“No, probably not,” I said, searching my mind for the options they might choose from. “If I were a canner, or a slavedriver, were would I go hang out?”
“If you were bold as brass and marching down the middle of the road with slaves in tow?” asked Jamal, coming over to join us.
“Exactly,” I said, not coming up with any answers.
Everyone remained silent for a few seconds, mulling over our dilemma. Finally, Ronald spoke.
“If I were a highwayman bandit with slaves who look as tired as those ones do, I’d stop in a nice piece of shade where they would have a hard time getting away, and I’d be able to take a nap.”
We looked around the immediate area, since Ronald’s assessment of the slaves seemed to be pretty right-on. One of them had just tripped and looked like he was having a hard time getting up.
“Problem,” said Winky.
“What?” I asked.
“After we rescue them, how the heck are we going to get them all the way down to the prison? They can barely walk as it is.”
“Good question,” I said, once again without answers.
Jamal spoke up. “I would guess that when motivated with the opportunity of freedom, they might find some hidden energy that would at least get them out of the area. We can also put them on our bikes and push them along. It would take longer, of course, but it could work.”
“So long as they can hold on,” said Winky.
“Maybe one or two of them could ride in the trailer,” I suggested, looking over at it and wondering how we might rearrange our stuff to do that.
“Hey, Peter,” said Jamal. “Do you think you could do some organizing of the stuff in the trailer to accommodate some tired riders?”
Peter frowned. “Riders as in people?”
“Yes.” Jamal turned and winked at me.
“Probably. Yes, if I had some time to work it out.”
I nodded. “Do it, Peter. Make as much room as you can in there. We have three people who won’t be able to ride a bike. We’ll carry stuff on our backs if we have to.”
Peter left the care of Bodo to begin his task, and I for one was happy to have him doing something that I knew would make him feel good about his contribution. He never complained about being left behind, but I knew him well enough to know that he wanted to pull his weight in some way.
“So where are they going to stop?” asked Ronald, almost to himself, studying the area around the highway.
“You can’t really see it from here,” said Winky, “but there’s a spot on the other side of the road from us that had some shade trees. I didn’t like it because there was no cover except from above. Not like here,” she said, gesturing to the heavy brush that was under the trees, making is possible to be hidden from the view of the highway.
“Let’s watch and see.”
The kid who had fallen was on his knees now, causing the other two in his chain gang to have to stop as well. They stayed there for a while, until their herders realized they weren’t moving. One of them came over and gestured to the kid on the ground. He didn’t appear to respond, or at least he didn’t get up. The slave driver kicked him in the shoulder, knocking him on his side into the street.
“Oh, crap,” whispered Winky.
The slave driver yelled something I couldn’t make out and gestured to one of the other slaves, who hurried over with the other and lifted up their partner from under his arms. The slave driver looked over towards our trees, making my blood go cold for a moment, before pointing in the opposite direction. The slaves disappeared from site as they went to where he had ordered them to go.
“They’re going for those trees I saw,” said Winky.
“Thank the Good Lord,” said Ronald, “because I thought for a second there, he was going to tell them to come here.”
“Me too,” I said, still trying to gauge the situation. “Four bad guys, three slaves. Can we take out four guys?”
“Are we taking them out or just sneaking the slaves out?” asked Winky.
“I’d prefer to sneak in and out, but what are the chances we could do that?” I asked.
“Probably not good,” she said, sighing.
“You should avoid killing anyone, if you can,” said Ronald.
“Is that the preacher’s son talking?” I asked, trying not to sound sarcastic, but for me, it felt a little late to be talking about morality, considering all we’d been through.
“No. That’s the guy who doesn’t want other canners to hear gunshots talking, actually.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling a little guilty over assuming he was lecturing me.
“Yeah, let’s keep as low a profile as necessary,” said Winky.
Jamal chimed in. “Speak softly, and carry a big stick.”
“Theodore Roosevelt. Very nice, my brother,” said Ronald, holding up his hand for the high-five his twin was happy to deliver.
I had thought that was from Winston Churchill, but pretty much anyone’s knowledge of history was better than mine, so I didn’t argue. It was a good proverb, regardless of who said it, and it was exactly what I intended to do. Only my stick was going to be some krav maga and a possibly a knife.
***
We ate small bits of food and drank water, speaking in whispers and sharing stories from our pasts, hiding our laughter in our shirts. Peter remained on constant guard for Buster’s barks, holding his hand lightly over the dog’s muzzle so that when he did bark, it came out muffled and didn’t carry across the open space to the highway.
While we were doing everything we could to be quiet, the slave drivers seemed almost to be doing the opposite. We could hear their rowdy guffaws and shouts coming from the other side of the road. It went on for part of the day and stopped for an extended period when the clouds began to move in as they normally did in the late afternoon.
“Should we go now?” asked Winky.
“No, it’s not dark enough,” I said.
“But they’re sleeping now, right? When it’s dark they’ll get up and party.”
I looked at the other guys to get their input.
“It’s risky,” said Jamal. “I wouldn’t do it in the daytime if it were me. But she’s right about them being awake. That would be risky, too.”
“I say, wait until it starts to rain.” Ronald looked up at the sky. “It’s gonna be a big storm, you can tell from how dark and heavy those clouds are.”
I looked up where he was pointing and realized that he was probably right. They looked like they were only about a half-hour away. A loud rolling batch of thunder came from off in the distance, underscoring the accuracy of his predictions.“You can army-crawl through the weeds until you get close and then wait for your moment.”
“Army-crawl. Fun,” I said sarcastically.
“I do love me some army-crawling through the wet, smelly, snake-infested weeds,” said Winky, smiling.
“Snake-infested?” I said, feeling a little light-headed at the idea.
“Just kidding. Not really,” she said.
“Not really, what? Kidding? Or about the snakes?”
“Yeah. One of those,” she said, leaning back quickly so I couldn’t hit her.
“I will slap you silly, Winky.”
“You’d have to catch me first. And I’m fast.”
“But you’ve got to sleep sometime.”
“Okay, ladies,” said Ronald, holding up his hands, “time to behave. We have plans to make here.”
“Yes, sir, Ronald, sir,” I said, saluting him. Then I couldn’t help but smile. “Just messing with you. I like bossy men. Tell me what I should do.”
“Me, too. Boss away,” said Winky, looking at him expectantly.
“I’m not bossy,” said Ronald.
“Uh-hem,” said his brother, clearing his throat. “Yeah, right.”
“Traitor,” Ronald said, scowling at his brother.
“I just call it like I see it. And you? Are bossy. But you know I like you anyway, brother, so keep on keepin’ on.”
“With my bad self?” he finished.
“Yeah. Wit’ yo bad self.”
They did a complicated hand slapping thing that had me jealous. Winky and I giggled as we tried to mimic it.
Ronald put his hands over ours, covering them and halting our progress. “Girls. Please. You’re embarrassing yourselves.”
Jamal snickered behind him.
We stuck our tongues out at them.
“They’re just jealous,” whispered Winky loudly.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “We’ve got skills.” We did a messy high-five followed by two hip bumps that sent Winky flying into the dirt. “Oops, sorry about that,” I said.
We both started giggling, unable to stop.
The guys all rolled their eyes.
Bodo spoke up from his position on the ground. “You haff to watch out for Bryn’s butt.”
I hid my smile behind a fake scowl.
“Girls,” said Peter, shaking his head and sighing, as he went back to his job of repacking the trailer. He’d taken everything out and was starting from scratch.
“I’m going to take a cat nap until the rain comes,” said Winky, lying down on her back, using her backpack as a pillow.
“Me too,” I said, doing the same, facing Winky and resting my back against Bodo’s after giving him a kiss on his thankfully cool cheek.
I fell asleep looking at my friend’s beautiful profile, envying her coffee-colored skin and shiny black hair, hoping that no matter what went down later today, that she’d never lose the spunk that made her so much fun to be around.
***
The rain came and brought with it plenty of thunder and lightning. The drops were so big it reminded me of the shower in Kayahatle. We were soaked in less than a minute.
Winky and I armed up, each putting two knives and a gun in our clothes.
Bodo was awake and seemed much better. He protested when he was told he couldn’t participate, but he seemed okay with me going.
“Chust come back to me. Dat’s all I ask,” he said before giving me a bone-crushing hug.
“You all have to be ready to haul ass when we’ve gotten those kids,” I said, pulling out of his arms. “If by some miracle we’re able to get them out in secret, we can’t be hanging around here waiting for those slave drivers to come after us.”
“Yeah, this’ll be the first place they look,” said Ronald.
Winky was staring out into the rain, in the direction of the slavedriver camp.
I nudged her in the arm. “What’s the matter? Having second thoughts?”
She shook her head without looking at me. “Nope. Just getting into the right frame of mind.”
“She’s getting her game face on,” said Peter, standing by the now nearly-empty trailer, all ready for its three passengers.
“Come on,” I said. “No sense in waiting. We don’t want the rain to stop while we’re in the middle of it.”
“Do you think the rain woke them up? Maybe they’re not sleeping anymore,” said Jamal, looking worried for us.
“They could be but probably not. We’ll have to use the cover of the rain to get as close as we can and then we’ll just have to wing it. You okay with winging it, Winky?”
She nodded, glancing at me quickly before looking back to the highway. She was dead serious, totally in the zone.
“Let’s do this,” I said, walking out of the trees.
“Bryn, wait!” said Bodo, immediately getting shushed by everyone around him. He waved them off and came over to me, grabbing me into another big hug. Water was streaming down both of us. I looked up at him and tried not to focus too much on how amazing he looked with his wet face and the flows of water coming off him in small rivers. Even bald, he was gorgeous.