Freedom Bound

by Jean Rae Baxter

  “If he’s that young Quaker,” said Abner, “I hope he hasn’t stumbled on to the cave. He might do that, lookin’ for his brother.”

  “If he’s at the cave,” said Billy, “we’ll have to deal with him too.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” said Abner. “Let’s get moving. The day’s nearly done.”

  “We would’ve been there four hours ago,” Billy grumbled, “if the boat hadn’t gone aground. Four hours wasted towing it through the marsh! I said three men was too many.”

  “Never mind. We’ll pay our visit, then get back to Rufus and the boat.”

  Charlotte and Jammy, both lying flat on their stomach, exchanged a glance.

  When the men were out of earshot, she said, “Those are the two men I was talking about, the ones holding Nick. Rufus is the man who carried them away in a rowboat. I wonder where he is now?”

  “The water’s gone down too much to reach the cave by boat. Most likely they left it by a creek or inlet where the water’s deeper. And that Rufus fellow is stayin’ with the boat.”

  “How far is it to the cave.”

  “’Bout one mile further ’long this path.”

  “It would be safer for us to take a different path.”

  “There ain’t no other path to the cave.” He paused to scratch a mosquito bite. “If you don’t mind gators, we can go through the bog.”

  Charlotte did mind gators, but she saw no alternative.

  “Can we reach the cave before dark?”

  “I figure we can.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Jammy led her down a slope into the swampiest kind of swamp. With every step, her boots sank into the muck, and she lifted her foot with a squelchy, slurping sound.

  They sloshed on without speaking. The air was full of flying insects. Slapping and sweating, they trudged along. It felt like hours before they reached firmer ground.

  They had just crossed a creek, using the trunk of a fallen cypress tree as a bridge, when Charlotte caught sight of a cabin almost hidden in the trees. It stood in shallow water, a small log cabin with a cedar-shake roof. Saplings crowded close to the walls on all four sides. The stumps of larger, felled trees were sticking out of the water.

  Could this be the abandoned cabin Elijah had told her about? If it was, he might be in its loft at this very moment, peering out at them through a chink in the logs.

  She stopped in her tracks. “That cabin . . . does anyone use it?”

  “I never seen nobody there.”

  “Can we have a look?”

  “If we waste time, we ain’t gonna get to the cave before dark.” He gave her arm a pull.

  He was right. This was no time to stop and explain about Elijah. She gave the cabin one last glance as Jammy led her away.

  Chapter 21

  “THERE’S THE CAVE.”

  Jammy pointed to an outcropping of rock facing them from the far side of a creek. The outcropping ran as a low ridge as far as Charlotte could see. At its base the receding water had left broken branches, uprooted saplings, and masses of waterweed strewn on the muddy bank, everything coated with ooze.

  The cave entrance was a cleft in the rock about two feet wide, five feet high, with an overhang projecting above. When the creek was in full flood, the base of the cave must have been under water. It was not under water now. Boot prints in the mud showed that two men had recently gone inside.

  Charlotte and Jammy crouched in the brush on their side of the creek. There was still plenty of daylight, though the sun was low in the west.

  “Those men are in the cave right now,” Charlotte whispered. “I wonder if they’ll stay all night.”

  “Not if a friend with a boat is waitin’ for them. They’ll want to join him before dark.”

  “I’ll cross the creek,” she said, “and crawl up to the cave mouth so I can hear what’s happening inside.”

  She edged her way to the creek bank and scrambled down its muddy side. The water, now tamely within its banks, was neither deep nor fast. Danger lay only in being seen. As quickly as she could, she waded to the other side.

  Safe so far! Charlotte crawled to a pile of flotsam a yard from the cave mouth, lay down with her body pressed against the outcropping, and wriggled into the mess of broken branches and soggy waterweed. Finally, she pulled over herself a leafy branch that covered her completely. Wet and muddy, she hoped that she blended right in with the debris.

  She strained to listen to the voices coming from within the cave.

  “You must have been lonesome, sittin’ here all by yourself just waitin’ for us to pay you a visit.” That was Billy.

  Nick made no answer that Charlotte could hear.

  “Might as well tell us now,” said Abner, “’cause sooner or later you’re gonna anyway. You’ll save yourself a heap of pain by giving us the names of those Tory traitors before we have to squeeze them out of you.”

  “Think about it,” said Billy. “If you make us come back tomorrow, we’ll stake you out on a hill of fire ants. There’s a big nest nearby, just over the ridge. Imagine those little devils crawling all over you. Under your clothes, in your ears, up your nose.”

  “I don’t know any names.” Nick sounded very tired.

  “Yes, you do,” said Abner. “You rode all around the backcountry talking to people.”

  “I can tell you nothing.”

  “We’re wasting our time,” said Billy. “Let’s go join Rufus before it’s too dark to find our way back to the boat. We’ll have better luck tomorrow.”

  “You’re right. Rufus is waiting.”

  Their voices came closer. Charlotte held her breath.

  “Pleasant dreams,” Billy snickered as he left the cave.

  “He’ll talk,” said Abner, following close behind. “Fire ants never fail.”

  Billy giggled. “By sunset tomorrow, the planter’s son will be hanging from a tree, and you and I will be in Jacksonboro with a list of names as long as your arm.”

  That’s what you think, Charlotte said to herself.

  She did not let out her breath until she heard them splashing across the creek. When they were out of earshot, she pushed off from her body the mess of debris that had covered her. Rising to her feet, she glanced down at her clothes. Both the grey coat and long black vest were now the same shade of brown muck.

  The sun was setting when she beckoned to Jammy—or at least she beckoned in the general direction of where he was hiding.

  He rose from the brush, also as muddy as a fresh-pulled turnip, and waded across the creek to join her. “Do you want me to go inside with you?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “We need a lookout. I don’t think those men will be back tonight, but just in case . . .”

  She entered the cave alone.

  The stench struck her first. At bottom there was the sour reek of swamp water. Mixed with it was a sickening, sweetish odour of rot and decay. For half a minute she paused, her nose adjusting to the foul air and her eyes to the darkness. She took another step, stooping to keep from bumping her head. When she could see clearly, the sight made her gasp.

  There was Nick, sitting slumped and motionless. Around his neck was a metal slave collar. Stretching from the collar to a pin driven into the cave wall was a chain no more than a yard long. Hand bolts cuffed his wrists behind his back. On his ankles were shackles joined by a ten-inch chain. The way his manacles held him, there was no way he could lie down.

  He sat facing sideways, and at first did not see her enter the cave. But perhaps he noticed the shadow she cast with the light behind her, for after a moment he turned his head in her direction.

  She said, “Nick. It’s me. Charlotte.”

  “Charlotte?” A wheezing sound came from his throat. “Touch me. I want to be sure you’re real.”

  Kneeling beside him, she pressed her cheek to his. “I’m real.”

  “I didn’t think anyone would know where to look for me.”

  “
Captain Braemar came to tell me what happened. He thought you’d been taken into the swamp.” She pulled the file from her satchel. “Mrs. Doughty gave me this. She thought I might need it.” She rubbed her thumb along the file. “Where shall I start?”

  “With the handbolts. But first, give me water if you have any.”

  She pulled the flask from her satchel and held it to his lips. He drank with great thirsty gulps.

  “I have food, too,” she said. “Bread and cheese.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  She put away the flask and picked up the file.

  The handbolts consisted off two iron cuffs joined by a thick iron bar. The bar was double the thickness of either cuff.

  “I’ll begin with the cuff on your right wrist,” said Charlotte. “Then you’ll have one hand completely free.”

  Scritch, scritch, the file rasped.

  “Did you come alone?” Nick asked.

  “No. By good luck I found Phoebe’s friend Jammy. He’s been hiding in the swamp, and he knew about the cave.”

  “Where’s he now?”

  “Outside. Keeping watch.”

  As her file ground away at the metal cuff, she told Nick about her night at the inn and how she recognized the two men who had been watching him at the slave auction.

  She kept on filing until her fingers cramped. Then she stretched them, pulled them to ease the joints, and started again. A blister formed in the groove between her thumb and index finger. When the blister broke, the raw skin was too sore for her to press as hard as needed.

  “I’ll ask Jammy to take over,” she said.

  “How much progress have you made?”

  She ran her fingers around the cuff. “It’s too dark to see, but I can feel a groove.”

  When Jammy took over, Charlotte stationed herself outside the cave to keep watch. Her knees drawn up to her chin and her hands wrapped around her shins, she stared into the darkness, listening to the animal sounds from the swamp and to the scritch, scritch of the file in the cave behind her.

  Jammy was filing twice as fast as she could. Though not very big, he was strong—all sinew and bone. His hands must be hard from his work in the stable.

  After a while, when she remembered that she had not eaten since morning, she took the bread and cheese from her satchel. She ate a little, and then went inside to offer some to Nick and Jammy. Jammy stopped work long enough to wolf down his portion. Nick still wanted only water.

  He’s sick, she thought as she again held her flask to his mouth. Who wouldn’t be, after being tied up in a stinking cave, half the time sitting in cold water?

  “I’m nearly through this cuff,” said Jammy as he picked up the file again.

  “I’m staying in the cave with you,” Charlotte said. “We don’t need a sentry this late.”

  A few minutes later Jammy announced, “That’s it! His right hand is free. What next?”

  Nick raised his hand shakily to the metal slave collar around his neck. “This.”

  “It would take too long to file through the collar,” said Charlotte. “Just cut the chain that attaches it to the wall.”

  Crouching at Nick’s side in the darkness, she took his right hand in hers. “Your skin feels like ice.” While Jammy set to work with the file, Charlotte rubbed Nick’s hand and his arm.

  “You’re a ministering angel,” he said. “My blood’s starting to circulate. As soon as we’re out of here, I’ll be fine.”

  Jammy worked all night. After cutting through the chain that attached Nick’s neck collar to the wall, he severed the chain that linked his shackles.

  At sunrise they emerged from the cave. By the light of dawn Charlotte saw the pallor of Nick’s skin and the redness of his eyes. With the collar around his neck, the iron cuff and hand bolts attached to his left wrist, and the shackles on his ankles trailing links of chain, Nick still wore the instruments of his ordeal.

  Soon his captors would return. When they found Nick gone, they would search for him. Only in Charleston could he be safe. But Charleston was ten miles away, and he was too weak to walk that far. Charlotte saw only one solution.

  “Jammy, will you take us back to that abandoned cabin so Nick can rest?”

  “He can’t rest there. The floor’s under water.”

  “I think there’s a loft. A friend told me about an abandoned cabin with a loft you can reach by a ladder. If that’s the cabin he meant, we can hide in the loft. It will be dry. Can you find that cabin again?”

  “Sure thing, Miss Charlotte.”

  As they started walking, Charlotte did not like the look of the deep prints their feet were making in the mud. But after a time, when they went through a flooded region where they would leave no tracks, she felt safer.

  They came upon the cabin suddenly. It was in a little hollow, with trees crowding all around. If there ever had been glass in the single window, it was there no longer. The door was open, hanging by one hinge.

  Charlotte stepped inside. The water reached her ankles.

  A brick fireplace, its hearth submerged, took up the entire end wall. In size, the cabin was about eight feet by ten. This could have been a snug little home, she thought, if the settler hadn’t built it on the floodplain.

  Nick looked doubtful. “Is this it?”

  “I’m not sure.” She looked up. “I expected to see a trap door that would open to the loft. But this ceiling has boards all the way across.”

  “I see one feature that’s unusual,” said Nick.

  “What’s that?”

  “The moulding around the walls, right under the ceiling. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to trim that wood.” Faced with a challenge, Nick seemed to come to life. “Maybe the moulding’s not for decoration. It may serve as a ledge to support boards that aren’t nailed in place. Let’s see if we can find a couple.”

  The ceiling was only a foot above Nick’s head. Raising his free hand, he pushed hard at the board directly over him. It didn’t move.

  “Not that one,” he said.

  Starting with the boards closest to the door, he worked his way to the other end of the cabin. The second-to-last board lifted when he pushed. The last one did the same.

  “There!” he said. “If we shove those two loose boards out of the way, we have our entrance.”

  “There’s no ladder,” said Charlotte.

  “We don’t need a ladder. I’ll give you and Jammy a boost up.”

  “Not me, Mister Nick. I ain’t stayin’. No sir! I’ve been in this godforsaken swamp long enough. I’m on my way to Charleston to say goodbye to Phoebe.”

  “Say goodbye! Are you going away?” asked Charlotte.

  “Now that Phoebe’s free, she can make a good life for herself and the baby. But there can’t be any place in that life for me. Not in Charleston.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “North. Or maybe west. Someplace slave catchers can’t find me.”

  Charlotte did not try to argue. Jammy was right. He had to leave.

  “Jammy, it’s too dangerous for you to go to Charleston. Let me give Phoebe a message from you.”

  “No. Phoebe’s my girl. I can’t just run off without seeing her one more time.”

  Charlotte paused, knowing she would feel the same if she had to leave Nick and knew that it might be forever. “Just be careful,” she said.

  “Phoebe and I have a signal that she’ll recognize. If you tell me where she sleeps . . .?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  “Good. I can creep around to the backyard at night and rap on the shutter. She’ll let me in. Then I’ll be gone before morning.”

  “Let her know that Nick and I are safe. Tell her we’ll be back soon.”

  She hugged Jammy, though she could tell that he felt uncomfortable. Jammy wasn’t used to hugs from white people.

  After shaking hands with Nick, Jammy took a few steps toward the door. Then he stopped. “Do you want some help getting into the loft?”

&nbs
p; “We’ll manage,” said Charlotte. “You’d best be on your way.”

  She and Nick watched from the doorway as Jammy crossed the creek, using the trunk of the fallen cypress tree for a bridge. Just as he had first appeared emerging from a wall of green, he disappeared into it the same way.

  Chapter 22

  THEY STOOD IN the flooded cabin, looking up at the loose boards.

  “I’ll push those out of the way,” said Nick, “then we can go up.”

  Charlotte turned to him. “Someone may be up there now, hiding in the loft.”

  “If there is, he’s being mighty quiet.”

  “Wouldn’t you be, if somebody was breaking into your hiding place?”

  “Are you serious? Do you really think someone may be up there?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. Who is this fugitive lurking over our heads?”

  “Elijah Cobman.”

  “Elijah Cobman! Your friend from the Mohawk Valley? You’ve told me a lot about him, but nothing to suggest he’d be hiding in a South Carolina swamp.”

  “Elijah deserted his regiment. He’ll face a firing squad if he’s caught.”

  “I see.” Nick paused. “If he were in the loft, he’d hear you. He’d recognize your voice.”

  “But not yours. He might suspect a trap.”

  “Announce yourself, then. Tell him it’s me with you.”

  “Of course. That’s all I have to do.” Raising her head, she called loud and clear, “Elijah! It’s me, Charlotte! Nick’s with me. It’s safe.”

  Not a sound came from above.

  She turned to Nick. “If he were here, he would answer.”

  “Let’s go up and see what we find.”

  Nick raised his arms and shifted the loose boards aside. Lacing his fingers, he made a stirrup of his hands. “Up you go!”

  As Charlotte set her foot in place and put her hands upon his shoulders, she felt a tremor come over him. The spark of energy he had shown seemed to have burned out.

  Bracing her forearms on the frame, she pulled herself through and scrambled over the free boards onto the rough wooden floor. Spaces between the logs, where chinking had fallen out, admitted enough light for her to look around.