, or whatever you folks call those things. It's time for me to take y'all on a little ride."

"What kind of ride?" said Hannah.

She smiled and said, "From here on out, we'll be traveling by railroad. The underground railroad."

As Ryan soon discovered, the underground railroad was neither underground nor a railroad. The term actually referred to the secret routes that runaway slaves traveled when fleeing north to freedom and the loose network of assistance they received along the way. It started after the American Revolution and became more organized as opposition to slavery swelled in the mid-nineteenth century. The lines of secrecy cut through rivers and swamps, across meadows, over mountains, and down dusty roads. The whole system worked because people who hated slavery were brave enough to risk their own lives in the hope that others would find freedom. Over the years, perhaps a 100,000 fugitives from bondage escaped through the underground railroad.

Sadly, Ryan was beginning to have serious doubts as to whether Hannah would be one of them.

"Just a little bit farther, honey," said Abigail.

"I can't go no farther," said Hannah.

They'd been walking for two hours, due north. Abigail's horse had been left behind in the leaphole disaster, so they had to travel on foot. They stopped only three times, once to drink from a stream and fill their canteens, and twice more to hide Hezekiah and Hannah in the weeds. Because they didn't know where they were, the safest bet was to assume that any sign of life on the horizon might be a slave-catching posse. Fortunately, both scares had been false alarms. The first time it was a herd of deer crossing the meadow. The second time was sheer paranoia. Hannah had only thought she'd seen some men on horseback in the distance.

The sod house straight ahead was no mirage, no false alarm. It was as real as the sweat on Ryan's brow. A sod house was exactly what the name implied: a house constructed from chunks of sod cut from the ground. It blended into the surroundings like a grassy knoll on the prairie, which made it a perfect place for runaway slaves to hide from the dangers of daylight.

Unless its owner was pro-slavery.

"Oh, my!" Hannah shrieked. She fell to her knees. Ryan felt her fingernails digging into his forearm as she struggled to endure her sudden surge of pain.

"Another one?" said Ryan.

Hannah nodded, unable to speak.

Abigail said, "She's having some mighty powerful contractions."

"Is that a bad thing?" asked Ryan.

"That's a body's way of telling a woman that her baby's coming. It'll pass."

Slowly, some of the tension seemed to drain from Hannah's body. Her back and shoulders were less stiff, but she appeared exhausted. The intense abdominal pain had indeed passed. From the look on her face, however, the repeated episodes were beginning to take their toll.

"You okay, honey?" asked Abigail.

Hannah caught her breath. "This is wearing me out."

"Your contractions are coming about every ten minutes now. They're getting stronger, aren't they?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Won't be long now," said Abigail.

Jarvis looked at her quizzically. "What do you mean it won't be long?"

"That baby is coming before sundown. I bet my life on it."

"We need to get her to a hospital," said Ryan.

"A hospital?" Hezekiah said with a chuckle. "This is 1857, Ryan. That sod house up ahead will have to do."

Hannah managed to take a few steps forward, but she'd already done too much walking on too little rest. It was clear that she couldn't make it the full fifty yards to the sod house. Ryan ran ahead and brought back a wood plank from the ramshackle fence around the sod house. Jarvis and Hezekiah each took an end, and they used it like a stretcher to carry Hannah the rest of the way. As they drew closer, Ryan went to the front door and knocked, but he heard only a hollow echo.

He tried again, but it was obvious that no one was home. He pushed the door, and it creaked as it opened. A racoon ran over Ryan's feet, startling him. He collected himself and stepped inside.

There was just a single room, if you could call it a room. It had all the charm of a hole in the ground. The walls were dirt, and so was the floor. The sod roof was supported by rotting timbers. They were sagging in places, and perhaps one or two more winters would trigger a complete collapse. The only furniture was a chest of drawers in the corner and an old wooden table up against the wall. The whole place smelled foul, like an outhouse for racoons. No human being had lived there for quite awhile, but it was the best the prairie had to offer.

Ryan stepped outside and shouted, "Looks great! Come on in!"

They carried Hannah inside and laid her on the table. She was in terrible distress, and Ryan wasn't sure how to console her. He was glad Abigail was with them. Herself a mother, Abigail knew exactly what to do. She sent Hezekiah out to gather sticks and branches for a fire. Ryan searched the chest of drawers for some matches, but of course "safety matches" were not widely available in 1857. Ryan settled for a piece of flintstone that the previous occupants had left behind. After many failed attempts, he and Hezekiah finally produced a spark big enough to light the dry grass and twigs. Minutes later, they had a roaring fire. Ryan and the men stayed outside and kept it burning. Abigail stayed inside with Hannah. All was silent, save for the occasional crackling of the fire and the periodic screams from the mother to be.

Hannah's last cry had been particularly shrill.

"What's going on in there?" said Jarvis.

"Pain's a natural part of childbirth," said Hezekiah. "No way around that. At least not in the middle of the nineteenth century."

The door opened. Abigail emerged, her sleeves rolled up and a panicky expression on her face. She knelt beside the fire and heated the blade of her pocketknife until it was glowing red. Then she handed Ryan her canteen and said, "Boil me some water!"

Ryan didn't know anything about birthing babies, but he seemed to recall from the movies that when someone said "Boil some water," the baby wasn't far off.

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

"I need you in here," she told Hezekiah. She took him by the arm, and the two of them disappeared into the sod house.

Ryan emptied the canteen into an old metal pot that he'd found inside the sod house. Just as the water came to the boil, he heard another one of Hannah's cries from inside the sod house.

"Push!" ordered Abigail.

"I can't, I can't!" screamed Hannah.

Ryan ran to the door with the boiling water, but he stopped short of entering. He suddenly felt like an intruder and that it wasn't his place to watch. He listened from outside the closed door.

"I see the head!" said Abigail. "One more push, girl. On three! One… two… threeeee!"

The scream that followed was unlike anything Ryan had ever heard in his entire life. It was filled with pain, filled with relief, filled with life, itself. And then there was only crying- a baby's crying. Hannah was crying too, but these were happy tears.

"It's a boy!" shouted Abigail.

Ryan smiled. All was well.

Abigail said, "Ryan L'new, where on earth is that boiled water I told you to fetch?'.'

Ryan hurried inside and handed her the pot. Abigail sterilized her bandana in the boiling water. She waved it in the air to cool it just a bit and wiped the naked baby clean. Then she handed the infant to his mother, who cradled him in her arms. Ryan had never seen more love in a young woman's eyes.

Hezekiah approached tentatively. Hannah motioned him forward. None of them had known Hannah long, but Hezekiah seemed to swell with a grandfather's pride as he approached.

"What are you going to name him?" he asked.

Hannah held her baby tight, considering it. Then she glanced at Ryan and said, "I'm gonna name my boy after this brave young man right here."

Ryan blushed. Abigail nodded and said, "Ryan's a nice name."

"Not Ryan. L'new. I like that name. L'new."

They all smiled, and Ryan tried not to laugh. He didn't want to break Hannah's heart and tell her that L'new came from LNU-last name unknown.

"That's a good name, too," said Ryan.

They watched in silence as the young mother kissed and stroked her newborn's face, whispering his name. "L'new. I love you, L'new."

Ryan could not stop watching them. It reminded him of the way his mother looked at his baby sister Ainsley, and he imagined that she had once looked at him the same adoring way. He was suddenly feeling the pain of separation from his own family-until Jarvis entered the sod house.

"Someone's coming," he said in a solemn voice.

Hezekiah took charge. "Abigail, you stay here with Hannah and her baby. Ryan, Jarvis, come with me."

He led the way out of the sod house. Standing by the campfire, they spotted the cloud of dust rising on the horizon. It was perhaps two miles off, though distances were hard to gauge on the ocean-like flatness of the prairie.

"Definitely looks like riders," said Hezekiah.

"Lots of riders," said Jarvis. "No way one or two horses kicks up that much dust."

"Kill the fire," said Hezekiah. "No sense sending up smoke signals to guide them to us."

Ryan pitched fistfuls of dirt onto the fire until it was extinguished. "You think it could be a slave-catcher posse?"

"No way to tell just yet. All we can do is wait," said Hezekiah, his voice trailing off. "And be ready for the worst."