by Mikki Sadil
“It gonna be all right, Ben McKenna. Your friends are safe with me. I be taking them acrost the river, and then I’ll go with them to my friend’s house. They not ever going to be slaves again. You can count on that.” He squeezed Ben’s shoulder, untied the boat, and stepped in. The boat pulled out into the river, and Bess, Jess, and Josiah waved to Ben until they disappeared into the darkness.
Ben stood silently, at last allowing the tears to well in his eyes. When the three figures he had grown to love faded from view, he turned away. He took a few steps and then looked back over his shoulder. The river was empty for as far as he could see. They were free.
I did the right thing. Pa always said us boys had to stand up for what we believed in and I did. Maybe he’ll remember his teachings when I get home and he’ll forgive me. Even if he doesn’t, I know for sure what I did was right.
He stood looking out over the dark, empty river and felt a familiar chill he knew wasn’t caused by the wind. He had left his childhood behind. His fourteenth birthday had come and gone, and he hadn’t even noticed. He was a man. Best he behaved as one.
Ben turned away from the river and began the long journey home.
The End
Mikki Sadil books also published by Books We Love
The Return of the Freedom Thief
The Freedom Thief, Book 2
Cheers, Chocolate and Other Disasters
Lily Langford and the Book of Practical Magic
Beneath the Possum Belly, Night Cries
Mikki Sadil is a wife, mother, and grandmother who has been writing most of her life. As a child, she sat beside her French grandmother and listened to the stories of fairies and elves and ghosts and spirits that came from the “old country” of Alsace Lorraine, France. Her love of stories came from those early years, and she began her own writing when she was ten years old. Today, she has published more than thirty short stories and non-fiction articles as well as two books. She shares her home on the beautiful Central Coast of California with her husband, their beloved Corgi, and fat Siamese/Himalayan cat.