by Mikki Sadil
Ben shook his head, angry for having doubts about something he had to do. He moved forward again, and soon he caught a glimpse of what he was searching for.
Fear left him, and excitement took its place. He approached the barn slowly. The sides were weather-beaten, with cracks between the wood planks. Boards once covered the windows, but most had come loose from their nails and hung comically against the structure. Some of the shingles on the roof had blown off, and a curious whistling sound came from those left on.
Large doors suspended from rusted metal runners squeaked as he pushed and pulled to open them. With a final groan, the doors opened into darkness relieved only by tiny slivers of sunlight shimmying down from the broken shingles on the roof. The interior was cold and damp. Little puffs of air snarled through the open cracks in the walls. His eyes slowly became accustomed to the black interior. When he breathed in, the odor of long-dead animals and human sweat tickled his nose.
A flash of sunlight brought a glint of something shiny on the far wall. Ben walked closer. A steel chain with a spiked ball attached, and two leather whips hung on the wall. The whips divided at the ends into nine separate “tails”, and he recognized them as the cat-o-nine-tails he had read about. Reddish-brown stains covered the tails and the spiked ball. Splotches spattered around the wall were the same color. He swallowed, and tried to keep his stomach from heaving. He knew these were instruments of torment once used to beat runaway slaves.
He turned away and walked farther into the barn. Remnants of stalls, now only rotting segments of wood, leaned haphazardly against one another. A faint odor of sweaty horses still lingered in the air, and Ben wondered what breeds had once been stabled here.
He stepped around them, and crept along the side of the wall, gingerly feeling his way. The wood was rough and splintery and small slivers came off and embedded themselves in his gloves. He wrinkled his nose against the dank smell of rot and mildew.
Piles of hay and years of dust and dirt, undisturbed by human feet, lay in front of him. He shuffled his way through to the far end of the barn where the doors there had several large wooden beams nailed across them. No one was going to come or go by those doors.
He continued feeling his way around the barn walls. After a few minutes, he was back at the front door. He stopped and stared at the walls. Grammy told me this was a good day for exploring. She must have known I’d find the barn. But what’s the key for? I don’t see any door or anything that would take a key.
Mounds of moldy straw and horse manure covered the dusty floor, as though someone had started to clean out the barn, but had simply piled it up in places and left it. His glance rested on a huge mound of rotting debris that appeared to be piled higher than the rest. He walked over and kicked some of the putrid mess out of the way. A large rat ran over his boot, and he yelled, “Dang it!”
The rat disappeared, but Ben felt bile in his throat. In New York, rats were associated with garbage and disease, and he shuddered any time he saw one. He moved on closer to the wall.
Decaying straw, hay, and manure, matted tightly together, climbed halfway up the wall, well over his head. He stared hard at it, and after a minute, could barely make out the faint outline of a door almost completely hidden by the mass of debris.
His stomach clenched a second time in disgust. He hesitated. Maybe I should just go on home. I don’t like this place. He shook his head, as if trying to dislodge his uneasy thoughts. No, I’ve come this far, I’m going to find that door, if there is one.
He looked around for something to move the decayed mound and spotted an old shovel lying beneath the broken rails of a stall. Although the long handle had deteriorated into little more than a mass of splintered wood, the blade was still usable. He removed several shovelfuls, which sent pieces of smelly debris falling on his head and down his jacket.
“Dang it!” he yelled again and shook it off. The unholy stench of the filth that covered the barn’s floor reminded him of having to use the outhouse in the middle of summer. Bile rose up in his throat again, and by sheer will power he swallowed it back down. In a few minutes, he had scraped away enough of the debris to reveal the outline of a door.
He moved closer, removed his gloves, and ran his fingertips around it. There was no padlock, just a small keyhole high up on the edge of the door. Anyone looking from even a short distance away would miss it.
Ben looked around and spotted an overturned wooden bucket. He walked over and picked it up. Something small and vicious hissed at him. He jumped back, dropping the bucket. A gray possum with several babies on her back scuttled away.
He picked up the bucket again and put it in front of the door to stand on. He could barely reach the keyhole. He put the key in, and it fit. He didn’t turn it. If this was the secret room, then it probably had a tunnel below. Ben couldn’t bring himself to think about that tunnel. He stepped off the bucket and sat down on it.
He thought back to the times when he was little, and Andrew and James played “hide and seek” with him. They laughed when he was too easy to find and would put him in a closet with a tightly shut door so he couldn’t open it. Once, they went outside to play and forgot about him. It was almost an hour before Ma found him sitting on the floor and crying. He became deathly afraid of dark and enclosed places and still had not completely outgrown his fear.
Now, if there really was a tunnel, he would have to go down there with the rats and snakes and spiders and every other kind of creature that lurked in dark places. His skin crawled at the thought.
Ben stood on the bucket again and turned the key. He heard the tiny click, jumped down, and wrestled with the door until it opened enough for him to slip through. The room was small and dank, and he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light seeping in from several cracks in the walls.
In the middle of the dirt floor laid the remnants of a rag rug. When he pushed the rug aside, a large iron ring lay flat on the floor. He pulled up on it, and a trap door sprang up so suddenly he fell backward. Ben got to his hands and knees and peered down into total blackness. A fine mist-like spray of dust floated up from below, along with the rancid odor of something long closed up and unused. He sat back and looked down into the darkness. His skin prickled with goose bumps as he thought about how long the tunnel might be, and where, or even if, it would come out.
He let the trap door fall back with a loud thud, pushed the rug back over it, and slipped out of the room. He closed and locked the door, and kicked the bucket under the dilapidated railing of the nearest horse stall.
Ben tried not to breathe as he pushed the reeking pile of hay and horse manure up against the door. He backed away and looked at it; although the pile wasn’t as high as before, the outline of the door seemed to fade back into the wall until it was almost indistinguishable. He shuffled back through the barn to the door, kicking the debris behind him as he went. The barn couldn’t have had anyone in it for years, by the looks of it, but he didn’t want to take any chances. He squeezed through the open doors and tugged until they shut behind him.
He stood still for a moment, listening. The forest was as still and silent as it had been before, only this time the silence was menacing. The air seemed to hum around him. Ben felt the small hairs on the back of his neck tingle. He walked quickly away from the barn and back into the forest. A few minutes later, he breathed a sigh of relief when he caught a glimpse of the last tree he had carved with an “E”, and headed toward it. He had only gone a few yards when he stopped. He stood so still he couldn’t feel himself breathe.
Whispers came from deep within the woods. Branches crackled and broke, and before Ben could move, a small group of slaves burst from the trees. Four men, two women, and two small children stopped and stared. Fear froze the adults’ faces into deeply creased masks.
There were no more whispers. A deadly silence fell between the group and Ben. One of the slaves moved away from the others and started toward Ben. His heavily muscled arms ended in fists clenched ti
ghtly around a thick branch. Fear dropped around Ben like a stone cloak. He was no match for this slave, with or without a weapon. He felt frozen in time. The slave came closer, and still without speaking a word, raised the branch above his head.
Chapter Five
Ben came to life as adrenalin coursed through his body. He streaked past the slave, past the rest of the group, and ran for his life into the forest.
He crashed through the brambles and brush, not caring about the noise he was making. When he finally came upon another tree with an “E”, he dropped into the bushes behind it. His breath came in gasps and his heart pounded. To his relief, there were no sounds of the slave coming after him, as the forest was once again silent. He waited. Time seemed to stop. He realized the birds had begun to call again, and the usual animal sounds were coming up from the forest floor. The danger seemed to be over. Ben wiped the sweat from his forehead, bent over, and vomited.
He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and moved back into the forest, following the trees with the carving until he spotted Traveler still munching on wild oats. He carved another “E” on the tree where he had tethered the horse, untied him and swung up on his back. Ben let Traveler pick his way back through the tightly woven weeds and brush until they reached open ground. Digging his heels into Traveler’s sides, he galloped toward the safety of the plantation.
Ben untacked the horse and put him back in his corral. He leaned against the corral fence and thought about what had just happened. Would the escaping slaves find the barn? Did they even know about it, or were they merely running for their lives and came upon Ben by chance? He let out a big sigh. The only way he would find out was to visit the barn again. Only the next time, it would be with Josiah and his parents. Ben was sure of that.
A loud clap of thunder startled him, and heavy rain began falling. He mixed the sweet feed for Traveler and put it into his feeder. With a final pat on the horse’s nose, he raced for the kitchen.
As he hung up his wet jacket, his mother came in. She took one look at his flushed cheeks and dirty clothing and shook her head.
“Ben, where have you been? You look like something Mouser found in the barn.” She wrinkled her nose and added, “And you smell like you’ve been rolling around with the horses.”
Ben crossed his fingers behind him and looked down at the floor. “Uh, well, I tripped over something when I was mucking the stalls. Sorry, Ma, I guess I got some manure on my pants. Then I rode Traveler out into the woods looking for some branches for carving, but I didn’t find anything good.”
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before Pa strode into the kitchen. He threw his hat and jacket at the coat rack. The garments missed it completely and fell to the floor. He muttered something under his breath as he picked them up and hung them properly, then pulled out a chair and plopped down. He looked at Ben and laughed. “Ben, what have you been doing? And what is that smell?”
Before he could answer, his mother said with a smile, “Ben has grown two inches this year, and now he’s feeling it. He tripped over his own feet in the barn and went down in the manure.” She looked at Ben. “You need to feed the horses and then strip down on the back porch. Don’t come in here again in those clothes, or we’ll never get the smell out.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll go now.” He hurried out the back door, and breathed a sigh of relief.
* * *
Later that evening, Grammy stood in his open bedroom door with a book in one hand and her reading glasses in the other. “Well, Ben, I noticed you were gone a long time today. Where did you go?”
“I, uh, I went exploring. Out in those woods to the north of the plantation.”
“Oh, I see. Well, I suppose if you found anything interesting enough to go back to, you would somehow be able to find your way again?”
“Uh, yeah, I reckon I can. You know…if I should have to.”
“I hope you…” Grammy put her glasses on and took them off again. She looked at Ben and sighed. “What I mean is, I hope you don’t find the need to go into that part of the woods again. It could become very dangerous.” She gave him a faint smile, said goodnight, and went into her room. He went to bed wondering what she really meant.
* * *
Ben came down to breakfast the next morning to find only his mother in the kitchen. She was taking up fresh hot bread as he walked in.
“Morning, Ma. Where is everybody?”
“One of the horses foundered, so your pa and the boys are out there with him. Josiah isn’t feeling well, and Bess just went to check on him.”
“Ma, what about Josiah? Has Pa given up on selling him?”
“No, he hasn’t. I’m sorry. If this man who’s talked to your pa about him decides not to buy him, then he’ll go up for auction.”
“Grammy says if anybody bought him, it would not be to do good by him.”
Ben saw his mother’s lips tighten into that familiar straight line. “Your grandmother shouldn’t be saying things like that. She doesn’t know that for true. Besides, if Pa wants to sell him, he will sell him and that’s final. There’s nothing to be had for you making a fuss over it.”
Ben didn’t answer. He ate quickly and went out to do his chores. By the time he had finished mucking the stalls and cleaning the saddles and bridles, it was almost noon. He picked up some of his tree branches and his carving knife and went down to the creek. He had started carving when he heard leaves rustling. He looked up to see Josiah.
“Hey, Ben. What you doin’?”
“Sit down here, and I’ll show you. See this red tree branch? I thought I’d carve something for you. How about a red squirrel?”
Josiah grinned and his eyes sparkled. “Yah, Ben, that be good. Don’t have no squirrels yet.” He sat down, leaned back against the tree, and watched his friend in silence.
As Ben worked, he thought about all the toys he had made for Josiah over the last few years. They were the only ones the young slave had ever had, and Ben knew he treasured each one. Now, Ben was also teaching him to read. The law said slaves could not learn to read, but this didn’t stop him. He wanted Josiah to be free, to live his own life and to even go to school. If he could already read, things would be easier for him.
He finished the squirrel and held it out to Josiah. “Here it is, my friend. Like it?”
Josiah took the small carving and rubbed it gently. “Yah, Ben, it be good. I go show Mama now, okay?” He got up and started to limp away, then turned back.
“Thankee, Ben.” He grinned again and headed for his cabin.
Ben smiled at the small sturdy figure walking as fast as his limp would allow him, happy that a little thing like carving a wooden animal could give him such great pleasure. He turned back to the creek, and skipped a rock across it, while his thoughts turned to the old barn with its secret room and the tunnel below. He didn’t know if he could control his fear of dark narrow places like the tunnel or not, but he knew it was the only way to get Josiah and his parents to the safety of the Ohio River. At the same time, rationally, he knew that if they were caught, he could end up in jail, Bess and Jesse would be beaten, and Josiah would still be sold like a piece of furniture.
That night after the house had gotten quiet with everyone in bed, Ben dressed quickly, and shoes in hand, walked down the back stairs. He put on his coat and slipped noiselessly out of the door. He ran out to the slave quarters, hoping that Jesse and Bess were still up. He knew that even though the slaves got up at dawn every morning, they often sat up late talking, the only time they had for coming together with friends or family. When he saw a lantern lighting up the dusky interior of the wood cabin Jesse, Josiah, and Bess shared with two other families, he walked up and pounded on the door. Jesse opened the door.
“Jesse, I need to talk to you. Please come outside,” Ben said urgently.
“Boy, what you doin’ here this time of night? You catch your death out here like this. What you want, anyway?”
“Pa is getting ready to sell
Josiah. I know how to help you escape from here.” Ben blurted the words out without thinking, and immediately he saw fear, suspicion, and anger cross the big man’s face. Since so many slaves were running away, he thought maybe Jesse believed Ben was only saying this to see if he would consider running, also.
“Jesse, listen to me, I’m not making this up. Pa has a buyer for Josiah, but he says he’s going sell him even if the buyer backs out. He says he’ll sell him at auction of he has to.
Jesse said, “Boy, you done told Bess this story?”
Ben shook his head. “No, I just found out for sure that Pa is going to do this, no matter what. But I know how to get you away from here.”
Jesse looked at Ben for a moment. “I got to go talk to Bess. We gots to think on this a while.” He shook his head and mumbled to himself, “Massa goin’ to sell my boy. Cain’t understand that.” He went back inside and shut the door.
Ben slipped back into the house and in his room without disturbing anyone. He lay in bed thinking of what he could say to Bess the next day to convince her that Pa was determined to sell Josiah. He didn’t know how he could talk to her in the house without Ma or Grammy being around, and she was hardly ever out by the barns. He fell asleep before he could figure out what to do.
* * *
The next evening they gathered for supper.
Pa said, “Laura, I want you to tell Bess to make up the extra room for Mister Pembrook. He will be here tomorrow mid-day, sooner than he expected, and will be leaving the next morning.”