ocean—and hear tell from Gordon, the designated preacher, the word of God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Sarah (?) had heard of the pale-faced people’s three-faced God before. Those stories too had oated around her village, but they’d not been as ery as they were here. They hadn’t held the people rapt in attention and sent them to dancing and shaking and running though there was no drum. But in one of those gatherings, Gordon the Preacher k ept r epeating, “Whom the son sets free is free indeed.” Then the women would sing, not a whole song, but one with the same line r epeated over and over. “Steal away, steal away.” Sarah (?) learned those words too. Learned to hum the melody while she worked, though she had yet to learn what it meant. Until one day down by the marsh, where she sat upon a wet log, resting from the baby thumping her skin from the inside, and saw Gordon the Preacher and some others huddled together, tracing their ngers in the dirt. By that time, the people around her were waiting for her weight to drop. Those who’d been around long enough knew it was Z ephaniah’s custom to make big the nigras he brought back from across the water. It was his way of breaking. How he anchored them in place and removed the wildness all at once. Even Missus Elizabeth didn’t mind the handful of half-breeds running around with features like their father, long as she didn’t have to worry about waking up one morning on her own because her maid or the boy who emptied her chamber pot had run. It was brutal business to try and nd and bring them back. Z ephaniah Foster and the brood of bounty hunters he k ept on call employed the dogs, the guns, the whips, the chains, and sometimes a brand, an ax, or even a saw, all in an e ort to ke ep them in place. He learned early to stop bringing nigra boys and men from the ship. It didn’t matter how often their bodies were broken open, red and pulpy, or stretched from hanging by hands or feet, their spirits never ceased. He gured Sarah (?) would be like the other mothers bought and brought over time. Resigned to stay because of the rst babe and then bred to have as many as she could carry. One a year if they timed it right; one every other if the seasons were o . But those other mothers hadn’t come when Sarah (?) came. They hadn’t heard the words Sarah (?) learned.
W a r . R u n . So as the sun set, and the men who milled around in the dirt began to disperse, Sarah (?) hoisted herself from where she rested and followed them at a distance back to the quarter. They didn’t disappear, each into their own shanty, where sometimes women and children were waiting for their return, but they went into a shack that had been left empty after old man Jos eph had died. Approaching the door, Sarah (?) reached down, grabbed some of the thin gray dirt, and tossed it over her shoulder before she cr ept across the threshold. Gordon the Preacher and the other men were bent down, huddled in a semicircle marking on the ground. A stubby candle provided the only light. She watched from behind as they drew the same set of lines and circles over and over. One would draw and then another would kick it over with his foot and then the other would draw and another would kick it over with his foot or mess it with his hand and that one would draw. Silent, intent, Sarah (?) watched each man commit the image to memory until their hands could maneuver while their eyes were closed and their mind could see their destination. “We got it,” Gordon the Preacher said, standing. Upright the six men stood, shifting more than just their stature. At their full height, Sarah (?) sensed something else lift with them. She’d sensed it before. Before the water, before the ship, before the barracoon. It was the air of the men in her village before the raid. Before their capture. When they wore con dence. Now it wore these men despite their lack of weapons or training. The con dence was in their hands, in their eyes, in what they could remember to write upon the ground to right their way. “After work, on the equal night, we run.” Sarah (?) said, “I go too.” The men turned around. They hadn’t felt her presence in the door or even noticed her at the marsh. Twelve eyes fell to her belly poking through her dress. Gordon the Preacher said, “No.” “Women only slow us down.” “Woman big as you is get us caught.”
“Massa and Missus be looking for you early. Be on our trail befo’ they s’posed to know we gone.” “No.” “No.” They gave her rejections. Reasons why she was not invited. But Sarah (?) persisted. “I go too,” she said, pushing through their huddle. In the center of the semicircle where they’d been drawing on the ground, Sarah (?) reached her hands up to her rag-covered head and removed the wrap. Her hair fell loose about her shoulders, fresh from the washing Evangeline had given it earlier in the day. Closing her eyes, she hummed the melody of the song the women sang, the refrain that told the men it was time to go. They watched as her ngers moved furiously through the humidity-tangled tresses, crudely creating the course she remembered. Through her bush of curls she braided into order the same lines and circles they had spent months learning to draw upon the ground. There on her head she connected the straight and narrow paths with the roundabouts and the zigzag trail to the rivers they’d follow until they were forced to stay on land, going from house to house, looking for a friend of a friend. What should have taken hours took minutes, but even in her rough iteration she was sure of its truth. When she nished and dropped her hands, the men gathered behind her and looked at her head. One even reached his nger and traced the path she’d plotted upon her scalp. Sarah (?) didn’t inch. She didn’t shy away from the strange hand as she should have. As she had always been warned and wont to do. The desire beating within her was too strong. It called forth the same as the djembe. It was greater even than the kicks of the baby burrowing its head down beneath her belly. “She got one,” Clarence said. Gordon the Preacher pushed past them all and examined her hair himself. He followed the plaited paths distinguishing south from north, all they were leaving behind and all they were hurrying toward. Reaching for her shoulder, he turned her around to face him eye to eye. Sarah (?) sensed his defeat just as she sensed their collective con dence. They thought she was broken because she was big.
They didn’t understand that she had been born free. There was no anchor or attachment, at least not yet, and before it dropped, she planned to be free again. She knew the word r u n . She knew what it meant. Even spoken in a di erent language, its brevity and urgency conveyed the same meaning. She had heard it the night of the raid. She had heard it whispered on the march. She had heard it screamed from the bottom of the barracoon. She had seen it in the dash of those who leapt from the ship to the ocean oor. And she had heard it whispered in the rows, in the hushed tones in the house, and muttered over in the marsh. Even when it was di erent, it was the same in every language. R u n . Staring at Gordon the Preacher, Sarah (?) nodded her head further, getting him to agreement. She said, “I go too.”
M a r c h 1 ż ź 1 As it would happen, the men couldn’t stop Sarah (?) from leaving with them. But that didn’t mean they were going to concern themselves with her ke eping up. It’s something some sel sh set down in a man with his mind made up about a plan, and damnit to hell if they let a woman, any woman, even one who could help, get in the way. The night they were to leave, Sarah (?) met Gordon the Preacher, Clarence, and the other men at the designated spot on the line between the Dupree land and the Lawsons’. Sarah (?) was the second to arrive, her st eps slow but methodical. When the others made it to the meetup location shortly after her, their bodies coursed with sweat even as they stood still. Under a moon not stretching to its full potential, the men shifted from foot to foot. They shoved their sts in their pockets and beat their thighs. No one knew the protocol for running. Especially not in a group as big as theirs: seven people—six eld hands and a house girl in the family way. Unsure of what to do next, Sarah (?) reached her hand to her head, pulled o the rag covering the map she’d braided into her scalp, and tucked it in her skirt. Gordon the Preacher st epped behind her, looked at the fresh map in her hair, and leapt away. The others followed, galloping through the thin tree line that s eparated the Dupree property from the Lawsons’ beside them. They stuck to the stands, knowing the rollers would patrol the land with clear-cut paths from carriage wheels. Besides the song of crickets and frogs, the only other sound was their breath and feet. Heartbeats, loud to their own ears, were completely undetectable to the others. At eight moons, and nearing nine, Sarah (?) trotted as quickly as she could to ke ep up. Her small feet and round size k ept her a yard behind the men, but she