by Carl Waters
Without another word, he mounted the horse and went on his way, leaving Jim to follow him—or not. The ride home was very long and very quiet, and George spent it trying to make a plan for what he was going to do.
Because it had become very obvious that he needed to do something. He couldn’t count on Jim any more than he’d ever counted on anyone else.
* * *
When Eliza found him several hours later, he was sitting on the floor of their bedroom, his head in his hands. He hadn’t been able to come up with any solutions, and, instead of feeling better, he’d just grown angrier and more despondent.
“George, whatever is the matter?” she asked, dropping to her knees next to him.
He put his head against her shoulder and began telling her about the wharf, the magic of the steamboat, and the trick Jim had played on him—and how it made him feel. He left out much of the argument, but finished by telling her that he and Jim had disagreed, and that Jim had indicated that George and his family were a burden.
“I don’t know what to do,” he finally said. “I will not be traded as if I’m a slave. I haven’t come all this way to be treated the same way I was in Kentucky, Eliza!”
She sighed and began to rub his back. “This is partially my fault, George, and I’m sorry for it,” she said. “I knew of Jim’s plan and advised him not to tell you until you were on the boat. We all thought you’d be so excited about seeing that boat at last, and seeing it up close. We didn’t want to ruin it for you.”
“What?” he gasped, drawing back. “Eliza, how could you? You would have known how that would appear to me!”
She shrugged. “I didn’t think of it, George, if I’m being honest. All I knew was that Jim had secured a job for you, on one of those boats that you love so. But I knew how long you’d been waiting to see the steamboats, and I thought . . . well, I thought that walking toward it knowing that you were going to be working there would tarnish it, somehow.”
“So you agreed to let him barter me in this way?” he asked, shocked at this duplicity. “You knew that he would be selling me on that ship?”
Eliza reared back, her face sad. “Now, George, you know he wasn’t doing any such thing. You know he was just trying to get you a job. Wasn’t no sale involved.”
“You weren’t there,” he snapped. “You don’t know how it was!”
At that she stood, pulling her small frame to its greatest height and looking down on him sternly. “What I know, George, is that Jim is right. We’re living in someone else’s house and taking their food. We need to find a way to make money, so that we can pay Jim back and get our own house. Surely you can see that. Surely you want a home of our own, for you, me, and Harry?”
George narrowed his eyes, suddenly just as angry at Eliza as he had been at Jim. “So, you’ve lost your faith in me as well, have you? Don’t think I can do what I say I will? Surely you can remember, Eliza, the machine I invented in Kentucky. Surely you know that that is my calling, and that I’ll invent another that will see us as rich as Midas himself.”
“I believe in you, George,” she answered. “And I believe the Lord will show us the way soon. But I also believe that we must keep our eyes open for when He does. Being stubborn isn’t going to help us.”
George snapped his mouth shut, refusing to answer her. He didn’t believe anything would help them, if they were to sit around and wait for the Lord to show them the way.
No, there was only one way to move forward. And he’d have to figure that out for himself.
6
George slowly leaned forward until his forehead was resting on the small desk in front of him. He was frustrated. He’d fought not only with his best friend but also with his wife, and he had little to show for it except the knowledge that he’d stood by his word—and stood up for what he believed in.
But it hadn’t moved him forward. And it certainly hadn’t done him any good. All he had to show for it was a lonely room, as the others had quickly left him to brood on his own.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes, trying to get his brain to move more quickly. He needed a job—that much was obvious. Both Eliza and Jim had said so, and though he’d never agree with them out loud, he knew in his heart that they were right. He was bored and tired of taking charity. Tired of living in Jim’s house and eating Jim’s food. Most of all, he was tired of feeling as though he’d lost his purpose in life. For so long, his one and only thought had been to leave Kentucky, to escape the terrors and miseries of slavery and take his family with him. To escape, once and for all, from the clutches of that monster Harris.
He’d done that, and he’d lived through it. But now he had no momentum in life, and it was killing him, slowly but surely.
He looked down in front of him and sighed. Spread across the desk were what he thought of as his papers: blueprints, sketches, and copious notes, all doing their best to outline new sorts of contraptions. But the notes had more lines scratched out than not, and none of the drawings were complete. In fact, many of them were scratched out as well, marked over with violent lines and scribbles when he’d come to the conclusion that they were—yet again—drawings of things that wouldn’t work. His careful calculations, penciled in a column down the side of the papers, next to the illustrations, always came to nothing and, more often than not, had erasures and blackouts of their own.
He was failing. And he wasn’t sure what would be worse: knowing that himself or allowing the others to discover it. He’d been at this for weeks, and it seemed that no matter what he tried, it came to naught. Now an even worse realization had dawned on him. He had sat down today, determined to figure something out, and realized that the well of imagination he’d always taken for granted had run dry.
There were, in fact, no more ideas to develop. Now, when he needed inspiration the most, he found it to be completely lacking.
George bit his lip, trying once more to force his mind to work, but he knew that he was fighting a losing battle. He’d had periods like this before—times when his mind refused to create, no matter how he pushed it—and knew from experience that the one and only solution was to walk away and give himself time to recover. Unfortunately, that was the last thing he wanted to do at the moment.
Suddenly his son appeared at his elbow, grinning with good nature.
“What are you doing, Papa?” Harry asked, staring at the drawings.
“Trying my best to come up with something new,” George answered shortly, trying and failing to maintain his patience. His son liked the drawings and often wanted to help, but George knew for a fact that having Harry there would stymie his creativity rather than aiding it. One more thing to keep him from succeeding.
“Can I do one too?” Harry asked, as George had known he would. “I can draw, Papa. Can I make a drawing on your papers?”
Without asking, the little boy reached out and tried to grab the pencil from George’s hand.
George snatched his hand away, grinding his teeth together. Of all the times for his son to decide that he wanted to help!
“I’m not playing games right now, Harry,” he said quietly. “This is important, grown-up work. It’s not for boys like you.”
He glanced down to see Harry pushing out his lip in a pout and was about to tell the child to go and play, when Eliza suddenly entered the room, glowing. She rushed up to Harry and George and dropped onto the desk, her mouth stretched wide in a grin, her eyes alight with excitement.
“George, you’ll never guess what I’ve been doing,” she said, taking George’s hands in hers.
“Most likely not,” he agreed sourly, trying to shove her off his papers. “Seeing as how I have no idea where you’ve been.”
He succeeded in ushering her off the desk and set to sorting his drawings again, frowning at the fact that several had been smudged by Eliza’s action. Eliza, though, seemed intent on getting his attention, and pulled at his arm.
“George, can’t you leave them for a second? I’ve something i
mportant to tell you!” she said.
He finally looked back up at her, knowing already that he wasn’t going to give her the reaction she wanted, but willing to at least try. “Yes, Eliza, what is it?”
“I’ve just gone to a dressmaker’s shop with Anita and Jim,” she began, grinning. “And you’ll never guess, George. You’ll never guess! I was talkin’ to the seamstress there, tellin’ her that I’ve made clothes before—both for myself, remember, and for Missus Shelby—and you’ll never believe it, George. You’ll never believe it! She offered me a position right then and there, as an apprentice! Says I’ll learn to make dresses for the fine ladies of Montreal, and make a real wage. Imagine, George, money of our own!” She dropped his arm and did a twirl of sheer delight, laughing. “We’ll make money, George—money that we can put toward our own house! Isn’t it wonderful? If I learn enough, I might even be able to open my own shop!”
But George immediately saw the flaw in her plan. “Wonderful? No! I’m the man here, and I’m the one who should be providing for our family. Not you! Why, you’ve got to take care of Harry. How would you do that, as well as run a dress shop?” he asked.
She stopped twirling, her face falling suddenly into disappointment. “George, I thought you’d be happy for me,” she said sadly. “You could watch Harry while I was in town working, couldn’t you?”
He snorted. “And how would that look, me watching our child while you’re off at work? I can’t let you do it, Eliza. It wouldn’t be right. And that’s final.”
“But, George, you’re ever so much smarter than I am. It makes sense, don’t you think, if you’re the one teaching Harry his letters?” she asked, gesturing broadly to the drawings on the table.
“And lose my pride while I’m at it!” he fumed, jumping up and grabbing her arms. “Eliza, I would be a laughingstock! I won’t have it; do you hear me?”
Tears began to form in her eyes, and her lower lip began to quiver, but he gave her a firm shake, already decided on his route. “You won’t be taking that job, and that’s final.”
“But, George, we’ve talked about this. I thought when we got to Montreal—”
“No, Eliza!” he snapped. “I won’t have it. It’s not your place! I’ll go out and get a job tomorrow, you’ll see. And that will be the end of it.”
He turned back to his desk, not caring to hear what her answer might be, and began shuffling his papers into a pile. He wouldn’t have his wife out working while he was at home doing a woman’s chores. His pride would never recover. He was the man here, and it was his job to provide for his family. Beyond that, he was a man of many talents and a hard worker. Surely there would be a position for him somewhere in this city.
In the morning, he’d just have to go and find it.
7
Tom watched the gate to the Shelby plantation for as long as he could, trying to memorize the curves of the iron, the color of the wood in the fence, and even the look of the trees that surrounded the road he’d known for so long. Finally, though, they passed the bend in the road that he’d told the boys never to pass, and the gate faded out of sight until all he could see was a column of smoke in the sky.
The chimney in the kitchen, he thought slowly. That must have been Chloe’s cooking fire. The last thing he’d see of her.
With that, he turned and stared into the forest, his heart aching at the thought that he’d just seen the last of the home he’d known his entire life. He wasn’t born there, but he’d been purchased by Master Shelby’s parents and moved to the Shelby plantation before he had any memory of any other home, and that big house had been the site of not only his raising, but his schooling and family, as well. The old master and mistress had allowed Tom to play with their child, and when Tom was older, Master Shelby’s father had even allowed Master Shelby to teach Tom his letters. As an adult, Tom had become so trusted, in fact, that Master Shelby had allowed him free range of the area, to come and go as necessary, with all the papers required.
Last month, Master Shelby had even promised Tom his freedom.
“Before long, boy, we’ll be drawing up papers to free you,” he’d said, clapping Tom on the back and beaming with joy. “You’ve been a valuable man to me, and done more than I could have asked. Deserve a life of your own, you do.”
Tom had hardly been able to believe it. Freedom. The very word had tasted like candied plums on his tongue, and he’d tasted it for days on end. He’d been terrified, of course—leaving the only home he’d known and striking out into the wide world on his own! But the master had promised that Chloe and the children might go with him, and they’d have been a family, traveling into the wide world to make their own fortunes.
Days later, the dream had turned to ashes on his tongue. And now he found himself here, in the back of a stranger’s wagon, with no hope left in his heart and no idea where his path would lead.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” he murmured suddenly to himself.
No, he was not without hope. For the Bible had taught him that the Lord would watch after him, no matter where he went or what he did. Surely the master would not have sold him to a man who couldn’t be trusted. Surely the Lord had a plan for him.
Surely there was hope, even in the darkest of hours. And with that thought came the lie he’d told Chloe before he left.
If the Lord truly had a plan for him and he did as the Bible had always taught him—obey and live with love in his heart—perhaps his road would lead him home, one day. Perhaps he’d live to see his wife again.
Closing his eyes, he began praying that it would be so and that the Lord would watch over him. For beyond him, he knew, was a wide world that would not be as kind as the Shelby plantation had been.
* * *
They rattled along the dusty road for some time, passing all the things that Tom had seen on his own trips into town over the past years, until they passed the boundaries of the Shelby estate and turned onto the main road. When they’d gone a mile and come to town, Haley stopped suddenly at the blacksmith’s, and Tom closed his eyes again.
He’d been to this very man’s shop more times than he cared to count. He could only hope the smith didn’t step out and see him, for he did not want to have to answer any questions. Or worse—be disallowed from answering questions at all.
Haley jumped down and strolled into the shop with a set of manacles, evidently meaning to have the smith look at them, and before he knew it, Tom saw the blacksmith walking out of the shop with the trader.
“These’re too small for his build,” said Haley, pointing toward Tom.
“Lord, if ain’t Shelby’s Tom. He hasn’t sold him, has he?” asked the smith.
“Yes, he has,” said Haley.
“Well, who’d’ve thought it?” gasped the smith. “You don’t need to chain him up this way. He’s the most faithful, best creat–”
“Yes, yes,” said Haley. “But those good fellows are just the ones that want to run off. The stupid ones, who don’t care where they go—shiftless, drunken—those are the ones that stick by. The prime ones, though, they hate this life. Nothin’ for it but to chain ’em up, I tell you. If they’ve got legs, they’ll use ’em. And I need to get this one south so I can sell him.”
“Well,” said the smith, feeling among his tools, “those plantations down there, stranger, aren’t the place for a Kentucky slave. They die quick down there, don’t they?”
Tom nearly gasped aloud at that. He hadn’t known that they were going south. And he’d never heard about what happened to Kentucky slaves in the South. Around here, he’d always thought, the masters were mostly gentle, and the climate certainly didn’t give them much to complain about.
What was it like in the South, that people like him didn’t survive? And if that was true, how was he going to maintain himself until Mrs. Shelby could find him?
“Can’t help thinkin’ it’s a pity to use a nice, quiet fellow like Tom in that way. Sending him down to be ground up in those
sugar plantations,” the smith observed.
“Promised I’d do well by him, and it means he’s got a fair chance. Sell him for a house servant to some good old family. If he survives the fever and climate, he’ll have as good a berth as any Negro could ask for.”
“Left his wife and children behind, I suppose?”
“He’ll get another. There’s women everywhere,” Haley said.
Turning, the two men made their way back into the shop to discuss other business and left Tom on the road by himself.
He was doing his best to keep his mouth shut at these shocking statements, thinking that it would be very unchristian of him to suddenly start questioning his betters, when he abruptly heard the quick, short click of a horse’s hoof behind him. He turned and saw his very own Master George—Mr. Shelby’s son—riding toward him. Before he could say anything, Master George had jumped from his horse into the back of the wagon and thrown his arms around Tom’s neck, sobbing.
“I declare, it’s real mean! I don’t care what they say, any of ’em! It’s a nasty, mean shame! If I was a man, they shouldn’t do it, they shouldn’t!” he said with a kind of subdued howl.
“Oh, Mas’r George, thank God you’ve come! I couldn’t bear to go off without seein’ you! It does me good, you don’t know!” He pulled the boy to him, for though the young master was far too old for such gestures, Tom had known the child since he was born, and couldn’t bear to leave without saying good-bye to him.
Why, this was the very boy who’d taught Tom his letters. The boy who Tom had helped to raise.
He shifted a bit, then, and the chains around his ankles made a sound, attracting the young master’s attention. George gasped at what he saw.
“For shame!” he snarled, narrowing his eyes. “I’ll knock that old fellow down, I will!”
Tom put his hands out. He didn’t want the young master to get into any trouble, and had no doubt that George would say something to Haley, given the chance. “No you won’t, Mas’r George, and you mustn’t talk so loud. It won’t help me any to anger him.”