Freedom Stone (20 page)

“Dancin', sir,” Cal answered.

“Dancin', eh?” Mr. Willis asked. He was now standing directly in front of Cal. “Never seen a boy do himself so much damage from dancin'. Runnin', sure. Jumpin' over logs or gulleys in the woods at night, sure. Helpin' two other boys escape, maybe. You do any of that last night, boy?”

“No, sir,” Cal said emphatically. “I wouldn't never do such a thing.”

“That's what you say,” Willis answered. “That foot o' yours says somethin' else. Better let me have a look at it.” With that Willis turned to George. “Set the boy down on the ground,” he ordered.

George said nothing, and Nelly stepped in front of Cal. “The boy's hurt, sir. He's talkin' truth; I seen him dancin' last night with my own eyes. Twisted up his foot somethin' terrible.”

Willis let loose a small, sharp laugh. “Spoke like a real mama,” he said. “Almost like you was one.” Nelly looked as if she'd been slapped. “Now, set the boy down 'fore I shove him down!” Willis commanded.

Nelly and George took Cal by the elbows and lowered him gently to the ground, where he sat, staring up fearfully at Mr. Willis. He rubbed his injured foot in his hand, protecting it more than massaging it.

“Gimme that ankle, boy,” Willis said.

Cal lifted his right leg and laid the foot in the overseer's palm. Willis turned it slightly this way and that, as Cal stared at him wide-eyed. Lillie looked on from far down the line, craning her neck out as far as she could. Bull noticed and flashed her a menacing look, and Mama pulled her back.

“Nasty,” Willis said, regarding the foot as if he were a doctor, but one who enjoyed the pain of his patients. “Swolled up big as a melon. Does it hurt when I do this?” He pressed his thumb hard into the swelling; Cal cried out. “Yep, seems it does hurt,” Willis said. “I reckon it ain't no better here.” He pressed onto another spot, harder than before and much longer.

“Yes!” Cal cried. “Yes, yes, it hurts! It hurts!”

“And here?” Willis said, gripping the entirety of the ankle in one strong hand and squeezing until the veins and muscles stood out on his forearm.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Cal screamed. “Please stop!”

Lillie closed her eyes tightly and tried to cover her ears. Mama pulled her hands away lest she call the slave driver's attention again.

“You're gonna kill him sure,” George pleaded. “The boy didn't do nothin'. He told you that.”

“Boys lie!” Willis barked, giving Cal's ankle a hard twist and making him cry out again. “They lie and they lie and they lie!” He followed each repetition with another twist. “And this one lies most of all!”

“I ain't lyin', sir,” Cal gasped, barely able to speak. “I wasn't runnin'. I was dancin'.” His voice choked and his head drooped, as if he would faint clean away.

“That's what you say!” Willis answered. “And if it's the truth, that's what you'll keep sayin', even if I have to twist this foot clean off! Now for the last time, boy, where was you and where is them other two?”

Willis gave Cal's foot one more hard twist, and this time the scream that escaped the boy was so sharp and loud it cut into every slave standing along the line. Even Louis and Bull seemed surprised by the sound, and Lillie thought she saw a barely perceptible softening of their faces, a momentary flicker that for all the world appeared to be something like pity. Then it was gone as quick as a flint spark. Willis twisted the foot again, and again the scream poured from Cal. At last, Lillie could take no more.

“It's the truth, it's the truth, it's the truth!” she said, leaping from the line. “He was dancin'! He was dancin' with me! My mama said no dancin', but we did it anyhow! We danced and danced and he tripped on a rut and turned his ankle, and I fell on top of it and it near broke. Please, Mr. Willis, don't hurt him no more!” Lillie cried those words with a voice that came from deep in her belly, one she'd never used before because until this moment she never knew she had it.

Mama stared at Lillie in shock. Willis wheeled toward them with fire in his eyes and began striding in Lillie's direction. He gripped his whip tightly and twitched it menacingly. Bull and Louis followed, grinning. Mama stepped in front of Lillie, and Willis waved her out of the way, but Mama didn't move. Willis glanced toward Louis and Bull, who converged on Mama and pulled her away, pinning her arms behind her back. Mama screamed and Bull covered her mouth. Plato screamed, and Louis grabbed him with his free arm and covered his mouth too. Willis fixed his gaze on Lillie, his eyes glinting coldly. He moved closer and closer, raising his whip higher and higher, and cocking his arm to strike. Lillie closed her eyes, drew her breath and braced herself for a pain that had taunted her in her dreams for as long as she could remember but which she'd never before actually felt. Now she would feel it true and she reckoned it just might kill her.

“See here, Mr. Willis!” a voice suddenly called out. “What is all of this?”

The slaves, the slave drivers and the overseer turned. Lillie opened her eyes and did the same. They all saw the Master racing toward them. His hair was unbrushed and his shirt was untucked, and he looked like he'd not been ready to leave the house at all, but instead had just been preparing to eat his breakfast. He ran stiffly on short, stout legs and he looked cross.

“I told you to talk to the slaves and whip only if you had to!” he said.

“I do have to, sir,” Willis said, lowering his arm. “They din't give me no other way to question 'em.”

“It doesn't sound like you even tried to question them, it sounds like you're skinning them! I heard the screaming all the way from the house!” He waved his arm toward Cal. “What's this one doing on the ground? Did you do that to his foot?”

“No, sir,” the overseer answered.

“I pay high coin for these slaves, Mr. Willis. Just like I pay high coin for my horses. The boy's just coming to working age, and this one”—he waved his hand to Lillie—“is just coming to baby age. You break 'em down or make 'em lame, and you're taking money out of my pocket.”

“Yes, sir,” Willis answered.

“If you'd done a count last night like you were supposed to, we'd all be having a quiet morning. This business is your fault from the start!”

“Yes, sir,” Willis said, using a humble tone no slave had ever heard from him before.

“Maybe the reason you haven't gotten any answers from these slaves is because they don't have any answers. Meantime, the ones who did get away are just getting farther. Now, you take your drivers and see if you can't go find them.”

“Yes, sir,” Willis said. He tightened his jaw but did what he was told, coiling his whip back up and stalking off. Bull and Louis followed.

“And you slaves get back to what you were doing!” the Master commanded. “You've got Sunday chores to do!”

The Master walked off, hiking up his pants and tucking in his shirt. Mama grabbed Lillie hard by the arm and fixed her a look that told her there would be a reckoning once they got back to the cabin. She pulled her along, and Plato followed. Lillie allowed herself to turn back once, looking toward Cal as Nelly and George helped him up. He looked back at her and nodded his thanks. Both children had just told terrible lies, and if there was pain to come from that, both of them would suffer it.

Chapter Twenty

LILLIE GOT A BEATING from Mama as soon as the family returned to the cabin after the slave lineup. It had been a long time since Mama had touched either child in anger, and Lillie had come to think that at thirteen, she might finally have grown too big for such punishment. Mama had other ideas.

A beating from Mama never amounted to much more than a few hard swats on the bottom, but Mama had field muscles, and even a single swat from her was a single swat too many. Any more than that, and it wouldn't pay for a child to sit on anything harder than loose hay or soft grass for the rest of the day.

“What was you thinking 'bout, girl?” Mama shouted at Lillie, pulling both children inside the cabin and slamming the door behind them. As Plato watched, she took Lillie by the arm, spun her around and began angrily delivering her paddling, scolding her all the while. “Did you
want
the overseer to whip you?” she said. “Do you
want
to be sold off? Do you want to get your
brother
sold?” Each time Mama landed a blow, it landed on a very particular word, and to Lillie it seemed like just the word Mama wanted her to hear most. Finally, Mama spun her back around and took her by the shoulders. “Was you really dancin' with that boy?” she asked.

That was the question Lillie least wanted to answer, since a yes meant she'd disobeyed Mama and a no meant she'd lied to the overseer. But she knew better than to cross Mama further—and she knew better than to lie anymore. “No, Mama,” she mumbled. “Didn't do no dancin'.”

“Then you was helpin' that boy run!” Mama said, lowering her voice to a furious whisper so that no one outside could hear her.

“No!” Lillie answered. “I didn't do that neither, and that's the truth! I just fibbed this mornin' so's Mr. Willis wouldn't hurt him no more.”

“Fibbin' today is the same as helpin' him yesterday! To the overseer that makes you bad as a runaway yourself!”

Mama went on like this for a while, directing most of her wrath at Lillie, but now and then turning to Plato to remind him not to follow the example of his fool sister. Lillie stayed silent—even when Mama ran out of words and decided she needed a few more swats—and that was the smartest thing to do. She had told the truth as far as she could tell it. The entire truth, about her trip to Orchard Hill and the charm that got her there, was something no one could know.

It wasn't until later in the afternoon that Mama let Plato or Lillie venture out of her sight. She first made both of them clean the cabin from floorboards to beams, as well as shake out the sleeping blankets, scoop the ashes from the hearth, and weed the little vegetable garden out back. Mama would have had the children do chores on any Sunday, but today she was not inclined to give them an easy time of it—and Lillie was not inclined to argue with her.

When they were at last done and Mama let them go outside, Plato ran off to the tobacco fields, where he knew there would be birds to chase and other children to join him. Lillie ran off to Nelly and George's cabin, where she knew there would be a lying boy with a bad ankle who needed a talking-to.

Lillie had been hornet-mad at Cal since the moment he hobbled out to the lineup this morning. She'd known as soon as she'd seen him that he'd hurt himself doing something he wasn't supposed to do—and that anything he told the overseer about it would be a lie. Cal's fibs and mischief always seemed to tangle up other people, and today Lillie was the one who got caught. Her anger only grew greater as she strode to Nelly and George's, and when she got there, she was pleased to see that the door was open a crack. That spared her the courtesy of having to knock, which spared her the business of waiting to be invited inside. Instead, she simply swung the door open with a bang.

“What was you thinkin', boy?” she barked at Cal, echoing Mama's words without planning to. Cal was lying on his narrow bed, his melon of a foot propped up on a small sack of potatoes.

“Lillie!” Nelly cried, leaping up and bringing her hand to her heart. “You gave me a terrible fright!”

“What's your business here, child?” George demanded. “You shouldn't come burstin' in like that!”

“I'm sorry, Miss Nelly, Mr. George,” Lillie said, immediately regretting startling the pair. They were not old people, but they weren't young, either, and they had enough worries looking after Cal without Lillie upsetting them further. “I didn't mean to spook you.”

“But you did all the same,” George said sternly. “What is it you want?”

“I come to talk to him,” Lillie said, turning to face Cal, who avoided her gaze. “Come to ask him what he was doin' last night and how he busted up his foot.”

“He was at Bingham Woods,” Nelly said. “And he got hurt dancin' with you. Ain't that what you said?”

“It is.”

“Weren't it the truth?”

“Truth enough for the overseer,” Lillie said, “and lie enough to get me whipped if I got caught for tellin' it. The true truth is somethin' else.” She stepped to the edge of Cal's bed and stood directly in front of him. “Ain't it?” she asked.

Cal didn't answer.

“Boy,” Nelly said, “what is she talkin' about?”

“Nothin',” Cal grumbled.

“It don't seem like nothin',” Nelly persisted.

“I said it's nothin'.”

“Tell me, Cal,” Nelly said.

“It's nothin'!” Cal snapped.

His tone was sharp, angry, not at all the tone he would dare use if Nelly were his true mama, and it took her by surprise. That, it seemed, was enough for George, who had had his fill of trouble for one day—particularly trouble that came from Cal.

“Boy!” George snapped. “This here woman is the person what looks after you, and you'll treat her like a mama even if she ain't. And I'm the person what looks after her, and you'll talk to me like I'm a papa. Now, you answer the questions what been put to you or I'll paddle you like a papa too!”

Cal mumbled something that was impossible to understand.

“What did you say?” George said.

“I said yes, sir,” Cal answered.

“Now where was you last night?”