Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [157]
“No! You can’t let him do this. You have to escape to freedom, Eli. All of you.”
“Escape?” He said it as if he’d never heard the word.
“Yes. I’ll never let my father sell you. Never. I’ll help all of you run away first.”
I could see that Eli was deeply shaken. He had to sit down. “It ain’t an easy thing to go running off, you know. Esther’s ankles always swelling up . . . and Tessie has my little grandbaby to think about. Ain’t such an easy thing.”
“You don’t have to go far. As soon as you cross over to the Yankee lines you’ll be free. The Yankees are right here in Virginia. They have troops stationed at Williamsburg and Norfolk. I can draw you a map. Here . . .” I opened the book I still held in my hand and ripped out the title page. “Do you have something I can write with?”
Eli simply stared into space. The look of sorrow in his eyes was so profound it broke my heart. “Please don’t give up, Eli. I’m doing everything I can to help the North win this war so you’ll be free, but you’ve got to think of yourself and the others in the meantime. You’ve got to be ready to escape if my father goes through with this.”
“All right,” he finally said. “All right . . . There’s a pencil in that box over there.”
I dug through the wooden crate where Eli kept the horse brushes and some extra lengths of rope. Packed away near the bottom, wrapped in a clean rag, was his Bible—and a pencil. Using the lid of the crate for a table, I drew Eli a map of the route to Williamsburg, explaining it to him as I drew. Then I showed him another route, crossing the James River and going south to Norfolk.
“I want you to tell the others about this,” I said when I finished. “They have to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. I’m quite sure that my father won’t give us any warning, so make sure Gilbert pays close attention to his movements. If Daddy drives down to the slave auction on Fourteenth Street . . .”
“Okay, Missy. We all be ready,” Eli said. He hadn’t looked this sorrowful since the day they’d taken Grady away. “But I’m gonna be praying that God change your Daddy’s mind so we don’t have to go nowhere. God can do that, you know. I be praying that we never have to use this map.”
My task of spying took on a new urgency. The North had to win—and soon. For a full week after I’d overheard my father’s plans I lived with the fear that he had already sold some of our servants without my knowledge. Each time a carriage or a wagon passed the house, I worried that it had come from the slave auction, that two burly men would jump out and drag away Ruby or Luella or Gilbert the way they had dragged poor Grady. Then one night while Daddy and I were eating dinner he said, “Caroline, I’ve been forced to make a very difficult decision.”
I stopped eating, waiting.
“I had a meeting with President Davis a few days ago,” Daddy said. “He asked me to return to blockade running.”
“What?” It took a moment for his words to sink in—he wasn’t announcing that he had sold our servants. I closed my eyes, bowing my head in relief. Daddy mistook my reaction for grief.
“I know you’re upset, Sugar, but I have to do it. The Yankees have a fleet blocking Charleston harbor, another squadron at Wilmington, North Carolina—that’s why goods are so expensive. And so scarce. Our soldiers need medicine and guns. . . . The Confederacy needs my help. I’m sorry, but I’m going to do what the president asked.”
“When will you leave?”
“There are a few things I need to take care of first,” he said, looking away, “but as soon as I possibly can.”
I knew by the way he avoided my gaze that one of those things was to sell three of our slaves. They would have to flee tonight unless I could convince my father to change his mind. Then I suddenly had another idea—but it meant taking a huge risk.
“Daddy, can I tell you something?”
“Certainly, Sugar.”
“I overheard you telling Charles’ father that you might sell some of the slaves.”
“Now, Caroline—”
“No, listen. I admit that I was upset about it at first, but I feel differently now that I know you’re leaving.