Chapter 1

The Stranger

Leaning over the edge of the rain barrel, Rosebud plunged the wooden bucket into the water. Hauling with all her strength, the girl then heaved the heavy bucket over the edge, spilling half of the water in the process—most of it on herself.

Rosebud cussed under her breath, then looked quickly around to see if Mammy had heard. But she could still hear her mother singing inside the cookhouse:

Climbin’ up the mountain, children.

Didn’t come here for to stay,

If ah nevermore see you again,

Gonna meet you at de judgment day.

Sarah Jackson was cook for the Big House on the old Powers Plantation, and twelve-year-old Rosebud had been helping her mother as long as she could remember. Today was bread-baking day and Rosebud’s job was to scrub out the big pots that the dough had been mixed in.

Sloshing water over her bare feet with every step, the girl carried the bucket over to the pots lying on the grass. April clouds hid the sun and she shivered in the cool Maryland air. Rosebud hated baking day, and she especially hated scrubbing out the dough pots. Gooey flour clung in great clumps to the sides, and scrub as she might, it never seemed to come off.

Rosebud was working on her second pot when she heard hoofbeats. Even though the cookhouse stood behind the Big House, from where Rosebud was working she could just see the long, tree-lined lane leading up to the Big House. A lone horseman was riding up the lane. She didn’t recognize the man or the horse.

"Isaac!" she yelled. "Isaac! You better make tracks. Horseman comin’!"

Fifteen-year-old Isaac appeared from behind the cookhouse. "I seed him," he hissed at her as he trotted past. "Don’t be telling me my business." Then he disappeared around the front of the house to hold the stranger’s horse while the man dismounted.

Isaac was stable boy for the Powers Plantation. Rosebud knew her older brother liked taking care of the riding horses, but he had a bad habit of sneaking off to catch crawdads in the creek below the stable. Once Mr. Powers couldn’t find Isaac when he wanted his horse; Isaac had been given a terrible whipping when he was found asleep in the straw. "Fool boy gonna get us all on the auction block," Rosebud’s pappy had muttered. Abe Jackson was Mr. Power’s top field hand, but he didn’t mess with "Massa Powers." Frightened, Rosebud had taken it upon herself after that to be Isaac’s eyes and ears and let him know when he was wanted.

A few minutes later she saw Isaac run back toward the stable. Curious, Rosebud dropped her scrub brush and walked cautiously along the side of the Big House, being careful to keep out of sight. The stranger talking to Mr. Powers was square-jawed and stocky, with a full head of white hair. From behind the bushes she could just make out what he was saying.

"President Fillmore is finally enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law—which makes my job easier." The man spit out a stream of tobacco juice, threw back his head, and laughed. "But it makes them Nigra-lovers up north crazy mad."

"I don’t need a slave catcher." Mr. Powers sounded annoyed. "My slaves are very loyal."

Rosebud saw the stranger take a long, critical survey of the buildings on the plantation. The cookhouse, stable, tobacco barns, weaving shed, and the rows of tiny cabins hidden among the trees in the slave quarters all looked tired and weather-beaten. Even the Big House needed a coat of paint.

"Waal," the man drawled, spitting again, "I’m buyin’ slaves, too—need ’em for a chain gang down South, clearin’ forest land for crops. I can pay a good price."

"I’m not eager to sell any of my slaves if I can help it," said Mr. Powers curtly. "But if cotton and tobacco prices keep falling . . . I may be forced to do something." He shrugged. Just then Isaac reappeared with Mr. Powers’ big bay horse, all saddled and bridled. "Ah! Here’s my horse. We can take a look at some of the slaves if you like, but I’m not making any promises."

But as Mr. Powers put his boot in the left stirrup and started to swing into his saddle, the saddle slipped.

Before Rosebud knew what was happening, Mr. Powers had whirled angrily on Isaac. "You good-for-nothing boy!" he yelled, striking her brother about the head again and again with his riding crop. "Are you trying to break my neck? Maybe you’d rather work a chain gang down South, eh?"

With an angry jerk, Mr. Powers tightened the saddle girth and rode off with the stranger toward the tobacco fields. Rosebud could see Isaac fighting back angry tears. Looking around, the boy saw his sister watching from the corner of the Big House. Upset that someone had witnessed his humiliation, Isaac ran around the Big House and took off through the trees toward the creek.

Rosebud was scared and raced back to the cookhouse. "Mammy!" she cried, trembling. Sarah Jackson was just sliding a long wooden paddle out of the oven with four loaves of golden bread, steaming and fragrant. The older woman straightened. Her black face, framed with a blue bandana tied around her head, shone with sweat. It was obvious that she was heavy with child, soon to give birth.

Words tum-bled out in a rush as Rosebud told what had just happened. "Is Massa Powers gonna sell Isaac to a chain gang?" the girl cried, fear in her eyes.

Sarah wiped her face with the bottom of her apron. "Hush, now, girl. Massa Powers was just embarrassed to be made a fool of in front of a stranger," she said. "He prob’ly didn’t mean nothin’ by it." But she went to the door of the cookhouse and looked anxiously in the direction of the creek.

Rosebud pleaded to go look for Isaac, but Sarah ordered her to finish cleaning the dough pots. Rosebud could hardly keep her mind on her work. What if Isaac had run away? What if he wasn’t there to unsaddle Mr. Powers’ horse when he came back? She’d heard tales whispered fearfully among the slaves about the dogs sent after a runaway. She had to find Isaac!

But when the pots were finally drying on the grass, it was time for Rosebud, along with Phoebe—a young slave woman whom Sarah was training to be a cook—to help prepare supper for the folks in the Big House.

By the time the last steaming pot of oyster stew and fresh bread had been delivered to the serving maids at the back door of the Big House, daylight was almost gone. With heart thumping, Rosebud ran to the stable. Mr. Powers’ horse was in its stall munching the hay in the manger . . . and there was Isaac, cleaning Mr. Powers’ saddle with oil. But even in the half-light, Rosebud could see an angry welt from the riding whip alongside Isaac’s eye.

Isaac refused to look at her. With exaggerated slowness, he put away the oil and cleaning rag and hung up the saddle. He closed the stable door, slid the latch, then sauntered carelessly toward the creek. Without a word, Rosebud followed two steps behind.

This was a familiar ritual. Around the cookhouse and stable and yard—and especially around the white folks—Isaac wore an invisible mask, and even ignored his younger sister. But almost every evening, Isaac and Rosebud waded in the creek or walked noiselessly—like Indians—in the woods. Then Isaac would talk, pointing out which berries were poisonous, showing her how to catch crawdads without getting pinched, how to tell direction by the moss growing on the north side of the big oak trees.

Walking behind Isaac, Rosebud let out a sigh. Her brother hadn’t run away. They were walking to the creek as usual. Maybe everything was going to be all right.

But Isaac was quieter tonight. He just sat on the bank of the creek and watched it flowing west, gurgling its way toward Chesapeake Bay, which neither of them had ever seen even though it was only ten miles away. Like many slaves on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Jackson family had rarely been off the plantation, and then only to go into town on an errand.

As twilight deepened, Rosebud heard a friendly bird call. It sounded like, Whip-poor-will. Whip-poor-will. "The whippoorwill’s back!" She grinned. The little brown-speckled bird hid quietly among the dead leaves on the ground during the day, and only woke up as night approached. This was the first one she’d heard this spring.

The stars started coming out. Pointing a finger at the sky, Isaac finally spoke. "See the Big Dipper there?"

Rosebud looked through the bare branches of the trees, which hadn’t started to leaf yet, and nodded.

"If you follow the two stars that make the drinkin’ edge of the Dipper, they point straight at the North Star . . . see?"

Rosebud nodded again as she picked out the bright star.

" ‘Follow the North Star’ . . . that’s what they say," Isaac murmured. " ‘Follow the North Star to freedom.’ "

Rosebud didn’t like the tone of Isaac’s voice—wishful and stubborn at the same time. She hoped he wasn’t thinking what she thought he was thinking.

When the two children finally crept into the log cabin in the slave quarters, Sarah and Abe Jackson were sitting by the smoky fireplace talking in low voices. ". . . saw Massa and that slave trader from Charleston looking over the field hands," Abe was saying.

"I know Massa’s worried about money, but you don’t think he’d start selling off slaves, do you? How’s he gonna get the crops in?"

"I dunno. In these bad times, some slave owners raise slaves to sell just like another cash crop. And Massa Powers—he sho’ is wound up tight these days. Ain’t like it used to be."

"Hush," warned Sarah, glancing at the children. Rising awkwardly, one hand on her swollen belly, Sarah fished out two tin plates, which she had kept warm in the ashes, and handed them to Isaac and Rosebud. Hungrily, the two children sucked the meat off the small smoked fish and stuffed corn bread into their mouths. As they lay down on the straw-stuffed mattresses on the floor and pulled up the thin blankets, Sarah began to sing softly:

Hush. Hush. Somebody’s callin’ mah name.

Sounds like Jesus. Somebody’s callin’

mah name.

The last thing Rosebud remembered was her mammy’s soothing voice . . .

I’m so glad. Trouble don’t last always.

Oh, mah Lawd, what shall I do?

G G G G

Rosebud woke with a start. The cabin was empty and sunlight was streaming through the chinks in the logs. Grabbing a piece of cold corn bread, the girl ran through the trees to the cookhouse. She saw Mr. Powers riding down the front lane on his big bay. Her mother and Phoebe already had the fire built in the oven and were mixing biscuit dough.

"Where’s Isaac?" Rosebud asked.

"In the stable where he belongs, doin’ chores," said her mother. "Now wash your hands and face and fry up that piece of side meat. Miz Powers be wantin’ her breakfast soon . . . Phoebe! Don’t stir those biscuits so hard. Gotta do it gentle-like."

Rosebud smirked. Phoebe was twenty years old and had been working with the field hands until last week. But Mr. Powers’ overseer thought the attractive young black woman distracted the male slaves from their work, so he moved her to the cookhouse—much to Sarah Jackson’s dismay. "Rosebud is a better cook than that hussy," she had complained to her husband.

Later that morning, while Rosebud was plucking feathers from a freshly butchered chicken, she heard childish laughter. The Powers’ children, two girls about four and six, were playing tag in back of the Big House. Nanny Sue, one of the house slaves, was watching over them. Rosebud wondered what it would be like to wear ribbons in her hair and dress in a fine cotton dress with a ruffled petticoat. She had never talked to the two little girls. Only the housemaids and Old Jim, the butler, were allowed to associate with the Powers family or to enter the Big House.

Just then Rosebud saw Isaac ride by the cookhouse on a young chestnut horse he’d been breaking in for Mrs. Powers. "Isaac!" she called, but he continued at an easy trot down the wide front lane.

"Where’s Isaac goin’, Mammy?"

"Now, how would I know?" Sarah said impatiently. "Miz Powers prob’ly sendin’ him on an errand. You stick to your pluckin’—Massa Powers bringin’ guests home tonight and we got two more chickens to do."

When Mr. Powers arrived in late afternoon accompanied by two men on horseback and two ladies in an open carriage, three fried chickens were crisp and golden on a platter warming by the stove and a pot of black-eyed peas and rice—known as Hoppin’ John—was bubbling over the fire.

"Isaac!" yelled Mr. Powers. Rosebud saw her mother go to the cookhouse door and glance anxiously toward the stable. They hadn’t seen Isaac return on the chestnut horse.

Just then they heard Old Jim’s voice. "I seed the boy go off on the Missus’ horse, Massa Powers," said the aging butler, out of earshot of the guests who were dismounting and going into the house. "Thought you’d sent him off on an errand."

"No . . ." Mr. Powers’ voice was irritated. "But maybe Mrs. Powers did. Will you ask her please, Jim, when she expects him to return? I need him to rub down these horses for our guests."

Old Jim returned a moment later and shook his head silently. Mr. Powers’ face went dark. He held an angry conference in a low voice with Old Jim, then stomped furiously into the house. Another slave soon appeared to take care of the horses and carriage, and yet another was sent into town on horseback, riding at breakneck speed.

By the time the sun had set, there wasn’t a slave on the Powers Plantation that didn’t know that young Isaac Jackson had run away, riding off on his mistress’s horse in broad daylight.