Page 8 of Freedom's Kiss
Chapter 4
Georgia, 1816
Exhaustion pulled at Winnie until she felt her limbs were made not of flesh and bone but of Mae’s famous rhubarb jelly. The unforgiving rock at her back bit into her skin, but she couldn’t manage to care even a little. If the cave they’d found shelter in decided to hide them for eternity, to become a permanent resting place of their souls, so be it. Temperance’s fate awaited them all anyhow. Poor, sweet Temperance.
The tip of a boot lightly kicked at the sole of Winnie’s shoe. “Up, girl. We need to get farther back. We ain’t safe yet.”
They’d never be safe. She groaned and turned her head away, the small movement all she could manage, though a hot streak of rebellion threaded through her chest. She loved her pa dearly, but what had he been thinking? No one ever escaped Master Rowlings. Hadn’t Pa learned that lesson last year when he’d been whipped to the edge of his life simply because he hadn’t made it back to the plantation before nightfall?
Footfalls sounded past her head and drifted behind her.
Her brother, Isaac, stopped at her shoulder and leaned down. “Come on, Winnie.” He scooped his hands under her shoulders and hooked them around her arms, lifting until she stood once again on her tired feet. They shuffled together a few more yards, then both collapsed in a heap.
Asa had already managed to build a small fire, the flames dancing light across the limestone walls. He’d shucked off the sack from his shoulder and withdrawn a small portion of their provisions. A lump of stale bread fell into Winnie’s cupped palms, but she wasn’t sure she had the energy or the fortitude to gnaw away at the morsel. Though her body sat warm and dry in the cave, her mind hadn’t left the river’s shore. Screams unrent pierced the forest air, silent of human voices that should have shouted with grief and loss.
“Don’t think on it, Winnie.” Asa’s deep voice echoed slightly off the cave walls. “Put your mind to somethin’ else. To freedom.”
Her lips thinned as she pressed them tightly together. Though her body had shut down, her mind refused to let go. And why should she? She was not an unfeeling thing, not a beingless than, like the white folks were fond of justifying. Her heart bled, torn apart with the loss of her sister and the callousness of her father. Did he not feel it? Did he not reel in dizziness and fairly suffocate from stuffing down the keen anguish that demanded to rip from the throat?
“How can you?” Though she wanted to scream and rail, she whispered the question. “She was your daughter.”
“Is.” The one word tore across the distance separating them and slapped her face. “Temperance is and always will be my daughter, and I’ll not have you speakin’ any different.”
Her cheeks stung. “We should’ve looked for her. Helped her and William.”
“Only the Almighty can help them now.” Isaac spoke, though his face paralleled the ground.
“And the Almighty is more powerful than even Asa.” Her father’s voice descended as a benediction, a thread of hope that the two carried along by the current had an end other than death.
That glimmer did little to stop the pain spreading through Winnie like a disease.
“We shoulda gone north.” Isaac still hadn’t raised his head. At a year older than her own ten and seven, he was not man enough to meet Asa’s eyes when contradicting him.
Asa huffed. “We’d never made it to the freedman barber in Savanah, and you know it.”
“What do I know? Nuthin’, right?”
As always, Asa ignored his son. But Winnie wondered the same. People were lined up to help runaways like them get to freedom in the north. But Asa had turned them south. To Florida. To the Spanish and the Seminole.
“You two heard Mae as well as I. Her repeatin’ what the maasa’d read aloud from the paper.”
They’d heard all right. Every slave had, what with them huddled around Mae like bugs to a flame. Enchanted by that ray of light only to get burned by flying too close.
“A Negro fort.” Asa shook his head, his voice filled with wonder.
Mae’d said Master Rowlings was spitting mad at the newspaper and had thrown the whole thing in the fire with a huff. But even the blaze eating away the report didn’t change facts, and those facts had him ranting around the big house for days. War with the English had ended over four years previous, but by Mae’s recounting how the master had slammed doors and got all red in the face, Winne and all the rest thought for sure the sons would be picking up their guns and the fancy politicians would be sweet talking the Indians into fighting with them again.
Turned out the United States hadn’t been the only ones to make promises to the natives, and land in the South had been returned to them, including a fort they didn’t want. So what did one British lieutenant do? He left the fort to the fugitive slaves who’d been recruited to fight on their side. That had Master Rowlings all up in a tizzy, Mae’d said. Him and all his slave-owning friends. Scared them. They were afraid their slaves would revolt and escape to Florida, and they wouldn’t be able to fetch them back because Florida belonged to Spain.
And that was what Winnie and her family had done. Who knew how many more were out there, pinning their hopes on a land they’d never seen and the protection of a fort that would keep the monsters of their waking lives out. Course that’d been almost a year ago. Since then a lot of runaways had been brought back. Not all alive. The sight alone quelled the stoutest of hearts.
All but Asa, of course. He’d spent that time planning and dreaming. For all the good it did.
“Imagine it, son. A fort of protection. With guns we can lay our hands on. A way to fight back. A way to live free.” Asa bit off a chunk of bread, his jaw bunching as he chewed. The look of wonder didn’t leave his eyes, and Winnie could imagine the memories that ran through his mind. Those of his childhood, where he sprinted across the plains to fish in the river, his time his own.
“And what of General Jackson? They ain’t gonna let a bunch of runaway slaves hold a fort.” Isaac’s head rose, his eyes meeting Asa’s from across the fire for a moment before he looked away.
Asa spat. He’d long ago said that even hearing that murderer’s name left a foul taste in his mouth. “The devil’s man underestimates his enemy.” He stood and walked the few steps to the fire that had burned to glowing embers. With a swish of his boot, he distributed the hot, glowing bits. “Best get some rest. Our journey’s only just begun.”
