“Walking,” he says.

I see the anger rising up in Red. He grabs Finny by his ragged shirt and hisses in his ear. “Sarah and me’s risking our necks to help you. Now, I ain’t sitting here, pulling your story out bone by bone. You get to talking, or you get the hell out.”

It don’t take but a minute for the runaway to see he’s got no choice. He tells us he means to follow the river to where it bends and then strike out toward the blue mountains. He says before the mountains get started there’s a town. The second house you come to is green with a white door, and that house will take in runaways, and helps them move on.

Red and me, we can’t talk for staring and gaping. I’m tingling from head to toe. This is the underground railroad. This is the way out.

I move in closer to Finny and say clear in his face, “I’m coming with you.”

He shakes his head. “No, you ain’t,” he says in a whisper sharp as spurs.

“Yes, she is,” says Red, like he’s the new master laying down the law.

We both turn to look at him.

“And I’m coming too.”

Chapter 57

Maple

Miss Martha leads me around the lawn at the front of the house, pointing at patches of grass. She wants flowers.

Mrs. Gantly, Mrs. Ridgemore and Mrs. Welleby’ve all planted flowerbeds, and she means to out-plant all of them. Miss Martha don’t know the first thing about flowers, but she’s got a notion to heap every blooming thing known to mankind in her front yard. It’s gonna be the ugliest garden in Virginia.

Master’s pleased as a cat with cream, acting like she got the best idea since the cowboys took to chasing off the Indians. I reckon he’s just glad she’s got herself busy with something.

She walks through the grass with her wide-brim hat to keep the sun off her face. “Jasmine and daffodils,” she says, pointing. “And here we’ll have violets and sunflowers and geraniums.”

“All up next to each other like that?”

“Of course. I want a riot of color.”

I nod my head, but when she calls out she wants a row of magnolias next to her daisies, I got to pinch my arm to keep from laughing. “You want a row of trees?” I say.

“That’s a flower. The magnolia flower.”

“But it grows from a tree.”

Miss Martha gets a face like a wet sock stretched wrong from wringing out, but she won’t admit she don’t know what she’s talking about. “I’ll explain it to you another time, Maple. It’s too hot to stand here discussing it.”

She marches up to the house and stands in the shade of the front porch. “Land sakes,” she says. “It’s heating up and humid to boot.” She unties her hat and holds it out to me, standing down in the grass. I climb the steps and take it.