Chapter 4

Sarah

Sitting on the back lip of the carriage, my chest squeezes tight. I never did have much, but I always had Momma and Isaac beside me. I watch the ground move under my dangling feet. The road stretches out as we keep clip-clopping on, taking me farther and farther from everything I know. The knot in my belly’s so big, it’s like I swallowed a stone. I pray for Momma back at Summerville and for Isaac wherever he’s headed. I finger the carved wood hanging at my neck that my brother made me and think how, from here on out, I’m on my own.

A burly, mahogany man sits hunched up next to me. Every time the carriage jolts, our chains jingle. The noise has got my nerves on edge, and I’m as jumpy as an alley cat. But the mahogany man, he sits rock still, breathing hard and blinking back tears. Mine slide down my dusty face.

Up in the carriage, I hear our new master and missus talking and laughing. Sitting to the front, a clay-red slave drives the horses trotting us on.

When the sun’s tucked down low on the horizon and the shadows stretch out long, we turn in under a wooden gateway and ride up a wide drive. I sit calm as I can, but inside I feel like a hive of bees, ’cause I know whatever’s coming is just about here.

The driver stops the horses in front of a white house, smaller than the Big House at the Summerville Plantation, but more cared for. Even the porch steps’ve got fresh paint. Up front, the driver hops out of his seat and lowers the carriage steps. Our new master climbs down and holds out a hand to steady his wife.

“Red, go get the overseer,” he says to the driver. He pulls his wife’s hand through his elbow and leads her up the steps to the wide front porch, past the thick columns propping up the portico, and then on into the house.

When the overseer comes, pink-faced and puffing from the walk, he takes off our chains and tells us to get down from the back of the buggy. We rub our wrists while he looks us over, inspecting us.

The driver, Red, tips me a sympathetic nod before he leads off the horses and carriage.

“You pick cotton before?” the overseer asks the man beside me.

“Yes, sir.”

He nods, like he was expecting that. “Good.”

I look down at my feet as he turns to me. I never picked a day in my life and I don’t care to start now. The master paid a house slave price for me and I hope he don’t like to be wasting his money, but I don’t know how things work here and I ain’t fixing to find out the wrong way.

The overseer looks back at the field slave beside me. “Now, if you work hard and get them fields picked, you’ll be fine. You hear?” He lays his hand over the whip coiled at his right hip. “But if you go breaking the rules and acting up, you’ll get to know me.” He takes up his whip and tap, tap, taps at the man’s chest. “And I’ll tell you right now, boy, you do not want to get to know me.”