Leapholes (2006)

by James Grippando

"Of course. I felt so bad for her. The rumors around town were just awful. I wanted her to know that you didn't run away."

  "Does she believe you?"

  "She didn't at first. But I bet she does now. I used my leaphole right in front of her."

  "How?"

  "She had the book that you and Jarvis used. She showed me the page you were on. I went to the same page and, well, here I am."

  Kaylee removed the law book from her backpack and gave it to Ryan. "I brought it with me," she said. "Hezekiah never does that, because he's an expert on return leapholes. But for a rookie like me, the easiest way to return safely is to bring the book along."

  Ryan turned to the marked page. It was definitely from Hezekiah's library. But now that Ryan had seen those slaves marching down Main Street, bound and chained, the book seemed almost holy. The name of the case was printed across the top of the page: Scott v. Sanford. That was the Dred Scott decision. It was like Hezekiah had told Ryan the first time they'd met: These books were filled with real people. Dred Scott had lived his life in slavery. Sanford was the man who had owned him. Case books were so much more than words on paper.

  Ryan closed the book. "It's a long case. Over fifty pages. I guess that's how we all ended up here, even though Hezekiah entered through a different page."

  "Right. Different page, but it was still the same case."

  "But you should have landed in St. Louis. How did you know to look for me here?"

  "The first thing I did when I landed in St. Louis was buy a newspaper. The story of Hezekiah was on page three of the Daily Morning Herald. It said he was taken back to the Barrow plantation. I knew you'd be looking for Hezekiah. This is the only road to the Barrow plantation. So I caught a ride in the back of a feed wagon, got off here, and waited."

  Ryan was so glad to see her that he almost forgot the most important thing. Then it came to him--the trip home. "You do have a return leaphole, right?"

  "Of course. Never leave home without one."

  "Whew," said Ryan. "Jarvis and I don't have any. And we don't think Hezekiah would still be planting cotton if he had one in his back pocket. Can we all use yours to get back?"

  "Sure. That's what I'm here for."

  "Awesome!"

  She turned serious. "But I should warn you. This is the only one I have left. When you become a Legal Eagle, you get one leaphole for the journey out, and one to come back. I can't earn any more until I get my law degree. Those are the rules."

  "Where is it?"

  "In my backpack. For safekeeping."

  "So that's it? You have just the one leaphole?"

  "Yup. Just one."

  Ryan gave her a little smile. "That's perfect. One is all we need."

  Darkness had fallen by the time their wagon reached the abolitionist's barn. It was an old, abandoned structure, no good for anything except as a place to hide the wagon. They rolled the wagon inside, then set up camp outside. No one wanted to sleep in a hundred-year-old barn that might come crashing down with the slightest puff of wind.

  "Why do we have to go to all this trouble of hiding the wagon anyway?" asked Jarvis. He was sitting on a tree stump, across the campfire from Abigail. Orange sparks twirled like fireflies between them in the rising curls of smoke.

  Abigail said, "We can't take the wagon with us when we go back to get Hezekiah."

  "Why not?"

  "Once old man Barrow discovers that one of his slaves is missing, every slave owner between here and the Illinois border will be riding up and down this road, checking the wagons. We have to escape on foot and head for the woods. Hide out for a while. We'll come back for the wagon when things settle down and the road is safe again."

  Kaylee asked, "What happens if we get caught with Hezekiah?"

  "Mr. Barrow might turn us over to the marshal. We could go to jail. Or the boys in his posse might take matters into their own hands."

  "Which would be worse?" asked Jarvis.

  "The posse, without a doubt. They don't take kindly to abolitionists and runaway slaves in these parts."

  "What could they do to us?" asked Kaylee.

  "Hopefully just rough us up a bit, teach us a lesson. Hezekiah is the one I'm most worried about. The posse already captured him once before. This would be considered his second runaway. They'll do far worse to him."

  "How much worse?" asked Ryan.

  Abigail's gaze drifted toward the strong, sprawling limbs of the old oak tree. She paused, as if reluctant to elaborate. "If he's lucky, they'll only shoot him."

  Abigail's words just hung in the air, drawing only silence.

  Ryan poked at the fire with a long stick, stirring up a few glowing embers. "I sure hope none of us ever has to meet this old man Barrow."

  "Why is he so mean?" asked Kaylee.

  "It's just his nature," said Abigail. "He was the same way when he was a judge."

  "He used to be a judge?" said Ryan.

  "Yup," said Abigail. "That's what he did before he retired and went back to the Barrow family farm. He was one of the most pro-slavery judges the South has ever known."

  Ryan suddenly recalled those shark-like eyes and that cold expression on old man Barrow's face. He still didn't know how to find the place "where the brood follows the dam," but perhaps Legal Evil was closer than he'd thought.

  They ate dinner around the campfire--more beef jerky and dried biscuits. Kaylee had a chocolate candy bar in her pocket from the twenty-first century. She shared it with Ryan. Candy had never tasted so good. Like it or not, she'd just earned herself a friend for life. After dinner, they spread out their blankets around the fire and retired for the night. Jarvis was the first to snore. Minutes later, Abigail was snoring even louder.

  Slowly, the campfire burned itself out. Venus was shining brightly in a star-speckled sky. Ryan was still wide awake. He could hear the wind blowing lightly through the cracks in the old, decrepit barn. He opened his eyes and looked up at the stars. It was funny the way stars seemed to swirl in the sky if you stared up at them long enough.

  "Ryan, you okay?" asked Kaylee.

  He rolled on his side to face her. He couldn't quite see her face in the moonlight, but he could see the outline of her long hair draped over one shoulder. She had propped herself up on one elbow, a dark silhouette in the night.

  "I'm okay, I guess," he said. "Just can't sleep."

  "Are you worried about Hezekiah?"

  "Aren't you?"

  He could hear Kaylee sigh. "Hezekiah is an amazing person," she said. "He's the smartest man I've ever met. He can handle almost anything."

  "I know."

  She waited for him to say more, but he didn't. She added, "That's not what's keeping you awake, is it?"

  He rolled onto his back again. The stars had stopped swirling. "Actually, I was thinking about my dad."

  "Oh."

  "Yeah," he said. "A big 'oh.'"

  Kaylee said, "When we were in prison that night, I promised not to ask about your dad anymore. But if you feel like talking Ryan hadn't opened up to anyone about his feelings toward his dad since the day he went to prison. For some reason, he felt like he could talk about those things with Kaylee-- important stuff. Especially in the darkness. He suspected that some of the most honest conversations in the history of the world had occurred beneath the blanket of nightfall.

  "Whenever I visit my dad in prison, he tells me he's innocent. And every time he tells me that, I say, 'But if you're innocent, why did you plead guilty?'"

  "What's his answer?"

  "He says he can't tell me. Which makes me so mad. If he's innocent, why can't he tell me why he pleaded guilty?"

  "I wish I could answer that for you, Ryan."

  "I wish somebody would answer that."

  Ryan couldn't see Kaylee's eyes in the darkness, but he sensed her sincerity. Finally, she asked, "What are you thinking?"

  He clasped his hands behind his head, still staring up at the night sky. "I'm confused. I mean, what if he is innocent? What m
ust it be like to be in prison for something you didn't do?"

  "Horrible," she said without hesitation. "Every day, you must think about being free. And every day ends in disappointment."

  "Like being a slave," said Ryan.

  "Yeah. Like being a slave."

  "Except I can't really be sure that my father is as innocent as these slaves."

  "For what it's worth, when I talked to your mother, she told me that your father was innocent. It seemed like she really wanted me to know that."

  "No," said Ryan. "She wanted you to believe it. I don't think we'll ever know it."

  She seemed to understand the distinction. Then she lowered her head and nuzzled against her blanket. "Try to get some sleep, okay? Big day tomorrow."

  "Yeah," said Ryan, his eyes still wide open. "Huge."

  Chapter 29

  Ryan refused to open his eyes. He ignored the gentle nudge in the small of his back and the repeated announcements that it was time to rise and shine. He just rolled over and buried his face in his blanket.

  "Mom, there's no school today," he said, grumbling. "Honest. It's a teachers's workshop."

  "What?" said Abigail.

  Ryan sat bolt upright. He was now wide awake, suddenly realizing that he wasn't in his bed at home and that this woman poking him in the back wasn't his mother. "Uh, nothing," said Ryan. "I must have been dreaming."

  It was two o'clock in the morning, and the team was ready to put their rescue plan into action. They had to reach the Barrow plantation on foot, grab Hezekiah, and disappear into hiding before sunrise. There was no time to waste. Before they broke camp, Abigail shared some words of wisdom.

  "You have to remember just two rules on a rescue mission. One, the important things are always simple. And two," she said as a wry smile creased her lips, "the simple things are always hard. Let's move."

  They hiked for one hour. The wagon remained hidden at the barn, but Abigail brought her horse to carry supplies. That lightened their load, but it was still difficult to trek through the woods in the dark of night. There were no roads, not even a footpath. Every few minutes one of them would stumble over a fallen log or a rock. The others would stop and look with concern, as if to ask Are you okay? It went without saying that this was no time for a sprained ankle. The stakes were way too high.

  They stopped to rest at the edge of the woods, where the canopy of spring's new buds and leaves gave way to the cotton field. Abigail tied her horse to a tree deep within the forest, so that it couldn't be seen from the farm. As they took their last sips of water from the canteen, Abigail gave the final instructions.

  "This is the danger zone," she said in a whisper. "From this point forward, we move quickly and in silence, and only on my command. Understood?"

  They nodded.

  Abigail pointed fifty yards to the east, across a stream. "See those shacks yonder?"

  It was dark, but Ryan's eyes had completely adjusted to the starlit night. He saw three shacks--four, if you counted the little outhouse behind them. They had sagging roofs, and the walls were made of roughly hewn logs. The two on either end were small, but the middle one was twice as big. It was the only one with a chimney. Spring was chilly enough, but winters had to be awfully cold for anyone who wasn't lucky enough to claim a spot by the fire in the big shack.

  "Those are the slave quarters," said Abigail.

  "How many slaves are there?" asked Ryan.

  "Don't know for sure."

  "Which shack is Hezekiah in?" asked Kaylee.

  "The small one on the end. If you look at the tools hanging on the side of the shack, they're all for planting. The other shacks are for house servants. Hezekiah is a field worker, so he's got to be in that nearest one. The one with the woodpile behind it.

  "When I say so, the four of us will run across the field to that woodpile. Then Ryan and I will sneak into the shack and get Hezekiah. Kaylee and Jarvis, you'll be our lookouts. If you see a dog coming at us or an oil lamp light up in the main house, or if you hear footsteps or anything else that worries you, I want you to make a sound like a hoot owl. Can you do that?"

  They tried. Woo-hoo, woo-hoo. It sounded pretty authentic.

  "Good," said Abigail. "Now, I'm not sure what hour of the night it is in heaven, but I suggest we all bow our heads and make sure the Lord is fully awake and on our side." They joined hands, and Abigail led them in a quick prayer. When they finished, she looked up and said, "Let's do it."

  Like a sprinter out of the blocks, Abigail led the way across the open field. The others followed right behind her, moving swiftly and in silence. It seemed to take forever, but in reality it was only a matter of seconds before they were huddled next to one another outside the nearest slave shack. They were hiding behind the woodpile. Jarvis was huffing and puffing. The others were stone silent. Abigail raised a finger to her lips, as if to say Shhhhhhhh. When Jarvis got his loud breathing under control, Abigail gave a quick signal. Kaylee and Jarvis, the two lookouts, remained in hiding. Abigail led Ryan away from the woodpile.

  They made a quick dash to the shack and crouched at the front door. Slowly--as carefully as Ryan had ever seen anyone move--Abigail turned the handle and nudged the door open. With the jerk of her head, Abigail signaled Ryan to follow her inside.

  Two small windows on opposite walls welcomed a fair amount of moonlight. Ryan counted ten wooden bunks with straw mattresses, five on either side of a narrow center aisle. The chorus of loud snoring was a testimonial to how hard these men worked all day. They were in deep sleep. Ryan took a quick look at each bunk--a bald man, a young man, two big men who could have played football in a later century. Finally, Ryan spotted the mop of gray hair in the bunk at the end of the row. He signaled to Abigail.

  That's him, he said without words.

  Ryan and Abigail crawled down the aisle on hands and knees. Hezekiah appeared to be sound asleep, curled beneath a smelly old horse blanket. Just the sight of him made Ryan want to jump up and down and shout with joy. He was so glad to have found him, but they had a long way to go before it was time to celebrate. Ryan debated how best to wake him. He was about to flick the old man on the end of the nose when, to his surprise, Hezekiah grabbed his wrist and whispered, "What took you so long, Ryan?"

  They shared a smile, then Hezekiah turned deadly serious. He put his lips to Ryan's ears and whispered, "The bald slave closest to the door is an informant for the master. If you wake him, he'll run straight to the house and tell him there's an escape. There might be other informants, too. I don't know."

  Ryan nodded, and he fully understood: If there had been any hope of taking additional slaves with them, the prospect of informants among them squelched those plans.

  Quietly, Hezekiah peeled back the blanket and rolled out of his bunk. He and Ryan inched across the floor, following right behind Abigail. Just as they reached the door, they heard a noise from outside: Wooo-hooo, wooo-hooo.

  The threesome stopped cold. It sounded a little like a hoot owl, but it sounded even more like Kaylee. It was a warning from their look outs.

  For a moment, Ryan felt paralyzed. Earlier that night, back at their campsite, Abigail had told them how dangerous this mission was for Hezekiah. She'd warned them that if the posse caught him, the old man would be lucky "if they only shoot him." Ryan didn't want to risk Hezekiah's life. On the other hand, he didn't want to leave him behind in this shack to live in slavery. In the darkness, he glanced at Hezekiah. He, too, seemed to have recognized Kaylee's voice in the wooo-hooo from behind the woodpile. He surely knew the dangers of an attempted escape. But Ryan saw only one message in Hezekiah's eyes.

  Keep going.

  Without speaking a word, the team became of one mind. Crawling, Abigail led the way to the open door. Ryan was about to follow, but the bald man--the slave that Hezekiah had said was the master's informant--stirred in his sleep. He grunted once, as if something was lodged in his throat. Ryan and Hezekiah pasted their bodies to the floor, lying perfectly still, tryin
g not even to breathe. Finally, the informant fell quiet. Ryan hurried out the door, and Hezekiah was right behind him.

  Abigail waved them over to the woodpile. Ryan and Hezekiah rose from their hands and knees and ran in her direction. They rounded the corner at full speed, past the planting tools. Behind the shack, Ryan spotted the collection of shovels spread across the ground, and he easily avoided them. Hezekiah didn't see them until it was too late. Tripping over a pile of tools would have been like sounding an alarm.

  Somehow--perhaps it was the twenty-first-century basketball shoes--Hezekiah did a last-second sidestep, pulled a complete three-sixty in the air, and cleared the stack of tools. Ryan looked on with amazement. It was a maneuver worthy of a BMX bicycle champion.

  Or of a slave in search of freedom.

  They were halfway to the woodpile, speeding past the outhouse, when the door flew open. They stopped in their tracks. They were face to face with a young woman.

  "Hey, what--" she started to say, but Hezekiah grabbed her. He covered her mouth with one hand as he took her behind the woodpile. Ryan pulled up behind them.

  Kaylee whispered, "That's what we were wooo-hoooing about! Somebody went to the bathroom. We were trying to warn you!"

  Hezekiah kept his hand over the woman's mouth. She was a young slave with beautiful almond-shaped eyes. At the moment, however, those eyes were wide with fright. Her belly moved up and down with each breath. It was a huge belly, and then Ryan realized: This young slave was extremely pregnant.

  Hezekiah spoke in a calming voice. He knew her by name. "Hannah, don't you worry none, okay? These are my friends. They've come to get me. Do you understand?"

  She nodded.

  "Now, if I take my hand off your mouth, you're not going to scream, are you?"

  She shook her head.

  Hezekiah's hand slipped away. She looked up at him, then glanced at the others. She didn't scream, but her voice shook as she said, "Take me with you."

  No one answered right away.

  "Please," she said. "You gotta take me. Please don't let my baby be born a slave."

  "When's your baby due?" asked Hezekiah. "Any day now, they tell me."