James Grippando - Leapholes

"Where is it?"

"In my backpack. For safekeeping."

"So that's it? You have just the one leaphole?"

"Yup. Just one."

Ryan gave her a little smile. "That's perfect. One is all we need."

Darkness had fallen by the time their wagon reached the abolitionist's barn. It was an old, abandoned structure, no good for anything except as a place to hide the wagon. They rolled the wagon inside, then set up camp outside. No one wanted to sleep in a hundred-year-old barn that might come crashing down with the slightest puff of wind.

"Why do we have to go to all this trouble of hiding the wagon anyway?" asked Jarvis. He was sitting on a tree stump, across the campfire from Abigail. Orange sparks twirled like fireflies between them in the rising curls of smoke.

Abigail said, "We can't take the wagon with us when we go back to get Hezekiah."

"Why not?"

"Once old man Barrow discovers that one of his slaves is missing, every slave owner between here and the Illinois border will be riding up and down this road, checking the wagons. We have to escape on foot and head for the woods. Hide out for a while. We'll come back for the wagon when things settle down and the road is safe again."

Kaylee asked, "What happens if we get caught with Hezekiah?"

"Mr. Barrow might turn us over to the marshal. We could go to jail. Or the boys in his posse might take matters into their own hands."

"Which would be worse?" asked Jarvis.

"The posse, without a doubt. They don't take kindly to abolitionists and runaway slaves in these parts."

"What could they do to us?" asked Kaylee.

"Hopefully just rough us up a bit, teach us a lesson. Hezekiah is the one I'm most worried about. The posse already captured him once before. This would be considered his second runaway. They'll do far worse to him."

"How much worse?" asked Ryan.

Abigail's gaze drifted toward the strong, sprawling limbs of the old oak tree. She paused, as if reluctant to elaborate. "If he's lucky, they'll only shoot him."

Abigail's words just hung in the air, drawing only silence.

Ryan poked at the fire with a long stick, stirring up a few glowing embers. "I sure hope none of us ever has to meet this old man Barrow."

"Why is he so mean?" asked Kaylee.

"It's just his nature," said Abigail. "He was the same way when he was a judge."

"He used to be a judge?" said Ryan.

"Yup," said Abigail. "That's what he did before he retired and went back to the Barrow family farm. He was one of the most pro-slavery judges the South has ever known."

Ryan suddenly recalled those shark-like eyes and that cold expression on old man Barrow's face. He still didn't know how to find the place "where the brood follows the dam," but perhaps Legal Evil was closer than he'd thought.

They ate dinner around the campfire-more beef jerky and dried biscuits. Kaylee had a chocolate candy bar in her pocket from the twenty-first century. She shared it with Ryan. Candy had never tasted so good. Like it or not, she'd just earned herself a friend for life. After dinner, they spread out their blankets around the fire and retired for the night. Jarvis was the first to snore. Minutes later, Abigail was snoring even louder.

Slowly, the campfire burned itself out. Venus was shining brightly in a star-speckled sky. Ryan was still wide awake. He could hear the wind blowing lightly through the cracks in the old, decrepit barn. He opened his eyes and looked up at the stars. It was funny the way stars seemed to swirl in the sky if you stared up at them long enough.

"Ryan, you okay?" asked Kaylee.

He rolled on his side to face her. He couldn't quite see her face in the moonlight, but he could see the outline of her long hair draped over one shoulder. She had propped herself up on one elbow, a dark silhouette in the night.

"I'm okay, I guess," he said. "Just can't sleep."

"Are you worried about Hezekiah?"

"Aren't you?"

He could hear Kaylee sigh. "Hezekiah is an amazing person," she said. "He's the smartest man I've ever met. He can handle almost anything."

"I know."

She waited for him to say more, but he didn't. She added, "That's not what's keeping you awake, is it?"

He rolled onto his back again. The stars had stopped swirling. "Actually, I was thinking about my dad."

"Oh."

"Yeah," he said. "A big 'oh.'"

Kaylee said, "When we were in prison that night, I promised not to ask about your dad anymore. But if you feel like talking Ryan hadn't opened up to anyone about his feelings toward his dad since the day he went to prison. For some reason, he felt like he could talk about those things with Kaylee- important stuff. Especially in the darkness. He suspected that some of the most honest conversations in the history of the world had occurred beneath the blanket of nightfall.

"Whenever I visit my dad in prison, he tells me he's innocent. And every time he tells me that, I say, 'But if you're innocent, why did you plead guilty?'"

"What's his answer?"

"He says he can't tell me. Which makes me so mad. If he's innocent, why can't he tell me why he pleaded guilty?"

"I wish I could answer that for you, Ryan."

"I wish somebody would answer that."

Ryan couldn't see Kaylee's eyes in the darkness, but he sensed her sincerity. Finally, she asked, "What are you thinking?"

He clasped his hands behind his head, still staring up at the night sky. "I'm confused. I mean, what if he is innocent? What must it be like to be in prison for something you didn't do?"

"Horrible," she said without hesitation. "Every day, you must think about being free. And every day ends in disappointment."

"Like being a slave," said Ryan.

"Yeah. Like being a slave."

"Except I can't really be sure that my father is as innocent as these slaves."

"For what it's worth, when I talked to your mother, she told me that your father was innocent. It seemed like she really wanted me to know that."

"No," said Ryan. "She wanted you to believe it. I don't think we'll ever know it."

She seemed to understand the distinction. Then she lowered her head and nuzzled against her blanket. "Try to get some sleep, okay? Big day tomorrow."

"Yeah," said Ryan, his eyes still wide open. "Huge."

Ryan refused to open his eyes. He ignored the gentle nudge in the small of his back and the repeated announcements that it was time to rise and shine. He just rolled over and buried his face in his blanket.

"Mom, there's no school today," he said, grumbling. "Honest. It's a teachers's workshop."

"What?" said Abigail.

Ryan sat bolt upright. He was now wide awake, suddenly realizing that he wasn't in his bed at home and that this woman poking him in the back wasn't his mother. "Uh, nothing," said Ryan. "I must have been dreaming."

It was two o'clock in the morning, and the team was ready to put their rescue plan into action. They had to reach the Barrow plantation on foot, grab Hezekiah, and disappear into hiding before sunrise. There was no time to waste. Before they broke camp, Abigail shared some words of wisdom.

"You have to remember just two rules on a rescue mission. One, the important things are always simple. And two," she said as a wry smile creased her lips, "the simple things are always hard. Let's move."

They hiked for one hour. The wagon remained hidden at the barn, but Abigail brought her horse to carry supplies. That lightened their load, but it was still difficult to trek through the woods in the dark of night. There were no roads, not even a footpath. Every few minutes one of them would stumble over a fallen log or a rock. The others would stop and look with concern, as if to ask Are you okay? It went without saying that this was no time for a sprained ankle. The stakes were way too high.