Black Water

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Three days they had gone by foot, walking, sometimes running, always further north along the path. There was no road or trail, nothing but the sky to indicate where they should go—that, and the promise of the North, the liberation of their family, and a freedom they had never known. Keep the sun to the right early, to the left later, and stop when they could not tell the difference: those were their only instructions given them at the last house with a bit of food and a jug of water. It was more than most would have given a family of escaped slaves, even those so close to the end.

It was getting on to dark, but the father would not give rest to the worn or tired, the young or the old. The mountain that stood in defiance of their crossing now lay mostly under them, and he knew that the house they sought was close, always just beyond the next clutch of trees or over the large boulders scattered amongst them. Even in the failing light, his will was forged iron. To his death, he would bring this family to salvation, his children to the freedom of the North, even if it meant without him.

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