Alliance.

Ballard's people were gone now. He was an orphan and at an age too young to care for himself. At night he still cried himself to sleep.

Adam, the stable hand, found himself alone with the smoking foundation of a one room house, a stable, a solitary mule, 12 chickens and a kid no more than ten.

He pulled the boy out of the fire but had been unable to save the parents. He stood stunned as the house burned. The Weeks family had been good to him and treated him as their equal, even though in the neighbor's eyes feeding a slave at your table was akin to denouncing The Lord. Ballard's father had made it clear to any prying folks who inquired that he didn't own Adam and that no one better try taking him from the farm or they'd regret it, so folks mostly left the Weeks family alone and by extension, Adam.

Adam was neither a slave or either, thanks to the fire, a free man. He was somewhere in the middle and him and the boy would surely be discovered, separated and he'd be sold into bondage. So he gave the mule a good lead of rope on the back of the horse's saddle, put the boy on the saddle behind him and left the smoldering remains of the farm for points North.

The saddle bag had enough chicken to last them a few days before the flies and maggots had their way. Adam couldn't bear the thought of any of God's creatures suffering, so rather than let them fend for themselves against foxes, bobcats and the occasional brown bear who ambled out of the North Carolina foothills. He'd wrung all the chicken's necks, plucked and spent the entire night cleaning and cooking them, the two ate as much as they could stand that night and the next morning, realizing that after today, food would be much harder to come by.

Where they were heading, he had no exact notion. Adam was going to try to make his way North where they'd have a chance to maybe get on with a family of sharecroppers. He'd teach the boy the black smithing trade and maybe Ballard would have a chance. Either way he already had a better chance with his white skin than Adam had as a black man with no papers and "on the run" with a white child in tow. If they didn't make it to New York and were caught he'd be hung for sure. No one'd waste a bullet on the likes of him.

On the go for over a week, the pair were exhausted and hungry. An old woman cracked the barn door as they approached under cover of night. She'd been immortalized in song to the point that Adam wasn't sure if she was a person or myth but when the old woman opened the barn door in Pennsylvania he took his hat off and greeted her. "Evening Ms. Tubman." The woman was old and her skin reflected the lantern light enough that he recognized her from the sketch he'd seen outside the Mercantile in Virginia. "Wanted for aiding and abetting the escape of Slaves." She was the stuff of legend but here she stood. After some warm grits the pair slept like the dead, finally resting with no fear of being discovered. Someone else was watching out for them that night and the sleep was restorative.

"Wade in the water. Wade in the water, children. Wade in the wa-ter. God's gonna trouble the wa-ter." The group sang, low at first, terrified they'd be heard, but the song took over and they were moved to rejoice in the peace that would be theirs on crossing the river Jordan into the next life. Adam and Ballard were awoken by the soft singing and both sat up to join in, then came to their feet with the group. They were two days ride from Elmira, it was the first time Adam had real hope. They were going to make it.

To be Continued...

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