Freedom Stone Read Online Free PDF

softly.
    â€œWhy?” Plato asked.
    Mama smiled but her eyes looked wet. “The man’s got a son just your age at home. He’s bettin’ my boy can’t jump higher than his.”
    Plato smiled, crouched down and jumped back up as high as he could.
    â€œAgain,” the appraiser said, and Plato obeyed. Then the man waved the boy absently back into line and made a notation in his book. Mama pulled Plato to her hard, and he looked up at her, smiling.
    â€œDid I jump higher, Mama?” he asked.
    â€œI believe you did, child,” she said, fighting to give him a smile.
    The appraiser turned to the Master and spoke quietly. “Boys his age can go for more’n you think,” he said. “Useless for farm work, but merchant ships like ’em as cabin hands. Train ’em early and you got a proper sailor when they’re growed. I sold a child his size for two hundred dollars down in Cuba last year.” The Master smiled.
    Even with the appraiser’s soft tone, Lillie could make out a few of his words, especially “merchant ships,” “cabin boy” and, most awful of all, “Cuba.” She couldn’t place Cuba on a map—having never seen a map—but knew it was a distant place where the slave trade was hard and cruel. Mama heard the words too, and the pair of them exchanged a terrible glance.
    The appraiser now turned away, scanned the remaining slaves and at last appeared to be done with his morning’s work. He might have gone on his way too if Cal, who had been standing still with his eyes to the ground and his fists still balled up at his sides, hadn’t reckoned he’d had enough. The slaves weren’t permitted to leave the lineup until the overseer dismissed them—all the more so on a day like today when the Master had a visitor who needed to be impressed. Cal, however, did not much care about making an impression, and he suddenly turned hard on his heel—so hard that he made a loud crunching sound in the dry dirt underfoot. The overseer, the slave drivers and everyone else turned to look. Cal proceeded to stalk away without a glance back. Lillie’s mouth dropped open and she had to hold down the urge to call him back. The overseer needed show no such restraint.
    â€œBoy!” he shouted. “You turn back!”
    Cal ignored him.
    â€œBoy, you heard Mr. Willis,” Bull bellowed.
    Cal walked on.
    â€œCal, come back here, ’fore they whip you!” Nelly cried.
    But Cal still walked on.
    Bull glanced at the overseer, who nodded in approval, and the big, muscled driver bounded toward Cal’s retreating back, spinning his whip in a fierce, loud whirl. Nelly and George made a move toward Cal.
    â€œYou two stay where you are!” Willis commanded.
    Lillie looked on in horror as Bull snapped his arm back and the whip emitted a sound like a board snapping. He then flashed the lash forward again with a speed and ferocity that would surely flay the very flesh off Cal’s back.
    But the whip never touched the boy. As Lillie and the others watched, Bull’s arm suddenly seemed to seize up—or, Lillie realized, to slow, as if it were all at once not moving through air, but through molasses. The whip itself, which had been snapped so fast it was nearly invisible, seemed to slow down too, and for an instant moved with the gentle, flowing motion of a length of cloth being twirled underwater. The scene was at once graceful and mystifying and utterly terrifying. No sooner had things seemed to slow down this way, however, than they sped back up again. The slave driver’s arm snapped forward, pulling him violently off balance—so violently that with an audible pop, the bone of his shoulder jumped free from its socket. Bull dropped the whip and fell to the ground, howling in pain and clutching his shoulder as his arm hung limply by his side. Cal walked on, untouched.
    For the second night in a row, Lillie