The slaves were safe!
.
They heard Joe Boy’s screech before he made the gate, but they couldn’t make out his words. Then he flew in the door and stood panting, unable to speak.
“What! ” they shouted. But the little Negro had no voice. Finally it came out in a sharp gasp: “The slaves —” Pant, pant.
“What!“
Pant, pant. Little lungs stinging. “The slaves are safe!”
“Where! “
Pant. “North Barn!”
How many! “
Pant. “All of em!”
“Twenty! “
“All twenty!”
“Who’s with em!”
“Veatch and Pierce and Sump!!”
The family considered these ratios: 20 slaves, an inland barn, Veatch in control.
Then they roared. They filled their lungs and yelled to Heaven. June gave a joyshriek and the twins yodeled to be heard in Darien. The men formed a circle and offered chants, some grave and full-throated, others high-pitched and fast, chants in no known tongue, chants learned at the University, and sung to fist-pump rhythms and secret signs .
Everyone drank whiskey from bottles, and grouped and regrouped, and it was toasts and kisses and bear hugs all around. Tom. T. swept June into the entrance hall and whirled her in a waltz. Barrow grabbed his fiddle and everybody came in and the waltz became a reel.
Even Tether Mama came down in her bedclothes. Everyone said she was frail, not well, but that night she was spry as a frog. She waved her cane, shined her toothless grin, danced a jig, and rasped over and over in a high hoarse voice: “The slaves are safe!”
The children were delirious. They danced and jumped and chased up and down the stairs screaming. “The slaves are safe! The slaves are safe!” First among them was Joe Boy. At one point the little Negro was leading the entire company, adults included, in an Indian war whoop.
It had certainly been a close call.
Yankee gunboats in the Sound, not one but three! It was not the first such foray, and it might have been harmless. As before, the boats lay quietly at anchor for three hours. But then, instead of making leisurely steam back out to the lanes, the Yankee boats entered the river.
When the news reached Hebrides the Justuses did not take it lightly. They had been educated by the experiences of those who had. Stafford Spalding was the most unfortunate, losing every bit of his slave property to Yankee raids. Tom said it was not misfortune at all — Spalding deserved what he got because he was a stubborn dumbass.
The Yankees were coming upriver!
There had been no time at all. They packed frantically and uncarefully — jewels, pictures, clothes, turnips. They left things of value and took things of none. The twins gathered three sacks of corn and a side of bacon. Tom told Young T. to bring rifles and Barrow to bring the account books, but Barrow managed to save only his box of agricultural journals and a bible. They were lucky June insisted on making one last sweep of the house, because she brought out both the cash box and the ledger.
The family fled. Tomorrow, depending on events, they might ride to a railhead and break for the interior. But tonight they made for Lum’s Crossroads and the ample house of Lummie Lee Macintosh. They brought Sarah and Norrie with them, thank God, but the other 40 slaves of Hebrides were not to be found.
Hebrides was the smallest of the Justus holdings, just 20 slaves and barely 100 acres under plow at any time. But it had been their first place, a century ago, and it had served as the family’s base of operations ever since.
Joe Boy said five Yankees soldiers had come to run off the slaves. The slaves didn’t want to go but the Yankees made them. But when they were almost to the dock they ran right into Veatch and his men. Joe Boy said the plantation men had killed the Yankees — “Sump got three!” Then they had board the flatboat and poled it up to Four Mile and everybody walked to North Barn.
When Veatch had the people in the barn he sent Joe Boy to deliver the news. Veatch knew Tom T. would at Lummie’s because Tom T. had gone over emergency plans with him more than once.
Everybody wanted to go up to North Barn and see the miracle, but only Tom and Lummie and Joe Boy ended up going. That was lucky, as it turned out, because it was a trick and the two white men got themselves locked up in a barn stall.
Through the boards they could see slivers of the sunlit world, and what they saw was 21 slaves, 6 wagons, and 13 horses. When the caravan left Joe Boy was riding in front on Tom’s white horse.
The slaves pulled up to Darien about three.
The Yankee soldiers who guarded the road parted for them to pass and pointed toward the waterfront. “Down to the water!” they yelled. “Contraband to the dock!” So the emigrants turned their mules and wagons down the dusty hill toward Darien Dock.
Whether they had planned wisely, whether they would be safe in Darien, they could not know. But they knew the significance of their reaching the Union line, just as Tom Justus knew it: Safe or not, wise or not, they were slaves no more.
For more: steve@BillyJustice.com
