47

I might have been John's people's hero but Champ Noland was mine. He took in my words and forgot his pain and torture. I found the right key and his chains fell away. He rose up and strode out of that prison just as if it was any other door. He knew that if Tobias had seen him defy his punishment that he would be killed no matter how valuable he was as a worker and a stud. But having heard my call he rose to the task regardless of the danger.

"AWAKEN, TOBIAS TURNER AND TENNESSEE BOB AND WILLIAM THORNDEN AND MILLER JONES!" the voice boomed in my head so loudly that I lowered almost to the ground.

"What's the mattah, Forty-seven?" Champ asked. "You

shot?"

"Don't you hear it, Champ?" I said.

He pulled me to my feet and started dragging me toward the slave quarters.

"RISE ALL YOU MEN OF THE CORINTHIAN PLANTATION!" the voice boomed again. "BRIGANDS ARE ATTACKING WITH MUSKETS AND KNIVES!"

I knew that it was John somehow speaking in my mind and in the minds of all the sleeping white inhabitants of the Corinthian Plantation. I could hear the voice because of the light in my chest but Tall John wasn't speaking to the slaves, and so Champ remained ignorant of the call.

As we moved toward the slave quarters the voice got weaker. And by the time we were at the men's cabin I could barely make it out at all.

"Wake up, boys, they tryin' to kill us all!" Champ yelled as we barged into the men's quarters.

"What you doin' here, Champ Noland?" Pritchard asked as he rose up from Mud Albert's mattress.

I realized in that instant that Pritchard had been given the job as the new top boy in the cabin. Mud Albert wasn't even in his grave yet and the cowardly, mean-hearted Pritchard had already taken his place.

Champ stepped forward and struck Pritchard a mighty blow while still shouting, "Wake up, men, they comin' to kill us!"

Champ took the key from Pritchard's belt and ran from cot to cot unlocking shackles.

"Go to the women's cabin," Champ told Number Thirty-three. "Run down there and tell 'em all to run!"

Thirty-three, a tall slave with coal-black skin, hesitated for just a moment, then he grabbed the keys from Champ's hand and ran out the door. Meanwhile all the men I had sweated and strained with in the cotton fields leaped from their cots. The sun was coming up and I heard a crack from over where the mansion stood. After a moment there were more cracking sounds and someone cried, "Gunfire!"

The men started shouting then. They rushed out of the cabin and scattered. I came to the door and in the first weak rays of dawn I could see fighting in front of the master's mansion. There were flames rising from his house.

"Mama Flore!" I shouted, and then I was ru

21.

White men were firing their muskets and fighting hand to hand in front of the mansion. I saw Tobias and two of his men struggling with the bald and disfigured Mr. Stewart. Stewart had superhuman strength. As soon as one of those men jumped on him he'd throw that man off as if he were a child. Tobias and his men kept coming though.

It was a terrible sight but I didn't have the time to worry about what happened to Tobias and his people. All I cared about was Mama Flore.

The flames from the mansion had spread to the barn. I hastened to Mama Flore's side. She was still unconscious. I tried to lift her but the speed John had given me had little effect on my strength. I could barely lift one of Mama Flore's big arms.

I could hear the yells and struggles outside of the barn while the flames crackled around, closing in.

"Wake up, Big Mama!" I cried. "Wake up! It's a fire!"

When she didn't stir I took her by the arm, intent on

dragging her from the blazing barn. I had managed to move her about three feet when my strength gave out.

I looked around to see if there was a blanket that I could roll her onto. I thought maybe pulling the blanket under her would allow me to move her. In one stall I saw a blanket and grabbed it before realizing that it was the pall John had used to cover Mud Albert's body. I was mesmerized by the uncomfortable pose of his death. I thought that he would remain like that through all eternity, all twisted up and suffering because of Tobias and his evil. I hurried back to Flore's unconscious body. I was afraid of being burned to death in the barn but I couldn't bring myself to leave the only mother I ever knew. I begged her to wake up but she was still unconscious from that white man hitting her.

The barn door was just begi

"Come on, boy," Champ told me. "Let's go out the back and put Flore in the carriage."

Even though the back door was covered in flame Champ managed to kick it open.

I saw that he'd found the carriage that I'd led to the barn earlier. He hefted Flore into the back, jumped up in the driver's seat, and turned to help me up, but I was already at his side using my newfound speed.

Champ yelled at the gray mare and we took off. There was gunfire now and then and plenty of shouting from the fight in front of the plantation. On our way down the road behind the mansion a white man, Roger Brice, jumped at us.

He landed on the side of the buggy and yelled at Champ, "Pull this wagon ovah, niggah!"

For the first time in his life Champ did not obey the direct order of a white man. Instead he lifted Brice by the front of his pants and threw him off into a ditch on the side of the road. The bearded white man hit the ground hard and he didn't rise to continue his attack.

Champ and I looked at each other then, and even though we didn't say a word we knew the content of each others' minds. Champ had used his great strength to fight back against a white man. He might have killed that man. It wasn't just a crime punishable by torture and death but it was also unheard of in the history of us slaves. It was as if he had broken some higher law that would call down hell-fire upon us.

I had already conspired to attack Mr. Stewart with Eighty-four. I had thrown my rock at him. Eighty-four had struck him in the head. But neither act seemed as bad as a full-grown man-slave going against a white man. A man-slave throwing off the yoke of slavery meant that the rules we had lived by our entire lives had been broken.

We both turned our heads to the sky, looking for God's retribution. But it didn't come. Champ yelled at Tobias's horse again and we were hurrying away from the scene of the battle.

In the distance we could see the tall flames rise from the Corinthian Plantation. The sounds of the battle faded but then I heard something like both a gasp and a scream.

"Did you hear that, Champ?" I asked.

"What?"

I heard another scream. It was a girl.

"That," I said.

"I don't heah nuthin', Forty-seven," Champ replied, cocking his ear.

"Stop the wagon, Champ. Stop it."

He did as I said just as soon as he was sure that we were hidden behind a stand of dark trees.

"What's wrong, boy?"

"You know where the hangin' oak is?" I asked him.

"I guess I do," he said. "They hanged the man I called uncle from there onceit."

"Numbah Twelve will be theah waitin' for me. You go to him and I'll be by in just a while."

"Where you goin'?"

"Hand me that rope from under yo' "seat," I said.

Big Champ Noland did as I asked and I ran off in the woods faster than a deer fleeing a cougar.

Ru

I was agitated and afraid for my life and the lives of the only family I had ever known. But even though I was so distressed it was still amazing to me how I managed to run through those woods. My feet moved surely between the low-slung branches, and if there was no place to stand I easily climbed high and moved quickly through the upper branches like a wily chipmunk avoiding some land-bound predator. At times I was nearly at the top of the trees, finding the fastest footholds there.