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I was so happy to hear Flore call to me that I ran to
her side.

"How you feelin', Big Mama?" I cried.

"I feel good, baby. But what happened? Where are we?
I remembah that Tobias said that he was gonna beat you
and then somebody hit me."

I put my arms around Flore's head and squeezed her. I
kissed her face.

"Why you cryin', babychile?" she asked. "Is we dead?"

"Naw, Big Mama. We free."

Flore's eyes opened big as moons. She looked at me and
then at the tree branches above her head.

"Free?"

The truth was dawning on both of us. We were free.

23
.

Free to do what we wanted to do. Freedom
what every
slave dreamed about from morning to night and from night to morning, every day of their lives.

Flore's mouth opened and tears flooded her eyes.

"Free?" she said again.

She rocked forward and put her arms around me. When
she hugged me I was her little boy again. I grabbed on
tight.

In the distance dogs were howling and the smell of
smoke was in the air but we didn't care about all of that. We were free under the pale blue morning skies. Even if
they caught us and hung us from the tree we hid behind
we still had the greatest treasure in the world.

After a while Flore fell asleep too. Nola had taken a sip of
Tall John's water earlier on and so she was dozing peace
fully.

"Will they find us?" I asked my friend.

"I don't think so," he said. But his brow was furrowed
and his words were heavy.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"There's a place about ten miles north of here where
my machine lies hidden under the ground. There's an
alarm set on it designed to tell me if one of the Calash is
somewhere nearby."

"Did that alarm ring?" I asked.

John nodded.

"Maybe it's just some animal rubbed up against it," I suggested, wanting to calm my friend down.

"No. It's Wall. He has found my ship while I was dis
tracted here with you and your friends. He will soon be
able to utilize the mechanism and dig the green powder
from the earth."

"Then we bettah go an' stop 'im 'fore he can do that," I
said, speaking right up. "You helped me save my friends an' now I'll help you."

John smiled then.

"You would help me even though you are just now
free?" he asked.

i "If'n we can put Flore an' Champ ovah wit' Eighty-four
then I'd be happy that they was free an' you'n me could go
an' take that green powder gin away from Andy Pike."

"It will take him a while to open the door," John said.
"And together we might be a match for him."

I smiled and shook my friend's hand.

"We gonna do it," I said.

Then John said something that I didn't understand at
the time but it struck me as being rather odd.

"Your courage gives me the strength to surrender myself," he said. "All life flows toward the Upper Level."

After that John gave me a drink of his sleeping water
and I drifted off into a dream that was not a dream at all.

I was floating in the air among thousands of the tiny, multicolored people of John's race. Then I felt something pulling
and pushing at me, and the sky disappeared and there was
nothing above but blackness and stars. I was thrown out of
the company of the little people and I was flying faster than
anything toward one of the glittering stars.

All of a sudden I knew that I wasn't dreaming about me

but about Tall John when he got into his Sun Ship and
headed off toward Earth.

The star I was heading for became as big as the sun. It
was a wide field of fire that sang with power and majesty,
but I wasn't afraid. I slipped through the white flames of
the star and came to a place that was pure and red. It was
hot but there was a place right in the middle of the star that
was black and cold. I/John dove into the center of the
blackness and suddenly I/John was somewhere else. I/John was far, far away from my home, and lonely. I/John would never be home again. All of my people were far behind me while I/John would find star after star traveling so far away from my home that it would be as if there was no home for
me, anywhere.

I woke up crying for that loneliness. And I knew some
how that the dream was not really a dream but a lesson
about my friend Tall John from beyond the stars. His light
was a part of me now and it was telling me about my friend,
his history, and my mission.

"You awake, boy?" Champ Noland asked.

It was nighttime. Champ and Flore and Tall John and Nola stood around me as I lay on the ground. The moon
illuminated my friends.

"Where's Eloise?" I asked.

"We sent her home," John said.

"She was like in a spell," Nola added. "John put the evil
eye on her."

I could see that the newly freed slave girl was of two
minds about my friend and his powers.

"Yes," John said. "I put her in a trance and suggested
that she tell her friends that we saved her and then headed
west for the river. That should give us enough time."

I got to my feet and clasped hands with Champ. Then I
kissed Mama Flore and touched Nola's arm.

"Are you still willing to help me?" John asked.

"Yes, sir," I said.

Champ was walking just fine and Flore stood on her
own two feet with no assistance. I was happy that Nola was
with us. I didn't know her very well because even though
she was a fellow slave, she'd been in the service of Eloise
and so I had hardly ever crossed her path.

I guess I must have been looking at Nola while having
these thoughts because she came up to me then.

"Do you trust that boy they call John, Forty-seven?"
she asked softly so that no one else could hear.

"Sure, Nola. He's the on'y reason that we got away
alive."

"But before he got here nuthin' ever happened that we
had to get away from," she said, looking at me with wide,
trusting eyes.

I realized that I was like a savior to her because I had
saved her life
her and her mistress Eloise.

"Do you miss Eloise?" I asked then.

"Miss Eloise?" she asked, repeating the last part of my
question. "I s'pose that I will miss her. But I can see how

things will never be the same. An' even though I love her
in my heart I'd be afraid evah to sleep in that house again 'cause I might awake to gunshots and fire."

"You were brave out there, fighting Mr. Stewart to save
Eloise," I said. "You're a hero too."

Hearing this made Nola's brow furrow.

"But I was scared to death fightin' that man," she said.

"Me too," I added. "Bein' brave, I figger, is just the othah
side'a the coin from bein' scared. If whatevah you fightin'
ain't bad enough to scare ya then they ain't no reason to be

brave."

Nola smiled at me then and touched my arm. I knew
that from that day on we would be the best of friends.

"It's time to go, Forty-seven," Tall John said.

And so we were off through the deep woods that sur
rounded the cotton plantations.

John was in the lead, holding up an orange light to show

us the way.

"Is that niggah crazy?" Champ asked me along the way.
"Holdin' up that light so them white mens can find us."

"We free now, Champ," I remember saying. "There
ain't no more masters or niggahs or slaves for us. Just free
men and free women no mattah what color they is."

"But what about that light?" he asked.

"Only we can see it, Champ," I said.

I didn't know how I knew that but I knew it was true.

When Flore said that she was hungry John gave us all
little squares of food that looked like bread but tasted
sweet like cake. After eating a couple of those squares I
wasn't hungry at all.

We walked for hours before reaching the field where
John saved me with his light. Eighty-four was there wait
ing for us. She ran up to John and kissed him on the lips
and hugged him to her. She was happy to see the rest of us
too but Tall John was the only one she had eyes for.

The sun was coming up again and John told everyone that we needed to sleep before making it out of the south.
He gave everyone a drink of the special water that he
carried in his yellow bag, but only Champ and Flore and
Eighty-four and Nola went to sleep.

"What now?" I asked my brother in light.

"Now we go after Wall and his minion
Mr. Stewart,"
John said, hefting his yellow sack over his shoulder.

"Sounds good by me," I said, even though I was quak
ing inside.

With that John and I took off through the woods while
my friends and fellow ex-slaves slept in the clearing next
to the big flat stone.

I expected John to hurry us along toward Andrew Pike
and Mr. Stewart. But instead he set a slow pace through
the woods. There were larks and whip-poor-wills singing
in the trees. A dry breeze was blowing and bright sun
beams peeked down through the dark covering of leaves and pine needles. We walked along a shallow creek bed
that burbled over large white stones.

For quite a while John was silent on our country stroll. I
didn't want to interrupt his reverie. I could tell by the look
on his face that he was worried.

I didn't want to know about his fears. The battle at the Corinthian Plantation had been the worst thing that I had
ever seen, and from what I understood Andrew Pike meant to cause a conflagration that was on an infinitely grander
scale. I didn't care to know about it, fearing that my courage
might fail if I did.

After a long time
an hour or more the smile came
back into Tall John's face.

"You must wonder why," he said.
I knew what he meant. It was almost as if I knew what
he was thinking. The light he had saved me with had
brought us closer than brothers.

"Yeah," I said. "Why me? There's a many millions of
peoples in this world. You could'a picked any one'a thems
to help you. Heck, you could'a raised a whole army with
the tricks you could pull."

"Yes," Tall John said, shaking his head sadly. "And then
Wall would raise an army and the whole world would go to
war. And war would only benefit my enemy."
"It'a on'y hep him if he win," I said.
"No, my friend. If Wall could start a big enough war he
would spur the growth of technology. Man always starts
inventing when he wants to win a battle. Soon enough
he wouldn't need my Sun Ship to mine the green ore.

Mankind itself would furnish him with the tools he
needs."