“I wanted to tell you,” Henry says. “But you being from Georgia, I just didn’t know how—”

“I love Georgia, but I’ve never held with slavery.” I scuff my boots in the dirt. “My daddy raised me right.”

“Sounds like a good man,” Henry says.

“He was.”

“My congressman spoke several times at Illinois College,” Henry says. “Made an abolitionist of me, that’s for sure. He says we’ll have to end slavery if we want to keep the country together. Not a lot I can do about that, way out west, but I figure I can help one man.”

Hampton is hanging his head. I hope his thieving ways don’t set well with him. “I’d rather take from Frank Dilley and his people,” he says. “But they pack everything up tight and keep an extra guard.”

“We’re lucky they never caught you trying,” Henry says.

Hampton nods. “Some of them—like Waters, Dilley’s foreman—well, they’re slave catchers. They get hold of me, I’m done for.”

“And we don’t want that,” Henry adds.

Hampton stretches out his bare feet, and I wince. His thick calluses are cracked and dry.

“We’ve a long way to go,” I say. “The Major says the hardest part is still ahead. Hundreds and hundreds of miles, some of it through desert, with no water and no fuel.”

“I’ll follow behind like a ghost,” Hampton says. “You won’t even know I’m here.”

“But now I do,” I say.

“Now you do,” Hampton agrees. He and Henry stare at me, waiting to see what I’ll do.

“You’ve done wrong, Hampton.”

He doesn’t argue, but his face screws up tight.

“No man should be a slave, but no man should be a thief either.”

I think I’ve spoken fairly, but it makes him angry. “Can’t steal my labor from me my whole life and then accuse me of theft.”

I open my mouth to protest but think better of it. Was I stealing from Uncle Hiram when I took my own possessions and Daddy’s colts besides? No one could convince me so. And while I can dress up like a boy and earn my way on a wagon train, there’s no way for Hampton to dress up like a free man.

“I never thought of it that way before,” I say finally.

Henry leans forward. “So are we all in accord here?”

I nod, even though I don’t like it one bit.

After a pause, Hampton meets my eye and nods too. For better or worse, I’m now part of their conspiracy.

“I have an idea,” I say. “Why don’t you send Major Craven over to help the Widow Joyner? He can drive the wagon, watch the little ones, repair the shoes they’ve outgrown—”

“Cook,” suggests Henry.