“Now get back out there, Mary!” said Aaron to his daughter who stood staring on the scene in shock. “He won’t try anything more today.”
Without a word, Mary fled back to where the slaves were working, too terrified even to tell her mother what had happened. Aaron dragged Vincent Locke out of the cabin, tossed his shirt onto his bare chest, and left him lying on the dirt, then returned to his wagon wheel.
Vincent Locke had his own reasons for not wanting the full details of the incident to get around the plantation, much less spread to town. He was vague in his explanation to his father, which fact probably kept Aaron Steddings alive, for a day or two longer. It did not, however, keep him from a merciless whipping at the hand of young Locke, which, with Aaron tied to a post, he had been able to carry out without opposition. When his fury was abated and the cords binding his victim’s hands cut, Aaron slumped to the ground all but unconscious. Locke walked slowly away as the rest of the plantation’s slaves, who had been forced to watch, stood in silence, Zaphorah Steddings weeping in horror at the sight. Finally a few of them came forward and picked up Aaron’s battered bleeding body and carried him home.
He was alive. But as consciousness slowly returned Aaron Steddings knew it would only be a matter of time before Vincent Locke sought more revenge than a whipping. If Master Locke decided to punish him further, he would probably sell him. A strong slave was worth good money. That alone was reason to delay no longer. But Vincent Locke would not care about the money. He would not rest until he saw Aaron Steddings hanging by the neck from a tree.
It was all Aaron could do to move an inch where he lay on his pad that night. He had had a few whippings since that day he and his family had been captured by three white Virginia boys and sold to North Carolina plantation owner Sutton Locke. But never one like this. Most of the skin from his back was gone. His entire body quivered and trembled with pain.
But he could not afford to wait… not even another day. After making sure he could do nothing to stop him, Vincent Locke would try to bed Mary again, probably tomorrow.
He waited until he judged it an hour or two after midnight, then gently roused his wife.
“What is it, Aaron?” whispered Zaphorah. “Have you been able to sleep?”
“There’s time for sleep later,” said Aaron. “We’re leaving.”
“What… where?”
“We’re going, Zaphorah. We must go… tonight.”
“But, Aaron—”
“That boy is going to take Mary again, and I won’t be able to stop him. We have to go. Get the girls… I’ll wake Moses. They can’t make a peep. We have to be so still the dogs don’t even hear us.”
“But, Aaron, your—”
“It has got to be tonight, Zaphorah. There is no other time. Now get up, wake the girls. Get them dressed. Get coats for everybody, and a couple of blankets. We can’t take anything else.”
Still bewildered, for neither she nor any of the four children knew of Aaron’s plan, Zaphorah rose and dressed quietly in the dark.
Twenty minutes later, Aaron Steddings, his body screaming in pain with every step, led his wife and sleepy, bewildered daughters and son—Mary eighteen, Deanna seventeen, Moses sixteen, and Suzane ten—away from the slave village and toward the big house, barns, and stables. They made their way slowly, step by careful step, in single file behind him. Had there been a moon, in their dark clothing and black skin, they might still have been almost invisible. But there was no moon. And Aaron had rehearsed this treacherous journey of three hundred yards so many times in the past year—mentally planning out the steps during his daily work—that he could have led his family safely to their strange destination with his eyes closed.
His chief worry had always been the dogs. And the horses, too, if they became skittish. But he had spent the year befriending Dawn Sky, as Master Locke called his light orange mare, and Midnight, his pure black stallion, with bits of fruit and sugar, getting them accustomed to his voice and smell. He hoped that his approach in the middle of a dark night would not startle them.
The dogs were the difficulty. He was not concerned about smell from this distance. But one tiny misstep, one faint sound in the night, and the dogs would have the whole place awake.
Step after slow step they walked… slowly… slowly. The others were wide enough awake in the chily night air now to realize the danger well enough. They still did not know what they were doing. But trust in their father, and a spirit of daring and adventure was sufficient motivation for the moment.
They reached the stables. Aaron paused, and turned.
“We have to keep on our toes,” he whispered so softly that Zaphorah bringing up the rear could hardly hear him. “Not a word… not a sound. Just keep at my back. We’re going inside now.”
Carefully he swung back the door. He had in the past year had occasion to make sure its hinges remained well oiled.
Once inside, Aaron led the five nervous fugitives across the dirt floor toward the stall which had been the scene of his clandestine activities.
“Wait here,” he whispered. “I’ll be back in a minute or two.”
He tiptoed toward Pale Dawn’s stall and began to whisper softly. He opened the rail gate, inching toward her, patting her nose and offering her the bits of apple he had managed to put in his pocket earlier. She snorted softly and took the treats as he slipped a rope around her neck. Continuing to speak, he led her out of the stall and tied the rope to a post. The horse sensed the presence of others in the blackness and began to fidget. Aaron stood beside her, patting and stroking her and whispering gently until she calmed. He found his tool where he had left it earlier that morning, and returned to the stall.
In pitch blackness, working quickly now, he probed with the tip of the shovel until he found the spot, then hurriedly scraped the dirt back as he had hundreds of times… then set the boards aside. He climbed down into the cavern he had excavated and fumbled for a candle and match. Within seconds light flickered and lit up the tiny cave. He set the supplies he had placed on the floor to one side, then scrambled back up his makeshift ladder and hurried to where the others waited.
“Papa, what—,” began Moses.
“Shush, Son!” said Aaron in an importune whisper. “Not yet. Come… come with me!”
He led them into Pale Dawn’s stall. The sight that met her eyes brought a gasp of astonishment to Zaphorah’s lips. But she tried to remain calm, for the sake of the children, only casting upon Aaron a wide-eyed look that said, “What are we doing?”
“Climb down, Moses,” whispered Aaron. “Thee must lead the way, Son. Mary… Deanna… Suzane, follow thy brother. There isn’t going to be much room. We’ll have to snuggle close.”
“But why, Papa?” said Moses, unable to contain his curiosity any longer. “What are we doing?”
“We’re fixing to make a run for it, Son,” replied Aaron. “But hurry. We have got to get down there before the dogs hear us!”
That was all Moses needed. He had grown up terrified of the master’s nigger dogs.
A minute later Zaphorah and the four children sat huddled at the bottom of the cave. Aaron struggled up the ladder one last time. Now came the most daring and uncertain part of his plan. If this failed, everything failed. He had to get Pale Dawn back into her stall, the gate closed, and the boards back in place with dirt over them… and himself down with the others, without terrifying the horse. He did not know if it would work. But freedom was worth the risk.
With care he cleared back the edges of the hole where the two boards had to sit snugly on solid earth. Resting them on either side beside the hole, he piled three or four inches of dirt on top of them.
“Zaphorah,” he said down the hole, “blow out the candle.”
She did so. All went black again.
Now came the most treacherous part of all, keeping Pale Dawn from becoming agitated and get her into the closed stall and himself into the hole. Slowly he went to the mare’s side, untied her fro
m the post, whispering gently. He stood beside her, stroking her nose for several seconds until the smell of the extinguished candle was gone.
“All right, girl,” he said, “we’re going back into thy stall and everything’s going to be fine. Thee must stay at the front for a time, that’s all.”
Slowly and carefully he led her back inside, keeping away from the hole at the far corner, swinging the gate closed behind them, keeping her to one side. When he judged it safe, he slipped the rope off her neck, then stepped away.
“Thee must stay right there, girl… don’t move.”
Quickly he backed away, felt for the hole, and scrambled down. With his feet on the bottom and head and shoulders at ground level, he reached behind him and pulled the first board over half the hole and set it in position. Reaching up he covered it with straw. Then covering the last board with straw, he crouched low and pulled the second from the other side over his head to meet the first. With a soft thud he felt it lodge into place. The air suddenly became close and still and heavy. They were closed in.
Aaron sighed in relief, then crouched to his knees, fumbled for his supplies, and a moment later the flame of a match exploded into light.
“Everybody safe?” he said as he lit a candle and glanced around to take stock of his family huddled together beside him. “I knew it would be small, but this is more crowded then I figured! I know it isn’t too comfortable, but we have to sit here a spell and try to get some sleep.”
“Aaron, what are we going to do?” said Zaphorah, at last voicing her fears at her husband’s plan which she did not understand in the least. “They’ll find us. We can’t stay here.”
“Well, they may find us,” said Aaron. “If they do, I suppose they will hang me. But I don’t think we had much time left together anyway. That Locke boy had evil in his eye. And I’m thinking maybe they won’t find us. I’m hoping that mare will move around the rest of the night and stir the dirt around those boards. We just have to hope she doesn’t cave it in on us. And I’m thinking this is the one place they won’t be looking for us. They won’t imagine that we would stick around—they’ll be searching all day tomorrow high and low for us out in the woods and round about.”
“But why are we staying here, Papa?” said Moses. “What are we going to do? If we are going to escape, why don’t we just go now?”
“If we tried to run now, Mister Locke’s dogs would find us before we got a mile away.”
“Then Aaron—what are we going to do?” asked Zaphorah again.
“We’re going to wait right here and try to sleep. I know it’s tight. But we have water and a little food, and a bucket for our necessaries if we can’t hold it. It’s going to be a mite unpleasant and won’t smell very good, but it won’t be for long.”
“And what then, Papa?” asked Deanna.
“Tomorrow night, after they have searched all day long and have run the dogs miles and miles, after those dogs are tuckered out and they and the horses have been everywhere round about stirring things up and mixing up all the smells so their noses don’t know what to think, that’s when we will go. And when they figure we are long gone somewhere, then when everybody is sound asleep and thinking we’re miles away, we’ll make our run for freedom.”
“But why won’t they catch us tomorrow, Papa?” asked Mary.
“Because we’re going to fly out of here on the backs of Mister Locke’s horses. And I don’t want to go till the dogs are so tired they have no running left in their legs. When they get tuckered out, dogs are about the laziest animal there is. And that’s what I want chasing us… lazy, tired dogs. So we are just going to have to sit here together till tomorrow night.”
At last it was quiet in the cramped little cave.
“I can’t breathe too good, Papa,” said Suzane.
Aaron glanced about.
“Scoot over this way, Suzane,” he said.
Behind her on the dirt wall, he knelt forward and held the candle up to the mole tunnel. The flame flickered and bent slightly.
“There, thou sees,” he said. “Hold thy nose up to that hole. It goes all the way outside. Moles have to breathe too, and some mole made us a breathing tunnel!”
“How is thy back?” asked Zaphorah, inching next to her husband.
“It is not too good,” said Aaron, putting his arm around her. “All right, everybody, we must try to sleep. We are safe, and we are together—that’s all that matters. Now we need to blow that light out. We can’t make too much smoke in here or none of us will be able to breathe!”
Aaron blew out the candle, and they were left in deeper darkness than any of them had ever been in before.
“We thank thee, Lord,” Aaron prayed aloud, “for protecting us and watching over us all these years of bondage in this Egypt. And we ask thee to protect us tomorrow, and guide us even in the darkness by thy Light. We commit our way unto thee, and we ask thee to help us get back home again. Amen.”
“Amen,” whispered Zaphorah. It was comforting to hear her husband pray in the old way.
Four more soft Amens sounded in the blackness.
It was silent again for several minutes. Gradually the breathing of the four children grew rhythmic with the sound of approaching sleep as they sat leaning against one another.
Softly Zaphorah began to sing.
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound…
Softly the others joined her one by one.
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.
“I like the sound of that,” said Deanna sleepily. “I know we aren’t free yet, but just thinking about it makes me happy.”
In their tiny cramped hideaway, the six Steddings knew nothing of the commotion caused by their disappearance the following morning. Both Lockes were white hot with threats, though the father’s anger was equally directed at his son for having precipitated the series of events. Vincent Locke secretly vowed not only that Aaron Steddings would not make good his escape, but that he would not live to tell about it.
But all the resources available to them, including dreadful threats and interrogations of the other slaves, turned up no sign of Aaron Stedddings and his family. They had simply disappeared in the night, leaving neither clue nor scent behind them. The dogs’ apparent interest in the stables was explained by the fact that Aaron worked there every day. And with so many animal smells about, all the dogs could do was run around in circles barking at the pigs and horses and each other.
A daylong search of the fields and pastures and woods in every direction turned up not a trace. As Aaron had predicted, the dogs were sound asleep before the crickets came out that evening, their mouths open and their tongues lying on the dirt in exhaustion.
“How will we know when it’s night outside, Papa?” asked Suzane for perhaps the tenth time that day, which had been one long underground night for them.
“That I don’t know,” replied Aaron. “I reckon we’ll have to listen as best we can, at that mole tunnel and maybe we’ll be able to hear above us like we can hear Pale Dawn’s hooves shuffling about.”
“I can’t hear anything, Papa,” said Mary.
“We’ll have to be still and try. But if we can’t, then I’ll have to lift up the boards and sneak a look.”
At last Aaron, too, became impatient. Misjudging the time by several hours, his first attempt at lifting one of the boards a crack was met by the sounds of men’s voices somewhere. Quickly he lowered it again. Thankfully the mare hadn’t taken notice of the movement at her feet.
He tried again several hours later. This time he heard crickets. Night had fallen.
“It’s time to go,” he said. “Be still and quiet till I get the horse out of the way.”
“I’m afraid, Papa,” said Suzane. “I don’t want to get whipped.”
“Thee won’t get whipped, little girl,” said Aaron. “We are going to get away from here and never be slaves again.”
> Aaron stood, to the height he was able, and lifted the board above him slowly and carefully a few more inches. As he did he began talking quietly to the mare. He knew it was dangerous. She would not expect him to come from beneath her. He could not risk a candle. The smell of a flame would incite her.
When he had a crack open to the stall above he listened to see if he could tell where the horse was. She had heard him and was shuffling about. He saw the dim outline of her shape. Thankfully she was not directly above him.
“That’s all right, girl,” he whispered. “It’s thy old friend Aaron. Just stay calm and easy.”
He continued to speak quietly until she calmed. As softly as he could he lifted the first board up and set it aside, then the other. Dirt from the edges fell down on his head and face as he then quickly climbed up and stood.
Pale Dawn whinnied briefly. The movement had startled her. But instantly Aaron was at her side, stroking her nose and speaking softly. With one hand he felt for the gate, opened it, reached for the rope where he had left it, slipped it over her neck, and carefully led her out of the stall.
“All right, come up… it’s safe,” he whispered down into the cave. “Light a candle, Zaphorah. Everybody stay quiet. I don’t know what time it is. They may still be up in the big house, but if not it’s time to go. Bring the blankets and put on thy coats.”
Happy at last to stand and stretch their legs, Mary, Deanna, Moses, Suzane, and Zaphorah climbed one by one up the ladder. Aaron now led Midnight also out of his stall.
Two minutes later, Zaphora, Mary, Deanna, and Suzane were on the backs of two horses. Aaron and Moses led them outside, slowly and as quietly as Aaron was able, then he returned by the light of the candle where Zaphorah had set it. He opened the stalls of the rest of the horses and did his best to coax them outside. By now the horses were jittery.
A lone bark sounded from the far side of the house.
“Aaron!” exclaimed Zaphorah.
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