Freedom Stone

by Jeffrey Kluger

  “What other things?” Lillie asked.

  “Never mind. Didn’t I just say they don’t bear foolin’ with?”

  “But why not?”

  “There’s magic you touch and there’s magic you don’t,” Bett said firmly, “and I’ll tell you which is which.”

  “But s’posin’—” Lillie began.

  “I said never mind!” Bett answered, and this time she spoke with a bite in her voice Lillie had never heard before.

  Lillie fell silent and looked awkwardly down at her hands.

  Bett softened her tone and smiled. “It was wrong o’ me to make mention of such a thing. We got enough magic in this oven and this stone already without pushin’ it places it ain’t meant to go. Besides, I don’t plan to use it at all ’less we got no other choice.”

  Lillie nodded. “How will we know that?” she asked.

  Bett’s demeanor now changed entirely and she allowed herself a laugh. “Full of questions,” she said. “Too many for today. You go back to that nursery now ’fore anyone notices you missing. Ain’t no one gonna bother your brother for a little while yet.”

  “When can I come again?” Lillie asked.

  “Two days,” Bett said. “ ’Round about then, I reckon I’ll be needin’ to make a trip to Bluffton, and I could always use the help of a young pair of hands.”

  Lillie brightened, Bett’s angry moment now entirely forgotten. “Two days!” she said excitedly. Then she jumped up from her seat as Bett struggled up from hers, and the old woman and young girl hugged good-bye at the door. Bett watched as Lillie ran off and vanished back the way she came. Then she closed the door, gathered up her stone and swaddled it carefully in its drawstring bag.

  Chapter Six

  MISS SARABETH was taking her morning stroll when she spied Lillie dashing out of the cabin where Bett the baker lived. That was a surprise, since near as Sarabeth could recall, the place Lillie belonged at this time of day was in the nursery cabin tending to the slave babies. The fact was, however, it had been so long since the two girls played together that neither one was entirely sure any longer how the other spent her day.

  There was a time when Sarabeth—who was the Master’s daughter—and Lillie, who was the Master’s property, played together all the time. They played on Saturdays, when Lillie and Plato were done with their cabin chores and Mama let them go outside; they played on Sundays, when Miss Sarabeth had her afternoons free and the Missus gave her permission to go down to the slave cabins. They would sometimes even play after work was done on weekdays, when both of them had an hour or so before Lillie was called back to the cabin for a dinner of possum or fatback and Miss Sarabeth was called back to the big house for whatever grand meal she would be served that night—a meal that Lillie would ask her about the next day and that Miss Sarabeth would describe in detail, from the creamy soups to the venison or fowl to the tiny sweet cakes she and her brother would eat and the strong brown spirits the men would drink.

  Nobody thought it especially strange that Lillie and Miss Sarabeth liked to play together. Plantation children of both colors often fancied one another’s company—there being few other boys or girls anywhere nearby—and it was only the sternest masters who thought it unfitting for the colors to mix when they were so young. But when the children reached Miss Sarabeth’s and Lillie’s age, it was time for the white boys and girls to start behaving like the Southern ladies and gentlemen they were becoming and the black boys and girls to start acting like the slaves they already were and would always be.

  Before long, Miss Sarabeth started coming to visit Lillie less and less. While she still sometimes stopped by on the weekends, it was usually in the company of the Missus, who liked to put on fine clothes and tour the slave quarters, smiling in a way Lillie never cared for.

  “They look after themselves just fine, don’t they?” the Missus would ask Sarabeth as if Lillie and the other slaves weren’t there. “Your father was right to let them build good cabins that they’d be inclined to keep well.”

  It had been about a month since Miss Sarabeth had made such a visit, and it had thus been that long since she’d last set eyes on Lillie. Part of her smiled this morning as she was taking her walk along the path by the tobacco field and saw her old friend leaving Bett’s cabin—but another part frowned. Even before Miss Sarabeth drew near the cabin, she caught the scent of baking on the air. When she was small and she and Lillie would smell that smell, they would steal away from wherever they were supposed to be and run to see Bett, who would break off a piece of whatever bread or cake she was making and let them have some—always taking care to brush the crumbs off their clothes before they left, so that the fact that they’d been there at all would be a secret only the three of them shared. But after a time, Miss Sarabeth had begun to tire of the old baker woman. Bett always tried to give the girls equal helpings of bread, knowing that small children quarrel about such things. But the portions could never be exactly the same, and on those occasions that Lillie got the bigger one, Miss Sarabeth made her trade.

  Lillie didn’t appear to mind at first—that was how things were supposed to be—but Bett sometimes did. A disapproving look would flash in her eyes that Miss Sarabeth found she didn’t care for at all, especially because it became clearer and clearer that Bett wasn’t trying to hide it. Worse still, Lillie began to behave the same way, flashing the same cross look Bett did. It would be there only for an instant, but Miss Sarabeth knew her friend’s face, and she didn’t like what it told her. The last time the two of them visited the cabin, Miss Sarabeth didn’t feel welcome at all, as Bett and Lillie chattered and baked and she sat sourly at the eating table, picking at the bread when it was done and wanting to be anywhere else at all. After that, she decided that it probably wasn’t fitting for her to be visiting Bett anymore. Soon, she stopped visiting Lillie too.

  As Sarabeth had first approached the cabin today, the baking smell had seemed especially strong and she had drawn it in, feeling sadder than she expected to. She sometimes missed the bread and missed the warm old cabin where she used to enjoy it—even if she didn’t miss the odd old woman who lived there. It was then that she heard the door open and turned to see Lillie emerge. Bett whispered something to her and the girl smiled and ran off to who knew where else. An uncertain smile crossed Sarabeth’s face and she started to raise her hand in greeting, but neither Lillie nor Bett saw her. She had the strange feeling that even though everything around her as far as she could see belonged to her father and by rights to her too, she was tarrying somewhere she shouldn’t be.

  Sarabeth was surprised at the sense of melancholy that came over her. Still, she couldn’t quite make out why Lillie would be there at all at this time of day, or what she and Bett had been whispering about. There was something going on that they didn’t want anybody else to know about, and Sarabeth decided she did not like that. Her father looked after all these slaves, and if they were up to something improper, they were worse than disobedient, they were ungrateful. When Miss Sarabeth contemplated this, she did not feel quite as melancholy anymore. What she felt was cross and sour—and suspicious too.

  Chapter Seven

  CAL WAS ABOUT as happy as he’d ever been when he came to the tobacco field to do his work this morning. He believed he had plenty of cause to be so happy—but the truth was, he had plenty of cause to fear for his life.

  In recent months, Cal—like all slave boys his age—had begun to chafe at the kind of work he’d been doing since he was small. Bird chasing, which once seemed like such fun, was for babies, and weed pulling—which was the job he’d been doing for the last two seasons—was for old ladies. Neither was fitting for a boy like him anymore. Already two other boys just a little older than Cal had begun working the fields with shovels and scythes, and before long would even try their hands behind a plow. Cal couldn’t help but notice the swagger they’d been walking with ever since they’d been put to their new chores—nor the fact that the girls seemed to notice i
t too. None of them were of a mind to notice how many grown slaves would eventually be broken by such labors; that was something they would learn when they were older. For now, the work seemed only manly and thrilling.

  For most of this season, it had appeared that Cal would have to wait until next year before he’d be given such serious chores, but this very morning it looked like all that had changed. Mr. Willis himself came to his cabin during breakfast and told Cal he’d finally decided to give him a chance to work the plow in the tobacco fields. Cal beamed at the news—and Nelly and George beamed to see him so happy. The boy had jumped past the scythe and shovel work the older boys were doing and gone straight to the labors of a full-grown man. If Mr. Willis had been cross about what happened with Bull, certainly this was proof that his anger had cooled and he might even value the boy’s unexpected brass.

  Mr. Willis allowed Cal to gulp down a mug of milk and two biscuits Nelly gave him, then escorted him personally to the spot where he’d be working today—the two of them attracting curious stares as they strolled along the grounds. When the man and the boy drew closer to the tobacco fields, Cal could see a few other, early-arriving slaves already at work, their heads and shoulders rising and falling above the tall leaves. Just at the edge of the field was a long patch of unplanted land that was known as the scrub strip, for its stony soil and bristly weeds. There’d been talk in recent months that the Master hoped to plant there next year. Though seeding season was months off, it would not be unusual for an uncultivated stretch of land like that to be cleared and turned in the early fall so it would have the winter to take in air and water. As Cal approached now, he was thrilled to see a large plow already standing in wait in the scrub strip with a black horse rigged to the front. The animal occasionally pawed the topsoil and tossed its mane, looking as impatient to set to work as Cal felt. Cal smiled broadly—but his expression quickly changed when he took a few more steps and saw just which horse it was that was waiting for him. He stopped and turned to Mr. Willis.

  “That’s Coal Mine,” he said.

  “Them’s sharp eyes,” Willis answered. “Coal Mine’s who it is.”

  That was a very bad turn. Coal Mine was one of the biggest horses at Greenfog and easily the orneriest, a beast so ill-tempered it snorted and bit even when it was in a good frame of mind. The horse had been given its name on account of its deep, black coat, but none of the slaves ever addressed him that way, since—unlike any horse they’d ever seen—Coal Mine seemed to grow angrier at the very sound of his name. The safest way to address him was usually just “you horse!”—at least until he took offense to that too.

  Cal slowly approached the field, stopping when he was still a good fifteen feet away from the horse and the plow. Willis looked at him with a small, mean smile.

  “The matter, boy?” he asked. “You ain’t scared, are you?”

  “No, sir,” Cal said.

  “You don’t wanna go back to bird chasin’, do you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then get yourself in harness and get behind that animal,” Willis instructed.

  Cal nodded but didn’t move.

  “Now,” the man said.

  Cal circled nervously around Coal Mine and stepped toward the harness laid out along the ground. He lifted the heavy leather shoulder straps, jostling them as little as possible. Coal Mine snorted menacingly.

  “Faster, boy!” Willis snapped. “Morning’s half gone already.”

  Cal slipped the rest of the way into the harness, took hold of the reins, then snapped them and clicked his tongue the way he’d seen the grown slaves do. To his surprise, Coal Mine started to move. Even Mr. Willis looked like he hadn’t expected that and grunted in what was either approval or annoyance. After a few moments of watching Cal at work, he turned to go back to the tobacco fields, warning Cal before he left that he’d be back to check on him and, if he saw him slacking, would whip him soundly. “Unless I don’t jes’ feed you to that horse,” he added with a laugh.

  For a little while after Mr. Willis left, Cal and Coal Mine got on passably well, but their work was not easy. The plow would never go more than a few feet before coming up against a slab of stone so big that the clank of the blade would vibrate right through the rigging and into the boy and the horse themselves, causing both to jump. Cal would then have to creep forward and clear away the obstacle before he could go any farther—always keeping low so as to dodge a hoof if it came his way. After enough clangs and enough delays, Coal Mine had had enough, stopping cold in the field and refusing to move. Cal clicked his tongue and the horse did nothing; he snapped the reins, and the horse kicked out. He tried doing both at once and Coal Mine first reared up and then kicked back, doing both so furiously that Cal was convinced the animal was going to tip the plow and rip the riggings.

  “Ain’t seen no one handle this horse so poor before,” Mr. Willis’s voice called out as he breasted back through the tobacco plants, nodding his head in mock disappointment. “I guess two beasts as thick as the pair of you just wasn’t meant to be together.”

  “We was fine for a time, sir,” Cal said, “but I can’t make him do nothin’ now.”

  “You best try harder,” Willis snapped. “You push on him yet?”

  “Push on him, sir?”

  “You got mud in your ears, boy?”

  “Mr. Willis, I touch that horse, and he’ll kill me sure.”

  “You don’t touch him, and I’ll kill you sure. Stand off to the side and push him from there if you’re so afraid. He kicks then, you might just dodge them hooves.”

  Cal looked at Willis warily, then at Coal Mine, and concluded he stood a better chance with the animal than with the man. He dropped the reins and harness, crept toward Coal Mine’s left flank, and placed his hands on the hindquarters. The horse felt bristly and hot and, to Cal’s surprise, did not react to his touch. Cal pushed gently, and Coal Mine snorted loudly.

  “More!” Willis commanded.

  Cal pushed Coal Mine harder and the animal snorted louder.

  “More!” Willis shouted, snapping his whip loudly.

  Cal drew a breath, closed his eyes and did as he was told, shoving Coal Mine hard enough to tell even the dimmest horse it had to move. “You horse!” he shouted for extra measure.

  At that, Coal Mine produced a sound Cal had never heard from a horse before—less a snort than a roar. He lashed back with his hooves once, and then again, and still again. On that last one, he twisted his body as he kicked, whipped a hind leg around and clipped Cal hard on the side of the head. The hoof and shoe met scalp and skull and the world seemed to explode in a burst of blackness and sparkles, accompanied by a pain so great it passed beyond pain altogether. Cal felt himself flying through the air and then hitting the ground with a hard, blind thump that shook all his bones and snapped his head back even more violently than the kick had. Cal heard nothing, saw nothing and lay completely still, reckoning with a strange sort of calm that this was probably the end of him and that, with his head and bones all likely broke, that just might be a good thing. After a time—there was no telling how long—the blackness began to part and he heard Mr. Willis’s voice, muffled and thick as if it were coming through molasses.

  “Get up, boy,” it sounded like the voice was saying.

  Cal could not move.

  “Get up,” the voice repeated.

  Cal opened his eyes and saw the overseer standing above him. The man was bent over and squinting at him hard, with an unfamiliar expression on his face. The expression would have passed for concern if Cal had been a white child, but was likelier an expression of worry that one piece of the Master’s property might have been broken beyond repair by another piece and that Willis himself might have to pay for the damage.

  “You’re fine,” Willis said, and Cal now heard him more clearly. “That animal only nicked you. He’da hit you square, you’d be dead now.”

  Lifting himself on his elbows, Cal looked dizzily about and saw other slaves
running toward him. Racing through their legs was Plato and behind him, his mama. Plato had been watching Cal admiringly as he worked Coal Mine along the plow line; the moment the horse kicked out, the boy took off.

  “Is he gonna die, Mama?” Plato cried. “Is he gonna die?”

  “Stand back!” Willis commanded. Plato kept running and when he came within reach, Willis shoved him away hard.

  “Come to me, child!” Mama commanded. “This ain’t your affair!”

  “Hold that boy ’fore I decide not to wait for the appraiser and just sell him off today!” Willis yelled. Mama grabbed Plato and held him close

  Cal sat the rest of the way up, feeling dizzy enough to lose his breakfast. His eyes seemed to be loose in their sockets. His face was sticky with blood flowing from a cut where the horse’s hoof had hit. In the ground was an impression as deep as a bowl where his head had struck and sunk.

  “I ain’t gonna die,” Cal said dully to Plato. His own voice sounded odd and echolike to him.

  Two slave men stepped forward to help Cal to his feet and Willis glared at them. “The boy’s gonna get up on his own,” he said.

  The men stepped back and Cal rose slowly to a crouch, steadied himself and stood up cautiously. He wiped the blood from his cheek and then, absently, wiped his hand on his shirt. He turned to Plato, flashed a weak smile—and then winked. Plato beamed.

  “Somethin’ funny to you?” Willis shouted at Cal.

  “No, sir,” Cal answered.

  “To you?” he yelled even more fiercely at Plato.

  Plato shook his head in a terrified no.

  “You ready to get back behind that plow?” Willis barked at Cal.

  Cal hesitated. “Yes, sir,” he answered, his head throbbing with the mere effort of speaking.